by Alison Kent
“Yes,” she said, when he ripped open the packet he’d rescued from his wallet in the pants down around his ankles. Instead of giving him room, she pushed even closer against him, locking her legs around his waist so that as soon as he was sheathed there was nowhere to go but up inside her, all in one gloriously filling thrust that made her throw back her head and—
“Shhh,” he said, kissing her.
She laughed against his puckered mouth. One of these days, they were going to do it where she could make as much noise as she wanted.
“Okay, I’ll be as quiet as you.” Deliberately, she tightened her inner muscles on his shaft, and he let loose with something that was halfway between a grunt and a shout.
His head reared back. A glint had come to his eyes. Six-packed abdomen rippling, he rocked into her, making the motion into one long spiral of pleasure that twisted in on itself and then widened and rose higher and curled tighter and tighter and tighter….
The drafting table knocked rhythmically against the window ledge. She squeezed his waist between her thighs, squeezed down even harder on the shriek building inside her.
Instead she crooned. “C’mon, c’mon. Give it to me…”
“You,” he said, still rocking, “you give it to me. Tell me what I want to hear.”
She shook her head. Mystified.
His pumping slowed, when she wanted him to speed up.
“I don’t know!” she blurted.
“Tell me.”
“No.”
He took her chin in his hand and tried to make her look at him. She remembered his eyes best of all. Dark brown and bottomless. She only dared one glance. “Tell me,” he said.
“Damn you.”
“Isabel…”
She closed her eyes, refusing the emotion inside her.
“All right,” he said, and started to withdraw.
Her thighs tightened, keeping him close. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Using sex to make us close, just the way you use it to distance yourself. But if you can’t handle—”
“Th-that doesn’t make sense.”
“You’re the one who invented this game.”
She moaned. “Tom-m-m-m.”
“A name,” he muttered, sliding deeper again. “That’s progress. Maybe next you can look at me.”
Her eyes opened. She stared at him, full on.
“What do you see?”
She shook her head, still uncertain.
He thrust, breaking the dam inside her so she came, shuddering, in what felt like a molten river. There was the rush of sensation and the hurtful pressure on her constrained heart and then there was something more, something indefinable.
“I’m your lover, Isabel,” Tom whispered as he laid her down on the drafting table. “Your lover,” he said, grinding against her with a sharp, exquisite contact that renewed her pleasure tenfold. He sighed, his hands on her hips, his torso arching away from her as he was wracked with his own climax. The force and intensity of it was evident on his face. Incredible. Alarming. And still his voice rose, expanded, filling every questioning space in her head. “Your lover.”
8
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: I can’t
I’m sorry for running out on you again at your office yesterday, but you know I had to do it. I’ll be blunt, Tom. I can’t be the person you want me to be. You’re sweet and good and, well, an incredible lover to put it mildly, but this is as far as we go. Never thought I’d be so clichéd, but here it is: It’s not you, it’s me.
I have a damaged heart. For a long time, I thought I was dead inside, but now I know I’m not. Thanks to you, Tom. You gave me that, and I’ll never stop being grateful.
But when I woke up this morning, still thinking about what happened in your office and what you wanted from me, I knew that it wasn’t going to work. You need a good, decent woman who can love you all the way, without being slowed by the heavy baggage I’m lugging around. Maybe if I go into therapy and finally deal with my self-esteem issues—oh, God, can you believe this? I am such a freaking cliché!!!
Still. There can’t be any maybes, Tom. We’re over.
You’re a friend, and, yes, you were my lover. For a few beautiful moments. I hope that’s enough.
XOXOXOX,
Isabel
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Yes You Can
My beauty, Isabel: You think that after you I could ever be satisfied with a *good* woman? Not a chance.
Love,
Tom
P.S. I’m through with e-mail. From now on, we talk in person. You and me, one on one. Get ready because I’m coming over to tell you what’s enough.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: re: Yes You Can
NO, Tom. Don’t bother. I won’t let you in.
I mean it.
Iz
BUT DID SHE MEAN IT?
Damn. Isabel practically tossed her laptop across the surface of her worktable, rumpling the length of white silk she’d laid out in hopes of getting some work done on the patterns she’d been experimenting with before her sham of a love life took precedence. She’d written a dozen variations of her letter to Tom throughout the day, shoveling in the clichés and psychobabble when it really did come down to just one big old gigantic flaw.
Her. She was a mess of a person.
Her friends knew it, but they were tolerant. And they didn’t have to live with her. Have sex-equals-intimacy with her. That was the relationship killer, right there.
And she couldn’t be around Tom without it.
She knew he wouldn’t obey her last e-mail, even if he got it. Although she’d opened his response not that long after he’d sent it, she was guessing that he was already on his way, charging into the fray with the purest of hearts.
Bless him. He deserved the best, and that wasn’t her. He’d see that, eventually.
She capped her bottles of fabric dye, thinking about what underwear she’d put on that morning. Raggedy-ass mismatched Calvin Klein. And she hadn’t shaved her legs since New Year’s Eve.
