Chapter Nine
“I’d hoped Tris and Michael could join us, but they’re in Illinois,” Leslie said for the third time.
Grady looked at the woman sitting on the far side of the quilt, repacking leftovers into a hamper for the second time. Of the thousands of people blanketing the Capitol’s west lawn, she had to be the most uncomfortable, and the most determinedly cheerful.
Ever since he’d arrived at her apartment this afternoon she’d talked almost nonstop. Not once—as they took the Metro to the Capitol, joined the stream of holiday-making humanity, found an open spot in the grass and consumed their picnic of fried chicken, potato salad and fruit—did she let the topic slip any closer to the intimacy they’d experienced at Tanner’s Inn and where it might lead them than Kansas was to a mountain.
“I know. They’re in Springfield.”
“How do you know that?”
"Tris called. Said she and Michael were going to be in Springfield for the Fourth and asked if I’d like to join them.”
“She did?” Leslie smiled, and for the first time he thought she really meant it. “That’s great.”
“I told her I was spending the Fourth with you.”’
“Oh.” Now she looked concerned and tried to hide it.
“It’s all right, Leslie. She didn’t break my sword over her knee or anything. No firing squad at dawn. She just said okay, and they'd see me next time we were both in the same place. It seems we’re back to buddies as usual.”
“That’s good.”
He waited for her to look up, but straightening a corner of the quilt took a lot of attention.
What the hell, he might as well bring it out in the open. He knew she must’ve talked to Tris, but he’d like to hear it from her.
“In fact, I was going to ask you about—”
“Oh, look, the concert’s going to start.”
The orchestra was merely beginning its warm-up, but Leslie seemed determined to hear every note. Around them talk and laughter hummed, but she turned her face to the stage in rapt attention, and turned her shoulder on him.
He lounged on his side, propping his head in one hand. Beyond the hamper she’d placed between them, she sat very straight. Either she’d received a recent lecture on posture or she was tense about something. Or someone.
Bits and pieces of this afternoon came together with what he knew of her, and congealed in a lump in his gut.
Music flowed around him as the day’s light and heat faded. Familiar, upbeat songs. A famous conductor and well-known singers invited everyone to join in, a national sing-along on the front porch of the nation’s Capitol.
Leslie sang, he didn’t.
Even the stirring marches that had an elderly couple to their left tapping the arms of their lawn chairs and the trio of kids in front of them marching in place didn’t lift his spirits.
By the time the concert reached its rousing finale with Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture—complete with cannon shots as a fitting segue into the fireworks—he’d resolved to get this out in the open. Whatever “this” might be.
“Leslie—” The first rocket tore through the air with an anticipatory crackle. Boom! Color exploded with the sound, followed by a wave of “ooohs.” He tried again. “Leslie—”
“Oh, isn’t that beautiful.” Since the color had faded, she had to be enthusing about the residue of the first firecracker or a faint track of the next one’s ascent.
“Leslie—” Another explosion swallowed his words.
“I love the ones that go from green to red like that,” she said before he could try again.
He waited for the next one to go off, then spoke quickly, trying to avoid interruption from a firecracker or her enthusiasm. “I thought we’d try a trip to Charlottesville again next weekend. I could meet—”
Bang! A rocket exploded in a circle of dazzling white. As it began to evaporate, it let off more blasts of light and noise. Bammedy—bam! — bam! — bam!
She winced, but he couldn’t tell if it was from the sound or his proposal.
“I hear Monticello’s beautiful, Leslie. I’d like to see it with you.”
“Next weekend? I‘m afraid that’s not a good time for me.” She spoke around another eruption of noise that presaged a shower of blue and yellow.
The polite distance of her tone iced his heart.
“The weekend after, then.”
“I’m afraid—”
He fought down the words that would accuse her of being exactly that—afraid. Instead he rapped out, “The one after that.”
“I don’t want to make plans for any out-of-town trips right now.” She sounded so damned reasonable he wanted to shake her. Why was she doing this?
Well, he could fight reason with reason. He hardly noticed the red, white and blue streams across the sky.
