by Jamie Pope
She hadn’t known it, but he was exactly what she needed in that moment. “I don’t ever like to get involved in your love life, Virginia, but if you had to lose your head over a man, I’m glad it’s him.”
“You’re just saying that because he shoveled the driveway.”
“That did earn him some extra points in my book, but I’ve spent some time with him. He’s a good man and he speaks well of you. If he treats you kindly, then I have nothing bad to say about the man.”
“Thank you, Daddy.” She pulled away from him. “I think I’m going to go to bed now.”
“Okay, but just remember that if you ever need to come home, don’t let pride stop you. I think I would like having you around. Your mother just wants to see you settled. She doesn’t want to hurt you.”
She nodded. Her mother may not have intended to hurt her, but Virginia sure as hell felt hurt.
* * *
They came home sooner than Carlos had planned, and he found himself surprisingly disappointed about it. But Virginia wasn’t speaking to her mother after their argument. She wasn’t speaking to anyone, really. It made sense for them to leave. They had spent a day in New York City, meeting Asa for a quick lunch before he started his shift. But she had been quiet then, barely responding to the conversation unless directly asked a question. It was so unlike her, and he missed her chatter, the way she put her positive spin on things.
It was more than just sadness or hurt that caused her words to stop flowing. She was introspective, thinking about something she clearly wasn’t ready to share with him. And he felt bad, because it was his fault that she’d had the fight with her mother. If he had just stayed away, ignored that dangerous pull to be near her, none of this would have happened. Her rare visit with her family wouldn’t have been ruined. But he couldn’t stay away from her. He couldn’t not touch her. He couldn’t not kiss her lips, feel her closeness or smell her skin.
It was powerful. Whatever it was that was between them.
He hadn’t heard the whole argument between Virginia and her mother, only parts toward the end when their voices had gotten loud.
He was going to move on, her mother had warned her. Once life got back to the way it was long before her, he was going to move on to somebody new.
His first thought was no. He couldn’t just forget her. He couldn’t throw her away like that. She meant too much to him.
But he remembered the missed calls on his cell phone. One from his agent. One from the team manager. He hadn’t picked up, not wanting to hear what they had to say, but he already knew. His picture was in all the New York papers. He thought he had gone unnoticed at the basketball game, but he hadn’t. The cameras had captured him; the headlines had said he was out of hiding.
Hiding.
He didn’t like that word, but that was what he had been doing. Hiding away from his problems. Hiding away from the world. It almost made him feel cowardly. But he needed this time. He needed this time to heal. He needed this time with her, to think about other things than feeling sorry for himself, to harbor other emotions besides pain and regret.
He knew he loved Virginia. He knew there would always be a soft spot in his heart for her. But was he in love with her?
She needed stability. To put down roots. She needed to be loved by somebody who would always love her fully, who could give her everything that she wanted.
A little voice in his head whispered that he could give her that.
But he wasn’t sure.
He wasn’t sure if he was ready for marriage and kids. He wasn’t sure if he was in the right state of mind to be her rock. He wanted to be her rock, but right now he felt as if he needed her more than she needed him. And he wanted to be there for her. He wanted to be able to give her as much as he took.
“I never thought I would miss humidity so much,” she said once they got into the house. She dropped her suitcase on the floor in the kitchen and went right for the freezer. “See? You’ll be glad I decided to stay up all night and remix all the Thanksgiving food. Now we’ll have turkey shepherd’s pie. Turkey pasta bake. I can make you a turkey, brie and cranberry sandwich. It’s really good, especially when you toast the bread and put about four or five pieces of bacon on it.” She pulled out a frying pan. “You must be hungry.”
There she went, taking care of him again, when it should be the other way around. He wished he knew how to be there for her.
He grabbed her hand. “I can make the sandwiches. Just talk to me.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
“You. Your mother. What happened last night.”
“It was nothing, Carlos.” She walked away from him to retrieve the bread, but he stopped her again.
“Stop and just be still for a moment.”
“There’s nothing to talk about! I had a fight with my mother and I don’t want to talk about it with you.”
With you.
Those words stuck in his chest. As though she was saying she could talk about it to anyone else but him.
He had told her everything about himself, more than he had revealed to anyone else, but she didn’t want to talk to him. “I just want to know what’s wrong.”
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing, damn it! It’s something. It’s something big because you haven’t been out of your head all day.”
“I can’t be quiet? I can’t have some time to think? You get time to think. You spent months here alone thinking. Running away from people. From the whole damn world. And I can’t have a couple of hours to feel what I’m feeling? You don’t get to dictate what I feel or for how long I feel it.”
“I’m not! I just want to know what’s up with you. I think I have earned that right.”
“You really want to know? My mother thinks that you’re just another bad mistake I’m making. And maybe you are. Maybe I should have never gone down this road with you but—”
“But you did and now you regret it.”
