by EC Sheedy
Better. That’s better.
She stood, her heart drumming hollowly in her chest, an echo in a shadowed cavern. She headed for the east window. Her room, essentially the attic with two gabled windows and an open-beamed ceiling, had the original wood floors that came with the hundred-year-old house, and her steps across it took her off the rug her bed sat on to the roughness of oak plank floors.
When she was ten and her mother had bought the estate, Gina fell in love with the strangely shaped attic room, had sensed its ability to keep secrets, and loved the idea of there being an entire floor separating her from her mother’s lavish suite on the second floor. She’d fought Sebastian for the attic room and won and had relished its quirks and seclusion ever since, leaving it only for college and her brilliant but short-lived legal career. A career frozen in another time, another place.
Immediately after Delores moved into the house, she’d begun renovating: floors, walls, windows, and aging rooms had fallen under the relentless hands of a series of decorators. Delores wanted to “update the ancient heap of lath and plaster” as she called it, to her version of posh liability—all thirty thousand square feet of it. It had taken upwards of two years to turn classic into gauche, chic into tawdry. Delores had a knack.
When Gina, with uncharacteristic stubbornness, had fought to save the attic and the generous welcoming window seats under the gabled windows, her mother, in an equally rare mood of conciliation, had given way, saying she’d never be in the “goddamn attic” anyway, so she didn’t care. Gina often slept on the padded window seat as a child, dreaming and watching the moon and sun cast their unique colors across the lake.
Her mother said she’d bought the house for its lakefront location and had agreed with the designer that the entire house needed “refocusing.” The result was a renovation catastrophe on a scale only big money could buy, a sprawling, ugly testament to her mother’s ego and terrible taste.
Sitting now in the window seat, Gina pulled up her knees, hugged them. She looked eastward over the lake for a sign of morning and worked to ignore the ache stirring in her head. For the hot, clamoring need wracking her body, she could do nothing.
She’d come home to nurture her hatred for Adam Dunn. But even in this she’d failed. Had she succeeded, learning about his affair with Holly wouldn’t have felt as if her heart was torn from her breast.
Adam had moved from Gina’s arms to Holly’s with the ease of a snake slithering through spring grass. Her face heated, her lips went dry.
I do hate him! I burn with hate for him!
I burn for him.
Loathing that truth, she turned her face to the window. Clouds now darkened the path of early light, delaying morning.
She closed her eyes against them, leaned her head back against the window seat wall, and stretched out her legs. She ran her hand down her belly to the throb at their apex and stroked herself through her thin cotton nightgown.
I burn for him.
“Lift the gown, baby. So much better that way.”
She froze, sat like an abandoned doll, back to the wall, legs straight and open. “What are you—?”
He stood in the dim light, tall, shadowed, wearing nothing but jeans. His feet were bare, his thick, silky hair roughly shoved behind his ears. He was Adam. He was beyond beautiful.
“Doing here?” he finished for her, stepping close enough to block her from leaving the window seat. “Nothing nearly as interesting as you are.”
When he looked pointedly at her hand, she snapped it back to her waist, closed her legs.
“Don’t stop on my account. You know how I love watching you.” He sat on the edge of the seat, faced her, and closed his hand around her ankle, shackling her with warmth and strength. “Remember that time we booked into that Roach Motel—off I-Five somewhere?” he said, his eyes smiling into hers. “You sat on the edge of the bed— wearing that black satin slip I liked. No panties.” He inhaled unevenly. “I pulled up a chair and watched you make yourself come. Didn’t touch you. Not once.” He moved his hand up her leg, stroked under her gown. “Jesus,” he said, his voice a low growl. “I damn near came out of my skin. But you wouldn’t let me touch you. That was your game. You remember?”
She swallowed, said nothing, and tried to force the heated image from her mind: her laughing at her own game, taunting him, then sitting on the edge of that awful sway-backed bed, knees apart . . . masturbating while Adam sat inches away watching her. His vivid blue eyes had turned almost black with need. And he’d kept telling her how beautiful she was, telling her what to touch, how hard he was getting . . .
