Stay With Me (15 page)

“Now I know,” she said, moving away from me. “Let’s keep talking.”

“Do we really have to?” I protested, biting the inside of her thigh.

She moaned. “The sooner we finish talking, the sooner we can . . . stop talking.”

“You’re the boss, Zoe.”

“So you remained faithful to me, even though we weren’t a couple,” she said more to herself than to me. “But with the others, you always behaved . . . badly?”

“Right. I’d never been a good boy,” I admitted, remembering how disturbed my life was when she wasn’t by my side.

“I can imagine. I remember your strange introduction.” She laughed. “No one had ever been so brazen.”

“I like to say honest more than brazen. I really wanted to taste you.”

Her cheeks turned red. “Oh, you did . . . many times.”

I ran my thumb over my lower lip, lowering my gaze toward her bare legs. “Now I wouldn’t just taste you,” I said, my voice hoarse.

“No?” she asked, her chest rising slightly.

“No, I’d devour you.”

“Andrew!” she said, visibly aroused. “Not now.”

God, she was sexy.

Her dark hair fell softly onto her shoulders. Her eyes were shiny and her tan skin was almost entirely uncovered by the sheet. Zoe wasn’t a buxom beauty, and her body wasn’t curvaceous. She was petite. Her legs toned, her breasts small and compact.

Her hips . . . Those had gotten slightly wider. Probably no one would have noticed, but I did, since I knew her body by heart and would have noticed every minimal change.

“Are you listening?” she asked as she looked at me earnestly.

“No, sorry. What did you say?”

“I asked you about Ash.”

That was a topic I wasn’t eager to get into, but I knew we had to address it. I would tell her what I had to and then we would put everything behind us.

“I’ll start at the beginning, OK?”

She nodded, and I started to explain.

“Ashley and I met a few months after I got back to New York. A friend of mine had organized a party in the Hamptons. There were a lot of important people in town, including models, and among them, Ash.”

Zoe lay on her belly now, holding her chin up with her hands.

“She came over to me. I was still affected from our breakup, but she didn’t take much time to . . . enter my graces.”

Zoe smirked. “You mean your bed.”

“Yes.” It wasn’t pleasant to have to tell her these things. “We started dating and she was perfect.”

“Perfect?” she asked with disgust.

I hadn’t used the right word. “Perfect for what I thought I needed. A woman who only cared about herself, who was materialistic and couldn’t care less about the life I led.”

“And what life were you leading exactly, Andrew?”

The tone with which she said my name gave me goosebumps, but I owed her the truth. “You can imagine,” I remarked. “I’ve always liked women, and Ash didn’t make a big deal out of it if I amused myself with other women. The only things she expected were discretion and nice clothes.”

“How sad.”

She was right, it was, but for how I viewed life at the time, it was the best solution.

Ashley wouldn’t have fallen to pieces the way my mother had, if one day we’d left each other. I wouldn’t have suffered in the least.

“Yes, it was.”

“Did you love her?” she whispered.

“You know the answer.”

“You asked her to spend the rest of her life with you. Did you love her?” Zoe insisted with a tone that didn’t allow for retorts.

“No,” I finally answered. “I never loved her. She was only the most appropriate choice.”

“That sounds like a business contract.”

“In a certain sense, it was. There were the things we both wanted, or at least that’s what I believed.”

She looked confused. “You believed?”

“Things for Ash weren’t exactly what I thought.” I tensed, knowing I was about to tell a shocking truth.

“Did she love you?”

“No, she never loved me.” And I was grateful for that.

“And then what?”

I explained what I’d discovered once Ash and I had returned to New York.

“It wasn’t a coincidence that our paths crossed. She wanted me and no one else. She was an attractive girl and perfect in the role of fiancée.” I stopped to drink more water. “She wanted me in order to hurt you,” I uttered finally.

Zoe looked upset, but not surprised, and she returned to her seated position. “I’d figured out there’d been more going on there, but I don’t understand how she managed to find out about us. I’d never talked about it.”

“Ashley knew about us; she’d seen us. And when she found out I’d gone back to New York, she did everything she could to get to know me. She wanted to attain what you hadn’t managed to and wanted to throw it in your face.”

“How could she know I loved you?”

“She admitted to having overheard a conversation between you and Mag.”

Her hand rose to her mouth. “She hates me. She always has, but I didn’t think she’d be capable of all this. It’s always been complicated between us, and our parents’ accident exacerbated an already difficult situation. I think she unconsciously blamed my family for what happened. If her father hadn’t driven my mother, she wouldn’t have lost him.”

“She’s sick.”

“How?” she asked.

“When we got to New York, and I told her I was returning to you in San Francisco, she exploded and I saw my mother in her, so I had her examined. She’s sick.”

“Oh, Andrew.”

I had to get up; my heart was enclosed in a muzzle. “Funny, right? I walk away from the only woman I loved out of the fear of damaging her and I wind up in bed with a girl who was already damaged.”

I leaned my hands against the windowsill and stared at the bay.

I heard the rustling of the sheets and the sound of Zoe’s bare feet moving slowly on the floor.

“Andrew, it’s not your fault,” she whispered, hugging me from behind.

“Maybe not, but I should have understood who she was.”

