Reaching First Read online

  But that feeling of belonging didn’t keep him from reaching out for Emily after Monday’s game. He called and let the phone ring four times before it slipped over to voicemail. Just to be certain, he dialed again, but she didn’t pick up.

  He couldn’t be certain, of course, but he could picture her sitting in her office. She had a pen in one hand and was tapping it against her bottom lip. She was staring at the phone, that tiny smile firming up her lips as she shook her head and arched her eyebrows.

  She was doing what was right. What was proper. And damn, if that didn’t drive him totally batshit. He shuffled off to the showers, then took a cab back to the hotel. The guys were already hanging out in the bar. He considered it a victory that he settled for two beers and didn’t call her again.

  But he tried again on Tuesday. And on Wednesday, he refused to give up. Every fifteen minutes, he hit the redial button, determined to talk to her, even if he had to wake her out of a deep sleep.

  She answered on the fifth try. “I shouldn’t be doing this,” she said.

  His throat went dry as cotton. This was worse than asking some cheerleader to the high-school prom. This was as bad as being asked to read out loud in class, before he’d found a way to ditch the classes that would put him on the spot, before his teachers had decided to just let him go.

  He cleared his throat and said, “I thought you were avoiding me.”

  She hesitated, for long enough that he thought the call might have been disconnected. “I was,” she said at last. “But I’m not now.”

  “Good.” He closed his eyes, and he could picture her, sitting across the table from him at Artie’s. He could hear her laughing at one of his stories, felt his easy relaxation as he’d responded to one of hers.

  There were a dozen things he wanted to ask her. What was she wearing? Had she dreamed about him, the way he’d dreamed about her? Did the fact that they were talking turn her on, make her feel like—

  She’d never pick up the phone again if he said any of those things. So he settled for, “How’d the meeting go with what’s-his-name? Aunt Minnie’s bulldog?”

  “Oh!” He’d surprised her. And he discovered that her little gasp of astonishment was almost as fulfilling as all the other sounds he wanted to coax out of her. “You remembered!”

  Who was he kidding? Surprising her wasn’t one hundredth of what he wanted to do with her. Or rather, it was everything he wanted to do with her—but not by asking about her crazy aunt’s will.

  “Mr. Samson was pleased with the progress we’ve made. All of the demo is done.”

  “Listen to you,” he said, laughing. “You sound like a pro.”

  He could picture her proud smile as she said, “I drew up a schedule. Showed him how everything can get done on time, with you helping out. He signed off on that. And I think he was actually impressed by my flyers.”

  “Who wouldn’t be impressed by your flyers?” It was a stupid thing to say. A ridiculous joke. But he heard her amused laugh, and he was pretty sure she was blushing.

  Nevertheless, she stuck to business when she replied, saying something about the publicity she was planning, about ads she was placing in the local newspaper. After meeting with what’s-his-name, she’d met with her accountant. She had another meeting with one of the bigwigs at the university tomorrow.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I must be boring you to tears.”

  “Never,” he said, and he was surprised to realize he meant it. “I can’t believe how much you’ve done in such a short time. You’re good at this.”

  “I’m not,” she protested. “I’m only doing this because they fired me from my last job.”

  He heard the bitterness in her voice, practically felt her wince. “You were laid off. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I know they say that whenever people are laid off. But no one else was let go in the rest of the office. They didn’t kick anybody else out. I just keep thinking about my clients, about the women I was supposed to help.”

  “You did help them as much as you could, for the time you were given. And now you’re helping even more people with Minerva House.”

  He thought he heard her sniff. Shit. He’d been trying to make things better, but he’d made her cry instead. But she said, “Thank you. I hadn’t thought about it that way.”

  He made his voice as gentle as he could. “You should. You should be easier on yourself.”

  Yeah. She was definitely crying. Dammit. “Or what?” she whispered.

  “Or I’ll catch the next plane out of Kansas City and come home to repeat it until you decide to listen to me.”

  Home. Raleigh wasn’t home. Not yet. But she didn’t know that. She said, “Is that a promise?”

  “Do you want it to be one?” He caught his breath, waiting for her answer.

  “Yes,” she said. “I do.”

  God, he wanted to be on that plane. He couldn’t do it. They both knew that. He had to settle for saying, “It’s late back there. Go to bed. Get some sleep. And things’ll be better in the morning.”

  “They’re already better now.”

  The words filled him with pride. This wasn’t the easy accomplishment that came from the game, from hitting a ball over the fence, from digging for a nearly-impossible catch and coming up clean, with the ball in his glove.

  Hearing Emily’s words, picturing her smile, was like sex. Like he’d played her body, found the specific things that drove her wild, made her shout his name as she came harder than she’d ever come before.

  But he’d done it without laying a finger on her. He’d done it without giving in to the dozens of dirty dreams she’d given him for the past week. And there was something about that power, about that trust that made him want to solve all her problems for the rest of her life.

  “Good night,” he whispered, because he didn’t trust himself with what he’d just discovered.

  “Good night.”

  They both laughed when neither of them hung up the phone.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said.

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  He counted to three, and this time, they both hung up.

