When You Are Mine(26)

She looked back at Cam, hating herself for the question unfurling in his  blue-gray eyes. She'd always thought of them as thundercloud eyes, not  only in color, but the tumult that lay behind them. Ever since she'd  accepted his ring, they had been placid and cloudless; they had settled  into a peace that had been a long time coming. Her resolve returned.  She, whose own parents had not seen her worth, and who had never in all  her years as a child inspired one couple to adopt her, brought someone  peace. Was necessary to someone's happiness. Walsh had made people happy  all his life, and he had an enviable circle of friends and family,  people wanting to be with him, to know him, to cater to him. The world  was at his feet; he was a charmed prince oblivious to the void she and  Cam had lived with their entire lives.

This is right. This is right. This is right.

The rhythm of that chant drowned out the whisper of Walsh's name, a  raspy reminder of the closeness, the desire, the rightness she'd felt  with him and no one else.

If he had been anyone else. If she had been anyone else.

You don't believe in soul mates?

Walsh had whispered the question in a darkened gazebo, the air thickened  with the lingering intimacy of shared nightmares and cleansing tears.  She wouldn't leave this choice to her soul, or to her heart, those  fickle twins who leaned on the caprice of emotion.

Cam's hand had been extended mere seconds, but long enough for that  question in his eyes to fully form. She answered with a sure smile and a  firm clasp of fingers. Yes, she would be his only. And he would be  hers. She took her cue from Walsh. He had it right. Better not to even  look into the green eyes she'd never figured out how to hide from. Her  path was before her and she would not stray.

* * *



Walsh settled onto the couch where he'd lost his virginity, in the  living room of the guesthouse. He looked down at the cellophane bag that  had been thrust into his hands. It was filled with the petals of lilies  to toss at the bride and groom as they drove off to their honeymoon.

Their honeymoon.

Walsh's gut pretzeled at the thought of Cam initiating Kerris into  lovemaking. He hoped she'd found time to tell him about TJ, and that Cam  would be gentle and patient and sensitive and selfless and considerate.  All the things Walsh would have been if that privilege had fallen to  him.

He clutched the bottle of Kauffman he had found like it was a rope  dangling him over the fires of hell. Walsh knew he'd need plenty of  vodka to eradicate the hundreds of images that had tortured him all day.  Kerris walking up the aisle to his best friend, like a fairy tale with a  tragic ending. Cam's face, lit with joy when he reached back for the  ring buried in Walsh's pocket. Kerris's solemn face when she'd promised  to love, honor, and obey a man, a friend, Walsh wasn't sure could ever  be worthy of her. He knew Cam's weaknesses as intimately as his own.  What if Cam hurt Kerris as he'd hurt most of the women who had passed  through his life? What if he was unfaithful? Unkind?

A growl slid from Walsh's throat, low and vicious. The hurt and anger  and confusion he'd held back all day penetrated the wall of self-control  set rigidly in place since the sun rose on what felt like the worst day  of his life.

He kicked the coffee table in front of him, relishing the pain that shot  through his foot and leg. He strode over to the small kitchenette,  rifling through the cabinets in search of a tumbler, a plastic cup,  anything to drink from. Hell, he'd drink from his shoe if he didn't find  something soon. He banged the counter with the palm of his hand before  taking a long draw from the bottle, sucking it down inelegantly,  rivulets of the liquor sliding into his starched collar.

"Mind sharing?"

Walsh looked over his shoulder, surprised to see Sofie.

"Not in the mood, Sof." He hoped she'd take the hint and clear out  before he said something that would hurt her irreparably. "I thought  you'd already left."                       
       
           



       

"I was talking with Jo." Sofie sidled up beside him to run her long  fingers down his arm. "She told me I'd probably find you here."

Thanks, cuz.

"She shouldn't have sent you." He drew another quick swig of the deceptively smooth liquor. "I'm not in the best mood."

