Backdraft (8 page)

“Craig needs you,” she said quietly. “I don’t know if you realize how much your friendship means to him. He has no one else.”

He knew she was right. Craig had plenty of friends, their fellow firefighters, but he and Craig were as close as blood brothers; at least until he slept with Maya. Their relationship was different ever since, and both of them had come to terms with the fact that it always would be. “I know that. Don’t you get it? That’s why it hurt so damn much when I walked in on you guys. Aside from my family, you two were the only people I counted on. I thought I could trust you, both of you.” He knew this conversation was ten years over-due, but at the time he was too raw, too wrecked, to see or talk to her.

“I know that.” She reached up to touch his face. “If I could go back, I wouldn’t have had a drop to drink that night…”

“Are you saying it wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t drunk?” Grabbing her wrist to draw her hand away from his face, he said, “I find that hard to believe. You didn’t take sex lightly, Maya. Hell, you and I were together almost a year before we slept together.”

“I was a kid then. I was barely sixteen when we started dating. I was afraid of losing my virginity. I thought…”

He tipped her chin. “You thought what?”

“That you would leave me once we had sex. I didn’t want to lose you.”

Closing his eyes against the onslaught of memories, he tried, in vain, to regain his equilibrium. The power of those memories overcame him like a tidal wave, threatening to take him down. “I wanted you so much, it was killing me.”

“I know, I remember,” she whispered, reaching up to kiss his lips. “But you were so patient, so understanding. You said you didn’t mind waiting until I was ready.”

Trying to bring himself back to the present, he gripped her shoulder with his good hand. “We were talking about Craig. Don’t think you can distract me with a trip down memory lane.”

Looking hurt and confused, she said, “That’s not what I was trying to do. Is remembering the good times we had together so terrible? It wasn’t all bad, you know.”

No, it was all good, and that was the problem. If they’d had a history of bitter fights, it would have been easier to take, but their relationship was perfect, or so he thought. That’s why it came like a sucker punch to the gut when he found out it was anything but perfect.

“Back to Craig,” he said, quietly, trying to rein in his rising temper. He knew he wouldn’t get the answers he needed if he put her on the defensive. This was her house; she could ask him to leave and he would be no further ahead than he was a day ago. In fact, he would be further behind, because now he had to come to terms with the reason she’d come back into his life now, made love to him again, and…

“Whatever’s on your mind, just say it, Dave. If you have a question for me, just ask.”

“I thought I did ask a question, which you failed to answer. Would you have made love to Craig if you hadn’t been drinking that night?”

Scrubbing her hands over her face, she said, “No, no way.”

He pulled her hands away. He used to be able to read her mood just by looking into those beautiful baby blues. “You’re telling me you didn’t have any feelings for him?”

“Of course I did. We were friends. He was an important part of your life and that made him important to me.”

“Had he ever hit on you before?” he asked, still trying to make sense of how this had happened. Was it an isolated incident that happened as a result of excessive drinking or was it his friend’s intent to seduce his girlfriend?

“No, never. He and I talked about you and our plans for the future all the time. There was nothing inappropriate, I swear. He knew how much I loved you.”

He wanted to believe her, but there was still a niggling of doubt in his mind. He felt as though she was still holding out on him. “You’re sure?”

“Yes, I would have told you if he’d ever made advances toward me.”

“I want to believe you, but…” He couldn’t be certain. Maya was a peace-maker, not a trouble-maker. It would go against her nature to try and stir up trouble between two friends.

She sighed. “I’m telling you the truth. That night was the first and only night anything happened between me and Craig.”

Chapter Six

Maya hated herself for not telling him the whole truth, but she couldn’t bring herself to put their friendship in jeopardy over something that happened once, over ten years ago. She wasn’t letting Craig off the hook, but she reminded herself that if she hadn’t indulged in too many shots, she would never have mistaken Craig for her boyfriend that night.

She took his hand and led him into the bedroom, hoping the reminder of what they could have in the present would prevent him from dwelling on their past. “Can we just forget about this for a while?” she asked, turning into his arms. “Please?”

He sighed. “Don’t you think I want to forget? Don’t you think I’ve spent the past ten years trying to forget?”

That he suffered as much as she did over the years never occurred to her. The easygoing guy she used to know was replaced by a brooding, angry man too caught up in the past to recognize their potential for a future, and she knew she was partially to blame for that.

“Fine, if you need to have this out, let’s have it out.” She crossed the room, turning on a table lamp that cast a soft glow over the room. Pacing the floor, she asked, “What do you want to know?” She knew certain secrets weren’t hers to reveal. If Craig chose to come clean with him, that was his prerogative, but she refused to be the reason for another rift in their relationship.

“Were you serious about a future with me, or did you say that because you thought it’s what I wanted to hear?”

She couldn’t believe that one night had caused him to question everything they had shared. “I meant every word of it. I loved you. I wanted to marry you. I know we were young, but I knew that’s what I wanted.”

He sat down on the edge of the bed, lowering his head. “Did you start to question our relationship when you went away to school?”

She looked at him, trying to imagine how he must have felt at the time, knowing his girlfriend and best friend were building a new life apart from him. “I didn’t have any doubts about us. I knew what I wanted.”

“You seemed a little distant when he talked on the phone,” he said, quietly. “I sensed there was something different about you.” He shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe I suspected I was losing you and that’s why I went there that night. I needed to convince myself that we still had that connection.”

She claimed the spot beside him on the bed, tentatively rubbing his back. “I thought about you all the time. I imagined living in that house with you…” She paused when he grimaced, as though her words caused him physical pain. “I’m sorry.”

