by Julie Cohen
She hesitated.
‘And before you make some crack about me having just come out of the woods and being desperate for any woman, let me remind you that I’m in the biggest city in America and I’ve just said no to a woman and a man. It’s you I want.’
She’d dreamed about these words. She looked into his dark eyes, trying to judge if he was telling the truth.
It hadn’t been the truth before, not on their first night together. But maybe something had changed. She’d wanted Nick instantly, but maybe his attraction for her had come later. Grown. Did that make it less genuine, or more?
‘I kept on falling off the box during your class because I was concentrating so hard on not watching your body because I knew it would turn me on. And these shorts don’t conceal much.’
She looked down, and all the air rushed out of her lungs.
His shorts didn’t conceal anything. His erection tented the front, straining the material in a long, thick line. She could easily imagine its length, its girth, how it would feel in her hands, stone in velvet skin, hot and alive.
Screw her doubts about why he wanted her. He did. And she wanted him, more than she could remember wanting anything in a very long time.
Zoe uncurled her hands and lifted them to his chest. She touched the damp material of his T-shirt and felt the firmness of his muscles underneath. It seemed as if she’d looked at him a million times, wanting to touch him, although some of those times must have been in dreams. He felt better than she could have possibly imagined. The solid curve of his collar-bone, his pecs, his nipples just tangible through the T-shirt. The beating of his heart. The sound of his breathing, how it caught in his throat as her hands trailed down his front, over his hard abs, and then underneath his shirt to touch his skin.
She wanted to savour touching his stomach, the bare, warm skin, the soft hair around his navel, but Nick grasped her in his arms and pulled her closer, his mouth meeting hers again. This kiss didn’t start gentle. This kiss started carnal, and Nick’s hands were everywhere—her hips, her waist, her back, in her hair, one suddenly and wonderfully on her breast. Zoe dug her fingertips into Nick’s skin and arched closer to him. His erection pressed hard against her belly and she heard him groan.
‘Zoe, you are so sexy,’ he muttered roughly into her mouth and she let out a voiceless sigh of pleasure in return as he cupped his hand around her breast and stroked her nipple with his thumb. His big, strong body leaned forward, pinning her against the mirrored wall, the two of them touching from head to toe.
His mouth left hers and Zoe leaned her head back against the wall as he dropped hot kisses over her face and throat. She felt his tongue tasting her skin, and shuddered.
‘You’re beautiful,’ he murmured, and he was so ardent and turned on and he filled her world so much that she believed him. She was carried away into his emotions, into his view of things.
She felt beautiful. It was a glow, a lift, a rush of desire that was stronger and more immediate than any feeling she’d ever had before.
Zoe’s hands stopped moving on Nick’s skin as she realised it was also the most dangerous. She loved this feeling. She’d been craving it for far too long.
If she made love with this man, she would be his. She would belong to him, body and soul.
Zoe pulled her hands from underneath Nick’s T-shirt and put them on his shoulders. Then she pushed him away.
‘Stop,’ she panted, and wasn’t at all surprised that this was the moment her voice chose to come back.
The moment she’d decided to mess everything up.
Nick didn’t step away; she was strong, but he was solid and a lot stronger. His body still pressed against hers, every breath going through her, too. But he raised his head and looked into her face.
‘Zoe?’ His pupils were dilated, his brows drawn together in concern, his mouth moist and beautiful. She wanted to take his face between her palms, let the stubble tickle her, and kiss him.
Instead she pushed again. ‘Nick, cut it out.’ Her voice was rough and croaky.
He took his hand away from her breast and straightened, steadying her with the other hand but not touching her otherwise. Typical white knight, obeying her requests, she thought, while her body ached to have him back again.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.
‘I—’ I don’t want to fall in love with you. She couldn’t say that. ‘Didn’t you just tell those two people that you were leaving soon?’
‘Yeah, but that was because I wasn’t interested in them. I am interested in you.’
‘But you’re still leaving.’
The concern in his eyes hardened a little, and Zoe saw it. The chink in his shining armour. How she could push him away so he’d really go.
‘I mean, come on, Nick, you hate New York. You’re not staying around here any longer than you have to, right?’
He looked as if he wanted to say something; he opened his mouth. But then he closed it again, his expression unsure, and Zoe pressed forward, using the chink to make herself safe.
‘Isn’t that what you hate about your father?’ she said. ‘The fact that he left?’
Nick stepped back from her. His eyes narrowed and he stood tall, his jaw clenched, his fists bunched.
‘If that’s how you feel I’ll go back with you to the apartment and pack my stuff,’ he said.
On his way to the door he grabbed the paper cup he’d been drinking from and flung it into the garbage can so hard it made a clang.
Zoe glanced at the mirror on her way out. The outline of her body, pressed in steam against the glass, pressed there by Nick, was just fading away.
Nicholas Giroux furious was like a powerful storm cloud, waiting to break. It was the dark opposite of his passion.
As they neared the apartment door Zoe remembered the first time she’d seen him, standing on this spot towering with rage against his missing father. That anger was directed at her now. She could feel it, a heat that was seductive, somehow, because it was so immediate and strong.
