Second Time Around

Chapter Forty-Nine

Tony nudged her foot with his. "Where are you?"

Kelly looked up. "What?"

"You are miles away, beautiful girl. Where are you?"

She sighed softly as she set down her fork. "I'm here. Just wiped out, I guess."

Here was the Thai House, the same restaurant they'd gone to on their first date. And try as she might, she couldn't stop thinking about how chummy he and Lindsay seemed. Stupid, really, but she couldn't  help it. Tony might say he was an old guy, but the fact remained that he was undeniably gorgeous and undeniably sexy--to women of any age. Somehow,  she wouldn't be surprised to find out high school girls in his classes still crushed on him. That they still tried to come up with ways to manage to be alone with him. Still imagined what they would do to and with him, if that ever came to pass.

But  at the  same time, she didn't want to admit it. Jealousy was an emotion she was never comfortable with, one she wished she could just pretend didn't  exist. But, the truth was, where Tony only became sexier as he aged, she felt more like a hag each day. And the fact that she was turning forty-four tomorrow certainly didn't help.

His golden-brown eyes narrowed. "Kelly."

"I am. I'm an old lady, remember?"

He rolled those beautiful eyes. "Hardly. I've got six years on you."

She stabbed a bit of sticky rice, then jabbed her fork into a mango slice. "It's not the same for men, Tony, and you know it. Men get better as they age. Women just age."

He gave her a long look. "You honestly   think you don't look better now than you did when you were sixteen? Kelly, you are smoking hot, honey. Trust me."

That sent a hint of warmth streaking through her. He was just trying to boost her spirits, but it was still nice to hear. "Thank you, but you have to say that unless you want me to cry."

"Kelly,  I asked you out because I thought you were cute. I liked how you looked in those jeans and your tank top and I wanted to see you naked. What does that tell you?"

She poured a bit more coconut milk over the rice. "It tells me you wanted to get laid. Not to mention that pretty much every man with a pulse wants to see a naked woman."

He sighed, his smile fading. "Really?"

"I'm sorry, Tony. I just... I don't know, I don't deal well with birthdays and I really hate the thought of getting old."

"We all hate the thought of getting old, baby. You don't get to enjoy that alone."  He reached across the table to catch her hand in his. "The first night we were together, I thought about going to church and lighting a candle so that if we ended up having sex that night, I could get it up. And I'd have done it, only I probably would've gotten struck by lightning for wanting to be able to have sex with a woman I wasn't married to. Damn  Catholic guilt."

"Tony, you don't have a problem with that."

"It happens from time to time. I'm fifty years old, for Christ's sake." He gave her hand a squeeze. "And that night, I was nervous as hell, which didn't help."

"You certainly didn't seem nervous."

"I know. I'm a good actor. But I was, Kelly. I was with this beautiful, sexy, undeniably desirable, younger woman and to make it worse, I knew you'd had a crush on me back when we were both younger. Back then, I'd have put those fantasies to shame."

"Tony, you did put them to shame."

He  smiled. "Thank you. But there's no way I could have. Back then, like I told you once before, I could go all night. I can't do that these days."