“No.” She shook her head. “Don’t put words in my mouth. I wasn’t going to say that.”
“You didn’t have to. It takes one conversation with your mother to shake your faith in what we have.”
“What do we have anyway?” She looked him in the eye. “Tell me right now what we have, because sometimes I don’t think it’s very much.”
“If you could look me in the eye and say that, I guess we never had anything at all.” He turned to walk away.
“Carlos, don’t walk away. I don’t want to fight with you.”
“We weren’t fighting. All I wanted to do was talk to you, but you didn’t. Good night.”
Chapter 12
Carlos stared out of his bedroom’s glass doors that overlooked the ocean. It was morning, but the sky was still dark and a full moon shone, lighting up the entire beach. The view was one of the best things about his bedroom, but it had been a while since he had seen this scene. Except for the past few days, he had spent the past few weeks waking up in Virginia’s bed.
He had missed this view, but he missed Virginia more. He hadn’t been able to sleep well since they went to her parents’ house. He’d been looking forward to coming home last night, just so he could sleep beside her, hear her soft, slow breathing in the night, feel her smooth, warm skin against his. He still wasn’t sure why he’d got so mad at her.
She had been right. What were they? What did he want from her? He’d gone into it thinking that they would just be friends who had sex. He had been involved in a situation like this before, but it hadn’t affected him like this. And if he were honest with himself, he and Virginia had been more than just friends when they’d started sleeping together. He had never wanted anybody the way he wanted her. He didn’t think it was possible to ever want anybody that way again, and that scared the shit out of him.
His bedroom door slowly opened and Virginia slipped inside, the dim light from the moon illuminating her. He didn’t say anything as she crept toward his bed, but he felt his heart pound harder. He should have gone to her last night instead of her coming to him.
“I’m not apologizing,” she said as she pulled the blankets aside and climbed on top of him. “I have nothing to be sorry for, but I don’t want to fight with you. I hate fighting with you.” She slid her hands over his cheeks and leaned down to kiss him, her beautiful breasts pressing against him. It was a hell of a kiss. A slow, deep, makeup kiss, even though she’d said she wasn’t sorry. She shouldn’t be sorry, but he was willing to fight with her more if all her makeup kisses were like this.
He slid his hands up the back of her nightgown just to feel her smooth, thick thighs. But he found that she wasn’t wearing underwear as she sat straddled on top of him. He grew hard thinking about how just his boxers separated them.
She noticed his excitement. The look in her eye changed to the look she always got when she was turned on. She sat up, freed him from his shorts and slid her hand over his erection, making him even harder, if that were possible. And then she lifted herself up, biting her lip as she slid down on top of him. She was ready for him, her wetness squeezing around him, making it hard for him to keep the little bit of control he had.
“Take this off.” He tugged at the hem of her nightie. “I need all of you.” His voice was strained. He was so turned on he couldn’t make sense of what he was saying. “I need to see all of you.”
She quickly removed her nightgown, flinging it behind her. He reached up to touch her. The smooth skin of her neck, her warm chest, where her heart was beating quickly, her breasts. Her nipples were so tight with arousal that he ached to take them into his mouth.
But she wouldn’t let him. She pinned his arms behind his head, placed her hands on his chest and rose up slowly, almost to the point that he was out of her. She looked him in the eye, her lip between her teeth as she did, and sank all the way down on him. And then she did it again. He lost his breath.
She was teasing him. Almost punishing him with this slow ride. He longed to grab her hips, roll her over and pump into her until he collapsed, but he knew she wouldn’t allow that. That he owed it to her to let her make love to him her way.
She increased her pace, riding him faster, harder, her eyes drifting shut as she took her pleasure. A cry escaped her mouth, her orgasm coming on fast, seeming to take her by surprise. She slumped over, her breath coming in short spurts. She kissed his chest, her body liquid and boneless, all the while he was hard as steel inside her.
“Okay, baby. It’s your turn.”
He rolled her onto her back, wrapped her legs around his waist and lost control. He plunged into her, loving the way it sounded as their skin slapped together. His pace became frenzied and her cries grew louder. He thought it was impossible to be more turned on than he was, but hearing her cry out his name and feeling her tightness around him and her fingers dig into his back made his arousal spike to another level.
He had had good sex before, but he only had sex like this with her. And he knew that was because he loved her. He loved her so much he didn’t know what to do with himself.
His climax came then and he buried himself in her one last time before he collapsed on top of her. But even then he couldn’t stop himself. He kissed up the center of her throat, the side of her neck, the skin behind her ear.
“I’ve missed you,” he whispered into her ear before he took her mouth in a long, deep kiss.
“You’re not mad anymore?”
“No.”
“Good. After that kind of sex, you shouldn’t be.”
He laughed. She made him laugh. She was the only one who could. He disconnected himself from her but pulled her into his arms to keep her close.
