Seven Nights (7 page)

She worked her hand from base to tip with firm strokes and Sean felt a flood of pent up sexual frustration flow to his penis. He was on the brink of coming already.

Knees trembling, Sean grasped Leah’s hips and slid her all the way to the edge of the table. She immediately wrapped her legs around his waist, positioning the tip of his penis right at the hot entrance to her body.

Sean met her eyes as he advanced to enter her. Her wet heat clenched at him, drawing him in further and further and enveloping him in welcoming. God, she felt so good. So right.

“Leah?”

Sean froze at the intrusive voice that echoed through the dining hall behind them. A voice that shouldn’t be there considering Sean’s very specific orders of no interruptions.

“Leah?”

The voice came again and this time Leah heard it, too. Her eyes flew open and briefly met his. But instead of surprise or even embarrassment, the green held a reflection of memory. As if she’d been anticipating the interruption, but had been able to shove the reality away for a little while.

“No, no, no.” She leaned forward to rest her forehead on Sean’s shoulder. “Not now, Danny.”

He swallowed as her words and reaction became clear. She’d set him up, arranged the disruption, but it was obvious she didn’t want it any more than he did now. He measured his tone and hoped he wouldn’t sound too desperate.

“Tell him to leave. Tell him to go and we don’t have to stop. You know you don’t want to stop.”

He shifted his hips a fraction to accentuate his point and her sheath shivered in reaction. Her face came up again and for a long moment, she only looked at him. His body clenched as he waited for her verdict, still thrumming with need.

“I-I shouldn’t,” she finally whispered as she placed both hands on Sean’s chest. They rested there for a long moment before she finally pushed him away.

Sean’s cheek twitched with the force of his disappointment. And the anger that was slowly building in him. How was he supposed to get anywhere with her if she wouldn’t even give him a chance?

Shutting his eyes, he took a moment to compose himself before he withdrew from her and zipped his trousers. He still ached with a raging hard-on. One that was obviously not going to be satisfied tonight.

He motioned one stiff arm toward the door. “Go then if that’s really what you want.”

Her eyes flashed with a myriad of emotions. Regret and guilt were strongest. But she obviously didn’t feel either one enough to send her friend away and take a risk. And that stung like a son-of-a-bitch.

“Sean.” Her voice broke on her whisper.

He fought to keep his own face emotionless. There was no way he was going to let her see how much she was hurting him.

“Come on, Leah,” he said softly. “Don’t treat me like a kid. I told you I wouldn’t force you any further than you wanted to go. This is your limit for tonight and I accept that no matter how much more I want from you.”

She pushed her dress down and eased herself off the table edge. As she hurried past him, she whispered, “I-I’m sorry.”

Sean didn’t answer, didn’t even watch her as she went to the dining room’s main door, but he felt it when she was gone. Sighing, he sat back down at the table that was now littered with flower petals and the remnants of their fruity appetizers.

“I’m sorry, too, Leah.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “More than you’ll ever know.”

***

“You want a tissue?” Danny asked as he sat down on the section of driftwood beside Leah.

“No.” She didn’t bother to look away from the dark sea that crashed in and out before them. “I’m not crying.”

“Barely.”

Leah laughed, though she found very little humor in her current situation. “Well, barely counts for something, doesn’t it?”

Danny draped an arm around her shoulders and gave her a brief squeeze. “Yeah, it does.”

There was a long silence, one that should have been comfortable after so many years of friendship, but was anything but. Leah could
feel
Danny’s questions. They hung in the air between them, waiting for the right moment when he would finally voice them.

“It was pretty obvious what was going on in the dining room tonight. But you can still tell me about it if you want to.”

“I don’t know what to say.” Leah sighed as she rubbed her fingertips over her throbbing temples. The touch only reminded her of the smooth silk of the blindfold Sean had placed over her eyes. She held back a shiver of response.

“Are you really ready for what a waltz through the past could do to you?” her friend asked as he pitched a shell toward the crashing waves in the distance.

“Aren’t you the one who’s always telling me to cut loose? To date, to meet new people? Even to have sex with abandon once in a while?”

Danny’s face pinched. “Yeah, I am. And if this were just some guy on a beach that you could screw with no strings attached, I’d be the first one helping you pick out sexy underwear and ribbed condoms. But he’s not, is he?”

“He could be,” Leah said, but her words were weak even to her own ears. “Okay, he’s not.”

“No, he’s not. This is a man you planned to
marry
, for heaven’s sake! And judging by the way you’re acting now, you still have feelings for him.” He shook his head. “So, what’s the deal with you two anyway? What happened to break you up?”

“Oh, that’s a long story.”

Danny grinned. “I have all night.”

Leah’s eyes fluttered shut as her mind took her back. She’d never been one to reveal much of her soul, even to a friend like Danny. The only person she’d ever really given herself to entirely was the very man whose touch had put her in this situation.

Sean.

“We met in college,” she said without opening her eyes as her memories played like a movie in her head. “He was finishing up his MBA at the University of Pennsylvania when I was doing my undergraduate work there.” She smiled. “I knew from the moment we crashed into each other in the library that I was going to fall in love with him. Later, I thought I was going to marry him. But that fell through.”

“Why?”

Why? She’d asked herself that so many times over the years that the question had become part of the fabric of who she was. Sometimes it was still difficult to come up with a satisfactory answer. Times like now when her skin still tingled from Sean’s hands, his mouth.

With a shiver, she rose from her driftwood perch and paced away down the beach a few feet. Danny was silent behind her. It almost would have been better if he’d pressed, kept talking so that the voices in her mind would stop debating.

