One Night

She eyed him quizzically for a moment before asking, “Aren’t you going to rejoin the party?”

“Not yet.” The absolute lack of welcome-ness he felt was only one reason he didn’t plan to rejoin that party for a while. The other reason wore a blue and white dress and was stalking him.

Colleen laughed and moved in front of him. “I don’t blame you.” She sat beside him on the bench, and John gave up, resigned himself to his tormented fate. She sat back and the night almost swallowed her. “If I hear my mother tell one more person that I own a “trendy boutique,” I’m afraid I’ll grab one of the torches and set her on fire.”

“What’s wrong with her saying you own a trendy boutique?” Moonlight filtered through the dogwood and cut across her nose and mouth. Her fantasy of a mouth that made him wonder if she tasted as good as she looked.

“It’s the reason she says it. I embarrass her.” The corners of her lips rose in a smile. “Who else should we through on the pyre?”

He leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees, set his glass at his feet and looked through the darkness before him. “Everyone who has taken the time to point out that my relationship with my parents sucks.”

“Your relationship with your parents does suck. You should try to work on it.”

He glanced at the hypocrite across the iron bench. “Hello, pot? This is kettle calling.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“That before you start giving me advise, you should take a good hard look at your relationship with your mother.”

Colleen folded her arms beneath her breasts and looked across at the man beside her, the white stripes of his shirt the most visible thing about him. “My mother is an impossible woman.”

“Impossible? If there is one thing I’ve learned over the past few years, it’s that there is always a compromise.”

She opened her mouth to argue, and then closed it again. She’d given up on compromise years ago. “There is no use in trying. I can’t please her. I’ve tried my whole life, and my whole life I’ve disappointed her. To her, I’m wasting my life away. In fact, the only thing I’ve ever done that she approved of was my relationship with Doug.”

“Ah, so that’s the reason.”

“What?”

“I’ve been trying to figure out why a woman would choose to live with an asshole like him.”

She shrugged and the other strap of her dress slid down her arm. “He lied to me.”

“Maybe you wanted to believe the lie to please your mother.”

She thought a moment. It still wasn’t the ah-ha epiphany she’d been waiting for to explain how she hadn’t suspected Doug’s cheating ways, but there was some truth in it. “Yeah, maybe.” She pushed both straps back up. “But that doesn’t mean I didn’t love him and that it hurts less. She felt an appalling sting in the backs of her eyes. She hadn’t had a good soul-cleansing cry all week, and she certainly couldn’t allow it to happen now. “It doesn’t mean that all the hopes I had for the future suddenly go away and I feel relieved, and I think, ‘Wow, dodged that bullet.’ Maybe I should but –” Her voice broke and she rose to her feet as if someone had yanked her up.

Colleen walked farther from the party and stopped beneath an old oak. She placed her hand on the rough, uneven bark and stared out through rapidly blurring eyes at the outline of wild growth beyond. Had it only been a week?” It seemed longer, and yet… it also seemed like yesterday. She rubbed beneath her eyes and wiped away her tears. She was in public. She didn’t cry in public.

Why was the crying jag hitting her now? Here, of all places? She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Perhaps because she’d kept herself busy. Now she was having a breakdown.

And it was damn inconvenient.

She felt John move up behind her. Not touching, but so close she could feel the heat of his body.

“Are you crying?”

“No.”

“Yes you are.”

“If you don’t mind, I just want to be alone.”

Of course, he didn’t leave. Instead, he placed his hands on her shoulders. “Don’t cry, Collie.”

“Okay.” She wiped the moisture from her cheeks. “I’m fine now. You can rejoin the party.”

“You’re not fine.” He slid his hands down her bare arms to her elbows. “Don’t cry over someone who isn’t worth it.”

She looked down at her feet, her pedicured toes barely visible in the dark. “I know you think I shouldn’t take this so hard, but you don’t understand that I loved Doug. I thought he was the person I’d spend the rest of my life with. We had a lot in common.” A tear rolled down her cheek and fell on her chest.

“Not sex.”

“Yeah, except for that, but sex isn’t everything. He was supportive of my career and we took care of each other in every way that really matters.”

His warm, rough palms slid up her arms to her shoulders. “Sex matters, Collie.”

“I know, but it’s not the most important thing in a relationship.” John made a scoffing sound, but she ignored it. “We were planning to go to Paris so I could find some interesting items for the store, but that’s all gone now. And I feel foolish… empty.” Her voice and she raised a hand and wiped at her eyes. “How do you love someone one day and not the next? I wish I kn-knew.”

John turned her and placed his hands on the sides of her face. “Don’t cry,” he said, and brushed her wet cheeks with his thumbs.

Colleen looked up at John’s smeared outline. “I’ll be okay in a minute,” she lied.

He lowered his face, and the light touch of his lips stopped the air in her lungs. “Shh,” he whispered at the corner of her mouth. His hand slid toward the back of her head and his fingers plowed through her hair. He placed soft kisses on her cheek, her temple, and her brow. “Don’t cry anymore, Collie.”

She doubted she could if she wanted to. While Dusty sang about the only boy who could ever teach her, shock clogged everything in the center of Colleen’s chest and she could hardly breath.

