Her gaze was on him, the light gleaming in her half-closed eyes. There was a flush of color on her cheeks; her mouth and her nipples were strawberry pink. He couldn’t look away from them. “Touch them,” he heard himself order, his voice guttural. “Touch yourself for me.”
And, God, she did, her thumb strumming over one hard nipple. Then her other hand took a meandering path like the snake in the Garden of Eden until it found the glistening flesh of her pussy. As he continued to plunder, she played.
The pleasure was going to kill him. It gathered like a fireball, pressure and heat that built and built … and then exploded at the base of his spine. It felt like embers shot from his fingertips, his toes, the ends of his hair. Stevie convulsed around him, finding her own release, and he collapsed onto the pillow beside hers.
Minutes later he made it to the bathroom and got rid of the condom. “I’ll leave in just a minute,” he murmured to her, but fell onto the mattress and didn’t remember anything for hours.
When he awoke, dawn was turning the fog outside the window the pearlized pinks and grays of an abalone shell. Turning his head, he realized he had his wish from the time before - Stevie was still asleep beside him. He watched her breathe, her hair a tangle of waves on the pillow, her lips still swollen from his kisses.
Heat streaked down his spine when he remembered her mouth O’d around his shaft, taking him in, taking everything he’d offered … and not asking for any more than that.
Something unfurled inside him at the thought. With a gentle hand, he brushed a lock of hair off her cheek. She didn’t move. One shoulder showed, creamy and curved, above the covers, and he traced that, too, reveling in her silky strength.
“Beautiful,” he whispered to himself. It didn’t seem so dangerous a thought at dawn. She was lovely and luscious, and if he was going to get her out of his system, then maybe he’d have to have her this way, too. Not in urgent demand, but also in soft surrender.
He scooted closer to her, drawing down the blanket and sheet. Her breasts reacted to the little chill, and he took the hardening crests into his mouth, sucking with delicate pressure. She began to stir, and he lightened the suction. She drew up her closest knee, the cap of it brushing his thigh, and he went from half hard to full erection at just that subtle touch.
His breath hitching in his chest, he let his fingertips take a slow path along that sleek thigh toward the center of her body. She was damp there, and as he slowly and tenderly explored the petaled flesh, the moisture increased.
Pressure built in his chest and arrowed to his groin. But he ignored the commands clamoring inside him and continued caressing Stevie’s warm skin, for the first time not allowing his lust or hers to order the action.
Now he indulged in that slow lovemaking he’d been after since the first time she’d ground her mouth against his. He drew his lips from her nipple to her neck, pressing soft, open-mouth kisses along her creamy golden skin. “Mon ange,” he whispered. She was what he thought there might be in heaven, one of the ranks of seraphim that possessed enough strength to yield swords, enough fire to face down Satan, enough sweetness to comfort small children.
He couldn’t even laugh at his own romantic notions. Stevie believed in ghosts and treasure. For this moment, he believed in something he saw in her. Her arm moved, and her hand curled around his head to slide through his hair. He looked up, meeting her sleepy gaze. She smiled at him.
What a way to say good-bye, he thought. Better than last night with its flames and smoke. So he continued making love to her as she stretched and warmed under his touch. He ran his tongue along the curve of each eyebrow, slid his whiskered cheek against the arch of her bicep, sucked her pinkie finger into the heat of his mouth.
She was pliant through all of it, allowing him to turn her this way and angle her that so he might say both good morning and farewell to the nape of her neck and the patch of skin between the dimples on her bottom. He hauled her to her knees so that her cheek was pressed to the pillow and her ass was lifted so he could palm the tight flesh. She was panting now, though, and when she whispered to him, whimpering his name, he reached for another condom.
He curved around her back, fitting his cock to her wet slit, sliding in even as she moved into his groin. I could love her, he thought.
It stilled his rhythm. I can’t love her. I’m leaving her.
“What, Jack?” She sounded drugged again. “What are you doing?”
