He placed a finger over her lips. “Hear me out. I’ve been thinking about the whole sexual counseling thing. Men and women really do have a different take on sex, so what could it hurt to try and learn something about each other? To mine the unknown...”
She nibbled her lower lip. “My suggestion was more impulsive than anything else. I don’t know if this would actually work for us. We do fine in the bedroom. It’s just my stupid hang-ups that are getting in the way of marriage.”
“Yeah. I do know. I got it; believe me. But I’ve been thinking about this. We both know that you aren’t one hundred percent on board about this engagement.”
Her cheeks went hot, and not from the sun this time. “Morgan, I—” She felt small and petty and guilty.
He shook his head briefly. “Don’t try to deny it, honey. I’m not a fool. But I’m confident we’ll get there . . . eventually.”
She swallowed hard. Was he right? She wanted him to be right . . . didn’t she?
He kept talking, ignoring her awkward silence. “I want you to research this counseling thing. See if they do it in Orlando. Find out the time commitment, the cost. Decide if it’s something you really want us to do.”
“Do
you
want to do it?” she asked quietly.
“I’d rather eat nails,” he said bluntly. “But if there’s a chance this will advance my case, I’m on board. We can’t be the only couple who has ever had doubts. Maybe this has some merit. I’m willing to try.”
“You have doubts, too?” Somehow that had never occurred to her.
“About marrying you? No. But I wonder if you can ever give me what I want.”
She moved back from his steadying influence in the water, feeling close to tears suddenly. “What is it you want from me, Morgan?”
He shrugged, his mighty shoulders glistening in the sun, the curve of his mouth almost grim. “Everything.”
She gulped inwardly. How could one word sound so sinister? She blinked up at him, despite her dark glasses. The bright sun was beginning to give her a headache, or maybe it was the tone of the conversation. “So that’s your proposition? That we go to sexual counseling?”
“Oh no,” he said, his mouth twisting in a wicked grin. “If we make it through this, you have to promise to set a firm date for our wedding . . . and keep it.”
She gaped at him. “Isn’t that blackmail? And besides, plans change. Things happen.”
He took off his sunglasses and cupped her face in his big hands. His long lashes were spiky, the gray of his eyes tinted with blue. “And we’ll deal with whatever comes our way, sweetheart. I promise.”
He kissed her one more time, and this one was as different from the way he’d taken her mouth earlier as night and day. Those kisses had been filled with urgency, passion, raw desire.
Now his lips worshipped hers. They played over hers lazily as though he could stand there in the middle of the ocean and kiss her all day. He slid one strong arm beneath her butt and lifted her against him, never breaking the connection of mouth to mouth. Beneath her breast she could feel the steady, measured thump of his heart.
He made it all seem so easy. As though all she had to do was take his hand and walk off into a rosy sunset where nothing bad ever happened. It was movie worthy, endlessly enticing.
But still her unease remained. Somewhere deep below reason and faith. In the nasty, dark corridors of her past. Morgan couldn’t see those places. Didn’t even know they existed. So how could she convince him that her fears were real?
He released her finally and held one of her hands in the air. “Your fingers are getting pruny,” he teased. “We’d better go back.”
They linked hands as they began moving toward the beach. When they stepped from the sandbar, Hannah was over her head for a moment, and she shrieked and grabbed ahold of Morgan’s waist. He supported her easily until her feet were once again on firm sand. It took them perhaps a dozen minutes to get back to dry land. To reality. And responsibilities.
But the bubble of intimacy they created out in Neptune’s Closet remained.
Most of their little band of beachgoers still slept, their mouths slack and their snores carried away on the salty breeze. Only Elda watched them as they dried off. Only Elda saw Morgan carefully wrap a thin beach shirt around Hannah’s shoulders. Only Elda smiled. She might have been almost three times their age, but she knew that look on a man’s face.
She lifted a hand. “I was beginning to think you were trying to be shark bait.”
