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He was not one who entertained thoughts of having a relationship with a woman. His associations with women were just that—associations.
She reached for the top button on his shirt. “Do you mind if I undo this?” she asked, her other hand still holding the glass of wine he’d poured for her.
“No. Not at all.” Chris’s penis forced the words out of his mouth before his brain had a chance to react.
Her hand shook and her fingers caught and pulled a couple of strands of his chest hair as she struggled to open the button. The stiffness in his groin intensified. If she’d been experienced, assured, he might have had a hope.
He could have helped. Could have disrobed completely without a care. The sweet torment of Emma’s soft skin scraping against his chest as she continued to try, one-handed, to get the button free from the hole had control of him.
Her attentions turned him on too much to deny himself. If the exquisite torture felt this good at the top buttons, he could hardly wait for her to tackle the buttons that were currently tucked into the fly of his dress slacks.
The wine sloshed a bit in the glass and she took a sip. The button was almost free and then she fumbled it and lost the ground she’d gained. She didn’t giggle. Or sigh. Slowly, patiently, she tried again. Then finding success, she moved on to the next button.
He felt his underwear getting moist. He was going to have to stop her. Or help her. Or explode before he ever got a chance to show her any pleasure at all.
His shirt parted; she smiled a Mona Lisa smile, and Chris’s body temperature grew.
He hadn’t seen an inch of her flesh. Hadn’t touched any private places. He hadn’t even kissed her yet.
It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.
* * *
HIS CHEST WAS glorious. She wanted to run her fingers through the abundance of dark crisp hair there—man hair.
Wow.
Chris groaned, and she glanced up. He was looking straight at her with a desperate plea in his gaze.
She jerked back. “What’s wrong?” Had she hurt him? Had he changed his mind? Suddenly remembered a woman who was at home waiting for him? “You have a girlfriend, don’t you?” She’d only asked if he was married. Rob wasn’t married, either.
Dizzy with the effects of too much wine, she suddenly felt kind of sick.
“No, I don’t.”
His unequivocal answer sent a flash of relief through her entire body.
“And the only thing wrong is that I need to have you naked beneath me. I need to sink myself inside you and hear your cries of ecstasy within the next few seconds or I’m going to be in paradise all by myself.”
The wine dancing in her head again, she grinned. Hugely. “I have that effect on you?”
“Hell, yes.”
Irrepressible delight coursed through her.
“I have no problem with your plan, then.”
His eyebrows came together. “You’re sure? I haven’t prepared you.”
She nodded and set her wine down on the table with a small splash, refusing to listen to a faint voice inside of her that wanted her to come to her senses. “I’m pretty sure you have,” she said.
Chris’s hand was at her crotch before Emma had any idea what he was going to do. He rubbed right where she was hottest. And then, without taking his eyes from her face, he had her slacks undone with one quick tug.
He kissed her, attacking her senses on multiple levels. His lips were firm, his tongue urgent as it entered her mouth. Emma grabbed for his neck, holding on tightly while he lifted her, undressed her some and lowered her back to the couch as he partially undressed himself.
“I have to get a condom.” She barely understood the strained words. She saw him reaching back for his wallet and then she let go of him. But only long enough for him to slide the leather bifold from his back pocket, and find the foil packet tucked neatly in one corner.
With him suspended over her, she still had a chance to stop him. Her old self hovered above, watching what she was doing. Emma saw herself. But she didn’t stop. Making love with Chris was the right thing to do. She was sure of it.
She felt no regret. None. At all.
She had to have him and that was all that mattered.
There was no hesitation in her body. No resistance. No discomfort at all. Emma’s hips reached toward the force consuming her, welcoming him, urging him to fill her more deeply, with swifter thrusts. She had no idea who she was, or what she would be after this. She didn’t care.
Driven by something inside of her, Emma gave herself over to the man on top of her. He was taking her away and she went willingly. Climbing higher and higher beneath him, with him. Becoming thinner and thinner until she burst into an explosion of sensation, saw stars and experienced wave after wave of the most incredible pleasure.
She’d had her first orgasm. And she wasn’t the least bit sorry.
* * *
HIS BODY PULSED again and again, until he wasn’t sure he could stand the glory of it. Chris cried out.
Oh, God. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. He was always in control.
And now he wasn’t. He wanted more.
