“It’s there,” he whispered over her lips. “Can you feel it? It’s still there.”
Any doubt he had of loving Sarah vanished. He loved her now, just as he had then, maybe more.
“Sarah, I’ve wanted this for so long. You have no idea how many times I had to stop myself, how many times I wanted to grab you…to take you.”
He couldn’t keep his hands from touching her face, running them along her cheeks, touching her lips, moving down to her neck, and through her hair. He was vaguely aware of Sarah’s hands on him.
“God, I missed this so much. I missed you so much. I love you, Sarah.” He searched Sarah’s eyes, desperately wanting her to believe him.
“I love you too, Seth.”
Seth kissed her again, forcing his eyes closed to feel her completely. He had held Sarah before as a friend, always guarded. He didn’t have to do that anymore, and he would never do that again. Never again would he hold back. Never again would he hesitate.
His lips rested on hers, softly caressing them, his breath coming more quickly. His hands were everywhere, on Sarah’s shoulders, her back, her hips, pulling her to him. He wanted her to feel his lust and passion for her.
Sarah encouraged him; her hands ran through his hair, down his neck, and around his waist. They couldn’t get any closer, and the frantic frenzy of their passion couldn’t be satisfied.
“Sarah, you taste so good…so sweet.”
He stopped and laid his head on her breast, smiling at the sound of her heart beating wildly in her chest.
SARAH
Seth trembled, and she stupidly wondered if he felt cold. She wasn’t cold, yet her body trembled too. They were hot. She could feel the heat building with each kiss, with each touch, with each word he whispered.
This couldn’t be happening. Her wildest dreams were coming true. Seth wanted her, not Adriane. She almost didn’t believe it. Almost. But his actions made her believe it. Seth was all over her, hungry for her. It scared her, the kind of fear that sends chills up and down your spine, that pushes you a little further to experience an even bigger thrill.
Seth pulled away and took Sarah’s hand in his, unclenching the box with one hand and intertwining his fingers in hers with the other. He led her over to the sofa, and they sat facing each other.
Sarah put her fingers to his mouth. “It’s my turn.”
Seth leaned back and closed his eyes.
She kissed him, softly yet deeply. She moved his hands to her waist.
Seth smiled. “I love those curves.”
Sarah kissed him over and over, teasing his tongue with hers, not forcefully but with slow sweeps that made him sigh. He swallowed hard and moaned. She moved to his forehead. How many times had he kissed her forehead? Too many to count. Now it was her turn. Sarah planted small kisses along his hairline and then moved to his eyes, down his nose, along his cheeks and to his ears, whispering, “I love you,” in each of them and nibbling on his earlobe. Next, she moved down his neck, planting kisses as she went. Seth arched his head back, giving her room to roam. He swallowed hard and let out another moan. Sarah moved up his neck to his chin, taking another nibble before resting her lips on his.
“How’d I do?”
“You’re incredible.” His eyes remained closed, but he smiled broadly.
“I think you’re pretty incredible too.”
“That works out well.”
“Yes it does,” she whispered and kissed him again.
He opened his eyes. “Let me look at you, really look at you.”
Sarah inched away from him and looked into his eyes. “Here I am.”
“I always had to steal glimpses of you.” He traced the outline of her cheeks and smiled. “I don’t have to do that anymore. I can look at you, with you knowing it, and it’s all right.”
“More than all right.” She smiled at him. “You’re so beautiful.”
“Hey, you just stole my line.” He laughed softly.
“You’re the actor, improvise.”
“Sarah, you’re my everything. I know I told you that once before. I meant it then, and I mean it now. I can’t wait to start this new chapter of our lives, together. The way we were always meant to be, friends and lovers.”
“I can’t top that.” She kissed him passionately.
“Oh, you just did.” He smiled and looked down at the box. “Hey, don’t you want to open your present?”
“I already got what I wanted. This box could be empty for all I care.”
“Come on. I want you to open it.”
Sarah took the box from his hand, unwrapped it, and lifted the lid. “It’s my ring!”
“Yep. Well, sort of. I took it to a jeweler and had it reset.” He chuckled. “The jeweler was appalled that I wanted to put a low-quality stone in such an expensive setting.”
“I love it.”
“I thought it represented us in a way. The old and the new…the past and present…then and now.”
“Will you put it on my finger?”
Seth took the ring out of the box and slid it on her finger. “Perfect.”
“I love you, Seth.”
“I love you too. How you could not have seen that, I don’t know.” He kissed her deeply and whispered over her lips, “Sarah, it has always been you.”
On to Always…
This is not by any means the end of the saga. It continues in “Always,” the first chapter of which is introduced on the following pages.
NEW YEAR, NEW LIFE
SETH
Seth left Pat and Derrick’s New Year’s Eve party amidst puzzled faces who’d expected him to party until dawn. Not anymore, and he feared never—once they learned he and Sarah were dating…again.
Certain people didn’t worry him: Sarah’s sister Kathy and her husband, Jeff, would be the pillars, and Mom, who had helped Seth traverse the rocky path back to Sarah, the foundation.
