Masquerade (9 page)

“That dancing,” he said,
grinding the words. “The kind you did out there?”

She gulped and nodded.

“I want to be the only
one who sees you dance like that.
Ever.”

He stared into eyes he had
never forgotten. Eyes he refused to let leave again. Before she had time to
react, he kissed her, their lips colliding in an explosion of hot pleasure. He
kissed her hard and fast, thrusting his tongue into her mouth. He
couldn’t
get enough of her and moved his lips over hers with
an urgency he no longer chose to deny.

He
didn’t
at first recognize that she kissed him back. When he did, he pulled her tight
into his body. Anthony groaned as she ground her hips against his erection. He
thrust with his tongue and she opened further for him. He danced with her,
pulling her tongue into his mouth, tasting a lingering mint on her breath.
He’d
waited so long, and now he poured every bit of his love
into that kiss. He forgot everything except the taste of her.

Pain filtered through to
his brain. His cock was granite and straining against the zipper of his slacks.
Anthony grabbed Beth’s hips and pulled her in tighter to his long-denied need. “God,
Beth. I’m so fucking horny I can’t think straight.”

“Then stop thinking and
do something about it.”

Maybe he heard the words,
maybe not. The husky gravel in her voice screamed “yes” and that was enough of
a cue for him. He took her mouth again, his hand sliding the costume bra down
below her breast so he could cup her.

He almost came right then
as he rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger. She arched her back
and he ripped her top in two, yanking it off her. Snaking an arm around her
waist for stability, he leaned her back further, taking a taut nipple in his
mouth as his free hand continued to fondle the other.

She moaned and his penis
twitched.

“I need you.
Now.”

A slow smile spread
across her well-kissed lips. “You read my mind.”

He yanked her skirt and
panties down, hastily dropped his own pants, and stood back up with a condom in
his hand.

“Hurry,” she said,
bracing herself against the pop machine that barely hid them.

Sheathed, he moved back
into her embrace.

He barely had time to
mouth “you sure?” when she wrapped her leg around him, pulling him in tight. He
could take no more and drove into her.

Shushing Beth’s cry with
his mouth, he kept going, pounding deep for her center. When she lifted her
other leg, encircling him completely, he grabbed hold of her ass to keep her straddled
against him. They were both so close they crashed over the top after only a few
more thrusts. He came hard and long, plunging
again and again
,
claiming her.

It was everything Anthony
had thought it would be and more.
And
it was
everything he remembered. The years fell away there in the back hall of
Masquerade. It became the night after graduation, where
he’d
cornered Beth, laid out his feelings for her, and had not been shot down. In
fact, that night of floundering, fumbling fingers had stuck with him, never to
be repeated
.

Until
now.

Chapter Nine

Smashed in the corner of
the pop machine and wall, it was all that kept them standing. Tony held tight
to Beth, with her legs still wrapped around him and their ragged breaths the
only sound in the aftermath of their climax. When he leaned his forehead against
hers, she mewled in quiet pleasure. Then Beth remembered where they were.

“Oh, my
God, Anthony.”
She
unwrapped
her legs and
tapped his shoulders until he set her on the floor. She
didn’t
have enough arms to cover herself as she peeked down the long hall and he
grinned at her antics. He much preferred her like this—naked and his. They were
somewhat hidden behind the beverage dispenser, but not enough to hide them
completely.
Plus
, her shorts and his slacks were in
the middle of the floor. “Anyone could have seen us!” she said, clutching for
her shorts and tossing his pants at him. She slid into her bottoms, but he knew
he’d
about shredded her bra.

“Let them see,” Anthony
said, slipping into his slacks. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. “Let
the whole world see,” he whispered against her lips.

Beth relaxed into him. “That,”
she whispered back, “was more amazing than you could ever know.”

“
You
are amazing.

The sheen of tears as her
eyes met his surprised him.
“Why the tears?”

“I—” Beth gulped and tried
again. “It was almost like—”

Anthony prayed he knew
where she was trying to go, but he desperately needed to hear her say the
words. “Almost like what?”

Beth shook her head and
began to straighten her clothing. “It’s nothing.”

“You brought it up minutes
after the most mind-blowing sex I’ve ever had. It’s not
nothing
.”

“It’s just...
 
It felt like the first time.”

He remembered that first
time. It had fed his soul while
he’d
searched for her
these past years.
But
she didn’t know who he was yet.
So
he had to play along. “You’re not a virgin.”

“No.” She chuckled.
“Not at all.”
Then she crooked her head to the side and
smiled. “Until tonight, though, I wondered if I was a one-hit wonder when it
came to orgasms.” Beth touched his mask. “You changed that for me. Thank you.”

Anthony wanted to shout
his excitement to the far reaches of the universe. Maybe, just maybe, there was
a chance.

“One-hit
wonder?”

He could tell she was
getting embarrassed, but it was time to have this out. It felt right.

“Yes,” she said. Then she
raised her chin. “My husband’s parting comment before he left me was to call me
a frigid bitch.”

She buried her head in
his chest, and Anthony tipped her chin up so she would see his eyes. “You are
not frigid by
any
definition.”

“I—I know. At least, I
knew. There was this once...”

Her voice trailed off,
but he needed her to finish. “When was that?”

“Right
after high school graduation.”

Yes!

“I thought he was the man
I would love forever.”

“Isn’t he?”

“He chose someone else.
The next day, as a matter of fact.
I—never spoke to him
again.”

“Don’t you think maybe he
had a good reason?”

“What kind of reason could
he have to make love to me,
then
marry someone else? I
must have been a pretty lousy lay to send him straight into her arms.”

“You weren’t a lousy lay.”