“Saying good-bye,” he said, his voice thick. “You know that’s what this is, right? You know we have to end this.”
“I know,” she whispered, though her body clenched sweetly on him as she moved her hips backward again, taking him deeper. “I know.”
His climax was building again, so he focused on that, directing all his energy to the gathering pleasure. Sliding one hand around her hip, he found her clitoris and rubbed there in light strokes. Tension was gathering in her, too, and he smiled against her shoulder as he felt her tension break.
He followed after.
They stayed like that for long moments, joined. He was relieved she couldn’t see his face, though he had no idea what expression it might show. Tenderness? Regret?
“Jack … why?” she finally whispered, as they turned to their sides and he spooned against her, his body still intimately joined with hers.
He knew what she was asking. Why was he determined to walk away from her?
“The dark … it was the screen that ran my mother’s anguish, my father’s despair, my brothers’ grief. The film of all that played endlessly and there was no light to relieve me of it. I had no control over my surroundings and the blackness was suffocating.”
She made a noise and he soothed her with a kiss to her nape. “Parts of me died during those five days - important pieces of my heart. Once we were rescued, too much time had passed to revive them. They were completely cut away when the rumors hit the press - and then I cut myself off from Ardenia, from -”
“Everything. Everyone.”
“Yes.” He pressed his mouth to her nape again. “I don’t see a way - I don’t want to try even - to resuscitate it or to forge something new -”
“Or to feel again.”
“Not like that.” Because he did feel something - relief - that she finally understood.
He waited for her response, but a clattering from the kitchen made them both twitch. “What?” Stevie said. Voices, male and female, could be heard. She jolted now, and it threw him off her. “Oh, God,” she groaned. “Allie and Penn.”
She was in a robe so fast he didn’t get a chance to appreciate her nakedness. He headed for the bathroom as she slipped out of the room, closing the door behind her.
So much for good-bye, he thought. But maybe it was easier not to speak the word again. They’d just go their separate ways. He caught sight of his face in the mirror as he went to dispose of the condom.
That’s how he saw his expression shift to shock. Fait chier.
The rubber had broken.
Then He Kissed Me
19
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Her hair still damp from her shower, Stevie poured coffee for her sisters in the Baci farmhouse kitchen. Amidst the hubbub of her younger sister shuffling around on crutches and her husband bringing in suitcases from their car, Jack had slipped away.
Stevie had left to wash and dress and, when she’d wandered out of the guest bedroom again, found that Penn had gone over to the Bennett house to visit his half brothers and that Giuliana had arrived and was seated at the kitchen table listening to Allie grouse about being laid up with her injured foot. “I’m bored with daytime TV,” she said. “And don’t laugh, but I hobbled into this shop in Malibu and now I’ve taken up knitting.”
Cups of coffee silenced them for the few minutes it took to doctor their mugs. Then Allie sipped her beverage and smiled at Stevie. “What’s been going on with you? How’s that fak
e engagement working out?”
“Fine,” she answered. Memories staggered through her head like she and Jack had staggered about this very room the night before. Fiery kisses, rough hands. Tender caresses, whispered words. Mon ange.
Her nose tingled, like a sneeze was in the offing. She pressed her knuckles there, hard, to hold it back. Her gaze snagged on Allie’s, who was staring. “What?” she said.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.” Her nose tingled again, and she closed her eyes. Something’s got to get you out of my system, he’d said. But this morning? It had been good-bye and it had been more. It had been unforgettable, though he’d outlined the end of them even as he covered her body with his. Parts of me died … important pieces of my heart.
She shoved back her chair to reach the box of tissues on the counter. The sneeze was threatening once more. Both her sisters were staring at her now, and Stevie’s stomach jolted. They all needed a distraction, she decided, and rushed to the utility closet where she’d stashed the carton she’d lugged down from the attic on that first foray she’d made there with Jack.
