True Bliss

by Cameron, Stella

"Yes. No different except for those fifteen years, huh?" Now she sounded angry. She mustn't let him know how she'd counted those years, how she'd pored over photographs of him in business journals, and over articles about his ventures.

  "You're angry with me."

  "No!" Yes. Yes, she was angry. She was insanely angry. He'd messed up her life.

  "I don't blame you. You've got every right to be angry. Vengeful, even."

  "I'm not angry. And I'm not vengeful. I'm not. . . anything anymore. I'm happy."

  "Are you?"

  "Yes. Yes, I am, of course I am. I'm doing things that matter to me. I'm making a difference, even if it's only small."

  "Why aren't you married?"

  "Not everyone wants to be married."

  "You did. And I wanted to be."

  "And you are," she reminded him, shifting in the seat, so desperate, so confused she couldn't sit still. "How's your wife? How many children do you have now?"

  "Bliss—"

  "No." She couldn't stand this, not for another instant. He overwhelmed her. And he shouldn't be here, had no right to walk in here. "I want you to go away. I don't know why you're here at all."

  "Don't you?"

  "No. Oh, no, no, I don't."

  "I had to come."

  "You didn't have to come before." She raised her chin. The

  burning in her eyes didn't matter anymore, or the wetness on her cheeks. What he saw, what he thought, didn't matter anymore. "You left me without a word—except from your sister. And you never as much as sent me a note."

  He came rapidly around the table. "You were hurting, Bliss."

  "You're right. I was hurting. How could I not be hurting when I loved—" She massaged her brow—"I loved you. I was going to run away and marry you. God, I hate this. I never wanted you to see how you'd hurt me. How can you come back now? Why have you come back? Drat! It's unbelievable."

  "I was trapped. I couldn't get out of it and I didn't want to make things worse by prolonging things for you."

  Bliss shook her head. "Forget it. It's all been over forever now. I don't care anymore. I'm just crying out of some maudlin empathy for the person I used to be. It hurt then. It doesn't hurt anymore."

  "It never stopped hurting for me."

  She dropped her hands into her lap and stared at him. "How can you lie like that?"

  "I'm not lying."

  "No? Look at you." Didn't he know she could see his sexual reaction to what was happening between them? Passion, even passionate anger, turned him on. She flushed and her heart raced. "Sebastian Plato, success story. You've got it all, old friend. If you'd been upset about walking away from what we had, you'd have tried to let me know. You'd have tried to help me understand. And don't tell me you've lived with a broken heart for fifteen years and just now decided to come and tell me. I don't believe you."

  "Of course you don't." He stood over her. His leg touched her knee. She felt him above her. She felt his heat. The sting of her own arousal disgusted and frightened her. He told her, "How do I make you believe I came back to Washington because of you?"

  "Don't make me laugh!" She tilted back her head to see his

  face. "What would make you think I'm the kind of fool who'd buy that drivel?"

  "Oh, I know you're no fool, Dr. Winters."

  He'd researched her pretty thoroughly.

  "I went along thinking you must have a comfortable life with someone else," he said. "Then . . . Hell, I don't know what made me do it. I guess I got low enough, lonely enough—empty enough. I just started trying to find out what you'd done with yourself. I couldn't find any record of a marriage. I couldn't believe it. A woman like you never married?"

  "Women—not all women need a man to make them feel complete."

  "You do."

  Bliss's vision blurred. She took off her glasses and set them down.

  "I remember how you came alive with me. You loved me, Bliss. And I loved you."

  Past tense. What would he say if she told him she'd never stopped loving him, that she considered herself sick because she didn't think she would ever stop loving him?

  "What do you want, Sebastian?"

  He made no sudden moves. She was aware of the slow descent of his big hands onto her shoulders, of his looping his fingers around her neck and raising her chin with his thumbs until she could either lower her eyelids, or stare into his eyes— so close the gold flecks glittered.

  Bliss stared into his eyes.

  He bent over her. His mouth settled on her forehead, just rested there, then he kissed her softly and she heard a small, broken sound from deep in his throat.

