Changes (The Magic Jukebox Book 1) Read online

  “I like red,” she said, and once he’d opened the bottle, she slid the roasting pan out of the oven and added a splash of wine to the chicken.

  They didn’t talk much while they prepared the meal. Diana was aware of Nick watching her—not in an uncomfortable way, but more to observe what she was doing. “How much garlic powder did you put in there?” he asked. “You didn’t measure it.”

  “I cook by feel,” Diana told him. “My parents had a maid when I was growing up. She did a lot of the cooking. I used to help her. She never measured anything, but everything always tasted great.”

  “I don’t measure much when I cook, either,” he admitted, “but that’s because I don’t cook anything that needs to be measured. Spaghetti—you fill a pot with water and toss in a handful of pasta. You open a jar of sauce and pour some on top. No measurements necessary.”

  Diana made a face. “Homemade sauce is so easy,” she told him. “You shouldn’t be using stuff from a jar.”

  “Yeah. My mother—” He abruptly stopped.

  “Your mother…?”

  “Would say the same thing,” he concluded. “Fiore. I’m Italian. I ought to know how to make sauce. Gravy, she calls it.”

  “Your mother never taught you?”

  “I didn’t want to learn,” he said laconically.

  Diana suspected there was more to his story than simply his not wanting to learn. She opted for tact, however, and busied herself wrapping the baguette in foil to heat in the oven.

  But as she finished the dinner preparations, as Nick set the small butcher-block table beneath the window with carefully folded paper napkins and mismatched silverware, as she tossed the salad and he pulled two wine glasses from one of the cabinets, a thought tugged at her brain: you know nothing about this man.

  True, she knew some things. But she didn’t know about his mother. More important, she didn’t know why his eyes darkened with shadows when he mentioned her, why an emotional shutter seemed to slam shut inside him, barring further inquiry about the woman who’d raised him.

  If he were Peter, Diana would respect that locked shutter. She wouldn’t press, wouldn’t probe. Experience had taught her not to push him into places he didn’t want to go. When she did, he became cranky and mean. She had learned that it was wisest to leave certain things unspoken with him, certain questions unasked.

  But she was no longer Peter’s fiancée. Perhaps one reason she’d left him was that she’d finally come to realize that having to exercise so much caution around him would make for a dreary, exhausting marriage. If she was ever going to get married, it ought to be to someone with whom she could discuss anything, without hesitation or fear.

  Nick Fiore and marriage did not belong in the same sentence in her mind. But she was eating dinner at his house. She’d kissed him. She wanted to kiss him again. She wanted to do much more than kiss him. She ought to be able to ask him anything. No holding back. No censoring herself.

  She waited until they were seated at the table, they’d sipped their wine, and he’d tasted the chicken and pronounced it delicious. Then she took a deep breath, as if about to dive off a high board into a very small pool, and said, “So, you’ve got a lousy relationship with your mother?”

  His eyes flashed, and then he surprised her by laughing. “You could say that.”

  “I just did.” She laughed, too, relieved that he hadn’t blown up at her. “Where does she live?”

  “Here.”

  “Here?” Diana gazed around the kitchen, half expecting to see evidence that Nick’s mother resided in this house.

  “In Brogan’s Point,” he clarified.

  “So, you grew up right here in town?”

  “I did.”

  “And never left?”

  “I went to UMass for college and grad school, but other than that…”

  Diana shouldn’t have found that fact so amazing. She’d lived her entire life in the greater Boston area, except for a semester of college in Barcelona. She’d traveled to London twice to visit Serena, toured parts of Europe with friends, spent an idyllic week in Cozumel, but as far as actually living somewhere, Boston and Brookline were her home.

  But Boston was a world-class city, filled with theaters, museums, parks, universities, four-star hotels, boutiques, gourmet shops, and residents speaking dozens of languages. Brogan’s Point was a sleepy little Cape Ann hamlet. Could a person actually live his entire life here without growing bored?

