My back pressed open a door and then I was bounced onto a soft mattress, a silky comforter against my skin.
Carter opened the drawer by his bed and pulled out a condom. I turned my head to watch him unwrap it and roll it over his cock. Sexy, I thought, and I’d never thought that before.
Everything this man did was sexy. I could watch him file taxes and be turned on.
His hands slipped up my legs and suddenly yanked me, pulling my hips off the edge of the tall mattress. His smile was wicked, delicious, his touch sure and confident. My legs twined around his hips, my weight balanced in his hands. Despite my belly, the pregnancy, I felt so small against him. I arched my back, notching myself against him.
Sweat pooled between us, our panting and the rustle of my body against the comforter the only sounds in the room.
Still he waited, pulling the moment so taut I thought I might snap.
“Cart-ah!” I cried as he entered me, driving so deep I felt him in the back of my throat. My body clenched him in hard triumph. So long. Oh, it had been so long.
“Are you okay?” he asked, leaning over me, his face etched with concern.
I laughed—I couldn’t help it. Running my hands over his shoulders, cupping the muscles, testing my fingernails against his skin—I laughed, delighted in the feel of him.
Rocking hard against him, I arched my back, feeling every inch of him, every inch of my body.
“I’m so good.”
He leaned over me, his hair falling over his eyes, and I reached up to touch his face. I arched again and watched his control begin to fray moment by moment, touch by touch.
Yes, I thought, glee riding my heartbeat. Yes!
Carter was gorgeous this way, human and vulnerable. I knew, in a wild tender moment, that this was a gift. Carter, with no defenses, his heart in his eyes, was a rare gift.
I arched and arched fucking him until I coaxed him into fucking me.
I couldn’t breathe as we pounded against each other. Until finally…finally.
He drove me back on the mattress, shuddering against me. I held him as hard as I could in my arms, while trying to keep him far away from my heart.
ZOE
* * *
I knew mistakes. I was an idiot savant with mistakes. If there was some kind of game show—Name That Mistake—I’d be a millionaire. A grand champion.
And as I watched the sun rise outside Carter’s window, turning the sky pink and pale yellow, tracing early-morning clouds in white-hot light, I knew that making love to Carter had been a doozy of a mistake.
My baby slept under my hand, and Carter slept beside me, facedown in a pile of pillows. I forced myself not to look at him, not to push the hair out of his face so I could see his lips. Count his eyelashes.
I closed my burning eyes and swore under my breath.
Last night had opened up some hidden chamber of want, of craving. And it was all focused on Carter.
My mother’s voice rang in my head—“You’re a single mother and this is no time to fall in love.”
Once again, my mom was right. Right man. Wrong time.
So, it was time for this particular mistake to end.
Quietly, carefully, I slipped out from under the silky gray comforter and tried as hard as I could not to notice other details of his bedroom. Like the painting over his bed; moonlight on water, a lonely boat in the foreground.
I could tell myself to stop caring, but it was too late. Because when I saw that painting I thought of Carter, so alone. Everywhere I looked, I saw parts of Carter that made him more endearing to me.
Last night, when Carter’s control had snapped, something had snapped in me, too, and I needed to get away from him, get back to my home, my pig mugs and yoga pants. Real life.
Every Cinderella night had an expiry date, and I’d hit mine.
The white-faced alarm clock on the dresser said that it was 7 a.m., and if I didn’t go now, he’d be awake and we’d make love again. Or worse, we’d talk, and he’d already pushed me to all my crumbling, unsafe edges.
In the living room, my dress was a scarlet puddle in the middle of the shiny mahogany floors and I shimmied into it, looking for my underwear. Under my bare feet it felt as though the wood carried the remnants of the heat between us, as if scorch marks might mar the surface.
The need to leave became urgent. I felt shaky, barely in control. I’d leave my underwear; the glitter of a barrette under the couch barely distracted me.
I scooped up my shoes and purse, and after a moment’s consideration, I grabbed Carter’s dress shirt and threw it on over my dress.
I felt so naked, so ridiculous in an evening gown on a Sunday morning.
Talk about a walk of shame.
My hand just touched the solid brass knob when a knock thundered against the door.
“Uncle Carter!” A girl’s voice screamed from the hallway.
Uncle Carter?
“Open up!” The girl’s voice accompanied another barrage of knocks.
This is bad.
I backed away from the door until I ran into something warm. Hard.
Carter.
Shit.
13
“Shit,” I whispered and winced, unable to turn around. He had to know what I was doing, sneaking out with the dawn. Like a coward.
“Are you okay?” his dark voice rumbled. His breath rustled my hair and my skin nearly purred.
I nodded, my throat closed tight against the thousand things I wanted to say.
He was quiet, his chest rising and falling behind me, and finally I worked up the nerve to face him. It was Carter all right, but changed somehow. The control that had crumbled last night was back in place, but slightly different. Weak in places.
And I could see all too clearly, that my attempt at sneaking off hurt him.
“I’m sorry, Carter,” I breathed in a quick rush. “I…just need to go home. This…last night…”
“Of course,” he agreed, without really agreeing. Such a politician, I thought.
