by Anson, Cris
A long time later, after two more orgasms, Giselle floated back to earth in Con’s arms, every atom of her body sated. Hovering between waking and sleep, she snuggled deeper into his embrace.
He stirred. “You know, I’ve never been in the middle of an earthquake before.”
“Mmm. Me neither.” Then her eyes popped open in the darkness as she assimilated his words. Yes, they’d had cataclysmic sex. But what must he think of her? They’d known each other only a few days. Would he think she’d been desperate to get laid because of her age?
As if he’d read her mind, he murmured into her ear, “I heard you make that comment to your foreman about how old you were. So just in case you were wondering, I’m thirty-two. Old enough to appreciate your maturity and life experience, and young enough to take advantage of it.”
“Oh.” She didn’t know how to respond, so she closed her mind to it and tried to relax enough to sleep. She needed to be ready for the morning and an uncomfortable conversation with Larry. Seven a.m. would come soon enough.
Chapter Three
From Giselle: I’m a cougar! At last! And all I can say is, WOW, did he rock my world! Several times. And did he look adorable with his face covered with, well,
At 6:30 she was in the kitchen in jeans, T-shirt and thick socks, savoring a second cup of coffee with a buttered bagel. She heard Larry keying open the outer door to the office that her husband had built as an addition to the main house. With a sigh she flipped open the deadbolt to the connecting door. He’d never been a half hour early before.
She wasn’t in the mood for this talk. She wanted to savor the aching muscles between her legs, wanted to remember Con’s murmured goodbye in the middle of the night, saying he didn’t want anyone to see him leaving and compromise her reputation.
Opening the door, she said, “You’re early. I don’t even have my workboots on yet.”
Thunder emanated from Larry’s eyes. “Who was that pipsqueak nerd on a bike? And what business did he have with you?”
Giselle tamped down an errant spark of anger. “I told you. He dropped off Aunt Esme’s income tax forms. They have to be in the mail this week.”
“So how come it took all afternoon and into the evening?”
Her back went straighter. “And how do you know how long Con was here?”
“I happened to drive by around dusk and his truck was still there.”
His accusatory tone of voice didn’t sit well with her. “Did it ever occur to you that I might have invited him to dinner since he was nice enough to deliver those papers personally?”
The sharp look he gave her made her take a step back.
“It might have, if the kitchen lights were on.”
She blinked. “Larry, what I do on my own time is none of your business.”
He took two steps forward, crowding her against the counter near the sink. Close up, his dark eyes glittered and the deep crows’ feet around his eyes stood out in stark relief. “Giselle, I’ve given you plenty of time for your grief. I miss Felix too. He was a great guy. But he’s been gone almost four years now, and I think it’s time you realize that I haven’t just been helping you out because I felt sorry for you.”
Her rigid stance softened. How to say this diplomatically? “I know, Larry, and I’m grateful to have such a loyal friend.”
“Friend, hell. Dammit, stop playing coy! You and I are well suited for each other. That kiss wasn’t all one-sided. You responded to me like a seedling does to the sun. I want more, Giselle. I want all of you.”
Stroking her cheek with a calloused finger, he cajoled, “You know you couldn’t have kept the business going without me. Not only do I keep the boys in line on the job, I order the supplies, approve the bills and hold the clients’ hands. I’ve always been there for you. We belong together.”
Giselle’s eyes went wide. “Larry—”
“That’s right, you didn’t even see what was right in front of you.” His voice softened. “I love you, Giselle, I wanted you the whole time you were working alongside Felix. It damn near killed me not to say anything, but Felix was my friend. So I made myself indispensable to him, so he’d keep me around. And after he died, I felt that I had a clear shot at you.”
“Larry, I never thought—”
He touched his lips to her temple. “Give me a chance. Let me take you out to dinner and talk about other things than landscaping. I bet you don’t even know my favorite song.”
Giselle didn’t know what to say. He was correct on so many levels. They had so much in common. They were more or less of the same era. And he’d eased her mind simply by always being there for her. On the other hand, megavolts of electricity had sparked between her and Con. Could she just have a fling and, when it burned out, come to Larry for a more prosaic life together?
Until the other day, she’d never had an inkling he felt this way. Yes, she loved him as a friend, as a foreman, but could she love him like a—like a husband? And he was correct. She didn’t know his music preferences. Or almost anything else. That had never been part of the equation.
“Larry, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say. You’re going to have to give me some time to think about—”
A noise in the outer office distracted her. The crew. One of them had probably come in to get the day’s plant list to load on the truck.
Larry’s gaze almost burned a hole through her retinas. “This discussion isn’t over.” He turned on his bootheel, leaving a scuff mark on her tile floor, and greeted one of the drivers gruffly as he stalked outside.
Giselle sat down heavily on the bench near the door to lace up her workboots. It was going to be damn uncomfortable working together until this was resolved. Sure, Larry was the most valuable of her employees, but she didn’t consider him indispensable. Over the years she’d gotten her hands dirty and fingernails broken, learned by osmosis working alongside her husband, taken college courses for landscape design, and now she considered herself almost as capable as Felix had been, Felix who had a degree in landscape architecture. The steady stream of her clients assured her of that.
