A Sip of You (The Epicurean Series) (13 page)

He gave me a knowing smile, and pulled me to the edge of the counter. I slid down his body until my feet landed on the floor. We stood like that for a long moment, pressed together, our gazes lasered on each other. And then he pulled away, silenced the timer, and announced that the beef bourguignon was ready.

We cleaned up then sat at the table and ate the delicious meal. It was rich and hearty—perfect, as William had said, for the cold night. We drank wine and kept our conversation casual. Clearly, the tension had passed. For the most part. I knew our disagreements were waiting just under our comfortable truce, but neither of us wanted to raise them to the surface again tonight.

I presented the plate of Beckett’s creations for dessert, and William chose a chocolate éclair and a cheesecake pop. I nibbled a deep pink raspberry macaron that reminded me of the color of William’s rosé in Napa, and resisted the urge to eat a cupcake.

“These are better than expected,” William said, licking his fingers. “They’ll be perfect.”

I frowned. “Perfect for what?”

“Just perfect,” he said with a shrug. By the time we’d finished cleaning up the kitchen, William was yawning. He tried to hide it, but I caught him once or twice. He must have been exhausted. Not only had he gone on a long walk and cooked a gourmet dinner, he’d just flown through a snowstorm to get here. If his plane had been diverted to Omaha, he’d probably spent the night there.

I also knew how much he hated flying, and he’d certainly had to do a lot of it the past few days. His nerves must be frayed and his body on the verge of collapse. Once again I’d been selfish. How could I not have realized how exhausted he must be? And yet, he’d come to see me. He’d cooked me dinner. He’d put me first.

I took his hand and led him to the bedroom, crawling into bed after him. He spooned me and nuzzled my neck. He was clearly willing to make the effort, and I was tempted to let him, but I knew he needed sleep more than sex. A moment later, his breathing grew deep and regular. I lay awake for some time, safe in his arms, and trying not to read too much into the fact that this was the first time we’d slept together and not had sex.

William stirred beside me, and I opened my eyes, expecting complete darkness. It was dark, but grey light filtered through the slats in the blinds. A quick glance at my phone told me it was almost six-thirty. “What happened to your four AM wake-up call?” I said with a yawn.

“You proved too great a temptation this morning,” he said, nuzzling my neck.

“Good.”

“Good?” His lips moved to my jaw and his hand caressed my breast.

“I love waking up with you. I keep telling you that.” It was a rare occurrence and made this morning all the more special. I turned to face him, intending to kiss him lightly good morning, but he pulled me against his chest and kissed me deeply. His hand on my breast felt good as it kneaded and massaged my tender flesh.

“William,” I said with regret. “I’m still on my period.”

“And?” His body covered mine, and he lowered his mouth to the breast he’d been working. Gently, he drew my nipple between his lips, applying the perfect amount of pressure to leave me breathless and somewhere between pleasure and achy need.

“And…” I couldn’t think with him touching me. His hands roamed over my body, and before I knew what happened, my T-shirt was gone and his hands and mouth were on my other breast. My heart slammed in my chest and the blood roared in my ears as my body responded to his efforts. I could feel my hips rising to cup his erection, could feel my sex growing swollen and wet.

Summoning my last bastion of strength, I gave him a playful push. “Stop. I have to shower and get to work.” I sat and pulled my shirt back on. William lay back, watching me lazily.

“I’m heading over to Beckett’s to finish up work on the Fresh for Spring campaign. We have to submit the shots we did today. Remember, crisp green asparagus stalks and snow-flocked cherries?”

“Duty calls.” His eyes were a dark, unreadable grey, and I watched him warily as I rose and headed for the shower. While I waited for the water to heat up, I reflected how the tables seemed to have turned. Usually William was the one jumping out of bed and heading to the gym or some high-powered meeting. Today, he was lounging under my covers looking perfectly content. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. I tested the water, stepped inside, and closed the curtain. The warm water cascaded over me, and then I heard the curtain open. Naked, William stepped inside.

Unlike the shower at his penthouse, mine was small and crowded. I only had one shower head, and there wasn’t enough room for both of us to stand side by side. The benefit of the cramped space was that our bodies touched almost immediately. His skin was slick and hot, and I couldn’t stop my hand from running along the sleek muscles of his back. He kissed me as I touched him, then reached for the body wash and squeezed some into his hands, rubbing them together until a citrus-smelling lather formed. He started with my shoulders, his hands moving in small circles, kneading my muscles and spreading slippery soap onto my skin. His fingers slid down my arms and back up. My nipples hardened in anticipation of his slippery fingers, and he didn’t disappoint. His hands slid over my skin with just enough pressure to leave me wanting more.

I was warm, wet, and soapy, but he wasn’t finished. William was nothing if not thorough. He filled his hands with more soap and worked on my legs, moving higher and higher until I was all but panting. His fingers caressed my inner thighs, the backs of his knuckles brushing against my sex, but he didn’t give me the pressure I wanted.

