The Sweetest Taboo (20 page)

“This is so friggin’ ridiculous.” Will shoved his glasses back in place and hooked his fingers over the door handle. “I can’t believe I’m having to put up with this crap.”

She wanted to say “ditto” because Will was dishing out crap based on nothing more than hurt feelings. At least her “crap” came from a desire to do right by the screenplay. “Do you want to find a new study partner then?”

“What good will that do this late in the semester? Like we can split the screenplay?” He bit off a curse and instead added a terse, “Right. I can see that happening.”

Which meant if he could find a way to do just that, he would. Cali knew well how to listen to what he wasn’t saying as clearly as she heard what he did.

She finished shoving the legal pad into her tote bag. “So, if we’re this diametrically opposed to our story approach, where do we go from here?”

He faced her then, his brown-gold eyes glittering in the car’s bright interior light. A tic jerked at his jawline beneath the stubble that added to his look of weary indignation.

“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”

She was not giving up on this. She was not. “I don’t know about you, but I’m going inside. I’m going to sleep. And, when I get up, I’m going to work on incorporating what I can of my notes into the screenplay.”

She wondered if he remembered that, yesterday, she’d brought home his laptop. If he took the computer back, he’d make her effort that much harder. Right now, she wouldn’t put it past him. “I just want to see if these ideas work before I toss them off as fodder.”

“What? You mean there’s a chance the great Sebastian Gallo doesn’t know his head from a hole in the ground?”

Cali frowned. “Are you jealous? Of Sebastian?”

“Jealous?” Will sputtered. “Try again.”

Cali shrugged, hoisted her tote strap over her shoulder. “I can’t. I’m clueless.”

“You’re right. You are clueless.” He pushed open the door and climbed from the car. Cali followed suit, hitting the automatic locks and staring at Will across the car’s roof. She did her best to ignore what he’d said, to put it into context, but the hurt lingered.

The interior light faded, leaving them in darkness but for the streetlamp at the driveway’s entrance. Will shoved a hand back over his already mussed hair. “No, Cali. I’m not jealous. I’m angry. I’m pissed in a very big way. I don’t see this as the way a partnership works. That one half does what she wants over the objections of the other.”

“I know how a partnership works, Will.” And even as she said it, she knew she was adding a deeper subtext to their own personal plot. “It’s a hashing out of joint ideas and, yes, the exploration of individual ones. This doesn’t mean any changes I make will end up in the finished project. But I have to do this. For me. I have to know if my intuition is right.”

“Sebastian’s intuition you mean.”

“No. My intuition. My ideas. Sebastian was nothing but a sounding board. He was open-minded. And he listened.” Cali paused and, before fully thinking her comment through, she added, “That’s the least I expect in a partnership.”

Will remained silent, his fingertips drumming on the roof of her car. His mouth thinned into a grim line. His eyes went flat. Cali felt the first stirrings of big-mouth regret deep in the pit of her stomach.

“Fine,” Will finally said. “Whatever. You do what you have to do. I’ll do the same.” He turned and headed for his car, calling back over his shoulder, “Bring my laptop to class on Monday. I’m going to need it.”

10

AT THE SOUND OF THE bedroom door closing, Sebastian looked up. Erin, exhausted, leaned back against it, still wearing the head-to-toe black Paddington’s uniform that looked like no uniform he’d ever seen when she wore it. Her complexion was more pale than usual, the circles under her eyes darker than he thought he’d ever seen.

But she was still an incredibly gorgeous creature and his groin tightened in response. The sensation was one he’d grown to expect and embrace. But the same sort of tightening that clutched at his chest was new, not particularly welcome, and a feeling he had no intent to explore.

At least not now, tonight, this morning. Not when his current agenda involved more closely examining what was going on with Erin, not with himself. He’d done way too much of that already the last few days. And he was more than uncomfortable with the conclusions he’d reached.

He shut the window and got to his feet, crossing the room and silently taking Erin by the hand. He led her to the foot of the bed where he faced her, tugged her polo shirt from the waistband of her pants and off over her head.