Jack
“Don’t think about him,” she muttered to herself, grabbing the cardboard container and returning to the table. She dumped the container onto the center, scattering the salt and pepper shakers.
“Geez, Steve,” Jules protested.
Stephania, do you have to be so rough?
There’s no need to yell.
Good girls keep their, voices down and their feelings to themselves.
Allie stood on her good leg. “What’s this?”
Stevie shrugged. “Things I found in the attic from when we were kids. I thought you might like to look at them.”
Her younger sister was already peeling open the flaps. “Oh! My tutu.” It was a pink ball of Lycra that had to be turned inside out so that the tulle layers sprang free. “I was a peony in the dance recital.”
“I had the only boy part … remember? A scarecrow.” Stevie found the battered straw hat she’d worn and stuck it on her head.
“The studio closed the next year,” Jules said, rummaging through the box herself.
“Thank God,” Stevie replied, tossing the hat to the table. “Then Mom let me join the Bobby Sox softball league instead of insisting I learn to tap dance.”
Allie pouted. “I loved being a ballerina.”
“Watch out, Jules,” Stevie said, throwing a look at her older sister. “The family crier is about to do her thing.”
Instead of joining in to tease Allie, notorious for her easy tears, Jules hesitated. Then she took a breath. “Stevie…”
Something about her name, in that tone of voice, had her grabbing for the carton. “And look at this. Your baby books.” She handed one in pale pink to Allie, another, a ducky yellow, to Jules.
Alessandra raised her eyebrows. “Where’s yours?”
Stevie shrugged. “Don’t you know? It’s the curse of the middle child. Parents never got around to mine.”
“Oh.” That waterworks-on-the-way look overtook her younger sister’s face again.
It made Stevie’s nose itch, and she grabbed up another tissue. “Damn dust,” she murmured into it.
“But here’s something with your name on it,” Jules said. She pulled out a thick manila envelope with “Stephania” written on the outside in their mother’s handwriting. Turning it upside down, she dumped the contents onto the tabletop.
Allie squealed, as if she were six again. “Look, here are your baby pictures, Stevie.”
“Really?” She went for nonchalance as she stirred them with a fingertip. “I didn’t know there were any.”
Her sister was examining the photos, one after the other. “Looks like they just didn’t make it into an album. You could do that yourself, you know. I might have taken up scrap-booking while I was recuperating if I hadn’t found the Malibu & Ewe yarn shop.”
Stevie made a noise as more handwriting caught her attention. One of the photos had landed facedown and she realized her mother had written notes on the back of each. “Month 2.” “First spoon of cereal.” “Halloween, age 1.”
Her fingers found yet another picture. Their father must have taken it because it showed Stevie sitting on her mother’s lap. Child Stevie was somewhere between four and five and it was likely a holiday, because she was wearing a dress and tights. Still, she had a miniature football in her hand. Despite that, the woman was gazing on the child with an affectionate smile on her face.
Stevie turned the photo over, and froze. Her mother had written: “Our stubborn tomboy. I think she’s the daughter most like me.”
It fluttered from Stevie’s hand to the table. With her nose burning, she spun away to grab more tissues. She pressed them against her face.
“Did you know she was a champion pitcher for her high school softball team?”
Stevie turned to look at her sister. “What?” It came out muffled by the tissues.
“Yep,” Jules said. “But I don’t think girls were encouraged to be jocks in her era. Or at least her parents didn’t encourage it. She once said she caught a lot of flack from them about it.”
Our stubborn tomboy. I think she’s the daughter, most like me.
Stevie slid into her seat at the table, nose stinging again. Then, to her deep mortification, she burst into tears. Allie was all over her in an instant. “Steve, what’s the matter?” she said, her arms sliding around her middle sister. “What’s going on?”
The tears only flowed faster. How had she become so sappy? So soft? “I miss her,” she choked out, unable to help herself. “And I could really use a mother right now.” Folding her arms on the table, she dropped her head onto them and wished herself, her miserable confession, and the stupid tears a million miles away.
