“Sean,” I murmured. As he wrapped his arms around me, I knew that sometime in the hours, weeks, and months that I’d known him, Sean had taken over prime real estate in my heart. Lies and truth; love and grief. As he carried me towards the bedroom, the things Sean did with his mouth and hands turned me inside out and upside down.
I had never known that feeling until then. I had never known the way it could fill you up and carry you away. That morning, he treated my body like a temple.
Every touch, delicate kiss, and warm breath was a loving prayer. As with the night before Sean stopped and placed on the condom without being asked, and his concern touched me. As he whispered questions soft and hard, fast and slow, I got lost in the pleasure of his touch.
Sean asked. His softly lilting voice asked if he had pleased me. The unselfishness of his loving touched my soul deeply, and, when we both drifted down from that high plateau, I turned my face into the pillow and closed my eyes, trapping the tears I promised I’d never shed.
Loving Sean was irresistible. It was something warm and perfect. A feeling you got to have all the time. I wondered how I would get through this, having let my fool self fall in love again.
For the second time, I woke slowly in Sean’s bed. I opened my eyes to see him staring down at me with a look of tenderness. This was where I wanted to be always. Safe and loved under cool cotton patterned sheets with my body next to his. But the thought of what I looked like as the muted sun lit the room made me want to pull the sheet up over my head and hide. Mornings were not for me.
“Good morning, darling,” he whispered.
“Good afternoon,” I automatically corrected. Morning had to have come and gone a long time ago from the way the shadowed sunbeams were cutting across the bedroom.
“Don’t…” I protested.
Too late. Even before I could finish my protest, Sean was kissing me. I opened my eyes to see his smile just before I felt a weight settle on my chest. I watched as Simba stepped over me and then curled up into the warm space between us. Sean started stroking his fur and I swore that cat was grinning as his loud purr reverberated through the room.
“In my head, I imagined us waking up like this a thousand times after we first met. But I just never included Simba in the scene.”
“I never saw you as being a cat person,” I said, changing the subject. I wouldn’t allow myself to read more into his words.
“I like cats. They’re like women. You never know what they’re thinking.” He watched me closely.
“Leah,” he continued after a pause.
“Hmmm.”
“Don’t do that again.”
“What?” I shifted under the sheet, trying to use it as a shield.
“Disappear before I wake up. You did it the first time we met.”
“It wasn’t intentional.”
“I had a hell of a time tracking you down.”
I smiled at the irritation in his voice. “You never did tell me how you found me.”
“Luck. There were few beautiful women at the party,” he said, reaching out and twirling his finger around a lock of my hair.
“Liar.” I smiled.
Sean continued, “I bribed Hughes to get a copy of the guest list. Lucky for me you were the only Leah at the party that night.”
“So what did you bribe Hughes with?”
“I have to sing at his anniversary party.”
“He’s married?” The gorgeous movie producer always made People magazine’s most beautiful list.
Sean laughed at my shocked expression. “He’s also got two boys and a girl.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Famous people are human, too, Leah.”
“I know that.”
“Do you, now?” He raised a doubting eyebrow.
“Yes.”
“Then why are you afraid?”
“I’m not afraid. I just don’t understand the world you live in.”
“It’s the same as yours, just a little more exposed.”
“Exposed.” The word sounded strange to me. “There was a helicopter combing the desert to find you. I think that qualifies as a little more than exposed.”
“It’s all part of the game.”
“I don’t play games, Sean.”
“Neither do I. This,” he reached out and placed a kiss on my neck, “this is real. I like waking up beside you. I like the soft warmth of your skin touching mine.”
I shivered.
“The emptiness of our stomachs is also real. Now why don’t we take a shower and talk about this over a nice gourmet meal that I’m going to cook for you.” He laughed as he pushed Simba off the bed and stood up with nothing on. I reached down and wrapped the light blanket around myself and headed towards the door.
“My shower’s big enough for four,” he encouraged.
I looked at Sean standing buck naked with a wicked grin on his face.
“Then it should be plenty big enough for you, your ego, and those cute hairy legs of yours.”
“Ouch. That hurt.” Sean grabbed his chest, pretending to be in pain.
I smiled in triumph and then ruined the moment by darting out of the room.
Chapter 17
By the time we finished eating lunch, the Arizona sunlight filled the house.
“Hey.” Sean’s voice woke me from my daydream.
“Hmmm.” I turned towards him as he leaned down and kissed me.
“I’ve got to jump into a conference call. Do you need anything?”
“I’m fine.” I yawned and reached down to stoke a softly snoring Simba.
I stood up, stretched, and watched Sean as he walked out of the room. A smile came to my lips as I eyed his backside. At least the media had gotten that right. The man had a nice one. Walking over to the entertainment center, I began to browse his extensive CD collection. I ran my fingers over titles in Italian, Japanese, French, and Arabic until I hit pay dirt. Nestled in its own compartment I found the blues sitting pretty with jazz, R&B, reggae, hip-hop, and rap.
