Twice Kissed (18 page)

“Is it all right?” he asked, slipping the button of her waistband through the buttonhole.

“Is—Is what—?” She couldn’t think, gulped back words, couldn’t stop.

He gave a tug. The button fly opened with a sharp report of snaps. She felt moist between her legs and knew somewhere in the deepest recesses of her brain that she was about to step over a line that could never be recrossed, that going any further was more than dangerous, it was playing with fire. But the feel of his tongue and lips caressing her skin, breathing flames across the sheer cotton of her panties, creating a swirling warmth deep in the center of her, made the words of denial die in her throat.

A part of her loved this man. Another part was curious about him. Another part was scared beyond reason, and the last, that very intimate part of her, wanted desperately to break down the walls of girlhood and embrace becoming a woman.

His teeth tugged at the elastic of her panties and she swallowed hard as both the tattered cutoffs that had guarded the scrap of cotton lace and the panties themselves were slipped easily off her body. Cool moist air caressed her skin while skillful hands parted her legs and a man she barely knew, a man she had fantasized about, a man whose mystery and irreverence had touched her soul, began to kiss her as intimately as any lover dared.

She moved against him, moaned at his ministrations, and wanted more. Her fingers curled in the soft ground, the wind sighed overhead, and she began to writhe.

God help me,
she thought wildly, perspiration mingling with the dewy rain. A rumble swept over the hills, and, as the first spasm hit her, she cried out, her voice low, guttural, unlike her own. And then he came to her. Shedding his clothes as easily as he had shucked his hands-off persona, he kicked off boots and jeans, threw off his T-shirt, and slipped upward, through the bridge of her knees until he was kissing her on the lips again and his hard thighs pressed hers farther apart.

“Maggie,” he said, looking into her eyes as she felt his erection, hard and thick, brush against her. “I didn’t mean…Oh, God…I…” His gaze caught in hers. The rain started to fall in fat drops, and before another word was spoken, he thrust. Deep. Hard. To a point that pain blinded her and she gasped.

“Oh, hell, I—”

She moved then. By feminine instinct. And he groaned, the apology that was forming on his lips cast to the wind. His arms surrounded her, and he drew her close, his lips claiming hers in anxious, wild abandon as he withdrew and thrust, over and over again, easing the pain, creating a whirlpool of hot, wet need that surpassed the ache.

And she moved with him. Her body slick with rainwater, her blood on fire, her mind splintering as faster and faster he stroked, pushing her—them—into a place she’d never been. She cried out as the first convulsion ripped through her. A loud primal roar answered her. Thane’s face contorted as if in pain. He collapsed atop her spent, sweating, and gasping. She held him tight, tears glistening in her eyes, raindrops collecting on her skin.

He lifted his head and kissed her tears away. A tortured shadow passed through his gray-blue eyes. “For the love of God, Maggie Reilly,” he said as rain ran down his chin and dripped on her bare breast, “what the hell am I gonna do with you?”

“Funny, I was wondering the same thing.” She offered a tentative smile.

He laughed then and kissed her again. Despite the rain, the wind shimmering in the trees, and her lingering doubts, she wound her arms around his neck, opened her mouth, felt his body rub against hers and, closing her eyes, she gave herself to him all over again.

“Okay, so I get it,” Mary Theresa confided a couple of weeks later as she wheeled the BMW into the parking lot of Roberto’s restaurant. Olive trees shaded the long low building, and a laurel hedge separated the street from the parking lot. Traffic whizzed by on the busy street.

“Get what?” Maggie grabbed her purse and apron, then shouldered open the passenger-side door of the BMW. A gust of hot air shot through the interior of the car, stealing the breath from the air conditioner.

“Why you’re so crazy for the cowboy.” As the radio blasted, Mary Theresa, wearing her favorite pair of designer sunglasses, scrounged in her purse, retrieving a pack of cigarettes and her lighter.

