One Wrong Step (23 page)

His arms were warm and strong around her, and suddenly she was so bone tired she couldn’t summon the energy to do anything but slump against him. A hot tear slid down her cheek. She blotted it away, but it was followed by another, and another, and, before she knew it, she was sniveling against his chest. Everything came gushing out—tears, hiccups, snot—she couldn’t hold anything in. His arms tightened even more, and that only made it worse.

“I’m sorry.” She grabbed a fistful of his damp T-shirt. “I’m so sorry.”

She felt him smooth her hair. “I’m fine, okay? It’s just a scratch.”

“Not
that,
” she choked. “I’m sorry about that, too, but”—hiccup—“I’m sorry I
lied
to you. About something so important. I don’t know why I did it. I never should have used you that way.”

He held her tightly, his heart thudding next to her ear.

“Hey, let’s forget it, okay?” He pulled back and looked down into her face. She took a deep breath and rubbed her nose with the back of her hand and tried to get control of her emotions.

“Okay?”

She nodded.

“Good. Shit.” He squeezed her again and stroked a hand down her back. “I mean, I shouldn’t be complaining, right? Having a beautiful woman use me as her stud? There’re probably worse forms of torture.”

She choked again, half laughter, half despair.

He circled his hands around her waist and lifted her onto the counter. They were at eye level now, and she reached for a dish towel to dry her face.

“Listen,” he said. “You keep saying something, and I want to make sure we understand each other. I do
not
think you’re crazy.”

She blew out a wobbly sigh. Of course he did.

“I mean it. You’re not crazy.”

“Fine,” she said. “Then at least admit you think I’m neurotic.”

He was so close she could see tiny silver flecks in his blue irises. His eyes were so intelligent and gentle, and she couldn’t believe she’d
hit
him.

“You’re not neurotic,” he said. “You’re a perfectly normal person who’s been through a shitload of stress.”

He stroked his hands down her arms. “I think you’re completely normal. Better than normal. Hell, my sister’s more neurotic than you, and she’s pretty much had it easy.” The side of his mouth quirked up. “Although, don’t tell her I said that or she’ll beat me up for real.”

Celie smiled.

“Seriously,” he said, getting somber, “it takes a lot of guts to go through everything you have and not get bitter. To still be so caring toward other people. It’s one of the things I admire about you.”

“Thanks,” she said, wiping her cheeks. Maybe he meant what he was saying. Maybe not. Her mind was all jumbled, but she knew it felt good to be with him like this, just talking and knowing he was listening.

He was also staring at her. His gaze kept dropping to her mouth like he intended to kiss her.

She gently pushed him back and hopped down from the counter, then walked over to her refrigerator and searched the vegetable drawer until she found a cucumber. She had the puffy eye gene. Just a few minutes of crying, and her eyes would swell up like a boxer’s. She took a knife from her chopping block and sliced off two cucumber rounds.

“Are you making a salad?” he asked, incredulous.

“No. But whenever I have a crying jag, I need at least five minutes with a cucumber or I can’t leave the house.”

She walked into the living room with the cucumber slices.

“My mind is reeling now. You know that, right?”

She glanced over her shoulder and scowled at him. “You have a dirty mind.”

“Honey, you have no idea.”

She laid down on the couch and closed her eyes, then placed the chilled cucumber slices on her eyelids. “You’re welcome to stay if you want, but this is pretty boring.”

She expected him to either make an excuse to leave or sink down into her armchair. Instead, he picked up her feet and sat down on the end of the sofa, resting her heels on his thigh. She felt him slide off her sandals and brush a finger over her toes.

She lifted one of the cucumbers and peeked out at him. “What are you doing?”

“I love your feet.”

“My feet.”

“Yep.”

He stroked a finger over the arch of her foot and started massaging it with the pads of his thumbs. If she’d known she’d be getting her feet rubbed today, she would have touched up her polish. Oh well. At least they were clean.

Celie replaced the cucumber slice and nestled her head against the sofa arm. What was going on here? She’d just clobbered the heck out of this man in her kitchen, and now he was giving her a foot massage. He was too weird. Or maybe she was.

“Aren’t you mad at me?” she asked.

“I told you,
no.
”

“Is this something you normally do after someone pitches a fit in front of you?”

“No. But I’ve been wanting to do this for a while now.”

