Like Jazz (19 page)

I slid my hands from her back down to her waist and drew her harder against me, molding our bodies together. She began tracing a path with her lips and tongue along my neck and under my chin, covering me with delicious nips and kisses that made me yearn for more. My head tilted back against the door and I moaned from the pleasure her hot, moist mouth incited throughout me. She stepped a thigh between my legs and gently rocked against me, setting my body aflame. She licked the skin below my left ear and moved her mouth over my earlobe, teasing it with her tongue until I could no longer breathe. Goose bumps erupted over the left side of my body. I reached for her and claimed her mouth with mine, wondering how it was possible to want someone as much as I wanted her.

As we kissed, Sarah continued her gentle rocking motion and moved her hand to lightly cup my breast, brushing her thumb across the thin materials that covered my nipple. I moaned again and slowly broke the kiss, cradling her face with my hands.

“God, I want you,” I said in a breathy whisper.

Sarah stilled in my arms and removed her hand, wrapping both arms around me. “I want you, too. So much.” She sighed, released me, took my hands from her face, and held them as she stepped back. “But Cazz, look around you. This isn’t what you want.” She dropped her hands from mine and took another step back.

Reeling from the parting of our bodies and the yearning mine now screamed for, my brain seemed unable to process information at its normal speed, and I couldn’t understand what she was saying. I shook my head in confusion and concentration.

“I didn’t know you were going to be here, Cazz. I didn’t ask you to come.”

I scanned the hotel room and after several moments my brain kick-started into gear. “Who…who is this for?” I stammered, feeling a sharp pain in my abdomen at the prospect of Sarah sharing this room with someone else.

Sarah kept her eyes on me. “I don’t know. Maybe no one. Maybe not.” She let that sink in. “I don’t…fraternize with Foundation donors, but sometimes after an event like tonight, I’ll see if there’s anything…interesting happening nearby.”

“You mean you’ll see if
someone
interesting is happening nearby.”

She nodded.

“A distraction?”

She nodded again.

Part of me felt disgusted by the idea of Sarah’s one-night stands, part of me desperately wanted tonight to be my first, and part of me felt a twinge of disappointment that my personality wasn’t similarly calibrated to seek them and never would be.

“Then why did you bring me up here?” A rising tide of anger swelled within me, as if I’d been set up to fail.

Sarah responded with a guilty smile. “I’m only human.” She put her hands on her hips, and her eyes deliberately roamed the length of my body, undressing me. She licked her lips. “Cazz, you’re sexy as hell in that dress.” She shook her head slightly and her eyes widened a bit. “Damn.” She shrugged, and her smile turned slightly sheepish, managing to dissipate my anger somewhat.

Momentarily distracted by her admission, I glanced down at my dress. “I thought you didn’t think it was flattering.”

“Oh, it’s flattering all right. But that’s the understatement of the year. You’re stunning.”

I stared at her, wondering how this beautiful woman in this incredible dress that accentuated her curves and the glorious triumvirate of her arms, neck, and shoulders could say I was the one who was stunning.

Emboldened by the compliment and stirred by her honesty and concern for my feelings, I stepped toward her and took one of her hands in both of mine. I brought it to my mouth and slowly kissed each knuckle, lightly brushing them with my tongue, never taking my eyes off hers. I turned her hand over and gently kissed her palm before holding it in my hands.

I continued to look into her surprised eyes. “I can’t interest you in something that might evolve into more than a momentary distraction? It might not, you know. It might end tonight. You don’t have to promise anything more than a willingness to keep the door open to the possibility.”

I searched for a hidden passage that would take me past her defenses, but Sarah pulled her hand away, drew her arms around her waist protectively, and moved away, no longer willing to meet my eyes. I could tell from her body language she was emotionally as well as physically withdrawing from me, and my stomach tightened at the thought of losing our closeness. I was grasping.

“Then what if I throw caution to the wind and decide I want to be your distraction for the night anyway? No promises. Nobody gets hurt.”

She shook her head and took a deep breath. She turned to me with a serious expression that seemed laden with regret.

“You could never be that to me.”

Her words threw me into an untenable position. She wouldn’t give us a chance at something beyond one night or accept me as a plaything for an evening’s romp.