Maggie’s heart jolted. The last person she wanted to know that she was involved with Thane Walker was her sister. She remembered Thane’s comments about Mary Theresa.
She’s almost as pretty as you.
The one man in the universe who thought so. She warmed inside at the compliment, remembered making love to him in the rain, or in the barn, or anywhere they happened to be, then shook her head as she stepped out of the car. “I’m not crazy about anyone.”

Mary Theresa clicked her lighter shut and drew in hard on her Virginia Slim.

“Oh, yeah, like I haven’t seen that look before. You’re in love with him all right.”

“In love?” Maggie repeated, upset. How could she have been so transparent? “That’s nuts, M.T.”

“Maybe, but there it is,” she said in a cloud of smoke. Angling the rearview mirror down to catch her reflection, she patted at the edge of her lips where her peach-colored gloss had found the nerve to smudge. She opened her mouth in a perfect oval, then wiped away the excess. How could anyone, especially Thane, think Maggie was prettier than her sister? “Anyway, I know I put him down, but I figured out what you see in him. He’s kind of a bad-boy type, right? A rogue, the kind of guy that if Mom and Dad knew you were seeing him, they’d both shit. Right?”

“No, I—”

“Oh, come on.” Mary Theresa looked over the tops of her sunglasses, pinning her sister with her knowing green eyes as Maggie stood with the passenger door swung wide. M.T.’s voice dropped an octave and was barely discernible over the rush of traffic and the pulsing beat of a tune by Bruce Springsteen. “We both know about temptation, about being turned on by things we shouldn’t, about…” She lifted a shoulder. “Living a little. My shrink would call it rebelling.”

“I’m not—”

“Sure you are.” Mary Theresa’s gaze was steady. “We both are.”

“Wait a minute—”

“You wait a minute, Maggie. I
know
how you feel. I understand you better than anyone else in the world. We’re twins, remember. Supposedly you heard me when I cried out in my mind—though I still can’t figure that one.”

“I—” Maggie tied the burgundy-colored apron around her waist with nervous fingers.

“Somehow you heard me or read my mind or whatever you want to call it.” Mary Theresa shook her head in wonder. “I don’t know how or why, but you did. So, trust me, I can feel things about you, too. And you’re falling in love with Thane Walker. Whether you want to or not. So—could you close the door? I’m late.”

Maggie nudged the door closed with her knee. Mary Theresa, cigarette clamped firmly between her peach-tinged lips, threw the BMW into reverse, shoved her sunglasses onto the bridge of her nose with one finger, and turned to look over her shoulder as she backed out of the parking space.

“Don’t forget to drop the car off…” Maggie said, but Mary Theresa had already flipped on the blinker and gunned the sports car into traffic. Great. For a reason she couldn’t explain, Maggie felt as if the trouble she sensed on the horizon had just taken a giant step closer.

Maggie, dead tired from her shift, walked out of the restaurant at eleven and, after a quick view of the parking lot, wanted to strangle her twin. Mary Theresa had forgotten her again, she thought, when she didn’t spy the BMW parked anywhere in the lot. “Damn you, M.T.,” she muttered, intent on going into the restaurant and calling the house.

She’d gotten as far as the door when she saw her father’s red Mercedes speed into the lot.

Dad was behind the wheel.

Maggie’s guts clenched.

Something was up.

And it wasn’t good.

Frank Reilly stopped the car by the front entrance and Maggie braced herself. Her father’s expression was as dark as the night. His jaw rock-hard, his lips beneath his mustache white with repressed anger.

Terrific.

She slid inside, closed the door, and felt her father’s anger radiating in unspoken waves as he jammed his pride and joy into Drive.

“What happened? Where’s Mom’s car?” Maggie asked, her feet aching from the long hours of standing, walking, and carrying tubload after tubload of dirty dishes into the kitchen.

“In the garage.”

Something was definitely up.

“My God, what is that odor?” he demanded.

“Garlic…spices…it gets on my shoes.”

“Well, roll down the window, will you?”

She opened the window, and cool night air raced into the posh interior.

“Is there a reason you picked me up?” she asked, cringing as she reached down, slid one pump off with the toe of the other, and massaged her foot.

