The Sweetest Taboo (26 page)

Wearing a distressed leather bomber jacket and gray athletic T-shirt, he leaned against the doorjamb, shoulders shrugged up against the cold, hands stuffed in the pockets of his baggy black cords. “Hi.”

It was all he said. Cali gave a little wave, an even smaller smile.

Will inclined his head. “Do you mind if I come in?”

She pulled the door farther open and ushered him inside. She still didn’t trust her voice. She pushed the door closed and turned the lock out of habit—not because she planned to never let him go.

And then she remembered the screenplay. The pages tossed willy-nilly over the love seat. She remembered at the same time Will spied her work.

“What’re you doing?” His gaze cut sharply back to hers.

She crossed her arms over her chest. Her faded pink sweatshirt hiked up to expose her middle. “Trying to fix a big mistake.”

He dropped into the seat probably still warm from her body and picked up the pages, shuffling them into order, flipping through them one at a time. Cali could only cringe at her very raw, very rough, way too often sarcastically noted corrections.

And then there was that note on the fourth page…

Her face flamed and she jumped forward to snatch the pages from his hands. Too late, of course, because he held them high, reached out and pulled her into his lap.

She tumbled there like the biggest buffoon. Her heart on her sleeve wasn’t even an issue. Not when it was right there in a sketch of Cupid shooting his arrow and a treecarving caption that read C.T. + W.C. 4-EVER.

“Don’t be so grabby,” he said. “I want to see what you’ve done.”

“I haven’t done much,” she said, hoping to dissuade him from looking beyond the first page or two. “I was trying to remember as much as I could of your original version.”

“
My
original version, huh?” Will settled back to get comfortable, spreading his knees and shifting Cali into the corner of the love seat and onto one thigh, her legs draped across his lap.

He had one arm around her back so that she rested in the curve of his shoulder. His other hand was busy flipping through the pages. She wasn’t sure whether she dreaded more his discovery of her leg stubble or her childish scrawl.

He got to the fourth page and stopped, glancing the length of the page before canting his head around to look her in the eye. “What happened to this being a joint project?”

“I think it’s obvious that we’ve jointly gone about as far as we can go. We might share the same idea for the end, but we’ll never agree on the means to get us there.” She looked at him, and it was all she could do not to lean forward and nuzzle his cheek.

She knew his scent and his warmth and his texture and it was so hard not to wrap her arms around him. Especially with the way he was looking at her, with an expression she couldn’t quite decipher but raised her hopes nonetheless. “Why did you come here, Will?”

His eyes grew glassy and bright. He heaved an enormous sigh as if blowing out the last of his pent-up anger. And then he grinned his Cheshire cat grin. “To tell you that you were right. That I was wrong. That I don’t have half the talent you do and absolutely no confidence that I’ll ever learn enough to ‘get it.”’

“What are you talking about? Your instincts are great. And we all need a little fine-tuning now and again. I’m certainly not perfect. If I were, the changes would’ve been my idea, not Sebastian’s.” She stopped talking then, realizing she’d lifted her hand to cup his cheek and remembering nothing about deciding he needed her touch.

Her feelings for him were that natural, that right, and that awareness made it easy to make the admission she’d been holding back. “I only did it because I love you.”

Will dropped the pages he was holding and reached up, covering her fingers where she still caressed his face. He squeezed, then moved her hand to his mouth and kissed her palm.

With his gaze locked on hers, he softly said, “Then love me by making me be my best.”

Six Months Later…

GOODBYE, P ADDINGTON’S. Hello, rest of my life.

Erin would never have believed she could walk away from the sale of the bar with such a light heart. Especially after the months of angst and worry over doing the right thing for herself and for Rory.

Now those days and nights seemed as if they’d never happened. She owed such a debt of gratitude to Cali and Will, to Tess and Samantha, and to Sebastian for making her face all the truths she needed to face.

She owed a debt of a different nature to Nolan Ford, for his timely toss of a life preserver into the middle of her personal storm.

She and Sebastian had spoken a few times over the last several months but had never shared more than could be said in a six-floor elevator ride, a trek through the parking garage, or while standing and sorting mail in the basement mailroom.

His book was going well, he’d told her. Practically riting itself; he hoped to finish before summer. She was glad, she’d told him. Because that meant by summer they’d both be free of the pressing obligations wedged between their friendship.

He hadn’t had much to say in response, but that was okay. Erin had learned how to hear what he didn’t say by looking into his eyes. His eyes had given her hope. Every time they’d run into one another, his eyes had given her hope.

She’d sold the bar and gotten her act together. This fall she would be starting back to school to finish her degree, though in truth she’d be starting over. The study of business had never truly held any appeal. And after the publicity generated by the Paddington’s On Main Halloween party, she was much more interested in marketing.

But right now it was summer.

