Four Friends

by Robyn Carr

  “Because I may be an idiot, but I’m still an idiot who’s a pretty goddamn good judge of character! She won’t do that!”

  “Did you give them a name?”

  “No! I told them if I become a candidate and they have to investigate all the angles, they’ll get a name!”

  “Then I’ll get a name,” she shouted.

  “Don’t you think you’d look a lot better if you didn’t know? Then it’s about us, no one else! What’s the difference, Gerri? You wanna go beat her up?”

  “You bastard, you’re going to do this. You’re going to run! And I’m going to look like the bad guy again!”

  He ran a hand through his damp hair. “I don’t see how the hell this makes you look like anything! What more can I do to show you my family comes first? If this isn’t good for us, we don’t do it. Period!”

  She took a deep breath and lowered her voice. “And give up something you’ve wanted your entire career? It wasn’t easy staying in the prosecutor’s office, doing the people’s work, when private practice would’ve gotten you that stupid sailboat you’ve always wanted—don’t you think that’s been clear for decades?” Tears gathered in her eyes. “I can’t ask you to give up the most important career move of your life! The kids would hate me! Your mother would never forgive me!”

  “It’s not about them,” he said. They were nose to nose. He put a hand on her waist. “It’s about us. You and me. I want us back.”

  “Broadsided,” she said, a tear spilling over. “This was the last thing I expected. Jesus, I’ve wanted it, too! It’s been almost as important to me as to you! You deserve to be the D.A. You should probably be the governor, but they’re not smart enough to run you!” She leaned toward him, crying. “Goddamn you! You should’ve told me! Prepared me. You shouldn’t have handled it like this, risking shocking me like this.”

  He slipped his hand under her shirt and gently stroked her bare back. “Yeah, guilty,” he said. He put his lips against her forehead. “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t tell you, not yet. I was afraid you’d think it was an excuse to get you back. And I don’t want you back that way.”

  “But it’s working out that way, anyway!” she cried. “Because if you don’t step up now, whoever they put on the ballot is going to win against Carter and hold that D.A. spot for another ten or twelve years. And by then...”

  “Whatever is best for us, Gerri,” he said. “If one of your conditions was that I leave the prosecutor’s office, I’d do it. Don’t you get it? My marriage is more important than anything else.”

  “It’s so unfair! I can’t say go for it, I can’t say don’t!”

  “Then don’t do anything,” he whispered. “Can’t you give yourself time to think? The kids aren’t going to read the paper.”

  “They’ll hear,” she said. “Their friends’ parents pay attention to these things.”

  He kissed her temple, her cheek. “We’ll tell the kids we’re still working on us—we haven’t made a decision.”

  “That’s when the pressure will start,” she said. She cried and he soothed her. He pressed his lips to hers. And before long the crying stopped and the kissing intensified. There had been kisses good-night as he left the house lately, kisses that had grown long, deep, hot and tempting, so this wasn’t new. He let his lips linger, touching hers carefully. Then he pressed his mouth against hers, tasting tears, her morning coffee, her sweet flesh. He pressed harder, forcing her lips open with his, breathing shallowly. His hand slipped around from her back to her bare breast and he heard her groan low in her throat. She put her arms around him to hold him closer.

  “Don’t you dare,” she whispered.

  “I want you back,” Phil murmured.

  “How dare you try to get me turned on in the middle of one of the best fights we’ve had in years!”

  “Sorry,” he muttered, going after her mouth again. He thumbed her nipple into prominence, tasted the inside of her mouth and pulled her very willing tongue into his mouth, crushing her against him hard enough to leave her breathing labored. His lips slipped from her mouth to her neck. “I’m not sorry,” he whispered. “God, Gerri, I miss you.”

  “I hate you,” she said.

  “Fine,” he said, going back to her mouth, his hand slipping from her breast to her butt to pull her hard against him. He was erect and ready and for a split second, knowing he was out of his mind, he hoped it wasn’t just another erection that would prove meaningless. “Go ahead and hate me,” he said still kissing her. She bit his lip. “Ah!” he shouted, pulling back, two fingers going straight to his lip.