“Fine. We’ll try closer-in places. I hear Annapolis—”
“No.” The word had an edge; at least he’d rattled her. But she must have heard the edge, too, and he could see her retreating from its revelation. She gave a little laugh. “Let’s just enjoy the fireworks for now.”
With the timing of a perfect accomplice, another flare went out, trailing colored sparks before it burst into a rainbowed chrysanthemum against the inky blue sky.
“Oh, look at that, isn’t that beautiful?”
He said nothing, following the smoke of a spent firework drifting into a forgotten part of the sky while people anticipated the next explosion.
Up in smoke.
He didn’t like the sound of that. He wasn’t accustomed to it, and he didn’t intend to get accustomed to it, damn it.
He was unaware of speaking the last two words aloud until Leslie flicked him a look before raising her face to the sky again.
The look couldn’t have lasted more than a couple of seconds, but it was amazing how much you could absorb in a snap of the fingers. He’d seen her determination. But he’d also seen concern for him, and a true and real fear. Leslie Craig was scared. Of being hurt, of getting involved, of caring too much? Maybe one, maybe all. But he knew for certain she feared him—being hurt by him, getting involved with him, caring too much for him.
In Chicago he’d been undecided how to proceed. Whether to pursue the chemistry between them when doing that might put their friendship at risk. But she’d left him no choice. She intended to withdraw from his life entirely. For fear of the chemistry, she wouldn’t even leave him the friendship. So he had nothing to lose.
And the possible gains? He couldn’t afford to think of that right now.
* * * *
The deep breath she took to say good-night, to take the next step in sending him away forever, left a silence he filled forcefully.
“I’m coming up, and I’m coming in."
His hand under her elbow started her on the stairs.
Maybe it was just as well. In the privacy of her apartment she could make it a clean break tonight, finish it right now, instead of drawing it out.
Inside, she dropped her quilt and sweater on the bench and started past him to add lights to the dim lamp she’d left burning. He gripped her wrist, stopping her cold.
“Quit stalling, Leslie.”
“I’m not stalling. I’m just—”
“Yeah. I know what you're just, and I know what you’ve been working up to all night. But before you say it, I want to know why. And not all that crap about being older or having nothing in common or wanting to be only friends. Because we’ve been friends these past weeks, and that doesn’t change this.”
Still gripping only her wrist, he angled his head to take her mouth. Adjusting to meet his lips more fully was the most natural thing in the world. As natural as it was to collaborate when he changed the angle. As natural as it was to part her lips when his tongue tested them. As natural as it was to meet and match the rhythm of his tongue’s thrust and retreat.
He released her mouth and her wrist without moving back. She didn’t move away; she couldn't. Not with those blue eyes declaring the same message as the harsh, uneven sounds of their breathing.
“You can’t deny this, Leslie. You might want to, but you can’t. You’re too honest.”
His eyes remained on hers as he drew nearer, and nearer still, until she couldn’t possibly deny the message in his eyes. She could back away from it or she could accept it, but she couldn’t pretend it didn’t exist.
Slowly, as if against a great force, she lifted her hands to his arms. Then, gaining strength from the contact, she slid her hands to his shoulders, across their breadth to his neck.
Her eyes drifted closed. The sound of his breathing, the feel of his pulse under her palm were her anchors in the dark world.
He muttered something against her mouth; she didn’t try to decipher it. She opened her lips, and took him back inside.
He took a step closer, and she encircled his neck, drawing him to her. Only then did he put his hands on her.
He skimmed one palm along her arm slowly, following the line from her shoulder to the back of her hand to where her fingers disappeared into his hair. As if to reassure himself that she really was holding him, her arms really were around his neck. His palms rubbed circles on her shoulders as the kiss grew hotter and deeper. Cupping her shoulders, he drew her tight against him. So it didn’t matter when her knees felt as if they would give way; he was there to support her.
Maybe that was how it happened that she never quite recalled covering the distance down the hall, into her bedroom and to the bed. But she remembered the surge of satisfaction when she started to lie back, and Grady’s hands were there to ease her descent. Even better, Grady’s body was there next to hers, partly covering hers.
