Jill Shalvis - The Sweetest Thing

There were two words on it: Bite Me.

Tara groaned. “Chloe’s idea of a joke. Can we focus here?”

“I’d rather bite you.”

“Very funny. Look, I get how you might think that the natural progression would be for us to have sex again, but we can’t. I can’t.”

“Because you’re working on yourself.”

So he was listening. “Yes. And because when I’m with you like that, I’m…” She searched for the right word.

“Multi-orgasmic?”

She closed her eyes. “You’re not taking me seriously.”

“On the contrary, I’m taking you very seriously.”

Their gazes collided. Held. And something jumped in her stomach. His eyes were dark and solemn, belying his easy tone. He’d heard everything she’d said. He’d also heard everything she hadn’t said. What she didn’t know was if he agreed with her. “Someone’s going to get their emotions in the wrong place, Ford.” And by someone, she meant her. They had a track record. The last time she let her emotions get tangled up with his, it had been the most painful time of her life. People didn’t recover from that kind of screw-up; they didn’t get second chances.

“Ah,” he said quietly. “Now we’re getting somewhere.” He ran a finger over her jaw. “You’re afraid.”

“Yes. Join me, won’t you?” She gripped his shirt. “Mia-”

“Is amazing.”

“Yes.” Tara let out a breath. “She is. But that’s what I mean. We’re in danger of misplacing emotions-”

“I’m misplacing nothing.” His eyes softened, and he touched her face. “Tara. It’s not the same now.”

Because it was just sex. She swallowed the hurt. “Look, all I need is for you to agree that we should just go back to how we were before.”

“Before what?”

He knew before what. “Before we made love,” she said uncomfortably, hating him for making her say it out loud.

“At least you know that that’s what we did.” He paused. “How much of this has to do with Logan?”

“None.” She met his gaze head on. “Okay, maybe a little, but not how you think.”

“Well, that makes me feel all better.”

“I tried to explain this to you before,” Tara said with a sigh. “I’ve got some issues. And so do you.”

“I thought this wasn’t about me.”

“It’s a roundabout thing,” she said.

Ford paused. “Okay, help me out here. Who exactly is working on whose issues?”

“I’m working on mine.” She lifted her chin. “And you should be working on yours.”

“And mine are?” he asked mildly.

“Well, for one, you don’t stick.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that you’re laid-back, easygoing, and you like your life the same way,” Tara told him. “And let’s face it, you’re good at just about everything. So when something’s hard, or difficult, or doesn’t drop into your lap, you don’t tend to work at it.”

Only his eyes reflected his tension. “You think things drop in my lap? That I haven’t had to work hard at life?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I know where you came from. I know how you busted your butt to get to where you are, but sailing… face it, Ford. Sailing came easy. And Logan hasn’t been the only man in my life to find his face in the papers. You’ve been there, too. Cosmo had some really interesting things to say about your bachelor life and how you live it.”

“So I haven’t been a monk. Jesus, Tara, I was in my twenties with too much money and women throwing themselves at me. Yeah, I enjoyed it all way too much, but I also eventually grew up.”

“Yes, you got engaged after your gold medal to someone you met while training. You broke it off at the last minute.”

Something flickered in his eyes at that. Annoyance at having to explain himself, probably. Typical male. “Because,” he said, “she’d gotten caught up in the fame and fortune of the sponsorships and wanted to live in the public eye. She went nuts for the attention, and I-” He broke off and frowned. “I wanted my same old, simple life. The life I’d worked hard for.”

“You took a huge contract for sponsorship and then dropped it.”

He stared at her. “You have been reading the papers.”

Truthfully, Tara had devoured every little scrap on him over the years. “Yes.”

He was quiet a moment. “I wasn’t feeling as competitive as I’d been, and I wanted to slow down. It didn’t seem right to stick with that contract when I wasn’t going to be giving them their money’s worth. So yeah, maybe I haven’t exactly done what was expected, but I’ve always done what I felt was right.”

“And us?” Tara asked. “Seventeen years ago?”

His eyes hardened. “You’re the one who walked away.”

“Yes, but you let me.”

