by Megan Hart
A reluctant smile tugged his mouth, even if he kept his gaze glued to the television. “Sure you will.”
Her hand crept lower, to stroke his stomach. “Be ready for me when I get back.”
He pushed her hand lower, over his crotch. “I’m always ready for you.”
This time when she kissed him, he kissed her back. They wrestled for a moment until he pulled her over the back of the couch and onto his lap. He kissed her harder, then pulled away to look into her face.
“Don’t be too long,” he said in a low voice.
“I won’t,” she assured him. She kissed him again, and he let her get up. By the time she left, he’d turned his attention back to the TV.
Eddie was more than happy to leave Sugarland under Kara’s capable eye and walk down the block to the Frog House, where they ordered omelets and home fries and coffee.
“I could eat breakfast anytime,” he said with a satisfied sigh when their plates arrived. “Gosh, that looks good.”
The very fact he said “gosh” made Bess feel suddenly bubbly toward him.
“So,” he continued, unaware of her sudden reaction, “what’s on your agenda for today? Are you going out to look for a job?”
She shook her head and stabbed at her eggs, though she was so excited she could hardly eat a thing. “Actually, that’s what I’m here to talk about.”
“Yeah?” Eddie grinned and set down his fork. “Tell me.”
Bess laughed. “I’ve been thinking about Just A Bite—”
“Woo hoo! I knew it!” He pumped a fist in the air.
Bess expected embarrassment at the way heads turned to look at them, but her cheeks didn’t burn. She laughed again. “I have no money, Eddie. I need a job. I’m not even sure—”
“I told you. I can get the money. How’s your credit?” His grin softened, still tweaking the corners of his eyes, but he looked more serious.
“Fine, I guess.” Bess’s heart thumped a little faster. They were really going to do this. “Will that matter?”
“If your name’s on the line of credit, sure.” He looked her over. “This is going to be great.”
Then she did blush. “I’m glad you think so.”
Eddie beamed. “I mean it.”
“I have to do something,” she said. “My last job was as an addiction counselor. They don’t even have the same drugs now, Eddie. I mean, people are snorting and shooting stuff I never heard of. I’m not sure I could get back into it.”
“You could.” Eddie made it sound so easy, Bess believed he was right. “But I’m glad you’re not going to!”
Warmth flooded her at his enthusiasm. “The bills won’t pay themselves. And after this summer, when Connor goes off to college and Robbie gets settled into school, and when the divorce goes through…”
She trailed off, but Eddie didn’t let the silence become uncomfortable. “Fall will be the perfect time to start making the renovations. It will all work out, Bess. You’ll see.”
There was something so comforting about the way he said it. “I know.”
Eddie’s phone beeped and he pulled it from his pocket with a glance at the screen. “That’s Kara. I guess I should head back.”
“I should get home.” Bess grabbed up the check before he could. “I have this.”
“No.” Eddie made a play for the slip of paper, “I asked you. It’s my treat.”
“Nope.” Bess clutched it close to her chest, out of reach. “I got it.”
He held up both hands in surrender. “Fine. But then I owe you one.”
“No, you don’t!” She laughed. “You bought coffee the last time!”
Eddie shook his head. “I asked you, I should pay. Anyway. Maybe I could take you to dinner, sometime?”
Dinner was not breakfast, and they both knew it. Knew what the question was really asking. Bess opened her mouth to answer, but Eddie cut her off gently.
“If it’s too soon, I understand. I mean…with the divorce and everything. It could just be a friendly dinner.”
“I didn’t think it would be anything else,” Bess said.
Eddie had a lovely smile that made his blue eyes twinkle from behind the dark-framed glasses. “Too bad. Because I was really asking you for a date.”
She shifted, uncomfortable not because she didn’t think the idea was appealing, but rather because suddenly, it was. “Eddie…”
“Just think about it.” He leaned forward a little bit.