  So he called her on Thursday. Friday and Saturday too. They talked about the games he’d played, about a problem Will was having with the floorboards, about reserving a power sander to finish the job. They talked like they’d known each other for years instead of for weeks. And when Saturday night turned over to Sunday morning, when they were both biting back yawns and pretending they weren’t talking through set jaws, she said, “Come over here tomorrow. After you get home.”

  “It’ll be late. Maybe midnight.”

  “I’m a big girl. I can stay up late.”

  “Nothing’s changed, Emily. You’re still going to tell me this is a bad idea.”

  He could hear her breathing, and he wished he’d just kept his mouth shut. What was the big deal? He’d go by her house. Get laid. He’d done that plenty of times before, without turning it into a federal case.

  But that was exactly the problem. It was a federal case. Or a state one, anyway. A state case, in front of a state judge, who had handed responsibility for his sentence to Emily.

  “It’s a bad idea,” she agreed at last. “But a lot has changed. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

  He hung up the phone before she could change her mind. One night. One game to play. One flight across country. Tomorrow night was never going to get there.

  He pounded his pillow and told his imagination to stop spinning out its reels of Emily fantasy footage. Shit. He might as well take a cold shower. Otherwise, he wasn’t falling asleep any time soon.

  * * *

  Emily looked at the clock on her nightstand. 11:57. Exactly three minutes since the last time she’d checked.

  She picked up her highball glass and tilted her head back to get the last drops of vodka around the ice.

  How many drinks was that? Who was counting? She’d spaced them out over the e
vening. She could have one more, just another drop of courage. Tyler could get there any time.

  She held onto the bannister as she made her way down the stairs. The hallway swayed a bit as she headed back to the kitchen. Fresh ice cubes clinked into her glass. Vodka, a finger’s worth. Two. What the hell? Three. She added a splash of tonic water and squeezed in a generous wedge of lime.

  There. That was better. She sipped again, letting the icy fire sooth her.

  Her feet were freezing on the linoleum floor. Of course her feet were cold. She was wearing the skimpiest of camisoles, a froth of ecru lace and spaghetti straps. The matching panties certainly weren’t going to stave off any chill.

  Looking at her outfit, she felt astonishment all over again. She’d bought these clothes that afternoon, bought them for Tyler. She’d bought them so he could see her like this—not in any of the other panties and bras she owned, not in anything she’d ever worn for herself, for anyone else.

  This was different.

  Tyler was different.

  The logical part of her brain—the part that made her graduate magna cum laude from Michigan, that made her interview for and get a rare job in a crowded field—that mechanical voice told her she’d only known Tyler for a short time. Less than three weeks. And she’d only seen him for half of that, because he’d been on the road.

  But for the first time in her life, Emily was listening to the other part of her brain. She was listening to the voice that said there was something special with Tyler. She’d felt it from the moment he walked into Anna’s office—the sheer magnetism that made her feel like an iron needle spinning toward him as he moved across the room.

  That was the voice that had urged her to take on monitoring his community service, because otherwise she’d walk away from him and never see him again. That was the voice that had whispered for her to accept his dinner invitation to Artie’s. That was the voice that had mewed from the back of her throat when he walked away from her front door, when she sent him away after dinner. And that was the voice that had ratcheted higher and higher, controlling her breathing, controlling her thoughts as they talked on the phone.

  Tyler knew her. Tyler understood her. She found herself telling him things she’d never told another living soul—doubts about her job, about her abilities. Dreams for her future. Desires for the way she wanted to live her life, for who she wanted to be.

  And every outrageous thing she told him, he accepted. She loved the simple confidence in his voice. He believed in her. He trusted her. And his faith gave her permission to trust herself.

  She hadn’t felt that permission in weeks. Months. Since she’d been called into her boss’s office, blindsided by his announcement that he was letting her go. It wasn’t until the past week—when this funny, sexy man told her so—that she realized she’d been thinking the wrong things for ages. She wasn’t to blame. She hadn’t failed. She was the same overachiever she’d always been, and getting laid off didn’t change that.

  Sure, there were a million conversations she and Tyler had not yet had. But they could have them. They would have them. Especially after she got rid of the one barrier between them. The Virgin Technicality.

  She gritted her teeth and downed the rest of her drink. The vodka shimmered through her like water over silk, hot then cold. Before she could decide whether to make herself another, there was a knock at the front door.

  This was it.

  This was her chance to redeem the embarrassment of that night two years ago when One False Love had fled like she had some sort of plague. This was her chance to undo the decisions she’d made in high school, in college, all the nights of her life.

  All she had to do was answer the door.

  Her heart hammered as loud as the deadbolt as she flipped the lock open. She thought about hiding behind the door, about letting it shield her. But that wasn’t what this night was about. That wasn’t why she’d asked Tyler to come to her.

  She planted her feet against the slight spin of the room, and she opened the door.

  The shock on his face was transparent. His eyes grew huge, and she heard his breath catch in his throat. She saw the muscles of his belly tighten under his T-shirt, saw the flicker as his fingers tensed. “Jesus, Emily,” he breathed.

