Greg was with Daisy and Max, standing at the edge of the lake, just after sundown. They’d walked down, hoping for a breeze off the water, but the night was still. And hot, probably the hottest night of the year. Daisy was focusing her small, portable telescope, trying to get an image of the surface of the moon. Max was throwing stones, trying to skip one after the other. They dropped into the water with a deep gulping sound.
There were moments, like now, when Greg didn’t know what to say to his kids, how to talk to them. When he asked them how they were doing, they gave him pat answers that revealed nothing. Daisy was understandably tense and short-tempered. Max hadn’t been himself ever since he got back from visiting his mother. Greg didn’t blame Sophie for the boy’s mood, though. Max had been having a hard time all summer.
Stooping down, he picked up more stones to throw. “I like it better at Camp Kioga,” he said. “Remember last summer, when we slept in the cabins and had bonfires?”
“You did nothing but whine last summer,” Daisy reminded him. “You kept wanting your Xbox—”
“And you were whining about no cell phone signal.”
“And here’s a shock,” Greg put in, “the world didn’t come to an end. Let’s make a fire on the beach.”
“It’s too hot for a fire. It’s too hot for anything.”
“We could go swimming,” Greg said.
“Yeah, if Shamu here goes in the lake, it’ll probably cause a flood.” Max snickered.
“Shut up, moron.”
“You shut up.”
“You—”
“How about this? How about we go get something cold to drink? I’ll teach you to play Texas Hold ’Em.”
They didn’t exactly bowl him over with their enthusiasm, but they agreed to give it a shot. The three of them sat around a wicker table on the front porch with a fan blowing softly. Daisy played a few hands, clearly already familiar with the game, but she started yawning and shifting in her seat.
“You all right?” Greg asked.
“Yes,” she said. “And you don’t need to ask me that every five minutes.”
“Sorry.” He reminded himself not to take her testiness personally.
“It’s all right. I’m tired, though. I’m going to bed,” Daisy said.
“We’re still playing,” Max objected. “It’ll be boring with just two players.”
Daisy gestured in the direction of the boathouse. “Go get Nina. I bet she’d play.” Her mood had suddenly swung to bright and cheerful.
Greg shook his head. In fact, he’d like nothing better than to go get Nina, but he was determined to keep his distance.
“I like Nina,” Daisy went on, still cheerful enough that Greg wondered what she was getting at. “I think it’s awesome that she’s managing the inn. She’s being totally cool about working here, all things considered.”
“What things considered?” asked Greg.
“Well, what with her wanting to own the place—” She stopped, studied him for a second. “You didn’t know? Sonnet told me ages ago, so I just assumed…Dad, you didn’t know? It was always this big plan she had, for when Sonnet went to college and Nina finished her term being mayor.”
Finally, Greg understood why Nina had been so furious with him. No wonder.
“I like her, too,” Max said, making little stacks of his poker chips. “Especially after today.”
“What happened today?”
Max continued stacking the chips, concentrating hard on making the ridged edges match up precisely. “I quit the team,” he said. “No more Little League for me.”
Hot. A wave of heat arrived in late summer, like the final push of an army before surrender. Temperatures hovered in the nineties, which was fairly unbearable around Avalon. It was Nina’s night off, but she didn’t have any plans. Her house was a mess, but she didn’t feel like cleaning it. She’d always been a reluctant housekeeper. Now that Sonnet was gone, Nina had unleashed her inner slob. When the weather was this hot, no one should have to do housework.
She was restless and sweaty. Even with the windows open and fans blowing, the place was stifling. She fixed herself a bowl of cereal and stood out on the deck, watching the stars hover in the summer sky. Finally, she couldn’t stand it anymore, so she put on a bathing suit and went for a swim, all by herself, in the dark. As she sank beneath the surface, she thought about how a dip in the lake on a summer night used to feel when she was younger—cool and liberating and vaguely illicit. She floated on her back and looked up at the stars.
Once again, she was alone. She liked being alone. She didn’t have to be if she didn’t want. She had options. Bo Crutcher, the Hornets’ star pitcher, had invited her on a date tonight. Well, he hadn’t called it a date, but he’d asked her if she wanted to go to the Hilltop Tavern later. Bo was fun—maybe too much fun—and for a moment Nina had been tempted. Lord knew, he was attractive enough, tall and athletic and dripping with Texas charm, drinking beer after beer until he was mellow and prone to saying romantic things he didn’t mean. It wouldn’t be fair to him, though. She’d be lousy company, because try as she might, she couldn’t stop thinking about Greg Bellamy.
