Wedding Series Boxed Set (3 Books in 1) (The Wedding Series) (74 page)

Figuring out the core reason for Leslie’s barrier-building would be his task. Whatever it was, he’d fix it. In the meantime, he’d storm past her latest barricade.

He slapped the ticket into his other hand and headed to the main counter to turn it in.

"So I popped the question, and she said yes.”

"Oh, Barry, I’m so pleased for you.” Leslie hugged the man she’d first known when he was in such pain and now looked so happy. Her eyes teared up, partly for him, partly for herself. Selfish it might be, but in the face of Barry’s joy, she couldn’t help but feel the contrast with her situation.

But she could hide it. “That is absolutely wonderful news,” she said.

Barry squeezed her tight, right where they stood, in the narrow aisle of the Wisconsin Avenue deli.

When she’d realized she couldn’t catch Grady, she’d gone back to the apartment. She’d stared at familiar walls and furniture and paintings and pillows. She had to do something, something to keep from mindlessly chasing off to his hotel or the airport or Chicago until she’d thought this through, which she couldn’t do with Grady’s reaction too fresh to allow for dispassionate reason.

Laundry? No, the cyclical whirring heightened thoughts.

Clean. With difficulty she wrestled down a heavy, framed landscape that collected cobwebs from the wall by the bookcase. She wiped off the wall, then scooched down and started on the glass front with cleaner and rags. But her eyes kept traveling to the patch of carpet behind the couch where Grady had paced this morning. She jerked her head the other way—and looked straight at the bed where they’d made love. The word she said then would have drawn a severe reprimand from Grandma Beatrice.

She stood. Her apartment held too many moments filled with Grady. She had to get out.

So she’d walked to the deli. She bought two packages of chocolate licorice and was heading out when she ran into Barry. Bursting with his news, he poured it out, right there between the anchovy olives and the marinated onions.

“And it’s all because of you, Leslie,” Barry said. “If I hadn’t met you after the divorce—”

“You would have been just fine.”

He shook his head. “I know you don’t want to hear it, you never do, but I’m going to say it, anyhow. You’re one terrific woman, Leslie. I love you.”

He kissed her on the lips then, a kiss whose only passion was in its affection.

It ended abruptly, as if Barry had been jerked away from her.

“Let go of her.”

Barry
had
been jerked away from her. He looked as if he didn’t mind that as much as the fact that the large hand on his shoulder had then jerked him into nose-to-nose proximity with the very angry face of Grady Roberts.

“Grady, what are you doing—”

“What am I doing? What are
you
doing?”

She had no idea where the calm came from, but it enveloped her. Maybe it was the cool blood of that ancestress who had faced off soldiers on both sides of the Civil War. Or maybe it was born of an overwhelming joy that Grady had come back.

“I wasn’t going to ask that. I can see what you're doing. You're hurting Barry’s shoulder—oh, Barry, I’d like you to meet Grady Roberts, the business broker I suggested you have your cousin talk to. Grady, this is Barry Kerken, someone I thought would be a good contact for potential clients. Although now he’s probably a former good contact for potential clients.”

Grady didn’t look distressed at the idea of losing a contact. He didn’t even look sheepish. But he did ease his hold on Barry. Enough for the other man to take a step back against the shelf of anchovy olives and flex his shoulder.

“What I was going to ask,” Leslie continued, “was what you are doing back here?”

“We have to talk.”

He said it so grimly her calm faltered.

Barry sidled another foot away from Grady. “Well, I’ll just leave you two to talk, then.”

Grady didn’t look at him, but Leslie forced a smile.

Barry cleared his throat and gained another few inches of breathing room. “Yes, well, I’ll be going." He stopped and, looking more miserable than heroic, added, “Unless you don’t want me to go, Leslie. I mean if you're not comfortable.”

Grady looked at him then. To his credit, Barry didn’t cringe.

“No, no, I’ll be fine, Barry. Thank you. It was wonderful seeing you and hearing your great news.” She pushed down an inappropriate burble of laughter. "Congratulations again.”

