Sweet Dream Lover

by Karen Sandler

  But Mark wasn’t fourteen anymore and was pretty much immune to his father’s disapproval. “I’m telling her. The moment you leave.”

  Another glance exchanged between his parents, but Mark had lost his patience for subterfuge and intrigue. “I do have work to do.”

  His mother put a hand on his arm. “Give us a chance to speak to the Roths first.”

  Mark might be able to stand up to his father, but he could never could say no to his mother. “I’m seeing Kat tonight. You have until then.”

  His mother zeroed in on what she no doubt considered the most crucial bit of information. “You’re seeing Kat?”

  Yeah, I’m boffing her on a regular basis now. “The chocolate tasting, remember? Kandy for Kids fund-raiser?”

  “Of course.” She bent to give him a peck on the cheek, then mercifully they left. Leaving him to drop his head in his hands and contemplate the mess his life had devolved into.

  He ought to be ecstatic. He ought to be executing handsprings and back flips across his office. Figurative ones anyway, since the real deal would send him to the chiropractor. He was getting all the sex he could possibly want with the one woman who could pleasure him like no other and yet...

  And yet he was miserable. Okay, not miserable in the midst of that great, wild sex. During those moments, he was absolutely with the program, completely focused on the task at hand. Kat would send him to heaven and he’d do his level best to do the same for her.

  It was only afterward, when Kat left his bed, that the misery started eating at him. He loved her. He wanted her in his life, not just in his bed. He wanted to marry her, have children with her, enjoy forever with her. He wanted it all.

  But he knew with a bone-deep certainty that Kat wanted none of that. She never let a word slip that touched beneath the surface, never let so much as a gesture expose what might be going on behind that hot-as-fire-but-distant-as-Pluto façade of hers. As much as he might wish and hope and ache for it, there wasn’t a prayer that Kat felt for him even an iota of what he felt for her.

  What was wrong with him, anyway? His parents made it look so easy. Fall in love, marry your beloved, live happily ever after. Never fight, never argue, never a word of opposition. Just smooth sailing from day one to what would soon be their thirty- eighth anniversary. That’s the way it should have been with him and Kat.

  But there was a defect in his character, a failing he couldn’t pinpoint. Bliss had become bedlam in his marriage, the perfect harmony in bed impossible to match in their lives outside the bedroom. What he’d thought was love had obviously only been lust.

  Maybe he was only fooling himself. He thought this was love pounding inside him, setting off the ache in his heart, stealing whatever sleep he could manage between bouts of sex. But maybe in reality it was just lust in a pretty package, his own guilt suggesting he felt something he didn’t really feel. Didn’t really understand.

  Shoving aside the Chocolate Magic report, he pulled the latest Kandy for Kids spreadsheet toward him. So far, the program had been a smashing success and a boon for Denham’s sales. The benefit concert had raised three-quarter-million between ticket sales and related donations, the kayak race was on track to generate another half-million in sponsorships, and the chocolate tasting tonight was long sold-out. Kandy for Kids might have seemed a goofy idea at the outset, but the money they’d raised would do a tremendous amount of good for the targeted child-centered nonprofits.

  Line one on his phone flashed, then glowed a solid red as Rod picked up the phone. Even before Rod rang it through, Mark knew it was Kat. His body jolted to full alert, ready for another go between the sheets.

  Her voice was throaty and sexy and melted over him like warmed honey. “Hey, hot stuff. Are you free for lunch?”

  Yes jumped to the forefront of his mind, but then his gaze fell on the Chocolate Magic report. He’d promised his parents until the end of the day. To share his bed with her while keeping quiet about the upcoming merger seemed slimy and monstrous. He couldn’t do it.

  He checked his Palm and realized he had a valid excuse. “Damn, Kat. I have to attend a retirement lunch today.”

  “Oh,” she sighed, the sound brushing the hair on the back of his neck. “Then you’ll have to wait to see what I bought at the Naughty Girl store.”

  Completely unfair. Now he’d spend the rest of the day hard as a brick. “Pick you up at seven?”