I grabbed some old school and new school and stood in front of the stereo placing CD after CD into the player. Turning around I fiddled with the remote control until I found the right button. I stood in the middle of the sun-filled room and swayed to the sweet sound of jazz as it poured into the room from invisible speakers.
Opening my eyes after the third song had finished, I didn’t skip a beat at seeing Sean leaning against the wall, staring. I lifted my hand and slowly curved a finger.
“Come on,” I coaxed.
I watched as Sean sauntered over and I wrapped my arms around his hips and settled snug against his body, controlling the movement with my hands. I laid my head against his chest and we swayed back and forth as the soft tinkle of the piano and the smoky voice of Etta James filled the room.
We danced through heartbreak and pain, love and loss.
“I should have guessed,” he started.
I looked up to see his quick grin. “Guessed what?”
“That you were a blues girl.”
“Not true. I’m a jazz girl first,” I proclaimed.
“Hmmm, I’ll have to remember that.” He smiled. “I always thought of you as the play-it-straight type. You know those jazz lovers get a little wild sometimes,” he hinted.
“I’ve had my fair share of walking on the wild side,” I ruefully admitted. “I’ve already broken rule number one of the friendship commandments. You’re not supposed to sleep with your best friend.”
“I’m shocked.” Sean’s eyes widened in mock surprise. “Could this be Leah Russell admitting to breaking the rules?”
“It’s your bad influence,” I charged.
“Me?” he echoed, trying to pull off a wide-eyed look of innocence.
I pointed a finger at his chest. “Yes, you. Mr. U-Turn on a one-way street.”
“That was an accident.”
“Really?” I raised an eyebrow.
“No,” he admitted sheepishly.
>
“Let’s not forget the time you…”
“Okay, woman.” Sean pinched me lightly on the rear. “No need to recount all my sins. Just keep trying to reform this jaded man.”
“That would take a lifetime,” I grinned.
“I’ve got plenty of time, darling,” he declared before leaning close for a kiss.
“Sean, you don’t have to make any promises to me.”
“Why’d you say that?”
“I wasn’t kidding about breaking the friend rule,” I said, looking up at him. “But I have to say that I have no regrets. I’m not sorry if this causes problems between you and Delia,” I confessed. The up-and-coming actress was the last person in the world I was thinking about.
“Believe me, Leah, the relationship I have with Delia is strictly platonic.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Like our friendship?”
“She is and has always been in love with Nicholas Chapman.”
I drew back startled. “But the magazine said…”
“And we know how credible those things are, don’t we?”
I shook my head, embarrassed.
Sean continued, “Now while we’re on the subject, I have to admit that I’m not sorry that the press published that photo of us together.”
“You’re not?” I parroted, confused.
“I still dream about the first time I met you. That night on the cliffs, you were so beautiful in the moonlight. Like no one I’d ever met before.”
He pulled me closer and the way he nibbled my ear sent pricks of pleasure running down my skin. “I tried to get you completely alone for months and, just when I thought I had a chance, you moved to New York.”
“I didn’t know,” I stammered, my stomach churning with butterflies.
“That’s because you’re such a blind little goose,” he said before kissing me. In Sean’s arms I melted like a schoolgirl and we moved to the bedroom to begin a new dance. The man made it easy for me to forget Etta James’s sorrow-filled warnings of morning heartache.
* * *
Much later as we relaxed together, I noticed that Sean had a faraway look on his face. His lips were parted and his eyes seemed to close slightly as he stared towards some unknown vision or listened to some silent song.
“I almost can’t believe you’re here. It’s seems as though I’ve waited forever to hold you.”
I smiled. “Sean, you never struck me as the patient type.”
“I’m not.” He reached over and tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “You were skittish as a newborn filly when we first met. I didn’t want to frighten you off.”
“You could never scare me.” I snuggled deeper into his arms. “But that hideous curly wig of yours was awful.”
“You didn’t like it?”
“No. It made you look like a Beatles reject.”
“I’m hurt.”
“Pleeze,” I chuckled.
“The only other thing I’ve always wanted was a home of my own,” Sean stated.
“Another one? You’ve got what?” I counted on my fingers, “Four?”
“Not like that. I want to pull into the garage and know I’m not just coming back to an empty place and cold, lonely bed. I want to have the life my parents had. Something simple and good.”
“What about your singing? I thought that was all you ever wanted,” I questioned, puzzled.
“I’ve enjoyed my career, don’t get me wrong. There was a point where the only thing that I ever thought could make me happy was standing on stage and putting my all into the music and getting all that energy from the crowd because they were feeling me: my words, my tune. But I’ve realized that once I leave the stage I’m empty. I want a future that doesn’t just have me. I want a family.”
My gaze locked with his serious green eyes and I nodded in understanding. Once upon a time, I’d wanted that dream. White picket fence and all that.
“So what are your plans?” I asked, tightening the belt of my robe.
“I’ve thought about writing.”
“Sounds right up your alley. Have you talked to the band about that?”
“No, not yet. The idea’s still a little new. We’re going back into the studio in a couple of months. Hopefully, I’ll have figured something out by then.”