“Sean didn’t come from a family like mine,” she began.

Danny laughed. “I’ve never known you to be hoity-toity.”

“No, but you know my mother and father.”

She paused to consider her parents. They both came from old money, frequent topics of Philadelphia society papers and always in the very best light possible. In short, they were terrible snobs.

“Ah.” Danny nodded. “Enough said. So Roger and Anita didn’t exactly jump for joy when their little princess brought home a boy from the wrong side of the tracks.”

“Right.”

She ran a hand through her hair and was immediately reminded of the rough slide of Sean’s fingers against her scalp as he slanted his mouth against her own. Her body clenched at the pleasurable tension that still coursed through every vein in her body before she managed to rein in her reaction. She had to focus.

“It didn’t matter that Sean had graduated with the highest honors from Penn State. Or that he was in the top of his class at U of P. It didn’t matter that he was going to make something of himself, and with plans to enter the travel industry, which my father has been involved with since he bought
Get-Aways
years ago. All that mattered was that Sean didn’t have a pedigree.”

“I can’t imagine that made a damn bit of difference to you, though.” Danny tilted his head. “So I don’t understand why it came between you.”

“I didn’t give a fuck where Sean came from or how he was fighting his way to the top.” She laughed humorlessly as some of her anger bubbled to the surface. “Hell, I didn’t care if he made it to the top at all. But
he
cared. He was so hurt and angered by their reaction to him that he set out doubly hard to prove them wrong.”

She winced as she remembered the fights they’d had over his drive to be good enough for her parents. And the damage that drive, and her reaction to it, had done.

“Sounds like he wanted to earn your hand.” Danny watched her pace. “There aren’t many Prince Charmings left in the world. Trust me, honey, I’ve been looking.”

Leah couldn’t help a smile as her photographer gave her a playful wink. “The problem wasn’t that he tried to win my hand. It was that he tried so hard that he forgot about
me
.” She looked out at a distant spot on the dark horizon. “He had already been working two jobs to get through school. One on campus and an internship. He started working longer hours, doing more and more extra things for classes. I tried to be supportive, but I was young and I didn’t know how to help him. He shut me out and I… I…”

“What?”

Hot, unexpected tears pricked behind Leah’s eyes. “I ran. I guess I hoped he’d chase me, but he didn’t. I returned his engagement ring and took a job at Dad’s magazine right away. And I haven’t seen Sean since until this afternoon.”

“When you fell right into his arms all over again.”

“I did not!” When Danny did nothing but stare at her in disbelief, she had to concede defeat. “Okay, I did. But it was just shock, that’s all. I know I can’t turn back the clock.”

“Why?”

She pursed her lips in exasperation. Why was Danny asking her questions she didn’t want to answer?

On a sigh, she snapped, “Because I could only rekindle a relationship with him if he was willing to make me a partner in his life. If we could both get past our natural tendencies to control our lives to the nth degree. I look at Sean and I don’t know if he could.”

To her surprise, Danny let out a long laugh. “Could you?”

She thought about that for a long while. “I’m not sure. Maybe.” With a shrug she sank back down on the driftwood. “It doesn’t make any difference anyway. Sean says there’s no harm in revisiting our sexual past. Maybe he’s right.”

Danny’s smile fell. “I don’t know about that, Leah. I’m not sure you’re going to be able to stay within the ‘just sex’ parameters. After all, this guy is the love of your life.”

Leah flinched. She tried unsuccessfully to forget that fact on a regular basis. Hearing it only brought all the feelings back.

“He
was
the love of my life.” The warm air brushed her skin, raising goose bumps that had nothing to do with the air temperature. “Past tense.”

With a sigh, Danny stood up and headed toward the villas in the distance. “Keep on telling yourself that, Leah. Maybe someday it will magically become the truth. Night.”

Leah didn’t answer, only watched her friend walk slowly away. Then she turned back to the surging ocean and wondered if there were any courses in magic available at the resort.

Chapter Five

“I think you can guess why you’re here,” Sean said as he leaned back to allow the server better access to his coffee cup.

Daniel Anderson sipped his own coffee, but didn’t turn away from Sean’s intense stare. It was surprising. Most men were made uncomfortable by the command he’d taken so many years to achieve.

“Well, I’d love to say that it was because you found me irresistible, but that would be wishful thinking, wouldn’t it?” Anderson shrugged. “It’s obvious you invited me here this morning because of Leah.”

“Right.” Sean tried to shut out the images of her, the ones that had haunted his insomnia-filled night. Of her arching under his touch, whispering pleas as he entered her body inch by pleasurable inch.

“I’m not sure how much I can help you,” Danny said with a shrug. “You know Leah. She keeps her emotions pretty close to her chest, even with friends.”

Sean winced. “Yeah, I remember more than well how easily she can shut a person out.”

Danny’s stare narrowed over the edge of his cup. Obviously he didn’t appreciate Sean’s observation. But the other man hadn’t lived through Leah’s desertion either.

“Of course, even if I did know something, you never know if I’d tell you. Leah is one of my best friends and the only thing I know about
you
is that you make her cry.”

Sean froze. “She cried?” The thought started a spiral of sharp pain around his heart. Pain that slowly eased its way through his entire body.

Danny folded his arms. “I’m not saying anything more. What is it you do want, Mr. Dalton? Because I can tell you right now I’m not going to be your confidante or spy when it comes to her.”

“I would never ask you to betray her like that,” Sean rose to his feet and took a step to the dining room’s veranda barrier. He watched the crystal blue ocean waves crash over the rocks in the distance. “But I do want something from you.”