“I thought you and I should talk. Alone.”

Uh-oh. Her stomach tied itself in painful knots. This was no good. No good at all. “About?” She tried to sound calm and nonchalant, as if her father picked her up from work every night.

“About what’s going on, Maggie, and don’t start denying anything before I start talking.”

Maggie’s mind was spinning in circles, and none of the images that flashed by were good.

“Your mother and I…we’re afraid that one of you girls is involved with some boy, that you’re seeing him behind our backs. That you might be getting yourself into trouble.”

She froze. Just stared straight ahead at the taillights of the car in front of them. Well, no one had ever accused Frank Reilly of being subtle.

“So, Maggie, what do you have to say?”

“Nothing. There is no boy, Dad,” she lied, then decided it wasn’t really a fabrication. Not really. Thane wasn’t a boy. She ran her finger nervously along the window ledge.

“What about Mary Theresa?”

Her throat closed, and she had to force the words out as her father slowed for a red light. The car idled, and Maggie wished she could disappear. “I, uh, I don’t know. She was going with Brad a while ago.”

“Your mother said they broke up.”

Oh, great. For the first time in three years it seemed her mother had been paying attention. “I, I don’t know.” Her palms began to sweat and itch.

“She doesn’t talk to you?”

“Not all the time.” Maggie lifted a shoulder as if to deny the topic, but she knew her father wasn’t buying it.

“It’s the damnedest thing.” Disgusted, he slapped on the blinker and cruised through an intersection as the light turned amber.

“What?”

“That’s what I’d like to know. Just a feeling I’ve got. That little fiasco with the booze and the hot tub a few weeks back was just part of it; there’s something going on, I can feel it and”—he slid her a determined glance—“I want to know what it is.”

“There’s nothing, Dad.”

“Fine.” He pressed on the garage-door opener clipped to the Mercedes’ visor. “I guess I’ll just have to talk to Mitch. Maybe he’ll give me a straight answer.”

Maggie bit her tongue and slid into her shoes. She was out of the car before her father had set the emergency brake. Quickly she walked into the house. Through the kitchen and past the family room where her mother was seated, drink in hand and watching the
Tonight Show.
The host was interviewing some superthin model Maggie didn’t recognize.

”’Night, Mom,” she said.

“Good night, honey.” No slurred speech. “See ya in the morning.”

“Okay.” Before her father followed her inside, Maggie hightailed it to the bedroom, where she stripped off her apron and matching tie, tossing them both on her unmade bed. She didn’t want to deal with her parents and their suspicions or anything else. She was bone tired and was intent on taking a shower, throwing herself into bed, and falling immediately asleep.

She closed the door behind her, stacked the curled dollars and handful of change that constituted her tips for the evening on a corner of the bureau, and opened the door of the bathroom. Mary Theresa was waiting, sitting on the counter, her eyes wide and round, the smell of smoke hanging in the air.

“Did Dad talk to you?” she asked.

“Yeah.” Maggie unzipped her skirt. “Oh, yeah.” The black mini fell in a pool onto the tile floor.

“What’d you say?”

“Nothing.”

“Good.” Mary Theresa hopped off the counter and plowed the fingers of both hands through her hair. “This is such a mess. He suspects something is going on.”

“I know,” Maggie whispered, glancing at the door to her room. What if her father followed her? She turned on the spray of the shower, as much to mute their voices as let the water heat. She flipped on the radio that sat on the counter and turned up the volume. Over a DJ’s voice spouting a news update about an accident on the freeway, she said, “He’s going to talk to Mitch.”

“Oh, God.” Mary Theresa sat on the edge of the toilet and buried her face in her hands. “It looks so bad. Even though nothing happened between me and Mitch.”

“Don’t say anything.” Shedding bra and underpants, Maggie stepped into the shower, felt the needles of hot water against her skin, and closed her eyes. All her muscles seemed to melt as she lathered slowly. Mary Theresa hadn’t taken her advice and was babbling on, but Maggie couldn’t make out her words, didn’t care. She just wanted a few minutes of peace.