by Fiona Zedde
Over the years, all three of the Chambers boys had left home. When Mr. and Mrs. Chambers had decided to move to Florida, Grant moved back into the house, becoming a fixture in Dana Point. Was that the reason she, despite her parents’ gentle prodding, could never see him as anything more than that neighborhood guy? Whenever she came to see her parents, he was always around. Such reluctance to leave home and hearth made him a coward in her eyes at worst, a boring mama’s boy at best.
She looked at the envelope her father had given her to pass on to Grant. Should she just put it in the mailbox? No. If the envelope never made it into his hands, she would feel terrible.
Renee rang the doorbell. When no one answered, she peeked through the windows. Knocked. Then she remembered the old workshop at the back of the house where Mr. Chambers had spent so many of his evenings and weekends. She followed the pretty stone path flanked by thick vines of creeping honeysuckle. The privacy gate was closed but not locked. Once in the low-grassed backyard, she heard a low mechanical buzz.
The sound led her to the wide-open doors of the workshop. In the gray evening light, all the colors were muted. Red dimmed to pink; the green and purple of the irises had become pale shadows of their daytime selves. But the light in the workshop was bright and it showed everything clearly, sharply.
Grant stood with his back to her, leaning over an unfinished boat. It was turned upside down, resting on some sort of wooden stand while Grant, shirtless, moved a sander—she remembered that tool from her father’s shed—over its sweeping brown curve.
The muscles in his bare arms flexed. And his back was a mesmerizing landscape of ridges and hills. Faded jeans sat low enough on his hips to suggest he was that beautiful all the way down.
“Grant,” she called out, reluctant to get closer.
The sander droned on. He didn’t turn. Renee walked closer. Not toward him but to the front of the boat he paid such loving attention to. She called his name again. This time he did turn.
“Renee.” He turned off the sander, a smile ready for her. “I was just thinking about you.”
Sawdust and bits of wood speckled his sculpted chest and belly. He took quick inventory of her, so quick that she might have imagined it if she hadn’t been used to that particular look of his. Like he was making sure everything on her was exactly the way he saw it last.
“Here.” She shoved the envelope at him. “This is from Daddy.”
He stepped close to take the envelope, bringing the scent of sweat and cedar with him.
“Thanks.”
He shoved the envelope into his back pocket without opening it. The muscles in his chest jumped in that small motion and suddenly, Renee again was anxious to look anywhere but at him. Because all she wanted to do was look at him. At his sweat-gilded body, his slight but knowing smile.
She bit her lip. “Daddy also wanted me to invite you to have dinner with us tonight. He made one of your favorites.” Please, please, please say no.
Grant looked at her for a moment before slowly shaking his head. “Tell your father I appreciate the invitation but I already ate.”
Renee nodded, relieved. She wanted to hurry back across the street and away from the awkwardness his nearness caused. But her mama hadn’t raised a rude child.
“Looks like you’ll be able to get her in the water soon.” She gestured to the boat, almost wincing at the inane comment.
Grant’s smile widened. “She won’t ever get wet,” he said. “I just come out here to be with her when I need to think. I don’t trust my boat-making skills enough to take her out on the water.”
“Oh, okay.” Her eyes flickered to his chest, then to his broad hand draped across the boat. His thumb brushed against the wood. Back. And forth. Back and forth.
“You don’t have to stay here out of politeness, Renee.”
She flushed. “It’s not that.” At least not completely. A bit of blue plaid caught her eye. She grabbed the shirt. “Put this on, please.”
He looked at her for a moment, then chuckled, shaking his head. Slowly he did what she asked, taking his time snapping each button of the long-sleeved shirt into place. In laughter, his eyes sparkled like dark wine.
“Better?”
“Much,” she muttered. “Listen, it’s not you. Not that there’s anything wrong with how you look, but my boyfriend”—his eyebrows rose at that—“I haven’t seen him”—ever—“and it’s a little difficult for me right now.”
