Crush on You

by Christie Ridgway

  Sighing, he kept his gaze on Alessandra’s retreating figure and threaded through the partygoers, brushing past them until a hand caught his sleeve.

  “Penn Bennett!” a man said. “Small state and all that. Though ever since Coppola arrived, there’s been plenty of entertainment industry types enjoying the fruits of the vine up here.”

  Penn blinked, trying to place the face of the one who’d halted his progress. “Rocky Reed.” He was a game-show host, a DJ, and a notorious collector of Hollywood gossip, the juiciest of which he shared with listeners on his syndicated and very popular Top 40 radio show.

  Short, blond, and fox-featured, he was practically licking his lips as he looked up at Penn. This wasn’t good. Did Rocky have something on him? Little asshole.

  “Have a drink with me,” the other man said, tightening his hold on Penn’s arm.

  He shook Rocky off. “Busy,” he said shortly, already striding away. “I’m after someone else.”

  The someone he’d explicitly vowed not to pursue, Penn remembered with a belated sigh. But there she was, standing near the creek bed, one slender, golden shoulder propped against the trunk of an oak, her head bent over the missive from beyond the grave.

  Christ on a crutch, as Stevie would say. His feet came to a stop as he realized he didn’t know what he could do for Alessandra, either. Maybe he should back away, even go have that requested drink with Rocky Reed. This was not Penn’s problem, and he’d had his one disaster with a problematic woman.

  He was commanding his feet to retreat when suddenly Alessandra looked up and he blinked in surprise at her expression. What had he expected? Tears, he supposed. But her face was flushed, not tear-stained. There was a bright, almost manic light in her eyes. Even from eight feet away he could see the slight tremble in her limbs.

  “You,” she said, her voice husky. “It’s you.”

  Then she was rushing toward Penn. Without even thinking, he opened wide his arms—who wouldn’t, knowing about that letter?—but when she came up against him, the comfort-hug he expected to provide didn’t happen. Looking into his eyes, she rose to her tiptoes and then was kissing him.

  With hot, demanding desire.

  Jesus. He went hard quicker than she could thrust her tongue into his mouth and if there was desolation in the kiss he didn’t taste it. He just tasted Alessandra, sweet and juicy and fresh, like an unfamiliar fruit from a just-discovered land.

  At some Beverly Hills party, a drunk model/reality star/ celebrity stylist had tried explaining to him the basis of physical attraction. Had she claimed pheromones? Or was it facial symmetry?

  He couldn’t remember. It didn’t matter.

  Though at some level he knew this was wrong, that surely it was a big mistake, those concerns were swamped by sensation: the softness of Alessandra’s lips, the heady flavor he found between them, the strength of her arms as she clung to his body and sucked on his tongue.

  She broke the kiss before he was near done. They stared at each other, chests heaving. His hands cupped her ass; hers were tangled in the hair at the back of his neck. He watched her open her mouth. This was it, he thought. They’d shared the kiss that had been in the air between them since they’d met. Now she’d kick him to the curb and he’d be glad for it.

  “Penn Bennett,” she said, her voice low but fierce. “I want to have an affair.”

  6

  Gil Marino figured there was nothing fashionable about his lateness as he strolled into the Knowles’s backyard. The air was already filled with the scent of grilled chicken and juicy bratwursts and the laughter was at the beer-and-wine-have-been-flowing-freely pitch. Maybe that was better. Clare would be peeved by his tardiness, setting the mood for the news he had to impart. No Man of Honor gig for Gil, no how.

  At six foot five, he had a clear view of the guests. His gaze skipped around the crowd. There were few faces he didn’t recognize. Most were old-time Edenvillians and included Stevie Baci, who was his cousin on her mother’s side. Wearing a frown, she was staring off toward the creek, but Gil couldn’t see what had snagged her attention in the midst of the close-growing oaks.

  A soft laugh to his right had his feet moving in that direction. He’d know the sound anywhere. A knot of people shifted and Gil’s feet stuttered to a halt. Clare was there, all right, but he wasn’t accustomed to seeing so much of her.

