by Linda Seed
She turned to him, concern in her eyes. “You say that like you know firsthand. Who did you lose?”
He shrugged, trying to make it seem less than it was. “My brother.”
“Oh, God, Will. I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, well.”
“What happened?”
He hadn’t intended to talk about this, hadn’t thought he would. But here it was, and part of making her trust him was in letting her know him. He sighed. “Motorcycle accident. God. My mother did not want him to buy that thing. But, he was twenty. An adult. What could she do?”
“How old were you?”
“Sixteen.”
“Shit. I can’t imagine.” She squeezed his hand just a little tighter.
“Yeah. I thought it was going to break my parents. I thought … I thought they were just going to shatter into little pieces and fly off with the wind. But people are strong. They find a way to survive.”
Rose looked out at the birds circling the water. Eventually, in her own time, she said, “My dad was controlling. Not necessarily in a bad way, not in an abusive or intentionally harmful way. But … he set the tone for our family, you know? He decided how things were going to be in our house. I always wondered if that kind of life was what my mother really wanted, or if she was just trying to please him. When he died … ” She glanced at Will. “Heart attack. With him gone, I wondered if she’d change. If she’d find whatever it was that she really wanted, independent of him.”
“What do you think she’d want?” He gazed at a couple kissing down on the sand. “If it were just up to her?”
Rose shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think she does, either.”
“Do you know what you want?” he asked.
Surprised, she turned to him. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know.” He gave her a look that was part question, part affection. “Seems to me like a lot of what you’ve done with your life has been a reaction to something. To your mother, to your father, to the life they had laid out for you and that you knew you didn’t want. And that’s … well, I think that’s healthy. You knew where you didn’t want to go, and you got away from that. But, you’re away. And here you are, free and able to live whatever kind of life you want. I’m just wondering if you know what that is.”
She started to answer, then paused. “I thought I did.”
“And now?”
She gazed out at the water and shrugged. “I don’t know. Things are changing. What I want is changing.”
“Change is good,” he said, and squeezed her hand.
Chapter Nineteen
According to the agenda Rose had given her mother, they were supposed to eat dinner at Linn’s. They did eat at Linn’s, but it wasn’t dinner. Because they were adults who didn’t have to follow the rules, they opted to skip the main meal and eat olallieberry pie with ice cream instead.
“God, this is good.” Rose dug into the warm pie with its mound of vanilla ice cream as they sat at a table amid the chatter of other diners. The restaurant usually wasn’t full on a weeknight in May, so the noise and bustle of the place were down to a moderate level.
“Since daughters shouldn’t lie to their mothers,” Will said, grinning, “you’ll have to fess up to the fact that you skipped dinner and had dessert instead.”
“Well,” Rose said, holding a spoonful of pie and ice cream, “there’s lying, and then there’s simply leaving out details.”
“Speaking of details, how are plans for the wedding coming along?”
She threw up her hands for emphasis. Fortunately, her spoon was empty by then. Otherwise, pie might have flown in his direction. “Oh, ugh. Jeez. There are so many details. So many details! The florist doesn’t have blush peonies, and wants to know if we can use Peruvian lilies instead. We can’t get everybody’s schedules coordinated for the final dress fittings. The lodge can’t fit as many seats as we need in the gazebo area of the garden, and they’re saying that we either need to cut the guest list or move the ceremony. We could cut the guest list—a number of people who were invited have sent regrets, and so that works out—but a lot of the people who are coming have been calling to ask if they can bring Cousin Bob or Aunt Sylvia. Gah. Remind me never to get married.”
“Well,” Will said, “we can always elope.”
She nearly choked on her pie.
“What?”
“When you’re ready to marry me. We can elope. Vegas is good, I’ve always wanted one of those Elvis ceremonies. Then afterward we can go to one of those buffets, eat ourselves into a food coma.”
“Will Bachman,” Rose demanded. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You’re not there yet,” he said calmly. “That’s fine; there’s no rush.”
He realized that saying such a thing this early in the game was a risk. She’d announced—many times—her decision to quit dating and eschew all things related to men. But her kisses said something different, and there was a reason she kept telling her mother that they were together. It was possible that putting it out there—letting it be known that he wanted to be with her long-term—would backfire on him and would send her scurrying under the brush like a baby rabbit hiding from a mountain lion. But it was also possible that if she knew his feelings, if she understood that he was in this, it might ease her fears and encourage her to peek her head out of her burrow and bring her furry tail into the light.
“Will, I …” She plunked her spoon down onto her plate and rubbed her eyes with both hands. “I don’t think …”
He reached out and took one of her hands in his. “You’re not there yet,” he repeated, this time softly, intimately. “That’s okay. You’ll catch up, and I’ll be here when you do.”
She was quiet after that, and that was probably a bad sign.
She didn’t pull away from him—not entirely—but she was more reserved, and as they left the restaurant, he fully expected her to tell him that she couldn’t see him anymore.
So he was more than a little surprised when, the moment they were settled into the Cooper House truck, she turned to him, put a hand behind his neck, pulled him to her, and kissed him deeply, with a passion he had not expected.