  He stared down into her eyes, now tearless but bright. They were glittering with rage or maybe something else. He felt her hands at his waistband and she gave a powerful tear, ripping the zipper open, possibly breaking it.

  “Okay, then,” he said, going after her mouth again, covering it in a passionate kiss that left little doubt where they were headed. He felt her hand snake down the waist of his shorts and grab hold of him. “Be very careful, Gerri,” he whispered in warning, and for a breathless moment, he was afraid of what she might do with that special member in her hand. There had been a constant subtext to all her bitching that she’d like to see it yanked off. But she stroked him firmly, lovingly and he couldn’t suppress a deep groan of pleasure. Her other hand slipped up his chest, running over his pecs, finding a nipple and stimulating it into a hard little pebble.

  “You make me furious,” she said against his open mouth. He couldn’t make any fast moves. She had him at a disadvantage; she was in control of his favorite organ.

  With great care, he pulled her hand out of his pants and once he was free, he whirled her around and pressed her up against the door. “You’re really full of the devil this morning, aren’t you?” he asked. Holding her against the door with the full length of his body, he slipped his hands under her shirt and captured her breasts, one in each hand. He kissed her again, feeling her hands run up and down his back, her breathing fast, response, sweet response in her kiss. He locked his hands onto the hem of her shirt and pulled it up in one fast motion, bringing it over her head and off her arms, leaving her bare. He bent his head to her breast.

  “Don’t hurt me,” she whispered.

  He lifted his head and looked down into her eyes. “I’ve never hurt you,” he said. “You’ve never once been afraid of me.” Then he continued, bending to her breast, teasing a nipple with his tongue, sucking gently. He heard the sound of her head dropping back against the guesthouse door, then the sound of her desire, a low, delicious moan. Her fingers were running through his hair, holding his head against her breast.

  He found the snap on her jeans with his hands and opened them, quickly but much more gently than her performance on his pants. He put his hands on her hips under the jeans and began to slide them down, but she had her legs locked together tight and the jeans wouldn’t move. He pushed down again—nothing. He rose to her lips, kissed her lightly once, twice, then said, “Give ’em up, Gerri.”

  “This is a bad idea,” she said. “I’m mad at you. Very, very mad.”

  “So what? I’m a little pissed off myself. Give ’em up, come on.”

  The tension came out of her thighs and she relaxed her legs just enough so he could push her jeans down. When they were around her ankles she kicked them off and her hands went to his hips. She pushed his trousers down and he stepped out of them easily. They were both naked, pressed up against the door, the first time anything like this had happened in months. Maybe years...

  “This isn’t going to change anything,” she said.

  “It could change two things,” he said, his voice husky and low. “One for you. One for me.”

  “I don’t feel like it,” she said sullenly.

  And he laughed. “Cooperate and you just might.”

  “You’re about the last person I feel like cooperating with,” she said, but she held him close just the same.

  “Maybe, but I’m the only one stan
ding here naked with you, jabbing you with the best of intentions.” He tongued her lips, she nibbled at his. “I think rage is an aphrodisiac for you, Gerri. Oh, God, you feel so good.” His hand crept lower, slipped down over her pubis, probing. She tensed, but he pushed gently onward until she relaxed. He covered her lips hungrily while slipping his hand into that dark, secret place—no secret to him. He’d been here before, but it had been a long time. He met with slick folds. She could fool herself, but not him. This woman was his woman, and although the past ten years had been too void of this intimacy, it wasn’t as though he’d forgotten the passion they were capable of sharing. He stroked, gently at first, then harder, his mouth on her mouth, her groans of pleasure echoing inside him, her knees buckling from time to time. He ran a hand down over her hip, down the back of her thigh to the back of her knee and brought it up again.

