Falling out of love could happen quite naturally, he reasoned. Spontaneously. As it seemed to happen to everyone he knew. Whatever his pathetic intentions had been tonight, he hadn’t ended up declaring anything stupid. She didn’t know he was certifiably insane over her. To Lane, he was a bed partner and nothing more. He could bide his time and see if he would run true to Quinn form and just wake up one day not loving her any more. Like, five and a half weeks from now.
Not likely, but a guy could hope, right?
He started the engine. Yes, a guy could hope. He could even hope that Lane would realize she was making a mistake with David and that it was really him, Adam, she was in love with, but he couldn’t convince himself that hope was anything but forlorn. If she didn’t love him by now, she wasn’t going to spontaneously develop the feeling sometime in the next five and a half weeks. In which case, the sensible thing to do would be to stop seeing her. But he’d signed on the dotted line and that option was denied him. Anyway, he didn’t want to let her go. Not until he had to. It really was like he was addicted to her; he was so afraid of what would happen if—when—she was out of his life.
No, he couldn’t face cutting her out of his life yet … but maybe he could try distancing himself from her. Sort of wean himself off her. Maybe if he could do that, he’d hang on to a little of what was left of his heart at the end.
Now that was a ray of hope he could warm to. Enough that he could actually drive away from the house.
He would start by restricting their times together to the minimum twice a week. And he would concentrate on sex and sex alone, as per her original plan.
He sighed, thinking about that pitiful speech he’d made about commitment, about not sleeping with one man while you loved another. He was such a fraud. Because deep in his black heart, he didn’t want Lane to be faithful, if it was to someone else. If the only way for Adam to have her was for her to betray David, then he wanted her to betray David.
He checked the rear-view mirror before turning a corner. Caught sight of his ravaged face.
This was going to be an epic five and a half weeks.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Over the next two weeks, Lane and Adam saw each other four times. Each time, they made love as though all the demons of hell were after them, with Lane now the aggressor, urged on by Adam who reminded her that this was the way she’d wanted it. She dragged him to bed the moment he was in the door, threw herself at him, and kissed him as though she’d absorb him through her hungry mouth right into her soul.
But as their lovemaking grew more desperate, as Lane grew more desperate trying to make herself indispensable to Adam in the bedroom, she felt him withdrawing from her on every other level.
They just had sex and then he left.
Two days a week.
And for the other five days, Lane was lonely. And miserable. And confused.
***
Adam was so wretched after four bouts of sex-only sex, he wished he could ask Sarah for advice—but she was increasingly hard to pin down and less and less inclined to talk about Lane. He probably didn’t have the energy reserves required to pursue a deep and meaningful discussion with his sister anyway, so combined with a fear of what she might blab to their mother if he gave her too much raw material to play with, he decided her elusiveness was a blessing in disguise and soldiered on alone.
He longed for Lane to stop him in his aloof tracks and demand to have things back the way they’d been before the night he’d met David, when they’d actually dated and talked and laughed. At least then he might have a chance to make her feel something for the non-orgasmic parts of him. He could build on ‘something’. The way things were, he had nothing to build on except sex, which—damn, damn, damn—just keep getting better.
If it got much better, he may well have a heart attack. It was a miracle he hadn’t had one last week, when Lane had re-created a scenario she’d read about in one of Erica’s magazines. She’d tied him—hard—to a chair she’d dragged into her bedroom from the dining room, put on some throbbing music and proceeded to strip, slowly, until she was naked except for black stay-up stockings. Then came the lap dance—holy fucking hell! No touching, no letting him touch her.
When she’d finally backed up, settling onto his lap, and he’d sheathed himself gratefully inside her … Dear God, it was the hottest, hottest thing that had ever happened to him. And he feared he’d never recover. Wasn’t sure he wanted to.
He remembered thinking, the night they’d finally got to Lane’s ‘consummation’, that familiarity would breed contempt, as it always did in his divorce-laden family. What kind of fucking moron was he, anyway? Did he have any handle on reality, to believe that had ever been a possibility?
