I couldn’t forget. Photo or not.
She looks back to the picture, her lower lip caught in her teeth as she smiles wistfully. ‘You and Nate look so young...so happy.’
I take a slug of my beer and let my gaze drift to it too: Eva, Me, Nate, our arms over each other’s shoulders, doing a rendition of...
‘The cancan, wasn’t it?’ she says.
‘Yes.’ I have to force the simple syllable past the wedge in my throat.
‘It was a bitch in that dress—but worth every second to see you and Nate falling over yourselves to see who could get their legs the highest.’
She gives a soft laugh and then she turns to face me, her eyes curious. Too curious.
‘I’m going to take that shower. Help yourself to anything—living room is just through there.’
I’m already moving, escaping her magnetic pull, but she’s not letting me. She’s on my tail.
‘Why keep it?’
‘I told you—it was a good night.’
Really it’s a memory of a lesson learned. Never to get that close to anyone again. Not just Eva, but Nate too. It’s also the night things changed. The night she made her feelings so clear, her passion. Her switch from besotted spunky teen to—
Christ, don’t go there.
‘It was ten years ago, and you’ve had nothing to do with us for five—why would you keep it?’
I turn to look at her and she’s practically upon me. Her eyes are wide, probing. She’s looking for a deeper meaning that I know I can’t give her. I can’t open myself up to her. I trust her, but I don’t trust her with that. There can be no future for us. To confess now would be pointless and would only complicate things. I don’t want her pity and, knowing her like I do, that’s what I’ll get.
Pity for all that I’ve lost.
Even without the knowledge of what really went down between Nate and I, she will pity me. She knows too much of my past, of my childhood and of what the Beaumonts meant to me.
‘Tell me.’
Her voice is soft, coaxing, and her fingers reach out to stroke along my jaw, gentle and coaxing like her voice, her eyes, and I’m falling. I can feel it just as well as I can feel her touch upon me.
‘Lucas, please...’
* * *
I’m looking up at him, cradling his face, and I’m past the sexual magnetism of his sweat-slickened body that struck me so dumb downstairs. I’m all over what I can read in his eyes, in what his keeping that photograph means.
‘I’ve had ten years to wait for this.’
It’s as if some kind of screen has lifted—as if I can see him clearly now and see him clearly then. So much emotion in his face. Did he feel something deeper for me all those years ago...something akin to what I felt...is he feeling it now?
I can see the fight in him. He won’t speak. And suddenly I don’t need words. I need him. All of him.
‘Lucas...’ I whisper, my lashes already lowering and my body lifting onto my toes as my head tilts back to find his mouth.
His body turns rigid, but he doesn’t push me away. I kiss the corner of his mouth, its hard line, his five o’clock shadow grazing me. His scent is musky and all man, and I’m high on it. Every sensation teases me, even the slightest press of my lips against him.
He stays rock solid, unmoving, but I press on. I’m ready. For this...for whatever is to come. It feels right—he feels right.
I keep my eyes hooked on his, my hand upon his cheek as I reach for his beer bottle, taking it from his unresisting fingers and placing it on the table at my hip. Nerves rear up inside me, mixing with the thrum of anticipation, but I want this. And I think—I know—he wants it too.
I lift myself towards him again and gently nudge his mouth with my own. So hard, unrelenting. But I persist, taking what I’ve always wanted. Repeating the move, slow and coaxing. He tastes of beer, of him...