Only Forever

by Linda Lael Miller

  Something Vanessa could not name or define made her leave her place at the breakfast bar and approach Nick. She knelt beside him, facing the fireplace, and said, “I’m not like you p-probably think I am. It’s just that you scare me so much.”

  He turned to her, smiling softly, and slid four fingers into her hair, caressing her cheek with his thumb. “I won’t tell you any lies, Vanessa,” he replied. “I want you—I have since I turned on the Midas Network and saw you standing there with a toll-free number printed across your chest—but I’m willing to wait.”

  “Wait?” Vanessa asked. Nothing in her relationship with Parker had ever prepared her for this kind of patience from a man. He had to want something. “You’re admitting, then, that there is a plan of seduction?”

  He laughed. “Absolutely. I intend to make you want me, Vanessa Lawrence.”

  Vanessa figured he had the battle half won already, but she wasn’t about to say that to him. In fact, she didn’t say anything, because Nick DeAngelo had rendered her speechless.

  He got up, leaving her kneeling there by the fire, and returned after a few minutes with two glasses of wine. After handing one to Vanessa and setting his own down on the brick hearth, he glanced pensively toward the rain-sheeted windows. “Do you want to go out to a movie, or shall we stay here?”

  Even though Vanessa was still wishing that she’d stayed home, indeed that she’d never met Nick at all, she had no desire to leave the comfort and warmth of his fire. She was, in fact, having some pretty primitive and elemental feelings where he and his comfortable home were concerned. It was almost as though she’d been wandering, cold and hungry and alone, and he’d rescued her and brought her to a secret, special place that no one else knew about.

  Vanessa shook her head. She hadn’t even had a sip of her wine yet, and it was already getting to her.

  “Van?” Nick prompted, peering into her face, and she realized that she hadn’t answered his question.

  “Oh. Yes. I mean, I’d like to sit by the fire and watch the storm.” Even as she spoke, blue-gold lightning streaked across the angry sky and a fresh spate of rain pelted the glass.

  Nick came back and sat down beside her on the rug. “Tell me about your life, Van,” he said, his voice low.

  She immediately tensed, but before she could frame a reply, Nick reached out and squeezed her hand.

  “I’m not asking about Parker—I know a little about him because we traveled in some of the same circles. You’re the one I’m curious about.”

  Vanessa took a sip of her wine and then told Nick the central facts about her childhood; that her father had died when she was seven, that her very young mother had been overwhelmed by responsibilities and grief and had left her daughter with her parents so that she could marry a rodeo cowboy. There had been cards, letters and the occasional Christmas and birthday gifts, but Van had rarely seen her mother after that.

  The expression in Nick’s eyes was a soft one as he listened, but there was no pity in evidence, and Vanessa appreciated that. Her childhood had been difficult, but there were lots of people who would have gladly traded places with her, and she had made a good life for herself—generally speaking.

  “You’ve always wanted to be on television?” Nick asked, plundering the white paper bag he’d brought home from the Chinese restaurant until he found two fortune cookies at the bottom.

  Vanessa sighed and shook her head. “Not really. I wanted to be Annie Oakley until I was six—then I made the shattering discovery that there was very little call for trick riding and fancy shooting except in the circus.”

  Nick grinned at that. “My childhood dream pales by comparison. I wanted to run my Uncle Guido’s fish market.”

  Vanessa laughed. “And you had to settle for a career in professional football. My God, DeAngelo, that’s sad—I don’t know how you bore up under the disappointment!”

  He had drawn very close. “I’m remarkable,” he answered with a shrug.

  “I can imagine,” Vanessa confessed, and as he touched the sensitive, quivering flesh of her neck with his warm and tentative lips, she gave a little moan. “Is this the part where you start making me want you?” she dared to ask.

  Nick nipped at her earlobe and chuckled when she trembled. “Yes. But that’s all, so don’t get nervous.”

  “What about what you want?” Vanessa asked.

  “I can wait,” he replied, and she knew she should push him away, but she couldn’t. The attention he was giving her neck felt entirely too good.