  “God, oh, God,” she whispered hoarsely. She’d never been quiet—never quiet, not in general or during sex. It made him smile. “God,” she said again, her pelvis rocking toward him.

  “You going to let me in?” he asked in a whisper.

  “I don’t know,” she said. But she did know. She devoured his mouth wildly, hanging on to him as if she feared losing him.

  With both hands on her butt, he lifted her just enough to make entry, slowly, carefully. They might as well have been back fifteen years in time. She guided him in easily and he pulled her other leg up. And then he rocked his hips against her, pushing her against the door, making her moan and grab him even more desperately. She held on around his neck while he held her clear of the floor. And with each thrust she moaned and clung to him.

  Phil thought the beauty of a long marriage was knowing what your woman likes. He held her against him, legs around his hips, and backed toward the bed, falling with her onto the rumpled coverlet and scattered newspapers, leaving her on top. She liked being on top; she liked the control. Gerri immediately pushed him back onto the mess of papers and leaned down to his mouth, which he took hungrily, his hands all over her. “I love you,” he whispered. “I love you so much.”

  “Sometimes you make me so mad,” she whispered back, kissing him deeply, passionately.

  He laughed low in his throat, not giving up her lips. His hands ran down to her butt, grabbing her, hanging on while she moved on him. “Do your worst. You hate me as hard as you want,” he said. She moaned, grabbed his lower lip between hers and rocked on him with a vengeance. She held his head in both hands, holding his mouth against hers and then it happened fast. She felt as if she’d burst into flames, exploded from within, drowning him with wet spasms so hot and powerful he gasped and just held on for dear life. She put her hands on his shoulders and arched her back, making a noise that was at once sheer pleasure and profound relief.

  Phil seized the moment, pumped his hips a few times and joined her, pulsing into physical exhaustion. And when she crumpled against him, he put his arms around her and held her close, tenderly, gratefully, waiting for their rapid breathing to slow, their heart rates to return to normal. Her head rested against his shoulder. His hands gently stroked her back. He had only one thought. That was so sweet—please, God, no more fighting, please.

  Gerri was spent. It was as though her bones had turned fluid. She was limp, satisfied, completely subdued. After a few moments of recovery, she gently rolled away from him, lying atop the collection of newspapers. She put the back of her hand against her forehead. “Phew. I wasn’t prepared for that! That was bizarre.”

  “That’s not the word I would have used,” Phil said, his voice reflecting the weakness of postcoital bliss.

  She laughed. “Just out of curiosity, give me a word.”

  “How about awesome? Can we go with awesome?”

  She turned onto her side, propped herself up on an elbow, and looked at him. “Did you have that kind of sex with her?”

  “Gerri, I haven’t had that kind of sex with anyone. Including you! You bit me, you used me, you screwed my brains out. I was terrified of what you were going to do when you had your hand around me. You went completely wild. Out of your mind.”

  “Aw,” she said, smiling at him. “I’m so sorry. I won’t let that happen again.”

  He stroked her arm. “It’s okay, baby. You want to hate me some more? I can live with that.”

  “You really screwed up, Phil. Even your mother thinks so.”

  He shook his head. “My mother. Why did you have to tell her? I’ve never before wished for a fatal heart attack.”

  “Do you really love me?”

  “Baby, I love you so much. I’ve missed you so much. It’s been torture, having you hate me. Except of course, today.” He grinned at her. Then he became serious. “Gerri, I want to come home. I’ll do whatever you want. I won’t run for D.A. I’ll tell everyone it’s my decision and has nothing to do with you.”

  “Of course you’ll run,” she said. “I’ve been working toward this for as long as you have. I’ve listened to a million closing arguments. We’ve worked for this together, we’ll run together.”

  “I don’t want you to feel pushed into this.”

  “Just how expensive is this guesthouse?” she asked.

  “Too expensive. Why?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe we should keep it.” Then she grinned. “Nice little hideaway for Sunday mornings. And other times.”

  “We could get a sailboat for about the same price.”

  “Can you do other things on a sailboat besides...sail?”