She reached a hand to her calf. A few pinpricks of stubble. Not good enough.
Was there time to eat an onion?
Oh, for God’s sake, she was losing it. All she needed to do was be sure the door was locked.
She was standing by the elevator door when she heard the familiar rumbling wheeze of its ascent. Tom? Already? He must have helicoptered in from Brooklyn. Why hadn’t her landlord fixed that downstairs lock the first hundred times she’d asked?
Okay, Tom could come up, but he still wasn’t getting in. Panic fluttering in her belly, she rolled back the steel-barred industrial door to check the shaft. Damn, the elevator was already closer than she thought. Two floors away.
She was sliding the door closed again when the top of the elevator appeared, shaking and groaning ominously. Worried that it was breaking down, she stopped to check through the gap only to see that it was Tom making the noise. His hands were fisted on the rusty iron gate, rattling it like a prisoner gone mad as he shouted her name, “Isabel! Isabel!”
The elevator rumbled to a stop. They stared at each other for a moment before both suddenly realized that there was nothing keeping them apart. Tom threw open the accordion metal gate at the same time she shoved her door shut, clapping on the heavy-duty lock and chain that secured it.
Tom pounded on the door. “Isabel, you have to talk to me.”
“No, I don’t!”
“Let me in.” He was tugging on the handle, making the casters shudder, but the lock held.
“Go a-way,” she yelled, pressing her hands over her ears as she backed off. She sped through the loft, flipping past the hanging fabrics to reach the big queen-size bed angled into the farthest corner.
Tom was calling for
her.
“I can’t hear you,” she bellowed, and dove into the bed, thrusting her head under the pillow like a child. A hundred thousand times, she’d done the same as a girl, hoping she could shut out the sounds of her rampaging stepfather.
“Can’t hear you, can’t hear you,” she whispered into the claustrophobic bulk of the pillow. She tugged it tighter around her ears, muffling even her breath. There had even been times she’d hoped to smother herself, thinking with a child’s simplicity, “Then they’ll be sorry,” although deep down she’d known that her loss would be unremarkable in the world.
Suddenly she threw off the pillow. What was she doing? Tom was offering her the opposite of what she used to run from.
She gulped air, raising her head to listen for his voice. And heard only the hammering of her own heart.
She sat up. Put her head in her hands. All the fight was gone from her body.
What was that lyric again? Someone changed my—no, that was wrong, she suddenly realized. It was saved my life.
Tom had saved her. Her life was already changed. Now all she had to do was accept him into it.
But that was too scary.
Except…hadn’t she, already? He’d been with her for the past year.
“No, no,” she muttered. “E-mail doesn’t count.”
Anyway, it sounded as thought he was gone. She pushed off the bed and slowly moved toward the elevator door. Utter silence.
She let out a hiccupy sob. You blew it, Iz.
Then she heard a sound. A sort of metallic clang. And knocking. Not at the door. The window.
Fire escape.
Elation grew to immense proportions inside her.
Tap, tap, tap. Tom’s voice called to her. “Isabel…”
She covered her mouth with her hand, holding in the cry of joy that begged to be released. Her entire body shook.
“Dammit, Isabel.”
She took a deep breath and moved toward the window. Tom pounded on the glass.
She stopped, staring at him through wide eyes. A security grate was pulled across the window, but she could still see his face. He was speaking, begging, but she barely heard as she was propelled forward.
With fumbling nervousness, she unlocked the grate and pulled it back. Tom’s fist stopped pounding. His fingers spread on the windowpane, and she thought of the wonder of having them touch her cheek. He would never hurt her. She could trust that.
With a sob, she threw open the window. Cold gusts of air billowed the panels of fabric hanging from the ceiling. Tom climbed inside. A light snow swirled around his shoulders, misting him with specks of ash and sparkling frost.
His boots stamped on her wood floor. “Isabel.”
“I—” She stopped.
He was holding her Monticello sandals, with the satin ribbons like new again—unknotted and unwrinkled, spilling from his fingers in glorious, festive colors.
Okay, so he knew how to untie a knot.
Perhaps even the ones inside her.
She blinked back tears, but they wouldn’t comply.
“Face to face, honey,” he said, coming to stand before her. He put a fingertip beneath her chin and tipped it up. “Tell me what you see.”
A tear rolled down her cheek. “My lover.”
“Yes.” His eyes darkened. “And my face?”
“I—” She sniffled, shook her head.
“I’m not exactly handsome,” he said. “Can you live with that?”
Comprehension struck at last, even though it was unbelievable that Tom should have worried that he wasn’t good enough for her. “But you’re wonderful!” she cried. “You’re magnificent!”
“Look again, Isabel.”
She looked. Well…perhaps he wasn’t movie-star handsome. His mouth was wonderful and the deep dimples and grooves that bracketed it told her he was a man who laughed a lot. But his face was craggy and he did have a rather large nose, and maybe his hairline was receding the slightest bit.
