by Cindi Myers
3
WAS THIS THE CRAZIEST thing he’d ever done—or the smartest? Dylan couldn’t decide as he followed the directions Taylor had given him to her house. He didn’t know how smart it was to agree to a no-strings-attached affair with a woman he hadn’t seen in ten years. Then again, he’d be crazy to turn down the chance to finally bed the woman he’d fantasized about for the past decade.
He found the restored bungalow Taylor rented in the middle of the block in an older section of town. He drove to the end of the street and parked in front of a shuttered minimart, then walked back up to the house. This time of night, the neighborhood was dark and silent. The still-warm evening air smelled of grass clippings and late-blooming roses. But when he brought his hand to his nose, he could smell Taylor, her spicy cologne and musky arousal, and he felt himself grow hard again.
He hurried along, his boot heels ringing on the sidewalk, echoing the rapid pounding of his heart. He felt the same edgy desire mingled with nervousness that he’d last experienced in high school, when he’d sometimes sneak into his girlfriend’s house after her parents had gone to bed.
As he passed the house next to Taylor’s, a dog began to bark. Great. All he needed was to have someone call and report him to police as a prowler. It’s all right, Officer. I can explain. You see I was on my way to meet a woman to do all the things everyone thought we did in high school. Why? Uh, because we can?
For some reason revisiting the past like this was important to Taylor and he was willing to go along with it. Maybe that made him crazy. Or very, very lucky.
The porch light cast a golden glow over her front door. He walked up the steps and raised his hand to knock, but the door swung inward before his hand met wood. Taylor smiled up at him, relief in her eyes. “I thought maybe you wouldn’t show up.”
“I stopped off for a few things.” He put his hand in his pocket and felt the packets of condoms.
“Come on in.” She held the door open wider. She was still wearing the formfitting black dress, but she’d taken off her shoes. Barefoot, she looked more vulnerable. More like the girl he’d known in school.
He moved past her and she switched off the porch light. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“No thanks.” He stood in the middle of the room, hands in his pockets, looking everywhere but at her. The furniture was elegant and feminine—dark wood tables and gold-brocade upholstery. Candles flickered on the coffee table and along the bar that separated the living room from the kitchen. The lamp by the sofa gave the only other light, reflecting on a Degas print of ballerinas.
“Why don’t you sit down?” She took a seat on the sofa and patted the cushion next to her.
He sat, hands gripping his knees. Now that he was here, he was more nervous than ever. All his fantasies of making love with Taylor were mixed up with the conservative caution that was inbred in every boy who had been raised in the southernmost notch of the Bible belt. “So, um, how exactly do you want to do this?”
“My idea was to re-create, as much as possible, all the wild stories people made up about us in high school. We can use this to refresh our memories.” She picked up a small blue book from the coffee table.
“What’s that?”
“It’s the diary I kept my senior year.” She opened it and began flipping through the pages. “Everything’s in here. Of course, it all started with that camping trip.”
“The senior camping trip.” Taylor hadn’t even wanted to be part of that trip, but he’d convinced her to go, telling her it was a tradition and a great way for her to get to know her classmates better. What he’d really hoped was that sometime during the weekend, he’d be able to work up the courage to kiss her. And that she’d kiss him in return.
Instead he’d never found the right opportunity to make his move. And then they’d ended up sharing a sleeping bag. True, they’d both had on so many clothes they’d have had a tough time doing much of anything, but still, he recalled it as one of the most miserable nights of his life. As soon as they’d thawed out, he’d had to lie there with Taylor asleep in his arms and a hard-on that wouldn’t quit.
“It wouldn’t really be practical to start there,” Taylor said. “So I thought we’d just pick a different rumor each time, sort of as the mood hits.” She smiled. “We can take our time.”
Oh, he planned to take his time, all right. He intended to devote himself to exploring every inch of her luscious body, but the sooner they got to it, the better. “Do you have something picked out for tonight?”
She opened the diary and smoothed her hand down the page. “Listen to this.” She began to read. “At my locker this morning, Alyson asked me if I had a good weekend. I knew she wasn’t asking to be nice, because Alyson is never nice. But I’m determined to be a better person than she is, so I just told her I hadn’t done anything special.
“‘That’s not what I heard,’ she said with that evil little smirk that makes her look like a roadkill possum. One of these days I’m going to get mad enough to tell her that, too!”
Dylan laughed. “Alyson does sort of resemble a possum.”
Taylor smiled. “I still have to fight the urge to tell her so sometimes. Now hush and let me finish.” She turned back to the diary. “I didn’t even want to know what she’d heard, so I turned away, but she followed me down the hall.
“‘I heard that Dylan Gates’s parents went out of town this weekend to his uncle’s funeral and that you spent Saturday night at Dylan’s house doing the wild thing!’”
“I remember that weekend,” he said. “I was pissed because I had to stay home all weekend and look after my kid sisters. The wildest thing we did was stay up late watching ‘Star Trek’ re-runs.”
She closed the diary and set it aside. “Here’s your chance to make up for that. What would you have done if we had been lovers and we’d had your parents’ house to ourselves for the weekend?”