And because it was totally justified. She’d just said something that was, in his world, unforgivable. Because she’d panicked.
But his anger was safer than his passion. She reminded herself of that as she opened the door for him and watched him go straight into the small guest room to pack his bag. Knowing him, everything was packed away already; the man was scrupulously tidy about not leaving traces of himself everywhere.
She wondered if it had been trained into him by his profession, or whether it was something deeper than that, something that came from being abandoned as a kid. An apology to the world for being unhappy, wanting more than he had, an effort to keep everything where it belonged, even if that everything couldn’t include his father.
The thought twisted her stomach in pain.
I’m sorry, she thought at him.
‘You going to take that pigeon with you, too?’ she said, leaning against the doorway into the guest room, pretending she didn’t care that he was going, or that she had hurt him.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said grimly. ‘I’ll take him away. You won’t be forced to have any responsibility or care about anything once I’m gone.’
It was so close to what she’d been thinking that her eyes narrowed.
‘Tell me about this whole responsibility thing, Nick. I’m genuinely interested. You’ve come down to New York to rub your father’s neglected duties in his face, and you thought while you were at it that you’d have a little fun sex with me? Just to show what an upright, caring guy you are?’
He straightened from packing his bag. ‘At first I decided not to touch you, Zoe,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t have flings or one-night stands. I’ve stayed away from women for a long time because my job takes me away from people for weeks on end. I won’t commit and then leave somebody. I won’t.’
The vehemence in his voice burnt her heart.
‘But I wanted you,’ he continued, his voice still quiet, but rough with ho
nesty. ‘If it were just about your body, I could’ve kept on resisting it. But it’s not. You can deny it all you want, but there’s something inside you that wants human contact more than anything else. It’s so attractive to me that I can’t stand it.’
Zoe nearly staggered backwards.
Oh, God, she’d been right. He knew her, he saw her already.
She forced herself to put on a sceptical smile, to raise her eyebrows.
‘They teach you mind-reading along with bird first-aid at ranger school, Boy Scout?’
He shoved his toiletry bag into his backpack, more roughly then necessary, and then zipped the pack up with short, quick tugs.
‘I shouldn’t have touched you. I’m going away and I can’t offer you anything. But I am not like my father, Zoe.’ He said the words slowly, holding her gaze with his own. ‘I’m not.’
Zoe knew all about denial. She recognised it like an old, half-unwelcome friend. She knew how it made you too vehement, how it made you insist too much because you wanted to convince yourself, because if you didn’t face the truth, if you didn’t admit that you cared, life was easier.
Recognising it in Nick made her stomach twist even more, with the realisation of just how much she did care. About him. And how much she didn’t want him to go away.
So of course she chose her next words to drive him away even faster.
‘Sure, you’re not like him,’ she said. ‘You take care of things. You save lost causes. You do everything you can do to show that you’re not like your father at all. So why do you need to prove it, Nick? Unless you think that really, down deep, you’re exactly like him?’
Nick’s dark eyes snapped. ‘Let’s talk about your family, Zoe. Because you haven’t met my father, but I’ve met yours, and your mother. They love you, you know. They might not be great at showing it, but they do. And all you do to them is push them away with both hands.’ He swung his pack onto his back. ‘I don’t think you’re one to talk about family.’
We’re arguing about everything except what we feel about each other, she thought. But that was fine. Because she didn’t plan to show him what she felt about him, not in a million years.
‘That’s funny,’ she said, ‘I thought you were all hot on my family not being fair to me. Or maybe that was just an excuse for you, so you’d have some bad guys to defend me from. So you could get rewarded with a grateful kiss.’
‘Zoe, I kissed you because I wanted to. I still want to now, even though you’re doing your best to piss me off.’ He walked to the door of the room, where she still leant against the post, blocking the way through. ‘Are you going to let me through, or do I have to resort to kissing again?’
Him so close brought back full-body memories of him pressed against her in the gym. If she touched him again, within jumping distance of a bed, she wouldn’t stop until both of them were naked and sated.
She stepped aside, and he walked past.
She followed him. She couldn’t help it. It was as if he had attached a string to her guts and was leading her around the apartment like a pathetic little puppy. They went into the living room and he gently picked up the box with the pigeon in it and tucked it underneath his arm. He’d cut some air holes in it, she saw, and wired up a drinking bottle to the side. It was practically the pigeon equivalent of an upper west side Manhattan apartment.
She remembered him searching the apartment for his father. Laughing with her on the couch, sharing pizza.
Don’t go.
She followed him down the hallway to the door, where he stopped.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘Thanks for everything, Zoe. Thanks for trying to help me find my father. Take care of yourself.’
She nodded, unable to look at his face. He lifted his left hand, as if he was going to touch her with it, and then dropped it again. He opened the door and went out.
Yeah. Take care of herself. That was what she did best. That was what she was doing now.
And when the door shut behind him she felt as if her guts were being cut in half and dragged out with him.
She ran to the living room window. It looked out onto the street; she would be able to see him when he emerged from the building. Zoe didn’t think about what the purpose of watching him walk away from her would be. She only knew she wanted one last sight of him.