“It feels good,” she murmured. His hands were warm and strong, and he used just enough pressure so that it didn’t tickle. At least not her feet. Other parts of her body were definitely feeling ticklish.

She cleared her throat. “Do you do this for all your girlfriends?”

His hands paused for a barely perceptible instant, and then kept moving. “No.”

Great. She’d gone out on a limb, and he hadn’t given her what she wanted. Did he think of her as a girlfriend? A weekend distraction? Or now that she’d shattered his trust in the area of sex, was he going to stick with friendship?

The way his hands were touching her said no.

Friendship wouldn’t have worked anyway. This man was like a magnet for her. She couldn’t stand to be around him without completely invading his personal space. She’d handled it fairly well back in Mayfield, back before they’d crossed the line into sleeping together. But now that she knew how he could make her feel, anything resembling a platonic relationship was doomed.

Which was probably the reason he’d built such a reputation with women. He was amazing. Magic. He made her feel like she was the only women in the universe.

And when the next woman came along, whoever she was, Celie was going to get her heart broken.

C
elie sighed.

“What?”

“I don’t know how to do this,” she told him.

“Do what?”

“Have this…this closeness with you and then just forget about it and move on.”

She held her breath while she waited for him to say something, glad to have cucumbers covering her eyes.

But then he plucked them off her face and stared down at her. “Who said you have to forget it?”

“I don’t know.” She averted her gaze. “I get the impression you try to avoid long-term relationships.”

He moved over on the sofa and scooped her into his lap, making her sit up and look at him. She dabbed her eyes with her shirtsleeve. This wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have with swollen, red-rimmed eyes.

“Why don’t we stop analyzing everything so much and just have fun together?” he suggested.

Fun. Now there was a novel concept. She couldn’t suppress the beginnings of a smile. “I guess we could do that.”

“Good.” He dropped a kiss on her head and wrapped his arms around her. She felt his hand moving softly over her back, brushing aside her hair and tracing patterns over her spine until she felt tingly. Then he slid his other hand under her shirt, and she shivered.

It felt so good to be touched like this again. She wrapped her arms around his neck and snuggled closer.

“Celie,” he whispered in her ear. “Are we done talking?”

She nodded.

“Good, because I need to take your clothes off now.”

Her nerves jumped, and she made a throaty sound that he obviously took for agreement. His breath was hot against her skin as he kissed a line down her neck, lingering just above her collarbone, where he knew she was sensitive. He lifted her arms and pulled her shirt over her head and let it fall to the floor. She watched him, amazed that they were here, in this place again, when for weeks there had been this gulf between them. He leaned her back against the sofa arm and slid his big, warm hands down her sides, and her pulse raced as all that wanting she’d been trying to ignore started surging through her body. He kept his eyes on hers as he unsnapped her jeans and eased down the zipper. She lifted her hips so he could tug the jeans off, and then she lay back against the cushions, watching his eyes heat as he looked at her in her bra and panties, which unfortunately were ho-hum white lace.

“Damn, you’re pretty,” he breathed, slipping a strap down her shoulder. She smiled at how easy he was to please. One of these days she was going to get dressed for this and really blow his mind.

Her breast was bare and chilly, but then he started warming the very tip of it with his mouth. Her breath caught as he slipped another strap down and moved to the other side. His tongue teased her, and she felt his hand slide between her legs.

And then he was doing it again, that slow, wonderful exploration that made her absolutely mindless. He kissed her and touched her, and she moaned into his mouth and tried to press even closer. She glided her palm down the solid wall of his chest so she could feel his heart pound. Then she moved it lower and felt him shudder as she gripped the waistband of his jeans. Soon his clothes were piled on top of hers, and he was stretched out beside her, driving her crazy with his hands and his mouth and whispering things that made her blood rush. When she was just on the verge of bliss, he took a second to retrieve a condom from his pocket and cover himself.

She closed her eyes and tried not to think about it, about how she’d lied to him before and how she still, even now, wished she could do it again.

But then he pushed inside her and her breath left her, and everything faded away except him. She opened her eyes and watched him as they moved together, his eyes hazy, his arms and shoulders flexed. She couldn’t believe she did this to him, that he wanted her this much, that he always seemed so desperate for her. She wanted to memorize the feeling of him and keep it with her always, no matter what happened. Sweat beaded at his temples as the tension built and built until it was too much.