He picked up his underwear and pants from the floor and tugged them on, each motion succinct and restrained. He didn’t say a word but I could feel the disappointment rolling off him.
“I can’t care about you, Carter,” I whispered, and his motions stilled for the barest moment, a hesitation so quick I would have missed it if I hadn’t been staring at him so hard.
I willed him to understand how fragile my heart was, how complicated my life would become.
“Carter!” the little girl yelled again. “Open the door!”
“My niece,” he said with a smile that nearly broke my heart. “I’d tell you to leave out the back door, but I don’t have one.” He put his hand to the door. “You’ll just have to tough this out.”
“Carter!” I squealed. “Don’t—”
But then the door was open and a nine-year-old girl, a cyclone, her long red hair in stiff braids down her back, was hurling herself against Carter’s legs, and he was laughing, stroking her head and trying to keep his balance.
He picked her up, gave her a funny shake.
It was Carter as I’d never seen him. Never guessed he could be.
My baby kicked, hard, and I took it as a warning. If I stayed, I’d be in trouble—my little boat, barely afloat on the sea of things I could feel for this man, would capsize and I’d drown in unwanted emotion.
I turned, ready to make my escape before having to explain what I was doing in Uncle Carter’s house, in his shirt and no underwear.
And I nearly ran right into a blond woman who looked so much like Carter and so much like the woman he’d said was his mother that she could only be one person.
“Hi!” the woman said, her twinkling, knowing eyes missing no detail about my barely zipped dress and Carter’s bare chest. “I’m Savannah,” she said, holding out her hand. “That’s my daughter, Katie.”
“Zoe,” I managed to stammer past the huge boulder of embarrassment lodged in my throat. Savannah wor
e a clingy blue top that revealed the very small swell of a pregnant belly. Or too big a lunch, it was hard to say. “Madison.”
“Are you a friend of Uncle Carter’s?” The red-headed cyclone asked, wedged against Carter’s side. “Because we brought Thanksgiving.” She looked up at her uncle with hero worship pouring from her eyes. “Mom said you’d never remember that Thanksgiving’s on Thursday so we needed to bring you some food so you wouldn’t starve because all the restaurants will be closed and you’re far too important to come home for the holiday.”
“She said all that, did she?” Carter grumbled.
“Please, stay,” Savannah said to me. “We’ve got plenty of food.”
“Zoe was leaving,” Carter said, his voice so cold it blew frost across my skin, but Savannah shot him an acidic look.
The baby kicked again, a wicked one-two combination, and I put my hand under my belly in comfort.
A move Savannah did not miss and I knew that under the white dress shirt, Savannah saw that I was pregnant. My eyes went wide and my mouth dropped open.
Shit. Again.
“You,” Savannah breathed to Carter, “have some explaining to do.” Savannah looked like an angry teacher about to give one hell of a lecture that I wanted no part of.
“The baby isn’t his,” I said.
Savannah’s eyes narrowed even farther. “Is it your husband’s?”
I stared dumbstruck and Carter laughed. “She’s not married, Savannah. You can retract the fangs. And there’s no need for you to pretend to be a prude. Zoe’s an adult. I’m an adult. And she was leaving.”
“You don’t have to say it like that,” I grumbled, glaring at him.
“Am I wrong?” he asked, one of those fine eyebrows arching, making him look like some unforgiving ruler. “You weren’t sneaking out of here without saying goodbye?”
Mortified to be having this conversation in front of a kid and Carter’s sister, I glanced sideways at Savannah, who held up her hands. “We’ll be in the kitchen. And for what it’s worth—I hope you stay.” She laughed and shook her head before picking up two big totes that wafted delicious smells and hustling her daughter through a far doorway. “I mean I really hope you stay,” she yelled over her shoulder.
And then they were gone and it was only Carter watching me, unreadable as ever. Bright sunlight flooded the room and illuminated every dark corner, making it impossible for me to ignore all those things I didn’t want to see. The pieces of him on display. Photographs on the wall of a trio of blond kids and an older woman around a giant cypress. Books in a book shelf—the man liked Mark Twain.
The running shoes, slumped by the door, earbuds tucked into them.
I wanted to close my eyes and clamp my hands over my ears, but I couldn’t. I’d gotten myself here and now it was time to get myself out.
“I’m going to have a baby,” I whispered.
Carter’s lips curled. “I know.”
I took a deep breath and put it all on the line. “It’s one thing to have a one-night stand—I can handle that. But if we keep going like this—dates and sex and meeting your family—it’s going to hurt when you leave.”
“Who said I was leaving?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest. “Maybe you’ll leave. You already seem halfway out the door.”
“Don’t be obtuse.”
“Then don’t be a coward.”
I glared at him, and he ran his hands through his hair, putting it all on end. It was adorable.
I glared harder.
My mother’s words came back to me, all her warnings about being a single mother, about the perils of following one’s heart instead of one’s head.
Only pain, my mother always said, is guaranteed.
