Something About You (Just Me & You) (27 page)

“Making you lose control.”

“Hey, Fitzgerald. I enjoy sex as much as the next woman.”

“The past hour’s proof positive that you do,” he agreed.
“But I doubt there’s ever been a man in your bed when you had multiple
orgasms.”

She felt her cheeks heat up. “Could it be that I have hidden
talents?”

“Could be. But I doubt it. I saw you come unglued over and
over, and it scared the hell out of you, even though you loved every minute —
or shall I say all eight of them?”

He’d been
counting
? Suddenly Sabrina felt the need
for a breathing room. She disengaged herself from him and moved to a close but
safe distance, using her elbow to prop up her head.

“Sexual response is tricky — in women more than men,”
he went on. “The intensity of it depends on who you’re responding to. It’s that
old chemistry thing.”

“So what are you saying?”

“It’s not you. It’s me.” She could see his teeth gleaming in
the semi-darkness and the flutter of his lashes, that rapacious smile coupled
with a sidelong glance.

“Uh-
huh
,” Sabrina muttered dubiously.

“I’ve met women like you before. You want only one thing
from guys like me.” He folded his arms beneath his head and looked to the
ceiling innocently. “But it’s probably different when you decide to get
serious. My bet is that when you set your sights on your ex-husband and
boyfriends one through whatever, the very last thing you considered is if
they’d make you work up a good sweat in the sack.”

“There’s more to marriage than great sex.”

“I’ll never disagree with that. When it comes to what’s
important in a relationship, we’re on the same page, you and me: mutual goals,
similar interests and trust. I’d add respect to the list and, as clichéd as it
sounds, a healthy sense of humor. All of those things lead up to great sex. I
don’t know about you, but I can only feign interest for so long when somebody
doesn’t stimulate my gray matter.”

Sabrina didn’t feel like arguing. She didn’t know if it was
because of the dizzying afterglow or because she knew he was right. She also
didn’t want to go into her adequate if uninspiring past sex life. Or how it
almost always involved copious amounts of personal lubricant and quick trips to
the bathroom to read passages from Anaïs Nin’s
Little Birds
.

He didn’t need to know that he was the first man who made
her fall into complete disarray. Who’d made her feel genuine lust. Like a
budding alcoholic after a first drink, she knew she’d want him over and over
again at inopportune times and places.

He could easily become her addiction. 

“What does getting a tattoo feel like?” She traced the
intricate ink on his sternum with the tip of her finger.

“Hurts like hell the first time. Afterward? Not so much. My
tats bother you, don’t they?”

She shrugged. “Not really. I just don’t understand the need
for them. I like the idea of going out of this world the same way I came into
it with only a handful of battle scars.”

“You’ll get out without a single ding.” He tried to affect
breeziness, but Sabrina detected an undercurrent of turbulence in his voice.

“How can you know that?” she asked.

“From what you’ve told me about yourself, you’ve learned how
to stay out of the line of fire,” he said. “You know when to duck and take
cover. With your survival skills, you’ll live to be a hundred with no more than
a paper cut and the occasional kick to the ego. The rest of us mortals don’t
have a prayer of avoiding the sucker punches you will.”

Suffering. Oh, how wrong you are, Gage Fitzgerald
,
she thought woefully. Her thoughts jumped back to the day when she came home
from debate practice only to find Nola in a darkened bedroom catatonic with
grief.

While she was contemplating the hidden meaning behind his
words, he fell into a deep slumber. He was one of those rare men who were
still, quiet sleepers. She observed the slight flutter of eyelashes against his
cheek. She felt wide awake and alert. Although she could still feel her skin
tingling, the frisky brain chemicals that encouraged intimate bonding were
dissipating.

Intrusive thoughts entered her mind. She had laid herself
bare to him when they sat in his car and talked. She’d told him things she’d
only told Molly. One minute she was recalling how Molly’s curls looked dredged
in boiled pink frosting and sometime during the next, she knew that she wanted
much more from Gage Fitzgerald than demonstration kisses, ballroom dancing and
verbal sparring. 

She had made herself vulnerable in every way to this man,
and she didn’t understand why. Integrating him into her life in terms that
didn’t involve the physical seemed foreign and impossible, like pressing the
odd piece of a jigsaw puzzle into a picture where it didn’t belong and would
never fit.

She studied his sleeping form. She didn’t know what was
considered appropriate etiquette in a situation like this. She only knew that
she wanted nothing more than to sleep alone in her own bed. To wake up the next
morning knowing that she was the only person in the house. To see, hear and
smell anything and everything but Gage’s smile, laugh or skin. She carefully
climbed out of the bed. Something wet trickled down her thigh, reminding her of
her carelessness. Only “careless” was a misnomer, an understatement.

