Love Proof (Laws of Attraction) (21 page)

“So, you’re one of those?” Chapman asked Sarah.  His words had grown
more slurred throughout dinner, and his eyes seemed to lose their focus.

“One of what?” Sarah asked coldly.

“A ‘feminist,’” he said, putting finger quotes around it, “when it
suits you, and a ‘female’ when it comes to paying for anything?”

“That’s right, Paul,” she said.  “You have me all figured out.”  She
started to exit the booth.

“Is that why you went to law school?” Chapman asked.

Sarah paused for the inevitable follow-up insult.

“To get yourself a husband?” he continued.  “Only it didn’t work out,
huh?  Too much of a ball-buster.”

“Yep, that’s right, Paul,” she said.  “Balls spontaneously exploding everywhere
I go.  You got it.”

Sarah turned to Joe.  “Thanks for dinner.  It was . . . unusual.”

“I’ll walk you out,” he said.

“Aren’t you afraid for your balls?” she asked for Chapman’s benefit.

“I’m a risk-taker,” Joe answered.

He signed the receipt, then escorted her out of the restaurant.

“What an asshole,” Sarah muttered.

“He never disappoints,” Joe agreed.

“Why did you invite him?”  She’d been dying to ask him that for the
last hour they had been trapped.

“To shut him up,” Joe said.  “A guy like that would love to tell anyone
who’d listen that he saw us having dinner together.  I thought I’d spare us the
gossip.”

Sarah couldn’t deny the logic.  Even though having dinner with that
cretin any night, let alone on her birthday, was the last thing she wanted to
do.

They walked as far as the lobby, then the two of them paused.  They
stood close to each other, but not nearly as close as they’d been in the
booth.  The elevators were behind them, and it would have been easy for Sarah
simply to say goodnight and return to her room.

But instead she looked up at Joe.  And waited.  She wanted to know exactly
what he would say next, and exactly what she would say in response.  How this
game would play out.

“Feel like taking a drive?” he asked.

“Where to?”

“Not far,” he said.

Sarah nodded, as if considering.  But there was nothing left to
decide.  She already crossed that boundary, she realized, by even coming
downstairs to dinner.  Everything after that felt inevitable.

Still, she kept her eyes locked on his for a moment more, and let the
negotiation continue in silence.

The lobby door opened, and a gust of winter wind swept in.  Sarah
clutched her arms around her chest.

“Here.  You’re not dressed for it,” Joe said, removing his hoodie and
handing it to her.

She tugged it over her head.  And breathed in.  It smelled of laundry
soap and Joe—unmistakably Joe.  His familiar, masculine scent.  Just one more
reminder of all of the pleasure she once took in his body.  And could take
again.

She pulled the hoodie all the way down until the hem of it hung to her
thighs.

“Ready?” Joe asked.

Sarah nodded.

The two of them walked together to his car, two colleagues out on a
short errand, if Chapman happened to notice, two attorneys giving no indication
they knew each other beyond a professional acquaintance.  There was no
touching, no stolen glance, nothing except a smooth entry into the car, the
ignition turning right away, Joe pulling out of the parking lot without a
moment’s hesitation.

He was right, it wasn’t far.  Maybe five minutes away.

“You always have to stay somewhere else, don’t you?” Sarah asked.  But
she was quickly reaching the point where she didn’t want to talk at all.

They walked into the second lobby together, still not touching or
looking at each other, and headed for the elevator.  Sarah waited for the doors
to close them in before turning to Joe.

“You know it’s just for tonight.”

“I know,” he said.

“It doesn’t change anything.”

“All right.”

Then she told her mind to take the rest of the night off while she let
her body take it from there.

Twenty-three

They were barely inside the room before they went at each other as if
no time had passed or too much had.  Sarah grabbed him and pulled him to her
with nearly as much force as he reached for her.  Their mouths crushed together
while Joe slipped his hands underneath the hoodie.  Sarah lifted her arms so he
could tug it over her head.  Then she undid the tie on her kimono top and let
it fall to the floor.

Joe stared at her naked breasts, his breath ragged.  Then he yanked
down the pajama pants and found nothing between him and her flesh.

“My God, Sarah, you’ve been like this all night?  Why did you let me
sit there so long?”  He covered her mouth with his as he cupped a breast in one
hand and her ass with another.  He pulled her hips into his.  Sarah could feel
the hardness struggling to escape his jeans.

“Why did you wear a belt?” she gasped, fumbling to undo it.

He took over, and then popped the top button of his jeans for her.  Sarah
pulled the rest of the buttons free, then reached inside and released his
erection.  Joe kicked off his shoes and Sarah pushed his jeans and underwear roughly
down his legs.  It was all taking too much time, and she still had his shirt to
get rid of.

She slid her hands under his T-shirt and then spread her fingers across
his warm chest, exploring the width and the strength.  He was so different from
how she remembered, so much firmer and more muscular.  She pushed his shirt up
to his shoulders so she could feel the unfamiliar muscles there, too.  Then she
pulled the shirt free, and leaned forward to flick her tongue against his
nipple.  She took him in her hand at the same time, gripping and stroking him, and
Joe groaned as she controlled him from both above and below.

“Sarah . . . ”

He slid his fingers into her wetness and pulled her mouth back up to
his.  Sarah locked her arms around his neck and pressed as much of herself as
she could against him, chest to chest, groin to groin.  Joe briefly abandoned
her mouth to nip and suck at one of her breasts, but then they devoured each
other again as he backed her toward the wall.

He paused for a moment to grab his jeans from the floor and dig into
one of the pockets.

