He waited. Heard nothing but controlled breathing.
“I swear to god, man, if you are just f…fooling around with my sister, I will put you in the hospital.”
Glancing over his shoulder at Sarah, who was still holding a pillow over her face, he felt his stomach do the slow dip and roll he’d gotten used to feeling whenever he looked at her. God knows, he wouldn’t have ended up in this mess over a woman he was “fooling around” with.
“That’s not what’s happening here, bro. I promise you that.” Before Tyler could get rolling with questions about what was happening, he cut him off. “Go to bed, big brother. She’s safe.”
“I seriously doubt that,” was Tyler’s comeback before he clicked off.
Pushing the phone in the general direction of the table, he winced as it missed the edge and bounced off the floor with a sharp plastic crack. The sound must have carried because Sarah lifted the pillow an inch off her face and peered out from under it as if to determine whether or not the coast was clear.
“So, do I have time to put on some pants before he gets here or should I just try to sprint for the El naked?”
He reached over her to switch off the piercing light of the lamp. Eyes relaxing as soon as darkness swallowed the room again, he wrapped his arms around her and rolled onto his back, pulling her on top of him.
“He’s not coming.”
“Really? How did you manage that?” Her hair waterfalled down around his face as she leaned over him.
“It’s a guy thing. You gotta insult each other, toss out a few threats and then offer to pick up the tab.” He skimmed a finger down the curve of her breast and felt her stomach pull away from him as she sucked in a sharp breath.
“Well, damn. I’ll have to remember that for next time.” She shifted on top of him until she straddled his lap, her arms braced to either side of him.
“Doesn’t work for chicks,” he threw out on purpose and then whoofed as she elbowed him again, this time in the stomach.
“I’m not a chick.” She cuffed his wrists with her hands and pulled them over his head. He was more than willing to cooperate. In fact, he could be even more annoying if it would inspire her to continue in this vein.
“Whatever you say, girlie. But you sure feel like a broad to me.” He hoped she couldn’t see his grin in the dark. When he felt her shake with silent laughter over him, he knew she wasn’t buying it, but she surprised him by playing along.
“That’s it.” She bent down to place her teeth on his collarbone and bite, just hard enough to spike the wave of pleasure that rolled through him. “Now you’re in trouble. Get ready to beg for mercy.”
Her mouth trailed over his chest, awakening every nerve in his body to the slow sweep of her warm, wet kisses and the sensual tickle of her long hair. She held his wrists in one hand now and scraped her nails down his triceps and the sensitive skin of his underarm, wringing a gasp from him before continuing over his ribcage, skimming past his hip and closing her hand gently around him in a slow, deliberate gesture that stopped his breath.
His body surged gently, rhythmically against the strength of her palm. By the time he could breathe again, his hands were free and he filled them with her delicate breasts, the curved rope of her hair, any piece of her he could get a hold of as she slowly drove him mad.
The length of her was plastered to his side as she kissed him and caressed him, her mouth on his, her hand circling him.
“I’ll beg. Whatever you want.” Sharp, urgent groans punctuated his harsh breaths. “Just. Don’t. Stop.”
When she did, he thought the tension twisting his muscles would shatter. He reached for her.
Only to sink into the tight, wet heat of her as she slid herself down and took him inside her in one smooth stroke.
“I won’t.” Her whisper was a siren’s song in the dark, a silky promise that lived in the rocking motion of her body over his. His hands slid down to her bottom and moved with her, lifting and falling until he heard her breath grow ragged and felt her body tighten around him. Sliding a hand in between them, he stroked her until she stiffened and let out a sharp cry. He grabbed her hips and moved her faster above him as he pushed into her with a few final of sharp thrusts. The spill of his release was a lightning bolt that electrified his entire body.
Sweaty flesh slid against the same as she dropped on top of him. He was careful to keep himself inside her as he rolled them both onto their sides. Her arm draped limply over him as she lay with her eyes closed, breath easing back to normal as he trailed fingertips up and down the length of her spine.
Every once in a while she shivered at his touch.
“Thank you for making me stay,” she whispered without opening her eyes.
The soft words of gratitude were a knife in the gut. It was harder to ignore the guilt with her curled up quietly next to him, their bodies still warm and connected in the aftermath of their lovemaking.
“Thanks for staying.”
At least those words were true. He’d been as careful as he could to stick with statements that were half-truths at least, telling himself that what he was doing was somehow not as bad if he avoided any flat-out lies. But the flush of relief he felt at saying something as simply true as “thank you for staying” made it clear to him that he knew he was lying, half-truths or not.
Sarah fell asleep in his arms, wrapped around him as her body sank into his, her slackening muscles resting heavily against him. J.D. felt the gentle weight of her like a lead plate on his flattening sense of honor.
There was no way around it. However he had managed to convince himself that this lie was just a joke, it sat in the middle of any road the two of them might choose to follow like an out of commission CTA bus.
He would tell her in the morning. He had to.
Matters would become academic, at least, with Tyler. He could hardly stay pissed if they were pursuing some kind of real relationship even without the encouragement of a mock wedding ring. Of course, that depended on Sarah’s reaction to the news that J.D. had been perpetrating a fraud upon her for the past forty-eight hours.
