“What?” She disengaged the alarm and opened the door.
Lucas, red-nosed and shivering despite his full winter regalia. His blue eyes gathered light reflected from the frosty moon.
“You’re not supposed to be here.” She balled her hands. The nerve of this guy.
But Lucas was undaunted by her stiff-backed, belligerent stance. “They say what you’re doing at midnight on New Year’s Eve influences the rest of your year.” His jeans chimed. He pulled his phone out halfway and swiped it, silencing the alarm. “Perfect.”
“For what?”
“For starting what I hope I’m doing sixty seconds from now.” Lucas cradled Anya’s cheeks in his gloved hands.
“Don’t you dare,” she whispered.
He smiled sweetly. Was still smiling as he closed his eyes and nipped at her mouth. Then he stole her breath, leaving her but one way to get it back.
The tugs in her belly demanded satisfaction. Wind whipped up eddies of sparkling snow, but the warmth flowing from Lucas into her had chased away the cold. Even so, he held her tighter, kissed her deeper, loitered on her mouth as it ended.
“You said you were going to be alone tonight. I wanted to make sure you got your kiss.”
She uttered a series of dry clicks.
Lucas folded his hands around her numb fingers. “Happy New Year, Anya.”
“Lucas, I…”
“I should go. I’ll see you at practice.”
Her lips tingled with the impression of his on them. The rest of her did too, especially the part that the sensation of his tongue sliding over hers had awakened. The part with an insatiable curiosity for what his tongue would feel like down there, sucking and licking the way it did her mouth.
“Go inside before you get hypothermia.”
“Can you…come in? For a minute?”
“No. I shouldn’t be here at all.” He raised her hands to his lips before claiming her with another of those luscious, dizzying kisses. She craved more and more, and no cheap substitute—not hockey, not another boy—had the power to break this addiction. “Good night.”
“I don’t know what to do now.” She trailed a fingertip over lips softened with balm.
Lucas kissed it, then her palms. “I don’t either.”
“Why?” Her eyes welled. “Why did you come?”
He enfolded her in his arms again. “Because I’m an idiot, and I don’t know how to stay away from you.” Lucas plotted a cautious course down the steps Dad had salted that afternoon. At the bottom, he turned back to her and lifted his hand in a halfhearted wave. “See you soon.”
She remained on the stoop, the cold steeping her bones now that Lucas was no longer holding her. His car gleamed icily in the moonlight as it lurched into the snow-covered street. She licked her peppermint-flavored lips with her peppermint-flavored tongue and thought about the parts of her not freezing but softening, like warm honey.
Anya retreated into the house, to the kitchen, where she filled the teakettle with water for hot cocoa. His phantom hands gripped her waist, subduing her in a way she loathed to admit she enjoyed. His phantom lips conquered what little resistance she’d managed to assemble.
No going back now. No getting this song out of her head. The heart didn’t care about time or age, or someone’s invented ethics. All that mattered was the resonance when they were together.
All that mattered was love.
Chapter Fifteen
Alex
Alex thought he’d arrived fashionably late, but at quarter to ten, almost everyone else had just gotten there too. He exchanged greetings and pleasantries with current players, staff, and alumni, all of whom engaged in a delicate dance to evade the elephant in the room. Over a year had passed, after all. A normal person ought to be moving on with life. Dating. Nobody wanted to be the one to point out just how aberrant he was, how his mere presence brought down the room. He parked himself at the bar, whose illuminated top replicated hockey ice complete with skate scratches, and contenting himself with his usual boring mocktail. Inasmuch as one could be content when one’s nerves had cranked the volume to eleven. Anya had the right idea after all.
“Anyone sitting here?”
“Oh—hello, Hannah.” Alex stood and after a brief internal debate—handshake? Hug?—gave her the standard European cheek kisses. “Please, sit.”
Foudroyant as ever, she dazzled him in a long-sleeved, gold sequined dress catching each flash of light and mirroring it. Even so, it did not distract from the way the dress clung to her curves. And chert, did she have curves.
