His mother had sent him over with valentines for the whole Thiebaud family. He was twelve and embarrassed as hell. And look where it had landed him. “Amy, please, don’t talk about loving me. Your family means a lot to me, but I’m not in love with anyone. Okay? We went out a few times, that’s all. I wouldn’t want you to get the wrong idea.”
“I understand. But, darling, you can’t keep me from loving you, no matter what you say.” She half lowered her lashes in feigned shyness. “I just do.” She smiled her most seductive smile, the one she’d perfected at seventeen after hours in front of the mirror. The one that normally got her what she wanted. “So there. And Mummy and Daddy just adore you too.”
Jesus, he hated when she smiled at him like that, like she was sharpening her knife to eat him. “Look, we’ve been friends a long time. And I like your family. But we’re in business together now, and I’d like to keep that relationship simple. No complications.”
“Of course, darling. We’re all so pleased to be part of your new venture. I won’t complicate anything. I’ll just continue to love you like I always have and be hopeful—no—don’t say anything . . . I can be hopeful if I wish. Every little girl dreams of a Cinderella story of her own.” She smiled. “It’s a girl’s prerogative. Just like it’s a man’s prerogative to try and escape that matrimonial noose,” she added, playfully. “I understand the rules.”
“There are no rules, Amy. And no story. Okay?”
“Whatever you say, darling.”
She was impervious to his explanations; he might have been talking to a wall. There was no way he was going to continue this conversation. He’d been as polite as he could be for five hours. Everyone had their limits. Pushing his car door open, he said, “I’ll get your packages from the trunk,” and exited the car before he said something he’d regret. After gathering the numerous items Amy had purchased, he walked around to the passenger door, opened it and put his hand out to help her up.
Even Amy, who wasn’t known for her perspicacity in terms of other’s feelings, realized Rocco was looking grim. She knew that look from her daddy; his mouth would purse like that when she’d really overspent. Prudently deciding she could continue her subtle manipulation some other day, she emerged from the car with an amiable smile. “I adored the Art Tour. Thanks for taking me,” she said as though he’d had a choice. “You must show me your new painting when they deliver it.”
The phrase “when hell freezes over” came to mind, but he mumbled some vague reply, backing away, grateful to be holding several shopping bags as buffer when she looked like she was trying to figure out how to give him a hug. Moving toward her house, he walked Amy to her door, where he handed the bags to the housekeeper. Smiling tightly, he forced himself to mouth the vile statement exchanging one torture for another. “I’ll see you Thursday.”
“ ’Til Thursday, darling.” She blew him a kiss.
He nodded, incapable of even the most banal politesse after five hours of Amy’s unsubtle machinations. Turning away, he walked down the brick path to his car feeling like someone who had made it through a mine field, rigid and tense but still alive.
Also feeling sorely—make that wildly—tempted to drive to NordEast Minneapolis.
But it was Saturday night. Chloe probably had a date.
And she’d barely lifted her head when he’d left that morning—correction, hadn’t lifted her head. In fact, she’d been sleeping.
Fuck.
His head was pounding—compliments of Amy.
He’d go home, have a beer, watch some baseball and go to sleep.
To make up for last night.
He smiled.
Definitely a night for the record books.
EIGHT
CHLOE HAD PICKED UP THE PHONE AND changed her mind at least a dozen times before she’d actually dialed the number. But before the call had even gone through, she chickened out and dropped the receiver into its cradle.
After pacing the room for ten minutes, she decided to go for a run and rid herself of some of her sexual frustration. After slipping on her sneakers, however, she took note of the time and had second thoughts. It was after nine. Even with longer daylight hours, it probably wasn’t a good idea to go running alone at this time. And let’s face it, if running truly released sexual frustration, there would be a whole lot more runners.
She poured herself a glass of wine instead.
And then another—which may have been the impetus for finally giving in to temptation. It was almost ten when she dialed the number, actually let it ring and ring and, dammit, ring before she quickly hung up when the message machine kicked in.
Damn, damn, damn—she almost cried, when she’d never cried for sex in her life.
Rocco was probably out with the beautiful blonde, having mouthwatering sex, and what did she have—cold pizza, the grease congealing on the cardboard box, the corners of the slices sort of curling up, looking gross, and one empty wine bottle that had been a leftover in the first place—like her tonight, she wretchedly thought.
If one wished to contrast the haves and the have-nots of the world in terms of sex on this particular Saturday night, she was a pathetic example of a have-not. While Rocco and the blonde beauty were probably making love on pale Porthault sheets—hand-hemmed, monogrammed and carefully ironed by some underling—smiling at each other like an ad for Doublemint gum . . . double the pleasure when two movie-star types hit the sheets . . . she was sitting home alone.
Reaching for the wine bottle on that miserable note, she belatedly recalled it was empty.
She was frantically searching her disordered cupboards for another bottle of wine when the phone rang and rang and rang because she was teetering on the kitchen counter about to reach the shelf over the fridge where she sometimes kept a good bottle of wine.
“Wait, wait, wait!” she screamed, trying to get down without breaking an ankle. Having reached the floor, she raced for the phone and picked it up just as the ringing stopped.
