“I don’t think of you as a brother,” she said.
He laughed. “And I don’t think of you as a sister.”
“I wish she hadn’t done that.”
“Carol does as she pleases. She always has. We understand that,” Paul said.
“I wanted to spend more time with you. How are you, really?”
“I’m doing okay. And you? Really? How are you doing with missing him?”
“I’ll always miss him. I miss him as much as you do, Paul.”
“Yeah,” he said, hanging his head for a moment. “Can’t really help that, can we?”
“But I don’t cry about him so much anymore. Matt wouldn’t want that—and he said so—he made me promise. Plus, Mattie takes a lot of energy, and gives me so much joy. I’m riding again—which is a wonderful diversion. Come down, Paul. For a weekend. Soon. Ride with me…play with the baby.”
Carol stuck her head out the front door. “Vanessa? I think I hear the baby.”
Vanni took a breath. “Well, Carol, you can pick him up if he’s crying. Or you can tell my dad—he knows what to do.”
“Oh,” Carol said. “Sure. But you’ll be in soon?”
“Soon,” Vanni said, an irritated edge to her voice.
The door softly closed and Paul chuckled.
“God,” Vanni said, rubbing her temples with her fingertips. “That woman…”
“It’s just Carol. No one takes her seriously.”
“To their peril,” Vanni said. Then she looked up at Paul. “Please—come to Virgin River soon. We all miss you. Especially me.”
“Yeah, I should do that. So—what do you think of that guy? At least she found you a doctor.”
She laughed. “She should get credit for that, huh?” She shrugged. “He seems pretty nice—and it’s not his fault he got fixed up with someone who isn’t interested.”
“You’ll be ready one of these days.”
I’m ready now, she wanted to say.
He kissed her forehead. “I’ll give you a call. We’ll set something up—get together soon.”
“Please,” she said, very conscious of the fact that she had been the one calling him since the baby’s birth. And then she watched him go. So, I may not think of him as a brother, but he still thinks of me as his best friend’s wife. She feared that might never change.
Tommy and Brenda had gone to a lot of trouble to arrange a whole night alone at the Booth house while the general and Vanni were both away in Grants Pass, but all that preplanning backfired. Brenda was edgy. Maybe scared. Not ready for it. Tom could tell after fifteen minutes that this wasn’t going the way he thought it would. The way she had said she wanted it to.
So, he throttled back. “Relax,” he said. “We’ll just watch a movie. We don’t have to do anything.”
“You’ll be disappointed,” Brenda said.
“No, I won’t,” he lied. “I told you a hundred times—we’re not going all the way until you’re ready. We’ll just watch a movie and curl up. We’ll sleep in our clothes. I’m not going to push you.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what makes me like this. I thought I’d made up my mind.”
“You don’t have to apologize, Bren. Not to me. I like that you’re giving it a lot of thought. I want you to be sure, because afterward, you have to be happy about it, not all screwed up and guilty. There’s no other way it can be, not for us. Since we’re in for the night—should we pilfer a couple of the general’s beers and put on a movie?”
“Yeah,” she laughed.
“You pick the movie, I’ll pick the beer.”
Of course it had to be a chick flick; a real groaner at that. But what the hell, if it made Brenda happy, it made him happy. Halfway through the movie and the beer, the kissing started and he thought, God bless chick flicks. They might be boring, but they sure did warm up the girls.
They reclined on the sofa and pressed their bodies tightly against each other, kissing wildly, openmouthed, tongues going nuts. He got hard, of course. By now she was used to that and she liked it, grinding against him very nicely, getting some good feelings of her own. This sort of thing had been happening between them for a while now, and it was extremely satisfying. And while Tom didn’t want her to do anything she’d regret, he definitely wanted to try out what he’d learned on page ninety-seven. Shew—the magic button. He just wanted to touch the magic button one time. Just for a second. Just to see what happened.
He lifted her shirt, unhooked her bra and felt her soft breasts. She loved it when he did that—it caused her to moan and wiggle. She was getting so hot that he wondered…“Bren,” he said breathlessly. He put a hand over her crotch on the outside of her clothes. “Can I just touch you here? Just with my hand? Nothing else—just my hand?”
“Uh-huh,” she said against his lips. “If you want to.”
He thought he might die, he was so excited. He opened the snap on her jeans and slipped his hand down and down, slowly and gently, over her flat tummy, over her soft mound, just a little further, into a place that was dark, secret, hot and damp, looking for a spot described on page ninety-seven as the trip-wire for the female orgasm. He felt a small, hard knot and when he made contact she gasped and pushed against his hand. The very second he made contact, it electrified her. “Tommy,” she said in a weak whisper.
“Yeah, baby,” he whispered against her lips. “That feels nice, doesn’t it?”
“Ooooh,” she moaned, moving back and forth, up and down. “God…”
Go for it, Brenda, he thought. Just go for it. He rubbed a little harder, reached a little further, making contact with her opening with one finger just as his other finger stayed with the magic button. He gave it a great deal of personal attention—teasing her, softly touching, roughly rubbing, all according to the suggestions in the book. The whimpering sounds she made were almost as if she was crying; panting, squirming, writhing. And then, kabam! She froze, her breath caught, and against his hand he felt the most amazing clenching sensation. “Oh God,” he whispered. “Oh my God.”
“Tom,” she said in a breath. An exhausted, happy breath. She collapsed in his embrace. “How did you know to do that? That wonderful thing you just did?”
He was not about to say his sister tipped him off. “Everyone knows,” he lied. He wondered if half the male population was as dismally uninformed as he had been. “Come on,” he said, getting off the couch. “We’re going to get more comfortable and do that some more.”
“I’m not sure I can even stand up,” she said, limp and satisfied.
“Come on,” he laughed, pulling her up.
He took her to his room, the chick flick still playing in the background. They fell onto his bed, kissing. He pulled off his sweater and then hers, holding her close with her breasts against his chest and thought—I have waited forever to feel this. It didn’t take him long to coax her out of her jeans, because she wanted his hand on her again. His pants coming off was another story. When he started to remove them, she said, “I’m not sure.”
“Let me know when you’re sure, because I’m pretty much past sure…”
“Maybe you could just put it close. Touch me there a little bit. I mean, don’t put it in yet, but touch it there a little bit, let me get used to the idea…”
“I can do that,” he said, but he was positive what she was asking for was beyond the realm of possibility. Whatever, it got