Those heating coils in his face switched on again. He gnawed on his lip and studied the condensation trickling down his glass. “Can I get you something?”
“The house white. Thank you.” She laid her clutch on the bar. “You look incredibly handsome, Sasha.”
He smiled and side-eyed her. “Spasiba. My daughter helped. My wife used to, but…you didn’t ask me here to talk about my wife.” Alex swirled his finger in a figure eight over the fake ice. No one, especially a woman with a clear romantic interest in him, would find his uxoriousness for Stephanie a redeeming quality. Now it was just pathetic, unhealthy, and probably bordering on creepy. “I’m sorry. I suck at this.”
“I think you’re doing the best you can under the circumstances. And compared to some of the guys I’ve been out with, you’re way ahead of the game.”
Give her a compliment, durak. He squirmed in his seat. “Um…you look beautiful, by the way. It wasn’t always this hard for me to talk to women, I swear.”
“Oh, I remember.” Hannah laughed—throaty, sexy, a singer’s rich chuckle—and sipped the white wine the bartender had set before her. “Or so I heard at the time, anyway. Had your pick, didn’t you?”
“Da. But…” All I wanted was Stephanie. And a drink. He wanted a real drink for the first time in many years. The old vices never went away, but they’d diminished to a faint scratching at the windows of his mind. “I was young. Stupid. Rich and famous. You have people throwing themselves at you, and you take advantage of it.”
“Are you planning to go back to coaching? Or performing?” A hopeful note echoed in her voice. She had something up her sleeve.
“I talked to my daughter about getting back into the opera. A production of Tosca I’d like to be part of is in the works. Or maybe I’ll just teach like my mother did.” His tongue had loosened, so he could concentrate less on his words and spend the mental energy logging each time their knees or shoulders touched in the auxiliary conversation their bodies were having. Accidental? Or designed, inconspicuous flirts? Not that it mattered either way. Each one shivered through him with a Taser-like jolt. “Thought about finally going to university too.”
“Oh?”
“Maybe for music therapy. Music helped me through some bad times. Just…” He scratched at the ice again. Not this time. There is no remedy for this.
Hannah, to his relief, chose not to mine that quarry. She gave his arm an eager pat. “I have an idea—and you can refuse, of course, but I was thinking we could do a duet of ‘God Bless America’ at an upcoming game. What do you think?”
The last time I did a duet with someone, she killed herself. He thinned his lips. And my wife is dead. I am a curse. Stay away. The darkness, as silver-tongued as ever.
“Sasha?”
“Um…sure. Why not?” Colors and half-clad bodies whirled across the thirty-eight-foot screen. New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, still on the air despite an increasingly obscure slate of artists and an aging Ryan Seacrest.
“You seem distracted tonight.”
“I’m sorry.” He returned his attention to Hannah and wondered why he’d diverted it in the first place. Did she notice his gaze kept dipping to her breasts? Ample but natural. His pants tightened a little. Now that he was trying to think about anything but her breasts, the fantasy dominated his brain. Large nipples. Clear, porcelain skin like her face, peach-soft. His cock poked at the fly of his pants, and he cr
ossed his legs. Oily, sludgy remorse crawled through his gut. “My daughter is home alone tonight. I feel a bit guilty.”
“How sad!” Hannah’s forehead creased with concern. “Is she sick?”
“A bad case of forbidden love.”
“Oh no. Teacher?” Been there, done that, said the twinkle in her eye.
“Athletic trainer. Twenty-two years old. Naturally, my seventeen-year-old daughter is smitten.”
“My youngest is her age. Maybe we should introduce them.” She winked and took a delicate sip of wine, her nude lipstick leaving a subtle smudge on the glass’s rim.
“How many kids do you have?”
“Two boys, seventeen and twenty.” Hannah produced her wallet from a clutch and flipped it open to a photo of two blond boys with the same fine features but squarer jaws. “Cooper and Christian.”
“Good-looking kids.”
“Thanks. Anya’s quite a stunner herself.”
