Heart Signs (10 page)

“I will,” she promised, flicking her tongue over the crown. She gripped his length in both hands like a microphone, her vised fists working in tandem with the serpentine licks that destroyed the pathetic protests he hadn’t managed to voice.

It shouldn’t be like this. Her crouching in pristine gray trousers in the dingy backroom of his shop, her cheeks red with arousal and her swollen lips so ripe as they slid up and down his erection. He had one now, no doubt about it. She’d prodded him awake in an instant, her knowing hands and mouth giving him a gift that didn’t require repayment. She was sharing something perfect with him even while the guys shouted and made a hell of a lot of noise on the other side of the door. Then they cranked up “Start Me Up” by the Stones and he choked out a laugh while he gripped the edge of the table.

“Nice touch,” she murmured, drawing back to chase the string of pre-cum slipping down his dick.

Her breasts swelled against her sweater when she moved, their rounded tips a cotton-candy distraction. He wanted to see them bare. Pressed flush against his chest while she bounced on him, those wicked eyes spurring him to new heights. And shit, just thinking that caused another thin stream of fluid to trickle toward her waiting tongue.

“Mmm, I’m started too,” she said, cocking her head as the guys turned the music up. Before he could question her further, she rocked backward and fumbled her hand into the gap between her pants and her smooth, pale belly. The fabric rippled while she dove down, coming up victorious with shiny fingers.

“Fuck,” he muttered, snatching her wrist and taking them between his lips. He sucked on her and closed his eyes against the expression of bliss that flittered over her face. Watching her and not coming wasn’t possible. So he absorbed her warm, sugary taste and breathed in the scent of their mingled arousal while she took him back inside her mouth.

“Jesus!” He yelped and bolted upright in his chair as bubbles exploded over the head of his cock and dripped down the sides, setting off mini-flares of heat.

“Shouldn’t ever close your eyes on a woman,” she said, her voice husky with amusement and sex.

Taking her at her word, he watched as she reached for her soda again and swallowed, letting him see her throat move before she came back and dribbled some over his cock. Even prepared, the flutters from the carbonation still elicited more curses. Especially when she carefully cleaned up every streak of purple until he gleamed in the light from the single bulb on the ceiling.

“Just one,” she murmured, her hands moving faster. His cock was harder than the table he held in a rigid grasp. His balls were clenched and full, his stomach taut with the groans he wasn’t about to let out while his crew worked a few feet away, music or no music. “Make one sound so I know if it’s good for you.”

“Good?” He grated, hating to waste even a single breath on speaking when he needed all of them to keep from losing his load all over her swollen mouth. “Try wonder-fucking-ful. Try incredi-amazing.” He leaned forward and buried his free hand in her hair, guiding her back to his twitching erection. He ached without her on him. Surrounding him in her wet heat. “Try—Jesus, Ror, much more and I’m gonna come.”

Her eyes blazing with excitement, she swallowed him again. Her cheeks hollowed with the force of her pulls as she took as much of him inside her throat as she could manage. That he didn’t fit all the way only turned him on more. There was something so erotic about such a small, feminine woman bringing a man to his knees while she was on hers. So primitive and primal.

God, he’d missed this.

She drew on him strongly and reached down to cup his balls, stroking them with featherlight pressure. The combination of touches set off a chain reaction in his body, unleashing the orgasm even he hadn’t been aware was quite so close. The climax stole his breath in a shout he muffled against his knuckles, his hips jerking as his cock pumped in short blasts down her accommodating throat.

Traces of white smeared her chin as he moved back. She trailed her fingers through the remnants of his orgasm and again offered her hand. When he didn’t move, she gave him a patient, provocative smile. “Taste yourself like I tasted you.”

Sam shuddered and captured her fingers in his mouth, reaching down to snag a handful of her sweater so he could drag her on to his lap. She came willingly, wrapping her free arm around his neck while he fed from her hand. Then she pressed a kiss to his head, her smug laughter rumbling through them both. “See, I went slow. That took twenty-five minutes.”