“What? Are you kidding me?” He shoved his hands into his hair, and arms up, muscles taut, he turned in a full circle. When he faced her again, a very rare display of temper and frustration was showing on his face. “No one has ever had any luck stopping you when you have your mind set on something, Tara, and you damn well know it.”

“But you never even tried.” Her throat was tight with remembered pain. God, the pain. She didn’t want to ever feel that scared and alone and anxious again. Yes, she’d been the one to walk, but she’d been so young and stupid. “You never even attempted to contact me.”

She’d been okay with that in the end. Because the clean break had given her the time to get over the heartbreak without having to constantly relive it. But it was bothering her now, she realized. Deeply. She knew Ford felt very strongly about her, but she wasn’t sure he felt strongly enough. Certainly not enough to want to stick for real, for the long haul. And with him, she was beginning to realize she could handle no less.

Sure, back then he’d been willing to make things work, but the promise and drive of a teenager didn’t mean that it would have. And what did teenagers know about love anyway? If he’d really been right for her, wouldn’t he have followed after her, or at least tried?

She knew he’d wanted to do the right thing by her, she believed that. And he was a good guy: reliable, warm, caring… but she could only go on what she knew. And she knew she hadn’t been important enough to him.

She had no reason to think now would be any different.

“I remember things differently,” he said quietly. “I remember that you gave up. You ran. I’d have gladly taken it to that happy-ever-after you were too guilt-ridden to allow yourself.”

She swallowed hard against both the recrimination in his voice and the truth of that statement. “What’s done is done,” she said. “And it’s not just us now. There’s Mia. We can’t play at this anymore, Ford, not when so much is at stake. She’s fragile and working through her adopted parents’ split. We can’t mess her up. We can’t.” She turned away, then changed her mind. He deserved the truth. “It’s just that if by some miracle we made this work now, then…” She swallowed hard and whispered, “then maybe we really might have been able to work it out back then, too. And that kills me, Ford. All that pain I caused… for nothing.”

Looking stunned, he stared down at her. “Tara,” he said softly, regret heavy in his voice. “You can’t keep punishing yourself, sabotaging your life, your own happiness for your past.”

She’d never really realized it but he was right. Deep down she felt she needed to be punished for giving up Mia.

Ford was watching her, eyes solemn. “I have all those thoughts too, you know,” he said. “The guilt. You’re not alone in this.”

She let out a breath. “How do you always know what I’m thinking?”

Running his thumb along her jaw, he let out a small smile. “It’s all over your face. You made a decision back then. It was the right decision for you. Don’t let it eat away at you now. It’s a new chapter. Turn the page.”

He was still touching her face, his other hand low on her back, holding her against him, and she fought the urge to turn her face into his palm. “So if I turn the page, then what?”

“Your choice,” he said. “It always was. But know this. You’re not alone. There are two of us now. Actually, there are three.”

She dropped her forehead to his chest. He was big and warm and strong. Strong enough to share her burdens, at least for this moment. She shifted closer without even realizing it, then closer still. His heart was beating calm and even. His eyes were warm as he looked at her.

Into her.

She thought about how he’d said that he felt all the same things that she did, and an old, familiar closeness and tenderness welled up within her. She lifted her head and leaned back against the closed pantry door. “Ford?”

“Yeah?” He was steady and even. A rock.

Her rock.

Tired of thinking, tired of trying to keep in mind a viable reason why they needed to steer clear of each other, she followed her gut and put her lips on his. Which was when the door of the pantry suddenly opened behind her, and she spilled out, right into Logan’s waiting arms.

What the hell?” Logan stared down at Tara in surprise, then lifted his head and eyed Ford.

Before Tara could budge, Chloe came into the kitchen. She took one look at Tara-in a Logan-and-Ford sandwich-and tossed up her hands. “I swear to God, I don’t get it.” With a shake of her head, she pivoted and walked out.

Logan was still sizing up Ford.

Who was sizing up Logan right back.

Tara pushed free of both men. “This is awkward. I’m going to go finish my work.” She’d planned on going into town, but she didn’t want to go too far away. She grabbed the vacuum cleaner and headed up the stairs. When in doubt, vacuum. In fact, she was a vacuuming demon, well into the second bedroom, when two arms reached around her and turned the machine off.