“That sure, huh?” Sarah managed to say as Joe found the condom.

“Never sure.”  Then he was back in position, kissing her, lifting her
from the ground so they could take each other the way they had that very first time.

“No,” Sarah said.  “Wait.”  Even though she wanted it that way, too,
hard and fast and now.  Her heart pounded so hard she had to hold her hand
there to steady it.  “We’re only doing this once, so you’d better make it
last.”

Joe immediately obliged by carrying her to the bed.  He ripped the
covers back and lowered her to the sheet.

He met her gaze with a dark and knowing look, then levered her thighs
apart and took her with his mouth.

Sarah cried out, arching her back, nearly pushing him away, ready to
stop him at any moment because it was too good, too long overdue, and she might
not live through it.

Damn right you’ll let him do this
, her body responded, shoving those insane thoughts right
out of her mind. 
You shut up and let him go
.

So she shut up and let him go.

All through dinner she imagined what it might be like to be with him
again, but her fantasies hadn’t done him justice.  Here he was, flesh and
blood, the best lover she had ever had, and he’d lost
none
of that, only
improved on it.

She thought she understood her body, what it liked, what it needed, how
long it took to climb up the crest and then take the plunge over.  But between
his tongue and a hand expertly deployed, Sarah could feel the pressure of a
wave building far too soon, ready to take her whenever she let it.

“Joe—”

“I know,” he answered, “do it.”

And with that she let go, his name on her lips as she let the wave
overtake her.

He stayed with her the whole time, still pressing, still tasting,
charging every nerve in her body with such wattage and heat she wondered how it
could still be safe to touch her.

Then he was above her, with a look of such exquisite need on his face,
she didn’t wait to hear the words.

“Sarah, I have to—”  But she was already pulling him to her, because
she needed it, too.  He paused only long enough for the condom, then he was on
top of her, sliding into her, as Sarah lifted her hips to meet him.

She had waited too long, she knew now.  Waited and tortured them both. 
When really this was for her, had been for her all along, and giving Joe
pleasure was no sacrifice when she could have all of this for herself.

They moved together, lovers who had memorized each other’s desires once
before and had forgotten absolutely nothing.  Sarah arched as she came again and
Joe drove himself to release.  The two of them trembled with the force of it,
Sarah’s arms still shaking as they held on to each other and waited for their
eruptions to subside.

Then Joe rolled to the side and pulled Sarah close against him.  She draped
her body over his and rested her head against his chest, feeling the strong
pulse of his heart against her cheek.  She reached up her hand, and he threaded
his fingers through hers.  Then she lifted her face and pulled him toward her so
he could kiss her again.

“
Damn
, Burke,” she whispered.  Then she collapsed back onto his
chest.

He stroked a hand gently down her back.

“Sarah . . . ”  But then he must have forgotten what he was going to
say.  He covered them both in the blankets, then wrapped her in his arms.

***

Sarah dozed for almost an hour before her leg twitched and woke her
up.  She and Joe had changed positions during that time, and she now lay on her
back with her thigh open, resting on top of Joe’s.  He slept on his back, too, snoring
softly, with his hand curled possessively around her thigh, gripping it even in
his sleep.

If she was awake, he should be, too.

She drummed her fingers against his arm.

“Subtle,” Joe murmured.

“It’s still my birthday,” she pointed out.

Joe groaned and rolled onto his side.  He looked into Sarah’s eyes. 
“You’re so beautiful.  I never get tired of looking at you.”  He ran a hand
over her shoulder, then down her arm.  “You’re so different now.”

Sarah leaned back and let him explore.  She had never been shy about
her body around Joe.  He claimed it so completely their first day together, she
didn’t see the sense in trying to hide it.

He cupped her breasts in his hands, kneading them softly, looking at
them under the glow of the bedside lamp.  He kissed the peak of each breast in
turn.  “I like how rosy your nipples are.  Your lips turn the same color if we’ve
been kissing for a long time—did you know that?”

“No.”  But she liked that he noticed.  He never mentioned that before.

He smoothed his hands down the sides of her waist.  Then he poked the
tight muscles of her abdomen.  “I like that.”

“My trainer said I used to be ‘skinny fat’ when I first came in,” Sarah
said.  “Thin, but no muscle tone.”

“I liked it then,” Joe said, kissing along the sides of her belly, “and
I like it now.”  He kissed the pale skin just below her belly button, then
turned his head and rested his cheek there.  Sarah laid her hand gently on top
of his head.  She stroked his short hair, then spread her palm softly against
his cheek.  Joe wrapped his arms around her waist and the two of them lay like
that for a while.

It felt completely natural, Sarah thought, to be with him like this: 
tender, loving, no different from how the two of them had been toward each
other all those nights and days of their seven weeks together.  She felt no
need to be cagey or smart-mouthed or self-protective in any way.

Because once she made the decision in the lobby of her hotel to give
herself this one night, she let go of any of the barriers that held her back. 
She could erect them again in the morning, but for now, for these next few
hours, she just wanted to feel him, to let herself be free with him, to give
herself this gift and not hold anything back—not from herself, and not from
Joe.

She caressed the sensitive area behind his ear, knowing what he would
do.  He raised his head from her belly and climbed back up to where their mouths
could meet once again.  She wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her
breasts against his chest, and angled her hips so that she stroked him without
taking him in.

Joe moaned.  And grabbed her cheeks to control the motion.  Sarah felt
a familiar laugh bubbling in her throat.  The two of them had become expert at
the tease, both trying to hold off longer than the other, to make the other one
beg, to be the one who gave in when the other couldn’t bear waiting another
second more.