Bess looked into his eyes. “I can’t, Eddie.”
She hoped he wouldn’t take it the wrong way, but what would the right way be? She couldn’t tell him the truth, and leaving him to think he understood her reasons seemed more dishonest than he deserved.
Eddie nodded as though he’d expected her answer. “Fair enough.” He smiled. “But if you change your mind, the offer still stands.”
Bess cocked her head to look him over. “You’ve really changed, haven’t you?”
“I hope so.” Eddie passed a hand over his hair and looked self-conscious for the first time since they’d met again. “I grew up, I guess.”
“It suits you,” Bess said, though once the words were out of her mouth she thought she’d regret them.
Eddie’s smile didn’t let her. “Thanks.”
They looked at each other for half a minute or so, smiling, and Bess stood. “I’ve got to get back to the house. Thanks, Eddie. For…everything.”
For giving her sons jobs. For asking her on a date and proving she wasn’t just someone’s mother or a soon-to-be ex-wife. For being her friend, even after twenty long years had changed them both.
“Anytime,” Eddie said, and Bess believed him.
CHAPTER 26
Then
The ease with which they’d fallen into familiarity amazed her, but Bess didn’t admit it to Nick. He seemed to assume this was the natural course of things—initially casual but smoking-hot sex, followed swiftly by spending every moment of free time together. Every time she closed Sugarland and he was there waiting for her, her stomach swooped and dipped in the roller-coaster rush of first attraction.
Of course, it had only been three weeks.
They didn’t walk hand in hand along the beach cooing poetry, and he didn’t bring her flowers. Nick was more likely to feed her pizza and a milkshake at his apartment than buy an expensive dinner. A trip to the movies meant a drive, and since neither of them had a car, it meant relying on the generosity of friends. Missy was ignoring them both and Ryan did whatever Missy wanted, so Nick and Bess’s dates were restricted to what they could do in town.
She didn’t care. Most times after working a full day she really only wanted to crash on the couch, anyway. She’d been picking up as many hours as she could, which sometimes meant working a closing shift and then getting up early the next morning to open, taking a four or five hour break, and going back to close again.
They didn’t give what they were doing a name. Didn’t even acknowledge it to anyone, though it couldn’t have been a secret. Brian had stopped teasing Bess about it, which proved to her how serious it must seem to anyone observing, but between themselves neither of them talked about the “we” or the “us.”
Bess hadn’t spoken to Andy since the night he’d hung up on her. Every day that passed without her calling him or him calling her made it harder to imagine doing so. She tried to feel sad, or guilty, or even to be angry about the way things had happened, but there frankly wasn’t much room in either her head or her heart for wishing or moping. Nick had filled her up, every crack and crevice.
She hadn’t moved into his apartment and rarely even spent the night, trying at least for an attempt at propriety. She did hang a toothbrush in his bathroom and kept a small bag of toiletries there, and that seemed so significant to her she made sure never to mention it.
The sex got impossibly better each time they did it, which was every time they saw one another. Which was at least once a day, sometimes twice, and once a memorable four times that had left her w
incing for a day or two when she rode her bike. This, too, they didn’t talk about. Not about how he liked to pin her hands above her head or wrap his fingers in her hair when she got on her knees, and not about how there were days when he opened the front door and fucked her up against it within minutes of her arrival. Not about how they were naked in every way two people can be with one another, but since the first night they’d been together, they’d never kissed on the mouth.
Tonight, Bess flopped on Nick’s bed in front of the rotating fan pushing swirls of hot air around the room. Her own tiny room had central air-conditioning, but she didn’t mention that. She never took Nick there. She didn’t want to have to explain him. Andy had been a fixture at family functions for so long there was no way her relatives wouldn’t ask questions she didn’t want to answer. She yawned, curling one of Nick’s pillows beneath her cheek while he flipped lazily through the channels. They’d already eaten. Already fucked. She was only trying to rouse enough energy to take a shower and ride home.
