Changes

by Judith Arnold

  Chapter Fifteen

  Great. Diana was one of those women—the ones who adore you, support you, make you feel like a million bucks, take you into their beds and into their hearts…and then try to change you. Nick tried to laugh off her comment, but honestly, it irritated him.

  And he didn’t want to be irritated right now. He was unwinding, wallowing happily in post-coital drowsiness. Loving the way her compact body felt against his. Loving the way her knees nudged his leg, and the way her hair splayed across his arm like a net of silk. Loving the way her breath skimmed across his throat and her fingers sketched his skin.

  And she wanted to change him?

  How? Was she going to tell him he had to eat less red meat? He’d given up cigarettes. He drank with restraint. He worked out. If he wanted to eat a damned slab of steak, he would.

  Did she think he should drive more slowly? Listen to opera? Replace his leather jacket with a tailored wool blazer? Was she going to try to turn him into a stiff, proper imitation of her former fiancé? Sorry, babe—that’s not going to happen.

  “The song,” she said. “The song said we had to turn and face the strange changes. We had to change. I’ve changed. You need to change, too.”

  “I’m not changing,” he said. “I’m where I want to be.”

  “You’re perfect, huh.” She laughed.

  He allowed himself a reluctant smile. No, he wasn’t perfect. That didn’t mean he wanted to change. Being imperfect was all right with him. “Fine,” he said, just to shut down this conversation. “I’ll get a haircut.”

  “Hair grows back.” She lifted away from his shoulder and peered down into his face. He remembered what she’d looked like the instant she’d come, the instant before he’d come. She’d been the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, her eyes as bright as diamonds, her mouth so soft and lush, her skin the gentle pink color of a springtime sunset. Her body had been so tight around him, her hips rising off the bed, her hands clenching. No condom. Just skin to skin, soul to soul.

  Remembering made him hard enough to agree to change anything she asked for. A new job? A new face? Whatever she desired, he’d do it.

  No, he wouldn’t. He’d never changed for any other woman. As much as he savored the weight and warmth of Diana’s body against his, the glow in her eyes, the hopeful beauty in her smile, he wasn’t going to jump through hoops of flame for her. She’d described jumping through those hoops for her former boyfriend. Surely she wouldn’t turn around at treat Nick the way she’d been treated in her last relationship.

  “You need to reconcile with your mother,” she said.

  He recoiled, appalled by her suggestion. Was she insane? After what he’d shared with her, after what she knew about his life…she wanted him to make nice with the woman who’d sold him down the river?

  “Fix her shutter,” Diana murmured.

  Christ. Nick did not need to hear this. “Diana—”

  “No. Hush.” She silenced him with a gentle brush of her fingertips against his lips. That one light caress was enough to turn him on again. He was angry and confused…but damn, he was horny for her. Couldn’t they just make love and go to sleep, and not have this awful conversation?

  Apparently not. She stroked her index finger across his lower lip, pulling back when he tried to catch it with his teeth. She drew a line over his chin, down his throat to his chest. Her smile could have wrung tears from Satan, it was so sweet.

  “The song said we have to change,” she reminded him. “I changed. You have to change, too.”

  “What happens if I don’t?” he challenged her.

  “I’ll stop believing that the jukebox was talking to us. I’ll believe it was talking to me alone.”

  She didn’t have to say anything more. He understood what she was getting at. If he didn’t change, if he didn’t believe in the power of the song to bind him and Diana, she would leave.

  She might leave anyway. She lived in Boston—which wasn’t that far away in miles, but in culture and style it was light-years from sleepy Brogan’s Point. Her life was there, her job, her family. Her ex-fiancé.

  Even if she left, he knew she wouldn’t go back to the ex. She had changed. She’d listened to the song and let its magic transform her.

  If he didn’t want to lose her, he would have to do the same.

  “All right,” he heard himself say. “I’ll fix the goddamn shutter.”