Safe Harbor Page 14

He kissed her chin, her nose, the lid of each eye, the corners of her smile. His body remained tense with anticipation, but his mind and his heart relaxed. His soul vibrated with laughter as well as passion. If any woman could see him through his first attempt to throw off the past and become a complete man once more, it was Shelley. He trusted no other woman the way he trusted her.

  They attacked each other’s clothes, pulling, tugging, unbuttoning, unbuckling, shifting and wriggling until they were both naked. Kip guided Shelley down to the mattress, centering her head on a pillow. Her tall, beautiful body extended nearly the length of the bed.

  He caressed her skin—not silk, he decided, but satin, smooth and supple, a tactile delight spread out before him, awaiting the pleasure of his touch. He traced her collarbones, her sternum, her firm, round breasts. He circled one nipple, then rubbed it with his thumb and felt it stiffen, felt threads of arousal tightening below the surface. Once he’d teased the other nipple into the same exquisite condition, he let his hand journey lower, over her ribs, her stomach, over the sharp point of her hipbone, over the sleek contour of her thigh.

  She touched him, too, probing the strong arch of his back, twining her fingers through the wiry hair of his chest, strumming along his ribs, down over the muscles of his abdomen and lower, making a brief but daring foray into the thick, dark hair at his groin. Her glancing caress caused him to suck in a shaky breath.

  The trembling inside his soul grew fiercer, less laughter than need now, but he did his best to ignore it, to take his time. He’d waited over a year for this; he could wait a few minutes longer. He had to be sure Shelley was with him, the moment right for her.

  His mouth sought hers, capturing it in a devouring kiss as his hands continued to roam over her. She bent her leg, offering him her knee; he took more than she offered, abandoning the knee for her thigh, massaging the smooth, warm flesh and savoring her hushed moan as he moved his hand upward.

  Her hips arched in silent beseechment. He obeyed her unspoken demand, cupping his hand between her legs and sinking his fingers into her. She cried out, her smile gone, her eyes half-closed as he circled and dipped, steeping her in her own sweet arousal. One of her hands dug into his shoulder and the other darted down between their bodies, seeking, finding him, stroking until his need for her became unbearable.

  He rose onto her, pulled her legs around him, slid into the pulsing heat of her. So good, he thought as she arched again, drawing him deeper. She felt so good, so perfect, as if she had been shaped just for him, as if the tight, damp darkness of her had been waiting for this instant, this union. As if his body had been waiting for no one but her.

  They moved together, finding their rhythm, letting their instincts take over. As strong and brave as Shelley had always been, now she was tender, delicate, unabashedly feminine. Her skin felt incredibly soft against his, her breasts soft beneath the firm muscles of his chest, her lips soft as his tongue plundered her mouth, her gasps of rapture so soft, so heavenly. Her enveloping warmth so unspeakably soft as he surged within her.

  He leaned back to gaze down at her. Her eyes were still half-closed, glazed but steady, watching him as he watched her. Her teeth were clamped around her lower lip and her hips rose to meet his thrusts. Her body grew taut beneath him, striving, reaching. She molded her hands to his hips and held him motionless inside her.

  He caught his breath and went still as he felt the contractions seize her, the exquisite bliss of her climax overtaking her, pounding through her flesh, culminating in a tremulous groan torn from the depths of her soul. And then he let go.

  He was all sensation, all energy, exploding with ecstasy. He’d forgotten what this was like; he hadn’t let himself remember. He’d forgotten, until this moment with this woman, the freedom, the relief, the stunning pleasure of it.

  This was what it meant to be alive—and now, after so many long months, he was alive again. Shelley had brought him back to life.

  Exhausted, he collapsed into her arms. His body felt weak; his mind drifted. Not until he felt her stirring languidly under his smothering weight did he regain full consciousness. He began to lift himself off her, but she wouldn’t release him. She ringed her arms around his waist and held him to her, nestled between her legs, allowing him only to brace himself with his arms so she could breathe more easily.

