On autopilot now, Tony hauled Lili up onto the counter, pushing himself between her open legs, which she wrapped obligingly around his hips to pull him in tighter, her breasts pressed against his chest for barely a second before she pushed him away, but only far enough to undo his belt, and he thought, They sure don’t make virgins like they used to. He palmed one breast, soft and heavy and warm, and angels sang as he seized her mouth in another wild and crazy kiss that went on for a nice little while until she shifted, practically shoving her breast into his mouth—like he needed encouragement—clutching his hair as he tongued and swirled and sucked, harder and harder and harder until she groaned, then gasped, then sighed, a small, sweet sound that broke his heart, that she’d waited so long…waited for him…
Don’t be stupid, Tony thought, grazing the taut nipple with his teeth, and she yanked up his head and said, “Take me to bed,” and he grinned—a little crookedly, probably—and said, “What, you don’t want your first time to be in the kitchen?” and she said, “Not especially, no, although we could put it on the list for later,” and Tony moaned, lunged for her bag with its cornucopia of condoms, then wrapped her around him and lifted her off the counter to stagger toward the stairs.
Lili laughed, an unexpectedly throaty sound that seriously threatened his control. “If I put your back out, I’d rather it not be before the fun part of things. I can walk, thank you.”
“Not sure I can,” Tony muttered, even as he grabbed her hand and hustled up the stairs and into his room, not bothering to shut the door before they crashed onto the bed, kissing like a pair of teenagers and ripping off what was left of each other’s clothes. However, through the haze and despite an erection that was soon going to need its own zip code, he realized he couldn’t just go for it, that you don’t send a rookie out into the big game without at least some training.
“What’s wrong?” Lili asked when he sat back on his knees, streaking one hand through his hair. “And why aren’t you wearing a condom yet?”
“Because you’re not ready.”
She frowned. “And how would you know this? You haven’t even touched me, um, down there.” When he frowned, she blew out a sigh. “I told you, I do know how everything works. It’s not as if I’ve never done anything. Just not…everything.”
Tony cleared his throat. He’d always thought he was pretty easy-going, when it came to talking about sex. So much for that. “So you’ve, um…”
A blush swept over her collarbone and up her neck. “It’s called—”
“I know what it’s called, for God’s sake. What I mean is…” He pushed out a breath. Honestly. “Were batteries involved?”
Her brow puckered for a moment until the light dawned. Then she burst out laughing, looking so damned adorable and sexy and trusting with her hair a mess around her head and her skin all pink and her lips swollen—“No.”
“Okay, then.” Tony stretched out beside her. “Knees up, honey.”
“What are you—? Oh,” she said when, smiling, he kissed her, then slipped two fingers inside her. And yes, she was very ready. A little stroke there, some pressing there, now for a little stretching…
Lili arched, eyes shut, sucking in a breath, letting it out on a soft, beautiful, “Oooohhhh….”
“You good?” Tony asked, which got a tiny, squeaked, “Mmm-hmm.”
He smiled, pulling back, dipping deeper, going where no man—or, apparently, anything else—had gone before. “Let go, Lil,” he murmured between kisses. “Let it happen.”
“But…but…. but—” Oh, man, was she close. “But I want—”
“And you’ll get,” he murmured, speeding up, shifting to flick his tongue over one tight little nipple. “And it’ll be so much better with a little warm-up, trust me…” He tugged and teased and tugged some more, listening for his cues, speeding up and slowing down and speeding up again until—
Yeah, like that.
Then he scooped her close, kissing, gentling, until the tremors subsided. After a moment, Lili looped an arm around him.
“Holy mackerel.”
“Somebody’s definitely been watching too much American TV. From the freaking ‘fifties. Hey—where ya goin’?”
“Nowhere,” she said, sitting up cross-legged with her back to him. As Tony trickled his fingers down her spine, she sighed. “It really is different. As a social activity, I mean.” Then she twisted to meet his gaze. “And that was just a warm-up?”
Tony grinned. “So it was good?”
“Okay, forget I said that,” Lili said, laughing, pretending to escape, laughing even harder when Tony yanked her back down on top of him, threading his hands through her hair and kissing her six ways to Sunday. Then she laid her head on his chest, sighing, and the emotions swamping him…oh, man. And it had nothing to do with her being a virgin or any of that crap. It was just…her. Lili. Lili and him together.
