Laid Bare - Lauren Dane [17]
On the surface, the kiss was exploratory. He tasted her easily, his tongue sliding back into her mouth like it hadn’t been over a decade since he’d done this last. But beneath that, there was no angst, no guilt or hesitance. The kiss was sure. He knew he wanted to be there and, god knew, she wanted him there too.
When he caught her bottom lip between his teeth and nipped, her knees buckled and she held on to keep standing.
He chuckled then and pulled back slightly. “You still taste like sin, Erin. I can’t wait for more.” One more brief kiss and he headed to the door. “See you in a few hours.”
She nodded, her fingers pressed against her lips, her heart beating wildly.
6
Erin looked at herself in the mirror as she dried off from the shower. Not bad. The last time he’d seen her, she’d been twenty-four years old. The years hadn’t been too bad on her outside. Her belly wasn’t as flat as it had been then. But genetics had spared her stretch marks and, despite nursing for nearly a year, her breasts were still in good shape.
The thought of Adele’s downy little head snuggled to her made her pause as the familiar pain passed through her belly. Phantom pain, like she’d lost a limb. But she’d lost so much more.
Erin sat on the side of the tub and just gave in to the tears for a time. If she didn’t fight it, she’d feel better sooner. When she’d finished, she washed her face with cold water and then wandered into her bedroom to get dressed.
She may not have had a regular sex partner in a few years, but that had not stopped Erin from possessing sexy underthings. Like she’d told Raven, Brody’s on-again-off-again girlfriend and Erin’s best friend, she had boatloads of dough, and there were worse things to spend it on than panties.
The evening was warm for late spring in Seattle so she chose a flattering camisole with a corset fit and the skirt to match. A handy-dandy push-up bra and some cute boyshort undies and she was good to go.
After deciding to leave her hair loose, she contemplated cutting it now that it had reached the middle of her back. With a shrug, she put on a bare bit of makeup and tucked some condoms under her pillows before heading out to the kitchen.
Todd wasn’t due for about forty-five minutes, so she poured herself a margarita and went out to sit on her balcony with her pad and guitar. She looked out over downtown and a bit of Puget Sound.
It had been an emotional day, full of beauty and sadness, and the words came quickly, as they sometimes did. She heard Adrian’s voice in her head as she wrote and she lost track of time until she heard her doorbell a few times.
Todd would have wondered if the apartment number was wrong, but there were only three on this floor and the funky folk-art knocker clued him in.
She opened the door, looking surprised and slightly harried. “I’m sorry! I was on the balcony writing. I was so in my head I lost track of time. Come in.”
He followed her inside and when he closed the door, he noted the locks. Four of them. In a ridiculously secure high-rise building.
His question about the locks died as he entered the loft and got a look at the place. Floor-to-ceiling windows fronted the living room, giving a grand view of downtown and a slice of the water. Light, natural woods marked the cabinets and built-ins and also warmed the floors.
He kicked his shoes off and left them near the door.
“You don’t have to take your shoes off. Come in, make yourself at home. I made margaritas. You want?”
He looked at her, her hair loose to where the sway of her back began in earnest, big hazel eyes staring back through arty little glasses. She was even more beautiful in her otherness than she was ten years ago.
“Damn, you’re something else to look at. You know that?”
She smiled and he noted the lines next to her mouth. Not from age, but the kind of lines only life can put there. He wanted to thumb across them, smoothing them