Days Like This (30 page)

It was she who was different.

And there it lay, the thorny
issue she was having trouble dealing with.  She’d lost herself so completely
with Danny, had been so desperately in love that she’d allowed him to steamroll
right over her until she was little more than a pale imitation of her former self.
That kind of self-effacement—or maybe self-erasement would be a more accurate
term—was a character trait she didn’t much like, and she’d been naïvely certain
that it would never resurface. 

Now, her certainty was shaken. 
Of course she knew that Rob MacKenzie and Danny Fiore were two very different
men.  Of course she knew that Rob wasn’t the kind of man to take advantage of a
woman’s most vulnerable and intimate emotions.  He wasn’t self-involved like
Danny.  He didn’t have tunnel vision like Danny.  He wasn’t
broken
like
Danny.  But knowing she was capable of such self-destructive tendencies, knowing
the possibility existed that she could lose herself that way with another man,
was terrifying.

He stopped mid-lyric, leaving
Mick to fend for himself, and said, “What?”

She looked at him blankly.  “What,
what?”

“Why do you keep staring at me
like I’m some kind of space alien?  Do I have body odor?  Spinach between my
teeth?  Or is it my singing?  It’s my singing, isn’t it?  I’m sorry.  I try so
hard to color inside the lines, but it just never seems to work out for me.”

Even when she was at her most fragile,
he could still make her laugh.  “Don’t you know,” she said, “that your utter
inability to color inside the lines is one of the things I find the most charming
about you?”

“What is it, then?  I’m starting
to feel like some kind of specimen under glass.”

“Can’t I admire my husband
without getting the third degree?  I’m just so glad you’re home, that’s all.”

He turned his head and stared at
her.  “Why am I not believing you?”

“I just cannot imagine.  I suppose
you’ll simply have to trust that I’d have no reason to lie to you.”

“Fifteen minutes I’ve been on the
ground, Fiore, and already you’re getting all pissy with me.  What’s that all
about?”

“You know, MacKenzie, it’s a real
shame that you couldn’t be a little nicer to me.  I had such plans for tonight. 
Mind-blowing plans.  All of them involving you.  And nakedness.  Lots of
nakedness.”  She shook her head in disappointment.  “If only you could learn to
keep your mouth shut.”

“Permanently?  Because, you know,
I just want to make sure I’m clear on exactly what the ground rules are.  So I
can, um…participate…in those plans you made.”

“It’s like shooting fish in a
barrel, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“Men.  You’re all alike.  We
offer you sexual favors, and you just roll over and play dead.”

He grinned.  “Is that what you
were doing?  Offering me sexual favors?”

“If you’d been a little nicer,
you might’ve found out the answer to that question.  But I guess we’ll never
know now, will we?”

“Hah!  Keep on dreaming, babydoll.”

In response, she reached across
the space between them and brushed her fingertips across his cheek.  He caught
her wrist in his hand and kissed the underside.  “Hi,” he said softly.

“Hi.”

“Missed you.”

Stroking his face with the tips
of her fingers, she said, “I wasn’t sure I was going to make it.  I’m still not
sure.  That was the longest six weeks of my life.”

“You just say the word.  I’ll
pull over to the side of the road any time you want.”

“And get arrested for public
indecency?  I think not.  As tempting as the offer is.”

“No sense of adventure,” he said,
kissing the tender underside of her forearm.  “None at all.”

“I can find plenty of adventure right
at home.  I don’t need to go looking for it on a lonely stretch of highway in
the dark of night.”

“No cruising the bowling alley?”

“No cruising the bowling alley. 
I already have all the man I need.”

“You know, if this was the good
old days of yore, you could just slide over here and I could wrap my arm around
you, and you’d put your head on my shoulder, and we could just cruise, like a
couple of teenagers.  Damn bucket seats have ruined that.”

“Just think what a whole
generation has missed out on.”

“Damn straight.  Modern
technology has made it really hard to grope each other while you’re driving.”

“It’s a tragedy of epic
proportions.”  She lay her hand against the front of his shirt and began inching
it southward.  “I could probably still manage a little groping, if you were so
inclined.”

