The Wreck (24 page)

“I wish I could tell you.”

“I guess I’ll never really understand
it.”

“You know, I’m sure my doctor friend in
New York would talk it through with you. I could call him next week and arrange
something, if you’re interested.”

“You really think he would?”

“We worked very closely on the Gooding trial
and spent a lot of nights eating cold Chinese together. He’d do it for me if I
asked him to.”

“Thank you.”

“Now can I have just one little smile?”

“I can do better than a smile.”

His voice was rough with desire when he
said, “Yeah?”

“Uh huh.”

He touched his lips to hers for a light
kiss, and was startled when she reached up to keep him from pulling away.

Her mouth opened under his in invitation.

He had forgotten how potent her kisses
could be, so sweet and yet so hot he melted into her. Their tongues mated in a
dance as familiar to him as anything in his life. When he couldn’t stand
another minute without having more of her, he finally drew back.

From the stunned look on her face, he
could tell she felt all the same things.

He kissed the hand that had wrapped
around his and then her lips again. “I have a sudden burning need to get to the
hotel.”

“Since I seem to have the same need why
are we just sitting here?”

He laughed and shifted the car into gear.
When he would have floored it, he had to remind himself to drive slowly so he
wouldn’t scare her.

The sun was setting over Narragansett Bay
by the time they crossed the Newport Bridge and took the exit for the City by
the Sea.

“It’s as pretty as I remember,” Carly
said as they drove down narrow cobblestone streets with Colonial-era houses and
gas-powered streetlights. “I can’t believe I’ve been less than an hour from
here all these years.”

“Now that you’ve conquered your fear of
cars, the whole world is open to you again. You can go anywhere and do anything
you want.”

“When you put it that way, it’s sort of
overwhelming.”

“Do you think you might want to go to
college?”

She shrugged and rested her head against
the leather seat.

“Seriously, if you could do anything you
wanted, what would it be?”

Turning so she could see him, she said,
“I don’t know.”

“Come on,” he urged. “There has to be
something
.”

“If I tell you, it’ll freak you out.”

“No, it won’t.”

She laughed. “Trust me, it will.”

“Okay, now I have to know.” When she
still didn’t answer, he tried pleading. “
Carly,
tell me
.”

Hesitating for another moment, she
finally said, “I want to have a baby.” She said it so softly he almost didn’t
hear her.

Almost.

He took his eyes off the road to glance
over at her.

“I told you it would freak you out.”

“Do I look freaked out?” he asked
indignantly.

“Yes!” She snorted with laughter. “You
look like you just got hit by a bus.”

“I do
not
!”

“Yes, you do.”

They were still playfully arguing when he
pulled up in front of a downtown hotel and handed the keys to a valet. Brian
carried their two small bags, and within minutes, they were riding the elevator
to the third floor. Their room looked out over Newport Harbor, which was packed
with boats.

“Is this all right?” he asked, taking a
quick look at the sunset.

“It’s beautiful. I can’t believe you
arranged it so quickly.”

“My mother might’ve helped me,” he
confessed.

She smiled. “Why do I feel so shy now
that we’re finally here?”

“We don’t have to do anything. I’m happy to
be in the same room with you.”

“You always did know just what to say to
me.” She put her arms around him. “Didn’t you?”

He kissed her cheek and then her lips
before he hugged her tight against him. “Do you want to take a walk or get some
dinner? We can do anything you want.”

“Anything?”

“You name it.”

She surprised him when she reached for
the hem of his polo shirt and tugged it up and over his head. “Anything at
all?” she asked, looking up at him with a coy smile as she turned her attention
to his chest. Her tongue flicked his nipple, drawing a gasp from him.

He took as much of that as he could
handle before he buried his hands in her hair and captured her mouth in a kiss
that went from zero to ninety in about two seconds flat. “Jesus, Carly,” he
whispered as he unbuttoned her blouse and pushed it off her shoulders. “No one
has ever been able to fire me up the way you do.”

Her face clouded briefly, and Brian
wanted to shoot himself for reminding her, especially right then, that there
had been others. He framed her face with his hands and looked into her eyes.
“You’re the only one I’ve ever loved, the only one who’s ever really mattered
to me. Do you believe me?”

She nodded and reached for him, wanting
more. Her kiss told him she wanted everything.

Pulling frantically at clothes, they were
suddenly unable to wait another minute for what they’d lived fifteen years
without. As her bra fell to the floor, Brian tightened his arms around her and
trembled at the feel of her soft breasts pressed to his chest.

She closed her hand around his erection,
and he gritted his teeth against the burning need that spiraled through him.

“Carly,” he whispered as he caressed her
face and leaned in to kiss her.

“I had forgotten.”

“What, honey?”

“How you feel.” She stroked him gently as
her other hand cruised over his chest. “How it feels to be with you like this.
I thought I remembered, but I didn’t.”

“There’s no substitute for the real
thing,” he said as he urged her onto the king-sized bed. “What we wouldn’t have
given for a room like this back in the day, huh?”

“We had that one night in Ann Arbor.” She
wrapped her arms around him. “I’ve relived it a million times.”

He nuzzled her breasts. “You don’t have
to relive it anymore, because we have every night for the rest of our lives to
make new memories.” His hand traveled down to find her ready for him. “I don’t
ever want to go to bed again without you next to me.” He teased her with his
finger as he tugged her nipple into his mouth.

