“I love it.”
“I know a great lobster place. I’d love to take you there.”
I’d just been asked out. “Wow—it’s so kind of you to offer, but I’m…er…seeing someone right now.”
Right? Wasn’t I? That seemed somehow both too much and not enough to describe what I had with Owen.
“That’s a shame, although hardly surprising.” He grinned. The man was confident, no doubt about it. “Well, if you ever change your mind, or if you need a tip on where to find the best lobster in Maine, give me a call.”
He pulled a business card out of his wallet and handed it to me in one smooth motion, as if he did this all the time. I glanced down at it and read:
James H. Emory
Proprietor, Emory’s Auction House
Rare Art, Antiques, Collectibles
“You own an auction house?”
“One of the family businesses,” he replied. “My father and grandfather opened it, and I was fortunate enough to inherit it. I love it, even though it means spending so much time in New York.”
“I’ve always wanted to go to New York.” I looked wistfully at the address on the back of the card.
“It’s a world-class city,” James said. “But I find as I get older, I’d rather be here.”
“That’s nice.” It was nice to hear someone talk about how much they liked Fall Island. It was a first, in fact. “How often do you get to be here?”
“Not often. A few weeks in the summer is all I can spare, usually.”
“The summer,” I echoed. “Do you live up on the north part of the island?”
“That’s right.” He smiled. “Have you ever been? It’s lovely.”
“It certainly looks lovely from a distance.”
“I’ll make sure to invite you to my next summer get-together.”
“Thanks.” I smiled, but privately I wondered if he’d just asked me out again. “What are the rest of the people up north like?”
“A few retirees, a television personality, the usual. It’s a nice crowd. Gets bigger all the time, as the island gets more popular.” He shrugged. “How is the painting going? Have you given any thought to showing your work?”
“It’s going.” I thought of the self-portrait I’d started but, yet again, had not finished. “An auction house,” I said. “That’s why you offered to introduce me to people.”
“That’s right. I know most of the major gallery owners in New York. Quite a few of them would be very impressed with the painting you showed me.”
“Wow.” Did he mean that, though? Or was it just another ploy for a date?
Fortunately, my waitress sense kicked in and told me that one of my tables was looking for their check. I excused myself, promising James a Manhattan, and went into the back to print their check and put in James’ drink order.
“Hey, I saw you talking to that guy!” Kaye tapped my shoulder. “You know he asked for you? I think he likes you.”
“He asked me out, but I turned him down.” I grabbed the check from the printer and tucked it into the check holder.
“What? Why? I mean, sure, he’s a little old for you, but still…”
I laughed. “You want his number?”
Kaye playfully shoved my arm. “He’s not asking for me.” She followed me to the bar. “Are you really not interested in him? Oh, hi, Muscles,” she added, as Muscles plopped down on one of the bar stools across from Andy.
“Who’s interested in me?” Muscles asked.
“Not you.” Kaye rolled her eyes. “That rich guy over there keeps asking Miranda out, but she won’t go.”
“I don’t have to go out with him just because he’s rich, Kaye.” Or even because he could introduce me to important people in the New York art scene.
“Don’t let my mother hear you say that,” Kaye said. She was watching James, while Andy, as he made James’ Manhattan, was watching her. Muscles, meanwhile, was reading a magazine about beer.
Shaking my head, I walked off to give my table their check. As I did so, I glanced at the cobwebbed grandfather clock in the far corner. 3:00. Just a few more hours until I saw Owen again.
I showed up at his door a bit late, after changing my outfit a thousand times. I’d eventually settled on a short midnight-blue dress and black stockings. As the finale, I’d added ropes of crystal quartz around my neck. I felt self-conscious about the jewelry now, though, and wondered if it was too much. A Maine girl would have worn a long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans, not this. Nothing like this.
I took a deep breath and knocked.
Owen opened the door a moment later, wearing jeans, of course, but also a black button-down with the sleeves rolled up. He looked fantastic, and we matched, thankfully.
“God.” He looked me up and down.
