by Holley Trent
He put a hand at either side of her hips against the bed, and then his breath tickled the side of her neck.
She thrust her breasts forward like a wanton and moaned from shame.
“Hey. This is between you and me,” he rasped into her ear. “There’s no one here to see. No one to judge. No one’s paying us any attention, and I promise you, I’m not the kind of man who’ll kiss and tell.”
“We shouldn’t be kissing at all.”
“I disagree, and I hope you will soon, too. I wouldn’t normally jump right into bed with a woman I’ve known for a day, but that’ll be the fastest way to give you the information you need. You need to let me touch you.” He leaned in even closer and whispered against her parted lips, “I’m going to the bathroom. You can wait for me under the covers.”
His tongue darted across her lips and teased a sigh out of her. It chased back the refusal she’d been shaping on her lips that she hadn’t really wanted to speak, anyway.
Of course she wanted him to touch her. She was desperate to be touched, and to have someone as gorgeous and as accomplished as Chris Holst being the one dispensing the touch. He was what her mother would have called “The real deal.” He was a catch, even without the magical hocus-pocus shit. She just couldn’t believe that he wanted her—the frazzled mom with the precocious kid who didn’t cut anyone any slack. Her ex, for all his pretty words and promises, hadn’t wanted that, so how could a stranger?
She dropped her hand from her eyes and pinned her gaze on his belly, where a trail of dark hair led down into the fabric and toward that bulge.
“You want to trust me,” he whispered. “Aren’t you exhausted not trusting anyone?”
She nodded. There were no witnesses there. She didn’t have to lie. She didn’t have to pretend to be more than what she was, and she was tired.
“I miss…everything,” she whispered. “What I used to be. I was once happily trusting like Shani, forgiving like Mallory, and adventurous like my niece and nephews. And deep down, I know that I’m at least partially to blame for me having become that way. I gave away my joy during the divorce settlement.”
“Steal it back.”
She nodded. His suggestion was elementary, as far as plans went, but sometimes, people simply needed to be given permission to be a little selfish.
He squeezed her thighs gently, and said quietly, “Be ready for me.”
She gave another slow nod and drew in a shallow breath. “Okay.”
She didn’t know what “ready” meant or if she’d successfully reach that state before he came out, but all the same, she allowed herself a moment’s composure as he walked toward the en suite bathroom.
He closed the door behind him and, taking a deep, bolstering breath, she moved.
She stood at the foot of the bed, laying her head to one side and then the other to work out the tension in her neck. Unsettled and still so tentative, she tried to find that delicate string of the web she had such a hard time finding on her own. She felt infinitely more looped in when Chris was near.
Where’s Shani?
She knew her daughter was upstairs, and suspected that knowledge prevented her from discerning the difference between psychic proximity and what was just plain memory.
But Mallory’s on the web. There she is!
Marty could sense her nearness because she was blood, even if she were a mile away. “Mal?”
“Heyyyy!” came her sister’s response. “Look at you being all psychic and shit.”
“Never done that at this distance.”
“Gets easier the longer you’re here. What are you doing?”
“I’m… Nothing. I’m trying to figure out where Shani is. On the web thing, I mean.”
“Oh. You might not find her consistently.”
“Because she’s only a quarter?”
The water that had been running in the bathroom shut off.
Marty got moving again, heeling off her shoes because she was supposed to be getting “ready.”
“No. I don’t know if that’ll make a difference,” Mallory projected. “Probably, she’s not so prominent because she’s young. Her brain hasn’t finished making all the connections it needs to. Hell, from what I’m seeing, sometimes, folks can find other people’s kids easier than the parents can.”
“That makes sense.” Marty scrunched her nose. “Sort of.”
Chris seemed to have far more certainty in determining Shani’s status than Marty.
“As she nears puberty, the story will change. That’s what I keep hearing, anyway. Nadia’s been telling me what to expect. I don’t know which of my kids will be first up. The boys are older, but girls start developing earlier.”
“And what comes with the psychic shit?”
“I don’t know, Marty. We don’t know what any of these kids are going to be like a few years from now or what they’ll be able to do.”
“That scares me.” Marty unbuttoned her jeans and looked toward the bathroom door. Chris was going to think she was stalling if he came out to find her still dressed. She didn’t think she was stalling. Not really. There was just so much going through her head and she worried that if she didn’t process everything as it happened, she’d lose the thread. She needed to understand what was happening to her and to Shani.
“Stick around for a while,” Mallory said. “The uncertainty gets less scary. I think we’re all compensating for each other.”
Marty peeled off her shirt and took a moment to fold it, pondering what her sister had said about compensating. If that were true, the people nearest Marty on the web arguably had a huge burden to bear.
“I’ve got to go back to work,” Marty said.
“Your boss lets you work from home sometimes. You’ve got some admin to do, right? Do that for a couple of days from here. If any emergency calls hit your cell, delegate.”
“To those numbskulls in the office? I may as well quit now.” Marty scoffed and stepped out of her pants.
Chris turned on the shower.
Thank the Lord.
