She bit her lip. “How about saying you want that, too?”
“I—” He stopped and covered his eyes for a long moment.
Then he let his hand drop to his side as he took a deep breath. “Erin, you have no idea how much I want that.” His voice was rough, and she could still see hunger for her in his eyes.
And his determination not to give into it.
A tickle of anger ran up her spine. “A minute ago you were asking me for condoms. And now you don’t want me anymore? Because I’m a virgin?”
He seemed to actually flinch away from that word. And when he grabbed his shirt from the floor and started doing up buttons—the ones she hadn’t popped off, anyway—she knew it was over.
How was it possible to go from heaven to hell in the space of a minute?
“Why?” she asked flatly.
He looked up. “Erin—”
“Why is this such a big deal?”
“Because it is. I won’t do this to you.”
“Do what?”
“Hurt you.” His expression was resolute. “Erin, your first time is a big deal. You obviously think so, too.”
“Because I waited?”
“Yeah.”
“I waited until the right time. Until the right person came along.”
“And you think that’s me?”
There was a flash of emotion in his eyes, a sudden flicker of self-loathing. It twisted her heart in her chest.
“Yes! I mean…I know you…and I trust you…and...” I’ve wanted you for half my life. “And I’m attracted to you.”
Now he grabbed his suit jacket from the floor and put it on. “You knew me ten years ago. You don’t know who I am now. The truth is, I’m the last person you should trust. I’m not looking for a relationship, Erin. Your first time should be with someone who is. Your first time should be special.”
She folded her arms and leaned back against the door. “How special was your first time?” She knew she sounded sarcastic, but she couldn’t help it. There was an ache in her heart, an ache all through her body, and she still wanted Jake so much she could taste it on her tongue.
He smiled a little. “It wasn’t special at all. I was drunk, and it happened in the backseat of a car with someone I didn’t even like that much. I think it’s great that you waited, Erin. I just think you should wait for someone better than me.”
“But—” She stopped herself. “Are you really such a terrible choice?” she asked instead.
“I wouldn’t be good for you. A one-night stand is all I’ve got in me right now, and you deserve a lot more than that.” His jaw tightened. “I don’t pretend to be a saint, but I’m damned if I’ll take your virginity when I don’t have anything to offer you in return.”
His words hung in the air between them. Suddenly Erin felt tired…tired to her very bones.
“Okay,” was all she said, hearing the resignation in her voice.
She turned her head to glance through the window. “The storm’s worse. You’re still welcome to stay on my couch if you want.”
He shook his head. “I’ll be fine.”
“Okay,” she said again. She thought about tomorrow, and knew she wouldn’t be able to face him. “You don’t need to pick me up in the morning.”
“How will you get back to your car?”
“I’ll call a friend to take me.”
“I thought I was a friend.”
She just looked at him. “I’ll call a different friend.”
He winced a little at that. “All right. I get it. But if you ever need anything—”
She couldn’t stand to let him finish. “Right, sure. If I ever need anything I’ll call. Good night, Jake.”
“Good night,” he said after a moment. He pulled on his overcoat while Erin prayed she could hold it together just a little longer. Then, finally, he opened the door and left.
She didn’t watch him drive away. She put her back against the door and slid down, slowly, until she was sitting on the floor with her knees bent.
Only then did she allow herself to cry.
Chapter Four
Erin dragged herself out of bed at six the next morning, determined that her humiliating encounter with Jake wouldn’t impact her work. She went downstairs in her pajamas and logged on to the computer in her living room, opening up her email before starting on the prep work for her client meeting.
It was a good thing she did, because the first email she saw was from the client, hoping they might be able to reschedule.
Thank God for small favors. Even with all the preparation in the world she wouldn’t have been at her best for this particular meeting. She wrote back to the client, assuring him it would be no problem at all and giving him a list of possible dates and times.
Then she sat back in her chair and ran both hands through her hair, already sticking up in all directions. This meant, too, that instead of calling Beth at the ungodly hour of eight to ask for a ride, she could wait until the more civilized hour of ten. The universe had thrown her a bone. She could even go back to bed if she wanted.
No, she was awake now. She’d grab the newspaper from the porch (assuming the paper boy had made it through the snow), make herself a double espresso with the machine she’d given herself for Christmas, and curl up on the couch with Pepper for a lazy Saturday morning.
She was feeling almost cheerful as she went towards the front door to fetch the paper. Then she saw a button—no, two buttons—lying on the floor of the entryway.
Her eyes closed as it all came flooding back. The heat—the wild hunger—Jake’s mouth on hers.
The memory made her knees weak.
She’d never thought of herself as a passionate person. Not like Allison or Beth, for instance. She’d resigned herself to this fact a long time ago, figuring that while she might never experience the intense highs of emotion that some of her friends did, she’d never experience the intense lows, either. And wasn’t that better in the long run?
She would never have dreamed she had such primitive urges inside her, just waiting for the right match to ignite them into flame. Even her feelings for Jake so many years ago hadn’t prepared her for it. What she’d felt then was a schoolgirl’s crush; what she’d felt last night was a woman’s desire.