  The teeny tiny dress she wore was sleeveless and strapless, the material wrapping her breasts and then falling in soft gathers that ended in a poufy hem at mid-thigh. Her peach skin—so much peach skin—glowed against the whipped-cream color of the dress.

  She looked delicious.

  She looked like a bride. Which made sense, since she was engaged to be married.

  He allowed himself fifteen more seconds to take in the sight and take in the pain, and then he forced his feet to move forward again. The sooner he told her he wouldn’t be holding her bouquet as another man slipped his ring on her finger, the sooner he could leave the party and find some way to nurse the wound.

  Four feet from his goal, a hand snagged his elbow with enough force to halt his forward progress. He glanced back and had to stifle a groan. Sally Knowles, never happy to see him.

  “Gil! What a surprise.”

  Oh, hell. If he was seeking a reason to disappoint Clare, he had it now. She’d invited him to the barbecue without letting her mother know to expect him.

  He grimaced, but decided to forgo any explanation. Sally would only assume it was an excuse. “Still crashing your parties, Mrs. Knowles.”

  How many times had he sensed just such a sentiment from her? Even when he had an invitation in hand—whether it was Barbie-embellished on Clare’s sixth birthday or tiaras all the time on her sixteenth—Sally managed to make him feel like the help sneaking in the front door.

  “I suppose my daughter will be happy to see you,” she said, the essence of graciousness.

  Not after what I have to say. He heard Clare laugh again, and his gaze was drawn her way once more. She tucked her straight, feathery hair behind her ears and he saw that she was wearing dime-sized mother-of-pearl earrings shaped like flowers, small garnets at their centers. He’d bought the pair for her two Christmases ago, before . . . better not to think of that.

  She brushed at her hair again, and the diamond on her left hand caught the light. So. Jordan Wilson’s ring on Clare’s finger, Gil’s jewelry in her ears.

  Better not to think of that, either.

  Squaring his shoulders, he started toward her once more, but Sally’s grip on his arm tightened. “Where are you going?” she asked.

  Suspicion dug a line between her arched eyebrows. Crap. The last thing he wanted was anyone guessing . . . that thing he didn’t want anyone to guess. So he gave a casual shrug. “I was going to say hi to Clare, but is there something I can do for you?”

  Her hand relaxed on his arm. “Actually, there is. I need to move some cases of wine and beer from the kitchen to replenish the coolers out here.”

  “No problem.” He didn’t bother pointing out that if his brawn was good enough for the bride’s mother, the rest of him should be, too. What did it matter? Sally Knowles had never managed to prevent his friendship with Clare and anything else was out of the question anyway.

  It didn’t take long to restock the ice-filled beverage tubs. Snagging a beer for himself, he popped off the top and then fumbled the metal cap. It hit the ground and he bent to retrieve it, giving him the perfect view of a pair of slender legs on the approach.

  Bow-topped white pumps, trim ankles, smooth calves. Right knee marred by a dark, shiny scar the size of a silver dollar. He stayed where he was. “You never could learn to stop on second base.”

  “I thought you were telling me to keep running,” Clare said.

  “I was, until I told you to stop running. And even then I didn’t say ‘Hit the deck and grind to a halt using your palms, knees, and elbows.’ ”

  “Don’t remind me,” she groused. “And I have
n’t forgotten how you promised that the hydrogen peroxide wouldn’t sting a bit.”

  Grinning, Gil straightened. They’d both been members of a coed softball team until they’d reached the mutual agreement that Clare didn’t have any skin left to lose. When it came to sports, she’d always had more determination than talent. Thanks to him, she was hardly ever picked last for a team—as the usual captain he’d sneak her into round six or seven—but she’d never been any good at anything athletic, even Steal the Bacon on rainy days in second grade.

  That thought had his smile widening, as he pictured seven-year-old Clare with her missing teeth and scrawny body—the little girl who aced the spelling tests but ran from spiders. With that image in his head, he reconsidered his decision. He’d known her forever and she didn’t ask that much of him. Would Man of Honor really be so bad?

  Then twenty-nine-year-old Clare stepped closer to him. “You’re laughing at me.”