“William,” I begged.

“Turn around.”

I turned, and he began the same thorough, mechanical washing of my back, his hands gliding over my buttocks and sliding between them until I thought I might have to force him to touch my throbbing clit.

“Shampoo,” he said. I handed it to him, and he lathered my hair, his fingers working through my scalp, massaging it until I was tingling with pleasure. He turned me to face him again and angled my head back. I rinsed the shampoo out of my hair, and when I glanced back at him, his gaze was on my up-thrust breasts. “Very nice,” he said. “Now, turn around again.”

“The water is going to start getting cold,” I told him.

“Then I’ll have to make this fast.”

He spun me around, and I caught my balance with one hand on the tiled wall. His hand on my lower back guided me down until I was bending at the waist, the spray of water on my back and legs keeping me warm—along with the ministrations of William’s hands. They were soapy again as he stroked my ass, cupping it then reaching between my legs to massage. One finger brushed my clit, and I bucked against him. His erection was already pressed against my ass, and he guided his cock to my center as he swirled a finger over my clit. I moaned and pushed back on the hard head of his cock, feeling him enter me as his finger slid mercilessly over my swollen clit. My legs trembled, and my body shook as I felt my release build, and then I couldn’t stop it. Like a tidal wave, it washed over me, crashing into me as he entered me at the peak. I slammed a fist against the wall, gasping and struggling to stay on my feet. But William’s arm wrapped around my waist kept me up as he sank his cock into me and thrust fast and hard.

I braced myself against the tile, my moans and the slap of our bodies echoing in the small space. He kicked my legs farther apart and bent me lower, filling me completely. One hand remained anchored at my waist, while the other stroked my breasts. He teased an aching nipple with his fingers, circling it faster and faster as his thrusts quickened. I could feel another orgasm building, and I tried to stave it off. My legs were already shaking uncontrollably.

“Let it happen,” he ordered, his voice harsh and husky. The sound of him, raw with passion, sent me over the edge. Pleasure slammed through me as the heat of his cum filled me. His hands grabbed my hips, pulling me flush with him as my body clenched and released and writhed with pleasure.

When he pulled out, my knees buckled, but William caught me. Tenderly, he cleaned me and himself, then shut off the water and dried me. I sat on the bed for several minutes, wrapped in a towel and waiting for my legs to regain their strength and my heart to stop racing. William, seemingly unaffected, dressed slowly, and I admired his body as he went through the mundane chore. Why had I ever doubted I was in love with him? I felt safe with him, complete with him, and I knew I would never get enough. I couldn’t even stand, and still I wanted more of him.

I wanted to tell him how I felt. I wanted to share that with him too, whisper my love, press my heart to his, hold him. But I couldn’t. Not yet.

Finally, I got up and got dressed. We left at the same time, and he gave me a toe-curling goodbye kiss at the door to my building. “Come over for dinner tonight,” he said.

“Tonight?”

He put a finger on my lips. “You haven’t been to the penthouse for a while and I have something I want to show you. So yes, tonight.”

“Ok.”

He kissed me again and was gone. I closed my eyes and sighed, the secret I carried feeling heavier than ever.

***

I headed over to Beckett’s, taking the L to Lakeview so I didn’t have to dig my car out of a snowdrift and then drive on the slippery roads. Normally I checked email on the train, but today I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t stop thinking about Jeremy and my morning with William. I almost missed my stop. At Beckett’s apartment, he and I worked for most of the morning on the shots for Fresh Market. Finally, we were satisfied—and I reminded Beckett again that his “cherries in the snow” idea was positively brilliant—and we decided to take a break before going over the images one last time and hitting send. Beckett called Alec to make plans for the evening, and when he was through, he sat beside me on his couch. “Everything doesn’t have to be so complicated, Cat.” He set a bottle of water beside me and sipped from his own.

“Jeremy makes it complicated,” I answered, clutching one of Beckett’s pillows to my chest and staring out the bay window. He lived in a cute courtyard building. His one bedroom was small but he’d made great use of all the vintage features, playing them up so the style was classic but still modern and comfortable. On the wall across from me was a framed black and white of Beckett and me at high school graduation. We looked so young and fresh-faced. That was before Jace and Jeremy.

“Jeremy is a minor complication. Can’t you just forget him?”

“I wish I could. But…I didn’t tell you everything the other night. There’s more.” I then proceeded to confess all, about Jeremy and his lame apology for his mother, and then about his saying that he wanted me back. And I filled him in on my fight with William, about Anya, about William’s security people secretly trailing me to the airport, and how he said I shut down and ran before I ever gave him a chance to explain himself. “And the topper was that he thinks I was intentionally with Jeremy, talking to him about Jace, because I still can’t let Jace go. Like leaving me at his house for a few days upset me so much that it drove me back to being a grieving widow who couldn’t get over her dead husband. And then he promised me he’d always come back and that he’d never leave me. How about that?”

