Suddenly You

by Sarah Mayberry

  He slid inside her, big and hot and long, and she was gone, just like that, her body throbbing around his in a breathtaking climax.

  He started to thrust, his body hard with need. She pressed kisses to his neck and shoulder and finally his mouth. He plunged in and out of her, every muscle tense. She gripped his shoulders and inhaled the smell of sex and felt herself climbing again.

  “Yes,” she panted.

  Harry’s fingers pressed into her hips and ass as he intensified his efforts. She arched her back and tilted her hips…and then she was there again, his name on her lips as she came and came and came. He lost it, burying himself deep and staying there. She throbbed out the last of her climax as he shuddered into her.

  He remained still for seconds afterward, his face buried in her neck. Then he loosened his grip and she unlocked her ankles from around his hips and he withdrew from her. The next thing she knew she was standing on shaky, uncertain legs. She expected Harry to move away, but he remained close, his body still pressing hers against the wall. He turned his head and pressed a kiss to her neck. She felt him exhale on a long, shaky sigh.

  “Pippa,” he said.

  There was a world of regret and wonder in the single word, because what had just happened had been amazing, utterly mind-blowing—and they both knew it had been a stupid mistake.

  His hands smoothed down her sides to her thighs, skating over her backside warmly before finally settling on her hips. Only then did he pull away from her, and then just enough to allow him to look into her eyes.

  His cheeks were flushed, his eyes bright. His mouth looked slightly swollen from her kisses. She reached up and laid her hand on his cheek, feeling the rasp of stubble against her fingers. She felt dazed and bemused and wholly, utterly satisfied.

  A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, then he lowered his head and kissed her. She felt her body stirring yet again. He broke the kiss and she let him step backward.

  “Five seconds,” he said, turning away.

  She leaned against the wall, eyes closed, as she listened to him walk down the hall to the bathroom. Her whole body was one big satisfied throb, warm and wet and soft.

  Until this second, she hadn’t realized how much she’d missed sex. The swept-away craziness. The closeness with another person. The raw simplicity of it. And sex with Harry… God, if she’d known how good sex with Harry would be, she’d have ambushed him weeks ago.

  She heard the tap run in the bathroom and stirred. Any second now Harry would return and she’d be standing here half-dressed with a blissed-out smile on her face. Quickly she collected her yoga pants and stepped into them. She was tugging her bra back into place when Harry filled the doorway. They looked at each other for a long beat.

  “Don’t even think about saying you’re sorry,” she said.

  “Last thing on my mind.”

  She lifted her chin. “What’s the first thing?”

  His gaze drifted down her body. “That we’re kidding ourselves if we pretend that won’t happen again.”

  She grinned, aware of a rush of triumph sweeping through her body. “You’re pretty confident.”

  “And you’re hotter than a bike seat in summer, Pippa White.” He said it with a dirty, cheeky smile and she laughed. She felt lighter than air, better than she had in months. Maybe tomorrow this would all seem crazy and wrong, but right now it felt right. It felt like it was exactly what she needed.

  Every waking moment of her life was devoted to work or study or being a mother. She deserved a few seconds for herself—a little oasis of hedonism that was about her and nothing else.

  She wasn’t an idiot—she knew there was an unspoken caveat to what Harry was suggesting. This wasn’t a relationship in the making. This was about sex and sex alone. Great, earth-moving, body-on-fire sex.

  From where she stood right now, it seemed like a pretty good deal.

  “I guess it’s probably good that you were planning on fixing my bedroom door, then,” she said.

  Harry’s gaze did a slow tour of her body again. “Maybe we should take care of that now.”

  She laughed. “Maybe we should.”

  The baby monitor chose that moment to come to life with Alice’s plaintive wail. Harry looked a little startled, as though he’d forgotten she had a child. She turned for the door.

  “I won’t be a moment.”

  It took her twenty minutes to change Alice and feed her a bottle. She smiled to herself as the electric sander started up. Trust Harry to just get on with it. He was such a man of action.

