Impasse (L.A. Nights)

by Sylvie Fox

  Then the three of them had squeezed into the front cab of Dominic’s pickup and driven over to her storage space. With considerable effort and a lot of care, they were able to load her antique refectory table, rescued from a now defunct monastery, and silk damask dining room chairs into his truck. The harder part was getting the large table up the narrow entry stairs of Nick’s house and situated in the dining area. When they were done, Dominic and Sophie had to admit it had been worth all the effort. The table fit perfectly.

  The sturdy elm table, its aged patina thick with years of lovingly applied furniture oil, fit the rustic looking interior beautifully. The chandelier, which had come with the house, had verdigris that complimented the antique furniture. The chairs, though faded with time, lent an air of elegance to the room. When Nick’s dad offered to take Sophie for sandwiches and then home, Holly was relieved. Looking at her watch, she realized she had only six hours to go shopping and pull together something scrumptious for dinner.

  As dusk fell, she heard Nick’s limo pull up outside, and she was ready. The lights were dimmed, the fireplace and candles were lit. After spending far too much time at the gourmet food market caught up in indecision, Holly had decided on a simple French provincial meal.

  She poached a small whole salmon, served with her special Dijon mayonnaise, and made a squash gratin generously sprinkled with gruyere cheese. After decanting a Côtes-du-Rhone, Holly mopped her brow with the striped kitchen towel and out of habit started to relax with a small glass of wine at the dining room table. She caught herself before taking a sip and poured the wine down the sink, happy that she had a reason to refrain from drinking. She hadn’t managed dessert, but she figured they’d worry about that later, if at all.

  “What the… ” she heard Nick growl as he banged his heavy luggage up the stairs.

  “Nick? It’s me,” Holly said, tentatively.

  Nick walked into the dimly lit living room, and Holly held her breath. She needn’t have worried, not one second really, because Nick dropped his bags and rushed forward to gather her up in his arms. It felt achingly familiar, and it felt good, very good. It felt right. As she stood there, first hugging, then kissing Nick with all she had, Holly knew she’d made the right decision. When they finally broke apart, Holly started talking rapidly, still trying to work off the nerves she was feeling about this very special night with him.

  “I hope you don’t mind. I kind of got the idea to surprise you with dinner, and borrowed the keys from your dad. Then I realized you didn’t have a table, so I brought mine over. I hope you like salmon, because that’s what’s for dinner. I’m keeping the squash warm in the—” Holly stopped speaking when Nick covered her lips with his finger, causing a long shiver to course through her body.

  “Shhhh. Holly, it’s more than okay,” Nick said, removing his finger from her lips. “This is the best thing I could hope for after three lonely weeks in New York and a long day of cross-country travel.” He ran his work-roughened hands along her face and down her arms, finally grasping her hands in his. “I hope this means what I think it means, that you’ve decided to give us a chance.”

  Overcome with a rush of emotion that constricted her throat, muting her, Holly could only nod. Nick gave her one last quick kiss, which stole what breath she had left.

  “So, what’s for dinner? And where did this great table come from?”

  When he talked about anything other than their relationship, Holly relaxed. To her greater relief, Nick loved the food, and she felt even calmer after his second glass of wine. She told him what she knew of the history of the table, her late grandfather having come by during a trip to a small town in France. Learning the monastery was closing, he purchased the handmade elm table for a few francs and had it shipped to the United States by freighter. The table took longer to arrive than he did, but she fondly remembered many meals, homework sessions, and earnest conversations at the table with her grandmother.

  Famished after hours of scant airplane food, Nick made short work of the salmon and gratin. Holly only toyed with her food, more hungry for Nick than sustenance. If he noticed her drinking water instead of wine, he didn’t say anything.

  “I missed you these last years,” he finally said.

  Holly, disconcerted by Nick’s sudden change in tone, asked, “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten our tradition.”

  “Nick, we don’t have any traditions.” Other than screwing each other’s brains out, she thought.

