by Lisa Gillis
“You mean going out? I didn’t think you would care…”
“No. You were testing to see if I cared. At least that’s what it felt like. And I do care.” His weight left me as he leaned against the back of the couch. “Do you know how hard it was to play with our son like nothing was wrong while you were out with some douche?”
Hot fury blazed in eyes, which only minutes ago had blazed with hot desire. Mentally, I revised last night’s assessment of failed ‘Phase One.’ It was looking like it had carried off better than I hoped. I didn’t like him being mad at me, and yet it was titillating to find he was.
Unsure where to take the phase from here, I abandoned any thought of games, and let my feelings lead.
“Probably about as hard as the shoe on the other foot.” My mumble was intelligible enough to catch his attention.
“What are you talking about?”
“You partying in LA while I’m sitting around here with our sick kid.” The words were part of the plan at some point, but to actually say them broke my voice. Speaking them aloud also embarrassed me. We were simply parents joined by circumstance, and I was acting out as if we were a real mother and father with a relationship. Mortified at my outburst, I was about to look away when something in his expression changed.
“Momma, Mom, Mom, Mooommma!” From down the hall, the growling chant began.
Jack’s steadfast gaze never left my face, and he incredulously denied, “I wasn’t!”
His indignant astonishment threw me, and again, I reflected on the internet picture and what it portrayed. “It seemed like you were. Creeping around with your ex and all!”
“My ex?”
“The 'lingerina.'” When he continued blankly contemplating the made-up word, I huffed with all the haughtiness of Tristan when he had to explain himself. “The underwear model!”
His laughter was abrupt, and just as abruptly his mirth dissipated. Quietly, he studied the frown I felt on my face, and I made an effort to relax those muscles. I wasn’t sure what or why I was feeling whatever this was, and I damn sure didn’t want him privy to these confused reactions.
Watching me button my blouse, he replied, “I’m not dating her, never have.”
“Momma!” Tristan was no longer practicing the screamo growl, so I knew the water had cooled and the bubbles evaporated.
Swinging my feet off the couch, I sprinted to the bathroom, wrapping his slight body in a towel and helping him with his pajamas. Directing him to bed, I promised to send in Bally and that Jack would be in to say goodnight. However, it wasn’t that simple to pick up my conversation with Jack.
“But, do I get a snack?”
Containing my aggravation at the timing, I replied, “Of course, sweetheart.” And a big dose of Tylenol, I crazily thought. Because, this discussion with Jack, no matter how it progressed, was ending with phase two. Of that, I was determined.
Phase two was S–E–
“Mom? I get a snack, right?”
X.
“Want to eat in your room and watch tv?”
“I wanted to eat with Jack and watch tv.”
“What do you want for your snack?” Following the tiny boy as he swung on his crutches into the den, I met Jack’s eyes, and he stood, automatically clearing a path of shoes and toys to Tristan’s chair.
“Hey, buddy. I was thinking about an orange. Is that what you want?”
Tristan nodded, and while I cleared the taco trash, I watched astounded as Jack puttered around the kitchen and shortly returned with a paper towel of peeled and sectioned oranges.
The moment Tristan was in bed with a dose of Tylenol down him, we adjourned to the kitchen after a story read by me, and another by Jack.
Again, fascinated, I watched, finding him already familiar with the location of utensils and food items. Retrieving the alcohol from the top of the fridge, he began to mix drinks. He asked many more questions about Tristan’s physical limitations, and wondered how quickly in the future these would be a thing of the past.
When it got quiet, I curiously observed as he divided one of Tristan’s juice boxes between the two glasses of orange juice and vodka.
“Don’t knock it till you try it.” Revealing the slight dimples that fluttered my stomach, he passed the finished mixture over. Taking a long sip of his, he turned, leaning a hip against the counter in the sexy stance I remembered so well from the tour bus. Indicating my drink with a tip of his head, he inquired, “Okay?”
Obligingly, I swallowed a sip and nodded in surprise.
