Sweet Imperfection (3 page)

Get a grip, Emma.

She could be excused for acting like a teenage girl. The setting was transporting her right back to freshman year’s introduction to film class. She and Nate had often sat next to each other, talking and teasing through the inevitably long, incomprehensible films. Back then, a hundred other bored college students had surrounded them, and the setting hadn’t seemed romantic, but here, in a half-f theater with the light of the silver screen flickering across their faces, her thoughts could be nowhere except on the man sitting next to her. How different he seemed to her, more mature, a little world-weary. Yet they’d been able to pick up right where they left off, so neither of them had changed that much. Naturally, he was thinking about her only as a friend as their easy banter made plain, but it was oh-so-tempting to read more into the situation.

He was Nate, her friend, her buddy, her classmate. He was also hot, the muscles on his exposed forearms chiseled from working with his hands. And what hands. Sculpted and sensitive and all too easy to imagine holding a hammer with authority or stroking her skin. He didn’t tower over her, making her feel like a little girl, but he wasn’t so short they’d look out of whack if she wore heels. His face had always appealed to her with its austere lines and sexily prominent nose. His crew cut emphasized that Nate Hirsch was not a boy any longer. He was definitely all man. She caught a trace of his spicy aftershave and shuddered. All man.

In the cinema seats, it was apparent their bodies fit together like a matched set. Their knees nearly touched, their shoulders grazed if one of them laughed at the witty dialogue. Emma kept her arm and hand carefully folded on her side of the seat, lest she knock into him and betray her awkwardness.

God, what she wouldn’t do to feel a man on top of her, feeling his weight and the mass of muscle pressing down, trapping her in a sensual vise. She was getting wet just thinking about lying underneath Nate, feeling the rough of his dark stubble on her skin as he plied her with kisses, preparing her to take him inside her.

Ugh
. She needed to stop this line of thought. It wasn’t his fault she was going through a dry spell. She hadn’t even made it to bed with the last guy she’d dated. He had been pleasant, but so polite and nonthreatening, Emma had felt like a bad feminist for dumping him because he was
too
nice. Apparently she wasn’t attracted to amiable men with no body hair. Nate was hairy in all the right places, at least in those places she’d seen. She’d always rather fancied his silky black arm hair, and she allowed herself a little peek where his forearms extended from his linen shirt. Yeah, hairy in a good way. A
very
good way. She was pathetic if the sight of arm hair was making her as hot as a sidewalk in July.

He’d think she was really hard up if she propositioned him tonight. She had some self-respect. It had been so long since she’d felt the spark of attraction with anyone; she might as well enjoy this butterfly feeling and take some memories of it back home with her.

Home. Home to Brooklyn, which was, amazingly, Nate’s home, too. Now that they were aware of one another’s proximity, he’d be turning up like a bad penny, and she’d need to maintain their friendship if she wanted to survive that. Park Slope was like a Weston dorm sometimes, so many alums had landed there. Why not Nate, too? But if things got out of hand this weekend, it could become awkward when they got back to the city. She was locked into a thirty-year mortgage that she had no intention of bailing on.

Far better to keep things friendly with Nate this weekend. If it was meant to be, they’d exchange contact info, have coffee or a drink sometime, and let things progress naturally. Jumping his bones at their college reunion smacked of desperation, nostalgia, bad judgment. And they hadn’t even been drinking, so they wouldn’t be able to blame it on the alcohol.

There, decision made. No sex this weekend. Her libido would have to calm itself. No more arm-hair peeking. No more fantasies. Just friends. With effort, she dragged her attention back to the movie, only to realize it was ending with the walls of Jericho tumbling down, Claudette and Clark about to consummate their tempestuous romance.

At least someone would be getting some tonight.

***

“Are we getting old?” Emma asked as they trudged back across campus to the Ashworth dorms. “It’s barely ten o’clock, and I’m exhausted.”

“We’re not old; we’re just smarter than we used to be,” Nate offered. He hoped that was true and his instincts were not wrong. Otherwise, he was about to get shot down in a stunningly embarrassing fashion.