  Her body grew warm as she relived those few, breathless minutes against the wall. She couldn’t quite believe it had happened. That Harry had wanted her as much as she’d wanted him. That it had been so good between them.

  Once Alice was asleep she returned to the bedroom. Harry was dusting white plaster off his shoulders and out of his hair.

  “Sorry that took so long,” she said.

  Harry glanced at her. “She okay?”

  “Yep. Back to sleep again.”

  “We’re ready to paint in here.” He indicated the roof.

  It only took a few passes with the roller to cover the patched part of the ceiling, but the fresh white stood out starkly against the old ceiling so Harry insisted on doing the whole thing. Pippa used the ladder to paint the cornice, then they worked together to clear away the building debris. The whole time they worked she was acutely aware of him, of his body, his scent, the way he moved. She always had been, of course, but she’d given up the pretense that she wasn’t interested in him the second he’d pushed her against the wall and kissed her.

  Half an hour later, they dropped her mattress on top of her bed base. Pippa stepped back and brushed her hands together.

  “Done.” Although she still needed to vacuum away the remaining plaster dust.

  “Yeah. Except for the door and the front lock.”

  “Right.” She tugged on the hem of her shirt and met his gaze. “I was thinking maybe you could do them tomorrow night. I could make you dinner again....”

  “Sounds good.” She didn’t know how he did it, but he managed to imbue the two words with a world of meaning.

  “Well. Good,” she said. She could feel a pleased, smug little smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

  “I’ll get out of your hair now, then,” Harry said.

  “Okay.”

  She watched as he collected his things, enjoying the play of muscle and sinew, then followed him to the front door. He exited to the porch and looked at her.

  “Tomorrow?” he said.

  “Yes. Definitely.”

  He smiled and she wondered if perhaps she’d sounded a little too fervent. She shrugged. So what? He’d just given her the ride of her life. She wouldn’t pretend he hadn’t rocked her world.

  “Sleep tight, Pippa.”

  He leaned toward her, surprising her as he dropped a kiss onto her mouth. For some reason she hadn’t expected him to kiss her goodbye. Which was a little crazy, since they’d just had wild animal sex against the wall.

  Pippa hovered on the doorstep watching him walk to his car until it occurred to her that it might look a little needy. As though she was regretting letting him go.

  She gave him a cheery wave and stepped back into the house. She collected Alice from the sunroom and settled her into her crib, then went to the bathroom and shed her clothes. There was a faint suck mark on her right breast, and when she turned she could see five small, pale gray circles near her left hip from where he’d gripped her. She turned on the shower and stepped beneath the water, letting it wash over her.

  A slow smile spread across her mouth.

  She had a lover.

  She had no idea for how long, but it didn’t matter. She would enjoy what he had to offer for as long as it was good, and she wouldn’t feel bad or guilty about it. She would revel. She would luxuriate. She would make hay while the sun shined.

  A less welcome thought intruded: Steve, wit
h his offensive offer and warnings. Her smile faded. He’d predicted this would happen.

  Pippa shook off the thought. Steve was not a part of her life—through his choice, not hers. She owed him nothing, and she certainly wouldn’t start worrying about what he thought or did. What went on with her and Harry was none of his business.

  She lifted her face to the spray and focused instead on tomorrow night. A far more enticing subject.

  CHAPTER TEN

  HARRY LAY IN his bed, his body still damp from the shower. He couldn’t get Pippa out of his head.

  The feel of her body beneath his hands. The pale, soft skin of her breasts and inner thighs. The taste of her.

  “Man.”

  He was hard for her again. Unbelievable.

  He folded his arms behind his head, thinking about tomorrow night, what he wanted to do to her. Strip her naked, for starters. He wanted to see all of her, wanted to lick and suck and touch every inch of her pale, smooth skin. He would take his time, too, no rushing into things like a bull at a gate the way he had tonight. Not that she’d seemed to mind too much, since she’d climaxed the second he was inside her, but still. A guy had his pride. He wanted to make her feel good. He wanted to make her soft and pliant and slightly dazed again. The look in her eyes afterward had been better than any praise any woman had ever thrown his way.