“Do you have any idea how hard it’s been for me, living in that house without you?” He sighed, as though he feared saying too much. “When I bought it, I thought it would help me prove to myself that I was over you. Hell, I thought I was over you.”

“But?”

“I spent months fixing it up. Every chance I got, I was painting, stripping, sanding, fixing something…”

As much as he needed to hear about what happened between her and Craig that night, she needed to know what his life was like without her. “Go on.”

“I woke up one morning, looked around, and realized that I had worked so damn hard to realize
your
vision for the place. Everything, from the wood paneling in the library to the wallpaper in the dining room, was your idea.”

She was speechless. Just knowing that he was so anxious to please her that he had stored every one of her silly fantasies in the back of his mind, hoping to one day make them a reality, broke her heart. “I can’t believe you remembered,” she said.

He shook his head, looking tired and defeated. “The only thing missing was the damn dog.” He looked out into the hallway, as though he expected Ginger to make a sudden appearance. “I think I was hoping I would meet someone else and I’d be able to share your house with her. Maybe, in the back of my mind, I thought that would be the ultimate revenge.”

He was right, it would be. Nothing would have hurt her more than knowing he was living her dream with another woman at his side, sharing his bed. “But that hasn’t happened.”

“Not yet,” he said, clenching his fist. “But that’s not to say it won’t. I’m young; I’ve got a lot of life ahead of me.”  

It sounded as though he was trying to convince himself, but she didn’t think it would serve her cause to point that out. “I want you to be happy,” she said, quietly.

He looked at her intently, as though he was trying to read her thoughts. “Even if that means I have to find my happiness with someone else?”

She withdrew her hand, fisting her hands on either side of her body. Forcing the words out felt like someone was puncturing her skin with broken glass, painful to the point of being unbearable. “Of course, you need to do what’s right for you.”

He chuckled. “See, that’s where you and I have never seen eye to eye. You’re selfless, always putting everyone else’s needs first. Me on the other hand, I’m a selfish bastard. If I’m miserable, I want you to be miserable, too.”

She looked at him, trying to gauge whether he was joking. She hadn’t seen him smile or heard him laugh in so long that it might be a figment of her imagination. “Really?”

The hint of a smile teased his full lips. “Yes, no, hell, I don’t know anymore. If you’d asked me that question yesterday, I would have said you don’t deserve to be happy…”

Holding her breath, she prayed he was about to tell their brief time together had upgraded his opinion of her. “And now?”

“You remind me of the girl I fell in love with,” he whispered, reaching out to brush a strand of hair off her cheek. “It’s damn near impossible for me to hate you.”

Smiling, she closed her eyes, turning into his touch. It was so sweet, so gentle, and so painfully familiar. “For the first time, you’re starting to remind me of the guy I fell in love with.”

“I don’t know where we go from here,” he whispered, leaning in to nuzzle her neck. “I want to make love to you right now, but I know that won’t solve anything.”

She wanted him, needed him, now. She had to believe that trust would come in time if she was willing to open herself up to the possibility of having a future with him again. “Maybe we shouldn’t try to figure this out right now. Maybe we should go with our hearts, and trust our instincts to guide us in the right direction.”

He smiled against her cheek. “Problem is, I’m not thinking with my heart right now.”

She glanced down to see the enormous bulge in the front of his pants. “I’ll take what I can get, for now.” She knew sex with this man would never be casual, not when he held her heart in the palm of his hand. If he chose to treat it with care, as he had in the past, he could make all of her dreams come true. But if he chose to hurt her, as she’d hurt him, it would destroy her. Reminding herself that she didn’t know him the way she once had, she knew this may be a ploy on his part, a way to exact revenge, but if she didn’t follow through, she’d always wonder whether she’d squandered their last chance to be together.

Straddling his lap, she was careful to avoid his bandaged hand. “I’m not asking for promises, and I know this doesn’t mean you’re willing to try again,” she said, kissing his lips tenderly. “But can we just put the past behind us for one night?” She could see the play of emotion flicker across his face in the soft glow of the lamplight: confusion, torment, arousal. She still knew him well enough to know that he was battling his internal voices, fighting it out over right and wrong. “If you want to leave without looking back come morning, I won’t hold it against you, Dave.”

“That’s just it; I know that’s not possible,” he whispered, kissing her neck. “Sex has just been sex for me for years. I never got emotionally involved, but with you, I can’t prevent that from happening even if I want to.”

She tipped her head back to give him better access. Closing her eyes, she enjoyed the sensation of his warm tongue abrading her cool skin. “I need you tonight,” she whispered. She had checked her pride at the door the second he crossed the threshold. She was prepared to lay it all out there, tell him, show him, how she felt and pray that he was brave enough to do the same. “Please…”

“God,” he growled, clamping his hand around the back of her neck. “Don’t beg; you know what that does to me.”

She remembered everything. She knew what turned him on, made him crazy, weakened his resolve to the point of making him beg for mercy, and she intended to use every trick in her arsenal to wear him down. She stood up, never taking her eyes off him as she peeled each article of clothing off, slowly. Standing before him, naked, she said, “Tell me what you want me to do now.”

“Undress me.”

She smiled, reveling in the huskiness of his voice. Experience told her that tone meant that he was trying, in vain, to hold onto his self-control. After peeling his clothes off slowly, she straddled his waist, locking her eyes with his. Last time, he had sex with a nameless, faceless stranger. This time, she wanted to make sure he was making love to her. “Now what?”