Mother in Training

by Marie Ferrarella

  But God, she wanted him. Wanted Jack so much that in another moment there wasn’t going to be a shred of logic left in her head.

  “Wait.” It took everything within her to voice the cry, to make him stop just as he cupped her breast and sent all sorts of delicious sensations coursing madly through her system.

  At the sound of her voice, everything pulled up short inside of him. He knew it. Damn it, he knew. Knew he should have somehow harnessed himself. Knew he’d gone too far.

  He jerked back as if someone had jabbed a red-hot poker in his chest. “Zooey, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

  Why did he think she was saying no? Did he think she was some kind of mercurial tease? Someone who ran hot and cold almost simultaneously? She just wanted a change of venue, not of agenda.

  “My room,” she instructed breathlessly.

  Jack stared at her. His brain wasn’t processing. “Your room?”

  Maybe he had something against doing it there. It didn’t matter where they did it as long as the children couldn’t see them.

  “Or yours. I don’t care, but please, take me somewhere.” Before I implode or explode, or go all to pieces. “Just not here,” she added. She ran the tip of her tongue along her bottom lip, tasting him. “The children might…”

  Damn it, how could he have been so stupid? So self-absorbed and overwhelmed that he had forgotten Emily and Jackie could wake up and come wandering out of their rooms and down the stairs at any second?

  He might be a hell of a lawyer, but he was one sad example of what a father should be.

  “I—”

  Zooey put her finger to his lips, silencing anything he might have to say. She didn’t want to hear any further attempts at an apology, didn’t want anything to take away from the magic of the moment. Grasping his hand, she led Jack to the staircase.

  At the foot of the stairs, just as she was about to lead the way up, Zooey suddenly found her feet leaving the floor. Jack had lifted her into his arms. She looked at him in surprise.

  He resisted the temptation to kiss her again. The fact that her weight barely registered was a source of concern to him.

  “Don’t you eat?” he demanded. He hardly ever saw her take more than two bites in succession before she was up on her feet, attending to something. “You don’t weigh anything.”

  Zooey winked at him. “I do it all with smoke and mirrors.” She slipped her arms around his neck, thinking how nice this felt. Still, something within her prompted her to make a token protest. “I can walk.”

  “I know. I’ve seen you.” He also knew that given half a chance, Zooey would take complete charge of the situation, and a man needed to take the lead sometime.

  This was that sometime.

  Because this was going to happen. There was no point in pretending it wouldn’t. It was almost as if it was meant to, and the longer it was put off, the larger the resulting explosion threatened to be.

  If his logic proved to be faulty, he’d examine it tomorrow, in the light of day, when all secrets were exposed. All he knew was that in the soft glow of evening, he couldn’t resist her any longer.

  There was something about Zooey, some undefinable X factor that spoke to him, that jumped up and seized him by the throat, threatening to cut off his air supply permanently if he didn’t immerse himself in her.

  A man couldn’t live very long without his air supply.

  Jack brought Zooey into his bedroom, closing the door with his elbow. The click echoed in the quiet room as he set her down at the foot of his king-size bed.

  The moment he did, they came together, sealed to one another. Their bodies sent waves of heat shooting in all directions as his mouth once again closed over hers.

  His hands roamed her body as if to reassure him that she was actually there, that he was actually touching her.

  There was a breathlessness to it, to just being with her like this. Drowning in her.

  Anticipating more.

  There were no buttons on his shirt, Zooey realized. That made it easier. The material was loose and billowing and she managed to get it up over his head and off his body with a minimum of effort. His vest was already mysteriously gone, shed somewhere between the family room and the front door.

  The moment she dropped his shirt from her fingers, Zooey was certain she understood what a piece of toast unable to pop out of the toaster felt like. Just looking at him caused heat to radiate, nonstop, all over her. Doubling her body temperature and threatening to turn her into a piece of charcoal.

  Her breathing was quick, shallow, and growing more so as she felt his hands on her. He was removing her veils, trying to get down to her bare skin.

  “How many layers does this thing have?” There was exasperation in Jack’s voice.

  “Just one less than enough to make you insane,” she told him.

  One by one, the veils came off, leaving her vulnerable and wanting. The colorful scarves floated to the floor, creating a rainbow of fabric around them.

  Zooey shivered as she felt his strong, capable hands on her bare hips. She caught her breath as he tugged down the harem pants, leaving her in thong underwear that was all but transparent.

  And then in nothing at all, wearing only his hot gaze.

  He had the same feeling he’d had when he’d first looked at a sculpture of Venus while on a forced field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art years ago. Overwhelmed. Awed.

  Zooey’s body, devoid of clothing, was tight and sleek and firm. And he wanted her so badly he could barely breathe.

  This time when he kissed her, each kiss was more powerful than before, collecting momentum from the last, flowering into the next. Unable to keep still, his hands continued to roam almost worshipfully over her, touching, sampling, wanting.

  And all the while, Jack kissed her over and over again, completely absorbed by what he was doing. Immersed in the sight, the sound, the scent of her. Nothing else existed beyond that. Nothing else registered, save how soft her skin felt, how pliant her body was, and how, as she twisted and turned beneath him on his large, lonely bed, she sent tongues of fire shooting into his every single pore.