I brought my hands to my neckline. “What? Is it bad?”
“Bad? You’re gorgeous. Come inside before someone tries to steal you from me.”
I laughed. He drew me inside and shut the door behind me. I could smell his soap, and an earthy cologne that complemented his usual spicy scent.
He was still looking at my dress and sparkling necklaces, with a smile playing at the corner of his lips. “Can I get you a glass of wine?”
For one uncomfortable moment, the question made me think of James Emory. I tried to brush the thought aside. “I’d love one.”
Owen opened a bottle of red wine at his kitchen counter and poured each of us a glass. My nervousness came back as I stood in the kitchen. I kept thinking back to our afternoon at the beach: everything I had told him, and every time he had kissed me.
“How was your shift?” he asked, biting his lip, and for the first time, it occurred to me that he might be nervous, too.
“Oh, you know, the usual,” I said lightly. “I kept accidentally bumping into that stuffed organ-grinder monkey Bill keeps in the hallway.”
Owen grinned. “That thing gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
“All of Bill’s decorations give me the heebie-jeebies.” The only one I really liked was the stained glass window that had given the bar its name. It showed a woman standing on a cupola—a Widow’s Walk—looking forlornly out to sea. “It’s a great place, though,” I said. “I really can’t thank you enough for suggesting it.”
Owen shrugged that away, but I meant it. I didn’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t run into him on that cool, misty morning.
“Did you work today?” I asked.
“Just a few things in the morning. Spent most of the day working on a project for Marianne.”
I brightened. “I love Marianne! She and your mom are such a cute couple.”
“She’s been great for my mom. She even likes dogs.”
“Thank God for that. What are you making for her?”
“Nothing too fancy—just replacing a banister in her house.” He had turned away and now moved effortlessly around the room as he spoke, bringing a couple of steaming dishes to the kitchen table, lighting the pillar candles he’d placed in the center. “Should come out nice, though. I’m doing a seashell inlay. Marianne likes nautical stuff.”
“That sounds kind of fancy,” I pointed out, which made him smile. “Can I help with anything?”
He waved a hand dismissively. It was hard not to stare in wonder while he finished setting the table and gestured for me to sit. He’d made me dinner twice now, and this one had turned out to be even more delicious than the first: peppered steak with a brandy cream sauce, roasted haricots verts, and frisée salad with hazelnuts.
“This is amazing,” I told him, in between bites. “And I must say, also pretty fancy.”
“It wasn’t hard. Though it helps that my stepmom’s French. She’s taught me a few tricks.”
“I didn’t know that. You’re multicultural too.”
He laughed. “Not like you are. I didn’t grow up with it or anything.”
“Still counts,” I replied. “I’ve tried to pick up a few recipes from my Puerto Rican
family over the years.”
“I’d like to try some Puerto Rican food. Not a lot of that on Fall Island.”
“I’ll make you arroz con pollo sometime,” I promised. “Or maybe mallorca! I love those. But those are usually for breakfast.”
Owen coughed, and I blushed. Good one, Miranda. Very subtle.
“Um…what’s mallorca?” he asked politely.
“They’re pastries. Like an egg bread, with powdered sugar.”
I told him about going to La Bombonera whenever we went into San Juan, or, when we made mallorca ourselves, spending lazy Saturday afternoons waiting for the dough to rise so we could eat them after church on Sunday. It was hard to believe I hadn’t been to Puerto Rico in almost ten years.
“We should go sometime,” Owen said, with a shy smile that made my heart feel about to burst. “Or England—I’d like to go there, too.”
“I love England,” I said, trying to imagine Owen folding himself into a tiny airplane seat. “Have you ever been abroad?”
“Once, to France, when I helped Maryse and the kids pack up their stuff before they moved to California.” He explained that his dad and his stepmom had met in Paris while his dad was there on business. They’d had a whirlwind courtship and had been married on a beach in the south of France. Maryse had packed up her three kids and moved them all to California to be with Charles. “It was all very out of character for him,” Owen said. “Larsens are not romantic.”
