She had been surprised to see red lines crisscrossing her skin even after Jack carefully unwound the rope. She’d felt nothing but pleasure while she’d been bound.
When she’d slid into the bath, the water was lukewarm, as if Jack knew her skin would be tender. The thought had stuck with her as she sunk into the tub: Jack had done this before.
It wasn’t a revelation. She’d been clued into Jack’s womanizing — and rumors of his sexual proclivities — long before last night.
But that knowledge had been abstract. She hadn’t yet felt Jack’s mouth on the most intimate parts of her body, hadn’t yet watched him disappear inside her.
She didn’t like the idea of Jack with anyone else, although she recognized the unfairness of it. She’d loved being with him, had been excited by the thrill of a new sexual experience and the awakening of her body, and yet she had no intention of breaking things off with Liam. Not yet, anyway.
She and Jack weren’t teenagers going steady after a first kiss. Karen had been right all those weeks ago: Nina needed to figure out who she was and what kind of man — if any — she wanted in her life long-term.
She didn’t even know if Jack wanted to see her again, but if he did, she wasn’t going to throw away the camaraderie and affection, and yes, the passion she felt with Liam.
Not until she let it play out.
All of which meant she had no right to begrudge Jack his sexual experience.
She stretched and looked toward the windows. There was nothing but sky on the other side of the glass, the nearby buildings invisible from the bed, and she again had the sensation of hovering in midair. It was hard to believe the world still existed outside of this place and the man who, from the smell of it, was making her breakfast.
Her mind drifted back to the night before: Jack, helping her from the bath, drying her gently, patting rather than rubbing the chafe marks on her skin.
He’d sat on the edge of the tub to apply salve to the marks, working slowly and gingerly, and had handed her a stack of clothes. He’d left her to dress and she’d discovered a T-shirt and cotton drawstring pants.
No underwear.
She’d sighed aloud as she slipped on the clothes, the cotton soothing against her skin. She’d pushed away her questions — whether the clothes belonged to someone else or, just as likely, had been purchased for her by Jack ahead of the occasion.
He’d left her a hairbrush and toothbrush, both brand new. She used them and stepped back into the bedroom, expecting him to be dressed and ready to see her home.
Instead he’d been sitting against the headboard in pajama pants and no shirt, reading a book with a title she couldn’t read.
He’d set it down as soon as he realized she was there. “Come to bed, darling. You must be tired.”
She was suddenly exhausted, her body responding to his words as if he’d cast a spell on her.
“Do you… do you want me to go home?” she’d asked.
He’d been taken aback. “Of course not, although I’ll take you if that’s what you prefer.”
“I want to stay with you.” She sounded painfully young, even to her own ears.
His expression softened. “Good.”
She walked around to the other side of the bed and slid in next to him. He’d pulled her into his arms and stroked her hair.
“It’s natural to crash after an unfamiliar or intense sexual experience,” he said softly. She closed her eyes, let herself be soothed by his voice. “The body expends a lot of adrenaline, much like it does when we’re in fight or flight.”
“Thank you for the bath,” she mumbled, already drifting into sleep. “And for the clothes. And for… everything.”
He kissed her head. “Sleep now, sweet Nina.”
It was the last thing she remembered, and she couldn’t help wondering which Jack Morgan she would find in the kitchen this morning. Would it be the cool, distant Jack she’d been dating for the past month? The passionate, demanding Jack she’d met in bed last night? The gentle, kind Jack who’d taken care of her afterward?
She took a deep breath and got out of bed. After a quick trip to use the bathroom and brush her teeth, she stepped into the hall and made her way into the living room that adjoined the kitchen.
He was pouring coffee into a mug, a tray on the counter already set with food and orange juice, plus a single white rose.
“Good morning,” she said.
He looked up and set down the coffee pot.
“Good morning.” He walked around the kitchen counter and crossed the room. When he stopped in front of her, he bent to kiss her forehead. “How did you sleep?”
“Like the dead.”
He smiled. “Good. I was going to bring you breakfast.”
“I’d rather eat out here with you.”
He reached up to touch her face. “Very well.”
He returned to the kitchen and used the tray to carry everything to the dining room table. He unloaded it and pulled out the chair for her to sit.
She took a drink of coffee and closed her eyes. “Hmmm…”
He returned the tray to the kitchen and came back to the table with a cup of coffee.
“You’re not going to eat?” she asked.
“I don’t eat breakfast.”
“No breakfast?” She looked at the eggs benedict on her plate, the fresh fruit in a small cup. “You made this just for me?”
He looked in her eyes. “Don’t you know you deserve the best of everything, Nina?”
She looked down at the plate as she cut into one of the eggs. “I don’t know.”
“Then let me rephrase,” he said. “You deserve the best of everything. The best food, the best sex, the best life.”
She was torn between affection and desire, his mention of sex lighting the fire of lust she’d felt in his arms the night before.
“Thank you.”
