When its last echo faded away and the silence covered them again, Michael rolled to his side and tucked her into the curve of his body. He stroked his hand over her hair and down her arm.
So this, she thought dazedly, is how it feels to be desired by a man for no reason other than the simple joy of giving his partner pleasure!
“I can hear your mind buzzing. What are you thinking about?” he asked, his voice vibrating against her forehead.
“Nothing,” she said, for how did a woman describe the wonder of her first orgasm, especially to a man who wasn’t her husband? How did she begin to do justice to the purity of the experience, to the absolute sense of connection she’d felt with him, and not send him running for the hills by straying into the dangerous language of love?
“No regrets?”
“None.”
His chest heaved in a silent sigh.
Disquieted, she said, “Are you having second thoughts, Michael?”
“About lying here in the buff where anyone might find us, and keeping you up long past your bedtime?” He attempted a laugh and disengaged himself from her. “Yes. You need to get home.”
“Oh…!” Brimming with dismay, the exclamation was out before she could contain it. “You wish we hadn’t…done it.”
He wouldn’t look at her and he didn’t speak. Instead, he climbed into his clothes with unflattering speed and went to retrieve the flashlight which had rolled down by the water. Embarrassed, she took advantage of the momentary privacy to step into her panties and pull her dress over her head. Miserably aware of the damp sand sticking to her skin, of her utter dishevelment, she struggled to hang on to her dignity and not give way to the humiliation and disappointment threatening to burst free.
How could he so easily dismiss something she’d found beautiful beyond compare?
The answer hammered at her without a shred of remorse. Because, stupid, it didn’t mean anything at all to him!
“If you’re worried that I’m going to make a nuisance of myself and start stalking your every move, don’t be,” she said, striving to sound blasé. “I might not be the one-night-stand kind, as you so charmingly phrased it, but that doesn’t mean I’m planning to boil your pet rabbit, either! There are no strings attached to what happened between us tonight.”
He rotated the flashlight between his hands and expelled another sigh. “That’s not what’s worrying me.”
But it was. Why else would he be in such a hurry to get rid of her?
“Well, you were very good, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
He didn’t need to tell her he found the remark both uncalled-for and distasteful. Even in the semidark, the reproach on his face was unmistakable. “I’ll walk you to your car, Camille.”
“No need.” She stuffed her feet into her sandals and fumbled with the buttons on her dress. But she was trembling so hard, she couldn’t coordinate her fingers.
“I said, I’ll walk you to your car.”
“And then what? Kiss me good-night and tell me you’ll give me a call one of these days, when we both know you’ve no intention of doing any such thing? I’ll pass, thanks!”
He ran his hand back and forth over the flashlight as though he hoped, if he rubbed it hard enough, a genie might appear and vaporize her in a puff of smoke. “Are you always like this after you’ve—?”
“Had sex with a stranger?” She pushed distraught fingers through her hair, scarcely aware of what she was saying. “I really don’t know. It’s not something I’ve done before and I’m beginning to understand why. It’s not worth the humiliation that follows.”
“I gave you every chance to back out before things went too far.”
“So you did. Chalk it up to inexperience that I didn’t have the good sense to take you up on the offer, and rest assured I’ve learned my lesson. I made a mistake and I’m very sorry that you have to bear the brunt of my regret.”
He studied his feet, the overhanging branches of the willow tree, and finally, with marked reluctance, her face. “I’m the guilty party here, Camille, not you. I hold myself entirely responsible for what happened tonight.”
Teeth clenched against the pain spearing her, she said, “Spare me your charity, please! My pride’s taken enough of a beating.”
“The last thing I ever wanted was to hurt you.”
“Perhaps,” she said, furious to find her voice waterlogged with tears. “But it happened anyway, which just goes to show that the road to hell really is paved with other people’s good intentions.”
He made a move toward her, hands outstretched, though whether in irritation or remorse she couldn’t tell. All she knew was she couldn’t bear to have him touch her again, not if she wanted to hang on to the crumbling edges of her composure—and hang on to it she must, if she was ever to look herself in the mirror again and not blush with shame at what she saw staring back.
Clutching the top of her dress closed, she stumbled away, up the bank and back along the lane to where her car sat ready to go at the turn of a key. Having to ask Michael D’Alessandro for help getting it back on the road—or worse, being forced to accept a ride home from him—would have been the last straw.
Where he was concerned, she’d made fool enough of herself to last a lifetime. She never wanted to see him again.
The squeal of tires split the silence. The smell of burning rubber chased away the scent of her still teasing his senses, and filled his mind with horror pictures.
Her car was powerful, designed for speed. She was angry and hurt and probably crying. And she was driving much too fast. If she ended up wrapped around a tree, or flew off the bridge a mile up the road and nose-dived into the river, it would be his fault.
Congratulations, jackass! You’ve really screwed up this time!
Furious with himself, he aimed a vicious kick at the willow tree. Pain exploded in his ankle and swept in jarring waves up his leg.
Too bad you didn’t nail your head instead—or the other place you left your brains tonight!