  Great. She’s hot. You want to sleep with her again. What about Steve?

  He pushed the thought away but it kept circling back to the front of his mind. He’d made a liar out of himself tonight. He’d turned his back on years of friendship because Pippa had looked at him with lust in her eyes and he’d realized that if he wanted to, he could have her.

  God, how he’d wanted her. More than he’d thought possible. But it wasn’t just about sex and lust and desire. Pippa was a great person. He liked her—a lot. This wasn’t simply a matter of his own libido or being seduced by a soft, sexy body.

  Still, he was pretty sure that Steve wouldn’t see it that way when he found out.

  If he found out.

  Harry winced. He had no idea how long this thing with Pippa would last—a week, a month—but the idea of lying to Steve for the duration didn’t sit well. The up-front, adult thing would be to let Steve know what was happening and let him deal with it. But it wasn’t only about him and Steve, it was about Pippa and Alice, too. Harry didn’t want to make her life more difficult than it already was.

  As he’d said to her before reason had taken a flying leap out the window, the situation was messy and complicated.

  Yet if he had the chance, he wouldn’t take back what had happened tonight. That first slide of his body inside hers…

  He would never regret having had that experience with her. No matter what.

  Harry rolled over and punched his pillow into a better shape. He needed to stop thinking and start sleeping. Whatever was going to happen would happen, whether he worried about it or not.

  He fell asleep with thoughts of Pippa still in his mind and woke with a hard-on that only a cold shower could cure. He spent the day at work with one eye on the clock, feeling like a fifteen-year-old eager to meet his girlfriend at the school gate.

  Not that Pippa was his girlfriend. She was a woman, for starters. Definitely she was a woman. But the friend part was accurate, he realized. He’d enjoyed every minute he’d spent with her in recent weeks, even when she’d been giving him hell and driving him crazy.

  He left work at five on the dot and went home to shower and shave. Last night he’d left whisker burn on her breasts. Tonight he wanted to give her nothing but pleasure.

  He was showered and dressed again by five-thirty. Way too early to head over to Pippa’s place. She’d think he was desperate to see her again.

  He distracted himself by dropping in on his sister, Mel. She buzzed him through the automatic gates at the entrance to the Summerlea estate and he parked out the front of the rambling Edwardian farmhouse that she’d restored with her husband over the past two years. Her dark curly hair bounced around her shoulders as she descended the porch steps to greet him.

  “Hello. This is a surprise.”

  She kissed his cheek and smiled. She did that a lot these days. Harry figured it was due to Flynn, which was why he would do pretty much anything under the sun for the man.

  “I was driving past.”

  “You drive past all the time.”

  “If you want me to go…” He turned toward his car.

  She laughed. “Don’t be an idiot. You want a Coke? I was about to walk down to the orchard, see how the apples are going. We’re fighting an ongoing battle with the birds. Can you believe those sneaky Rosellas burrow in under the nets and then just stay under there and pig out?”

  “They’re a protected species. You know that, right?”

  “Lucky for them, that’s all I can say.”

  He followed her to the kitchen and accepted a drink. Talking easily, they left the house and walked into the garden. The Summerlea estate encompassed six acres of beautifully laid-out gardens, originally created by esteemed landscape designer Edna Walling more than fifty years ago. Over the past two years Flynn and Mel had brought it back to life, renewing and reimagining the design.

  “Looking good,” Harry said as they passed the beautifully constructed wooden rose arbors he’d helped install recently.

  “It is, isn’t it?”

  She sounded smugly satisfied and he gave her a fond look. He’d always been closer to her than to Justine, who took the whole older sibling thing a little too much to heart. Mel had always been more interested in being his friend than the boss of him, and he valued her opinion.