Their next date was on a Monday—three weeks to the day until the contract would lapse—and not only had familiarity not bred contempt, but every cell in his body was craving her.
It was time to panic. Time to go cold turkey. He had to prove to himself he could keep his hands off her, no matter the provocation. If he couldn’t do that, he might as well start looking into options for castration.
On Monday night, he wouldn’t touch her. Even if he had to take an axe to his own dick over the weekend to make sure of it.
***
Lane saw the jade apple in the antique store on her lunch break on the Monday and knew she had to buy it for Adam. An apple for the teacher—but one that would last for ever, which she hoped would show him how much she valued him, as well as being a reciprocal offering for the amber he’d bought her.
Buying the gift had been the only bright spot in an otherwise awful day.
The signs of impending awfulness had been there right from her first phone call of the day—to Sarah, to thank her for arranging for her to speak to Felix at the art gallery, which had led to Lane being selected for the Beijing conference.
She hadn’t spoken to Sarah since that evening, despite making several attempts, and it took some courage to call her at the office, but Lane felt it had to be done—partly for the sake of the thank-you, mostly because she missed her.
Normally, Sarah would have been bouncing with joy at such a call, ecstatic that her own scheme had come so brilliantly to fruition. Instead, Lane found her stiff and dismissive, and she could have sworn the meeting Sarah said she had to rush off to was nothing but a ruse to get off the phone. Sarah had even tossed out a sniping comment about whether Adam or David would be taking Lane to the airport when the time came to fly to Beijing, before abruptly disconnecting.
Lane had to surmise that not only would she not have Adam as a lover in three weeks’ time, but she wouldn’t have his sister as her friend either. Well, Sarah had warned her what usually happened when she introduced her friends to her brother! Not that that made Lane feel any more reconciled to the outcome.
She tried to distract herself by working on her presentation for the conference, but it was hard going. Her slides were a mess, and she couldn’t seem to concentrate on them for long enough to whip them into better shape.
By the time she got home, she was feeling very sorry for herself and longing for Adam.
Tonight, she decided, she would find a way to heal the fracture in their relationship. So she wrapped the present she’d bought him, made a lasagne that was reminiscent of their meal at Benedetto’s, and dressed in one of the shirts Adam had left hanging in her wardrobe.
Tonight would be perfect. She would make it perfect.
When Adam hadn’t arrived by eight o’clock, Lane felt less positive.
At nine o’clock, she threw out the lasagne, donned a dressing gown over the shirt, and gave herself a stern lecture on why naïve, love-starved, twenty-four-year-old economists shouldn’t even look at hot architects, let alone sign them up for sex lessons.
At nine forty-five, she only just restrained herself from throwing out the jade apple.
Her burst of righteous indignation lasted fifteen minutes, by which t
ime the prospect of Adam lying dead in a ditch had loomed out of nowhere to lodge in her brain.
Lane worried her hair into knots and paced the room. She couldn’t get the horrific mental picture out of her head. She had to hear Adam’s voice. Had to.
But what if he were fit and well, and just late? Would she seem like a pathetic, nagging wife? She could call Sarah instead … but that felt like being both a sneak and a nag. And Sarah didn’t want to talk to her anyway.
Lane had chewed three fingernails low enough to make the fingertips ache by the time she decided she really, really had to call him. But as she picked up her phone, she heard her front gate squeak.
The surge of relief almost overwhelmed her as she ran to the door, flung it open and flew down the path. ‘I’ve been worried sick,’ she said, wanting to grab Adam and hug him and beg him to never do that to her again.
But Adam didn’t stop long enough for her to touch him. He continued up the path, giving her an unconcerned smile. ‘Why?’
Lane hurried up the path beside him. ‘It’s late. I thought— I thought something had happened to you.’
