Exactly like Merry, he mused, but that was the last chance he had to notice the artwork. The kids vacated the couch the instant he walked into the living room. He never asked them to move; it just seemed an automatic kid-presumption that an adult wouldn’t want to sit on the floor. The kids had sleeping bags spread out all over the living room anyway.
The room looked like an army bivouac, with sleeping bags all fanned out from the center, set up for the best viewing on the big screen. Food supplies surrounded them, somewhat comparable to an arsenal in case of a siege. Screams of annoyance resulted when a body had to walk over the other bodies to get to the bathroom.
Jack looked at the scrubbed faces, and was hard pressed to imagine anything dangerous or immoral going on. But he wasn’t Merry. And although he’d suffered every growing-up stage with his boys, he couldn’t swear that the same experiences and fears and hormonal upsets were the same for girls.
So he hunkered down on the couch for a minute, just figuring he’d watch the flick for a bit, get a feel for the personalities.
The next thing he knew—who would have thought it—Merry’s head was in his lap!
CHAPTER TEN
JACK WOKE UP SUDDENLY, only to discover that the wildly erotic dream he’d been enjoying in Technicolor and surround sound wasn’t a dream after all.
Merry’s face really was in his lap.
He rubbed a hand over his face, willing the groggy sleepiness to disappear, waiting for some common sense to slap him upside the head. Fast.
He wasn’t sure what time it was. Well past 2:00 a.m. Maybe past three? The living room was dark, except for a movie playing on the tube—not the movie he remembered watching, but something similar. The old cartoon-characters-come-to-life scenario.
Bodies were strewn all over the living room, a few sprawled like abandoned puppies, but most scrunched up tight in their sleeping bags. The one little girl—not Charlene—was snoring like a real honker. One boy’s feet were in another boy’s face. Potato chip crumbs dotted the room like confetti, and in the corner by the hearth, a pop had spilled.
Actually, at least one pop had spilled.
Lights seemed to be blazing from every other room in the house—kitchen, bathrooms, back bedrooms. It was just the living room that was movie-dark.
Good thing. Since the Arbiter of Children’s Morality—alias Merry, the hopelessly overprotective new mom—had her nose and mouth damn near smothered in his crotch.
He had a vague memory of plopping down on the couch with the kids, and then a few minutes later, Merry coming in, taking the far corner of the same couch, murmuring that she couldn’t watch these kinds of movies so she was only going to stay there a minute. He remembered talking with the kids, cheering and groaning when they did over some particularly poignant violent scenes. He remembered food coming and going. He remembered a kid curling up, obviously giving up the ghost and falling asleep. Then another.
He remembered seeing Merry yawn, guessed that she was really wiped after getting ready for this madhouse all day.
He remembered thinking that the kids were positively all settled down and he could go home. His sons had to be long crashed by now, and Merry didn’t need him—really, she hadn’t to begin with. She’d just seemed to need some temporary emotional reinforcement for a short stretch there.
His eyes focused. Refocused. Or tried to. No matter how completely he woke up, his mind kept coming to the same conclusion. If anyone took a picture of them, no one—no one, even a saint—could blame him for the current physical condition he was in.
Apparently he’d nodded off with his arms making a T across the back of the couch, his stocking feet cocked on the coffee table. He wasn’t touching Mer. He wasn’t touching anything.
Likely Merry had originally fallen asleep in an innocent enough position, but right now she was all curled up, one sock on, one sock off, facing the back of the couch. Somehow, at some time, she’d chosen to use his lap for a pillow, and then turned toward his stomach and scooped an arm around his back. Her cheek was nestled tight in the crease of his thigh—so tight he had no idea how she could breathe.
And that was interesting. And relevant. And arousing. But not as critically or immediately fascinating as the way her lips…as in, Merry’s uniquely luscious, soft lips…were pressed right into his crotch. Heaven knew, Wilbur had risen to the occasion. Wilbur probably hadn’t experienced this level of hardness in several years. Sure, he was always happy near a woman and had personally pleasured more than a few in recent times.
