Wedding Series Boxed Set (3 Books in 1) (The Wedding Series) (40 page)

Again, he muttered. This time she didn’t even try to make out the words. She didn’t care, because he was twisting, shifting his body to brace himself against the arbor support and drawing her between his slightly spread legs, where she had greater contact with his enfolding warmth and full proof that he did, indeed, desire her.

“Michael.” She whispered his name for the pleasure of saying it, but also with a bit of wistfulness. So much time she’d wasted. So much time when she hadn’t been right here, like this, with Michael.

She felt the change in him even before his grip on her shoulders set her firmly on her own feet, establishing several inches of clearance between their bodies.

His breathing came ragged and harsh, and his fingers were tight on her. She couldn’t read his face, not sure if it was because of the wavering light or his determination that she not see inside him. What had happened to their great communication?

“Michael?” Uncertainty and a little bit of fear came through in her question. She could hear it and she knew he had, too, when he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against his shoulder, as if protecting her from something, or consoling her. But how could she need consoling when she could hear the strong pulsing of his heart against her cheek and smell the clean, musky scent of his skin?

He set her away again and started straightening and refastening her dress as if she were a child. But she could see the taut, strained lines of his face and knew he had reacted to her as a woman.

“Look, I know this has been a long day. Rough, and long.” His voice sounded gruff, not like Michael’s usual smooth voice, but somehow endearing. He took her hand and started back toward the house. Stunned by what had happened, what she’d wanted to happen and what hadn’t happened, she followed.

“Don’t let this bother you. It happened, it’s okay. Nothing . . . I understand. All the emotions this week . . . Grady . . . I understand. It’s all right.”

Grady? For a long moment she couldn’t think of who he meant. It took a few deep breaths for her to adjust to the idea that anyone existed in the universe beyond the two of them. What did Grady have to do with the two of them, with Tris and Michael?

He opened the French doors and urged her inside with a hand at the small of her back.

“Lock the door behind you and don’t worry about this. Tomorrow it’ll be like this never happened. It was just . . . just something that happened. Tomorrow it’ll be like it’s always been. We’ll be best buddies, and you’ll feel . . . you’ll . . .” She absorbed one look from him, as brief and charged as a bolt of lightning, then he was shutting the door between them. “Good night, Tris.”

Mechanically, she retrieved her shoes and stockings and headed upstairs to prepare for bed. But not for sleep. Not with her body still thrumming, not with her mind in turmoil.

Everything like it was? How could it be? How could she possibly want it to be? She’d wanted to know about the change in their relationship, and now she did. It had gone from seersucker to satin, from beer to brandy. How could it ever go back? How could she ever forget these new sensations and tastes of Michael that were now inextricably mixed with the old, familiar ones? Was that what he wanted? To pretend it never happened? Did he regret kissing her? Touching her? Very nearly loving her?

Grady
. She sat up in bed. He thought she hadn’t gotten over her infatuation with Grady!

That must be it. But why would he think that? Maybe she’d needed this reunion to put the final cap on her realization, but in fact that infatuation had ended long ago, and she’d have thought Michael, who’d always known her so well, would have guessed that. But even if he hadn’t before, he must see that she’d spent hardly any time with Grady the past few days. She’d been too busy discovering this new feeling for Michael. And Grady . . . A vague image of Grady and Melody came into her head. Grady had been too busy, too. Just as had happened so often in college.

She could have used a cartoonist right then and there to draw the light bulb over her head. Of course! Michael was confusing this all with twelve years ago. Acting as if she’d be hurt and vulnerable because Grady had been flirting with someone else. As if she’d turned to him for solace, and then things had gotten a little out of hand.

She smiled a little, indulgently. Misguided as he was, in a way it was rather sweet. Like when her father had brought her a doll from a business trip years after she’d left dolls behind.

The smile faded. The doll from her father she had accepted with a hug, then quietly tucked away. She wasn’t prepared to be as passive where Michael was concerned.