  Fueling him.

  Inspiring him.

  Unaccountably, Jack found himself doing things he’d never thought of doing, not even with Patricia.

  Patricia had been a good woman. A good wife. But their lovemaking had been unimaginative, right from the very beginning. He blamed himself for that. Pursuit of his career had taken all his energy. To appease the woman he’d married, he’d gone through all the required motions, the tried-and-true steps. They’d brought him to the desired conclusion, but left him unsatisfied. As they’d probably left her.

  But with Zooey, it was different. With Zooey, there were firecrackers. There were sparklers going off, lighting up the dark skies with wonder and an endless fountain of elation.

  He was certain he was dreaming. Imagining all of it.

  And yet it was real. As real as the woman of flash and fire here with him in his bed.

  He knew, by the frantic way she clawed at the silken, chocolate-colored comforter beneath her, by the way she twisted and arched, moaning in pleasure, that he had brought Zooey to more than one climax. He’d used everything at his disposal—his tongue, his lips, his fingers—doing things with her that he’d never attempted with Patricia.

  Yet here, with Zooey, it seemed right.

  And then, because each time she lifted her hips, grasping for him, he wanted nothing more than to be with her on this journey, he found he couldn’t hold back any longer. He’d stretched his endurance, his control, until it was a long, thin thread, threatening to snap.

  Moving her legs apart with his knee, while her eyes held him prisoner, Jack drove himself into her. Passion and desire slammed into him with the force of a hydrogen bomb. As she began to move, to moan his name against his mouth, Jack realized he was twice as lost within her as he’d been before.

  The journey to fulfillment was quick, euphori
c, and he found himself wanting both the sensation and the anticipation of that sensation to exist at the same time. Wanting it to continue forever, or as much of forever as he could manage to hang on to.

  Because he knew that logic and remorse waited for him just around the corner. More than anything, he wanted to elude both for as long as humanly possible.

  Longer.

  So after the last glorious sensation had shuddered through him, Jack gathered Zooey to him on the bed and held her for a very long time. Losing himself in the scent of her body, the silky way her hair felt against his skin.

  So this was paradise.

  This was what perfect felt like, Zooey thought, a sweet, dreamy sensation swirling through her as she curled her body into his.

  Jack wasn’t her first lover, but, she realized, he was her first love.

  She’d been engaged to Connor, coming together with him because at the time it seemed as if it was the thing to do. It was what everyone else wanted from her. She’d remained engaged to Connor, even though something inside of her had resisted, because she knew it would make her parents happy. Connor had not been without appeal. But you could only take a relationship so far because of a sense of responsibility. After that, it began to fall apart if its foundations weren’t based on anything solid. Anything real.

  Tonight was real. Very real. As were her feelings for Jack.

  She didn’t want to leave. Not his bedroom, not the moment. She knew that for the rest of her life, she was going to be trying to recapture this sensation. And the promise of finding it, of having it again, no matter how briefly, was what was going to sustain her.

  But even now, Zooey could feel Jack withdrawing. Pulling away from her. He wasn’t actually moving aside, but she could feel his body tightening. As if he was physically attempting to reconstruct the barriers that had disintegrated tonight. The barriers that normally stood between them.

  Too late, she crowed silently. You couldn’t unring a bell, and hers had been rung. Over and over again. What had happened between them had happened. And every wonderful, delicious, unexpected moment was forever sealed in her memory.

  Raising her head, Zooey looked at the man who was the father of the children she adored. An enigmatic smile played on her lips. She had no idea how that aroused him.

  “So,” she began, tracing her fingertip along his chest, “about the Christmas party…”

  How could she talk about parties, about anything, after what they’d just done? After what they’d just shared? “You’re kidding.”

  “Am I?”

  There was mischief in her eyes, and even though he knew he should be getting up, should somehow be trying to rummage through the ashes to find the bits and pieces of his life the way it had been only an hour ago, he couldn’t help being drawn to her again. Wanting her again.

  Zooey was strumming her fingers down his chest, stroking it lightly with the familiarity of a longtime lover, not someone who had only breached the wall a scant few minutes ago.

  He felt as if their souls had been together forever, even as he told himself he was being insane.

  Zooey gave him the benefit of her thoughts. There really was logic behind her teasing question. “Parties seem to bring out the best in you.” It certainly had tonight. “Or maybe it’s the costume.” Her eyes crinkled as she grinned. “How do you feel about putting on a Santa Claus suit?”

  Jack grabbed her hand to keep her from distracting him, and held on to it as he talked.

  “Oh, no,” he declared firmly. “This time, I mean it,” he added, in case she was actually serious. With Zooey, he had no clue, no way to second-guess her. Had she been on a jury he was pleading a case before, he would have been entirely uncertain how the verdict might go.

  She was unpredictable. He was the predictable one. Or at least, he would have said he was—until tonight. Until she’d taken his hand, led him to the stairs and managed to send him over the brink, into a land he had no previous knowledge of. He had nothing to help guide him. Nothing to light his way as he tried to navigate to a safe harbor.