Minutes passed. Her crying subsided to hiccups, but her wish wasn’t granted. She remained in the Baci kitchen under the concerned gazes of her sisters.
When it appeared they wouldn’t suddenly be transported to Timbuktu, either, Stevie lifted her head and scrubbed at her face with the tissue.
“Not like that,” Allie admonished, grabbing some from the box. “No scouring. Pat gently.”
Stevie allowed herself to be fussed over by her little sister. “You’re the expert.”
“You can’t keep it all bottled inside,” Allie said, with the authority of a TV talk-show expert. “You miss Mom. You can say that.”
Oh, God. Tears stung her eyes again. She prided herself on keeping it all bottled inside! Keeping it all bottled up inside kept her from being hurt! “I’m fine,” she said. “I don’t…” Again her cheeks went wet.
Giuliana drew her chair closer. As Allie went back to face-patting, Jules slid her arm around Stevie’s shoulders. “Allie’s right,” she said, her voice soft. “Talk to us.”
Stevie shook her head. “I can’t.”
“You can. Try this. What would you say to Mom if she was here right now?”
Was I really the daughter you thought most like you?
Is there more to you than I remember?
Stevie opened her mouth and shocked herself with what came out instead. “I’ve made the biggest mistake of my life. I think I’ve fallen in love with Jack.”
Allie repeated that six-year-old squeal again. “Love!”
No, no, no. There was no way she was in love with Jack, damn it. That was ridiculous. He was supposed to be her dent-puller, her ego-booster, the guy who restored her dignity. Love didn’t lead to dignity.
Desperate again, Stevie sought her older sister’s gaze. “Forget I said anything. Please.”
Jules’s smile was sad. “It’s out now.”
“Then just promise to stab Allie if she makes that obnoxious noise again.”
Allie dropped into her chair. “Loving Jack is a bad thing?”
Jules looked over Stevie’s head at their younger sister. “We’re talking about Steve.”
“We’re talking about a prince,” Ste
vie found herself adding.
“Oh.” Allie slumped against her seat back. “You’d worry about that.”
“Yeah. Duh.”
“You can’t imagine fitting into his world.” Allie’s eyebrows scrunched together. “Can I tell you how much that makes me dislike Emerson? Oh, let’s just save time and extend the sentiment to the entire snobby Platt family.”
Stevie propped her elbow on the table and dropped her forehead onto the heel of her hand.
“It’s all his fault,” Allie said. “Remind me never to vote for his mother again.”
“Forget Emerson,” Jules said. “Concentrate on Stevie.”
“And Jack. Rich, royal Jack.” Allie sighed. “Stevie feels like a country bumpkin in comparison.”
“And he’s known as a player,” Jules added. “She doesn’t think he’ll take any woman, let alone her, seriously.”
Allie’s fingers drummed the tabletop. “And what if she manages to get up the nerve to share her feelings with him and he laughs it off? That’s what she’s worrying about.”
“But if she doesn’t say a word and he walks away, has she lost her chance at happiness? Should she risk being honest?”
There was a moment of silence, then Jules peered at Stevie. “Does that about cover it?”
It would have been good if she’d been able to laugh. Instead, her voice was dry even as more wetness invaded her eyes. “I feel so much better now that I’ve gotten all that off my chest.”
“You forgot the part about how she knows we’ll be here for her no matter what,” Allie pointed out. “The Three Mouseketeers.”
The mention only made Stevie more miserable. She’d distanced herself from their sisterhood when she’d distanced herself from Tanti Baci, hoping to spare herself more pain. That bid for protection had backfired, leaving her feeling so damn alone.
“You can’t run from your emotions and you can’t run from us, either,” Jules said.
“So remember that whatever you do,” Allie said, “whatever you decide, sisters come first.”
Stevie slid the younger woman a look. “As if you’d ever put Penn in second place.”
Then He Kissed Me Page 24