“Damn. This dress . . . Where the hell . . .?”
Tris pulled herself away from the fascinating havoc his fumbling attempts had on her senses to find the side zipper herself. She stood, and he stood with her, moving her toward the bed even as she let the loosened dress slip off her shoulders. His hands hurried it, so it floated down her body and pooled at her feet.
His hands under her silk chemise made her draw in her breath, and at the feel of them on her bare breasts she let it out in a moan. He cupped them gently, then with more strength. His thumbs stroked across the nubs until her back arched in silent response. Now even the rub of silk was too abrasive, and the stiff fabric of his slacks became almost painful against her thighs and abdomen. She wanted nothing between them. She wanted nothing but him.
As if he sensed that need, he skimmed the chemise over her head, dropping it behind him and nudging her down onto the bed. She watched him shed pants, briefs and socks in one efficient movement. But she had no time to consider it, because then he had joined her on the bed, his hands and mouth feeding the fever that seemed to rage just under her skin.
She found herself lifting her hips at his silent command, to aid him in stripping off the final, lacy barrier between them.
This wasn’t at all what she’d expected, this intensity, this hunger. This was Michael, her friend, her companion. Yet this wasn’t Michael at all. This wasn’t her reaction to Michael. This compelling need to have his kisses, his caresses, to have him inside her. To have him fill her. This was something she hadn’t known about herself.
He muttered again as he leaned across her body, but her mind could make nothing of the words, not when her body reacted to the imprint of his arousal, hot and pulsing against her hip. There was a distinctive crackle of foil, and that registered on the small corner of her mind left for rational thought. Ah, yes, this was Michael. In at least one basic, caring way.
But his hands sliding under her drove out every thought, leaving behind only sensation, the splendid sensation of his first, sure thrust into her. She clutched at his shoulders for a stability that eluded her as he withdrew and thrust again, stronger.
She rose to meet each stroke, needing to have him deep within her. But still he didn’t slow. The need became a frenzy as the tremors ripped through her. She felt his body tense, then heard his cry and echoed it with her own. Michael enfolded her as the tremors retreated, slowly, leaving behind an exhaustion so complete that only contentment had a share of her senses.
* * * *
“Tris.”
She awoke to the sound of her name, murmured against her skin. The softness of both sound and touch contrasted with the slightly abrasive movement of Michael’s hair-coated leg against her thigh. The musk of their lovemaking lingered. In the faint moonlight brave enough to journey through the window and across the room, his face appeared taut and intense as he looked down at her.
The face she knew so well seemed as new and unknown in that light as the man who had been revealed in their lovemaking. She might have expected sweetness and patience, but she’d received power and passion.
The tightened muscle of the arm that supported him above her drew her fingers to test and explore it. He bowed his back to touch his tongue to her nipple, and she felt her response as a simultaneous tightening and lifting of breast and pelvis. His mouth closed on her, sucking until she arched to draw near the source of such pleasure. She wanted him again. As much, as urgently. As completely.
There were things they should say to each other. Questions to ask, thinking to adjust. But not now. She couldn’t now.
Five senses, that was all anybody got. But to accept all the pleasures her body was absorbing now would require fifteen, twenty.
She reached to him, willingly contributing to the overload that would short-circuit her senses in pinwheels of electricity.
“Michael.”
* * * *
The bed seemed large and empty, the dawning sunlight overbright even before she opened her eyes.
He stood at the window, hands dug into the pockets of cutoffs that were the only thing he wore, staring out toward the water. She wished he were still in bed, near to her. But the next best thing would be standing by him. Sitting, she scooped up his Phantoms T-shirt from the nearby bureau, pulling it over her head as she eased out of the bed. He must have heard her. He didn’t turn, but something about his posture indicated a new tension.
“Tris.” His voice was low and a little hoarse, almost muffled as he continued to face away from her a moment longer. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” she repeated, unsure what he meant. Two more steps and she’d be near enough to run her hands down his back, along those planes and muscles that were usually so innocently masked in his conservative clothing.
Then he turned to her, and she stopped. Her movement, her breath, her blood—all stopped. Frozen by his expression. She knew that only the strength of his will had forced his muscles to obey the command to face her. The clarity of her knowledge stunned her, but that emotion was lost in the sweep of pain; he could barely force himself to look at her. If he’d been any less of the man he was, he wouldn’t have. He would have turned away from her for good.
“Last night—last night shouldn’t have happened. I’m sorry.”
Shouldn’t have happened. . . sorry. Through the pain she tried to make sense of it. “Sorry!” The repeated word came out a hoarse cry.
She remembered his words of the previous night. I don’t want you to be sorry about this . . . She wasn’t, but he was.
He was sorry he’d given in to her . . . to her seduction, there was no other word for it. He’d made his reluctance clear, but she’d refused to hear it. And now he was sorry. Sorry he’d loved her.
He reached for her in what could have been an involuntary move, but she jerked her arm away just before his fingers would have touched her. She couldn’t bear pity in his touch. Not after last night.