Tony sucked in a deep breath, shutting his eyes. What he’d said before? About how hard it was going to be to give her up?
Yeah. In spades.
He shifted her off him, only to gather her close her again. Pushing her hair out of her eyes, she looked around. “Nice room.”
“Marissa did it all herself—” On a groan, Tony shoved his face into the pillow, then gave her sheepish. “That was really bad form. Sorry.”
That got a tiny smile. And a quick kiss. “I know you shared the room with your wife, Tony. She had very nice taste. We can move on now.”
Tony nodded, then said, “So…I gotta ask—this dude you were engaged to? You and he never even fooled around?”
Lili shrugged. “A little, of course. But he—we—never let things get out of hand.”
One side of Tony’s mouth tucked up. Judging from what he’d just witnessed, how the hell she’d been able to rein herself in this long, he had no idea. “And I still say the man was an idiot.”
Lili’s fist had been knotted on his breastbone; now her fingers unfurled to toy with the thatch of hair there. “No, I think Peter and I simply weren’t right for each other, even though it looked good on paper. He married someone else, a few years ago. I ran into them last year.” Propping her chin on her hand, she smiled. “She seemed normal enough. And from everything I could tell, they’re quite happy.”
“But…?”
“No ‘buts.’ Not about that, anyway. However, seeing them only confirmed what I’d already realized, that what I thought we had wasn’t enough. Wouldn’t have been enough, in the long run. I want to be with someone who…” Her lips curved. “Who can’t say no if I’m saying yes. I want someone who needs me. Desperately. Madly.” Her gaze speared his. “I want something real.”
Tony stilled. “Is this real?”
“Yes,” she said simply. “For this moment, it’s very, very real.” She hesitated, then reached for a condom, handing it to him.
“Now?” he whispered, taking it from her.
“Now is all we have,” she said, lifting her knees.
In the velvety, early evening light, as the rain thrummed overhead and a warm, honeysuckle-scented breeze swirled around them, Lili felt deliciously bombarded. By her emotions, her senses, more acute than she ever remembered before…by a razor-sharp awareness of every atom of her being as Tony guided himself inside her with excruciating care, until, suddenly, there he was, filling her, loving her, and she sighed, thinking nothing had ever felt this good.
Until, that is, he eased out, then pushed back in, and the sweet joy of it brought tears to her eyes.
“You okay?” he whispered, and she laughed and said, “You have no idea, how okay I am,” and he brought her legs up to wrap around him and joined them more tightly, deeply, closely still, and something fierce and hungry rose up inside her, making her feel lightheaded, reckless, apart from herself as she tasted his saltiness, then let her head drop back, sucking in a breath when Tony tongued first one hyper-sensitive nipple, then the other, the ache building and building until she thought she’d burst with it.
Then she did, so hard she half wondered if she might die, not much caring if she did or not…until she heard Tony’s breathing quicken, and somehow she both relaxed and tensed at the same time, welcoming, absorbing his release.
Afterward, his smile flashed in the near dark, half cocky, half tender, before he softly kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her mouth. “Don’t move,” he said, carefully withdrawing, and she murmured, “Not a problem.” Seconds later they were again a tangle of combined scents and off-sync heartbeats and warm, damp limbs, wrapped in silence and their own thoughts until Tony whispered, “What’s goin’ through your head?”
Lili laughed softly, even though reality was beginning to creep back in like the moonlight over the windowsill as the clouds, now spent, dispersed. “About how I just lucked out, I suppose.” She snuggled closer, kissed his chest. “We could have been terrible together.”
“Somehow, I doubt it.”
“Not that your ego’s overblown or anything.”
He chuckled, the sound all rumbly in her ear, then pressed a kiss into her hair. “Sex is a funny thing,” he said over the plonk, plonk of water dripping from the eaves. “Despite all that crap you read about in magazines or whatever, technique doesn’t have nearly as much to do with whether it’s good or not as…the other stuff.”
“You mean…feelings?”