  The next kiss found her lips.

  Not the same. The same man, the same falling, sweetly drowning sensations, but a different time and place. Once kisses had been enough. Kisses and touches, and the promise of more to come had been enough. They weren't enough now—they were too much, too much to endure when they tore into her,

  laid her open, whipped to burning reality the hundreds of days and nights of settling for the loss of him.

  Sebastian found her hands and drew them around his neck. He lifted her to her feet and surrounded her, held her so tightly she couldn't breathe. But she didn't want to breathe. She only wanted these kisses, these sensations.

  They struggled against each other, pressed closer, passed their hands greedily over each other's body. The time fled away. They were teenagers and they were adults. All at once, all blending. The heat of their youth became the fire of their adult coming together.

  You are not a teenager.

  Bliss's lungs burned. She gasped, and pushed at Sebastian. He held her even more firmly. His heavy erection probed her belly. His thighs flanked hers, trapped hers.

  She drove her fists into his shoulders and turned her head away.

  He released her so abruptly she toppled into the chair. Just as quickly, she was on her feet again and putting distance between them.

  "I'm sorry," he muttered. "I shouldn't have done that."

  Bliss reached the sinks and put her hands behind her to brace her shaky weight. "No. Neither should I."

  "I didn't come here to kiss you."

  "Of course not."

  "At least . . ." He sat in the chair she'd vacated and buried his face in his hands. "I wanted to kiss you when I saw you. I want to kiss you again, now. And that's not all I want."

  Revelation.

  "Why are you here? Really here?"

  "To see you. I told you. I came to Washington, to Bellevue, to see you. Some crazy notion made me decide to come here and mend fences."

  "Crazy," she agreed, wanting to believe him.

  "I'm not married, Bliss."

  She bit into her swollen bottom lip.

  "I haven't been for years."

  She shouldn't be glad, but she was.

  "No one wanted me to come here. I did it anyway."

  Surely he didn't expect her to believe he'd done so because of her. "This area's very different from what it was when we were kids."

  "Uh-huh. Actually it's been a natural expansion for me for a long time, but I've kept away."

  She frowned.

  "I stayed out of the Northwest because ... It seemed best. Then I decided I wanted to prove I wasn't the punk all those people thought I was."

  "The people where you lived? The people we went to school with?"

  "Yeah. All of them."

  "So you're setting up shop here."

  "Not because of them anymore. Oh, I want to prove myself, but that's not the main reason. I wanted to see if there was a chance for you and me, Bliss."

  Her blood stood still, and her heart.

  "Now I know there is. I felt it. When I kissed you, I felt it. You still feel something for me."

  She still felt something for him? Was that any way to describe all that raging, pent-up sexual and emotional hunger he'd unleashed?

  He smiled at her, the lopsided smile she'd never been able to erase from her memory. "You may be a little
thinner, Bliss."

  "You're bigger." She looked at the holes in the toes of her sneakers. "I'm a lot older."

  "You're thirty-two. Perfect age. I'm thirty-five. Not so bad, huh?"

  "This is too much."

  "I know. But we're going to work our way through it. I used to love how fragile you felt in my arms. Made me feel protective. Funny, I never wanted that with anyone else—not before or since."

  "You're"—she needed to show him she wasn't still an innocent kid—"You're aroused."

  He gave a short, hard laugh. "That obvious, huh? Yeah, I am. All it took was one look at you. Does that offend you?"

  She tried to appear unmoved. "It happens."

  He was silent for a moment. "Not to me. Not like this. But I guess you have the same effect on every man."

  Bliss tugged on the horrible shirt. "I haven't noticed."

  "Zoya showed me the press release."

  Zoya. Bliss glanced at him. "Press release?" Zoya was the model, the gorgeous creature who was the figurehead for Sebastian's modeling and talent agencies.

  "The most recent of a number that have appeared, evidently. About WOT Women of Today."

  "Oh, that."

  "You never used to be a joiner."