He shot her a stunned glance as he finally released her fingers with a soft pop. “No way. Really? No way.”

“Best twenty-five minutes ever, huh?” Still laughing, she dropped a kiss on the tip of his nose. “Wish I didn’t have to go back to work so we could go test how slow we could go on that ratty mattress of yours.”

He frowned. “We can’t have sex on that bed.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not even a bed. There’s no frame. It’s on the floor, for chrissakes.”

She jerked a shoulder. “Not like I didn’t sleep on worse in college. Besides, you really think I’ll be thinking about pillow-top firmness when I have all
this
firmness to focus on?” she teased, encircling his drooping length in her palm.

“Not doing it there. Not happening.”

“So buy a bedframe.”

“Money’s kinda tight right now,” he said, staring at the closed door so the pleasure still coloring her cheeks didn’t encourage him to make promises he couldn’t keep.

She toyed with the collar of his shirt, slipping her fingernail beneath. Just that brief scrape along his skin was enough to make his spine tingle. “Well, you could always cut back on the billboards.”

He said nothing. What could he tell her?

No. I can’t. Won’t. It hasn’t been long enough. Not even a year. As shitty of a husband as I was, at least I remembered. At least I tried to make up for what I did.

And then immediately came the argument. It was one he’d had with himself often. Until recently. Until Rory.

How? By writing words to a woman who’d stopped listening? What fucking good are words? Then or now?

“The rates are going up,” Rory continued, her fingernail still worrying his flesh. “That was part of why I came over here today. To tell you there’s a change in the cost and the frequency. My aunt’s trying to drum up revenue so now she’s selling billboard space in blocks of three. You won’t be able to pay by the month anymore. So maybe you want to think about canceling—”

He talked so she would stop. “Here I thought it was my dazzling email-sending skills.”

Her lips curved in a strained smile. “I loved the letter. Thank you. I was smiling all morning and then I—” She broke off, staring at his hand. “You’re still wearing the ring. I didn’t notice when we met up for dinner.”

He glanced at it and then back up at her face. “Yeah. I guess I forgot too.” At least it hadn’t gotten caught in her hair.

No, what had snared them this time was talk of mattresses and billboards.

“Are you going to ever take it off?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.” He tightened his fingers into a fist, his body tensing. Didn’t she get he didn’t want to be having this conversation?

“It must be hard.”

“Hard.” The brittle laugh that burst from him like staccato gunfire he expected. The burn of heat in his eyes he sure didn’t. “I’ve been married a third of my life. I can’t just take off this ring and pretend I’m not anymore.”

So what? Now you’re married to a ghost? Is that the new part of your sentence?

“I-I know it’s difficult, Sam. But these past few weeks, I started to think that maybe you could…move on.” She must’ve felt him go rigid beneath her because she gripped his chin and turned his face to hers. “Not right away. I won’t push you. I just—”

“You’re pushing me right now,” he said quietly.

She went as pale as if he wrapped both hands around her delicate throat and squeezed. “I’m not. I just assumed that with the phone calls and the dinners and today, the letter, that maybe we were going somewhere. I don’t know where yet.” She blinked and the sheen of wet in her eyes twisted something way down deep. “I don’t have to know. I’m okay with that.”

“You say you are, but you want me to take off my ring.” Something frantic was rising inside him, and the only way to make it stop was to keep talking. “To cancel the billboards.”

She shoved her hair behind her ears, which only exposed her vulnerable eyes more. “I didn’t say that.”

“Yes, you did. Maybe in not so many words but you did. You’re asking me for things I’m not ready to give. I’m not saying that’s unfair. Fuck, I don’t know if it is or it isn’t.” He rubbed a hand over his head and tried not to remember her lips had just been there moments ago “This is on me. I know that. I’m the one who asked you to lunch that first day. Who invited you back to my apartment, who called you that night. I’ve pushed every step of this. God knows, I want you in my life, but what the hell does that matter if I can’t be the man you deserve?”