Hardness had never been a problem.
Getting enough, since the divorce, had occasionally been a problem. But that was just frustration. This was frustration, too, but at a whole new level. A fascinating level.
If he got any harder, he was going to break the zipper from strain.
Jack carefully, slowly, quietly reached over to scratch his chin. Broken zippers seemed the least of his problems. If Merry woke up and realized the position she was in, she was undoubtedly going to have a cow and a half.
If any of the kids woke up and saw her in this position, that wouldn’t be too cool, either.
Jack told himself that this dilemma had one and only one cause. He’d mistakenly tried to be a nice guy. If he hadn’t come over to help her, nothing like this could have happened. Now the situation had a lot of potential for becoming a downright mess. And who was to blame? Himself. For trying to help her to begin with.
On the other hand…he closed his eyes momentarily…there did seem to be an undeniable positive repercussion to all this messy chaos. Because the feeling of her face snuggled in his lap was damned close to ecstasy. Startling the holy hell out of him, though, was that even though the sensation was sexual—even ninety-five percent sexual—an eensy part of his response was simply…warm. The other kind of warm. The kind where it felt good to be in a protective role with a woman, to have a woman trust you enough to curl up all over you.
Not that he was falling for her.
That petrifying thought was so unsettling that he resolved to immediately get up and go home. That was the only conceivable resolution for this. Get the Sam Hill out of there. Quickly. Very quickly. At least any minute now…
OH GOD. WHEN MERRY OPENED one eye, pale predawn light silvered through a slit in the blinds. TiVo was playing yet another one of those beat-’em-up flicks where someone was hitting someone else every two minutes. In the meantime, bodies carpeted the entire breadth of the living room. No one looked alive, much less awake.
She checked the bodies to make sure the boys weren’t too close to the girls, but it was okay. All of them were snuggled tight in their own sleeping bags in the cool of the early morning.
Which left her completely free to concentrate on Jack. Poor baby. He was going to be beyond embarrassed if he woke up and realized where—and how—he’d fallen asleep.
She had no memory of dozing off herself. She remembered his coming over, and what a mountainous relief she’d felt to have another adult there—particularly when the other adult was Jack. She knew she could immediately stop worrying, that he’d speak up and step in if he felt the mixed-sexes sleeping arrangement needed a fix. Heaven knew, the parents had been no help. They not only hadn’t cared, they’d tended to laugh—either that or express complete confusion why she was calling. As if she were the old fogey and they were the with-it age.
But never mind that now.
Thankfully the couch was unusually wide, because otherwise two people couldn’t possibly have stretched out without one ending up on the floor—like herself, since she was the one lying on the outside. Somehow Jack, even sound asleep, must have realized she could have fallen, because he’d pulled her into the spoon of his body, with one arm securing her tight.
All their clothes were on.
Except for her one sock.
But Jack’s one arm had scooped beneath her side and come up to shape her breast. In fact, too exactly. Shape. Her. Breast. And his other arm was just kind of hangi
ng over her, the weight of his wrist on her hip. Behind, she could feel the distinct shape of a hammer against the small of her back.
Well, perhaps it wasn’t a hammer. But it was certainly hard enough to pound nails.
It wasn’t his fault, she mentally told herself. Not that there was any fault or blame involved in this. It wasn’t as if either of them had planned to fall asleep, much less together on the couch. The question was simply what to do about it now.
If she could just get off the couch without waking him, he’d never have to know how intimately he was curled around her.
Not that she minded the curl. Or the hammer. Or the feel of him possessively cupping her breast like a lover. Or the smell of him, warm and male and sleepy. She was, she admitted to herself, slightly inclined to turn around and make the embrace become something actively invitational. The V between her thighs was damp and warm, her breasts tight, her pulse doing the manic dance. Oh yeah, she was totally in the mood.
For him.
Not for any guy. Just for Jack.