His wordless look begged for an explanation but she only shrugged. That had to be the only explanation. He had a beautiful body and she would have reacted to any beautiful body.
“Anyway, do you have anything to drink in this place? Or a cold shower I could use?”
He chuckled. “In the house.”
After turning off the light and locking up the workshop, he guided her through the now darkened backyard and into his house. Although the outside of the house hadn’t changed since his parents had left, Grant had completely overhauled the interior. The slightly worn but comfortable furniture and beige walls had been replaced by deep copper walls, a set of brown leather chairs, and gleaming dark hardwood. He had knocked out a wall, creating an open space that invited in every source of natural light.
Instead of the old prints of generic tropical destinations his parents once had, the walls held two large, canvas-mounted photos of the Chamberses. The first photo was of the three brothers, looking nearly identical with their close-cropped hair, brown skin, and white smiles. Another was of their parents, sitting back to back, facing the camera without the required smiles. They looked happy.
“What would you like first, something to drink or that cold shower?”
His eyes were laughing at her again. They invited her to laugh too.
“Let’s start with the drink and see what happens,” she said.
“The safer option.” He led her into the kitchen.
When he showed her all the choices—orange juice, beer, wine, soda—she shook her head and just asked for water.
“So, Renee…” He took down two glasses and pressed them, one after the other, against the fridge’s water dispenser. “Tell me about this boyfriend of yours. Is he as good-looking as me?” His teasing smile flirted with her.
She blushed again, reaching for the glass of cold water he held out to her.
“Boyfriend? Is that what I called him?”
At Grant’s low hum of agreement—she still couldn’t look at him—she said, “We’re not that official. Far from it. He’s just a man I enjoy spending time with.”
“And you haven’t seen him in…?”
It would sound too strange if she confessed to Grant that she’d never seen his face and barely seen his body. “I haven’t seen him in a while.”
“But you want to.”
“Sometimes,” she said, feeling a smile beginning to take over her face. “But I always want to feel him.”
After too long of a silence, she turned to look at Grant. His smile had disappeared and the water still sat on the counter, untouched.
She tore her eyes from him. Before he could say anything, she walked out of the kitchen.
“The house looks good. I like the new touches you made.”
He cleared his throat. “Thanks. I had to change something if this was going to be more than my parents’ house.”
She jumped, startled at the nearness of his voice. Renee moved more quickly toward the living room and sat on the sofa. When he sat across from her instead of beside her, she breathed a quiet sigh of relief.
“I couldn’t live with the same stuff that I did when I was a kid. Besides”—he grinned—“my parents took most of the furniture with them to Florida.”
A reluctant smile warmed Renee’s face. “You know, even if my parents gave me their house, I don’t think I could live in Dana Point again.”
“Why? Not pretty enough up here for you?” The views in Dana Point were legendary.
“I don’t know what it is. It just fee
ls stifling up here to me. After a couple of days, I want—no, I need to run back to the city.”
He shook his head. “I lived in LA for almost six years. It was fun but after a while the shallowness of all my relationships got to me. Here is a better place to be than most.” He shrugged and managed to look worldly and domestic at once. “Guess I’m just a small-town boy.”
Renee was starting to doubt that.
“Maybe you weren’t willing to form deeper relationships in Los Angeles,” she said.
He looked at her for a long moment. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I thought there was something better here waiting for me.”
“Good things don’t wait,” she said, deliberately rejecting his loaded words. “You either grab them or they’re gone.”
“You really believe that—?”
The phone rang. It jangled loudly, twice, before he got up to answer it. “Excuse me.”
As he passed the bar, her eyes noticed the clock on the wall. Was that the real time? From the darkness settling firmly against the windows outside, it undeniably was. She’d spent over an hour with Grant and hadn’t even noticed the time passing.
At the bar, she leaned toward him to catch his eye from his prop against the refrigerator.
