“You can’t…” Asher looked disbelieving. Or perhaps aghast was more like it.
In for a penny, in for a pound. Serafina had totally lost her cool. And though she knew she was dooming any chance of ever hooking up with this delectable guy, she plowed on. It felt good to get the source of her shame off her chest. Liberating. “That’s right. I’m goddamn frigid. Never had a climax. Don’t know what all the fuss is about. My hoo-ha is broken, get it?”
Asher appeared to be mouthing the word “hoo-ha” to himself. Perhaps they didn’t have it in Hebrew.
“You know, my vagi—”
“Yes, I get it, Serafina,” he said quellingly. “I simply don’t believe it.”
And with one whirlwind swoop, he grabbed her up and set her bodily on the counter. His body followed hers, lean hips crowding into the space between her jeans-clad legs, one arm clasping her back to hold her steady and keep her as close as two people could get. Sera could hear the furious beating of his heart—or was she feeling it? She smelled again that wonderful Asher smell—earth and fire, pure intensity. His breath was hot against her face, a vein pulsing in his neck where she could almost reach it with her lips. His eyes, green lightened almost to gold now with emotion, searched her startled gray ones.
Searching for what?
Permission? If so, he had it. Sera couldn’t deny him, even if she must ultimately disappoint him. Her lips opened, trembling, but she couldn’t seem to speak.
Still he sensed the moment she surrendered, and he took full advantage of it.
The hand Asher buried in her hair was gentle. The kiss he slanted across her mouth was anything but.
Oh, fu…
And suddenly, Sera was someone else: a sexually charged woman in the arms of a man so hot he seemed to singe her straight through her clothes. She was not awkward. Not a failure. Not frigid. Asher wouldn’t allow it. In his grip she was bliss, indeed; swept with sensation that left no room for second thoughts, hang-ups, or hesitation. His knowing hands guided her, molded her body to his. His stubble scraped her cheeks, her ear, her throat, while his lips, tongue, and teeth branded her skin with delicious sensation. Sera found herself clutching him to her, vaguely aware of the cool tiles against her backside, the cabinet behind her shoulders, a patch of sunlight illuminating the gold in his hair. Her hands, used to kneading malleable dough, found his shoulders and their unyielding musculature, reveling in his heat, his solidity. He’d yanked her forward so the apex of her thighs was pressed directly against the heat of his loins. Wow, she thought faintly. When Asher went from cool, debonair landlord to passionate lover, he really didn’t hold back. As a man, he was gentle; full of humor and wit and a kindness that wouldn’t quit.
As a lover, he was a hurricane.
No second-guessing, no insecurity. Asher was all primal male, demanding and eliciting a feminine response from Sera she hadn’t known she was capable of. With quick, expert strokes of his tongue, he claimed her mouth. With firm, possessive sweeps of his hands, he delineated her curves, bringing her nerve endings to life like Times Square lights. When he molded the contours of her breast, even through her bra and shirt, Sera felt the streak of sensation zinging directly to her core. And when he pressed against her there, her mind froze.
She wasn’t thinking about Blake, or her failures in his bed. Sera wasn’t thinking, period. Her body had taken on a life of its own under Asher’s expert tutelage. And right there in her aunt’s cozy kitchen, she was galloping rapidly, heedlessly toward that moment she’d dreamed of, and believed was beyond her reach…
Until Asher pulled back on the reins.
“Bliss.”
It took Sera a moment to register that he’d pushed back from her. Was, in fact, holding her at arms’ length. Her body missed the heat of his, as if he’d stolen her clothing on a cold winter night. Her brain couldn’t comprehend why he was over there, when her need was here. She reached for him, but he caught her hand in both of his and kissed it gently.
“Bliss,” he said again.
Her eyes began to focus, and she noticed his had returned to their normal moss green, though his chest was still rising and falling fast with his labored breathing. “Um, yeah?” she said a bit dreamily. She brought his fingers to her mouth and began nibbling one, running her tongue along its length in a way that was both wanton and totally unlike her.
Asher snatched it back, gasping slightly. “Bliss… we have to stop.”
