by Lilian Darcy
How to put off a man who's not sure yet if he's actually in love with you. Step one. Say nasty things about the ex-wife who wants him back.
She stuck to her ground, kept her voice steady. 'Yes. I think she could have phoned, or...not emailed. Written. On a decent card. To ask your permission to come, or at least to tell you she was planning to come. Give you some warning, and a chance to work out how you felt.'
'Maybe she thought I wouldn't know how I felt until I saw her.'
'What do you think, Rip? It's your opinion that counts. Do you think she's being unfair?'
'Let's go for that walk. Seriously. I can't stand here like this.'
She tried not to let him see how much her hand was shaking as she grabbed her keys and jacket and locked the house. It was a still, chilly evening, and their breath began to steam at once, even though it wasn't yet fully dark. Jo hadn't brought a hat or gloves, but jacket pockets and an upturned collar dealt adequately with the problem.
'I hate the timing on this,' Rip said, once their feet had established a rhythm. In Jo's quiet street, they could walk on the road and only occasionally needed to veer to the kerb to avoid a passing car. He hadn't answered the fairness question.
'You mean you wish she'd done this two weeks ago,' Jo said, 'before there was any question of...of something between you and me.'
'That, or the opposite. Months from now when you and I would have had more time.'
Months?
He was expecting to need months to work out how he felt about her?
Somehow that idea struck Jo like a slap in the face, stinging and brutal, and she realised she didn't need months, or days, or hours. She didn't need another second. She loved him, was in love with him, wanted him, needed him. If she sat down with pen and paper, she could probably write a list of all the reasons why, and all the reasons would make sense, but the reasons weren't what counted.
What counted was simply the overwhelming feel of it in her heart, the rightness of it, and the way her heart had already started to kind of backdate it, so that she could think of things he'd said or done months ago and they instantly became part of the new way she saw him and felt about him—the way he clearly didn't yet feel about her.
Didn't yet?
Or never would?
'But as it is,' he was saying, 'we're stuck in this limbo. Jo, it's only a year since I would have done almost anything to save my marriage. I believe in marriage as an idea, and I believed in what Tara and I had. I went into it with heart and faith and I hated that it failed. And it's only been for the past month or two that I've felt remotely ready to move forward.'
'You have to move forward, though, don't you?' she said, trying to keep her aching heart out of the equation, so that any advice or opinion she gave him would be fair.
I don't want to be fair, said her heart. I want to reach out and grab.
'Even if it's with Tara,' she went on, 'you have to go forward, put the relationship on a new footing. I don't believe that human beings can just go back and start from some arbitrary point where their lives diverged onto the wrong track. We're not freight trains in a shunting yard.'
'That's true. You're right. It would be a new beginning, not a going back. We'd have a lot to talk about, and a lot to work out.'
'A lot to forgive, on your side,' Jo couldn't help saying.
Low blow or act of friendship, to remind him about the other man in Tara's life?
'That, too,' he agreed, his reaction too neutral.
Jo wanted to see him get emotional.
Angry or passionate or sad.
She didn't care which, just something...something for her to grab onto and hold.
'She wanted to talk tonight,' he went on. 'To get it settled and decided, the way people settle on new bathroom tiles. I told her we couldn't do that. We never could have done that.' He shook his head.
'So you'll need some time?'
'Yes. Which is so unfair to you.'
'Tara can't be expected to be fair to me. She doesn't know about me...'
'Unfair of me, I meant.'
'If there's anything to know,' she added.
'What?' he said sharply.
She took a deep breath and a quick look sideways. His face was set in serious lines, emphasising the smooth square cut of his profile with its straight nose and high forehead and strong jaw.
'Is there anything for Tara to know, Rip?' she asked.
'About you and me? We've only just started this. We haven't really started it. We've kissed each other. Once.'
'Twice.'
She didn't remind him that the first one had been just a test. They weren't teasing each other now. 'We haven't slept together,' she pointed out. 'I can just...step away... and—'
'No!'
The vehement word startled them both. They'd reached a side street that ended against the side of the hill, where there were no houses. He stopped walking dead in the centre of the turn-around and pulled on her shoulder, until they were face to face, standing very close.
He went on in a softer, more reasonable tone, 'Is that what you think I'm asking you to do? Step away? No!'
'Then tell me what you are asking, can you, please?' She brushed her knuckles along his jaw, stroked his neck, brought her hand to rest on his shoulder. Looking up into his face, she loved everything she saw, and ached for everything she read in his feelings. 'To wait while you choose? To help you choose? Sell myself? Hey, choose me, Rip! Look at my assets!'
He made a strangled sound of disgust. 'I suppose that's how it sounds, isn't it?'
'A bit.'
'That's not how it feels.'
'Tell me how it feels, and how you feel. I mean, we have to do that, or it's hopeless. I don't mind what you say, I just want honesty, even if it doesn't make sense.'
'Honesty? OK, then, let's try. I want you so much, I'm on fire, Jo. I can't sleep. Put your hand on my heart and I swear you'll feel it beating.'