The instant Barry disappeared around the end of the aisle she wondered if she should have kept him around. Now it was only the two of them. But she pushed aside that instant of weakness and met Grady’s eyes.

“You wanted to talk?”

‘We are going to talk,” he declared. “But not here. In private.”

Any remaining inclination to laugh did not survive the silent walk back to her apartment.

Inside the apartment, she faced Grady and waited.

And waited.

He appeared disconcertingly willing to stand there and stare at her. For someone who'd insisted they talk, he was noticeably silent. Worse, she had the impression a good deal was happening behind those devastatingly blue eyes.

Maybe another topic would defuse the tension.

“Did I mention that my Cousin Melly’s daughter, April, is going to visit me for the month of August? I’ll take some vacation time, so I can really show her the city.”

He remained silent, and intent. So much for her Southern social manner coaxing a defused response from him.

"Melly's not going to be around in August and we, that is Grandma Beatrice and I, thought a month in one spot would do April good before Melly takes her off again in the fall.”

No response.

“Remember me talking about April?” she asked brightly.

“I remember.”

His tone also said he wasn’t interested in an April detour. Leslie could have opened the main topic herself, of course, but not face-to-face with him looking that way.

She turned away and spotted the painting on the floor by the hallway. She scooched down and grabbed the cloth.

“I tried to catch you when you left before, Grady.” She polished the glass with all the power of nervous energy. “But you were already out the door. I wanted to tell you—” The impact of his eyes on her back felt as if it would leave an impression on her skin. “I didn’t mean...uh, I mean, some of the things I said probably came out the wrong way. I wasn’t saying that when we—that the other night didn’t mean anything to me. It meant...a lot.”

There. That was about as good as she could do. Both with the picture and by way of explanation.

She stood, hoisting the heavy frame. Placing her left foot on the magazine rack to make a platform of her thigh, she balanced the frame there. Another instant to gather her energy, then she’d slide the picture back into place—The movement was smooth and unexpected. One second she was preparing for the final stage of hoisting the picture. The next second the weight was gone, Grady had stepped into the V of her legs, had one hand around her waist and was hanging the picture with the other.

“One-handed!” More disgusted than impressed with the unjust distribution of physical strength in this world, she focused on that over the sensations his nearness created.

“I know.”

Before she tried to untangle what he knew, she needed a less combustible position. But before she could lower her foot from the magazine rack, he closed in, opening her more fully, bringing himself flush against her. And flush was exactly how it felt, complete with heat and color pulsing through her. She couldn’t back away even if she’d had command of her muscles for that complicated maneuver because her bottom was wedged where bookshelf and wall met.

"I know,” he repeated, low. “I know our making love meant a lot to you because it couldn’t have meant what it did to me if you hadn’t given so much of yourself.”

He kissed her, slow and deep. When it ended, he sucked in a long breath, but his voice and his smile were the same.

"That's probably what had both of us off balance. I know your talk about making love to
get it over with
was another effort to keep me at a distance, like the other excuses—the geography and age and life-style stuff—”

"That's not—”

"Only this time you almost succeeded because you went for my most vulnerable spot—the ego.”

His wry honesty silenced her. Whatever his faults, self-delusion wasn’t among them.

He shifted, trailing his fingers from her knee, up her thigh and under the edge of her shorts. Breathing with more difficulty, she remembered that night on the beach, and exactly where this caress might end.

“I like these shorts.” A gentle tug on her earlobe with his teeth accompanied the low words. “I wanted you so badly that night.” He was remembering, too.

Her turn now for honesty. “I know.”

“Wasn’t much of a test of your perception.” Yes, they had to talk, but not now. Later would be plenty enough.

He was unbuttoning her shirt one-handed, while the other continued to stroke and conquer her thigh. She assisted by shrugging one shoulder out of the shirt and he pulled it the rest of the way off.

She unbuttoned his shirt, spreading it wide to trail her hands down his chest, reveling in the groan that drew. Leaving him to dispose of the shirt, she continued her journey, opening his belt and sliding her fingers inside his waistband to get the best angle on the button there.

“Not so fast,” he mumbled.