She didn’t know if Sebastian had finished his book, but he hadn’t turned her away when she’d called earlier and told him she was on her way up. She took that as a good sign that he wasn’t averse to seeing her. She never had really thought he’d be averse. She just wasn’t sure how welcoming he might be.

She couldn’t let doubts of his reaction deter her. This is what she had to do. The same way she’d sold Paddington’s and, working with her advisor, put together a plan to return to school.

It had taken her a while to come to grips with the truth of what Sebastian had said that night he’d walked out of her life. But he had been right. Rory had given her the means to pursue her dream. He’d loved her and would never have wanted her to run the bar unless it meant as much to her as it had always meant to him. What she’d been doing, she’d been doing for Rory out of a misplaced sense of guilt and obligation.

And she’d finally looked beyond the tangible assets of Rory’s gift to the intent. The same way she’d finally come to accept the intent behind Sebastian’s sacrifice. And that was the reason she was here. His exposure as Ryder Falco had not been about saving the bar, but about showing her the worth and the depth of a man’s love.

A love she returned beyond reason.

She knocked; he didn’t answer. She turned the knob, found the door open, let herself in. The front room was dark, blues playing on the stereo. She’d never been up on her artists but she was pretty damn sure this was B.B. King. He was singing “Hold On!

I’m Comin’.”

She wanted to laugh out loud at the fluke. Especially since she knew Sebastian would be in the shower listening to the music pour through the bathroom’s speakers built into the ceiling above the steamy enclosure. She couldn’t wait to join him.

She found him exactly where she’d known he would be. She’d opened the door to the bathroom to the sound of the blues and running water and Sebastian was there, sitting beneath the center showerhead, legs spread wide, his palms on his thighs, the whole of his sex heavy from the heat.

For a very long moment she could do nothing but stare.

He made such a picture of male beauty that breathing no longer seemed to matter as much as filling her senses with the memories of making love. And it had been love. Maybe not that very first time here in this shower. She hadn’t even known him then. And still she didn’t know all she wanted to know. What she hoped she’d have a lifetime to learn.

She slipped out of her clothes and stepped into his arms, knowing no decision she’d ever made had been so right. He felt glorious. All male and head-to-toe hard and slick and wet. She loved the bunch of muscles at his shoulders and running along either side of his spine.

She loved the strength in his neck, the tendons and veins there as well as those in his forearms. There wasn’t a thing about him she didn’t find perfectly gorgeous.
Especially that,
she thought, grinning as his erection came to life against her belly.

Lifting her head, she leaned back far enough to look into his eyes. His expression epitomized tenderness. And love. And the pain of a man caught in an unbearable loss. So silly. He’d never lost her. She’d always been here.

“Do you remember when you kissed me Halloween night in my office?” He nodded and she continued. “I couldn’t tell you then that I love you. So I’m telling you now.”

“I love you, too.” And his mouth came down hard to take possession of hers. His lips devoured, his tongue swept over hers like a tidal wave from which she had no way to escape.

As if escape was any more of an option than telling him no when he backed her into the wall and urged her legs around his waist. He pressed forward, upward, filling her body with one smooth thrust, then another, another, another still until he’d set a rhythm from which there was no return.

His mouth never left hers, not for a second, not even when he came and took her with him, tumbling her into an incredible abyss and catching her when she reached the end of her completion.

Only then, when she’d finished, when he’d seen to the last of her tremors, grinding there where she needed the friction one last shuddering time, only then did he lower her to her feet and relinquish possession of her mouth.

Thank goodness because she could hardly catch her breath by breathing through her nose. Water cascaded and she held him tight, feeling his heartbeat thunder beneath her cheek resting on his chest. She didn’t think she’d ever in her life been this happy, this complete.

Or this amazingly tired. “Tell me a story.”

He chuckled, stroked a hand down the back of her hair. “Once upon a time—”

“No.” She shook her head, his skin sweetly salty when she stuck out her tongue and lapped. “Get to the good part.”

This time when he spoke, he did so on a quivering comet tail of emotion. “And they lived happily ever after.”

Epilogue

“Written with Ryder Falco’s flair for suspense but with a new emotional pitch that is total Sebastian Gallo,
The Secrets of an Innocence
captures the journey of a man’s life as it builds to a memorable climax. This is an amazing love story, at once heartbreaking and full of hope.”

—Publisher’s

Monthly

THE SECRETS OF AN INNOCENCE

By Sebastian Gallo

Chapter One

It came to him later that the defining moment of his life had occurred when he
wasn’t even looking. The beauty of the memory caught him off guard as had the event at
the time. He’d never imagined he’d need one single woman in his life more than he’d feel
the need to breathe. But he had.

She’d been his sustenance for all the long years of his life, the safety net catching
him at every fall, the support that kept him upright when the world around him came
tumbling down. He loved her more than he’d ever known a man could love a woman.
And, most amazing of all, she loved him back.

The Sweetest Taboo

Copyright © 2002 by Mica Stone

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All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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