Caught Up in Us (21 page)

I shuddered, and clasped his hand
against me. I stayed there, basking in the aftershocks of the most
intense pleasure, of the way the boy I’d fallen for, the man I
loved, had brought me to this state. “You didn’t stop kissing me
the whole time and there I was, coming while you were kissing me.
It was like my two favorite things at the same time.”

“Good. Because there’s a lot more
on the menu tonight,” he said, as the taxi pulled up to the hotel
and Bryan handed several bills to the driver. He made a brief stop
at the front desk and then we stepped into a waiting elevator. As
the doors closed, he placed his hand on the small of my back. We
made it to the fourth floor, down the hall, and to his room. He
slid the card key in the door, and once inside, I tore off my coat,
and he tossed off his jacket.

His room was heavenly, with a
gorgeous gilded mirror and antique nightstands. French windows,
fittingly, led to a balcony. But I had little interest in the
surroundings when there was a king size bed with a soft, white,
down comforter that called my name. I longed to be naked on it,
with my legs wrapped around Bryan.

He stood behind me and ran his
hands along my arms. He reached my hands, clasping my fingers in
his and whispered in my ear. “Do you have any idea how much I want
to make love to you right now?”

“How much?”

“More than I have ever wanted anything before.” He swept my
hair from my neck and kissed me there, sending tingles of insane
pleasure down my spine. I understood the meaning of the word
swoon
— I had become the
very definition. He walked me to the bed, and laid me down, then
pulled off my boots. He ran his hands up the inside of my legs.
Every touch thrilled me. Every second of contact sent me
higher.

“You have far too many clothes on,
Kat.”

“Take them off. Take them all
off.”

He unzipped my skirt, and gently
removed it, placing it on the nearby chair. My sweater was next,
and he made that groan I found so sexy when he saw me in only my
bra and panties. Then it was my turn. I unknotted his tie, then
began on his shirt, enjoying the release of each button, as I
trailed my hands down the white tee-shirt underneath. Soon, his
shirt was off, then I pulled the tee-shirt over his head. I took a
step back to admire him. His chest was broad and sturdy, his
stomach flat and cut, his waist trim and exactly the kind I wanted
to hold onto. I ran my teeth over my bottom lip as I looked at his
pants, at how turned on he was.

He unhooked my bra, and touched my
breasts in a way that made me even hotter for him, if that were
possible. He kneeled down to strip off my underwear, then kissed my
ankle and traced a line up my calf to behind my knee. My insides
were on fire. My body was a flame. He pressed a palm gently against
my belly, guiding me back onto the bed.

“You’re so beautiful,” he
murmured, as he returned to my thighs, grazing his tongue between
my legs, tasting my desire for him.

I gasped in pleasure and arched
against him, as he traced long, soft, lingering lines up and
down.

“It’s better than on the phone,” I
whispered between ragged breaths, as I grabbed at his soft, thick
hair. I needed more. My body ached for his mouth on me. His firm
hands hugged my thighs, and he made these sounds as if I were the
sweetest thing he’d ever tasted.

The way he moved his tongue, the
way his lips kissed me made me believe nothing else existed, and
that this pleasure was all there was, it was all I felt, all I
wanted. To be spread open to someone, to have his mouth devouring
you, to say his name, and then to cry out in crazy ecstasy. Nothing
could ever be better than this.

He moved up, and I was tipsy,
buzzed from the most delicious drink ever — the way he knew me, the
way the secret treasure map to my body had been his to follow. He
looked satisfied with his work as he began to unbuckle his pants. I
sat up to help. I was dying to see him fully naked. He stepped back
from the bed, letting his pants fall down, then I pulled down his
boxer briefs. God, he was beautiful, and carved, and hard as steel.
My hand had a mind of its own and reached for him. He pressed his
teeth against his lip, and cursed quietly in pleasure as I touched
him.

Then he reached for a
condom.

He hovered over me, and teased me
with his kisses, keeping me on my back, brushing his lips across my
lips, my cheeks, my eyelids, even the tip of my nose. I was
startled that even a kiss on the nose felt good from him. Then
again, everything felt good with Bryan. I sighed as he kissed my
neck and then threaded his fingers through my hair, pulling me
close.

I lifted my hips to
him.

“Tell me what you want, Kat. I
want to hear you say it.”

“I want you to make love to
me.”

I didn’t know if he knew how big a
deal it was for me to say those words. I never said “make love” to
anyone before. Not to any other guy. I’d never known what it was
like to truly make love because Bryan was the only person I’d ever
loved, and I’d never been with him like this, like the way it seems
on the silver screen, with the big love of your life. When young
love and passion turn to smoldering tenderness in the sheets. The
waiting, the wanting, the longing as bodies come together, skin
against skin, nothing held back, no distance, no time, no
pretending. It had always seemed so perfect, so epic, so out of
this world.

Now, here I was, feeling more than
I’d ever imagined.

I placed my hands on his firm,
toned chest, tracing his skin, his muscles, searing them into my
memory now that I finally could, now that I finally knew what he
felt like. He parted my legs and entered me. I moaned as he filled
me up. Who said it was supposed to feel this good? But it did.
Beyond any and all reason.

“You,” he said, softly, looking at
me. “You.”

