by EC Sheedy
He studied her with a laserlike intensity, then shook his head, looking disappointed. As if he’d failed a self-imposed test.
Deanne put her fork down. “It doesn’t matter, Julius. Amanda and I were just kids. While you swam—you were always practicing for a meet that summer—we hung around the pool and—”
“Danced. You danced, didn’t you?”
It was Deanne’s turn to be surprised. “Yes, Amanda and I used to—”
“Hook up that ugly yellow boom box thing she had and dance around the pool. You drove me nuts.”
“And ruined your concentration—or so you said.”
“Yes. I remember now.” When he looked at her again, his gaze was unreadable. “You were around a lot that summer, before—”
She nodded and her heart stilled in her chest. “Before you lost your family. Yes. That was the summer.” She paused. “I was supposed to meet them in London, you know. But I had a…disagreement with my mother, and she canceled the trip.” Her heart picked up its beat, grew erratic. “If that hadn’t happened, they’d have been at Heathrow picking me up. Instead, they were in London. I’ve always felt sick about that.”
It was the first time Deanne had stood up to her powerful, accomplished mother—and the last for many years to come. Lauren Moore never hesitated to use the Zern tragedy to point out that if Deanne had done the “right thing,” listened to her mother, and not been “stupid and rebellious,” her friend would still be alive. Lauren wasn’t into grief counseling…And Lauren was right, Deanne was stupid, for listening to her, allowing her grief and guilt, either consciously or unconsciously, to merge into a reason for her to become her mother’s lapdog.
“You were a kid. You couldn’t know,” Julius said.
She didn’t answer, didn’t want to explain it was more complicated than that, that his tragedy had also, in a lesser way, been hers.
Julius, his expression like dark glass, said nothing for a time, then, “Did you know they were in England because of me? I was traveling that summer, supposed to enter Cambridge that fall. But I’d decided I wanted to come home.” He looked away. “Cambridge—my graduating there—meant everything to my father. He’d come to London to talk me into staying. I knew we were going to butt heads…” His pause was long. Too long. “I picked the restaurant, you know. An outdoor place. Street side. Then I was twenty minutes late getting there. I arrived right after—” He was so still, so very still.
“Then you saw…” Everything inside her jellied. “Oh, God, Julius. I don’t know what to say.”
“The bomb blew the windows out of the restaurant. The canopy was across the street, shredded. The street was a mess, car doors blown off, bodies everywhere, my mother—” He rubbed a hand over his face. When he lifted it away, his voice was firm. “I don’t talk about it. Easier that way. It makes it like yesterday.”
“It wasn’t your—”
“Fault. Yes, I know that—at least my logical brain does. Still, if I hadn’t been such a horse’s ass about Cambridge…” He looked away as if seeking a new direction, then went on, his voice stronger. “Anyway, you know the drill. Life is full of if-onlys. Some of them are tough to get over—even after seventeen years.”
“Seventeen years,” she repeated, “but yes, like yesterday.” She picked up her fork, left some silence for a beat, then said, “Do you want to change the subject?”
“Yes.”
“One thing first?”
“Go ahead.”
“I loved Amanda, Julius. I loved all your family. Your mom, with her bright smile—so like Amanda’s. She liked to laugh, your mom. I remember that. And your dad, always with papers in his hand, sitting by the pool with his iced tea…They were always so good to me—so caring. They have a special place in my heart. And they always will.”
He took a breath, glanced away, then back to meet her eyes directly. His own were shot with pain and gratitude. “Thank you for that.”
Deanne nodded, then looked at the food on their plates, neither of them had touched it. “Shall we eat—before the lasagna morphs into leftovers?”
They’d finished loading the dishwasher—Julius insisted on helping—had refilled their wineglasses, and were about to head back to the living room, when there was a couple of hard raps on the glass in her kitchen door.
Kurt.
Deanne managed—barely—to contain her impatience. At least this time he’d knocked. He was learning.
