Plum Girl (Romance) (10 page)

She wanted to wait for the right setting. She wanted to wait for a night when they'd gone on a
real
date together. She wanted to wait till she'd stopped at a drugstore and picked up some condoms. And she wanted to wait until she wasn't so damn scared.

* * *

Lonnie had just finished changing into her white cotton tank top and green hearts-and-stars pajama pants. She climbed into her high, full bed, and slid under the puffy cream comforter in ecstasy. She knew Peach wasn't asleep yet because only minutes before, she'd tossed her pink kimono over the partition-screen and went to bed in only underwear. Lonnie spoke into the darkness. "Sorry I made you come tonight. But did you have a good time at all?"

"Yeah, I had a great time, and you didn't make me do anything. Why didn't you mention how cute Matt was?" Peach asked.

"I don't know. It never occurred to me that he'd be your type—"

"Is there something wrong with him?" she interrupted. "Tell me now."

"No, no," Lonnie said. "I don't know him that well, but he's pretty funny. Definitely smart. It's... it's just that he's sort of... I've just never felt like I could trust him. I guess he's too much of a charmer for me."

Peach remained silent for a moment and then said, "I'll work on him."

"I'm sure you will," Lonnie replied dryly. "Good, now you'll be more excited about the party I'm forcing you to go to Monday night."

"You're not forcing me. Although, now that you mention it, it probably wouldn't hurt for you to make some other friends. No offense."

"Suave, as always."

Peach just laughed. "So, how did you leave things with Dominick?"

"We're meeting at Borders tomorrow." Terry had said he would be getting into Boston sometime in the evening, so she figured she had the whole day open to spend with Dominick.

She heard Peach sit up in bed. "My God, you actually found someone who shares your deviant obsession with bookstores? This is too much."

"What's deviant about it? You've got books and coffee. That's heaven, baby." As Peach settled back in her bed, Lonnie added wistfully, "I really wanted to kiss him tonight."

"Kith him? You're twenty-seven. I think you can skip the retainer at night."

Lonnie giggled and bluffed, "I will when you skip the lumberjack snoring."

"Liar."

"Lumberjack."

"Academic."

"Starving artist."

"Hussy."

"Yeah, right."

"'Night. Love you."

"Love you, too."

Chapter 8

Dominick and Lonnie had been sitting in the Borders cafe for nearly three hours on Saturday, for the most part ignoring the books they'd grabbed from the stacks. She'd told him all about her functioning phobias of trains, elevators, and white sauce in restaurants. He'd told her all about his brief stint working for the IRS help desk six years before, and how his brother David had recently been "born again." Time was both slipping away and standing still.

Dominick had gotten there first, taken three books from the software/computer shelf, and snagged a table in the cafe. When Lonnie arrived, a thrilling kind of anxiousness invaded his body. Her hair was windblown and wild. Her face was pink from the cold, and her furry blue coat was wrapped tightly around her as she rubbed her hands up and down her arms to warm herself up. She'd spotted him right away, and after selecting a few of the paperbacks on display, she sat down across from him.

Now, they'd both gone through two cappuccinos and a lot of conversation, but had yet to make a dent in any of the books. Not that Dominick had any interest in looking at his computer books. One of them was about Power Builder, a computer language he'd already learned three years ago. The other two promised to be unbearably dry dissertations on manipulating code. The only reason he'd even selected them was to show Lonnie that he was on a comparable intelligence level. Sure, he had a nice title at GraphNet, but a lot of people could work their way up in any company if they learned the industry and put forth a strong effort. He wanted Lonnie to think he was
intelligent,
not just hardworking.

"So, how long have you lived alone?" she asked him now, leaning her elbows on the table and resting her chin in her hands.

"Three years," Dominick replied. "I've had bad luck with roommates."

"Me, too," Lonnie said. "The last roommate I had—way before Peach—kept a poster of Antonio Banderas on the bathroom door, and insisted I refer to him as 'her boyfriend, Rudolfo.'"

