She may fancy herself in love with him, but it was clear she’d do just fine without any dumb jock hanging on her sleeve. He was seeing her transformation from the fearful, stuttering duckling to the secure, dignified swan right before his eyes. She didn’t need him to rescue her. If truth be told, she’d been the one rescuing him today. She didn’t need his help.
Hell, nobody needed his help.
Miguel assured him (at least twice a day when Rob checked in via cell phone) that The Playbook was doing just fine, despite him being over a hundred miles away and in another state. He’d worked long hours for years—hiring the right people, organizing every aspect of the restaurant, automating as many procedures as possible—so he wouldn’t be indispensable forever. Now, he wasn’t.
Mama, Tony, Maria-Louisa and the gang were great, as always.
His other siblings, in a variety of conversations and e-mails, declared they, too, were in terrific shape. No problems on their end, thanks.
Tutti-Frutti required only a warm body to open and close the place, so even there he was nobody special.
Maybe when their uncles returned he should close his eyes, throw a dart on a map and go somewhere new. Nothing pressing was holding him to either Wilmington Bay or to Chicago…other than a sense of duty and a bunch of old habits.
The fire chief made the announcement that the first set of fireworks would be going up in a few moments. Elizabeth scooted next to him—so damned close his pulse started racing—and she nudged his side to get her expected hug. He knew he should pull away. He wasn’t going to stay in Wisconsin. He’d break her heart…but he just couldn’t do that to her tonight. Not now. Not when she was so confident for once, so sure of his eagerness to hold her.
And the worst part was that he did want to hold her on this, the eve of her twenty-eighth birthday. Tightly, passionately, desperately.
He wanted more than that, too.
Boom!
The opening display shot ribbons of colored light through the blackened sky, like streamers chasing each other then disappearing in a game of tag.
Another boom. And another.
Fireworks poured out of the heavens and rained down on them in a flamboyant thunderstorm. They looked up at it, awestruck.
Elizabeth pressed harder into him and ran the tip of her nose along his cheek. He caught his breath and tried to resist, but he was as powerless against her as he was against the falling beams of light from the sky.
He turned his head and their lips met for a deep, thorough, tantalizing kiss that made his mouth burn from the heat and his erection pulse against his zipper. He imagined laying her down on the velvety blanket beneath them, wishing away her friends and the entire Wilmington Bay Fourth-of-July crowd, unfastening all of these binding garments, sliding his fingers against her smooth skin and into damp and very intimate places before taking her…gently and undeniably…into full womanhood.
“Rob.”
He wanted to hear her scream his name in passion and feel her pulling him onto her, into her. Beautiful Elizabeth.
He wanted to smell the musky scent of their lovemaking on his skin and taste the tears of her pleasure when she cried out in climax. He wanted to run his tongue along her neck and—
“Rob.” Elizabeth cupped his cheek and tickled his chin until he stopped kissing her neck.
“Um, yeah?”
She raised her eyebrows in the direction of the rest of Team Tutti-Frutti. The three of them were smirkily avoiding establishing eye contact and focusing way too hard on the fireworks finale.
“Oh,” he said.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said. Or, at least that what he thought she said.
“What?”
“Let’s. Go,” she told him, enunciating both syllables. “To my place. Now.”
And, see, this was the problem: He knew damn well that she didn’t really know what she was propositioning. That she ought to wait for a better first-time candidate. That he’d, nevertheless, find it impossible to resist her under the unrestrictive conditions of an empty apartment.
And, yet, he couldn’t make himself stay in the nice, safe, noisy park with all those prying eyes. He couldn’t turn her down to save his life.
***
Elizabeth knew exactly what she was doing.
Well, okay, there were a few technicalities that she was certain Rob’s expertise would make easier, but she knew she wasn’t making a mistake in her choice for a first-time lover. Even if it were doubtful he’d hang around long enough to be her last one.
They collapsed onto her sofa. One of these times they ought to try her bed, she supposed, but the sofa was pretty comfortable and it had the added advantage of being several yards closer to the door.
“Take off everything,” he whispered. “It’ll distract me enough so I won’t talk you out of this.”
“Okay.”
She stripped down to her underwear, and Rob assisted with unbuttoning, unlatching and other undoing activities. She always did appreciate a man who knew how to be helpful.
“Your turn,” she told him, loosening his belt and flicking open the snap on his jeans. She saw the waistband of a different pair of boxers. Mmm. A true patriot. “Love those stars and stripes.”
“Repeat after me, Lizzy. ‘I pledge allegiance to the flag…’” He paused to kiss behind her ear. “I don’t hear you repeating.”
“I used to stutter through saying the Pledge in elementary school until I began mouthing the words.” She yanked the boxers off him. He gasped. “I’ll let my allegiances be known later.”
“Alrighty then.”
He took a shuttering breath and Elizabeth’s heart almost stopped. Please don’t back out on me now, she pleaded silently.
“Okay, look, I only have the strength to ask you this once.” He pulled back and gazed deep into her eyes. “Are you absolutely sure you want to do this…with me?”