She opened the door and immediately felt guilty. He looked like a homeless street kid, or an abandoned dog. And had he been crying? There was definitely something different about his normal, defensively belligerent, teenage face. Kurt drove her crazy, but damn it, she felt sorry for him. All alone in that awful house—no mom around, his father gone for God knew how long. The least she could be was kind—along with firm. “I’m a little busy right now, Kurt,” she said.
“I want to check out the pups. That’s all. I’ve decided I’m going to take one. I never had a dog before.”
“Well, considering that isn’t going to happen tonight, first because that decision has to be talked over with your dad, and second because the pups won’t be ready to leave their mother for weeks. Why don’t we talk about it tomorrow?” Plus, she wasn’t all that sure she wanted him to have one of Samba’s babies.
“I can still look, can’t I?” He headed to Samba’s nest in the laundry room. The dog’s head came up, and she fixated on Kurt; the pups were a furry lump of snooze.
Deanne glanced at Julius, who was leaning against the counter sipping his wine, his face interested but impassive.
“Kurt, really. Now is not the time.”
He took another step toward the pups; the closer he got the more Samba growled. When he took his next step, her growling came through bared teeth. That stopped him. “What’s with her?”
“New mothers are touchy. Best leave her be,” Julius said, his voice calm.
Kurt didn’t look at him, but he did take a step back.
“No creature on earth has stronger protective instincts than a mother.” He pushed away from the counter, came to stand beside her.
Kurt’s eyes shot to his. “Like I don’t know that.” He looked at Deanne, then gestured with his head to Julius. “He your new boyfriend?”
Deanne opened her mouth, but before anything came out—
“Yes, I am,” Julius said. “Although not so new. Deanne and I go way back.” He draped his arm over her shoulder, stroked her arm possessively.
At that, Deanne’s eyes had to have opened Grand-Canyon wide.
Kurt stared at Julius’s hand on her upper arm, frowned. Then looked oddly nervous. “I gotta go. I’ll pick out my dog tomorrow.”
Deanne didn’t get the chance to straighten him out about his planned pup expropriation before the door slammed behind him.
Openmouthed, she looked up at Julius. “Why did you do that?”
“What?”
“You know what. That…boyfriend thing?”
“I thought it would be best if he thought there was a man in your life.”
“What makes you think there isn’t?”
“Is there?”
She hesitated. “No.”
“Good. Then as boyfriends go, you’ll have to make do with me. As shams go, I’m one of the best.”
Make do…oh, yes. “I don’t need a boyfriend, or a sham. I need—”
“This.” With one hand already on her shoulder, turning her to him took no effort. He kissed her to silence. His mouth soft and cajoling, then insistent, he didn’t give her time to think, or say no. Not that she planned to. Why on earth would she, when his kiss warmed the very soles of her feet.
When he finally lifted his mouth from hers, he took her face in his hands. “That boy is trouble, Deanne. Possibly dangerous.”
“And you’re not?”
That slow, slight smile came back, a second before he brushed his lips over hers and said, “That depends what you call dangerous.’
/> She sighed. “We’re back to the predinner stage, are we?” The part where I get breathless and maybe more adventurous than wise.
“I think so. You okay with that?
When he bent to kiss her again, Deanne framed his jaw with her hands and made him look her in the eyes. “Considering I started lusting for you when I was too young to know what lust was, yes, I’m okay with it. The question is, are you okay with fulfilling that girl’s fantasy?” She tried to make her question a tease, but knew there was a truth buried in it somewhere. “That’s a tall order, you know.”
His brow furrowed.
Damn! She’d made him start thinking again. Too much talk, Deanne. Too much talk.
“I’m no one’s fantasy—at least, not out of bed. I’m a loner and I like it that way. I don’t…stay. I never stay.” He brushed her hair behind her ears, kissed her forehead. “It’s best you know that going in.” He said it as if he’d said it a thousand times.