His brother Keith would be the bricks, and Derrick’s wife, Pat, the mortar. They had never judged Sarah for her role in the breakup despite the scandal it had caused in their hometown.
Extra! Extra! Read—or, in this case, hear—all about it. Seventeen-year-old girl, forced by her parents to take a job as a camp counselor in an effort to squash her relationship with her semi-delinquent boyfriend, never returns. Why? Rumor has it she got knocked up by another guy.
Sarah had wanted to tell him the whole ugly story when they were just friends, but he’d declined her offer, thinking they should forgive each other and move on.
Yes, Seth had needed forgiveness too, for cheating on Sarah. Right or wrong, he put an asterisk on his infidelity with a lady of the evening. His reason? He’d thought Sarah had cheated on him. Only she hadn’t; Seth had jumped to the wrong conclusion based on pictures of Sarah with a guy at camp. He knew better now; the guy had been a friend…a gay friend.
Unlike Seth, Sarah knew he had cheated; she’d caught him in the act. That’s why she had never come home, not an unwanted pregnancy. That had happened after she’d left camp, or at least Seth surmised as much.
Seeing Sarah’s pain at knowing the details of his cheating, Seth had decided he’d rather live in blissful ignorance. Keep the past in the past, move forward, and live happily ever after with the only girl who had ever made him happy.
He wished other people felt the same way. His brother Derrick and Sarah’s sister Molly were their main detractors. Molly, who thrived on melodrama, claimed to have endured the burden of shame in Sarah’s place. Derrick held his anger—for anyone who wronged him or anyone he cared for—in a vise whose lever had rusted, rendering it immobile.
There were other naysayers too, though not as verbal as Molly and Derrick. Seth’s best friend, Johnny, for one. He knew Seth had cheated—he had been with him that night—and had never thought Seth was good enough for Sarah. Sarah’s parents stood in line right behind Johnny. Like Johnny, Mr. and Mrs. Matthews thought their straight-A daughter could do better than the boy who had barely passed.<
br />
Seth couldn’t dispute their reasoning, but that hadn’t stopped him—then or now. He loved Sarah and wanted her in his life, and he had settled for friendship when she’d moved to LA, where everyone except Mom and Keith had transplanted themselves after Seth had been “discovered” by a talent agent.
That is until he couldn’t suppress his love for her anymore and had asked for her heart again, just a little over a week ago. And she had given it to him.
Thank God.
Thus he left Derrick and Pat’s house after the clock struck twelve to prepare a celebration with the woman who gave his life meaning.
Sarah came in after three thirty, having worked as a server for her employer, Bon Appétit, at a New Year’s gala. She tore her coat off, dropped her purse on the table, and fell into his arms. “I’ve thought of this all night long,” she said.
“Me too. It’s nice not having to hide anymore with you. Last week, I wouldn’t have been able to…” He tangled his hands in her hair and kissed her passionately. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” She glanced around the room. “What’s this?”
Seth stepped back to let her take in the room. He’d lit the Christmas tree, which still smelled of evergreen, and every candle he could find. Nat King Cole’s “Unforgettable” played in the background, and the television, though muted, showed Times Square with the mirrored ball hovering, high above the raucous crowd, ready to fall.
“Our New Year’s Eve celebration.” He reached for a bottle of champagne nestled in an ice bucket on the table. “A toast. To second chances.”
“Second chances.” Sarah took a sip from her glass and giggled. “The champagne tickles my nose.” She motioned to the television. “Is that Times Square with the ball ready to drop?”
“Yes, it is. I taped it.”
“You’re incredible.”
“You haven’t seen anything yet. Can I have this dance?”
Her eyes answered him.
It took all his resolve not to pick Sarah up and carry her to the bedroom. Her long auburn hair, luscious lips, and blue eyes sent him spiraling into a lust-filled vertigo he never wanted to recover from.
He intended to elicit the same feeling in Sarah by twirling her around and bringing her back to his lusty embrace and eager lips. With each spin, her eyes met his, sparkling with such excitement he knew he had succeeded.
Lost in the moment, he almost forgot about the ball dropping but, thankfully, caught a glimpse of it, out of the corner of his eye, in time.
“Happy New Year.”
“Seth, I love you.”
“I love you too. Can I stay the night?”
The sparkle died. “I guess it would be okay.”
Seth understood her hesitancy. The subject of making love hadn’t come up. He had only declared his intentions a little over a week ago, so he and Sarah hadn’t spent much time together. He had returned to New York to continue shooting his movie but had been lucky enough to come home for New Year’s Eve only to fly back tomorrow, or rather today.
“You’ve had a busy day and need sleep,” he said to dispel her anxiety.
It worked. Sarah rested her head against his chest. “I would love to sleep in your arms all night long.”
That settled that. No sex tonight. Seth picked Sarah up and carried her to the bedroom…to sleep.
SARAH
Sarah fluctuated between exhaustion and exhilaration. It had been a long night, a long week, in fact. So much had happened, and quickly.
“What are you smiling about?”
