If she hadn't blown it before… She pressed her head back against the tiles with a thud, closing her eyes.
It was time to soap and shampoo and get out of here.
Before she could make a move, however, Doug moved his body into hers, chest to chest, belly to belly, his erection searching out and finding the space between her legs designed for his fit.
He slid up and down her body, the friction supplied by the shower stall's wet heat, sending shiver after shiver along her spine.
And then his mouth was on her neck, beneath her chin, lovingly nipping a line to the hollow of her throat. She moaned, rubbing her nipples through the swirls of wet hair on his chest.
He stood tall, towering over her and remaining still until she opened her eyes. Her heart plummeted before rebounding into her throat. Never before had she wished to capture an expression the way she wanted to now.
She was so afraid no man would ever look at her this way again. As if everything in her life had led up to this moment. As if what passed between them now would determine future events. As if he wanted her in ways he'd never be able to tell her, yet showing her would fall far short of the truth.
"You don't want to love me," he murmured.
"I know."
"I can't love you back."
"I know."
"I won't be around. I won't ask you to go with me."
"I know."
"
You're way too understanding
."
"I know."
"I know what you're doing," he said, his mouth quirking up on one side. "You're trying to get me to talk. To explain myself. To give in."
She shook her head. "No, I'm not, really. I know you have to do what you have to do. That means you'll be leaving. And I'll be staying."
"It'll be lonely in
Denver
without you."
"You can come see me anytime you're in town."
"What about all the other guys you'll have in your life?"
"You told me you wouldn't be jealous."
"I lied," he said as he cupped his hands beneath her bottom and lifted her to meet his thrusts.
He impaled her, and she gasped. Nothing had ever felt so right as being filled the way Doug filled her. She wrapped a leg around his hips, standing on the toes of her other foot.
Both of her hands found their way to his face. She held him still for her kiss—a kiss he wanted to deepen, to intensify. A kiss she kept simple.
And into that simplicity she poured her love. The love his voice rejected.
The hove his eyes hungered to know.
The fact that he was leaving soon, that he wouldn't be here to share her life, meant nothing in this moment. At this very instant, she loved him with her mind and her spirit as well as with her body.
With her body she was able to show him her feelings as she kissed him tenderly, gently, even as he tried to increase both the pressure and the pace. She continued caressing him softly, moving her hands from his face to his shoulders, down his arms to his waist and then to his hips.
Once there, she urged him to a stop. He fought her firm bold and growled when she insisted he obey.
It was then that she began to move over his body, rubbing her swollen and aching sex along his shaft, her pelvic mound against his lower belly. He bent his knees and she returned her feet to the shower floor, aligning their bodies completely.
Skin to skin from feet to face. The sensation overwhelmed her; she had never felt the urge to laugh and cry at the same time the way she did now. She couldn't think of their parting when they were joined as they were. A joining that completed her fully.
And so she showed him the capacity of her love, showed him with fingertips and tongue. Showed him with the lifting and lowering of her hips, the slide and squeeze along his shaft.
She kept the rhythm to the slowest pace she could for as long as she could, but it didn't take long until speed became as necessary as taking her next breath.
Doug panted against her neck, his hands braced against the tiles, his knees bent as his hips thrust, thrust,
thrust
.
Her grip on his backside tightened, and she urged him to hurry, to push, to press, to rub, to slip and slide and … she cried out as she came.
He took her apart as his own knees buckled and he collapsed into her arms. She held him as he shuddered, held him as he calmed. Held him until he recovered and eased away the weight of his body.
She held him because it was what a woman did when she loved a man the way Kinsey loved Doug. And then she cried, softly at first, silently, waiting for him to shift his weight from her body. Wanting him to move, but only so he wouldn't feel the hitch in her chest when she breathed.
He moved, but not until after she'd caught only half of her audible sob. "God, Kinsey. I hurt you, didn't I? What hurts? What can I do?"
Rescind your acceptance of the
Denver
offer. Stay here so we can shower together every night before we share a bed. Don't leave me. Ever.
"You can answer one question for me."
"Anything, darlin'. Anything."
With a bit of needed distance between them, with the water now more soothing than stimulating, with their bodies sated, their mood relaxed, she looked up into his eyes of springtime green and asked the only question that mattered.
"Why are you really going to
Denver
?"
* * *
"We're going to create a gIRL-gEAR version of the 'Cell Block Tango' number from the movie
Chicago
."
At
Sydney
's pronouncement, a flurry of excited chatter went up around the conference room table. The partners had gone as a group to see the film earlier in the year, and Kinsey still got shivers remembering that particular prison dance scene.
She had totally lusted over and envied the female dancers' bodies. Sit-ups and push-ups and crunches
be
damned. She would never have those sculpted abs.
And then it hit her. Cell block. Prisoners. Did that mean she was going to be auctioned off as a convict? She hadn't done the crime and didn't want to do the time.
But she especially didn't want to wear stripes. Talk about unflattering. "Are we token
bachelorettes
required to wear jailhouse stripes?"
Sitting in on the meeting as an involved party though not a partner, Izzy sputtered. "Stripes are better than jailhouse orange."
"Only if the stripes are vertical," Poe sagely added.
But Lauren simply shook her head. "The dancers in that number did not wear stripes. Unless you count garters and the boning in their bustiers."
