Body Double (39 page)

Oh, hell.

He picked it up, feeling it vibrate gently. “
Are all that’s left of our love. So goodbye...”

No, damn it. Not goodbye. He hung up, his eyes burning with tears. Did she know her phone was here? Did she think he’d abandoned her and failed to call, just like Sean had? She couldn’t. Please. She couldn’t.

He paced for a minute while he considered what to do. He had to find her, but he didn’t know where she lived. First, he called four-one-one and asked for her address, but the operator wouldn’t give it to him. Then he hung up and called Joe, who answered on the fourth ring, just before Blake thought he was going to get voice mail.

“Blake, what’s wrong?” Joe’s voice cracked sleepily.

“Joe, I screwed up. I need Andrea’s address.”

“Now? Dude, it’s after three a.m.”

“I know, sorry. It’s important.” He ran back upstairs to get dressed.

Joe sighed. Blake could hear some rustling sounds, and a woman’s voice asked what was wrong. “Nothing,” Joe mumbled. “I’ll be right back. Hang on, Blake. I gotta get to my computer.”

“Thanks, man.” He put the phone on speaker while he pulled on the jeans and shirt he’d worn the day before.

“What’s going on?” Joe asked.

“She went back to her place to get some clothes and stuff. I called her but I kept getting her voice mail, so I figured she decided to stay there tonight. Then I found her phone in the kitchen. She probably thinks I dumped her.”

“Why would she think that? Didn’t you two just spend two amazing weeks together?”

He didn’t want to tell Joe Andrea’s secret. She was obviously still hurting over it. “Maybe she doesn’t. I just need to go see her and make sure.” He heard the click-clack of fingers on a keyboard and went downstairs to his study to find a pen and notepad to take down the information.

“And this can’t wait four more hours?”

“Not if she thinks I didn’t call when I said I would.”

“All right, here we go.” Joe read off the address on her driver’s license, and Blake wrote it down and read it back to him to be sure he had it right.

“Hey, thanks a lot. I owe you one.”

“I think you’re up to five now, buddy.”

“Yeah, yeah. Hey, who’s that woman in your bed?”

“My last fling before I start dating Andrea.”

Blake laughed. “Screw you. Good-night, Joe. And thanks again.”

“If you let her get away, I’m going to beat the hell out of you before I take her for myself.”

“I won’t. Don’t worry.” Blake hung up on his way back upstairs to get his shoes. A minute later, he was back downstairs with his keys in one hand, the paper with Andrea’s address in the other, and both phones in his pockets, heading to his car.

The streets were empty and dark, and his foot was heavy on the accelerator, though he watched for sleepless cops whose intolerance for speeding would delay him. While he was relieved to think she probably hadn’t been abducted, the idea that she might’ve thought he would do to her what Sean had done worried him almost as much.

With the help of his GPS, he found her apartment complex parking lot and lucked into an empty parking spot. He got out and locked the door, then scanned the apartments for the numbers. He identified her building and found her apartment on the second floor. Standing outside her door, he took a deep breath and knocked. She was probably asleep, but she was a fairly light sleeper. He waited ten or fifteen seconds and knocked again. Only silence answered. He pressed his ear to the door. “Andrea?” he said in a low voice. He heard someone moving inside. She was on the other side of the door, close enough that he could almost feel her warm body through the metal.

“Andrea? It’s me. Open up, babe.” He expected to hear the sound of the lock rattling, but he didn’t.

“What do you want?”

The pain in her voice made his insides clench. He pulled the two phones out of his pocket, and using his own, he called hers. “You, baby. I want you.” He held her phone up to the crack between the door and the jamb.

“
Our love was once-in-a-lifetime, love
,” Heather sang. “
But its time has come like we knew it would.
”

“Don’t say goodbye, Andrea.”

The lock rattled, and the door swung open. She stood there with her blond locks tousled and her eyes sleepy. Wearing an oversized t-shirt and boxer-style shorts, she looked perhaps the sexiest he’d ever seen her. “Is that my phone?”

“You left it on the kitchen table.” He stepped across the threshold, took her into his arms, and kissed her for all he was worth.

Andrea clung to Blake, returning his kiss with everything she had while tears leaked from her eyes. She’d been so certain he hadn’t called because he was staying married to Sarah and dumping her. It hadn’t occurred to her to check that her cell phone was in her purse and fully charged. Instead, she’d assumed he didn’t want her anymore, that he didn’t have the decency to call and tell her as much. Was she so damaged by Sean’s actions that she would always flinch whenever Blake was late calling or coming home?

“I thought...” She started to cry, unable to even speak the words.

“I left a few messages, worried you were having second thoughts, but when I heard your phone ringing downstairs, I nearly fell apart.” Blake hugged her tightly and kissed her cheek and neck.

“How did you find me?”

“I woke Joe up and begged him for your address. Luckily for me, he’s a cop.”

She let a small chuckle bubble up through her tears, remembering how earnest he’d been trying to talk her into not calling off the wedding when he mistook her for Sarah the evening they first met. “I should’ve known you wouldn’t give up so easily. Old fears, I guess.”

He pressed his forehead to hers. “If I didn’t want you anymore, I would tell you. I respect you enough to do that much. The opposite is true. I don’t want to live another second of my life without you.”

“Me neither, Blake.” She pushed gently out of his arms, took him by the hand, and led him to the bedroom where she lifted his shirt, prompting him to raise his arms and let her pull it off over his head. She unbuckled his belt, unfastened his jeans, and pushed them to his ankles.