Now would be the time to have caller ID upstairs like she did in her office. She quickly checked her voicemail, but the caller hadn’t left a message.
But all was not completely lost, her semi-inebriated brain reminded her. She had caught a glimpse of a very good bottle of wine above the fridge. But this time, she wouldn’t teeter dangerously on the countertop, she decided. She’d find her small stepladder. Not a simple task as it turned out; she finally found it, oddly enough, under the bed. Which meant she could now get at the expensive bottle of Haut-Brion claret, which further meant all was not lost on this miserable, sex-deprived Saturday night.
She set the ladder carefully, making sure the legs were solidly planted. After drinking most of a bottle of wine, she intended to be caution itself. While holding onto the fridge she ascended the ladder. Having reached the fourth and top step, she was almost able to reach the high shelf. As she was stretching out her hand to take hold of the cupboard door handle, a familiar voice, close and sexy as hell, said, “You better change your door code. Four ones is too easy.”
Chloe swung around, wobbled, arms flailing like a terrible cartoon character, she found herself thinking, when she would have preferred to look cool and beautifully composed when Rocco saw her. Her wobbling turned into free fall and she screamed.
Stepping forward like a man confident in his physical abilities, Rocco caught her, scooping her up in his arms with an effortless grace, kissing away her scream, kissing away her surprise, kissing away her feeling sorry for herself. And when his mouth lifted from the increasingly happy warmth of her mouth, he whispered, “Why don’t you answer your phone?”
“That was you?”
“Yup. I was returning your call.” He shifted her in his arms, but he didn’t set her down. He tightened his grip.
“How did you know I called?” But she didn’t really care about the hows and the whys when he was here, holding her ever so close.
“I saw your name on my caller ID.”
“But
you didn’t answer.”
“I was out for more beer. I was drinking away my frustration.”
Her eyes flared wide. “Me too, me too, me too.”
He could tell she’d been drinking away something, but he didn’t care, no more than he cared that she’d waited so long to call. “A cop gave me a ticket for speeding or I would have been here sooner.”
“A speeding ticket because of me?” It was much harder to censure those unfashionably gauche remarks when one had drunk a good portion of a bottle of wine.
“For you,” he said in a sexy whisper that went with the sexy look in his eyes, that went with his obvious erection nudging her hip. “I had a helluva day and you were just what I wanted to make me feel better.”
“I know—ditto here,” she said, softly, when she should have asked him about the woman he was with that afternoon, when she should have told him about her resentment and frustration. “I almost called you a thousand times.”
“I’m glad you finally did.”
Which goes to show The Rules is just plain wrong for empowered women on a mission from God.
He opened his mouth, feeling as though he should explain how Amy fit into his life; he even said, “I want to explain about Amy,” when Chloe began pulling his T-shirt over his head, whispering, “Please, please, pretty please . . . hurry,” in the kind of tone no man with a pulse beat could ignore. He debated the necessity of setting the record straight for about six seconds more before giving up and doing what he’d come there to do.
He carried her toward her bedroom, moving down her now-familiar hallway at record speed, shoving the bedroom door open with his foot, the color shock scarcely registering on his retinas after a few beers and his hardcore focus on consummation. Dropping her on the bed, he stripped his clothes off while she unbuttoned the black shirt she wore, sans chinos and underwear.
He’d taken note of the fact in the kitchen, her bottom soft and warm when he’d caught her, and while he hardly needed any added temptation with his libido at the rocket-launching stage, he’d fully appreciated the lush sensation.
She was lying stretched out on the rumpled bed, pleading with him to hurry.
Life didn’t get any better, he decided, pausing a moment to take in the view before dropping between her legs and taking advantage of her widely spread thighs.
“Finally,” she said, as he plunged inside her, as though he were on contract to her and late.
“Amen to that,” he breathed, feeling as though someone had let him back in paradise after a day in hell.
They made love that first time as though in homecoming, as though they’d been apart for months, as though he’d been adrift at sea and returned a survivor, a level of hysteria shimmering just beneath the surface, the physical sensations intense, acute, raw, seething. He didn’t let her move, or at least not very far, holding her captive with his hands and erection, with the promise of pleasure he offered her in full and abundant measure until their first bout of starvation was sated, until they’d come enough times. Until they could consciously think beyond the need to feel the tactile closeness of each other—everywhere—and know it wasn’t a dream.
An hour later, Rocco lay on his back, his breathing labored, Chloe beside him gasping for air. “I’m obligated to Amy,” he panted, “or I would have called first.”
Chloe gave him a stare. “I don’t want to talk about it.” “Ignorance is bliss” was coined for this moment.
He hesitated for a second. “Okay.” He was off the hook; she’d let him off the hook.
With a smile, he ran his finger down her arm, resting next to his. “Did I tell you I missed you today?”
She took his finger, slid it over her nipple, smiled back. “Not more than twenty times.”
“I really did.” He gently compressed the soft tissue and watched it spring to life.
“Ummm . . . I know.” She arched faintly against his touch. “I drank a couple extra glasses of wine because I missed you.”
“We could have drunk together.” He transferred his attention to her other nipple, making a matching pair of taut, aroused crests.