I looked around at the candlelight and the wonderful dinner he had made. “Obviously,” I agreed. “Not romantic at all.”
I thought about the way he had held me at the beach, as though he were a drowning man and I were a life raft.
He shrugged, glancing down. I wanted to ask him what was so bad about being a romantic, but I couldn’t tear my gaze away long enough to form a coherent question.
And then there was how he had picked me up, how light I had felt in his arms. The way my legs had fit around his waist.
He must have realized I was staring at him, because he glanced back up at me. We didn’t speak. I wondered what it would be like to slip my hand into the collar of his shirt.
“Um…” he said. “Um…dessert?”
“Oh—yes, that would be great,” I heard myself say.
He got up, running his hands through his hair. With his back to me, he rested his hands on the counter and took a deep breath.
I wanted to know everything about him: what made him laugh, what made him cry, what he longed for, what he dreamed about at night.
You’re moving too fast, I told myself. You have bad taste in men. I told myself all of that, but it didn’t matter, because at the moment I didn’t believe any of it.
I went to him.
He turned, his eyebrows drawn together, and said, “I made…um…I…”
Suddenly he was kissing me. He gripped the length of my hair and pulled, tilting my head back. I gasped, and that made him groan as he deepened the kiss, his tongue sliding between my lips. He drew me towards him, holding me by the waist, crushing the silky fabric of my dress between his fingers.
Breathing hard, he jerked away. “I shouldn’t—”
“Shouldn’t what?” I asked, but he just looked at me, his eyes full of longing and fire.
Standing on my tiptoes, I slid my hands into his hair and kissed him lightly on the lips. I moved lower, kissing the strong lines of his throat, undoing the first button on his shirt and pressing my lips to the hollow of his collarbone. He groaned again, and, my pulse racing, I undid the next button and kissed his chest through the lightweight fabric of his undershirt.
“I’ve been dying to see you with your shirt off again,” I murmured, undoing the next button.
“What?” he breathed. “Really?”
“Really.”
“All you had to do was ask,” he said, with a shaky laugh. I grinned. Together, we took off his button-down, dropping it on the floor by our feet. Just as he had at the beach, he lifted me into the air. This time, he sat me down on the counter, knocking a wine glass to the floor. He didn’t seem to notice it shatter. He was staring, fixated, at my crystal quartz necklaces, which were luminous in the low light.
“I like these,” he murmured, running his thumb along the necklaces’ star-like spikes. “And this.” He traced the neckline of my dress, the rough pad of his thumb grazing the tops of my breasts. When he reached the cap sleeve, he slipped it off my shoulder, exposing my lime-green bra strap and making me shiver with longing. He kissed my bare shoulder gently, then drew the tip of his tongue up the side of my neck. He nipped my ear, and my heart skipped a beat. I loved that little bit of roughness, mixed in with all his gentleness.
Slowly, inexorably, I brought my hands behind me and unzipped the top half of my dress. The sleeves fell down to my elbows, and the neckline slipped over the cups of my bra until it came to rest at my waist.
“Oh, God.” Owen traced a fingertip along the inside of my breast. “God, you are beautiful.”
Freeing my arms from my sleeves, I took hold of Owen’s T-shirt. He let me pull it up over his head and toss it onto the floor next to his button-down. I couldn’t help staring at his broad, muscled chest, with its downy, golden hair. The flat lines of his stomach. The indentations in his hips that disappeared into his jeans. My mouth went dry. “I have to paint you like this sometime.”
He grinned. “Like what, harder than rock?”
“That, too,” I said, smiling even as my pulse quickened. I slid my hands up his sides to rest on his chest.
“Owen…” I want you.
His gaze met mine. His eyes held so much desire they made me blush.
I need you.
“Come upstairs with me.” His voice was rough and strained.
I was too wound up to speak. I nodded instead. Yes.