Kinsey just rolled her eyes. Garters and bustiers. Great. She returned her attention to
Sydney
. "Do you want to fill us in on the where and the when, et cetera?"
"Halloween night." Having made her initial announcement,
Sydney
pulled out her chair and sat, crossing one leg and lacing her hands in her lap. "Unless anyone has objections or plans that absolutely cannot be changed. We have two weeks to pull this together and, yes, I realize this is short notice."
After they grumbled agreement, the partners hashed out the logistics as questions rose in intensity and volume until they sounded like a gaggle of honking geese.
Sydney
waved down the
henlike
chatter. "I apologize in advance for putting down my executive foot, and I won't mind lifting it should you all have objections, but I think I've hit on an idea that makes this a totally feasible strategy."
"You plan to share it?" Kinsey rather hesitantly asked.
Sydney
's brainstorms were legendary; this group of highly individual personalities wouldn't be sitting here as partners otherwise.
Sydney
nodded with her usual grace. "Ray and I were having drinks at my father's bar last night. Last year before the name change,
Paddington's
Ford hosted a book signing for the elusive Ryder
Falco
."
Lauren heaved a sigh. "God, I love his stuff. Anton got me hooked on the Raleigh Slater horror novels. But I'm dying to get my hand on
Falco's
newest book. It's a romantic drama, and the buzz has been amazing."
Sydney
voiced her agreement. "
Yes,
and the publisher actually rushed the book into production.
Falco
will be signing advance copies at
Paddington's
this year on Halloween just as he did last year."
Lauren frowned. "I didn't think advance copies were available for sale."
"They're not. They're giveaways."
"And how did your father manage that?" Poe asked. "The signing is a fund-raiser for a shelter
Falco
has established for homeless mothers and children. The copies are available for a substantial donation. As in really big bucks."
Sydney
's grin widened. "That means we'll get to piggyback on the advertising and have an amazing crowd of fat-
walleted
bidders."
Kinsey forced back a groan. She was a woman in love; she did not want to be sold to any man with deep pockets. Still, it was too late to back out after giving her word.
And then there was the simple fact that her feelings for Doug didn't mean she had a love life…
All for one girl, one girl for all.
"What do you need us to do?"
* * *
Wednesday night following church meant pie and coffee at Fred's Place.
For as long as Izzy could remember, Gramma Fred had closed the restaurant on Wednesday nights at six, opening again immediately after Bible study.
Some weeks, when prayers were short and lessons delivered at breakneck speed, the coffee would be ready to pour by
.
Other weeks, slow Southern weeks when everyone's sins needed an extra washing, the pie would be nearly stale by the time it was sliced.
Tonight, Uncle Leonard had more on his mind than usual and had given over a big part of the service to the choir. It seemed a night for song, and a good thing, too.
Singing didn't require a body to do more than embrace the hymns' familiar and comforting words. And tonight Izzy had no mind for listening.
Joseph Baron wasn't up for coming to church, but he'd agreed to meet her for pie.
She pulled her Civic into an empty space facing the front of the diner. From that vantage point, she could see into the brightly lit interior through the windows that ran from end to end.
Baron was already seated at the long counter, swiveling on a stool that seemed too tiny to hold what that hard muscled body surely must weigh.
Izzy wrapped both hands over the top of the steering wheel and leaned her chin on her knuckles. Staring at him fed her sweet tooth in ways Gramma Fred's apple pie never could, in ways she wondered if she'd ever been fed.
But sitting here wasn't going to get her anywhere, so she pulled the keys from the ignition, tucked them into her wallet and grabbed a woven wrap shot with strands of dark paprika, cinnamon and sunflower-gold, draping it over her plain black tank dress.
"Penitent clothes," Mamma Rose called the combination, which was more subdued than the rest of the wardrobe hanging in Izzy's closet. All Izzy knew was that in the humbler clothes, the simpler colors, she found herself able to focus wholly on her spiritual self.
Since she was used to going to Gramma Fred's straight from church, she hadn't even thought to change for her "date" with Baron. That was okay. She had no reason to hide any part of who she was from anyone—even though she did.
She wondered if he had secrets, what they
were,
how she could pry them out, since subtlety was not one of her strong suits, and since she wasn't yet ready to reveal all of her own. That would come later, after he'd earned her trust.
She pulled open the door of the diner and was greeted by the aroma of fresh brewed
Sumatra
—one of the perks of being Frederica Higgs's granddaughter. Gramma Fred kept Izzy's favorite roast for Wednesday's pie nights.
Following her nose led Izzy straight to Baron and the cup he cradled between his two beautiful large hands. The thought of those hands…
She eased up onto the stool at his side, but spoke to her grandmother, who was already hovering with pot and cup in hand. "You know, Gramma, I'm going to be really disappointed if you've given away
all of my
special brew."
Gramma Fred merely filled Izzy's cup, addressing her response to Baron. "Think twice about ever havin' children, Joseph. They produce ungrateful complainers who try to pass themselves off as loving granddaughters."
Izzy lifted her cup and, eyes closed, inhaled before looking back at her grandmother, who stood with one hand on her hip. Gramma Fred's imperially arched brow failed to produce a single wrinkle in her forehead Izzy prayed on a regular basis that she'd inherited her grandmother's youthful skin.