Gasping, sweating, he fell to Emma’s side. He should be exhausted.
“Now, if you will allow me, I’ll show you real pleasure,” he drawled, hardly recognizing his voice. Without waiting for a response, he undid her blouse slowly, pausing after each button to run the backs of his fingers along the skin he was exposing.
She stared up at him, watching. “You want me to stop?” he asked, remembering her earlier warning.
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely.” Her gaze didn’t waver in spite of the tremble in her voice.
She moved her hips against him, sending another surge of blood along his muscle, pulling him in farther, and Chris had no choice but to take her at her word.
The woman wanted his loving and, God help him, he had to give it to her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
EMMA GAVE ROB a couple of extra hours to vacate her house on Saturday. She blamed her inability to get out of bed and leave the hotel room on her late night. It certainly wasn’t a man keeping her there.
Her companion in crime was no more than a vivid memory. Sometime before dawn he’d kissed her one last time, told her to sleep, then, when she was more unconscious than not, he’d dressed and left. She hadn’t even known his intent until she’d heard the latch on the door click behind him.
She’d risen then. In the restroom she’d found the note he’d left for her on the marble sink, telling her to stay as long as she liked. He’d arranged a late check-out. He told her to order breakfast on him.
“I hope that our night together is a memory that will last you a lifetime,” he’d written. “I know that I will never forget you. Chris.”
That was it. Just Chris. No last name. No phone number. No way for her to contact him. No request for a way to contact her.
After reading the note half a dozen times Emma had told herself to dress, find her car and get the hell home.
And then she’d remembered Rob’s deadline, which wasn’t yet past, and had crawled back into bed. What the heck. Chris had presumably paid for the room. She might as well get some rest.
With the help of the wine she’d consumed the night before, she’d slept for several more hours—waking around noon to glasses half filled with stale wine and whiskey, the scent of lovemaking and her clothes in a neat pile on the table in front of the couch.
The note Chris had written was still there, too, crumpled on the bedside table. Right where she’d left it.
* * *
WITH HIS FADED orange coveralls stripped down to his waist, Chris dropped the wrench and swore. He was stranded on his boat about ten miles out. And saw a flash of long legs in his mind’s eye.
At his father’s insistence, he’d learned how to repair a boat engine before he’d pulled up his first trap. But there was only so much a guy could do to an engine with pistons that were done being overhauled. New rings weren’t going to do it this time. He’d had no black smoke warning this time. Only a rough idle when he’d taken the boat out.
Maybe he’d have taken the engine coughs more seriously if he’d had any sleep. If he’d been able to wipe out the image of dark curls spread across his white pillowcase. He couldn’t afford to miss another day’s catch. And engine coughing could be healed after he’d brought in the haul. Usually.
At least he’d brought in a better than average catch. More than seven hundred pounds. At only three dollars a pound—less than half of what he used to sell for—he was going to gross twenty-one hundred. He could get the catch in to Manny. With the cost of running a lobstering operation coupled with his living expenses, he was going to be lucky to make this month’s bills.
Which was another reason he didn’t date. He couldn’t afford to wine and dine a woman. He couldn’t afford the time.
Forgoing the radio—and the coast guard—Chris pulled out his cell phone and dialed.
He couldn’t afford a new engine, either. Or a day off work. He damn well couldn’t afford to be distracted by thoughts of a woman—no matter how good the night before had been.
“Jim, it’s Chris. I need a tow.”
He gave his father’s best friend his coordinates. Jim wasn’t fishing anymore. He’d bought a new boat just before the economy failed and had lost it to bankruptcy a couple of years later. Now the sixty-seven-year-old fisherman drove a towboat for Manny.
If Chris couldn’t find a way to fish and fix his boat at the same time, he could end up just like Jim.
“Be there in twenty,” Jim told him, and hung up.
No questions asked.
* * *
EMMA PUSHED THE button on her car visor, activating the automatic garage-door opener at four o’clock Saturday afternoon and paused in the driveway. Rob’s silver Ranger was still parked inside.
The tall, lanky, boyishly good-looking man came out of the kitchen and into the garage before the outer door was fully raised.
She had a choice. Back up and speed away. Or stay.
Emma pulled into her garage.
“You didn’t change the locks.” Rob was there, opening her door for her. “I spent the night praying that you’d give me another chance, Em. This was the first time since we got engaged,” he said, his tone pleading. “I swear to you, it won’t happen again. Ever.”