What on earth was she going to do about her foreman?
* * * * *
“So how did you and Con Junior get along?”
“Get along?” Stifling the urge to squirm under Aunt Esme’s astute gaze, Giselle reached for another dill pickle spear. The 1040 was signed, sealed and waiting for Giselle to drop it at the post office, and Esme had invited her to stay for lunch. She should have known it was more than a familial gesture. The woman had a sixth sense about some things.
“Don’t tell me he needs glasses.”
Giselle’s mouth twitched. “I don’t know. He might be wearing contact lenses. I didn’t ask.”
“You watch your mouth, young lady. I could tell the moment he laid eyes on you that he was interested. His eyes lit up like a kid’s on Christmas morning.” She sat back with a smug smile. “Was I right?”
“Aha. So you tried to play cupid by making him trot around the county on his day off and deliver your income tax return to me instead of you. Am I right?”
The older woman shrugged. “Can you blame me? He’s a nice young man and you’re a woman ripe for a little masculine attention.” She sat back and waited.
Two could play this game, Giselle thought. She said nothing, merely sipped at her iced tea, although she could feel the heat gathering inside her belly as she remembered just how much masculine attention she had received at his hands…and mouth…and cock…
She also remembered Autumn’s answering blog and felt another surge of heat.
Honey, I rebuilt a ranch from scratch with Mitch and we still found time to tumble. And let me tell you, a hot bath may be great at the end of a long workday,
but a hot young stud is even better.
She hoped Aunt Esme never learned to read minds. She charged into the silence. “I only remember meeting Con Senior once, at Uncle Maurice’s funeral. Good-looking man, but I wouldn’t have guessed they were father and son.”
“Genetically, they aren’t. He married Con’s mother just before Con was born. The father got her ’in trouble’, as they used to say, and ran away to join the Marines. Got himself killed when the American embassy in Tehran was taken over by the Iranian militants.”
Giselle didn’t know what to say to that.
“She was seventeen.”
“Who?”
“Con’s mother. Brenda. When she had him. Poor thing, at least she lived to see him get established in his job.”
Giselle blinked. “Con’s mother is dead?”
“Breast cancer. By the time they discovered it, it was too late. Went—” Esme snapped her fingers. “Like that. It was about seven, eight years ago.”
The iced tea Giselle had been sipping tasted sour. Remembering the pain of her own mother’s death a dozen years ago, she could sympathize with such a sudden loss. She’d be extra-nice to him the next time they got together.
Chapter Four
From Giselle: Honestly, I feel like I was merely a bar pickup, a ”Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.” We fucked like sex-crazed maniacs, he sneaks out of bed in the middle of the night, and zero. Four days and nothing. You’d think he’d at least email me or leave me a voice mail saying, “Hey, it was great”. Hell, he doesn’t have to declare undying love, he could just ask me how my sunburn was. I mean, he spent enough time slathering aloe vera on me. Of course, half of it got rubbed off during—well, you know.
What do I do now? Take a line out of Erica Jong’s book and say, “I was just looking for a zipless fuck”? Or maybe he‘s bothered by the fact that I’m only five years younger than his deceased mother, a true child bride.
Crap. It’s almost midnight and I’m going to bed. The hell with Conlan Trowbridge and his outstanding ass.
Con reached for the eye drops again. It felt as though his corneas had fused to his eyelids. He’d been staring at numbers every waking moment since early Monday morning when he’d reluctantly crawled out of Giselle’s arms and into his smelly biking gear. He knew he shouldn’t have spent so much time there with the IRS deadline looming, but hell, he was a man who knew what he wanted, and he’d wanted Giselle. Even realizing he’d be burning the midnight oil the rest of the week, he’d do the same thing again.
Cursing all the idiots who waited until the last minute before deciding they needed their taxes done stat, he squeezed the soothing liquid into each eye and allowed himself a moment of self-pity. He’d barely had three hours’ sleep each of the last three nights, but the end was in sight. In twenty minutes it would be midnight on Thursday, the fifteenth of April, and anyone who hadn’t filed their federal income taxes by the witching hour was SOL.
He double-checked the figures once more and hit Send.
The irony wasn’t lost on him. His own taxes and he barely managed to get them filed under the wire. Thank heaven he’d been filing them electronically for the past few years and could do it practically in his sleep. He couldn’t imagine driving downtown to hand them to a poor postal employee stationed outside the only post office open until midnight to grab envelopes from frantic procrastinators and get them stamped in time.
The computer dinged a confirmation that his tax return had been received. With a heartfelt sigh, Con turned it off and dragged himself into the small room adjacent to his office. Just a short nap on the cot so he’d be awake enough to drive home, get a shower and then sleep for fourteen solid hours. Then he’d wake up and go for a thick sirloin at the local steakhouse. He was damn sick and tired of power bars and protein shakes.
He unbuttoned his wrinkled Brooks Brothers shirt, whipped off his belt and shoes and collapsed onto the cot.
