“Okay?” he asked as he reached behind her and unfastened her bra with impressive dexterity.
“Yes.” Abby nodded. They kissed, undressing each other until Sebastian was in his boxer-briefs and Abby wore nothing but her underwear and a pillow she kept trying to clutch against her midsection, the pillow that Sebastian kept moving away.
“Abby,” he whispered as she tipped up her face to kiss him, thinking that it had never felt like this, not ever.
Sebastian
When he woke up, it was the middle of the night. Abby’s scent was all around him, the skin he couldn’t stop touching, the curves of cheek and chin and shoulder. He remembered her careful fingers, wiping the blood off his scrapes, smoothing on ointment and bandages. Abby calling him out on his bullshit, until he’d told her what was really going on. Abby giving him her dry shirt, insisting that he wear it. Abby, with her curls and her freckled nose and her hazel eyes. Abby, who made him laugh.
The candles were still flickering. He got up, blew them out, then got back under the covers. He touched her gently, then more firmly, cupping her shoulder with his hand until she blinked, then looked at him, wide-eyed in the dark.
“I looked for you after you left,” he said.
She squinted at his face, still looking, and sounding, half asleep. “What?”
“That morning, at my apartment. I looked for you.”
“You did?”
“Except I didn’t know your last name. Or anything about you, except that you were a bridesmaid. I went back to the bar…”
Abby’s eyes widened.
“You were…” He breathed in, touched her shoulder. Tried again. “That was the best night of my life.”
“Really?” Before he could answer, she said, “Mine, too. But I didn’t think you’d want to see me again.”
“You could’ve left your number and found out.” He swatted her gently on her bottom, pretending it was punishment, but, really, it was just an excuse to touch her.
She sat up, tucking her knees against her chest, wrapping her arms around them, making herself small as she looked up at him gravely. “I didn’t want to be disappointed. Or have you be disappointed in me.”
He looked at her and shook his head. “Abby…”
“It was so nice. I just wanted to remember it like that. And not ruin it, waiting for a call that wouldn’t come. Or an actual date that didn’t go well.”
He stared for a moment, looking puzzled. “Of course it would have gone well,” he said. “We got along. We had great chemistry. We had fun!” he said, then looked at her. “We did, right?”
Abby smiled at him. “We did,” she confirmed.
Sebastian, stretched himself out on the bed, gently easing her hands away from her knees, coaxing her body down against his. “We wasted two years,” he growled in her ear, smiling as he felt her shiver.
“I was playing hard to get,” she whispered back, and turned her head until their lips met, and she could kiss him in a manner suggesting she wouldn’t make him wait for her, or be without her, ever again.
Abby
Day Eleven: Medina to Buffalo Fifty-four miles
They left Seneca Falls the next morning and rode to Rochester, where Abby and Sebastian spent another night together in a hotel. Abby rode with Sebastian for part of the day. She studiously ignored him at dinner, then tiptoed down the hall at eleven o’clock, when, she hoped, her mother was asleep and unlikely to wander down to the vending machines. The day after that, they rode forty-one miles, from Rochester to Medina. Abby spent most of that day with the Landons. He was an investment banker, and she worked in finance, and they’d originally planned on a tour through Tuscany, combining cycling with wine tasting, but had decided to stay close to home. Carol’s mother, it emerged, was failing. “We didn’t want to be overseas in case…” Her voice trailed off.
“In case we were needed,” Richard said. Carol smiled at him gratefully.
“Richard’s a big wine buff,” she told Abby.
“We’ll get there someday,” he said. Abby didn’t miss the look that passed between them, Carol’s face grateful, Richard’s expression proud and content. They weren’t the horrible snobs that she’d imagined. They were partners, Abby saw. They would sacrifice for each other; help each other through the hard times. She wanted that for herself. But when did sacrifice become self-abnegation? When were you giving up too much? Would she end up resenting Mark if she stayed with him and none of their vacations involved bikes, even though cycling was what she loved best? Sebastian could ride with her. But was he prepared for a relationship? Would he even be capable of fidelity?