“Except for one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“You didn’t get your third.”
“Oh, no.” She lifted her head. “I can’t come that many times, either. Seriously, that was wonderful just like that.”
“Uh-huh.” He was already traveling down between her legs, aching to taste her.
“No, Derek, I really don’t think I...oh.”
He’d gone to work, loving her taste, the supple give of her sex, the way she writhed under his tongue and his fingers.
“Maybe...” She stopped for a gasp as he changed his rhythm. “Maybe one more.”
When she came apart, minutes later, moaning and gripping his arms, he felt her pleasure and satisfaction as if he’d come again himself.
He was falling for her. How could this happen so fast and so intensely? It made no sense...went against everything he thought he believed about love and about caution and about common sense.
Worse, and far more foolish, the idle fantasy of taking her out on his boat to live with him instead of returning her to the city had begun to change into the beginnings of a serious idea.
11
PAUL AND ELLEN’S rehearsal dinner was ending. The last lobster had been ravenously consumed, rolls and salad demolished, blueberry, raspberry and chocolate cream pies decimated. The group was lolling around the bonfire on the beach where they’d eaten, chatting while they finished off the keg. This was to be their last night on Storness Island. The next day, Saturday, they’d spend the morning cleaning and packing, then the trip back to the mainland for Paul and Ellen’s late afternoon wedding and reception at the beautiful house in Machias owned by the Bossons’ close friends, the Brisbanes. Sunday they’d all go home.
Sarah sat watching the flames, full of lobster, pie and confusion, nursing a last beer. She hadn’t had many—this was her third in three or four hours. She wasn’t in the mood for drinking. Most of the evening she’d smiled and chatted and acted the part of the happy groom’s sister—which she was, no question, very happy for Paul and for Ellen, whom she adored. But the reason for her uncharacteristically somber mood eluded her, and therefore its solution was similarly out of reach.
Every time she felt some understanding approaching she’d do everything in her power to go inside herself and grab it—but always at that instant whatever she was after, whatever part she’d managed to comprehend, disintegrated again into confusion.
In other words, something was massively bugging her and she was effing clueless as to what to do about it.
This was not like her. She’d always thought of herself as sunny and optimistic, knowing what she wanted and how to go about getting it—as long as it wasn’t a man. This weekend had dislodged her from that certainty, and tossed her into a who-am-I? abyss.
She hated that.
One of the guys Paul worked with, Evan she thought his name was, stood up on the other side of the bonfire and hoisted his cup of beer. “Thought I’d say a few things about the bride and groom taking the big plunge tomorrow.”
Murmurs of encouragement came from around the fire. Evan went on to talk about his friendship with Paul, and told a funny story from Paul and Ellen’s early years dating, when Paul bought her the world’s most hideous sweater which Ellen pretended to like and still wore.
Sarah smiled at the couple, her heart contracting with a wistful pain. Envious? Yes. Their faces were glowing; they were constantly touching each other. It was sickening.
Sarah had wondered for a lot of years whether Paul was in love with Addie. She’d never asked, because she was so afraid the answer would be yes, and then she’d have to cope with an impossible situation since she knew Addie had never noticed Paul as anything but a buddy. Around Addie, Paul had either been quiet and worshipful, eager to please, or trying too hard to be cooler than he was.
After he started dating Ellen, he’d become steady and mature, yet also able to be entirely and proudly his goofy charming self. No posturing, no going quiet, no puppy-dogging. This was the real deal.
Imagine, being accepted so entirely in love that you didn’t have to hide any of yourself, didn’t constantly have to fear judgment and rejection. To relax so completely into someone that you might even discover parts of yourself you didn’t know were there. Paul had found his inner alpha and had stepped up to the plate for his family, for Ellen’s family and for their friends on many occasions, where before he might have wanted to, but ultimately have talked himself out of the risk.