“Okay. Sorry. I should have just asked what the problem was. Is it some health issue?”
“No.” She looked horrified. “I’m clean.”
“Then what? You gave me every reason to think—” He tightened his lips. He was upset, but so was she. He needed to think about something more than the erection that would probably never go down. “Just talk to me, Allie. Tell me what’s going on.”
“I’m leaving tomorrow. I have a job interview in the afternoon.”
“Okay.” Luckily—since the testosterone-controlled part of him immediately wanted to ask what the hell that had to do with not having sex—his gentler side gained control of his speech. “That’s great. What’s the position?”
“Pretty much what I’ve been doing.” She made a face. “But it’s a good company. And it’s a job.”
He waited, stunned that they were having this discussion right now, hoping it was not due to more female logic he wouldn’t understand. “Congratulations.”
“So...I’ll be back right before you leave. We’ll barely see each other again.”
He touched her face and smoothed her worried brow, vastly relieved. She didn’t want just one night with him. He didn’t want that, either. “I was already planning to come back up next weekend. We’ll see each other again.”
“Oh.”
His relief faded, undone by her lack of enthusiasm. “That’s a bad thing?”
“No. No.” She pulled back, clearly exasperated. “I’m messing this up.”
“Just say it. Whatever it is. You’re not that interested, you’re seeing someone, you’re married, you’re gay, you’re into fish, you’re into gay fish—”
“Stop!” She was giggling now, looking up at him through her Egyptian makeup, the black sequined headdress glittering. A wave of passion and tenderness swept over him. Yes, too much too soon, but he couldn’t help himself.
He pulled off her headdress and dived his hands into her hair, loosening the pins, making them scatter. Her hair tumbled down and he brought her face to his. “We don’t have to make love, Allie. But I want to understand. If it’s not that we’d only have one night, what is it?”
“I just...” She inhaled and exhaled quickly, eyes down. “Panicked. I’m not Josephine. I’m...this is turning into something I didn’t expect.”
“Like...there’s emotion involved?”
She folded her arms across her chest. “You think Cleopatra admits to that kind of vulnerability?”
“Hmm.” A slow grin spread his mouth. “I don’t want to feel anything for you, either.”
“Well, good. That’s two of us.”
“So.” He took her shoulders gently. “Now there’s no problem. Neither of us wants to feel anything, so we just won’t. It’s all good.”
“You―” she couldn’t suppress another giggle, poking him accusingly in the chest “―are just trying to get back into my loincloth.”
“I am definitely trying to get back into your loincloth.”
She huffed in pretend outrage and turned her back on him. “This is why I surround myself with eunuchs.”
Laughing, he wrapped his arms around her and held her close. Very close. His cock recognized heaven when it felt it and rose to attention. “Ah, but my darling Cleo, those eunuchs don’t have—”
“I know what eunuchs don’t have.”
He laughed again, giddy and light, then kissed her shoulder as he had before, up her neck, to her jaw. She turned her head to meet his mouth, and their kisses, gentle and searching at first, became hotter, more passionate, until they were both breathless again.
“Allie...?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“No feelings involved.”
“No feelings.”
He rolled on the condom, pulled her hips gently toward him, applying pressure to her upper back so she bent forward. Then he reached around to make sure she was really ready for him.
“Oh,” Allie whispered. She held still while he rubbed her clitoris. Then her head bent, her hips circled slightly and she whimpered. “That’s good.”
“Yes-s-s.” He slid a finger inside her. She was tight and hot; he was starved for her. Two fingers. She squeezed him even tighter. “Do you like that?”
“Yes.” She panted the answer. “More.”
Somehow he kept from plunging into her to find his own relief. He kept his fingers working, exploring, stroking, lingering on her clitoris, and then backing off. Her gasps became louder. She flung her head back and gave a short cry, then another.
