I AM WOMAN.
Maybe she’d tell him she loved him just to see the shock on his face.
On the other hand, maybe she wouldn’t because she wasn’t quite ready to relinquish his incredible dick and sexual skills. Call her selfish. Call her spoiled. Call her addicted.
Coming into the kitchen a few minutes later, she paused in the doorway to admire the view. Wearing only jeans, he was taking the groceries out of the sacks, looking sexy and very large in the narrow confines of her corridor kitchen. “It’s not fair how men can walk around half naked and the world is unconcerned. Now if I’d gone to the door in a pair of jeans—”
“The delivery boy would have been mighty happy,” he said. “You’d better let me answer the door for the Chinese food, too.” He winked. “You look great in my T-shirt, but I’m not in the mood to share.”
“What? I’m covered.” His T-shirt fell halfway to her knees.
“Not enough, babe. Your nipples are giving me a hard-on and if I lift that shirt just a few inches every man who looks at you is thinking . . .”
“That’s because men are hardwired for sex.”
“My point exactly.”
“It’s still not fair.”
“How about I make the whipped cream and put the groceries away? Does that ease the fairness issue? You can tell me what to do.”
“Really?”
“Sure.”
“Come here.” He hesitated a fraction of a second, she noticed, but he set down the bag of powdered sugar and walked toward her.
“Now what?”
She had to look up a considerable distance, barefoot as she was, no four-inch heels to mitigate the vast disparity in their heights. “I need a kiss.”
His smile was instant, the measured look in his eyes fading. “Anyplace special?”
“Lecher.”
His smile broadened. “Just trying to be accommodating.”
“A plain kiss if you please. The accommodating stuff will have to wait until after I eat, and I’m talking about food before you say anything impudent.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” he said in a husky low murmur. “At your service, Ma’am.” And he took her shoulders in the cup of his hands, dipped his head and kissed her with a gentleness that was irresistibly sexy and romantic.
Oh God, she thought. Oh, God, oh, God, oh God . . . feeling as though every girlish dream was being fulfilled. Not realizing until that moment that she even harbored girlish dreams. Suddenly in unfamiliar territory, she pushed him away. Sex she understood; feeling good she understood; lusting after a man she understood. But not this Disneyland feeling of wanting a castle and prince for her own. “Thanks,” she said lightly, sliding her hand up his chest, taking a step back. “You do nice work.”
He smiled. “Wait until you taste my whipped cream.” His voice was playful too. He didn’t want to acknowledge what he’d felt any more than she. “Sit down and watch me work.”
Not that watching him work was necessarily soothing to her sense of unease. He was barely dressed, handsome as sin and willing to please her in any way she wished. Why wasn’t that good? Why was she worried about feeling the way she did? With arch pragmatism, she decided to stop beating herself up, and like the classic line from Gone with the Wind, she’d worry about this tomorrow.
“I’m glad you came over,” she said, taking her own advice and speaking the truth.
“I couldn’t stay away.”
“So we’ll ride the wave.”
He knew what she meant; it was as though they were in sync, on the same page, aware of the sorcery, giving themselves up to it. “Try and stop me.”
“Could I?” Her gaze held his, but she was smiling as though she already knew the answer.
He grinned. “Not a chance. Now where’s your vanilla?”
* * *
WHEN THE CHINESE food was delivered, he set the whipped cream in the fridge. “For later,” he said in a delicious murmur they both felt strum through their senses. And then he carried the large box of takeout cartons into the living room, set it on the coffee table, said, “I hope you don’t mind watching TV while you eat. It’s a habit from living alone,” and began opening the twenty different items they’d ordered from the menu.
“I love TV,” she said, sitting down on the couch beside him.
He glanced up. “What programs?”
She named her favorites; the list was long and he kept nodding and saying, yeah and smiling at her.
“Do you watch baseball?” he asked.
“I help coach a Little League team.”
He stopped opening the cartons and looked at her as though she’d suddenly sprouted a halo. “No shit. Me too—with my brother. Why haven’t I ever seen you?”
“It’s way south.”
“We’re north.”
She grinned. “There you go.”
“Did you play?”
“In high school. I wasn’t good enough for college.”
He didn’t say he’d played a year in the minor leagues after college ball. “I wasn’t good enough for the big time either, but I love the game.”
“What position did you play?”
“First base.” He grinned at her startled look. “Karma, right?”
“This is getting weirder and weirder.”
“But good weird.” Leaning over, he kissed her. “Welcome to nirvana.”
He liked to eat like she did, one thing at a time, no mixing. And they watched the end of a baseball game while they ate, trying to anticipate the pitches and plays, finding themselves in agreement so often, she teased maybe they’d been separated at birth.
“I hope like hell not. Considering my plans for you,” he murmured, his gaze definitely smoldering.
She batted her eyelashes at him. “You have plans?”
“Several. I hope you’re not too tired.”
“My adrenaline is pumping so hard, I could stay up for a week. You turn me on like no one has ever turned me on.”