Dark eyes quickly honed in on the movement of my throat. Thrown into the past and provoked by this attention, I tilted my glass for another.
A comfortable silence stretched, and finally, he ventured, “Mariss, I’ve never dated her.”
Searching his earnest eyes, I quietly refuted, “That’s not what Perez Hilton says.” Although I had clicked through the famous blog to some unremembered gossip site, I nevertheless used the name I remembered to make the point.
If possible, his face was as dumbfounded as earlier when I first brought up this supposed ex. “You stalk me online?”
“Just once. The other night. And stop looking at me like that!” The last part I yelled when he seemed entirely too pleased with this new revelation.
Taking a couple of steps, he came to a stop before me. “Her name is Randi Gavin. We’re friends. I go to her publicity crap, and she goes to mine. Some of this stuff is planned out for months, and the events require RSVP names way ahead of time for background checks. It’s easier to bring someone who is already on file.” He paused for a few sips of his beverage and then wryly continued, “Besides, I learned, the hard way. The person I’m dating might change by the time whatever is happening actually happens. And it sucks to be stuck with someone you can’t stand by that time, or going it stag.”
“You’ve never been more than friends?” Doubtfully, I asked, as if I had the right to be this inquisitive, but he didn’t seem to care.
“No.”
“You’ve never banged her?” Why couldn’t I shut up?
“I told you, we’re friends. That’s it.” Skillfully, he eluded the query.
“You’ve banged her.” Conclusively, I nodded.
“Marissa, what does it matter?”
It shouldn’t. I had no right to ask—or care. I wasn’t sure why I was fixated on her when she was one of dozens, probably hundreds he’d been photographed with.
“You’ve banged her.”
“As friends. A couple of times. But not in a long, long time.” Rightfully so, his admission was indignant. A flash of perception crossed his face. “Is that what your date last night was all about?”
“Not exactly,” I fibbed, not wanting him to know I was so desperately infatuated with him. “Olivia tried to set us up a while back. And I told her I would after Tristan’s surgery.”
“And after all that waiting for a date, it had to be the weekend I came?”
“Well no. But you were coming to see Tristan—”
“And you,” he interrupted before I could play out the ploy.
And you.
No two words, or even three words, had ever made me so happy.
Taking my glass, he thrust both drinks aside, and his palms came to rest on my hips to pull me close. The hand snaking so familiarly under my shirt was cold from holding his drink, but it quickly warmed against the heat of my skin. Greedily, I couldn’t get enough of his kiss, and I found myself practically hanging on him in an effort to get even closer.
His hand splayed on my back, smashing our bodies together. Phase two was all downhill from here, or rather down the hall. As I thought of my bedroom, some sanity returned. Five years ago, we had hooked up for the sake of hooking up. And tonight? Tonight I had phased sex into some devious plan. A plan that, not for the first time, felt weird and wrong.
“Jack?” I wedged a hand between us, and when he pulled back enough to warm my face with his inquiring gaze, I pulled in a fortifyi
ng breath. “You’re not seeing anyone?”
A myriad of emotions crossed his face, and one seemed to be annoyance. “I thought we just cleared this?”
“You said not Miranda.”
An awkward silence stretched, and he still seemed exasperated with this line of questioning or maybe with the interruption.
And so I joked, “I’ve heard about rock stars. A woman in every city! I just don’t want to be your gulf coast girl.”
“What are you asking, Marissa?”
Oh hell… What was I asking? Was I trying to define our relationship, right here, right now? Because what faster way to scare away someone like him? I was an idiot!
“I’m not asking anything,” I tried to salvage a shred of humility. “I just don’t want to go where this is going if you have a girlfriend. It’s wrong.”
Picking up his glass, he drained it. I had definitely killed the mood, and I was regretting it now. I was about to drink to my own stupidity when he dropped to my level again, speaking against my lips.