Beckett just looked at me for a minute. “Seriously? He really said all of that?”

“Yeah, he did.” I waited for Beckett’s response, which wasn’t instantaneous.

“He’s totally got you pegged. I’m impressed.”

“What?” I couldn’t believe Beckett said that. “Shut up! He does not! It wasn’t like that at all. And that’s not what I am. I care about William, and I want to be with him.”

“But, Cat, you told me on the phone less than an hour after you got to Napa that you weren’t ready. His fabulous manse wigged you out so badly that you were about to throw in the towel then and there. And you
were
upset that he left you. That’s all you’ve been talking about for days. How William abandoned you at his luxurious Napa Valley estate and left you all by yourself and didn’t call you. Maybe you didn’t seek out Jeremy to console you about Jace, but come on. You had the dream. That means something. And you were obviously scared to be alone. Not haunted house scared, but definitely not comfortable on your own. You freaked out, right? So maybe he has a point. Maybe you aren’t all in.”

I was speechless and didn’t even know how to respond.

“Remind me again how Jeremy makes this
more
complicated?” Beckett added.

I took a deep breath. “Because I need to tell William the truth about Jeremy. I don’t think it’s fair to keep it from him. I can’t lie to him, Beckett. Not after that, not after what he said. Besides, I don’t think it would take his team much digging to figure it out, so it’s just a matter of time anyway. He deserves to hear it from me.”

“I don’t buy that. William never had his guy investigate you, so why would he start now? Plus, you haven’t played the let’s-tell-each-other-our-number game—which, by the way, is
always
a game without a winner—so you’re just omitting one tiny detail about Jeremy. Do you want William Lambourne telling you about all the women he’s slept with? Do not start that conversation.”

“Jeremy wasn’t just a number. He was my brother-in-law. I should tell William.” I buried my face in my hands. “And I don’t know how I’m going to. It’s so awful.”

“Cat, it’s not that awful. You were twenty-two and grief-stricken. You made a bad decision and it was just sex. Give yourself a break. People make bad decisions in crisis times. It happens. Get over it.”

I sipped the water and turned the bottle in my hands, considering. “It was more than just a bad decision.”

“Ok, so it was a bad decision that lasted a few months or so.”

I turned the water bottle to and fro, sick at the memories assaulting me. The first time Jeremy and I hooked up was after Jace’s memorial service. What kind of wife sleeps with another man on the day of her husband’s funeral? Me, that’s who. I’d been drunk, but that wasn’t an excuse. I knew it was wrong. And not just wrong because my husband had died only days before and I had just buried him. It was wrong because Jeremy was Jace’s
brother
. That was wrong on a whole other level.

It didn’t take a psychoanalyst to figure out why I did it. I was out of my mind with grief and in serious denial. Jeremy looked so much like Jace, and he had so many of the same expressions and mannerisms. He was my friend, too, and the closest thing I had to my dead husband.

That first time I think I was genuinely a little confused. Jeremy had driven me home from the horrible memorial service, made all the more horrible by that fucking Mrs. Ryder, and I’d turned to him. He should have rejected me, but he didn’t. We ended up in bed—in Jace’s and my bed at our place by the beach—and the next day I just felt numb. Those days right after the accident were a total blur and I was exhausted and overwhelmed and so very lonely. Jeremy helped me forget, for just a little while, the horrible turn my life had taken. But that didn’t last very long.

Jeremy wasn’t a bad guy. I didn’t think he planned to seduce me, and it hadn’t been like that. He’d been hurting too, and I’d wanted to believe we were using each other for comfort. That was my justification, though even then I’d known it was weak. And I’d known it was a lie. Jeremy wasn’t using me. I was using him

Alcohol was usually involved, I was often the pursuer, and the sex between us was never very good. But to me, it was better than being alone. I’d missed Jace so badly my bones hurt and the pain was made even worse by my guilt. I’d been driving the car, I’d been drinking at the beach before I got behind the wheel, I hadn’t seen the pick-up truck barreling toward us until it was too late. I was the one Jace’s parents and most of our friends blamed for his death. I was lucky the police didn’t blame me too, but the driver of the pick-up truck, a chronic alcoholic with a long list of previous DUIs, had been drunk off his ass and the accident was deemed his fault. He too had died at the scene, which left me the only one who walked away.

Jeremy seemed pretty oblivious to just how messed up I was, and very quickly he made it clear he wanted more than sex. I think I’d always known he was interested in me. He’d always looked at me with something more than brotherly affection. It was his chance, and I couldn’t blame him for taking it. I wasn’t in love with Jeremy, but even that didn’t stop me from sleeping with him. When I finally came to my senses and tried to break it off, it didn’t go well. And then I realized I’d fucked up my relationship with the one person who truly could have given me comfort. I couldn’t share my memories of Jace with my
friend with benefits
, and he was the closest person to Jace besides me. Which meant I was back to square one: totally alone in my grief.