Something About You (Just Me & You) (4 page)

“So you think it’s that simple.”

“I do,” he breathed.

He was so close she could detect the unique smell of his
skin — wood, salt and white soap — and feel the contour of lean
muscle pressed against her. The situation could easily go rogue. He may have
been one of the world’s best kissers; however, all over the planet, at
countless wedding receptions, possibly at this very moment in time, single,
opportunistic men were likely in no short supply, prowling around punch bowls
and cake tables, lying in wait for women just like herself.

“So, what d’you think?” he asked.

“More, please.” She sighed in supplication.

Gage’s throat rumbled with low laughter, and then he dipped
his head to hers again. One kiss bled into another as the sky turned to indigo
and a full moon bloomed on the horizon. Each kiss had a different mood and
color, sensual cherry-red; languid blue; and hot, passionate white, the last of
which made her instinctively bury her hands in his hair.

When his lips traveled to her collarbone, she became keenly
aware of the nagging void between her legs. How much of her attraction was
fueled by the alcohol and how much was pure animal desire was a matter of
conjecture. But it was only one night. They were only kissing. After tonight,
she’d never see the groomsman from Iowa again.

“Lilies and incense,” he muttered against the pulse point in
her neck. “God, you smell incredible.”

“It’s my perfume,” Sabrina explained. “
Passage d’Enfer
.”

“Is that French for ‘a merry stroll through hell’?”

She giggled at the smile in his voice.

“See?” Gage asked as he nuzzled the small, sensitive cove
under her earlobe. “Demonstration has its merits.”

“Mmm. I could do this all night long.” The port was speaking
again. This man, with his flame-colored hair, body ink, and gritty sense of
humor, was irreverently and cut-to-the-chase hot. The kind of man who’d
probably still have sex in the back of a car, given the opportunity. And at a
lot of weddings.

Most likely whenever and wherever he wanted.

Not her type at all …  

Her practical side rapped the gavel sharply, and she
struggled to a sitting position. Making out with a stranger. Who did that,
anyway? Certainly not her.

“First base is as far as you get,” she warned him. “Plan on
kicking a lot of dirt, Fitzgerald.”

Might as well get it out in the open now.

He chuckled. “‘First base?’ I don’t think I’ve heard that
term since high school. Thinking of the good old days?”

“Hardly good.” Gage didn’t need to know that she’d spent
those years securing her position as class valedictorian because a merit
scholarship was the only way she could afford college. No, heavy petting had
been Molly’s forte, not Sabrina’s.

“I think I’ve had too much port.” She ran her fingers
through her bangs. The scenery had gone pleasantly soft-focus.

“You look cold.” He draped his tuxedo jacket over her
shoulders and pulled the lapels together tightly. She could smell the fresh
green scent of his shampoo on the collar of his jacket, highly seductive
because it made such a personal statement about its wearer. She might end up
alone. But she wouldn’t scratch the occasional foray into passion off the list.
Years from now when she sorted through her life’s memories, tonight would be
one of the more exotic highlights.

This would be the night she kissed a stranger under a full
moon.

Boldly wrapping her fingers around the ends of his bowtie,
she pulled him closer and lightly nipped at his mouth.

He grinned. “All night long, huh?”

**

Sabrina awoke abruptly to the sound of a distant lawn mower
and the realization that she was being spooned.

Gage was curled around her protectively from behind. The
parts of her that weren’t enveloped by his large body were chilled to the bone.

She cautiously opened her eyes to an uninspiring view of
empty port bottles lolling on the grass. She shrugged one of his arms aside,
careful not to wake him, to rub away the sleep and clots of mascara from her
eyes. One grizzled claw stepped into her line of vision. Then another. The
peacock surveyed her cryptically for a few moments, jerkily tilting its head
from side to side. Then with a thin, focused cry that could etch glass, it
unfurled its train and cupped it into an impressive concave bow of shivering
blue, gold, and emerald eyes.