“I’m not seeing anyone. No woman in any city. No one.” His lips brushed mine as he spoke, and his gaze sank into my eyes. “Is there anything else you need to clear up in this kitchen before we move to the bedroom and fuck like it’s been five years since?”
Hypnotized by his words, and heated with his look, I could only shake my head in one small chin movement.
“Anything you want me to sign?” He pressed, as he pressed a kiss to my mouth, and when I smiled at the humor, he did too.
A touch of our tongues had us heating up fast, and within seconds, the past minutes fell away as if I had never cock-blocked myself.
When he lifted me against him, I wrapped him with my legs, fusing us together as he headed into the other room, beyond the other room, and into my bedroom. His long strides caused our jeans to frictionally brush together, and with a whimper passing through them, my lips molded tighter to his. From the previous night, he must have recalled the layout, because even in the dark, he went straight for the bed and came down on top of me.
His fingers went to the buttons of my shirt, and I rose, flinging it off, along with the bra beneath it as soon as it was undone. His shirt came over his head at the same time, and we pressed together eager to feel skin to skin. Fervently, I traced each muscle and skimmed my fingers across hot skin. My lips were on his lips, his neck, his chest, taking in and tasting everything my hands were feeling. His reciprocation drove me to a frenzy, and finally crazed, I realized I was lying limp while he was tasting and teasing every bit of exposed skin.
By some sanity in the back of my mind, I was listening for any sign of Tristan being awake, any clank of his crutches. “Jack,” I gasped at the next flick of his tongue. “I should see if Tristan is asleep…”
He dragged his tongue across the expanse of skin just above the waistline of my low-rise jeans. My muscles jumped beneath wet skin, and I breathed in another unsteady breath. Lifting my head, I beheld the top of his dark head, and the visual aggravated the throbbing ache in the pit of my tummy.
“I will. Stay put.” For emphasis, he flicked the button through its denim slit, drew the fly zipper down, and suctioned a kiss to the skin he’d exposed. Pulling his shirt back on, he exited the room and was back in a flash, pushing the door completely closed. “Tylenol strikes again.” I could hear the fond smile in his voice, and his clothes rustle as they came off. “Can I turn the lamp on?”
A second after my assent, I was blinking in the light and basking in his admiring look. My eyes ran down his nude form, all long, lean, hard muscle.
Back against me, he whispered, “You’re just how I remember… And I remember everything, Mariss.”
The sweet words were whispered against my neck. “The way you look. The way you taste.” My hand was now in his, and the lash of his tongue on the palm, the subsequent stroke between my fingers, brought a groan to my lips and brought back the memories I held so vivid. Thinking of his tongue other places as he continued this tease—flicking and circling my palm, gliding against the webs of my fingers while darting between them—had me moaning again as other places heated even more unbearably. “The way you sound… I never forgot the sounds you make…”
Abandoning the assault on my hand, he sought my lips again, swallowing the next sound from my throat. My hand traveled down, wanting to pull the same sound from his lips, and the second my fingers closed around his dick, I was rewarded with a low rumble.
Everything resumed full throttle; I couldn’t keep up with his next touch or kiss, and my lips, tongue and hands could not get enough of him. Somewhere in this madness, the rest of my clothing was shed, and when his kiss strayed intimately to those ‘other places’, the reality replacing the recollections had me smothering my cries with a pillow.
Wild and sweet, fiery and intense the kiss continued—some special link between Jack and my body making it an experience only paralleled by the last time with him. His fingers knew me, ringing my doorbell from the inside as he sucked from the outside. Weakly I pulled him by his hair, silently begging for him to stop, and alternately fisted my fingers in his hair urging him to continue. If I had thought that was nirvana, I was soon reminded wrong.
Gliding up my body, he held a kiss to my lips, as we joined. My body remembered, welcoming and easily taking him in. For a moment, he paused, his tongue dancing with mine, until I could take it no longer. His reaction to my squeeze was a growling groan as he moved almost completely and agonizingly away before completely possessing me again.