“Yeah.” He paused. “If it’s more about being together, bein’ close? Then you can have good sex even if it’s lousy, if you know what I mean. But if you’re just doin’ it to do it, then you can hit all the right buttons and still get that ‘Is that it?’ feeling when you’re done. Of course, in an ideal world you can have both, and then it’s freakin’ fantastic.”
Lili paused, then said, “And…?”
“I think that’s called fishing, sweetheart,” he said on another soft laugh. “But yeah. That was pretty damned good.” Another pause preceded, “I could listen to you cry out like that all night.”
Toying with his chest hair, Lili said, “You’ll have to feed me first.”
Silence. “You sure?”
“That I need to eat—?”
“That you wanna spend the night?”
“I’m sure,” she said, even as she shooed away the stinging behind her eyes.
Tony groaned and swore when an obnoxiously cheerful sunbeam stabbed his eyelids the next morning. Batting at both the light and Ed—who’d apparently been waiting patiently for any sign of life—he sat up, at once realizing two things: A) he was naked, and B) the person he’d been naked with was nowhere to be seen. However, both the muted thumping of the dryer in the mudroom and the blissful scent of brewing coffee gave him reason to believe Lili hadn’t gone far. Whether she was still naked or not, however, he had no idea.
She wasn’t, as it happened, wearing one of his old shirts at she sat at the kitchen table with her chin in her hand and her glasses perched on her cute little nose, engrossed in the Sunday paper, spread out all over the table. Ed trotted over, tail wagging, to nudge her hand; smiling, she leaned over and messed with his soft, floppy ears, talking nonsense to him. Tony’s throat clogged at the sight, at how natural and right it seemed, her sitting there at his table, wearing his shirt, talking stupid to the dog. Just as natural and right as falling asleep with her tucked against his chest after a night of playing catch-up.
“I’m surprised you can move,” he said from the doorway, startling her. And that was before she realized he hadn’t bothered to put anything on. God, he loved when she blushed.
“I can’t, actually,” she said when she recovered. Eventually her eyes moved up to his face. “Which is why you get to do breakfast.”
Smiling, Tony ambled over to give her a kiss. “Not a problem.” And another. “So why don’t you go take a hot bath while I rustle up some toast or something?”
“Good idea.” She braced her hands on the table and pushed herself upright. “I put our wet things in the dryer, by the way, so I’ll have something to wear when…um, later.”
Their gazes caught. “This is totally up to you,” Tony said, “but the kids don’t come back until tonight. The rest of the day is ours.”
She paused, her eyes twinkling. “You think we should go to church?”
“And get struck by lightning? I think not.”
Laughing, she stood on tiptoe to kiss him, then sort of hobbled away.
As Tony poured himself a cup of coffee, he heard the water thunder into the bathtub upstairs. Whining, the dog dropped a disgusting tennis ball at Tony’s feet, then backed away, daring him to grab it as the dryer buzzed. “Forget it,” he muttered, going to pull out their clothes. Boxers were dry, jeans weren’t. Whatever. He put them on, barely getting the jeans zipped when the dog went bonkers out in the entryway.
“Shut up, ya stupid mutt!” Tony yelled, figuring it was somebody walking another dog or kids on bikes or a leaf falling off a tree. But no, he realized as his front door flew open and Daphne barreled into the house, followed by her sisters and grandparents.
What this was, was a catastrophe.
Chapter Twelve
“What are you guys doing home?” Tony asked as his precious time alone with Lili vaporized right in front of his eyes. And thanking God the dryer had buzzed when it had, otherwise he’d be flashing his in-laws.
“Claire and the baby both caught colds,” Susan said, handing Josie to Tony with a brief frown at his bare chest. Thumb in mouth, the baby curled into him, sniffling. Tony strained to hear upstairs—no water running, no singing, no telltale footsteps. With any luck he could at least get rid of Susan and Lou before Lili was finished with her bath. How he’d explain her to the kids, however…
He looked at Claire, the picture of misery with the splotchy face, puffy eyes, the works, and Daddy mode kicked in.
“You don’t feel good, baby?”
“Not really,” she said in a scratchy voice as Josie—who’d never let a thing like a runny nose actually stop her—wriggled to get down. “Move, dog!” she said, her voice more gravelly than usual as she shoved the overjoyed mutt out of her path on her way to the kitchen.