  “I’ve got a bit of a situation on my hands,” he heard himself say.

  “Yeah? What’s up?”

  He hadn’t come here intending to confide in her—not intentionally, anyway—but clearly some part of his brain wanted another perspective on what was happening with Pippa.

  “Did you ever meet Steve’s ex, Pippa White?”

  “She’s the one who fell pregnant, yes? I think I met her at the pub one night. Dark hair? Glasses?”

  “I’ve been helping her out lately. A few repairs around the place she’s renting. Anyway, last night…” He paused, unsure how much to reveal.

  Mel rolled her eyes. “Don’t bother trying to find a delicate way to phrase it. I can imagine what happened. You’re such a dog, Harry.”

  She nudged him with her shoulder, breaking his stride and making him lurch to the side. Like himself, she’d inherited the Porter shoulders and tall build and could pack some punch when she put her mind to it.

  “It’s not like that. Pippa is… It’s not like that.”

  “Okay. If you say so.” Mel shot him an appraising look. “How’s Steve feel about all this?”

  Harry frowned at the Coke in his hand. The bottle had grown slippery with condensation and he moved his thumb across the slick surface.

  “He’s not happy. He doesn’t want anything to do with Pippa or Alice, but he doesn’t want me near her, either.”

  “Sounds messy. Steve’s got a shitty temper.”

  Steve had been a familiar face at the Porter house over the years and Mel knew him—and his temper—well.

  “Yeah.”

  “Have you tried talking to him?”

  Harry remembered how belligerent his friend had been last time he’d seen him. “I’m not sure that will work.”

  They’d reached the orchard and Mel stopped and regarded him solemnly. “You’ve been friends with Steve for more than fifteen years.”

  “I know.”

  “Lots of other women in the world, Harry.”

  The words were out his mouth before he could stop them. “Not like Pippa.”

  His sister looked surprised. “You like her.”

  He gave her a look. He’d slept with Pippa. Of course he liked her.

  “I don’t mean sexually. I mean you like her. Don’t you?” Mel watched him very intently.
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  He shrugged, suddenly self-conscious. “I’m just looking for a way to sort this out without someone getting punched in the face.”

  Mel didn’t say anything for a beat as she studied his face. “I only met her that one time, but she seemed nice. But if you’re going to do this, Harry, you have to be serious. She’s got a kid.”

  He frowned. “I’m not ‘doing’ anything apart from helping her out and spending some time with her.”

  “Does she know that?”

  His sister sounded disapproving, which was typical. In his experience, women always circled the wagons when it came to certain subjects.

  “She knows me.”

  Mel nodded. “Good. Because you’re too charming for your own good sometimes. You big lug.” She glanced around the orchard, her narrowed gaze scanning the net-shrouded trees. “Aha! Look at that—they’ve pulled up the net again. Little buggers.”

  She strode away to pull up one of the tent pegs that had been placed in the ground to secure the nets, re-fixing the net once again to protect the tree. Harry watched her patrol the rest of the orchard, a scowl on his face.

  He hadn’t laid it out in black and white for Pippa last night, but he’d been pretty sure she understood that whatever was happening between them was about great sex and a bit of fun, no strings, no stress. He didn’t want to hurt her, but he wasn’t about to kid himself, either—when it came to long-term, he was a bad bet. He didn’t do domesticity, and he figured it was pretty unlikely he was about to start now, even if he did like Pippa more than he could remember liking anyone in a long time.

  “Quit looking so worried, Harry. It’s called growing up,” Mel said as she rejoined him. “Every man meets his match eventually.”

  He gave her a sardonic look. “Keep hoping, and I’ll keep living my life my way.”

  Mel laughed and reached for his Coke, taking a swig before handing the bottle to him. “Let me know when you’re ready for us to meet her.”

  He made a rude noise.

  She laughed again. “Oh, this will be fun.”

  “You done here? I need to get going.”

  “Sure. I’ve made you squirm enough.”