“If you move that hand one more centimeter,
woman, I really will be pulling over to the side of the road.”

“I guess that means groping is
out.”

“I guess it does.  Looks like we’ll
have to settle for talking.”

“I guess we will.  For now.”

***

They came in through the shed.  Casey
hung up her coat and Rob kicked off his shoes and they entered the kitchen
without turning on the lights.  He dropped the carry-on and the duffel bag on
the kitchen table and set the guitar cases on the floor.  She moved past him to
the sink, took a glass from the cupboard, and filled it. The water was cold and
sweet, soothing her parched throat and quieting the hitch in her breathing. 
Behind her, he moved soundlessly, and she sensed him an instant before he
touched a gentle fingertip to each bare shoulder and ran them, whisper-soft,
down her arms to her wrists.

She shot from 0 to 60 in 0.2
seconds, her insides going soft and sticky and molten.  Beneath her skin, there
was a fine trembling, a vibration, almost a humming.  Something was shifting
inside her, some great tectonic plate cracking and splitting, revising history
and altering beliefs she’d held for nearly two decades. This man had been her friend,
then her lover, and eventually her husband.  Although sometimes the edges had
blurred, the progression of their relationship had been straightforward and
clear.  But after fifteen months of marriage, she understood that everything
before tonight had been little more than dress rehearsal.  Somewhere along the
way, when she hadn’t been paying attention, he had become her life.  Somewhere
along the way, when she hadn’t been watching where she was going, she’d tumbled
headfirst off a precipice she hadn’t noticed, and she’d gone into freefall with
no safety net other than the absolute trust that he would be waiting at the
bottom to break her fall.

I didn’t know
, she thought
stupidly. 
How could I not know?
  How was it possible for a woman to fall
passionately in love with the husband she’d thought she already loved?  How was
it possible for a woman to reach the age of thirty-five without realizing that
her one true love, the sole reason she’d been put on this planet, had been
standing right by her side since she was eighteen years old?

Inside her, terror and elation battled
for supremacy.  She’d never experienced this kind of euphoria.  Nothing in
thirty-five years of living had ever felt so right as her feelings for this man. 
But just below the surface, it lay in wait, the crippling fear that history
would repeat itself, that she would give up too much of herself for him, the
way she had with Danny, and end up an empty shell.  Determined to ignore that
fear, she took a deep breath and resolved that tonight, elation would win. 
Tonight, she would allow herself to explore this maelstrom of emotions that
swirled around her.  Tomorrow was soon enough to face the fear.

She carefully set the glass in
the sink and turned.  He was leaning with both hands braced against the counter,
trapping her within the circle of his arms.  His body heat arced across the
space between them and tangled her in its grip.  In the silence, the kitchen
clock ticked.  Above her, his face was a pale gleam of white, blurred and indecipherable
in the darkness.  He smelled wonderful.  Not a cosmetic scent; simply the musky
scent of man.  Her man.  A scent so distinctive to him that, blindfolded, she
could have picked him out of a crowded room.  While her pulse hammered
erratically and her stomach did back-flips, she lifted a hand and lay it flat
against the hard muscles of his abdomen. 

“Hey,” he whispered, and leaned
in to kiss her.

His mouth was so very familiar,
yet there was something different this time.  He gave her tender, sweet little
kisses that made her throat tighten with emotion.  Teasing nibbles.  Restrained,
because after a year and a half as lovers, he knew what she liked, what she
craved, knew her rhythms and her desires, knew what it took to make the fire
smolder slowly between them.  Her hands came to rest atop his, her thumbs
looped around his slender wrists, drawing in his energy, his essence, as they
took their time, letting the excitement build slowly.  The electric connection
between them flowed from mouths to hands and back again, while their bodies,
two heated, yearning bodies, maintained a controlled, torturous distance.

He was the first to break,
letting out a soft groan and driving her up hard against the counter.  Cool restraint
forgotten, she answered him with a muted, wordless sound.  Then their hands
were on each other, touching, stroking, seducing.  The kiss deepened, tongues
darting and plunging.  They broke apart with a gasp, took in air, dove back in
for another helping.  Her hands knotted in his hair so tightly she knew she
must be hurting him.  Excitement churned inside her belly, so intense it nearly
made her nauseous.  She wanted him so, she could barely breathe.  Thrilled by his
hardness pressed against her, she arched her back and opened her thighs,
craving that hardness, needing it, between her legs, inside her.

