The Price of Inertia (The Seven Sins #4) - Lily Zante Page 0,109
now started asking me again. My past is my past, and I want to look forward, but I sense she won’t give up asking, so it’s better if I tell her. I’ve had short relationships. There was the editor’s assistant. The woman who arranged a book signing in Santa Monica. The secretary at the Arts Council in Montecito.
Short. As in a couple of weeks. There have been others, of course, but no one I wanted to be around long enough. No one I cared enough about to open myself up to. No one I could trust.
“You really want to know?”
“Yes, I really want to know.”
“It’s embarrassing.”
She laughs, then stops laughing and looks at me, as if she can’t tell whether I’m joking or not. “A week, maybe two. I have encounters.” That’s probably a better word for it.
“Encounters?” She gives me an are-you-kidding look.
“I don’t like being with people, not the whole time.”
“But…pfft.” She puffs out a surprised breath. “A week or two? What is that?”
“Sex, is what it is.”
Her expression sobers. She’s connecting the dots. “Is that what you and I are?”
“This has been longer than a week or two, hasn’t it?”
She looks pensive. “Is that why you and I were stop-start in the beginning?”
I nod. “I didn’t want to get involved, but I couldn’t resist you. I struggled with it, I couldn’t be with you, and then I discovered I couldn’t be without you.”
She seems satisfied, but I don’t get a cutesy cuddle or kiss, which is what I thought my confession would earn me.
“So, when was your last ‘encounter?’”
“About just over a year ago. Thirteen months, to be precise.”
“Thirteen months,” she echoes, sitting forward. I can see the top of her cleavage and it sets my pulse racing.
“I don’t get to meet people,” I protest. “You’ve seen me. I sit at my desk all day long. Writing is a solitary profession.”
“You poor thing,” she says, with much pitying exaggeration. “Tell me more.”
I snort. “Why do you want to know, Little Miss Inquisitive?” I lean forward and give her a kiss.
She kisses me back. “I want to know everything about you.”
“That’s impossible,” I say.
“Impossible to want to know everything, or impossible for you to tell me?”
“Impossible given the boner you’re giving me.” She has that affect on me every single time. I talk to her, we get close, kiss and hold hands, and I want to throw her over my shoulder and take her upstairs.
“I can take care of your needs,” she says, seducing me with her bedroom voice all over again. My breathing steps up a notch. “But I want to know things about you. You’re like a black box, Ward. I want to know if you’ve ever been hurt … like I was … Dale.”
All I want to do is take her clothes off and make love to her. I press my forehead against hers. “What’s the point of talking about the past? I’ve been hurt, but I don’t want to dwell on that.” Mari is something new and exciting for me. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this way about anyone. I never thought I would ever find this type of connection again, and yet, here it is. I just wish she’d stop with the one hundred questions.
She thumbs my lower lip. “I just want to make things better for you.”
“And you do.” I stare at her, our faces so close together, that we are breathing in one another’s breath.
I slide my tongue into her mouth and give her the longest, deepest kiss. My insides throb with excitement as I stand up and swoop her up in my arms. There’s only one way this night is going to end, and it’s not with an interrogation.
Chapter 44
MARI
Because of Jamie, I’ve looked things up online, things about Ward and his past.
There are photos of book signings, and a few rare pictures of him shaking hands with various literary people. I even find a few pictures with Rob. There are none with women though. Like a stalker, I googled his past girlfriends, and only found a mention of Lisa Dooley. She died but there is no mention of how she died. If it had been suspicious, surely it would say. What I did read was that Ward went on to have some sort of breakdown. It was after the success of his first book. He couldn’t write for years after that.
I don’t want to believe Jamie’s words. He’s annoyed and he hates me, and he thinks