She was relieved when he turned the conversation to other things while she ate. He was wholly focused on her, asking about the show at the gallery and her newly discovered enjoyment for curation.
He still didn’t seem fully at ease, she wondered if Jack Morgan ever was, but she felt like she was getting glimpses of the real Jack — the one who was passionate and tender and who cooked breakfast on Sunday morning even if he didn’t eat it himself.
“Thank you,” she said when she’d finished most of her food. “I feel human again.”
“Good.” He stood to gather her plate.
“I should probably get going,” she said.
He looked down at her and she had the feeling that he was working to control his expression, that he was already reassembling the mask he’d removed during the past twelve hours.
“All right.” He took everything into the kitchen. He indicated her dress from the night before, folded on the edge of the sofa, her bag on top of it, heels side-by-side on the floor. “Gather your things. I’ll have Reggie bring the car around.”
She had the feeling that she’d offended him. She walked to the kitchen where he was rinsing her plate. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t…” She looked down at her hands. “I don’t know how any of this is done.”
He turned off the water. She felt him looking at her.
“It’s done with honesty,” he said. “Nothing more, nothing less.”
She drew in a breath, trying to think of the best way to play by the rules. “I… I’m seeing someone else,” she said. “It’s not serious yet, but I thought you should know.”
“I see.”
She met his eyes. “I didn’t know if I should say anything, but honesty seems like a good policy.”
“I agree.” he hesitated. “Do you have feelings for this… man?”
“I don’t know yet,” she said.
It wasn’t entirely true. She had feelings for Liam — just like she had feelings for Jack — but she didn’t know yet how to categorize them.
Either of them.
“I understand,” he said.
“You do?”
“I do. I’d like to see you again, if your feelings for this… other man will allow, that is.”
“They will,” she said. “I’ll be honest with him as well.”
“Fair is fair.”
“I like your company,” she said. “I hope you know that.”
“You don’t owe me anything, Nina.”
She nodded, waiting in the silence for him to say something else.
When he didn’t, she said, “I’ll get my things. How should I get these clothes back to you?”
“Keep them,” he said. “Or give them to me next time if you insist.”
Next time. There would be a next time.
She clung to the words as she gathered her dress and bag. She might still be figuring things out, but there was one thing she knew for sure: she wanted to see Jack Morgan again.
And she wanted more of what he’d given her the night before.
28
Nina pulled off her clothes and removed a dress from the hanger.
“So have you heard anything?” Karen asked from outside the dressing room.
“Not since the roses,” Nina said, stepping into a black dress.
Nina had called Julia Sunday afternoon after she’d gotten home from Jack’s and asked her to pull a few things from the sale rack in her size. She had no intention of being caught unprepared the next time she needed something to wear. The green dress had done the job for her last date with Jack, but it hadn’t been worth the agony of worrying whether it was appropriate.
“Not much to say after the roses,” Karen said drily.
Nina couldn’t disagree. She’d been sleeping off her night with Jack in preparation for an outdoor movie in Prospect Park with Liam when the buzzer had rung in the apartment announcing a delivery. She hadn’t been expecting anything — especially not the ten dozen white roses still filling her tiny apartment with their scent.
They’d been accompanied by a simple card.
I can still smell you on my fingers.
JM
The words had heated her face with embarrassment, her body with need.
She’d been glad that Liam was less formal than Jack, that running down to meet him on the sidewalk was acceptable. She needed to talk to him about their relationship, about the fact that she was seeing someone else, but she didn’t want to do it with ten dozen roses from another man staring Liam in the face.
She glanced in the mirror at the dress, a curve-hugging number that was shorter than she was used to, then opened the fitting room door.
Karen looked her up and down from her seat opposite the fitting room. “Turn around.”
Nina did. “Is it too short?”
“No, and it makes your ass look fantastic,” Karen said.
“So it’s a yes?”
“I’d say so.”
Nina returned to the dressing room and pulled off the dress. She put it on the hanger and set it on one of the empty hooks, then turned to the stack still waiting for her.
“How do you do this?” she asked Karen through the door. “I’m exhausted just looking at all this stuff.”
“You’re only going to love a handful of it,” Karen said. “But you won’t know which ones unless you try them all. Stop whining. There are worse things than trying on beautiful clothes at Bergdorf’s.”
Nina laughed. “Fine.”
“So I take it Liam’s up to bat next?” Karen asked.
“Oh my god,” Nina said, tying a red wrap dress around her waist. “Can you stop making it seem like I’m sleeping with an entire baseball team?”
Karen snorted. “One guy is hardly a baseball team. Neither is two.”
“I think I’m going to tell Liam I’m seeing someone else before I sleep with him,” Nina said.
“Why on earth would you do that?”
“Because it was weird telling Jack afterward.” Nina stepped out of the dressing room.
“Love that one,” Karen said. “A little bit 70s, a little bit 80s, a whole lot of sexy. That’s a yes.”
Nina looked at the tag. “It’s two hundred dollars. On sale.”