She could tell him, but actions spoke louder than words. So what she had to do was show him, oh so clearly, that a certain onetime buddy was the one and only man on her mind.

This time when Michael came back from his morning run, the figure on the deck watching the sun rise wasn’t Tris, but Paul.

“Nerves?” He’d left his tone neutral enough that Paul could take it as teasing or a serious question—whichever he needed and wanted to answer.

“No.” Paul smiled, slow and wide. “Eagerness, I guess. And amazement. And wondering what took me so damned long.”

Michael chuckled. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’d only known each other for a few months when you proposed.”

Paul dismissed that with a shrug. “I knew almost right away, though. Was just too damned stubborn to admit it. And afraid.”

“Afraid?” Michael echoed the word automatically, at the same time it triggered the memory of sitting watching the volleyball game and a mental voice asking him why he was afraid.

“Yeah, afraid. Just like you are now.”

“Me?” His laugh had the right scoffing note. “I don’t have anything to be afraid of.”

“No?” Paul appeared unmoved by either laugh or words. “How about what’s going on with you and Tris?”

“Nothing’s going on with Tris.”

“Because you’re afraid to let it.”

“Because Tris is who she always has been and—”

“Is she?” The challenge crackled in Paul’s question. “Or do you just need to think she is?”

“What does that mean?”

“Think about it. Think about it, and think about Tris, and think about what you might be feeling if this were your wedding day.”

He’d never had greater cause to hate a wedding. The day before had indeed been a mere rehearsal for today’s agony. It would have been that way even without Paul’s words, but they did their part. That was all he needed, to think about what it would be like to be marrying Tris . . .

He’d started with his resistance worn down in the first place. Lack of sleep could do that to a man. And who could sleep for the images tormenting him all night? Images of Tris with her hair wild from his hands, her lips swollen from his mouth, her body shimmering from his caresses. Remembered sensations and tastes and smells of Tris.

Memories he hadn’t been able to run away from. Memories he couldn’t afford.

He muttered a curse and caught a startled look from Bette, seated next to him at the head table.

“What did you say, Michael?”

“Nothing. It was nothing, Bette.”

He was just grateful Paul, seated on the chair beyond Bette, hadn’t heard, and grateful that etiquette had seated Melody rather than Tris on his other side.

He caught a significant look from Nancy Monroe and realized the waiters were moving among the tables, pouring champagne. Nearly time for the toast, another of his duties.

So far he’d fulfilled every one of his responsibilities with outward calm—he hoped. He’d shepherded Paul to the church on time and double-checked the rings, then stood in his proper place with Paul as the music began.

He’d been fine until he let his eyes follow Tris coming down that aisle again today. Even knowing what to expect, the impact had rocked him.
If this were your wedding day
. . . He figured the only thing that had saved him was pulling his gaze away just as hers came to his face.

Still, they were several minutes into the ceremony before he recovered his equilibrium. And not many minutes more before he realized his mind had wandered from the solemn, joyful words making Bette and Paul husband and wife to the question of whether it would be harder—or easier! —to get Tris out of the swirls of blue that covered her today than that peach dress from last night.

He swallowed hard and heard a ringing in his ears, then discovered he was the one making the noise, tapping his knife against the water goblet in front of him. Others took up the sound and soon the room hushed and all eyes followed him as he rose, champagne glass in hand.

He looked at Bette and Paul, smiling at each other, and he spoke the words in his heart about friendship and love, and the rare kind of people who made both last forever.

His mistake was letting his eyes meet Tris’s over the rim of his glass as he raised it to the new couple. Tears shimmered in her eyes like sunlight on a clear blue lake. But that was only the surface, and there was so much more, so much deeper in her eyes. Promises of the kind of friendship and love he’d just described. The kind he’d longed for.

“Are you all right?”

He sat in the chair, without any memory of how he’d escaped the hold of Tris's gaze or of sitting down. But Bette was the only one looking at him, so apparently he’d accomplished it without any fuss.

