“Why aren’t you still married? It sounds like you two were perfect for each other.” I hated that my words came out as sharp as they did, but I had to know.
“Do you want the same things you wanted when you were seventeen?”
I flashed on that tiny apartment in the Bronx, cooking for Thomas and flinching when he told me I was a fat slob. Yet I’d stayed. I’d wanted it.
“No,” I said vehemently.
“We fell out of love—it happens. But just because we didn’t make it as a couple, I’m supposed to hate her?”
“She sure doesn’t hate you,” I mumbled, and suddenly there was a hand under my chin, tipping my head upward. And warm gray-blue eyes, staring deeply into mine.
“Is she a little dependent on me? Maybe. Maybe I’ve let her get too dependent. But it doesn’t bother me, and it shouldn’t bother you. There’s nothing but friendship between Missy and me. That’s it.”
I started to say something, but wisely bit my tongue. Because those eyes were burning into mine, almost in a hypnotic kind of way, and I wanted to see what he’d say next. Oscar was a man of few words, so when he used them, I liked to hear them all.
Good thing, too, because what he said next . . .
“In case you haven’t noticed, my attention is focused right now on one woman only. And she’s pretty much got me twisted up in knots, in all the best kinds of ways.”
“Twisted?”
“Mmm-hmm,” he breathed, his hands curving over mine on top of the window, his breath puffing against my face as he lowered his head down toward mine. “All twisted up.”
“Twisted up like . . . head over heels?” I asked, holding my breath. He thought a moment, then kissed me on the tip of my nose.
“Exactly like that.”
Oh. Shit. But as I waited for something like panic to set in, something else entirely happened. Warm fuzzies bloomed outward from my belly into my hands and feet, currents zipping out and back again. I tugged his face farther through the window.
“Don’t leave me again, okay?” I whispered, and he nodded, dipping his head down, running his nose along the side of my face, nuzzling into the crook just below my ear.
“Can I please get out of the car now?” I asked, sitting up higher on the seat, curling my legs underneath me and in the process, flashing him my thighs as my robe rose higher and higher. He started to nod again, but then thought better of it.
“How about I just take you home?” he murmured, beginning to drop tiny kisses all along my jaw, sweeping back along to the hollow of my neck. I shivered, and he took that to mean yes, yes get in this truck and drive me the hell home.
And he did.
I climbed all over him in the truck, sitting on his lap, straddling his lap, laughing as he drove while looking over my shoulder, right hand on the wheel and left hand fumbling under my robe. I kissed his neck, bit his ear, sucked on his jaw, and got my hand halfway down his jeans before he turned into his driveway and pulled me out of the cab and onto him. His hands were everywhere as he picked me up, this time not over his shoulder but tangled across him like he was wearing a Natalie sweater, legs wrapped around his middle, arms wrapped around his neck, my robe dangling from my elbows with my T-shirt up around my neck.
His eyes were wild as he devoured my skin, almost tripping up the front porch steps in his need to get me inside . . . to get me inside. And when we saw the basket of muffins nestled next to the front door, he kicked it aside, the front door banging open wide.
He fucked me on the stairs in the entryway, with his pants around his ankles and my panties torn from one thigh. He fucked me with the front door wide open, with the truck lights still on and the driver’s-side door still hanging ajar, the radio still turned on.
And the muffins stood alone, cold and untouched.
Chapter 18
I stayed in Bailey Falls all day Sunday, and Sunday night as well. I’d planned to get back into the city and get some laundry done, see my parents, get some work done, see some friends, but man oh man, when a guy like Oscar looks at you from across the room, and wants to figure out exactly how many times he can make you come by his tongue alone . . . time tends to stand still.
So I took the early train Monday morning, raced to my apartment, threw on the first clean anything I could find in my closet, and made it to work only an hour late. Well. Ninety minutes.
I walked quickly into my office, keeping my head down to sneak in under the radar, but when my coworker Liz saw me, she shrieked, “It’s not an urban legend! Natalie has returned!”
So much for under the radar.
“Hey, Liz, how’s it going?” I replied, smiling and nodding and trying like hell to get into my office quickly. There was something stuck to my back that had been itching the entire way uptown, and I’d been scratching since Twenty-second Street. I slipped out of my jacket, tossed it across the back of my chair, and waved her in.