“It doesn’t work,” he said grimly. “You can’t stop feeling.”
“You’re right,” she said. “And besides, it’s too late. I already care.”
“You’re going to marry me,” he said. He had no idea where those words had come from, he only knew they were right.
“Yes,” she said, utterly without hesitation.
He slid his fingers through her short-cropped hair, tilting her face up to his. And then he kissed her, taking his time—a slow, languorous touch of mouth against mouth, tongue against tongue, building in increments of heat and desire until he found she was trembling and he was, too.
He didn’t ask. He simply pulled her up tight against his body and took her to the bed. And she let him.
She was passive, almost childlike as he stripped the clothes from her. She said nothing when he tossed her T-shirt and bra across the room, nothing when he shoved her jeans and underwear down her slender hips so she could step out of them. Nothing when he put his hands on her waist and drew her toward him. Nothing until he slid his hand between her legs, through her tangle of hair, and touched her.
She made a soft, gulping noise, and her hands came up to clutch his shoulders, tightly. He pushed her back on the bed, following her down, and she closed her eyes, averting her face as he touched her.
He let her get away with it She was tight, barely damp, but he slid his fingers inside her, bringing her to orgasm with calm, almost mechanical efficiency. In one moment she. was lying beside him, shutting him out, in the next she had arched off the bed with a strangled cry of shock.
He knew how to prolong it, almost past endurance, testing the waves of reaction that shuddered through her body, teasing and pushing at just the right moment to set off a new convulsion.
“Stop!” she whispered in a choked voice. “Please. Wait.” He froze, but she continued to climax, her body out of control, waves of release racking her body until they finally subsided, leaving her limp, almost fragile looking in the tumbled bed.
He was more than ready to explode himself, but she looked so worn-out that he didn’t touch her. He simply sat back, watching her, his body iron hard with tension and desire.
He could control it, he told himself, taking a deep, shuddering breath. He could give her time, even if it killed him, he could wait until she was ready for more, even if it took all night...
Her face was wet with tears, but guilt had no effect on him. He sat there, frozen, when she suddenly opened her eyes.
“Whew!” she said in a weak voice. And then, to his amazement, a soft, lascivious smile curved her mouth. “I needed that.” And she reached for the waistband of his cutoffs, tugging him toward her as she slipped her hand inside to touch him.
He didn’t remember how he managed to strip his pants off, but he did so in record time. He was blind with need, wild with it wild with wanting her, and the calm, sane part of him had vanished into some dark, dangerous place, where all that mattered was Susan, reaching for him, opening for him, taking him deep inside her as she wrapped her body around his and held him tight.
She kissed his mouth and stilled him. She touched his face and calmed him. She arched her back, taking him deep, deep inside, meeting his thrusts until he felt her shiver and clench around him, and he let go, tumbling down and down into the hot wet darkness of soul-shattering completion.
He could feel the breeze blowing on his sweat-soaked back. He could sense the flickering oil lamps around them, and when he lifted his head to look at her, to say something, anything, declare his undying love, he saw that she was asleep. Again, as she had been for the past two days.
He climbed off her carefully, but she was dead to the world. He lay beside her, pulling her up against his body, and she slept on, a faint, blissful smile on her face. He wrapped his arms around her, buried his face in her thick honey-colored hair and slept.
There were dreams. Vivid, sexual dreams. The bed rocked beneath them, and she didn’t know whether it was from the power of their lovemaking or the roll of the ocean beneath their bunk. She didn’t know whether she was Susan or Tallulah, she didn’t know whether she lay with Jack of Jake.
It didn’t matter. It was dark and gloriously sinful and utterly right, and she moved in the darkness, the breeze cooling her fevered skin as she slid over his body and took him deep within her, rocking and surging until she shattered around him, helpless in her powerful response, and he turned her beneath him and finished it. She hid her face against his chest, licking his skin, whispering dark and wicked secrets, and he kissed her eyelids and her throat, kissed the small of her back and behind her knees, and nothing mattered but that the night would never end.
But it did. And when Susan awoke in the rumpled bed in the ramshackle garage she was alone. Abandoned, as she’d always been afraid she would be.
She didn’t bother to look for a note—she knew there wouldn’t be one. Her body ached, she had scratch marks and bite marks and bruises that would make a hooker blush. She dressed herself, stealing one of his worn khaki shirts to add a little warmth to the morning chill. And she headed out along the path, refusing to look back.
Her car wouldn’t start. There was no way in hell she’d go back to the garage, she simply started running, a slow, easy pace that got faster and faster, as she ran from her fears in the early sunrise hours.
Her mother’s house was empty. It was six o’clock in the morning and her mother’s bed hadn’t been slept in, and Susan knew Mary had spent the night with the man she’d always loved. The wrong man, or the right man, who could know for sure?
It didn’t matter. Susan had made the same mistake. Like mother, like daughter, like aunt Throwing away a life for the sake of crazy passion. Throwing away comfort and security for uncertainty. She was as crazy as they were.
She took a long shower, wiping all trace of the night from her body. She called Edward, but his answering machine was on, and she had no idea where he’d be at that hour. She made some toast and ended up throwing it in the trash. And then she went back into her bedroom.
The wedding dress hung from a special hook over the door, the flowing satin gleaming in the early light. It didn’t look as if she’d slept in it, it didn’t look as if she’d traveled backward in time in it.
And for what reason? She hadn’t been able to save Tallulah, she hadn’t been able to change a thing. She’d only complicated her own life past bearing.
Maybe she could go back again. Maybe if she put on the dress she’d be magically transported fifty years into the past, where life was simpler, and there weren’t so many choices.