He waited before he answered, savoring the tension humming between them. He let his eyes linger on the tops of her breasts, the dip of her waist and flare of her hips, his gaze drifting down to her long, smooth legs. Would she wrap those legs around him as he entered her? Would she scream when she came? He had so much to look forward to learning about her.
“Come on, Dylan,” she prompted. “What would you do?”
“I’d do this.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her, a long, hungry kiss with none of the hesitation they’d experienced earlier. They kissed with open mouths, tongues exploring, lips seeking, nipping and sucking, speaking without words.
Long minutes passed as they savored the sensation of lips and tongues entwined, until their breath came in desperate pants and passion mingled with giddy dizziness. He held her tightly, the hard points of her breasts pressed against his chest, one hand at the small of her back, the other fumbling with the hook of her bra.
“Here, let me.” She reached back with one hand and popped the clasp, then slipped the straps down her arms and out the sleeve of her dress. She grinned at him. “I’d have thought at your age, you’d have had more practice with that.”
“It doesn’t help that they’re all made different.” Freed of the bra, her breasts swayed gently as she leaned toward him again. He cupped her in his hands, savoring the weight and warmth of her. Her nipples brushed against his palms and he shifted to stroke them through the fabric of her dress, pinching them gently between his thumb and forefinger until she was panting, eyes half closed.
He was breathing hard, too, as he eased her dress down to her waist and sat back to admire her. Her skin looked golden in the candlelight, her breasts full and round, the nipples dusky. He cupped them in his hands once more and grinned.
“What are you smiling about?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I was just thinking—after five years in L.A., yours are probably the first real breasts I’ve seen in a while.”
“I’m real, all right.” She pushed her dress the rest of the way down to her ankles, leavin
g her covered only with black lace panties. “And right now, I’m real anxious to see you naked.” She reached for his belt buckle and he sat back, letting her undress him. There was something to be said for slow torture, when you knew it would come to a glorious end.
TAYLOR FORCED HERSELF not to hurry, slipping his belt slowly from his pants, prolonging her anticipation. His erection strained at his fly, making it more difficult to unfasten the button and pull down the zipper. Was he a boxer or a brief man? she wondered, then smiled as the answer was revealed.
He wore black bikinis, stretched tight now across his erection. She trailed her fingers over him, feeling every ridge, stroking the head until he groaned. Then she bent and exhaled her hot breath on him, almost, but not quite touching him.
In one movement he pushed her away and ripped off the briefs, freeing himself. He stood over her, his arousal straining toward her. She swallowed hard. To think she’d missed all this in high school. “Maybe we should go into the bedroom,” she said.
He shook his head. “No. When we were in high school, I don’t think we’d have ever made it to the bedroom.” He touched her shoulder, urging her back against the cushions.
She leaned back, stretching her legs along the length of the sofa and resting her head on a pillow. He helped her out of her panties, then sat beside her and stroked her stomach, sending ripples of arousal through her. She struggled to lie still, to savor the delicious tension coiling within her.
“I always knew you were gorgeous,” he said.
Then why didn’t you say anything? She thought, but then all thought fled as he begin to kiss her breasts. He moved slowly at first, making easy circles with his tongue around her nipples, first one and then the other, until she was moaning and writhing beneath him.
He chuckled softly and put his hand on her thigh. “Patience, patience.”
“I never had any patience in high school. What makes you think I have any now?”
He laughed. “That’s okay. I like a woman who’s eager.” He slid his hand up her thigh and slipped between her legs. “And you are eager, aren’t you? You’re soaking wet.” He dipped two fingers into her, his thumb and fingers stroking, coaxing her closer to the edge.
She closed her eyes and arched against him, gasping. “Dylan!” Words failed her.
His hand stilled. “Look at me.”
She opened her eyes. “Don’t stop,” she pleaded.
“I want to see you when you come.”
She nodded and he began to fondle her again, lightly at first, then with more pressure, faster and faster until her vision faded. At the moment when she was sure she could stand no more, his hand left her. She thrust toward him and groaned in frustration. “No!”
He leaned over and kissed her on the lips. “I promise it’ll be worth the wait.” He picked up his jacket from the floor. “Here, you put this on.” He tossed a condom to her.
She raised up on her elbows and tore open the packet, then leaned forward and reached for him. “I can’t believe my hands are shaking.”
“Yeah.” He put his hand on her shoulder and she felt his own tremors run through her.
She rolled the condom onto him, then lay back and looked into his eyes. “Hurry.”
He nudged her leg aside and knelt between her thighs. She opened to him and he filled her completely with one deep thrust. One hand on her hip, he caressed her thigh, while the other hand moved again to her clit.
Desire claimed her like wildfire, consuming her. She kept her eyes locked to Dylan’s face, seeing him caught in the same firestorm. Arousal transformed his face, sharpening the lines and planes, giving him a harsh beauty that stole her breath as surely as his thrusts.
She wrapped her legs around his waist, angling her body, silently urging him to bury himself more deeply within her. He thrust harder, increasing his pace, driving her to the brink, then following her over.