  Presently his hands came back to the buttons of the jumpsuit. Vanessa closed her fingers over his, realizing with a sleepy sort of despair that she wasn’t wearing either bra or panties beneath the worn blue corduroy, but Nick would not be stopped. He was a gentle conqueror, though, and she had no more thoughts of fear or of escape.

  She was lying on her back before the popping fire when he bared her breasts and watched the shimmer of the blaze and the flash of lightning play over them. Vanessa had never felt so feminine, so desirable.

  With a low, grumbling groan, Nick lowered himself to chart the circumference of her breast with a whisperlight passing of his lips. Vanessa watched in delicious dread as he moved toward the peak he meant to conquer, in an upward spiraling pattern of kisses. A whimper of long-denied pleasure escaped her as he touched her budding nipple with his tongue, causing it to blossom like some lovely, exotic flower.

  Beyond the windows, lightning raged against the sky as though seeking to thrust its golden fingers through the glass and snatch the lovers up in fire and heat. Vanessa shuddered involuntarily as Nick’s hand made a slow, comforting circle on her belly, his lips and tongue continuing to master her nipple.

  He’d said his goal was to make her want him, and he’d succeeded without question. Vanessa longed to give him the kind of intolerable pleasure he was giving her, to be joined with him in a fevered battle that would have no losers. But he was setting the pace, and Vanessa had no power to turn the tables.

  Her breasts were moist and pleasantly swollen by the time he brought his mouth back to hers and consumed her in a kiss as elemental as the lightning tearing at the afternoon sky.

  “Do you want me to make love to you, Van?” Nick whispered against her throat when the kiss had at last ended.

  Vanessa could barely lie still, her body was so hungry for his. “Yes,” she admitted breathlessly, her fingers frantic in his hair. “Oh, yes.”

  He gave a heavy sigh and circled a pulsing nipple with the tip of his tongue before saying the unbelievable words. “You’re not ready for that, darlin’.”

  Although he’d spoken without a trace of malice, Vanessa still felt as though she’d been slapped. “You can’t just—just leave me like this….”

  “Don’t worry,” he said, still toying with her nipple. “I don’t intend to.”

  Moments later, he drew the jumpsuit down over her hips and legs and tossed it away. He kissed Vanessa thoroughly before trailing his mouth down over her collarbone, her breasts, her belly.

  When he reached his destination, the lightning would wait no longer. It reached into the room, scooping Vanessa up with crackling fingers and bouncing her mercilessly in its palm. Only when she cried out in primitive satisfaction did it set her back on the rug in front of Nick’s fireplace and leave her in relative peace.

  She was crying, and she couldn’t bring herself to look at the man who had unchained the lightning.

  He covered her gently with an afghan as though she were a casualty of some sort and kissed her on the forehead. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said.

  By the time Nick returned, Vanessa had rallied enough to get back into the jumpsuit. She was standing at the window, looking out on the gloomy spectacle of a city dressed in twilight gray, hugging herself. Nick stood behind her, putting his arms around her, and she felt the chilly dampness of his bare chest against her back and guessed that he’d taken a cold shower.

  “Why?” she asked, not lookin
g at him because she couldn’t. “I would have given myself to you. Didn’t you want me?”

  “Oh, I wanted you all right.”

  “Then why? Why didn’t you take me?”

  “Because this is your time, Vanessa. Because I think you’re hiding somewhere deep inside yourself and you need to be coaxed into the world again. That’s what I want to show you—that it’s safe out here.”

  She turned in his arms, sliding hers around his waist. He wore nothing but a pair of jeans and an impudent half grin. She rested her forehead against his cool, muscular chest.

  “It was as though the storm came inside,” she confessed. “I’ve never felt anything like it.”

  Nick simply held her and listened.

  “I’m not some kind of neurotic, you know,” she went on. “And I’m not a prude, either.”

  He chuckled, and his lips moved softly at her temple. “No prude would have responded the way you did.”

  Vanessa looked up at him. “You were right earlier, Nick DeAngelo—you are a remarkable man.”