  “I think this table would be perfect for Thanksgiving.”

  “Thanksgiving?”

  “I had to celebrate it without you. It just wasn’t the same. Asha and Hayes may throw a great party, but shaking martinis isn’t cooking. We did a passable job, but the turkey was dry and the gravy was lumpy.”

  “You just want me for my giblets, don’t you?”

  Nick laughed. “What did you do last year?”

  Holly had spent the past year, and the one before that alone. She hadn’t been ready to pretend she was okay. The idea of a get together reminded her too much of what she’d lost with her divorce: her friends, her sense of belonging. Holly snapped from her reverie when she felt Nick’s warm hand envelop hers on the table.

  “It doesn’t matter what you did last year—it’s all in the past. Let’s do it here this year.”

  “Turkey day? Are you sure? There will be tons of food, all our friends, you know how hectic it can be.”

  Nick looked positively jubilant at the idea. “I’ll help. We’ll have Sophie, my dad, Asha and Hayes, Helena, some of my friends from the network.” With the mention of Drew’s and Nick’s old employer, he paused. “It’s okay if we have some of the folks from the network, isn’t it? They used to enjoy coming to your celebrations.”

  Holly didn’t respond right away. It wasn’t the network folks that bothered her, per se. It was the fact that their friends, her and Drew’s old acquaintances, would see them as a couple. There would be no going back.

  “Okay, we’ll do it!” Holly said, shaking off any sense of trepidation. Holly could feel her curls bouncing around her face. “But remember, you promised to help. I’ll be holding you to that—no running off to watch the game.”

  After she cleared the plates, she rejoined Nick at the table, sitting next to him, this time turned sideways in her chair facing him, inhaling his clean, masculine scent—something else she hadn’t realized she missed.

  When she would have spoken, Nick framed her face with his strong hands, his fingers caught in her spiral curls.

  “God, I missed you. This. Us. I know we haven’t spoken of this in weeks; I love you, Holly.” When she attempted to break eye contact with him, he lifted her chin gently, until he could look directly into her eyes. “You have to trust my feelings for you. I don’t plan to go anywhere. I don’t want anyone other than you. Let me show you how I feel. Let me make love with you.”

  He kissed her then, slipping from tenderness to want to stark need in what seemed like milliseconds. Before she could process what was happening, Nick had lifted Holly so that she was straddling him, sitting on his lap. When he broke the kiss to look into her eyes, there was no mistaking the love he felt for her.

  At the juncture of her thighs, Holly could also feel the hard evidence of his desire. Though the first two were already undone, Nick unbuttoned the last two fasteners of her Henley knit, exposing the tops of her breasts and cleavage to his greedy gaze. When looking wasn’t enough, Nick slid his hands along her smooth back, under her shirt, gently lifting the caramel knit top over her head. Her unfettered breasts came free, and he gently cupped them in his hands.

  Glad that the early pregnancy tenderness had abated somewhat, Holly reveled in his touch. If Nick noticed her recently engorged breasts, he didn’t say anything. He slid the roughened pads of his thumbs against her ultra-sensitive nipples. Holly almost came right then. Never had a man’s touch on her breasts sent her to such dizzying heights of bliss. Un
able to suppress her cry of pleasure, Holly fell ravenously upon his lips, upping the heat intensity between them about ten notches.

  She pulled his striped green polo over his head, making them both naked to the waist. When rubbing her silk-encased clit against his erection wasn’t enough, Holly lifted her short skirt to get closer to him. Letting go of her breasts and untangling his fingers from her hair, Nick pulled open the button fly of his jeans, and pushed his briefs aside, springing his hard cock from its confines. Licking her lips in anticipation, Holly stepped away only long enough to discard the wisp of her silk panties, sat astride him, and with no preamble whatsoever enveloped his throbbing penis inside her.

  “Holly,” he gasped, trying to stop himself from driving into her, “we’re not protected.”

  She realized then the mistake she had made.

