Forbidden Fruit (18 page)

She bit down on her lip, trying to brace herself against the emotions flooding through her.

Finally he stopped and looked right at her.

“I’m sorry, Karalee.”

“That’s a good start. Tell me what you’re sorry for.”

“For hurting you.”

Lord, too much emotion in his voice, too much sincerity. She couldn’t stand it. Her fingers twisted together in her lap. “Go on.”

“You have to understand, Karalee. Last night was the first time I’ve had a woman in my house since…

since my wife died.”

“I do understand that. But I assumed you bringing me here meant you were ready for…for more. With me.”

She pushed her hair away from her face, blew out a short breath. “Don’t make me be the one to say it, Gideon.”

He looked at her, his dark eyes glittering in the way they often did. But this time it wasn’t about sex at all.

He took two long strides, and then he was standing right before her. “I thought I was ready. I thought I’d put it all behind me. But the thing is, Karalee, you can’t lose someone like that and ever really get over it. Not entirely. It’ll always be a part of me, that loss.

You’ll have to accept that about me. And to do that, you’ll have to be willing to let me in. I don’t know if you are.”

She wrapped her arms around her body, held on tight. “I know you’ve done this once and lost. I’ve never done this…this relationship thing. I’m fucking floundering here. I don’t know what I’m doing. We both know this is not a naturallstate of events for me.

You’ll have to accept that about me, Gideon, that this…that what I’m feeling for you goes beyond my basic belief system. I
want
to let you in. But I don’t have any idea what I’m capable of and what I’m not.”

“Any relationship is about taking a risk.”

“Is that what this is, a relationship?”

“Isn’t it? Would we be here now if it weren’t?”

“You tell me, Gideon. I need you to tell me what this is.” She was shivering all over. “I need you to say the words.”

He nodded, stepped closer, and pulled her to her feet, so that they were eye-to-eye.

His hands on her were warm, even through her sweater. She could smell him now, that night-dark scent that was all him.

“Karalee.” His voice was rough, as dark as his scent. Every bit as intoxicating. “I’m falling in love with you.”

The warmth from his hands spread as his words sank in, as she accepted the truth of them. She nodded her head, her throat tight.

“Do you love me, Karalee?”

She nodded. “Yes. I love you.”

How alien those words felt, coming from her mouth.

Hers!
But it was the truth. And she couldn’t deny it anymore, no matter how jaded she liked to think she was.

His eyes roved over her face, and then his hands.

And he moved in and kissed her, a kiss rough with emotion. It couldn’t be any other way for them. His tongue slipped between her lips, as demanding as ever. Her arms slid around his neck, held on tight.

She wanted to cry. But she was done crying.

When they broke apart she asked him, “What happens now?”

“Now we figure it out. Take each day as it comes.

Learn to love each other. Flounder our way through.”

She nodded her head once more. “I need it to be that simple.”

“Yes. So do I.”

He was watching her again, trying to see through her with those deep brown eyes of his. He was so damn beautifullto her. In every way, even that darkest part of him. And she was heating up all over just looking at him, his hands on her face. She reached up and grabbed them both, slid them down over her shoulders, her breasts.

“Make love to me, Gideon.”

He didn’t say a word as he undressed her. And when she stood naked, he took his own clothes off, picked her up, and carried her up the stairs to his bed.

He laid her down on the soft suede duvet, covered her body with his. She blinked up at the skylights in the vaulted ceiling overhead. Beautiful. And she took a moment to simply breathe him in, to revellin the weight of him.

Safe.

Yes, as safe as she’d ever felt. There were stillissues to be worked out. Hers. His. But she’d never felt anything so right, just being with him. And for the first time, she needed this. Needed someone.

Needed
him.

He began to kiss his way down her body; his breath, his lips, warm on her skin. She couldn’t get enough of him, the soft feellof his mouth on her. His mouth, his hands, all of him. She wanted it all.

Desperate suddenly, she pulled him closer, spread her thighs, and reached down to guide his cock into her thighs, and reached down to guide his cock into her wet and waiting sex.

“I need you inside me, Gideon.”

“Yes…”

“No, you don’t understand. I
need
you…”

He paused, looked hard into her eyes. His voice was rough. “I understand exactly what you mean, Karalee. I understand.”

He angled his hips, slipped inside, an inch at a time.

Pleasure washed over her like a warm wave. And the weight of his body was like the soft, quiet weight of water on hers.

When he was deep inside her he held still for a moment, raised himself on his elbows, and gazed into her eyes once more. And she felt a rush of exquisite emotion that left her breathless.

No man had ever looked into her eyes this way while making love to her.

No man had ever truly made love to her before.