Her phone in her gym bag, still on her shoulder, buzzed and rang and she groped inside her bag, keeping her gaze on the street below. For a crazy minute she thought maybe Nick was calling her, but then she realised of course she’d never given him her number.
She found her phone and glanced at the screen for the split-test of split seconds before staring at the street again. It was Xenia’s lawyer. She didn’t feel like talking to Xenia’s lawyer, but to be honest she could probably do with some distraction right now. She pressed the answer button and put it to her ear.
‘Hello, Mr Feinberg,’ she said.
The lawyer exchanged pleasantries with her and then started talking about making an appointment to go through Xenia’s estate. Zoe answered automatically, not really listening because the sidewalk below was full of people but none of them, yet, was Nick.
‘I have Brenda here with my appointment book, and it appears I have Thursday afternoon, if that would be convenient for you. Since the estate is substantial, it will probably take most of the afternoon for us to go through the main part of it.’
‘Mmm?’ The words were a buzz, a distraction, and she should probably make an excuse and hang up, but Zoe felt as if this calm voice right here were the only thing that was stopping her from running out the door after Nick.
Suddenly, Nick was below her. From up here he should look smaller, but he didn’t. He looked like everything she’d ever wanted. She sucked in a sharp breath.
‘Miss Drake, are you all right?’
Zoe put one hand on the window-pane and pressed hard against the glass. ‘I’m fine, Mr Feinberg. Please, tell me more. You were saying the estate is complicated?’
She didn’t hear the next few words he said because Nick was walking away from her. She could barely see his head over the bulk of his backpack, but she saw his arm curled around the pigeon box, his legs in his shorts. And of course she’d memorised the way he moved, even after only five days.
‘For example there’s a condominium in the Napa Valley, and a house in Maine, and some property on Cape—’
One word, somehow, bit through the longing and loss.
‘Maine?’ she gasped.
‘Pardon me?’
‘Xenia had a house in Maine?’
‘Yes, in—let me see—’
She couldn’t wait. ‘I’ve got to go,’ she said, and sprinted for the door.
Someone was just getting out of the elevator when she got to it and she darted inside, hitting the button for the ground floor with the side of the hand that still held her cell phone. The doors slid shut and she paced back and forth in the small box, muttering for it to hurry, hurry, but it didn’t, it crawled and creaked and picked up another two passengers going down until finally the door dinged and opened on the ground floor. Zoe slipped past the other passengers and ran through the lobby, out the glass doors and onto the street.
There were too many people in NewYork, too much stuff. Zoe hurtled down the sidewalk, dodging pedestrians, vaulting kerbs. Nick wasn’t in sight, wasn’t in sight, and then, suddenly, between a hot dog cart and a spindly tree, there he was.
‘Nick!’ she cried out and reached out and grabbed his warm, perfect, bare arm.
He stopped. He looked surprised to see her, and, she saw with a thump of her heart, he looked pleased, too.
She had to pause to catch her breath before she spoke, not just because of the running but because of nearly losing him. He stood and waited, perfectly still. He looked as if he could stand and wait for ever.
‘I just got a phone call from Xenia’s lawyer,’ she gasped. He didn’t move, but his eyes opened slightly wider.
‘Xenia had a hous
e in Maine.’
Then, he moved. He tilted his head slightly, thinking. ‘You think she met my father in Maine? I don’t even know that he’s been in Maine at any time in the past sixteen years.’
True. But that hadn’t seemed important when she’d had a reason to talk to Nick again. It didn’t seem all that important now, with his gaze on her, with her lungs full of his scent, with his body close enough to touch.
‘Well, it seems like a big coincidence to me,’ she said.
‘Where in Maine?’
‘Oh. I don’t know. I hung up before he could tell me.’ She remembered she was still holding her cell phone, and thumbed the keys to call the lawyer back.
‘Saul Feinberg.’
‘Mr Feinberg? It’s Zoe Drake again. I’m sorry I hung up before. Listen, could you tell me where Xenia’s house in Maine is?’
‘I can, because I was just looking it up when we last spoke.’ The lawyer sounded amused. ‘It’s in a place called Southwest Harbour.’
‘Southwest Harbour,’ Zoe told Nick, and Nick’s eyebrows went up, and Zoe laughed.
‘Thanks,’ she told the lawyer, and hung up the phone again.
‘Southwest Harbour is on Mount Desert Island,’ Nick said. ‘Where I work.’
‘That’s got to mean something, Nick! This is it, this is the link between my great-aunt and your dad!’ She felt buoyant, excited. After the torture of forcing him away, the joy of talking to him overwhelmed her.
He nodded. ‘Okay. I’ll go to Southwest Harbour and ask some questions. Thanks.’
His tone was final, and although he didn’t turn away, he was about to, and him leaving was what Zoe had planned all along, but just at that moment she couldn’t bear the thought of having her guts snapped again, of looking at his back as he left.
‘We’ll both go,’ she said quickly.
CHAPTER TEN
‘YOU’RE COMING WITH me?’
‘Of course I am. How do you expect to get into my great-aunt’s house without me?’
‘How do you expect to get in your great-aunt’s house yourself?’
Good question. Zoe pressed the redial button on her phone.