He gave in, spread her wide and thrust home, feeling her coming around him almost immediately. It didn’t take much longer for him. Her muscles squeezing him, the sight of her sequin-clad ass swaying forward and back as he pumped her sent him shooting over the edge, no brakes, nothing holding him.
He came down gently, suddenly aware of the damp night and a few cooling drops of rain beginning to fall. He helped Allie stand, wrapped his arms around her and held her trembling body close, pressing his cheek to her temple, feeling his heartbeat gradually slowing, watching the rain coming toward them across the lake, aware of her warmth and her fresh scent.
And he suddenly understood why Allie hadn’t wanted to make love tonight. And why he’d been so restless and nervous today.
No feelings? Ha. More like nothing but feelings. She was right to be afraid. This was supposed to be a hot fling: a fun and sexy chance for Allie to act out some fantasies and for him to escape his normal life, which lately seemed to be channeling him into the sort of narrow, uncreative existence he’d always dreaded.
But his feelings for Allie had evolved to where avoiding the pain of losing her felt like a life-or-death situation.
Jonas closed his eyes, chuckling silently without humor.
For the first time, he was beginning to understand Erik.
10
“WHAT IS THE appropriate after-dinner drink for revealing secrets?” Erik stood outside his parents’ cabinet, which held more bottles than Sandra’s liquor store. “Ever tried Italian amaro?”
Sandra shook her head, tipsy after one too many Tsingtao beers with dinner. Or maybe two too many. “No, but I’ve heard it’s when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie.”
“‘That’s amore.’ And we are both way too funny.”
“True.”
They’d just finished a meal of takeout Chinese, which Erik had ordered from his favorite place in Glens Falls―not bad, even a city snob like her had to admit. Now they were approaching the second part of the evening, when Sandra’s plan was being put into effect.
She was weirdly anxious, not quite able to get her bearings. Thinking alcohol might relax her, she’d overindulged.
It hadn’t worked. And she was very annoyed, with herself and with the circumstances. This evening should be easy and pure fun. Erik would confess something that mattered to him, she’d hear it, tell him something that didn’t particularly matter to her, and then they’d make out.
Not exactly earthshaking. Not exactly life-changing. So why couldn’t she escape the feeling that she was somehow in up to her neck?
Allie had left that morning for her interview in New York. Jonas had left to go back to Boston soon after. He’d be taking his vacation day another time—when Allie was free to join him. They seemed right together, and she was happy for Jonas. Her jealousy had completely subsided, partly because Erik...well, Erik was fun. Really fun. Jonas had been fun in a more subdued way. She felt safe with him, knowing she could depend on him for anything, that he was a rock-solid kind of guy. Eventually she might have gotten bored.
But Erik was exciting. A bit dangerous. Not because he had a cruel bone in his body from what she could tell, more puppy than pit bull, but because if they made any kind of committed relationship out of this, she’d have to work to keep him. That uncertainty would make some women crazy, but Sandra was pretty sure she needed that excitement to stay interested herself.
Her husband, Edwin, had been
controlling, jealous and obsessed with her. Jake, her boyfriend after that, had been the same. Erik seemed to accept her and her sexuality as thrilling, not threatening. They were turning out to have a lot in common.
“This is Amaro CioCiaro, an orange-flavored liqueur, slightly bitter.” He pulled out the cork and poured two generous measures into tiny curving glasses that looked as though they’d shatter if you sneezed on them. “Amaro means ‘bitter’ in Italian. But because it’s a liqueur, the bitterness is balanced by a sweetness.”
“Sounds delicious, Professor Boozy.”
“It is.” He handed her a glass, his eyes warm. “And so are you.”
“Well, thank you.” She knew better than to melt under what was probably reflex charm, but it was a nice compliment. She’d worn a red clingy top that wasn’t particularly revealing, but she knew the shade set off her dark coloring well. “You’re looking quite edible yourself.”