It was a relief to admit it, a little like sneezing for days in a row and finally accepting that this wasn’t some little allergy but a serious cold. Maybe it wasn’t all easy, good news. Still, her attraction to Jack from the beginning had seeds of more than just noticing he was one hot guy.
She wasn’t about to use a four-letter word in front of the children—even if they were asleep, even if the word started with L. Still. She thought it as she slowly, carefully put one bare foot on the carpet. Then waited. Then slowly, carefully rolled down to the ground, letting his two hands drift loose, fall gently back to the couch.
Crouched on the carpet, she waited again. He hadn’t wakened. Neither had the kids. She wanted to let out a noisy sigh of relief, but didn’t dare. Instead, she crept out of the room, and then skedaddled down the hall to the far bedroom.
She had to scrounge to find fresh clothes. Her dad had shipped more of her stuff from home, but she still hadn’t found time to paint the walls or add her own furniture or organize. Shoes still spilled from boxes. Books still toppled from cartons. Spare-room stuff still hadn’t found a place in the rest of the house.
For once in her life, she intended to settle. But it just seemed to take so much time, turning herself into the full-time mom of an eleven-year-old.
For now, though, she grabbed clean clothes and zoomed for the shower.
The hot spray helped wake her up, but even with soap in her hair and stinging her eyes, she remembered the feeling of Jack’s hand on her breast, the weight and warmth of him snugged to her backside.
He’d come through for her yet again. Yeah, she’d been freaked at the boys who’d showed up for the sleepover. And yeah, she’d really wanted his advice and perspective. But he never had to actually come over, sit there, spend the time to be there for her.
Moments later, wearing snug jeans and a tee and a towel wrapped on her head, she tiptoed back to the living room. One kid was staring bleary-eyed at the tube. The rest were still sleeping. The couch, though, was as empty as silence.
So he’d woken up and split fast, she mused.
But one of these days, Jack, you’re not going to be able to escape fast enough.
The thought made her grin—even as she reconnoitered the devastation in the living room and wasn’t sure if it could all get cleaned up in a month of Sundays. But post-party messes were just post-party messes. Nothing new. Houses survived them. If Charlene had had fun, it was worth the cleanup.
Jack was a different issue altogether.
That man, she thought, needed someone to love him. Not someone who’d use him or run roughshod over his giving nature, but a woman who’d strip off his cute, tidy button-downs and give him the motivation to really, really let go.
“Hey, Merry.” The sleepy boy with fifty cowlicks finally registered that someone else was awake in the room.
“Hey, Quinn.” But she was thinking: like her. Just maybe she was the ideal motivation to throw that man on a bed and really, really take him down….
AS MERRY PUSHED OPEN the door to the mall, she wondered what she’d ever done to the Fate Gods to tick them off this badly. Lately nothing, but nothing, seemed to work out as planned. “Now, come on,” she coaxed Charlene, who shot her a look as if crossing the mall threshold was as appealing as a case of malaria.
“I hate shopping. I don’t want to shop. I don’t need anything. I don’t want anything.” Charlie hesitated. “Unless we’re going to the music store.”
“And we are. As a reward for you—after we finish this.”
Charlie made a sound, mimicking the moan of an animal in dire pain, but limped on through.
Merry recalled the week before, when she’d had such fabulous plans to jump Jack. Great plans. Big plans. Plans she’d expanded in her dreams, daydreams and the night version, all of which had added detail, action, and various imaginative variations that should certainly add something to the seduction.
But suburban Mom Life was more deleterious to sexual adventure than anything she’d ever imagined. It had to be easier to seduce a guy on top of K-2. Or simultaneously while white-water rafting in a thunderstorm. Or in the freeway in broad daylight.
Moms had no privacy. No time in the day or night when either the kid or a call couldn’t suddenly interrupt. There was ample free time, only none of it was really free. If she wasn’t getting ready for another meeting with June Innes, then she was washing stinky soccer clothes and car pooling a group of preteens to the movies or chaperoning a field trip on a school bus. Every single activity related to mom-ming, as far as Merry could tell, seemed doomed to douse a girl’s sexual drive.
