She shook her head. “You’ve never…”
Fuck this. He reached for her, sliding one hand around her waist and another behind her neck. Then he pulled her close and kissed her, one hard, lingering kiss. When he pulled away, it was only an inch, so his words still whispered over her mouth. “I’ve always.”
“No, you haven’t.” She pushed on his shoulders, enough to make him release her. “Everybody else but me, that’s who you’ve always wanted.”
He grabbed her arm. “No, everybody else because I couldn’t have you. It’s your dumb roommate, Jessica, isn’t it?”
“Jessica? That’s ancient history.”
“Except that ancient history seems to have determined everything about the present.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It all goes back to then, right? You hating me? God, I was so stupid. You were nice enough to me before that party. It was after that when you started to hate me, and I never made the connection. Marin told me her friend was into me and she was bringing her to that party. I wanted it to be you.”
Sydney blinked at him. “It was me.”
“Yeah, and then your stupid roommate, who was also Marin’s friend, showed up, and she tackled me in the kitchen.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh. I was crushed when I realized it wasn’t you.”
She shifted her weight, and for the first time in days—hell, in years—the expression she aimed at him was soft, that same lovely vulnerability other people got to see in her and he never did. “You wanted it to be me?”
“Jessica was a pretty miserable substitute for the girl I really wanted.”
“God, I hated her for that.”
“I should have manned up and asked you out in the first place. I wanted to, but Sydney, you were a terrifying nineteen-year-old.”
“So I’ve been told. I could have said something to you, too. But there were so many girls after you. Not just Jessica. Everywhere I went, girls were talking about you. Right up until today, with Briana plotting all afternoon about what she was going to do to you.”
“I only wanted one. You. Sydney, we’ve wasted five years being pissed at each other over a dumb misunderstanding. Let’s not waste any more time.”
“So, what? You want…?”
“I want to stop yelling at each other and try this. You and me. Together.”
When he pulled her into his arms this time, she came willingly, and when he kissed her, she kissed him back. It was different than the plane. That was its own kind of magic, borne out of lust and surprise and a healthy dose of rum. It was an explosion at the end of a long, slow-burning fuse. This was softer, sweeter, something blooming, not detonating—a beginning, not an end.
Being with Sydney the day before had been good. Hot and urgent and a little dirty. But this… She ran her fingers through his hair and over his face like she was learning him, and he liked that idea. Tonight was only the first step on a long journey of discovery for both of them, undoing the anger and hurt of the past and figuring out how they were going to go forward.
Unlike yesterday’s frantic attack, today her kisses were slow, deep, and thorough. Jesse felt like he could kiss her—just kiss her—for the rest of his life. But soon he became aware of her body under his hands, that silky little black dress sliding over her skin enticingly. He could hardly help but notice her breasts pressed to his chest, her hair slipping through his fingers… And God, he wanted her. Slowly, the hem of her dress inched up, his fingers finding her thigh. His other hand moved down, toying with the tiny little strap on her shoulder. The kissing got sloppy and their breaths grew labored. Sydney’s fingers loosened his tie, and unlike earlier with Briana, it never crossed his mind to stop her.
He kissed her everywhere he could reach, her cheek, ear, and neck, nuzzling into her hair, getting drunk on the scent of her. She’d managed to get most of his shirt unbuttoned and her warm palms slipped inside and smoothed over his chest.
“Sydney,” he sighed, kissing the beautiful hollow where her neck met her collarbone.
“We’re not having sex on this beach,” she murmured.
He drew back, blinking. If she really wanted to slow down or stop, of course he would. But it had felt like they were headed in that direction, and he’d be lying if he pretended he wasn’t disappointed.
“Um, okay, if you want to slow down—”
She tugged on his loose tie, pulling his face back down to hers and nipping at his bottom lip. “Oh, we’re having sex tonight, just not on this beach. Sex on the beach is one of those things that’s never as good as you think it’s going to be. Like sex in an airplane bathroom.”
“I disagree. Sex in an airplane bathroom was pretty fucking awesome. I think I ruined my back, but it was totally worth it.”