“Exactly,” Karen said, typing on her phone.
Nina sighed and went back to the dressing room.
“Did Jack tell you about his dating situation?” Karen called through the door. “Either before or after you fucked him?”
“Jesus!” Nina hissed. “Would you be a little discreet. What if someone has kids in here?”
“It’s empty,” Karen said. “And if someone’s kids hear me say fuck, I guarantee it’s not the first or last time the kid will hear it.”
“That’s not your call,” Nina said. “And even if it were, I’m not crazy about everyone at Bergdorf’s knowing the details of my sex life.”
“Whatever,” Karen said. “So? Did Jack air all his dirty laundry?”
“No,” Nina said. “But I didn’t ask.”
“Precisely my point. You didn’t ask, he didn’t tell. Has Liam said anything about dating other people?”
“No, but he’s different from Jack. I feel like he’d want to know.”
“You can feel anything you want, but that doesn’t mean you need to spill your guts. Did you use a condom with Jack?”
“Oh god…” Nina buried her face in her hands, wondering how she came to be in nothing but her underwear talking about fucking and condoms at the age of forty-five.
“Don’t be a prude,” Karen said.
“You never get to call me a prude again after Saturday night.” Nina had provided more details to Karen than she’d been comfortable with about her night with Jack.
“A little rope, some great oral, and some old-fashioned fucking doesn’t make you ready for the red room of pain,” Karen said. “Although I am impressed you let him tie you up your first time out of the gate.”
“Geez, thanks Mom,” Nina said.
“How are we doing in here?” Julia’s voice sounded from outside the dressing room. Nina could only hope her appearance was recent and that she hadn’t been listening to the conversation between her and Karen. “Can I get you another size in anything or take something away?”
“Not yet,” Nina called.
“I’ll check back in a bit then,” Julia said. “Have you tried the red wrap dress yet? I thought that would look fantastic with your figure and coloring.”
“It does,” Karen said. “She’s taking it.”
“I haven’t decided that yet,” Nina practically yelled.
“I knew it,” Julia said, obviously addressing Karen.
“Will you stop?” Nina said after she was sure Julia was gone.
“What?” Karen said.
Nina didn’t have an answer. There was nothing to say when Karen was being Karen.
Nina pulled on a pencil skirt and twisted it around to zip it before turning the zipper to the back. She flipped through the remaining clothes on the hook and removed a sheer white blouse, the first button starting almost at the bottom of her boobs.
She put it on and stepped out of the fitting room. “I think this shirt is missing a button.”
Karen looked up from her phone and glanced at the blouse before returning her eyes to the screen. “It makes your tits look great. You have to get it.”
Nina tried a new tactic by ignoring Karen’s outrageousness. “What about the skirt?”
“Eh,” Karen said. “I can take it or leave it.”
“My wallet thanks you,” Nina said, returning to the fitting room.
“You didn’t answer me about the condom.”
Nina sighed. Karen wasn’t even trying to be quiet.
“Yes, we used a condom,” Nina said.
“And you’ll use one with Liam too, right? Our eggs might be dwindling but who wants to take a chance on kids at our age?” There was a pause on the other side of the door, then a quiet curse under Karen’s breath. “Dammit. Sorry, Neen.”
“It’s fine,” Nina said.
Her childles
sness had been a sore spot for a long time, but she was relieved to find that the wound no longer felt tender. Karen was right: Nina was finally coming into her own, figuring out who she was and what she wanted.
The time for her to have children was past.
“Anyway,” Karen said, “even if you did want to roll the baby dice, you’d be rolling the STD dice too, at least until both guys got tested.”
“How do you know I’m not the one with a disease?” Nina said, surveying the remaining stack of clothes with despair.
“Because you were practically a nun the last few years, and while I’m not a champion of Peter, he’s not a cheater.”
Peter. The name seemed plucked from a history book — long dead, part of a life so distant from the one she lived now that it might as well have been fiction.
“Point taken,” Nina said, sitting down on the bench in the fitting room in her underwear.
“So both men wear condoms, everybody’s safe, it’s none of Liam’s business if you’re fucking someone else. If he wants to know, he can ask.”
“Is that the Cliff Notes version?” Nina asked
“It’s the only version you need.”
Nina thought about Liam: always kind, always interested in her, hot without even trying.
He was young and successful. He was beautiful inside and out. He made her believe all the things she thought were past her were still a possibility, that the world was still waiting, that love was still waiting.
If anyone had told her a year ago that she’d be dating someone nearly fifteen years younger — that he would by all accounts adore her, that he would want to take her to bed — she wouldn’t have believed them.
Then again, Jack would have seemed equally out of reach, and after their night together, she was only more intrigued, not just by Jack himself but by the feelings he awoke in her, the glimpses into her own sexual psyche.
It would be a mistake to rush into something monogamous with Liam — assuming that’s even what he wanted — until she’d fully explored the feelings Jack had brought to the surface.
The Awakening of Nina Fontaine Page 14