“We do?” she asked foggily.
“Yes,” he said, and Sera got the gratifying impression that he’d rather have said no. He made a gesture of frustration, pleading for her understanding, then stretched out his hand to stroke her cheek. “Beautiful Bliss, you deserve more than this. Your satisfaction is something I want to give you with every fiber of my body. But not”—he gestured about the kitchen, and they could both hear, outside, the sound of Pauline singing off-key as she bashed about in her garden—“like this. Not for your first time.”
“It’s not my first time,” Sera objected, reaching for him again. What a time to play gentleman, her aching body groaned. “I’m a grown woman, Ash, and I’ve got plenty of experience.”
Asher took her cheek in one callused hand, drew close, and kissed her with heat tempered by gentlemanly consideration. His lips left hers reluctantly. “Neither of us have this experience,” he contradicted. “And I want us to experience each other properly, so you’ll understand how much this means to me, and so that I may have the honor of showing you just how satisfying I find you.”
Sera let him go. The fire he’d ignited was cooling, her thoughts coalescing once more.
“So what are you saying?” she asked.
Asher ran his hand through his hair in that agitated way she was beginning to love. “What I’m saying is this: You are the most passionate woman I have ever met, Serafina Wilde. You’re fiery, you’re gutsy, and you’re more alive inside than most women even dream of being. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you. I don’t know who has convinced you otherwise, but we are going to sort this out, you and I. When I return, I intend to take you out on a real date—a proper, old-fashioned date—and then…” He paused. “Then we’ll see where the night takes us. Do you understand?”
His intensity should have frightened her. Instead, it only turned her on more. Come back and finish what you started, she wanted to plead, even though she wasn’t at all sure where that might lead. It had felt like she might get there… felt so incredible she couldn’t believe he was denying her now.
“Do you understand?” he demanded a second time, those green eyes going gold again. He stepped closer, took her chin between his fingers, and brought that incredible heat of his once more within reach.
Sera gulped, nodded.
“And do you agree?” he asked, more gently and with a touch of his regular humor.
Sera didn’t trust herself to speak, so she nodded again, against his hand. She noticed she was running her own hand down the contours of his back, stroking lower to trace his hips, his buttocks. Her hand wanted to grab hold, and keep hold of that prime male real estate… but he was still talking, and his expression told her she better pay attention.
“Good. I’m glad. Because I’m going away, Bliss—going home to Israel. I’ll be back in a week, perhaps ten days, and then we’ll revisit this. But first”—he lowered his head and kissed her again, at first gently, and then not at all gently—“first, I’ve got to go speak to my wife.”
With one final, brief kiss, he donned his hat and left Sera there, sitting on the counter by the sink, closer to orgasm than she’d ever imagined, and more befuddled than she’d been on her last epic bender.
Speak to his wife?
Chapter Eighteen
If you’re finished ignoring me like a pouty teenager, kiddo, there’s someone who wants to talk to you,” Pauline said. She pointed to the phone, which was lying off the cradle on the mosaic-topped telephone table by the sofa.
Sera rolled her eyes a
t her aunt. She hadn’t been ignoring Pauline; she’d been punishing her for this afternoon’s boorish behavior. There was a difference. But she supposed her affronted act had gone on long enough. Pauline couldn’t help herself—she was congenitally uncouth—and if her interference was playing merry hell with Sera’s love life, well… it hadn’t turned out all bad.
Maybe. The jury was still out on that one.
The jury, and Asher’s wife, Sera reminded herself. Apparently that mysterious paragon wasn’t as out of the picture as she’d assumed—and what it meant for her and Asher, she had no idea. Asher wouldn’t dally with me if he was still married, would he? Somehow she couldn’t picture her landlord as a philandering cheat. She had to have a little more faith in him than that. But still… She shook herself to bring her thoughts back to the present.
“Weird,” she muttered to herself. “Who would call me at Aunt Pauline’s number?” Those few folk she kept in contact with from New York all had her cell number—not that it had been ringing off the hook or anything. She approached the old-fashioned, chunky telephone (which Pauline had bedazzled with flecks of turquoise and fossils she’d picked up in the desert) and gave it a tentative “Hello?”