A woman would pay to have a man look at her like that. And in the end she had paid, with her pride and with her heart. Adam had ruined her. He had betrayed her, over and over again. And he’d ignored their child. Adam was dirt.
But in this darkened room, with the heat from his hand warming her long-cold flesh, none of that mattered. Nothing mattered except his being here in the hours before morning with his fingers trailing over her skin.
“God, you were hot that night. I was going crazy wanting you.” He smiled, a smile she sensed rather than saw. “And that’s exactly what you wanted, wasn’t it? To make me crazy—like you’re doing right now.”
The dark closed around her, and Adam’s voice, the heat of his hand, stopped her breathing. “I don’t think—”
“Good. Because this isn’t a time for thinking.” He slid his hand under her gown, up her outer thigh. She didn’t move, couldn’t move. Then as if of their own volition, her knees, until this moment, locked flush and tight to each other, eased open. A blur of thought followed. Why not? Why shouldn’t she use Adam to cool the boil, ease the rage. It’s what he’d do.
She hated him. She loved him . . .
“I don’t want—”
“Yes, you do. You definitely do, Gina. You want the same thing I want—and I’m going to give it to you.” He pressed an open palm against her inner thigh, let his fingertips lightly brush her pubic hair.
She remembered. She remembered every engorged vein and muscle in his body; his long, expert fingers . . . Fire rushed up her throat and she gasped.
“That’s it,” he said when her legs eased looser. “Now sit back, and I’ll take care of you. I’m here, Gina. And all I want to do is make you happy.” His hand moved to her inner thigh, again grazed her pubis, and skirted upward over her belly. He found a nipple, circled it with a slow finger, then leaned to kiss it through the thin cotton of her gown.
She drew in a breath, moistened her lips with a tongue too dry for the task. He’d play with her now. Make her wait. She loved to wait, loved that place before coming.
Abruptly, he pulled his hand back. “Get naked, Gina,” he said. “I want to see your breasts in the moonlight.”
He didn’t help her, instead he sat back, watched her brief struggle to nudity. When she’d tossed the loose cotton shift to the floor, he scanned her body. “Nice. Very nice. Fuller than I remember. Lush.” He touched the tiny birthmark over her right breast, leaned down to kiss it softly, before running his tongue over her nipple. His tongue wasn’t gentle, it was rough and quick, and she gasped from the sting of it. She touched the nipple he’d stroked; it was a small, aching stone. “Stretch out, baby. Open your legs.” He smiled, and his teeth glittered white in the growing light of morning. “A man needs room to work.”
She wanted to resist—she did! But she obeyed, her traitorous body on a deeply disturbing level craving him to oblivion.
She was enraptured by the idea of Adam, the memory of Adam, of what his hands would make her body do.
She wanted to see him in the same way he saw her, naked and open to her. She ran her hand up and over the hard swelling below the undone top button of his jeans and pulled down his zipper. No briefs. He shifted his hips and his erection sprang free. He was hard, long, and magnificent.
Her searing dream come to life. Hers for the taking. She started to pant, her lungs unable to fill, unabl
e to empty. “I remember …” she whispered, too hot to talk.
“It’s all yours,” he answered, his words silky. “Anytime you want it.” He bent over her, licked her lips, then claimed her mouth. His tongue, hot and demanding, took hers, while his hands roamed her body with softness and care, as if he were reading her skin. The contrast of soft hands and plundering mouth made her body pulse and jerk.
She curled her hand around his erection and felt his stomach contract. He lifted his mouth from hers, took her face in his hands. “It’s been too long, baby. Much too long.”
She squeezed his length, and he closed his eyes.
“Hm-m . . . that’s good,” he murmured. “Very good.”
Gina took her hand from him, waited for him to open his eyes, saw they were as glazed and crazed as her own. Adam might use sex for his own ends, but he also enjoyed it, and he let it show. She ran her hand over his clean-shaven face and breathed in his expensive musky scent. Something in her registered: no briefs, clean-shaven. The bastard came to her ready and absolutely sure she was his for the taking.
