by Jo Leigh
She closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be frustrating.” His laughter snapped her eyes open. “What?”
“Not that kind of frustrated.” He put his hands down, rocked back on his heels, then looked at his fly.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s okay.”
He laughed again. “Thanks a lot.”
She smiled a little. “You still want…” She nodded in the general direction of his jeans.
“God, yes.”
“Oh.”
“But I can wait.”
She stood up. Wrapped her arms around her waist and shivered.
“Let’s get inside,” he said. “It was crazy coming up here. Too damn cold.”
He bent to get his CD player, but she stopped him. “It wasn’t crazy. It was wonderful.”
Then she was in his arms, and his lips took hers and, what do you know, it was the same kiss. The tension in her shoulders melted and the knot in her stomach eased as she felt the truth of his words. There was time. He wasn’t going anywhere. Neither was she. But just to make sure, she moved against him. He’d told her the truth.
He still wanted her.
THE WARMTH IN HIS APARTMENT was a welcome relief. He hadn’t realized how cold it had gotten till he stepped inside. Amelia must be freezing. “How about something hot to drink?”
She nodded, rubbing her hands together. “Please.”
“Tea? Coffee?”
“Either one.”
“Okay. Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right back.” He left her in the living room and put on a kettle of water. Just as he turned on the stove, a flash of panic shot through him. He’d printed out several of Amelia’s confessions. Shit. He thought he had them all in the drawer, but what if he didn’t? She was awfully quiet. Dammit, why hadn’t he thought to get rid of that stuff? Probably because he took it to bed with him.
He headed for the living room, afraid to see where she was. At least she wasn’t at his desk. A few more steps, and he relaxed. She was at the bookcase again. Thank God. “I’m making tea,” he said.
She turned, gave him a smile that assured him further. “You have such eclectic taste.”
“A lot of things interest me.”
She looked up at the shelf. “A book on influenza epidemics, Auden’s poems, Stephen King, Dickens, a Far Side Compendium and—” she turned her head a bit to read the title “—The Art of War.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Sounds like me.”
“I could spend months here, reading every one.”
“You have a favorite book?”
She nodded. “Several. Prince of Tides. Shogun.
Pride and Prejudice.”
He went to his desk and did a quick visual check. Hell. Right there on his keyboard, a printout of a fantasy. A damn good fantasy where she was tied up and helpless. While she was still engrossed in books, he grabbed the paper and stuck it under the Wall Street Journal. He searched again, and didn’t breathe until he knew the coast was clear.
“Why didn’t you want to talk about your book?”
“It was a fluke. A one-shot deal.”
“So? That doesn’t diminish the fact that you wrote it, and it got published.”
The water should be boiling by now. “Earl Gray all right?”
She nodded. “You’re changing the subject again.”
“I gotta get the tea.”
“Fine. I’ll be here when you get back.”
“You’re a tough cookie.”
“Oh, yeah. People quake when I walk in a room.”
He grinned as he left her. “Honey?” he said, over his shoulder.
“Yes?”
“No. I meant honey. In your tea.”
She laughed, and it was nice because the sound was natural, easy. Not embarrassed at all.
“Yes, honey would be good.”
“Don’t go away.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
As he got the tea together, he thought of ways to change the subject. He didn’t like talking about his book. He’d much rather discuss something worthwhile. Sex, for example.
Although there was a certain appeal about discussing the book with Amelia. Why not? He certainly knew enough secrets about her.
She was on the couch when he came back with the tray. They didn’t talk while they fixed their mugs. When all the busywork was done, he leaned back, glad to see she had made herself comfy with her legs curled under her. She’d taken off her jacket, too, which made him happier still.
“The book,” she said.
“You’re relentless.”
“I’m interested.”
Hard to argue with that. He sipped some tea as he made his final decision. Screw it. It was no big deal. “I wrote it when I was seventeen. Actually, I started it at sixteen. It got published a year later.”
“That’s amazing. At sixteen I was struggling with reading books, let alone writing them.”
“You weren’t. I can tell. You love books too much.”
She lifted her brows. “We’re not talking about me.”
“Right.” He turned to look at the small volume in the black dust jacket. “Most of the time it feels like someone else wrote it. Not me.”
“Do you think it’s just because you’re older?”
“No. I think it represents a way of life I turned my back on.”
“What way of life?”
“My father’s. He’s a professor at Cornell.”
“Of what?”
“English literature.”
She smiled. “He must be so proud of you.”
Jay didn’t expect the pain in his gut. He kept his face expressionless. This wasn’t something Amelia needed to see. “Yeah, he is.” The lie tasted bitter, and even the tea didn’t help.
“So you were going to be a professor?”
“No. I was going to be the next great American novelist. Only, I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
He shook his head, aching to get out of this conversation. “I just don’t have any more books to write.”
“Hmm.”
“What does that mean?”
“Just hmm.”
“Liar.”
She grinned as she put her cup on the coffee table. “I like your place. It’s comfortable.”
“Yeah. It is. You would have liked him.”
