“I don’t see how that’s remotely your business,” Sabrina replied, feeling rankled. The balls of the man.
“Well, you seem to speak from experience,” Gage went on mildly. “I’m just questioning the extent of it.”
“If you had been married—” she began, then looked at him suspiciously. “Have you?”
“Nope. I’m going to take my own sweet time finding Mrs. Fitzgerald, and when I ask her to marry me, damn straight I’m gonna mean it.” He plucked a long blade of St. Augustine from the ground and carefully folded it down the midrib. “I only plan on getting married once.”
“Of course you do.” Sabrina graced him with a sweetly condescending smile. “Well, if you had been married, you’d understand that it changes everything. All the intolerable things about her that used to be protected by the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ courtship policy? The differences you can’t reconcile? They’ll come straight to the surface, right away.”
He just smiled as she reached for the port bottle.
“It’s true,” she added for emphasis and then hiccupped again.
“It’s bullshit,” Gage said bluntly. He took the heavy bottle from her and poured more port into her glass. “Most people claiming ‘irreconcilable differences’ jumped into a bullpen in the first place; they just don’t want to admit it. Look at Molly and Sebastian. It only took them a few weeks to figure it out.”
“They’re outliers. They’re simpatico.” Sabrina didn’t need to elaborate. Molly had multiple sclerosis, and Sebastian had lost a leg as a teen. “For the rest of us, marriage is an uncalculated risk, sort of like bungee jumping.”
She’d leave it at that. Gage didn’t need to know that as soon as she said yes to Jackson’s proposal, she had felt a sense of doom. Then she’d have to go on to explain the factors that had driven her to do it in the first place. Like the social anomie she felt when she saw her name listed as the only “Ms.” among rows of “Mrs.” in her alumni roster. And the prospect of entering her retirement years alone having cultivated bizarre hobbies like breeding Labradoodles and scouring vintage stores for memento mori. The fear of growing old alone stole into her soul during nights when she couldn’t fall asleep because she’d drunk too much coffee. No, those confessions would eventually lead to the pertinent details of that whole “irreconcilable” bit. You’re a thirty-six-year-old woman with daddy issues, Jackson had wearily but succinctly summarized right before they departed the Polar Star and went their separate ways.
“I’ve noticed something about you.” Gage studied her with genuine interest. “You have a circuitous response for everything. You’re in law, sales or politics.”
“I’m Representative Theodore Ward’s Chief of Staff.” Even after ten years in the game, Sabrina still felt a little proud of the title.
“Figures.” Gage had made himself right at home on a small hillock of rolling lawn, leaning against it with the back of his head resting in his hands as though it were his own personal lounge chair. He slid Sabrina a placid smile. “You know what I think? I think that if you were really itching to marry this guy, you wouldn’t have sat on your ass for five years. That might be the way you do it in Debutante and Dance Card Land, but where I’m from, us menfolk pick the hottest girl we can find, get her knocked up in the backseat of a car, get hitched, and live something-ever-after.”
“That is so … lovely. Really.” Sabrina tossed him a disparaging look. “And where might this place be, so I can make sure to cross it off my list of potential sabbaticals?”
“Walden, Iowa. It’s a little ’burb outside of Des Moines. Sneeze and you miss it.”
The Midwest. That explained why she couldn’t place his accent. She tried to conjure up various associations to that particular geographical area. Cornfields, potatoes and cheese came to mind. Or was that Idaho? Wisconsin? Aside from the Iowa Caucus, she associated the state with nothing except news anchors.
Gage sat up and reached for his glass. She watched the muscles in his strong throat move as he drained the rest of his port.
“There’s a simple way to know if you want to spend the rest of your life with someone,” he told her. There it was again — that sly, sidelong glance.
“Is this my cue to say ‘Oh, please, Gage. Tell me how’?”
“Only if you’re curious.”
Sabrina rolled her eyes at the sky. “Okay. Tell me how.”
“I can’t.” He stared down at his knuckles, feigning chasteness. “I’d have to demonstrate.”