But then he dipped his fingers under the edge of her panties—and that was no way to slow things down. Still, she took her time easing down his zipper, letting her fingertips caress the expanding territory.

“Shorts...Damn.”

If she’d worn a skirt...but she hadn’t. Unhooking the shorts and sliding them down allowed him the space to gather the control she’d been so near to stripping from him.

“Any more of this—” Uneven breathing betrayed him, but that he was talking at all was a victory of discipline over desire. “And I’ll take you right here.”

“Uh-huh,” she murmured.

A flash of intensified desire, almost pagan, crossed his face, then eased. “Another time, another time. But I wasn’t very smooth the other night—” He sounded gruff, almost embarrassed. “And I want to show you I can be.”

She allowed him to lead her to the bedroom, absorbing this lesson in Grady Roberts. He was uncomfortable with the raw honesty of their lovemaking. It wasn’t what he was used to. It wasn’t the familiar, practiced territory he knew.

And she was glad. With a fierce, triumphant joy.

Until that moment, she hadn’t realized how much she'd wanted what they’d experienced to be as unique for him as it had been for her. Yet if he’d said those words, she would have discounted them. His discomfort, though, was unmistakable, and endearing. It belonged to her alone.

But he showed no discomfort now. Sliding the clothes from her body so skillfully she hardly felt them go. Caressing her skin so patiently she hardly remembered to breathe.

Their bodies, both naked, slipped along each other, here rubbing, here sliding, everywhere enticing. His lips discovered her where she hadn’t known she existed, drawing sensation from inside her to the surface to quiver and glow like tears. Drawing emotions from where she’d hidden them so long ago. Too many emotions, too near the surface. She couldn't let this go on.

She slid free, pushed him to his back, then restored the connection of body to body with her mouth on his chest.

“Leslie.” The word was stern, but his breathing convulsed and the muscles under her mouth clenched.

"I don’t want smooth.” She spoke against his skin, the prickle of fine hairs guiding her to his navel. She circled, then dipped her tongue. “Not this time.”

He jolted up, intending, she was sure, to take control, to ease them back to something smooth and civilized. She didn't want that. Or to continue his exploration of her secrets, body and soul. She couldn’t afford that.

Eluding his hands, she continued her quest, until he dropped back to the bed with a groan that rewarded her. It was a brief surrender.

“No more, Leslie.” He reversed their positions with dizzying ease. His face intent, his voice hoarse, he promised. “You win this time. But next time…”

“Next time,” she agreed.

Oh, but first there was this time, and the rightness of having him inside her, meeting, retreating, returning, stroking, until the straining to attain the impossible burst into an impossible pleasure.

She watched him, his intent face drawn tight as the shudders wracked him, and she cushioned him when he collapsed with a guttural groan of completion. Someday she would have to let him go, but for now she held him. She would wait, just a little longer, before telling him the truth that would push him away. She would give Grady time to know his value, to know a true relationship.

While she gave herself the pleasure of loving him, not as a mother hen, but as a woman, purely as a woman.

“I don’t want you to see that guy anymore.”

It was almost as if her own conscience had spoken, warning her away from Grady. Except the voice was Grady’s.

“What?”

“That guy at the deli who was hanging all over you.”

“Barry? That’s ridiculous, Barry’s a friend. Besides, he’s engaged. He’d just told me the news and I was congratulating him.”

“Yeah? He didn’t act engaged when he had you wrapped up.”

She started to say something, and stopped.

Grady propped up his head to watch her. He hadn't known where her thoughts had gone a little while ago, though he’d suspected he wouldn’t have liked it. But this time at least he could follow her progress.

Her expression shifted from amazement to resolve; from reacting to what he said, to his right to say it. He didn't think he was going to like this, either.

“Grady, you can’t tell me who to see or who not to see. You have no claim on me. I have no claim on you.”

“Well, maybe that can change. In time.” This was uncharted territory for him, stepping into it left him feeling uncertain, a little scared, but dogged.

“You don’t understand. It won’t change. It can’t change. Because we can’t have a claim on each other.”