He buried himself in me, and I was
in another world, in another time. I was drowning in pleasure,
swallowed whole by desire. I was all the air I’d ever breathed. I
was the edge of reason, and nothing else existed but the feeling of
him moving deep inside of me, his body touching mine at last. Heat
rose in my chest, a fire radiating from the center of my gut to the
tips of my fingers, the far reaches of my eyelashes, and through to
the inside and out of my heart, as if it might burst with all the
feelings — love, lust, want, and then, most of all, ecstatic and
utter happiness. Completeness. All-ness. I was lost, and then I was
found, and I was suddenly aware of every sensation in my body. Of
how he placed a hand on my hip, how his breath tasted good, how the
soft little never shaven hairs on the backs of my thighs stood on
end. I’d gone to heaven, only I was alive, and everything felt
ravishing, as he plunged in me, gripped my wrists, and brought me
there again.

And when it ended, when we lay
there sated in bed, I outlined his body with my fingertips,
planting little kisses across the hard planes of his belly, the
firm muscles of his arms, the breadth of his chest that felt like
home. We were silent for another moment, then I felt his hand slip
into mine.

It was the laughter, it was the
movies, it was Paris, it was the hero holding a boom box in the
rain. I knew at this moment that a thing could be more perfect. I
had always wanted to believe you could have love like in the
movies. Now, I knew you could. It’s not just Hollywood.

I could have this man for the rest
of my life and never want for anything more.

Chapter
Twenty-Three

“Something isn’t
working.”

Charms and trinkets were spread
out on the tray table. I’d aligned them along one of the silver
chains I always kept with me. But they didn’t look right. I thought
of my mom setting up displays in her store. She’d arrange some
picture frames, then mugs, then perhaps a bracelet or too.
Inevitably, she took one away.

“It’s what Coco
Chanel has always said.
Before you leave
the house, look in the mirror and remove one
accessory
,” my mother had said to me,
quoting the fashion icon.

Bryan looked up from the book he
was reading on his tablet. We were on the same flight home, and
he’d used miles again to upgrade me.

“There’s too much going on,” I
said. “They need to be simpler.”

He grinned and returned to his
book. I liked that we could talk constantly, or not at
all.

Playing around with the design a
bit more, I narrowed down the piece to a star, a key and a sun. I
tapped him on the shoulder.

“I like it better. The question is
when you get this big order from Elizabeth’s, how are you going to
make them all?”

“Yeah. There is that.” I’d been so
focused on the designs and assembling the perfect prototype that I
hadn’t started to address the nuts and bolts. Soon, I’d have to.
“I’ve always just made them myself.”

“You could keep doing that. If
there were ten or twenty of you and several machines to help out as
well.”

“Oh, ha ha.”

“No, I’m serious. You can’t be
grassroots much longer, Kat.”

“I have to land the deal first.” I
moved a star trinket to another position on the strand. But it
still didn’t look right. “Crap.”

Bryan placed his hand gently on
mine. “Hey.”

My agitation started to fade with
his touch.

“You know, Kat. I happen to know
this guy who runs a similar business. Makes gift items. Some
hand-crafted, some machine-assisted. The products get rave reviews,
and the business is growing like crazy. He knows how to manufacture
something at scale and still make sure it’s beautiful and has a
personal touch. Perhaps, I could see if he’d be willing to
accommodate your new line of necklaces at his factory?”

I looked at him, wide-eyed and
open-jawed. “You’d do that? How much would it cost me?”

He laughed. “First of all, of
course I’d do it. Why would I not? Second, don’t worry about the
cost.”

“You can’t just give me something
for free because…” I let my voice trail off.

“Because? Because we’re back to
not seeing each other for another four weeks starting in — “ he
looked at his watch “—three hours when we land?”

“Not that.”

He put the tip of his index finger
on the star trinket and pushed the star aside. He moved the other
charms too. Then he pushed the mini skeleton key to the center of
the chain.

“Not for free. I have a
proposition for you.”

He told me his idea.

I nodded appreciatively. “That’s
not a bad idea.”

*****

Bryan grabbed my suitcases from
the luggage carousel.

“So I’ll see you in a
month.”

“So this is it.”

We’d decided not to share a car
back into Manhattan. That would be too tempting. He reached out to
give me a hug, and I pulled in close to him, lingering in the crook
of his neck, wishing I could smother him in kisses, and go home
with him and do more than kiss. Do everything, again and again, all
night long. Then, I spotted someone I knew at the next carousel. A
dapper man. A sharp-dressed woman. Waiting for luggage.

No way.

There was no way my professor and
his wife were here at the same time. But she’d said they were going
on a trip. Theirs was an international flight as well.

Bryan’s arms were wrapped around
me in a warm embrace, but I didn’t feel reassured. I’d gone too far
and I knew it. I could see my world crashing around me, all the
things I’d worked so hard for, breaking into pieces at my feet. I
wasn’t supposed to get caught.

No hanky-panky
or else an F
.

Then, the professor turned and he
wasn’t my professor after all. He was just a man who looked like
him.

I relaxed momentarily.

But later that night, as I worked
on my designs for Claire, using the curved-nose pliers on a key, I
didn’t feel like I’d just returned home from a romantic trip to
Paris. I didn’t feel like I was such a smart business woman. I felt
like someone trying to get away with trickery. Someone trying to
pull the wool over shareholder’s eyes, to fool the public, to get
off scot-free.

Like a liar.

That’s precisely who I was
now.

But that wasn’t me. That wasn’t
who I wanted to be.

I had a choice. I had my future in
front of me. It had to be a future I could live with. I had to be
the me I could live with.

*****

My stomach twisted into knots, and
I took a deep breath as I knocked on my professor’s door. It was
open, and he was waiting for me. I’d called earlier to request the
meeting so I wouldn’t back down when I arrived.

He gestured for me to come in. My
boots clacked loudly on the tiled floor of the office.

“Have a seat, Ms. Harper. Good to
see you. I trust you had a productive time in Paris?”