Page 67 of That Birthday in Barbados
“Catherine?”
“May I come in?”
It’s clear she isn’t taking no for an answer. I step back, wave her past me. She walks in, her hands wringing nervously in front of her. There is a fine sheen of perspiration above her lip.
“Can I get you something to drink?” I ask.
“A sparkling water would be nice if you have it.”
“I do. Would you like lemon with it?”
“Yes, please.”
I lead the way to the kitchen and busy myself with finding the bottle of San Pellegrino, pulling a lemon from the drawer in the refrigerator andslicing it on a cutting board by the sink. I feel her eyes on me the entire time, but I don’t let my gaze meet hers. It’s as if to do so would be like touching a live electrical wire.
An entire book’s worth of words hang between us, but I can’t bring myself to open the first page.
She is the one to speak first. “I want to thank you for telling me what you told me this morning. It must not have been easy.”
“I guess the truth often isn’t.”
“No.”
Her voice is soft and low. I keep one hand on the knife and one on the lemon, not looking up as I absorb what she has said. “Does that mean you’re thanking me for letting you off the hook?”
I hear her move forward, and then her hand is on my arm. My body instantly remembers her touch, reminds me too, that I still want her.
“No,” she says. “I don’t mean that at all.”
I put the knife down, turn to her. I fold my arms across my chest, self-defense, I guess, and say, “The last thing I want from you, Catherine, is pity.”
She exhales a sigh. “Good. Because that’s the last thing I have to give you.”
She steps forward, presses first one hand to my chest, then the other. She keeps them there, flat, unmoving, as if she is searching for the connection we had found last night, patient in waiting for it to reestablish itself. She closes her eyes for a moment, pulls her lower lip in between her teeth andwith a small sigh, looks at me directly. “If it’s all we have, if you can’t give me anything beyond here and now, tonight will be enough for me.”
My breath collapses beneath the words, and I reach for her, hauling her in with one arm around her waist, my other hand guiding her face to mine. I kiss her with all the hunger that’s been building inside me for her since the first moment I saw her. And she kisses me back as if she feels every single thingI’m feeling. Every nuance. Every heartbeat.
Her arms slide around my neck. I slip an arm under her legs, lift her up and on to the counter where she opens her legs and pulls me in.
We’re both still fully clothed, but I can feel every curve of her, every line, every soft spot. An involuntary sigh of longing falls out of me, and she smiles against my mouth, putting her hand to my face. “Do you have any idea what an incredibly beautiful man you are?” she asks in a voice so low I wonder if I have imagined the question.
“Not how I see myself,” I say.
“That’s how I see you.”
I run my hand through her wavy blonde hair, wind its length through my fingers. “I’ve never wanted anyone as much as I want you.”
She stares at me for a moment, as if she isn’t sure she should believe this. I can see that she wants to. She closes her eyes. Leans in and kisses me softly at first, and then with a deepening intensity until we are nearly wild with the need for more than just kissing, with the desire to lose the clothes that separate us.
She begins to unbutton my shirt, her fingertips grazing my skin as she goes, heightening my awareness of her with every touch. When she reaches the last button, she runs the back of her hand up the center of my chest and turns it over to place her palm over my heart. “Please, Anders.”
I hear the plea beneath my name, and for a moment, a single heart-wringing moment, I ask myself if I am doing the right thing. At the same time, I realize I don’t have it in me to walk away from her again. And so I put my arms around her, pick her up and walk us both straight to the bedroom, kicking the door closed behind us.
Chapter Thirty-two
“One day someone will walk into your life and make you see why it never worked out with anyone else.”
? Unknown
