“And yet Mark just told me today that I was a terrible negotiator.” She was smiling, looking so pretty, then sliding under the water and starting to swim. She did it slowly, almost languidly, as if she moved her body solely for the pleasure of it. She might have an outsized responsibility gene and a work ethic carved from stone, but inside, she was something entirely different. A woman born for pleasure. A woman made for sin.
He wanted two things at once. Something primal in him, something all the way in the back of his brain, wanted to put his hand on that pretty swell of belly and feel the curve of it for himself. It didn’t matter that he’d never have chosen for it to happen. It didn’t matter that it was complicating his life so badly that he couldn’t see to the end. He wanted it anyway. He wanted to feel that belly for himself, and he wanted to kiss it, too. He wanted to know all the way inside himself that his baby was growing in her, and that she was right there where he could take care of both of them. Under his hand. It wasn’t a very evolved thought, but there you were. It seemed he wasn’t a very evolved guy.
And then there was the other thing. That he wanted his hands and mouth all over her in some way that was more than primal. Some way that was nearly feral. He wanted her tumbled across his bed, her hair around her face, her hands over her head, like all she wanted was for him to kiss her and love her right. He wanted her to straddle him again and pull her dress over her head, and he wanted to watch her ride him, slow and sweet and exactly the way she wanted to, the way that felt best, while he watched her move, pulled her down so he could play with her better, and got his hand on that little ring and ground it into her until she moaned. He wanted to feel her come around him until he couldn’t stand it anymore. And then he wanted to hold her hips and pump into her until she arched her back and called out and came again, jerking and shuddering over him until his eyes rolled back in his head and he lost his mind.
Right now, though, all he got to do was swim. And be friends.
He was taking her out to dinner, though, and he was going to make sure they seated him in the darkest corner of the restaurant. He was going to hold her hand across the table, and he was going to look into those gold eyes and see if he could make her pretty mouth tremble a little more. If he could make her breath come faster.
If he could make her want him the way he wanted her. Which he wasn’t supposed to try to do, because he’d mess up her life.
He wanted to do the right thing. It was just that he wanted to do every single one of those wrong things so much more. Over and over again. Every way there was.
Face it. He was doomed.
46
Dating
She was havingsuch a hard time.
They weren’t doing anything all that extreme. They weren’t even at the resort, with the knowledge of those dangerously convenient hotel rooms right overhead. Harlan had said, when they’d been sitting on two of those loungers, toweling off after their swim, “How about if I take you someplace else tonight? Someplace with no possible Dyma and Annabelle, and that doesn’t belong to Blake Orbison, where it’s just you and me. Seems like we don’t get the chance too often.”
“Nothing can happen between us,” she’d said. “I’m still … well, myhead’sstill sure of that.” Even as every single inch of her tingled with awareness that she was still in her bikini, toweling off her hair, that he could look right down the front of that bikini, and that his body was still the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. Including in paintings. He was it.Chest. Thighs. Arms.Shoulders.Skin so golden, it glowed, and body language that said, “I’m strong enough to be in charge of all of this, and confident enough not to push it.” And maybe most of all, the look in his eyes when he talked to her. Focused. Intense. Almost … possessive. However casually he talked, he still looked at her that way. Also, the fact that hewasn’tlooking down her bikini, which was worse than if he had been. He was restraining himself, and his restraint thrilled her.
“Know what I want to happen?” he asked.
“Uh …” She looked at him from under her lashes, and only realized after she’d done it that she was, yes, flirting. Maybe you just needed the right guy for that, one who knew how to tease and how to make you feel beautiful, and excited, and so desired. Almost … scared. In a good way. In a hold-your-breath way.
He smiled. It looked pained, even a little sad. “I want to see you put on a pretty dress and pretty shoes, and sit and watch the sunset with some candles burning and maybe some music playing, and let yourself enjoy being with a guy who’s willing to do whatever it takes to please you. Even if that’s just smiling at you across the table, kissing you on the cheek afterwards, smelling your perfume and having it spin his head all the way around, and telling you goodnight. Even if he wants a whole lot more than that. I want you to have the kind of night you would have wanted to tell your mom about.”
“Oh. I can’t ....” It was everything she could do not to cry.
Stupid hormones.
“And maybe,” he said, “I want to give you the kind of night I could’ve toldmymom about, too. Maybe I want to be a better guy. The kind of guy who can put somebody else first.”
“Harlan. You’re already that guy. You’vebeenthat guy.” She had a palm on the side of his beautiful face now and was trying to smile, but her mouth kept trembling.
It was the mention of her mom that had done it. She wanted to go back to her room and pick up the phone, or better yet, most of all, she wanted to sit at her mom’s kitchen table and tell her all about it, to have her mom listen all the way through, and then say … whatever she would have said.
To wait until she was sure? To go for it, risking everything? What?
You should get out of here, spread your wings,her mom had said. But what did that mean? Wasn’t she supposed to want to do the single thing, the free thing?
Well, as free as you could be with a new baby. Which wasn’t actually all that free. But still.
She remembered, suddenly, what her mom had said the night before she’d died, when Dyma had been clearing the table after their dinner of slow-cooker Italian chicken and peppers, and Jennifer had said, “When I win the lottery, I’m going to cook with chicken breasts instead of thighs. Boneless and skinless. Organic. Free range. Eight dollars a pound. Drop them in the slow cooker, and I’m done.”
“You know what you’ll find out?” Adele had answered. “That thighs will still taste better.” Her smile was the only part of her that hadn’t changed. Her red hair had faded, and her eyes, which were only a little darker than Jennifer’s, were lined and tired, but her smile was still warm. Still alive. “That’s the dirty secret of life. Thighs taste better, pot roast is as tender as any fancy cut of steak, you can only use one bathroom at a time, the prettiest view is the one you get after you walk up a hill, and a Ford gets you to work as fast as a Porsche does. And the right man’s not the one who buys you diamonds, he’s the one who loves you the sweetest and the dirtiest and who holds you when you cry. The rest of it’s just advertising.”
“Except health insurance,” Jennifer had said.
Her mom had laughed at that. “Yeah. Health insurance matters. And not lying in bed worrying about which bill to pay would be great, too. But you don’t need to win the lottery for that. You’ll get there. Also, my advice about men might be more worth taking if I wasn’t divorced. Your dad was pretty good at the loving part. Not so good at the steady part. I should probably think up a better list before I go around offering any more life lessons.”
“The sweetest and the dirtiest, huh?” Jennifer had asked. “Geez, I wish I’d known those were the criteria.”
“Oh, honey,” Adele had said. “You always knew that.”
