Page 554 of Summer Heat
Even this moment, which could have been awkward and strange, was not. They curled together in the chair without speaking, a warmth and comfortable silence pulsing between them, a silence that needed no artificial bracing.
Under her ear, Tamara could hear his heart beating, a dear and intimate sound. Hearing it, Tamara put her hand over the place, on his silky-haired chest, and wanted to tell him that she loved him. She wanted to tell him she loved the gentleness of his hand in her hair now, in contrast to the hungry violence of their joining. She wanted to tell him that the scent of his skin in her nose was like all the best of a mountain summer, like a meadow at noon. She wanted to tell him he was the most generous, kind man she’d ever known.
But her confession would burden him, and instead, she simply turned her face to his chest and nuzzled him.
His embrace tightened, and under her ear, his heart moved faster. She wondered what he would say if he could find the courage. She wondered if he felt the same strange comfort with her that she did with him.
“I’m sorry about that, Tamara,” he said into the quiet.
“About what?”
“About the condom. It never even crossed my mind.” His hand slid up and down her back, kneading and circling. “You won’t get sick or anything—I swear. I got tested a couple of months ago for a physical, and you’re the only woman I’ve slept with in six or eight months.”
Six or eight months? “Careful,” she said with a private smile, “someone might figure out you aren’t the wild man you used to be.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, well, we all get older.”
“It isn’t disease I’m worried about, exactly,” she said, still not moving.
“Don’t worry about the other. I’d take care of you. You know that.”
Not I’d marry you and we’ll raise our child, but I’d take care of you. “I know.”
Much as she regretted it, that single sentence changed the mood between them. It grew strained, filled with unspoken wishes, unsaid promises, unvoiced thoughts. She didn’t want the future or the past to come between them right now, but they did. She pushed against him and sat up. “I guess I’d better get something decent on.”
He made no protest. Only nodded and looked at his watch, as if nothing at all had passed between them. “Jake’s decided to buy a restaurant—The Wild Moose—and I’m supposed to meet him there in a little while to discuss some remodeling. Maybe I can come back and finish the computer for you tomorrow.”
“Sure.” Tamara clutched the blanket more closely around her body. “That’s fine.”
He must have sensed her sudden stiffness. He sat up, moving her on his lap. “Look at me, Tamara.” Once again, he had to nudge her chin to overcome her reluctance to look at him.
It was just so hard to look at him head-on like that. Hard to bear the full brunt of his shining goldenness and feel the emotions his face struck to life in her.
But she did it, lifted her eyes to his. A snippet of a poem rushed into her mind, and she spoke it softly, “‘Tyger! Tyger! burning bright. / In the forests of the night.’”
“Am I a tiger, Tamara?”
“No,” she said, and found herself smiling as she lifted a hand to smooth his thick hair from his forehead. Such a broad, intelligent brow. “You just make me think of that beauty.”
He looked stricken at her words. “No one has ever said anything like that to me before.” He plucked her hand from her lap and kissed it. “You’re so different from any woman I’ve ever met. I want you know that.”
Dread welled in her. “Why?”
“Because…this is…” He scowled, his attention focused on her hand, on the fingers he stroked. “We can’t do this again. We can’t. I’m not the right man for you, and you need to be free to find him. I don’t want to screw anything up for you.”
“Lance, you don’t owe me anything. I’m a grown woman. I can fend for myself, make my own decisions.”
At last he looked at her, his blue eyes full of regret. “I owe you a lot.”
And all at once, Tamara felt a fierce certainty that she needed to tell him what she thought, what she felt. It might be her only chance, and if life had taught her anything, the simple fact that people weren’t always there the next day was primary. “If I were given the choice of all the men in the world to choose from,” she said quietly, “no one in the world would have a chance next to you, Lance.”
He started to speak. She raised a hand to his mouth. “Shh. I know you aren’t the marrying kind, but you’re a good man.”
“Tamara, don’t. I can’t—”
“You don’t understand,” she said with a smile. “I think very well of myself. I don’t give myself away. I don’t think very highly of the morals and attitudes of most of the men on the planet. I wish you could see yourself through my eyes, that you could see what I see when I look at you.”
He swallowed. “I wish I could, too.”