Hannah winced. “Don’t even say that. I do my best to ignore the possibility. I’ve been playing in the ocean since I was a child, and I can’t bear to give it up over the remote possibility that some nasty predator might want a piece of me.”
Elda grinned. “I have noticed that you seem to fly in the face of danger from time to time.”
Hannah snorted, her hands busy digging out napkins and cookies. “I work with senior citizens. How dangerous can that be?”
“Did you tell our hunky Morgan about the time you tried sky-diving for your thirtieth birthday and we all went to watch?”
Elda saw Morgan actually go white. “I guess not,” she muttered. “My bad.”
Hannah shot her a dirty look. “You have a big mouth, old woman.”
Elda sniffed. “Insults will get you nowhere.”
Morgan sprawled in an empty chair beside Elda. Perhaps Arnie had gone to find the facilities. “What else do you know? Spill it, dear friend. I think my fiancée has been keeping things from me.”
Elda pursed her lips. “Well, there was the time she test-drove a Harley. By herself. And then the Thanksgiving afternoon she climbed up on the roof and tried to hang Christmas lights on all our units.”
“Tried?”
“Her foot got caught and she ended up dangling two feet off the ground.”
Morgan felt cold and sick. “Please tell me you’re exaggerating.”
“Oh no. Not at all. I’d say she’s been on her best behavior since you’ve known her. Trying to polish her image. But our little Hannah is a daredevil. When
Real World
did auditions in Orlando, she bungeed off a bridge.”
Hannah sat in Morgan’s lap. “Don’t listen to her. She’s making it sound worse than it was.”
Morgan flashed back suddenly to that first day at the church and Hannah’s death-defying dash through traffic. He scowled at Elda. “Is there more?”
Elda was clearly enjoying herself now. “I’ve seen her trying to get honey from a beehive. Got stung twenty-three times. And last winter she went ice-skating at an indoor rink with that cute orderly over in the medical center . . . Sven somebody . . . tall, Nordic, maybe a Swede. She made him do one of those death spirals with her and took the skin right off her cheekbone.”
He looked at his fiancée’s face, expecting to see an expression of remorse or at the very least sheepishness. But she was laughing, her smile a flash of white in the shadow of the beach umbrella. He was certain she didn’t regret a bit of it.
And
this
woman was afraid to get married?
He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her back into his chest. “I can see I’ve got my work cut out for me. It’s a good thing my CPR credentials are up-to-date and that I’ve got a working knowledge of first aid. I believe I’ve been bamboozled into thinking this lovely creature is soft and sweet and feminine.”
Elda laughed until she cried. When she could catch her breath, she chortled again. “Our Hannah just might redefine the whole concept of feminine. She’ll have your balls in a knot if you let her.”
“Elda!” Hannah’s outraged squawk woke most of the others.
Morgan just grinned and shoved her to her feet. Cuddling Hannah in his lap was having a predictable effect on his male anatomy, and he had a feeling that any alone time was long past.
He adjusted his trunks beneath the damp beach towel and reached for a cooler. “Who wants the first beer?”
Four
Hannah had lived with herself long enough to know she had a regrettable propensity for leaping headfirst without pondering the consequences. Sexual counseling? Great googly moogly. Surely this had to be one of her more stupid ideas. Sex was private between a man and a woman. Sex was something you
did
, not something you talked about . . . especially with a stranger.
But Morgan had outwitted her. He’d called her bluff, and now she had no choice.
She picked up the magazine and flipped to the pertinent article. Toward the end there was a Web site address cited as a source for further information. When she went online and looked it up, she found a listing of state-by-state directories, and wouldn’t you know it . . . Orlando had two sets of doctors certified for the premarital sexual counseling program. Damn.
She picked a name at random and dialed the number.
Morgan glanced at his watch and did a quick mental estimate of how much longer it would take to get the final sector of pipe laid. Despite the fact that three of his crew were out sick that day with a nasty bug that had been going around, things were still on schedule. He liked staying ahead of the curve, so that when unexpected snafus occurred, he could absorb the interruption without derailing his timetable. At the moment, he was in an ATV headed to the farthest sector of the job to make sure no corners were being cut. He didn’t micromanage, but it never hurt to keep tabs on the work.
