Best Erotic Romance Page 10

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked. “I pulled away because you pulled away. You wouldn’t let me in, and it hurt so bad when you shared what you were feeling with someone else instead of me. Like I wasn’t important enough to you to confide in, to give you support.”

  “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have shut you out. I didn’t even realize I was doing it.”

  She set her mug down. “We’re a pair of fucking idiots.”

  He snorted.

  “No, I mean it,” she said. “Why didn’t we talk about this then?”

  “We were too busy blaming,” he said. “As I recall, there was a fair bit of shouting, too.”

  She saw him hesitate, guessed what he wanted to do. Prayed he would.

  And he did, taking her hands in his.

  “The blissful haze of memory,” he said. “We’re both way too stubborn. You’d think the marriage counselor could have gotten this conversation out of us, but no…”

  She freed one hand and picked up her coffee. The caffeine wasn’t helping the dizzy rush in her head from the wine and the conversation.

  “Do you remember,” Ethan said, “the first night we stayed here?”

  “You mean when we couldn’t even make it to the bedroom?”

  He nodded. His eyes never leaving hers, he took the mug from her hand and set it back on the table.

  She didn’t let him lean all the way in to kiss her.

  She met him halfway.

  The kiss was tentative, which was so unlike him that she almost drew back. But the taste of him, which she’d almost forgotten until now and had never stopped missing, was almost too much to bear, and she couldn’t pull away.

  It was that, she guessed, that emboldened him. When she responded, his touch grew more sure. He drew her in and she went willingly, the feel of his tongue against hers triggering the warm glow of arousal that she knew would soon smolder, ignite, and finally consume her.

  So familiar, and yet so foreign. Each step along the unlit path brought back hints of remembrance, like sweet déjà vu.

  She traced his biceps, ran her hands down his back, feeling the muscles flex. He bit gently on her lower lip, and she gasped, the thrill streaking down between her legs. She was already wet, wetter even than when she’d masturbated earlier. His touch had always done that to her.

  How had she gone so long without this?

  He grazed his teeth along the line of her throat as she plucked at his shirt buttons. She didn’t get all of them, but she couldn’t wait any longer, splaying her hands across his smooth chest, lightly tracing her nails over his nipples until he groaned. He took one of her hands and guided it down to his crotch, pressing her palm against the bulge there, showing her just how excited she made him. Her clit shivered in response.

  Fleetingly, she wondered where this was leading. Oh, to sex, obviously, but wasn’t sex with your ex supposed to be anathema? Tacky, even? (Not that he was her ex just yet, but as good as.) She ignored that thought, pushed away all thoughts.

  They didn’t matter. What mattered was his hands and lips and tongue on her, and her hands and teeth on him, and the need they shared.

  He tugged her shirt free and pulled it over her head, and by the time he’d tossed it away she had already made good headway toward removing her bra, popping the front hook and shrugging out of it. His eyes were dark in the candle flame, but she could imagine the hunger in them before he dipped his head to suckle.

  So good. She arched her back in response as he teased her, drawing each bud between his lips, flicking with his tongue, biting just enough to make her squirm and beg.

  Beg him not to stop. Beg him for more.

  She dipped a hand between her legs, under her panties, and soaked her fingers, then spread the moisture on her nipples for him to savor.

  “So sweet,” he murmured. “Bella…I have to taste you for real.”

  They didn’t even bother removing her long, loose skirt. She hiked it up while he slid the now-useless panties over her hips, down her thighs. The scrape of the lace against her skin was almost more than she could bear.

  She propped her feet on the coffee table and he knelt between her legs. He breathed in the scent of her until she thought she’d scream. She tangled her fingers in his hair, but didn’t really tug—it was an old habit with them, almost a joke. She’d urge, but she’d still let him take the lead, make the decision to finally lean all the way in and swipe his tongue across her lips, bury between her folds, nuzzle against her clit.

  When he finally did, she let out a long sigh, feeling like they had both come home.