“How do you know that? This is all so new. We have time. There’s no rush. I’m sorry if I pushed.” She shook her head. “I guess I got greedy. I can wait for you. I
want
to wait.”

Sam met her gaze and held it even when he wanted to look away. The tears she didn’t bother to disguise wrecked him. What kind of asshole made a person as sweet and unguarded as Rory cry?

He
did. Just like he’d made Dani cry. Over and over again.

They weren’t the same and this situation sure wasn’t. This thing with Rory had grown from the embers of his relationship with Dani and maybe that was why it was doomed to fail. She thought he was some sad, poetic guy with a kitten. Truth was he was a cracked shell around a lot of unglued parts she’d somehow started to help him put back together again.

She’d given him so much the past few weeks. A way to beat back the loneliness. Laughter. Hope. Passion. Maybe they’d be able to take enough away from this experience to heal. Both of them. She had pain she carried too. Not on the same scale but if they’d helped each other in some small way, this hadn’t been a mistake.

The best thing he could do for them both was stop pretending he could make a life in this netherworld between the past and the future. He had to make a choice and he couldn’t do that when she was sitting here, unraveling his heart with her tears.

“You’re really late for work,” he muttered, shifting her on his lap so he could awkwardly stuff himself back into his boxers. “Can’t have making you any later on my conscience.”

“Yeah,” she agreed woodenly, swiping her fingers under her eyes. “Time to go.”

The sign place wasn’t far away, one of the reasons he’d known where to go when he’d come up with the billboard idea. He’d passed by JD Signage every day for years without knowing she was inside.

So beautiful. So dangerous to every wall he’d built around his life.

“Did you walk?” he asked. “Want me to drive you?”

“I drove, thanks.” She adjusted her clothes and walked to the door, not sparing him a glance as she reached for the knob. “Have a good afternoon.”

He could fill in the rest that she didn’t say.
Have a nice life, fucker.

The door opened and closed and then he was alone. Again.

Selfishly, he wanted to chase after her and try to explain. But what he could say? A couple of orgasms couldn’t erase all that had come before. Nor could long, teasing nights of conversation. Even if he knew she’d touched somewhere inside him far deeper than that, there was nothing he could do.

The course he was on had been set a long time ago. He’d made an oath to himself not to forget. He owed a debt to Dani, whatever the cost to himself.

Whatever the cost to Rory.

“Bullshit,” he whispered into the silence, wondering when the music on the other side of the door had stopped.

Was this what he wanted? A life where he remained alone in some sort of homage to Dani? He’d loved her desperately and he’d messed up. Though he’d tried to fix things, it hadn’t worked. But when she’d died, she was moving back toward happiness. She was trying to find some peace. She’d even told him she forgave him for all that had occurred between them and she wished him well.

So wasn’t it time he stop burying her over and over again? Proving he could out-suffer any widow wouldn’t bring her back. And it would hurt someone who cared about him. Why, he wasn’t sure. But he wasn’t about to destroy that little green shoot that seemed determined to push up between the sidewalk cracks without giving it a chance to grow.

Maybe the timing wasn’t wrong at all. Maybe that he’d met Rory through the billboards he’d done for Dani was another gift he’d been given. Perhaps Dani was even on the other side looking out for him. Somebody needed to, because he sure didn’t know how to himself.

He scrubbed his hands over his face and stumbled to his feet. He opened the door and started out into the shop then he stopped, closing his eyes.

Work wasn’t the answer. Burying himself in his grief in his apartment wasn’t either. He could punch the bag hanging from the ceiling or pour out his pain on paper or he could finally face reality. As difficult as it was.

First on his own, then maybe he’d see about facing it with Rory.

R
ory drove
through the streets like a zombie, barely reaching the speed limit. Her damp eyes and shaky legs weren’t the best combo for driving.