Idiot.
That’s exactly what she’d been, letting
herself get so swept away by lust that she hadn’t insisted he use birth
control. Who did that, other than stupid teenagers and women determined to trap
men into fatherhood?

The cool sheets of her bed felt welcoming. She fell into a
hard sleep almost immediately. When she woke up the next morning after fretful,
incoherent dreams about losing her floor badge and committee hearings that
dragged on forever, Gage was gone. She hopped into a scalding shower and
thoroughly soaped every part of her body and then once more for good measure to
wash off his scent.

Sabrina felt more like herself after the shower. Now it was
time for damage control. Throwing on her running shorts and a T-shirt, she
jogged over to Newton’s Drugstore and perused the aisles until she found what
she was looking for. She picked up the pale green box and took it to the
pharmacy checkout area, credit card in hand. Thankfully, no one was in the store
except her and eccentric Pete Carlyle, whose best quality was that he didn’t
give two whits about the private lives of his neighbors, making him the least
likely to spread gossip about her sex life.

Once she was back home, she tore into the box and gulped the
morning-after pill down with a large glass of water. Even though an unplanned
pregnancy was highly unlikely, she felt relieved knowing that she had taken an
additional precaution after the fact. There was no need to tell Gage about her
early-morning foray to Newton’s, she reasoned. After all, it was her body. Her
life.

Her future.

Gage would be at work now. Sabrina resisted the temptation
to tune into “Fitz and Giggles” just to hear the sound of his voice. She
shivered and sighed when she remembered how that gravelly timbre had seduced
both her mind and her body, coaxed her into an exhilarating free fall, and
shouted her name during his release.

No, she definitely didn’t need to hear his voice right now.

Instead, she brewed a pot of coffee, took her cup of Sumatra
onto the sunny porch, and started the day alone.

Feeling a little bit lonely.

“Omigod! You slept with Gage!” Molly exclaimed as she
flopped on the bed and rolled on her tummy, legs swinging. Her eyes grew large
with curiosity. “Spill it, sister!”

“Jeez, Molls. Announce it to the world, why don’t you?”
Sabrina said.

“O-mi-
god
,” Molly repeated hypnotically, digging her
hand into a large package of cheese-dusted popcorn. “I can’t believe it. So
what was it like?” She grinned.

“Extremely enjoyable,” Sabrina told her. She sounded like
she was describing the latest box-office hit.

“Oh, please,” Molly scoffed, picking a kernel out of her
teeth. “No way do I believe that it was just ‘enjoyable.’ The man’s a
powerhouse.”

Sabrina looked at her suspiciously. “And you know this how?”

“Sebastian and I visited Gage in Chicago, you know. He had a
quasi-girlfriend — this was a while ago, though,” Molly added quickly.

“What’s a quasi-girlfriend?” Sabrina wanted to know.

“You know. A hook-up. Booty call. Floorboards were creaking
in the middle of the night. Hands and knees.”

“You
spied
?”

“Of course not! Let’s just say that wood floors do not lie,”
Molly said authoritatively. Then she added with a wicked smirk, “It sounded
like
la femme
involved was having herself a rockin’ good time, too.”

Sabrina stared at her, aghast. “Oh, god. You’re married. Is
an interest in other people’s sex lives healthy?”

“I’m married, not paralyzed from the waist down. I can
wonder, can’t I?” Molly shrugged. “I have to confess that I got a little
curious about Gage after that raucous tête-à-tête. Is he—”

Sabrina held out a warning hand. “Stop! We are not going to
delve into size and dimensions.”

“Why not?” Molly pouted. “This is girl talk. Remember girl
talk, Brini? Remember all of the naughty, naughty things I told you about
Sebastian when we first started seeing each other?”

“Yes. I erased them from memory the day you announced your
engagement.”

“
Oh
-kay, I get it. It’s none of my beeswax.” Molly
shoved the popcorn aside. “So what happens now?”

“I have no idea,” Sabrina confessed. It was as close to the
truth as she could get. After Gage popped the first button on her blouse, she
wasn’t thinking five seconds ahead of time, much less a day, a week or even a
month.

“Things like this always go somewhere,” Molly reminded her.
“Remember what I told you when you and Jackson started sleeping together?”

“‘Be careful what you want, because you might just get it.’”

“
Exactly
.” Molly quirked one brow. “Look, I haven’t
known Gage half of my life like Sebastian has. But I’ve known him long enough.
I know that ‘Fitz’ is a facade. This is Austin. It’s an urban oasis for the
perpetually single. But Gage is from
Iowa
, Brini. Those Midwestern boys
get real serious real quick. I hope you’re ready for that. Because I’m not sure
he’s ready for you.”