“I’ll think about it. Okay?” Marty projected to Mallory, wherever she was.
“That’s all I expect. I’m not trying to push you into anything, but of course, I’d rather you be here than in Florida.”
“And what about Mama?”
“What about her?” Mallory asked.
“She’d be alone.”
“Have you talked to her about this? Have you asked her what she feels?”
“I didn’t want to bring it up. I was worried she’d feel betrayed after everything that had happened with…”
“With Dan. Just call him Dan. That’s what Erin calls him.”
“Dan, then.” That felt better to say. Marty could call him that. “But Erin has a backup father—her biological one—and he’s actually a decent guy. He loves his kids and his wife so much. You can just tell by looking at him when he looks at them.”
“Still, she grew up under Dan’s roof and he was her father for twenty-three years. She can’t throw those memories away. She can just cope with them, and that’s what we’ll do, too.”
“But what about Mama?” Marty perched on the end of the armchair and reached up her spine for her bra clasp.
“Mama wants us to be happy, okay?” Mallory thought at her. “She doesn’t understand this magic stuff, but she understands why I came, and that exploring this side of who I am is important. We’re not normal people, Marty.”
“That’s an understatement. The people here… The things they can do… This guy can move things with a thought.”
“Yeah, Will? I’ve seen him to that, but guess what? What he can do is nothing. I’ve been around the clan leaders. The queen. The chieftains. Their families. Marty, it’s a damn good thing they’re on our side, because I sure as shit wouldn’t want to be their enemy. They control fire and weather and…who knows what else? And Ótama is…she’s so sweet, but she’s frightening as hell. She doesn’t even have to try. Working magic is
instinctual and natural for her.”
Marty folded her bra neatly and peered down at in the dim light, studying the pattern of the lace, noting the little rip that hadn’t been there the last time she’d worn it. Or maybe she just hadn’t noticed. She didn’t pay much attention to the condition of her underwear. No one ever saw it except Mallory, and that was only because sometimes Marty forgot to take her clothes out of the dryer and Mallory had to relocate them.
“What are you doing right now?” Mallory asked.
For a moment, Marty considered lying. Lying was something she and Mallory didn’t do with each other. Deception was pointless. They could always tell when the other wasn’t being truthful. Marty didn’t know if that was psychic shit or just sister shit.
Gritting her teeth, she braced herself for the scold—for the guilt trip that often followed the cold, hard truth. “I’m…in a guy’s apartment with my clothes off and I’m waiting for him to come out of the bathroom.”
“Cute guy?”
Marty’s body recoiled as if she’d been struck. She hadn’t expected that response. “What?”
“Is he cute?”
“What the hell are you asking me?”
“Damn, that wasn’t a trick question. From what I’m finding, it’s not unusual for people here to be more open with physical affection. They’re touchers. Skin-to-skin contact is casual and platonic for them a lot of the time.”
“There’s nothing casual about this.”
“Oh, hell. What happened?”
“I…don’t know. When Shani broke her arm, there was a doctor, and… He…”
Marty didn’t know what else to say, so she performed a shrug her sister couldn’t see. Mallory would have known better than anyone that Marty didn’t date, and didn’t even go out looking for fleeting fun. She would have understood how tentative Marty would have been, and why.
“Feels right?” Mallory projected.
“Safe, I think.”
“Hey, don’t discount that. Safe’s really attractive when you get to be our ages, but is he cute, too, at least?”
Marty laughed, and some of the tension she’d been hoarding in her gut dissipated. “He’s a little better than cute. Chris Holst, Viking M.D.”
“Ooooh, I’ve talked to him a few times when I’ve had to swing by the hospital. His dad was a doctor, too. They have the most hilarious arguments in the hospital hallways whenever the elder Dr. Holst breezes through for a consult.”
“Chris lives downstairs from Erin and Will.”
“So, Erin’s with Shani?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the problem?”
“I…” Marty furrowed her brow and tried to articulate just what her issue was. “I don’t know, Mal. Maybe this is just too easy. Easy always comes at a price.”
“And you’re not willing to pay it?”
“I don’t know what the price is yet, so how could I possibly answer that?”
“Just enjoy yourself for a night, okay? Or even just a few hours. Worry about consequences later.”
“Neither of us is wired that way.”
“So we’ll fake that we are until we don’t have to fake it anymore. Hey, I’ve gotta go force a Viking into bed. I hear the squeak of his wheelchair out in the hallway. I’ll catch you later.”
The mental connection withdrew like a paper falling away on a breeze.
Marty stared at the bathroom door and the light shining through the sliver of a gap at the bottom. Then she looked to Chris’s bed.
Unmade, with the covers turned down on the left side. The right side was crisp and tucked under as if the owner was careful to never move in sleep.
She moved toward the right side, hooking her thumbs beneath her panty elastic as she went.
For once, she was just going to see what happened. She was going to let Chris touch her, and she’d touch him back, and she wouldn’t let all the noise in her brain keep her from enjoying the connection.