He didn't wait for her to try it, but grabbed her hand from his shoulder and flattened it over his chest, his own palm pressing on top. Was that his heart she felt, or the beat of her own pulses?
'Half the night, I think about you,' he said. 'About your body, wondering how in hell it took me so long to see how beautiful you are, wondering how you'd feel with your legs wrapped around me, how you'd sound when you came in my arms.'
'Oh, Rip...'
'Right now I feel as if I'd turn my back on any chance of renewing my marriage just to find out what we're like together, even if it was for just one night. One hour! If we're as good as I think we'd be, if I could make you...' He stopped.
'Make me what?' she whispered, her mouth close to his, her whole body pressed against him.
'Cry like a baby. Moan and twist and— That's what I'm thinking about. It's not what I should be thinking about. I should be thinking rationally about my whole future, or honourably about what's best for you, but I can't.'
She took a shuddery breath. 'Then don't. I don't mind. I love the idea that you want me so much.'
'Yeah?'
'Yeah, I do, since we're being honest And...again...since we're being honest, I want you that much, too.'
'Oh, hell,' he muttered. 'Then let's go to bed right now.'
CHAPTER SEVEN
They barely talked as they walked back to her place. Rip seemed too overwhelmed by what they'd just said to each other, and that had to be good, didn't it? Jo was overwhelmed herself.
No man had ever spoken that way to her, declared the intensity of his desire for her in such graphic, heartfelt language. The word 'love' had not been mentioned, but she hadn't expected that. Not tonight. Not even if Tara hadn't been waiting at his place.
Jo had to consider Tara, though.
Should I not sleep with him because she's here?
They're divorced.
Will I feel better later on, if they go back to their marriage, and I haven't slept with him?
Or will I feel worse?
As if there's some a
ction I could have taken to tip the balance in my favour and I didn't have the courage?
Is that turning the whole thing into a contest?
She hated the idea of being in competition with Tara for Ripley Taylor's heart, hated the idea of playing this like a game in which he would be her prize if she did everything right, and Tara's prize if she didn't.
It's not like that, said her heart, but she didn't know if her heart was the thing she should trust. Hearts were too often in cahoots with hormones, and she wasn't convinced that hormones could be trusted at all.
They'd begun walking up the path to Jo's front door before Rip said anything, and even then it wasn't a fluent speech. 'Still OK?'
'Yes.'
'Are we rushing this?'
'Yes, but I don't care. Well, no, on second thoughts, we're not rushing it. We've known each other for five years, Rip. How could we be rushing?'
'You know what I mean.'
'But I think what I mean counts, too. We know so much about each other. There's safety in that.'
'And a risk also.'
'Tell me how you see it.'
'That we're rocking a very seaworthy boat.'
'So you've changed your mind?'
He swore, then he laughed. 'No, Jo, I have most definitely not changed my mind.'
She knew it, but she'd been prepared to test him a little. She liked the hot confidence of his answer. Stopping to unlock her front door, she looked up at him over her shoulder and smiled, and he smiled back and they got locked in the smiles and couldn't look away for, oh, a minute at least. Finally she focused on the door again.
Standing just behind her, Rip wrapped his arms around her, letting his hands rest just beneath her breasts. 'Got the wrong key?'
'No...'
'Can't find the slot? Let me help... Is this helping?'
'Kissing my neck?'
'And touching your breasts.'
'Not exactly, but please don't let that stop you.'
'I won't.'
She turned the key in the lock and let the door swing open, but didn't take a step forward. Instead, she leaned back against him, wanting to feel the strength and heat of his body against her back, enjoying the new rights they'd given each other over each other's space.
I can do this, Rip, because I know how much you want me, and because I've told you that I feel the same.
'Cold?' he asked. He slid his hands inside her jacket and cupped her breasts through her sweater and bra. Even with the layers of fabric in between, he must feel how hard and tight her nipples had grown.
'Just cold enough to love how warm you feel.'
'And hungry?'
'Not...uh...thinking about that right now.'
'So what are we waiting for?'
'Just taking it slow.'
'Nope. We're not.' She didn't see it coming. He scooped her up in his arms and carried her into the front hall. Across the threshold, in fact. She thought about that, but refused to consider it significant. 'I don't want to take it slow,' he said. 'I just want to take you. Upstairs. Now.'
He kicked the front door shut behind him, refused to put her down, carried her directly up the stairs towards her bedroom. She wound her arms tighter around his neck, resting them against the bulk of his shoulders, loving the sight of his face so close.
She discovered things she'd never noticed about him before, and learned them by heart—a tiny sliver of white scar just above one corner of his mouth, the fact that one side of his upper lip was just a fraction fuller than the other, the patterns of dark and light that made his irises such an unusual shade of brown.
He saw the way she was watching his mouth and he read it as an invitation. Jo had no problem with that interpretation. His kiss was deep and hungry and sweetly insistent, and she opened to him and kissed him back with her whole soul. That was how it felt—both giving and taking with everything she had.
'You kiss like a peach,' he whispered, not stopping.
'Do peaches kiss?' She stroked his hair and his jaw and his neck.
'Like eating a juicy peach, so warm. And soft. And sweet. It's hard to stop.'