His mind went blank.
The kiss had the effect of emptying out his brain, as though a drain plug had been pulled and every thought in his head had gone swirling into some dark oblivion. Without the burden of having to put coherent ideas together, he was free to just feel. His pulse started hammering in his veins, and all he could do was react—he couldn’t wait anymore. This kiss could not be just a kiss, just as Rose was not just a woman.
“Come home with me,” he said. “Please.”
She was too busy kissing him, too busy devouring him, to answer at first. He prompted her.
“Rose. Please.”
She nodded, her lips still on his, her fingers wrapped up in his hair.
“Drive,” she said finally, when she drew away from him. “God. Just … just drive.”
He didn’t want to crash the truck—he’d had enough automotive drama to last him a while—so he took a deep breath and tried to pull himself together before he backed out of the parking space outside Linn’s and pulled out onto Main Street.
He glanced at her as he drove down Burton and got onto Highway 1. “Are you sure?”
“Don’t ask me that.” Her eyes were closed as she shook her head. “Just don’t. Because if I think about it, I might change my mind. And I don’t want to change my mind.”
“If you’re not sure …”
“Will, shut up,” she said.
And he did.
They arrived at the long drive leading up to Cooper House about ten minutes later. Will’s hands weren’t steady, so it took him two tries to punch in the right security code at the gate.
Fortunately, Will’s cottage wasn’t far, so he hit the accelerator and shot the truck up the winding road to the guest house door.
He slammed the truck in park, turned off the ignition, and
flew out the door and around the front of the truck. He opened the passenger door for her, grabbed her hand, and pulled her out of the truck. Then he was on her, and she was on him, and he had her pressed against the side of the truck, his mouth on hers, his hands on her body.
He already had a hand sliding up the inside of her skirt when she said, “Inside. Let’s … inside.”
He’d have scooped her up into his arms and carried her, but she was already running up the front porch and to the door. He chased her up there and fumbled with his keys.
“Wait a minute. Let me just …” He dropped the keys and they jangled onto the wood floor of the porch.
It didn’t help his concentration that when he bent down to pick up the keys, she ran a hand over his butt.
He snatched up the keys, fumbled around trying to find the right one, then finally got the key into the door, opened it—and then left the keys dangling from the lock as she pushed him inside, slammed the door behind them, and then launched herself at him.
She felt so many things, none of them rational and none of them manageable. Lust, passion, urgency—and fear, yes, of course there was fear. She wanted him so much, and that meant that if a day came when he decided he didn’t want her—and such a day always came, in so many of her relationships—she was going to be crushed, destroyed, burned into a pile of ash that would float away on the ocean wind.
But right now, the lust and the passion and the urgency overwhelmed the fear, and she let them win. She pressed her body against him, kissing, touching, moving her fingers down the buttons of his shirt.
God, he was beautiful, with his lean physique and his tanned, taut chest and his hair, the color of the golden sand on a sunny day. He tasted warm and salty, more delicious than the sugary treat they’d had in place of dinner. And the smell of him—all fresh air and clean skin and a hint of spicy cologne.
She had her hands on him, her mouth, her body pressed against his, and he was gently nudging her toward the bedroom. When she saw the direction he was urging her to go, she grabbed the open front of his shirt and yanked him through the doorway and toward the bed.
They fell onto the mattress, in the middle of the white comforter. If she’d had her senses, she’d have teased him about keeping his bedroom so neat, so meticulously tidy. But she didn’t have her senses—not the rational ones, anyway. All she had was this drive to be on him, under him, wrapped around him until she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began.
His mouth was on hers, then she felt his hands on her breasts over her top, and then those same hands slid up her thighs and under her skirt. Not fast enough, not nearly fast enough. She reached up and tore her top off over her head, exposing the black, lacy bra that she could now admit—let’s face it—that she’d worn in the hope that he might one day see it and take it off of her.
He lowered his mouth to the peak of her breast, tasting it through the thin, filmy lace of the bra. The heat of his breath, of his tongue penetrated the fabric and she gasped.
He lifted up onto his arms to look at her. Again, because it was proving to be so handy, she grasped his shirt and used it to haul him back down to her. She kissed his mouth, his chin, the tender hollow of his throat.
She’d imagined what it would be like to sleep with him. She’d imagined his body and the way it would feel, the way it would look. The arousal, the sensations. What she hadn’t expected was the way she would feel so safe, so cherished. The way he touched her with reverence, with something like worship. No, she hadn’t expected that. And that, more than anything, was what undid her.
He moved down her body, pressing tender kisses to the hollow between her breasts and to the firm flesh of her belly, tasting the indentation of her navel. When he got down to her skirt, he hooked his fingers into the waistband and pulled it down over her hips before sliding the fabric off of her legs and tossing it to the floor.
Her panties were the same black lacy fabric as the bra, and he took a moment to just look.
“I love these,” he said. “Now let’s take them off of you.” He took her hands and pulled her up so he could unhook her bra and slip it off her shoulders, revealing breasts that were small but perfect. Then she raised her hips for him so he could slide the slight, silky fabric of the panties down, down, and off.
