Excerpt from May Summer Never End
When the sun sank, the party lights came on. Citronella torches flared throughout the garden, and Chinese lanterns swayed in the boughs, casting a warm, sensual orange light. When Evan returned, the music had shifted to something more sultry.
“I’ve come to collect on those dances you promised me.”
“Got to dance with the one what brung me, huh?”
“More like, dance with the one what’s been longing to hold you all evening,” he responded seriously.
“Didn’t seem so from here. Looked to me as if I’m about twentieth in line,” she retorted before she could stop herself.
“Jealous?”
“Perish the thought.”
“I have to keep my guests happy.” He escorted her onto the deck, and drew her against him. She let her body soak in the sensation of being held against his, not daring to look up into his face.
A new song began, heralded by slow, penetrating instrumentals and the intense moans of a woman being pleasured. Rissa immediately recognized Gainsbourg’s Je T’aime, Moi Non Plus and her skin grew warm. The combination of the music, Gainsbourg’s deep, masculine rasp, and the breathy female groans made this scandalous track the most intense she’d ever heard. She was embarrassed to listen to it in Evan’s presence.
He sensed it. “I always have to fight the urge to light up a cigarette by the time those two are done singing.”
A little of her tension oozed out. “They aren’t exactly abashed about it.”
“Know enough French to understand what they’re doing in that song?”
“You don’t need to know any French to understand what they’re doing,” she replied as the moans and sighs grew even louder.
“No, I mean exactly what they’re doing.”
“No,” she confessed, but was afraid that she’d explode with embarrassment if he chose to translate.
“Think Bob Dylan’s Lay, Lady Lay.”
“Oh.” She exhaled. “God.” If her skin grew any hotter she’d have to go splash some water on herself.
“Miss Young, I believe you’re blushing!”
“I am not!”
“Don’t fib. You’re lit up like a chandelier. I’m beginning to suspect that you’re a lot shyer than you make out.”
“I’m not shy!” she protested, but as the stirring lyrics segued into wave upon wave of ecstatic sighs, she sought to steer him clear of his accusation, if only to spare herself the anguish of further teasing. “Why’s it called I Love You, Neither Do I? It doesn’t make any sense.”
Mercifully, he let her off the hook and explained, “Gainsbourg said that while there are thousands of songs dedicated to romantic love and sentimentality, he wanted to do one about eroticism, about undiluted sex. The woman whispers she loves him while they’re making love, and he doesn’t believe her. He replies, “Neither do I.” He thinks women are incapable of indulging in sex for its own sake, that they need to profess love for the man they’re with to justify their enjoyment. He thinks sexual pleasure is its own reward. That eroticism triumphs over sentimentality.”
Rissa mulled over his response. Love and sex. Both separate and inseparable. She’d had sex for pleasure, she wouldn’t deny that, and she’d had sex within the framework of a romantic relationship. The confusion started when she tried to pin down exactly where this pervasive desire for Evan ended, and the stirrings of romantic feelings began. Sitting alone tonight, watching him, she’d become painfully aware that her longing was not just physical, but emotional. What if, in giving in to him physically, she was laying herself so emotionally open to him that she walked away with more hurt inside her than she had when she arrived?
“Do you believe that?” she asked tentatively.
“What, exactly?”
“That eroticism triumphs over sentimentality. That sex can trump love.”
“Sometimes.” He paused for a moment. “But not always.”
“Oh.” She wondered what she could possibly say next. Even if she knew, she wouldn’t know how to say it.
He made her musing unnecessary. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything,” she said weakly, and braced herself.
“Do I scare you?”
“What?” That was the last question she’d been expecting.
“I need to know if I’m intimidating you in anyway. If there’s anything about us that makes you feel pressured.”
“Like?”
“Like our business relationship. Because I promise you that the conditions under which you chose to stay have nothing to do with what’s going on between you and me. You are welcome to be a guest in my home for as long as you feel the need. No strings attached.”
“I know.”
“Good. Because I want this to be purely voluntary. I want you so badly I can smell you even when you’re not around…”
At that, Rissa felt a bolt of raw electricity shoot down her spine.
“…but not if you feel as though you owe me anything.”
“I don’t.”
“Good,” he said again. He brushed his lips lightly across the top of her head. Then, after a long pause, he said, “I wish everyone would just go home.”
“What?”
“I want to be alone with you. If it wasn’t such bad manners, I’d leave them all to it and whisk you away to my room.”
She wished he could, too. “Maybe you could shut down the music and turn off the lights. That’d be a big hint.”
“I damn well should,” he growled. “But my mama raised me better than that. We’ll just have to wait them out.” The last song of the set ended, and he withdrew from her reluctantly, but not before whispering in her ear, “I have to go play host again, but let me tell you this: I’ve waited long enough. I intend to have you—tonight. Are you okay with that?”
Her throat was so painfully dry that she could only nod.
“Then stick around,” he told her huskily as he turned away.
“I’ll be here,” she mouthed. Then she was alone, shaking, and desperate for a glass of something stronger than her unfinished Muscat.
Liked it? Read an excerpt from Then I Found You