She didn’t say a word, didn’t object by expression or body language, even when he released the clasp of her bra and freed her breasts. All she did in return was lift the hem of his sweater and pull it over his head.

Her hands found their way to his shoulders and she slowly dragged her palms down his chest, circling her fingertips over his nipples then pushing into his armpits and laying her head gently on his chest.

He wasn’t about to deny his arousal but right now it meant next to nothing compared to Erin’s needs. Leaving the briefest kiss on his sternum, she moved her hands to the fastenings of his pants. He reciprocated and both pulled off shoes and socks and skinned pants down legs until wearing nothing but practical black cotton underwear of the same cut they’d been wearing the first time they’d shared this intimacy.

But this time their bare skin was more about baring souls than bodies and that realization hit Sebastian hard. So hard he wondered for a moment where and how he’d been so weak as to let her get to him as she obviously had. Erin backed away and moved to douse all the room’s light but for the single bedside lamp. She pulled back the quilt and crawled beneath, pleading with her gaze for him to follow.

And so he did, stretching out his much longer legs and tucking the quilt around her shoulders, tucking her weary body spoon-fashion back into his. They lay that way for at least five minutes, sinking into the pillows and mattress, bodies adjusting to being together in bed, hands here, feet there, legs working in and out of one another until their breathing settled into a matching rhythm, their chests rising as one.

“I can’t believe I’m this exhausted,” Erin said, her voice barely above a whisper.

“You’ve had a lot going on lately. Work, planning your party.” He hesitated, added, “Me.”

She didn’t say anything and he wasn’t sure if she wasn’t listening, if she agreed, or if she was weighing options for easing her stress load. He would be the easiest to get rid of and the first to go. As well he should be.

And being long ago done with any abandonment issues he’d once battled, he wasn’t quite sure why the thought of her kicking him out left him ill at ease.

“I’ve put so much effort into this celebration. How the hell is Paddington’s supposed to compete when Courtland’s is bringing in the jazz talent most fans have to pay big bucks to hear?” She sighed but her body had already grown tense. “Half the time I don’t even know why I bother.”

He didn’t know her well but what he did know assured him she wasn’t a defeatist.

“It’s not a bother. It’s your life.”

She shook her head against the pillow and against his chest. “It was my granddad’s life. My life is…”

She let the sentence trail and he wondered if she really didn’t know or have an answer. He placed his hand on her hip and she moved closer to his body, if closer were truly possible considering he could already feel her bones where the curve of her spine pressed his torso.

“I grew up with Rory, my granddad. He raised me after my parents died. I was eleven and Rory gave up his entire life in Devon and moved here so I wouldn’t have to be uprooted.”

Sebastian rubbed her hip, up and down in a soothing motion to work out what tightness he could from her muscles. He adjusted his other arm beneath his head on the pillow and nuzzled his chin on the top of Erin’s head.

She exhaled a bone deep sigh. “Rory did so much for me and you would think the least I could do for him would be to carry on with what was the joy of his life.”

Strange thing to say.
“Isn’t that what you’re doing?”

“I suppose so, but in case you haven’t noticed there isn’t a lot of joy involved for me.”

Actually, he hadn’t noticed that at all. What he’d seen he had chalked up to the normal stress of running a business, not dissatisfaction at feeling stuck in the life. He gave a small shrug, wondering exactly whether she considered the bar hers at all, or whether she still thought of it as Rory’s. “So, sell the bar. Do what you want to do with your life.”

“I don’t know what I want to do with my life,” was all she said.

But it was the way she said it, the exhaustion that went beyond the need for sleep, a tiredness that spoke of a weary soul that clutched hard in the region of Sebastian’s heart. He didn’t want to feel the need to set things right, or the urge to soothe whatever he could of her emotional ache. A few things, however, he couldn’t control.

Funny how they both seemed to be at a crisis point. His had been a nagging pain in the ass now for several months, rearing her annoying little head every time he sat down with Raleigh to write. He wondered…“You’ve been running Paddington’s for a year?”

She nodded again. “Rory died three years ago. Once his estate was settled, I worked with a designer on the remodeling of the bar. We reopened last October.”

