On Common Ground (Harlequin Super Romance) (16 page)

He caught her gaze with his. “I don’t want to talk about work right now.”

She shook her head. “Neither do I. I just needed to clear that up. Because even if this is a one-night stand, I could never do anything that would betray someone else.”

He inched closer, removed her wineglass from her hand and twisted to place it on the window ledge. Then he tilted his head. “I would never betray anyone, especially you.”

She tilted her head the opposite way. “You have a way with words, Mr. Bigelow.”

“So, are you telling me something’s going to happen?” he murmured as his lips brushed hers.

She answered, offering up her mouth to his for a kiss that was fierce, as well as fearless.

And when the kiss finally ended, he rested his forehead on hers—an act that required him to contort his back in ways he would probably regret tomorrow—but then who cared about tomorrow at this moment? And he said, his voice rising in a smile as much as a question, “Your place or mine?”

She raised her chin and twined her hands around his neck. “Heck, this is Reunions. For nostalgia’s sake, why don’t we do it in my dorm room? See if two people at our age can still fit on a single bed?”

He smiled with joy. If angels were trumpeting his happiness then, they would blow the roof off the Lion Inn and more. “As I remember, those beds are extra-long.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

L
ILAH
FIDGETED
WITH
the passkey in the lock at the entryway door. It was one of those magnetic strip things, and she flipped it back and forth, trying to read the arrowed directions by the light of the lamppost. In keeping with the Tudor Gothic architecture of the university campus, it was a wrought-iron affair—very picturesque, but not giving the best light when it came to reading fine print, especially without her glasses.

Justin shifted the garment bag to his shoulder. On the way to her dorm, he had driven by his apartment and run upstairs to get clothes and things for tomorrow. Lilah had left her new rental car parked in the campus lot.

“Here. Do you want me to try?” he asked. He brushed the back of her hand.

She looked back at him, knew she was blushing. “No, I can do this, I know. It’s just that I’m never very good at these things, and having you touch me like that is wonderful and all, but it makes me even more nervous.”

Justin smiled warmly. “I’m nervous, too.” He stepped away, wiggling his fingers. “See? No touching. Does that make you feel better?”

“It does and it doesn’t.” She swiped the card in front of the optical reader again and could finally hear the lock on the entryway door click open. “Eureka.”

Justin held the door open for her. “So, now we’ve got three flights of stairs to look forward to?”

“No, haven’t you heard? They’ve put elevators in since our day.” She eyed the garment bag slung over his shoulder. “I wish you’d let me see the monstrosity I’m going to have to wear in The Parade tomorrow.”

“Not on your life. I don’t want you having any excuse to back out.”

They rode the elevator to the third floor and got out. She turned to the left and headed down the hallway. The top floor, which had been formed by opening up the ceiling to the roof, was a jumble of angles and planes—slanting rooflines and alcoves with tiny windows. “I guess you know the way,” Lilah said, pointing down the long, narrow hallway.

“What you do mean?”

“You’re kidding me? You didn’t look in the packet with the registration information?”

He shook his head. “I just have a copy of the schedule.”

Lilah stopped in front of a door. She looked to the right.

Justin glanced at the room number. “It’s not?”

“You bet it is.” She pulled out the key from the pocket of her pants and unlocked the door. “Da-dah!” She flicked on the light switch and swept her arm around in a grand gesture. “Your senior-year suite.”

Justin stepped in reluctantly. “This is more than a little creepy.” He went to the center of the room and did a three-sixty. Two small bedrooms flanked a central sitting room. A bank of lead-paned windows filled the outside wall, exposing the stone crenellations of a small terrace amid the treetops of the courtyard.

“At least it’s not furnished the same,” he said. The hardwood floors were bare, and a single desk chair was pushed into the built-in desk by the windows. Each bedroom contained a single bed and a dresser. Justin had displayed an eclectic assortment of Grantham University memorabilia when he’d lived there, but now the paneled walls were bare. “It’s not quite the same without all my empty beer bottles,” he said somewhat nostalgically.

“I think Stephen threw those out as soon as he could.”

“No, that would have been the sofa that I’d rescued Dumpster diving.” He wandered among the rooms, turning the lights on and off, the single overhead fixtures providing a dismal atmosphere. “Without all the usual student stuff, it looks bigger.” He swung around to face her. “Still, I’m a little freaked out, I gotta admit,” Justin confessed.

