“Still feeling sorry for yourself?”
“Still mad at the world?” she snapped right back.
“Nope.” He shot her a look out of the corner of his eye. “Just you.”
She sagged back into the seat. He was mad at her? What a laugh, considering he was the one who’d gotten into his truck and taken off after they’d been caught at the gazebo.
The mention of their prom night brought up lots of emotions. Humiliation, of course. Embarrassment. Sadness at the white-hot anger that had made them both say some pretty ugly things.
Enough.
“Let’s not talk at all,” she said, fighting for emotional distance from Johnny, in spite of their close proximity.
“Suits me fine,” he muttered as he fell silent.
Closing her eyes, she battled to think of something else. But the thought of their final confrontation reminded her of everything else that happened that night.
Prom. Ten years ago. It should have been a disaster. The town had spent the day whispering about Nick and Daneen’s elopement. Emma had spent the day crying about having no date for the most important event in high school.
Then Johnny had been there. He’d knocked on her grandma’s door, wearing the tux Nick had rented. It was a little tight across the shoulders and the sleeves were a bit short, but he’d still been heart-stoppingly handsome. Smiling that wicked Walker smile of his, he’d handed her a bouquet of freshly picked wildflowers. Ordering her to dry her tears and put on her dress, he’d informed her he was taking her to the dance. Whether she liked it or not.
She’d liked it. As a matter of fact, considering she was already crazy for him—and had been since the day the previous summer when he’d kissed her in her car—she’d loved it.
And for a few hours, she’d truly loved him.
“You’re thinking of that night,” he said softly.
His whisper didn’t startle her out of her reverie, and she could only nod, her wisp of a smile probably telling him she was recalling the early part of the evening. The nice part. “Remember the look on their faces when we walked in?”
He chuckled, obviously picturing—as she was—the gaping upperclassmen gathered beneath the twinkling lights and clumps of fresh magnolias decorating the VFW hall. “They expected you to stay home crying and instead you came in on the arm of the wickedest of the Walker boys.”
The scent of magnolia always took her back to that place. Always made her feel the heady thrill she’d felt when she’d walked in with him. Not because of how her classmates had reacted, but because of the way his hand had felt on the small of her back. His fingers had dipped low on her spine, touching her with a kind of intimate possession his brother had known better than to even try.
For all his talk and swagger, Nick Walker had been a boy, contained by the boundaries she set.
Not Johnny. He’d already been a man. A man who’d completely intoxicated her, physically, and emotionally. A man to whom boundaries meant absolutely nothing.
“You said something sweet to make me smile for the picture,” she murmured.
“I told you I had your ankle bracelet hanging on my bedpost in my dorm room.”
Yes, that was it. She idly wondered what had ever happened to the anklet but didn’t have the nerve to ask.
“We danced every dance,” she added, still looking out the window, not at him. She didn’t want to look at him, didn’t want to know if this unexpected stroll down memory lane was as confusing for Johnny as it was for her. She’d been angry about how the night had ended for so long, she’d almost allowed herself to forget how magical most of it had really been.
They’d stayed in each other’s arms, swaying to the music—even the rock songs—for ages. He’d flirted with her shamelessly. He’d acted as if he had eyes for no one else. Then he’d whisked her out the door. But not before giving her a bone-meltingly romantic kiss under the slowly spinning mirror ball, right in the middle of Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.”
Then they’d gone to the gazebo. And the night had become truly amazing.
Did he remember the way she’d cried as she tried to thank him for showing up at her door? Did he ever realize she hadn’t been crying over his stupid brother, but over his own kindness?
Probably not. He’d probably never again thought of how they’d slow-danced in a darkness lit only by the stars and some watery moonlight. Dry leaves had snapped beneath their feet and the breeze had made a faint whistle as it swept through the gazebo, but she’d never felt cold.
A ghost of a smile crossed her lips as she thought of how they’d talked and laughed. Laughter had been followed by long, deep kisses that had gone on forever. Sweet touches giving way to more intimate ones. Tenderness turning to passion. The first real arousal of her life. And the amazing feel of his body on top of hers…inside hers….
“Stop,” she whispered, wondering how on earth she’d allowed her thoughts to completely overwhelm her. She wriggled in her seat as a memory-induced tide of heat slid through her blood, settling with insistence between her legs.
“What? Are you okay? Hurting?”
“I’m fine,” she insisted, taking a few deep breaths.
If he’d realized what she’d been thinking about—and the way her body had reacted—she’d just have to die. Right here and now. Dammit, what kind of woman got turned-on remembering her first sexual experience which, considering many females first had sex with teenage boys, usually sucked?
Hers hadn’t. She had to admit it, if only to herself…it had been the best of her whole entire life. Not necessarily the intercourse part, which had been slightly uncomfortable at first. But the emotion. The tenderness. And, oh, yeah, the orgasms.
Nineteen years old or not, Johnny had known exactly what he was doing. With his hands. With his mouth. With every bit of his big, firm body.
“You’re sure you don’t need the doctor?” he said, obviously not believing her and taking her silence for discomfort.
Well, she was uncomfortable, but not in the ankle area. No, the throbbing sensation was now much higher. As in, right between her thighs. And no doctor could make her feel better.
“Quite sure,” she mumbled, drawing in a few deep breaths to try to focus. “My, it’s already awfully hot for early June.”
He shrugged, either not impressed with her conversational skills, or realizing she wanted to leave the subject of prom night behind. She was saved from having to make any further effort by his nod. “Here we are.”
She hadn’t even noticed how quickly the ride had flown by, since she’d been a little…er…distracted. Now, however, she froze as she stared out the windshield of his SUV at the gently familiar tree-lined street onto which they’d turned.
“Miss Ellen’s house,” she murmured, spying the huge elm tree in front of what had once been a white bungalow. “Her piano students used to wake me up every Saturday with their scales.”
The house was green now. A tricycle and a scooter in the driveway, plus a bat and ball lying in the grass, gave evidence that old Miss Ellen had moved on, in one way or another.
Next came the white picket fence surrounding the immaculate lawn maintained by Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby, her grandmother’s next-door neighbors. And then…
“There it is,” she whispered. The lemon-yellow, two-story house that she pictured whenever she closed her eyes and thought of home. Of happy times and warmth. Of sweet hugs and the papery smoothness of her grandmother’s strong hands. Of endless summer days being allowed to climb trees and get dirty.
She’d expected