by Joanne Rock
“I’ll bet they won’t mind billing you for a fondue pot if I bring it upstairs with me.”
Releasing her feet, he pushed back from the table in a hurry. He took the sauce from her, securing it under one arm, and then pulled out her chair to give her more room to stand.
A gentleman.
“No.” He put a hand on her back and guided her away from the staircase. “Your room this time. You’ve got that big tub for afterward, and I think we’re going to need it.”
A thrill shot through her. Something about this new pact she’d made with herself—to live in the moment and store up these memories—made her bolder. More willing to take chances with him and see what happened.
He was already prepared to walk away from their engagement in three more weeks, so why not at least ask for the things she wanted in a way she never had before? Chocolate sauce all over Dempsey... It was the stuff of fantasies.
Except once they closed the door to her bedroom, he set her decadent treat on the glass top of a double dresser, and then spun her in his arms. A whirlwind of raw masculinity, he hauled her up in his arms and carried her toward the large bathroom, his eyes blazing with undeniable heat.
“Dessert?” she asked, walking her fingers up his chest, her breathing unsteady at the feel of his arms around her.
“It’s going to have to wait,” he growled. “If you wanted slow and sweet, you shouldn’t have looked at me like that over the dinner table.”
A laugh burst free, but it turned into a moan as he settled her on the vanity countertop and stepped between her legs.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she teased, her mouth going dry as he bunched up the fabric of her skirt and snapped the band on her panties with a quick tug.
Fire roared over her skin.
“The look you gave me?” He passed her a condom a second before he dropped his pants. “It said you wanted me right here.” He slid a finger inside her.
The condom fell from her fingers. She wound her arms around his neck, needing more of him. All of him. Her heartbeat pounded so fiercely she felt light-headed. She pressed her breasts to his chest, doing her best to shrug out of the bodice. He must have retrieved the condom because she could feel the graze of his knuckles against her while he rolled it into place.
And then he was deep inside her.
His thrusts were hard, fast, and she loved every second of being with him. She held on tight, meeting his movements with her own as she caught glimpses of them moving together reflected in the mirrors all around. His powerful shoulders all but hid her from view from the back. But from the side, she saw her head thrown back, her spine arched to lift her breasts high. He ravished them thoroughly, one hand palming the back of her scalp while the other guided her hip to his.
Again and again.
“Let me watch you, Addy,” he whispered in her ear, his breath harsh. “Come for me.”
And she did.
Pleasure burst through her with fiery sparks, one after the other. He followed her, muscles flexing everywhere as he joined her in that hurtle over the edge.
His hand swept over her back, holding her close, his forehead falling against hers. She clutched at the fabric of his shirt, amazed that he was still half-dressed.
When she caught her breath, she pulled back, looking up at him. She wasn’t sure what she expected—a smile, perhaps, for the crazy bathroom sink encounter. But she hadn’t expected the seriousness in his eyes. Or the tenderness.
There was a connection there. A moment of recognition that sex hadn’t been just about fun and pleasure. Something bigger was happening. She felt it, as much as she didn’t want to. Did he?
Maybe he did. Because just then he blinked. But the moment had passed. The look had vanished. His expression was now carefully shuttered.
She knew it would be wisest, safest, to pretend that moment had never happened. To keep things light and happy and work on stockpiling those memories before she left to start over—a new career, a new life.
But it took every ounce of willpower she possessed to simply call up a smile.
“Where did that come from?” She walked her hands down the front of his chest, admiring his strength.
His beautiful body.
“I missed you today,” he said simply. “It didn’t feel right, starting our day off arguing.” He shifted positions and helped her down from the counter.
They cleaned up and she followed him into the bedroom. She sprawled on the California king–size mattress beside him, pulling pins out of her hair and setting them on the carved wood nightstand.
“Well, I sure don’t feel like arguing after that amazing meal and the...rest.” She laid her head on his chest and listened to his heartbeat.
In some ways, she would miss these moments even more than the torrid, tear-your-clothes-off encounters. A swell of emotions filled her, and she couldn’t resist kissing the hard, muscular plane.
This, right now, was her best memory so far. Being cradled in his arms and breathing in the pine scent of his soap.
“All day it was on my mind, how much I wanted to get home and fix things with you.” He stroked fingers through her hair.
That moment of connection in the bathroom? Could he feel it even now?
But she knew him well. Knew that he’d pushed away his other lovers once they started to get too close. Expect more from him. As his friend, she wouldn’t follow that same path. There had to be some way to salvage at least their friendship when this was all over.
“I have the perfect stress reliever that will make you feel better about your day.” She sat up on the bed, letting her hair fall over her shoulder now that she’d taken it all down.
Light spilled in from the bathroom, casting them in shadows. They’d eaten dinner late after the game and she knew he’d have to watch his game film soon.
“My stress faded as soon as I got you alone.” His wicked grin made her heart do somersaults.