Pepper came out of the living room to curve around her ankles, meowing to go out.
“Maybe we never really know ourselves,” she said softly, reaching down to pet the black cat. “Maybe we just think we do.”
“You, for instance,” she told Pepper as his requests to be let outside grew more insistent. “You think you want to go out, but when I open the door”—which she did—“you take one look at the snow and change your mind.”
Pepper looked at her with the deep reproach cats reserve for their owners when the weather doesn’t meet with their liking.
“Told you so,” she said, grabbing the paper from the porch and then leading the way back into the kitchen. “How about a can of tuna, instead?”
***
A few hours later she was eating tuna, too, although hers was seared and served with a sauce of cilantro, lime, and ginger. Beth had picked her up in her rental and driven back to the hotel so Erin could pick up her car, and now the two of them were eating lunch at a restaurant in the city before Beth left to catch her flight back to California.
“So Jake drove you home, huh?” Beth asked for the fourth time as she poured dressing over her salad.
“Like I said.”
“And nothing happened?”
“Like I said. Jake and I are just friends.”
“Well.” Beth chewed her first bite of salad thoughtfully. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, since I usually encourage romance in all its forms, but this may actually be a good thing. I adore Jake Landry, but at this point in his life…well, he’s got project written all over him.”
Erin frowned. “What, like he’s damaged goods or something? The man serves his country for ten years, goes through who knows what kind of
hell, and because that might have affected him no woman should go near him?”
“I didn’t say that. But he only got out of the Army a few months ago, didn’t he? And the word is he’s not interested in dating right now.”
“What word? Whose word?”
“I overheard Mindy talking to someone in the bathroom. She came on to him, and he turned her down flat.”
Mindy was an old girlfriend of Jake’s. Erin shouldn’t have felt so happy that Jake had rejected her, but the truth was, she did. “What’s your point?”
“If he’s not looking to get involved with anyone, maybe he’s taking some time to deal with…well, whatever he’s got to deal with. And good for him if he is.”
That might actually make some sense, except—“I don’t think he is dealing with it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t think he’s dealing with anything right now. He’s sort of…closed down.”
“Well, there you go. Project. You should stay far, far away.”
Erin opened her mouth to argue, but closed it again. It was a moot point, anyway. She didn’t have to stay away from Jake. He was going to stay away from her.
“Let’s change the subject. What have you been reading lately?”
“Ooh, that reminds me.” Beth reached into her purse and pulled out an eReader. “I finally got one!”
Erin grinned at her. “I never thought I’d see the day.”
“I know, I know. I love paper books so much. But I read so fast that it’s a real pain for traveling. I have to pack, like, ten books for every trip. And now I can pack three thousand in this little thing! I got it last week right before I flew out here.”
“Have you already started loading it up?”
“Of course. I’m a total junkie. And I have to say, it’s nice to be able to read something steamy on the plane without having to hide the cover from the businessman next to me reading his Wall Street Journal or whatever. As far as anyone knows, I could be reading War and Peace.”
Erin laughed. “And what are you actually reading?”
“Romance all the way, baby.”
“Vampires and highlanders?”
“You know me so well. But I’ve been in the mood for some realism with my escapism lately, so I’ve been on a contemporary kick. No billionaires or sheiks allowed, and no virgin heroines. It’s just too unbelievable, at least in this day and age. Whoever heard of a woman in her twenties or thirties who’s never had sex?”
Erin couldn’t control her involuntary reaction. She flushed bright red, instantly and completely, and couldn’t say a word.
Beth froze with her fork halfway to her mouth, staring at her. Erin blushed even harder, the heat so intense she could feel it coming off her skin.
After a moment Beth set her fork carefully back on her plate. “Whoa. Okay, tell me the truth. Are you a virgin heroine?”
Erin dropped her eyes. “Um.” She cleared her throat. “I wouldn’t call myself a heroine. My life is way too boring for that.”
She looked back up at Beth, who was slowly shaking her head. “My God, I can’t believe it. A real life virgin. I feel like I should be speaking in hushed tones. Can I touch you?”
“Very funny.”
“No, but seriously. How is this possible? I mean, I know you didn’t sleep with anybody in high school, because I was there. But I assumed you had sex when you went to college, because everyone has sex in college. How did you not have sex in college? And how come I didn’t know about this? Does Allison know?”
“No. It’s not something I talk about, because it’s embarrassing,” she said with pointed emphasis.
“Well, suck it up,” Beth said cheerfully. “I’m going back to California in a few hours, which means all your secrets are safe with me. So start talking. How did it not happen in college?”
Erin gave into the inevitable. “I don’t know. I was ready for it to, but then it just…didn’t.”
“You had boyfriends, though. Who was that guy your sophomore year? You guys were pretty serious. Tim? No…Ted.”
Erin nodded. “Ted. He was really sweet, and we dated for six months before we even talked about sleeping together.”
