Drifting closer, he stared at her, taking into account her dripping hair, water-streaked makeup and brilliant gray eyes.
“You don’t know how beautiful you are,” he softly told her. “You don’t know how much I think about you.”
“Jake.” His name was a whisper. A sigh. A promise. She tipped up her chin and watched him with glittering eyes that were already half closed, surrendering even as she continued to fight. “I thought we agreed we weren’t going to do this.”
Reaching up, mesmerized by everything about this one special woman, he smoothed the wet hair past her temple. Traced one silky brow. Ran his thumb across the dewy velvet of her lower lip.
“I’ve been trying.” He shrugged helplessly. “I didn’t know how hard it would be.”
Leaning in, he dipped his head and, making sure to keep their bodies well apart, kissed her before she could protest—one gentle, lingering, perfect kiss that nearly choked him with desire.
Then he pulled back, knowing he’d crossed a line but unable to remember why that should matter.
Her eyes were bright and glazed now, a vivid mixture of gray and green that should only belong to the finest jewels and sunset-streaked oceans.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said again, shaking his head because life was unfair. Why else would God drop this woman in his life and then make her off-limits? “So beautiful.”
“So are you.”
With that sweet murmur, she stepped forward, into his impatient arms, and slid her hands across his shoulders to his neck, bringing him down to her with an urgency that almost matched his own. Their bodies sealed together of their own accord, and the yielding pressure of her sex against him brought him to a full and raging erection.
With this second kiss, all bets were off.
Her breathy mewl set something loose inside him, and he responded with a strange sound that was throaty and animalistic. Planting his hands in her wet hair, reaching for the warm scalp beneath, he angled her head to deepen the kiss. She opened for him, her tongue meeting his thrust for thrust, and her mouth was honey fresh...hot...greedy.
Escalating the situation was the worst possible idea, but he couldn’t stop himself from running his fingers down her supple back, to her ass. He filled his hands with her, circling his hips in a thrust that—
“Mommy? MOMMY!”
Harry’s voice was, thankfully, still distant, but it worked with the violent efficiency of a nuclear strike. They jumped apart, stiffening, and she rubbed her lips and then her face.
Jake, meanwhile, trembled with the effort to control his frustrated need. “Charlotte—”
The horrified regret in her eyes was like a jabbing stab wound as she pointed her finger in his face. “Don’t. I need my job, so we’re not doing this. Even if we want to.”
She hurried out, wrapping the towel up under her arms and around her torso as she went.
He rested his palms on the unyielding granite counter, willing his body to cool down.
By the time he emerged from the bedroom a couple minutes later, Charlotte, Harry and Mrs. Evans were gathered in the foyer, ready to go. Mrs. Evans and Harry had changed into dry clothes, and Harry, who still had his thumb in his mouth, was drowsy-eyed in his little jeans shorts and striped T-shirt.
Jake tried to play the gracious host, but it was hard when his lust and emotional turmoil had him tied up in knots. Since he didn’t trust himself to look at Charlotte just yet, and Mrs. Evans had a speculative glint in her eyes that made him wonder if she doubled as a detective for the police department, he stooped down and focused his goodbye on Harry.
“Thanks for coming, little man.”
“Thanks for having me,” Harry said glumly.
“What’s wrong?”
“I want to stay here.”
“Oh,” Jake said, blindsided by this little bit of news and by how much he’d miss this little guy when he left. “Well.” He glanced up at Charlotte, who was pointedly looking in the other direction, at the fish tank. “Maybe you can come back sometime. If you listen to your mom. Okay?”
Harry nodded. “Can I say goodbye to Jeremy?”
“Yeah. Of course you can.” Jake glanced around for the doll but Mrs. Evans produced it from behind her back and handed it to Jake. “Thanks. Here you go, Harry.”
Harry grinned with delight around his thumb and hugged the doll to his chest.
And then, to Jake’s utter astonishment, he threw his little arms around Jake and hugged him, too.
Some primal paternal instinct blossomed into action for the first time ever, and Jake found himself sweeping Harry up into a bear hug that probably should have crushed his tiny bones.
He stood, swaying and enjoying the way Harry clung to him with surprising strength.
How long should a hug like that last?
Was an hour too long?
Jake turned his head and kissed Harry on the cheek, intending to put him down before he decided to keep him, but then he noticed something.
“Charlotte,” he said, “should Harry feel this warm?”
“Oh, great.” Charlotte exchanged a dark look with her mother, then leaned in to press her lips to Harry’s forehead. “Harry! You have a fever, buddy. How does your ear feel?”
“Hurts,” Harry said drowsily.
“Well, why didn’t you mention it?”
“I wanted to swim.”
Smart kid.
“I noticed he felt warm,” Mrs. Evans admitted. “But I thought it was from the sun and the tantrum.”
Jake tried not to overreact, but he was definitely concerned. They had this under control, right?
“So, what happens now?” he asked. “Antibiotics or something?”