  “Well . . .” Still thinking of her crappy batting average and her Pippi Longstocking looks put a snicker in his voice. He cut a glance at her, and his smile died. No missing teeth. No scrawny body. This was his Clare, his best friend, in her grown-up guise. Straight shiny hair, peachy skin, actual breasts.

  Breasts! God, Clare wasn’t supposed to have breasts. Or at least he shouldn’t notice if she did, not any of her curves. But there were those three nights . . .

  Shoving the memory from his head, he looked away and took a breath. Her perfume entered his lungs, and that was bad, too. It wasn’t the bubble gum and strawberry lip gloss smell he’d identified with her for so long. This was sophisticated, adult. Womanly. Sexy.

  Oh, shit.

  He had to tell her, and he had to tell her fast. By refusing to be her Man of Honor, he’d anger her for a while, even hurt her maybe, but those feelings wouldn’t last and they’d be better than the alternative.

  “Look, Clare—”

  “There’s my girl,” a voice interrupted.

  All Gil’s muscles tightened as his best friend’s fiancé, Jordan Wilson, joined them. Brown-haired, blue-eyed, the other man always reminded Gil of the bus stop bench on the corner of Main and Fourth. That was because the bench’s back was a full-face photo of some realtor type with too-perfect hair and a too-friendly smile that looked just like Jordan’s. Oh, and because the bench was stiff, like Jordan, too.

  And because Gil always had the urge to sit on him.

  The kiss Jordan placed on his bride-to-be’s cheek was perfunctory. “Hey, don’t you look pretty.”

  She looked effing beautiful.

  As if he heard the comment out loud, Jordan turned a sharp eye on Gil. “Marino,” he said, holding out his hand.

  By unspoken agreement, the shake was also perfunctory.

  Clare looped her arm through Jordan’s. “Did you get held up? You promised to be here early.”

  “Did I?”

  Gil took a long drink of his beer, trying to cool a new flare of annoyance. Didn’t the guy know that Clare got nervous around big crowds? He pictured that Sweet Sixteen birthday bash her parents had thrown for her at the Valley Ridge Resort. She’d worn a pink dress that day, with matching pink pumps and lipstick the same candy color. As she waited in an anteroom, one of her trembling hands had been pressed against her stomach and the other had clutched Gil’s in an icy grip.

  Her mother, whose dislike had been at its height when he was a lanky, long-haired teenager, had been persuaded by her daughter’s stark shyness into letting Gil walk her onto the dance floor when she was “presented” to the crowd of party-goers. He’d held her fingers in a warm clasp and willed confidence to run between them like a blood transfusion.

  It occurred to him that her wedding day was going to be ten times worse.

  Now Clare seemed comfortable, though, comfortable enough to send both men a smile. “Jordan, maybe you can persuade Gil to promise to be part of the wedding party. He’s yet to agree to be the Man of Honor.”

  “Oh, come on,” her fiancé replied, his voice impatient. “Why don’t you cut the man a break, Clare? Haven’t you outgrown your need for a bodyguard?”

  Her face fell for a moment, then she worked up that smile again. “What are you talking about?”

  “You know how people talk around Edenville,” he answered. “I heard all about you and your BFF.”

  Clare made a shooing gesture. “Everybody knows about Gil and me. We’ve been best buds since we were five. What’s there to talk about?”

  “That your friendship was amusing when he was the tough jock and you were the girl geek.”

  “Amusing?” she echoed faintly. Her cheeks flushed the pink of that Sweet Sixteen dress. “Girl geek?”

  Gil wanted to punch someone. Preferably Jordan. Maybe Gil had been the tough jock in high school. But Clare had never seen herself as a nerd, and whether his close friendship with her was the reason for it or not, no one had ever called her “girl geek” to her face.

  “But you’re out of the library now, sweetheart,” Jordan added. “And past your days as the secretary of the Stamp Collecting Club and treasurer of the Science Fiction Society.”

  Gil’s eyes narrowed. Someone had been spilling Edenville High trivia. “That was a long time ago, Wilson,” he said.

