Rachel Gibson - Truly Madly Yours

His table looked out onto the dance floor, pitched in darkness and filled with slow shifting bodies, moving to the sensual rhythm and languid blues flowing from five-foot speakers. Slivers of light shone on the band and several rows of track lighting illuminated the front of the bar. But mostly the tavern was as dark as sin so a person could get away with sinful things.

Nick didn’t have any particular sin planned, but the night was still young and Lonna was more than willing.

Delaney locked her fingers behind her old boyfriend’s neck and moved with him to the slow pulse of blues guitar. Being so close to Tommy again felt a little like deja vu, only different because the arms holding her now belonged to a man, not a boy. As a boy he’d had no rhythm, he still didn’t. Back then, he’d always smelled like Irish Spring soap. Now he wore cologne, not the fresh scent she’d always associated with him. He’d been her first love. He’d made her heart pound and her pulse race. She felt neither of those things now.

“Remind me again,” he spoke next to Delaney’s ear, “why can’t we be friends?”

“Because your wife hates me.”

“Oh, yeah.” He pulled her a little closer, but kept his hands on the small of her back. “But I like you.”

His shameless flirting had started an hour ago, right after Lisa had left. He’d propositioned her twice, but was so charming about it, she couldn’t get angry with him. He made her laugh and made her forget that he’d broken her heart by choosing Helen.

“Why wouldn’t you sleep with me in high school?” he asked.

She’d wanted to-really wanted to. She’d been madly in love and filled with the juices of raging teen hormones. But overpowering her desire for Tommy had been the terror that her mother and Henry would find out she’d been with a boy. “You dumped me.”

“No. You dumped me.”

“Only after I caught you boffing Helen.”

“Oh, yeah.”

She pulled back far enough to look into his face, barely visible on the darkened dance floor. His laughter joined hers when she said, “That was horrible.”

“It sucked. I always felt really bad about what happened, but I never knew what I should say to you after that,” he confessed. “I knew what I wanted to say, but I didn’t think you’d like it.”

“What?”

His teeth flashed white in the murky light. “That I was sorry you caught me ‘boffing’ Helen, but could we still go out anyway?”

There had been a time when she’d written his name all over her notebooks, when she’d envisioned living the picket-fence dream with Tommy Markham.

“Would you have gone for it?”

“No,” she answered, truly grateful he wasn’t her husband.

He leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on her forehead. “That’s what I remember the most about you. The word ‘no’,” he said against her skin. The music stopped and he pulled back and smiled into her face. “I’m glad you’re back.” He escorted her to the table and grabbed his jacket. “See ya around.”

Delaney watched him leave and reached for the beer she’d left on the table. As she raised the bottle to her lips, she lifted her hair from her neck with her free hand. Tommy hadn’t changed much since high school. He was still good-looking. Still charming and still a hound. She almost felt sorry for Helen-almost.

“Planning a date with your old boyfriend?”

She knew the voice even before she turned around. She lowered the bottle and looked up at the only man who’d caused her more misery than all her old boyfriends combined. “Jealous?” But unlike Tommy, she would never forget what had happened one hot August night with Nick Allegrezza.

“Pea green.”

“Did you come over here to fight with me? Because I don’t want to fight. Like you said the other day, we’re both going to be in your brother’s wedding. Maybe we should try to get along. Be more friendly.”

A slow sensuous smile curved his lips. “How friendly?”

“Friends. Just friends,” she said although she doubted it would ever happen. But maybe they could quit taking swipes at each other. Especially since she always seemed to lose.

“Buddies?”

That might be pushing it. “Okay.”

“Pals?”

“Sure.”

He shook his head. “It’ll never happen.”

“Why?”

He didn’t answer. Instead he plucked the bottle from her hand and set it on the table. The singer of the small blues band dug into a slow sweet rendering of “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” as Nick dragged her onto the crowded dance floor. He pulled her against him, then swayed his hips to the sensuous soul music. She was jostled from behind as she tried to put a little distance between her breasts and his chest, but his big hands on her back kept her just where he wanted her. She had no choice but to lightly place her palms on his broad shoulders. The ends of his hair brushed her knuckles like the whisper of cool silk, and the heat from his hot, hard body seeped through layers of denim and flannel and sweater to warm her skin. Unlike Tommy, rhythm poured through Nick, easy and natural, like a languid stream in no great hurry to get anywhere. “You could’ve asked me to dance,” she said, speaking past the heavy thud of her heart.