  Her hair was splayed across the pillow, her lower lip still bearing the imprint of her teeth. Her eyes searched his face, luminous yet unreadable.

  “Was that all right?” he asked in a hushed, hoarse voice.

  Her eyes widened, and an laugh escaped her. “Should I grade you on a scale of one to ten?”

  He opened his mouth to explain that what he needed to know was whether they were all right, whether after what they’d just shared they could still be friends. Yet her joke was all the answer he needed. It reminded him that their relationship was strong and enduring, that this was not the first time they had strayed beyond the safe boundaries of friendship, and that no matter what they’d done she could still laugh with him and tease him.

  He mirrored her smile. “Okay. On a scale of one to ten...?”

  She frowned in concentration, then announced her verdict: “Eight.”

  Eight? Shit. If he’d been the scorekeeper he would have given this a ten. A ten thousand.

  Her laughter cut through his insecurity, and he relaxed and eased out of her arms, settling next to her on his side so he could continue to gaze at her. “All right,” he said patiently. “What did I lose two points for?”

  She grinned at him. “You lost two points for deducting two points from my kiss that time in the cupola.”

  “Ah. A lady with a long memory.”

  “A long memory and a big grudge.”

  “What can I do to earn back those points?”

  “Hmmm.” She pretended to give the question a great deal of thought. As she contemplated various possibilities she draped her hand over his side, running it down toward his waist and then forward to weave through the sweat-damp curls of hair matting his chest.

  His body reacted all over, in a deliciously uncomfortable way. He cupped his hand over hers and held it. Together they felt his heartbeat, slower than it had been a minute ago but still fierce and strong. “Keep touching me like that,” he whispered, “and you’re going to have another opportunity to grade me real soon.”

  “Is that a warning?”

  “A statement of fact.” He leaned forward to kiss her. “You’re dangerously sexy.”

  “Oh, right,” she scoffed.

  “You are.”

  “How much wine was in that scallop dish you made?”

  He frowned. “Don’t you know how attractive you are?”

  Her smile lost its sardonic edge. “What I know is, the last time you were on Block Island you didn’t notice anything the least bit sexy about me.”

  “You mean—when we were kids?”

  “When we were fifteen.”

  He let out a laugh. “When we were fifteen...” He stroked his thumb over her hand, exploring the slender ridge of her knuckles, the smoothness of her skin. “I thought you were the sexiest girl I’d ever laid eyes on.”

  “Like hell. You thought I was just a guy, someone to pal around with.”

  “If I thought you were just a guy, do you think I would have made out with you in the cupola?”

  “That wasn’t making out,” she argued. “That was just practice.”

  “Sure,” he humored her. “That was the most exciting practice I ever had. Didn’t you have any idea what you were doing to me that summer?”

  She appeared genuinely perplexed. “No. What was I doing to you?”

  “Making me crazy.”

  “Really?”

  “Constantly. I was in a continuous state of insanity from you, Shelley. I remember one day...” He reminisced, a nostalgic warmth wrapping around him. “We biked down to our special beach near Dorie’s Cove, and you had on this bathing suit—if you could call it that
. It was really just three microscopic triangles held together by a thread. One triangle was here—” he bowed and kissed one of her breasts “—one here—” he kissed her other breast “—and one fractionally larger triangle down here.” He stroked his hand through the thatch of blond hair curling between her legs. “It was blue, I think—”

  Her hips moved reflexively against his hand, and when she spoke her voice sounded unusually husky. “It was turquoise. And you didn’t even notice it.”

  “Didn’t notice it? Are you kidding?”

  She pouted slightly. “Well, you didn’t say anything when I wore it.”

  He laughed again. “Christ, Shelley—I was speechless. As I recall, I had to flee into the water so you wouldn’t see what that bathing suit was doing to me.”

  Her eyes grew round. “Really?”

  “For months afterward, whenever I saw a triangle I got a hard-on.”

  She gave him a shove. “I’ll bet.”

