The Homecoming (Thunder Point #6)(61)

“Iris, I love you,” he said.

“How do you know?” she asked in a whisper.

“I’ve known for a long time,” he said. He gently left her body, rolled onto his back beside her and pulled her into his arms so that her head rested on his shoulder. “I thought about the fact that I never forgave myself for hurting you years ago. I didn’t even know the extent of that hurt, yet I never got over it, either. Then, a couple of years ago I started letting people in the department know that I was looking for an assignment in Thunder Point. I told them it was my hometown, that I grew up here, that my parents lived here. I didn’t think it would help my case to tell them there was a girl in Thunder Point I couldn’t forget, but you were one of the reasons I wanted to be here. Right here where you are, where I’d see you every day so I could figure out how to have you in my life again.”

“What if I hated you?”

“In fact, I thought you did. I didn’t know you had a crush on me in high school—how would I know that? But that aside, you loved me once. I didn’t think you loved me the way I wanted, but what the hell, Iris—it was a place to start. Because I couldn’t forget you—you were always on my mind. I dreamed about you, for God’s sake!”

She pushed herself up to look into his eyes. “Yeah, about that...”

“The dreams. I dream about women from time to time—sometimes strangers, sometimes celebrities, sometimes random women I’d seen a time or two, but you were the only encore performer. I even had dreams that we had sex in the flower van. Maybe I remembered it in my sleep but not when I was conscious.” He smiled. “It was much better for me than it was for you.”

“That part of your memory is correct,” she said.

He growled in some shame but kissed her neck. “How did you ever manage to forgive me?”

“Reality eventually sank in. You’re not much of a drinker, Seth. At least you weren’t then. You were practically sleepwalking. And then you passed out. It was a crappy set of circumstances, but I don’t think I was wrong and I don’t think you were malicious. I think we were in different realities. I wonder what would have happened if I’d told you the very next day, the second I realized you didn’t remember.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’d like to think just knowing, we would have gotten together. But were we mature or intelligent enough for that? You had a crush—were you capable of dealing with a seventeen-year-old athlete so self-centered and arrogant the world revolved around me? That’s a big job for any girl. And I cared about you so much, but was I mature enough to know the responsibility of that? I don’t know, Iris. I know everything would’ve been different, but I don’t know in what ways.”

He rolled her over so he was looking down at her again. “I know that after all we’ve been through and after the years we’ve put in, we should know now. What do you think?”

“I think I love you,” she said. “I always loved you, but I think we would’ve screwed it up seventeen years ago. We might’ve ended up in the same place as now—making amends and promising to do better. Or we might’ve been estranged forever.”

“I’ll do better, Iris,” he said. “I’m not saying I’ll be perfect, I know better. But there’s one thing—you’re one woman I never forgot. Never got over. That’s got to mean something.” He ran a big hand down her body and she shivered. “It means a lot right now.”

The next thing she knew, she was sighing and arching again. Then she was exploding, a shower of sparkling stars raining down on her while he pulsed inside her. Then there was the panting, the sighing, the gratitude neither of them spoke of. And that precious closeness. They were quiet in the dark for so long.

“Are you leaving now?” she finally asked.

“If you want me to, I’ll go. But you have to promise me we’ll see each other tomorrow and we’ll be all right.”

“But don’t you have to go? Your car is in my drive and it’s—” She looked at the clock. “It’s after midnight. People will know you spent the night.”

“I want people to know I spent the night. I’m not hiding anything, I’m an adult and this was consensual. And beautiful, it was beautiful. But if it makes you uncomfortable, I can leave. We can be more discreet. You’re a high school counselor.”

“I’m an adult, too,” she said. “I know you won’t be upset to learn you are not the first man in my life. Nor the first to stay overnight.”

“I have no trouble believing that.”

“But your mother lives next door,” she reminded him, as if he needed reminding.

“Even more reason. My mother is probably typical—she has a hard time remembering her sons are not twelve. Even if you lived a mile away, don’t you think she’d find out? And soon? She’s very nosy. A good mother, but very nosy.”

Iris giggled. “I have a confession. I’ve only slept all night with a man a couple of times. College and once later. And I didn’t sleep well.”

“I suppose it takes getting used to.”

“You suppose?”

“I’ve had a few girlfriends, but I never lived with any of them. They were perfectly nice, terrific girls, but it just wasn’t that serious. We didn’t do sleepovers. I didn’t want to stay over.”