Coming Home (40 page)

***

Beneath a whispering paddle fan, Rob sipped a 7-Up and checked his
watch for the third time.  He’d quit drinking around three, but Casey had gone
to her room two hours ago still carrying a bottle of sticky pink liquid.  She’d
never been much of a drinker, and wine coolers were deceptive.  You’d think you
were drinking soda until you tried to stand up and couldn’t find your feet.  He
was about ready to go looking for her when she walked into the restaurant,
wearing high-heeled sandals and a dress that in Boston would have been grounds
for arrest.  It was white, backless, damn near frontless. She smiled and began
crossing the room to his table.  And every man in the place looked at her, then
at him, every damn one of them trying to figure out what a guy like him was
doing with a woman like that.

She’d put her hair up into some kind of elaborate concoction that
lent her an aura of sophistication that intimidated even him.  It was the
craziest thing; they’d spent the better part of twelve years living inside each
other’s pockets, but as she approached, his throat dried up like the Sahara. 
He emptied his drink in one quick gulp as she slipped into the chair opposite
him.  “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting,” she said.

“Fiore,” he said, “I’m at a loss for words.  That is some dress.”

She shifted position, looked down at herself, nervously adjusted
the material in an attempt to cover more flesh.  It didn’t work.  “You don’t
think it’s too much, do you?”

“It’s spectacular.  And you look stunning in it.  Or you would, if
you’d stop fidgeting.”

“I can’t help it.  I feel naked.”

“You damn near are.”

“I knew it,” she said, scraping back her chair.  “I knew it was
too much.  I’m going back upstairs to change.”

He caught her by a slender forearm.  “Stay.  I’m trying to
cultivate a reputation as a stud.”

The waiter arrived, and she ordered a Singapore Sling.  “You might
want to go slow on the hard stuff, kiddo,” he said.  “After all those wine
coolers, you’ll have a big head tomorrow.”

“I can hold my liquor, MacKenzie.”

“Who are you trying to kid, Fiore?  I’ve seen you get tipsy just
sniffing the bottle cap.”

While they waited for dinner to arrive, she sipped her Singapore
Sling and he tried not to stare at her breasts.  He’d been trying not to stare
at them ever since he’d first seen her in that nothing little bikini.  In his
book, bigger was not necessarily better, and Casey Fiore had a pair of ripe
little peaches sweet enough to bring tears to his eyes.  Round and firm and
high, they cried out to be touched, and they’d kept him awake for a good part
of last night.

It was crazy, because in all the years they’d known each other,
he’d never thought of her that way.  Not more than once or twice.  There had
been that one sticky night in Arkansas when she’d come fresh from the shower,
his tee shirt plastered to her damp body, and he’d nearly swallowed his
tongue.  But it had been a brief moment in time, easily forgotten.  He trusted
her with an absolute certainty he’d never known with any other woman.  It had
never mattered that Danny was the one she slept with, because that wasn’t what
he wanted from her.  He could get sex anywhere.  Casey gave him something
better:  warmth and wisdom, sass and strength, respect and laughter and
unconditional love.

Somewhere in the course of that first Singapore Sling, she stopped
fidgeting.  By flickering candlelight, she rested her chin on her palm and
studied him with a Mona Lisa smile.  “What?” he said. 

“You’re looking particularly handsome tonight,” she said.

That was when he knew the booze had gone to her head.  By no
stretch of the imagination could he be called handsome.  The Danny Fiores of
the world were handsome.  The Rob MacKenzies were average.  It was a simple
fact of life, one that had never bothered him until now.  “Sweetheart,” he
said, “you’re drunk.”

She leaned on both forearms, low over the table, giving him a
brief, unobstructed view of paradise.  “I’ve never been drunk in my life,” she
said.

Where the hell was their dinner?  He was about ready to invade the
kitchen in search of it when the waiter arrived with a laden tray and began
setting dishes on the table.  “I’d like another drink,” Casey said.