“Your grandfather?”
He nodded. “Great old guy. Full of piss and vinegar.”
“What did he think about your life choice?”
“Nice way to put it. He was disappointed, but he understood I had to go my own way.”
She caught his gaze. “I don’t know if I’m way off base, but… I keep thinking you miss it.”
“What?”
“Writing.”
He stood, got her cup and his and went to the kitchen. She was off base. He didn’t miss the agony of writing page after page of crap. “You hungry?”
“Nope.”
After he rinsed out the cups, he came back to her—only, she had her jacket on. “Hey, I’m sorry. I’m an ass. Don’t go.”
“It’s late. I still have to study, and I have work tomorrow afternoon.”
He nodded as he grabbed his jacket. “Come on. I’ll get you a cab.”
“Jay?”
“Yeah?”
She walked to him slowly until they were inches apart. “I got your book from the library.”
He rolled his eyes. “Oh, no.”
“But I didn’t read it. I wanted to ask you first.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s so personal. I know I’ll see a lot of you in your words. Maybe a younger you, but I’ll see you differently. I’d never want to intrude, unless I knew you were okay with that.”
He cursed himself while he forced a smile. “It’s fine. There’s nothing to see. It’s words on a page. It isn’t me.”
She touched his cheek. “I think it is. It came from your heart
.”
He opened the door, ignoring the look of surprised disappointment as he backed off. He’d apologize later. Tell her it was all his fault.
The ride down was silent, and he left her in the lobby while he went outside to hail the taxi. When he snagged one, she walked out slowly, sadly. Fuck it. He’d blown it. She’d never want to see him again, and that was probably for the best. It was a stupid plan, anyway.
She got to the door of the cab, and he stepped back. He should kiss her. It wasn’t her fault. He touched her hand, then pulled her into his arms. The moment his lips touched hers, it all shifted inside. He was climbing the roller coaster, every second another inch up.
Then she really messed things up. She put her hand on his chest and trailed it down his stomach. He knew where she was headed, and God help him he couldn’t have stopped her if his life depended on it.
She touched his belt, and then, with one finger, drew a line down the curve of his cock. Pulling out of the kiss, she nipped him in the ear. “Next time,” she whispered. “I don’t think I can wait any longer.”
He couldn’t move. He could hardly breathe, and when she cupped him, he let out a long slow breath, trying like hell not to grab her and drag her back upstairs.
“I’ll dream about you,” she said, seconds before she ducked under his arm and climbed into the back seat of the taxi.
Jay stood there for a moment, stunned that he could be this hard this fast. Especially after he’d been so pissed off. What was she doing to him? This was nuts.
“Hey, buddy, you want to give me back my door, or what?”
The cabby’s voice shook him out of his trance. He paid the man and gave him Amelia’s address. She waved as they drove off, but he didn’t go back up. Instead, he walked. He wasn’t sure where he was going. It didn’t matter. He needed to think.
He presses me against the wall of his bedroom, raises my legs so that they encircle his waist. With his two strong hands he shifts my buttocks and slowly, teasingly, rubs my crotch against his hot, stunningly erect cock. His mouth finds mine and our two eager tongues grapple wetly and fiercely; he wins, swallowing me up entirely. I have not been kissed this way before.
We don’t say a word. Our eyes, fixed on each other, say it all. His smolder, filled with passionate, heavy desire, as he lifts my hips and impales me on his stiff shaft, penetrating me to the very core of my being, taking possession as if it is his right. I cry out with the suddenness, the wonder of it, but he hasn’t hurt me. I have the fleeting imagine of a hot knife cutting through butter. I am the butter, melting on impact.
He is in complete control of the situation, watching my face intently as he lifts my hips up slowly and brings them down in a rhythm that increases in tempo, his tempo. He moves away from me a bit so he can lick my aching nipples with his warm, wet tongue. Ecstatic to be brought to life, finally, after years of dormant longing, my nipples become hard. Waves of feeling run down my torso, from my breasts to my pussy, hard tingles of excitement I can barely contain. My long pent-up passion rocks me from within. I feel as if I’m falling into a void, my only reality the strong arms and legs of my lover, J.
The pressure builds and then I come, and I come, and he thrusts into me desperately, as if he’ll die if he doesn’t fill me completely, and my hands, in a frenzy, claw at his shoulders and rake his broad back. And still I come, and never want to stop coming. I tremble and shake and can’t stop, not even when, finally, he erupts inside me with a feral scream that goes to the ends of the universe. He holds me close and tight as the last wave crashes over me and I cry out against his hand cupping my mouth, fulfilled, filled to bursting. I have waited such a long time.
Amelia looked up, embarrassed, from her computer, certain everyone knew what she’d just written and how it had excited her. But no one looked her way. Why would they? It was only ten in the morning, and the café had just four customers.
She glanced back at Brian; she was shyer now than ever knowing he found her attractive. But he was busy, too, pouring a cup of coffee for a gorgeous redhead by the copy machine.