It was the way it had been at Tanner’s Inn. The wanting, the drumming of
more
in her head, the craving for what she’d told herself she couldn’t have, didn't really want. Oh, but she did want it . . .
He started unbuttoning her blouse, the motions seeming so easy to his practiced fingers, while his other hand stroked her from waist to hip to knee and his mouth dazzled hers. Then the second-to-the-bottom button stubbornly refused to budge, and she felt the slight shake of his hand against her skin. Not as easy as she’d thought.
Tugging until she could reach his shirt, she started unbuttoning. She felt and heard his sharp intake of air. He gave her recalcitrant button a yank and it came free. One more button and he was pushing open her blouse, sliding the straps of her camisole down her aims, following its retreat with his hands and mouth. And she was drowning. Slipping into a sea of sensation where the only elements were his touch and her skim.
He dampened her nipple with a circle of his tongue, then slowly drew it into his mouth. Sensation swamped over her, and she clutched at his arms, but that was no way to save herself from this drowning, it only sank her deeper into the wanting.
She gasped a little as she shifted He moved so his weight didn’t pin her. She sat up and he followed.
“No, wait, Grady.” She couldn’t control her breathing. “We need to talk about this. We need—”
“Need? You want to talk about need, Leslie?"
From the first word, his voice, raw and smoky, held her immobile. She moved only her eyes. Watching as he jerked open the remaining buttons of his shirt. He took one of her hands in each of his, opening them with his thumbs when she clenched reflexive fists. “I’ll tell you about need. I’ll tell you about needing you, Leslie. Are you going to deny this?”
He pressed one of her palms to his bare chest and the other to the hard ridge below his waist. She felt the pulse of his blood through her palms, up her arms and into her own heart.
“This is need, Leslie.”
He muttered the words almost into her mouth as he held her against him. She felt the jolt of his need under her hands when their lips met, and the surge of her own need.
“Grady . . .”
He lifted his head just enough to meet her eyes. Under the heat, his eyes were wary, his body tense. He expected her to say no, to pull away, and he would make himself accept it.
But she couldn’t. She couldn’t accept not giving this man what he needed. She couldn’t accept not having what he offered. This one night . . . one night . . . she would give and she would have. In the morning, well, this night came before the morning after, and she would think only of the night.
Stretching her neck, she brought her mouth to his as she caressed him with long, deliberate strokes.
His response leaped under her hands, but he didn’t move other than that. She ended the kiss. For an instant he stared at her, but only long enough for her to think that the blue of his eyes had burned clear of all protection. Before she could look into those eyes and see the man behind them, he locked his arms around her and brought them both back down to the bed.
His lips and teeth feasted on the tender skin where her neck met her shoulder. When he soothed it with his tongue, she arched in response.
That was the last clear moment she remembered. The rest was impressions, echoes of emotion. The hoarse, almost guttural sound of his words of need and praise and desire. The strained, taut clenching of his muscles under her hands. The clutch of sadness and regret when he opened a small foil packet. The prod of conscience to tell him, and the welcome weakness when his kiss drove away all thought. The film of sweat that made her hand glide down his bare side when she grasped his hip. The scent of soap and man as their legs and arms tangled and clasped. The sensation of cloth against her skin as clothes that proved too intricate to remove were shoved aside in haste.
Oh, yes, she knew need.
And she knew the incredible, joyous sensation of having it met, and of meeting his.
She told him of the joy in small soft sounds and glorious shudders of pleasure. He answered in a strained, hoarse explosion of completion.
Holding him, absorbing the heaving of his chest into hers, feeling the beating of his heart against hers, she knew she would always remember the honesty of his need, and hers.
* * * *
She might have drifted, into sleep or simply out of conscious thought.
They lay tangled together, arms wrapped tightly around each other as if fearing that bodies this close could somehow slip apart.
But their breathing eased and their heartbeats steadied. At some point Grady shifted most of his weight to one side. Maybe that woke her. Or feeling the rub of her camisole twisted around her waist.