“You can still have a family even if you’re with Exile. I’ve read plenty of success stories in which celebrities balance work and family.”
“And you’ve read about plenty of divorces. Dad never put his career above us. He tried to be home as much as possible. Mom never said anything, but he turned down a lot of offers to direct just because it would take him away from home for too long.”
I stood still with my face towards the window, watching as the sun began to set and evening shadows began creeping across the desert.
“What about you?” he asked, gently massaging my back.
“This sounds crazy, but I want to adopt two children.”
“Tell me more.”
I shrugged and tried to sound casual as I admitted one of my lifelong goals. “When I was a little girl, two days before Christmas Mom and Dad would gather all of us kids into the car and we would go to this tall red building just outside of the city. We’d wait in the car as they went in and came out with a little boy or girl that would spend Christmas at our home.” I closed my eyes seeing a little boy named Hughes as he held on tight to my father’s hand.
“Mom and Dad bought presents for the kids and placed them under the tree. Every Christmas I would watch that little girl or little boy with tears in their eyes opening those packages. As I grew older and could understand why the kids enjoyed the presents so much, it tore my heart out.” I could feel the wetness growing behind my eyes.
“I’m driven to help those kids. I want to give them a family, a childhood as great as mine was. So I’ve been building a nest egg. My plan is to buy an old house near my parents’ and move back to Philly.”
“And your own children?”
I turned my head to look at him and my lips curved into a half-bitter whimsical smile. “Thought about that. Who knows if I’ll get married? Being single isn’t the worst thing that could happen to me. Maybe that future soul mate will support my dream, maybe not. All I know is that I’m going to find that house and fill it with love.”
Sean hugged me tighter to his chest and I was happy that I couldn’t see his face in that instant. The conversation was hitting too close to home. I didn’t want him making promises he couldn’t keep and I didn’t want to talk about a future in a world outside of the here and now of him and me.
I’d had dreams of Lance and they had been stolen. I learned the hard way that I had to dream alone. Somewhere along the way I quit dreaming of white picket fences, kids, and a family. That didn’t mean the hope was gone, just buried. I didn’t want to open my eyes to discover that all this was but another dream.
We stood looking out French doors in Sean’s bedroom. I leaned back in his arms and sighed. The lingering light bathed the hills in glorious shades of soft copper and gold. I felt my heart catch at its quiet beauty. That night as I lay in Sean’s arms, I vowed to take this time and lock away in my heart a treasure to be taken out and remembered when being a Strong Black Woman got to be too much.
* * *
“Get my hair wet and you’re a dead man, Sean Andrews,” I threatened, standing next to the whirlpool tub clutching my towel. After a nice French dinner at a restaurant in Phoenix, we’d decided to have dessert back at the ranch. Shaking my head, I wondered how I’d let him talk me into this.
“Now why’d you think I’d do something like that?” Sean asked.
I watched as his lips curled into the devilish smile that had graced the covers of albums and magazines. The sight of him leaning back in the bubble-filled Jacuzzi set off warning bells in my head while igniting a fire in my stomach.
“Come on and get in,” he coaxed. “I promise not to splash you.”
“I’m trusting you, Scottish
,” I said before dropping the towel and carefully stepping into the warm water.
“Yeah, yeah. Come over here.” Sean reached over to pull me closer.
I slid back into Sean’s lap and nestled comfortably between his legs. Just as I leaned back and closed my eyes, his arms wrapped around me and I felt the tickly sensation of his fingers on my stomach.
“Hey stop that…” I called out, almost jumping out of the water.
“Someone’s ticklish,” he teased.
I retaliated by pinching the sensitive inside of his thighs, ending his gloating.
“Now how was your phone call to the office earlier?” he questioned.
I fluttered my fingers in the bubbles and focused on the glow of the candles. Although I was technically on vacation, I couldn’t completely get away from work. “You don’t want to know.”
“Come on…what happened?” he persisted.
I sighed. “I think every advertising exec in the office is trying to get into my good graces. After checking my voicemail, I’ve gotten five lunch offers, three gift certificates, and my boss generously gave me two extra weeks of vacation.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad. Scoot forward so I can wash your back,” Sean requested.
I sighed as the warm water rolled down my back, followed by the gentle rubbing of the washcloth. “Every woman under the age of sixty wants to meet you and they’ve had reporters in the lunchroom trying to get the scoop on my personal life.”
“I’m sorry,” Sean’s voice whispered. “Is there anything else I can do?” He sent chills up and down my spine by placing a kiss on the back of my neck.
“Hmmm…” I muttered as my eyes closed, enjoying the sensation of his warm hands gliding over my skin. “You could move a little to the left,” I suggested.
“Not that. Can I help you with work?”
“Thanks, but as you said, by the time I get back to New York, this will all have blown over,” I responded.
I opened my eyes and turned around slightly to look at Sean. The flickering light of the candles bathed us both in a warm, gold light.
“Your turn,” I said, moving to the other side of the Jacuzzi and gesturing for him to turn around. “I’ll do your back.”
Frost on My Window Page 18