“I suppose we could burn some soothing incense to impart the correct aura.”

“We’d probably set off the fire alarm.” Justin shook his head. “I’m trying to remember which bedroom was mine.”

She pointed with her thumb in a hitchhiker gesture. “You had the one on the left.”

“You have a good memory.”

“For certain things.”

“And you put your stuff?” He craned his neck to look into that room.

“In there.” Then she walked to the windows and turned her back to them. “So what do you think?”

“What do I think? Truthfully? I’m trying to decide if what we’re about to do here is some warped form of getting even—even though we’d both probably deny it was true.”

“But I told you, the past is so over.” She stepped toward him and looked up. “When I think about it, I was so naive.”

“You were never naive.”

“Oh, please. I was probably the only virgin in our freshman class—there’s not a lot to choose from when you live on Orcas Island, trust me.” She held up her hand when he started to say something. “But it wasn’t just sex. It was the whole experience of coming east to an Ivy League school. I was this middle-class kid who lived on an island, for Pete’s sake. I never knew rich people or people who went to prep school or who ‘summered’ in places like Nantucket or Martha’s Vineyard. The first time I met Mimi, she scared me witless.”

“She still frightens me,” Justin joked.

“No, you know what I mean,” Lilah insisted ruefully. “Or maybe you don’t?”

“Please, I hardly grew up in the lap of luxury.”

“But you did grow up in Grantham, which is about as far from the real world as it gets. Safe and sweet with the statistical claim of having more Cooper Minis per person than any other community in the U.S.”

“To think we beat out Park Slope, Brooklyn.”

“Stop it. I’m serious.”

“I know,” he said with an understanding nod. He put his hands on her shoulders, kneading them to help her relax.

She frowned and gazed up. “That’s part of my problem, isn’t it? My seriousness? Especially back in college when my whole attitude—my whole view of the world—was so black-and-white.” She shook her head in exasperation. “What I used to think of as commitment to a cause now seems like the sanctimonious posturing of a girl.”

Justin pulled her close. “Why are you so hard on yourself? You were young. We all said and did stupid things. That goes with the territory. Besides, your passion was always the thing that I thought was so amazing.”

From the comfort and warmth of his chest, she spoke. “You’re kidding? Me? The geeky, chubby, unathletic girl is the one you found amazing?” She tilted her head upward.

“Like I said, don’t underestimate yourself.” He kissed her lightly on the lips.

It would be so easy just to fall into his arms. But Lilah had never taken the easy route in life. She pulled away from him, however reluctantly, and wandered to the windows again. “Easy to say when I seem to be harboring all this guilt.”

He came up behind her. “Guilt? What could you possibly have to feel guilty about? You live simply, you do good work and you have everyone’s admiration.”

“Stop it. You’ll make me sound like a saint. I’m far from it.” She whirled around to face him. “Don’t you get it? I’m not perfect,” she shouted, thinking of her ambivalence about accepting the alumni award.

“Does it matter?”

“I don’t want to be put on a pedestal. I want to be treated as a woman.”

Justin took a step toward her, and as if she were a rag doll, placed her hands on his chest. “Do you feel that?”

She could feel the hammering of his heart and nodded.

“I feel that way because you’re a woman. A special woman. Can we agree on that?”

“I guess even I can’t deny the power of empirical evidence.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“It’s a yes, most definitely a yes.” She moved closer, letting the length of her body mold to his.

“That being the case, let me use a hackneyed line—which I apologize for upfront but frankly, I’m too talked out for fresh thinking—are you still in the mood for romance?”

Lilah squeezed her lips together. She felt tears welling in her eyes, but she wasn’t sad. She reached up and pressed her hand atop his. “Sometimes the best things are hackneyed.”

He let out a deep breath. “Thank goodness.” He hesitated. “But you know, I have one request.”

She slanted her head and waited.

“Do you mind if we don’t…don’t, you know…”

“Have sex? You don’t want to have sex?” She was taken aback. After all that outpouring of emotion, the physical proof of his desire.

“No, no, no.” He shook his head emphatically. “I definitely just want us to be together.”

She felt a rush of relief. She hadn’t blown it.

“It’s just that I want this to be special, without the ghosts of old memories floating around. Here, in this room?” He waved his hand around. “Call me overly sensitive, but there’re still too many old school vibes. So, would you mind terribly if we spent the night instead at my apartment?” He crinkled up his brow.

