Chapter 23
Anne
Seize the moment sounds good. But it was a lot easier said than done.
In my imagination, the scene went like this: Joe and I stumbled through the doorway and fell into each other’s arms, tearing at our clothes, overcome by passion.
But in real life, Joe, after unloading the cart and letting the dog out, did not do me against the wall of his mother’s kitchen.
He did not ravish me, Bridgerton-style, on the stairs.
I stood frozen in the middle of his room, my pulse leaping beneath my skin, while he lowered the window shade. Right. Because parading naked in front of your neighbors was generally frowned on in the Village.
Unlike mine, Joe’s bedroom had made the transition to adulthood.
No messy pile of discarded clothes heaped in a chair or a corner, no row of button-eyed stuffed animals watching from the dresser.
His big platform bed was neatly made. The wide-screen TV on the opposite wall was flanked by live edge shelves, organized and uncluttered. Everything clean. Solid. Functional.
I wiped my damp palms on my skirt—Should I take it off? Too soon?—feeling woefully out of place.
He turned on the bedside lamp, the yellow light casting his planes and hollows in stark relief.
I sucked in my breath, because, face it, the man was gorgeous.
Not in a Hot Duke fantasy sort of way. More like the carpenter in a porno movie—hard, muscled, a little hairy.
Except Joe was real. This was real. If we slept together, had sex together, here, it would be part of my actual life. Which meant if I messed this up…
His throat moved in a swallow. Something tugged in my chest. Maybe he was nervous, too. He shut the door, the sound as loud as a branch cracking in the forest, and I jumped like a squirrel.
He arched one eyebrow. “Change your mind?”
Heat flooded my cheeks. “Nope. I’m good. Thanks.”
His eyes glinted with amusement. “Sure.”
Was that a question?
Before I could decide, he moved away from the door.
My heart thudded. He stood right in front of me, radiating heat and testosterone, his eyes dark and steady.
My breath evaporated. There had to be a word for…
Animal magnetism, that was it. Less Gilbert Blythe than the virile gamekeeper in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, what was his name?
Joe brushed one knuckle along my jaw, tugged lightly on my ear. I smiled a little, reflexively, and he lowered his head, catching my smile with his lips.
He was a good kisser. His mouth was warm and confident.
I could taste the tea on his breath, sweet and fruity, and another, darker flavor that was his alone, exciting and unfamiliar.
For a second, sensation blanketed my brain.
I softened against him as he deepened the kiss, nudging, searching.
I drew a shaky breath, simultaneously revved up and reassured. Because this was Joe. My first crush.
The last man in the world I’d dreamed of having sex with.
Well, no, I’d dreamed about it after Daanis and I had spied on him at the lake all those summers ago, sharp, confused longings that faded to black. Plus, okay, there were those hot, muddled Covid dreams. But nothing had prepared me for the reality of Joe’s tongue in my mouth.
Before Chris and I had sex the first time, we’d planned for it, prepared for it, days in advance. There had been earnest discussions about birth control, followed by dinner at a nice restaurant with a candle on the table. He’d changed his sheets, he told me later. I’d shaved everything.
I hadn’t shaved today. My legs, sure, I was wearing a skirt, but…
Joe raised his head. “Hey.” His voice was gentle. “Nothing’s going to happen you don’t want to happen.”
“I want everything.” I was pretty sure. “But…don’t expect too much, okay?”
His cheek indented. “Define ‘too much.’ ”
I floundered. “I mean, I’m sure whatever you want to do will be fine. I’m just saying I haven’t had a ton of experience.” I could count my sexual partners on one hand. “Also, I’m a little out of practice.”
“That makes two of us.”
Because he was still getting over his beautiful blond ex-wife. Or not getting over her, as the case may be. Two years.
“Okay, then,” I said in a loud, chipper voice, like I was instructing a room of ninth graders to take out their textbooks. “Let’s do this thing.”
He gave me a funny look. Probably because I was talking like a Nike commercial. I closed my eyes in embarrassment. “Sorry. It’s performance anxiety. Not that you have…I mean, I—”
Joe’s mouth closed over mine, mercifully cutting off whatever I’d been about to say.
His arms tightened, pulling me firmly against him, shocking my brain into momentary stillness.
The relief was staggering. He smelled so good, like soap and sweat, and his kiss this time was deeper, rougher.
I felt a flutter low in my belly and his erection, hard against my stomach. He was into this. Into me.
Just do it, I thought, and reached below his belt.