“All the same, maybe a bed tonight.”
Jesse chuckled and wrapped both arms around her waist, lifting her to her toes. She laughed, clinging to his shoulders. It felt good, so damned good, to hold her this way, to tease her without anger, to see her smile and laugh, to kiss her. “Okay, my room or yours?”
She kissed the corner of his mouth, and then slid her lips along his cheek back to his earlobe, where she bit him gently. She’d bitten him the day before, too. He still had the mark on his neck. Sydney had a rough side he’d have never guessed at and he couldn’t wait to explore.
“My room is next door to the Shapiros,” she whispered in his ear.
“I guess that means my room then. I want you to be able to make plenty of noise.” She gasped as his hand found a new, intimate part of her body and she pressed her forehead against his shoulder.
“Your room,” she sighed.
“I can’t believe you’ve liked me since we were nineteen.”
He shifted his hand and she moaned. “Ugh, you and your stupid, pretty face. Of course I was crazy about you.” She leaned back and reached up to cup his face, tracing his features with her fingertips. Her expression was all bare honesty. “I still am.”
“Crazy about me? Really?”
She smacked lightly at his chest. “So smug. Now you’ll be unbearable.”
“Aren’t all boyfriends smug and unbearable?”
“Boyfriend? That’s moving a little fast.” One lovely, arched eyebrow hiked up, but her voice was teasing. “Why don’t you buy me breakfast tomorrow morning first and we’ll see how that goes?”
Keeping his arm firmly around her waist, he turned them, and they began to make their way slowly back up the moonlit beach.
“I can tell you where it’s going to go, Sydney. Nowhere but up. I promise.”
Take the Money and Run
#
To: Garrett Mulvaney
From: Mac Johnston
Hey Garrett,
I’m late with these, but my notes on the Martin trial are attached, as promised. Let me know if you want the transcripts, too. I can dig them up. I know you’re headed to Mexico to cover the corruption story, but I had drinks with Steve Gertstein last night and he said there’s some buzz that your Sheep might be in Mexico. Thought I’d pass that along in case you have your files with you and want to do a little digging. Safe travels and try to have a little fun down there.
Mac
Garrett sighed as he reread Mac’s email.
Fun. Mac wanted him to have fun in Mexico City. What an insane idea. He was down there to cover the Gutierrez corruption trial and that was all. And maybe he’d poke into the other investigation if a lead turned up, but that was doubtful. Fun was for honeymooners and spring-breakers. People like him didn’t have fun when they traveled. They worked. They drank alone in hotel bars. They watched sports in foreign languages in hotel rooms. It was not a glamorous life, and it was not fun.
The gate agent came on the intercom and announced the boarding of Flight 442 to Mexico City. Garrett pocketed his phone, hoisted his bag onto his shoulder, and prepared to head out after the next story.
He’d booked the flight late, but he w
as still pissed about the center seat assignment. And on a full flight like this one, there was no hope of switching. He’d brought his files for this story and half a dozen others, though, so he’d knuckle down, get some reading done, and try to ignore the inevitable elbowing of his seatmates.
Boarding was a lesson in patience, one he was well acquainted with. He shuffled along the aisle, trying not to mow down the drunk guy ahead of him attempting to con the flight attendant into getting him a drink before takeoff, or the girl blocking the aisle while she waited for the guy in her seat to move over. When he got to row twenty-four, he stashed his carry-on bag overhead and dropped heavily into his seat. As he reached for his phone for a final check of his email before he switched to airplane mode, he spared a glance toward the passenger in the window seat and almost dropped it.
She was pretty. Too young for him, and way too sweet-looking, but pretty. A cascade of sandy brown curls framed a porcelain doll face, right down to the wide eyes and rosebud lips. Girls like her were cheerleaders. They were all-American college sweethearts. They were cheery real estate agents and chipper sales reps. They didn’t date jaded journalists with commitment issues and poor drinking habits.