She couldn’t bear it in his face, either. She wasn’t as strong as he was. She turned away.
“You’ve always been . . . I shouldn’t have—” His voice faltered, then started again, stronger. “I should have stopped it before . . . Last night was my fault.”
The sound that came from her throat was supposed to be a disdainful laugh. Pain distorted it.
She’d been transported. He was sorry.
She’d felt the loose threads of her life coming together in a pattern that meshed with him to create something real.
He felt regret.
He ground out a curse under his breath, and somewhere deep in her mind Tris recognized she’d never heard him swear that way before. “This was exactly what I never wanted to happen, Tris. I never wanted our friendship to suffer. Your friendship means too much to me—”
A slight sound behind her told her he was driving his right hand through his thick hair in that familiar gesture of frustration. But suddenly, he was a stranger. A stranger she had shared passion with through the hours of the night. A stranger she didn’t know anything about now, here, in the light of a summer day’s dawn.
“It was a mistake. I never wanted to risk your friendship. I never— Tris! What are you doing?”
She continued gathering her clothes, bundling them to her like pieces of her pride. Her heart would be harder to put back together.
Not to put them all on—that would take too long, and she couldn’t bear to breathe the air that reeked of his pity and regret—but to ensure that no shred of her remained behind to remind him of his “mistake.”
“I’ll send the shirt back.” Her words were jerky, mechanical.
He caught her at the door, and even though his hold on her arm kept her still, she wouldn’t look at him.
“Tris, please . . . I didn’t—”
“I know. You didn’t want our friendship to suffer.” Her voice shook a little on the last word. “Don’t worry. It didn’t suffer at all. It died a quick, painless death.”
She jerked her arm aw
ay and was gone.
* * * *
“I don’t understand why you’re leaving today, anyway,” Grady grumbled. “And especially so early.”
“Shut up and drive.”
She saw the look he shot her from the corner of his eye, but felt perfectly safe ignoring it. Slightly hung over and more than a little short on sleep, he’d take the path of least resistance. That was what she’d counted on when she shook him awake and demanded he take her to the airport. He hadn’t even realized what time it was until they passed the billboard digital clock flashing the numbers on the way to O’Hare.
“Don’t park,” she ordered as they came up to a fork in the entry road. “Just drop me off at Departures.”
He didn’t argue. But when he pulled to a stop in front of the terminal, he leaned over and clamped a hand around her wrist.
“Tris, are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Really.” She turned to direct a smile at him, but it faltered at the concern in his eyes. “I will be fine. Honest. I just need to get away right now.”
He continued to look at her. “I know I’m not always the most perceptive person, but it seemed like you and Michael were working on something this past week. If there’s something I—”
“Nothing.” She softened the curt word with a touch of her fingers to his cheek. God, wasn’t this great for irony? Twelve years later, here was Grady consoling her over Michael. “But thanks. Thanks for your concern.” She looked at him again, dark smudges of sleeplessness somehow managing to make him look even more handsome. But that wasn’t what she saw. She saw a friend. “You know sometimes we don’t give you enough credit, Grady.”
“No, you don’t,” he agreed solemnly.
“You’re really very sweet.”
“Yes, I am.”
She almost smiled at that. “Thanks for the ride, Grady.”
“Take care of yourself, Tris.”
“You, too.”
She hefted her suitcase from the back seat and turned it over to a skycap, gave Grady a wave and disappeared from view among the people hurrying onto other destinations even at this hour on a Sunday morning.
* * * *
Michael sat on the corner of the bed, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped in front of him. The sun rose in front of unfocused eyes.
He’d known. He’d known. And still he couldn’t stop himself. One night of loving Tris, and that was all he’d ever have again. No more out-of-the-blue phone calls. No more affectionate messages relayed through Paul. No more right even to ask how she was doing these days. No more . . .
Twelve years before, he’d known how it was between them. And he’d accepted it then. Not always gracefully, but he’d accepted it. He had never let her see his hunger for her. He had never jeopardized their friendship. Until last night.
He hadn’t had the strength to turn her away, even knowing the emotions that moved her. He’d even tried to rationalize it in that last, sane moment when he’d felt the framework of his resistance giving way. He’d told himself that making love to her once might be the answer, might be the way to finally still that ghost of hope. To get her out of his system.
What a fool. He should have known she would never be out of his system, and now the feel of her, the sensations of her body, the sounds of her pleasure, the smell of her hair, the taste of her skin were all memories imprinted in every cell of his body.
God, how sweet she was. He had never . . . No, of course, he’d never. Because never before had the woman been Tris.
He couldn’t let her go out of his life like this, couldn’t let go even those fragile threads to her of the past few years. If he could talk to her, make her see that their friendship could survive this. That she could trust him to never again let desire overrule his control, to never again let the taste and touch of her inflame his senses until he had to possess her, had to wake her to love her again. And again.
He bowed his head a moment, then pushed himself off the bed and hurriedly dressed. He had to face this, try to salvage something.