Releasing a tight breath, he scooped me up off the counter, taking me into his arms like a rescued princess. I laughed in delighted surprise, loving his warm, furred chest against my bare skin. I looped my arms around his neck and let him carry me up the stairs.
On the landing, he paused to nudge his bedroom door open with his foot. That moment of delay was enough to make me remember where I was.
Her name fluttered through my mind—Suzanna, Suze, Beloved By All.
We should have stayed downstairs, maybe moved to the couch. Now I was left wondering how well Suze had learned what he’d liked in bed over the three years they’d spent together. That same frustrating, inexplicable sadness opened up in my chest. It wasn’t fair of me. I knew Owen wasn’t mine. He’d never even been Jenny’s. After all these years, he still belonged to Suze. The locked room across the landing was proof enough of that.
He let the door swing shut behind him, still holding me in his arms, and walked to the side of his huge bed. Carefully, he lowered me onto the mattress, toed off his shoes, and climbed onto the bed beside me. Propping himself up on his elbow, he trailed his knuckles lightly across my cheek.
“Miranda,” he murmured, “if you change your mind…or if there’s anything you don’t like…” His dark gold brows tightened. The lust in his eyes was dampened by concern.
I could call this off. Tell him it was too soon, that he was still too in love with Suze.
I wondered if he almost expected me to change my mind—not because of Suze, necessarily, but because he didn’t expect to be wanted. To be cherished. Even though there was nothing I craved more than to cherish him.
“I haven’t changed my mind.” Maybe that made me crazy. I was pretty sure it did. Threading my fingers through his messy blond hair, I decided I didn’t care. “I want you. Your mouth, your hands. Your cock. All of you.”
Your heart.
“Jesus, M.,” Owen whispered, sliding his knee between my thighs and bringing his mouth down to mine. He nipped my lower lip this time, leaving me dizzy with lust. Taking hold of the hem of my dress, he tugged it up over my hips until the lower half of the dress met the upper half at my waist.
>
Owen caught sight of my thigh-high stockings and froze, his skin flushing darker red. “Oh, fuck,” he groaned. “How did you know?”
“I saw the way you looked at my tights that day at lunch,” I said, extremely pleased with myself, my whole body singing with desire. “You like them?”
“God, yes.” The muscles in his jaw clenching, he sat up and slipped his fingers under the top of the tights. The elastics pinned his fingers against my skin. These tights were the kind that stayed up without garters, though I had bought the other kind, too. I’d always loved lingerie—it made me feel sexy, powerful. As far as I was concerned, the more lacy designs and bright colors it had, the better. Rhys had never liked it—too slutty, he said—so I’d promised myself I’d get a collection of my very own.
If Owen liked it, so much the better.
My stomach tightened at the sight of him kneeling between my legs. A bead of sweat shimmered on his chest. Slowly, he slid his palm up my leg to my hip. Lowering his head, he kissed the path he had just traced: from the top of my thigh-high along the sensitive skin of my inner thigh to my panties, which clung to my skin, wet through. I arched my back, already breathing hard. He kissed me through the fabric, his mouth gentle. He was still moving slow. Still checking to make sure I wanted him, when I’d never wanted anyone more.
“Owen, please,” I begged.
He licked me through the fabric, the material wonderfully rough against my sensitive skin. “Oh—ohh—” I moaned, as he tugged my underwear to the side and pushed two of his big fingers inside me. He licked me again, this time with the full heat of his mouth directly on my skin, and his fingers—God, he felt amazing, and I’d been so desperate for him for so long. After just a few more strong strokes of his tongue, the orgasm rushed over me like a tide, leaving me gasping and squirming on the bed.
“You are so gorgeous,” he growled, leaning over me with his weight propped up on his elbows to kiss me hard on the mouth.
I reached for his jeans, dying to get them off him.
“Wait—hold that thought.” He rolled off me and got off the bed. I sat up, admiring the muscles in his shoulders and back as he crossed the bedroom to his closet. He pulled a box of condoms down from the top shelf, but instead of bringing one back with him, he brought over the entire box.
Set Me Free Page 10