“Yeah,” said Charlotte tiredly. “We’ll have to run him by urgent care since it’s after hours on Saturday. Again. He’s prone to ear infections.”
“Oh.” Jake remembered what she kept telling him about the complexity of her life. “And you have studying to do tonight, right? How will you—”
Charlotte took Harry from him and settled him against her own shoulder. Despite the little guy’s sturdy weight, her back was strong and there was no self-pity in her expression—just a wry smile.
“Mothers manage,” she said simply.
“Jake?” Harry asked.
Jake peeled away his gaze from the incredible woman in front of him and focused on her son. “Yep?”
“Can I borrow Jeremy? Till I get my ear fixed?”
Jake was too moved to speak.
“Please?” Harry added.
Jake swallowed hard, trying to dislodge a lump the size of his heart from his tight throat. “Yeah. Sure.”
Jake’s gaze was irrevocably drawn back to Charlotte, whose color was still high after their interlude in the bathroom. Did she know that he’d lied about the toys being for the kids? That he’d raided the toy store and childproofed his house because he’d wanted to demonstrate that he was a responsible adult who could do a good job with her kid? That the toys for older kids had been a mere afterthought following picking out everything he’d thought Harry would enjoy? Did she have any idea that he’d staked out his front door and ignored all his other guests this afternoon, basically living and breathing for Charlotte’s arrival? Did she know his lips still tingled from the sweet pressure of her kiss?
Was this what it was like to fall in love? He almost wished he could ask her, because God knew he had no experience in this terrifying area.
Tearing away his attention from Charlotte, he handed the doll to Harry.
He had the terrifying thought, as he did so, that he’d also handed his heart over to this family—to Charlotte—without even realizing it.
Chapter 9
“Thanks for letting me come,” Roger sai
d early that evening.
“Thanks for calling first this time.”
Charlotte shut her apartment door behind him and trailed him into the dimly lit living room, where Harry was lying on the sofa beneath a plush blue blanket. Fast asleep, he had his curly head—and Jeremy’s—resting on a pillow. The TV had been playing the Disney Channel, but now that Roger was here, she clicked it off and slumped into the nearest cozy chair.
Roger sat on the coffee table facing Harry and watched him with tired eyes. As usual, he was coming off a shift—or going back on to a shift; she no longer bothered keeping his schedule straight—and had that hollowed-out look of utter exhaustion.
Which meant that he looked exactly the way she felt.
After the long wait at urgent care and the trip to the pharmacy for meds, she’d brought Harry home, tried to feed him dinner, bathed him and settled him onto the sofa for TV, battling his illness-induced crankiness all the way.
Homework? She’d never gotten further than opening her books and spreading them on the kitchen table. Reading? It was hard to read when her bleary eyes kept blurring or rolling closed. Sleep? Probably not possible tonight.
She was still too wired from kissing Jake.
“How’s he doing?” Roger murmured.
“I think he’s more comfortable now that the meds kicked in. He’ll feel better tomorrow, after a good night’s sleep.”
“Did you dose him for the fever?”
“Yeah. And my mom is taking him for the night so she can spoil him to death and I can get some homework done. She’ll be here in a minute.”
She’d be surprised if he kicked up a fuss about not being offered the first option to take Harry if she needed the night off, and she was right. Roger valued his me-time way too much for that sort of thing, and anyway, his attention had snagged on the doll.
He pointed. “What’s this?”
“A doll,” she said, too dull-witted by this point to see where the conversation was headed.
Roger turned to her, a frown creasing his forehead. He put a protective hand on Harry’s back. “You bought him a doll?”
Uh-oh.
“No,” she said slowly, giving him a pointed look. “We went to a work barbecue this afternoon. He got it there. Why?”
“I don’t want my son playing with dolls. For obvious reasons.”
There was an insinuation about boys, dolls and sexuality in there somewhere, and she nailed him with a cold stare because she didn’t want to hear it. “I don’t think your reasons are obvious at all. Harry can play with a doll if he wants to. Who cares? Big deal.”
Roger had the decency to flush and drop his aggressive stare, but he wasn’t finished with the questioning. “A work thing, eh? Where at?”
Double uh-oh.
“Jake’s,” she admitted.
The neutral tone didn’t fool Roger, whose shoulders squared off and brows flattened. “And who at the work thing gave him the doll?”
She hesitated, knowing she was about to throw a big scoop of lard right on the fire. But lying wasn’t an option; all he had to do was ask Harry the same question, and he’d learn the truth.
“Jake.”
His lips twisted into an ain’t-that-some-shit sneer.
“He wants you. You know that, right?”
Again, why lie? “Yes.”
“So, you put him in his place, right?”
Charlotte opened her mouth. She wanted to say that, a) it was none of Roger’s business; and, moreover, b) she was more than smart enough not to get involved with her boss.
After several long beats, the terrible truth occurred to her: while it may not be Roger’s business, she wasn’t as smart as she’d hoped she was. Because she wanted Jake and, worse than that, she thought about him. Admired him. Respected him.