“Wrong species, buddy,” she muttered, wriggling out from
under Gage’s weight. Startled by the movement, the peacock packed away its tail
feathers and scuttled off. The sound of the lawn mower grew closer. She pulled
herself to a seated position and waited for the wooziness to hit.

She glanced down at the sleeping man on the ground beside
her. He had to be a heavy sleeper if he didn’t wake up in this din. In the
morning sun, his skin looked even paler and his freckles more pronounced.
Memories of the night before came back to her in random order. Not just the
kissing and heavy petting, but the lulls, punctuated by idle conversation.

Gage had regaled her with stories of rooming with the
much-younger Sebastian in college. She knew he’d graduated with a degree in
radio-television-film and considered himself a true independent. She couldn’t
remember exactly what she’d told him about herself. Somehow, Theo’s
biodegradable coffee cups had come up, which led to her telling him about the
legislator’s eco-friendly platform.

After that, the conversation grew hazy.

Then they’d shut up and kissed some more, only his hands
became more adventurous, boldly exploring the contours of her hips, thighs and
breasts. He hadn’t taken it any farther, though; exhausted by the port, they’d
both drifted into oblivion.

Sabrina didn’t know what was apropos now. Should she wake
him? Suggest grabbing breakfast tacos at a downtown diner with the freshly
bedded, hungover twenty- and thirty-something hipster set?
No
, she
decided firmly. That might suggest that she was up for more serious high jinks.
Having a one-night stand with any friend of her best friend’s husband was
particularly verboten.

That would only create complications.

The dull throb in her temples heralded the arrival of a
hangover. Her mouth tasted like the bottom of a hamster’s cage. She wistfully
thought of her queen-sized bed, with its chocolate-colored silk coverlet and
piles of down pillows. But tomorrow was her first day back at the Capitol, and
life’s administrative minutiae had to be dealt with before legislative session
ground into slow gear. There were bills to pay, dry cleaning to pick up, and
coffee beans to grind.

Wedding presents that she still needed to pack up and
return.

She consulted her cell phone. It was almost eight-thirty.
Good. She was still ahead of the day.

She slid off the tux jacket and carefully placed it over
Gage’s shoulders. Then she searched the grounds for her sandals, which she
finally located under a sprinkler head. Avoiding the curious gaze of a trio of
groundskeepers, she pulled up the dew-drenched hem of her dress and scurried
across the lawn to the parking lot in bare feet.

Two cars remained, one of which was her Audi coupe. Four
years into their courtship, Jackson had titled her his old car — if a
luxury vehicle with less than twenty thousand miles on it could be considered
expendable — replacing her ancient Volkswagen Jetta, held together by
crossed fingers and a mystery wire. Her ex-fiancé was one of few people in a
rising economic class who could afford to make such grand gestures.

The other car was a red Pontiac GTO convertible, circa early
1970s. It appeared to have the original paint job. The car was well maintained,
but not fastidiously so. Sabrina had noticed that the amount of attention men
gave to their vehicles was almost always inversely proportionate to their
bedroom skills.

Which explained a lot about both her sex life and Gage
Fitzgerald’s.

Once safely inside her Audi, she started the engine and
cranked the heater to full blast. So there it was. In a nutshell: She, maid of
honor, had gotten drunk at a wedding reception and made out with the best man,
an auburn-headed Iowan who drove a vintage babe magnet, almost going to second
base — but not quite. She thought of her hand tentatively snaking down his
thigh, circling the pronounced bulge in his trousers.

It didn’t matter that her hangover was from vintage port
rather than cheap wine coolers or that she’d picked her way over peacock
droppings instead of ashtrays. Skulking away from the scene of passion was
reserved for moody teenagers and first-year college students.

It was entirely and unutterably cliché.

And now that Molly’s un-wedding was over, there was little
chance she’d see Gage again.

In spite of Sabrina’s well-laid plans to get her personal life
in order, the weekend ended all too soon without yielding fruitful results. All
she’d accomplished after she’d straggled home on Sunday was a call to a
downtown Chinese delivery joint, a John Hughes movie marathon and a blackout
nap on the couch.