It bothered him for a fraction of a second—her oblique reference to other men, but he tamped down his aberrant jealousy and touched the tip of her nipple pressing through his T-shirt. “I’ve had a hard-on since I first saw you. This is going to work out just fine.”
“When?” she said, tossing her chopsticks on the table, setting down her nearly empty container of shrimp fried rice, leaning back against the couch cushions with a smile.
“Now’s good.” He jammed his chopsticks into the carton he was holding and set it in the box. Pushing her down on the couch, he lifted her shirt those few inches required and reached for the zipper on his jeans. They came the first time to the roar of the crowd on TV.
“Home run,” he whispered, trying to catch his breath.
Her eyes were shut tight. “Out of the park . . .”
* * *
TESS CALLED VERY early Sunday morning, but she was whispering in the phone, so obviously Dave was over or she was at his place. “He’s fabulous,” she whispered, about ten times in a row.
“Great, good, way to go. Call me later,” Chloe whispered back.
“Who’s there?”
“Tell you later. Bye.”
Tess called again Sunday evening, her voice all dreamy and giddy and no longer a whisper. “He’s really fabulous and he’s going to give me one of his paintings ’cause everything went really, really, wonderfully and he’s really, really, well, you know—capable of—well just about anything.”
“Can you call me later?” Chloe was still whispering.
“Jesus, who the hell is there?”
“Tell you later. Bye.”
* * *
BUT OF COURSE, the real world eventually intruded, as it has a habit of doing, even in the fantastic world of round-the-clock sex. Early Monday morning, Rocco said, “I have to go to work.”
“I know.” He was holding her close, his body warm against hers, a kind of blissful lethargy inundating her senses.
“We have to talk.”
God,
she hated those words. You might as well say, “Line up for the firing squad.” “I don’t want to talk. Come over when you can. The rest doesn’t matter.”
“That’s the problem. I can’t come over—at least for a while.”
She wanted to scream; she wanted to swear; she wanted to hit her fist into a wall if she wasn’t so averse to pain. “Why not?” she said instead, in what she hoped was a reasonably calm voice. And she twisted around so she could see his face when he lied to her.
“It’s complicated.” He went on to explain to her in the abbreviated shorthand way men have of defining a situation without recourse to feelings or emotions, using mostly nouns and simple verbs. And she came to understand that he and his family were going into some business that Amy’s father was funding and Amy was part of the package.
“Are you engaged to her?”
He shook his head.
In her mind that wasn’t the firm no she would have preferred. And she suddenly thought of something even more terrible. “Jesus, are you married to her?”
“Fuck no!”
The intensity of his response was comforting. Although she told herself in a semireasonable frame of mind that surely she didn’t contemplate Rocco falling in love with her in three days and them living happily ever after. She wasn’t quite that wacky yet. This was not a Hollywood movie. “Okay,” she said, pushing up into a seated position. “Okay.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“What do you think it means? It means okay, you have to go to work and get on with you life. I have to get on with my life. Life is fucking okay all around.”
His expression went moody and he sat up too. “It’s not as though I have a choice.” He thought of the mortgages he and his siblings had taken out; he thought of this dream of theirs that was almost looking possible. And he didn’t feel obligated to explain every little detail to a woman he’d met on Friday. He had no intention of jeopardizing his and his siblings future for a piece of ass—no matter how fantastic. He wasn’t sixteen and driven by his cock. Although with Chloe that wasn’t completely true. But he could restrain himself if he had to.
And he had to. For now.
“Thanks for everything.” He tried to smile, but didn’t quite manage. “I had a great weekend.”
“You’re welcome. I did too.” She could be mature and adult. She knew sex was sex and nothing more. Even when it had been outrageously fabulous sex. She understood. “Good luck with your”—she wiggled her hand in a gesture of vagueness—“business stuff.”
“Thanks.” He rose from the bed, picked up his clothes and went into the bathroom to dress. As though she hadn’t seen his nude body from virtually every angle this weekend.
But that’s what Monday mornings were about.
Good-byes.
NINE
CHLOE CAUGHT TESS BEFORE SHE LEFT FOR work and whined something terrible—enough that Tess said, “Come into the office at eleven. I’ll take an early lunch and you can tell me everything.”
“Meet me at Aquavit instead. I’m a rumpled mess.”
Chloe was seated in a corner at Aquavit waiting when Tess walked in. An espresso half drunk before her and she was slumped in the banquette like her best friend had died.
“So what happened? Tell me everything,” Tess said, pointing at Chloe’s espresso as the waiter came up with their menus.
“Rocco’s gone.”
“You told me that on Saturday and he came back.”
Chloe shook her head. “He’s really gone this time. You saw that blonde he was with at Dave’s. Her father is financing some business he and his family are starting and she comes with the deal.”
“Comes . . . as in what?”
Chloe made a moue. “That wasn’t very clear. But he can’t see me because of her—so you figure it out.”
“It must be serious.” Tess’s brows arched. “But not serious enough to keep him out of your bed all weekend.”
“There you go. Clear as mud. And don’t get me wrong, I have no illusions about a weekend in bed with some guy leading anywhere. But he’s fabulous and I’d like to keep the sex if nothing else. Is that too selfish?”