“Take off your shirt and turn over,” she commanded, already plunging her fingers under the hem of his T-shirt.
“Yes, ma’am,” he drawled, his eyes lighting with warmth again as he dragged the cotton up and over his head.
“You know how they say chocolate is good for the soul?” She retrieved the dessert sauce and dipped a finger in the warm liquid.
“I think it’s books that are good for the soul.” He propped his head on a pillow, his elbows out.
“Well, chocolate is good for mine.” She traced the center of his spine with her finger, painting a line of deliciousness and then following it with her tongue. “But I think you’re going to like this, too.”
An hour later, she’d proved chocolate was good for everyone. Dempsey had bathed her afterward, whispering sweet words in her ear while he washed her hair.
She felt sated and boneless by the time he slipped from her bed to put in the necessary hours at his job. She hated that he couldn’t sleep with her all night, but in some ways, she wondered if it was for the best. She could tell herself that he had to work to do, and maybe that would make the hole he’d left in her heart a little more bearable.
* * *
Dempsey was still thinking about Adelaide the next day when he arrived at Gervais’s house to meet with his brothers. Physically, he stood outside the downstairs media room and made himself a drink at the small liquor cabinet in the den. But mentally, his brain still played over and over the events of the night before.
Mostly, he thought back to that electric shock he’d felt when he’d looked into her eyes and the earth shifted. He couldn’t write off that moment when he’d never experienced if before with any other woman. He had feelings for Adelaide. And that was going to complicate things in more ways than he could imagine.
“Dude.” Jean-Pierre strode into the den behind
him. “You’re getting old when that passes for a drink. I come to town once in a blue moon. You can do better than—” he held up the bottle to read it “—coconut water? You’d better turn in your man card.”
“I get the last laugh when I live longer.” Dempsey set down his drink to give his brother a light punch in the stomach, a favored family greeting that their grandfather had started when they were kids.
Jean-Pierre returned with a one-two combination that—while still mostly for show—made Dempsey grateful he maintained a rigorous ab workout. Of all his brothers, he was closest to Jean-Pierre, making him the only one in the family he still punched.
“You’ll be a hundred and five and wishing you’d had more fun in your life,” Jean-Pierre joked, going straight for the scotch decanted into cut crystal. “I’ve got transportation home tonight, so I don’t mind if I crack open the stash Gervais likes to hide at the back of the cabinet.”
“You have no idea where I hide my real stash.” Gervais stalked out of the media room, where game film seemed to run on a continuous loop during the regular season. “I leave the swill out when I know the hard drinkers are coming.”
Gervais hugged their brother.
“Did someone say swill?” Henri ambled out of the media room, where he must have been already watching film with Gervais. “Sounds like my kind of night—as long as I don’t have to drink with any holier-than-thou New York players.”
Even as he said it, he one-arm hugged Jean-Pierre. The two of them were more competitive with the rest of the world than each other. It had always made Dempsey a little sick inside to see them go up against one another on the field, since he genuinely wanted both of them to win. They were incredibly gifted athletes who, in a league full of gifted athletes, walked on a whole different plane.
“Sit,” Gervais ordered them. “You are busy and it’s rare we’re all together. I’d like to deal with the issue at hand first so we can relax over dinner.”
“Relax?” Jean-Pierre lounged sideways in one of the big leather club chairs arranged around the fireplace in the den. “Who can relax while Gramps is struggling to remember his own grandsons?”
The mood shifted as they each gravitated toward the spots they’d always taken in the room from the time they were kids and Theo would call them in for talks. Or, more often, when they had run of the house because their father was on an extended “business trip” that was code for a vacation with his latest woman.
When the house had still belonged to Theo and Alessandra, most of the rooms had been fussy and full of interior-decorator additions—elaborate crystal light fixtures that hung so low the brothers broke something every time they threw a ball in the house. Or three-dimensional wall art that spanned whole walls and would scrape the skin off an arm if they tackled and pushed each other into it.
The den had always been male terrain.
Now Dempsey got them up to speed on his exchange with Leon at the Brighter NOLA fund-raiser.
Silence followed, each one of them ruminating on the possibility that Leon was in the early stages of dementia.
“You do take after Dad the most,” Henri offered from his seat behind the desk, Italian leather shoes planted on the old blotter. He lifted a finger from his glass to point at Dempsey.
His shoulders tensed. Every muscle group in his arms and back contracted.
“Henri,” Gervais warned.
“Seriously, he looks more like Dad. He has his walk, too. Grand-père might have been—”
“I am nothing like our father.” He had to loosen his hold on the cut-crystal glass before he shattered it.
He’d done everything to distance himself from Theo from the moment he’d arrived in this house as a teen. He could count the number of drinks he took in a year on one hand. As for women? He’d had contractual arrangements with every single one but Adelaide, and the time frames had never overlapped. There would never be a surprise child of his who would be raised alone. Separated from family.
