It's A Wonderfully Sexy Life (22 page)

Turning over on her good side, she reached up and brushed a lock of blond hair back from his brow. “Penny for your thoughts.”

Like her, he was naked beneath the covers, and she ran her gaze over the terrain of strong neck and sleek broad chest, caressing him with her eyes as she’d recently done with her hands and lips and tongue, feeling her body filling but her heart filling, too. Knowing this was the last night they’d be together, she wanted to grab hold of each precious minute and stretch it out like the fabric of lacy lingerie to make it last as long as possible—forever.

Reaching out to capture her hand, he pressed a kiss to her palm. “I was just thinking how much I’m going to miss you.”

She swallowed against the lump building at the back of her throat. Funny how it hurt a lot more than her shoulder. “I know. I’m going to miss you, too.”

From the very beginning, she’d known this moment was coming and yet it hit her like a sucker punch all the same. The whole situation had a funky, surreal sense like reading
Romeo and Juliet
or watching the DVD of
Gone with the Wind
and expecting the happy ending you knew would never come and yet wanting it so badly, you couldn’t help hoping all the same. It defied reason but then again rational thought and matters of the heart didn’t exactly go hand-in-hand, not in her experience anyway.

“Hey you, what gives with the long face? I live in Boston, not Bosnia. It’s not that far. We can still see each other.”

She shrugged, wincing when the movement brought the pain in her shoulder back to burning life. “Long-distance relationships never work out.”

“Then let’s not make it long distance.”

She hesitated. “What are you saying?”

His gaze locked on hers. “You could move to Boston. You could move in with me.”

“But what would I do there?”

He smiled. “That’s the best part. Whatever you wanted or nothing at all—it’d be your call.”

“But I’d need to support myself.”

Smoothing her hair back from her face, he said, “You wouldn’t have to worry about money. The fact is I’m pretty well off, rich actually. I’d take care of you, give you whatever cash you needed, use of the credit card, a car, you name it.”

“You mean like a mistress?”

His smile dimmed. “It wouldn’t be like that, Mandy.”

A short while ago what he was offering would have looked like a pretty sweet deal but a lot of things had changed for her recently, and now she couldn’t sign up to be in a relationship where she was so essentially powerless. What she wanted was to be his girlfriend, his lover, his full partner, but she couldn’t be any of those things, not fully, if she settled for the arrangement he was offering.

“That’s very generous of you, but I couldn’t possibly accept.”

He looked puzzled. “Why not? It’s only money, a means to an end. If the fact that I have it lets us be together, then why not take advantage of the situation and just be happy?”

But it wasn’t only money, not to her anyway. In this case, money was a symbol for so many things—for pride and self-sufficiency and finally finding the guts to strike out on her own again. If she moved out of her parents’ house and moved in with a boyfriend, with Josh, she’d only be trading one dependency for another.

“The fact is I’d be a kept woman, someone you fit into your schedule between meetings and business trips. I couldn’t live like that or at least I won’t.”

Frowning, he pulled himself up on one elbow and stared down at her. “So instead you’d rather we just go our separate ways?”

“Listen, I know what we had here was a fling.” Had—amazing how she was already speaking of them in the past tense. “And we’ve had a good time, no doubt about it. But that good time is winding down, and it’s probably best if we just say goodbye now and end things on the upswing.” Holding her shoulder, she started up from the pillow, hoping she could make it to the bathroom before the tears started.

Josh looked as stricken as she felt. “Are you telling me you don’t want to see me anymore?”

Reaching for her complimentary fluffy white robe, she threaded her good arm through the sleeve. “What I might want and what will work are two very different things.” That was certainly true. Wincing, she pulled the other side of the robe over her bandaged shoulder and then reached inside her handbag for her wallet. Pulling out a twenty, she tossed the bill on the night table.

Staring at her, Josh said, “What the hell is that, my tip?”

“This should cover my part of our room service order.” The feds were covering the cost of the hotel, and using her tax dollars as well as his to do so, so at least she didn’t have to feel beholden about that.

Shaking his head, he leapt up from the bed. “Mandy, I don’t want your money.”

Setting her purse down, she shook her head. “Sorry, Josh, but I’m a Delinski. We always pay our own way.”

Hunky boyfriends saved from grisly homicide and sent off to live and love another day (in Boston): one—and will cherish the memory of our time together for the rest of my life.

She pulled on her robe and hurried through the walk-through closet into the living room, which also happened to be the dining room and the bedroom, too. Her studio apartment in Charles Village was certainly compact, but it was all the space she needed right now. One of the best things about it was its animal-friendly policy permitting residents to keep small pets. The same day she’d signed the lease, she’d driven out to the humane society shelter and adopted a cat. Adorable kittens were in plentiful supply, but it was the sad, soulful eyes of a three-year-old silver Bengal mix that snagged her heartstrings. A compulsive eater from his years of fending off starvation on the streets, “Sweeney” sat curled up in the middle of her foldout futon, front paws tucked into a perfect meat loaf.