“No more selfish than any guy.” Tess screwed up her mouth and then exhaled softly. “It does sound really weird. In my experience if you offer a guy carte blanche in terms of sex, most of them won’t categorically refuse.”
Chloe scowled. “You’d think.”
“He must have some—”
“Fear of the bitch?”
“I was going to say—principles?”
Chloe snorted. “I don’t think so. It’s something else, but I can’t figure it out and I’m frustrated as hell.” She lifted her espresso to her mouth and drained it. “But enough of my useless whining. Tell me about Dave. Was he all you’d hoped? Was he charming and beautiful and all that?”
“Well, he’s not precisely beautiful, as you know, but yes, he was very, very, very nice,” Tess said, her voice softening, her smile appearing like a ray of sunshine in the shadowed room. “And we’re going to one of his friend’s fabulous studio on Lake Minnetonka on Thursday night for some party. He said he’d buy himself a car if we were going to date. Isn’t that cute? Sort of proper and chivalrous. He said he never needed a car before. His father owns a bank up north so there’s money I guess. And he sold everything in the gallery Saturday, so he’s not poor either. Not that it matters,” she added quickly. “I liked him even before—when I thought he was a struggling artist.”
“It sounds so nice. I’m happy for you.” Chloe was almost envious, but not completely, not with Dave. But she was happy for Tess. Their tastes in men had never been the same.
“Sometime you should think of going out with less-than-A-list-handsome men. They’re easier on your emotions.” Tess smiled. “But then you like all the flash and excitement and heat more than I do.”
“I lived with Sebastian for two years. I don’t always need excitement.”
“You just liked his apartment with the view of the lake and his sailboat.”
“I didn’t know it at the time. We had fun.”
“He was madly in love with you.”
“I guess I didn’t know that either—not completely.” Although he was always telling her he loved her truly, madly and forever, so she probably had a pretty good idea. “Not that he knew what he was talking about anyway, as you well know.” Chloe had broken up with Sebastian as gently as she could, hoping he wouldn’t be too badly hurt. He’d married his personal assistant two months later and they were expecting their second child soon. It really made one view male protestations of true love with a certain cynicism. “And Sebastian might be in part—although not entirely,” she added, realistically, “why I’m in the mood for less protestations of love and more sex. Can I put the blame on Sebastian?” she asked with a grin.
“No.” But Tess was smiling. “And don’t be too down about this guy Rocco. I’ll bet he’ll come crawling back.”
Chloe grinned. “Now there’s a picture. He’s very good on his knees.”
Tess hissed, “Shush,” and looked around to see that none of her colleagues were in the restaurant. She was much more conservative than Chloe.
By the time Chloe had eaten lunch and listened to Tess’s blow by blow of her weekend, she was feeling better. No way she would have wanted to spend a day in bed with Dave or have him buy a car so they could date. But that’s what made the world go round. Diversity. And what the hey—her life was busy; she had ten projects in the works. She had so much work to do she should seriously consider giving up sex for a month anyway.
* * *
IN AN EFFORT to get back on track, she went to her office after lunch, sorted through her projects in terms of priorities and started on the most pressing one. When she was working, she often felt as though she was in the zone—her brain racing at top speed, her creative juices flowing big time, the screen lighting up before her in a brilliant collage, dancing with ideas, almost talking t
o her . . . sometimes actually talking to her.
During those moments, when everything was converging into a creative whole or she was experiencing a eureka moment or digging herself out of the black hole of a mediocre design, she sometimes didn’t even hear the phone ring. And it wasn’t unusual for her to work twenty consecutive hours without stopping.
Although on that Monday after her sexually gratifying but rather strenuous weekend, she only worked until midnight. And her creative fervor had been helpful in taking her mind off Rocco.
When she returned upstairs, however, evidence of his presence was everywhere, and her longing returned with a vengeance. The Sunday paper was still spread over the coffee table in the living room where they’d lounged on the couch and half read the paper and kissed and made love and kissed some more. She found his coffee cup on the floor near the bed where he’d dropped it when she’d attacked him once. The hassock on the sun porch remained in the middle of the floor where they’d left it after some of their amorous play, the bowl of whipped cream—empty in the corner. And wet towels were strewn about in the bathroom from a number of tub and shower diversions. Quickly shoving the towels into the hamper, she hauled it into her small laundry room and shut the door.
Pushing the hassock back where it belonged, she carried the bowl into the kitchen, picked up the coffee cup from the bedroom floor, put them both in the dishwasher. The Sunday papers went in the garbage. Everything out of sight, out of mind. Oops. There was his money clip laying on the counter by the back door. He’d paid for their takeouts and forgotten it. Now what? Should she call him? Would he prefer losing his money clip to having her call? Did she even want to talk to him right now? Sliding the clip in a drawer, she decided she wasn’t up to deciding.
And that’s how she dealt with the entire issue of Rocco.
She didn’t.
Every time he popped into her mind, she did that ommm yoga thing and cleared her brain.
So much for confronting one’s problems.
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