by Allison Parr
And at that realization, I somehow managed to draw back and whisper at him in outrage that didn’t quite reach genuine. “Stop! Anyone could walk in here.”
“So what? They’re not going to be scandalized by a kiss.” His brows winged up and his lips curled. “If you want them to be scandalized, I can arrange that...”
I batted his hands away as they started to slip lower on my body and snaked away from him. “Behave.”
“I don’t think so.”
I didn’t want him to. “Friends, remember? And what if Shoshi saw us?”
“Shoshi needs to get rid of the stick up her ass.”
“She’s just trying to look out for me.”
Frustration hardened his jaw. “She doesn’t need to. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Not on purpose. “Abe...”
He silenced me with a hard, deep kiss that left me leaning against the counter, absolutely breathless.
And then Lucy poked her head around the corner, puppy-dog pathetic-ness on her face. “Wine? I need more wine.”
See? I mouthed broadly at Abe.
He laughed and picked up the bottle, lifting it in Lucy’s direction. “On our way.”
* * *
The guests started trickling out around eleven. Shoshi and Abe both stayed late, helping us clean up all the dishes, clearly trying to outlast each other. Abe finally said, “I’m going to win, you know.”
Shoshi glared at him, and then looked to me. “He’s wrong, right?”
I squinched my face up in awkward apology.
She let out an offended huff, and then practically snarled at Abe, “You hurt her, I hurt you, got it?”
“Goodbye, Shoshi.”
When she finally left, I drew Abe into my room and jabbed a finger at him. “You’re cheating.”
He grinned down at me. “Huh?”
“You’re cheating! How was I supposed to pay attention to anyone else, when you were sitting there being all—” Wonderful.
“Are you going to see any of them?”
“I don’t know. Yes.”
He lifted a tendril of my hair and wrapped it around his forefinger. I couldn’t help myself; I leaned my head toward him. He slowly moved to stand behind me, and his fingers dug through my hair and into my scalp. They stroked my head in slow, powerful motions that caused a small groan to escape out of me. I craned my neck so he had better access. He slowly gathered up all my hair and pinned it against my head with one hand, and then his other slid along my arm. My entire body tingled and I tensed with anticipation, not sure what he was doing, not sure what I wanted him to do.
But he just picked up my hand and moved it so I held up my own hair, and then his hands traveled down my neck and landed firmly on my shoulders, kneading and digging away the knots I hadn’t even realized existed. My head drifted forward and my eyes shut. I know I should tell him to stop, but it felt too good. “Urm.”
I could hear the smile in his voice. “You like that?”
His thumbs dug into a pressure point at the top of my shoulder blades, and I gave a small moan of agreement. The hitch of his breath coincided with the pause of his massage. I wiggled my back slightly to indicate he shouldn’t stop.
His hands returned and moved along my back, his thumbs stroking down alongside my spine, his broad hands curving around my rib cage. “You know, this would be a lot easier if you weren’t wearing this dress.”
I laughed breathily and didn’t answer, but oh, I agreed with him. Without that strip of fabric between us, his hands could move more smoothly across my skin. I would welcome the heat, the roughness... I arched my back. “Lower back?”
His voice came out deeper than usual. “Aren’t you supposed to say please?”
I twisted around so I could see him and ended up closer than I’d anticipated. We were nose to nose, and if I stood on tiptoes, I could kiss him. My voice matched his in huskiness. “Please.”
Abraham’s eyes, so close to mine, lit. His hands slid across my body, trailing warmth, until they encircled me and dug slowly into my lower back, working the knots as I faced him, pushing my body closer to him. It felt amazing. Everything felt amazing. This close, the air was filled with his clean musky scent, and my skin tingled, and I started to ache for his touch to be everywhere. My breathing quickened.
Abe groaned deep in his throat, then crushed his lips to mine. I wrapped my legs around him, and then we were on my bed. The move was so fast, so sudden, that I just lay there staring up at him with my heart in my throat.