  Then his talented tongue was working its magic, flicking against her swollen bud, stoking the fire. She pressed her head so hard against the back of the sofa that she knew her neck would hurt the next day, but she didn’t care. The scorching spiral toward orgasm wound tighter and tighter, the fire consuming her until she screamed her release.

  Ethan didn’t give her much time to recover, and she didn’t blame him. He shucked off his pants and underwear, and she saw how hard he was, tasted the moisture that seeped from the tip of his cock. He groaned as she did, but pulled her away a moment later, telling her he needed to be inside her.

  She had no argument for that.

  He urged her up, and she knelt on trembling legs to face the back of the sofa. He wasted little time sliding into her, and no matter how long it had been, she welcomed him, knowing now just how much she’d missed him. His hands were full of her breasts as he pushed into her.

  She felt his thrusts grow staccato, knew he was close. She welcomed that, too, because she was already on edge again herself, from the rake of his cock deep inside her and the pressure of his hands on her nipples. She felt herself clamp down, and then she tumbled into another orgasm, pulsing along the length of him. Dimly she heard his own shout as he came with her.

  Eventually they roused themselves, although it was largely so Ethan could check whether the bottle of brandy they always tucked into a back cabinet was still there. It was.

  They sipped and talked, long into the night, long past the three-quarter moon’s shimmer on the water. Eventually they staggered to the bedroom, spread the sleeping bag he’d brought onto the bed, and made love again. Slower, this time, and more bittersweet, perhaps, as Bella cradled his head in her hands and he buried his face in her shoulder as they came.

  They were roused the next morning not by the stream of sunlight across the bed but the sound of the front door being unlocked. Ethan scrambled into pants and shirt, giving Bella time to dive for the bathroom.

  She was vaguely amazed she had no hangover. And no heartache.

  In the bathroom mirror, she saw that her hair was a tangle, her lips puffy from kisses, and her eyes sparkling from pleasure despite the circles beneath them. She pulled herself together as best she could. She had no idea where her bra had ended up, but there was nothing she could do about that right now. Shirt and skirt would suffice.

  She emerged to find Jane, the realtor, clutching bread mix (because the scent of baking bread was a huge lure to buyers) and fresh flowers. Ethan, meanwhile, had Bella’s bra clutched behind his back.

  Bless his heart.

  “Bella!” Jane’s astonishment was clear. “You’re here, too.”

  Bella gave a weak wave. “Morning, Jane.”

  “Well.” Jane’s voice turned brisk as she went into professional mode. “We’ll have to get things cleaned up before the open house starts. There’s already a line of cars at the end of the drive. I’ll get the bread going. The sofa cushions need to be straightened, and that candle…”

  “We appreciate everything you’ve done for us,” Ethan said. “But we’ve reconsidered, and we’ve decided not to sell.”

  “We have?” Bella asked. Her heart rose even as her stomach plummeted, her emotions in a tangle.

  “I’m not ready to sell,” Ethan said, taking her hand. “That would be selling all the memories we have here. I think we have a chance t
o make more memories. If you’re willing to try, that is.”

  “It won’t be easy,” Bella said cautiously. “We’ve got a lot of work to do. Communication, and all that.”

  Ethan drew her into his arms. “I realized something. When we’re here, we’ve never had problems talking. We were able to leave our problems behind; this was always a place where nothing else mattered except us.”

  Bella took a deep breath. “Take down the ‘For Sale’ sign and cancel the open house,” she said to Jane. But it was Ethan she was looking at when she said, “This isn’t for sale anymore.”

  BLAME IT ON FACEBOOK

  Kate Dominic

  I smoothed the front of my red silk dress and gazed out the floor-to-ceiling glass windows of my twelfth-floor hotel room. Boats glided by in the marina below. I’d sworn I’d never come back to San Diego. Yet here I was, once again as alone as if I were out in the middle of the vast blue expanse of the Pacific looming beyond the breakwater.