She got out of the car, pulling her purse out with her.
“The look on your face, when you came in the bedroom yesterday…”
Emma made her way to the door and into the house.
“I will never forget that look, Em. Or forgive myself for putting it there.”
He hadn’t moved out. Everything was just as she’d left it the day before. Rob’s shot glasses were on the second shelf of the window alcove over the sink. His espresso machine still sat on the counter. And his shoes were underneath the dining-room table—right where he always left them.
Most everything in the townhome—the furniture, the dishes, the mortgage—belonged to her. He’d sold his stuff when he’d moved in because they hadn’t needed two of everything.
“You’re in the same clothes you took with you yesterday.”
She put her purse on the closet shelf. Not far from Rob’s golf clubs. He was that sure of her.
She was that predictable.
“You have clothes at your mother’s house.”
She’d called her mother on her way home, letting Rose know that she’d stayed downtown and had a long rest. She’d assured Rose that she was fine and that she’d call her later. She’d opted out of joining her for dinner and a movie.
Now she wondered if maybe that hadn’t been such a good idea. If she had someplace to be, something she had to do, she could leave without running away.
Chris had had all morning to contact her at his hotel room, but he hadn’t. And he hadn’t returned.
Unlike Rob, she knew when someone was giving her ample time to get out.
“You’ve been out all night.”
Rob’s tone turned accusing as he followed her into the living room, down the hallway and into their shared home office. She had no idea what she was going to do there, but it was a better choice than the bedroom, where she really wanted to be.
Or the shower, where she needed to be.
“Where were you?”
He was standing right behind her. Hounding her. Emma turned and stared him right in the eye. “That is none of your business.”
“You’ve got a hickey on your neck.”
Emma raised a hand to cover the mark. She’d forgotten. Chris had been inside her—for a second time—when she’d admitted that she’d never had a hickey in her life. What had been a hazy recollection crystallized as though a high-powered beam had been pointed at the memory.
“You were with another man!” The astonishment in Rob’s voice riled her. He didn’t have to sound so shocked. Like the idea of another man wanting her was impossible to imagine.
“You’re no better than I am!”
He had that wrong. She’d waited until she was free before she had sex with someone else.
Rob reached out, taking hold of her shoulders, pulling her to him. “I’m sorry, Em. I understand. And I forgive you. I’m actually relieved.” He looked down at her, a sympathetic smile on his lips. “You don’t know how hard it’s been living with someone as perfect as you are. There’s no way I could ever measure up. But now…”
“What do you mean, as perfect as I am?”
“You know!” He gave her shoulders a squeeze. “You live completely on the white side of black and white. You don’t ever mess up. Or do anything unless you know you won’t make a mistake. You have such high standards you make it impossible for a guy to live up to you.”
Emma stepped back forcefully enough to make him let go of her. She’d been crushed that Rob had been unfaithful. He appeared glad that she had been.
“Who was he, Em? Anyone I know?”
More nauseated than ever, Emma walked out of the office. “Get out, Rob. Now. Take your things and get out. The locksmith is on his way.”
“You don’t mean that.” He placed a hand on her arm. Gently. “Please. Let’s talk. We can get through this. I know we can. I know you, Em.”
He did know her. Better than anyone ever had. There was a lot of value in that. A lot of worth.
Chris didn’t know her at all. And didn’t want to.
If she let Rob leave, she’d be alone. Really alone. Did she want that?
“Get out.” The words came from deep within. “The Lock Exchange guy is going to be here soon. Whatever’s still here by the time the locks are changed, you lose.”
“You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Yes, actually, I do.” Emma shook inside, scared to death but determined.
She’d done the unimaginable the night before. She’d left a bar with a man she didn’t know. She’d shed her clothes for him, spread her legs for him. And then she’d been left to wake up alone.
Somehow she had to make something good come from that. She had to make the night count. She had to become a changed woman.
“I’m warning you, Em. If you do this, if you really force me out of here, I won’t be back.”
She stood still and tried not to cry.
“I mean it.”
He took a step toward her.
“I know you mean it.” Emma could hardly believe the firmness of her tone. “I am changing the locks and anything that’s left behind, you lose. You’ve had twenty-four hours.”