“Knock yourself out. Demonstrate away.” Now the port was talking.
“Glad you oblige,” he murmured, stabilizing his glass between the St. Augustine’s thick roots. Then, leaning in slowly, he ran the tip of his forefinger down the side of her face, tracing the curve of her cheek. The mischievous look in his eyes was gone. He was studying her somberly as though he were an artist contemplating which brushstroke to make. She didn’t know if it was genuine or just a part of the act.
Wait.
Surely he wasn’t going to kiss her.
They were complete strangers.
Well, almost strangers, she reasoned. He moved in closer. His lips were a scant distance from hers, not touching, but close enough for her to feel their heat. Her throat went dry at the first feather-light contact. His lower lip barely grazed hers, then again and again before he paused. From an alcohol-stupefied distance, she heard her breath coming out in shuddering gasps.
Every second seemed to stretch into five. His lips slowly descended on hers as though acclimating her palate to their taste and texture before the kiss truly began. He kissed her slowly, leisurely and deeply, twining her tongue around his with a skill and grace she never thought possible. It was a sweet kiss, a fresh kiss. Like biting into a sun-warmed plum plucked straight from the tree.
A warm, melting sensation coursed down Sabrina’s spine.
His chest moved flush against hers, and he massaged the back of her neck with the ball of his hand as he lowered her down until the back of her head landed against the cool earth. It was, she realized, the perfect first kiss she’d always dreamed of from the time she was a teen, when her hopes had been dashed by a dry-lipped, Skoal-dipping prom date.
No man had ever kissed her like this before — none.
Gage wrapped things up the same way he’d started. Instead of abruptly severing their connection, the kiss gradually became less intense, shallower, until he was once again brushing her lips with his own, touching the tender vermilion of her cupid’s bow with the tip of his tongue before nudging her nose lightly with his own.
She lifted her heavy eyelids. She was still on sensory overload. He lay directly over her, the weight of his torso propped up by two strong arms. A stray lock of hair tumbled over one of his eyes. In the twilight, his face was sculpted and still.
“What exactly did I just learn?” Her voice was low and husky.
“That there are people you want to keep kissing and people you don’t.” She felt his breath, hot against her mouth.
“So you think it’s that simple.”
“I do,” he breathed.
He was so close she could detect the unique smell of his skin — wood, salt and white soap — and feel the contour of lean muscle pressed against her. The situation could easily go rogue. He may have been one of the world’s best kissers; however, all over the planet, at countless wedding receptions, possibly at this very moment in time, single, opportunistic men were likely in no short supply, prowling around punch bowls and cake tables, lying in wait for women just like herself.
“So, what d’you think?” he asked.
“More, please.” She sighed in supplication.
Gage’s throat rumbled with low laughter, and then he dipped his head to hers again. One kiss bled into another as the sky turned to indigo and a full moon bloomed on the horizon. Each kiss had a different mood and color, sensual cherry-red; languid blue; and hot, passionate white, the last of which made her instinctively bury her hands in
his hair.
When his lips traveled to her collarbone, she became keenly aware of the nagging void between her legs. How much of her attraction was fueled by the alcohol and how much was pure animal desire was a matter of conjecture. But it was only one night. They were only kissing. After tonight, she’d never see the groomsman from Iowa again.
“Lilies and incense,” he muttered against the pulse point in her neck. “God, you smell incredible.”
“It’s my perfume,” Sabrina explained. “Passage d’Enfer.”
“Is that French for ‘a merry stroll through hell’?”
She giggled at the smile in his voice.
“See?” Gage asked as he nuzzled the small, sensitive cove under her earlobe. “Demonstration has its merits.”
“Mmm. I could do this all night long.” The port was speaking again. This man, with his flame-colored hair, body ink, and gritty sense of humor, was irreverently and cut-to-the-chase hot. The kind of man who’d probably still have sex in the back of a car, given the opportunity. And at a lot of weddings.