He exchanged glances with the waiter.  “Babe,” he said, “don’t you
think you’ve had enough?”

“Come on, Rob.  I thought we came here to have a good time.”

The waiter flashed him a salacious grin, and he made a mental note
to cut five percent from the guy’s tip.  “I just don’t want you to have too
much of a good time,” he said. 

She patted his cheek.  “You take such good care of me.”

“Shut up and eat your dinner.  You need something in your stomach
to absorb all that alcohol.”

Dinner was a curiously silent affair.  Casey nibbled at her food,
but Rob found that his appetite had deserted him.  He watched her eat, relieved
when the meal was over.  After he paid the check, stiffing that leering son of
a bitch on the tip, he pulled out Casey’s chair and helped her to her feet,
afraid she’d fall off those three-inch heels.  She had enough booze in her to
fell a longshoreman.

Music floated out of the lounge as they passed, and like lemmings
to the sea, they were drawn in.  They stood just inside the doorway watching
couples move around the floor to the kind of soft, romantic music their parents
had danced to a generation ago.  He saw the wistfulness on her face, and he
touched her bare arm.  “Come on, sweet stuff,” he said.  “Let’s dance.”

It was a mistake.  He knew it the instant that warm body melted
into his and he forgot who he was, forgot who she was, remembered only that he
was a man and she was a woman and she felt like heaven in his arms.  She rested
her head on his shoulder while he tried to figure out where to put his hands. 
It wasn’t an easy decision.  The dress left her bare in all but the most
crucial spots, and he finally gave in and rested both hands on the small of her
back.  Her heat pierced his fingertips and radiated into and through his body. 
Her hair smelled like violets.  He fixed his eyes on a single freckle on her
bare shoulder.  Beyond it, in the heated spot where their bodies met, the dark
hollow between her breasts was visible.  He swallowed.  Closed his eyes. 
Buried his face in her hair and clung to her in agony and ecstasy.

Until he could stand it no longer.  “Babe,” he whispered.

She looked at him, those green eyes hazy from the alcohol. 
“What?”

“I need some fresh air.”

He let her go with a mixture of reluctance and relief.  Side by
side, they walked down to the beach, both of them thinking private thoughts
they didn’t choose to share.  The alcohol had finally taken its toll, and she
was wobbly on the heels.  When they reached the sand, she bent and slipped them
off.  Dangling a sandal from each hand, she walked beside him, every so often
listing in his direction.  At the water’s edge, she dropped the sandals and
waded into the surf.  He kicked off his shoes and rolled up his pant legs and
waded in after her, water washing around his ankles.  He shoved his hands in
his pockets.  “Hey,” he said to her retreating back, “where do you think you’re
going?”

“Swimming.”

“You’ll ruin your dress.”  Hands in his pockets, he watched her
wading deeper.  “Crazy broad,” he said.  She was in up to her knees, her dress
bunched up around her thighs, a section of hem trailing in the water behind
her.  “Hey,” he said, “that’s far enough.  Come on back now.”

Still holding the dress, she braced her legs against the onrushing
waves and turned to look at him.  And smiled that Mona Lisa smile.  “Come and
get me,” she said.

He grinned.  “Oh,” he said.  “You’re wanting to play games now,
are you?”

He advanced on her and she backed away slowly, water lapping at
her thighs, the white dress billowing and swirling around her.  “Fiore,” he
said, “you’re about to fall on your pretty little ass.”

“Hah!  If I go down, MacKenzie, you go with me.”

“Too bad about the dress.” 

He lunged and missed.  She shrieked and went over backward, came
up laughing, water running off her like Niagara, that dress plastered to her
body like a fresh coat of paint.  He held out a hand and she took it, and he
hauled her into his arms and kissed her.

She gasped and clutched his shirt front in her fists.  Heart
hammering like a locomotive, he took his sweet time exploring those lush lips. 
She tasted of salt water and grenadine and warm, willing woman, and this was an
even bigger mistake than the dancing had been because she was kissing him back
for all she was worth, and he wasn’t sure this time he could let her go. 