He laughed. "Well, my last roommate neglected to tell me he was in a Ska band, and that they needed a place to practice their sets." Her eyes widened, and he went on, "Most of the time I could deal with it. But there was this one time—when I had a presentation the next day—that I had to be a dick and ask them to leave. See, the thing was, they were all twenty-one, and they thought I was 'the man.' So when I asked them to leave, suddenly they looked at me like I was some kind of narc. After that, I never said anything again. The guy only lived with me for a year, anyway."

"You didn't complain about their music again because you wanted them to look up to you?"

"That's dumb, I know. I think it was a vanity thing; I just wasn't ready to be an 'old man' yet. Now, of course, I couldn't care less," he finished, smiling.

"How come the neighbors never complained?"

"Oh, of course that year the apartment below us was vacant." He paused and added, "Actually, once I called the police myself because my head hurt like hell. And when they showed up, they told my roommate's band there'd been an anonymous complaint, and to stop playing. I just shook my head and said 'Oh, I'm sorry, man. That sucks.' "

Dominick quirked his mouth into a self-deprecating half smile. "I can't believe I just told you that. I've never told anyone that before."

"Why?"

Her greenish eyes were doing that glimmering pupil-dilating thing again, and he lost his focus for a second. Then he said, "I wasn't exactly proud of it. It was a prick move, and it's not something I'd do today." She just smiled. Straight white teeth below shiny, full lips.
God, help me.

She asked, "What time is it?"

"It's"—Dominick looked at his watch—"ten of four. Do you have to be anywhere soon?"

"No, no," Lonnie said, biting her lip, unsure why she'd even asked in the first place.

Before any kind of perceptible silence could fall, though, Dominick spoke. "Hey, I know we're probably both sort of sick from the cappuccinos, but do you want to go somewhere and get something to eat?"

"Oh, are you hungry?"

"I'm always hungry."

And I'm always eating.
"Yeah, that sounds good. Let me just make sure I have enough money on me." She reached down to get her small black bag off the floor.

Dominick gently put his hand on her arm to stop her. "It's okay. I got it."

"No." Lonnie shook her head. "I want to pay. Really." She emptied out a couple of items from her bag as she rooted for her wallet.

"What's that?" Dominick asked, motioning to a small square container.

"Oh, that's just my lip balm," Lonnie said, and then added impulsively, "Kiwi-flavored."
Oh, Lord, what made her say that? Why didn't she just ask him to kiss her flat-out?

"Ah..." He smiled a little wolfishly. "Interesting."

* * *

They'd just left Borders and were standing on the patio outside deciding where to go next when a clean-cut-looking man came out of nowhere and started pulling on Lonnie's bag. He tried to grab it quickly, but it was slung across her body, and there was no way to take it without pulling it over her head.

Lonnie screamed out of surprise and instinctively started fighting him, pulling the purse closer to her and trying to fend him off with her other hand It all happened too fast for her to think about what-she was doing. Or for her to register that Dominick had shoved the guy off hard. And then she heard a loud
whop
and the guy bolted. He'd run off without getting her bag, but he'd managed to punch Dominick.

"Christ!" Dominick yelled, and brought his hand to his forehead, which now had a bleeding gash on it. The guy must've been wearing a ring, to boot. "Are you okay?" he asked Lonnie.

"Me? Yeah, I'm fine," she answered, a little out of breath. "Oh, Dominick, your head." She brought a hand up to his face, and then looked around to make sure the psycho purse snatcher was nowhere in sight. "Come on, let's go back inside, and... blot this with napkins or something." She was a novice when it came to post-mugging etiquette, but she was winging it.

"No, don't worry about it," he said.

"Dominick—"

"It doesn't even hurt," he lied.

"You're not walking around with a bleeding head wound. Now don't be ridiculous. Come on." She took his hand and pulled him with her back into Borders. He tightened his fingers around hers and didn't protest anymore. They rode the escalator to the second floor with their hands still locked, and made their way to the one-stall bathroom.
Please don't smell. Please don't smell,
Lonnie thought, inwardly preparing for the worst. They pushed the door open, and thank God, it smelled like pine needles and Glade.

The door shut and locked behind them, and Lonnie dropped her bag on the floor. She faced Dominick, with her back toward the sink. "Here, let me see," she said, and brought her hand up to touch his face.