The sky was lightening over the spiky towers of the city skyline before he fell asleep, dread still a churning ball of acid in his stomach, telling himself that the sooner he cleared the air the easier he would feel.
He didn’t believe it for a second.
His only hope was that he hadn’t screwed this up so royally that Sarah couldn’t find a way to forgive him, maybe even find a shred of humor in the ridiculous depth of his bad judgment.
Within five minutes of waking up the next morning, however, he was reminded of exactly why the lie kept getting out of hand.
He crawled out of sleep to a quiet song of morning noises that were unfamiliar in his normally silent home. Glass clinking. The sucking sound of a refrigerator door peeling open. Sharp clicks followed by brief slapping noises that his brain eventually identified as the sound of high heels on a hard floor. The low murmur of a voice.
Rolling over, he slid his hands across empty sheets.
Sarah.
The various sounds resolved themselves into the picture of a woman dressed for work, making coffee with cream in the kitchen. Maybe saying hello to the cat on her way out the door.
He groaned from deep in his gut and forced himself to sit up. The decision he’d made hung over him and killed any thoughts of pretending he hadn’t woken up before she left.
Downstairs, he walked up behind Sarah as she rinsed out her coffee mug in the sink and wrapped his arms around her, knowing she’d heard his approach. The lure of drawing out the last moments of calm before the storm worked on him.
“Morning,” she said and twisted around to reach his mouth for a brief kiss. “I didn’t want to wake you, but I’ve got to run.”
“I know.”
He let go of her and stepped to the side, watching as she reached for another mug from the cabinet and poured him a cup of coffee without asking. She smiled as she handed him
the mug and then reached for the winter coat she’d draped over the trestle table.
This was not going to be easy.
“Before you leave, Sarah.” He stopped and she glanced up at him, pausing as she rearranged some paperwork before shoving it into the zippered pocket on the front of her carry-on suitcase. He hadn’t noticed that she’d gathered all her things, and the sudden realization that there’d be nothing of hers left behind once she walked out his door sparked a moment of panic, which was weird. He’d paid off the driver and brought her suitcase inside when she’d gone exploring upstairs the night before.
“You were pretty confident last night.” She grinned as she said it.
He was still hung up on the fact that she was about to take her things and go.
“You’re all packed up.”
She raised her eyebrows at his tone.
“Well, I do have to go home at some point. However unusual our situation is,” she said, “you didn’t mean for me to just stay here, permanently, right?” And she laughed to let him know she was joking.
He hadn’t, had he?
Of course not. He didn’t really want to be married to her, not yet at least, after the equivalent of a couple dates.
And two decades of knowing each other, the devil’s advocate in him whispered.
No, he wasn’t crazy, not at all.
But then why did the sight of her packed suitcases make him want to bar the door?
Why this sudden urge to protest that she was home?
“No, you’re right. Of course.” His hands were awkward as he fumbled with the spoon and dumped sugar he didn’t use into the coffee he kept around only for guests. Not that he’d had any here before Sarah. The spoon clanked loudly against the ceramic mug. He began abruptly, “Listen, Sarah. About our being married—”
“Oh, god, just please tell me you’re not going to say anything to my brother.” She grabbed his forearm with one hand and squeezed. Her hair smelled like his shampoo and warm sunlight and she’d pinned it up in a twist that looked efficient and librarian-sexy. “You have to promise me you won’t tell him.”
The faintest tickle of irritation scratched at him.
“Why?”
“I’m certainly not going to tell him. Jesus, J.D., you know my family. They don’t exactly hold back, you know? If you tell him at lunch, it’ll be all over town before you can say, ‘Check, please.’ And when he tells my mother…” Her eyes flared wide with real panic. She stepped into him until they stood toe-to-toe and tilted her head back to drill him with a look. “You tell him, he tells my mother. And she…just. No. No talking about this.”
He smacked the mug down on the table and flinched as the hot coffee slopped over the back of his hand.
“Listen, people do crazy, dumb things all the time, way worse than this,” he began, but she interrupted.
“Not. Me.” She enunciated the words with precision. “Not like this. And certainly not with a guy like you.”
She said it like he’d magically sprouted a prison record and a bad case of venereal disease while he wasn’t looking.
“Well, forgive me for being such a bad catch, Ms. I’ve Got a Secret Tattoo On My Ass.”
He tried to keep his voice light but the words tasted like ashes in his mouth. She was so damn superior, in her neat little suit, with her neat little hair, ready to head out the door to her neat little nine-to-five job, clearly horrified by the thought that anyone might believe she’d made a leap and attached herself to him in anything more serious than a casual fling.
He was supposed to be apologizing, throwing himself on the altar of her mercy and groveling for forgiveness, for crying out loud. But her comments kept on poking him in that sore spot, the one that still remembered the shame of being the kid whose dad was found passed out on their front stoop one morning because he’d been too drunk to get his key in the lock.
Meanwhile, she was rolling her eyes at him, as if she couldn’t understand why he was being deliberately stupid.