  "I'm not a joiner now." How would they handle it? How would they deal with everything that had happened since they were last together? Could they?

  "The release says you're the chairperson for the action committee that intends to make sure Raptor Vision never opens its doors in Bellevue."

  Stillness enveloped Bliss. She studied Sebastian. He was serious now—business serious. "How long have you been back?"

  "A couple of weeks. I've bought a house in Medina."

  Almost all routes to Hole Point ran through Medina. "So we're neighbors." And despite his urgent need to see her again, he'd waited two weeks to come here.

  Sebastian's slashing brows drew together. "Five minutes from your gate to mine. That's all hogwash, isn't it? The stuff in the papers? You won't be leading a bunch of bra burners in a revolt against me?"

  She picked up a glass, filled it with water from the faucet, and drank. Her thoughts jumbled. Sebastian had never been conniving. He wouldn't show up here, kiss her silly, then use

  her reaction to that kiss to make her back off from throwing any obstacles in his professional path.

  He hadn't been conniving? Had he?

  She'd never believed he was a rapist, but he hadn't contacted her to deny it—and he'd left town with Crystal, the girl he was reported to have raped and made pregnant.

  "Hey, Bliss?" She heard him get up and approach. He set an elbow on the counter beside the sink and looked into her face. "Chilly?" He gave a little laugh.

  Through the windows, afternoon sunlight shimmered over Lake Washington. Bliss stared at it. She'd come to love her little estate on the water, her haven with the quiet souls who came to find a peaceful place to work.

  "They got it wrong, didn't they? Someone printed your name by mistake because you used to belong to this ball-breakers' group—when you were teaching at the university, maybe?"

  Bliss looked at him and felt again the force of disbelief that he was here, that he stood so close he almost touched her. He had touched her. How he'd touched her. He'd kissed her and she'd kissed him back. They'd held each other.

  "Bliss, say something." Hardness replaced question in his eyes, in the set of his commanding features. "I can't believe you'd be small-minded enough to let these people use you. Not out of spite, or something."

  "You . . . Sebastian, you came here because of a press release, didn't you?"

  "I was coming here before I saw the press release."

  "Were you?"

  "Yes."

  "Why should I believe you?"

  He stood up sharply. "Because I don't tell lies, dammit."

  "Don't you?" Bliss drew herself up, too. "Forgive me if I feel like laughing at that statement."

  "I'm damned." He stepped away, shoved his hands in his pockets, turned away, then back again. "I don't know what to

  say to you. You are chairing the silly little committee. You are trying to get back at me. Shit!"

  Bliss put the glass in the sink.

  "Oh, I'm sorry," he said. "I forgot. You don't like bad language, do you?"

  "No."

  "Forgive me. I'll try to do better."

  "I don't like liars or cheats, either."

  "God— No one calls me a liar or a cheat."

  "Because you're so successful you've been able to buy respectability." She leveled a steady gaze at him. "Have you been able to buy new memories for people, too. Have they all forgotten you raped your wife—before you married her?"

  Beneath his tan he paled.

  Bliss rubbed her eyes. "You'd better go."

  "Amazing," Sebastian said softly. "You've been waiting for an opportunity to say that to me. All this time you've been waiting. And drying up inside while you waited."

  The words smarted. Bliss locked her knees and felt her skin turn cold. "Have you finished?"

  "Almost. A normal woman would have made a life for herself by now instead of waiting around for an opportunity to strike back for something that happened when she was a kid."

  "Are you suggesting you don't think I've had a life without you?"

  "Well, have you?"

  "My life isn't your business. It might have been once, but not now. You made it clear you didn't want it to be. Please send Bobby in to me."

  He hesitated, then she saw him make up his mind. "Okay. Fine."

  "We like the gate kept closed. Perhaps you'd take the time to get out of your car and see to that as you leave."

  Sebastian opened the door. "I'll do that. Nice to see you again."

  "Yes, very nice."

  "Bliss"—he paused in the doorway—"I don't advise you to lead an attack on me."