Oh, Jesus
,
he thought.  And finished it: 
Help me.

They came up for air, both of them gasping, both of them drenched,
both of them suddenly dead serious.  That ridiculous Duchess of York hairdo had
fallen and was hanging about her shoulders in sodden strings.  She lifted a
hand and shoved a wet strand away from her face, and he wrapped his fingers in
the rat’s nest at the nape of her neck and pulled her back to him.

This time she was ready for him.  She uttered a soft sound of
pleasure as he teased her mouth open and plunged his tongue inside, and they
met in a silken duel of thrust and parry.  Her hips moved restlessly against
his, and he caught her and lifted her, thrusting her up hard against him.

And she moaned aloud.  Her arms went around his neck and they
rocked together, straining to be closer, to swallow each other, to become one. 
He rained a trail of kisses from the corner of her mouth, down over that pretty
little pointed chin, inch by inch, kiss by kiss, along the slender white column
of her throat.  And then he did what he’d been waiting all night to do:  he
slipped a hand beneath the wet dress and cupped one of those ripe peaches.

It fit his hand perfectly.  He held it until the flesh warmed in
his hand, and then he found the hard little peak and began to stroke it,
gently, with the tips of his fingers.  She made a soft strangled sound deep in
her throat and went weak against him, head thrown back, eyes closed, mouth open
just enough for breath, just enough to show a glimpse of white teeth and the
pink tip of her tongue.  Still stroking, he watched the pained pleasure on her face
and knew that she was his for the taking.  He could have her right here in the
surf, if that was the way he wanted it, like Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in
From Here to Eternity
.  He closed his eyes as an image of her naked and
writhing beneath him burned itself into his brain.  It would be hot and hard
and hungry, and nobody would come away unsatisfied.

And then what?

The thought washed over him like ice water.  He opened his eyes
and looked at her rapt face.  He’d never wanted a woman more in his life.  He
could give her what she needed tonight, but tomorrow would be a different
story.  No matter how bad he wanted her tonight, once the deed was done, they
could never go back.  Was he willing to destroy everything they had for a
single night of hot sex?

Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
  Was this some kind of test?

With overwhelming regret, he released her breast and drew her
dress back to cover it.  Through the wet fabric, the nipple was still clearly
visible.  He cleared his throat.  “Bad idea,” he said hoarsely.

She opened her eyes.  They were hazy and unfocused, liquid and
puzzled.  She wet her lips.  “What?” she said.

He took a step backward.  “I’m sorry,” he said.  “I was out of
line.”

She looked at him with those eyes, deep and green and unreadable. 
Without warning, she placed both palms flat against his chest and shoved him,
hard, catching him off guard and nearly knocking him on his ass.  “You son of a
bitch,” she said.

“Hey,” he said, surprised, “cut it out.”

She advanced on him, shoved him again.  “You rotten, cruel,
sadistic son of a bitch.”

He held up both hands.  “I’m sorry.  I said I was sorry.  I got
carried away.”

She punched his shoulder.  Hard.  The damn woman had a mean right
hook.  “How could you?” she shouted.

“What the hell do you mean, how could I?  It takes two to tango,
sweetheart.”

“How could you do that to me?”  She aimed the next punch at his
face, but he ducked and she missed. 

“Hey,” he said, “you seemed to like it—”

“How could you take me that far—”

“—just as much as I did!”

“—and then just leave me hanging?”

He blinked.  Stared at her.  Blinked again. He couldn’t believe
it.  The little witch was slugging him and screaming like a fishwife not
because of what he’d done, but because of what he hadn’t.  Fury burst in him. 
“I won’t be a stand-in for any man!” he shouted.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

He advanced on her until they were nose to nose.  “You tell me
just one thing, sugar.  If Danny Fiore was standing beside us, right here,
right now, would you even remember I was here?”