Not Since You (4 page)

If only he could get her to stay. And listen. Small steps, he reminded himself.
Not tonight. You can't fix it all in one night. Get her to trust you again, first.
"We found her at the cemetery." Spooky enough. But not as creepy as where they'd found her. "On your grandmother's grave. Howling."

Carrie let go of the doorknob, bringing her hand to her mouth in horror. Her green eyes widened. "She didn't...oh my God…
dig
? Did she?"

The dog whined again. Zack looked down to see Ellie staring at him, meeting his eyes intently.
Be the pack leader. Don't drop your gaze first
. He stared back at her until she blinked and looked away. With a groan, Ellie slid to the floor and rested her chin on her paws.

"No, she didn't dig. But she howled.
Really
howled. It took three of us to get her off the grave and into the truck. Hence, the bear-sized chain…which she broke." Zack shook his head and put his hands on his hips. "Listen,
Carrie-da
—"
              "I told you not to call me that anymore!'"

"Sorry. Carrie. I teach a class in dog training at the shelter as a community service. I suggest you join us."

Carrie shook her head. "I'm only going to be here long enough to get this house fixed up and marketable, get Nana's affairs in order. Then I'm back to Texas. Probably without this dog." She paused. "Is it normal for dogs to do that? Visit their deceased owner's graves?"

"It was nothing I've ever seen before." And, he hoped, nothing he'd ever see again. Ellie had sat there with her nose pointed at the moon, howling as if...part of her was missing. That was the feeling he'd had. Almost as if he could
hear it
in the dog's plaintive howls. He shivered. "All right. I'm off. Give it some thought. You've got my card?"

"Yes. Thanks." Carrie pushed at the dog with her bare foot; Ellie reached out and ran her tongue over her ankle.

Lucky, lucky dog. Zack only wished he could run
his
tongue over her ankle. Or any part of her. His Little Zack stiffened again.
Yep. Time to leave.

She looked up at him; he saw a flash of her old humor in her eyes. "I guess I have to thank you for returning the Beast, too." She reached out and opened the door.

"Just doing my job." Zack started past her.

Whuff!

Ellie leapt up faster than a flash, a blur of gray fur, pushing Carrie from behind so that she slammed against his side. They fell against the screen door, a tangle of arms, legs and warm flesh. And they fit just right, together. Zack stiffened so they didn't fall—he clasped Carrie's upper arms and let her sink against him; she looked up at him with parted lips.

"I think I hate that dog," Carrie muttered, her breath wafting a hot puff of peppermint-scented air across the skin of his throat.

"I think I don't," Zack said.
Small steps be damned
. He dropped his mouth to hers.

Chapter Four

              Zack pressed his mouth to hers with a firm intensity that brooked no argument, and Carrie felt her body respond in the same melting way it always had. This was it, the thing she'd been craving—and avoiding—for so long. Zack's kiss. Zack's touch.
Zack.

              She arched up into him, pressing her body against his solid, muscular heat, feeling the way they meshed together, two parts of a whole, the way they always had. Made for each other.

             
No, Carrie. Don't! You'll get hurt all over again. He's not made for you, he never was. He's made for...

              Sarah.

              The memory of seeing them together in that hallway, hearing him tell Sarah he loved her so soon after he and Carrie had made love for the first time, washed over her in a big sluicing wave of pain. He might as well have cut her heart from her chest and set it aflame.

              "No!" She pushed him back and away from her. He tumbled against the screen door and it opened, dumping him out onto the porch. She had a glimpse of his surprised face and his long-fingered, square-palmed hands reaching toward her just before she slammed the wooden inside door shut and rammed the lock home. "And stay out!" she said.
Out of my head. Out of my heart
... Carrie pressed her palms and her forehead against the door.
Zack,
she cried, and even to her own ears, her tears echoed the shattering of her heart.

*****

After a while, she became aware of Ellie, nudging her leg and pulling on the hem of her robe with her teeth.

              "Aaaroo," the dog moaned at her, then sat, wagging her tail
wumpwumpwump
on the floor. She tilted her massive head to the side, fixing her with an intent stare.

              It reminded Carrie of the way Nana had studied her in the days after Zack and Sarah's betrayal. She hadn't told Nana anything, and she'd been careful not to let the old lady see her tears, sure she wouldn't understand her pain.

              It suddenly struck her that Nana had been in her early sixties then, certainly not as old and dried up as she'd seemed to a seventeen-year-old going through her first heartbreak. She probably
would
have understood. But all she'd known was that Carrie wouldn't talk to her two best friends anymore, and that she'd run away to college, refusing to even come home for the holidays.