  Evidently, yes. Nick had lived his life here, and he didn’t seem the least bit bored.

  “Does your father live in Brogan’s Point, too?”

  She sensed the shutter slamming shut once more. “No.”

  Don’t hold back, she ordered herself. “Your parents are divorced?”

  “He’s gone,” Nick said tersely.

  “Dead? I’m sorry.”

  “I…” Nick drank some wine as he sorted his thoughts. “I don’t know if he’s dead. He left town years ago. I don’t even know if my parents are legally divorced. I just know he’s gone.”

  “Really?” How could he not know if his parents were still married? How could he not be curious enough to find out?

  “It is what it is,” Nick said. “My father is out of my life. That’s all.”

  That certainly wasn’t all. But Diana decided to do him the kindness of dropping the subject for now. The fact that he’d told her as much as he had—even if it wasn’t much—and hadn’t lost his temper or accused her of unforgivable nosiness was a victory in itself. She’d touched some sore spots, and he didn’t seem to hate her.

  That alone made her want to kiss him—and more.

  They spent the rest of the meal talking about safe subjects. He told her about coordinating the town’s summer programs for teenagers who were too young to get full-time jobs but not too young to get into trouble if they wound up with free time on their hands and nothing productive to fill that time with. She told him about her meeting earlier that day with James Sawyer, and about her task for tomorrow: making sure the estate she’d liquidated was carefully packed and trucked to the warehouse space Shomback-Sawyer had reserved for it.

  She and Nick lingered at the table until the wine was gone, then cleaned up together, side by side, occasionally bumping shoulders or elbows and laughing. Nick didn’t have a dishwasher, but he had soap, a sponge and a towel, and it didn’t take long for them to get the dishes washed and stacked in the rack to dry.

  “Some ice-cream?” Nick offered.

  Diana patted her tummy. “I’m stuffed.”

  “There’s always room for dessert.”

  She grinned and shook her head. “You tried to get me to eat too much toast that morning at Riley’s, too. I think you’re trying to fatten me up.”

  “No,” he said. He was smiling, but his gaze was serious. “You’re perfect, just the way you are.”

  He’d probably intended his words as a simple compliment, nothing more. But they resonated inside her. No one had ever told her she was perfect, with good reason. She was far from perfect. Yet when she tried to recall the last time Peter had told her she looked great, or her parents had told her they were proud of her, she couldn’t think of a single instance. She worked so hard to please everyone, yet no one ever seemed quite satisfied with her.

  Except James Sawyer.

  And Nick.

  She was no longer going to knock herself out in the hope that the people who were supposed to love her actually did love her. If they did, they ought to love her for who she was, not for her willingness to please them.

  She’d heard the song. It had persuaded her to change not just her relationship status but her attitude. Her world view was changing. Her determination. Her…what was James’s word? Confidence.

  “I’m not perfect,” she told Nick now. But she said it with a smile, with the self-assurance that he wouldn’t try to locate her imperfections and criticize her for them. One advantage of not knowing Nick that well was that, if he did decide to ha
rp on her flaws and weaknesses, she could walk away. They had no relationship. She was free. She didn’t have to please anyone but herself.

  Nick tossed the dish towel onto the counter and placed his hands on her shoulders. “You’re close enough,” he said. Was he talking about how close she was to perfection? Or how close she was to him? An arm’s length away was dangerously close.

  Less than an arm’s length. He stepped toward her, molded his fingers to the curves of her shoulders, bowed his head, and kissed her.

  Close enough, she thought as her mouth softened beneath his, as her body nestled against his, as she sank into the warmth of his kiss. She no longer had to feel guilty kissing him. She had ended things with Peter. She was unbetrothed, unattached, free.

  Free to return Nick’s kiss. Free to part her lips and welcome the invasion of his tongue. Free to wrap her arms around him, to feel the sleek muscles of his back through the fabric of his shirt.