  “Make it six. I might need help zipping up.”

  Erotic images cascaded through his mind. “What about Fritz?”

  “Fritz seems to have moved out. All his things are gone.” Mark didn’t like the idea of his cousin MIA. “Where’s he staying?”

  “Not sure,” Kat said thoughtfully. “But Norma seems to be smiling more than usual.”

  He ought to be smiling, too, would be once he got past this funk. If he could either convince Kat she loved him or himself that he didn’t love her. “Six, then.”

  “Sex at six.” She laughed, the sound sending fingers of sensation up his spine. “Bye.” She hung up and Mark dropped his phone back onto the cradle.

  There wouldn’t be any sex at six, not after Mark dropped the bomb about the merger. Just how pissed Kat would be and how much she would blame the course of events on him would determine whether there would ever be sex again, at six or any other time.

  It might not even matter if she decided he was the evil instigator of the merger plot. They already toted an entire matched set of Gucci baggage with them whenever they climbed into bed. The old news, ancient wounds never had been resolved. They’d simply made a tacit, unspoken agreement that they didn’t need to clear the air to roll around in bed.

  It was every man’s dream, sex without commitment or strings. All the pleasure and none of the pain. But why the hell did it hurt so much?

  Chapter 17

  The slinky little dress in chocolate brown lay on the living room floor in a shimmering puddle of lamé. Kat had had it on her body less than ten minutes when Mark arrived, stripped it off her, ravished her on the couch. Now as they lay gasping for breath, Kat’s gaze drifted to the clock on the DVD player and she pondered whether they had time for a second go.

  Mark stared up at the ceiling, his chest heaving under her. He was still inside her, at half-mast now but still warm and welcome.

  She nuzzled his neck. “How long to reload the cannons?”

  “Kat.” He sucked in a breath when she scraped his earlobe with her teeth. “I have to tell you something.”

  Her tongue traced the whorls of his ear. “Tell me later.”

  He groaned, his arms tightening around her. “It’s already later.”

  Her legs still straddling him, she levered herself up just enough to graze his chest with her nipples. He stirred to life inside her and she smiled in triumph.

  To her great disappointment, he took firm hold of her shoulders and lifted her away from him. He sat up, easing her aside so he slipped from inside her. Her sharp regret distracted her momentarily from what she felt between her legs, then the wet warmth registered.

  Disbelief stumbled along on the heels of realization. She dove for his lap, grabbing him, as if with her close inspection she could deny the truth. But his half-erect flesh sagged naked in her hand.

  “Ohmigod, ohmigod,” she chanted, staring at the one-eyed snake then up at Mark. “Where is it?”

  “Where’s what?” He looked down at himself, then understanding hit. “Ohmigod! It’s not there!”

  “Then it’s in me. It must be in me.” She groped between her legs and found the tiny scrap of rubber. She tugged it free, held it out. “We’re okay, here it is. Everything’s safe in—”

  She watched in horrified awe as the remaining contents of the condom dripped slowly from the ragged tear in the tip. “No,” she moaned. “Oh, no, no, no.”

  Mark looked from the condom to the spent soldier in his lap. “We might still be okay. Do you have a backup plan?”

  She shook her head,
feeling queasy. “Abstinence has always worked just fine.”

  “Okay,” he said, although his expression said they were anything but okay. “How’s your timing? Do you think you’re safe?”

  She tried to count back, figure out the days since her last cycle. But it was all a blur. “I might be. I don’t know.”

  He brought his hands up to cradle her face. They trembled as he leaned in to kiss her. “We’ll get through this, sweetheart.”

  Tears threatened and she had to get away, get some space. “Excuse me.” She pulled away and hurried to her bedroom.

  She locked herself in her bathroom, dumped the condom in the toilet and flushed it. She cleaned herself up, then leaned against the sink, trying to get her mind around what she and Mark might have just done on the sofa.

  I could be pregnant. A maelstrom of emotions clattered around inside her. Terror, anxiety, panic. She felt both paralyzed with shock and frantic with fear. But not at the thought of a baby inside her, not at the prospect of her body changing and a tiny being growing inside her. What transfixed her with horror, left her thunderstruck with awe, was the immensity of the connection.