He kissed her nose, then said just above her mouth, “You need something else to think about.” He gently pulled her head backward and her lips parted slightly. “Like how it feels to be held by a man who appreciates a beautiful woman.”

Colleen placed her hands on his chest and felt the solid muscles beneath the thin dress shirt. This could not be happening. Not with John. “No,” she assured him a little desperately. “I remember.”

“I think you’ve forgotten.” His lips pressed into her, then eased back a fraction. “You need a little reminding by a man who knows how to please you and only you.”

“I wish you’d forget I said that,” she managed past the constriction in her chest.

“Never.”

She gasped as his mouth opened over hers and his tongue swept inside. He tasted like scotch and something else. Something she hadn’t tasted in a very long time. Sexual desire. Hot and intoxicating, focused directly at her. She should have been alarmed, and she was a little. But mostly she liked the taste in her mouth. Like something luscious and rich she hadn’t had in a while, and it poured all through her, warming the pit of her stomach and the empty places inside.

Everything around her receded away like a low tide. The party. The crickets. Dusty. Thoughts of Doug.

John was right. She’d forgotten what it was like to have a man make love to her mouth. She couldn’t recall it being so good. Or perhaps it was that John was so good at it. Her palms slid to his shoulders and the sides of his neck as his slick tongue teased and coaxed until she gave in and kissed him back, returning the passion and possession he fed her.

Her toes curled and she ran her fingers through the short hair brushing the collar of his shirt. His mouth never left hers, yet she felt the kiss everywhere. His wet mouth on hers turned every cell in her body needy and greedy and wanting more.

She rose to the balls of her feet and pressed into him. He groaned into her mouth, a deep sound of lust and yearning that fanned Colleen’s ego. She turned her head to the side and her mouth clung to his.

She kissed him like she wanted to eat him up, and she did. Every last bite. At that moment, she didn’t care who he was, only how he made her feel. Wanted and desired.

He pulled back and gasped for breath. “Jesus, stop!”

“Why?” she asked, and kissed the side of his throat.

“Because,” he answered, his voice sounding both rough and tortured, “we’re both old enough to know where this will lead.”

She smiled against his neck. “Where?”

“To a quickie in the woods.”

Colleen wasn’t that far gone. She dropped to her heels and retreated a few steps. She watched John as she took several mind-clearing breaths. John combed his fingers through his hair and tried to make sense of what had happened. She’d just kissed John O’Callaghan, and as crazy as that sounded inside her head, she wasn’t sorry. “You’ve been practicing since we were fifteen,” she said, still a little dazed by it all.

“That shouldn’t have happened. Sorry, but I’ve been thinking about it since the night you stripped in front of me. I remember exactly what you look like naked, and things got out of control and –” He scrubbed his face with his hands. “It wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t started crying.”

Her brows lowered as she stared into the dark shadows and raised her fingers to her lips. She wished he hadn’t apologized. She knew she should probably be mad or appalled or offended by the way they’d both behaved, but she wasn’t. At the moment, she didn’t feel offended, appalled, or even sorry. She felt alive. “You’re blaming me? I’m not the one who grabbed and assaulted your mouth.”

“Assaulted? I didn’t assault you.” He pointed at her. “I can’t stand to see a woman cry. I know it sounds clichéd, but it’s true. I would have done just about anything to get you to stop.”

She was sure she’d be sorry later, though. Like, when she had to see him in the light of day. “You could have walked away.”

“And you’d still be bawling your eyes out like you were that night in the hotel. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Once again I did you a favor.”

“Are you kidding?”

“Not at all, you stopped crying, didn’t you?”

“Is this your ulterior motive crap again, like in high school? You kissed me to help me out?”

“It’s not crap.”

“Wow, how noble of you.” She laughed. “I suppose you got turned on because… why?”

“Collie,” he said through a sigh, “you’re an attractive woman and I’m a man. Of course, you turn me on. I don’t have to stand here and wonder what you look like naked, I know for damn sure that you’re beautiful all over. So of course, I felt something. If I hadn’t felt some measure of desire, I’d be damn worried about myself.”

She didn’t bother pointing out just how many inches his desire measured. She wished she could conjure up some anger, but to do that she’d have to be sorry. Right now, she wasn’t.

“You should thank me,” he said.

Right. She should probably thank him, but not for the reason he thought. “And you should go right ahead and kiss my ass.”

He chuckled, low and deep in his chest.

“In case you’re confused, John, that wasn’t an invitation.”

“It sure sounded like an invitation.” He took a few steps back and added, “The next time I’m in town, I’ll have to take you up on it.”

“I don’t know. Will I have to thank you?”

“No, you wont have to. But you’ll want to.” Then, without another word, he turned and walked away. Not in the direction of the party, but in the direction of the driveway.

She’d know John most of her life. Some things hadn’t changed. Like his attempts to walk around her and make her think night was day, to feed her lines of bull, and on occasion to make her feel wonderful. Like the time he’d told her that her eyes were the color of the irises growing in her mother’s garden. She couldn’t remember her age, but she did remember that she’d lived on that compliment for days.

Colleen felt the sharp edges of the tree against her back as she watch John step into his car. She once again raised her fingers to her lips, lips made sensitive by his kiss. She’d known him most of her life, but one thing was for certain; John was no longer a boy. He was definitely a man.