  “Oh, yeah. Are you letting me come home?”

  “I need time to think clearly. I think I should see my gynecologist. I think she might’ve given me an overdose.”

  “The hormones? Could your health be compromised?” he asked.

  “I think I should at least ask— I haven’t acted like that since I was thirty-five. God, how awful.” She flopped on her back.

  “Not awful,” he said. “If there’s no danger to your health, don’t be hasty. We can work with this,” he said with a grin.

  “Here I am, barely out of bed, looking like the wrath of God, and—”

  “You’re beautiful.” He turned on his side and raised himself up, looking down at her. “You’ve never known that about yourself. You’re beautiful. And you weren’t wearing underwear.”

  “Um...I was in a hurry. I read that op-ed piece and just saw red—it took me completely by surprise. How the heck did this happen?”

  “Who cares?” Phil said. Then he sobered. “But I’m not having any more affairs. I hope to God that didn’t light a fire under you. Because I’m not...”

  “Okay, give it a rest. I believe you. I’m going to watch you, though.”

  “Fine. Watch.” He ran a finger around her hairline. “Your hair is all goofy.”

  “That’s very complimentary, Phil.”

  “I love it goofy.” His hand dropped and fell to her naked breast. “Let me come home. Please.”

  Gerri took a deep breath. “It’s Sunday. How about Friday night? Then we’ll have the weekend to talk to the kids, give them a chance to absorb another change, let them ask questions, you know. We’re going to have to explain the election. Tell your committee that we’ll announce in a week, once your family is on board.”

  “Are we back together? Are we okay now?” he asked.

  “Almost, Phil,” she said, getting off the bed. “We’re going to have to make some adjustments—but I think we can work on things under the same roof. At least I believe we can make it now. And I started thinking that before this morning, but...” She stopped talking and started to laugh. She picked up a section of newspaper and showed it to him. “Oh, dear. Look at this. I left a little mess on Carter’s face. Do you think that’s an omen?”

  fourteen

  GERRI TOOK A sick day from work—something she did as rarely as possible. It was more than just her work ethic, though no one worked harder. It was about her clients, those she was charged to serve. If she was using a work day for her own personal ne
eds, it could mean someone wasn’t getting all she had to give.

  But today she had no choice. She couldn’t allow Phil to come back home until she took care of a few things. She knew she wouldn’t be able to look him in the eye and lie. She had to keep a secret from him, and she was achingly aware of the hypocrisy, since she’d been so angry that he’d withheld something important from her. But this was about saving her marriage and protecting her family. Elections were brutal. If her marriage was going to survive it, if her children were going to be safe through it, she had some behind-the-scenes work to do. Work that Phil wouldn’t approve of.

  The first task involved Kelly, Phil’s administrative assistant and the woman who had delivered the news that had separated them for over three months.

  When she entered Phil’s office building in San Francisco for the first time since that fateful day, she suddenly felt her chest swell with pride. She hadn’t expected that—but there it was. Her husband was going to be the new D.A. And she had helped him all along the way. Oh, she was hardly the woman behind the man—she was the woman beside the man. She had listened to almost every opening and closing argument he’d ever prepared. She critiqued him ruthlessly, and he listened raptly, taking her advice. She counseled him on dealing with juvenile victims and defendants, and he’d have been lost without her. She was as much his professional partner as his marital partner.

  She rode the elevator up to the eleventh floor to Phil’s office, but she glanced at the button for the sixteenth. She knew it had a view of the bay, Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge—it would be Phil’s office soon. She was certain.

  When she got off the elevator, there was the usual bustle of people scurrying around. A young associate glanced up and recognized her. “Morning, Mrs. Gilbert,” he said very quickly before moving down the hall.

  When she approached Phil’s office, the receptionist perked up. “Morning, Mrs. Gilbert. Mr. Gilbert is in court this morning.”

  “I know, Cathy. I thought I’d say hello to Kelly since I’m in the building,” Gerri said with a smile.