  His tongue stroked hers, at first gently and then more hungrily. This kiss tasted better than any ice-cream Diana had ever eaten. Nick Fiore was the most delicious dessert she’d ever had.

  He wrapped one arm around her waist as he had the last time they’d kissed. She loved the way that made her feel, petite and possessed. He ran his other hand up her side, under her arm, forward just enough for his thumb to brush the side of her breast. She shuddered.

  Maybe she wasn’t free. She felt like a captive, imprisoned not by his embrace but by the lush sensations he awakened inside her. She never wanted to escape. She just wanted to keep kissing and kissing and kissing him.

  No, not true. She wanted much, much more than his kisses.

  “Make love to me,” she murmured, surprising herself. She had changed, all right. The old Diana would never have been so bold.

  His breath hitched. He pulled back just far enough to peer down into her face. “Are you sure?”

  She nodded. She’d said the words once. She wasn’t sure she had enough courage to say them again.

  Apparently, once was enough. He bowed and brushed her forehead with a light kiss. Then he lifted his hands to her head, digging his fingers deep into her hair on either side of her face and tilting her to receive another, deeper kiss from him. “Okay,” he whispered.

  ***

  Chapter Eleven

  He led her to his bedroom. It was, like the rest of his house, small but relatively tidy. Most of the room was taken up by his bed, which was flanked by small maple night tables. A tall chest of drawers stood in one corner. Two framed photos of what appeared to be waves crashing against a shoreline of harsh stone formations—Maine or Nova Scotia, Diana would guess—hung on the wall. A pair of sneakers lay near the closet door and a paperback edition of a John Grisham novel sat next to the lamp on one of the night tables, a scrap of paper serving as a bookmark. Diana crossed to the table and lifted the book to read its back cover copy. “Is it any good?”

  “I like courtroom dramas,” Nick said. “I’m afraid to get an e-reader. If I had one, I’d probably buy every legal thriller ever written.”

  She smiled. “If you had an e-reader, I wouldn’t have known what you were reading.” Every little bit of information she gleaned about Nick was precious. His taste in reading. His lack of discipline when it came to buying books. She could relate to that. She had several hundred books downloaded to her e-reader. It was simply too easy to click the buy button.

  Tonight neither she nor Nick would be reading. She lowered the book and shifted her gaze to the bed. It was neatly made, if not quite up to the standards of the Ocean Bluff Inn’s housekeeping staff. The sheets were a dark red, the color of the wine they’d consumed with dinner. The blanket was tan with red and blue lines crisscrossing it.

  She would be lying on that blanket soon, on those pillows, having sex with someone who wasn’t Peter for the first time in her life. Was she out of her mind?

  If she was, she didn’t care.

  She turned to Nick, reaching for him as he reached for her. Together they tumbled onto the soft, plush blanket, lying on their sides facing each other, their heads cushioned by the down pillows, their legs intertwined. Nick kissed her again. He kissed her lower lip, the corners of her mouth, the tip of her nose. He nuzzled her throat, nipped her ear. If Peter had been such an effective kisser, maybe Diana wouldn’t have left him.

  No. Even if his kisses could arouse her the way Nick’s did, she would have left him. Even if he touched her the way Nick was touching her, his hands simultaneously gentle and firm, his fingertips grazing her as if he needed to memorize every curve and contour of her body, every rise and hollow, caressing her wrist as if it were as important as her breast, stroking the nape of her neck as if it was as significant as the flare of her hips… She still would have left Peter. She still would have wanted to share this moment, this experience, with no one but Nick.

  She touched him as he touched her, gliding her hands along his shoulders, across his ribs, to the buttons of his shirt. Before she could release one button, he was there, flicking the buttons open with impressive speed. He shrugged out of the shirt, tossed it over the side of the bed and then settled back down beside her.

  She had expected him to remove her shirt, too, and the rest of her clothing, while he was at it. But he simply continued to caress her through her sweater and her jeans, as if he wanted to give her time to accept where they were heading, and a chance to bring everything to a halt if she chose.