“During our argument, my mother said that my last boyfriend was gay. I had no idea that she thought that. I never told her we almost never had sex. I don’t know why I couldn’t see that.”
“What did his breakup note say?”
“‘I can’t be who I really am with you.’” She sighed. “Oh, hell. It was obvious, wasn’t it? I just don’t know why somebody would spend a year of their lives with someone they didn’t love.”
“He loved you. There’s no doubt about that.” She was lovable. She was the definition of the word. “He just couldn’t be with you.”
“I was stupid. I’m still so stupid. My mother says I only fall in love with unattainable men. She thinks that you’re just another one of them.”
“You’re not stupid. Stop thinking that about yourself. I respect your mother but she doesn’t know everything. You shouldn’t let her shake your confidence in yourself.” It then dawned on him what she’d said.
Fall in love.
You’re just another one of them.
“Are you in love with me, Virginia?”
She was quiet for a long moment, and that was all the answer he needed. “I think this should be our last time, Carlos,” she said softly.
He wasn’t expecting those words from her and just as he was about to say something she spoke again. “I got an email that the pieces I was waiting for are on their way. I’ll be done in another week or so. I’ve loved working here, and I’ll be sad to go. I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for you and this island.”
It felt as if she was breaking up with him. It almost felt as though he was suffocating. He didn’t know what to say. What to tell her. There were so many thoughts in his mind, but the only one that was clear was that he didn’t want her to go.
“No,” he said.
“No?” She blinked up at him in confusion.
“No. This isn’t our last time. This isn’t the end.”
“But you’re the one who said when one of us wants to end it, we would.”
“Why do you want to leave?”
“Because I’ll be done, and no matter how wonderful this was, I have to move on with my life. That was my plan. Do this job, grow my business and move on. That was always my plan.”
She had a plan. A direction for her future. He didn’t have one, but he knew he wasn’t ready to let her go yet.
“Fine, but today isn’t our last time. We end when you’re gone for good.”
Now he just had to figure out how he could get her to stay.
* * *
Virginia couldn’t shake the nervous feeling that gripped her as she walked around the great room removing the white drop cloths that covered the furniture Carlos had told her he didn’t want to see. It hadn’t been hard to hide what she had been doing from him because he didn’t care what she had been doing, but after months of working there, it was finally time to see what he thought.
The house looked beautiful, exactly the vision she’d had in her mind. Sleek, masculine, worthy of any athlete in the prime of his life. It was her best work yet. A design she would be proud to place in her portfolio. She wasn’t really nervous about what he would think. She was nervous because this was the end. After she showed him everything it would be time to say goodbye, time to go back to her life in her tiny apartment in her crowded neighborhood.
She would miss it there. The island. The people she had come to know. But most of all she would miss him. She had tried to end things two weeks ago, but he hadn’t let her. Every night he’d taken her to bed. Every morning she’d woken up in his arms. It was going to be hard to go back to life without him. But she had to.
She had fallen in love with him when she wasn’t supposed to. And while it was lovely to dream about a life together, children, a family of their own making, she knew that wasn’t reality. She knew she didn’t really fit into his life. And he didn’t fit into hers.
She had seen the buzz starting to form. The photos of Asa and him were
all over the internet. There was tons of speculation about what he was doing and when he would return. Some reports even said that he had been seen with a mysterious woman that she knew must be her. It was easy to forget that he was a hero, one of America’s favorite men, when they were alone. But how long could she expect him to stay in this protective bubble?
He would go back. He would have to go back, because baseball meant the world to him. Baseball linked him to his father. She wasn’t a doctor, but she could tell that he was better. He had taken to doing sprints on the beach. He ran every day. He swam. He worked out just as hard as any active player would. Maybe harder. He hadn’t said that he was preparing to go back but she knew he was. He hadn’t said much to her at all this past week; he’d just made love to her every night as if he was never going to see her again.
And that made this moment even more difficult. She made her way up to his bedroom to find that he had just come out of the shower. He had a towel wrapped around his waist as he rubbed lotion onto his skin.
“Come get my back,” he said in way of greeting as he held out the bottle to her. She went over to him, even though she knew she shouldn’t touch him now because it would make leaving him later just that much tougher. His back was hard, and slightly damp, but it felt good.
She rested her cheek against his back when she was finished. She was dangerously close to tears even though it wasn’t even time to say goodbye yet.
“I’m done,” she said, but the words were a struggle.
“Thank you for getting my back.”
“I meant, I’m done with the house. I’m ready to show you.”
“I know.” He turned. Grasping the back of her neck he brought his lips down on top of hers and kissed the breath out of her. “You can show it to me in a few minutes.” He yanked his towel off and tumbled her into bed.
* * *
It was nearly two hours before they emerged from his bedroom. He had made love to her twice and was now holding her hand as she showed him the rooms she had done. He remained silent. Not a word, just listened as she spoke. There wasn’t a sound from him, not a head nod, not a hint of what he was thinking.