Page 69 of The Calendar of New Beginnings
“Andy, what I feel for you is stronger than anything I’ve ever felt for another person. It’s just… I love you so much, and you’ve already been through so much with Kim. I…”
When she paused, he couldn’t draw in a solid breath.
“I don’t want you to get hurt again. I…want to be with you, but there’s so much we don’t know. What happens when I leave? I mean, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to take photos up to my standards again, but Iwantto keep working. To keep traveling. I don’t know?—”
He pressed his finger to her mouth. “I know it’s hard to live with all those questions. All I can promise is that I’m here and that I love you. Don’t worry about hurting me. That’s the wrong perspective. Focus on loving me—for as long as you want to.”
Her hands cupped his face. “Even though we just kissed for the first time, I can’t imagine ever wanting to stop loving you.”
As far as he was concerned, that was the only thing that mattered. “So when the questions come up—for both of us—let me hold you and kiss you and tell you that. We’ll face things together.”
She looked down and fiddled with the edge of his T-shirt. “And what about sex? At some point, we’ll want to do that too, right? Of course we will. We love each other. Doesn’t that scare you?”
This time he gulped. “It does a little. It would be another big enough step for both of us. When we end up making love, we’ll talk things through. There’s no need to rush anything.”
The healthy adult male inside him knew what he wanted. Hot sex. Meaningful sex. It had been a long time, and yes, it would mean severing yet another connection with Kim, but it would also be a happy step forward if it waswhere he and Lucy decided to go. And after kissing her just now, he wanted to go there.
But he was also older and wiser. A lot was changing—in her life and between them. He wanted them both to feel comfortable and to take care with each other.
“So are we dating now?” she blurted out. “I mean, showing me Kim’s letter seems to imply that and more. I mean, neither one of us is the booty-call type unless you have some really dark secrets I can’t imagine, and I think I just said ‘I mean’ twice. I’m babbling.”
“You did repeat that.” He couldn’t help the slow smile he gave her. “I like ‘booty’ as much as any guy, but that’s not my thing. And please don’t ever sext me while I’m at work. When Kim and I were first married, she did it as a joke, and I just happened to have my phone lying on my desk. The nurse I was talking to saw the message when my screen lit up, and she dropped a patient’s file.”
Holy crap. Why had he told her that?
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be telling you stories like that.”
“Like what?” she asked, tilting her head to the side. “It seems silly for you to say that after showing me her letter. Andy, you weremarried.You have stories. It’s all right if you talk about Kim. You always did before.”
Yeah, he had, but somehow everything had changed. “I don’t…oh hell…I don’t want you to ever think I’m comparing you to her. I mean—heck, now I’m saying it—I didn’t want her letter to imply you’re…”
“The consolation prize?” she asked in that bold-as-brass Lucy way of hers. “If you feel weird, tell me. I’m glad you showed me the letter, Andy. You never mentioned it to me before.”
He hadn’t been able to—not even in an email. He’d been too raw, and the words were the final oneshe had from his wife. For a long time, he hadn’t been ready to share them. Someday he’d show it to Danny when he was older, but not for years.
“I never want you to stop remembering Kim or your life with her,” Lucy went on. “It’s not just important to you, but to Danny. I only want…”
“What do you want?” he asked, so bowled over by her, bythis, that he couldn’t see straight.
She lifted her shoulder. “I only want us to be honest with each other. Like you did when you showed me the letter. Thisisweird. We’ve been best friends forever, and now I suddenly want to jump your bones.”
He couldn’t help it. He started laughing. “You want to jump my bones? Did you have to say it that way?” But then he realized why she had. Lucy O’Brien was tough, and when she was scared, she got tougher. This was uncharted territory. “How about we try calling it making love?”
And that was all it took to make tough-as-nails Lucy O’Brien squirm before his eyes.
“I mean it,” he said, wanting to squirm a little himself. “Weloveeach other—even if this other kind of love is new. We know almost everything there is to know about each other. And now we want to be together. When we decide to have sex, it won’t just be sex. Honestly, I wouldn’t want it to be. We both care too much about each other for something that simple.”
“What if this whole I-want-to-kiss-your-face-off thing fades?” she asked, her eyes vulnerable. “Maybe we won’t make it to sex.”
“I would never have showed you that letter if I believed that,” he said, and he realized it was the God’s honest truth.
Because he needed the confidence building as much as she seemed to, he leaned in and kissed her again. She madea show of trying to keep reserved, but soon she was fisting her hands in his hair and opening her mouth, giving him a whole other impression of heaven on earth. This time he couldn’t stop himself from running his hands down the sides of her body, and when she inched back on his lap to make space, he set those same hands to her breasts.
She moaned into his mouth, and the kiss turned wild. His tongue thrust into her mouth, and she met him stroke for stroke. She shifted in his arms until she was straddling him, and he almost lost control when he felt her core press against him.
“Okay,” he said, breathing hard. “Now we’d really better slow down.”
She gave him some space, thank God, but stayed close enough for him to stroke her back. “I guess we might be heading toward sex, after all,” she said, gasping for air.