She still had her own cream-colored panties on. The new Victoria’s Secret extra-lacy ones she’d gotten with Rob in mind. Or, rather, with Rob discarding them in mind.
She took his long, strong hand and placed it on her hip, his fingers brushing against the lacy leg opening at her right thigh. Oh, she wanted him so much, yet still he waited and made her wait. If her nonverbal green lights weren’t enough of a clue, she’d just have to add on the words as bluntly as possible.
“Rob, if you don’t make love to me right now, I may have to poison your next ice cream sundae,” she said. How was that for a threat?
“I’ll take that as a yes.” And her panties were gone before he reached the end of his sentence.
While it was true she’d kissed a handful of boys before this particular night, and she’d even begun moving around those proverbial bases with them, Rob had long ago dragged her far into new territory. He was now taking her into an outfield she’d never explored except within the pages of an occasional romance novel. She couldn’t help but feel hyperaware of each and every movement, of the way his body’s contours connected with her own.
His slightly roughened hand slipped between her thighs, abrading the sensitive, previously untouched skin and making her nerves jitterbug.
“Relax,” he told her.
Yeah, that was going to happen.
His warm lips overtook hers, his tongue darting in and out of her mouth like a kind of kinky foreshadowing. She wished she didn’t like it quite so much. It made the strange tugging reaction of her lower regions feel more urgent. Her hips lifted to meet his fingers.
He encircled the delicate folds with a fingertip, and she could feel her pulse in every part of her body. She heard herself moan.
“Say my name.” He rubbed more insistently and moved his kisses to her breasts.
But these first impressions of genuine physical foreplay took too much of her energy. Speaking was a difficult thing for her under the best of circumstances, but this—
He pushed one of his fingers slowly inside her and her breath caught. Oh, Lord, this was
going to be something…something unforgettable. What was she supposed to do next?
“Say my name.” His finger began to thrust in and out. Just when she’d begun to get used to the rhythm, a second finger entered and joined the first in its dance.
“R-R—” she said, not saying at all what she’d intended. Her earlier bravado began slipping away. Fast. What had she been thinking trying to take on a man like Rob? This kind of intensity couldn’t be safe. At least she hadn’t expected to feel—
“Elizabeth. Say. My. Name.”
She had to pull herself together. Refocus. “R-Rob,” she whispered.
His fingers thrust hard into her and she gasped for air.
“Rob, y-you have to s-stop.” She put her hand on his. He stopped moving so abruptly the world felt as though it’d crashed to a halt.
He slid his fingers out of her, pulled back and looked down at her with a combination of stunned disbelief, hurt and, she had to admit, incredible self-control. “E-Eliz—”
She touched her fingers to his lips. “C-Condoms,” she managed to say. “Do you have any?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Good,” she told him. “I-I need you in me now. No more of these preliminaries.”
The pallor that had come over him a minute ago disappeared and he nodded, snatching at the wallet in the back pocket of his Levi’s. A moment later, she got her wish.
The thing was, she’d imagined the reality of this experience, what it would be like, for years and years. At least ten years of wondering seriously: Would it hurt? Would she be driven mad with desire? Would her partner? So, to be honest, what she got wasn’t exactly what she’d expected.
First of all, yes, there was a bit of an achy tenderness when he first entered fully, but not like the painful tearing she’d spent a decade worrying about. She doubted there’d be much—if any—blood. And that was kind of a relief. There was definitely something to be said for being really turned on. It seemed to ease everything.
Secondly, she could say without reservation that, yes, she was being driven mad with desire, but she’d expected that desire to be all consuming somehow, and it wasn’t. Not all consuming enough, anyway, to keep her from contemplating everything. She used to think, when this time came, she wouldn’t be aware of anything aside from the feelings that The Man (whoever he was) brought out in her.
Rob (a.k.a. The Man, in this particular and rather singular instance) brought out an overwhelming range of emotion in her, but she could still hear the clock ticking, the cars swishing outside on the street, the rumble of her food-deprived stomach because she hadn’t eaten since lunch. Well, no. She’d had one of Jacques’s tortes, but she was still starving.
And she was having stray thoughts like these. Thoughts about pastries. What the hell was that all about?
Finally, she didn’t know, and couldn’t comment on, whether Rob was being driven mad by desire. And this really wasn’t something she could ask him either.
He did seem to be getting into the experience, what with all the moaning and grunting and other noises indicating his interest in continuing, but there was no way for her to know if his enthusiasm was because of her specifically or just because sex was an all-around, feel-good, never-turn-it-down-if-remotely-possible activity for a hot-blooded, twenty-eight-year-old, all-American, extremely-patriotic male.
She did know that the thrusting, tugging, tightening and tension-filled physicality of the whole lovemaking thing shattered her ability to focus on any one feeling. It was too much conflicting sensation, and still too new to her.
Not that she was finding it unpleasant or anything. Oh, no. Just really, really…well, overwhelming.