  He favored her with a cocky grin. “You have no idea how remarkable,” he teased.

  “I think I’d like to go home before I decide to find out,” Vanessa replied.

  Nick didn’t argue, get insulted or try to convince her to stay. He simply put on a shirt and shoes, got her a paper bag for her jeans and sweater and drove her home.

  “Will you come to dinner on Friday night?” Vanessa asked him, when they were standing in her kitchen and he’d just given her a goodbye kiss that brought faint flickers of lightning to her mind.

  “Do I have to wait that long to see you again?” he countered, albeit good-naturedly.

  Vanessa nodded. “I’m afraid so. If you’re around, I won’t get any rest at all, and when that happens, I don’t do well on television.”

  Nick touched the tip of her nose with an index finger. “Okay.” He sighed. “I’ll content myself with watching you sell cordless screwdrivers and videotape rewinders for a week, but be forewarned, when Friday night comes around, you’re in for another lesson on why I’m the only man for you.”

  Vanessa felt a pleasant little thrill at the prospect and hoped he didn’t notice. “Eight o’clock,” she said.

  He kissed her again. “Seven, and I’ll bring the wine.”

  “Seven-thirty,” Vanessa negotiated, “and you can also build the fire.”

  Nick laughed. “Deal,” he said, shaking her hand. And then he was gone, and Vanessa’s big, empty house seemed bigger and emptier than ever.

  She fed Sari, who had been telling a long and woeful tale in colloquial meows from the moment Vanessa and Nick had entered the house. She had just tossed her jeans, sweater and underwear into the utility room when someone began pounding at the front door.

  Thinking Nick had come back, she hurried through the house, worked the lock and pulled the door open wide.

  Parker was standing on the step, looking apoplectic. “Do you realize how many messages I’ve left for you since last night?” he demanded furiously.

  Not wanting the neighbors to witness a domestic drama of the sort they’d learned to expect and relish during the last days of the marriage, Vanessa grasped Parker by the arm and pulled him inside the house.

  “I’ve been busy,” she hissed, annoyed. She started off toward the kitchen again, leaving Parker to follow. “What did you want, anyway?” she demanded, reaching into a cupboard for two mugs and marching over to the sink.

  “I’m going to be on a talk show day after tomorrow,” her ex-husband answered in grudging tones, hurling himself into a chair at the table. He named a very famous host. “She wants you to appear, too, since you’re in the book.”

  So that was it. Vanessa’s feelings of being cherished was displaced by a sensation of weariness. She wondered who, besides Parker, would have had the gall to suggest such a thing.

  “No way, slugger,” she breathed, setting the mugs full of water in the microwave and getting out a jar of instant coffee.

  “It will mean more sales, Van,” Parker whined, “and more sales means more money!”

  Vanessa was standing by the counter, her arms folded, waiting for the water to heat. “You live in a fantasy world, don’t you, Parker? A place where nobody ever says no to anything you want. Well, listen to this—I’m not going to help you promote that book, I’m going to sue you for writing it!”

  The bell on the microwave chimed, and Vanessa took the mugs out and made coffee by rote. She set one in front of Parker with a thump and sat down on the opposite side of the table from him.

  He was staring at the corduroy jumpsuit in baffled distaste. “Good grief, Vanessa,” he said, “don’t you make enough money to dress decently? Whatever that thing is, it’s a size too big.”

  Vanessa sighed. Some things never changed. “I knew you were coming over and I dressed for the occasion,” she said sweetly, taking a sip from her mug. Sari made a furry pass around her ankles, as if to lend reassurance.

  Parker was a master of the quicksilver technique, and he sat back in his chair and smiled warmly at Vanessa. “I hope I didn’t make you feel inadequate,” he said.

  He’d made a specialty of it in the past, but Vanessa had no desire to hash over the bad old days. She thought of the hours she’d spent in Nick DeAngelo’s company and smiled back. “That’s about the last thing I’m feeling right now,” she answered.

  Parker looked disappointed. “Oh.”

  Vanessa laughed at his frank bewilderment. “Listen,” she said after recovering herself, “our marriage has been over for a long time. We don’t have to do battle anymore.”