“You, in those pajamas. I remember the first night I saw you in them.” Seth held out his hand. She took it and joined him on the side of the bed. “Any hopes you had of discouraging me that night were unsuccessful.”
“Thank goodness.”
“And here we are.” He ran his hand down her back.
She stiffened. The book on their previous relationship wasn’t quite shut, and its ending was ambiguous, to say the least. A chapter was missing, at least for Seth—only he didn’t know it because he had refused Sarah’s offer to tell him the whole story. Now she struggled with leaving that in the past or coming clean. Seth thought they had forgiven each other for their past transgressions. How would he react to the truth that he alone was the guilty party, that her pregnancy was a lie and, especially, that she was still a virgin?
“Sarah, I’m going to get ready for bed, and then I hope we can talk.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. “That sounds good to me.”
Seth came back wearing pajama bottoms but no shirt and slid into bed. “This is nice.” He pulled her to him with a lusty kiss.
“I thought we were going to talk?”
“We will,” he promised yet continued to kiss her.
To her surprise, Seth didn’t lose control. A wave of disappointment rushed over her. While she was afraid to be intimate with him, she did want him to desire her. He seemed cautious, as if trying to read her mind. It was obvious they were both figuring things out. They definitely needed to talk.
Seth moaned. “Sarah.”
That’s better.
Seth shifted his body so they lay side by side. “I’m not sure what your expectations are. This is new for us. I haven’t been in a serious relationship since we were together the last time.”
“That can’t be. Abby and I called you in New York. Adriane answered the phone and said you were in the shower.”
“I was on set, filming a shower scene. Adriane answered my phone. Believe me, I talked to her about that. After you and I broke up, I sort of closed myself off to the thought of a relationship with anyone.”
“But you didn’t stop having sex?”
Seth looked at the floor and mumbled, “No. That’s why we need to talk. I want you, you have to know that. I don’t know how fast…what you’re comfortable with.” He laughed nervously. “This is hard. Help me out here.”
“I’m not the type of girl who hops into bed with someone. I have to be in love. I do love you, but I need time. We need time.”
“Look, I’m going to leave this decision up to you. I’m ready, whenever you are. Are you comfortable with that?”
“Yes, but I want you to promise if you decide this isn’t working out, you’ll tell me so I don’t hear it on an entertainment show or in the tabloids.”
“I promise.”
“I promise the same.” She kissed him on the lips as if to seal it. “Anything else?”
“Yes. When are we going to tell everyone?”
“Never.”
Seth grumbled.
Sarah thought for a minute. “How does three months sound?”
“That’s too long.”
“I know, but you’re going back to New York, and Abby and I have that trip to Cancun.”
Another grumble. “I don’t like keeping secrets. I hoped we would’ve gotten past all that, that we’d learned from our mistakes.”
Sarah shuddered, thinking again of the secret she kept. “I want to give us a chance before we let the world in. What if this doesn’t work out? Why get everyone in an uproar for nothing, and it’s not like they’re going to be happy for us.”
“This is going to work out. I want to be able to take you out. How are we going to deal with seeing each other in front of our families and friends?”
“I have no idea. All I know is I’m not ready to tell them.”
“Okay, three months,” he conceded with a weak smile.
That must have been enough for Seth because he returned to his original position on top of her and planted kisses along her collarbone and up her neck, nibbled at her chin, and crushed his lips against hers. They couldn’t contain their hands, fondling and caressing each other into a state of lusty insanity that left them frustrated and exhausted.
“Maybe three months is too long,” Sarah said.
“I’ll take that as a compliment, but would rather hear you say that when we’re not so crazy with passion.”
“And when will that be?”
“Never, I hope. As much as I want you right now, we only have hours until I have to leave, and I want more time than that with you, both during and after.”
“A bath…” she whispered, remembering the plans they had made so long ago.
Seth smiled. “With bubbles.”
“And candles.”
“Of course, but not tonight.”
“No, not tonight, but I can fall asleep in your arms.”
He pulled her closer to him and ran his hand along her arm. “All night long.”
“Actually, a couple of hours.” She snuggled more deeply against him and fell asleep to the steady beat of his heart.
Sarah woke to hear the shower running and see the other side of her bed empty. The bathroom door stood cracked open, and she fought the urge to take a peek.
Seth will be leaving soon, and you don’t need to see what you’ll be missing and Adriane Malone will be seeing every day. Remember, he chose you.
Seth came out of the bathroom fully dressed. The longing for him had already begun, and he hadn’t left yet.
Sarah pulled him to her with a desperate kiss. “I’m going to miss you.”
“Me too.” He fell into bed and returned her kisses with the same fervor. “I wish you’d come with me. You are on winter break.”
“You know I have to work.”
“Life doesn’t have to be difficult for you anymore.”
Sarah scowled at his desire to give her things. She wanted her life to remain the same, just with him in it.
Seth scowled right back at her, but relented. “We’ll talk about this another time. Right now, I want to show you how much I’m going to miss you.” He did and almost missed his flight.
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Then & Now Page 33