As for Rob, his body’s urges seemed to have taken over every other part of him. He mumbled her name a few times. He kissed her mouth, her earlobes, her neck, her breasts—all the while still moving his hips in a slow grind that made her so dizzy that she was relieved to be lying down. He cupped her bottom and pulled her up into him, in time to a deliberate rhythm her heartbeat was beginning to copy. He covered her—inside and out—with himself.
And she knew if she could just concentrate, she could reach the same, nearly mindless state he was in. But she couldn’t bring herself into that kind of focus.
Then the rhythm changed.
It became faster. More insistent. Urgent.
“Elizabeth!” he cried out, seeking her mouth, devouring her, trying to pull her into his passion. She wanted to do it for him, to jump in and join him, but she was still outside herself, still taking it all in. Her very first time…
“Please. Try.” His voice was pleading.
So she tried, but it was too late for this go around.
With a curse he shuddered in a moment of wildness, and then his body went very, very still. Once again, he pulled back and looked down at her, his eyes serious and full of concern.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I waited as long as—”
“I know.” She hugged him tight. “I’m—I’m still learning about—about this.”
He kissed her. “I know.” Then, after a beat, “I guess we’re gonna have to rest up and try it again.” He glanced down at his watch, which showed it was after midnight, and sent her a naughty grin. “Ready for your present, Birthday Girl?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Rob gulped his air, as he’d been doing for the past half hour, and very gently pulled out of her. He’d tried to be as careful as he could tonight. He’d tried to keep things slow, sensual. He’d done his damnedest not to crush her under his weight. But he’d actually never slept with a virgin before, even when he’d been one himself, so if anyone had some learning to do…
Although, technically, she was no longer virginal now, was she?
He felt a bizarre combination of pride and all-out guilt at this fact. At the very least, he had to make this first time end right for her.
He slid to the side and ran his fingertips along her smooth hip, trailing them across her belly and further down to her beautiful, caress-able thighs.
“Ohhh,” she said. “Y-You don’t have to, um—”
“Shh,” he told her.
This time, with his own hunger somewhat sated, he had patience completely on his side.
His fingers tingled as he first found, and then traced, a series of ever-shrinking circles over her most sensitive flesh. Not altering the pattern. Letting her become accustomed to it until she began to predict it, began to need it.
Her hips started to move with the pattern. She became one with it. He smiled. It was only a matter of time.
He knew, when he heard the catch in her breathing, the time had almost arrived. Now his fingers moved in circles so small they barely pulsed. He let her find them, let her cling to them. He wanted to kiss her so badly, but he was afraid to interrupt her. He didn’t want to spoil the spell they’d both worked so hard to achieve.
And then she broke.
“Rob,” she cried out.
The surprise on her face both delighted and confused him. What had she expected? That it would be awful? That he wouldn’t work until dawn, if need be, to satisfy her?
Then he remembered, once again, that this was her first time. She had no experience, only expectations, and those were probably based on extremes. Novels or films or fairy tales—all either glorifying the perfect lover or admonishing the insensitive rogue for his disregard of the lady’s needs.
Rob was no hero or villain.
He gave in now to his acute desire to kiss her. A long Happy-Birthday-To-You soul kiss. Afterward, she turned toward him and snuggled in his arms, yawning. His heart jumped around like a jackrabbit as he tried to identify the weird sensations he couldn’t name—at least not all at once and in a jumble like this.
Yeah, there was passion.
Yeah, he could pick out pure lust and admiration and affection, too. But there was more.
Friendship, for sure.
A sense of protectiveness toward her. That one he wasn’t certai
n he should be feeling, but there it was.
Sentimentality at all the years they’d known each other. That quiet little kindergartener with the wispy, wavy hair from way back, even before they started school. That third-grade girl with the expressive and oh-so-observant eyes. That young lady she became, still so much of her own spirit—not part of the high-school collective mind.
And these thoughts were followed by a solitary one he couldn’t believe actually passed through his sex-fogged brain: To have a child with a woman you deeply love must be amazing. To see your features and hers combine—awe-inspiring. To create a joint heritage, in the form of a baby, by this act of lovemaking, would be a kind of miracle.
Maybe Tony wasn’t so out of his mind with the five kids after all.
Rob watched Elizabeth slip into the tranquil slumber of the innocent, and he shook his head. He was going to need a twelve-step program or a year of sessions with a damned shrink to straighten himself out when he got back to Chicago, just so he could be a normal happy bachelor again.
He put his head down next to hers and closed his eyes. He didn’t, of course, manage to fall asleep, though.
***
The Morning After. A real one, this time.
Elizabeth tried to wrap her mind around this fact because, in all truth, she felt way more woozy today than she’d felt after their first totally conscious kiss or even after that margarita hangover.
And her back was sore. And her joints were stiff. And though this sofa was comfortable as sofas go, it was not the kind of furniture choice two people should sleep on long term. She rubbed her neck and tried not to wake up Rob.
One dark eye fluttered open despite her efforts.
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