Nick stopped at a scene on the TV of a woman with long, dark hair throwing snowballs at a boy with blond hair. They fell down in the snow, laughing and kissing.
“Want to watch this?” He tossed the remote onto the dresser without waiting for an answer.
“Love Story? Sure.” She’d seen it half a dozen times, which meant it was perfect for a night when she didn’t want to concentrate.
As naked as she was, Nick moved behind her to share the mound of pillows. One hand rested familiarly on her hip. His pubic hair tickled the small of her back, and Bess shifted a little against him. Their legs twined. She yawned.
“I should go.”
Nick’s hand tightened a little on her hip before relaxing. “In a while.”
Too lazy from two orgasms, and not wanting to face the bike ride home on hot streets, Bess said nothing and didn’t move. The movie played on, and though she had seen it so often she could quote some of the dialogue, for some reason tonight it made her more melancholy.
“What a bunch of crap.” Nick’s breath ruffled the back of her hair. “Love means never having to say you’re sorry? C’mon.”
“It’s romantic,” Bess said.
“It’s lame.”
She sat to look at him. “Why is it lame? They love each other.”
Nick stared. “You think that’s love?”
“I didn’t say it was real,” she said scornfully. She drew away from him a little bit. “I just said it was romantic. Some people like that.”
Nick sat, too. “Like you?”
She lifted her chin. “Maybe I do.”
Nick’s laugh for once didn’t urge her to join him. “Well then, you’re fucking the wrong guy.”
It wasn’t anything she didn’t already know, but Bess looked away. Nick scooted closer, nudging her shoulder with his chin and putting his arms around her. She didn’t even glance at him.
“Hey,” he said quietly. “I’m going to get a drink. Do you want one?”
She shook her head silently. Before he got up, she grabbed his wrist. When he looked at her, she leaned in, just a little, lips parted.
Nick didn’t kiss her. The moment stretched between them until it broke, and he got up and left the room.
She was sitting in the same position when he came back and made a flying tackle onto the bed. Nick cuddled her, his mouth pressed close to her ear.
“You think too much,” he said. “Don’t think so much.”
Bess, who spent way too much time thinking, pushed slowly away from him and started hunting for her clothes. He sat up to watch her, at first silently, but when she slipped her legs into her jean shorts and buttoned them, he stood and grabbed her arm.
“Don’t leave.”
“I have to work in the morning, Nick.”
“Stay here tonight. Sleep here.”
She shook her head. His fingers dug a little deeper into her skin, the sort of reaction she welcomed most other times, but now seemed only to make her want to cry.
“So…you can stay when you’re fucking me, but when that’s done you can’t sleep next to me?”
“So,” she said evenly, looking into his eyes, “you can put your dick inside me but you can’t put your mouth on mine?”
He let go of her arm. Bess bent to pick up her shirt and pull it over her head. Nick didn’t move.
“Is that what you want?” he asked. “You want flowers and long walks in the park? I don’t do that.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
He followed her through the kitchen to the living room, where she hunted for her backpack. “What are you talking about?”
She whirled. “Are you ever going to kiss me when we’re not fucking?”
Nick scowled, but strode to her and kissed her cheek with a loud smack.
Bess shook her head. “Are you ever going to kiss me on the mouth?”
“Maybe for Christmas or your birthday.”
“Fuck you, Nick,” Bess said, wondering how this conversation had begun and why she was making so much of it. She turned on her heel and left.
He caught up to her when she was only a few steps from his place. His bare feet slapped the pavement. He’d pulled on a ragged pair of shorts from God-knew-where, but at least he wasn’t naked.
“Christmas is months away,” Nick said. “So’s your birthday.”
Bess stopped and turned her bike back, leaning it against his porch. “Yeah? So?”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “So…months from now, Bess.”
She mirrored his position. “And? Months from now I won’t be here anymore.”