“What’s going on over there, Serafina?” Margaret’s somewhat nasal, unmistakably New York accent cut through the miles. “Your aunt called me up, all in a lather, and told me I wasn’t ‘doing my damn job.’ You okay?”
Sera glanced disbelievingly at her aunt, who was leaning against the archway that connected the living room and the kitchen, leg-warmered ankles crossed, shamelessly eavesdropping. “You called my sponsor?”
Idly, Pauline began to pick at the unraveling edge of one of her arm socks. “You bet your bippy I did,” she said. “Seemed to me you needed some good advice, and you’re too pigheaded to take it from me. Figured I’d give that Margaret woman a try, since you speak so highly of her, and she’s supposed to be such a font of wisdom and all.”
“How did you even get her number?”
Pauline plucked Sera’s cell phone from her arm warmer, into which Sera could now see Hortencia had knitted little pockets. She waved it demonstratively. “I’m not fooling around here, kid—though I wish you would.”
“Helloooooo. Earth to Serafina Wilde,” Margaret’s impatient voice cut through Sera’s irritation with her aunt’s meddling. “What the heck’s going on out there, Sera? You staying sober? Making meetings? What’s the deal?”
“Sorry, Margaret,” Sera apologized, focusing her attention back on her sponsor. “Yes, I’m fine—still sober, getting to meetings pretty regularly, and doing my program reading at night like you taught me. Everything’s fine—my aunt’s just turned into a busybody in her old age.” Sera shot a baleful look Pauline’s way and deliberately turned her back on her.
“Well, since we’re both here on the phone, you might as well get me up to speed, Sera,” Margaret said. “Clearly something’s got you in a froth, and we both know it’s not good for people like us to get too frothy. Why don’t you start with why the Wilde-Woman took it upon herself to reach out to me, ex parte.”
“I will,” Sera promised. “Just give me a sec.” She spun around and skewered her aunt with a look even darker than the last one. Pauline mugged an innocent expression, whistling at the ceiling and swinging one foot like an overgrown kid. Sera rolled her eyes. Pauline was hopeless—and so was trying to change her. She sighed, her annoyance fading. “You’ve got me where you wanted me, Aunt Paulie,” she pointed out. “Now how about some privacy?”
Pauline looked like she would protest, but at Sera’s scowl, she decamped to her bedroom, muttering about finding the sweater that matched her knit extremities, as it was getting “a wee bit nipply” outside.
“Okay, sorry,” Sera said into the phone. “So what’s happening is, Pauline’s decided to take a stab at running my love life, and she gets testy when she doesn’t get her way. I liked it better when she was only worried about her own O’s and left mine out of it.”
Margaret laughed. “When did she ever do that?”
“Never,” Sera admitted. “Anyhow, it looks like I’ve gotten into a bit of a romantic entanglement, and Pauline just doesn’t know when to quit pushing.”
“Hm,” said Margaret. “What kind of “romantic entanglement” are we talking about—the good kind, or the Blake Austin kind?”
Sera sighed and rubbed her temples, where a rather fierce tension headache was gathering. “The kind that could be really good—or would be, if I were the right woman for this guy.” She proceeded to spill the whole story—all about Asher (whom she deliberately hadn’t mentioned in any of her previous calls to her sponsor), how attracted she was to him, and how, unbelievably, he seemed to like her, too. She finished by spelling out how disastrously their dinner had ended the other night and detailing a rated-G version of their subsequent encounter in the kitchen today. She skipped the part where she’d confessed her broken hoo-ha, but did tell Margaret about Asher’s promise—or was it a warning?—that he wanted to take her out when he returned.
“So anyway, Maggie, I don’t know whether to jump the guy’s bones or hold back in case the whole thing blows up in my face. I mean, after all, I’m supposed to be opening my dream store in a couple weeks, and I really ought to be a hundred percent focused on that. Plus, apparently right now Asher’s winging his way to Tel Aviv on some mysterious mission to make things right with his wife, and he wants to take me out for what he calls ‘a proper date’ when he gets back—” Sera would have kept rattling on, but Margaret interrupted.
