The Dating Game

by Avril Tremayne

  ‘I think so too. So what are you going to do about it, bluebell?’

  A challenge? She was so ready for that. She dropped to her knees. ‘How about this?’

  David seemed on the verge of hyperventilation even though all she did was alternate licks of her tongue with pressured kisses up and down the length of him. When her tongue flicked out to lick the tip of him, he let out a low growl, reached for her hair, then stopped as though he couldn’t trust himself to touch her. Instead, his hands shot behind him to grab the basin in a death grip, and a thrill ran down Sarah’s spine at the knowledge he was offering himself to her to do with as she wished. She licked again, then the lick became a sucking kiss.

  ‘You’re killing me, Sarah,’ he croaked.

  ‘Don’t die yet,’ she said, and took him into her mouth.

  She reached one hand to his hip, pulling him forward, then pushing him back to encourage him to move the way he wanted. He thrust hard, just once before he controlled himself. But she didn’t want him to control himself, not now, so she took him deeper, and deeper again, until his legs were taut, hips thrusting helplessly. A guttural sound tore from his throat and he tried to pull back, but she wouldn’t let him. She felt beautiful, in control, powerful, as he finally pulsed convulsively in her mouth. She stayed with him until the very last spasm, until he slumped against the basin, head thrown back.

  She chuckled low in her throat as she sat back on her heels. ‘I’m not sure I’m going to get through the day thinking about that and knowing I can’t touch you,’ she said. And then, on an impulse, she eased back up onto her knees, put her arms around his thighs, rubbed her cheek against the old white scar, then kissed along it. She hated everything about the scar … except that it had, by a strange twist of fate, brought him to her.

  ‘Sarah,’ he said, and his hand was in her hair then, stroking almost reverentially. ‘Oh God, Sarah.’

  She looked up at him, saw a look of desolation that had her scrambling to her feet. ‘Was that no good?’ she asked, even though she knew, knew, it had been better than good for both of them. Knew that whatever was wrong, it was something else, something more important than a blow job—even the best blow job in the entire world.

  ‘It was beyond good, darling one,’ David said, taking her into his arms, holding her close enough to crush, trembling against her.

  Darling one. Her favourite endearment. She loved it when he called her bluebell, or brat, or even plain old Sarah, but ‘darling one’ was rare. David called her that when he was a little bit out of his mind, lost in passion. But now, when it was whispered like that, almost despairingly, it frightened her. The way he held her frightened her, too, because it felt like a goodbye.

  ‘What’s wrong, David?’ she asked, racking her own brain for the answer. Please, don’t let it be that I kissed the scar, please, please, don’t think of her now.

  She counted David’s heartbeats, her hand over his heart, waiting for his answer. Felt his chest expand on a breath that was held, held, held … expelled. A small laugh. And then he released her. ‘You’ve made me late for work.’ A lie—and Sarah didn’t have to see the two blinks to know it.

  He smiled, reaching for the shirt he’d draped over the towel rail. ‘Not that I’m complaining.’

  As though to prove he had no complaints, David arrived unexpectedly at her office at noon to take her to lunch, so completely and cheerfully in control of himself, Sarah thought she must have imagined the despairing tension in that morning’s ‘Sarah. Oh God, Sarah.’

  Sarah only wished she were as in control of herself. But the smallest things seemed to get her heart somersaulting in her chest.

  Such as the remorseful way he checked her over for scrapes and bruises, even beard rash, whenever he thought he’d been a little too enthusiastic during sex.

  The way he blushed adorably as he admitted to a secret indulgence—ice cream—as he’d installed his ice cream maker in her tiny kitchen.

  His fascination with her snow dome collection, which had him choosing a different one off the shelf each night to play with while they watched television.

  There was his new addiction to Agatha Christie—as evidenced by his cutting a swathe through her book collection.