Like Mallory had said, Marty could worry about everything else later. It wasn’t like she’d forget everything wrong in her life in the meantime.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Marty was cozy under the covers and peering at the bathroom door when Chris finally emerged. He had a towel wrapped around his hips and used a second one to rub water out of his short hair.
And he’d shaven. That made him even harder to look at because he was just too beautiful.
God, and he wants me?
She burrowed farther under the comforter.
“Sorry I took so long,” he said. “I didn’t get to shower after work, and I hate feeling like that. I always feel like I have to scrub a film off me.”
“The film of sickness?”
He grunted and tossed his hair towel into the closet. “Something like that.”
“I understand. Mallory does the same thing. She doesn’t like for her kids to touch her after work until after she’s showered. Sometimes she’d work nights and would come home right at breakfast and the kids would try to jump on her, and she’d freak out.”
“So you won’t take it personally, then.”
“No. I’m not generally that petty.”
“I don’t think you’re petty at all.” He shifted his gaze to the chair with its pile of her clothes, and then back to the bed.
With a solemn nod, he stepped into the closet. He emerged a moment later with the towel from his waist gone and him clutching something in his hand she couldn’t quite make out.
He padded to the left side of the bed and, as he walked, she stared at the beauty of his body.
She’d been with fit men before, but his build had surprised her. She wouldn’t have expected a doctor to be built like a boxer. Broad-shouldered, well-muscled, and yet still had an ease of movement that suggested he was conscious of his form and how to manipulate it.
He dropped the thing in his hand—a strip of condoms—onto the nightstand and climbed into the bed. “Are you sure about this?” he asked, his voice low and slow.
“I…” The way the muscles of his abdomen elongated as he lay on his side struck her dumb. She was further enthralled by the way the sheets draped over his hip and how the shadow it cast didn’t quite obscure the head of his cock.
He wasn’t hiding himself the way she was. He was shameless, and should have been. His whole body was art.
She swallowed. Nodded. “I… I want to.”
He canted his head. “Want to what?”
“Chris, please. Don’t make me spell it out. After all, you issued the invitation.”
“I just want us to be clear on what we’re doing right now and what we expect from each other.”
“You said you were going to help me understand.”
He nodded. “And in the process of that, I’m going to enjoy myself. I don’t want this to be clinical.”
“Well, I don’t want that either. I’m not a lab rat.”
“So, if I get distracted—if I kiss and caress, or if I linger and experiment—will you allow me to?”
“As long as I feel good. It’s been a long time since anyone’s made me feel good.”
“Good.”
“Excuse me?”
He moved in closer, shifting gradually to the middle of the bed. He stopped about six inches from her, and cast a heated gaze down at her face. “Call me a stereotype, but I don’t really want to think about anyone else having touched you.”
“The evidence that I’ve been touched very intimately at least one time is asleep upstairs in Erin’s apartment.”
He skimmed his fingertips down her chin to her chest and swirled them over her cleavage—just above where she clutched the sheet. “That’s different.”
“How?”
“Because she doesn’t belong to him anymore. Lie to me and tell me that isn’t the case.”
“He…pays the child support.” Sometimes. “And comes to see her.” When he’s already on that side of town visiting his girlfriend.
“And what else?”
>
Anything she said besides “nothing” would have been a lie, so she kept her mouth shut.
“Would you care if he stopped?” he asked.
She opened her mouth to give him a quick yes, but that was just reflex. She was supposed to say yes—she was supposed to be the mother who kept the door open for her child to connect with her father, even if Marty’s heart ached every time she had to interact with the man. As far as Marty was concerned, he was just a different shade of her father, and Shani would be better off without him.
She choked out a dry laugh and shook her head. “Would I care? No. Would Shani?”
Chris hooked up an eyebrow in a lie to me way, and she knew she couldn’t. The Viking would probably see right through her like everyone else in that weird community seemed to.
“I…” She swallowed and stared down at the drooping top of the covers near his navel. “I can’t tell. I feel bad for not being able to tell. She’s so nice to everyone, including him, and even being her mother, I can’t tell if she likes him any more or less than she does anyone else.”
“That should be your answer, Marty.”
“What?”
“She doesn’t care. You know she doesn’t. Kids are more intuitive than people give them credit for, and I think Afótama children are even more prescient than most. Maybe she’s not going to be outright nasty to him, but if she saw him on the street, would she run to him?”
“No.” Marty could say that without hesitation because she’d never once witnessed Shani exhibiting that sort of exuberance toward her father. Shani had had numerous opportunities to demonstrate her enthusiasm in that way and hadn’t.
“Because she’s not his anymore,” Chris said.
“I’m not sure she ever was,” she whispered.
Chris slung his arm around her waist and pulled Marty closer—close enough that she could feel his breath on her cheeks and that her nipples tightened with anticipation.
“I think the best thing you could do,” he whispered, entwining his fingers through the back of her hair and slowly angling her face upward, “is grab your clean slate and run.”
“Run away?”
“Run forward. Why be stuck when you can go forward?”
He moved his hand from her hair and down her spine. He glided it over the small of her back, tickling and making her core tighten and her ass cheeks clench.