  "Oh. Why's that? What would you do, shoot me?"

  "Don't say stupid things. I wouldn't harm you physically, but I'd make you look a damn fool in front of all these people who think you're such hot shit."

  "So long, Sebastian."

  "Lady professor still carrying a torch for childhood sweetheart."

  "How . . . Get out!"

  "Leading a vendetta against him because she never got over being spurned."

  Bliss turned her back on him.

  "Jealous because he left town with someone else on the night when he was supposed to take her to Reno to get married. Mad as hell because she thinks he fucked her over—or because he didn't. Sorry about that."

  She covered her mouth.

  "Don't do it, Chilly. I'll cut you to ribbons."

  "Oh, no you won't." She rounded on him, her heart pounding. "I'm going to do the cutting. The shredding. With the help of my committee."

  Four

  He could get used to this. Oh, yes, this was the life Ron York had been born for. He stood on the terrace of good old Sebastian's newly acquired lakefront home and sipped a vodka martini.

  Stretched on a chaise beside the pool, wearing a sleek swimsuit in her signature color—red, Maryan sighted Ron and waved.

  He waved back. She was okay. Bearable. And she was his ticket to all this. In the two years since she'd picked him up in a Greenwich Village club, he'd learned a great deal. Most importantly, he'd learned he was never going back to being blond, blue-eyed Ronnie who earned his pretties as a fat man's butt boy.

  The paper-thin platinum Piaget on his left wrist told him it was almost four. Sun polished the waters of Lake Washington and turned the surface of Sebastian's oval pool a blinding shade of turquoise.

  "Ronnie! Ronnie, where's my drinkie?"

  She drank too much, but that made it easier for him. Maryan was as sexually demanding drunk as sober, but she tired faster.

  "Ronnie?" Her voice grew petulant.

  He raised his own glass and called, "Just a minute, luv. I'll be right there," before going back into the plant-filled conservatory where a wet bar nest
led in an alcove. Three cubes of ice and gin to the rim. That ought to see her on the way to nighty-night land in no time. At least he could hope. There was always the danger that he'd let her get too drunk before she got her jollies. Maryan would fuck till she got it off, even if they were

  both in pain by that time. The secret was to cut off the booze before she was entirely numb, stick it to her like a steam hammer, then top her off with an industrial-strength nightcap.

  Ron sighed and looked at himself in the mirror behind the bar. Not a millimeter of fat anywhere. And he looked great in these surroundings, great against the trappings of wealth.

  Sebastian had fantastic taste.

  And Ron had figured out what everyone else seemed to have missed; Sebastian Plato spent most of his spare time alone and his name hadn't been linked to a woman's for years, not seriously.

  Ron smiled as he stepped gingerly over rough granite tiles between the terrace and poolside. The tiles were hot on the soles of his bare feet. There were other things around here that might be hot. Deliciously hot. Like cool, distant, powerful Sebastian, on a long, warm night. Ron shivered at the thought.

  "What kept you?" Mary an asked when he sat on a chaise beside hers and held out the gin. Her voice was already slurred from the three gins she'd knocked back since they arrived. "I missed you, Ronnie." She dipped a forefinger in her gin, sucked it, and tucked the finger inside the crotch of his yellow bikini swimsuit.

  "Careful, luv." Ron hardened despite himself. Another of his talents—he knew what he preferred, but he was always ready for sex, however it came.

  Maryan wriggled her finger.

  Ron almost dropped his glass. "Maryan! We wouldn't want to shock your brother's housekeeper."

  Maryan blinked very slowly. "Don't give a flying fuck what his housekeeper thinks. Anyway, haven't seen the woman. I'm not even sure she's here. Mmm, Ronnie, you are such a big boy." She bared her gritted teeth and pulled him free of the trunks.

  "Luvvie!" Ron giggled and glanced over his shoulder at the house. "Maybe we should go in and take a nap." Maybe they should go in and she should take a nap. The sooner he got her naked and did whatever she decided she wanted this time, the sooner she'd be snoring and he'd be free for a few hours.