She didn’t care. She was pathetically grateful.
She stared into his eyes. “Fuck me, Adam. Like you used to.” Was that breathless, needy voice hers? Was it really her asking . . . begging for sex from Adam Dunn, the man she’d spent almost a year hating?
He put his hand on her pubis, cupping it lovingly, then moved a finger until he located her clitoris. Circling it slow and easy, then stroking it luxuriously, he leaned to whisper in her ear. “My pleasure.”
No. The pleasure was hers, all hers. Adam made sure of it.
She might hate herself in the morning, but she’d hate Adam even more.
Chapter 12
Camryn’s first thought when she woke was Kylie. Her plan was to make them both breakfast and take some quiet time to explain, as best she could, why Kylie would be staying with her Aunt Cammie from now on, a subject that she’d avoided—for more than a week.
So far, because Kylie had stayed with Camryn before, often for days at a time, she was at home here. She hadn’t felt anything strange about her extended stay. She’d just been her usual happy, joyous self.
Camryn honestly didn’t know where to begin, how to tell a three-year-old girl her mother was never coming back. She knew Paul had told her, “Mommy is away,” but that wasn’t nearly enough. Then there was her insistent—and increasing—questions about when “Daddy?” was coming. Obviously, Camryn had underestimated the bond between Dan and Kylie, or subconsciously denied it. Either way, today she’d at least try to explain the changes in Kylie’s young life.
A glance at the clock told her it was seven-thirty. She got out of bed and reached for the robe she’d draped over the baseboard the night before.
She found Kylie and Trent sitting at the kitchen table, Kylie with toast in her hand and peanut butter on her face, her father with coffee and the morning newspaper. Kylie scrambled from her chair and rushed at her like a small, very excited tornado.
“Aunt Cammie,” she said. “I got toast with Tent.”
“Trent,” her dad corrected, then looked up at her. “Morning.”
“You fed her,” she said. It came out sounding like an accusation, or her disappointment showed. So much for her plan.
“I was up. She was up. Seemed logical.”
Of course it was. “Thanks,” she said.
He put down his paper, got up. “Get your coat, kiddo. We might as well check out that park now. Before it rains—again.”
“I need my brella.” She looked at Camryn with a question in her eyes.
“It’s in your closet, sweetheart. In the back. You’ll have to look.”
“I’ll find it. I’m a good finder.” She rushed off, barefooted, hair uncombed.
“Get your boots!” Camryn yelled at her retreating back. “They’re in there, too.”
“Okay.”
And she was gone. Camryn turned to her dad. “I’m sorry you mentioned the park. I was planning some alone-time with Kylie. I need to talk to her.”
“What about?”
“Everything. Her mother particularly.”
“I already did,” he said.
“What?” Camryn, who’d been pouring herself a coffee, spun, coffeepot in hand.
“I spoke to her yesterday and again today. Did the usual thing.” He shrugged. “I said her mommy was in heaven with the angels, and that someday—if she was a really good little girl—she’d see her again. As for the rest . . .” He paused, rubbed at his chin. “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”
Considering Kylie was so young, he was probably right, but it didn’t make Camryn less irritated at his cavalier take-over of what she saw as her role. “And what’s that philosophy? The world according to Trent Derne? Bury the truth and throw away the shovel?”
“There’s worse ways to deal with a problem, Camryn.” Camryn dialed back on her impatience, set the coffeepot back on the counter, and turned on her father. “I didn’t ask you to speak to her, and I wish you hadn’t.”
“Why the hell not? The sooner the better, and the simpler the better. The girl is three years old. A month from now she’ll barely remember her real mother. You’ll be the mother of record. It’s you she’ll remember.” He gave her a quizzical look. “It’s what you always wanted, isn’t it? To be a mother?”
Mother of record . . . God, the phrase made Kylie sound like a land parcel. “Of course, but—”
“Got it, Tent,” Kylie barreled into the room carrying her umbrella. “And socks, too. I got socks on.” She lifted a foot; it was encased in a yellow boot with bumblebees on the toe guard. “Can we go?”