More tears fell on her
cheeks. “You weren’t there.”

“Yes, Beth, I was.” For
the first time since
she’d
walked in the door two days
ago, Anthony took off his mask and bared his soul to her, pouring all the love
he’d waited so long to show her into his eyes.

****

“Tony?”

He nodded.

Beth’s hand covered her
chest, trying to settle her pounding heart. She
couldn’t
believe it. He was here. Tony. The missing link from her past and the ecstasy
and agony that she
couldn’t
forget no matter how hard
she tried.

She glanced over her
shoulder.
They’d
just had lava-hot sex in the hallway
of a bar.
And
she’d climaxed.
Finally.
Except this
wasn’t
what she’d intended. Her hand
closed into a fist. Here now, standing in front of her, was the man
who’d
taken her virginity that night so long ago and then
asked her high school tormenter Marci to be his wife. He
hadn’t
even cared enough to see if there had been any consequences to their night
together.

All the anger from the
past boiled up in her, and she let it spill over. “What are you doing? You
didn’t ruin my life enough the first time, so you had to come back for a second
round?”

“No! It’s not like that
at all.”

She covered her mouth.
Oh, my God.
She’d
bared her soul to him about the night he’d taken her
virginity. This was horrible. Beth felt like she wanted to fly, faint, and hit
something all at the same time, and her body was at war trying to figure out
which one to do first.

She chose to listen to her
gut and slapped him.
Hard.

Beth
couldn’t
think. She
couldn’t
even breathe, so she acted on
instinct and ran.

First
to the locker room where she threw on her clothes, then out the front door
without a backward glance.
Half a block away from the club, she pulled
off first one heel, then the other, barely slowing down. By the time she
reached the loft, she was gasping for breath. Keys buried at the bottom of her
bag eluded her, and she all but dumped out the contents on the sidewalk to get
at them.

Finally, she made it
inside, slammed the door, and slumped to the floor, waiting for her breath to
catch up with her. As the adrenaline seeped out of her body, an overwhelming
tiredness replaced it. The energy to move away from the door was more than she
could muster, so she sat there on the floor trying to make sense of what had
just happened.

How had Tony ended up
working here, at the place
she’d
been drawn to by an
obscure ad in a magazine she
never
read? The one man, the one
memory
she
came here to get away from had just been tossed in her lap. Beth slapped the
floor.
Damn it all.
She’d
filled out that application to get Tony out of her mind.
Out
of her heart.
Out of her sex life.
She needed
to move on. Now, after several years and one ex-husband, here he was again.

A knock on the door
behind sent her flying several feet away, her heart well ahead of the rest of
her body.

“Beth?”

Tony.
How the hell
had he found her?

He knocked again. “Please
let me in. We need to talk.”

Tony. The boy
who’d
become her whole life in a night. Beth went to the
door and leaned against it.
She’d
loved him before,
but that night had welded their hearts together.
Or
so
she’d thought. His betrayal had ripped that weld apart, leaving a gaping hole.
Especially later...

She’d
fought to close that wound.
Fought to free herself of Tony’s influence.

The knock was softer this
time as if he knew she was at the door. Even his voice was quiet. “Come on,
Beth. I know
you’re
in there. I need to explain.”

What could he tell her
that would make any sort of difference? Beth stared at the door, wondering if
maybe getting some closure was what this was all
about
.
She’d
just had the most amazing sex—again—with a man
who’d wrapped himself around her heart and then left her to fend for herself.
Maybe she needed to hear him out in order to get past this
once
and for all
.

With a heart heavier than
ever before, Beth opened the door.

Tony stood on her
threshold with his shoulders hunched and his hands digging deep holes in his
pockets.

“Thanks,” he said, and
then his mouth fell open. Beth glanced down.
She’d
left in such a hurry and with her costume in shreds, so she was braless beneath
her white t-shirt, and it didn’t hide much.
Well,
let him stare and see what
he’s
missing.

He clamped his mouth shut
and stepped inside. After he entered, Beth shut the door, then turned around
and leaned against it, waiting.

“I’m sorry,” Tony said.

The hangdog look on his
face validated his statement, but it was too little too late. Tears stung her
eyes as she realized
those were not the words she wanted to
hear
. She shrugged, unable to respond.

“I love you.”

“Oh, please!” She pushed
off the door and stomped past him, then whirled to face him. “You screwed me,
then
got engaged to Marci the very next day. You don’t know
the first thing about love.”

“I—”

“No. You
don’t
get to talk yet. You get to listen. I loved you back
in high school, and you knew it. That night—” She gulped. “That night was the
culmination of all my hopes and dreams. You,” she pointed at him, “were the
only guy I wanted to be with, to make love to. Corny as it might sound, I saved
myself for you.”

She paced away from him,
to the far wall. “And it was everything I thought it would be.”

When she turned back, she
knew he could see the tears on her cheek. She brought her head up. “Then, the
very next day, you crushed it all, tossed it into the garbage like your empty
sack lunch. It took me—” Her voice broke. “It took me forever to get over you.”
The lie
didn’t
come easy, but there was no way she was
going to tell Tony that she’d come back to
Chicago
to finally get past the memories of
him.

The next lie would be
even harder. She walked toward him. “But I did,” she said. “You have no right
to come back into my life and turn it inside out again.”

“I had to find you. I
love you, Beth.”

“Damn it, Tony. Stop
saying something you can’t mean.” She hit him, her hand connecting with a muted
thump against his solid chest.
Again and again
she
pounded, and he let her. Finally, he pulled her into his arms and she cried all
the tears
she’d
thought long gone. Tears for a love
never meant to be and for a life never lived. For long minutes
,
she wept
against his shoulder and clung to him as he clung to her.