Now it was the beginning of a brand new week.

She pushed through the hangers in her closet, which boasted
a selection of clothing in sedate shades of gray, charcoal, brown and black
appropriate for women in her profession. None of her shirts displayed cleavage,
nor were any of the dresses and skirts cut above the knee. The colors in her
wardrobe were lackluster, but everything was stylish, expensive and dry-clean
only. Finally, she pulled out a charcoal skirt and jacket and a matching pair
of high pumps. Her butterfly build and less than imposing height put her at an
automatic disadvantage. She relied on wardrobe and attitude to command the
respect of everyone she dealt with under the Dome.

She frantically searched around for the white silk shirt she
typically paired with the suit and eventually found it crumpled under the
hamper. She hastily stuck it on a hanger and hung it on the shower rail. While
the steam from the hot spray smoothed out the wrinkles, she peered into the
bathroom mirror and examined the fret lines on her brow. This morning, they
looked even deeper — probably due to inadequate hydration after all that
drink. As she rubbed pineapple-papaya scrub into her ravaged complexion, she
noticed that the tender area around her mouth was still chafed from Gage’s
ministrations. She recalled the lushness of his lips and the way his mouth
tasted of oak, salt and port and felt an inexplicable longing. If sex were a
meal and his kisses appetizers, she couldn’t imagine what the main course would
be like.

Okay, she could.

But she wasn’t going to.

I don’t dare …

There was
something
about Gage Fitzgerald. A
dangerous kind of something that made her skin tingle at the thought of how his
broad shoulders filled out his tuxedo jacket. Or the way his large hand
steadied the small of her back as they kissed.

The raw attraction between them had been off the charts. 

He had probably been on a plane back to Iowa the day before
when she was nursing her hangover with a hot cup of tea. Today, he was likely
busy … well, doing whatever heavy lifting he did to stay so naturally
buff, having forgotten her completely.

She had to focus on her job as Theo’s second in command.

Sabrina paused in the kitchen to nibble down a
strawberry-filled toaster pastry straight out of the foil packet and survey her
beautifully decorated home in dismay.
These older houses are money pits
,
Jackson had warned her before they purchased it together. He had been right,
but Sabrina had been too smitten with the property to care. They had hired
skilled laborers to refinish the old longleaf pine floors, strip the walls of
the peeling wallpaper and repaint the interior and exterior. But the old pipes
still creaked and groaned whenever a tap was turned, and the hot water heater
was perpetually on the fritz. The front porch listed ominously to the south, a
sure sign that foundation problems would soon be staring her down.

In retrospect, it probably hadn’t been wise to blow a
substantial chunk of her savings on the large ruby-upholstered sectional,
intricately carved Moroccan secretary desk and teak coffee table. Or two sets
of Egyptian cotton linens, one for the master bedroom and one for the spare. At
least the trio of Peter Max originals that hung over the fireplace was hers —
an engagement gift from Jackson — as were the bed, desk and stackable
washer/dryer. 

Before she got engaged, the number on her monthly stub was a
constant reminder.
This is why I can’t have nice things.
Sabrina had
been constantly aware that her public servant’s salary was disproportionately
unimpressive compared to her title as Theo’s Chief of Staff. When she and
Jackson agreed to buy the house, she finally felt as though life were throwing
her at least one concession.

She would finally have her own home.

The only problem was that a home in Cadence Corners had been
made possible only by Jackson’s impressive income and the promise of Marriage,
Inc.

Sabrina felt sweat bead her brow. How was she going to make
the mortgage payments on her own? She couldn’t ask Theo for a raise, even
though she was long overdue for one. Molly’s harebrained “save the day” idea was
to lease out the spare bedroom. Sabrina peered into her pristine kitchen and
had an invasive vision of the range top caked with spaghetti sauce.

No boarder. No way.