He sat on the bed without a word, and she crouched to remove his shoes and pull his jeans the rest of the way off. When she rose to her feet, his eyes were glittering in the dim glow of the nightlight. “Scoot back,” she said softly, and he did. She crawled up the bed after him and sat astride his hips, moving her own rhythmically in a sensual dance, her hands splayed across his muscular chest.

She wanted and needed him like she’d never wanted or needed anyone in her life. Though she couldn’t see his eyes because of her own shadow, she could tell by his breathing that he wanted her just as much. He stroked her arms, her sides, her waist and hips. He lifted the hem of her t-shirt, and she let him pull it off.

Beneath the fabric of her boxers, she felt his erection grow. She loved how he responded to her so readily, even dressed as she was in a ratty old t-shirt and boxer shorts. She’d always had to get dressed up for Sean to show any interest. If she wasn’t wearing a teddy or sexy nightie, lovemaking in the mornings had been out of the question. Now she had a man, a wonderful, sexy man, who got turned on by who she was, not what she wore.

“God I want you,” he said. “I know we just spent two weeks making love every day...”

“At least once a day,” she said with a sexy smile.

“I just hope I don’t disappoint you tonight.”

She never imagined a man like him could have performance anxiety, and she kissed his fears away.

There, in the wee hours of the morning in her cheap full-sized bed with her two-hundred thread-count sheets, Blake rolled onto his side, bringing Andrea with him, and they lay with arms and legs wrapped around each other until their heartbeats slowed to normal, though Andrea didn’t know if her heartbeat would ever be normal again. They’d made the most exquisite love Andrea had ever imagined. She struggled to explain it to herself, to understand what had happened only a moment earlier. What they’d shared was incredible. They’d had great sex in Hawaii, but this was different. This was lovemaking.

That recognition bloomed in her mind, rocking her back. She searched his eyes for some indication that he had felt it too.

Smiling so tenderly, he caressed her face while her eyes leaked tears. “Did you...” He paused, as if what he wanted to know was beyond words.

She knew the question he wanted to ask, the question that burned in her heart. “Yes,” she said with a watery laugh. “I felt... you.”

“Oh, me too, baby. Me too.” He kissed her forehead, her eyebrow, her temple, her cheek, her nose. Her lips. “I love you, Andrea. I love you so much.”

She listened to the music of his heart beating under her ear. In all her wildest dreams, she’d never imagined finding true love, and yet here she was, in his arms.

“One second.” He bent his head to kiss her lips and then rolled off the bed to his feet, picked up his jeans, and then dug into the pocket for something. “This isn’t how I’d envisioned it going, but I can’t wait a minute longer.” He went to one knee on the floor beside the bed. The rising sun had lightened the room enough that she could see he was holding something between his fingers, but she couldn’t tell what it was. “Man, I’m so nervous.” He took a deep breath. “Andrea, will you marry me? For real this time.”

Her eyes filled with tears. She’d said yes to him once before, the day they first met, but they both had known it wasn’t a real proposal. Never had she dreamed that only three weeks later, she would be saying it again. This time, they were both playing for keeps. “Yes,” she said decisively. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him. “Yes, yes, yes. I can’t wait to marry you.”

He held her and kissed her deeply. “Thank God. I was afraid you’d say no.”

She giggled and caressed his face, then kissed its contours. “I’m not that big a fool.”

“Here. Sarah gave this back when she agreed to the annulment, and I still had it in my pocket.” He took her left hand and slid the ring onto her finger.

She looked at it, unsure what to say. He was giving her the ring he’d bought for another woman. It was a gorgeous ring with a huge diamond, the kind of thing celebrities showed off on the red carpet. Though she’d worn it while pretending to be Sarah, she felt strange about wearing it now. “Um...”

“This is only temporary so I wouldn’t have to use a twisty-tie from the kitchen. I’ll take you to the jeweler tomorrow, er, today rather, and you can design the ring you want.”

“Design it?”

He kissed her again and climbed back into bed with her. “My wife gets a one-of-a-kind ring designed especially for her, not some rubber stamp.”

“I’d be happy with a twisty-tie from the kitchen, you know.”

He squeezed her tight. “I know.”

She snuggled close, her body touching his from head to toe, and they dozed for an hour.

The shower stall in her apartment was only big enough for one at a time, but they squeezed into it anyway. It took coordination and planning to get them both clean and rinsed, but it was the most fun she’d ever had in the shower.

While she gathered a few more things to take with her to Blake’s house, he browsed some of the handmade and thrift store belongings in her living room.

“Oh, I can sell those things or put them into storage,” she said, flicking them a dismissive wave.

“Why would you do that?” he asked, fingering the macramé her sister had made. “Some of this is pretty cool.”

“My stuff will look out of place in your house.”

“Are you kidding? I’m ready to have a garage sale to get rid of all those museum pieces that make my house a magazine photographer’s wet dream and start making it into a family home. Can you imagine trying to raise a toddler with all that stuff around?” Then a look of wary anticipation crossed his face. “You do want children, don’t you?”

Andrea laughed, hardly able to believe she was going to marry this lovable, handsome, sexy man. For the first time in over two years, she was genuinely glad Sean had dumped her. Her life with him would’ve been miserable, spent playing dress-up every day just to keep him from regretting his decision. “I most certainly do, when the time is right. Especially with you.”