He was wearing a blue-and-white Indonesian print shirt, cheerful and summery but of course in exquisite taste, over khaki shorts. His arms and legs were muscular, as if he worked on his body more than his casual I’m-so-lazy attitude would lead one to think.
She sipped the drink, finding it intensely flavored, a fascinating combination of bitter and sweet.
“Like it?”
“I do.” She walked up to him and put a hand on his chest, her suspicions confirmed by well-shaped pectoral muscles. “Hey, what’s this? I’m thinking gym membership.”
He blinked, in the middle of a sip of amaro, and then recovered. “You are, huh?”
“Am I right?”
“If I say yes, does that count as telling you a secret?”
“Not in a million years.”
“Yes.” He took her hand and led her out on the house’s screened-in porch, where he seated her on an upholstered bench swing and plunked down next to her. Close.
So. They’d start now. She was still a bit...off, and she couldn’t quite figure out why, but over her lifetime she’d become an expert at faking confidence she didn’t feel. Came in handy quite often, actually.
“Well, Erik.” She lifted her legs and swung them across his lap, arranging herself comfortably against the side cushion on the swing. “Tell me everything.”
“Okay, then. Everything coming up.” He took another sip, put his glass down and laid his hands on her bare shins, caressing them up and down, almost absently. “Starting with tonight’s secret, Secret Number One.”
“I’m ready.”
“When I was a young teenager, I was bored here. My parents were pretty strict. Jonas hung out with a few kids close to his age, mostly older. I was the little brother they didn’t want around.”
“Ouch.” She could picture him, maybe a little chubby, hiding his hurt at being left out.
“Aw, it was just basic kid stuff.” He picked up her leg and started a gentle massage of the muscles in her calf. “But I was lonely and pissed off about it. There was a general store not too far from here, about a mile down the road, where the gas station and convenience store are now. It was old-school. You could buy nonperishable groceries, raincoats, fishing gear, hardware items, a few toys, stuff like that. There was a great assortment of candy up in the front next to the register, and behind it were shelves with magazines and personal pharmacy stuff.
“The owner had a son about my age. I hated this kid for no reason except he was skinny and weird-looking and had to spend his summer working in his father’s store.”
“Perfect anger target for that summer.”
“A couple of summers.” He shook his head, picked up her other leg and continued his massage.
“Hey, Erik?” She trailed her fingers down his arm. “Can I hire you to come home with me and do that every night?”
He gave her a slow smile. “Absolutely.”
“Good.” She waved at him to continue before she started going soft on him. “Now go on.”
“What, that’s not enough? My hidden hatred for the poor blameless angel of a child?”
“Nope.” She folded her arms across her chest and regarded him sternly. “There’s got to be serious dirt dug up here.”
“There will be.” His fingers stopped massaging and lay still. She had a feeling he didn’t realize how hard he was squeezing her leg. “I figured out that at lunchtime the kid was in there alone. Alan, his name was. I’d ride my bike over whenever I could get away. Must have been a couple times a week. I’d wait until he was with a customer somewhere in the store, or I’d ask him about something behind the shelf. Then I’d steal candy.”
“Oh, the ultimate irony—a rich-kid shoplifter.”
He nodded, looking adorably contrite. “It gets worse.”
“Mmm, goody.”
He relaxed his grip, bent her leg and began massaging her foot. She closed her eyes and groaned in pleasure. Immediately, the massage stopped. Sandra opened her eyes to find Erik looking at her with such feral intensity she nearly gasped.
“Damn it, Sandra, you are so hot, sometimes it’s all I can do not to attack you. I’ve never felt this way about anyone.”
For a second, she sat there stunned by the passion in his outburst.
That makes two of us.
“Well.” She tried for a cocky unconcerned tone and failed utterly, struggled to sit up higher, as if her position had interfered with her voice. “You know what you have to do to make that possible.”