“Fine. I’m fine.” He saw concern in Bette’s eyes, and concentrated on convincing her. “Honest.”

“Good, because I’d hate for our best man not to have a good time, especially after that lovely toast.” She slid one hand over his. “It really was lovely, Michael. Thank you.” She leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek.

“You’re welcome, but I only said what I felt, Bette.”

As he watched Paul lead Bette into the first waltz, he tried to pull together the shreds of his resolve with a stern lecture. He could practically repeat it by rote now. Although the version he’d used during the ceremony had added a pithy commentary on inappropriate thoughts in church.

And that was before he’d seen what that look could do to Tris’s eyes. His resistance was going—fast. Good Lord, how much could a man take?

“Michael?” Tris stood next to his chair, a tentative smile flirting with lips that didn’t look entirely steady. “Will you dance with me? I don’t expect all the dances today, but I’d like the first one with you.”

No. No, Tris, I can’t dance with you because holding you in my arms makes me forget friendship and remember kisses by the night-dark water. Because looking at you makes me think about watching blue material flow around you as I strip that dress away. Because your fingers on my shoulder make me think of your hand pressing fire into my skin.

Lord, how could he tell her those truths? She needed him as a friend today. Today and all days.

She might be confused right now, might even have convinced herself she wanted something other than friendship from her old buddy Michael. Hell, she’d nearly convinced him last night—or, probably more accurately, his own desires had nearly convinced him. Then, after their kiss, she’d said his name with that questioning note in her voice, and he’d heard the wistfulness. The wistfulness of someone longing to call another name.

He should have known. He
did
know, because he knew Tris. The one person in his life who had always remained constant in her loves. No matter what Paul said, she was the same Tris she’d always been.

All these years she’d longed for Grady Roberts, and now to watch him pursuing another woman once again… it must hurt. He kept his face neutral as he stood up. “I’d love to dance with you, Tris.”

How much could a man take?

He was about to find out.

“May I come to your room, Michael?”

Lord, she was getting bold! She could hardly believe the words came out of her mouth. But then in the past few days she seemed to be making a habit of being bold, of touching Michael, of following him, of kissing him, of asking him to dance. What was one more request?

“My room?”

Her cheeks heated, and she couldn’t prevent herself from stumbling over a few more words of explanation. “Uh, to talk for a while. The wedding and the reception were so wonderful, I’m not ready to call it a night yet.”

He frowned at her. They stood in the deep shadows between the house and the garage, but she knew him so well she could feel his frown.

“If you’re up for more partying, I’m sure we can catch Grady and Judi and the others. Grady usually favors a couple Near North spots. We shouldn’t have too much trouble finding him.”

“No! I, uh, I’m not in the mood for someplace loud and smoky.” She’d had a hard enough time separating Michael from the rest of the group in the first place; she wasn’t about to go chasing a crowd now that she finally had him to herself. “I thought maybe we could have a drink and, um, talk. The two of us.”

She felt his imminent refusal like a thunderstorm on the horizon.

“Like old times,” she added, as a personal lightning rod. It worked.

“Like old times,” he repeated. His frown lifted as if he’d solved a puzzle to his satisfaction, but she wondered if he were aware of the peculiar flatness that came into his voice when he tried to mask his feelings.

“Mmm,” she murmured noncommittally, as she followed him up the stairs and remembered those long sessions in the “old times.” They’d been so unequal, so unfair. Certainly they’d shared their dreams, but when it came to disappointments, she’d poured out her feelings for Grady while he’d never mentioned his hurts, though even then she’d known he had them.

If Paul was right, perhaps she herself had been one of the hurts. But there’d been others. She’d always known he wasn’t close to his family, not the way she was. And she recognized his pain over the unstable pattern of his parents’ lives. She’d understood some of that from bits and pieces he’d let fall, and from the fact that his parents never came to school functions. But most of all she’d known it from what he didn’t say. They were so open to each other about so many things, how could she not know when he’d closed part of himself off?