  She didn’t need time. She’d made her choice. Pushing herself to sit, she gripped the ribbed edge of her sweater and lifted it up, over her head. Her hair fell around her face in disarray, and Nick tenderly brushed it back.

  This isn’t a relationship, she reminded herself. Don’t fall in love. But the gentleness of his touch, his thoughtfulness and his sensitivity about any misgivings she might have made it hard for her not to think of love when she thought of Nick. She didn’t know him that well, but what she knew…oh, yes. She could love him.

  Now that she’d removed her sweater, Nick clearly felt he could remove everything else. He reached behind her to flick the clasp of her bra, then stripped off her slacks and panties in one efficient sweep. His jeans went the way of his shirt, sailing over the edge of the bed, and then they were both naked.

  He was all muscle and sinew, all strength and grace. His body was so different from Peter’s. Peter kept fit, but his muscles were toned by a personal trainer at an expensive fitness center. Nick looked like someone who had earned his muscles through hard work. He looked like someone who could fight if he had to, and who would win. His biceps, while not bulging, were rock-hard. His chest and abdomen were taut. His legs were a runner’s; as a jogger herself, Diana appreciated the definition of the lean muscles in his calves and thighs. She pictured Nick racing up and down a basketball court, shouting encouragement to his kids. She pictured him swimming in the ocean. She pictured him lifting things, building things, fixing things.

  She didn’t have to picture him easing her onto her back, because that was what he doing. His muscles weren’t the only part of him that was rock-hard. He was fully aroused, and when she stroked his erection he groaned, pulled her hand away and kissed her palm. “I’m already there,” he murmured, easing down her body so he could kiss her breasts, her belly, the dampness between her legs.

  Her body lurched as his tongue slid over her. Peter had never done this to her, and oh… It felt so good. So indescribably good.

  She shuddered, too close to coming. “Stop, Nick, stop…”

  He lifted his head. “Much better than vanilla fudge,” he said, making her laugh, helping her to relax. “You okay?”

  “I’m okay.”

  He reached across the bed, tugged open a night table drawer, and pulled out a condom. “You still okay?” he asked as he tore open the envelope.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Let’s see if we can improve on that.” He settled between her legs, his knees nudging her thighs apart, and eased into her. Slow and firm,
the heat of him melting her, bathing her, permeating her.

  Overwhelming her.

  She exploded with his first thrust. Her body throbbed, clung, wrung itself out in pulses so sweet they hurt. She heard herself moan, felt her legs tighten around his hips, lost herself in sensation. He continued to thrust, harder and deeper, stroking her until her body convulsed again, even more powerfully. This time he was with her, gasping, groaning, pulsing his heat into her.

  Minutes might have passed. Hours, for all she knew. Days. Eons. Time no longer had meaning. All that mattered was now, this bed, this man. All that mattered was the freedom to love Nick Fiore.

  It’s not love, she told herself. But her heart wasn’t listening.

  ***

  Chapter Twelve

  He was still awake at midnight.

  Diana slept like the dead. Considering the workout he’d given her, he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. They’d made love twice. They’d taken a shower together. He’d donned a pair of sweat pants and lent her an old T-shirt, and they’d split the container of ice-cream. Then they’d made love again.

  Man, he could become addicted to her. Not just because she was beautiful, not just because her body fit so perfectly to his, not because her skin was peach soft, and the curves of her breasts matched the curves of his palms, and she was so hot and wet, and when she came she made a sound deep in her throat, and when he came inside her, he felt as if he was dying and being reborn all at once…but because of her smile, and her velvety voice, and her energy. Because she was one hell of a woman.

  She had told him she needed to be awake by seven. She had a big day ahead, that estate deal she’d negotiated and had to oversee. Not a problem; he was usually awake before seven, anyway.

  The way things were going, though, he might be awake at seven because he would never fall asleep between now and then. His brain was in overdrive. His brain, his nervous system… His conscience.