Chapter 17 #2
“I wish I could tell you.”
“I guess I’ll never really understand it.”
“You know, I’m sure my doctor friend in New York would talk it through with you. I could call him next week and arrange something, if you’re interested.”
“You really think he would?”
“We worked very closely on the Gooding trial and spent a lot of nights eating cold Chinese together. He’d do it for me if I asked him to.”
“Thank you.”
“Now can I have just one little smile?”
“I can do better than a smile.”
His voice was rough with desire when he said, “Yeah?”
“Uh huh.”
He touched his lips to hers for a light kiss, and was startled when she reached up to keep him from pulling away.
Her mouth opened under his in invitation.
He had forgotten how potent her kisses could be, so sweet and yet so hot he melted into her. Their tongues mated in a dance as familiar to him as anything in his life. When he couldn’t stand another minute without having more of her, he finally drew back.
From the stunned look on her face, he could tell she felt all the same things.
He kissed the hand that had wrapped around his and then her lips again. “I have a sudden burning need to get to the hotel.”
“Since I seem to have the same need why are we just sitting here?”
He laughed and shifted the car into gear. When he would have floored it, he had to remind himself to drive slowly so he wouldn’t scare her.
The sun was setting over Narragansett Bay by the time they crossed the Newport Bridge and took the exit for the City by the Sea.
“It’s as pretty as I remember,” Carly said as they drove down narrow cobblestone streets with Colonial-era houses and gas-powered streetlights. “I can’t believe I’ve been less than an hour from here all these years.”
“Now that you’ve conquered your fear of cars, the whole world is open to you again. You can go anywhere and do anything you want.”
“When you put it that way, it’s sort of overwhelming.”
“Do you think you might want to go to college?”
She shrugged and rested her head against the leather seat.
“Seriously, if you could do anything you wanted, what would it be?”
Turning so she could see him, she said, “I don’t know.”
“Come on,” he urged. “There has to be something.”
“If I tell you, it’ll freak you out.”
“No, it won’t.”
She laughed. “Trust me, it will.”
“Okay, now I have to know.” When she still didn’t answer, he tried pleading. “Carly, tell me.”
Hesitating for another moment, she finally said, “I want to have a baby.” She said it so softly he almost didn’t hear her.
Almost.
He took his eyes off the road to glance over at her.
“I told you it would freak you out.”
“Do I look freaked out?” he asked indignantly.
“Yes!” She snorted with laughter. “You look like you just got hit by a bus.”
“I do not!”
“Yes, you do.”
They were still playfully arguing when he pulled up in front of a downtown hotel and handed the keys to a valet. Brian carried their two small bags, and within minutes, they were riding the elevator to the third floor. Their room looked out over Newport Harbor, which was packed with boats.
“Is this all right?” he asked, taking a quick look at the sunset.
“It’s beautiful. I can’t believe you arranged it so quickly.”
“My mother might’ve helped me,” he confessed.
She smiled. “Why do I feel so shy now that we’re finally here?”
“We don’t have to do anything. I’m happy to be in the same room with you.”
“You always did know just what to say to me.” She put her arms around him. “Didn’t you?”
He kissed her cheek and then her lips before he hugged her tight against him. “Do you want to take a walk or get some dinner? We can do anything you want.”
“Anything?”
“You name it.”
She surprised him when she reached for the hem of his polo shirt and tugged it up and over his head. “Anything at all?” she asked, looking up at him with a coy smile as she turned her attention to his chest. Her tongue flicked his nipple, drawing a gasp from him.
He took as much of that as he could handle before he buried his hands in her hair and captured her mouth in a kiss that went from zero to ninety in about two seconds flat.
“Jesus, Carly,” he whispered as he unbuttoned her blouse and pushed it off her shoulders.
“No one has ever been able to fire me up the way you do.”
Her face clouded briefly, and Brian wanted to shoot himself for reminding her, especially right then, that there had been others. He framed her face with his hands and looked into her eyes. “You’re the only one I’ve ever loved, the only one who’s ever really mattered to me. Do you believe me?”
She nodded and reached for him, wanting more. Her kiss told him she wanted everything.
Pulling frantically at clothes, they were suddenly unable to wait another minute for what they’d lived fifteen years without. As her bra fell to the floor, Brian tightened his arms around her and trembled at the feel of her soft breasts pressed to his chest.
She closed her hand around his erection, and he gritted his teeth against the burning need that spiraled through him.
“Carly,” he whispered as he caressed her face and leaned in to kiss her.
“I had forgotten.”
“What, honey?”
“How you feel.” She stroked him gently as her other hand cruised over his chest. “How it feels to be with you like this. I thought I remembered, but I didn’t.”
“There’s no substitute for the real thing,” he said as he urged her onto the king-sized bed. “What we wouldn’t have given for a room like this back in the day, huh?”
“We had that one night in Ann Arbor.” She wrapped her arms around him. “I’ve relived it a million times.”
He nuzzled her breasts. “You don’t have to relive it anymore, because we have every night for the rest of our lives to make new memories.
” His hand traveled down to find her ready for him.
“I don’t ever want to go to bed again without you next to me.
” He teased her with his finger as he tugged her nipple into his mouth.
She gasped and squirmed under him. “I’m so afraid this is a dream, and I’m going to wake up to find you’re still in New York, that you never came home.”
Raising his head so he could see her eyes, he kissed her softly. “For the first time since I was last with you, I’m right where I belong, Carly, and I’ll never leave you again. I promise.”
“Did you bring, you know, protection?”
“Yes, but we don’t need it.”
“I’m not on the pill anymore. There wasn’t any point.”
“I know.” He kissed her breasts and worked at keeping his ravenous desire in check, afraid he would scare her if she had any idea how badly he wanted her.
She tipped his face up. “But we can’t just—”
“Why not?”
Her withering look made him laugh.
“You want a baby. Isn’t that what you told me?”
“Yes, but—”
“Since I wouldn’t want you going to anyone else to get what you want, you’ll have to settle for me.
” As his tongue caressed hers, he entered her slowly, taking care to remember how long it had been for her.
Rocking his hips against her, he looked down at her with a smug smile and whispered against her lips, “I told you I wasn’t freaked out. ”