“One, it’s not on my ass. Two, we went over all of this the other morning. It’s not that they don’t like you. They love you. They just wouldn’t love you for me. Or at least, not like this. This reckless, out of nowhere, not thinking it through thing. For Christ’s sake, J.D., even if you’re right and your divorce is final, you’ve still got this charming ex-wife following you around the country. Fuck.”
“I’m not an idiot, Sarah. Contrary to what you apparently believe. Lana thinks I can get her a part, so she’s just flirting with me so I’ll agree to help her. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just habit with her.” He grabbed a paper towel off the roll and wiped up the coffee he’d splashed on the counter. “But I spent three days in Santo Domingo. I went to the courthouse twice. It was a real court, with a real judge, and I got a real goddamn divorce.”
Her movements were brisk as she buttoned her coat.
“Well, she seems pretty damn interested in spending time with you again. She was pretty eager to spend time with you in Vegas. For all you know, she’ll be knocking on your door five minutes after she figures out you’re back here.”
Sarah slung her med bag over her shoulder and jerked the handle of the suitcase from its recessed compartment. She stopped next to him and for a moment he thought she might actually lean in and kiss him. Then she straightened and headed to the door, the heels of her boots rapping sharply on the floor as she wheeled the suitcase behind her.
She paused before leaving and turned back to look at him.
“Just keep this between us for now, okay?” she said. “I’ll call you later. I gotta go.”
He debated a cheap parting shot, something charming about whether she’d left the cash on the night table, but settled for a tight shrug and a precisely controlled gesture of his own at her back.
“She wants to keep things between us, huh?” he said to the cat, who’d emerged from hiding just in time to take his side. He reached for his cell phone.
“Hey, Tyler.” He looked at the light streaming in the windows. It looked to be a clear winter morning in Chicago. “Yeah, I know it’s early. Get your ass out of bed and let’s make it breakfast, okay? I’ve got a frigging physical therapy session at eleven.”
* * *
“I slept with J.D.” Sarah announced, bracing herself for the explosion.
Her sisters did not disappoint.
“Hey, this is a public place. Watch your language,” she hissed into the resulting cacophony, and raised a guilty, apologetic hand to the woman who was sitting at the table next to them with her two toddlers.
Her two sisters, older married Addy and younger single Maxine, were throwing fairly typical questions at her, although she would have expected each to have given voice to the other’s words.
“Was it good?” Addy leaned forward over the table with a predatory look about her. Then she rolled her eyes and sat back. “What am I saying? Of course it was good. Just look at him. And look at you, glowing girl. But feel free to tell us how good.”
Funky, imaginative Maxie must have been playing the concerned maternal role today, because she just held Sarah’s hand. “Are you okay, sweetie? I’m a little worried about you.”
Sarah retrieved her hand and sat back with her arms crossed over her chest, pursing her lips and staring at her baby sister. Maxie’s brows were knit together and her hands were clasped, prayerlike, in front of her, but she could only keep it up for a minute beneath Sarah’s pointed gaze. The younger woman’s mouth twitched, and though she clamped her lips together, the corners of her mouth tipped up until at last she balled up her napkin, whipped it at Sarah’s head, and burst out laughing.
“Hey!” Addy was the one to scold now. “Try not to get us tossed out of Grace’s restaurant, will you?” she said, referring to their sister-in-law, who was scheduled to join them at any moment.
“Damn it, Sarah, you can always make me break!” Maxie reached for her water glass and swigged it down. “That’s why you’re not allowed to
sit in the front row at my plays anymore. Go on, tell us about your night of passion with the smokin’ hot J.D.”
“Nights, plural.”
Hoots and long low whistles broke out just in time for Grace to demand to be let in on the joke as she walked up to the table.
“No fair starting the gossip before I get here. Put that menu down,” she smacked the leather folder out of Addy’s hands. “You know Chef has a hissy fit if we don’t let him go all-out for our lunches.”
“But I can’t eat another seven-course meal,” Sarah protested. “I only have an hour for lunch today. I’m not kidding.”
“You’d better eat fast then,” was Grace’s unsympathetic response as she slid a chair out and sat down. “So, come on. Spill it. Who did what? Or should I be asking who did who?”
Three heads swiveled like weathervanes to point directly to Sarah. She felt just like she did when the dentist switched on the blinding light above her face and told her to open up, “this won’t hurt a bit.”
Except the dentist didn’t make her blush.
“I slept with J.D. in Vegas.”
Having to repeat yourself was the punishment you received for opening the meeting without having a full quorum.
Grace lifted her open hands in the air like she was raising the roof. “That was my idea, thank you.”
“It was what?” She loved her sister-in-law. Which meant it was a shame she’d have to kill her.
“Well, it would have been my idea, if you hadn’t come storming into the pub all G.I. Jane on us that afternoon before you guys left for Vegas.” Grace waved Sarah’s protests away. “J.D. had just told us about the kiss, and Tyler was pissed because that wasn’t what he was supposed to do with you, but I was about to tell J.D. to go for it. I figured what you really needed was a good, sweaty wrestle between the sheets.” She framed Sarah with two hands like J.D. lining up a perfect shot with his camera. “And you see how good it was for you? So, technically, it was my idea.”
Calling His Bluff Page 15