She looked at her monitor again, stunned at the power of the words and the thoughts, and how she wanted him. Jay. He’d been upset last night. A week ago, she would have taken that as rejection, hidden behind a bundle of clothes two sizes too big. But today, she saw it differently. He’d become upset because they’d gone too close to an uncomfortable truth. She knew that because she recognized her own discomfort.
He’d told her, that day at the museum, to trust him. And even though it scared her to death, she had. And she still did. He would be there if she fell. He would kiss her and make her better.
And she would be there for him.
So unexpected. This feeling of power. So new and thrilling that she felt like laughing out loud. He hadn’t made her strong. He’d helped her to see that she already was strong.
She glanced at the words on the screen. Then she clicked the little X in the upper-right corner. When the prompt appeared, “Do you want to save this file?” she clicked No.
15
JAY PRESSED THE OFF BUTTON on his phone and continued to stare out the window at the street below. Mrs. Ashcroft, who lived on the fourth floor, was walking home from the corner market. Mrs. Ashcroft had turned eighty-five on her last birthday, and her body had decided long before that to stop playing fair.
She had what his grandfather called a dowager’s hump. Now they just called it osteoporosis. Her back was so bent, she had to crane her neck forward and up just to see in front of her, trusting her wobbly cane to direct the next step.
She went to the store every afternoon at five. She bought a tin of cat food for Twinkles, her obese Siamese, and a little something for her own dinner. Usually a small piece of fish, or a can of sardines with saltines. The woman had been married fifty years before her husband died of a heart attack, and she’d been alone ever since.
She was one of the happiest people Jay had ever met.
He talked to her often. She loved company, loved to laugh. Thought he was the most gorgeous thing to come down the pike since Rudolph Valentino. He’d asked her, one day, when he’d finished taking out her trash, what her secret was. She’d told him.
Passion.
It had made all the difference in her life. Of course, she had to pay attention to the mundane, who didn’t? But when it came to the big things—who she would marry, her children, her work, her politics—she used one barometer only. Was she passionate about it? Would she ache if it were gone? Would she fight for it?
He’d asked if having such strong passion didn’t make it worse when the passion ended.
She’d shaken her head on her bent neck and told him there were prices to pay for everything, including indifference and apathy. She’d rather pay the price, she said, for having loved.
Today, by the time he focused again, she’d made it past the front steps. Jay walked to his desk, stared at the notes he’d taken. It wouldn’t be difficult to get into Cornell. He’d already been admitted. It would be trickier to get into NYU. He’d have to get his transcripts, and fill out the application, do the essay, all that crap.
He wasn’t even sure he wanted to go back. Hell, he wasn’t sure about much.
He put down the phone and found his mouse, instead. He went to his Favorite Places, and clicked on TrueConfessions.com. But when the familiar logo came on the screen, he didn’t log on. Instead, he closed the program, went into his stored files, and started deleting page after page of someone else’s life.
AMELIA DIDN’T KNOCK YET. She tugged her skirt, but the darn thing was still indecently short. It wasn’t her skirt, of course, she’d borrowed it from Kathy, along with the white knit top, her earrings and a tennis bracelet. Her hairstyle and makeup were courtesy of Tabby’s wizardry.
Amelia had actually been pleased when she’d looked in the mirror just before leaving. She wanted to look nice for Jay. Especially because she hadn’t seen him in two whole days.
His invi
tation to dinner had come yesterday, and she’d been in a tizzy ever since.
The thought of how she’d left him three nights ago, the promise she’d made… The idea that they were going to make love was almost more than she could take.
She’d given the matter a great deal of thought. If it didn’t feel right, she would honor that. He’d understand. The evening would reveal itself, and she had to trust she would know what to do.
Which sounded great on paper, but the truth was, she wanted to have sex with Jay. More than she could say. The thought of being that close, taking him inside her, gave her goose bumps.
She knocked, and in two seconds the door opened.
The sight of him in jeans and a dark gray shirt changed her. Her cheeks heated and suddenly there wasn’t enough air. When he smiled, she melted.
“Hi,” she said, feeling a moment’s shyness.
He smiled. “Amelia,” he whispered. He looked at her face, not at her short skirt or her makeup or hair. Just her. And there was happiness in his gaze.
She sighed as he pulled her into his arms, into the safest circle of warmth, wrapping himself around her like a cloak. His scent, already imprinted forever, smelled like home.
For a minute they didn’t move, except to rock gently back and forth. He held her tightly, almost too tightly, but she didn’t mind. Two days apart had given her time to think. To ask herself what she wanted, who she was.
He pulled back just enough to kiss her. Gently at first—a reacquaintanceship. His lips parted, his tongue slipped inside her mouth, and suddenly it wasn’t gentle anymore.
He thrust in, hungry, needful, aggressively male. His hands went to the sides of her face as if he was afraid to lose her. Moaning into her mouth, he drowned her in his kisses, filled her with his passion.
When he finally released her and she met his gaze, they both had to catch their breath.
He stepped back, widening the door so she could enter. As she passed him, he touched the small of her back, making her shiver.
