Take My Breath Away

by Christie Ridgway

  An August affair. Then it had been over, at her insistence. He’d returned to L.A. just a few days after she refused to attend that movie premiere.

  It should have stayed over. But he’d returned to her world and she’d been powerless to resist his appeal. Linus, brimming with all that casual, unfussy charm, had sneaky ways of getting past her guard.

  But not into her heart. She had strict lines drawn around it. Boundaries he’d never pass.

  Then he rubbed a hand over his eyes, in a gesture so weary that the heavily protected organ in her chest squeezed a little. Linus had never shown a hint of fatigue, not even when they’d burned the candle at both ends last summer.

  “What is it?” she asked, dropping her spoon and reaching for his free hand. “What’s the matter?”

  “Things on my mind, Sal. Sorry. I’m probably lousy company tonight.”

  Another first. Linus had always been the best kind of company, ready to share witty observations, yet equally content to enjoy a comfortable silence. She squeezed his fingers. “Is it about Ryan? And...and his son?”

  At his nod, Charlie’s heart constricted again. Like just about everyone else in the world, she knew about the tragedy and then the trouble his brother seemed to encounter every March. But Linus had lost a loved one, too, hadn’t he?

  “Would you...would like to tell me about your nephew?” she asked.

  Linus’s fingers twitched in her hold and his gaze, trained on the tablecloth, lifted to hers. “Tate.”

  “Tate,” she repeated. “Tell me about Tate.”

  He was silent another moment, then began to talk. “We were all crazy about him.” A half smile curved Linus’s mouth. “Well, at first I considered him just a blob, you know? I watched Ryan cart him around and thought bo-ring.”

  Charlie squeezed his hand. “I’ve yet to meet a man who instantly went ga-ga over newborns.”

  “Then one day Tate was in this carrier on the kitchen table at my mom and dad’s. I was sitting there with a bowl of cereal when a sneeze crept up on me—one of those kind you can’t swallow down.”

  “Ah-choo.”

  “Yeah. I ah-chooed, all right. So loud the pots and pans rang. And Tate...”

  “Screamed? Cried?”

  “He laughed.” The corners of Linus’s mouth lifted in a real grin. “It was the first time he ever laughed. Mom, Dad, Ryan, everybody just gathered around him then, and we took turns fake-sneezing to hear that laughter over and over and over again.”

  Charlie ran her thumb across his knuckles. “Sounds like he enjoyed an audience. A true Hamilton, huh? Another performer.”

  “Yeah. Maybe. I guess we’ll never know.” At that, he sat up and slid his fingers from hers. “But downer of a conversation, huh? Got any good stories about the best little post office in Cali?”

  Instead of letting him deflect the direction of their discussion, Charlie slid along the booth’s seat until her hip brushed his. “You can talk to me, Linus.”

  He glanced over, as if judging her truthfulness. “Yeah?”

  “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

  His second assessing glance made her bristle. “Well, I consider myself your friend,” Charlie said. “And if something is bothering you, I’d like to hear about it.”

  Linus hesitated a long minute. “Okay.” He blew out a breath. “It’s just this time of year is hard, you know? My folks fret about Ryan, and I fret about Ryan, and...”

  “And then there’s your own grief.”

  He was still again. After a moment he slid an arm around her shoulders, drawing her into him to press a kiss to her hair. “And then there’s my own grief. Thanks for realizing that. He was a good little kid. I miss the hell out of him.”

  Charlie leaned against Linus, hoping he drew some comfort from her warmth. “I know what that’s like, you know. Losing a loved one. Having to accept you’ll never see them again.”

  With gentle hands, Linus pushed her away, putting a small distance between them. A frown drew his eyebrows together. “I’m so sorry. Who...?”

  “My best friend, Laurie. We were inseparable from middle school until...until she died.”

  “That must have been so hard,” Linus murmured.

  “Yes. We did just about everything together.” Except Charlie had made sure she never fell in love with one of the Summer Beaus. “She was like a sister to me.”