  “It’s okay,” Holly said, a Mona Lisa smile playing around her lips.

  Nick thrust involuntarily, presumably unable to stop himself from the sheer pleasure.

  “Are you sure?”

  When she nodded almost solemnly, Nick didn’t question her further. He let go, losing any semblance of control. His hands spanned her waist, guiding her along his length. Reflexively, he pistoned into her. Holly matched him thrust for thrust. The angle of their joining was such that the friction against her sensitive nub caused her to come not once, but twice—the second time so hard that for a few seconds she lost all sense of time and space.

  When their breathing quieted once again, neither moved to separate their bodies. Even without words, their bond remained strong, like a taut electrical wire zinging current between them. Nick caressed her hair, her neck, her lips, while her arms looped loosely around his neck, their intense stare unbroken. Holly couldn’t think of any time better than now to tell him about their baby to be. She looked down involuntarily, gathering her resolve.

  Their eye contact broken, they both started to speak simultaneously. She let him speak first. “Holly, I can’t seem to control myself when it comes to making love with you.”

  She shushed him, overflowing with her joy and excitement. “Nick, it’s nothing. I’m one hundred percent sure we’re okay,” she said with a smile, her heart brimming with the secret she was ready to spill.

  His eyes closed for a heartbeat, then stared directly into hers. “Holly, it’s not that I don’t want children, want a family with you someday, but I’m looking forward to getting to really know you—building a solid foundation for our future—before we have to worry about children.”

  Holly deflated at Nick’s words. All her joy and happiness evaporated like so much helium from a burst balloon. She eased herself from Nick and excused herself, walking upstairs to the bathroom with her discarded clothing. Nick had adjusted himself when she returned fully dressed, though he remained shirtless with the top two buttons of his denim fly undone. Looking at Nick and loving him—for she was finally able to admit to herself it was love—Holly tried to hide her trembling lower lip. Turning away, ostensibly looking out the front windows into the inky blackness of the canyon night, she impatiently brushed away the traitorous tears from her eyes.

  “I have to go, Nick,” she whispered.

  “Why?”

  “This is just… Nick, I need time to think, that’s all.” She grabbed her purse and her key ring, still heavy with the addition of Nick’s keys, and ran out the door.

  Holly managed to hold in her tears until she was safely behind her locked apartment door. Then she cried, uninhibited. It was Drew all over again. Nick wanted her but not her baby. She’d given up her dreams once for a man, but not this time. She loved Nick, but she loved her baby-to-be more.

  Nick stalked around his house, bare-chested, hands raking through his hair, trying to figure out Holly. His dad had claimed to never understand women and apparently that particular trait was hereditary. One moment Holly was the sexy siren he’d always fantasized about, then the next minute she’d gone cold. And to his way of thinking, he hadn’t said or done anything to cause her abrupt shift in mood.

  Just when things were finally going right. Holly ran, and he was always chasing her. Nick had been more than happy to see Holly at his home where she belonged. Her bringing the table had signified a huge step in their relationship. Holly had lent him a family heirloom, clearly precious to her.

  She’d cooked him a delicious meal. She’d made love to him like a siren, temporarily fulfilling his ravenous appetite for her. She hadn’t told him she loved him in so many words, but he felt her love in the myriad ways she’d tried to please him. He wanted to marry her someday, but he felt like he was back at square one again. Someday was looking like it was never going to come.

  Nick jogged up the stairs to his bedroom to grab a long-sleeved tee and fleece jacket to ward against the night chill. She’d had enough time alone. The running, the withholding, the rules. It was all over. They were a couple now, and they would start figuring things out together. He pulled on his shoes, grabbed his keys, and headed out the door.

  Bottom line: she was worth chasing.

  He was tired, damn tired with jet lag, but getting to the bottom of the murky waters that constantly swirled around his relationship with Holly was more important than a good night’s sleep. Maybe there was something to that expression “you can sleep when you’re dead.” He couldn’t see his love for Holly abating any sooner than that. The sound of her crying just beyond the thick wood door only increased his urgency.