She gasped and squirmed under him. “I’m
so afraid this is a dream, and I’m going to wake up to find you’re still in New
York, that you never came home.”

Raising his head so he could see her
eyes, he kissed her softly. “For the first time since I was last with you, I’m
right where I belong, Carly, and I’ll never leave you again. I promise.”

“Did you bring, you know, protection?”

“Yes, but we don’t need it.”

“I’m not on the pill anymore. There
wasn’t any point.”

“I know.” He kissed her breasts and
worked at keeping his ravenous desire in check, afraid he would scare her if
she had any idea how badly he wanted her.

She tipped his face up. “But we can’t
just—”

“Why not?”

Her withering look made him laugh.

“You want a baby. Isn’t that what you
told me?”

“Yes, but—”

“Since I wouldn’t want you going to
anyone else to get what you want, you’ll have to settle for me.” As his tongue
caressed hers, he entered her slowly, taking care to remember how long it had
been for her. Rocking his hips against her, he looked down at her with a smug
smile and whispered against her lips, “I told you I wasn’t freaked out.”

 “
D
o you think it
worked?” he asked an hour later.

She laughed and snuggled closer to him.
“If it didn’t, it won’t be for a lack of trying.”

He laughed softly and kissed her. “Are
you hungry?”

“Getting there.”

“Do you want to go out?”

She shook her head. “I never want to
leave this bed again for the rest of my life.”

“Then room service it is.”

When he would’ve gotten up, she stopped
him. “Don’t go just yet.”

“I was coming right back.” He turned on
his side and brought her closer to him. Tracing a finger over her cheek, he
asked, “Why so pensive all of a sudden?”

“What were they like?”

His eyebrows knitted with confusion.
“Who?”

“The other women you were with. The women
you married.”

He groaned and turned his face into the
pillow. “We are
not
going to talk about that now.”

“Why not?”

“Because. This is a time to be looking
ahead not back, and this night is about you and me. No one else.”

“Do you think I won’t understand that you
were lonely, Brian? I will, because I was, too.”

“Why didn’t you ever go out with anyone
else? There must’ve been no shortage of men who were interested.”

“It’s kind of hard to date when you can’t
talk.”

“What if you could’ve talked? Would you
have dated then?”

She shrugged. “It’s hard to say, but I
doubt it. The only man I wanted was the one I couldn’t have.”

He closed his eyes and exhaled a long
deep breath. “I was so sure I was doing the right thing when I said I was
leaving for good. You know the main reason I did that was to try to force you
to come with me, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.”

“I was desperate, Carly. And once that
ultimatum was out of my mouth, it was kind of hard to take it back. I wished so
many times I hadn’t made such an all-or-nothing stand. Now that I’m back with
you again, I realize what a big mistake I made and how much I denied us both.
Even a little bit with you would’ve been better than nothing.”

She brushed his hair off his forehead and
kissed him. “You were eighteen years old and traumatized. Don’t beat yourself
up for doing what you thought was right at the time.”

He was quiet for a long moment as he
studied her face. “It took me three years to even think about being with
someone else,” he finally said as he combed his fingers through her curls. “I
didn’t bother dating or getting to know anyone, because that would’ve taken too
much effort, and it didn’t really matter. I was lonely and bitter about losing
you and everyone who mattered to me, so I was looking for a purely physical
thing. I picked up a girl in an off-campus bar, and we went back to her place.”

Carly caressed his chest as she listened
to him.

“I can only imagine what you must be
thinking. It sounds awful, even to me,” he said as he looked up at the ceiling.
“So we started, you know, fooling around.” He glanced over at Carly. “You’re
sure you want to hear this?”

She nodded.

“One thing led to another, and we ended
up in her bed. I kept wishing I’d had more to drink so I wouldn’t have been so
aware of what I was doing or that everything about it—and her—felt wrong. And
then I kind of lost my … enthusiasm, so to speak.” He brought Carly’s hand to
his lips. “Even though we weren’t together anymore, I felt like I was cheating
on you.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “Bri,” she
whispered.

“I made a bunch of excuses about drinking
too much and got out of there as fast as I could. I hit a pretty low point for
a while after that. It was as close as I ever came to just saying fuck it and
going home. I wondered if I was destined to be alone for the rest of my life,
if that’s what I had doomed us both to. Then I met Beth. She lived in the
apartment across the hall from me during our senior year. She had short dark
hair and brown eyes that reminded me of yours. She’s really the only good
friend I’ve made since I left home, but even she doesn’t know the whole story.”

“You were married to her, and you never
told her?”

“I’ve never told anyone.”

Carly shook her head with dismay. “I
thought it was harder to be the one who got left behind at home, but at least I
had my family around me. You were so alone in the world.”

“Beth made me feel less alone, which is
the one and only reason I married her. Of course, that wasn’t very fair to her,
and it didn’t take me long to realize I’d made another huge mistake.”

“But you stayed with her for a while.”

He nodded. “She came home a few weeks
before I graduated from law school and told me she’d met someone else and
wanted a divorce. I could hardly blame her. She married Joe, and they’re very
happy. I like him a lot. In fact, I just had dinner with them recently when
they were in New York. I was lucky she forgave me for being a crappy husband
and kept me as a friend.”

“What about Jane?”

Brian smiled. “Ah, yes. And then there
was Jane. My mother couldn’t stand her.”