“She was sick,” Zoe said. “And she was that way before knowing you. We were the ones who didn’t notice there was something wrong with her. We were too busy dealing with our own pain to take on another person’s. God, now I feel guilty for having treated her that way.”

I took her hand, and enjoyed the contact of her bare skin on mine.

“You don’t have to, Zoe. It’s not your fault. She’s ill, and with the help of her mother, we’re getting her treatment at a psychiatric clinic in Queens,” I informed her.

“That’s why Mag was behaving strangely. She knew.”

“Yes, but I wanted to be the one to tell you what happened.”

She breathed deeply. “What are the chances she gets better?”

“The doctors aren’t saying anything.” I realized I’d been holding my breath. “It’s nothing you need to worry about. I simply thought it was appropriate to let you know about her medical situation.”

“Are you paying?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it’s the right thing to do. She deserves to be saved from herself.”

I turned to look her in the eyes. “I love you, Zoe.”

“We’re not through talking, buster!” She smiled, stood on her tippy toes, and bit my lower lip. Then she slid out of my hold and sashayed toward the bathroom.

God, this girl would drive me crazy.

Sitting on the terrace couch, I watched Zoe look up at the sky.

It wasn’t the first time we’d sat together on the terrace, but there’d always been a barrier separating us, and she’d never been completely comfortable. Now, she was wearing one of my running T-shirts. Just that.

Underneath that bit of cotton, she was naked, accessible, and ready for me.

That thought was enough to get me excited all over again.

I took a sip of water, and took my gaze off Zoe. If I didn’t get a grip on my passion, I would jump on top of her. I would lift up that shirt, which reached halfway down her thigh, and would eat the only dessert I desired.

I would have stroked her center, licked every fold, and fed off of her without ever being sated.

I could never get enough of Zoe.

I was certain it would always be this way. The more I had, the more I wanted. Those four years without her were agony. I’d tried to fill that chasm in my chest by amusing myself with every attractive brunette I met.

I would typically take them from behind.

I did it for the illusion.

Yes, for those few moments, I was back at my suite in the Mandarin Hotel or in the studio apartment of my little Zoe. For a few moments I pretended she was there and not the umpteenth easy woman I’d brought into one of my company apartments.

Everything was ephemeral and once reality would hit me violently, I’d feel lost.

I’d open my eyes again, and the woman in front of me would be the wrong one. Vulgar and completely out of place.

But I kept on going this way. Every time Zoe’s absence became more unbearable, I looked for someone who had just one thing in common with her, and I didn’t realize that the more I continued in this way, the greater the chasm opened.

The more lost I felt.

I’d lived that lie for four long years, but now everything had changed. I’d found myself again.

I’d found her again.

“When are you going back to New York?’

Her voice brought me back to the present, and chased away the details of long ago.

“What were you asking me?”

She smiled. “You weren’t listening?”

“No,” I admitted. “But I was thinking about how good my hands would feel on you instead of that insignificant T-shirt.”

“But this T-shirt is yours.”

“Right, but everything underneath it is mine.” I licked my upper lip. “And I need to touch you, Zoe.”

“Andrew, you’ll touch me after we’re through talking.”

I was exasperated. “Zoe, you’re taking me to the limit.”

“Think about how much more intense it’ll be to lose yourself inside of me after this long wait.” She winked.

“You’re not making things any easier,” I objected.

“Come on, you’ve been without this for four years. What’s a few more hours?” she stated wickedly, as she stretched her legs, thereby giving me a better view of her naked thighs.

“You’ve become evil.”

Her small laugh had the power of warming my heart.

“I’d say you deserve it a little bit, don’t you?” she asked, tilting her head. “Now do you want to tell me when you intend on going back to New York?”

I tried to get as comfortable as possible, and looked at her attentively so I wouldn’t miss a single reaction.

“Never.”

“What?” she asked with her mouth wide open.

“Did you hear me, baby? Never,” I reiterated with earnestness.

“I don’t understand. How?”

“I transferred my company shares to Kristen and Brian.”

“You quit your job?” she asked incredulously.

“Yes, baby.”

“But why? I would have never asked you to do that.”

“Because I want to be with you and Olivia. Every night I want to put Olly to bed and tell her a story. I want to take her to school and then walk with her in the park. I don’t want to have to worry that my job will get in the way of being here on her birthday or Christmas Eve.”

“Oh, Andrew.”

I stood and moved closer, putting my hand on her cheek. “I want to be the last thing you see
every night
before you fall asleep and the first thing you see
every morning
when you wake up.” My eyes were full of tears. “I want to be able to make love to you every time I want to and be there every time you want it . . .” My hand went down to her neck and I could feel her quivering. “I want to be able to lose myself in you, taste you, and devour you. Whenever, wherever, and however I want.” I caressed her breast through the shirt and she let out a moan. “I want you, always and forever.”

“Andrew . . .” she gasped, throwing her head back as my hand slipped underneath the T-shirt, running up her warm skin.

“Tell me, baby.”

She widened her legs, inviting me to take more, but my hands didn’t go down, they remained where they were on her breasts, caressing her nipples.

“I want you.” Her words were a prayer.

I stopped moving my hands. “But baby, didn’t you want to talk?”

“Take me, Andrew . . . now!”

I didn’t make her say it twice.