Though outwardly still her pert little self, Emma had seemed stiff during the movie and hadn’t responded to his overtures of conversation. She used to whisper to him constantly during film class. He’d eventually stopped trying to engage her attention, caught up as he was in the tale unfolding on screen, the mismatched couple equal in wits and bravado, their vulnerabilities the thing that would bring them together if only they could get over their pride.

That had been his and Alison’s problem. They had been too concerned about how they appeared to each other and hadn’t cared enough about what was really going on between them.

He’d discovered his passion for woodworking as their wedding—a traditional affair Alison had been set on—was being planned. He now saw she’d thought it a passing hobby, and he’d eventually get a real job like her friends’ husbands. A husband who worked with his hands didn’t fit how she wanted her life to be.

He’d also wanted to start their family while she had wanted to be the cosmopolitan, trendy Brooklynite who had a husband more as a status symbol than a committed partner and who could wait another decade to try for kids. He hadn’t had the guts to admit they wanted different things. When he’d found out she’d gotten pregnant and had an abortion almost a year into their brief marriage, he had been stunned she’d do something so drastic without his knowledge. After that, their fragile relationship had had no chance of recovery. He still felt horribly betrayed that she could do something so selfish when she was well aware he wanted kids. He felt the loss of a baby he hadn’t even known about while it existed more than he felt the loss of his marriage. He was as pro-choice as the next liberal, secular Jew, but it was different when it was his wife, whom he was supposed to be able to trust, making a life-altering decision for both of them. Alison wouldn’t have told him about it at all if he hadn’t found out and confronted her.

He needed to put all of that behind him and consider the possibility of trusting a woman again. Maybe that’s why he felt so buoyant with Emma. She knew him, knew his faults, his embarrassments, and his ’fro tendency. And she didn’t judge or try to change him. She seemed to like him the way he was. He only hoped he could convince her to give them a chance to like each other in a different way.

As engrossed as he’d been in the movie, he couldn’t get away from the scent of her—some summery floral scent that pervaded the air and made him want to bury his nose in her hair and stay there forever.

They walked in silence as they dropped down onto West Street, on which sat a row of red-brick buildings that housed most of the freshman and sophomore classes during the school year. He had lived in Ashworth 9 his freshman year with a New Yorker named Cory, whose extracurricular activities tended toward smoking pot and flirting with every female in sight. Emma had lived one floor up with that annoying blonde girl, Brooke. He didn’t know if he and Emma had seen each other before, but he vividly remembered that Sunday brunch early in the fall when they’d talked for the first time. Campus dining hadn’t opened until eleven on the weekend, so if you were up earlier than that, you were out of luck or maybe consigned to ramen in your room. Nate had made it a point never to wake before eleven—Sunday or not—if he could help it. He almost hadn’t gone down to brunch that day, had thought about snacking on Bugles and Peanut M&Ms while playing some
Grand Theft Auto
. The ideal way to laze away a Sunday. But Cory had cajoled him into going downstairs and across the courtyard to the dining hall. He had admitted waffles and scrambled eggs, even if they were mediocre dining hall ones, were better than junk food.

He had sat down next to Cory and a girl named Tallulah he’d recognized from his film class. Plopping down at the round table next to her was the cutest girl he’d seen so far as a college man. “Aren’t you in my Intro to Film class?” she’d asked. “Yeah, you’re the one who sleeps through every film. I was going to tell you to keep your snoring down.”

He’d grinned at her sassy mouth and shot back some inane response. They’d been friends ever since. He’d been mildly disappointed when he’d found out she was dating someone—the editor of the school paper, he seemed to recall—but not surprised. Of course she’d been taken. She was the ideal woman. Pretty, smart, quick with a good-natured rib. Independent. Even if it seemed she always had a serious boyfriend, she never let him interfere with her friendships or studies. He had started dating a sociology major later that semester, so the attraction thing was off the table.

Now it all came painfully close the surface. They weren’t kids anymore, and he knew how to ask for what he wanted. Still, he felt like an inexperienced adolescent as they approached the dorm building where he was staying. Hers was the next one over, but he hoped he wouldn’t need to walk her home. They paused under the lamp in the small courtyard outside the double-door entrance. Now was the moment. Nate swallowed his sudden tide of nerves, excitement, and insecurity and put his hand on her arm, keeping her close.