Self-consciously, he rubbed a palm over his jaw, rough with two days’ dark stubble. He probably could have used a shave this morning. And maybe he could have put on a shirt that didn’t look like he’d slept in it. Ah, hell, it wasn’t like it mattered. She was too young, without a doubt. And girls like her didn’t wander around single. She was probably on track to marry her college sweetheart, live in a McMansion in Chatham, New Jersey, and pop out a couple of perfect little kids. But she wasn’t wearing a ring, he couldn’t help but notice as he dug his files out of his bag.
He looked away from her hands, slim and delicate, and focused on his files. There was a lot of dry legalese to wade through before he got to Mexico to cover the high-profile corruption trial of Miguel Gutierrez, that country’s ambassador to the US, so he might as well get to it.
They were an hour into their flight and Garrett was nodding off over a page full of federal statutes when two things jarred him awake. The plane hit a tiny bump of turbulence, and someone grabbed his arm. The girl next to him had grabbed his arm, and she was still gripping it tightly. He looked from her hand to her face. She met his eyes and snatched her hand back.
“Sorry. I’m afraid of flying.” She dropped one shoulder and tipped her head. “Well, not afraid afraid. It’s not a phobia or anything. But it’s not my favorite, especially when it gets bumpy, so yeah, I’m a little scared. Sorry I grabbed you.”
“Uh…it’s okay.” Garrett shook his head. “I mean, I fly all the time, and it’s no big deal. I’ve taken this flight more times than I can count. It’s textbook. You’ll be fine.”
“Okay.” She smiled, and it was a sunny, full-of-light kind of smile that transformed her face and her entire vicinity. That smile made Garrett feel worn-out, tired, and used up. He wasn’t sure he’d ever smiled like that, even when he was a kid, long before life had wrung him dry.
“I’m Meg,” she said. God, when was the last time a stranger introduced themselves to him on a flight? Or anywhere else? Fifteen years in New York and he wore the New Yorker’s blank-faced anonymity like armor. He moved through a million aspects of his life barely speaking to other people outside of work, and even then, so much of that happened via email now. He bought coffee, took cabs, flew across the country, and managed to do it all saying no more than a few terse words to the people he had to interact with. He certainly didn’t introduce himself to strangers and strike up conversations. That muscle felt rusty.
“Um, Garrett.”
She smiled again, the corners of her eyes crinkling up. “Nice to meet you. So what takes you to Mexico? Vacation?”
Garrett snorted. When was the last time he’d taken a vacation? A decade ago with Serena? Probably. “Work. A lot of work.”
“Really? What do you do?” Meg curled one leg up underneath her and shifted a bit in her seat to face him. She was wearing a skirt, something floral and floaty and on the short side, and she had the same dusting of very pale freckles across the tops of her thighs that she had on her cheekbones and nose.
Garrett pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes briefly. “Reporter. I’m a reporter.”
“Oooh, really? For a newspaper?”
“For a lot of newspapers. Associated Press.”
Meg’s eyes went wide. “Wow. So I bet you travel all the time, right?”
“I travel a lot.”
“You’ve probably seen the world, right?”
Sure, he’d seen every battleground and filthy back alley of it. “I’ve been to a lot of places,” he said levelly.
“I’ve always wanted to travel more,” she sighed. “To see everything. I went to Europe a few times in high school, but being on a group tour for teenagers isn’t the same thing at all. You’re so lucky.”
He waved her off. “It’s really not all that glamorous.”
“It sounds glamorous. So are you going to Mexico for a story?”
“Yep, covering the ambassador’s corruption trial.” He sighed and slumped back in his seat. “It could last for months.”
“Will you stay there for all of it?”
“Probably.”
“So it’s like you’re moving to Mexico!” she said brightly. “Me too!”
He eyed her curiously. That piece of news didn’t fit with this girl. “You’re moving to Mexico? Right now? This trip?”
She nodded, curls bouncing around her shoulders. “Yep! It’s so exciting. I mean, I’m really nervous, too, but yeah, I’m excited.”
In spite of himself, he felt his curiosity rising. “So what takes you to Mexico? New job?”
She shook her head. “No, I’m moving for my fiancé. Well, kind of my fiancé. He lives in Mexico.”