Hopping around on his good foot, he cursed the day he’d agreed to Kay’s request. Ignorance was bliss, and never mind what the pundits decreed. He’d been better off not knowing. Trouble was, now that he did, there was no going back. From the minute he’d learned he had a son, his life had been divided into two separate eras. Before. And after.
Something wrapped itself around his shoe, almost tripping him. When he bent to investigate, he found her bra tangled in the laces of his runner. “Well, why the hell not?” he muttered bitterly, shaking sand out of the flimsy half-cups and looping the straps over his fingers. “I’ve stamped all over her pride already. Might as well grind a little dirt into her clothes as well, while I’m at it.”
But the only real dirt was that sticking to his conscience. He’d used her, pure and simple, to satisfy his own raging desire, and the worst of it was, he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. She was lovely, and innocent in a way that had caught him so thoroughly off guard that he’d found himself dangerously moved. He’d known he should stop; that he couldn’t afford to muddy his own agenda by losing his objectivity. And he’d known she would be incapable of maintaining hers.
It would have been different if she’d been cut from the same cloth as her mother. Then, he might have been able to tell himself that, sometimes, a man had to do what a man had to do—and believe it. But if Glenda Younge was as tough as old rope, Camille was delicate as a butterfly.
She’d been badly scarred by her marriage. He suspected that, until tonight, she’d never been with any other man but her husband. He was afraid the only way she’d forgive herself for what she’d done with him was to invest the incident with more meaning than it merited.
He’d heard it in her voice, in the quivering disappointment she hadn’t been able to disguise. He’d seen it in the way she’d bitten her lip and scrunched her eyes closed to stop herself from bursting into tears when he hadn’t told her what she’d hoped to hear. But what scared him the mo
st was how badly he’d wanted to chase after her and restore her illusions; to give her the fairy-tale ending she was looking for.
“Get a grip!” he admonished himself scornfully, stuffing the bra into his back pocket and heading up the bank to the road. “This isn’t high school and she’s not the cheerleader who let you get into her pants because you’re too full of raging hormones to control yourself! She’s the mother of your child. If you really care about her, do the decent thing and get the hell out of her life now, before you cause any more damage.”
Trouble was, he couldn’t do that. He was in too deep to walk away. And that was the real reason he practically gagged on the bitter aftertaste of guilt souring his tongue.
The morning after, she’d told Fran, Don’t bother playing matchmaker anymore. The Michael D’Alessandro experiment was a disaster. I never want to see him again.
She’d told herself it was true, that he was a louse who’d wormed his way into her affections by being kind to Jeremy, that she was a dreadful judge of character to have been so easily taken in by a pair of broad shoulders and a charming smile, and that she was lucky she’d found out early what sort of man he really was: a bounder who preyed on a woman’s susceptibility to clever seduction.
So it made not a scrap of sense that when, five days after it had happened, he showed up on her doorstep again and started out with, “I’m probably the last person you want to see, but—”
He looked a little drawn, as if he, too, had had trouble sleeping. But the shadows under his eyes did nothing to detract from his beauty. He was gorgeous in navy linen pants and a pale blue shirt topped with a lightweight beige jacket. It wasn’t fair that he should catch her looking so pale and uninteresting!
Curbing the urge to fling herself into his arms and thank him for coming back, she said coolly, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t we already play this scene last week?”
At least he had the grace to look sheepish. “I’m too embarrassed to come up with a more creative opening, Camille. The fact is, you’ve been on my mind ever since the other night. I never should have let things go so far.”
“It’s a bit too much after-the-fact for regrets, don’t you think? The damage has been done.”
“Perhaps, but that doesn’t mean I can just dismiss it. I need to know that you’re all right.”
“And it took you this long to figure that out?” She’d promised herself she wouldn’t betray how devastated she’d been by his neglect, but the hurt came tumbling out the minute she opened her mouth. “It’s been nearly a week, Michael. If you really cared about me, you wouldn’t have waited this long to try to make amends.”
“I’d have been in touch sooner, but other…business came up.”
“Of course. And business always comes before pleasure.” She didn’t care that she sounded like a fishwife. He was lucky she didn’t rake her nails down his handsome face!
“The point is, it was a pleasure.”
“For you, perhaps.”
“I thought, at the time, for both of us.”
She cringed before his unflinching honesty. Whatever else his omissions, he’d given her a gift she’d always cherish and she did them both an injustice by pretending otherwise.
The truth was, all those times she and Todd had tried so hard to make a baby, a part of her had remained aloof and refused to abdicate control. She’d never had an orgasm in her life, but she’d read enough to convince herself she knew what they were all about—until the other night when reality had made a mockery of her attempts to fool anyone, least of all herself.
“Was I wrong, Camille?”
She wished she could lie, and knew she never could. Not to him. “No.”
Some of the tension went out of his shoulders. “Then can we start over and this time try to remain nothing more than friends?”
Could they? Would friendship be enough, after what they’d shared? On the other hand, could anything be worse than the terrible emptiness she’d known when she thought she’d lost him forever? “I don’t know,” she said. “But it’s a chance I’m willing to take.”