'So why are you stopping?'
'Just to put you down.'
In the half-dark, he laid her on the bed, pulled off his jacket then in one fluid ripple his sweater and T-shirt. He knew she was watching every movement, and when he emerged from the tangle of fabric he was grinning.
'Keep going, Dr Taylor,' she said.
'Turn around?'
'Then turn back again. I want the full three-sixty-degree view.'
They laughed at each other, at themselves. At everything, really. Just at how good this felt, how unexpected and different and totally from left field, and yet so right. He flicked his belt open, but he had his back to her now, so she could only hear, not see. The back view was pretty spectacular. Long, strong legs, two tight, rounded wads of muscle, a rippling spine, shoulders like cross beams.
He kept going with the slow pivot she'd asked him for, and a few seconds later there he was, his body glorious and proud and announcing its readiness. She sat up and lifted her hands to her own clothing, but he slid onto the bed beside her and whispered, 'No. Let me.'
He took it so slowly that she almost begged him to stop and let her finish, get the job done faster, but when his fingers began to touch skin instead of fabric, deliberately teasing her with brushstrokes of exquisite sensation, she bit down on her lower lip and didn't speak.
Slow was good.
Slow could keep going as long as Ripley wanted it to.
'There,' he finally said. 'You said something to me about slow earlier.'
'You said you didn't want to.'
'Changed my mind.'
'All done, then?'
'With that part.'
'So what's next?'
'Do you need to ask?' He told her anyway, dropping his voice low and kissing her ear as he described in uncompromising detail what he planned to do to her. She'd never imagined that mere words could set her on fire that way, especially not words like the ones he'd used—short, blunt ones, full of hard sounds.
Maybe it was the need behind the words.
And the love behind the need.
She loved him desperately as she listened to him, her heart and her body were overflowing and she could easily have cried. Her belly ached and clenched, her skin tingled, her pulses throbbed and she knew how swollen and ready she would feel to him the moment he touched her.
'Please!' she said.
'Now?'
'Mmm. Oh, yes.'
'Or do you still want it slow?'
'You're teasing me!' The words came out on a wail.
He laughed. 'All the way. Because I can tell you like it...'
'I love it.'
'Do you love this...?'
She could only gasp in answer, and anchor his head in place with her splayed hand. When he entered her—how long after this first most intimate contact, she had no idea— she was so ready she was practically crying. He'd wanted that, she dimly remembered. Or he'd threatened her with it. 'I'll make you cry like a baby.'
Or groan like an animal.
Both.
Oh, both.
Oh, yes.
He was lost now, too. She could feel it in the way he moved, and in the fractured rhythm of his breathing. Clinging to him, she couldn't control the sounds that escaped her, and didn't want to. Her body clenched around him in repeated rippling waves, and in a darkened room everything suddenly seemed even darker. Sight wasn't relevant any more, or hearing, only touch and pressure and taste.
When he surged into her, she bit into his shoulder, sheathing the bite with her swollen mouth but unable to mute her own cries. It seemed so long before they finally lay still, she didn't know or care how long, only that on this new side of that dark, rippling space, everything was different.
She'd loved him before, but somehow it was sealed in place now, making her exultant and giving and vulnerable all at the same time. She wanted to kiss
him and murmur silly things, protect him like a child, let him know exactly how much of her heart he held in his hands.
All of it, Rip. All of it.
'May I kiss you?' she whispered.
He laughed. 'You need to ask?'
'Might be interrupting something. Your sleep.'
'I'm not asleep. Just thinking...dreaming.'
'But not asleep.'
'Nope. Thinking more than dreaming, I guess.'
She wanted to say 'I love you' so much. So much. Just three little words. They filled her chest like a balloon of air and hurt her lungs with their need to escape, but she swallowed them back.
I'm not going to lay that on him. I'm not going to open myself up quite that much. Not yet. Not when Tara's under his roof tonight.
'Nice thoughts?' she said instead. Her voice scratched in her throat.
'Very.'
'You're not going to stay, though, are you?'
'No, I'm not. I can't. Not tonight. Thanks for understanding.'
What makes you think I understand?
And are you saying that understanding is a good thing?
She wanted to yell the words at him. Ripley Taylor, I only understand because you've spelled it out so that it's staring me in the face. I only understand because I've known you before the divorce and all through it and in that long aftermath last year. I don't want there to be this kind of problem between us that I have to 'understand'.
I don't want problems at all. / just want us to love each other, and have a chance to grow into the new way we're going to be with each other from now on.
But she knew that couldn't happen until he and Tara were finished with each other, and if it turned out to be not an end between them but a new beginning... Sometimes a man—or a woman, for that matter—didn't know what he wanted until he'd tried out both options.
Her heart lurched, giving her a sick feeling in her stomach. Love always contained an element of risk. Coming here to take care of Mamie, she'd grown to love her grandmother even more than she had before, but she'd taken that risk and lived through the sadness of Mamie's death. The Graftons loved Genie, who was already ten years old— halfway through her life even in a best-case scenario. You simply couldn't love without taking the risk of loss.