He was Tom, though. That was all that mattered to her. Why would she wish for more when his eyes were the kindest she’d ever looked into? He had character and soul and, oh, the truth was that she believed with all her heart that he was the most beautiful man on the face of the earth.
“I love you,” she said, giving the stupendous statement no thought at all because somewhere along the way the knowledge had become a part of her. “I want to look into your face for the rest of my life.” She smiled, studying him through glittering tears. “Didn’t you know, Tom? All along, it was me who was the beast.”
He smiled. “You’re blind.”
“No. I’m finally seeing clearly.”
“Ah, Beauty.”
She crossed her arms, shivering in the cold air. “I honestly can’t say for sure that I can do this, Tom. But, I don’t know, maybe we should…try.”
“That’s all I ask.” He stepped toward her and wrapped his arms around her, bringing her feet off the floor. A few big strides brought them to the bed, and he set her down on the end of it, dropping to his knees at her stocking-clad feet.
She drew one up beneath her. “Now what are you doing?”
He shook the sandals, arranging the streamers. “This loft is drafty and the floors are cold.”
“We could close the window.”
“Yeah, but you need to wear shoes around the house.”
“Not the Monticellos. I’d break my neck.”
“I like these shoes. They put you in my arms.” He’d slipped off her sock, fitted the slender slipper onto her foot and was unerringly winding and weaving the ribbons into the proper crisscross pattern. He knotted and tied a bow.
“I hope you’re planning on sticking around,” Isabel joked. “Because these shoes are like mazes. I can get in them, but not out.”
Tom had coaxed her other foot out from beneath her and was finishing with the second sandal. “I’ll be here.” He gave her leg a warm squeeze, then looked up as he tied a bow with deft fingers. “Will you?”
She swallowed. “Well, for sure I can’t run in these shoes.”
“Then I’ll put them on you every time we make love and you start getting that panicky look in your eyes.” He kissed her kneecaps and slowly crawled upward. “Because you’re never running out on me after sex again.”
She fell back onto the bed, loving the feel of his long, lean body covering her in warmth. “We don’t need the shoes for that.” There was a nervous little fillip of fear dancing around inside her, but she concentrated on Tom’s eyes and soon enough it went away.
“All you have to do,” she said, lifting her face to meet his, “is hold on tight.”
And then his arms wound around her, and his kiss was on her lips, so solid, sure and abundant that she finally understood. Through all these years of blind desperation, what she’d been running toward was love.
Tantalizing
Nancy Warren
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
1
ARIANNE SORENSON SMOOTHED the long black designer dress she’d purchased at last year’s after-Christmas sale. By also using a promotional coupon, she’d received an extra ten percent off the already half-price dress, which meant that the actual total had only made her queasy, not truly sick.
She got into the cab which already contained Isabel and Natalie, and fastened her seat belt.
“I can’t believe we’re all still single,” she said after swapping hello kisses with her “dates.” “Why are we going back?”
“I get lucky every year,” Isabel reminded them both. “I like to bring in the new year with a bang.”
“I go for the shoes,” Natalie said. “You know what those babies retail for?”
Arianne shuddered. “Don’t remind me. I added up the cost of this party in shoes alone once and I swear you
could buy a place in the Hamptons.”
Natalie stretched her legs out and wiggled her toes. “I’d rather have the shoes. And maybe this year, Rafe will let me interview him. How about you, Arianne? What do you come back for?”
“Rafe.” She said it without thinking, and both her friends stared at her. She blinked. “I’m his accountant. It would be rude for me not to accept his invitation.”
The two still stared.
“What? You don’t seriously think Rafe would look twice at me, do you? Have you seen the women he…” She tried to come up with an appropriate verb for what Rafe actually did with the endless string of women on his arm. She knew he took them to the best restaurants, the hottest clubs, the plays, even dragged them to the opera.
“Dates.” She finally came up with the most encompassing word, though it seemed a feeble way to describe the process. One thing she knew, and was as predictable as pristine white snow was followed by brown slush, was that an affair with Rafe ended with a parting gift from Tiffany’s.
“Of course he’d look at you. You’re gorgeous.” Nat said. “Right, Iz?”
“Sure, you’ve got that total Swedish ice princess thing happening. Rafe probably wants to melt you with his hot Italian blood.”
For a second she allowed the image of Rafe and herself entwined naked on a dreamy-looking bed somewhere and was startled by the heat the thought produced in her belly. His skin was tawny, his hair black. The pale sunshine color of her hair was as close as sun ever came to her skin. Her skin was so fair she wore SPF 45 sunscreen all year round. How white her limbs would look next to his darker ones.
Contrasts. So many contrasts.
His family was from the hot and summery south of Italy, hers from cold northern Scandinavia. His nature was impulsive and generous, hers cautious and restrained.
He loved women in a casual, shallow way. They flitted in and out of his life like so many dazzling butterflies. Arianne didn’t love easily. And when she did, it went deep.