              How selfish she'd been. Poor Nana...Carrie had been her only family, just as Nana had been hers. Why hadn't she come home?

              She slid down the door to sit on the floor next to the dog and tilted her head back, pointing her chin up to stare at the ceiling. It needed painting. . . another job to keep her here. Another delay.

              She should have been here, anyway, to take care of these things when Nana was alive, not now that she was dead. But then...who would have expected her grandmother to die at seventy-two? Nowadays, that was s practically late middle-aged. Nowadays.

If only Nana hadn't gone skydiving.

If only Carrie had been here to stop her. It wasn't as if she had a job that required her to stay in Texas. She was a freelance journalist. She could—and did—write anywhere. All she needed was her laptop, an Internet connection and her cell phone, and she was good to work.

So why hadn't she come home?

So she didn't run into Zack.

Foolish, childish, immature nonsense. Did it really matter now? His betrayal didn't even hurt anymore. Her anger at Zack was more of a habit than anything, an emotional wart that would disappear with the right treatment.

A tear trickled down her cheek. "I'm sorry, Nana," she said. Beside her, the dog
wuffed
softly, laying her huge paw on Carrie's leg.

Carrie stroked the side of Ellie's head. "You went to visit Nana's grave, huh? You miss her. You poor girl. I miss her, too."

Ellie whined and slid down across the floor the same way Carrie had slid down the door. She rested her head on her leg. She peered at Carrie from under her gray eyebrows with eyes the same cinnamon-caramel color as Nana's.

Carrie supposed she was just giving the dog Nana's attributes because of guilt and the desire to see her grandmother just one more time. "There was so much I never told her, so much she'd done for me that I never thanked her for...I should have come home long before this."

"Ruff," Ellie said, as if in agreement. Carrie laughed. She drew her hand over the animal's head, neck and back again and again as she thought about what had just happened.

Kissing Zack had been like...coming home. Even more than actually being in the house where she'd spent the majority of her childhood. But if she allowed herself to accept him again, and he turned her away once more… Carrie closed her eyes and let the memories she'd pushed aside for so long played themselves out one more time…

*****

She'd promised herself that tonight was The Night. She'd thought they'd wait until after the prom; there was an after-prom party at Lauren Greaves' house at the beach. There was going to be a bonfire and Lauren's brother had gotten a keg. Everyone was invited.

Carrie already had it planned in her mind. She daydreamed about it enough. The moon overhead. A blanket on the sand. The steady rush and hiss of the surf. Zack's body pressed against hers...and
that
part of him. That huge, hard part of him, a steel rod clad in velvet-soft skin, hot and throbbing. Hard to believe it would fit. But it was Zack, and she loved him more than anything or anyone. It would be good. It would be okay.

              And anyway, they were going to get married. So what was the point in waiting? Even though she was going away to college, she knew she'd never love anyone besides Zack Mahoney.

              He put his arm around her as they slipped out a side door into the parking lot. She could see other people doing the same thing—lots of cars had steamed-up windows.

              "We're going to the car?" She leaned into him.

              "I just want to be with you." Zack smiled down at her, his teeth a flash in the moonlight. She loved the way his skin always had a slightly tan cast, and the way his teeth looked so white when he smiled. He was so handsome. She lifted her hand to touch his face, and he pressed a kiss into her palm. "I love you,
Carrie-da
."

             
"I love you, too, Zack," she answered. She loved his nickname for her, too. They took Spanish together; when Mr. West had taught them the word
querida
which meant "beloved" and sounded almost like Carrie, Zack had turned and looked right at her.

              "That's you," he had mouthed across the rows of desks at her. "Carrie-da."

              And so she'd been his beloved
Carrie-da
, ever since. "I love you more than anything."

              "Then why are you leaving? Why can't you go to the University of RI like everyone else?" He unlocked the door of his car and opened it for her; she slid into the passenger seat. He bent and peered inside. "Get into the backseat. There's more room."

              The back? She took a deep breath, determined not to be disappointed that her first time would be in the back of Zack's grandfather's old Cadillac. She climbed over the seat, her skirt ruffling up and down as the tulle under-slip poofed. He climbed in beside her and slammed the door, enveloping them in silence broken only by the sounds of their breathing and the rustle of unfamiliar formalwear.

              She smoothed down the skirt. It went to her ankles. She wondered how hard it would be to get it up, or off, in the car. Carrie swallowed and cleared her throat. "Zack?"

              He was sitting upright, looking out the window. "Wait a minute...I'm just...did you hear a scream?"              