He unhooked his arms to brush her hair off her shoulders. “I’ll come see you.”
She laughed humorlessly. “Oh, yeah? Will you?”
It was Nick’s turn not to laugh. “Yeah. I will.”
Bess didn’t know if she wanted to bend or break. “And you’ll kiss me on the mouth at Christmas?”
He nodded. His hand slid down her arm to tug at her wrist. To pull her closer.
“What about between then and now?” she inquired suspiciously.
“Is that what you really want?” he asked softly into her ear.
She shivered at the whisper. “Just because I don’t want to be your girlfriend doesn’t mean…it doesn’t mean…”
His mouth moving on her skin made it hard to speak.
“Doesn’t mean what?” Nick murmured.
“Doesn’t mean I don’t care about you,” she finished, and pushed him away with a hand on his shoulder.
Nick looked at her, then nodded slowly. “Come inside with me.”
She shook her head. “No. I have to go home.”
His hands crept to her waist. “Come inside with me, Bess.”
She wanted to, more than anything. “No.”
Nick brushed his lips along the dip of her collar, then up her neck to her ear again. “Come inside and I’ll kiss you wherever you want.”
“I don’t want you to do it if it’s not what you want!” Stubborn and hating herself for it, Bess tried not to be wooed.
“And I told you not to think you know what I want. Come inside.”
She’d gone two steps toward the porch with him when her emotions made her clumsy and she stumbled on the steps. Nick caught her with a hand beneath her elbow.
“Be careful,” he said.
Bess looked at him. “I think it’s too late for that.”
He smiled. Then he kissed her, right there on the porch where the whole world could see. Right on the mouth. Right where she wanted.
CHAPTER 27
Now
“You’ll be all right?” Bess couldn’t stop herself from asking the same question she’d asked less than half an hour before, but now that she was actually getting ready to leave it had risen to her lips and refused to be restrained.
“What am I going to do? Throw a party?” Nick looked up from his place on the couch, where he’d been reading a yellowed and sea-swollen copy
of Brave New World.
“It wouldn’t be the first time.” Bess found a smile.
Nick snorted lightly and tucked a finger between the pages to mark his place. “I’ll be fine. You’re only going to be gone for two days.”
“It’s going to be a long two days.”
“So come over here and kiss me goodbye,” he said. “Because when you come home with your kids, we won’t be able to fuck in the living room anymore.”
She crossed to the couch and bent over the back to kiss him, but Nick tossed the book aside and captured her. He pulled her, laughing, over the top of the couch and onto him. His arms pinned her, not that she was struggling. He kissed her slowly and thoroughly.
“You’d better get on the road,” he said, but neither of them moved.
Bess looked into his eyes, so dark there seemed almost no delineation between the iris and the pupil. Today he wore a bandanna tied around his hair to hold it off his face, and the sight of it was sweetly nostalgic. Bare-chested, wearing jeans lower than sin, he had to know how sexy he looked. He always had.
Against her belly, even through the denim of his jeans and the cotton of her sundress, Nick’s cock bulged. He’d woken her this morning with his hand between her legs, made her come twice before he’d even entered her. He’d rubbed up against her while she’d been packing the small overnight bag she was taking, and kissed her so frequently throughout the morning, her lips were puffy.
“Again?” she murmured against his mouth.
“I don’t want you to forget me.”
“As if I could.”
His hand slid her dress up and over her ass. He rubbed her lacy panties as he kissed her. His thigh thrust up between her legs and he pushed down on her butt to press her against it.
“I can feel how hot you are, even through my jeans.”
Bess shifted to put her hand between them. “I can feel how hard you are.”
Nick slipped a palm beneath her panties to caress her bare skin. He traced the seam between her buttocks, making her squirm, and pinned her still with his other arm.
“I want to fuck you so hard you can’t stand,” he whispered into her ear. “So every time you take a step, you think about me inside you. I want you to spend the next two days wishing I was inside you.”