Most likely whenever and wherever he wanted.
Not her type at all …
Her practical side rapped the gavel sharply, and she struggled to a sitting position. Making out with a stranger. Who did that, anyway? Certainly not her.
“First base is as far as you get,” she warned him. “Plan on kicking a lot of dirt, Fitzgerald.”
Might as well get it out in the open now.
He chuckled. “‘First base?’ I don’t think I’ve heard that term since high school. Thinking of the good old days?”
“Hardly good.” Gage didn’t need to know that she’d spent those years securing her position as class valedictorian because a merit scholarship was the only way she could afford college. No, heavy petting had been Molly’s forte, not Sabrina’s.
“I think I’ve had too much port.” She ran her fingers through her bangs. The scenery had gone pleasantly soft-focus.
“You look cold.” He draped his tuxedo jacket over her shoulders and pulled the lapels together tightly. She could smell the fresh green scent of his shampoo on the collar of his jacket, highly seductive because it made such a personal statement about its wearer. She might end up alone. But she wouldn’t scratch the occasional foray into passion off the list. Years from now when she sorted through her life’s memories, tonight would be one of the more exotic highlights.
This would be the night she kissed a stranger under a full moon.
Boldly wrapping her fingers around the ends of his bowtie, she pulled him closer and lightly nipped at his mouth.
He grinned. “All night long, huh?”
**
Sabrina awoke abruptly to the sound of a distant lawn mower and the realization that she was being spooned.
Gage was curled around her protectively from behind. The parts of her that weren’t enveloped by his large body were chilled to the bone.
She cautiously opened her eyes to an uninspiring view of empty port bottles lolling on the grass. She shrugged one of his arms aside, careful not to wake him, to rub away the sleep and clots of mascara from her eyes. One grizzled claw stepped into her line of vision. Then another. The peacock surveyed her cryptically for a few moments, jerkily tilting its head from side to side. Then with a thin, focused cry that could etch glass, it unfurled its train and cupped it into an impressive concave bow of shivering blue, gold, and emerald eyes.
“Wrong species, buddy,” she muttered, wriggling out from under Gage’s weight. Startled by the movement, the peacock packed away its tail feathers and scuttled off. The sound of the lawn mower grew closer. She pulled herself to a seated position and waited for the wooziness to hit.
She glanced down at the sleeping man on the ground beside her. He had to be a heavy sleeper if he didn’t wake up in this din. In the morning sun, his skin looked even paler and his freckles more pronounced. Memories of the night before came back to her in random order. Not just the kissing and heavy petting, but the lulls, punctuated by idle conversation.
Gage had regaled her with stories of rooming with the much-younger Sebastian in college. She knew he’d graduated with a degree in radio-television-film and considered himself a true independent. She couldn’t remember exactly what she’d told him about herself. Somehow, Theo’s biodegradable coffee cups had come up, which led to her telling him about the legislator’s eco-friendly platform.
After that, the conversation grew hazy.
Then they’d shut up and kissed some more, only his hands became more adventurous, boldly exploring the contours of her hips, thighs and breasts. He hadn’t taken it any farther, though; exhausted by the port, they’d both drifted into oblivion.
Sabrina didn’t know what was apropos now. Should she wake him? Suggest grabbing breakfast tacos at a downtown diner with the freshly bedded, hungover twenty- and thirty-something hipster set? No, she decided firmly. That might suggest that she was up for more serious high jinks. Having a one-night stand with any friend of her best friend’s husband was particularly verboten.
That would only create complications.
The dull throb in her temples heralded the arrival of a hangover. Her mouth tasted like the bottom of a hamster’s cage. She wistfully thought of her queen-sized bed, with its chocolate-colored silk coverlet and piles of down pillows. But tomorrow was her first day back at the Capitol, and life’s administrative minutiae had to be dealt with before legislative session ground into slow gear. There were bills to pay, dry cleaning to pick up, and coffee beans to grind.
Wedding presents that she still needed to pack up and return.
