“Are you thinking about Doctor Wonderful?” Sebastian asked.
Abby looked at him sharply. Sebastian’s voice was teasing, but his expression was warm and unguarded and hopeful. She shook her head. “Do we have to?”
“I’d like to know,” Sebastian said. “Just as your friend.”
Abby didn’t know what to say. With all her heart, she wanted to tell Sebastian she was single. But was she really prepared to end things with Mark, who was, in fact, wonderful? To dump a sweet, caring, handsome, gainfully employed guy so she could have a no-strings-attached vacation fling, with a guy who probably didn’t want anything more?
Abby turned her hot cheeks up to the cool night air… and the voice she heard in her head, the voice that gave her the answer was, surprisingly, her mother’s. You’re a beautiful young woman. You deserve to have choices. Staying with Mark because she thought he was her best, and possibly only, option, marrying him with the doubts she had, because she’d been hurt before, was wrong. Wrong for her. Wrong for Mark, too.
“I don’t know,” she muttered. And then, deciding that she owed him some kind of explanation, she said slowly, “It’s complicated. Mark loved me when I was a teenager. He loved me when I felt like my own mother didn’t even like me very much.”
“How could anyone not like you?” Sebastian asked. As they stepped into the elevator, he let his hand drift up, stroking along her back to rest at the nape of her neck. Abby felt her body prickling with goose bumps, her inhalations getting shallow. She knew she should make him stop. She didn’t. Couldn’t.
“All mothers love their kids, right? But she always acted like I was broken. Like there was something wrong with me. Like I was broken, and it was her job to fix me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” he said, his voice low. “And I don’t think you’re broken.”
The elevator doors slid open, and they stepped into the hall. Sebastian’s hand had come to rest on the small of her back.
“I like you,” he whispered. He pressed his lips against her forehead, then her cheek, then reached out to take one of Abby’s curls between his fingertips, pulling it straight, then letting it boing back into place. “I think this one’s my favorite.”
Abby let her eyes flutter shut.
His lips were warm and confident when he kissed her. His hand cradled the back of her neck as his tongue urged her mouth open.
I should not be doing this, Abby thought. And gripped his shoulder with one hand, grabbing his upper arm with the other.
“Can I come to your room?” he asked, his voice a low murmur that she could feel right between her legs. She nodded, and took his hand, letting him lead her down the hall, into the room, onto the bed.
“Wait here,” he said. “Close your eyes.” She obeyed without thinking. “Give me your key,” he said. Abby handed it over. She heard him leave, then heard him return. “Open your eyes,” he said. When Abby did, she found the room lit by the glow of half a dozen candles in glass jars, flickering on the desk, on the dresser, on the windowsill; clothing the walls and the bed in shadows, softening the hard edges, turning the bare-bones hotel room into something romantic and dreamy. Abby felt tears pricking at her eyes. She was remembering Chris, back in college, who’d hustle her into his dorm room in the dark, only after checking to make sure that there was no one around to see them together. Chris would have never lit candles for her. Chris hadn’t even bothered to make his bed.
Sebastian pulled her against him, fitting her against the warm, solid length of his body. He touched her cheek, the way he had that afternoon, only this time his hands were warm and dry as he stroked his thumb tenderly against her lower lip.
She didn’t even think of trying to stop him when Sebastian eased her down onto her back. She let him kiss her neck, her throat, her cheeks, then her lips again. With his body pressed against hers, she could feel that he was just as into this as she was, and it was the most wonderful feeling in the world.
Abby thought about Mark, back in Philadelphia. She thought of her mother, who was probably back in her room, a few doors down; her mother, with her gimlet gaze, who didn’t miss a thing. “Is it okay if we don’t do everything tonight?” she whispered.
Sebastian nodded, then looked down at her. “But can we do some things?”
“We can do lots of things.” She sat up and pulled off Sebastian’s tie, then unbuttoned his shirt. He reached for the hem of her dress, looking at her, waiting for her nod before he pulled it off over her head. Abby had a flicker of regret that she hadn’t packed a single cute undergarment—not the black lace bra and matching panties she’d purchased to wear on Valentine’s Day.