Telling herself to snap out of it, she dove beneath the surface and came up for air. She lingered in the chilly water, studying the way the moon’s reflection painted a long, silvery path upon the water. And the bone-deep sense of loneliness made her change her mind—maybe she would go to the Hilltop Tavern after all, shoot some pool or throw some darts. Determined to shake off her mood, she went upstairs and quickly showered, singing along with the radio. She’d just twisted a towel on her head when she heard a knock at the door.
Muttering a curse, she pulled on a Hornets jersey and dug in a drawer for a pair of undies. No luck—all her underwear was in the laundry basket in the living room, waiting to be folded and put away. The knock sounded again, loud and urgent. Grabbing a pair of cutoffs, she opted to go commando.
As she walked through the house, she frowned at the clutter. Her inner slob hadn’t been expecting company. There was a basket of half-folded laundry, a sinkful of dishes she hadn’t yet tackled, a stack of unopened mail, dust bunnies scattering in the wake of her bare feet. Holding the turban on her head with one hand, she flipped on the porch light with the other. On the opposite side of the screen door stood Greg Bellamy.
“I just had an interesting talk with my kids,” he said, and his tone was not particularly polite. “Can I come in?”
Nina froze. Ordinarily the sight of a guy who looked like this, asking to come in, occurred only in the realm of fantasy, especially since she’d all but given up on dating. At first she’d tried blaming it on Greg but ultimately—and only to herself—she conceded that going out with other guys wasn’t working for her.
So here was Greg, who made dating everyone else so pointless, asking to come in.
Without a word, she stepped aside, held the door and then closed it behind him.
“I don’t suppose it occurred to you to check with me before telling Max to quit his team and go to work for the Hornets,” Greg said.
Oh. Oops. “Nope,” she admitted. She didn’t think she’d actually told Max to quit—but she hadn’t told him not to, either.
“He’s not even your kid.”
“I think maybe I was aware of that. And you’re right, Greg. I should have checked with you—or better yet, let you handle the situation.” The expression on his face made her smile; she couldn’t help herself. “What, did you think I was going to get defensive on you?”
“Well, yeah. Yeah, I did.”
She didn’t tell him that Max had misled her deliberately into thinking Greg already knew about the situation. That was something Max would need to address with Greg. “I don’t get defensive when I know I’m wrong,” she explained. “I’m not making excuses for myself, but the fact is, I never had a partner in raising a child. I got used to making decisions on my own. The notion of consulting with someone else—this whole partnership thing—is an alien concept to me.”
“We’re business partners. When it comes to the inn, it’s all fair game. But when it comes to my kids—”
“Back off?” She bit her lip. There was so much she could say, so much she saw when she looked at Greg and his kids…. The thing she feared was happening. She was being drawn to this family. Not just to Greg but to Max and Daisy, too. Not your business, she reminded herself. “All right,” she said. “I’ll back off.”
He seemed surprised by her concession. “Uh, okay.”
“But I need a little clarification here. Which is it, Greg? When it comes to your kids, do you want my opinion or not? Or only when it’s convenient for you?”
“Hey, I didn’t ask—”
“Yes,” she said, “you did ask. Maybe not about Max’s Little League team, but about other things, and you know it.” She unfurled the towel from her head, furtively studying him. Despite the heat, he looked perfectly comfortable in a Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts. Why did he have to be so damn…so…everything? She tried not to feel self-conscious about her place. It was hard, though, not to wish she’d taken a few minutes to do the dishes, straighten the stack of half-read books on the coffee table, fold the clothes she’d taken out of the dryer—oops—two days ago.
Yet Greg stayed focused on her. He seemed to be at a loss.
“Let me guess,” she said. “You came here spoiling for a fight and I conceded and now you don’t know what to do with all that excess energy.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Something like that.”
“I really am sorry about Max,” she said. “I can vouch for Dino Carminucci and Bo Crutcher. I can vouch for everyone on the team. Max’ll learn a lot from them—not just their bad habits. It took me three years to convince the team to pick Avalon, and I got to know several of them really well.”
Greg nodded, his jaw flexing. “I don’t know how I missed it,” he said. “How did I miss seeing how unhappy my own kid was with his team? I mean, I knew he had his ups and downs, but I didn’t realize he was ready to quit. That’s why I was spoiling for a fight. I’m pissed at myself.”