“Wait a minute, Sera,” Margaret commanded. Sera could almost see her making the “roll that shit back a bit” gesture she always did with her hands. “Go back to the part where you told this Asher guy you were no good for him. You really said that?”
“Uh-huh,” Sera said, mentally preparing for a lecture. She twirled the old-fashioned phone cord between her fingers.
“Let me get this straight. You told the guy—this guy you describe as practically perfect, and hotter than New York in July—that you didn’t deserve to be with him because you were an addict and a failure?”
“Well, ah…” Sera chewed on a lock of hair. “Yeah, I might have said that.”
“If you were here, I’d give you such a smack on the ass right now,” Margaret swore. “How many times have we read the Big Book together? How many meetings have we sat through? You calling all those people in the fellowship failures?”
“No, of course not…” Sera said meekly. Her fellow alkies were some of the folks she admired most. Hearing their stories of how they’d scraped themselves out of life’s gutters and pieced themselves back together into some of the kindest, most responsible people she’d ever met had inspired Sera herself to stick around and give living sober a chance.
“Damn right, Serafina. As well blame the cancer patient or the diabetic for their disease. You—well, you may have drawn the short straw when it comes to addictive propensities, but it’s what you’ve done to overcome that condition that defines you, not the addiction itself. I mean, how many alcoholics do you know who couldn’t get sober?”
Sera had to admit, she knew a lot. Only a small percentage of addicts ever managed to get—or stay—in recovery.
“And of the ones you know who did succeed,” Margaret continued relentlessly, “how many of them had it easy?”
“Um, none?” Sera forced herself to stop chewing her hair and twisting the old-school phone cord around her fingers. Both were nearly in knots, just like her guts. But Margaret was right, she had come a long way, and she had a lot to be proud of. She couldn’t let this absurd insecurity left over from the Blake years continue to cast a pall on her life. She felt herself standing straighter. “So if I get you right, what you’re trying to say is that I should be proud of my past, not ashamed—or at least, proud of my progress.”
“That’s right,” Margaret said, satisfaction coloring her voice. “You can’t control the way you were born, but
you can control how you handle life’s challenges. Now you… you’ve done a pretty damn fine job, if what Pauline was telling me before she put you on the phone is true. Your store’s nearly ready to open. You’ve met a nice bunch of gals. Apparently you even got yourself some kind of badass monster truck. You’re really making a life for yourself out there. Why shouldn’t you have a gorgeous guy in it?”
Because I’m a dud in the sack, Sera wanted to say, but she’d told too many people about her no-O issue and she really didn’t want to go over it again. She had enough people out here hovering over her and monitoring her erogenous zones as it was.
“There’s no guy in the world so great you don’t deserve him,” Margaret continued. “I’m serious, Sera. Don’t blow your chance at happiness because of some outdated idea you have of yourself. You’re a new woman, and you’ve got everything it takes to achieve the life of your dreams. Just don’t let your disease talk you out of it, and you should be okay.”
Sera smiled. “Thanks, Margaret.” She was starting to feel better. Maybe, just maybe, her two favorite female advisors had a point. She should stop assuming she knew what was best for Asher, stop assuming she wasn’t good enough for him, and just let things play out. Asher was no Blake Austin. No matter how badly things went, he would never be deliberately cruel to her. The worst that could happen was that Sera would wind up humiliated—and she was no stranger to humiliation. The best that could happen, however… well, hell. The best would be very good indeed.
She forced herself to listen to her sponsor, who was still talking.
“You want my advice, I think you should lighten up, like your aunt says. That old broad’s got a lot of wisdom in her. Listen to her, and I think you’ll be happier for it.”
Serafina knew better than to argue with her sponsor—a formidable woman who just might come out to Santa Fe to deliver that ass-smacking if she wasn’t satisfied Sera was following her suggestions.
“Yes, ma’am,” she said. “I’ll take that advice.”
Bliss Page 24