On the other hand, this particular adventure wasn’t so bad.
Shopping wasn’t as good as sex. Or love. Or time for herself, or with an adult she cared about. But it was one thing that she most definitely knew how to do—and that meant, for once, feeling darn sure of herself for a change.
“Did Mrs. Innes say I had to do this? When she came over on Monday?”
“Nope.” The meeting with June Innes had gone as well as the other ones.
The guardian ad litem had unshakeable ideas about what an eleven-year-old girl should and should not do. Nothing Merry said was right or valid or worth a jalapeño pepper. Anything Merry did was a ditto. Worthless. And yeah, those meetings kept weighing on Merry’s mind—but this afternoon, that was all a “to hell with it.”
She steered the reluctant turtle—the one all hunched over, illustrating severe depression and horror at being in the mall—toward the escalator.
“Look, Merry. There’s a reason why I don’t want to go to this dance. Maybe I forgot to tell you. I don’t dance.”
“Uh-huh. I know you think that sounds logical. But you haven’t even tried dancing yet. For all you know, you could love it. It’s very…athletic.”
“But there’s another reason.”
“Uh-huh.” At the top of the escalator, she herded Charlie toward the young teen section.
“This is the deal, Mer. The real deal. I like boys more than girls.”
Merry lifted an eyebrow. “Join the club. Me, too. I’m pretty sure that’s the way Nature set it up.” There, she’d managed to startle Charlie. But only for a second or two.
“I don’t mean that kind of liking. I mean there’s a reason I don’t like being around girls. It’s because they’re mean. They whisper and laugh behind your back. And they don’t do anything. They talk about jewelry. And clothes. But it’s not like they ever do anything, like, say, fix a carburetor. Or beat each other at World Triumph. And I don’t take Trig yet, you know? Because I’m too young. But I think Trig problems are interesting. Not whether some girl ran up and kissed a guy after class. That’s just such a yuck.”
“Well,” Merry said, “I admit I was one of those girls who obsessed all day long about movie stars and nail color and who kissed who. But that doesn’t mean you have to like that or be like that.” With an eagle eye, she scanned the rac
ks. Then attacked.
Charlie wasn’t the only one who could get into military terms. Merry understood missions just fine. The hunt, the recon, the attack, the never leaving a bad sale behind.
“Mer?”
“What, honey?”
“All the girls are obsessing about this dance. They’re all so stupid. They’re driving me crazy. And all they’re talking about all the time is what they’re going to wear. The dress. How much the stupid dress costs. Bras. Heels. I am never wearing bras or heels.”
Merry tactfully didn’t mention that especially one side of Charlene’s chest was developing a noticeable bump. They’d handle the bra crisis when they came to it, and thankfully, that wasn’t today. “Now, Charlie, try to trust me, just a little. I was never going to force you into stilettos. Clothes are the one thing I know. And we’re going to find something that you really, really want to wear.”
“Yeah. Like that’ll happen.” Charlie found a corner to heave herself into. “I don’t see anything wrong with wearing my dad’s old stuff. I’m proud of my dad—”
“I know you are. And I’m glad you are.” But Merry was also conscious that June Innes was trying to draw a line in the sand about Charlene’s attire, so it seemed as if this upcoming dance was the ideal opportunity to…well, to introduce something different. She had to find a way to get Charlene out of those clothes, or at least to wean her away from wearing the military things all the time.
Her theory was to give Charlene a sense of her own personal style. “In the dressing room, you,” Merry ordered.
Charlie’s jaw dropped when she saw the heap of clothes on Merry’s arm. “You wouldn’t make me try on all that stuff. I thought we were friends. I thought you liked me okay.”
“Nah. I like torturing kids. It’s my favorite thing. And I’m going to sit right outside, let you try these on yourself. But if you find anything—anything—you like, you can just open the door and let me see.”
Blame it on Cupid Page 16