“Kids can hide the whole world from their parents if they want. You know that.” She paused, studied his taut shoulders and flexing hands. “Have a seat, Greg.”
He frowned. “It’s your night off. I figured you’d be going out.”
“And yet that didn’t stop you from coming to see me.”
“I’ll leave if you—”
“I just invited you to sit down. What can I get you to drink? The usual?”
“I have a usual?”
“Summer Ale Microbrew.”
She went to the fridge, pulled out a bottle and grabbed a bag of pretzels from the counter. When she turned, she nearly bumped into him. “You’re supposed to be sitting down.”
Keeping his eyes on her face, he opened the beer and took a sip. “Let’s both sit.”
They went to the sofa. She tried to be nonchalant as she moved a stack of books and the laundry basket, making room for both of them. A song she loved by the Dixie Chicks drifted from the stereo, sad yet beautiful and wise and soothing. Nina turned to him, drawing one knee up to her chest. “What are we doing, Greg?”
“Not sure. All I know is if you go out with one more guy, I’ll probably explode.”
Candid of him. “So I should spend my night off by myself to keep you from exploding.”
“No. You should spend your night off with me.”
“That might cause me to explode,” she said with equal candor.
“I’ve been known to have that effect on women.”
She tossed a pillow at him. “I thought you came here to talk about Max.”
“We did. We talked about Max. I said I was pissed about what happened and you explained and now we need to move on to the fact that you never told me you had plans for the inn.”
Her face heated, and it wasn’t from the night air. He knew. How had he found out? “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Daisy told me tonight. She heard it from Sonnet—the reason you were so pissed that I bought the place from the bank was that you wanted it.” He took a long drink of his beer and set the bottle aside.
She bristled. “So what if I did?”
“You might have said something.”
“What, and make myself even more pathetic than I already was?”
“Nina, you were never pathetic.”
Yes, she thought. I was. She’d been naive, too, thinking the world would wait for her to buy the inn herself. Had she really thought no one would come along? Why had she left this to chance? Why had she failed to safeguard her plan?
“You should have told me,” Greg said.
“Would you have changed your mind?”
“I doubt it.”
“Then there’s nothing to discuss. I always dreamed of having the inn. Once you bought this place, I had to find another dream.”
“And did you?”
“I’m…still looking.”
He studied her oversized baseball jersey, which looked like something straight out of Li’l Abner. Her hair was still damp, spiky and unkempt. She tried not to feel self-conscious about her bare feet, the chipped pink polish on her toenails. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
“All right. Change of subject. So you want to go out tonight? Maybe find a place with air-conditioning?”
She shook her head. This, like all her dealings with men, was not going well. She was too awkward, too blunt, too forward, definitely too much of a slob. Besides, first dates were supposed to take place in an elegant setting, with scented candles and soft music surrounding the gauzy, golden-hued couple. She was supposed to have spent three hours primping and pampering herself. A plunge in the lake didn’t count.
And the food. There was supposed to be champagne and something light and sophisticated to eat, like vichyssoise or sushi, not beer and pretzels.
“Come on, Nina, what do you say?” Greg asked. “Is it a date?”
“Everything about this is wrong,” she blurted out.
He stared at her. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right.” He slammed back the beer and stood up. “Glad we cleared that up about Max. Thanks for the beer. See you around.”
He left so quickly that she was still sitting there, mouth agape. “Unbelievable,” she muttered, getting up and taking the bottles into the kitchen. She told herself there was no reason in the world to feel hurt—and yet she did. But why? She’d run him off and then felt hurt when he was gone, even though he was simply doing what she’d asked him to do.
No, wait. He was supposed to understand the meaning behind Everything about this is wrong. He wasn’t supposed to agree with her and leave. He was supposed to stay and…and what?
She rinsed the beer bottles and placed them in the overflowing recycling bin, then stood at the sink, staring down at the dishes she hadn’t bothered washing. A cereal bowl and spoon, the lonely remains of a dinner consumed alone.
The sight of it pushed some button and Nina melted from the inside out. She’d never been much of a crier, but now she found herself overwhelmed with emotion—the painful kind. Greg was able to walk away from her at the drop of a hat. It wasn’t fair. She’d finally met someone she could really fall for, and he was all wrong for her. Not only that, he didn’t care about her. He was all too ready to flirt with her and then turn away, walk out. It was only a game to him. He had no idea how this was tearing her up. The sobs spasmed through her body and the tears burned her cheeks. It was not a release for Nina. It was not a “good cry,” the kind that made her feel cleansed and emotionally healthy. It was a moment of hurt and despair so profound that she nearly didn’t hear the phone ring.