We rocked and we rolled until I thought every cell in my body would explode with the intensity and my heart would burst with emotion.
Being with Jack was everything I remembered and more. The connection was mental as well as physical, and as I lay against him, sweetly sated, with our child in the next room, I couldn’t help but feel we were fated to be together.
Phase two. Complete . At this point, after the depth of passion between us, phases were more of an amusing last thought as I fell asleep, no longer a direct plan.
CHAPTER 22
An internal alarm woke me, and I stared into the shadows of the room, enjoying the feel of Jack’s leg twisted with mine and the sound of his breath. A few quiet snores, the ones I remembered from the hospital, intermittently broke up his breathing. Although I had hooked up with over a dozen men since Tristan’s birth, it had been more than five years since anyone except Tristan had been in my bed.
Tristan was the reason I woke, and my gaze spontaneously drew to the door we’d cracked open to listen for him after Jack and I were done and dozing. Padding to the adjoining bathroom, I took care of that urge, and my eyes blissfully fell to the two foil packets in the trash.
Stepping into a steamy shower, I began to soap up, and every brush of the loofah caressed skin still tingling from last night. After washing and rinsing my hair, I wrapped in my robe and returned to the bedroom.
Jack had moved to lay diagonal in the bed, as if searching for me in his sleep—at least that’s what I wanted to imagine—and now rested with his head on my pillow.
Easing back into the bed, I allowed my fingers what they craved, the slick softness of his hair, the smooth firmness of his skin, a trace of an inked arm, a trail down his chest to his stomach, and reluctantly stopped short of what I really wanted. Pulling in a deep breath of his scent, I contemplated the light of dawn through the slats of the mini blinds. Unable to resist, I pressed my lips to the warmth of his chest, then again… and again… unconsciously drawing closer to my craving and was rewarded when he responded in a very conscious state.
“Mariss…” That particular utterance of my name was an addiction. “Mariss, mmh…”
“Mmh,” I hummed the echo against him, around him, and savored his body’s immediate reaction. My lips and tongue paid homage to this piece of pleasure so great, my body still purred hours in the aftermath.
Minutes later, my cheek was against his chest, and he was mumbling in sated satisfaction about
the best way to wake up in the morning.
With another look at the window, I unwillingly whispered, “You need to get out of here before Tristan gets up.”
Fully awake, he raised his head, and the shadowy pools of his eyes sought mine. “Okay,” he agreed. Then, “Wait, do you mean leave, leave? Or, is it okay if I move to the couch?”
When it came to important decisions about Tristan, he always double-checked with me, and this was reassuring, and endearing. One of his hands stroked through my hair, and my lips turned to the heat of that inked forearm as I answered. “The couch.”
Despondent, yet entranced, I watched as he returned from the bathroom and picked through the clothing on the floor as he dressed. Lastly, he pulled on his tee shirt. Then pouncing on the bed, he hunkered on all fours over me and raised goose bumps with a line of kisses down my body, then back up to my throat.
“Mariss?”
“Mmh?”
“When are you going to be ready to tell him?”
My muscles went rigid as he spoke against my skin, and I pushed at him, needing to see his eyes. The room was getting lighter by the minute, but I took the time to study his earnest expression. In the middle of the night, I had woken intertwined with him and idly fantasized telling Tristan that Jack was his daddy. But, in that imagining, we were also telling our son we were married, or were about to be married.
In my fantasy, there was a future with the three of us and no fear of me losing Tristan in this equation to some belated custody hearing.
“I don’t know…” Fingering the necklace dangling from his neck, I considered and softly replied, “We’ll figure it out today. Okay?”
With a last press of a kiss to my hairline, he bounded out of the room, pulling the door back to a crack behind him.
The sun was now bright, casting vertical shadows on the wall, and I closed my eyes, yet still couldn’t drift into any sleep stage although we had been up most of the night. I didn’t know what last night had meant in this ‘baby daddy/baby momma’ affiliation we had going. I only knew I’d wanted an encore with Jack for five years.