Still kissing her, he swept a
hand down her thigh until he reached bare skin.  He touched the back of her leg,
sending a shudder through her, then began inching his way back up beneath the
dress.  When he reached silk and lace, he hesitated for an instant before
hooking a finger beneath the waistband of her bikini panties and peeling them off. 
She freed her mouth and whispered frantically, “What are you doing?”

The panties reached her thighs
and kept going.  “Shh. ‘s okay.” 

“Not here.”  She kissed him. “Not
in the kitchen.”  Another breathy kiss.  “Paige—”

The tiny scrap of silk and lace
that she’d spent a fortune on completed its descent to the floor.  “She’s
asleep,” he whispered.  “Just let me—”

“Ohhh,” she breathed as he dipped
two fingers inside her, wet them, and began stroking her.  The man was a sexual
savant, and she refused to think about the long line of women who’d warmed his
bed before her, or about which of them had taught him so well.  That was the
past, and it didn’t matter.  He was hers now, and she was his, and none of those
other women mattered.  Their sexual histories were just that.  History.

“Missed you so much,” he
whispered against the corner of her mouth.  “Missed touching you.”

“Stop,” she said weakly.  “Please.”

“Oh, baby, your lips are saying
no, but your body’s saying
yes
.”

She moaned, and he crushed his
mouth to hers to muffle the sound.  She fisted her hands in his hair, panted
into his open mouth.  Closed her eyes and let her head fall back.  “Stop,” she whispered
again.

“Why?  You don’t like it?”

“Of course I like it.”  She
gasped, clutched at his arm, but her touch failed to have any effect on what he
was doing to her.  “You know I like it.”

“Shh!  Then what’s the problem?”

The sensations he was causing
were exquisite, and part of her wanted him to continue touching her until she
imploded.  It wouldn’t take much; she was already halfway to paradise.  She
could just give in and let him have his way, and enjoy the fireworks.  But this
wasn’t what she’d waited six weeks for, and if he kept it up, she wasn’t sure how
much longer she could hold onto her sanity.  “I want you,” she whispered
fiercely.  “Inside me.”

“We’ll get to that.  But first—”

“No.”  She caught his wrist in an
iron grip.  “Bedroom.”

“But you haven’t—”

“Now!”

“Okay, okay.  Whatever you say,
Sarge.” 

He let the skirt fall back into
place and hoisted her up into his arms.  She wrapped herself around him like
lichen on a tree trunk.  He adjusted their fit, braced a palm against her bare
butt.  Kissing frantically, they made it as far as the living room doorway
before she said, “Stop!”

“Shh!  You’ll have the kid up. 
What?”

“Undies.  On the floor.”

He backtracked, leaned to pick
them up while she clung to him.  He hooked them over her index finger and moved
unerringly in the darkness toward the staircase that would take them upstairs. 
At the bottom, she said, “If you lose your balance and drop me, MacKenzie—”

“Don’t worry.”  He hoisted her a little higher and she
tightened her legs around his waist.  “I have no intention of dropping you and
missing this.  Because, baby, by the time I’m done with you tonight, you won’t
even remember your own name.”

“Abstinence,” she reminded him, “makes the heart grow
fonder.”

“The abstinence,” he declared, “is over.”

Somehow, they made it to the top of the stairs and into the
bedroom.  He closed the door behind them, and in the velvety darkness, he
loosened his hold on her.  Still clasped in his arms, she slid lightly to the
floor.  He cradled her face in his hands, brushed a thumb across her cheek, and
said, “You light the candle.  I’ll take care of the music.”

Her legs had gone so weak they
barely held her up.  She dropped the panties on the dresser and pulled a
kitchen match from the box she kept here for this very purpose.  With trembling
hands, she struck it and lit the fat, white candle perched on a ceramic saucer
in front of the mirror.