Mrs. Monroe and Judi were already in the kitchen, their slippers slapping lightly against the floor as they moved around making coffee, pouring juice. Mrs. Monroe greeted him warmly.
“Good morning, dear. I can’t believe you revelers are up so early.”
“Where’s Tris?” He saw her surprise at his brusqueness, and didn’t care.
“Tris? Tris is gone, dear.”
“Gone?” He heard the stupid note in his own voice. How could she be gone already? She’d just left. He caught sight of the clock over the range and realized more than an hour had passed since she left his room.
“Yes. To the airport. I had a note from her. She said she had to change her plans. The office needed her to get back early.” She hesitated, as if faced with a small puzzle. “Although I don’t know how she was going to get there. I didn’t hear a taxi honk or anything—”
“Grady took her,” supplied Judi. “I saw them leaving from my window.”
“Tris left with Grady.” He said it with detachment, as if he just wanted to verify the facts.
“Yes. I heard his car and saw her taking out her suitcase.” Judi was watching him intently. “She looked upset.”
“Oh, dear. Did she?” Nancy Monroe asked her daughter, a frown pulling her brows. “Oh, I almost forgot. In her note, she asked me to give you this, Michael.” Automatically, his hand closed around what she held out to him. His Phantoms shirt. He thought he could feel Tris’s warmth still in the material; he crushed it in his fist, trying to absorb the sensation.
“Tris left with Grady,” he repeated numbly. What a fool he was. What a damned fool.
“Are you all right, Michael?” He could feel Nancy Monroe’s hand on his arm. He could feel the aged material of the shirt straining under his grip on it. But mostly he could feel pain.
“Fine. I’m fine.”
Chapter Nine
“America loves an underdog,” the newscaster intoned, “and especially when the underdog successfully pulls off a stunning upset. So, America, prepare to meet your latest darling.
“It’s well past midnight here in Illinois, and for Joan Bradon and her staff, the day that started at dawn this morning is still a long way from being over . . .”
The television camera panned over the happy chaos of a victorious campaign headquarters on election night, centering on a tall, rawboned woman who radiated energy and determination. But in a darkened living room in Washington, D.C., the viewer’s attention focused on the background, where a man with his loosened tie askew and a phone tucked into his shoulder used one hand to sign something held out to him by a teenage messenger, while he drove his other hand through his thick, unruly hair. He smiled at the teenager, a smile that didn’t mask his weariness, but made it clear that no amount of tiredness would change the basic decency of the man.
In the living room in Washington, the watcher folded her knees more tightly to her chest, covered her mouth with a fist and tried to ignore the twin tears burning down her cheeks.
* * * *
Tris subtly withdrew from the conversation. It wasn’t impolite to do that when you wanted the other two people at the dinner table to get to know each other, as she hoped Leslie Craig and Grady Roberts would.
She deserved this slightly smug feeling. It had been a stroke of genius to insist Leslie come with her to dinner. She might not have done it with any ulterior motive where Leslie and Grady were concerned, but once she’d seen them together the idea had taken hold. They acted a bit wary of each other, but she hoped that would pass, especially if she participated less so they could talk more to each other. It didn’t hurt that that also served her initial purpose in inviting Leslie—deflecting some of the questions she had a feeling Grady was dying to ask her.
She’d been surprised when he called last week and said he was going to be in D.C. a few days and wanted to get together for dinner. But not as surprised as she would have been a few months ago. He’d called he
r more in the three months since Paul and Bette’s wedding than he had in the previous six years. Almost as if, for the first time, he felt comfortable being her friend.
Tris watched him laugh at one of Leslie’s medium outrageous comments, and thought again that maybe all of them underestimated Grady.
“Oh, look, it’s the Filbertsons. I simply must go say hello to them on my way to the ladies’ room. I’ll be back in a bit,” announced Leslie, significantly pressing Tris’s hand. “That’ll give you a chance to catch up on old news without an outsider here.”
She looked from one to the other of them, then swept away. Tris watched her go with an inward grimace. She’d underestimated Leslie, too. She should have known Leslie would maneuver it so she’d have to face Grady alone, at least for a while.
In the first weeks after the wedding, Leslie had plied her with worried questions about what was wrong and what had happened. When Tris had finally made it clear she didn’t want to talk, they’d reached a tacit truce—Tris would pretend everything was normal, and Leslie would pretend she didn’t notice anything different. That agreement, however, bent a little when Tris invited Leslie to this dinner. Leslie had given her a sharp look and asked if Grady Roberts was the cause of her unhappiness. She hadn’t looked particularly convinced by Tris’s terse “no,” but at last she’d agreed to come along tonight. Now Tris wished she’d thought to get a promise from her friend on the issue of desertion.
She felt Grady’s eyes on her and gave him a half smile.
“You look great, Tris.” But he said it with an inflection of doubt, so she knew he could see the signs of tiredness that went heart deep.
“It’s been a busy time at work.” She answered his tone rather than his words. “It’s always a little crazy with funding requests during an election year.”
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