  There was the time he’d gatecrashed her weekly catch-up with the girls at Midnight Madness just long enough to say hello, kiss her, offer to find them a more salubrious establishment to frequent for their drinking sessions and confirm with Lane and Erica what Sarah’s favourite movie was (The Notebook), if she had any phobias (birds in gatherings greater than two, courtesy of watching Hitchcock’s The Birds when she was too young to watch horror movies), how many boyfriends she’d had in the past year (too many to count), and whether they considered her a true Sagittarius (yes). Of course, he’d charmed them out of their brains and Erica started mumbling dire predictions about the future of her relationship with Jeremy the moment he’d left.

  There was his reaction when Sarah had nervously shown him over her mother’s house. Given the chicness of David’s arty inner-city bachelor’s apartment, Sarah hadn’t expected him to find anything to like in what was definitely a ‘family’ home—but he’d raved over the views from the upper floor of Chinamans Beach—from the lush parkland leading down to the secluded strip of sandy beach to the occasional yacht dotting the waters of Middle Harbour further out in Shell Cove. He’d also praised the layout of the house, admired each of the rooms, enthused over the ‘artist-perfect’ light, and walked up and down the ‘Grand Staircase’ (as he called it) a ridiculous number of times as though measuring the walls for artwork.

  There were the frequent organizational texts, letting her know where he was, what time he’d be ready to collect her from work for the drive home (the luxury of a car!) or—if he had to go to his apartment to work on the portrait—what time she could expect him ‘home’.

  And the other texts. The cute ones. Asking what colour underwear she was wearing (as if he didn’t know), telling her what colour he was wearing (as if she didn’t know), sending her photos of ice cream flavours they needed to try (good thing she needed to put on weight), speculating who he thought ‘dunnit’ in the Agatha Christie novel he was reading, asking her to use a ridiculous word in a sentence because some stray person had thrown the word at him (as if anyone would throw out words like propaedeutic, dirhinous, or nullibiety—none of which she’d ever heard of).

  It reached the point where the cymbals were clashing several times a day, making everyone in her immediate vicinity jump—and she swore over and over she was going to change that ringtone. Only she never did, because the sound made joy burst sweetly in her each and every time it came.

  And then, with only three days of their agreement left, there was The Moment Of Truth. That was how Sarah would always remember it.

  As they were preparing for bed, David started grumbling about an important meeting he had in two days’ time when he hoped to win back his number one client, for which he’d need space in her bulging wardrobe for another suit and a particular pair of shoes.

  ‘So make room,’ Sarah said easily. ‘Take some of my stuff out.’

  ‘Well, I guess I could take a few of your things to my apartment, just temporarily.’

  ‘Let me grab some things I know I won’t be wearing,’ Sarah said, and went quickly to the wardrobe to remove two suits and three blouses. ‘Is that going to be enough space?’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said. He came over to peer into the wardrobe, reached in. ‘But let’s … just … add … this.’ It was the red evening dress he passed over to her, the one she thought of as her ‘Gustave Leonard de Jonghe’ dress, which she’d hoped to wear in her portrait. Next, he bent to the shoe rack in the bottom of the wardrobe. ‘And I might as well take the matching shoes since you don’t wear the dress without them.’

  ‘Um … you do know those red shoes are too small for you, right?’

  He looked at her narrow-eyed, a smile lurking. �
�And you feel it necessary to mention this because …?’

  ‘Just in case you’re thinking it’s time for your next eyelash tint,’ she said airily.

  He took a menacing step towards her. ‘I warned you about the eyelashes.’

  ‘Oooohh, you’re sooo scary,’ she said, and turned to run—but he grabbed her around the waist, turned her, lifted her high in his arms.

  ‘You’re so infatuated with my eyelashes, I think you should try them out,’ he said, backing towards the bed as Sarah shrieked with laughter. He sat on the edge, coaxed her legs around his waist, slid inside her in one heady moment. Sarah stopped laughing; David stopped everything. He stayed exactly where he was, inside her, as his smile faded. He was staring at her, his face coming closer, closer, closer to hers. ‘Close your eyes, darling one.’

  Sarah closed her eyes … and felt it. The smallest flutter on her right eye. His … eyelashes? Yes, his eyelashes. Flutter, flutter, flutter.