  Linus’s thumbs caressed circles on her shoulders. “What happened?”

  “Car crash. She was heading downhill off the mountain one night and went through the guardrail.” Over the cliff, Laurie’s body breaking, just as her heart had already been shattered.

  “God.” Linus pulled her to him again, hugging her close. “I’m so sorry, Sal.”

  She allowed herself to lean there, absorbing consolation, returning it, feeling closer to him than ever. His heartbeat was steady in her ear, his breath warm on her temple. This closeness is dangerous, a little voice whispered to her. Remember, it’s what your rules and boundaries have been all about preventing.

  “Was she the girl in the photos on your bulletin board?” Linus asked.

  “Hmm?”

  He drew back to meet her gaze. “I saw some pictures on the bulletin board in your room. You and another girl. Laurie?”

  “Yes. Laurie.” Even after three years Charlie missed her like a phantom limb. She’d think, gotta call L, gotta tell L the latest...and then belatedly remember that L wouldn’t pick up ever again.

  As if he sensed her distress, Linus kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her mouth. “It can be just so damn hard.”

  She nodded, and they gazed into each other’s eyes, his brown ones looking so warm and tender that she felt tears gathering inside her like a storm. But they weren’t threatening to spill over and roll down her cheeks. Instead, she felt them as a force against her heavily defended heart, a flooding pressure great enough to fracture what was within. Hold strong, she cautioned herself. Keep steady.

  “Sal,” Linus said, his voice soft. “You said you were willing to hear what was bothering me.”

  Sal. That nickname was killing her. But what could she do but nod? “Is there something else?”

  “It’s just... I’m just...” Linus looked away, then looked back at her, and there was a flush of—embarrassment?—riding his cheekbones. “I need to see Steven. There wasn’t a photo of him in your room, not that I saw, anyway, and I don’t know...for some reason I’ve got to put a face to the name....”

  His voice trailed away as she reached for her purse. Her movements felt sluggish, like she was surrounded by mud instead of air. But her fingers managed to close around the leather and then they found her wallet and then she flipped through the plastic sleeves. A guy in uniform smiled for the camera.

  She tilted the photo to give Linus a better view. “Steven Parker.”

  * * *

  FROM YOU SEND ME, a screenplay by Linus Hamilton:

  INT. CHARLIE’S BEDROOM—NIGHT

  At the foot of CHARLIE’s brass bed are two piles of clothes, his and hers, the same wardrobe the couple had been wearing on the boat. As before, the summer moonlight streams through the window, illuminating LINUS and CHARLIE. This time, they lie side by side, not touching, though the disarray of the sheets indicate they’d been very close a few moments before. Silent, they both stare at the ceiling and soon CHARLIE’s eyes drift closed. LINUS has been waiting for this moment. With slow, deliberate movements, he picks up her hand and places it on his chest, directly over his heart. His fingers cover hers. He releases a sigh, indicating some of his tension has eased, but his eyes stay open. He’s not planning to sleep and waste a second of one of the last times they’ll be together.

  * * *

  LINUS HAD NEVER felt less free-and-easy than when looking into the face of
Charlie’s man. The request had just tripped from his mouth and so he had no one to blame but himself for the way the sight of the soldier dragged him to a new, crappy March low. “Yeah. Okay. Thanks,” he said, pushing Charlie’s wallet toward her.

  Put it away, he urged in silence.

  Just like he would put away whatever dumb ideas he was starting to think about him and the blue-eyed blonde. Again.

  “I’m just here until the end of March,” he told Charlie. “Did I make that clear? April 1st it will be safe to drag Ryan back to L.A. and get on with our lives.”

  She nodded, occupying herself with her purse. Totally cool with him imposing another deadline to their affair. But she was accustomed to that, and had introduced the notion herself, as a matter of fact. Come September, there are boundaries.