“A sensitive male? I’m supposed to object to a straight, sensitive male?” She almost laughed, but she thought it might bruise his ego. “No problem. Let me just collect a few things.” She hurried into the bedroom to locate her toiletries and some clothes, then stopped and turned.

“One question?” she asked a smile on her face.

He raised his eyebrows.

“Is your bed extra-long?”

“Lilah, the last thing you’ll need to worry about is the length of my bed.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

H
E
WAS
RIGHT
ABOUT
THE
BED
. And he wasn’t.

Truthfully? Lilah didn’t notice much about his apartment, except that it was upstairs in an old house. That it had wood floors—she knew this because she kicked her shoes off and was barefoot. That there was the sound of street noise—until he closed the double-hung window. And that the bedroom was in the back.

The bed was unmade, but the sheets smelled fresh. She hadn’t the faintest idea what color they were, though, or how many pillows he had or, indeed, where her clothes fell as she stripped on one side of the bed and he did on the other.

He pulled back the top sheet. She knelt on the mattress. Her heart pumped so hard she practically felt it straining against her throat. Excited, anxious, she watched him remove several foil packets from the bedside table. More excitement…more anxiety.

From the other side of the bed, he slid on his knees across the sheets. Then he reached up and ran a finger along her chin, the length of her neck to her collarbone. He circled one breast, his fingernail adding a light scrape to her nipple.

Lilah felt an immediate contraction deep within. She closed her eyes. And didn’t open them until he had guided her down and began exploring her body with an almost reverent delight and an inexorable slowness that verged on sweet torture. She gulped for breath. “I can’t wait,” she gasped. Her nerve endings were going haywire.

“All good things come to those who wait,” he murmured and his lips began to follow the path of his fingers. “I want this to be right for you.”

Her head sank back into a pillow. “Any more right and I’d die.” She hiccuped when his mouth touched the juncture of her thighs. “There’s one favor I have to ask.” She gulped air.

He looked up. “Are you all right?”

She inhaled deeply. “More than all right. It’s just…just…can we leave the whole patience thing for later?”

He scooted up her body and placed his hands on either side of her head. “Anything to oblige the lady.”

Their lovemaking was quick, ferocious, each taking freely, each giving back more.

And when it was over, Lilah lay exhausted in Justin’s arms, her heart hammering in her chest—the only muscle in her body capable of movement.

She was sure she’d be up all night.

She fell asleep instantly.

I
N
THE
MIDDLE
OF
THE
NIGHT
, Lilah rolled over in bed. She awakened to the sound of running water.
Maybe from the sink in the bathroom?
she wondered. She looked across for Justin, patting the sheets next to her. He wasn’t there. And she had a moment of panic.

But then she saw him. Padding back barefoot, comfortably naked. In his hand he held a water glass. He slid under the top sheet. “I was trying to be quiet. I’m sorry I woke you.”

“I’m not,” she smiled, enjoying the warmth that radiated from his body.

“Water?” He held the glass to her.

“Thanks.” She nodded and took it, then handed it back when she was finished.

He took a large gulp before setting it down on the table.

Somehow the act of sharing a water glass seemed every bit as intimate as their earlier lovemaking—maybe more so, given its casualness. And that intimacy made her realize that she couldn’t lie anymore.

“Justin?” She pressed her lips together.

He turned back and waited.

“There’s something I need to confess.”

“Please don’t tell me you’re secretly married to some dashing aid worker in Africa?”

She shook her head and tried to smile. But this conversation was too serious to avoid by giving way to levity. It was also hard, really hard.

She cleared her throat. “You know how I told you that I had reservations about coming back?”

“We’ve been all through that, I thought?”

“Yes, I’m sure it seems like I’m beating a dead horse, but, but… There’s something else.” She looked to the ceiling and noticed for the first time the old-fashioned pendant light in the middle of an ornate rosette. She shook her head. There was no point delaying. “The other reason—probably the bigger reason if I have to admit it—and after what…what we shared, I am obliged to admit.” She paused, then rushed on. “The award? The one you nominated me for?”

He nodded and shifted to sit up against the headboard, the sheet covering him from the waist down.

Lilah rested on her elbow and propped her head up with her hand. “I don’t deserve it. I mean, okay, I started this nonprofit organization and it has helped Congolese women. I know because I’ve seen the proof. And I still believe in it—more than ever maybe, given the atrocities still going on there. But the thing is…” She hesitated as she attempted to put her feelings into words. “As much as I believe in it, the truth of the matter is I just can’t get as excited about it as I used to. These days I’m just going through the motions—it feels like I’m not fully committed to it anymore, even though I want to be. I really do.”