There had to be another alternative.

After she tossed her messenger bag and freshly laundered gym
gear in the back of the Audi, she drove to the neighborhood gym for her
early-morning workout. Forty-five minutes and a quick shower later, she was
back behind the wheel. She nipped by Café Firenze, her favorite coffee spot,
and placed her usual order, two large Styrofoam cups of latte — one for
the road and the other for the office.

Sabrina’s morning drive through Cadence Corners to the regal
Capitol complex in downtown Austin was the most relaxing part of her daily
routine. It was hard for her to believe that her childhood neighborhood, with
all its genteel shabbiness, was quickly becoming one of the most coveted places
to live. When her parents had moved into a two-bedroom cottage two houses down
from the Parkers’, the Corners had been the only alternative for young couples
not fortunate enough to have been born into the old wealth of Peyton Heights or
established enough to afford the bright, shiny newness of Westin, neighborhoods
that bordered the Corners’ perfectly square, almost precision-mitered
parameters.

But compared to its stuffier, well-kempt siblings, the
Corners was the aging flower child of what neighborhood old-timers called
“Disappearing Austin.” It had funk, verve and vibe. Elderly oak and elm trees
leaned over the streets protectively, long-standing reminders of the
neighborhood’s importance as not only a registered historic district but the
first freedman’s town west of the Mississippi. A drugstore, television repair,
barbershop, dress boutique, dry cleaner, and nursery — mom ’n’ pop
holdovers from the fifties and early sixties — gave the neighborhood a
distinctly retro feel.

Sabrina was a Corners lifer and had no intention of pulling
up roots. She loved the modest craftsman-style bungalows painted the shades of
pastel mints with their porch swings and handkerchief-sized flower gardens.
People who had no sentimental attachment to the neighborhood — people like
Jackson — saw the charming properties as one more return on an investment.
But whenever she walked past Newton’s Drugstore and caught a waft of bacon
cheeseburger straight off the grill of the store’s soda fountain, it reminded
her that home was far sweeter for dyed-in-the-wool Corners girls.

Sabrina also never tired of seeing her neighborhood just as
the sun was rising. Workers at the local nursery unloaded large barrels of
gold, bronze and maroon chrysanthemums from the back of a truck. Across the
street at Newton’s Drugstore, Pete Carlyle, pharmacist and mild-mannered
neighborhood eccentric, was turning the “Open” sign around on the door. As far
back as Sabrina could remember, the widower Newton had sported small
Coke-bottle glasses and long gray hair tied back in a ponytail. He was also well
known for his eclectic wardrobe, which wasn’t always soothing to the eyes. This
morning, Pete was keeping Austin weird in rag-tag jeans, red Converse high-tops
and a bright purple T-shirt that said “You know there’s a pill for that.”

Sabrina turned onto Congress Avenue, the busy main
thoroughfare that took her to the Dome, and let her mind go blissfully blank.
She idly tuned the radio to KCAP, a local station known for its obscure
progressive rock and call-in shows featuring Gen-X sex therapists. The morning
program blasted through the airwaves. She rolled her eyes at the familiar
jingle.

“Fitz and Giggles” was a stupid name for an equally inane
show. Shock jock Fitz carried the program while sidekick Gideon, a.k.a.
“Giggles,” played straight man. When the two men weren’t engaging in
dude
-punctuated
banter, they were looking up old girlfriends on social networking sites,
perusing online dating profiles and giving single male callers advice on how to
close the deal.

Reprehensible pigs that they were.

Yet in the three short months since it had first aired,
“Fitz and Giggles” had rocketed to the top of the morning radio show charts.
Men openly embraced the Fitz ethos of “Every man is an island with at least one
hula girl.” Women tuned in just to see how the shock jock would offend them
next. Like sucking the filling out of the occasional Twinkie and perusing
People
magazine, the show was a guilty pleasure Sabrina was loath to claim. She turned
the volume up.