He paused for a moment, looking down as though he was memorizing everything about me, and then his lips descended to mine. They devoured me, firm and sure. I’d never felt so desired in my life, and my lips parted under his.
My Skype ringtone went off.
I froze like a paralyzed animal, like a teenage boy caught by his mother, like a twentysomething girl caught by her’s. “It’s my mom.”
“Don’t answer it.”
That would have been logical, but I didn’t ascribe to logos in my dealings with my mother; we were strictly pathos. I was strictly pathos with Abe, too, so I scrambled to my feet and said, “Hide!”
He looked around my room in befuddled amusement. “Hmm?”
I realized how dumb that was. “I mean, don’t come into the camera’s path.” I angled my computer toward me and smoothed my hands over my hair. “Do I look okay?” I straightened my shirt.
He grinned wickedly. “Ravishing.”
I dealt him a look, and then clicked the green answer button. “Hi, Mom!”
“Hi, sweetie. Oh, hmm, is your camera working—wait. Wait. There you are!”
I waited for a moment as my mom adjusted her camera. She’d cut her hair since last week; a short, dark bob that looked good on her. “I like your hair.”
She reached for it automatically. “You do? You don’t think it’s too short?”
“No, it looks great. What did Dad say?”
“You know your father. His opinion can’t be trusted.”
This was because my dad adored my mother and thought everything looked great on her. She was right; his opinion couldn’t be trusted. But it was always welcome.
Dad must have been in the same room, or at least nearby, because I heard him shout, “Dad also got a new haircut, but did anyone notice? Nope!”
He walked into the picture. It was possible his balding locks were cropped slightly closer to his head, but difficult to tell. “Wow, Dad, looks great.”
He sat down on the couch next to my mom. “You’re such a suck-up.”
I laughed, and then jerked upright when Abe landed on the bed next to me. In the tiny box in the corner of the screen that showed us what my parents saw, he grinned and waved while my eyes and mouth formed circles. “Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Rosenfeld!”
My parents, drat them, broke out in smiles and waved back. “Abe!” Mom said. “So nice to see you! What are you doing there?” She gave me a meaningful look as though Abe would somehow miss it.
“Just helping Tamar wrap up her party. I made your chocolate babka, Mr. Rosenfeld.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Now who’s the suck-up?”
He spread his hands. “Just being honest.”
“I love that babka.” Dad looked at Mom. “How come you never make me any babka?”
She ignored him. “What party?”
So for a while we took turns telling them about the dinner party. Then they asked Abe about the team and life, and he let them interrogate him with good grace. I watched fondly, but tried not to reveal just how fondly; no way was I going to let myself lose focus and touch his hand or anything.
After Mom gave us all the neighborhood gossip, she asked, “You’ll be home for Thanksgiving?”
“Thanksgiving?” How had it gotten so close to that already? Hadn’t I just moved here, just started at Sports Today? Had that really been almost two months? “Yeah, I think so.”
“Oh, good. Abe, I talked to your mother yesterday a
nd she said you’ll be coming home too. It will be so good to see both of you again. We miss you so much!”
We hung up with goodbyes and love yous all around, and then I closed my laptop just to be on the safe side. I flopped back on the bed. “That could have been a disaster.”
He caressed my neck. “Good thing I didn’t get to the biting yet.”
I laughed. “What, are you a vampire?”
He leaned down and pressed a hot, hard kiss on my lips. “Way sexier.”
I traced the line of his throat with the tip of my nail. “I don’t know, those capes are awful sexy.”
“Only if you’re wearing one, and nothing else.”
I flushed but didn’t look away. “That could be arranged.”
He lowered himself until his mouth touched my throat, and I shivered and arched my neck as he ran kisses along the line of my throat. His teeth nipped at my skin, sparking desire all through me. Thought started dissipating, replaced by pleasure and want for more.
That can be arranged...