“I have to go,” she mouthed.
“Hold on,” he said to the person on the other end of the phone before covering up the mouthpiece. “Come and see me before you head back to San Diego. We can have a proper, uninterrupted conversation. I’ll even keep my clothes on.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’ll drop by if I have time.”
The smile reached his eyes before his mouth caught it. “If that’s what you’re giving, I’ll take it.” He started to leave the kitchen. “I’ll walk you out.”
“No. Go ahead and finish your call. After all these years, I know where your front door is. You haven’t changed the place that much.” She threw him a wave and left.
* * *
Everyone was sitting at the dinner table when she walked in. The pitcher of her mother’s homemade pineapple juice was already half empty.
“Sorry.” She went to the kitchen sink to wash her hands. “I started talking with Grant and lost track of time.”
“That’s a good sign,” her mother said, leaning over to scoop brown rice onto a plate for her.
“Mom, stop. It’s not like he and I were making mad love on his living room floor.”
“But you thought about it.” Her mother watched her carefully.
Renee turned away from her mother’s perceptive stare and sat down.
“Good,” her father said as if she’d answered the question. “We like him. You could do much worse.”
“You have done much worse,” Mayson chimed in.
Renee cut her eyes at Mayson. Her friend lifted a fork and deliberately speared a piece of golden brown tofu and a bite of zucchini and yellow pepper. She lifted the food to her mouth, smiling.
“So tell us, then, what did you and Grant talk about for a whole hour? I thought you didn’t find him very interesting.”
“Renee probably spent the entire time staring at his body and finding excuses to linger and stare some more.” Her mother laughed. “If every policeman was that fit, I bet there would be fewer complaints about being pulled over.”
“Dad! Do something about this!” Renee stared at her mother. Although she was used to her mother’s plain speaking about most things—sex included—it seemed somehow wrong to talk about Grant that way. He was like the son they never had, for heaven’s sake!
Her father only shrugged.
“It’s only normal to appreciate Grant’s obvious physical gifts, if that’s what you were doing.” Her father wagged his fork at her. “He’s been here for a while and you’ve never shown any interest in him before. That’s interesting. Was he lounging around his house naked or something?”
“You were the one who sent me over there, Dad. I was just being neighborly.”
Her parents looked at each other.
“There you have it, darling,” her father said to his wife. “She was only being neighborly.”
Despite her father’s serious look, she couldn’t let go of the feeling that he was laughing at her. Mayson watched her with a crooked smile. Renee glanced down at her plate and resolved to say nothing else about Grant Chambers for the rest of the time she was in Dana Point.
Chapter 25
The visit home had left Renee frazzled. Grant. She had been attracted to Grant? Away from him, the absurdity of it would have made her laugh if her libido hadn’t been shoved into overdrive after her visit. Sex crawled through her mind on its belly, coating everything with its viscous perfume.
With Grant as the catalyst, she couldn’t not think of her lover. It was like he stood near her. All the time. Everywhere. In her cubicle at work, she felt him, his gravelly whisper at her ear telling her to slip on the blindfold, to touch herself until he came. Her lips plumped and grew damp against her panties. A throbbing settled low in her belly. Renee squeezed her legs together, barely stopping herself from running to the bathroom and touching herself hot and fast with her fingers while reliving the night with him behind tightly clenched eyelids. Her mind wouldn’t let him go.
Chapter 26
Renee clenched her teeth so hard her jaw hurt. It had been a long and unsatisfying day in the cubicle farm with Alonzo breathing so hard down her neck that she wanted to turn around and punch him. No matter what she showed him for their newest client, he hated it, demanding that she start over and create “something sexy.” Is this what she had gone to art school for, to sketch sexy ads for a guy who used the Victoria’s Secret catalog as his jerk-off rag?
Darn it. She clenched her teeth in frustration. Then winced when her cell phone rang.
“Yes?”
