“Is it?”
Her head came up. “Isn’t it?” Why was her voice tremulous? She cleared her throat.
He shook his head. “Not really. During the first few years in Washington I was too busy with my career to become seriously involved with anyone.”
Involved, just not seriously involved, she thought.
“Then, I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “I just didn’t meet anyone who appealed to me, at least not enough to marry.”
The silence that descended was palpable. One could sense the tension between them. His thumbs massaged the arches of her feet with long, slow strokes. With each lazy pass, her throat constricted a degree tighter and the tautening of her breasts b
ecame more pronounced.
“Shelley,” he said compellingly, and she had no choice but to obey his unspoken command and look at him. “Before the night I kissed you, I never gave a thought to what you and that jock boyfriend of yours did in his souped-up car. But long after I moved to Washington, my imagination drove me close to insanity. I envisioned him ravaging you with kisses, pawing your breasts—”
“Grant, don’t.” She clamped her upper teeth over her bottom lip.
“For months I tried to convince myself that I was concerned about your virtue, that I had a paternal compulsion to protect it. But then I had to admit why I was so tormented by such thoughts. I was jealous of him. I—”
“No, no. You shouldn’t be saying this to me. Don’t—”
“I wanted to be the one kissing you, fondling you. I wanted to see your breasts, touch them, kiss—”
“Stop!” she cried, pulling her feet free from his hands and standing up so rapidly she swayed dizzily. “I … I need to get another book,” she said, almost upsetting her chair as she pushed it back.
Forgetting to put on her shoes, she all but ran from the table and disappeared between the bookshelves. Finding a dark aisle where an overhead fluorescent tube had burned out, she leaned weakly against the cold metal bookshelf, placing her forehead on her folded hands.
“This can’t happen to me again,” she moaned under her breath. “I can’t let him happen to me again.”
But he’d already physically and emotionally affected her. He had paralyzed her mind so she couldn’t think of anything but him. Her body longed for his. She knew from the promising kiss on her front porch that he could satisfy this burning need inside her.
She ached to know fulfillment, held as she was in a prison of desire. Would that his hands, his lips, could give her deliverance. But that wasn’t possible. She had fought this yearning for him for years and she would keep on fighting it.
Yet, when he came to her out of the shadows she didn’t move.
Motionless, she maintained her leaning position against the shelf when she heard him behind her. She knew the prudent thing to do would be to run as far and as fast as she could, but she didn’t move. Instead she stood rooted to the spot, terrified that he would touch her … and praying that he would not leave without doing so.
He swept her hair aside with a solicitous hand and placed his lips directly against her ear. “Shelley, what’s wrong?”
He molded the contours of his body to hers. He was inches taller, but it was amazing how well they fit together, how his shoulders curved around hers, how his chest protected her back, how his hardness was cushioned against her softness.
“Shelley?” he repeated.
“Everything. Everything is wrong,” she said with a mournful shake of her head.
“It’s not. I won’t let it be wrong. No one will tell me it’s wrong. Not this time.” His arms came around her waist, hugging her closer.
She shuddered with desire. “Oh, Grant, please don’t. I’m not a child any longer.”
“Thank God.”
“But I’m behaving like one.”
“Only if you refuse to recognize and accept what’s inevitable between us.”
“It’s not inevitable. We’re mature adults, responsible and accountable for what we do. We should stop this before it gets out of hand. I should stop this.”
“Can you? Can you stop it, Shelley?”