“Fine, then. But mark my words, you’re going to regret this.”
She faced him one last time, aware of how she must look in yesterday’s clothes with last night’s rumpled hair, smeared makeup and unbrushed teeth. “That’s a chance I’m willing to take.”
Emma didn’t take chances.
But apparently the woman she’d unleashed the night before had caught a ride home with her.
CHAPTER NINE
CHRIS TOSSED BACK a few drinks with Jim at his house on Saturday night. The older man had taken a look at his boat and had verified what Chris already knew. He’d shot at least one piston. The Son Catcher wasn’t going anywhere until Chris came up with a thousand bucks and the time to fix her.
And if he kept dipping into his savings, he wasn’t going to have anything left for his retirement.
Not that he had any plans to quit working.
If he couldn’t fish, there wouldn’t be anything left to live for, anyway.
“You don’t come around enough, Chris.” Jim’s wife, Marta, put a plate of fresh crab sandwiches on the table in the enclosed patio and pulled up a stool.
“I don’t want to impose,” Chris said.
“Your folks have been gone almost ten years, and you’ve been here, what, five times since then?”
It sounded so bad when she put it like that.
“I miss our Friday-night dinners.”
Jim had been friends with Chris’s father in high school. When they’d married, their wives had also become close friends. The two couples had shared dinner together every Friday night. And after Chris had been born, the only child among them, he’d become a part of the tradition. One that had continued until his parents’ deaths.
After that, Chris found it easier to be alone.
* * *
EMMA SLEPT ON the couch Saturday night. With the television on.
She wasn’t afraid of burglars. Or of the dark.
She was afraid of herself, that—alone in the queen-size bed, in the room that she’d shared for two years—she’d toss and turn and feel desperate.
She was afraid she’d do something crazy. Like call Rob. He’d be expecting a call. And, in spite of what he said, he’d come back.
She knew him well, too.
Another possibility, a worse one, was that she’d leave the house and go down to Citadel’s. If Chris made his living there, he’d have to be there more than one night a week. Weekends were the biggest draw.
And if he was booked someplace else, Cody would probably know about that, too.
As badly as Emma wanted to see him again, she knew she shouldn’t. So she didn’t sleep much.
But she caught up on I Love Lucy reruns. And when dawn still took too long to arrive, she put in Pillow Talk, one of her favorite movies from her Doris Day collection. Emma owned every single movie Doris Day had ever made.
She loved them all.
Doris always got her guy. But she never lost sight of who she was in the process. Always remained true to herself.
She was an icon in her day, a woman before her time. The characters Doris depicted were strong women. Women who didn’t need men to complete them, who were successful in their own right and found men to complement them.
Men who were so in love with her characters, that love changed them from playboys into faithful partners for life.
At seven in the morning, as the end credits of Pillow Talk played, Emma reached into the side-table drawer, pulled out a journal—an unused gift from one of her students—and opened it to the first page.
She wrote her name in large black print: EMMA SANDERSON.
And then she started a list.
1. I want to be loved by a man who loves me so much that that love changes him.
She waited for more to come to her, and when nothing presented itself, she closed the journal and put it back in the drawer. Then she went to take a shower and begin the rest of her life.
* * *
AT NINE O’CLOCK Sunday morning, Emma picked up the phone.
Ramsey Miller had given her Cal’s number, after obtaining Cal’s permission to do so. She’d programmed it into the contact list on her cell phone.
She’d let it sit there.
With the push of a button, she made another major life decision.
Her heart was pounding as she waited for Cal to pick up.
“Hello?”
His voice was deep. Distinguished.
“Hello?”
She almost hung up. She had no idea what she was getting into. What kind of Pandora’s box she could be opening. What if the Whittiers tried to sue them?
“Hello?” Cal sounded more perplexed than irritated by the silence on the other end. The young boy she remembered had always been so patient with her and Claire. So willing to listen.
“Cal?”
“Yes?”
“It’s Emma. Emma Sanderson. Detective Ramsey Miller told me that you said it was all right to call and…” I’m a new woman now. Or at least I’m trying to be.
“Emma. I wondered if that was you when I saw the area code and didn’t recognize the number.” There was hesitation in his voice. Not that she could blame him.
“I just… I called to apologize, Cal. I know that nothing I can say will ever make up for what happened to you—and to your father.…”
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