Surprise, surprise, she’d made a misstep. A blowjob hadn’t worked the first time she’d tried to use it to break down barriers between them. Or to offer comfort. The second time, he’d finished in her mouth and been even colder and more abrupt afterward.

He wasn’t ready for anything with her. That was a simple, brutal truth she couldn’t ignore any longer. Even if he seemed awful damn ready when he called her every night and panted in her ear, even if he’d tasted ready as hell that afternoon. Sex and shared laughter and long conversations about everything under the sun couldn’t patch up the wounds that only time could stitch back together.

She wasn’t a miracle worker. She was just a woman, a little broken and a lot stupid.

The tears that dripped down her cheeks annoyed her more than anything. She knew better. Hadn’t she always been so careful to keep things fun and casual with her lovers? Sam wasn’t even her lover yet, not really, and she’d broken her cardinal rule.

And she was paying the price.

Aunt Pam was waiting in her office doorway when Rory arrived two hours later, her face still soggy and her arms sore from clenching the steering wheel. She’d driven in circles then finally pulled over and stared out the window at the encroaching darkness. Not seeing it. Finally going numb.

Numb she could handle.

“Where the hell have you been?” Pam asked, stepping aside to let her enter.

“Fucking my way through the police department. You know how I love a man in uniform,” Rory muttered, hanging her purse on the back of the door.

“Whatever you’ve been doing took about three hours longer than your break should have. Actually, forget lunch, it’s almost dinner time.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” Rory rounded the opposite side of her desk and sank into her chair, wishing she had long enough hair to hide her puffy eyes and blotchy complexion. She’d tried to repair the worst of it in the bathroom, but concealer could only do so much. “I’ll stay late the next few Fridays to make up for it.”

“Friday? Isn’t that date night?”

She shrugged. Like she cared about her social life at the moment. “No big deal. It’s not like I date all that much. I can work.”

“And what about this?” Pam tapped the big heart Rory had drawn on her calendar on the fourth of November. “That’s two weeks from now. Your big car show you’re all excited about. So that Friday’s out.”

“I’m not going so it’ll be fine.” Rory tapped keys and resolutely stared at her screen as she woke it from sleep. “Do you have anything in particular you need me to do or should I just get caught up on paperwork?”

“You can finish letting the customers know about the pending rate increase. How far did you make it through the list?”

“Sam. I told Sam.” Saying his name was her biggest mistake of that afternoon. One of them anyway. The hard wedge in her chest dislodged, shaking loose a flood of tears she thought she’d cried out.

Wrong.

Pamela stared at her, not speaking. Then she exhaled a sharp breath and took the seat opposite Rory’s desk. “What did you do, Rory?”

The weariness she heard in her aunt’s tone turned her tears to fury right quick. “Don’t start with me. You don’t understand. I never meant for any of this to happen. I don’t even know how it did.”

Now she didn’t know how she’d get by without hearing his voice every day. Somehow in no time at all he’d become the brightest spot in her life.

She hadn’t been unhappy. Not consciously. But she
had
been lonely. Way down deep, in a place so remote she hadn’t even been aware it existed. And for a few short weeks, she hadn’t been anymore. It would be so much worse now, after knowing the difference.

“What happened?”

The crinkle of paper in her aunt Pam’s hand made Rory jerk her gaze away from her computer. “What are you holding?”

Pamela waved the rolled paper and shook her head. “Later. Tell me what happened, sweetie.”

Rory swallowed hard.
Sweetie?
That was new.

“I’ll just listen. No advice, no lecture. I promise.”

Rory sat back in her chair and closed her eyes, gathering her courage. She hadn’t told anyone about Sam, not even her mom or her friend Shana. They’d both been busy lately and Sam had been a secret she’d enjoyed keeping to herself. But she needed to tell someone. Maybe if she said it out loud she’d stop feeling so mushy and shaky inside. If she was really lucky, some of her sense might return and she’d be able to put this whole nutty situation into perspective.