  ‘Open your eyes, Sarah.’

  She opened her eyes, to find his left eye there, in extreme close-up.

  ‘Close,’ he whispered.

  Closed them.

  ‘Open … Good. Close. Now open … Close.’

  It was the strangest sensation. Their bodies locked, eyelashes merging. Intensely personal, intimate, enchanting.

  And then David shifted so he was kissing her mouth while moving by the tiniest degree in and out of her body. She was full of him, so full. And it was the most amazing feeling, tightening her muscles to keep him exactly where he was inside her, almost unmoving. Arms wrapped around each other, clinging together, mouth to mouth, wordless, kissing deep and lush, hearts soaring up, up, up, and then … there it was … the rush and burst. So lovely, she wanted to cry.

  When David finally pulled back, it was only far enough to put his right eye to her left, eyelashes fluttering, butterfly soft …

  Not a word was spoken as they eased under the covers, as he positioned her on top of him, her head under his chin, his hand on the back of her neck, thumb gliding. No words. Just David’s sigh as he kissed the top of her head.

  And between that kiss, and the next, this time at her temple, as he slid his hand down to press on her spine to bring her closer to his chest, as though he’d merge their hearts, all those things that had been making her heart somersault in her chest came together in one incandescent, beating truth: she was in love with him.

  First time, last time, love—what she’d been waiting for, except that she’d never expected such love to make her heart swell and ache with longing, even when it was so full of him.

  For one split second the magic of it overwhelmed her, tingling her skin, stealing her breath.

  And then it hit her that she had only three days to make David love her back … and no idea how to set about doing it.

  ***

  Was there an erogenous zone he didn’t possess?

  That question had been exercising David’s mind since the Nipplegate incident, because everything turned him on. Every damn thing. Everywhere Sarah touched him, however she touched him, whenever she touched him. The heat just kept building and building. But eyelashes? There was a news headline in that: Eyelashes the new Viagra!

  That was what love did to a guy, he supposed.

  But it felt different, this time. Love. With Sarah.

  The passion, the relentlessness of it, was more excruciating than he remembered it being. Maybe because this time he’d known from the start the relationship would be finite, and the need to jam everything he could into three weeks and one day added piquancy, whereas with Rebel he’d been merrily going along with no reason to anticipate the end. There’d been no feverish urgency, no hungry desperation to have her every waking moment. Every sleeping moment, too.

  At least being prepared for the ending had to make the parting easier to handle, didn’t it? If he’d handled it with Rebel, coming out of the blue, when he’d been married to her for four damn years, surely he could handle it with Sarah, with whom he wasn’t even in a real relationship let alone a marriage, and had been with for only a matter of weeks.

  Not that David knew at this point what constituted a relationship—all he knew was that if what he and Sarah had was a real one, he could have told her he loved her. But he couldn’t do that. It wasn’t fair to do that. In three days, her curse would be broken and so would the strange spell that had bound them together. The spell that seemed equal parts magic and reality and longing.

  Breathe, breathe, breeeaaathe.

  No, forget breathing. Breathing was no damn good. Nothing was any good. Because he didn’t care about the curse, he cared only about her. Sarah Quinn had infiltrated him to the core so that he didn’t belong to himself any more, he belonged to her. He was fooling himself if he thought he was going to get over her. He wasn’t going to get her out of his system. He wasn’t going to handle the end. He was going to be a basket case when he left her. He already was a basket case.

  He didn’t want a life of one-night stands, not any more. He didn’t want a life without the phone calls, the texts, the convoluted thought patterns, rambling discussions and obscure words. He didn’t want a life where he couldn’t reach out and tug Sarah onto his lap and kiss her any time he wanted to. He didn’t want a life where he slept without her sprawled on top of him. He didn’t want to stop talking like a thesaurus, in italics, with exclamation marks! Dammit to hell! Dammit to fucking hell!!!

  No, he didn’t want that life, but in three days’ time, that was the life he was going to get. There was nothing he could do about it, because he could not have her.