  Linus wanted to hit something. His ugly mood, this depressing month and the picture of fucking Saint Steven suddenly coalesced into a ball of fiery energy in his belly. His blood started zipping through his veins, charging him up, filling him with restless energy that needed an outlet.

  Sex, he thought. He needed sex to put everything back in order in his head. To give this thing he had with Charlie true perspective.

  When she turned back to him he was ready. Taking her shoulders in his hands, he yanked her close to lay his lips on hers, claiming her mouth in a greedy, scorching kiss. When air became necessary, he jerked her away and stared into her eyes with unmistakable intent.

  “I’ve got something I want to do to you,” he growled.

  She blinked.

  “Any objections?”

  Her mouth opened.

  He dove in for another ruthless lip-lock. Her face was flushed when he once again lifted his head. “Any objections?” he repeated.

  Slowly, she shook her head from side to side.

  “Let’s go,” he said, using his body to herd her out of the booth. As he stood, he realized he’d yet to take care of the bill. Glancing around for their waitress, he pulled a money clip from his pocket. “This will only take a second.”

  “I’ll use it to go the ladies’ room,” Charlie said, then hurried away.

  Linus watched her leave, the sway of her hips doing nothing to temper his lust. When his server said she’d be a moment with his bill, he headed toward the bar, figuring he’d order a shot of something while he waited. A foursome huddled together at a nearby table, two young women accompanied by two men in their midtwenties. The guys were snowboarders, Linus decided, their goggle sunburns giving them away.

  The girls excused themselves, strolling slowly past Linus as they headed in the same direction Charlie had taken. He couldn’t help but overhear them.

  “Are you going to be okay?” the brunette said to her redheaded companion. “They’re only here for five more days, and Craig said he wants to put you at the top of his list.”

  “You caught that Craigslist reference?” The other girl smothered a giggle. “Okay, it’s a pretty lame line, but he’s seriously cute.”

  “Which is why I ask again, are you going to be okay?”

  They both paused to glance over their shoulders at their escorts, who were still shooting the breeze at their table. “Sure,” the redhead said. “I’ve got Steven now.”

  The brunette’s eyebrows arched. “Wait. I thought Charlie Walker—”

  “Nope. She’s all done with him.”

  They continued on as Linus absorbed the implication of the conversation. Charlie was “done with him”? Had Charlie and Saint Steven broken up? But...

  She hadn’t shared that with Linus.

  He hadn’t asked that exact question, though, had he? Recalling his second March visit to her post office, the essence of their exchange had been this: Was Steven back in town? No.

  Linus had never asked if they were still together.

  Why had she kept it from him? Why was that photo still in her wallet? There was only one possible answer. She wasn’t interested in a deadline-free relationship with Linus.

  Stupid to feel hurt or betrayed by that fact. It had always been his intention to enjoy her in the short term, right? That she felt the same was the bonus.

  And now he was going to take the bonus-provider to bed.

  Charlie returned just as he finished up with the bill. He took her arm to hurry her toward the door. As he settled her into the passenger side of his car, he noted the bangs of her short cut were clearly damp around the edges. He touched them and discovered that her face was cool. Cold even.

  Leaning in, he pressed the back of his knuckles to her cheek. “Why are you chilled?”

  She hesitated.

  “Charlie?”

  “I put my face in a bowl of ice water, okay? I know someone in the kitchen and I needed to...cool off.”

  He grinned, his blood starting that mad zip around his system again. Screw the murky situation with Steven Parker. That was nonimportant, when he was about to...

  Screw Charlie.

  Call him crude, but he was going to do that. All the way to dawn and back again.

  Fog shrouded her small house and dampened their clothes as Linus followed her up the three narrow steps to her red-painted front door. The small light mounted adjacent to it barely penetrated the gray gloom, and inside, the darkness was nearly complete.

  He saw her reach for a light switch, but his hand halted hers.

  Better, he thought, that they do this under cover of the night. The lack of light would obscure all that was bright and shiny about Charlie, curbing any of Linus’s inconvenient and unwelcome magpie urges to covet. He’d close his eyes, too, and think of her as a generic character, Sexy Girl #1, an unnamed female in the cast of the evening’s movie, there to bring the cavalier leading man to a physical release—and nothing more than that.