Okay, a million words bubbled up. She beat them back. “Then why don’t we let me worry about my fantasy—while you worry about the ‘going in’ part. Will that work?”
Amusement replaced the hesitancy in his eyes. “You sure?”
“I’m sure.” She pulled his face to hers. No more talk, she told herself firmly, unless it drifts up from a pillow.
CHAPTER 10
Julius looked down at the woman in his arms, saw her easy smile, a smile filled with pure womanly invitation. The promise in them turned his gut to aspic, while everything else in his body went on hard alert.
She stroked his face. “This is going to be great, Julius. We’re going to be great.”
“Hmm.” He ran his hands up from her waist, took the weight of her breasts in them and watched her eyes close; he heard her breath deepen when he pressed on her nipples through the light cotton of her blouse.
She was braless. Two beautiful firm and free handfuls.
Surprised, pleased, and not stopping the play of his thumbs on her nipples, he said. “I like this. You without a bra.”
She kissed him lightly and pulled back, her smile gone now, and he saw the desire in her striking dark eyes. Desire she made no attempt to conceal. Thank God. “I’d hoped you would.”
“Were you planning on seducing me?”
“Depending on how things went, I was planning on offering you dessert—I just wasn’t sure of your taste.”
He bent his head, lifted her breast and kissed its jutting tip through the light fabric, his mouth leaving a moist stain on her shirt. “Your menu is perfect. Exactly my taste.”
She shuddered. “There is one thing.”
“Protection.”
“Yes.”
“I brought some.”
She pulled back, tilted her head, gave him a wicked smile. “Were you planning on seducing me, Julius?”
Her repeating his exact words amused him. “A man lives in hope—plus I was a Boy Scout.”
“Boy Scouts lead clean, healthy lives, right? Always prepared?”
He nodded. “Definitely.”
“Then you won’t need the protection.”
“You sure?” Sliding in without latex. He hadn’t considered that an option.
“I’m on the pill.” She shrugged. “For girlie reasons.”
He always used condoms, never trusted enough not to. The idea of having a child made his blood chill. Terrified him. Always had…
Deanne slipped by his silence, put her arms around him, held him close, squeezed even tighter when she murmured into his shoulder, “This has to be special. I need it to be special. You’re the—”
“The what?”
“Nothing. I talk too much.” She took his hand and led him through the kitchen doorway—towed him, to be absolutely accurate. And it charmed him.
There was a ferocity in her, a ticking and pulsing he couldn’t figure out. Something that spoke to him without words, and that he understood without hearing. Not that she had a problem with words—he smiled to himself—or with speaking her mind. Maybe that was what drew him. That honesty thing she worked so hard at. Honesty always had a fierce edge, and it was always seductive.
Shoving his overactive mind into idle, he let his lower-half brain take over. If Deanne said she talked too much, he damn well thought too much. He wanted this woman—and thanks to whoever the hell up there was in charge of the lust division, she wanted him. He’d set out his terms—his bow to honesty—so any more thinking was not only extraneous, it was a tragic waste of time.
Her room was at the back of the house. Small, and lit only by the final traces of daylight, it was cool and dim. Its only window, softened by sheer white curtains running down each side, framed a view of an untended field, the lake beyond. Evening shadow danced across the lake’s rippling water, went on to finger through the field’s tall reedy grass, making the scene a study in shifting halftones. The walls of the room were a deep pink. The bed was a wild wash of greens and more shades of pink—a color match to a vase dripping with roses that sat on the bedside table. The curtains billowed in the breeze coming through the open window, and the sultry scent of the roses ebbed and flowed along its current. It was nothing like the spare furnishings of the living room/gallery he’d first stepped into. That room was all about business, this one was all about…breakfast in bed.
She stepped away from him long enough to close the blinds.
“Roses,” he said, when she came back to stand in front of him. “Which makes you a country girl at heart?” Or a full-out romantic. He took her hands in his, kissed her knuckles and held her tightly curled fingers against his chest. Tense. It seemed, despite all her bravado, now that she had him in her room—less than two feet from her bed—she didn’t know what to do with him. Not a problem, because he did.