  With Mark. With the ex-husband she never knew how to love. During their marriage, she couldn’t find a way to link her heart with his because nothing she ever did would be right. But this, a baby, if it even existed, would be right without any effort on her part.

  Damn, she was going to cry. She could feel tears grip her throat, burn her eyes.

  A knock on the door jolted her upright. “Kat, are you okay?” She cleared her throat. “Fine. Give me another minute.”

  A splash of water on her face, a drink from her cupped hands and she felt the sting of emotions subside. She retrieved her terry-cloth robe from the back of the bathroom door and buried her body in it. Armor on, she felt ready to face Mark again.

  He stood just outside the door, dressed in briefs and the socks they’d been in too much of a hurry to remove. Kat pinned a bright smile on her face. “We’d better get going.” She edged past him.

  He followed her to the living room. “What about—”

  “We’ll work it out.” She snatched up her panty hose and leaned against the sofa to put them on. “Nothing to worry about until...” Her throat closed a moment. “Until we know for sure.”

  He took her arm, stopping her from reaching for her dress. “Kat, you wouldn’t...”

  “No...” She said the word slowly as the certainty sank in. “No,” she said more emphatically. “If I am, we’ll just...”

  She didn’t know what the hell they’d do. She only knew that she had to get dressed, get out of here, away from Mark. If she didn’t, her heart, overloaded with emotion, would explode.

  Hooking a finger in her dress, she backed away from him. “Hey, I was just thinking,” she said as she shimmied into the chocolate lamé, “I need to stop by the office for something. We’d better take two cars.”

  In the process of buttoning his dove gray dress shirt, his fingers stilled. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, perfectly fine.” Her voice seemed shrill to her ears. “I just need to drive to the party alone.”

  He slowly tucked his shirt into his slacks, his gaze never leaving her face. She turned her back on him, but didn’t ask for help with her zipper. Her arms pretzeling behind her back, she worked it up herself.

  To the gold leather purse she’d left by the door she added her driver’s license, a credit card and some cash, then she gathered up her keys. She waited for Mark to slip on his shoes and find his own keys in his pants pocket.

  “We’re going to have to talk,” he told her, his face serious. “Later,” she said blithely.

  It seemed to take an eternity to make their way down to the parking garage. At her car, Mark leaned in to kiss her, but she turned, his lips landing on her cheek instead of her mouth. Then as he headed for the guest parking on the other side of the garage, she climbed in her Camry.

  He pulled out but waited for her to do the same before he exited the garage. Once she’d backed from her parking space, she waved him on, pretending to be busy with something in the car. When he was finally out of sight, she shut off the engine again.

  Now she could let herself cry. Hunched over the steering wheel, head pressed against the laced cover, she felt despair lapping at her. But to her eternal misery, not one tear squeezed itself from her eyes.

  * * * * *

  Mark prowled the length of the hotel ballroom, the chocolate delicacies filling the linen-draped tables a blur. He hadn’t so much as tasted a morsel in the thirty minutes he’d been here, so keyed up the thought of chocolate turned his stomach. All his thoughts centered on Kat, what had happened on her sofa, where she was now.

  The room was packed with smiling, laughing, happy people. Long rectangular tables covered in crisp white lined every inch of available wall space, each one heaped with treats from Denham and Roth. Round tables dotted the middle of the room, offerings from some of the smaller, specialty candy makers arrayed across them. Swarms of people collected around the tables, filling small plates with chocolate, sampling the candy as they sipped champagne.

  A stage had been set up at one end and a jazz band played Benny Goodman. Phil and Patti Roth stood near the stage with Mark’s parents and Fritz and Norma, the lot of them thick as thieves.

  God, she wasn’t going to show. He never should have driven off without her. But he was just as shaken as she was at the realization that they’d had unprotected sex. The thought of Kat pregnant had utterly terrified him for the first fifteen minutes. It wasn’t until he drove away that he realized how perfect it would be. He loved her. That she might have his baby seemed absolutely perfect.