“Sure, honey, but give me a kiss first.”
Kylie wrapped her arms around her and kissed her soundly on the cheek. That done, she leaned back, still holding Camryn tight, and said, “Tent says Mommy’s gone to heaven for a long time.”
She didn’t pose it as a question, but Camryn took it as one. “Yes, she has, sweetheart.”
“She should’ve tooken me.”
“She couldn’t do that, because one of the really big and important angels said you have to wait here for a while.”
“That’s mean.” She sealed her lips. “I’m going to tell my Grampa. He’ll get mad.”
“Grampa already knows, Kylie, and he is mad—very mad, but that angel won’t talk to him.”
Kylie’s face soured even further, then brightened when another idea lit up her thinking. “Then I’ll ask Daddy to talk to the angel. He’s a real good talker.” She thought a minute, then instructed, “You call Daddy, okay?”
Before she could come up with an answer to Kylie’s latest plan, Trent interrupted. “Let’s go, kiddo.” He made a show of looking out the window; the day was clear enough, but the sky held the usual October cloud. “Looks like you were a smart girl,” he said, “getting that umbrella. It’s going to rain for sure. We might have to share. Okay?” Her father gave Kylie one of his rare smiles, which sent an odd, soft jolt through Camryn’s heart. She didn’t remember him smiling at her in that way; she remembered him as distracted and preoccupied—and leaving, always leaving on one of his endless business trips. Now, he was here enjoying Kylie—much as he would his own grandchild. If she could give him one. That stupid errant thought, the first step on a nonsensical guilt trip, had her mentally giving her head a shake. What was, was. And she’d spent the last three months accepting it. She wasn’t stumbling back to Pity City now. “Okay, but I hold it,” Kylie stated.
“Fair enough,” Trent said and reached for her hand. Camryn kissed Kylie’s head, then pulled up her hood. “Run along, sweetheart. We’ll talk later.”
She watched them walk up the long driveway toward the street. The park, with its large beach area and colorful playground, was about three blocks away.
Although Camryn’s house was on the lakefront, her shore area, rimmed with tall grass, was small and rocky; a dock jutted into the lake with not so much as a canoe tied to
it. But the old Craftsman-style house on the property was a jewel—and a work in progress. Its state of disrepair, and the strange fact that the house, constructed with its porch facing away from the lake, hadn’t been built to take advantage of its lakefront location, gave it a price she could afford. It wasn’t a large house, but the upper floor, about half the size of the main floor, provided her a private bed and bath and loft with enough working space to run her business, and she adored its wide eaves and exposed rafters.
She’d have to make some changes to the main floor for Kylie’s sake, but that would be a joy. She watched her dad and Kylie walk the long path to the street, holding hands.
She was about to close the door behind them when she saw a FedEx truck turn into the driveway. Pulling her robe tighter against the morning chill, she waited. Most likely it was that purchase order she’d requested from Holland’s Antiques for the Lalique “Serpent” vase. Maybe even a check.
“Camryn Bruce?” the delivery man said from the first step.
“Uh-huh.”
She signed for the envelope and went back into the house, determined to finally get that cup of coffee.
Coffee in hand, she sat at the table and opened the envelope. Her breath caught in her throat and she immediately put her free hand at its base and told herself to get a grip. This wasn’t unexpected.
The papers in the envelope—all Washington-state legal— told her she was a free woman. Craig had taken care of everything, as he’d said he would. The divorce was uncontested, neither of them wanted anything from the other, and Washington, being a no-fault divorce state, simply acknowledged the “marriage was irretrievably broken.”
All Camryn had to do was sign and she’d erase five years of marriage. Too bad she couldn’t do the same to her guilt and sense of failure. She’d hurt Craig, used him, and she still felt lousy about it. He was right; she’d wanted a child more than she’d wanted him. She’d been unfair to him and unfair to their marriage vows.
I have my child now, not in the way I’d planned, but as precious as if she’d come from my own womb. But I’m sorry I hurt you, Craig. You were my . . . friend.
