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I smiled, but that felt sad too. “I’ll take it.”
She set her forehead on mine and for a moment we simply breathed together, sharing that air that somehow felt vital to me, but that I’d have to manage to do without. Rory brought her lips to the corner of my mouth, kissing me sweetly, and then moving to my eyelids and my nose, and finally back to my mouth.
We undressed slowly, my blood temperature rising as every inch of her naked body was revealed to me. “You are a goddess,” I said. She was. A work of art. From her dainty toes to those stunning canary blue eyes. I thought distantly about how I’d wondered why some art affected one person in a particular way and not another. A touch of preference and a trace of magic. Maybe attraction was like that too. This woman, this beautiful creation, struck at the very heart of me when I gazed upon her.
She led me to the bed and we lay down, exploring under the soft glow of the bedside lamp. And our lovemaking felt both beautiful and crushing in some way I could not define, and perhaps didn’t want to while she was still in my arms. Maybe we’d been ill-fated from the start, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to soak in every blissful moment of her while I still could.
I’d gazed upon fireworks earlier in the night, but brighter ones sizzled and rattled now, sparks flaring as our breath came short, hands gripping the sheets as we raced toward that dizzying crescendo where exploding stars would shimmer and crackle and rain bliss through our nerve endings and straight to our toes. Light eclipsed the inner darkness, but only for a few dwindling moments before the sparkling colors slowly faded to nothing at all.
“Clang, clang. Clang,” Rory whispered, her voice breathy.
I managed a quiet laugh as I fought to catch my own breath, my limbs heavy and saturated with pleasure.
“Clang, clang. Clang, indeed,” I agreed, pulling out of her and rolling to the side. I wrapped my arms around her and she lay her head on my chest as we both caught our breath, our hearts slowing and the perspiration drying on our skin.
My gaze caught on her father’s paintings sitting on the dresser across from us. “Do you want to go over what we have so far?” I asked her, nodding toward the pictures and the diary.
She shook her head. “It seems hopeless.” She sat up, turning away from me and swinging her legs off the bed. She stood and I watched her gorgeous backside, silky black hair hanging over her shoulders as she walked to retrieve a T-shirt flung over a chair. “Plus…”
“Plus what?” I sat up, suddenly on alert.
Rory pulled the T-shirt over her head and faced me. “My uncle’s boat is fixed. I’m leaving on Monday.”
My brain buzzed, ice water filling my veins where sparkles of light had recently shimmered. “Monday? But…why didn’t you tell me?”
“I just found out tonight. Right before I left Haven’s, actually. You have your party Saturday night and then you’re leaving a week after that anyway, Gage. It’s not like we would have had much time together. And it’s better…” She pulled in a breath. “It’s better that I go, get back to life, and let you get on with yours.”
I let out a breath, running a hand through my hair. This felt so wrong. And yet…there was nothing to be done about it. Plans had been made, promises…commitments. I pulled on my boxers as she stepped into a pair of shorts. How could I have just been inside her body and suddenly feel so separate from her? So…far apart. There had to be a solution to this. “Rory, you could—”
“What?” she asked. I opened my mouth to provide an answer, but nothing came. There was a roadblock at every turn. I sighed, meeting her eyes and knowing she saw the hopelessness I was feeling. “There’s no answer, Gage,” she said. “It’s been fun. We’ve had a lark, as they say.”
A lark? Then why did she sound so miserable? And why did that description grate on me so damn much? “We were more than a lark,” I said, my jaw feeling tight. “Whatever happens in either of our lives from here, I will never think of you as a lark.”
“Where did you spend tonight celebrating?” she asked suddenly.
I stared, guilt winding through me. “The Metropolitan Club throws a party,” I murmured. She nodded, and I could tell she wasn’t surprised. She’d known where I was. And she’d known I hadn’t invited her. And yet she’d still made love to me. And that realization pricked at my heart. She’d known—believed—that’s all we were. And accepted it. My actions belied any statement about us being more than a lark.
She started gathering her hair up in a twist. “Was Blakely there?”
My heart lowered even more. “Her parents are members.” I released a breath as she attempted to look unaffected and failed. “Don’t look like that, Rory. Jesus, I told you, that whole thing with Blakely…I’ve already decided not to go through with it.”
She looked up. “Did you tell her tonight?”
I closed my eyes briefly. “No. It wasn’t the time. My father flew the team from London in and—”
“Your father must be ecstatic. All his dreams right within his grasp.”
I paused. “He is. Of course he is. He’s worked hard.” I knew what she was suggesting. That my father’s dreams were my driving force. And okay that was probably true. Definitely true. But I’d worked hard to be where I was too. It wasn’t as if my father had simply placed me in this role and I’d skated. No, I’d worked my ass off, and I’d excelled. “My father…he expects a lot of me. He has every right to.”
“You keep saying that.” She secured her hair and dropped her arms. “What about your dreams, Gage? Have you ever fought for something you wanted? Have you even defined what that might be? Or do you brush those aside to be the good guy? The easy one? Mr. Perfect. Never the cause of even the merest hint of trouble? God forbid you should disappoint anyone who really matters.”
Resentment bubbled inside and I had no idea how we’d arrived in this place so soon after we’d just been in each other’s arms. I had the sense she was saying this because she cared about me, but even so, it served no real purpose. All it did was make me spin faster. “Jesus,” I said, turning away. “Do you know how many directions I’m being torn in?”
“Maybe you owe it to yourself to be honest about what you want,” she said softly. “You deserve to be happy too.”
But I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t. Because that would mean disappointing everyone who loved me. It would mean halting plans already in motion. It would mean ruining lives. Didn’t she understand that?
She sighed. “Duty calls.”