“Too much pink?” She glanced around as if she’d never been in the room before—or was about to launch into a decor analysis. He saw her swallow, heard the draw of a deep breath. Definitely nervous.
“It’s your bedroom—and I’m in it. That makes pink my new favorite color.” He drew her to the bed, sat on its edge, spread his legs and drew her to his knee. When she was settled, he brushed her long hair back from her face and kissed her under her ear. Closing his eyes, he took in the scent and heat of her, all of it mingling with the smell of roses and evening summer air. She moaned softly when his breath skimmed her ear and wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her hands in his hair.
His breathing hammered up his throat. Raw need hammered everywhere else.
Slow, Zern, take it slow…
When his hand moved to the buttons on her blouse, she shifted back to give him better access. He had the buttons undone and her shirt on the floor in a time that had to be his personal best. Cupping a breast, he leaned to kiss it, then looked back at her. “You’re beautiful. And your skin—” he ran his thumb over the soft flesh of her breast, circled her areola, “—is like living gold.”
“If I’m a country girl, despite all my years in Chicago—” she smiled, “—that ‘living gold’ comment makes you a poet.” She ran her hand between them, undid his zipper and slipped her hand inside his pants. “A very hard poet.” She stroked him over his briefs, and his gut clenched. Another stroke had him thrusting into her hand.
“Jesus…”
He pulled her backward onto the bed, needing her against him, as a buffer against the clamor in his groin. His hands were filled with her breasts, his head was a red fog, he was iron hard and his lungs were a hurricane.
She rubbed his erection, slowly, mercilessly, took what she could of him in her hand, squeezed until he forgot how to breathe. It was fucking heaven! And they’d barely got started. “I was planning on…taking this slow.” He ground the words out, before his mouth latched on to her nipple. He suckled deep and strong. God, the taste of her…
She lifted herself above him, not enough for her breast to leave his mouth, but enough for him to work her, knead her—and he groaned into her hot flesh as he did.
>
“Julius…” She said his name in a whispered rush, then nothing.
“Hmm.” He lifted his mouth; her eyes were closed. He thumbed her nipples, still damp from his tongue and blew on one softly.
Rolling her up and under him, he let her stretch out fully on the bed. Her skirt was simple, one of those full summery things with elastic at the waist. He blessed whoever invented elastic and pulled it over her hips. Looked at her. Smiled. Pink panties. Satin, like her skin. Also…gone, joining the skirt and shirt on the floor beside the bed.
He looked at her sex, cupped her and ran a finger through her labia folds, skimmed her clit. All of it wet. All of it ready. “Perfect,” he murmured, half to his sexually wired self, half to her, giving her another gentle stroke.
She gasped, clasped his hand. “Much as I’m, uh, enjoying myself…no more until you’re as naked—and accessible—as I am.”
“Fair enough.”
She got busy undoing the buttons on his shirt, while he finished what she’d started with the buttons and zipper on his slacks and tossed the works onto the floor beside the bed. He thought of the condoms in his pocket. Did nothing.
The few seconds it took to strip gave them pause—him a chance to get what brain cells he had running on at least two cylinders, and Deanne a chance to look thoughtful.
“Second thoughts?” He kissed her. Waited. Kissed her again.
She smiled up at him, ran a finger along his jaw. Closed her eyes. “Not a one. I’m right where I want to be. Under you.”
“But?” He heard the echo of it, like a distant alarm bell. Everything churning inside him wanted to ignore it, except his inconveniently ticking brain.
“I need to say something.” Letting out an irritated breath, she frowned. “But then I always need to say something.” She paused. “And I have terrible timing.”
Julius had to smile at her self-directed annoyance, then moved his hand down and over her belly, and started to play in her soft curls. “Can’t argue with that.”