CHAPTER SIX
HIS sudden smile washed away all the hurt and anger she’d nourished over the last few days. “Thank you. That’s more than I dared hope for and a lot more than I deserve.”
“Not really. What happened between us the other night….” Her mouth went dry but she held his gaze. “We both know I was a willing accomplice, Michael, if not the downright aggressor. If I didn’t like the outcome, I’ve got only myself to blame.”
“Let’s leave blame out of it,” he said, mesmerizing her all over again with the way his lips shaped the words. As if it had happened only minutes before, the memory of how he’d used that mouth to drive her wild flashed to the fore-front of her mind, evoking a jolt of sensation that left her trembling inside. “I’ve got enough on my conscience without adding blame to the list. Let’s settle for ‘memorable’, instead.”
Amazed at how quickly the right man saying the right words could make the world lose all its ugliness and restore a woman’s faith in herself, Camille opened the door wider. “Would you like to come in? It’s a bit early for lunch, but we can have coffee. Nori’s taken Jeremy to the park so it’s nice and peaceful around here for a change.”
“Thanks, but I can’t. I have a pressing appointment in the city, and I’m already running late.”
Another one? Good grief, with the amount of time he spent in San Francisco, why didn’t he just stay there as well and save himself a lot of unnecessary driving? Unreasonably disappointed, she said, “You shouldn’t have bothered to stop by then. You could just as easily have phoned.”
“And take the coward’s way out?” He shook his head. “I might not always do the right thing, but I hope I’m man enough to apologize face-to-face when I’ve made a mistake. In any case, I had to return this.”
Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulled out a small plastic bag bearing the Maddox Lodge logo and dropped it in her hand. Weighing no more than an ounce or two, it rustled lightly against her palm.
“Oh!” She realized at once what it was, and hardly knew where to look. “My bra. How embarrassing! Imagine if someone else had found it.”
“No one else did, Camille. I made sure of that. And if I’d known I was going to make you blush like this, I just might have mailed it to you, instead of presenting it in person.”
He was teasing her, beguiling her all over again with his smile and the laughter in his eyes. She covered her burning cheeks with her hands. “I’m being ridiculous, aren’t I?”
“Not a bit. ‘Ridiculous’ is the last word I’d apply to you.” As quickly as it had arisen, his amusement died. “Unless you have other plans, will you have dinner with me tomorrow night?”
“If you like.” Her answer, embarrassingly overeager, was out almost before he’d finished the question.
“I’d like,” he said. “When shall I pick you up?”
“It’s better for me if we make it later—say half past eight? That way, I’ll have time to give Jeremy his bath and read him a bedtime story before I leave.”
“Eight-thirty it is. See you then.”
For a second, he sort of hovered on the doorstep, as though uncertain how to take his leave. With a hug? A peck on the cheek?
She wouldn’t have minded either one. He’d gone a long way toward redeeming himself by coming to her house and being so frank. In the end, though, she was left wanting. He stepped away, gave a little salute, then took off down the steps to his car without a backward glance.
She told herself not to read more into his visit than he’d intended. He’d made it clear where they stood, that the most he could offer was friendship, and probably the only reason he’d asked her to dinner at all was that he felt he owed it to her to make up for their last meeting. She’d be a half-wit to imagine for one second that he harbored any romantic intentions toward her.
“Maybe so,” she said, watching until he was lost to sigh
t by the shrubbery lining the driveway, “but just in case, I’ll spring for a new dress this time.”
“For someone who said she never wanted to see the man again, you’re going to extraordinary lengths to impress him,” Fran remarked, lounging on the little sofa reserved for guests in Hyacinthe, Calder’s most upscale ladies’ boutique. “That must be the tenth outfit you’ve modeled, which suggests to me that, for you at least, there’s a lot more riding on this dinner date than a decent meal and a good-night handshake.”
“I asked you to come shopping with me because I value your fashion judgment, not to listen to you playing pop psychologist,” Camille said, adjusting the scarf of the silk crepe two-piece she’d tried on. “What do you think of this?”
“Get rid of it. You look like the mother of the bride with a slingshot hanging around her neck.” Shuddering, Fran got up and rifled through a rack of newly-arrived designer creations which Camille had dismissed as being dressier than the occasion called for. “Ah, yes!” she crowed, holding up a shimmery beaded number with a plunging neckline and a thigh-high slit up the front of the narrow skirt. “This, on the other hand, was tailor-made for you.”
“Fran, it’s indecent!”
“On me, maybe. On you, it’ll merely look decadent. Come on, Camille, at least try it on. What’ve you got to lose?”
“Common sense, that’s what—something I don’t seem to have much of where Michael’s concerned! Wearing a dress like that is just asking for trouble.”
Fran shook the thing like a matador trying to goad a reluctant bull to action with his cape. “You’ve got the legs to carry it off, dearie, and Michael strikes me as a very civilized man. I doubt he’s going to attack you between the soup and salad course just because you’re showing a bit of skin.”
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