That tiny twinge of disappointment was utterly ridiculous. There hadn’t even been a ghost of a chance that he would have asked her out. Too young. Now that he was talking to her, she seemed slightly older than the twenty he’d been guessing, but not by much. Still, too unsullied for his battle-hardened thirty-four years. She was probably engaged to that college all-American type he’d initially imagined. A blond, handsome, go-getter, heading up the Mexican branch of some huge financial conglomerate. He’d set her up in a glorious ten-thousand-square-foot mansion in one of those gated communities the wealthy Americans in Mexico favored. Just as well. That was a nice happy ending for a girl like her.
“Congratulations.” His voice was only a tiny bit strangled.
Just then, the flight attendant reached them for the drinks service. Meg asked for a Coke and Garrett asked for a whiskey, straight up. Meg’s eyes widened slightly as he did so, and he realized that it was barely noon. Ah, fuck it, he wouldn’t get drunk, he’d just take the edge off on his way south.
“So what’s your fiancé do in Mexico?” he asked, savoring the first sip of his drink, even if it was just the swill they served on planes.
“He’s, um…sort of an entrepreneur? He made a bunch of money in finance here in the States and he retired to Mexico.”
“Retired?”
“Not retired retired. He’s only thirty-two. But he cashed out and moved there and now he invests and stuff.”
“Ah. Lucky him.” Thirty-two? Okay, maybe she wasn’t as young as he’d guessed. Or she had a thing for older men. Not that it mattered to him. Not at all.
“His name is Spencer,” she said, and he could hear her giddiness in the way she said his name: “Spencer.” Like there was no better name on the planet. “He’s brilliant.”
“Obviously.” That sounded more cynical than he meant it to, but Meg didn’t seem to notice. Probably lost in daydreams of Spencer and his undoubtedly broad shoulders, square jaw, and glistening white smile. In Garrett’s imagination, Spencer was exhaustingly perfect.
“So what are you going to do in Mexico, besides marry Spencer?”
&n
bsp; Meg shrugged with a dreamy smile. “I don’t know yet. I’m sort of at a crossroads in my life anyway, so we’ll see.”
“Yeah, I guess there are a lot of options to explore when you’re fresh out of college.” Garrett hated how world-weary and cynical he sounded. When had he become that guy? Oh, right…years ago.
Meg sobered and shook her head. “I’m not just out of college. I graduated four years ago.”
His eyebrows rose in surprise. “Seriously? I’d have pegged you for twenty. Maybe twenty-one.”
She rolled her eyes. “I get that a lot, but no, I’m twenty-six.”
“Huh. So what were you doing before…” He waved a hand. “Spencer and Mexico.”
“Oh, I had to move back home a few years ago when my dad got sick. He and my mom divorced when I was a kid, so he didn’t have anybody.”
“Ah, Jesus, I’m sorry. It’s really none of my business.”
“No, it’s okay. I don’t mind.” Meg struck him as the kind of person who didn’t mind talking about pretty much anything. “It wasn’t like I was setting the world on fire anyway. I majored in French.” She gave a sarcastic little chuckle. “I thought I’d graduate and move to Paris and have some chic international job. But yeah…the job market sucked when I got out of school, and any place that was hiring had their pick of people with loads more experience than me. I was in Boston, just doing some pointless internship when Dad got sick, so it wasn’t a hard decision to make. I moved back home to New York to help out.”
“That was a great thing of you to do, especially at that age. So…you’re off to Mexico. Is he back on his feet?”
Her eyes—which were a clear, bright blue—clouded slightly. “He passed away five months ago.”
“I should just stop talking now. Ignore me.”
She laughed and touched his arm briefly. “No, it’s really okay. It was a long time coming. When he got sick, they gave him six months and he lived three more years. Those three years we had together were really good. We got to know each other in a way that we wouldn’t have without that time together. I have no regrets. And he went the way he wanted to go, quietly at home. Sure, I miss him, but I’m trying to focus on what we had, not on what I lost, you know?”
Sky High (Three Contemporary Novella's) Page 11