“She doesn’t seem to think so. She’s so self-conscious about her height.” Alex smirked. “‘You’re only five-eleven,’ I said. ‘Try being six-five.’ Didn’t go over so well.”
Hannah, laughing, pressed a napkin to her mouth. “You know how kids are. In a couple of years, she’ll embrace it.”
“I feel like she’d believe it more if it was coming from her mother. Daddy’s little girl, da? All I see is how perfect she is. Which I suppose is true, to a point.”
Her eyes crinkled at the corners, intensifying their sly gleam. “I have another idea. What if she and Cooper went to their proms together?”
“I am one hundred and ten percent sure she’d kill me for trying to set her up on a date. But I guess there’s no harm in asking.”
She swiveled away from the bar and touched his forearm, the hairs beneath his suit rising as if statically charged. “Speaking of dances, would you care to?”
One more step on his ill-prepared journey toward intimacy. His younger self had associated dancing with a preordained romp in the bedroom later on. Even later in life, dancing and sex had enjoyed a happy, healthy marriage. The last time—his forty-third birthday, neither of them knowing Stephanie was already sick. Or maybe she had and thus devised an evening so simple and yet so romantic that nothing could sidetrack his attention from her alone. In her humblest actions, she had revealed the exquisite beauty of the universe she was leaving behind. All the signs had been there, now that he thought about it. A subtle preparation in the most loving way possible. Dancing with him, so he wouldn’t forget the way she felt in his arms. As if he could, or wanted to.
His breath snagged, lacerated his lungs.
“Losing you again.”
“I am so sorry. I don’t mean to be rude.” Alex held out his hand. “I’d love to dance.”
Hannah’s body conformed to his, which so hungered for contact he dismissed propriety altogether and closed the space between them. Her breasts against him pulsed signals to his cock, a Morse code beckoning him to raise the flag, as it were. But it did not take a therapist to predict how disastrous going from zero to sex would be, no matter the way his heartbeat stutter-stepped when he thought about her warmth and how seamlessly she fit in his arms. He was lonely, and loneliness allowed his physical needs to outshout those of his heart or his mind. To ponder painting her colors over his gray. She did not yet understand how haunted his house was, and that his attempts had exorcism had thus far been mere velleity.
“You’re a wonderful dancer,” Hannah said.
“I was better before my injury. I loved to dance.”
The music cut, and the bartender turned up the TV in preparation for the ball drop. Their colleagues and acquaintances counted down with Ryan Seacrest and the crowd in Times Square.
“Four! Three! Two! One!”
Confetti rained from the ceiling. Corks from champagne bottles popped over deafening cheers ringing in the New Year. The bartenders had lined up plastic champagne glasses. All over the room, couples were kissing.
And Hannah, maybe five-feet-eight in heels, gazed with quiet longing at the inept fool who twenty years ago had been the biggest stud in the room.
“Um,” he said softly, stupidly.
Smooth lips caressed his. As her breath, fruity with the tang of wine, passed into his mouth, his mind registered it as the ultimate treachery he could enjoy—worse, desire—this kiss.
“I…have to call my daughter. Excuse me. I’m sorry.” Alex spun away before the heartbreak on Hannah’s face reversed his decision, and he hurried toward the exit. If she considered it enough, she’d realize he was doing her a favor. She was pursuing a broken man, a marionette going through the motions, commanded by the strings of social decorum. A woman like her deserved better than to try locating pieces that no longer fit together.
***
The TV cast its blue-white glow from the great room. The aromas of sweet hot chocolate and buttery popcorn anointed the air. No chance of sneaking past Anya, never mind how the noise level of his every action—keys in the door, shoes on the hardwood—roared in his ears.
Anya bobbed up from the couch. “Dad! You’re home early.” She pursed her lips, her eyebrows knitting together. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I…nothing.” His anxiety was a serpent laying eggs inside him, those eggs already hatching. “I’m going to bed. Happy New Year, milaya.” Alex mounted the stairs, his hand shaking as he gripped the railing.
“Dad, what happened? You’re not okay. Do you need your medication? Are you having a breakdown?”