Lane watched in confusion as he reached the doorway and glanced back at her. His face was blank. Uncaring. Even the smile had gone.
‘I got caught up,’ he said, ‘and since we never specified a time, I didn’t think it would matter when I arrived.’
Caught up with what? With whom? Lane desperately wanted to know, but she strangled the questions before they could rush past her lips. She wasn’t his wife. Wasn’t even his girlfriend. He hated commitment—she wouldn’t endear herself to him by acting like she owned him.
He checked his watch. ‘I’ve got to be somewhere at eleven-thirty, so we’d better hurry if we’re going to squeeze in your lesson.’
Adam stepped across the threshold and Lane caught his hand. ‘Adam, is something wrong?’
‘No.’
‘Because we could just talk tonight. We could …’ Lane’s words tapered into nothing as he liberated his hand from hers and checked his watch again.
He seemed not to have listened to her halting words, because he hurried into the bedroom as though she hadn’t spoken. ‘I’ve been on site today and I’m tired and sore as hell, so I’ve brought this—’ He handed her a small bottle. ‘It’s oil. I’d like you to give me a massage. Lesson Number— Look, let’s not number them any more, since we’re nearly done.’
Adam covered the bed with some towels and proceeded to undress.
‘I can do that,’ Lane said.
‘Faster if I do it,’ Adam said. When he was naked, he lay face down across the towels. ‘Now, pour a little oil into your hands and start running them over my back. I’ll tell you what feels good and what doesn’t.’
‘But I’m not trained.’
‘This is sensual massage, not remedial.’ His voice was muffled against the towels as he added, ‘And David won’t care, I promise you.’
Lane started shrugging out of her dressing gown, but Adam said, without lifting his head, ‘No need for you to undress.’
Something was wrong, very wrong. ‘I’m not. Just the robe.’ She finished removing it as panic trickled like ice through her veins. ‘I’m wearing a shirt. Your shirt. Because you said, you know, that women in men’s clothing … Lesson Seven …’
When Adam didn’t even bother opening his eyes to see, she trailed off.
Massage. All he wanted was a massage.
She poured some oil into her palms to warm it, then ran her hands over Adam’s broad, bronzed back.
Gradually, as she worked her hands over his skin, sliding them across his shoulders, down his sides, to his buttocks and down his legs, the lump that had lodged in her throat ceased to matter. Time became meaningless as she revelled in the feel of Adam’s flesh, in the sound of his quickened breaths—which meant, she was sure, she was doing well.
She leaned close to his ear. ‘Turn over,’ she said, and Adam—after a brief pause—obeyed.
Her hungry gaze travelled down his body then back up to his face, catching a look of such intense longing in his eyes she wanted to climb on top of him and kiss him. But the next instant—contradicting what she was sure she’d seen—he looked pointedly at the watch he’d kept strapped to his wrist.
‘All right, I’ll be quick,’ she promised.
Trying to appear as nonchalant as he, she tipped a small amount of oil onto his chest.
The strand of amber beads swung loose from beneath her—his—shirt, as she hovered over him. He reached up and touched the beads, then closed his eyes as though it pained him to see them, to feel them. Why, when he was the one who’d bought them for her?
But when he opened his eyes again, they were expressionless.
Lane’s heart felt bruised. Really, actually bruised. He was so different. Almost as much a stranger as he’d been that first night when he’d signed the contract. She swallowed another lump in her throat and redoubled her massaging efforts. She massaged his chest, his stomach, his arms, the front of his thighs, down to his feet. Trying hard, so very hard, to reach him.
At last, when she was sure the part of him she’d deliberately left until last must be ready to burst from strain, her hands closed over him, her palms slick with oil. He felt hard like iron, but alive. Hot. Pulsing. Beautiful.
Please, please, please, please, she chanted in her mind as she rhythmically stroked. She wanted to feel him come. To have him spill into her hands as she watched his eyes …
***
‘That’s enough, Lane.’ The words came out harshly, like he’d smoked a thousand cigarettes. ‘I don’t want … that.’ God, how Adam hated the sound of his voice. The way it betrayed his need for her.