The shirt that had been such a convenient means of pulling him to her now had to go. She reached up and slid it off of him, leaving his firm, athletic body free for her to see, to enjoy. “Here. Let me just …” She reached for his belt and unbuckled it, then began unsnapping and unzipping his jeans.
She slid the zipper downward, her hand glided over him, and he leaned his head back and groaned. She pulled the fabric down and slid her hands over the firm curves of his ass.
He started to pull away from her, and she grabbed at his shoulders. “I’m not going far,” he told her. “I just need to get out of these clothes.”
She let go of him and sat up to watch as he removed the pants and the boxers underneath. The room was mostly dark, with only the glow of the living room light coming through the partly open bedroom door. Still, it was enough for her to see him. His body was lean but strong, like a runner, or maybe a swimmer. Everything about it was right, she thought. If he’d been too muscle-bound, she’d have found him intimidating. If he’d been too tall, they wouldn’t have fit. But then, it occurred to her that maybe his body seemed perfect because it was his.
“Get back over here,” she told him. Up on her knees on the bed, she moved toward where he stood.
He pushed her gently back onto the mattress and covered her with his body. And oh, his skin on hers felt glorious. It felt warm and right. He smelled like ocean air and delicious, clean man.
“Touch me, Will,” she said. He made a growling noise from deep in his throat.
She didn’t know what she had expected of him. If anyone had asked her—which they hadn’t—she’d have predicted that he would be sweet and tentative, perhaps a little unsure, a little inexperienced. As cute as he was, there was no reason for her to think he’d had a dearth of female partners, but the brainy scientist thing didn’t suggest a wealth of experience. So her eyes flew open in surprise when he slid down her body, pressed his tongue into the silky folds between her thighs, and proceeded to do things to her body that no man had ever done.
Well, yes, other men had done it. But not like this. Oh, sweet God, nobody had ever done it like this. The man had serious skills.
The way his fingers were gliding into her, the way his tongue was circling and pressing against the throbbing nub that was now becoming the center of her universe, she was quickly climbing toward sweet release. Too quickly.
“Will,” she murmured, pushing at him.
“Mm,” he said.
“Will.” She pushed a little harder at him, but he didn’t stop. And then she decided that maybe it would be all right after all if he didn’t stop. And then, if he’d tried to stop she’d have had to hurt him.
“Oh, God.” She was squirming, writhing, grabbing handfuls of comforter in her fists, her feet scrabbling against the bed for purchase. “Oh … oh shit. Oh, holy … Oh God oh God OH GOD!”
When the orgasm ripped through her, it was like being hit by a train. A wonderful, magical, speeding train full of unicorns and sparkle dust. She grabbed at his head, her hands gripping his hair, as waves of pleasure crashed through her body.
For the first minute or two afterward, she couldn’t move or speak. When she came back to her senses, he was lying next to her, watching her face.
“How … where did you learn to do that?” she murmured. She wasn’t even sure she’d managed to say it out loud.
“If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right,” he said.
“Speaking of things that are worth doing …” Her hand roamed down his body and found him aroused and ready for her. She stroked him, and his eyes closed in an expression of bliss.
She hoped to God he had a condom handy, because she hadn’t brought
one—this had been impromptu, a sudden, overwhelming urge that she couldn’t have predicted. At least, that was what she would tell people after the fact. In truth, the urge had been building for some time. And because it had been building for some time, she could, in fact, have predicted that they would end up right here, just like this.
Still. She hadn’t come prepared.
“Are there any condoms?” she asked. Ridiculous that she should be embarrassed to ask, but there it was.
“Side table. Top drawer.”
She rolled over, opened the drawer, and found a square foil packet. She ripped it open. Then she got onto her knees, took him into her mouth, and used her tongue on him until she could feel him trembling with arousal.
Having gotten him perfectly prepared, she rolled the condom onto him and then licked the length of him with the tip of her tongue.
He was making low, animal noises that might have included her name.
She positioned herself over his body and lowered herself onto him slowly, a little at a time, his eyes locked onto hers. He gripped her hips with his hands and began guiding her until their bodies were moving with more and more urgency.
She wouldn’t have thought she could peak again after the last time—after the shattering, devastating intensity of it. But as she moved with him, her body began to hum with want, with need. She threw her head back and closed her eyes, feeling him under her, feeling his hands on the curves of her breasts.
When she was almost there, he pulled her to him, rolled her over beneath him, and thrust into her harder, faster. The change in rhythm, and in intensity, sent her up, up—and then over the edge. She cried out just as he tensed and shook with his own pleasure.
He collapsed on top of her, and she wasn’t sure she could breathe. She wasn’t sure she even needed to breathe. She had everything she needed, everything she wanted, oxygen be damned. When he finally did roll off of her, his absence felt like loss, like sorrow.
“Don’t go,” she murmured, reaching out for him.
“I’ll be right back. I just have to … oh. Uh-oh.”
“What? What is it?”