  He sat up straight. “The things I’m asking for are very simple, Vanessa,” he said, sounding almost prim.

  “And they’re also impossible. I’m not going on any talk show to promote a book I’d like to see fade into obscurity.”

  His expression turned smug. “Suing me will only make sales soar,” he said.

  “I know,” Vanessa confessed with a sigh. “Just tell me one thing, Parker—why did you describe me that way? Was that the kind of wife you wish I’d been?”

  Parker averted his eyes, then pulled back the sleeve of his expensive Irish woolen sweater to glance at his Rolex. “What would I have to do to get you back?” he asked without even looking at her.

  Vanessa was thunderstruck. Not once in her wildest imaginings had it ever occurred to her that Parker had been harassing her in a sort of schoolboy attempt to get her attention. She put her hands to her cheeks, unable for the moment to speak.

  At last Parker met her gaze. “I thought things would be so much better without you,” he told her gruffly. “Instead my whole life is going to hell.”

  Vanessa resisted an urge to take out the brandy she’d used to make fruitcake the year before and pour a generous dose into her coffee. “I’m flattered,” she said in a moderate voice, “but I don’t think getting back together would be good for either of us.”

  “You’re in love with somebody else,” Parker accused.

  It was too soon to say that what Vanessa felt for Nick was love, but his appearance in her life had made some profound changes. “That’s got nothing to do with anything,” she answered. “There is no future for you and me—there shouldn’t even have been a past.” She got out of her chair and went to the back door, opening it to the chilly autumn wind and standing there looking at Parker.

  To his credit, he took the hint and slid back his chair. “If you’d just let me stay, I could prove to you that getting divorced was a mistake for us.”

  Vanessa shook her head, marveling. “Good night,” she said, and she closed and locked the door the moment Parker stepped over the threshold.

  The telephone rang just as she was taking their cups from the table to the sink.

  “Was that The Living Legend I just saw leaving your place?” her cousin Rodney demanded.

  Vanessa smiled, looking out the kitchen window at the lighted apartment over the garage. “Yes
. All moved in, are you?”

  “Absolutely,” Rodney replied. “I’ve been painting all day, and the fact is, I think if I close my eyes tonight I’m going to wake up asphyxiated.”

  “If you’re asphyxiated, you don’t usually wake up,” Vanessa pointed out.

  “I’d forgotten how nitpicky you get when you’re tired,” Rodney teased. “Are you going to invite me to sleep on your couch tonight or what?”

  Vanessa laughed. “I haven’t got a couch, remember? Parker took it. But you’re welcome to spread out a sleeping bag and breathe free.”

  “I’ll be right down,” came the immediate response.

  Rodney arrived within seconds, carrying a rolled-up sleeping bag and a paper sack with the name of a favorite delicatessen emblazoned on the side. “Have you had dinner?” he asked.

  Vanessa realized that she hadn’t had anything to eat since the Chinese lunch at Nick’s, and she was hungry. “Actually, no,” she answered.

  Rodney pulled out the cutting board and slid the biggest hero sandwich Vanessa had seen in recent memory out of the bag. Her cousin reached for a knife and cut the huge combination of bread and lettuce, cheese and turkey into two equal pieces. “Share and share alike,” he said.

  Grinning, Vanessa took plates from the cupboard and brought them over to the counter. “I’m overwhelmed by your generosity.”

  “It’s the least I can do for the woman who saved me from spending another night above Jergenson’s Funeral Parlor,” he replied.

  Vanessa put half the sandwich onto her plate and went back to the table. “Someday, when you’re a successful chiropractor, you’ll look back on living there as a growth experience.”

  Rodney dropped into the chair directly across from hers. “You’re trying to evade the real issue here, which is what did Parker want?”

  “I don’t think he knows,” Vanessa confided, dropping her eyes to her sandwich.

  “Damn,” Rodney marveled, “he’s trying to get you back, isn’t he? I wonder how he found out you were seeing Nick DeAngelo. Bet it’s eating him up—”