“Celie…
God.
”

Suddenly her body tightened around him, and his muscles bunched, and she lost herself in a perfect, endless moment in which the world was right and she loved him more than she’d ever loved anything in her life.

Then he lay on top of her, immobilized, and his weight there made her feel safe and good and even a little bit sad.

He propped up on an elbow and peered down into her face. He traced a finger down her cheek, and she realized she was crying.

“Sorry,” she said, embarrassed. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.”

“It’s okay.” He gazed down at her with that look of complete acceptance, and she gave in to the urge to stroke her fingers over his jaw, careful to avoid the spot where she’d cut him.

She swallowed the lump in her throat. “You know that thing I said earlier? In the kitchen? I don’t really hate you. I don’t know why I said that.”

He brushed a wisp of hair off her forehead and looked down into her eyes. “I do.”

For a long moment, they stared at each other, and she wondered if he really understood how she felt. And if he did, what did his silence mean? Her stomach fluttered with anxiety, that faint twinge of pain that comes from imagining what it feels like to be rejected. He’d said he wanted to have fun, and so here they were, having fun. Celie was having so much fun she was going to hurt herself.

He pulled back abruptly and wiped his brow with his forearm.

“Damn, this place is stuffy. Don’t you ever get hot in here?”

“Not really.”

He levered himself off the sofa and picked up his jeans, then walked into the bathroom and closed the door. Celie sat up and pulled a throw over herself.

When he came back a few moments later, he was wearing his jeans again. He stood beside the sofa with his hands on his hips and looked at her. “When was the last time you got outside?”

“I just got back from the store.”

“No, I mean really got outside. Did something for recreation.”

She thought about it. “I don’t usually—”

“Do you trust me?”

The mischievous gleam in his eye put her on her guard.

“Trust you how?”

“Nope.” He shook his head. “That’s the whole point, you have to trust me. You don’t get to know ahead of time.”

“Know what?”

He laughed. “Where we’re going. I want to take you somewhere, but you have to trust me.”

She watched him for a second, overcome with curiosity. “Okay.”

“Really?” His whole face brightened, and she immediately second-guessed her answer.

“Is it all right if my eyes are puffy when we get there?”

He grinned. “Shit, by the time we’re done, puffy eyes’ll be the least of your worries.”

John knew he’d successfully snapped Celie out of her funk. The sniffling, tearful woman from that morning was long gone, replaced by a Celie he’d never seen before. She wore a French braid and goggles, and her body was zipped into a purple nylon jumpsuit.

“You okay?” he yelled over the roar of the airplane.

Celie nodded and darted a glance out the window. “How high are we?” she yelled.

“About ten thousand feet, give or take.”

Her eyes widened.

“You’re gonna do great,” he assured her, clasping her hand. “First time’s always the scariest.”

She nodded stoically, and John felt a rush of pride. She was doing better than the two other first-timers sharing the back of the Twin Otter. Out of ten skydivers, three were virgins. Of those, one had changed her mind about jumping, and another had just heaved his breakfast all over one of the instructors.

“You’re doing great,” John reiterated. “Just remember everything from the lesson. And if you start to panic, your partner will handle the chute.”

She nodded again. John looked over her shoulder and made eye contact with the instructor harnessed to Celie’s back. Like most first-timers, Celie was doing a tandem dive, which meant an expert would be right there with her if anything went wrong. John, who was working on his class-A certification, was diving solo today.

Celie squeezed his hand, and her fingers felt like ice. “When this is over,” she told him, “I want a margarita.”

John grinned. “You got it.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s one-thirty now. In an hour, we’ll be toasting your first jump.”

“Okay, boys and girls,” the pilot, a guy named Vincent, said over the intercom system, “two minutes to show-time.”

Everyone double-checked their gear. John watched as Celie’s partner cupped his hand to her ear and gave her instructions. Celie nodded and straightened her goggles. She looked at John.

“We’re going to go first,” she yelled over the din.

John smiled. “That’s my girl.”

But she didn’t hear him, and soon her partner had them positioned by the opening at the rear of the plane. Celie cast one last glance over her shoulder. John gave her the thumbs-up sign. She smiled and said something, but her words were lost on the wind.

“You ready?” her instructor roared over all the noise.