  He stroked his fingers down between her legs again, a teasingly light brush against her. It was an unfair tactic, but it kept her from trying to shove him away again. “I was a kid,” he reminded her. “Embarrassingly inexperienced. Heavy on the fantasies, but lean when it came to action.” He deepened his caress, savoring the restless motions of her body, the uneven rasp of her breath as she responded to his touch. “You were my friend, Shelley. It scared me to think of you in sexual terms.”

  She forced her eyes open. “I’m still your friend,” she whispered.

  “Maybe it still scares me,” he confessed before sliding his free hand around her waist and drawing her to himself. Their mouths met, and the fear he’d just confessed to burned away in the heat of her kiss.

  Rolling onto his back, he pulled her on top of him, down around him, sliding his hands forward from the pliant curves of her bottom to her thighs, to the place where their bodies met most intimately. He touched her as she rocked against him, and kissed her, and arched deep into her, filling her, binding himself to her in flesh and sensation, in friendship and love.

  If he’d stopped to think, he might have been scared again. But he wasn’t thinking right now. He was only feeling, glorying in the splendor of being alive, a man making love to a woman.

  For this one magnificent night he didn’t need to think, and he had nothing to fear.

  ***

  WHEN HE WOKE UP, he was alone.

  The room was awash in the pearlescent light of early morning. The bed was warm, the sheets tangled around his naked body. Through an open window he heard the distant honks of a gaggle of geese migrating south. Everything appeared in a myopic blur to him, except for one thing, one thing he saw with excruciating clarity: Shelley was gone.

  Panic slammed into his chest, knocking the wind out of his lungs. Where was she? How could she have left? Had he lost her again? Forever this time?

  Frantic, he vaulted out of bed and grabbed his slacks from the floor, where they’d spent the night crumbled in a heap. He yanked them on, lifted his equally wrinkled shirt from the rug and punched his arms through the sleeves. He shuffled his bare feet into his loafers, figuring he’d need to be wearing shoes if he had to chase her down in his car. Not bothering to button his shirt, he lunged for his eyeglasses, shoved them up his nose, and surveyed the room.

  With his vision restored to twenty-twenty, he spotted her purse on the dresser. He let out a long breath as relief flowed through him. She wouldn’t have left without taking her purse. She had to be here—somewhere.

  Abandoning his bedroom, he glanced down the hall to the small bedroom containing the stairs up to the cupola. She might have gone up there if she’d needed time to reflect on the night they’d spent together. He supposed he needed time to reflect, as well, but first he had to find her.

  He started toward the small bedroom, then inhaled the aroma of brewing coffee and halted. She must be in the kitchen.

  Reversing direction, he headed downstairs. His pulse gradually slowed to normal, and his eyes adjusted to the delicate shafts of dawn light streaming through the windows. At the bottom of the stairs he strode down the hall to the kitchen.

  The room was empty. He saw the coffee maker on the counter, its decanter full of coffee. A clean mug stood on the counter beside it, waiting for him.

  Where the hell was she?

  He filled the mug and carried it into the dining room. Through the window he spotted her outside on the front veranda. Fully dressed, she leaned against the railing and gazed out at the mist rising off the dew-drenched grass. A mug was balanced on the railing beside her elbow.

  She had her back to him, and he took a minute to study her. Her hair glinted with streaks of blond, her shoulders were gracefully broad, her spine straight, her waist narrow, her hips lean and her legs, her long legs...

  His groin tensed, a detached appreciation of her figure combining with his still-fresh memories of what her body had felt like, what it had done to him, what miraculous things it had made him feel. Last night had been incredible.

  But it wasn’t last night anymore.

  He hesitated. Now that he’d found Shelley, he had no idea what to do or say.

  At fifteen, he’d had pathetically little sexual experience with girls. At twenty-seven, he had little experience in how to survive the awkwardness of a morning-after. He’d done his share of screwing around in college—but only until his junior year, when he’d met Amanda and fallen madly, monogamously in love. She was the last woman with whom he’d ever awakened after a night of sex.

  Until now.