She looked at him, her eyes glazed with passion. She was breathing hard and fast, but his heart was thundering so loudly he couldn’t hear it, could only tell by the rise and fall of her chest.
Their eyes caught for an endless moment, and then, almost in agony, Adam sat up and reached for his jeans and shirt, which he’d draped over the end of the bed.
He saw in her eyes that she’d finally realized he wasn’t going to make love to her. They were huge, unhappy, perplexed whirlpools. Nothing cold about them. Fire under the ice? No. Just fire.
‘I don’t … Don’t you want …? I mean, aren’t you going to …?’ But she couldn’t seem to finish a sentence.
He steeled himself against giving in. ‘Not tonight. I thought you wanted to learn new things, not go over the same old ground.’
‘Yes, but … I would have thought sex would be a natural consequence of … I mean, it certainly made me feel—’ She broke off. ‘Didn’t I do it right?’
‘You were fine, Lane,’ Adam said then very deliberately checked his watch again.
She took the amber from around her neck and placed it on her dressing table. ‘All right,’ she said, suddenly poised and cool. ‘I know you’re in a hurry, so I’ll leave you to see yourself out while I take a shower.’ She nodded to the bedside table. His bedside table. ‘I bought you a present.’
Once she’d left the room, Adam gave up all pretence of getting dressed and reached greedily for the gift. It was wrapped so neatly—so Lane. How hadn’t he seen it when he’d been lying so close to it? Easy, he answered himself, as he tugged the gift tag free: he hadn’t seen it because his mind had disintegrated into a swirling vortex of lust.
He read the tag. An apple for the teacher. A joy that was almost painful settled in his chest as he unwrapped the present. He would have laughed at her little joke with the apple-teacher thing, except that the thought of being her teacher had lost any allure.
‘Ah, Lane,’ he breathed, running his fingers over the smooth jade. ‘Don’t do this to me.’
Carrying the apple, he walked over to the dressing table and picked up her amber. It was still warm from her body. He raised it to his face and inhaled the scent of her perfume. That damn ungovernable male part of his body tort
ured him by growing even harder, which he wouldn’t have believed possible!
He smashed the amber back down onto the dressing table, set the apple beside it and reached instead for the new addition to the house—the abacus in its box. He’d seen it before and deliberately not asked about it, even when Lane had told him her mother had gifted it to her the day after her birthday. She’d wanted to say more, but Adam had cut her off and said it didn’t matter. But it did matter. He wanted to know the story—why Jeanne had relinquished it, if she knew the significance of it, how Lane felt about it.
That was one of the very few times he’d managed to run Sarah to ground—specifically to ask her if she knew what the story was. But not only did Sarah have no idea Lane had been given her father’s precious abacus, she’d told him to ask Lane if it was so important and to leave her out of ‘the mess’ he and Lane had created until they actually resolved things between them.
The mess.
Sarah was right, it was mess. Everything was a mess. And he had no idea how to clean it up.
He returned the abacus to its position on the dressing table and started dressing as memories of Lane rushed at him. Clothed and unclothed, happy and sad, on the Bridge, at the art gallery, playing poker, in his jeep, in bed, everywhere in his life. He blocked the images, one after another, because they were too painful to bear, but there was one he couldn’t seem to banish: the look on her face when he’d arrived tonight. Beside herself with worry over him.
But it didn’t mean she loved him.
At least he’d managed to pretend he didn’t care.
And he could take comfort from the fact that only he knew how difficult it had been for him to keep still, to not leap right off the bed the instant her hands had touched his skin when she’d started that damn massage. That had to count for something, right?
He ran his finger over the cool green jade again.
An apple for the teacher.
The teacher. He was the teacher. But David was the man Lane loved. And she would soon—too soon—be in David’s arms. Nothing was going to change that.
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