So this is what it’s like.

Need.

Lovely. So good it almost hurt, to feellso much, to have him deep in her body, melded together in some inexplicable way. In some way which was not explainable by the mere physicallact. She couldn’t wrap her mind around it. And so she let it go, while Gideon kissed her lips, slid in and out of her body, touched her all over. And pleasure became some warm current she floated on, that they floated on together.

His panting breath matched hers as the intensity built low in her belly, as his sliding cock pushed the sensation deeper and deeper. And his lips on hers, his wet tongue in her mouth, felt so damn good, as though his mouth were somehow between her thighs even as his cock was. Sensation spread, crested, and she began to shake. Her body poised on that lovely edge, and she held it there, loath to let it go just yet.

“Gideon…Gideon…”

She twisted her fingers into his short hair, inhaled the scent of him, filling her lungs with him.

Their legs were a tangle of muscle and skin; desire a coillrunning through her body, into his and back again. Pulsing, aching. And he kept his gaze on hers, dark and powerful, reaching inside her.

He drove into her, her arms and legs locked around his body. And when she came, it was in a long undulating current. Like a river. Like clouds thundering down on the earth. Pleasure so exquisite, so intense, her mind went entirely blank. And all she saw were his dark eyes, the beauty of his mouth as he came inside her, calling out her name.

She understood now that she’d wanted this all her life; she’d simply never dared to hope it could ever be real, had rejected the idea as mere fantasy. Now that she’d known this state of love, there was no turning back. And for once, she didn’t want to.

MIA PULLED THE HEAVY DOWN QUILT OVER

HER SHIVERING body, burrowing deeper into her pillow. It was damp with her tears. Had she slept at all?

She glanced at the clock on her nightstand. It was five in the afternoon already. After her long night, she’d called the schoolland canceled her office hours. Then she’d crawled into bed, her body aching, and had tried to sleep. But she wasn’t certain her mind had ever really stopped turning, spinning, grieving.

She couldn’t seem to get warm, even beneath the layers of flannellsheets, blankets, the big quilt.

Maybe a hot shower, a cup of tea, would help?

Nothing is going to help.

But she got out of bed anyway, slipping into her thick velour robe, padded in her slippers over the wood floors and into the kitchen. She went through the motions of filling the kettle, setting it on the stove, finding a cup, the box of tea, like a blind woman. She wasn’t seeing anything, wasn’t able to think or feellanything but the pain that still racked her body, flooded her mind, her heart.

Yet despite the need to bury herself behind a wall, to hide away from any sense of vulnerability, she wanted—needed—to talk to someone. To talk to a friend, a confidante.

She fought it off while the water boiled and the kettle whistled, the sound like some lonely keening in her quiet kitchen. Pouring a spoonfullof honey into her tea, she let it steep for a moment before grabbing the phone from the counter and taking it with her to the kitchen table.

Looking out the window, she tried to focus on her grandmother’s roses, but the afternoon was too gray outside. She couldn’t stand to think of her grandmother right now. She looked away, dialed the phone.

“Hello?”

“Karalee, it’s Mia.”

“Mia, you sound awful. Are you sick?”

“No, not sick. I’m…I’m not so good, Karalee. I’m…

God, I can’t even talk. Can you come over to my place? Please?”

“Of course. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Um, I need your address. I’ve never been to your house before.”

“Oh, of course. I’m at 1135 Sloat. Right across from Stern Grove, up the street from the zoo.”

“I’ll find it. Just hang on.”

“Okay. Okay.”

She hung up the phone, numb all over. Sipping her tea, she waited, trying not to count the minutes untillKaralee would arrive. Now that she’d admitted to herself the need to talk to someone, that need was overwhelming.

Time seemed to stretch out, so that she had absolutely no sense of how long it was before Karalee knocked at her door. She opened it, and felt an enormous sense of relief at seeing her friend standing there.

Her
friend.

“Jesus, Mia.” Karalee pushed her way in, taking Mia by the arm and shutting the door behind her. “You need to sit down.”

She led her into the kitchen, seeming to know somehow that it was Mia’s favorite room, a place of comfort.

They sat at her little kitchen table, and Mia wrapped her fingers around her now-empty tea mug.

“So,” Karalee said. “What’s going on? Talk to me.”

Mia shook her head, staring at the mug in her hands.

“I don’t know where to start. I’m…I’m so glad to see you—” She broke off, a sob welling in her throat. “I’m no good at this stuff, Karalee. I don’t know how to do any of this.”

“It’s okay.” Karalee laid a hand on her arm. “It’s Jagger, isn’t it?”