Their cries rang in the silence that followed. Dylan collapsed against her, his head resting between her breasts. She buried her fingers in his hair, savoring the feel of him filling her completely.
“That was incredible,” he whispered.
She smiled. “It was pretty incredible, wasn’t it?”
He levered up onto his elbows and withdrew from her. “The bathroom’s down the hall, if you want to use it,” she said.
While he was in the bathroom, she went into her bedroom and cleaned herself, then slipped into the blue silk robe she’d bought as an indulgence last fall. Tonight wasn’t a night for her everyday pink terry cloth.
When she returned to the living room, Dylan was stepping into his pants. She paused in the doorway, admiring the fit of those black bikini briefs around his backside. “I’m going to have a glass of wine, would you like some?” she said when he turned to face her.
“Yeah, that sounds good.”
She returned with the wine and found him seated on the sofa, shirtless and barefoot, the diary in his hand. She felt another tremor of desire at the sight of him, so masculine against all her feminine things.
He looked up at her approach. “I can’t believe you kept this all this time,” he said, hefting the open diary.
“Don’t you have things you kept from high school?” She handed him a glass and sat beside him.
“A couple of football trophies, maybe. A jersey. But nothing like this.”
“Nothing sentimental.”
“Nothing this…immediate.” He closed the book and laid it aside. “I hope you don’t mind. I guess I should have asked before I read anything.”
She smiled. “After what just happened, I wouldn’t say we had many secrets anymore.”
He took a long drink and shook his head. “It wouldn’t have been that good when we were kids.”
“No. I’m sure it wouldn’t have.”
He glanced at her. “Were you a virgin? I mean, back in school.”
She shrugged. “Almost. I’d had one experience with a guy back in California, but it wasn’t very satisfying.”
“What happened?”
“Oh, you know. He was overeager. I was nervous. We were in his car and things got out of hand. Before I knew it, it was over and I hadn’t enjoyed it very much.”
He put his hand on her leg. “I would have treated you better than that.”
She smiled. “I think you would have. You were always very considerate. What about you? When was your first time?”
He thought a moment. “Summer of my junior year. A girl I met on vacation in Corpus.” He grinned. “An older woman. She was a senior.” He took another drink of wine. “The first time was a little awkward, but we had a good time.”
“Sex ought to be a good time,” she said.
“It was good tonight.”
“Yeah.” She couldn’t recall when it had been better for her. She couldn’t recall anything right now. Dylan had wiped out the memory of every other man. Not that there’d been that many. None like Dylan, able to move her so deeply and to satisfy her so completely.
He set his empty wineglass on the coffee table. “So, how is this going to work? When should we see each other again?”
“Soon.” She set her own glass beside his. “When are you free?”
“How about tomorrow?”
She smiled, pleased by his eagerness. “How about Monday?” She didn’t want to take this too fast. The longer it took to work their way through all the old rumors, the more time they’d have to spend together.
“What rumor do you have planned?”
She laughed. “I’m not sure. I’ll call you.”
He nodded, but made no move to finish dressing. He sat with his elbows on his knees, staring at the flame of a candle on the coffee table. “Do you think this is going to work?” he asked after a moment.
“What do you mean?”
He glanced at her. “Us, getting together like this? Is it really going to make you feel better about what happened in high school?”
She nodded. “I think it will. For so man
y years, I’ve felt like I should have stayed and faced all their lies. It’s too late to change anyone’s mind now, but by doing this, we’re turning their lies into truth.” She looked at him. “Does that make sense?”
He nodded. “Sort of.” He grinned. “I guess the way I look at it—they all thought we were having so much fun back then, we might as well enjoy ourselves now.”
She grinned back at him. “We’re going to have fun.”
He turned and pulled her to him once more. “Yeah. I think we are.”
He held her close and kissed her cheek, a sweet gesture that made her heart skip a beat. She buried her face against his shoulder and closed her eyes, breathing in the scents of soap and sex. It wouldn’t be fun if she made a mistake and lost her heart to him. Their time together was supposed to be pure fantasy and everybody knew fantasies—like rumors—were usually very different from the way things really were.
4
WHEN TAYLOR PROPOSED re-creating all those old high school rumors, she hadn’t expected doing so to make her feel as though she was in high school again. Yet here she was, all fluttery-hearted and foggy-brained, staring idly into space one moment and unable to sit still the next. She spent long minutes during her break Monday morning staring at her cell phone, willing herself not to call Dylan. “Next thing you know, I’ll be scribbling his name in the margin of my notebook,” she muttered as she forced her attention to a stack of papers that needed grading.
Of course, there were other feelings she’d definitely never experienced in high school. Heat simmered through her when she remembered the way he’d moved his hands across her body. Her nipples rose in hard points as she recalled his hands on her, tender yet so skillful. She closed her eyes and saw again the smoldering looks he’d given her, as if he had never wanted anyone more.
Is this how it would have been if she and Dylan had been more than friends in high school? Would he have had this power to arouse her even when he wasn’t around? The ability to cloud her thoughts even when she wasn’t with him?