* * * * *
From Autumn: Listen, Giselle, get out your calendar. Can you say April 15 tax deadline? The guy’s a CPA. Give him a break. I guarantee you he’s hard as a spike trying to focus on numbers instead of you.
She felt like a fraud tracking him down in his office to ask him a bogus question, but the cougars had assured her it was a legitimate way to contact him. She only hoped it didn’t sound too contrived.
Her taxes had been filed by the end of March, both the business and her personal forms. The business had finished the year in the red, but only because her accountant insisted she take a salary which, of course, she had to pay taxes on. She’d argued that she didn’t need it because she still had a small nest egg from Felix’s life insurance policy, the bulk of which was paying for her two sons’ college education. Still, she was able to follow the woman’s reasoning and acquiesced to her suggestions. So who was to say it was implausible to ask Con if she’d taken the correct course of action?
Aunt Esme had given her directions to Con’s office, the entire second floor of an attractive, colonial-style mansion-turned-office-building within walking distance of the county courthouse. With her documents in hand, she climbed the wide staircase and there it was, a discreet bronze plaque engraved “Trowbridge & Trowbridge CPAs”. Light glowed through the translucent glass in the door. She turned the handle and entered. Table lamps on both sides of the waiting room sofa were lit, but no one sat at the receptionist’s desk and its computer screen was dark.
“Hello?”
It felt…abandoned. But still, the door had not been locked and lights blazed here and in the hallway ahead. She called out again and heard a sound like an intermittent buzz. A malfunctioning fluorescent bulb? A radio pulling in only static? Snoring?
“Hello? Con?”
Venturing into the hallway, she heard a crash then a muted curse.
Damn, was she going to be one of those too-stupid-to-live heroines out of a romantic suspense novel? Spinning on her heel, she’d taken two steps back to the reception room, intent on putting distance between herself and trouble, when she heard Con.
“Giselle? What are you doing here?”
Whirling around, she gaped at the man staggering down the hall toward her, wrinkled dress shirt open and hanging limply to his hips, T-shirt partially out of his beltless, half-buttoned trousers, hair sticking out every which way like a rat’s nest, with what looked like several days’ growth of beard darkening his jaw. God, he looked all rumpled and sleepy-eyed, younger and more vulnerable than she could wrap her mind around. But sexy as sin.
Her pussy spasmed at the memory of them in bed together and her heart stuttered. “Are you all right? You look like—” She clamped her mouth shut on the word hell. It was more like shit anyway.
He raised both hands to his head, his fingers making different furrows as they plowed through the disheveled mess. “What time is it?”
“Almost one.”
“In the morning?”
She gestured to the window. He blinked at the sunshine streaming in. “Afternoon. I’ll ask again. Are you all right?”
“As right as I can be after spending eighty-five out of the last ninety-five hours in front of the computer. Damn last-minute taxpayers, each thinking they were the only one on my to-do list.”
“Oh.” Giselle glanced around the reception room. “Do you have a coffeepot?”
Con’s eyes lit up as if someone had pushed the bright-headlights lever on a car. He gestured back toward the hallway. “First door on the left. A kitchenette. Thank you. Um, excuse me. I’ll be right back.”
He stumbled in the direction he’d come from and she busied herself with the coffeepot. Boy, did she feel stupid. Of course he’d be too busy to call her the last three days before the IRS deadline. Hadn’t the cougar challenge ladies reminded her of it? As the coffeemaker started making burbling sounds, she heard water running. He was probably in the powder room, no doubt splashing his face trying to wake up. Must have fallen asleep at his desk, the poor, dedicated soul.
He st
aggered back out, his hair wet and finger-combed into some semblance of order, his eyes still at half-mast, drops of water caught on his beard stubble. She thrust a cup of steaming black coffee into his hand. “Here. Drink this. It’ll wake you up.”
“Yes, Mother.” He grabbed it with both hands and lifted it eagerly to his mouth.
Giselle went rigid. Mother.
Oh no. Had he come on to her because she reminded him of his mother?
Good grief, girl, get a hold of yourself. He hadn’t objected to their age difference. In fact, he’d flat out told her before they fell asleep in bed together that he appreciated it. Why on earth did she have to manufacture problems where none existed?
Still, she’d come on him unawares. Maybe now wasn’t a good time to pick up where they left off. He needed to get his head on straight. Go home and shower, and probably sleep another ten hours. And get his stamina back.
Because as sure as taxes, she wanted to be with him again.
She watched as he wandered into one of the offices, still looking like a sleepwalker, his eyes closed in a nirvana of caffeine. That decided her. She wrote him a brief note and eased out of the room, leaving the note clipped to her envelope of documents beside the coffeemaker. Just in case he needed an excuse to come around.
* * * * *
God bless good old Colombian roast, Con thought after guzzling a second cup of scorching-hot java. He was starting to feel human again, although every bone in his body ached from sleeping on that lumpy, skinny cot for—huh, must have been ten hours.
Stretching the kinks out of his muscles, he sauntered back into the reception room. “Giselle? Thanks for making the coffee. I really needed a kick-start today of all days.”