He had a nice air-conditioned trailer that provided respite from the sun and the heat, but he spent little time there. He’d discovered early on that his men respected him more if he was a visible presence in the midst of the chaos that was the inevitable first stage of a project like this. This was only his second major assignment as site manager, and at age thirty-four, an undertaking like this was a hell of a lot of responsibility.
So far things had been smooth sailing. There were always minor glitches, of course, with deliveries and state paperwork and accidents . . . things beyond his control. But he prided himself on rolling with the punches and still getting the job done.
At the end of the day, he headed up the interstate to his apartment, his mind already on the evening to come. Hannah had promised to check on the sexual counseling thing, and he was curious to see what she had found out. Maybe curious was the wrong word. Dread might better describe his emotions at the moment.
If he was lucky, there would be nothing available closer than Tampa or Jacksonville. And that would get him off the hook.
She arrived just as he was getting out of the shower. The pizza box in her hands gave off an aroma that made his stomach growl audibly.
Hannah grinned. “I’ll put everything on the table while you get dressed.”
He whipped the towel from around his hips and popped her on the butt with it. “Maybe pizza can wait.”
She eyed his nudity with raised eyebrows and evaded him with a laugh. “Pizza can
never
wait.”
Over thick, cheesy slices loaded with everything but anchovies, he grilled her. “So . . . what did you find out about the counseling?”
She went to the fridge for more Coke, her face hidden by the door. “You can quit sweating it. It’s not going to work out.”
A weird mix of emotions grabbed him. “So nobody around here offers it?”
Now she had her back to him at the sink, rinsing off her hands where the can of soft drink had spewed when she opened it. “Well, they offer it, but it’s too much of a time commitment. Your hours will never work.”
He swallowed a bite and stared at her, his eyes narrowed. Something fishy was going on.
“I
am
the boss,” he said mildly. “I can juggle my schedule.”
Finally, she rejoined him at the table. But her face was almost blank. As though she had purposely erased all emotion. She concentrated on her pizza. “Don’t worry about it. It was a crazy idea to begin with.”
He reached across the narrow table and snagged her wrist. “Did you even call?”
Her head snapped up, her expression indignant. “Of course I called. But I told you. It’s too time intensive. Especially when you’re in the middle of the theme park project.”
She tugged at her hand, but he held it tightly. “Why don’t you let
me
worry about my work schedule? Give me the scoop, Hannah. Quit stalling.”
She tugged again, and this time he let her go, watching as she slumped back into her chair and picked at a piece of pepperoni on her paper plate. She shrugged her shoulders. “Honestly, Morgan. It’s way more than I thought. They want you to commit to one group session every two weeks. And in between we would have to do two appointments at the office each week, just you and me.”
He pondered the logistics. “If we could do our individual appointments late in the day . . . say four thirty, I think I could swing it. And what about the group sessions? When would they be?”
She wanted to lie. He could see it in her eyes. But she didn’t have it in her. “The group sessions are on Friday evenings from seven until eight thirty.”
He grinned wryly. “So it
will
work.”
She stared at him glumly, her expressive face sullen. “You are so pigheaded,” she complained.
He laughed. “You would know.”
She flipped a piece of crust at him. “I can’t believe you want to do this.”
“I don’t,” he said bluntly. “But it might even be good for us. And in the end . . . well . . . I get what I want.” He actually saw her wince. And it hurt. A lot. If a guy had to badger a woman into marrying him, was it worth it? He clenched his jaw and tried to smile. “Besides, if this counseling thing actually works, just imagine what great sex we’ll have.”
She got up and started dumping stuff in the trash, her face resigned. “I can hardly wait.”
The office suite for the Drs. Hurst and Hurst was located in a generic downtown high-rise. Friday evening Hannah, with Morgan by her side, rode up in the elevator to the thirty-second floor. Given the state of her nerves, the silence in the small, confined space was deafening.