  Damn, I was nervous. Despite daily Facebook posts, texts, email, and lately, phone calls, it had been twenty years since I’d seen Eric. I’d changed. I had no doubt he’d changed. The Wonderbra my college sophomore daughter had insisted I buy gave me cleavage I’d never realized I had. Everything was different. And God, when had Melissa gotten old enough to give me dating advice?

  Not that I’d ever dated much. Not that she’d remember, anyway. Besides, I’d always considered my legs to be my best asset. I was wearing silk stockings a shade darker than my light summer tan and three-inch heels. My curves were softer now, but I still danced miles of aerobics each week, keeping myself in shape.

  Melissa’s father had loved seeing me strut across the room in trashy stockings, a slinky top with no bra, and a shockingly short “Do me” skirt. Jerry had been all about visual stimulation, and he loved ripping my clothes off me. Our life together had been a rush of hot lust and youthful immediacy. Hell, maybe we’d just been all about youth. It was so long ago, sometimes the details blurred.

  Some things, I’d never forget. After Jerry’s memorial service, I’d deliberately cut off contact with his Special Operations buddies. Cutting my ties to their wives and girlfriends had been harder, but I’d done that, too. We’d been family, bonded through history we couldn’t begin to describe to people who hadn’t been through it. Not that we were allowed to talk about much of anything. There had been days I’d wondered if our grocery lists would end up classified.

  When the guys were gone, we helped each other cope with morning sickness and colic, with repairs for our POS cars and day care that never stayed open late enough, and always, with the bone-deep loneliness and fear. I’d been part of a band of sisters who understood the occasional need for immediate overnight babysitting when the guys were home and one of them put his hands on his wife’s or girlfriend’s hips, looked into her eyes, and they shared a look that let you know they wouldn’t be coming up for air until morning.

  God, we were so young back then. So naïve and certain we were immortal.

  Eight months after Saddam invaded Kuwait, the quick, ferocious first Gulf War was over. Jerry was dead, I was moving out of base housing as a widow with two small children, and the guys were just getting back. Eric came straight to the house, his hair still wet from his shower. He took me in his arms and held me close, the low murmur of his, “Oh, baby, I’m so sorry,” vibrating through my ears.

  I clung to him, inhaling the scent of his warm strong body, and knowing in that moment that while I’d survive losing Jerry, I’d never survive going through that kind of loss again. The Special Operations community is small and insular, and the women who’ve been part of it know the score. Eventually, Eric or others like him would be coming by my civilian apartment, wanting me to be part of their world again. They’d wait, quietly, until I was ready to rejoin them.

  I knew I’d never be ready. I packed up the car, hauled the kids and the dog to my hometown in Minnesota, got a business degree, and threw myself into my career and motherhood. And I never looked back. I cut my ties so completely, the only person I kept in contact with was my best friend, Janelle, and even that wasn’t by choice. She simply refused to accept my silence, and she had my parents’ address. The year Melissa started middle school, I started sending Christmas and birthday cards in return. Eventually, after a tearful phone reunion, Janelle and I started calling each other.

  By then, we were both online, so we emailed as well. We rarely discussed her husband, Chris, and by unspoken agreement, she never brought up anybody else from the past. We talked about our jobs and the kids and the books we were reading.

  Last year, out of the blue, after years of comfortable correspondence, she sent me a Facebook invitation. The moment I realized what a “friends” list was, I knew my days of peaceful isolation were over.

  “Oh, sweetie, I’ve missed you so! May I please be a FB friend?” This from the woman who’d watched my son while I was in labor with Melissa.

  “Hey, toots! It’s good to see you!” From Janelle’s Chris, who’d helped Jerry rebuild motorcycles and later on carried his body back, though I hadn’t found out about that until Melissa was in high school.

  Greetings and welcomes. So many friends, so much quiet acceptance. And some conspicuous absences. I didn’t ask about those. The guys had all been adrenaline junkies, and several had planned to make careers of the military. There had been so many conflicts in the intervening years. I didn’t want to know. Even with the online reunions, I told myself I was going to keep concentrating only on the present. To make my point, I used a real profile picture—then was surprised that several others had, too. With a jolt, I realized their lives allowed that now. They’d moved on as well.