“Damn it, Sarah! What? You wanted to see what was between us long enough to confirm it might be something special so you could run as fast and far away from it as possible?” I stepped into her personal space and glared at her, demanding an explanation.

She stayed in place and spoke in a flat tone. “You’re right. This was a mistake. I’m sorry I dragged you up here.”

Great. Now she was apologizing. I wasn’t getting anywhere. Though stunned by the whiplash I’d just experienced going from the fierce heat of our connected bodies to the cool distance of the indifference she projected, I wasn’t sorry she’d brought me here. The miles that suddenly seemed to separate us disappointed me, but she’d breathed life into every nerve ending in my body and instilled within me a longing I was loath to lose, a hope I wasn’t ready to sever. I softened and sighed.

“I’m not sorry.” I reached out, holding her shoulders since her arms remained crossed. I slowly kissed her right temple, right cheek, the tender skin below her right ear, and her chin, then mirrored the same kisses on her left side. As I used my tongue, lips, and teeth against the delicate skin below her ear, she released some tension. I delivered soft, caressing kisses on her delectable neck, moving under her chin to give each side equal consideration, while tracing my hands along her sides and stomach.

She let out a low moan as she tilted her head back to give me greater access and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. “This is not helping to shore up my resolve.” Her voice was thick, irresistible.

Lifting my gaze to meet hers and bringing my arms around her waist, I said, “Perfectly harmless,” before moving my mouth over hers.

We kissed tenderly, exploring each other with sweet abandon, and I marveled at the wealth of emotion and need that can be communicated by soft, moist lips touching. The underlying intimacy between us made me feel slightly scared yet inexplicably and entirely full—a kind of soaring and belonging. If she was feeling half the things I felt, I knew—well, hoped—she wouldn’t close the door on us forever. So I was willing to lose round one of what I hoped would be a contest that would go the distance—at least a further distance.

I forced myself to pull back, still holding her waist. Light-blue eyes slowly greeted me from behind long eyelashes. “Okay,” I said. “We’ll compromise.” Sarah raised her left eyebrow in that trademark curious, questioning expression of hers. “I leave, and you don’t consider this a mistake.”

She shook her head slightly and sighed, removing her arms from around my shoulders and holding me at my hips instead. She wasn’t jumping at my offer.

“Maybe it’s not a mistake. Yet.” She said it as if it were inevitable.

“What makes you think it will be? Am I so horrible?” Did Sarah find something frightening about me? Maybe the fact that I was a woman? Various emotions played across her face: fear, arousal, determination.

She finally answered by plastering me against the door and kissing me so thoroughly my head swam. When she eventually broke the kiss, gently tugging my bottom lip with her teeth before releasing me, I was breathless and overwhelmed with sensation. She trailed her long fingers down my arms until she held my hands with hers, lightly rubbing my palms with her thumbs.

“That’s the trouble. You’re completely irresistible,” she said. She smiled as she took her hand and brushed the hair from my forehead, then traced my cheek with the back of her fingers. She turned her palm and cupped my cheek, regarding me with utter tenderness. I wondered at the emotion in her eyes. “You scare me, the way you make me feel,” she said softly.

She had rendered me so powerless with her kisses I could barely make out what she was saying, dazed as I was from desire. Then her smile faded and her expression turned sad. A hint of liquid appeared in her eyes, and I quickly roused myself from my lust-filled haze.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said, trying to read her thoughts.

She immediately willed away her vulnerability and stiffened, her eyes suddenly dry. “First of all, you don’t know that. And second, I might hurt you. I really have no desire for either of those things to occur.”

“I’m willing to take the risk.” Where was my courage coming from? I never believed I’d ever be this close to Sarah to disclose such a thought, let alone be so certain of my willingness to open myself up to potential devastation.

“I’m not.” With that succinct declaration, she moved away from me and averted her eyes. She straightened out her dress. “I have to get back,” she said, her voice catching. She reached for the door.

“Wait.” I put my hand on hers and pulled it away from the handle. I didn’t understand what she was so afraid of and needed to know. “Sarah, please.”