“You know I agreed to have lunch with him a few weeks ago.” She weaved her fingers together in her lap. “Well, we never made it.”

She told her everything—censored a bit, of course, this was her aunt and her boss after all—and then sat back and waited for the lecture she’d been promised wouldn’t come. But Pamela remained silent, tapping that rolled paper against her thigh.

“I know you think I’m loose, but I haven’t had that many lovers. We haven’t even slept together, not really, and now we won’t. I shouldn’t have gone with him back to his apartment the day I hit his car.” Rory leaned forward and dropped her elbows to the desk so she could bury her face in her hands. “I don’t know why I did.”

“You fell in love with him before you ever laid eyes on him.”

She lifted her head slowly, sure she’d heard her aunt wrong. “What?”

“Do you remember how often you emailed his latest billboard to me, practically falling all over yourself? Almost every one of them ended up starred in my inbox. Women want to believe in love and Sam Miller gives good romance.” She made a disgusted sound in her throat. “Most men nowadays would miss their dog longer than their wife. He’s unique. And worth fighting for, if you ask me. Not that you did. Not that you ever ask your old, dried-up Aunt Pam for anything.” She pushed to her feet and slapped the paper she’d been clutching faceup on Rory’s desk. “Maybe this will give you something to think about.” She left before Rory could respond.

If she’d even been able to.

With an unsteady breath, Rory reached for the piece of paper. It was an email, addressed to “Whom It May Concern” and sent about thirty minutes earlier. The return address was MillerLt.

He hadn’t emailed her. She’d always been his contact, but he’d just sent it to the main email address on the site. Already he was cutting off contact.

Her tears had turned into a headache that hammered between her eyes. But she ignored it and forced herself to read what he’d written. Her stomach caught and turned over as the meaning sank into her tired brain. Then she picked up the paper, folded it carefully and placed it in her top drawer.

She had work to do.

B
uying
a bed wasn’t as easy as Sam expected. His old one at the house had been okay, but maybe they’d started making them shorter or something because he felt too long for all of them. His current mattress didn’t count. He hadn’t bought that one for comfort—or permanence. It had been a stopgap measure that lasted a couple years.

Then there was the firmness issue. He didn’t want soft and fluffy. With the kind of workouts he did, he needed support. None of the beds he tried out felt right.

“Sir, have you considered specially ordering a bed?”

Sam stared glumly at his hands. Since when had he turned into such a difficult shopper?

Purchasing a new bed didn’t mean anything except he’d grown tired of backaches and lumbering up from the floor every morning. He certainly wasn’t considering the comfort of a woman he didn’t have in his life.

Thanks to your big mouth.

He cleared his throat. “Those are really expensive, right?”

“Not necessarily. Two to three thousand should—”

“Yeah, no. My budget doesn’t extend that far.” He jerked to his feet and motioned to the last row of beds left to try at Mattress-O-Rama. “Let’s give these a shot.”

With renewed determination, he tested the rest of the beds. And less than an hour later, he walked out as the proud owner of an ultrafirm California king with a complimentary bedframe and free pillows.

That might’ve cheered him some if he hadn’t gotten home and measured the space he’d allotted for the bed. He’d overestimated how much room he had. Significantly. With his new purchase, his bedroom would pretty much be all bed.

Not that that was sending any sort of signal or anything.

He went into the kitchen and grabbed a cold beer then headed back into his room and picked up the package of sheets he’d bought. Spice red in some sort of fancy cotton. Women liked red usually. More than puke-brown anyway.

The bed would be delivered next Wednesday. Until then he intended to keep busy so he didn’t notice what he wasn’t doing that he usually was at this time.

He glanced at the silent phone. Yep, he barely remembered.

His fingers itched with the urge to call her, but he held back. That would happen soon enough. Tonight he’d beat the hell out of his bag, take a cold shower and zone out with a book he’d dug out from the back of his bookcase. It was a self-help book and most likely full of shit. Still, he had nothing better to do.