She sniffed. “So I sit around thinking—when I’m not trying to juggle the finances to keep things afloat and cut through multiple layers of red tape to make things happen…when I’m not doing all that that someone else could do a much better job than I. I mean, I almost feel criminal, especially now that Sisters for Sisters is generating all this interest and people come to me with their ideas.”

She rubbed her forehead. “I guess I just feel overwhelmed. Like I want to run away from the whole thing. But I can’t. I’m caught. So then I feel guilty and depressed that I’m not holding up my end. That I’m letting other people down who really need me. And even if I do somehow manage to do the right thing, that it’ll never be enough given the enormity of the problem.” She paused. “Does any of that make sense?”

He frowned in thought before offering her a tight-lipped smile. “Completely.” He slid his arm around her shoulders and pulled her over to sit next to him.

She scooped up the sheet and tucked it under her arms to cover herself. Then she turned her head to face him. “Really? Because I’m not sure
I
understand it.”

“How can I explain?” He set his jaw and narrowed his eyes. Then he looked down at her upturned face. “You know that line of Humphrey Bogart’s from
Casablanca?
”

She placed her hand against her chest. “Do I know his lines? You forget I was vice president of the film club? ‘Play it, Sam?’ ‘Here’s looking at you, kid’? Somehow, they don’t seem to be germane to our discussion though.”

“Germane? God, that’s so you.” Justin laughed. He held up his hand in peace when he saw her frown. “No, I’m not laughing at you. I’m just delighting in you. But listen.” He shifted over so their thighs were touching.

Lilah thought the contact probably diminished her focus, but it felt too good to say anything.

“I’m talking about the last scene at the airport,” Justin went on. “When he tells Ingrid Bergman that she has to be with her noble war hero husband? He says something like, ‘It doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.’”

She could picture the rich black-and-white images as he spoke. “Oh, my God, it was so tragic.”

“But so wrong.”

“Wrong? You’re saying that one of the greatest romantic lines of all times is wrong?”

“Absolutely. He’s totally got it ass backward. I mean, as far as I’m concerned, you have to start with the problems of
one
person, then build from there.”

He reached around and cradled her shoulders in his arm. “Listen, I think you—and I—have reached turning points in our lives. The problem is, we’re both committed to our careers even though we’re also totally frustrated at the moment, which in your case translates into blaming yourself and feeling guilty. And in mine, makes me blame the world and want to punch someone.”

“So what do we do? Since punching’s out of the question.”

“Unfortunately, I think you’re right about that one. What I think we have to do is keep the faith, so to speak. Keep our options open, and not get all worked up because we don’t have a ready solution at hand. Which all requires a very subtle mix of opportunism and patience. Patience is key.”

Lilah shifted her weight so she could turn her shoulders and face him head-on. “This is the gospel according to Justin Bigelow?”

He made a face. “Are you making fun of me?”

“No, of course not.” She paused and smiled. “Well, maybe just a little. But tell me.” She stared at him, her chin slightly cocked. “When did you become so wise? Or were you always this way, but I was too blind to see it?”

Justin shrugged. “Boy, would I like to say I was always this way. But in hindsight, I think I probably demonstrated about as many introspective tendencies as most twenty-year-old males—in other words, close to none. No, as far as I can tell, any wisdom I’ve gained over the years comes from kindergarteners. I have grown to realize that nothing—and no one—is as honest, sometimes cruelly, and intuitively insightful as a five-year-old.”

“Out of the mouths of babes, huh?”

He nodded.

“I think you’re being overly humble.” She pushed back the sheet and shifted so that she straddled his naked body. “Someone wise—no names—told me not so long ago not to underestimate myself. I think the same holds true for you.” She rubbed her knuckles against the stubble on his cheeks. “Have I told you that I think you’re incredible?”

“No, but, you know, the ways things have worked out—” he looked around the bed “—kind of gave me the feeling that you cared for me.” He kissed her hand.

And this time, the lovemaking was imbued with a tenderness that spoke of a comfort with each other, an openness, and a feeling that nothing else existed beyond the confines of a queen-size bed and their imaginations. And when Lilah eventually fell asleep in Justin’s arms, she felt subsumed by a peacefulness of mind and body and soul that she had never experienced before.