She decided to ignore it. She didn’t fall apart and cry very often; a single mother didn’t have that luxury. She wasn’t going to let herself be interrupted.
Then she couldn’t help herself. She checked the Caller ID. It read Bellamy, G and his number.
Oh, God. If she picked up, he’d hear the grief in her voice. He might even question her about it or worse, realize he was the cause of it. Then again, if she didn’t pick up, he’d know she was avoiding him and realize she was devastated, which might mean he’d come back, and then he’d see what a mess she was—
“Hello.” She snatched up the phone on the ninth ring.
“Nina, it’s Greg.”
“Yes?” She paused, swallowed hard, tried to sound normal. “Did you forget something?”
“Boy, did I.” He chuckled. “I forgot the most basic rule of dating. Don’t show up unannounced.”
“We’re not dating.”
“I know. My bad.”
“Greg—”
“That’s why I’m calling. I was wondering if you’d like to go out with me.”
“What?”
“Go out. With me. You know, on an actual date. I owe you the courtesy of a formal invitation for our first official date. A first date should be special, in case we end up together, so when our grandkids ask us what our first date was like, we don’t have to tell them it was a night of sweaty sex on a sofa—not that there’s anything wrong with sweaty sex on a sofa. Personally, I find it a turn-on but I wanted to ask you—”
“No.” The tears welled in her eyes again; his attempt at humor hurt. Everything hurt. “I’m not going anywhere with you, Greg. But, um, thank you.”
“That’s not the answer I was looking for,” he said.
“It’s the only one I have for you.” She was shaking with the effort to control her voice. She paced the room as she spoke, struggling with her emotions. She hated being in this position. Hated the fact that it was torture to hold back her emotions and keep herself from wanting the impossible.
He was saying something else, but she didn’t let herself listen. “’Bye, Greg,” she said quietly, and turned off the phone. As she set it in its cradle, she was still shaking. Get a grip, she told herself. It was actually good that they’d gotten this out in the open, this doomed attraction. It clarified for her exactly what she needed to do, so really, she should be grateful.
Except she didn’t feel grateful. She felt empty, bereft. And lonelier than she ever had in her life. And whose fault was that? She’d just run him off. It was time, she told herself, to face facts. Clearly this thing with Greg wasn’t working, wasn’t ever going to work. She simply had to accept that and move on, even if it meant leaving the Inn at Willow Lake. She just could not stay. The sense of resolve came with a fresh influx of tears. She hated this, hated breaking down and losing control. She felt betrayed by her own emotions.
When she heard the heavy footsteps on the deck outside her door, she froze, too surprised to do anything but stand there as Greg returned to her. He didn’t bother knocking but wrenched open the door and strode inside. How Rhett Butler of him, she thought. But still she stood frozen in her old clothes and bare feet, her face burned by tears. And although she found her voice, the words that came out were totally inane. “I thought you had a new rule about unannounced visits.”
“I lied,” he said and grabbed her as though she’d been about to fall off a cliff. And then he walked her backward into the room, pressed her down on the sofa and kissed her—long, hungry kisses that took her away somewhere, huge and endless makeout kisses that felt more like sex than sex. In those moments she forgot everything. Mostly, she forgot to worry or try to control things. They didn’t come up for air for a very long time, and when they did, Nina felt dizzy and helpless, and amazed herself by loving the feeling. “This wasn’t the way I pictured getting together with you,” she blurted out.
“Yeah? Totally flattered. So tell me how you pictured it.”
Busted. She scooted away from him on the sofa. “I’ll do no such thing.”
“Come on. This has been a long time coming.”
She glanced away, hoping he didn’t know she’d been crying. “What do you mean by that?”
“You know what I mean. You think I don’t remember all the times we brushed up against each other in the past, but I do. I just pretended not to because it seemed so pointless. I remember your smile the first time we met. I remember what it felt like seeing you with that West Point cadet, knowing what you’d done. I remember watching you with your little daughter. Just because I kept quiet doesn’t mean I didn’t see and don’t remember. It was pointless to talk to you, to let you know you mattered on any level to me. We had different lives. I had a marriage and kids. You had Sonnet and your family and your job. What would be the point of letting you know you mattered to me?”