She’d been laughingly recounting her favorite part of the movie, but her laughter died away when he touched her.

He took a deep breath. “I’m going to do something I’ve wanted to do for fourteen years.” He bent his head down and kissed her before he could lose his nerve, before the opportunity passed. As their lips met and he felt the warmth of her mouth under his, he wanted this moment to keep going forever. So he made the kiss last, slipping his arms around her waist, parting his mouth a little, increasing the pressure, lost in the scent of her hair, her minty breath, her bow mouth tender and sweet and, as she opened it to him, also incredibly sexy.

He thought he’d be ready for the wave of lust that slammed into him like a late-braking taxi, but his knees literally went weak the longer he held the connection with Emma. He wasn’t prepared for the force of his need for her, and he wasn’t prepared for the feeling that this was all natural, all predestined in some way. He really wasn’t ready for her to pull back from him, to break the kiss before he’d had nearly enough of her. He might have stumbled a little to regain his footing after she stepped out of his embrace, but she was glassy-eyed and flushed and didn’t seem to notice.

“So do you want to come test out the mattress pad?” he said, wincing a little at the lame invitation and how flip he sounded.

She smiled and brushed her hair away from her face in a gesture he’d seen a thousand times and now found the most improbably sexy thing in the world. “You know, I think I’m going to have to take your word for it. But, thanks.” She closed her mouth and then opened it again as if she were going to say something else. Nate didn’t want to hear any more.

“Of course,” he found himself saying. “Sure.” He was eighteen again, asking Elaine Kozlowski to prom and getting kindly rejected.

“I’m sure I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Everything she said made it worse, so he leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to her cheek. “Goodnight, Emma.” The door to his building was blessedly held open with a cinderblock, so he didn’t have to mess with figuring out the keypad entry system. If he were more of a gentleman, he’d walk her the twenty yards to her building, but he was too busy berating himself. He obviously wasn’t a gentleman, or he wouldn’t have propositioned his friend after one kiss. Of course she didn’t want to go upstairs with him. Why should she? That kiss had meant more to him than the possibility of a quick lay. The way he responded to her, the way he’d thought she responded to him, made him want more than one night of sex. Maybe they had a future together, more than friends, more than a one-night stand. He should have thought of that instead of making a stupid joke. He’d likely blown it with Emma forever. Still, he couldn’t regret the kiss. If that was all there was, he could at least say he knew what it was like to kiss Emma Chen-Delvaux. Spectacular.

Emma was half relieved, half chagrined when Nate abruptly ended their unexpected interlude. His departure saved her from more embarrassing rationalizations. She walked slowly next door to Ashworth 10.

It had been ages since she’d had a proper first kiss. When Nate had taken her into his arms and kissed her, it had been more than a tentative kiss between longtime friends. It was the best first kiss in history: soft, sweet, subtle, leaving her wanting so much more.

She’d said no, but not because she hadn’t wanted to take the kiss to the next level and see what happened. She had wanted that very much. She’d said no because she had a feeling that everything with Nate, from first kiss to last, would be the best, and that was so overwhelming to contemplate she hadn’t been able to go there.

She couldn’t help it that her lips still tingled with the sensation of his mouth on hers or that her heartbeat felt fluttery and irregular.

The kiss had been great, but it hadn’t
meant
anything. He was as lonely as she was, and back on campus, nostalgia would, of course, lead him to seek companionship with a friend. If they were going to stay friends or become lovers, they would have to take this slow.

Slow. Yeah, right, that’s why her brain was sluggish and her sex heavy with an aching want as she climbed the two flights of stairs to her temporary dorm room. She hadn’t had a man in months, and Nate Hirsch was a most edible bite of male, not to mention a good guy. Having what was sure to be memorable, if not earth-shattering, sex should be her reward for putting herself through the hell of well-wishing as everyone else made progress in their lives. It was her consolation prize. She wasn’t married, but she could share a bed with whomever she wanted. Zero kids, multiple orgasms—if Nate was up to it.