  This wasn’t a typical situation. Shelley wasn’t some woman he’d met and become infatuated with. Nor was she someone he’d picked up for a carefree night of fun. She was his friend, for Christ’s sake. His friend.

  He adored her; he thought she was the greatest. He wanted to be able to come to Block Island and visit her, to talk with her as they’d always talked, to feel comfortable with her. But he didn’t love her.

  Had last night changed everything they were to each other? Was he going to have to regard her not as a friend but as a lover now? Would she demand that they renegotiate their relationship?

  Shit.

  He didn’t want anything to change. He wanted Shelley to be the woman he trusted, the woman who had helped him to recover, who had given him the support and compassion he’d needed to become human and whole.

  He didn’t love her, though—not in the way last night might have implied. Not even after a moonlit interlude of glorious sex, of passion and humor and astonishing intimacy.

  Not the way he’d loved Amanda.

  As understanding as Shelley was, he doubted she would be able to understand that. She was a woman, and when a man slept with a woman...it changed things.

  Their relationship had always been grounded in honesty, and if Kip had anything to say about it, that would never change. He would simply have to be honest with her, reassure her that she was special but explain, if there was any question, any confusion—if, after all these years, Shelley had somehow failed understand what was going on between them...

  He would just have to be honest, that was all.

  He took a quick sip of coffee for fortitude, then left the dining room. He pushed the front door open and stepped out onto the porch. “Good morning,” he said.

  She turned from the railing and saw him. The smile she gave him was one of pure, distilled pleasure. Her eyes were gentle, her posture relaxed, her expression profoundly tranquil. “I made some coffee—” she began, then noticed the mug in his hand and grinned. “Oh. I see you’ve found it.”

  He glanced down into his mug. Steam rose from it in translucent wisps. He searched for inspiration in the vapor as it curled into the air and evaporated. His thoughts were just as ephemeral. They drifted up, seeming almost tangible, and then evanesced into the cool morning air.

  He had to say something. He had to meet Shelley’s courageous, open gaze and say something. “Shelley—”

  “No, Kip,” she said, he
r voice low and certain. She crossed the veranda to him, her nearness forcing him to lift his eyes to her. She brushed her fingertips lightly over his lips and smiled. “No explanations. No regrets. It happened, that’s all. It happened.”

  His heart seemed to swell inside him, growing heavy, aching beneath the overwhelming burden of his emotions. She did understand, everything, completely.

  He stared into her silver-gray eyes, absorbing their depth and beauty, the boundless faith illuminating them. “I have no explanations,” he murmured, curving his hand over her cheek, using his thumb to tuck an errant strand of golden hair behind her ear, as he’d done innumerable times before. “I also have no regrets.”

  “We’re still friends?” she half-asked.

  “Always, Shelley.” He set his mug on the railing and gathered her into his arms. “Always,” he whispered, and prayed for it to be the truth.

  He had lost Amanda, and the pain of losing her had been almost beyond bearing. Losing Shelley would hurt just as much.

  She was not his lover, but she was his friend, and she understood the difference. She understood.

  ***

  SIX WEEKS LATER, he moved into his new apartment in Back Bay. It was a charming one-bedroom place with a terrific view of the Charles River, and while the rent was outrageously high. he could afford it.

  His parents had donated a few essential pieces of furniture, but most of his belongings were still inside moving cartons. He had no shelves for his books, and only one three-drawer chest for his clothes. He had left all his furniture out in San Francisco, but now that he was finally of reasonably sound mind, he could begin to cope with the idea of selling the co-op and transporting the rest of his belongings east.

  The day he’d signed the lease he joined a health club in the neighborhood; one of his old high-school buddies, now an attorney on Beacon Hill, was also a member. An art dealer who lived in his building had sold him a couple of framed Georgia O’Keefe prints at discount for his barren walls. Another neighbor, noticing the fresh-paint smell of his apartment, had given him several spice balls to counteract the oppressive scent. Harrison Shaw and his wife had presented him with a set of towels as a house-warming gift.