“No, Sebastian, you really did,” she bit out. “You were drunk … I couldn’t … couldn’t stop you.”
She closed her eyes, and shivered at the memory. I thought I was going to vomit.
“If you hadn’t passed out when you did … you scared me,” she said, looking me in the eyes, the sadness in her face spearing shrapnel into my heart. “It reminded me of your…”
No! No! Please don’t say I made you think of him. But I could see the truth in her face.
“I reminded you of … of my father?”
She nodded, the wary look back on her eyes.
“You were really afraid to let me in your room just now? I scared you that much?”
She didn’t reply, leaving my appalled question hanging in the air. I dropped my eyes, filled with shame and revulsion.
“Oh God! Caro … I never … I couldn’t…”
I looked up. She was staring at me, her eyes filled with doubt.
“Fuck, Caro! I’m so sorry.”
We sat in painful silence until her cell phone rang. My nerves were so shot, I flinched at the sound.
Caro snatched it out of her purse, listening intently.
“Oh, shit! Sorry, Marc. Yes, I’m fine. Really. You don’t need to worry.”
That bastard. Always in the fucking way.
“We’re just sitting in the lobby at my hotel,” she said, her eyes shooting to me. “I’m good, really.” She paused, listening. “I won’t, but thanks, Marc. Have a safe flight and look after yourself—I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you. Ciao.”
I frowned, unable to stop the stupid words pouring out of my mouth. “Was that your friend?”
Caro rolled her eyes.
I took a deep breath and asked the next question that I needed to know, dreading the answer.
“Is he your boyfriend?”
She laughed out loud, but she didn’t look as if she found the question amusing.
“Marc is a good friend,” she said, at last. “He was just … being concerned.”
“Yeah, right.” Concerned, my ass!
“Actually, I think you’re more his type.”
Huh? Oh. He was gay? I hadn’t picked up that vibe. Normally I could tell if a guy was into dudes. And suddenly I was feeling very relieved.
But then again, if he was concerned for her, it implied that she’d told him something that he might be concerned about.
“Did you tell him about me?”
“Which bit?” sighed Caro. “It doesn’t matter: the answer is no—it’s not anyone’s business but mine.”
Then she looked pointedly at her watch.
“Sebastian, it’s late and I’m tired. If you’ve got anything else to say to me, say it quickly. Otherwise I’m going to bed.”
I stared at my hands, trying to find the words. Begging her to stay without being able to say it.
“I’m sorry I’ve been such a jerk,” I said quietly. “It was just … a shock … seeing you again.”
“For me, too,” she said, her voice soft.
For the first time it sounded like she felt something other than irritation or disgust for me. It made me hopeful.
“Let me make it up to you, Caro,” I pleaded, desperation seeping into my voice. “Let me take you out tomorrow. I could show you the city. I’ve been here for months—I know my way around pretty well.”
“I don’t think so…”
She shook her head, and my desperation began to crescendo.
“Caro, come on. I’ll be on my best behavior, I promise—I know your travel permit hasn’t come through.”
She narrowed her eyes. “How do you know that?”
“Well…” Oh shit. “That was just the impression I got. You’d have been packing otherwise. Please, Caro, I know some great Italian restaurants. It’ll be like…”
I hesitated, but then she finished the sentence for me, “…old times?”
I smiled with relief. “Do you have anything better to do?”
She sighed, and I knew she was giving in. “No, I don’t. Fine. But one false move, Hunter, and you’ll regret it.”
I couldn’t help grinning at her, relief flowing through me like cool water in the desert. “Yes, ma’am!”
She smiled back and then her gaze dipped over toward the bar. “I think I will have that drink now.”
Before she could stand, I was on my feet.
“I’ll get it. A red wine?”
“Yes, thank you.”
I remembered that Barolo had been her favorite. It was the first wine I’d ever drunk—and she’d given it to me. Although I was more of a whiskey kind of guy these days.
She looked surprised when I handed it to her, but I wasn’t sure why.
“I got you a Barolo.”
“Mmm, my favorite.”
“I know. I remembered you liked it.”
She stared at me in amazement.
I remember every second we were together, I wanted to say. Jeez, my inner 17-year-old was a real pussy.
“Oh, well … thank you.”
The tension began building between us again, and automatically my cock hardened. Things had always been intense between us: ten years hadn’t changed that.
“How was it … after I left?” she asked.
I leaned back on the sofa, my eyes closed. I usually tried not to think about that time—those had been dark days.
“Bad,” I admitted at last.
I wasn’t sure how much I should tell her—definitely not about the time my dad hit me so hard I lost a tooth; or the time he trashed my room, smashing my computer and cell phone; and definitely not the time that mom called Caro a whore, and said I was too stupid to live.
I was almost ready to agree with her. Thank God Mitch and Shirley knew what my parents were like.
“Mom and Dad were … in the end Mitch went to see them—I didn’t know what he said at the time but he and Shirley took me to live with them. Later, I found out that Mitch had threatened to go to my dad’s CO and tell him that he’d been … beating up on me.”
She looked so shocked, I knew I could never tell her the whole truth. I took a deep breath.
“On my eighteenth birthday I enlisted in the Marines.” Except that Dad blackmailed me to join, saying he’d have Caro arrested for statutory rape if I didn’t do what he said. “That’s pretty much it.”
She chewed on her lip, her beautiful eyes downcast. This conversation really wasn’t going the way I’d hoped. But at least we were talking.
“And Mitch and Shirley?” she asked. “Ches?”
Mitch was a Staff Sergeant in the First of the First, and the reason I decided to join the Marines instead of the Navy like my old man wanted.
Mitch and Shirley were good people. If it hadn’t been for them, I wouldn’t have known what a real family was like. They’d done more for me when I was growing up than my own sorry excuse for parents. Ches was more a brother than a friend.
“Mitch and Shirley were stationed in Germany soon after I enlisted. Ches was studying at UCSD, so when I had leave I used to hang with him and his college buddies. He’s married with two kids now.”
I smiled at the thought, as crazy as it was true. Caro seemed to agree with me.
“You’re kidding me? Really? Did he enlist, too?”
“He was going to, but then he met Amy at college and she talked him out of it. He’s the manager at La Jolla Country Club now.”
My mind immediately drifted back to that summer and the few weeks when I’d worked at the country club, and one extremely hot encounter with Caro in a changing room storage closet. Just thinking of that dark space, our bodies covered in a layer of sweat as I fucked her against a wall, it had the blood in my body heading south.
I shifted uncomfortably as my dick tried to climb through the zipper of my jeans. Discreetly, I shrugged out of my jacket and laid it across my lap.
A faint blush colored Caro’s face, and I wondered if she was remembering the same thing. She cleared her throat.
“Are Shirley and Mitch still out in Germany?”
“No. Mitch got sent to Parris Island as an instructor. But last time I saw them, they were hoping to go back to San Diego. I guess they want to be near their grandkids.”