“Great attitude, Miller,” he muttered, heading into the bathroom. But when he looked at himself in the mirror, he was smiling.

It felt good to do something. To take a step forward on his own. Rory had given him a shove that he’d desperately needed.

Just like he had a strong suspicion he needed her.

Ninety minutes later, he’d done his workout and showered and was sprawled on his bed staring at page one of
Moving Past Grief: A Survivor’s Story
. His mother had bought him this book, along with several others tucked away in his bookshelf. The first paragraph wasn’t bad. Only ten million paragraphs left.

He glanced at the clock, glanced away again. What was Rory doing tonight? Was she down at Loki’s with her friends? Curled up in her bed sleeping?

Missing him, like he was already missing her?

He bunched his hand into a fist and felt the familiar pinch of the band on his finger. He’d worn the ring for so long.

Before he could stop himself, he yanked it off and opened the nightstand drawer. He dropped it inside and closed the drawer, oddly spooked.

He couldn’t really still hear the ring rattling around in there. Nope. Just paranoid. He flexed his newly bare finger and reached for his phone while he still had some nerve left.

It went off in his hand.

He didn’t look at the readout, afraid to hope. “Hello?”

“Don’t say anything.”

His heart started again, beating hard against the walls of his chest. He had to work at keeping the smile on his face out of his voice. Maybe she meant for this to be a serious call.

All that mattered was that she hadn’t given up on him. Not totally. Thank God.

“Okay.”

“I would never force a decision on you. I know it seemed like I was, that I expected you to jump when I snapped my fingers. You have to understand something. I’ve never experienced anything like you have. I don’t
get
grief.” She gave an impatient breath. “Well, I mean, I get it. Intellectually. But I’ve never lost anyone close to me like you have so I’m learning what that means. We’re just getting to know each other and the likelihood is that I’m going to push you too hard sometimes or say the wrong thing. But I want to try. I want to be your friend if you’ll let me, Sam. And if that’s all we ever are, then I’m okay with that.”

He waited a beat, making sure she was finished. “Are you?”

“Yes. I’m a much better friend than a lover. At the sex part, I’m okay. All the rest is a big mess.” Her tone didn’t waver. “So yeah, I want to be friends.”

“What if I don’t?”

“That’s up to you. But I couldn’t leave things where they were this afternoon. I’m not after you just for sex. I could get that anywhere.”

“Oh. Well, that’s good to know.”

His dry remark elicited a short laugh, as he’d hoped. “That’s not what I meant. God, I suck at deep conversations.”

“I think you’re doing just fine.”

“But you still don’t want to be my friend.”

He pictured the sexy pout that probably accompanied her statement and stifled a groan. “I didn’t exactly say that. I just wanted to know what my options were.”

“They’re all open to you. Whatever you want this to be, I’m up for. I’ll do my best to keep things loose and easy and we can have fun together. Go check out that car show we talked about, hang out and have lunch now and then.”

“Talk on the phone.”

“Yes. Talk on the phone.” He heard her breath catch. “Like we are right now.”

“It’s nice.”

“Very.”

“So I’m reading this book,” he said lightly, gripping the spine. “It’s about moving past grief.”

“Oh.” Another of those shuddery breaths filtered over the line. “Is it good?”

“The first paragraph is. I haven’t managed to read more yet since I’ve been lying here thinking about you and trying to talk myself out of calling you.”

“Oh,” she said again. Then silence.

“I was reaching for the phone when you called.”

“That’s good. Were you going to give me the friend speech too?”

“No.” He rubbed the book against the muscles suddenly quivering in his thigh. “I was going to tell you I bought a bed. It’s being delivered Wednesday.”

“That’s wonderful. Unless you did it because I pushed you too far too fast.”

“I needed a push.”

“Like you needed a push to cancel your next billboard order?” she asked softly.

He closed his eyes. “Saw that, hmm?”