Mia nodded her head. She could barely stand to see the sympathy in Karalee’s eyes. “I fucked up. I was…

too scared. And I ran away. And I’m still too scared to go back. I can’t do it.”

“Why not?”

“You know my father left when I was a baby. I never even knew him. Do you know what that’s like? To be completely devoid of any memory of the person who created you? It’s like this empty place inside that willnever, ever be filled. It’s an anger that will never go away. A sense of utter betrayal. And then when my mother left me here, it just confirmed every fear I’d ever had. I’d always known she’d leave me someday, too. That I’d chase her away.”

“Mia, didn’t you tell me your mother was into drugs?

How was that your fault?”

“I don’t know! I’ve just realized that I blamed myself for my parents abandoning me. This very moment. I mean, I’ve always understood it in some vague way, on an intellectualllevel. But understanding on an emotionalllevel…that’s something completely different. And it’s just now really hitting me. God.”

She buried her face in her hands. How had she failed to understand that this was as much the basis of her fears as the experience of being abandoned was?

“Oh, honey.”

Karalee squeezed her arm. And that warmth, that sympathy, reminded her of her grandmother. No one else had ever cared for her this way. No one except Jagger. And Ben. She knew she had to let him go, finally. But there was still so much wreckage to deallwith.

Mia lifted her head, looked at Karalee. The sun was going down outside the fogged windows. “I feelllike I’m in this bizarre state, where my brain’s not really working, yet all of these things are happening in there. Thoughts, ideas. Epiphanies. And some of it is about you, and being friends with you, learning how to really do that. And a huge part of it is about Jagger.”

“I can understand why that would be scary, Mia. I’ve been through some of that with Gideon. And he has with me. But we’re working it all out. You can, too.”

“I don’t know if I’m brave enough. Some part of me is still convinced I’ll drive him away, too. That sounds stupid…”

“No. You’re just afraid. I don’t blame you.”

“I just…I don’t even know if I’m even capable of being the person I’d have to be in order to have a healthy relationship, Karalee. To be what he deserves.”

“And so you ran away from him.”

“Yes.” The pain was back, constricting her throat.

“You can decide to go back, you know.”

“Yes.” It came out on a whisper.

“It’s all about choices, Mia. You have to choose to be vulnerable. To be open to being hurt. Or you’ll miss out on everything. I’m learning that myself. That’s what it comes down to for all of us, in the end. I guess the question you have to ask yourself is, would it be worth it? That risk? Because honestly, you look like you’ve been through hell already. I don’t think it could get any worse. And you may feelllike shit, but you’re still breathing. Isn’t it worth trying?”

“Yes!” Tears gathered in her eyes. “Except that I’m afraid I’ve completely screwed this up. I’ve hurt him. I don’t know if he even wants to see me.”

“Come on, Mia. You’ll only really know if you talk to him. But don’t call him. You need to go to him. See him in person.”

“You’re right. I know you’re right. I think part of why I needed you here was to tell me that. To tell me what I already knew.” She was shaking. With certainty, with fear.

“Just take a deep breath. You can do it. Why don’t you take a shower first? Try to calm down a little.”

“Okay. Okay. I will. Karalee, thank you. For coming here. For being my friend even though I’m lousy at it.”

“Actually, for someone with so little experience, you’re pretty damn good. Come here.”

Karalee stood and put out her arms. And Mia went into them, let herself be hugged, comforted.

Maybe if she could learn to be a friend, to have a friend, she could learn to love Jagger, too. To accept that from him.

She was going to find out. She knew she’d done some damage. But she was beginning to heallon the inside. Jagger was a big part of that. Maybe she could find a way to heallthings between them, too. If only he would let her.

Jagger answered the sharp knock on his door; he pulled it open and stepped back to let Jean in.

“Where’s Leilani? I thought she was coming up, too.”

“She’s taking a nap. You could use one. You look like shit.” Jean swept past him into the apartment, alltough-girllswagger in her black jeans and heavy boots. “Close the door, Jagger.”

“What? Oh, yeah.”

He shut the door and followed Jean into his kitchen, where she reached into a cupboard for a wineglass, poured from the bottle of Cabernet he kept on the counter, and handed it to him.

“Aren’t you having any?”

“Maybe later. You’re the one who needs it, Jagger.”

“Yeah. Maybe I do.”

“Come on, let’s sit down and you can tell me what’s going on. You sounded really strange on the phone.”

Jean settled down on the big green couch, leaning back, her long legs stretched out before her. He sat down next to her. “So, talk to me.”

He took a slow sip of the wine, cradled the glass in his hand. “Things are really screwed up.”