“Look, Zoe,” he breathed, dropping his arms to his side and looking somehow deflated. “Last night…I didn’t bring you here and make love to you lightly. I knew what I was doing. Now my sister’s here and she’s brought food, and I’ll bet it’s sugar pie—which you will love. You can stay, see what happens, or you can go.” He shrugged as if all of this was no big deal, and it made me feel totally unreasonable. Foolish, for thinking we were walking into a disaster. But we had to be. Honestly, how else could this end?
I was a pregnant dance teacher without insurance, and he was probably going to be mayor by the end of next year.
“I would like you to stay,” he said, leaving me speechless and weak. All those reasons why making love to him was a mistake, why staying here with him was a catastrophe—were so far away. I couldn’t remember them so well anymore.
Carter turned, walking across the room toward the bright kitchen with the yummy smells and the sound of a kid laughing. Here in his house. I never expected it, would never have guessed this kind of scene could take place in this house. It was like finding caramel under rock—a sweet surprise where I never dreamed it would be.
And if I left, what else would I miss?
Besides sugar pie, which frankly sounded worth staying for.
But this man, this beautiful man with the filthy mind and the broken control and the niece like a firecracker—what other secrets would he show me, if I stayed? If I had the courage to stay?
Stay or go?
Head or heart?
I rubbed my fingers over the taut lines of my belly, felt the kick and flutter of the baby under my fingers.
I did not want to put my baby in the strange prison my mother had put me in.
Just the two of us. Forever.
And maybe there was no guarantee with Carter, but when had I ever needed one? I’d gone into dance knowing that one misstep, one injury, might end my career. There was never a guarantee with any man I ever dated—did I think there was going to be one now? Was I never going to date again, unless the man had some kind of feelings-back guarantee?
My decision to be a single mom had been the riskiest thing I’d ever taken on and I’d done that knowing what I was getting into.
There were no guarantees. In life. Love. I knew that. It was what I liked about life. What I loved about it.
My stomach growled and the baby kicked and the decision was made.
I followed him into the kitchen.
CARTER
* * *
I was having an out-of-body experience; it was the only explanation. My pregnant sister and my pregnant…Zoe were talking about Bonne Terre, my family home, like it was Tara before the war.
“It sounds beautiful,” Zoe whispered, her eyes alight. Of course she would love Bonne Terre, the mystery and romance of it. What I remembered of it was being left there by a mother who didn’t love me enough to stay.
“It’s falling down,” I said. “She’s not telling you that part.”
“No, Carter, if you ever came home you’d know we’re fixing it up. It’s beautiful now. Again.”
I glanced sideways at Katie while my sister and my niece unloaded mountains of Thanksgiving Day food. Turkey and stuffing, cranberry sauce. Two sugar pies.
“It’s nice,” Katie said, nodding enthusiastically. “After Matt fell through the floor in the foyer, they fixed up everything.”
Zoe laughed behind me and my whole body smiled.
“Did you already have Thanksgiving?” I asked Katie, wondering where all this food had come from.
“Mom’s practicing,” Katie said. “Matt’s dad, Joel, is coming and she wants everything to be perfect. Also, Mom likes eating piles of stuffing.”
“She eating a lot?” I asked, watching my sister and Zoe out of the corner of my eye. How was this moment even possible? It was odd enough having my sister here, but Savannah and Zoe sat there as if they’d known each other their whole lives.
Maybe it was a woman thing.
Or maybe it was the magic of Zoe.
“Tyler says she’s eating for four,” Katie whispered, “but he only says that when she’s not around.”
“Ty’s no dummy,” I said, and was suddenly overwhelmed by how much I missed my family. The longing to s
ee my brother was so sharp I braced myself against the counter. Ty, who made life seem so easy, who practically glittered when he walked.
The last time we’d all been together, Ty had told me to stop protecting them from our mother, that they were adults and I could cut the protective big brother act.
Ty had said it like it should be easy. Like my whole life wasn’t sewn up in the act.
“Carter?” Zoe asked from across the room, and I blinked back the ridiculous tears. “You okay?” she asked, and I wondered how she knew—what sixth sense she had about me that warned her when I was running low on control.
Savannah watched it all with hope written all over her face. Hope that I would fall in love, not be so lonely—it was written in big block letters right across her forehead.
Suddenly I wasn’t sure if having Zoe here was a good idea. It was one thing to have her in my life here, in Baton Rouge, but it was another thing to involve her with my family. I kept those parts of my life separate for a reason and she wouldn’t understand that. Zoe would blur the lines and make a mess of the rules I lived by.
“Carter?” It was Savannah this time, her voice sharp, and I realized I was being rude.
“Sorry. I’m hungry. How about you?”
She nodded, her smile cautious but happy, and I started making plates for all of us, happy to have something to do.
“Uncle Carter?” Katie whispered.
“What?” I whispered back, loading a plate into the microwave.
“Is she your girlfriend?”
I glanced back at my niece and her bright eyes and then past her to where Zoe sat at the table.
Last night had been amazing—there was no doubt about it. But we were both still surrounded by hard shells of secrets.
“I don’t know,” I said. For now. But when I told her the truth about lying in court, would she still want to be with me? And when, and if, she told me about the father of the baby—maybe there was something in that story that would change the way I felt about her. Though I couldn’t imagine what that could be.
“Have you asked her?” Katie asked.
The Saint Page 14
