“Ah, so that’s the reason.”
“What?”
“I’ve been trying to figure out why a woman would choose to live with a gay man.”
She shrugged and the other strap of her dress slid down her arm. “He lied to me.”
“Maybe you wanted to believe the lie to please your mother.”
She thought a moment. It still wasn’t the ah-ha epiphany she’d been waiting for, but there was some truth in it. “Yeah, maybe.” She pushed both straps back up. “But that doesn’t mean I didn’t love him and that it hurts less because he wasn’t unfaithful with a woman.” She felt an appalling sting in the backs of her eyes. She hadn’t had a good soul-cleansing cry all week, and she certainly couldn’t allow it to happen now. “It doesn’t mean that all the hopes I had for a future suddenly go away and I feel relieved, and I think, ‘Wow, dodged that bullet.’ Maybe I should, but-” Her voice broke and she rose to her feet as if someone had yanked her up.
Clare walked farther from the party and stopped beneath an old oak. She placed her hand on the rough, uneven bark and stared out through rapidly blurring eyes at the outline of wild growth beyond. Had it only been a week? It seemed longer, and yet…it also seemed like yesterday. She rubbed beneath her eyes and wiped away her tears. She was in public. She didn’t cry in public.
Why was the crying jag hitting her now? Here, of all places? She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Perhaps because she’d kept herself busy. Worrying about the HIV test and planning Leo’s party had taken a lot of mental and physical energy. Now that she didn’t have those worries blocking her emotions, she was having a breakdown.
And it was damn inconvenient.
She felt Sebastian move up behind her. Not touching, but so close she could feel the heat of his body.
“Are you crying?”
“No.”
“Yes you are.”
“If you don’t mind, I just want to be alone.”
Of course, he didn’t leave. Instead he placed his hands on her shoulders. “Don’t cry, Clare.”
“Okay.” She wiped the moisture from her cheeks. “I’m fine now. You can rejoin the party. Leo’s probably worried about where you are.”
“You’re not fine, and Leo knows I’m a big boy.” He slid his hands down her bare arms to her elbows. “Don’t cry over someone who isn’t worth it.”
She looked down at her feet, her pedicured toes barely visible in the dark. “I know you think because I don’t have the right equipment that I shouldn’t take it so hard, but you don’t understand that I loved Lonny. I thought he was the person I’d spend the rest of my life with. We had a lot in common.” A tear rolled down her cheek and fell on her chest.
“Not sex.”
“Yeah, except for that, but sex isn’t everything. He was very supportive of my career and we took care of each other in every way that really matters.”
His warm, rough palms slid up her arms to her shoulders. “Sex matters, Clare.”
“I know, but it’s not the most important thing in a relationship.” Sebastian made a scoffing sound, but she ignored it. “We were planning to go to Rome on our honeymoon so I could research a book, but that’s all gone now. And I feel foolish and…empty.” Her voice broke and she raised a hand and wiped at her eyes. “How do you love someone one day and not the next? I wish I kn-knew.”
Sebastian turned her and placed his hands on the sides of her face. “Don’t cry,” he said, and brushed her wet cheeks with his thumbs.
The distant sound of crickets chirping mixed and mingled with “Son of a Preacher Man” softly pouring from the stereo. Clare looked up at Sebastian’s smeared dark outline. “I’ll be okay in a minute,” she lied.
He lowered his face, and the light touch of his lips stopped the air in her lungs. “Shh,” he whispered at the corner of her mouth. His hands slid toward the back of her head and his fingers plowed through her hair. He placed soft kisses on her cheek, her temple, and her brow. “Don’t cry anymore, Clare.”
She doubted she could if she wanted to. While Dusty sang about the only boy who could ever teach her, shock clogged everything in the center of Clare’s chest and she could hardly breathe.
He kissed her nose, then said just above her mouth, “You need something else to think about.” He gently pulled her head backward and her lips parted slightly. “Like how it feels to be held by a man who can get it up for a woman.”
Clare placed her hands his chest and felt the solid muscles beneath the thin dress shirt. This could not be happening. Not with Sebastian. “No,” she assured him a little desperately. “I remember.”
“I think you’ve forgotten.” His lips pressed into hers, then eased back a fraction. “You need a little reminding by a man who knows how to use his pickle fork.”
“I wish you’d forget I said that,” she managed past the constriction in her chest.
“Never. Although I can’t imagine anything the size of a pickle fork being much use to anyone.”
She gasped as his mouth opened over hers and his tongue swept inside. He tasted like scotch and something else. Something she hadn’t tasted in a very long time. Sexual desire. Hot and intoxicating, focused directly at her. She should have been alarmed, and she was a little. But mostly she liked the taste in her mouth. Like something luscious and rich she hadn’t had in a while, and it poured all through her, warming the pit of her stomach and the empty places inside.
Everything around her receded away like a low tide. The party. The crickets. Dusty. Thoughts of Lonny.
Sebastian was right. She’d forgotten what it was like to have a man make love to her mouth. She couldn’t recall it being so good. Or perhaps it was that Sebastian was so good at it. Her palms slid to his shoulders and the side of his neck as his slick tongue teased and coaxed until she gave in and kissed him back, returning the passion and possession he fed her.
Her toes curled in her Kate Spade sandals and she ran her fingers through the short hair brushing the collar of his shirt. His mouth never left hers, yet she felt the kiss everywhere. His wet mouth on hers turned every cell in her body needy and greedy and wanting more.
She rose to the balls of her feet and pressed into him. He groaned into her mouth, a deep sound of lust and yearning that fanned her ego, flamed the feminine fire deep inside that she’d allowed to die to a small ember. She turned her head to the side and her mouth clung to his.
His hands slid to her waist and his thumbs fanned her stomach through the thin cotton of her dress. His fingers pressed into her and he held her against his lower belly, where he was hard and swollen. He wanted her; she’d forgotten how truly good that felt. She kissed him like she wanted to eat him up, and she did. Every last bite. At that moment, she didn’t care who he was, only how he made her feel. Wanted and desired.
He pulled back and gasped for breath. “Jesus, stop!”
“Why?” she asked, and kissed the side of his throat.
“Because,” he answered, his voice sounding both rough and tortured, “we’re both old enough to know where this will lead.”
She smiled against his neck. “Where?”
“To a quicky in the weeds.”
Clare wasn’t that far gone. She dropped to her heels and retreated a few steps, leaned her back against the tree and took several mind-clearing breaths. She watched Sebastian comb his fingers though his hair and tried to make sense of what had happened. She’d just kissed Sebastian Vaughan, and as crazy as that sounded inside her head, she wasn’t sorry. “You’ve been practicing since you were nine,” she said, still a little dazed by it all.