“
Frustrating
 — lemme underscore that — sums
up my weekend, dude,” Fitz grumbled.

“What happened, dude? You didn’t get laid?” Giggles queried
with his trademark chortle.

“Thought it was in the bag, man. I was in a wedding. You
know what you find at weddings, doncha?”

“Hawt chicks.”

“And none of them compliant.”

“Wait a minute, man. You went to a wedding and didn’t get
laid?”

“It is curious, isn’t it? Public displays of matrimony —
well, the post-cake and toast bullshit — were expressly created so members
of the wedding party can get drunk and hook up,” the alpha jock waxed
philosophical. “I did not hook up in the most, ah, corporeal sense of the word.
But I made an honest effort.”

Sabrina reached for her latte. So she’d been spot-on about
men who went to weddings with the sole intention of poaching the available
women. Why was she not surprised?

“—I’m talking about the Maid. Of. Honor, Gideon, my friend,”
he said thickly.

“Whoa! You almost reeled in the big fish?”

“Took me right back to the days of Boone’s Farm and
dry-humping Lacey Adams in the back of my big sister’s ’82 Impala. Only this
woman was — whoa, dude.
Whoa
.”

A brief chorus of Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me”
interrupted Fitz’s reminiscences.

Sabrina groaned. It never ceased to amaze her that in an
enlightened era of gender equality in the workplace, throwbacks like these were
given a public platform for airing their misogynistic grievances.

“So the chick was
hawt
?” Giggles goaded.

“Supremely so. Tiny little thing, all cow eyes and lashes.
Sexy-as-hell voice. Husky, like she just woke up. We mugged, but no offer was
forthcoming. Not that I ever had a prayer. She’s chief food taster and wine
bearer for a state representative … whassis name, Mr. ‘Go, Go Green—’?”

It took only a split-nanosecond for Sabrina’s ears to
register the now-familiar timbre of his radio voice. The wheels of the Audi
squealed to a stop as her foot hit the brakes reflexively. Fitz.
Fitzgerald
.

Gage.

“Oh, hell!” The coffee that hadn’t seeped into her linen
skirt was splattered over the car’s cream-colored leather interior. Adding
injury to insult, the Audi lurched forward suddenly, another victim of Austin’s
many arm’s-width-distance tailgaters. Sabrina pulled down the visor to procure
her proof of insurance and heard a scraping sound as the car behind her backed
away.

“Seriously?” she wailed as the other vehicle navigated its
way around the Audi and quickly scooted away. Tears of frustration sprang to
her eyes.

“—goes to show you that when it comes to Type-A career
women, the cuffs aren’t always as stiff as the collar,” Gage concluded happily.

Sabrina dropped her head to the steering wheel in
supplication at the bawls of laughter that erupted over the airwaves. Summoning
up her bluest language, she beat her temples against the wheel softly,
half-aware of the curious stares coming from the drivers in slow-passing
vehicles beside her.

She whipped her car into the moving lane, cutting off a
Prius filled with nerdy Silicon Corridor carpoolers. Her knuckles whitened as
she gripped the wheel tightly. Gage Fitzgerald had let her believe he was in
Austin for the weekend. She didn’t need to wonder why. First base?
Right.
He thought he could hit it out of the ballpark. As long as she didn’t know shit
from shinola, he could bed her and bolt the next morning without leaving a
phone number.

Playing the small-town Iowa boy had been a nice touch. He
made her think he was teaching her a thing or two about how the boys in Hayseed
did things back home. But oh, he knew exactly what he was doing as his teeth
gently tugged on her earlobe. He was seducing her in the same way urban bar
prowlers did. Toward the same end goal.

What a jackass …

Still steaming, she parked the car in the garage and went
around back to inspect the damage. The license plate was tipped at an odd
angle, but the car had survived. Thank heaven for small mercies. The last thing
she needed was to scrounge up the cash to make an insurance deductible.

Sabrina pushed thoughts of auburn-haired pretenders aside.
Today she officially resumed her life. Her real one.