  Being with Zooey didn’t make him feel safe. Didn’t make him feel complacent. But he discovered that for the first time in his life, being safe wasn’t all that important to him.

  Because of Zooey, inspired by Zooey, he found himself wanting to be reckless, daring.

  Wanting, he realized, to make love to her again. Because while he was making love with her, he didn’t have to think. All that was required of him was to react. And he could do that. With her.

  He gave her an alternative to her plan, just in case she was seriously entertaining the idea he was fairly certain she’d tossed out on a lark. “You can be Mrs. Claus, or one of the elves.”

  She wasn’t ready to give up her suggestion. “You’d look cute dressed up as Santa.” And then the gleam in her eye became positively wicked. “But I have to admit, you look even cuter not dressed at all.”

  Grasping her hips, he drew her over him until she was on top. “Funny, I was thinking the very same thing.”

  Her hair rained down around his face like golden sunbeams. “What else were you thinking?”

  He could feel himself hardening again. Wanting her. “Guess.”

  Zooey shifted ever so slightly, just enough to arouse him further. “I don’t think I have to. I think I might have a clue,” she told him, right before she brought her mouth down to his.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Morning!”

  Zooey sang out the greeting cheerfully when Jack finally walked into the kitchen the following morning. She was surprised he’d taken so long to come down. Even the children were up and ready and at the table before him.

  Maybe last night had worn him out, she thought with a smile. He’d been sleeping when she’d slipped out of his room, taking the precaution just in case Emily or Jackie woke up and went looking for either her or Jack. She’d been tempted just to lie there, watching him sleep, but sense won over temptation. This time.

  Zooey turned down the flame beneath the frying pan and the newest batch of French toast. She felt remarkably cheerful for a woman who had slept a total of six and a half, maybe seven, minutes the entire night. But she was still flying high on adrenaline and a double dose of euphoria.

  Last night had been like a dream come true. Jack had been everything she’d always thought a lover should be. Tender, kind and completely involved in ensuring her pleasure above his own. Given that, along with the fact that he was handsome and successful, she had no idea why this man didn’t have droves of women following him wherever he went.

  Whatever the reason, she was glad he didn’t, because she hated having to worry about how she measured up against another woman.

  As of this moment, she thought, watching Jack come in, life was absolutely perfect.

  She saw his eyes dart in her general direction. Jack barely nodded his head. Something that sounded like “Morning,” emerged from his lips, but it could have just been that he was clearing his throat. He also only vaguely acknowledged the children at the table, only after Emily said something to him twice, repeating it when he didn’t respond to her the first time.

  Taking the mug of extra black coffee she’d poured a second ago, Zooey placed it in Jack’s free hand. With a smile, she stepped back and indicated the French toast that was still in the frying pan.

  “I made breakfast.”

  She noticed that he didn’t release his hold on his briefcase.

  “I don’t have time.” He didn’t even look at her as he said it. His attention seemed to be riveted to the back door. And escape.

  Maybe not so perfect, Zooey silently amended. But then, just because the earth had moved for her last night didn’t necessarily mean that it had for him, even though, until just this moment, she would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that Jack had been as swept away by what had happened last night as she was.

  “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, Daddy,” Emily informed him. Her tone of voice i
ndicated that she felt she was imparting important information that could also be classified as breaking news. As a clincher, she added, “My teacher says so.”

  “And she’s right,” Zooey agreed. She kept one eye on Jack, who was frowning. She didn’t want him to feel as if she was trying to be pushy, or at least pushier than she’d been. The last thing she wanted was for him to think that she felt last night gave her special privileges, such as the right to tell him what to do. “But sometimes, people don’t have time to eat breakfast at the table. They eat it on the run.”

  Anticipating that he might be in a hurry because it was Monday and because he was Jack, she’d wrapped up a serving of French toast, complete with syrup in a small, airtight container, and packed it to go.

  “Here.” Smiling, Zooey handed him the bag she’d prepared. “Run.”

  Jackie’s eyes lit up. “Run, Daddy, run!” he exclaimed excitedly, waving his feet back and forth for added momentum.

  Draining the last of the coffee, Jack put the mug down and looked down at the bag she’d put in his hand. “What’s this?”

  “Breakfast,” she told him simply. Since he hadn’t been down here first thing in the morning as usual, she was pretty sure he’d overslept. Which made him late. “I had a feeling you might be in a hurry this morning.”

  He was. But he was fairly sure it wasn’t the way she thought.

  He was in a hurry to get away from the feelings that had insisted on rising up and haunting him in his dreams all night, no matter how hard he tried to ignore them or banish them.

  Feelings that he felt entirely unequal to dealing with. He had no idea what to make of them or how to react.

  All he knew was that he felt as if he was coming unraveled. And he didn’t like it.

  “Yeah,” he mumbled. “Thanks.” Without any further communication, either to his children or to her, he made his way out the back door to the garage.

  “See you tonight,” she called after him just as he was about to shut the door.

  He paused only long enough to give her fair warning. “I might be late.”