“You make me sound like some sort of man-eater,” Sabrina
protested. “Gage and I are consenting adults.”

“Fine. As long as you both know what you’re consenting to.”
Molly flicked stray bits of popcorn off the comforter.

“You were the one who suggested that we do things together,
remember?” Sabrina reminded her.

“Yes,
things
,” Molly wailed. “Safe things like
talking to each other over takeout. Not sex. At least, not yet. Sex is
not
safe — at least not with you.”

“What is that supposed to mean, Molls?”

Molly sighed. “Nothing. Maybe I’m reading too much into the
situation. It’s just that I’ve known you practically all of my life, Brini. So
I’m going to be concerned.”

“I’m fine. I’m always fine.” Sabrina grabbed a hand of
popcorn from the bag. “You don’t need to worry about me.”

“I’m not worried about you,” Molly said seriously. “I’m
worried about Gage. From what you’ve already told me, you’re not interested in
pursuing a relationship with him. So before you start angling for another shag,
maybe you should ask yourself if maybe — just
maybe
 — he might
be investing more into it than you are. You know … once more, with
feeling?”

“Maybe you should ask yourself if you aren’t projecting your
own relationship with Sebastian onto me,” Sabrina told her. Despite Molly’s
wide range of experience with all of the bad boys, she was still quite naïve.
“You and Sebastian knew you were in love. Not everyone is that lucky, Molls.
Gage and I are two different people.”

The fact was that Sabrina didn’t know what had been knocking
around in Gage’s head while they were having mind-rattling sex. She assumed
nothing. Typical men who were not Sebastian Cole didn’t get sentimental about
things like that. Gage was a typical man, wasn’t he? She was about to explain
this to Molly, but the oven timer went off just in time to prevent further
discourse on sexual ethics.

“I’ll get the food,” Sabrina said, rushing from the room.

The asparagus and mushroom risotto bubbled in the oven
happily. Just as she was slipping an oven mitt over her hand, her cell phone
rang. She retrieved it from the pocket of her cardigan and propped it against
her ear with one shoulder while she opened the oven door. 

“Hey,” Gage said.

“Hey to you too.”

“Have you recovered from last night’s catharsis?” His voice
sounded deep and throaty, like he just woke up from a power nap. Sabrina
blinked her eyelids rapidly to keep from falling into a swoon.

“I’m fine. Great, actually. I’m at Molly’s.”

“A hen session.” She could hear the smile in his voice.

“It’s not what you think,” Sabrina told him hastily. “I
don’t kiss and tell either — at least not in great detail.”

“Damn. That’s too bad. I need all the good PR I can get.”

“Gage,” she sighed.

“So I’m hosting a sponsored event at some Irish pub
downtown,” he went on. “Looks like it’s going to run late.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Then I’m coming straight home so you can pull my hair
some more.”

The plate of risotto tipped precariously in her mitted hand
as a stab of lust rippled through her loins.

“
Gage
.” His name came out in a soft, low protest.
Damn it. He knew exactly what he was doing to her when he primed her with
subtle verbal foreplay. She needed a good long workout at the gym. Running the
treadmill. Hoisting weights. Anything to take her mind off of the smell of his
skin. The moist, steamy aroma of mushrooms wasn’t helping.

As though reading her mind, he added, “You might want to
save your energy if you want to make it ’til morning,” and hung up.

With unsteady hands, Sabrina dumped the risotto in two large
pasta bowls and set them on a serving tray, along with a plate of mixed
berries, smoked Gouda and rye crisps. She found Molly propped up against a
large reading pillow, waiting with ill-concealed glee.

“That was him, wasn’t it?
Wasn’t
it?”

“Yes, it was him,” Sabrina confessed.

“So?”

“Nothing. We just talked.”

“‘We just
talked’
,” Molly mimicked in innocent voice
before she let out a dubious snort. “Oh, c’mon, Brini. That’s exactly what I
used to tell my mom after I heated up with wires with my high school beaux. You
cannot fool me.”

“I’m never going to hear the end of this, am I?” Sabrina
reached for one of the strawberries.

“Look, it’s not like I have anyone else to tell. Sebastian
and I can’t have sex for another three weeks. My convalescing days are boring.”
Molly fell back on the bed and threw a hand over her forehead somewhat
dramatically. She peered at Sabrina from under her fingers hopefully. “Humor
the invalid?” 

“Okay, you win,” Sabrina said, resigned. “I suppose I should
start at the very beginning…”