  And in a blur of sizzling sex and restless sleep and panicked thoughts, three days’ time suddenly became tomorrow, and neither of them had raised the subject of what was going to happen when tomorrow actually hit.

  As they were approaching the bed and it hit him, hard, that this was the last time they’d sleep together, he found himself stopping, unable to take the final steps.

  Sarah stopped, too.

  Together they stared at the bed.

  ‘David,’ she said, sounding as lost as he felt.

  But David couldn’t speak. His heart was hurting like the devil. His face felt like a drum stretched too tight from the effort it was taking to stop it from collapse. And the unspoken grief of losing her was suffocating him.

  ‘David,’ she said again. ‘Do you think we should discuss what happens when—’ Breaking off. ‘What was that?’ Swivelling to the French doors. ‘Oh. Oh! Thunder.’

  Thunder. A continuous roar of it.

  What about if we do it outdoors in a storm? Preferably with thunder and lightning.

  ‘Remember when you promised me a butt-naked rain dance?’ she asked.

  He looked from her, to the French doors, to her, and he saw her eyebrow quirk up—and by some miracle, even though every cell in him was screaming at him to tell her he loved her and was never letting her go, he managed to smile. It was like he’d been given a reprieve from the looming sadness. A chance to give her what she wanted. A last moment.

  ‘Yes, bluebell, I remember,’ David said. ‘And I always keep my promises.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Sarah started laughing as David headed for the French doors. She couldn’t quite believe he was going to do it. But sure enough, he opened the doors, and despite pausing for an apprehensive, ‘Brrr,’ he stepped out and strode confidently to the centre of the small garden to take up his position.

  ‘Jesus, Sarah, it’s freezing out here,’ he called over to her.

  ‘Well try not to shrivel up before we get to the sex!’ she called back from where she’d taken up a prime viewing position inside the flat.

  ‘Come out here and grab it and I guarantee there’ll be minimal shrinkage,’ he promised, and then he flashed his irresistible dimples, raised his arms and yelled, ‘Yowzer. It’s sooooo cooooooold! Come on rain, hurry the hell up.’ And then, to Sarah, who was giggling unco
ntrollably, ‘Well, bluebell, here we go. Butt-naked rain dance time.’

  He started by turning a circle, head thrown back, arms raised. He followed that with a feint to the right, then the left. A series of hip twirls came next, a little shuffle forward, back, then he faced Sarah for a few pelvic thrusts that made her almost collapse with laughter. He started a low hum as a musical accompaniment, and then his dancing became sexier, with some slinky shoulder action, come-hither hand gesturing, a series of undulations of the neck, and some fluid twerk-style action.

  Sarah realized he was humming Riders On The Storm by The Doors. Absolutely, insanely, sexily, wonderfully perfect.

  And she had to be part of it.

  She stepped out into the garden and danced sinuously towards him. And when he grinned and opened his arms to her, she glided straight into them. Cold and hot. Arms enveloping her, David’s cheek on the top of her head, his body hard yet yielding against hers, feeling so right. He eased his hold just far enough to take her chin in his hand, tilt up her face. One look, glowing, electrifying, before he bent his head down to kiss her. Oh God, it was breaking her heart to love him so much, so much, and have to choke the words back. Fall in love with me; please fall in love with me now.

  It was as though the kiss, her silent plea, triggered the change in the weather they’d been waiting for, because the rain came down hard, like the sudden drop of a curtain.

  David broke the kiss to laugh, then picked her up and spun her around. ‘It’s time, bluebell,’ he said, and as she wrapped her legs around him, he slid into her. ‘No shrinkage there, I hope you’re noticing.’

  She revelled in being filled by him, as she always did—but this was special. This was something to exult in. David, giving her everything she’d ever wanted, uncovering all those things she’d never thought she was. A storm dancer, like him, out of the snow dome. Out in the elements, out of her element. Tossed and blown and turned and tumbled and changed into someone who was his. Body, heart, soul, his.