Only I wasn’t supposed to be arranged. “Abe, I report on your team!”
His voice gentled. “Is that what’s holding you back?”
And that I was scared. That I didn’t know how to navigate these waters. I mutely shook my head and frowned at the wall.
“Maybe I haven’t told you this.” His voice was light but his gaze was steady. “But I’m going to wait for you. As long as it takes. Even if it means waiting until you don’t report on my team anymore. I’m not going anywhere.”
My gaze swiveled toward him. “And why would you do that?”
Like lightning, he was in front of me, and he’d drawn me up right before him. His hands cupped my head, his fingers spearing through my hair as his gaze raked mine. “Why do you think? You think this just happened? That we just found ourselves lying on your bed by a series of accidents? Tamar, I’ve been trying to get your attention since you showed up here. I like you. I want you. And I’m going to wait until you realize that I’m not going anywhere.”
He made me feel like a storm had swept through me. My voice came out shaky. “You’re making it really hard for me to consider anyone else viable.”
He smiled. “I’m trying to make it impossible.”
I hesitated. My hand found his even though my gaze did not. His fingers closed around mine, warm and steady. I wanted desperately to believe them, that he wasn’t going anywhere. “Abraham...I like you.”
The pause was pregnant with a dozen years of emotion. “I know.”
I swallowed. The heaviness, the tenseness that had followed me the past few weeks as I tried to keep my emotions hemmed in slowly drained away. “Are you going to break my heart?”
“No.”
A strangled laugh broke out of me. “Do you promise?”
“Tamar. Look at me.”
I did, almost reluctantly. He studied me. “What are you afraid of?”
His expression, so earnest, so kind, seared through me. He regarded me with genuine curiosity, with the desire to calm me.
As I tried to formulate my response, the words slowly percolating through my heart and mind to the tip of my tongue, I let my gaze stay on his face. Abraham Krasner. I’d spent more time looking at him than my own reflection. He’d made an indelible mark on my soul, in the shape of his hand on mine, his eyes, his lips. I missed him when he was gone, even in these past years when the ache had become so routine it was nothing more than background noise. He was like a phantom limb. A phantom soul mate.
I took his hand and flipped it over between mine, my thumbs tracing the life and heart lines engraved across his palm. “I am afraid that loving you is like riding a bike. That if I let myself remember how to do it, I’ll fall so hard and fast that I’ll never be able to recover.”
He kissed me hard and swift, like a branding. “I don’t want you to be able to recover.”
I pulled slightly away, though our breath still mingled in the night air. “That’s greedy, Abraham Krasner.”
He smiled. “I’m only greedy because I want all of you, forever.”
“I’m afraid you won’t mean that in two weeks. A month. A year.”
He smiled and caressed my cheek, and the emotion in his eyes was so strong that it astounded me. “Tamar—I will. Trust me. I will.”
He spoke with such certainty. I swallowed. “Okay. But Abe—we have to take this at my speed. I can’t just throw myself into this, madly, completely.”
He grinned with cocky confidence. “You’re already into this madly, completely. I’m the only one for you.”
I gently pushed his chest. “I’m the one in charge. I dictate how far, how fast. You follow my lead.”
He leaned back slowly onto his elbows and looked up at me, his face filled with lazy pleasure. “I’m more than happy to follow your lead.”
A frisson of excited attraction sizzled through me. I edged a little closer and placed one hand on his shoulder and trailed it down to land just below his sleeve. My fingers wrapped hesitantly around his biceps, which felt like warm steel beneath my hand. “Is that so?”
His eyes didn’t leave mine. “It’s so.”
I licked my lips, more than a little nervous. “Okay, then. Okay.” I found some focus. “Then just so you know, I’m not going to sleep with you tonight.”
He looked skeptically amused. “No?”
I shook my head. “I’m not. Okay?”
“Okay.” He let my legs slide down as he kissed his way down my neck, over the hollow part of my collarbone. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.” I tried to push him back. Damn, this was hard.