Celie’s chest constricted. She nodded as she looked out the hatch at the green earth peeking through tufts of clouds. The heels of her sneakers rested on the metal floor of the plane while her toes jutted into thin air. She was going to
jump
out of a
plane
!

A strange calm settled over her as she watched her instructor’s hand signals:
three…two…one.

Suddenly her feet pushed off the airplane, and she was flying.

Only it wasn’t flying at all, but more like swimming inside a giant tidal wave of wind. She spread her arms wide and felt the tremendous wall of air push against her body. The force was invisible and cold, and she was shocked by the sheer
power
of it. Then everything went white for a moment, and suddenly the clouds were gone and a green-brown patchwork of farmland stretched out below.

She was screaming like a maniac, she realized, and tried to stop, tried to save her partner’s eardrums. But the sound kept coming, and the wind kept coming, and the earth below her loomed bigger and bigger and she could see the landing field.

Her partner signaled her, and for a moment she panicked and couldn’t remember what to do.

Then her body jerked, her breath rushed out, and she was floating.

“Oh my God!” she said, as time stood still and she sailed through the air. She pulled the ropes, like she’d done in practice, experimenting with pivots and turns. She didn’t have much control, so soon she gave up and simply let herself drift on the wind. Then the landing field was coming closer—rainbow-colored windsocks fluttering, people waving and pointing. Her partner manipulated the chute, slowing their decent as they came in for the landing.

Celie bent her knees and braced herself. The ground rushed to meet her.
Impact.
She ran and stumbled, but somehow managed to keep from falling.

It was over. The ground felt hard and strange beneath her feet.

“Great jump!” her partner said, and because Celie’s ears were ringing, the words sounded far away.

She pushed her goggles up. Her face was numb, and her body tingled as her partner unclipped the harness. “Oh my God!” she said inanely. “Oh my
God
!”

Other skydiving students came up to meet her, patting her on the back and telling her congratulations. Her partner laughed at her as he scooped up their chute, and she wondered if she looked as astonished as she felt. She’d never, ever experienced such a thrill. She hugged her partner, and her entire body vibrated with adrenaline.

“Where’s McAllister?” She darted her gaze around, and then she remembered to look up. A green parachute floated down toward the landing field, but it was a tandem team.

On the opposite end of the field, far removed from the crowd, she saw another green parachute, a diver dressed in blue dangling beneath it.

She sprinted toward him.

He staggered to a stop, and, when he looked up, Celie was running right for him. She was grinning ear to ear as she threw herself at him, knocking him back a few steps. He caught her in his arms.

“Oh my
God
!” she shrieked.

He shoved up his goggles. “You look happy.”

“It was
incredible
! I want to do it again!”

He laughed. “I should’ve known you’d be a junkie.”

She flung her arms around his neck. “Are you okay? You looked great up there! I watched you land! It was so
cool
! How was your jump?”

Her cheeks were pink, and she had goggle marks on her face. He couldn’t resist planting a big, wet kiss on her mouth. “Perfect. Fucking fantastic. I dropped right through a hole in the clouds.”

She giggled. “Me, too.”

He unhooked his harness and stepped out of it. Celie watched him, bouncing up and down in place. The woman was giddy.

“How soon can we go again? Can we go twice in one day?”

He smiled and looped the harness over his shoulder. “I thought you wanted a margarita.”

“Oh. Yeah, I do.” She gazed up at him hopefully. “Want to come back next weekend? Please?”

“Sure.”

“Next time it’s on me. Maybe we could get, like, a frequent-flyer discount.”

“I’ve already got one.” He gathered up his chute, compressing the air out of it and rolling it into a manageable size. They started walking back to the skydiving school, which was several hundred yards away. It consisted of a small, corrugated aluminum building beside a hangar filled with private planes. The landing strip had once been used as a practice site for military aircraft.

“Are you really getting certified? That’s so great! How much does it cost?”

She peppered him with questions as they trekked back to the building. He’d never seen her so euphoric. They neared the entrance, and suddenly she took his hand and dragged him toward the back of the building.

“Where are we going?”

“I just have to do something real quick.” She towed him behind a row of rusted-out storage drums.

And then she kissed him—a full-on, soul-scorching tongue kiss. Her nails sank into his neck, her breasts pressed against him, and all the blood in his body rushed straight to his groin.