Nina gaped at him, not bothering to act as though she didn’t know what he was talking about.
“It’s different now,” he said, pulling her back into his arms. “I don’t have to pretend. I can tell you flat out that you matter to me.” He bent and used his teeth to slip the shirt down her shoulder, kissing her bare skin with searing, single-minded attention. He kissed her again and his hand drifted down, undoing the top button of her cutoffs. He made a hissing sound, as though she’d burned him.
“Something the matter?” she whispered against his mouth.
“You’re not wearing any underwear.”
She blushed. “It’s, um, not a habit with me.”
“It should be. Promise you’ll always dress this way. I’m begging you. I’ll do anything….” He kissed her again, long and hungrily.
Men were so easy, she thought. In some ways.
“What turns you on, Nina Romano?” he asked, barely lifting his mouth from hers, very slowly unzipping her shorts.
Everything. Fortunately for her, she couldn’t remember how to speak, and even if she could, she would not know what to tell him. This was so new to her, this feeling of need and surrender.
“On second thought,” he whispered, his hand disappearing beneath her shirt, “don’t tell me.” And with that, he pressed her back against the sofa cushions, causing the stack of folded clothes to topple in a soft heap. “I’d rather figure it out on my own.”
When Greg woke up at dawn with Nina in his arms, he didn’t say the first words that popped into his mind—I told you so. He knew the sex would be amazing. He’d had all summer to contemplate and imagine and fantasize. But the fact that she hadn’t been wearing underwear…good lord. That was the sort of thing a guy didn’t even dare wish for. He couldn’t believe it had taken so long to get to this point.
She slept as though wrapped in the softest of dreams, breathing lightly, arms and legs entwined with his. Taking care not to wake her, he rubbed his eyes and looked around. At some point in the night, they had migrated into the bedroom, leaving a trail of clothes on the floor. Incongruously, there was a half-empty pint of maple syrup—never let it be said they lacked imagination—and towels leading from the shower to the bed. It had been a long, incredible night, one he would never forget. One he already wanted to repeat, as soon as possible.
Yet at the same time, he felt an insane surge of tenderness for Nina. He liked her. He was starting to love her, and not just for her inventiveness with maple syrup. He liked her independent nature and her fierce loyalty. He liked her passion and her decisiveness, even when she was arguing with him. And he liked—no, this he definitely loved—the way she was during sex, vulnerable and bold at the same time, and the way she slept in his arms.
Easing out of the bed, he left her asleep, pausing to drape a sheet over her. He slipped on his shorts and made his way to the kitchen, quickly picking up condom wrappers along the way.
He checked the time—6:00 a.m. The kids wouldn’t be up for a couple of hours. Good. Trying to be quiet, he found the Moka—the only coffeemaker, Nina had once insisted, worth having—and a bag of Lavazza, which was apparently a direct import from Italy. Okay, so she wasn’t a neat freak, he thought, shaking yesterday’s coffee grounds from the filter. To Greg, that was an asset. Sophie, now, she had been neat in the extreme. So neat, he always got the feeling he was messing up a room just by breathing the air.
Willfully he banished Sophie from his thoughts and lit the flame under the Moka. Then he rummaged in the fridge for something to eat, discovering such unacceptable options as fat-free soy milk, grapes that were well on their way to becoming raisins and a scary wedge of something that resembled a science experiment. He was about to give up when he moved the milk carton aside and spied, in the white Sky River Bakery box—paydirt. A half-dozen sfogliatelle—pastries filled with sweet ricotta. Greg held one clamped between his teeth while he rinsed two cups he found in the sink and poured the coffee, balancing the cups atop the pastry box. Hearing a noise behind him, he straightened up and turned.
Nina stood there, draped in a sheet, staring at him. She resembled a pint-sized goddess, with her short, tousled hair, creamy olive-toned skin and the sheet tucked under her arms. He felt her surprised gaze travel slowly from the pastry in his mouth to his bare chest and the two coffees he held.
“Mmm,” he said, carrying the coffee into the bedroom and motioning her with his head to follow. He set them down and took the pastry out of his mouth. “Get back in bed,” he ordered around a bite of sfogliatelle. “I’m bringing you coffee.”
“You are not,” she said from the doorway.
“Too late,” he said, capturing her hand and bringing her to the unmade bed. “I already did.”
“Greg—”
“Coffee,” he said. “You take it black, right?” He passed her a cup and offered the box of pastries. “Hungry?”
