“So do it now,” she said, obviously trying to be brave, but her voice faltered a little.
“I want in here, too.” He put his finger to her temple.
“You are there.”
“What about here?” He put his hand on her chest, over her heart. Her heart was racing. Was it anger? Fear? Lust?
She suddenly took a step back. “You’re not going to do that to me again.”
“What?”
“Weasel your way into my heart. Charm me and make me think it’s for real, that it’s forever. It took years to get over it last time. You are
“Julia…”
“No. Promise me one night,” she said. “Don’t promise to love me. Don’t ask me to stay.”
To hell with nobility. He reached for her and kissed her. It was all at once passionate, as if there was too much in him to contain. He was immediately swept up in it. It took no effort, the difference between swimming on your own and being washed away in a flood.
His hands went to the hem of her shirt and slowly pushed it up. When his hands brushed over her bare breasts, her back arched. He broke their kiss. Her fingers automatically tightened in his hair, as if wanting him back. “Jesus, you came here without a bra on,” he said.
He backed her against the wall, and soon her shirt was over her head. She started moving restlessly against him. It made him groan. He clamped a hand onto her hip and surged against her. She met his rhythm flawlessly.
He reached down and unbuttoned her jeans, and she tried to help him push them down while not breaking their kiss, but their lips kept separating. Finally he simply used his foot to slide them the rest of the way down, and she stepped out of them.
“You want one night, I’ll give it to you,” he said as he picked her up and carried her to the couch. “But it’s going to be one hell of a night.”
He stood over her, staring down at her so hungrily that she made an attempt to cover herself. His hands went to the waistband of his pajama bottoms and pushed them down, not taking his eyes off of her. He put one knee on the couch beside her. She swallowed and put her hand up to his bare chest. “Wait, Sawyer.”
He hung his head, sucking in breaths. “What are you doing to me, Julia?”
“I meant, wait because I have to get the condoms out of my jeans pocket.”
He lifted his head, surprised. “I wasn’t lying. I can’t have kids.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” He got up anyway, completely unself-conscious, and went to her jeans. He dug out the condoms and made quick work of putting one on.
“No more waiting,” he said as he covered her body with his.
“No more waiting.”
It had never been like this with anyone else. They held on to each other as if the force of their bodies coming together could make everything that had ever separated them disappear. And it did, for a short period of time, time he wished he could stop so he could live inside it for the rest of his life.
Afterward, breath gone, clinging to each other so hard they would leave marks, Sawyer, whose head was buried in Julia’s neck, managed to say, “Contrary to my lamentable lack of restraint just now, I have actually learned a few things since I was sixteen.”
She gave a sudden laugh.
“And as soon as I have the strength to get up, I’m taking you to my bedroom and showing you.”
IT WAS morning, but still dark in his bedroom when she woke up. Sawyer watched as she blinked a few times and turned her head on the pillow to find him staring at her.
Her hair was rumpled, the pink streak curling around her ear. She took a deep, defeated breath. “I thought I had every-thing figured out.”
“Do you think promising you another night might clear things up?”
She smiled, but didn’t answer.
He brushed one finger lightly against her forearm. He saw the moment she realized he was following the lines of her scars. She immediately pulled her arm away. He pulled it back.
“Why did you do this to yourself?” he asked.
She watched him as he watched his finger trace the lines. “It was my way of dealing with the depression and isolation I felt. I didn’t know how to cope, and all my anger was turned inward, so this is what I did. Don’t think I’m naturally this enlightened. That’s years of therapy speaking.”
He met her eyes. “Do you ever think of doing it again?”
“No. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m very good at expressing my anger these days.” She shifted slightly, then winced a little.
“Are you okay?”
She cleared her throat. “It’s… been a while.”
Was it wrong that that made him happy? He didn’t care. It did. He’d spent a lot of time wondering about what she was doing in Baltimore, thinking about who she was with. He knew so little about that part of her life. “Why didn’t you come back to Mullaby, Julia?”
“I didn’t think there was anything left for me.” She rolled her head back on the pillow and stared at the ceiling.
“Didn’t you ever get homesick?”
“I’m homesick all the time,” she said, still not looking at him. “I just don’t know where home is. There’s this promise of happiness out there. I know it. I even feel it sometimes. But it’s like chasing the moon-just when I think I have it, it disappears into the horizon. I grieve and try to move on, but then the damn thing comes back the next night, giving me hope of catching it all over again.”
He’d never heard her so raw and honest. Julia, who always kept her feelings to herself. “Is that the big thing you were going to tell me?”
“No.”
He groaned. “You’re killing me. Is it something good?”
“Yes.”
He put his hand on her thigh and started moving his way up. “Better than last night?”
“There’s no comparison.” She put her hand on his, stopping the movement. “What time is it?”
He lifted himself on his elbow and looked over to the clock on the nightstand. “A little after nine.”
She hesitated. “In the morning?”
“Yes.”
She gasped and jumped out of the bed. She went to the heavy curtains and threw them open. Morning light immediately cut into the dark room. When the spots left his vision, he found himself staring at her naked body, silhouetted in the window. He was riveted. She made his stomach tight, his head light.
“I can’t believe it’s morning! Why didn’t you tell me? What kind of curtains are these?” She grabbed the offending material and looked at it closely. “I thought it was night!”
“They’re insulated light-blockers. I’d be blinded every morning if I didn’t have them.” He sat up against his pillows and put his hands behind his head. “I really enjoy this side of you, but I think you’re giving my neighbors the best view. Why don’t you turn around?”
She quickly stepped away from the window and covered herself with one of the curtain panels. “I can’t believe I just flashed your neighbors. On a Sunday morning.”
“I know I saw the face of God.”
“I’ve got to go,” she said, eyeing the door.
“No.”
“I have to make the day’s cakes at the restaurant. I’m so late. I’m usually there and gone by now. Where are my clothes?” She looked around, then said, “Oh, downstairs.” And she darted, naked, from his room.