“With Mia? What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything! Fuck, I’m sorry. I didn’t…I don’t think I did anything.” He took a swig of the wine, swallowed, took another. “I told her I loved her last night. And she freaked. She tried to hide it for a while, but it all came out…Christ, I don’t get it. I knew she had some issues. But don’t we all? Aren’t we alljust as fucked up, deep down, in our own way?”

“Sure. But for some people, that’s hard to hear.

Love.”

“Yeah. It was hard for her to hear.” He took another sip of the wine, needing its warmth to fight the stark cold that hovered in his chest ever since Mia Rose had left the night before. “So, what do I do now?”

Jean grabbed his wineglass, drank, handed it back to him. “If you want the soft, pretty version, you’d better wait untillLeilani wakes up.”

“I can take it. Straight-out. Say whatever needs to be said.” His fingers tightened around the stem of the glass.

“Go after her. Don’t let it wait. Don’t let it simmer.

She’s scared. Some insane shit is going through her head. Don’t sit back and let her do that, think like that. Go talk to her. Now.”

“Right now? Tonight?”

“Yes, tonight. You have to understand a few things about women, Jagger. We don’t like to be kept waiting. And the longer we wait, the crazier the shit that goes through our minds. Just do it. Don’t waste time talking to me.”

“It’s not a waste of time, Jean.”

She lowered her voice. “Come on. You know exactly what I mean. Why are you stalling?”

He shook his head. Why
was
he stalling? He looked past the pale blond spikes of Jean’s hair and through the windows, into the night. The familiar neon glow from the streets below normally comforted him, made the apartment seem womblike. But tonight, the pink and gold light only seemed to illuminate more clearly how empty his home felt without Mia Rose in it.

He handed Jean his wineglass and stood up. “I’m going.”

“Good. Don’t lose her, Jagger.”

“I’m not going to. I am damn well not going to.

Thanks, Jean.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t really do anything. Except tellyou what you already knew.”

“Thanks anyway.”

“Just go. Find her. Talk to her.”

He nodded as he grabbed his jacket and his keys.

Adrenaline pumped through his veins. He couldn’t get to Mia Rose soon enough, suddenly.

Jean was right: He had to talk to her. Make her face the fact that he loved her. And even more, that she loved him back.

Mia blotted the water from her hair with a thick towel, dried her body, then slipped into her robe. Karalee was right; the shower had helped to warm her, soothe her. Her pulse was still racing, but she could take a breath now without feeling as though her chest were about to cave in.

A knock at the door startled her; Karalee must have forgotten something. She moved down the hall, pulled the door open.

Jagger stood there, as beautifullas ever. She had to pull in a sharp, gasping breath. Fresh grief washed over her, grief and love and a need so strong she could barely breathe.

“Mia Rose.”

He stepped inside, kicked the door shut behind him, and pulled her into his arms.

“God, Jagger.”

“Baby, baby,” he whispered before lowering his mouth to hers. Just a sweet brushing of his lips, over and over, making her weak with desire. Making her heart ache.

He kissed her harder, pressing his lips down on hers untillit hurt. The need for him welled up inside her, a powerfulltide, and yet at the back of her mind, she knew certain things needed to be said before they went any further.

She pulled away, panting for breath. “Jagger, we need to talk.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now.”

“All I want is to be with you.” He put a hand out to stroke her hair, and she backed up a step.

She saw the hurt on his face, knew it was her fault.

“I’m sorry. I know I’m not doing this right, any of it. But there are some things you have to understand.”

“I love you, Mia Rose. What else do I have to know?”

“That I’m…I understand I screwed up. And I’llprobably do it again. There are reasons why I’m this way. Reasons I’m trying to work through, but I know I have a long road ahead. And I don’t know if it’s fair to you to drag you along.”

“We all have baggage.”

“I have more baggage than most people.” Her hands twisted together at her waist. She wanted so badly to touch him. “Being with you has made me see things about myself, about my life, I didn’t see before. And it’s not only about the food fetish, although that’s part of it. Facing that part of myself has forced me to face other things about my past, about who I am. It’s as though being with you has opened up my Pandora’s box. But not everything inside there is pretty.”

“It doesn’t have to be. None of us are all pretty on the inside. All that twisted crap I’ve been carrying around about my past relationships. About not being able to love you because of what another woman did to my heart. But I understand now I don’t have to allow that to determine whether or not I let myself love you. I was on autopilot, operating on an outdated idea about what I had to do. I had to meet you, to fall in love with you, to fight it.”

“I don’t know if I’m strong enough. I don’t know if I can trust myself enough. I want to be with you. You know I do. But there are other issues involved.”

“Issues like our age difference?”

“No. I’ve hardly thought of that since I first met you.”

“It’s about the schoollthing, then.”