“Exactly. Or do other things even more fun.”
“Yeah. Like you need a shower.”
“I do?”
“Let me reword that. I need to give you a shower.”
“Ah . . . that’s different.” She stretched lazily and grinned at him. “Anytime . . .”
He was thinking “anytime” could be translated into now. When he’d brought his breathing back to normal, he carried her into the bathroom that he’d only seen in passing last time and sat her down on a little poufy chair he wouldn’t dare sit on for fear of breaking. He didn’t recall the tiger painted on the wall, the one staring out at him from a dense green thicket, no more than he remembered the size of her shower.
It was very small. He wasn’t sure he could stand up in it.
Her tub wasn’t much better—one of those old claw-foot tubs made for a generation of smaller people.
But he was resourceful; he could improvise. He turned on the shower, sat down in one corner and beckoned her in.
“I can see you’re not made for these cramped spaces,” she said, grinning as she joined him, taking the hand he offered her, settling on his lap.
He couldn’t stretch his legs out, but she fit just fine where he wanted her to fit.
She squirmed a little and sighed like she did when he was filling her and making her feel as though pleasure was not only pulsing through every cell in her body but enfolding her in a cocoon of glowing bliss.
He soaped her plump breasts, shifting to one side while he was soaping so the spray hit his shoulders and not her, running his slippery hands over and around the lush heavy curves, lifting the shiny weight in his hands, saying, “Look,” so she had to look down and see the soft flesh mounded high in his palms, her nipples jewel hard, waiting for his touch.
She felt his erection grow inside her, stiffen, surge upward, and gasped a little and clutched at his wet, warm shoulders and bent forward slightly to kiss his smiling mouth. When she leaned in, the delicious friction of his penis sliding up her clitoris felt like a tiny bolt of lightning.
“Nice,” he whispered. “Hot, wet sex . . .”
“Nice indeed,” she whispered back. She rubbed her soapy breasts against his chest and moved her bottom gently and kissed him harder, wanting to mark him somehow, brand him, make him hers. If she’d been sober, she wouldn’t have allowed herself to go that far. But she wasn’t sober; she was feeling like an addict and he was her fix and if he left her she’d die.
“I need you, I need this”—she ground her bottom against him hard—“God, I need you . . .”
It was a momentary lapse. Even in her drunkenness she knew she’d gone too far. She felt him stiffen under her hands and mentally flogged herself for her stupidity.
But his muscles relaxed a moment later and he took her face between his hands and he kissed her even harder than she’d kissed him. And when his mouth lifted from hers, he said, low and soft, “The feeling’s mutual.”
“You don’t have to say that—but thanks . . . you’re sweet.” She’d heard enough sex talk to know that guys felt they had to say nice things back.
He shifted back fractionally, so the spray fell on them both, but he’d not moved his hands from her face, and his dark eyes were very close and heated. “I’m not sweet—never—and for what it’s worth, I meant it.”
She liked the warm water running down her face and head and back, she liked him, here, now, like this—inside her and around her and holding her gently between his hands. “For what it’s worth, I meant it even more.”
He laughed and kissed her hard, hard, and held her, his hands on her hips, and raised and lowered her as though she were weightless, and brought her to orgasm with ease like he could because she was truly addicted.
And when they’d both come enough to ease their addictions, he washed her gently and sprayed her off and toweled her
dry before showering himself.
She watched him from her poufy chair, wondering how much of the affection she felt was due to the wine, infatuated like a fourteen-year-old, without reason or rationale. He was too beautiful, she decided, and too good in bed, and if she had an iota of sense, she wouldn’t lose sight of those irrevocable facts. And the sooner she reconciled herself to the carpe diem credo, the better off she’d be.
She had composed her wildly adoring sensibilities into a semblance of order before he dried himself off. And when he said, “I’m hungry. Let’s order some food,” she was able to reply like a reasonable person.
“Get some whipped cream too.”
Well, semireasonable.
What? She might as well enjoy him while he was here.
* * *
THE GROCERY DELIVERY arrived first. She recognized the staccato doorbell ring of the delivery boy. Throwing on his jeans, Rocco tossed her his T-shirt. “Meet you in the kitchen.”
His shirt smelled of cologne and masculinity and as she dropped it over her head, she felt such a rush of pleasure she shut her eyes for a moment. It was crazy and stupid, juvenile as hell, but he sure would be easy to love if he probably didn’t have ten thousand other women standing in line ahead of her. Or if she’d known him more than twenty-four hours and could justify her outre feelings of affection.
Or better yet, if she had the slightest clue what love was.
Running a brush through her hair, she warned herself that falling in love literally overnight only happened in songs and movies, and instant attraction had more to do with lust than love. Staring at herself in the mirror, she reminded herself that men ran like hell from women who told them they loved them after the first date—not that their sex marathon was even remotely a date . . . but certainly a really great way of getting to know each other. She then ran through affirmations from numerous self-help books that she occasionally half-read—or at least looked at the chapter headings—the ones that affirmed female independence, inner confidence, real power and passing up good for great—which in her case, she’d definitely done this weekend. She smiled.
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