Bypassing the stack of still-to-be-unpacked boxes, she punched the intercom button by her apartment door. “Sorry, I was in the—”

“Mandy, it’s me. Buzz me in, we need to talk.” Instead of the delivery man’s accented English, Josh’s voice emerged amidst the speaker’s static.

She reached out a shaking hand and punched the buzzer, emotions seesawing between shock and elation. Josh. What was he doing here? Other than a one-line e-mail to let her know he’d gotten back safely, she hadn’t heard from him since the trial where he’d testified, effectively linking his brother-in-law’s embezzlement activities back to the mob. With Tony the Terminator’s testimony added to his—the hit man had accepted a plea bargain and sang like a bird—Tiffany would be going away for a long, long time. As for the Romeros, while not exactly out of business, with the feds monitoring their every move and the high-profile trial putting organized crime back in the national spotlight, their crime cartel would be operating with wings clipped from now on. It would likely be a good long while before they tried to hijack any more major U.S. corporations.

Heart pounding, she waited for the imminent knock on her door. Even though she’d been the one to break things off, she couldn’t help wishing there’d been time to dry her hair and dust on some makeup. As it was, she must look like a drowned rat, not that she cared of course. Yeah, right.

A light rap sounded and taking a deep breath, she opened the door. Josh stood in the hallway wearing a Burberry trench coat and a hesitant smile and looking even more gorgeous than she remembered.

Taking in his closely cropped hair and polished wing tips, she said, “You look very…corporate.”

He shrugged. “After my last meeting, I headed straight for the airport and caught the next flight into BWI. I didn’t have time to change. May I come in?”

“Oh, right. Sorry.” Feeling like a fool—so what else was new—she stepped back for him to enter.

She closed the door and turned to face him. “Can I uh…take your coat?”

“Sure.” He shrugged it off and handed it to her.

Oh my God
. If she’d thought he looked amazing in a worn leather jacket and jeans, the sight of him in a charcoal-colored Armani suit and knotted silk tie all but knocked the breath from her lungs.

Hanging the coat up on the hook, she said, “I’ve been following the trial in the newspapers and TV.” She turned back around and their gazes locked, reminding her of that first electrically charged encounter at the museum gala. “You did good, Josh. I’m really proud of you.”

“It was a team effort as I recall, but thanks.”

His gaze raked over her, making her mindful that she was naked beneath the terry-cloth robe. Backing up a step, she said, “I’d invite you to sit down but the only furniture I have so far is a futon.” A futon she’d just folded down into a bed for the night.

He glanced beyond her to the bed where Sweeney had taken up residence. “I see you got a cat. Does she mind sharing?”

“He’s a he actually and given that last week this time his home was a cage in the shelter, I guess he can deal with sharing his space.”

He walked over to the foldout and sat down on the edge. Stretching his long legs out in front of him, the cuffed trousers falling into a perfect crease, he patted the space beside him. “Join me?”

Mandy swallowed hard and shook her head. The last time they’d been on a bed together, they’d made nonstop love all night and into the next morning, a sweet memory that, under the circumstances, it would be foolish to repeat. “I’m waiting on some Chinese carry-out. It should be here any time, so I’ll just hang here by the door.”

“That’s too bad because I was hoping I’d get to take you out to dinner.”

“You flew all the way from Boston to take me out to dinner?”

He nodded. “No water taxis this time, I promise.”

She smiled in spite of her aching heart. Why did he have to be so damned charming? “Oh, Josh, as much as I love seeing you, we can’t keep doing this. I thought we said our goodbyes two weeks ago.”

He surged to his feet and crossed the few steps of carpet to reach her. “What if I don’t want to say goodbye to you—ever? What then?”

“We’ve been through this all before. It would never work out between us.”

He tilted his head to the side, studying her with intense eyes. “What makes you so sure about that?”

She hesitated, struggling to frame her answer so that she didn’t sound like a snob-in-reverse. “As clichéd as this sounds, we’re from two separate worlds. If you really were a bartender, things would be different. But you’re not just some hot guy with an amazing body who’s rolled into town for a change of scenery. You’re from this old money family of New England moguls, and not just anywhere in New England but Boston of all places. My grandparents were immigrants in the thirties. Your ancestors probably stepped off the
Mayflower
.”

“The
Mayflower
landed at Plymouth actually, some fifty miles from Boston, so I doubt it. Do you really think I have an amazing body?”

She nodded, feeling a blush burn its way upwards from her throat. “Uh-huh.”

His mouth formed a wry smile, but his eyes looked so sad it was all she could do to keep from reaching out to touch him. “Look, Mandy, whether I’m a bartender or a business executive, whether my net income is six figures or six dollars, it really doesn’t matter. I’m still the same man who asked you out for coffee on Christmas Eve, the same man who’s held your head while you slept and watched your face while you came, and the bottom line is I want you in my life. Whatever changes I need to make for that to happen, I’m ready to make them.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Our backgrounds, we’re so different.”

“Mandy, it can work out. It will work out. Actually, if you think about it, it already has.”