She consulted her cell phone. It was almost eight-thirty. Good. She was still ahead of the day.
She slid off the tux jacket and carefully placed it over Gage’s shoulders. Then she searched the grounds for her sandals, which she finally located under a sprinkler head. Avoiding the curious gaze of a trio of groundskeepers, she pulled up the dew-drenched hem of her dress and scurried across the lawn to the parking lot in bare feet.
Two cars remained, one of which was her Audi coupe. Four years into their courtship, Jackson had titled her his old car — if a luxury vehicle with less than twenty thousand miles on it could be considered expendable — replacing her ancient Volkswagen Jetta, held together by crossed fingers and a mystery wire. Her ex-fiancé was one of few people in a rising economic class who could afford to make such grand gestures.
The other car was a red Pontiac GTO convertible, circa early 1970s. It appeared to have the original paint job. The car was well maintained, but not fastidiously so. Sabrina had noticed that the amount of attention men gave to their vehicles was almost always inversely proportionate to their bedroom skills.
Which explained a lot about both her sex life and Gage Fitzgerald’s.
Once safely inside her Audi, she started the engine and cranked the heater to full blast. So there it was. In a nutshell: She, maid of honor, had gotten drunk at a wedding reception and made out with the best man, an auburn-headed Iowan who drove a vintage babe magnet, almost going to second base — but not quite. She thought of her hand tentatively snaking down his thigh, circling the pronounced bulge in his trousers.
It didn’t matter that her hangover was from vintage port rather than cheap wine coolers or that she’d picked her way over peacock droppings instead of ashtrays. Skulking away from the scene of passion was reserved for moody teenagers and first-year college students.
It was entirely and unutterably cliché.
And now that Molly’s un-wedding was over, there was little chance she’d see Gage again.
CHAPTER THREE
In spite of Sabrina’s well-laid plans to get her personal life in order, the weekend ended all too soon without yielding fruitful results. All she’d accomplished after she’d straggled home on Sunday was a call to a downtown Chinese delivery joint, a John Hughes movie marathon and a blackout nap on the couch.
Now it was the beginning of a brand new week.
&n
bsp; She pushed through the hangers in her closet, which boasted a selection of clothing in sedate shades of gray, charcoal, brown and black appropriate for women in her profession. None of her shirts displayed cleavage, nor were any of the dresses and skirts cut above the knee. The colors in her wardrobe were lackluster, but everything was stylish, expensive and dry-clean only. Finally, she pulled out a charcoal skirt and jacket and a matching pair of high pumps. Her butterfly build and less than imposing height put her at an automatic disadvantage. She relied on wardrobe and attitude to command the respect of everyone she dealt with under the Dome.
She frantically searched around for the white silk shirt she typically paired with the suit and eventually found it crumpled under the hamper. She hastily stuck it on a hanger and hung it on the shower rail. While the steam from the hot spray smoothed out the wrinkles, she peered into the bathroom mirror and examined the fret lines on her brow. This morning, they looked even deeper — probably due to inadequate hydration after all that drink. As she rubbed pineapple-papaya scrub into her ravaged complexion, she noticed that the tender area around her mouth was still chafed from Gage’s ministrations. She recalled the lushness of his lips and the way his mouth tasted of oak, salt and port and felt an inexplicable longing. If sex were a meal and his kisses appetizers, she couldn’t imagine what the main course would be like.
Okay, she could.
But she wasn’t going to.
I don’t dare …
There was something about Gage Fitzgerald. A dangerous kind of something that made her skin tingle at the thought of how his broad shoulders filled out his tuxedo jacket. Or the way his large hand steadied the small of her back as they kissed.
The raw attraction between them had been off the charts.
He had probably been on a plane back to Iowa the day before when she was nursing her hangover with a hot cup of tea. Today, he was likely busy … well, doing whatever heavy lifting he did to stay so naturally buff, having forgotten her completely.
She had to focus on her job as Theo’s second in command.
Something About You (Just Me & You) Page 3