“You’re right. I could have.”

“This is the nineties. Most men have abandoned the cave.” The scent of him filled her head with the smell of clean cotton and warm man.

“Most men like your old boyfriend?”

“Yes.”

“Tommy thinks with his dick.”

“So do you.”

“There you go again,” he paused and his voice lowered a fraction, “thinking you know so much about me.”

Her stomach knotted in a tangle of conflicting emotion. Anger and desire, breathless anticipation, and gut-level fear. Tommy Markham, her first love, hadn’t created such chaos within her. Why Nick? He’d been nasty to her more times than he’d been nice. They had a past she’d thought she’d buried. “Everyone in town knows you spend time with quite a few women.”

He pulled back far enough to look down at her. Light from the stage sliced across the left half of his handsome face. “Even if that were true, there’s a difference. I’m not married.”

“Married or not, indiscriminate sex is still disgusting.”

“Is that what you told your boyfriend?”

“My relationship with Tommy is none of your business.”

“Relationship? Are you going to meet him later for some of that indiscriminate sex you find so disgusting?” His hands moved up her back to the base of her skull. “Did he get you hot?” He plowed his fingers through her hair from beneath, holding her head in his palms. His eyes were as hard as granite.

She pushed at his shoulders, but he tightened his grasp, pressing his strong fingers into her scalp. He wasn’t hurting her, but he wasn’t letting her go either. “You’re sick.”

He lowered his face and asked against her lips, “Does he turn you on?”

She sucked in her breath.

“Make you ache?”

Delaney’s heart pounded in her chest and she couldn’t answer. He lightly brushed his mouth over hers and slid the tip of his tongue across the seam of her lips. A current of pleasure swept across her breasts. Her body’s immediate reaction surprised and alarmed her. Nick was the last man for whom she wanted to feel such aching desire. Their past was too ugly. She meant to push him away, but he turned up the heat, and the kiss turned carnal. His tongue entered her mouth for a long hot assault, devouring her, consuming her resistance, and creating a delicious suction with his lips.

She wanted to hate him. She wanted to hate him even as she kissed him back. Even as her tongue encouraged him. Even as she wound her arms around his neck and clung to him as the only steady thing in a dizzy chaotic world. His lips were warm. Firm. Demanding she kiss him back with the same fiery passion.

He slid his big hands down her sides, then slipped them beneath the loose edge of her sweater. She felt his fingers lightly caress the small of her back, the stroke of each across her skin. Then his warm callused palms slipped to her waist, and his thumbs skimmed her abdomen, fanning lightly over her heated flesh. The knot in her stomach tightened even more and the sensation of pinpricks tingled her chest, drawing her nipples taut as if he’d touched her there. He made her forget she stood on a crowded dance floor. He made her forget everything. Her hands drifted to the sides of his neck, and she tangled her fingers in his hair. Then the kiss changed, became almost gentle, and he softly pressed his thumbs into her navel. He slid his thumbs beneath the waistband of her jeans and pulled her tight against the long hard bulge just to the right of his button fly.

Her own choked moan brought an instant of sanity, and she tore her mouth from his. She gasped for breath, ashamed and appalled at her body’s uncontrolled reaction. He’d done this to her before, only that time she hadn’t stopped him.

She pushed at him and his hands fell to his sides. When she finally looked into his face, his gaze was hooded and watchful. Then his jaw hardened and his eyes narrowed.

“You shouldn’t have come back. You should have stayed gone,” he said, then he turned and forced his way through the throng of people.

Stunned by her behavior and his and the desire still surging through her veins, Delaney was unable to move for several long moments. Blues continued to pump from the big speaker, and the couples around her swayed to the beat as if nothing disturbing had just happened. Only Delaney knew that it had. It wasn’t until the music stopped that she stumbled back to her table. Maybe he was right. Maybe she should have stayed gone, but she’d sold her soul for money. A lot of money, and she couldn’t leave now.

Delaney shoved her arms into her jacket and made her way to the front entrance. There was only one way she was going to survive the next seven months. Revert back to plan A and avoid Nick as much as possible. With her head down, she stepped out into the brisk air. Her breath hung in front of her face as she zipped her coat.