Instinctively, though, he pulled back before she could make contact. "It's okay," he said, and swiped his forehead with the back of his hand carelessly. "You're making too much out of it."

"Don't touch it like that. You might infect it. Here, just turn your face." Her tone was caring but insistent, and this time when she brought up her hand, Dominick didn't resist, but let the natural warmth of her palm seep into his cheek. She kept her soft hand on his face, cupping it gently, soothing his cheek and jaw in an almost motionless caress.

Their eyes locked, and a shock ran through him, sending hot blood to his groin. He'd already felt a jolt from her hand in his and the closeness of their bodies as they rode up the escalator. Now—in this tiny, confined space—sexual awareness dulled his senses and sharpened his breath. His heart hammered even harder when he raked his eyes down Lonnie's generously curved body, and back up to her flushed, pretty face. She was just plain
hot.
Like before, the wind had blown her hair into untamed waves, and her cheeks and mouth were left rosy from the coldness outside. Pink and tousled, she looked like she'd just had hot sex, not a platonic stroll in the freezing cold. But then, maybe he was standing too close to her to be objective.

"Um, let me just wet a paper towel," she began quietly, "and I'll clean you up a little." Gingerly, she slid her hand off his face and grabbed one of the paper towels that were neatly stacked on top of the sink. With her other hand she turned on the faucet and then moistened the towel with ice-cold water. She turned back to face him, this time moving even closer, while she gently pressed the wet towel to the gash on his forehead.

He winced.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry this hurts a little. But let me just clean off the blood," she said, and alternated between applying pressure on the wound and feather-light swabbing near his brow.

The gash hurt like hell, but he didn't see any reason why she should know that. He went for a joking tone. "I used to work for the IRS, remember? I've taken worse hits than this."

She leaned in closer. "I know. I know. Real men don't need peroxide," she said, while Dominick tried not to notice how close she was standing, and how much heat was fusing the space between their bodies. All this heat couldn't be coming from him alone. He glanced down. Lonnie's breasts were jutting out of her open coat, almost touching his chest. She was full and round and looked pillow soft to touch. At that moment, he felt desperate to run his hands over her, to feel her, to make her nipples hard. On top of that temptation, her mouth was two inches from his, and her lips were invitingly parted. Pouty and wet and ready.

Then Lonnie pressed her body even closer, and Dominick's control was almost shot. Their stomachs were nearly grazing each other, and there was no way she could be missing his erection. He sucked in a breath and waited for a change in her expression.

But her face betrayed nothing. She was calmly patting his forehead, her eyes focused on his wound.

Was she really oblivious to what she was doing to him? He wanted to grab her ass and haul her up against him, against his throbbing cock. He wanted to rub her breasts and shove his tongue in her mouth. Granted, these weren't some of his more refined moves, but right now, he was too turned on to care. He'd been nursing a potent attraction to Lonnie since he'd run into her two months ago, and he'd finally reached the breaking point. Jesus, he was fully aroused and they hadn't even kissed.

To hell with it.
He made his move. Lightly, he ran a hand around her waist and nudged her closer. And she responded. Automatically, her hand fell from his forehead to his shoulder, while the other one slid around the back of his neck. She wasn't looking at his wound anymore, but she wasn't looking into his eyes either. Her long black lashes were lowered, and the paper towel was lost somewhere.

Wordlessly, she leaned in, took his mouth with her own, and gave him a slow, drugging kiss. He groaned. Tightening his arm around her, he left not a hint of space between them. Her arms looped around his neck, and with their bodies firmly entwined, their mouths clung to each other.

Her lips were soft and sweet, as she gave him gentle, suctioning kisses. Then she pulled back to let their hot breaths intermingle for a minute before she kissed him again. This time, her mouth only brushed his. At first, he followed her lead, but it took all his self-control not to run a hand behind her neck and tug her down into a harder, more unrestrained kiss. She'd told him her lip balm was kiwi flavored, but that wasn't how she tasted. Not that he ate kiwi often, but he didn't need to for him to know. She tasted like plums.