Barefoot in the Sun (Barefoot Bay)(43)

“Me, too,” he admitted.

She lifted her head, looking up at him. “We were good together, Oliver.”

“We are good together,” he said, reaching for the foil packet she’d set on the bed. “Let me show you.”

She didn’t argue, thank God, but pulled out the condom and placed it on his head, then slid it so maddeningly slowly he thought he might cry. Lying back, she spread her legs and gave him a silent look of invitation.

He braced himself, feasting on every move and muscle of her body as she let him in, her soft, soft sigh of contentment as he filled her up. Their eyes met as he started to move faster, and hers shuttered closed as the sensations took over.

Everything was new to him. The angle of her face when she turned her head, the shape of her breasts as they moved with her body, and the intense, tight, squeeze of her body around him. All new, all brand new.

She stopped moving suddenly, reaching up to touch his face. “I just lied to you.”

He slowed a little, causing a small insurrection in his balls. “What?”

“I don’t think about the time on the steps.”

Forcing himself to focus and stop moving, he looked at her. “What do you think about?”

“I don’t. If I think about you too much, I start to cry.” A single tear escaped from the side of her eyes. “So I don’t think. I…escape. I go away in my mind.”

He lowered himself, wrapping her narrow frame in his arms. “Don’t go away now, Zoe. Stay here, right here. With me. Don’t go anywhere.”

She nodded, biting her lip, as he started pumping into her again. He plunged deeper and faster, finally letting go of his last shred of control to hold her as close and tight as he could and spill everything into her.

A second later she shook with her own loss of control, murmuring his name, biting her lip, and then giving into an orgasm that pulsed around him. Immediately, she pulled him closer, wrapped her arms around his neck, and clung to him as if she would never let go.

They stayed that way until he slipped out of her and the sheen of sweat on their skin cooled under the air-conditioning. For what seemed like the most perfect ten minutes of his life, Zoe didn’t voluntarily move a single muscle. She breathed quietly, and her heart slowed to a steady, normal beat. But everything else was…still.

Until the high-pitched beep from the oven reminded them of dinner.

Only then, when he’d slowly eased himself to the side, did she move, and that was to trap him with her leg.

“Let it burn,” she said. “I can’t get up.”

“This is the longest time you’ve ever been still,” he whispered.

He could feel her cheek smile against his. “A magic orgasm.”

“Better than anything at sixty on the highway?”

“Eighty.”

“Please tell me you’re lying about that.”

She laughed softly and he inched away, dealing with the condom and then pulling up the light blanket from the foot of the bed to cover her. “Stay here. We deliver.”

“No kidding.” She rolled around like a contented cat while he stopped in the bathroom, washed up, and grabbed boxers. In the kitchen, he assembled a tray of pizza and beer. When he came back, he half expected an empty bed, but she hadn’t moved, except to take off the T-shirt and toss it on the floor.

He put the tray on the bed, gave her a fresh bottle of beer, and sat cross-legged as she pulled herself up. The blanket fell away, revealing the sweet slope of her breasts as she lifted her bottle for a toast. “To masturbation.”

He choked softly. “The end of it, you mean.”

“For now.”

With a soft grunt, he lowered his bottle. “Already looking for an exit strategy, Zoe?”

“Just covering my bases.”

“Well, cover your headlights instead so I can stop staring and start eating.”

She grinned and, of course, did exactly the opposite, squaring her shoulders to jut out her breasts, still pink from handling and so round and sweet and soft.

“Think of them as visual aids for when you’re alone again.”

He dragged his gaze to her face. “Why should I be alone again?”

She didn’t answer. Instead she took a slice of pizza and held it poised to her lips. “Do you have to turn our post-sex pizza party into a commitment conversation?”

Hell, yes, he did. “What do you have against commitments?”

She took a bite, chewed, and shrugged. “What do you have against masturbation?”

“It’s lonely, depressing, and leaves you worse off than before.”

“Then you’re doing it wrong.”

“Zoe.” He slammed his beer onto the nightstand. “Why are you doing this?”

“Why are you?” she asked, far more calmly than he had. When he didn’t answer, she plucked a piece of cheese from the topping, stretched it, then opened her mouth like a bird to feed it to herself.

“Because we just made—”

She held out her hand, a strand of cheese on her lip and fire in her eyes. “No, we didn’t.”

“Then what the f*ck do you call it?”

“I call it…that.” She raised an eyebrow. “Fucking.”

He let both hands fall with a disgusted sigh. “Why do you have to do this?”

“Oliv—”

“Why do you have to get all tough and funny and hard-ass and put that goddamn brick wall around you?” He ground out the words, fighting the fury that rose.

She looked at him, almost imperceptibly nodding.

“What?” he demanded.

“She’s right.”

“Who is?”

“Pasha. She’s right about you and all that anger you carry around. Who are you mad at? Me? I just spread my legs for you and gave you my all, Oliver Bradbury. You took down the wall and got inside me.” She kneeled a little, narrowing her eyes. “That’s all I wanted. Take it or leave it.”

Each word pushed him farther away. Each word reminded him that whenever he trusted a woman, she proved not to be worthy of that trust. Zoe was no exception.

“Just tell me why,” he demanded.

“I don’t know any other way.” Her tone was flippant and pissed him off more than what she’d said.

“What? When we were together we were just ‘f*cking’? Is that right, Zoe? You don’t call that a commitment.”

She angled her head. “Now we’re fighting.”

“Can you see this from my point of view?”

“Can you just be a normal guy who wants sex without being tied down?”

He pushed his paper plate away and practically leaped off the bed. “I can’t do it,” he said roughly. “I can’t just…do it. And I don’t know why or how you can.” He froze and stared at her. “Do you not trust me? Is that it?”

“I trust you,” she said softly, looking down at the food as if she couldn’t handle the intensity of his gaze. “It’s me I don’t trust.”

Air came out of him in a whoosh. Well, that made two of them who didn’t trust her.

“I’m not hungry anymore.” He went into the bathroom, closed the door, and turned on the shower.

Maybe she’d come in and they’d wash away all this…mess. Hey, an idiot could hope, right?

He stayed in the shower until he depleted the supply of hot water in the tank and the spray turned ice cold. And, of course, she didn’t come in.

Still he let the water sting against his back, then his face. He closed his eyes and tried to picture Zoe…Zoe on the stairs of his apartment.

But when he imagined those stairs, they became another set of wooden stairs. Up higher and higher, the house quiet and empty…but for the sounds of a child’s footfall on each step.

All the way to the third-floor attic.

With a push that nearly broke the shower door, he knocked the glass open, stepping out without bothering to turn off the spray. He had to tell her. She had to know.

“Zoe!” He threw open the door and blinked into the light. She’d left the room immaculate. The bed made. The pizza and beer gone.

All that remained were his scrub pants, fallen on the floor with the legs curved in the shape of a heart.

Had she done that on purpose?

He stood and listened for a moment for any sound, but, of course, she was gone.

He’d lost the battle…and her.





Chapter Eighteen

Pasha reached for Matthew, but just as her fingers closed over his narrow shoulder, he disappeared into the ground. Then he reappeared, but he was different this time. Instead of Matthew, it was Evan.

Behind him, a moonbow flickered in the sky.

True love will return.

The true love of a mother for her son?