  “Exactly,” Jordan agreed. “So you don’t need him anymore,” he continued, addressing Clare.

  That did it. Gil stepped closer to the woman he couldn’t bear to lose—or let down. Damn it, as much as he knew Clare’s marriage would put a wedge between them, as much as he realized this step would be going against his own self-interest, he couldn’t stop himself from committing to a pledge he’d fully intended not to make.

  “She might not need me,” he said, his jaw tight, “but I’ll be privileged to be her Man of Honor, anyway.” If only to ensure Clare’s future husband knew that Gil would always and forever be watching her back.

  Alessandra had never known a man’s hands could burn. Penn’s were hot fire against her bottom, lifting her into the heavy erection she could feel prodding her stomach. The fire, the heaviness, both made her shiver.

  Staring at his mouth, she licked her bottom lip. “An affair with you, Penn,” she clarified, desperate for him to understand—or at least comply. “I want to have an affair with you.”

  His fingertips tightened on her flesh. She pushed to her toes to adjust their pelvis-to-pelvis fit. He let out a soft groan, his fingers flexing again. “You shouldn’t tell me that,” he said.

  “I’m asking you,” she whispered. Her tongue caressed the stubble on his chin, then she sucked his bottom lip into her mouth.

  Groaning again, he pulled away, staring down at her with glittering eyes, his chest moving quickly with labored breaths. She crowded closer, evaporating the two inches he’d tried to put between them.

  “Don’t,” he said through gritted teeth.

  But she knew he wanted her. She’d known it when he sent her away at the party—she didn’t mind admitting she’d been a little disappointed by that—and she knew it now. It was in the firm grip he had on her behind, in the tense set to his muscles, in the impressive bulge that was so deliciously good to rub herself against.

  She rotated her hips and he closed his eyes.

  “Alessandra,” he said in a warning tone. “I’m trying to find my conscience here.”

  “I don’t want a man with a conscience,” she countered. “You’re perfect because I suspect you don’t have any conscience whatsoever.”

  His eyes flashed open, their expression unreadable. Not . . . hurt?

  She tried to make him understand. “I mean that in only the best way possible, Penn. You’ll take what I’m offering, nothing more, nothing less.”

  “What you’re offering because of the letter.”

  My Darling Allie . . .

  She didn’t want to think about the letter! But panic struck as she realized she’d dropped it on her dash into Penn’s arms. Breaking away from him, she searched the area, then ran to pi
ck up the fallen page and envelope.

  My Darling Allie . . .

  Staring down at Tommy’s handwriting, she was hit by the familiar punch of dread, sadness, and longing. Sally and so many others thought Tommy’s posthumous letters the ultimate symbol of romance and Alessandra understood her fiancé’s intention had been to wrap her in love with them. Sweet Tommy. But . . .

  She looked away from his masculine scribble and met Penn’s gaze. Dread evaporated, sadness snapped, and a new sort of ache overtook her. Forget the past. She wanted this man’s hands on her again.

  Her feet stumbled toward Penn as she recalled his hot touch, his clever mouth, the pinch of his fingers on her nipple. He would take her away from the old memories and her now-urgent need for that had her eagerly, wantonly succumbing to their sexual attraction.

  She was still a foot away when he spoke. “Tell me about the letters,” Penn said.

  Her steps halted. She blinked at him, then down at the paper crinkled in her fist. “What?”

  “Tell me why they’re driving you to an affair with a man without a conscience. I think I have a right to know.”

  Her pulse was still thrumming and she couldn’t think beyond being in his arms again. “I—”

  “Tell me.”

  Fine, fine, she decided. If that’s what it took . . . “One was delivered on my first birthday without him,” she said quickly. “Another five years after his prom. Last December it was a letter he’d written on the Christmas before he died.”

  Penn’s gaze moved to the crumpled letter she held. “And that one?”

  She wanted to touch him so badly she took another step forward. “It’s the last, it says. Today is the tenth anniversary of our very first kiss.”

  Done. She rushed toward Penn.

  His hand stopped her again. “And?” he prompted.

  And . . . what? Did she have to really lay this out for him?