“Yes.” He turned back to her foot, leaving her somewhat shell-shocked. How many men had told her they wanted her? Dozens. She was well aware of the vibe she put out, but she also knew how to handle herself and had always felt well in control of the men and of her own actions and emotions. Not so much now. She didn’t like it.
“Keep talking.”
“This went on for two summers. Then I grew up some and realized Alan’s dad was probably just making it financially and that I’d been a complete shit.”
“No argument there.”
“The next summer, the store wasn’t there anymore. I was probably fifteen, sixteen by then. So I did some digging and found out where this kid lived, so I could give him and his dad back the money for what I stole. And then some.”
“Ooh, noble child.” She was more caught up in the idea of the struggling teenage Erik than she wanted to admit. “What happened?”
“I went to his house, in this sort of run-down neighborhood. Their place wasn’t so great, either. I was about to go up and knock, when the kid came out. He had a girl with him, she was pretty, and they were laughing. Then his dad came out and told them to go have a great time, he passed his kid some cash and they headed for a car at the curb not far from where I was standing with a bunch of twenties in my pocket.”
“And...?”
Erik turned and sent her a look of world-weary amusement. “And I turned chickenshit and went home.”
“Oh, no!” Sandra nearly choked on her last sip of amaro. She put the glass down. “No, no, that’s not how it goes. You give them the money and then the kid says, ‘Oh, this is the exact amount I still need for the life-saving operation on my darling mama.’”
“Nope. I chickened out.”
“So, then.” She beckoned, prompting the rest of the story. “Years later, you found him again and sent an anonymous check?”
“Nope.”
“At least tell me you’ve felt guilty all these years.”
He looked pensive. “Not really. It was probably twenty-five bucks’ worth. They survived.”
She threw up her hands. “Not even penitent!”
“He became a corporate lawyer and probably bilked hundreds of people out of much more than I ever did.”
“Erik! That’s not the point.”
He laughed, squeezing her bare foot, lifting it to his lips for a kiss. “I’m kidding, my darling Sandra, though he did become a successful lawyer. I did go back to his house, and I did my penance. I told Alan I’d been stealing from the store. He got this look of disdain on his face. I’ll neve
r forget it. Then it got worse.”
“Oh, no.” She was past being flip, genuinely caring about what happened.
“Because then he said, ‘I know. We had a mirror behind the counter. Every day I put back whatever you stole from my own pay.’ I was flabbergasted. So I asked the kid why the hell he’d cover for me. He said his dad didn’t need any more stress. That the last jerk rich kid they accused got off clean and then his parents sued the kid’s father. He said he would have gotten together boys his age to beat the crap out of me but his religion prohibited that kind of violence.”
“Argh!” Sandra clutched her chest. “Drive a blade through your heart.”
“No kidding.” Erik’s voice was choked. “I never felt like such a jerk in my life. I’d like to say it changed me. It should have...I don’t know, made me see the world in a different light or something. You know, how it works on TV.”
“Hey.” His honesty touched her. She knew what it was like to want to change and not be able to. “We’re all a lot more complicated than that, Erik.”
“True.”
“And I bet you never stole again.”
“No.”
“So that was something.”
He nodded and drained his drink as if the emotional effort had cost him, probably not realizing it had cost her, too. “You want some more?”
“No. Thanks.”
“Okay.” He put his empty glass under the swing, then straightened and patted her on the knee. “Now it’s your turn.”
She changed positions, wondering how to start, how to tell. Decided to blurt it out and get it over with. “I’m not as good a storyteller as you are. My secret is that my parents didn’t want children. And they never really bothered to hide that I was a mistake and a massive inconvenience to them.” She laughed uneasily. “Sordid, but there you are.”
Erik narrowed his eyes. “That doesn’t count.”
“What?” She blinked at him. “Why not?”
“Because you just said it, as if you were telling me what you had for lunch.”
Sandra bristled. “What, I’m supposed to bleed all over?”
“Yes. That’s what makes it a secret.”
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