“Why don’t you just quit and put yourself out of your misery?” Mayson’s dry voice on the other end of the line resurrected her smile.
“Because I have bills to pay.” She dropped the pencil on her desk and leaned back in the chair. “Unless you want to support me while I set up my little studio in La Jolla and go broke waiting for the revenue to come in.”
“I would, you know,” Mayson said, her tone flip and serious at the same time. “I would support you.”
She sighed. “I know. But I’m not ready.”
“Pussy.”
“I thought that’s what you liked about me,” Renee murmured. She twirled in her chair to the music of her friend’s laughter.
“When I see you tomorrow you better be in a better mood,” Mayson said. “Go blow off some steam. That job’s got you wound way too tight.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Only one cure for that kind of tension.” She could practically see Mayson’s dancing eyebrows as she made her suggestion.
“Thanks, doctor. I’ll take your prescription under advisement.”
Mayson laughed. “Whatever, gorgeous. I’ll see you tomorrow night at my place. It’s my turn to cook.”
Renee put the phone on her desk after Mayson hung up, staring at her kaleidoscope screen saver. The tension in her body was bearable. Once she walked out of the office it would disappear. But…
The idea of sex was tempting. With a low sigh, she massaged the muscles in her neck, dropping her head tiredly forward. A round of uncomplicated sex would be the perfect way to wrap up this beast of a day. Damn Mayson for putting that suggestion in her head.
But despite her protests, her skin flushed at just the thought of being with him again. The perfect way he handled her body, how he was willing to do anything to please her, and how those things had pleased him. And afterward he hadn’t clung. After the last devastating orgasm that dropped her into a brief and deep sleep, she’d woken up to an empty room. There was no trace that he had been there. No clothes, no note, even the blindfold he’d given her to put on was gone. If it hadn’t been for the used condoms in the trash and the pleasant soreness between her legs, she would’ve been con
vinced that the whole night had been a dream. An intensely erotic and fulfilling dream.
Her hands made the decision for her, logging into her e-mail, reaching out to him.
Meet me tonight at the Old Town Inn?
With the message sent, she sat in nervous anticipation, knowing he’d say yes, until his reply came in. Renee opened the e-mail, her clit tingling at just the thought of him at the other end of that message.
Eight o’clock?
Yes.
With the e-mail sent, she felt better. Now there was something to look forward to beyond seeing the back of Alonzo until tomorrow morning. Maybe now she would be able to concentrate on work.
But concentrating wasn’t the problem. Every time she thought she had made some headway on the design, Alonzo took a look at it, decided there was a problem, and demanded that she start again with a different idea, in a different direction. At half past five she was at the same place with the project as she had been at nine o’clock in the morning.
Alonzo popped over the top of her cubicle, his eyes pinned to her computer.
“Much better,” he said. “Get me a complete draft on my desk first thing tomorrow. I want to have this thing ready for Monday morning’s meeting.”
Before she had a chance to protest, Alonzo was gone. The pencil in her hand snapped, flying across her desk in two clattering pieces.
“Damn. It.” Her jaw ached from clenching her teeth.
He was leaving for the day, that smug prick, while she had to work late to get this project in decent enough shape for him to see on Friday. Tomorrow. She wanted to hit something. She looked up at her computer screen. There was no way she would make it out of the office in time to meet her stranger at eight o’clock.
“Darn it!”
If Mayson heard her now, she would laugh her butt off. The thought didn’t lessen her irritation in the least. With a sigh, she sent a quick e-mail to her date, telling him she was stuck at work and maybe they could do it again some other time. Renee turned back to the sketches spread out on her desk. After a few minutes bent over the desk, she hissed another sigh of irritation. I need different scenery. Gathering her sketches, laptop, and bottle of water in hand, she swept out of her cubicle and headed down the hall to the drafting room. There, at least, she could spread out. And not look at her computer, a constant reminder of the lover she would be missing tonight.