Cared for him.
Her face in flames, she shut her mouth and turned away from the stunned realization on Roger’s face.
“So it’s like that,” he said.
Again, she couldn’t answer.
The moment’s significance was heavy and overwhelming. She and Roger had had their ups, downs, breakups and reconciliations, and she’d had a date with someone else here or there, but there’d never been another significant man. Never been a serious rival for her affections.
Now, it seemed, there was.
Whether she liked it or not, she would have to deal with Jake.
One other thing had changed between her and Roger. Looking at him now, seeing his hurt and jealousy, she felt...nothing. Not joy or triumph, not anger, bitterness or hope for a new and better beginning for their little family.
Just...nothing.
As long as Roger was a good father to their son, she didn’t care what he did, or with whom. Maybe, with time, they’d come to be dear friends, but for now there was only neutrality, and that was a huge relief from their emotional roller coaster.
Something in her expression tipped him off.
Nostrils flaring, he swallowed hard, looking vulnerable and boyish—more like the college boy she’d loved than the man he was still becoming.
“It’s really over, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she said softly.
The pain of this admission carved deep grooves in his face.
“You don’t love me anymore, do you?”
That sounded harsher than she was prepared to be. “I’ll always—”
“Do you?”
Since he seemed to need the unvarnished truth, she gave it to him. “No.”
He swiped at his eyes, got up and headed for the front door. She followed, propelled by the feather lightness of this new freedom from her past and their tangled relationship. This was the first time she’d known, on a cellular level, that she and Roger were forever finished, and the idea thrilled her as much as it terrified her.
Roger, on the other hand, looked crushed. Pausing on the threshold, he turned to issue a bravado-laced warning.
“Harry’s only ever going to have one daddy. You know that, right?”
Images flashed through her mind’s eye: Jake and Harry bonding over a shared love of fish and cookies; Jake and Harry splashing together in the pool; Jake gifting Harry with a doll and making sure his house was safe for a curious toddler.
And then, too late, she caught herself and slammed the lid on her foolish daydreams.
Maybe she was a smitten fool, but even in her bewitched state, she knew that confirmed players like Jake Hamilton would never make good bonus daddies.
The knowledge hurt, and yet...
“Harry will only ever have one daddy, yeah. But one day, if he’s lucky, he’ll have another man who loves him like his own,” she said quietly, shutting the door in Roger’s face.
* * *
By nine-thirty, Charlotte had finished her homework, which proved how amazingly efficient she could be when Harry wasn’t derailing her train of thought every fifteen seconds. At loose ends, but still feeling relieved after her conversation with Roger, she showered and threw on her silky pink robe over her panties while a load of clothes that included her camis and shorts ran through the dryer.
She was just turning off a couple of the lamps, picking up the TV remote and considering the relative merits of mindlessly flipping channels versus putting in a DVD, when her phone rang. Her first thought was that Harry had taken a turn for the worse and needed to come home, but a quick glance at the display showed that it was the doorman downstairs.
“Is that you, Arnie?” she asked. “What’s up?”
“Hey, Charlotte. I’ve got a delivery for you. A Jake Hamilton—”
Jake?
“—dropped off a couple bags of what looks like groceries. Do you want to come down or should I bring them up for you?”
Gro
ceries? Why on earth would Jake bring her groceries? As that tidbit registered with her brain, it was suddenly overrun with other thoughts: Jake. Here.
“Is he gone?” she asked.
“Just leaving through the revolving door,” said Arnie.
A wild recklessness came over her. “Can you catch him and send him up, please?”
“You got it.”
She hung up, her heart rate galloping into triple digits, probably because she knew she was about to do something she’d regret―and regret sooner, rather than later. But Jake was here, and she was alone for the night, and what were the chances of the stars aligning like that on the very day that Jake had kissed her senseless?
If she went into this with eyes wide open and no expectations, then the situation could be managed, couldn’t it? Couldn’t she take a break from her duties as mother, daughter, student and paralegal and steal this one moment out of time for herself?
One night with Jake before she returned to her responsibilities and he returned to the string of women he kept on retainer. They were consenting adults, weren’t they? Where was the harm?
All of her rationalizations were nonsense, she knew. The situation―an affair with her boss―was so dangerous that it should probably be stamped with a giant skull and crossbones as a warning to the foolhardy and self-destructive, which she clearly was.
But as she heard Jake’s soft tap on her front door, she didn’t care.
Couldn’t make herself care.
She opened the door. Her mouth was dry and her blood was hot. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Jake said.
Now wearing a T-shirt and shorts, he had a couple brown paper bags hugged to his chest and shadows under his eyes. There was a furrow in his brow, as though he didn’t know what to make of being invited up to her apartment, and he hovered halfway in and halfway out, unsure.
“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” he told her.
“You didn’t.”
“How’s Harry?”
“He’s okay. I think he feels much better now that we’ve given him antibiotics and something for the fever. He’s spending the night with my mother.”
Case for Seduction (Kimani Romance) Page 13