  His luck still held, because they made it to the bed without tripping over anything hidden in the dark. With the mattress against the back of his legs, Linus began undressing her by touch, slipping the buttons of her blouse through their narrow holes, tugging at the stretchy denim of her jeans to work them over her curving hips and down the lean length of her legs.

  Then she took over, and he was forced to guess at her movements, but decided by sound and the shimmy of the shadows that she’d toed off her leather flats, wiggled all the way out of the denim and shrugged off her blouse. He heard the soft plop it made as it hit the floor. Reaching out, his hands gripped the naked indentations of her waist.

  Her skin there was warm and sleek and her image popped into his mind: her athletic grace, her lean supple curves. He groaned, working hard to give that likeness the boot. Instead, she was Sexy Girl #1, a generic ideal with no more uniqueness than the female silhouette on a trucker’s mud flap.

  One hand wandered up her back and another toward her butt and Linus realized she’d accomplished more than he’d deduced. Charlie was completely undressed.

  After six months, he had her naked again.

  Impulse overtook caution. He drew her against him and found her mouth, kissing her with heat and tongue while his palms ran over every inch of her flesh, exploring soft curves and taut muscle. In the past, he’d gone to great effort not to hold her too close, but as his fingers took hold of one glorious ass-cheek, he reminded himself that Sexy Girl #1 was no danger to him.

  Sexy Girl #1 was a faceless, strings-free entity.

  Who had some moves of her own. Even as he continued to kiss her, his tongue thrusting deep between her lips, she was busy with her hands, unfastening the front of his button-down, working at the snap and zipper of his jeans.

  Then she had him in her palm, and his dick surged in welcome, offering its own wet kiss to her stroking flesh. His head fell back and he groaned, enjoying the hell out of the pleasure of Charlie’s touch.

  Sexy Girl #1’s touch.

  Her
mouth found his nipple, her little tongue darting out to tickle him there and his skin rippled in response, a hot shiver of desire sending goose bumps across his body. She chased them with her lips and then she was kneeling on the floor and now Sexy Girl #1 was starring in that kind of movie, performing with perfect mud-flap abandon, and Linus groaned again.

  He had to see this, he thought, desperate for the visual. He was a man, wasn’t he? He had to see this.

  His hand stretched out, fumbled then found the switch of the bedside lamp. Yellow light spilled into the room, brightening his companion’s hair like a halo.

  An angel on her knees.

  Linus’s heart slammed against his chest wall, nearly buckling him. He reached back, hand grasping the bedclothes to steady himself. It was too much, he thought, gaze glued to the sight of Sexy Girl #1, her mouth around him, her eyes closed.

  Charlie not looking at him.

  It wasn’t right.

  Leaning down, he grasped her by the elbows and drew her to her feet. She made a low sound of disappointment—God, what a turn-on!—and he hushed her with his own murmur and rolled them both onto the bed. The squeak of the old springs made him smile as he tossed off his clothes. Then he pulled Charlie against him once more and she burrowed close, her mouth at his throat, her short, silky hair catching in the rough whiskers on his chin.

  “Sal,” he whispered. “Oh, Sal.”

  Then he slid his hands to her breasts, feeling them swell into his palms and her nipples stiffen to gain the attention of his thumbs. He inched down on the mattress to tease that sweet flesh, her low moans the soundtrack to this new movie.

  Linus and Charlie’s movie.

  “The color of the walls are pistachio,” he murmured against the cleft between her breasts. “The ceiling is eggshell.”

  Her fingers sifted through his hair as her back arched. He sucked a nipple and worried it with his tongue. When she gasped, he lifted his head. “The curtains at the windows are pinstriped. Green again, and chocolate-brown.”

  A line was dug between her brows and he crawled up her body to kiss it away. “What’s the matter?”