  She wanted to cover herself. She wanted to fold her hands across her breasts, arch her palms over the nearly exposed juncture at the top of her thighs. Her feet ached to escape into her office; her entire body longed to flee.

  But her brain didn’t want her to go. Her mind wanted her right here, right now, with this man beside her.

  Tyler glided over the threshold. He apparently had the presence of mind do to what she did not—he closed the door and shot the bolt, all in one smooth motion. “I was going to bring you something,” he said. “Stop for flowers. But there wasn’t any place open after midnight on Sunday.”

  “I don’t need your flowers.” That voice didn’t belong to her. Those fingers didn’t belong to her—the ones that were closing around his hand, bring his palm to her chest. To her breast.

  His fingers traced over the camisole’s lace, igniting a song inside her head, a humming that synchronized with the wavering edges of the room. Without thinking, without planning, she arched toward him, wanting to feel more than that one finger, wanting to sense more than that one line of lace.

  And he understood exactly what she needed. Through the satin of the garment, he brushed against her nipple. The rush of sensation lanced through her, from the tight bud that he caressed, through her belly, into the mysterious warmth that throbbed between her legs.

  His lips followed where his palm had gone, suckling through the fabric. His hands spread across her back, supporting her as she yielded to the sensation. Her hair was trapped beneath his fingertips. Her neck arched like a bow.

  He shoved at the cami, pushing it up to her neck. In the same motion, he moved his head to her other breast, tongued the aching nipple that had been ignored for so long. The feeling was sharper, deeper, now that she was no longer protected by the cloth, and a gasp of pleasure forced its way past her lips.

  The sound embarrassed her. She’d never exposed herself to a man this way, never been as explicit about what she wanted, and when and how. Sure, she’d made out with any number of boyfriends—friendly groping on a couch, heated fumbling with zippers, with inconvenient folds of cloth. She wasn’t totally inexperienced with what one person’s hands could do to another. Even with what mouths could do.

  But this was the first time she’d ever offered herself up for a man, the first time she’d ever made herself this vulnerable. And if she didn’t do something now, she was going to lose her nerve completely. She was going to chicken out and cover herself and retreat into the safety she’d preserved all the rest of her life.

  And she didn’t want that.

  Not any more. Not with Tyler.

  She closed her fingers around his wrist, pulling his hand to her side. He looked at her from eyes gone smoky with desire. “No?” he asked, and she felt him start to back off, a look of confusion beginning to twist those incredible lips into a frown.

  “Not here,” she whispered.

  And she led him up the stairs.

  The sweeping staircase looked like something out of a movie set. It was designed for Scarlett O’Hara to stand at the top, for white-clad society girls to pose for their debuts. But Emily didn’t let that stop her as she steadied herself against the classic railing. Taking a deep breath against the vodka-infused waves in the air around her, she led Tyler to her bedroom.

  She’d lit candles. Nearly a dozen, glinting off the giant mirror suspended over the dresser that had been in her family for generations. The fat white columns glowed, perfuming the air with a hint of vanilla.

  She’d stacked decorative pillows in the corner—arranging them and rearranging them in an effort to make everything look casual. The first time she’d prepared the room, she’d turned back the comforter and sheet in a precise, demure
line. After her first vodka tonic, though, that had looked too careful, too precious. She’d tangled the comforter and left it looking like the lair of some feral beast.

  And two hours and many drinks later that was exactly how she felt—like a wild animal.

  Her heart pounded, far faster than climbing any sweep of stairs could account for. Her head spun as her thoughts leaped from the candles to the bed sheets to the damp curls of hair against the nape of her neck. She licked her lips, but barely felt the motion; her entire body hummed as if she’d brushed against a generator.

  She couldn’t delay any longer. She had to look at Tyler. Had to admit that she had drawn him here, that she was the one who was leading every step of this dance.

  Possessed by a power she’d never felt before, she prowled over to the bed. It felt completely natural to kneel amid the froth of sheets, to arch her back and smile an invitation. Tyler’s eyes flared with hunger as one strap of her camisole slipped from her shoulder.

  She beckoned with one finger—commanding, promising. He closed the distance like a man in a dream.

  Her fingers burned as she worked his belt buckle. The metal tongue slipped free like a charm. She loosened the leather and eased it out of a couple of loops, watching Tyler’s eyes close, studying the bob of his Adam’s apple as he leaned his head back. One more loop, easing, teasing, and then she whipped the rest of the leather free.

  He started at the sound, a jerking motion that threatened to pull him away from her. She couldn’t have that, though. Not when she was finally on the verge of getting what she truly needed.

  She looped the belt around her neck, pulling it tight enough that the dark leather would stand out against her flesh. There were no holes for the metal tongue, no way to keep the belt close. But she took the free end and slapped it, once, twice, a demanding three times against his jean-clad thigh.

  He groaned and trapped the belt between her fingers and the sturdy layer of denim. She traced the edge of the leather with one scarlet fingernail, pressing hard enough into his twitching muscle to draw a gasp from his throat. She used his momentary distraction to free her hand, to slip her fingers into the waistband of his pants, to tug loose his T-shirt. His belly was as toned as she had imagined—hard lines that tightened when she spread her painted fingers across his abs.