"And why's that?" Sofie knit her brows into a beautiful puzzle, looking  at him from beneath her heavily mascaraed lashes. "I mean, your best  friend just married a lovely girl. They looked so happy. And that toast  you gave. It was perfect."

Walsh tightened his lips, remembering the hardest part of the farce. The  toast. As the maid of honor, Meredith had shared her best wishes first.  Under the cover of the light applause, she'd leaned up to his ear.

"Your turn, big guy." The knowing sympathy in her eyes had jolted him. "You can do this."

"I couldn't tell who you loved the most." Sofie jerked him back to the  small guesthouse that still smelled of vanilla and brown sugar. A scent  that would haunt him forever. "You were so generous with your words for  both of them."

He looked at Sofie, sure that she was sniffing around the truth, trying  to figure out something he didn't want her to know. Something no one  could ever know.

"I haven't known Kerris long, obviously." Walsh kept his tone neutral  and caressed the vodka bottle. "But she makes Cam happy, so I'm happy."

"Yeah, you look real happy." Sofie drenched her words with sarcasm, gesturing to the bottle of vodka.

He walked over to sit on the couch, placing the bottle of liquor  carefully on the coffee table. Control. That was what would get him out  of this conversation, with Sofie none the wiser.

"I am happy." He forced one of his old rakish grins. "Who doesn't love a wedding? Especially when it isn't yours?"

Sofie crossed over from the kitchenette, her rolling hips and easy  stride better suited to the catwalk than the small living room above a  garage.

"Weddings make me horny." Her voice was a hot rasp, and she towered over  him like a Nordic queen, contemplating a subject she planned to reward  handsomely.

"Yeah?" His tone didn't want to give her any ideas, but it looked like she already had them.

"Yeah." She nodded her silvered head, green eyes gleaming with building desire. "You know why?"

She didn't wait for him to ask, but lowered herself onto the couch  beside him, leaning in to slip a hot-breathed whisper in his ear.

"I think of how the bride and groom are going to be fucking all night,  all day for the next week." Her lips brushed his ear with her words.  "I'm pretty sure Kerris was holding out on Cam. There's just something  so … innocent about her, don't you think? Like she's never been touched.  But Cam'll touch her tonight, won't he? All over her, inside her. Riding  her. Doesn't it make you just a little bit horny, too?"

It made him sick to his stomach. He closed his eyes, his jaws wired  together with tension. Sofie leaned one perky breast into his shoulder,  followed closely by a mile-long white leg over his thigh, exposed by the  short dress she wore. She grabbed his hand, dragging it under her dress  and between her legs.

"Weddings make me so horny, I don't even bother to wear underwear."

She tilted her head as if she hadn't placed his hand on what should be  most private. He didn't move a muscle, waiting for desire, repulsion,  disgust, passion-anything.

Nothing.

He hated that Kerris had neutered him this way, that he could remain  completely numb in such an intimate position with a woman whose picture  half the men in America jerked off to at night. Taking his stillness as  compliance, Sofie pulled herself up to straddle his lap, her fingers  working at the buttons of his stiff white shirt like she could do it  with her eyes closed, apparently not noticing or caring that it was the  only thing stiff in this situation.

He didn't stop her wandering, insisting, deft hands from unzipping his  trousers. Sofie was no innocent. She'd been around the block more than  once. Blocks in New York, Paris, Milan, LA. Surely in all of her sexual  travels, she had figured out how to arouse one physically disinterested  male. He looked up into the eagerness of her clear eyes, wanting to  ignore the emotion he saw there.                       
       
           



       

Guilt was a bayonet piercing his gut. This was Sofie, who'd knocked a  hole the size of Manhattan in the piñata at his sixth birthday party.  Sofie, who'd gone with his family to Disney World the last happy summer  of his parents' ill-fated marriage. Sofie, who had cried when he took  Greta Von Stratton to the prom instead of her. He knew because Sofie's  maid told Sofie's mom, who told his mom, who had told him. He'd  pretended not to notice the long looks she had cast over her date's  shoulder at him that night. He couldn't do this to Sofie.