  Even if it was all a false alarm. It might not have been the right time of the month, his little swimmers might not have hit their target. Still, Kat expecting his baby was a damn good idea.

  If she’d only show up. He reached the far side of the ballroom and turned back the other way. He still had the little matter of the merger to discuss with her. Until they cleared the air on that issue, they couldn’t move on to their relationship. He should have told her at her condo, but she’d looked so delicious in that shiny chocolate brown dress, his mind surrendered control to Mr. BVD the instant he saw her. Next thing he knew, they were both staring at a broken condom.

  He thought he caught a glimpse of Kat by the door, but the shifting crowd got in his way. Serpentining through the meandering bodies, he made his way toward the entrance, spying fractured images of sleek brown hair, a bare shoulder, a slender arm. He was pretty sure it was her, but his tension didn’t ease until the crowd by the door cleared, revealing Kat in her slinky chocolate gown.

  She reached for him the moment she saw him. He took her hand and led her from the ballroom. In a quiet room next door, a few busboys cleared the tables from an earlier event. Mark drew her inside and back into a secluded corner.

  He took her in his arms, his heart pounding as he held her slim body. Hard-as-nails Kat, who could chew up a business adversary and spit him out, seemed as fragile and vulnerable as spun sugar. She trembled under his hands and he pulled her even closer, wanting to cocoon her in his protection.

  She finally eased back, a weak smile on her face. “Still a little shaky,” she said, her fingers tight on his arms. “Probably worrying about nothing. I checked... My last cycle... I should be okay.”

  “Either way, sweetheart, we face it together.”

  “But if I’m not...you and I...” She looked away. “We wouldn’t have to be together.”

  He cupped her face with his hands, waited until she met his gaze. “This isn’t just about a baby.”

  She tried to pull away. “No. It’s about sex.”

  He took her shoulders, keeping her with him. “You mean a hell of a lot more to me than sex.”

  “Okay, great sex.” She twisted her body, trying to shake him. “Monumental sex.”

  He’d hurt her if he didn’t let her go. He rel
axed his hold. “It hasn’t been just sex for a long time. Not for me.”

  He had to shout the last few words because she just about ran from the room to escape. I love you echoed in his mind, the unsaid words an ache in his heart.

  He’d intended to lay out the facts of the merger, get all that nastiness on the table and out in the open before he said a word about a future for him and Kat. But he’d botched that. He hadn’t had a chance once he saw her in that melted chocolate dress, felt her trembling body in his arms. Now he had to retrieve her from the ballroom again and take her to another quiet corner.

  Back in the noisy, packed room, the multitudes seemed to have increased. He didn’t immediately spot Kat, and for a brief moment of panic he wondered if she’d just gone home. He caught sight of her near the stage just as Phil Roth and Mark’s father stepped up to the mike.

  An early warning system clamored in the pit of Mark’s stomach and the urgency to get to Kat flared. But Phil and Ian up on stage had caught the attention of the crowd and the hordes seethed toward that end of the room, blocking Mark’s way. He had to elbow his way through the sardine tin of bodies to make any progress at all.

  He must have sent thought vibes Kat’s way because she turned and her gaze locked briefly with his. Then Phil tapped on the mike and asked, “Can everyone hear me?” and she turned away again.

  Disaster was looming and Mark faced a wall of humanity between him and Kat. Every route he took through the mass of people dead-ended and he had to continually backtrack, losing forward progress. But he had to get to her.

  Phil Roth beamed up on the stage. “I’d like to thank you all for being here. Kandy for Kids has been a phenomenal success and with tonight’s receipts, we’ve raised an incredible one point eight million dollars!”

  Applause swelled in the room. Mark was starting to sweat under the heavy jacket, the heat radiating from so many bodies stifling.

  Ian Denham stepped up to the microphone. “In addition to Kandy for Kids’ spectacular triumph, Roth Confectionery and Denham Candy have another exciting, stupendous announcement to make.”