  Eric had a cartoon character for his profile picture.

  “I miss you.”

  His friend request caught me off guard, though in retrospect, I’d been half-expecting it. I could almost hear the warm burr of his voice as I clicked Accept. We’d always had an easy friendship. And if I was honest with myself, I had to admit he’d been easy on the eyes. Eric was tall and slender, with dark blond curls and dancing blue eyes. He was usually laughing, he didn’t understand the concept of “subtle,” and he had the most gorgeously pinchable butt. Not that I’d ever pinched him, but Janelle and the other girls sure had. There’d been a few times I’d been ticked at Jerry and wondered “what if” I hadn’t been married, and if Eric hadn’t had that constant string of girlfriends. But, hell, my fantasies had never gone beyond innocent daydreams.

  I wondered what Eric looked like now. Sharing status updates segued into private messages. I was surprised to hear he’d never married. He’d known through Janelle that I was still single, but he said he was surprised that even my occasional dating had never gotten particularly serious.

  “The kids were around.” My face heated as I typed. “I didn’t want to set a bad example by staying out all night with someone they knew I didn’t care that much about.”

  I could almost hear Eric’s low chuckle, see his eyebrows rise as he looked knowingly at his computer screen.

  “Are the kids there now?”

  He knew they weren’t. As always, he kept things light and friendly. But the occasional humorous innuendo in his status updates and the respectful but blunt comments in his private posts made it clear he was as aware as I was that the heat simmering between us was gradually flaring hotter.

  Embers, I thought, amazed at my own silly romanticism. Embers fanned by every word whispering between us. I was being courted over the Internet and was shocked to discover I enjoyed it. A few months later, though, when I found out I was unexpectedly being sent to San Diego on business, I knew I had to make some hard decisions—ones I wasn’t sure I was ready to make. San Diego was reality, not the Internet.

  The bastard sent me roses. Roses, dammit! A dozen long-stemmed, deep red roses so fragrant their perfume filled my living room. The card’s message was simple, elegant black letters on crisp white card stock. “Wear r
ed for me. Eric”

  “No fair,” I whispered, tears streaming down my face. I had no idea how he knew about the trip. No doubt, I thought angrily, it was somehow related to whatever job he now had that kept his profile picture a cartoon. But by then, I knew in my heart it didn’t matter anymore. I booked my flight and made reservations at one of the tower hotels down by the marina. Then I went shopping for a dress, and shoes, and lingerie that would keep me feeling sexy even if I never let him see it. I told myself that was more reality than I had to deal with yet. It was my choice. But I still got my hair cut and bought new perfume and, God help me, some condoms. And when it was time to pack, I tucked one of those damn roses in my suitcase and headed for the airport.

  “Is he there yet?” Melissa texted as I checked my lipstick one last time.

  “I’m heading to the lobby now.”

  I paused and added, “Turning my phone to vibrate, Miss Nosey. I want PRIVACY this evening.”

  “Pouting, but happy for you. Go for it, Mom. I love you!”

  “Love you, too. Good night.”

  I set my volume to vibrate and tucked my phone in my clutch. Then I took a deep breath, set the rose on the bed, and headed off to the elevator.

  As soon as the lobby doors opened, I saw him. Eric was standing opposite the elevator, leaning nonchalantly against the wall exactly where I’d expected him to be. It was the vantage point that let him, quietly and unobtrusively, see everyone and everything going on in the entire room and outside the huge glass doors. Either old habits died hard, or he was still in the same line of work.

  He’d seen me, too. He smiled as he straightened and started toward me. He was still slender, his muscles still moving with the same quiet strength beneath his dark linen suit. His hairline had receded a bit, the style well cut, but not military short anymore. A light blue shirt set off the color of his eyes and crows’ feet crinkled at the corners of his eyes. And oh, he was smiling. I’d so missed his smile.