A laugh percolated in his chest. Breaking down was familiar territory. Simple, common, even expected. The maelstrom of emotions Hannah had whipped up was none of those things. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Sit.”
The laugh escaped like steam—a nervous laugh, the kind emitted at a funeral. He plunked onto the stair beneath him.
Anya draped her arms around him. “What happened?”
“We were dancing, and the ball dropped, and…she kissed me.”
“You didn’t want her to?”
“No, I-I think…I did.” He rubbed his mouth. She was still there, the taste and feel of her. He smeared his hands down his face and moaned. “Why do I constantly feel like I’m betraying your mother?”
Anya laid her head on his shoulder. “Maybe it’s a sign things are moving too fast. Remember what you told me? If it’s meant to be, she’ll wait.”
He kissed the top of her head. Waiting was a game only the young had time to play, and he suspected his chance had expired. “How was your night?”
She tensed. “Fine.”
“You sure about that?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
All right. He’d play along. “Hannah has a son your age. His name’s Cooper. She thought it might be nice if you two went to prom together.”
Anya withdrew and crossed her arms, her entire face crumpling. “If I even go, I’m going alone. No offense to Cooper or whatever.”
“Still upset about Lucas?”
Light flared in her eyes before winking out. And she wasn’t as morose as he’d expected her to be, which in itself aroused his suspicions. They’re still talking. Or whatever they’ve been doing.
“It’s the right thing, you know. You both have too much to lose.”
“Yeah.” She sighed with maximum drama. “I’m going to finish this movie and then go to bed. Good night, Dad.”
“See you in the morning.”
Alex closed the bedroom door behind him and surveyed what they’d done. A new bed, new paint, new curtains. Not Stephanie’s sick room or her deathbed anymore. No longer the sepulcher he had inadvertently fashioned. He’d removed the pictures of himself and replaced them with images of her and of Anya, who was the best memory of her mother he could ask for and in whom Stephanie lived on. He had stashed the Hall of Fame painting in the closet; he did not care to remember that man.
One more call. One more shot. Hannah owed him nothing, but he owed it to himself.
Alex
Alex patrolled the kitchen like a caged tiger and cleared his throat several times as Hannah’s phone rang. Anxiety deposited layer upon layer of strata in his gut until he was choking on his inadequacies.
“Hello?”
Why did she have to answer? He’d have rather talked to her voicemail. Serve the ball back into her court and leave her with the responsibility for follow-up. “Hannah. Hello. It’s Sasha. I wanted to apologize for the other night. I’ll understand if you say no, because I’ve ruined two dates now, but I was hoping—”
“You’re babbling. And yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes, I’ll go out with you again.”
“Oh. I—Good. But wait.” There it was, the tourbillion of insecurity whipping itself up. “Why?”
That soft, sultry laugh. “Number one, you apologized. Number two, I really like you. God knows I’m a patient woman, after how long I put up with my ex-husband.”
Still plenty of time to disappoint her. She doesn’t know you well yet.
He throttled the voice until it shut off. “Are you free now? Could we meet in an hour?” It was urgent he fix this. He did not want to be alone anymore.
“Sure. I can do that.”
“There’s a coffee shop in the Hotel Lafayette. Do you know it?” He’d taken Anya there for hot chocolate once or twice after a Gladiators game.
“I do.”
“All right. I’ll see you in an hour. And…thank you.”
Alex changed his shirt and put on some shoes. A late day for Anya, with school and hockey practice. Hours to spend with Hannah, if she wished. If he proved worthy of the investment, and that he was not this storm anymore.
The highlight of the downtown coffee shop was by far its hot chocolate, and he’d never been a fan of sweets. Rather than being overpowering, the dark chocolate mixture sported an intricate, rich flavor palette accentuated by sea salt. Usually he drank around the homemade marshmallow on top or gave it to Anya. Today, he gobbled the sugary white puff dusted with cocoa and cinnamon while awaiting Hannah’s arrival.
The Pieces Of Us (The Firebird Trilogy Book 3) Page 14