He continued to rub her hip, over the cotton of her panties to the smooth skin of her thigh. “Before he died. What were you doing then?”

She snorted. “Nothing. Everything. I traveled. I took university classes. I have way too many credits for someone with no degree. I thought about declaring business as my major because Rory was always asking my advice, which was a totally ridiculous ploy to get me involved in the running of the bar. He’d been in business longer than I’d been alive.”

“You had money from your parents, then.”

“Oodles.

Ridiculous,

really. All the money to do what I wanted and I never knew

what I wanted to do.”

He thought about that for several minutes, his hand moving to Erin’s waist and rubbing there and down over her belly. He’d known for as long as he could remember what he wanted to do. Hell, he’d made up stories when pushing that little yellow truck through the ashes of dead fires.

Richie had been the one to help prep Sebastian for college when the visiting counselor had shot him down, telling him he’d be wasting his time to aim beyond trade school. He’d aimed way, way beyond and had put himself through the five years it had taken to earn his four-year degree.

Five more years and his first book was in the publication pipeline. He’d found his niche, but he still wasn’t satisfied, greedy bastard that he was, wanting more.

Erin rolled over onto her stomach and propped up on her elbows. The plump side of one breast pressed against his ribs. Her eyes glittered and her gaze probed. “What are you thinking?”

He couldn’t tell her. Writing was a part of his life he didn’t share. Even being here with her now, this way, talking about life and dreams. He was growing too complacent, too comfortable, and he stiffened rather than answer.

Erin grew pensive, obviously sensing his backing away. “Do I frighten you somehow? Are you afraid I’m going to tie you up and torture you free of your secrets?”

Sebastian rolled over onto his back, crossed his arms behind his head. “Torture away. I don’t have any secrets.”

Erin’s grin said give-me-a-break with more sarcasm than her voice. “What’re you talking about? Everything about you is a secret. You haven’t told me anything about who you are or what you do or things you’ve done in your life.”

He stared into her eyes, watching the low-burning lamplight draw silver flecks from pure hazel. Her nose was long and straight, her mouth lush, her lips plump in the way a man enjoyed. He felt an urge to cup the back of her head and pull her mouth to his.

An urge he forced himself to resist even while forcing a retreat from the intimacy she sought. Safety, sustenance and support. He needed no one to give him any of those things. What Erin looked ready to offer went totally off his radar and he had no choice but to push her away.

“Is that what I’m here for? That’s what you want? To know everything about me?” When she didn’t answer, when she continued to meet his gaze without blinking, he added, “I didn’t think what we were doing required more than what we already know.”

Her expression remained unchanged though the softness paled and what he could only imagine was hope faded away.

“You’re right,” she finally said. “There’s not a thing you could tell me that would make any difference to why we’re here.”

He waited, tensed, expecting any minute for her to ask him to leave. So, when instead, a minute later, she moved closer and climbed up to straddle his lower body, all he could do was close his eyes, let her have her way and play the part of the convenient dick.

Not that doing so required much effort. Certainly not the same effort required to ignore how right this felt because this was Erin sliding down his body and not some nameless female or even one who’d mentioned her name before rolling on his condom.

He tensed further, told himself to relax. Impossible, because Erin brushed her lips down the center of his torso and dipped her tongue in and out of his navel. She nipped at the surrounding skin, tiny bites with the edges of her teeth followed by a soothing bath from her tongue.

Blood pooled heavily in his groin and he held himself still when he wanted more than anything to surge upward. Her bare breasts plumped against the tops of his thighs and her hands at his hips held fast.

She moved lower, her teeth, lips and tongue toying with the waistband of his boxer briefs where it rode low on his abs and behind which his erection strained. When she drew one finger from the head of his dick to the base, Sebastian gave up all attempts to stay aloof and groaned from the center of his gut.

He spread his legs, knowing if this was going to go where he wanted her to take it, his shorts had to go. He lifted his hips; Erin shoved him back down, keeping a hand flat on his stomach.
A woman in charge.
He liked the concept, liked it a lot. He’d let her be the boss as long as she didn’t stop what she was doing, blowing hot air through her open mouth down the same trail her finger had followed.