The Twelfth Child (Serendipity #1)(38)
The following night Abigail took special care with her make-up; she used a pale pink lip color, less lash paint and cheek rouge that could have led a person to think it was her own natural glow. She left the dresses with fringe and sequins hanging on the rack and instead wore the ivory lace dress Miss Ida Jean Meredith had bought for her. She stepped out onto the floor looking more like one of the patrons than a hostess. All evening she kept one eye on the door as she circulated through the room, but Paul did not come. Nor did he come the following night, or the night after that.
By the time he did show up, five nights later, Abigail had lost hope of ever seeing him again and gone back to wearing a fringed dress that wriggled even when she was standing perfectly still. Sitting with an elderly gentleman from Texas and facing away from the door, she did not see Paul come in.
“Hello, love,” he whispered in her ear.
“Paul,” Abigail sighed and swiveled to face him.
“Miss me?” He chucked her playfully beneath the chin.
She nodded. It was strictly against the rules for a hostess to walk off and leave a customer who’d sprung for a bottle of champagne, so Abigail smiled a thin smile and said, “I’m busy right now . . .” Her words trailed off as if there were something terribly important left unsaid.
“I’ll be out back when the club closes.” He smiled, then turned and walked over to where Francine was standing, as if she had been the one he’d come to see.
Abigail knew he hadn’t come there intending to spend the evening with Francine – at least she thought he hadn’t. She’d felt something that first night and she was pretty certain he had too. Throughout the remainder of the evening, she watched Paul’s movements from the corner of her eye. “Oh, aren’t you the clever one,” she’d quip to her companion and laugh gaily but all the while she was thinking of how it would feel to have Paul kiss her.
It was well after two o’clock when the music died and the band started to pack up. “Have Itchy hold my tip money ‘till tomorrow,” Abigail told Gloria and then hurried out the back door. Francine was leaning against the wall and smoking a cigarette. Paul was standing beside her; he’d already removed his tie and opened the collar of his shirt. “Hello again,” he said to Abigail, as though they’d somehow met up quite unexpectedly.
For an uncomfortably long five minutes they stood there chatting about nothing – the music was good, the gin was watery, the weather was cool for the season – the kind of things people drag out as points of conversation when there is nothing else to be talked about. Finally Abigail said, “I have to be going,” and she turned to walk away.
Paul whispered something to Francine, something Abigail wished she could hear but did not. Then he called out, “Wait for me,” and hurried along.
After they had gone almost two blocks, Abigail asked, “Did I misunderstand?”
“Misunderstand?” he replied teasingly.
“Yes,” Abigail said somberly, “misunderstand that you were waiting for me.”
He tugged her into the bend of his arm and slowed his step to match hers. “No,” he answered and affectionately nudged her cheek with his nose. “You didn’t misunderstand.” He stopped walking and looked into her eyes as a lover might.
Suddenly she had no need for more of an explanation. Moving together like mated swans they walked the full mile and a half to her apartment building – a building that she felt ashamed for him to see and an apartment that she would never allow any suitor to see. “Goodnight,” she mooned dreamily as they stood facing each other in the dreary vestibule.
“Goodnight?” he said, then without further words placed his lips upon hers. The first kiss was gentle, a tender touch of his lips to her mouth. Abigail felt a tinge of warmth slither down her spine. She tilted her face upward, like a baby bird wanting more. Paul kissed her again and again – on the mouth, then at the base of her throat. Abigail felt the warmth of his breath wrapping itself around her and she wished the moment would never end; then he pushed his body into hers with such force that it took her by surprise. He wedged her back against the wall and pressed himself against her until she could feel the hardness of him.
“Please don’t,” Abigail whispered and made a feeble attempt to move away. Was this how love was supposed to begin? From the moment they met, she had felt a stirring inside of her, a desire to touch, to hold and be held. Now that he was holding her, the closeness made her want to pull back, it was so unfamiliar, frightening in a sense – the way new things always seem frightening. Paul was the kind of man any woman would want, and yet here he was, wanting her. She could drive him away with her Puritan way of thinking, she reasoned, when there was certainly no cause to be afraid. Sophisticated people were simply more open about showing their affection. It was life’s coming of age, and after all, Paul was French.
He parted his lips, drew her tongue into his mouth, then slid his hands down, cupped his fingers around her behind and yanked her to his groin. Abigail’s feet were dangling inches above the tiled floor. Inexperienced as she might be, she knew love was not supposed to be rough and groping. “Stop,” she insisted, this time much more forcefully.
“You want it as much as I do!” was his answer – the words mean and hard edged as the crack of her father’s hand. Instead of stopping, Paul lowered his head to her bosom and suckled his mouth to her breast.