“We would’ve gladly kept ’em,” Lou said, hands in pockets, “but Claire said she wanted to come home.” He gave Tony a meaningful look. “So we didn’t push it.”
“Come on, Nana,” Daph said, waving her grandmother toward the kitchen. “I’ll show you were we keep all the cooking stuff—”
“Cooking stuff?” Tony said, thinking, Oh, hell no.
“Yes, I told the girls I’d make pancakes here—”
“No! I mean,” he said at Susan’s frown, “I haven’t been to the store yet this week, I don’t have any mix or anything—”
“That’s perfectly all right, dear,” Susan said, gliding past him toward the kitchen, hauling a bulging tote bag. “I brought everything we need. It’s just not Sunday without pancakes,” she said, nearly tripping over the baby when she suddenly popped back out into the hallway…shuffling merrily along in Lili’s shoes.
Okay, no need to panic, Tony thought, panicking, maybe nobody will notice, maybe I can somehow get Lili’s clothes to her and she could just slip away—
Tony herded everybody toward the kitchen, figuring there’d be so many people nobody would notice if he disappeared for a couple of minutes, only to spot Lili’s bag on the counter.
About the same time Claire did.
She turned, accusation sharp behind puffy lids. “Why’s Lili’s bag here?” she asked, just as Lili herself appeared in the kitchen doorway, hair dripping wet, wrapped in a towel, gingerly dancing only to music she could hear through the tiny plug in her ear from Tony’s MP3 player which he’d left on the bathroom sink. All heads turned in her direction the same instant she realized they weren’t alone.
“Lili!” Josie squealed, shuffling toward her with her arms outstretched. “I gots your shoes—!”
“Oh, dear God,” Lili whispered, blushing furiously. “I’m so sorry, I…” She vanished, as, behind him, S
usan muttered a soft, “Oh, Tony,” and Claire yelled, “You said nothing was going on! Both of you! You promised—!”
“Enough! All of you!” Tony bellowed, earning him a roomful of shocked expressions. He stormed to the mudroom and snatched Lili’s clothes off the top of the dryer, then strode back through the kitchen, pausing only long enough to grab Lili’s bag and lift Josie out of her shoes, adding them to the pile.
“I’m sure everybody’s got plenty to say,” he said, backing out of the room, “but I’m afraid it’ll hafta wait for a few minutes. Try not to talk too badly about me while I’m gone.”
Claire’s wails followed him as he took the stairs two at a time to find Lili in his bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed, clutching the damp towel to her breasts and staring at nothing in particular. As Tony shut the door behind him, she shook her head and whispered, “That was the most mortifying moment of my life. I never meant…”
“I know, I know,” Tony said, sitting beside her and swinging an arm around her cool, bare shoulders. It was like hugging a statue. “It’ll be okay, honey, I swear—”
“I’m not deaf, Tony. I can hear Claire from here, even through the closed door. From her standpoint, I did exactly what I told myself—what I told her—I’d never do. And the look on your mother-in-law’s face—”
“We just caught ’em off guard—”
“Then you really don’t understand just how deep something like this goes.” She grabbed the clothes out of his hand, dumped the towel and unceremoniously stepped into her panties, then clumsily put on her bra. “Last night,” she said, jerking up her skirt and fumbling with the back zipper, “was a dream. This is reality. Your reality, at least. Claire would never accept me as a replacement for her mother. And your in-laws…” Grabbing her blouse from the bed, she shook her head.
“And none of that matters because you’re leaving anyway, right? Because—how did you put that?—what you feel is all mixed up with a bunch of other stuff?”
Lili’s eyes darted to Tony’s, her trembling hands stilling on the crumbled top’s pearl buttons. They watched each other in brittle silence for several seconds before she rammed her feet into her shoes and grabbed her bag from where he’d dumped it on the dresser. When she reached the bedroom door, however, she turned and said quietly, “Face it, Tony…I—this—was an interlude. Which we both knew, so no hard feelings. But boy,” she said, her eyes watering, “if there was any doubt that I don’t belong here, in this house…in your life…”
From Friends to Forever Page 17