  “Holly!” he shouted, pounding on the door.

  He heard a muffled response, but before he could knock again, Holly pulled it open. Her blotched face caused his heart to leap directly to his throat. When he pulled her into his arms, his thoughts were anything but sexual. He wanted to comfort this woman that he loved, however he could.

  “Holly, whatever’s wrong, we can fix it,” Nick said, leading her to the bedroom. He helped her strip down to her silky under things, and tucked her into the large bed. “I promise.”

  Nick disrobed, keeping his boxer-briefs on for once, and got into the bed with her. He gathered her into his arms. Her sobs had subsided, but she breathed unsteadily into his chest.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, whispering into her strawberry scented hair, bracing himself for anything.

  “I’m pregnant,” she said. “We’re going to have a baby.”

  But not that.

  Nick was silent for some time. He was sure Holly could feel the sudden thudding of his heart where her head lay on his chest.

  “When?” He reflexively wanted to ask “how” as well, but given the many times and ways they’d been together, that answer was obvious.

  “It was that first time, after the graduation—when we got carried away.”

  “But that was in September. How far along… ”

  “About ten weeks now.”

  “When did you—”

  Holly sat up abruptly, interrupting Nick. The covers pooled around her hips, her preoccupation making her impervious to the night’s chill pebbling her nipples under her sheer camisole. “Sophie started suspecting when I got sick right before you left for New York. She insisted that I take a pregnancy test that night. It was positive. As soon as I could get an appointment, I went to my doctor, and she confirmed it. My first appointment with the OB is next week.”

  Suddenly it hit Nick. Shit. He’d rhapsodized about wanting time with Holly alone before they thought about children. No doubt that comment had sent her racing from his house. As the silence between them stretched, Holly shifted again.

  “Nick, I know this is a lot to get your head around, and I’ve had more time than you to get used to it. I’m not expecting anything from you, so let’s just call it a night.”

  Her lack of faith in him arrowed straight to his heart. Emotionally and physically exhausted himself, Nick agreed to sleep for now and talk later. When Holly would have curled up into herself, Nick fitted himself against her back, his arm and large hand molded against her stomach, which he
realized was just slightly rounded. He wondered what other changes he may have noticed in his lover’s body had he not been blinded by lust that evening. As their breathing lengthened and evened, Nick whispered into her hair, “I love you more than you know.”

  When the rosy fingertips of dawn caressed Holly’s cheek, she felt Nick stir beside her. She turned to look into his sleepy, green eyes and they communicated wordlessly. Without breaking eye contact, she skimmed her camisole over her head and shimmied from her silk panties. Nick shucked his boxer briefs, and their lips melded in a kiss that was more simmer than burn.

  Nick caressed her face, moving the hair aside to touch her delicate ears. He stroked her eyebrows and lips, moving to her slim neck to finger the filigreed silver locket she often wore.

  “Do you feel any different—your body, I mean?”

  She nodded. “I’ve been really tired and nauseous a lot, but that’s subsiding, which is good.”

  Nick skimmed the pads of his fingers along the delicate blue veins that now showed in her breasts.

  Holly’s breathing quickened and Nick jerked his fingers away. She grasped his hands and laid them upon her breasts again.

  “Is it okay that I touch you there?”

  “It’s more than okay. Just be gentle. My nipples have been extra sensitive.”

  “Is that good or bad?” Nick asked, lightly brushing his fingers against the hardened nubbins as she gasped in pure pleasure.

  “It’s bad in the sense that there’s sometimes chafing during the day—I wear a really soft cotton bra when I wear one at all. But it’s good in the sense that I think I’ll come apart if you keep touching them like you are.”

  He removed his hands from her breasts and smoothed them along the slightly convex curve of her stomach. Though his touch was light, his breathing was anything but.

  “What does it feel like inside? Does it hurt?”