“Six months? My God. He must have been the most patient guy on the planet. Or gay. Or was he really religious, or something?”
“Not that I know of. But when we finally decided to try, he—well, he couldn’t.”
“You mean he was impotent?”
“I don’t know. At the time, though, I figured it was me. That he didn’t want me enough to—”
“Get it up?”
“Yes.” Erin could still recall in painful detail the humiliation of that failed attempt. “You can imagine how great that was for my self-esteem. Especially since he wouldn’t talk about it and broke up with me the next day.”
“He was probably mortified.”
“I can see that now,” Erin acknowledged. “But at the time…”
“You thought it was your fault.” Beth’s voice was sympathetic.
“Yeah. I did.”
“Okay, so then what?”
“Well.” It was turning out not to be too terrible to talk about the one subject she’d always thought she’d never, ever talk about. “The next guy I dated, Kevin, definitely didn’t have the problem Ted had. I mean, even when we kissed goodnight I could feel his…”
“Erection?”
“Yes. That never happened with Ted. So at least I knew Kevin wanted me. That seemed like a step in the right direction. And he wanted to sleep with me from the very beginning. So after a month or so I figured I’d do it and get it over with.”
“Get it over with? That doesn’t sound like a rousing endorsement of the guy.”
“He was all right at first. Good on paper, you know? Smart and funny. But I wasn’t in love with him. Looking back, I don’t think I was in love with Ted, either, but I really liked him and he was always so sweet and gentle. Kevin wasn’t like that. The night we decided to have sex felt all wrong from the beginning. I was really nervous, and Kevin got more and more impatient, and finally I told him I’d changed my mind. The next day I told him I wanted to wait a little longer, but he broke up with me instead.”
“Asshole.”
“Agreed. But at the time…”
“You thought it was your fault?”
She nodded. “I didn’t date anybody seriously my senior year. Then I graduated, and…well…I just sort of stopped trying.”
Beth stared at her. “You stopped trying? At twenty-two? That’s a little young to throw in the towel.”
“Well, after Ted and Kevin…and the few other guys I’d gone out with…I decided that since I’d waited that long, that I might as well wait for the right guy. Someone who made me feel like—” She stopped suddenly, realizing she’d almost said Jake’s name. Almost referred to the night of her sixteenth birthday, when he’d kissed her…and made her feel things she’d never felt with anyone else.
Not until last night, anyway.
But that was one thing she wouldn’t talk about. The memory of last night was still too raw, too intense.
“Someone who made you feel like what?” Beth prompted after a minute.
“Like…like you feel about Chris. Or Allison feels about Rick.”
Beth’s face softened at the mention of her husband, and Erin smiled. “There, see? That’s what I’m waiting for.”
“But how are you going to find it if you don’t look? The way you were talking last night, it doesn’t sound like you’re looking at all. You need to put yourself out there, Erin.”
She started to repeat what she’d said at the wedding. That she wasn’t looking for a relationship. That she didn’t mind being single.
Then she thought about everything that had happened with Jake. The rollercoaster of emotion she’d gone through as she’d acknowledged the depth of her feelings for him…feelings she had, apparently, never let go of. Feelings that might have more to do with her current sing
le state than she’d like to admit.
Consciously or unconsciously, she’d compared every man she’d ever met to Jake, and every one of them had fallen short. Between that and her failed relationships in college, no man had ever stood a chance with her.
She took a deep breath. “You know what? I think you might be right.”
***
Allison and Rick were the first of the newlyweds to get back from their honeymoon, and they were invited to Sunday dinner at the Landry farm. Jake was invited, too, and he showed up dutifully. He wasn’t in the mood to socialize but it wasn’t easy to say no to his mother—especially when, as she pointed out, it had been more than a month since he’d been to the farm. And so he came, hoping Allison would talk about the honeymoon all night and that he wouldn’t be expected to contribute anything to the conversation.
For a while, it seemed he was going to get his wish. But when dinner was over, his father left the table to take a phone call and Irene dragged her new son-in-law—the CEO of a software company—away to fix a problem with her computer. Then Allison sat back in her chair, folded her arms, and leveled a look at Jake that let him know the reprieve was over.
“Why did you disappear on us?”
He didn’t pretend not to understand. “I didn’t want to interrupt the chicken dance. But I did tell Dad I was leaving. He said he’d tell you.”
“You could have answered your cell phone when I called. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
He’d turned his cell phone off that night, something he’d been doing more and more lately. All his calls seemed to be from people wanting to check on him.
A quick pulse of anger made him push his chair back from the table. His emotions had been volatile this past week, breaking through the layer of numbness he’d lived with for so long.
He knew it was because of Erin. She’d affected him like a chemical agent, reacting with his armor and making it porous.
He grabbed his empty dishes and brought them to the sink. “I’ve told you before not to worry about me. I’m fine.”
“It was snowing like crazy that night. Most of our guests stayed over—we’d rented out a block of rooms. You could have spent the night at the hotel, even if you wanted to leave the reception early.”
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