He braceleted my wrist. “Easy, champ.”
“We have less than an hour,” I reminded him. “An hour and a half, tops, your mother said.”
He pressed a kiss into my hand and then held it to his chest. His heart thudded under my palm. “Plenty of time.”
Maybe? Chris and I had got it down to fifteen minutes on the nights he had a shift at the hospital.
“The thing is, it can take me a while to get in the mood,” I explained.
“Also, I get…I don’t know. Distracted? Like I have trouble turning my brain off.
I mean, I want to do this. Obviously.” My cheeks were flaming.
“It’s just I start thinking about, oh, if I’m doing it right or how I smell or something Sarah said at school, and then I take too long to come.
” I buried my face against him. “I can’t believe I just said that out loud. ”
A tremor of laughter moved through him. “I’m not timing you. This isn’t a test.”
“Too bad,” I mumbled into his chest. “I was kind of hoping for an A for effort. Maybe some extra credit points.”
His fingers found my chin, urging my head up. He smiled, a full, slow curve that weakened my knees. “You’re here. That’s enough for me.”
I made a disbelieving noise. How could I be “enough”? Too much, yes, but never “enough.”
He studied my face and then pushed my hair over my shoulder, out of the way.
Kissed under my ear, making my breath catch.
I exhaled shakily as he reached for the hem of my T-shirt.
I helped, tugging it off over my head, standing before him in my full skirt and cotton bralette, my nipples clearly underlined by the thin fabric. My heart battered my chest.
He gazed solemnly down at my body and then up into my eyes. “Beautiful.”
I shivered a little with nerves and desire.
“Cold?” he murmured.
I felt his voice in the pit of my stomach.
I shook my head, not trusting speech, feeling his eyes on me, seeing me, liking what he saw.
His hands glided, rough fingertips trailing up my arms to cup my shoulders.
He kissed me again, slow and unhurried, the scruff of his beard and the silk of his lips and his satin tongue stroking and persuasive, stirring up feeling, stilling the noise in my brain.
I wrapped my arms around him, reaching greedily under his shirt as he backed me to the bed, pushing me onto the mattress, his hot, hungry mouth sliding, feasting.
I fell back, my skirt yanked up to my waist, my thighs pushed apart.
You deserve to be appreciated, said a voice in my head. It sounded like Beverly Powell.
I stuffed my fist in my mouth, choking on a laugh.
Joe raised his head, a glint in his eyes. “Having a good time?” he asked politely.
I grinned. “The best.”
And after that I couldn’t think, I could only feel, being in the moment, this moment, letting his hands and his mouth take me where he wanted me to go.
—
I lay lax, soft, sated, content, steeped in the smells of sex and honeysuckle.
Joe’s arm was heavy across my chest, tucking me into his side.
My brain was wiped clean. My skin was damp and tender, my thighs slick, my skirt crumpled around my waist. I felt scoured.
Renewed. Like the beach after a storm, sensation leaching away as the waves receded, leaving lovely little treasures in their wake.
The late-afternoon sun slanted under the blind.
There had been one moment, as he surged over me, when my head almost surfaced and I’d thought, Condom.
But before I could form the word, he’d taken care of it, and then he was there, inside me, solid and smooth and hard inside me, and there was nowhere for me to go, nothing to do but be with him, fully in my body.
Not worrying about repeating my mistakes, not wondering where I would be a month from now, not thinking about what I was doing or not doing with the rest of my life.
I didn’t want to move. Possibly ever. Like any change in position would jar my mind back to life.
Joe rolled away, levering himself off the mattress. I turned my head lazily, admiring the hard, pale curve of his butt as he disposed of the condom.
The open box was on the nightstand. My brain twitched. “How long have you had those?”
Please don’t say two years. Should I check the box for an expiration date? Search online? What if I got pregnant? What if…
“I bought them in Chicago,” Joe said.
Not expired, then. I breathed in relief.
Our eyes met. Held. But did that mean…Had he bought them for me? Had he planned this? Or simply shopped off island to avoid the gossip at Doud’s?
I shooed the thoughts away. I was trying to be in the moment, not prolong it or repeat it or post it as a status update on social media.
“Twenty-four,” I said before I could stop myself.
He gave me a quizzical look.
I gestured toward the box. “You bought the value pack.”
“No, yeah. Guess I was feeling…”
“Cheap?”
His lips twitched. “Hopeful.”
“Only if you planned on using them all today.”