“Okay,” he said, actually using his mouth to talk, for once. “We don’t have to sleep together.”
I eyed him narrowly. “Because I’m not going to.”
“Okay.” He took my face in his hands. One kiss. Gentle. “That’s okay.” And then he smiled. “But I’m allowed to try to change your mind, right?”
I narrowed my eyes warily. “I don’t know. How are you going to try?”
He answered with a kiss, and I melted into his arms.
He didn’t change my mind that night.
But he made an awfully persuasive argument.
In the morning he woke up early and shrugged on his shirt. He was leaving soon for Boston and still had to stop by his apartment, whereas I planned to stay in bed all day. His eyes darkened as he watched me watch him get dressed from between the sheets. “We’re still on for the wedding, right?”
The what? My mouth fell open.
He looked amused. “You didn’t forget?”
I kept staring.
“We’re getting married.”
I had no words.
He started laughing. “You did forget. Malcolm’s wedding? It’s next week.”
I placed my hand to my chest. “Right. Right, you invited me to that. Oh my God, you almost gave me a heart attack.”
He pressed a quick kiss to my forehead. “If we were getting married, you wouldn’t forget it.”
Why did he have to say things like that? Was he trying to keep my emotions from reaching any sort of equilibrium?
I walked him to the door and kissed him goodbye.
And then I fell back into bed and replayed every part of the night.
Chapter Sixteen
On Tuesday night, we went on a date. I met him at one of the hole-in-the-wall kebab places off Broadway. I watched in slight astonishment at the amount of food he put away, and concentrated on stealing his fries without him noticing.
He noticed, but let me get away with it. “Guess what we’re doing tonight.”
I looked down at my food. “Eating?”
“I got us tickets to Wicked.”
My elbows banged on the table. “No way! How’d you do that?”
“Well, there’s this thing called money...”
I waved my food at him. “I mean, it’s short notice.”
He shrugged. “We don’t have to go if you don�
�t want to.”
“Um. I want to. Trust me. I love Wicked.”
He gave me a look to convey that he knew. Which I suppose he did, given that I’d made our parents play it on many a drive to vacations. I tilted my head. “What would you have done if I’d fallen out of love with it in the past four years? That would be problematic.”
He grinned. “Nah, I’d just ask someone else to come with me.”
“Oh, real nice.” I shook my head, and then pulled out my phone and tried to look really casual. “So I was looking some stuff up online.”
He barely glanced at me. “You’re terrible at acting casual.”
I gave up on it and leaned forward, pinning Abe with my stare. “There’re all sorts of online courses you can do to finish your degree—”
He stilled. “Does it matter to you that I don’t have it?”
I stopped, confused. “Um, Abe, let’s be clear. You’re a multimillionaire celebrity. You’re talented, you’re successful, and you’re a role model. The only thing that matters to me in what you do with your life is that you’re happy.”
A smile broke across his face, much quieter than most of his grins. “I’m happy.”
I studied him. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Don’t let it go to your head if I tell you you’re part of the reason.” He scooted closer to me and looked at my cell. “All right, let’s see these courses.”
The musical was wonderful. We had seats in the center of the orchestra, which was perfect, and the show was perfect, and really, everything was perfect. Even the temperature that night as we left was perfect: cold, but not quite icy, and my coat and scarf were enough to keep out the chill. The moon glowed bright above us, cutting through the drifting clouds. A gentle wind rustled the crumpled leaves lining the sidewalks.
We walked the eight blocks or so up to the park, and then scrambled up the outcroppings of giant ancient bedrock in the southwest corner, and perched ourselves on the top, with a view of the baseball diamonds. I smiled up at him. “You know what? I’ve decided it’s a good thing we’re dating.”
Abe placed his hand over his heart. “Thank God. I was worried.”
“No, I’m serious. Because otherwise I probably would have started dating the guy with argyle socks, and we wouldn’t have had anything to talk about.”