“I know, man. But you’ve got the whole drama with the model going on the same week you get engaged. Maybe Leon just got a little muddled and—”
Dempsey was across the floor and knocking Henri’s feet off the desk before the sentence was done.
“Not. The. Same.” Fury heated the words.
“Seriously?” Henri put his drink down. “Are we going there? Because I’m not getting bounced off the team for some bullshit argument in the den, but if I have to pound you, I will.”
Dempsey had more to say to that, since any pounding that needed doing would be meted out by him. But Gervais clapped him on the shoulder.
“Henri just doesn’t want to face the fact that Leon isn’t indestructible. Maybe give him a pass today.” Gervais spoke calmly. Rationally.
And, probably, correctly.
No one wanted to think about their grandfather going downhill. They all loved the old man.
“I would never cut you for an argument in the den.” Dempsey extended the olive branch. “But just so we’re clear, I could still kick your ass.”
“Not responding.” Henri returned his feet to the desk. “So no one else thinks it could have been a momentary lapse for Leon? One mistake and he’s an Alzheimer’s patient?”
“It’s not just one. There were signs this summer, too,” Gervais reminded them. “He was going to see his doctor about it and he said it was a thyroid condition. If that’s the case, he needs to get his meds checked. But at this point, we might need to consider the idea that he’s not really taking care of himself.”
Dempsey drained his water, trying to focus on the conversation and let go of the dig about his overlapping affairs. Not that Henri had worded it that way, but damn. He’d worked so hard to distance himself from his father’s philandering ways. Did his brothers still see him as some kind of playboy type?
Clearly they had no idea how far gone he was over Adelaide. He couldn’t even imagine letting her go at the end of their engagement. By now he wasn’t even as concerned about replacing her as his assistant.
He couldn’t replace her in his bed. Or if he was honest with himself, his heart. She made him laugh. She understood his lifestyle and the huge demands of his job. She even made it easier for him to be around his family. That dinner with Gervais and Erika had been one of the most stress-free times he’d ever had with one of his brothers as an adult, perhaps because he wasn’t reading slights into the conversation the way he did today with Henri.
“Dempsey?” Jean-Pierre’s voice knifed through his thoughts. “What do you think we should do?”
“Spend as much time with him as we can.” It was all he knew how to do with people who weren’t staying in his life forever. He knew it was a crap plan even as he proposed it, but he hadn’t figured out anything better for keeping Addy around either.
Throughout the meal he shared with his brothers, he kept coming back to that point. He had no plan for convincing Adelaide to stay. He respected her for wanting to build her own business and he couldn’t in good conscience prevent it from happening for his own selfish ends. He had to find a way to help her that would be an offer she couldn’t refuse. A way to help her that wouldn’t make her feel as if he was taking the power out of her hands.
He understood that much about her.
But their time shared as a newly engaged couple had shown him how good they could be together, and he refused to walk away from that without giving the relationship more time. Every day he couldn’t wait to be with her. Even sitting around with his brothers in a rare meal where they were all in the same place, Dempsey was still picturing that moment when he would head home and see Addy.
She made sense in his life and she always had.
He would make a case for extending their engagement. No, damn it. He would propose to her for real. They had been friends. They’d worked together. He
counted on her.
Now? Their chemistry was off the charts and they brought each other a level of fulfillment that he’d never experienced before. Adelaide was a smart woman. She would understand why they worked together.
She had to.
Eleven
“I think it’s a great space, Adelaide.” Her mother walked through the riverside manufacturing facility that Adelaide could use for mass-producing knitwear. Della’s purple flip-flops slapped along the concrete floor.
“The square footage for offices is nice, too.” She headed toward the back of the building to show her mother. Her Realtor had opened the door for them as long as Adelaide would lock up behind them.
She was already subcontracting out a short run of shirts after her success with crowd funding, but the time had come to think bigger. And this space would be ideal, already containing a few machines she would refit for the kind of textile production she needed. She’d been approved for a small-business loan that would cover the cost of the building and her biggest start-up expenses, but it was still a big step and she wanted her mother’s opinion.
Lately, it felt as though her life was on fast-forward, and while it was exciting to have so many new options open to her, a part of her wished she could just stop for a minute and be sure she was making the best decisions. Dempsey jumbled all her thoughts lately, the passion they shared so much different from her old crush. She wasn’t sure if she trusted herself to move forward in any direction.
“What does Dempsey think about it?” Della asked, examining the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Mississippi in the largest of the offices.
“He hasn’t seen it yet.” She hated to admit as much, but he’d been so dismissive of her dreams before, so ready to leap in and save her from her own mistakes, that she wasn’t ready to share this with him.
Then again, maybe moving ahead with her business simply signaled an end to her time as Dempsey’s fiancée and she wasn’t sure if she was ready for it to be over.