“It has?”

He nodded. Reaching for her hand, he laced his fingers through hers and looked deeply into her eyes. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve never felt this good, this
right,
with anyone before. Look, if you want a guarantee, a play-by-play on how it’s all going to work between now and the rest of our lives, I can’t give you that because I don’t know, either. I’m pretty much figuring this out one day at a time myself, but you know what, I’m coming to think that’s the way life goes. So let’s talk about what I do know. I know that three hours in bed with you flies by like three minutes, and I’m not just talking about the sex though that’s pretty amazing, by the way. I love holding you afterward, I love the way you hold me back and trace slow circles between my shoulders with your fingernails. I love looking at you just after you’ve climaxed, seeing you all rumpled and relaxed and well, glowing. Christ, Mandy, I even love that you eat oranges in my bed. My goddamned sheets smelled like oranges the whole time we were together and though that ought to have annoyed the hell out of me, it didn’t. Instead when I think of oranges I think of you wrapped up in my bedsheets and now every time I walk down some grocery store’s produce aisle and smell citrus, I get a hard-on.”

She couldn’t help it, she smiled. “You don’t…really?”

He wiggled his eyebrows. “Want to test it out sometime?”

She hesitated, and then shook her head. “Nuh-uh. On second thought…maybe.”

He lifted her chin on the heel of his hand. “The bottom line is I love every goddamned thing about you because I love you.” He settled a hand on her good shoulder, drawing her against him. “I love you, Mandy Delinkski. I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life finding new ways to make you happy in and out of bed, so, what do you say? Do you feel lucky because if you agree to give this a try, to give us a try, I know I’ll feel like the luckiest man on the planet?”

Mandy looked up at Josh, his handsome features drawn taut with tension and his blue eyes shadowed with uncertainty, and admitted that happiness in the form of a six-foot-four-inch hunk with a heart of gold was literally staring her in the face. So just what was holding her back? On the surface, the answer was a no-brainer—fear. But fear of what exactly? Fear of not measuring up to some ideal female size or shape that didn’t exist beyond the pages of a fashion magazine? Fear of being happy, of loving and being loved back by an extraordinarily special man?
If that was the case, she’d better work on getting over being afraid starting right now.

Her mother’s wise words came back to her with crystal clarity, urging her not to be afraid.
If you want something or someone bad enough, you fight for it. You fight because fighting for it is the same as fighting for your future.

And that was exactly what Josh was doing in coming back, she suddenly saw. He was fighting not just for her but for them, for the chance at a future together. Could she do any less?

“I do feel lucky, lucky to have met you and made love with you, lucky to have you in my life for however long whether that means forever or just this moment.” She drew a deep breath, gathering her courage to take the proverbial plunge. “If you really think you can be happy with a brassy Polish cop from East Baltimore, then be warned you’re probably going to end up stuck with me because the thing is, I’m crazy, head-over-heels in love with you.”

Sliding his hands on her hips, Josh looked at her, eyes sparkling with light and love. “In that case, instead of dinner out, how would you feel about Chinese carry out in bed?”

Rather than answer in words, Mandy wrapped her arms about his neck and lifted her mouth to his for the silver-screenera kiss she’d fantasized about ever since he’d left.

Against her lips, Josh said, “God, baby, I’ve missed you so much.” His hands went to the sash of her robe. Untying it, he pulled the robe open and then off, baring her body, still damp from the shower.

Following his downward gaze, Mandy had to admit there was something undeniably erotic about standing stark naked against a man who was fully and formally clothed, the worsted wool of his suit coat abrading her nipples, the crease of his pants leg chafing her inner leg—especially when he slid his hand down her belly to the warm, aching portal between her thighs.

Kissing him back, she said, “I’ve missed you, too, so much. Every time I touched myself, I couldn’t help it, I pretended it was you.”

“Well, you won’t have to pretend any longer because I’m here. I’m here for you for as long as you’ll have me.” He leaned forward and kissed the raw, red scar topping her right shoulder. Drawing back, he shook his head. “God, when I think how close I came to losing you, not once but twice…”

“Shush.” She laid a finger across his lips. He had the hands-down sexiest mouth she’d ever seen on a man, and remembering all the ways he’d used it to pleasure her had the warm wetness spurting between her thighs. “It’s over, in the past. It’s only the future we have to think about though right now the present feels like a pretty great place to be.”

Only there was a big chunk of the past,
his
past, missing from his memory. Even though he’d likely write her off as crazy after she told him, she couldn’t get past the need to fill him in on just how badly things could have turned out or rather just how lucky he—they—really were.

“Believe me, the present, this moment, is the only place I want to be.” Smiling against her throat, he added, “God, baby, I want you so bad. Do you mind waiting on that dinner?”

Mandy thrust against his hand, willing his seeking finger to slide all the way inside. “Mind? You must be kidding. Only, Josh…”

“Yes, Mandy?”

Taking a deep breath, she held her hips still. “Before we go any farther, I really need to tell you just how very lucky we are.”