“In a minute.” She propped herself back against the pillows, holding the sheet in place. “I need to savor this first. This is not something that happens to me every day—some guy bringing me coffee in bed. In fact, I think this is the only time it’s happened.”
He clinked his coffee cup to hers. “But not the last, not if you stick with me.” Crap, he thought as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Not only did that sound cheesy, it also implied a choice to be made. He quickly covered the mistake by leaning across the bed and giving her a long, sweet, good-morning kiss, not letting up until he felt her lips curve into a smile under his. “You’re beautiful, you know,” he said.
She laughed softly and touched her messed-up hair. “Yeah. I know.”
“Really. I mean it.”
“Okay, whatever. A girl doesn’t argue with something like that.” She sipped her coffee, gazing out the window while he gazed at her. She sighed with contentment. “I love this view,” she said.
For a moment, Greg was sure she’d said, “I love you,” and even the imagined declaration caused the world to shift. Then he regrouped, realized what she was talking about and laughed at himself.
He turned to look at the lake. The sun wasn’t up yet. There was a thin pink thread on the horizon above the hills, weaving its way down toward the water. A few shadowy puffs of fog gathered here and there on the lake. A deep stillness pervaded the scene. Yet Greg knew the contentment he felt this morning had far less to do with the view out the window than with the woman in the bed behind him. His heart hadn’t felt like this since…never. He had never felt like this. He’d always gone for the Sophies and Brookes of the world. Nina made him feel something. She delved down to the heart of him. Somehow, she managed to find the place he never let anyone touch before.
He turned to her, savoring the sight of her, still slightly groggy but clearly grateful for the coffee. Her eyes seemed misty, a bit unfocused, and her mouth was soft, as though she was about to smile. Unable to resist, he crossed to the bed, slipped beneath the covers. He was mesmerized by a gap in the sheet covering her breasts. “Hey, Nina—”
“Greg, I—”
They both spoke at once, both hesitated. “Sorry,” he said. “Go ahead.”
She set her coffee very deliberately on the nightstand. “I just thought you should know, this changes things.”
He settled in beside her, propped himself up on his elbow and used his free hand to punctuate the conversation, watching her face as he touched her. “Good. I’m ready for something different.”
She shivered a little, but didn’t push him away. “So that’s what this is, a change of pace to keep you from getting bored?”
He couldn’t help smiling. “Yeah, that’s it. Exactly.”
She put her hand over his, stopping his under-the-sheets teasing. “I can’t talk when you do that.”
“My plan is working, then.”
“Are we really not going to talk about this?”
That would be too good to be true, he reflected. But gamely enough, he grew serious. “That day in the attic, you asked me why I was telling you about my marriage. I wanted you to know I get it. I know what went wrong. And I know how to get it right.”
“It all seems a little fast to me.”
He thought about all the times their lives had crossed paths over the years. “Not to me.”
“I’m not so good with change,” she admitted.
“Believe me, it’s not a bad thing.”
“Depends on what it changes into—something good and strong and fulfilling, or something complicated and messy and sad.”
“You act as though we don’t have a choice. Don’t get cold feet on me now, Nina. It’s too late for that, anyway.” He traced the line of her jaw with his index finger. He wanted to learn every part of her, the geography of her body as well as the secrets of her heart.
She turned to him, her eyes filled with uncertainty. “What are we doing, Greg?”
“Falling in love.”
“Right. Very funny.”
“I’m not joking. We’re falling in love. Tell me you’re not feeling it.”
“You can’t just—”
“Sure I can, honey. It’s happened to me before. I know what it’s like. I can identify all the signs. And this is…whew. Off-the-charts better than anything I’ve ever felt before.”
“Well, maybe I’m not that experienced, but I’m sure I’d recognize the feeling when it came along.” She ducked her head as she spoke, as if she didn’t want him to see her face.
“You’re probably having a tough time admitting it, but my God, Nina. There were moments last night…” His body reacted to the memory, and he shifted even closer to her, catching her gasp of surprise with a kiss, tasting her, skimming his hands down her body. “Even in the dark, with the lights out, some things can’t be hidden,” he said.
She shuddered a little as he caressed her, moving close.
Greg didn’t really like the direction the conversation had taken. Talking was inadequate in this situation. There were things he needed to tell her, but not with words. He knew of one way to avert the discussion. Several ways, actually. They’d tried only a few the previous night. Maybe this morning, they’d discover a few more.