She lifted her eyes to me briefly, and the anguish in them terrified me. Whatever I was doing to Sarah, I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to hurt her, yet the only thing reflected back at me was pain. She quickly opened the door.

“I need to see to my guests.” She swept past me into the hallway.

Her abrupt departure and tormented countenance left me baffled. I couldn’t shift my focus to the surrounding hotel room for several moments. When its purpose occurred to me, I was suddenly the one fighting back tears. I was distressing Sarah in a way I couldn’t comprehend, and she was upsetting me with her preparations for a night of…
ugh
. I didn’t want to think about it. There was little chance of that, but remaining in this rendezvous chamber sure wasn’t helping, so I left.

*

I got home after two o’clock in the morning, having stayed until the end of the event after feeling an unexpected obligation to the Foundation to be pleasant company to any attendees desiring small talk. And who was I kidding? I also stayed because I was desperate to lay claim to more time with a certain gorgeous woman promenading among the guests in a striking red dress. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get any more time with Sarah without appearing as desperate as I felt. Instead, the pretty, petite blonde cornered me twice more during the evening, going so far as to hand me a business card and suggest we have dinner soon.

Once I was through my apartment door, I immediately kicked off my heels, then unzipped and stepped out of my dress, all the while walking toward my bedroom. I threw on a T-shirt, jumped onto my bed, and screamed into my pillow. The idea that someone else might be sharing hotel room 2214 with Sarah was maddening, disheartening, unthinkable. How could she be so callous as to let me know why she’d gotten a room? She hadn’t intended to tell me, but it wasn’t my fault she decided to kiss me.

And what kisses they were.
Merely recalling her luscious mouth on mine made me tremble. God, the things she made me feel. How could she go from that—from what we shared together—to getting it on with some stranger? And if that wasn’t bad enough, why did she appear so distraught when she said she wasn’t willing to take a risk with me? Did she want to but felt conflicted? Was she saying in broad terms that she couldn’t get hurt again, or was she saying specifically she couldn’t get hurt again
by me
?

She couldn’t possibly be talking about high school.
Could she?
It had broken my heart to leave Claiborne. To leave Sarah. It had taken years, Alex, and a couple of short-lived relationships with women for me to understand, in hindsight, that I’d fallen madly in love with Sarah in high school. But even at the time, before the lightbulb went off, there was only Sarah.

Only ever Sarah.

I’d been forced to abandon my feelings for her and my connection to her when my parents moved us to Texas. Of course, all those old feelings were now bubbling up inside me and threatening to turn my world upside down again because I was clearly never going to get over loving Sarah. But surely that was my issue, not hers. After all, she’d been going steady with Dirk the entire time we’d known each other in our youth.

Though tonight confirmed we were attracted to each other, did she ever think about me the way I thought about her back then and all the years in between?

No, that wasn’t possible. I was certain my feelings for her were different than anything I’d ever known. But it never occurred to me she could feel similarly. That couldn’t be it.

My cell phone rang. Who the hell was calling at this hour? I ran down the hall and pulled the phone from my purse but didn’t recognize the number.

“Hello.” My sharp tone belied the greeting.

“Why so grumpy?” Sarah asked. “You’re not the one sitting all alone in a fancy hotel room.”

“You’re alone?”

“Yes.”

I exhaled a sigh of relief. “Why are you telling me this?” Several moments of silence followed and I wasn’t sure if our call had been dropped.

“I honestly don’t know,” Sarah said. “Some part of me wanted you to know.”

“I’m glad.”

“That I told you, or that I’m alone?”

“Both. Definitely glad you’re alone.” After a moment, I said, “No, I take that back. I’d rather you weren’t alone.” I wanted to be with her.

“Isn’t that a mixed message?”

By phoning, she’d taken a risk. It was my turn. I decided to be direct. “Let me clarify. I don’t want you to be alone tonight. I’d rather you were with me. But I don’t care if that means we stay up all night drinking coffee and playing Monopoly, or drive to the beach and listen to the ocean while we talk about our hopes and dreams, or play truth or dare until I learn all your secrets and fantasies, or rip each other’s clothes off and make love until we’re blissfully exhausted. I want to spend time with you, Sarah. I want to know you in every way imaginable.