              Carrie was sure the only thing she could hear right now was the pounding of her own pulse in her ears. She shook her head and bit her lip. Zack sat back and looked down at
her. Then he smiled and touched her bare shoulder with his fingertip, drawing it down slowly toward her breast. She shivered, and goose bumps patterned her skin.

              He leaned forward to press his mouth to her neck, then down to lick the place that made her quiver all over; she'd even come a few times, it was so sensitive. She closed her eyes, absorbed in the hot, wet feel of his lips on her skin, his quick nips over her collarbone. Slowly, so slowly, Zack leaned her back so that she lay on the musty old vinyl. She opened her eyes again—he was watching her. She felt him slide his hands over her breasts and then to her back, where he undid the zipper of her strapless dress. She arched her back so that the bodice fell away, exposing her fancy, lacy strapless bra to his hungry gaze.

              "Oh...man," he breathed, puffing air onto her nipples. They rose against the lace and he moaned; in moments, his mouth covered her, suckling each breast in turn through the material, making it wet and cold against her skin. Carrie closed her eyes again; she felt him pulling the material away so that she was naked to him, and before long she forgot the musty vinyl and the
fact that they were in a car instead of on the beach. There was nothing but Zack, and his mouth, and his hands on her skin, all over her body, and the hot pulse of wetness between her legs. He tugged at one of her nipples with his mouth, his fingers toying with the other. Electric tingles raced up and down her body. In moments, she lost every thought to the white light exploding behind her eyelids, lifting her up, up into some place where there was nothing but pleasure and her love of Zack, Zack, Zack...

              "Shh,
Carrie-da
..." she heard him whisper against her skin once she could hear again, and she opened her eyes.

              "That was incredible."

              He just smiled. "It gets better."

              She felt a momentary pang of jealousy that this wasn't his first time. But then, he'd told her, it was good that it wasn't, because he knew how to make it better for her.

              And it was. So far. She reached her arms up and put them around his neck, tangling her fingers in his long mane of dark hair. "Show me."

              He pulled away, his chocolate-brown eyes wide in the moonlight, and slid his Zacket off. Then his tie...and his cummerbund. And finally, he unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off. She reached out to touch the hard-muscled planes of his shoulders, sliding her hands up and down his tight, round biceps and his chest, down his waist to his pants button. "Take them off, too?"

              "You're in a hurry," he teased.

             
"I want to see you. All of you," she answered, breathless. She couldn't wait. She wanted to hold that part of him in her hand again, so hard, so male and so different from her own softness.

              "You first," he murmured. "I want to see you, too."

              She sat up and he unzipped the rest of her dress; she kicked off her spike-heeled Dyeables—the same shade of purple as her gown—and slid the satin garment off without a problem. Silly that she'd worried about it, she realized, tossing it over the seat into the front.

              Zack reached for her pantyhose and slipped those down, too, one leg at a time, his hands skimming her skin with reverence. "I love your legs," he purred, drawing his tongue over her calf, up to her knee and across the inside of her thigh. As he gently pushed her back onto the seat, Carrie realized that he intended to put his mouth—
there
. Where she'd never let him before, even though he'd tried.

             
She sat up. "Um—"

              "Shh. Carrie-da. Let me. I promised I'd make it good for you. So let me. Please. This will make it better." He slid his body up over hers, drew her into a hug and began kissing her deeply, his tongue sliding into her mouth and out in mimicry of lovemaking. She felt herself relax, put her hands on his back and felt the muscles there. Her Zack. She loved kissing him.

And every girl wanted him, but he'd chosen her. His
Carrie-da
.

His hands slipped up to her hips and slid her lacy panties off, whisking them down and off her legs.

             
Oh my God. I'm naked. In a car. With Zack. In a parking lot!
Carrie opened her eyes to see him peering back at her. He pulled his mouth from hers.

              "You're panicking. I can see it."

              "I'm not panicking. I'm"—
panicking
—"Okay. You're right."

             
He grinned at her. "Don't worry." He pressed his bulging arousal against her moist, naked core; she pressed back, needing him to relieve the pressure building inside her. Her fear dropped away, leaving her with nothing but a desire so great, it possessed her completely. She leaned her head back and moaned, closing her eyes again. "Jaaaack..."

              There was a brief rush of cool air as he sat up; she heard him unzipping his pants, heard the
zzzzshh
of polyester fabric sliding down across his legs, and then she felt his skin against hers. It felt good. It felt right. "Oh, Zack," she breathed. She felt his hardness against her hip and reached out to clasp her hand around it. The tip was wet.