Somebody to Love

by Ann Christopher

  Now looking distinctly dazed, his lids at half-mast, he gave her a doleful look, hooked the fingers of his free hand through her belt and tugged her through the foyer and living room before turning down the hallway that led to the bedrooms.

  “The one on the left,” she said, unable to keep the laughter from her voice. “You wouldn’t have been comfortable enough on the sofa, I take it?”

  “I want to get straight to the point tonight.” He propelled her inside, taking in her pale gray bedroom and huge bed as he turned her loose with a gentle push. Moving eagerly, he dropped his bags on the ottoman next to her reading chair and pulled his wallet out of his pocket and put it on the nightstand. Then he kicked off his slippers and wasted no time sweeping his sweater and undershirt off and throwing them on top of his bags. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

  “I’ve got a lot of ground I need to cover, yeah.” Mesmerized by the way all that gleaming brown skin highlighted the rippling muscles in his chest, arms and torso, she slowly ran the backs of her fingers across his lower belly and savored the way his flesh leapt. “Are we about done talking?”

  “First thing,” he said loudly, stopping her leisurely exploration by catching her hand in his firm grip. Then he shocked and delighted her by grabbing her around the waist and tossing her onto the bed with the ease of an Olympic weightlifter bench-pressing twenty pounds. As someone who’d struggled to lose her baby weight and had also been told she was too fat to continue modeling, she found this blatant display of strength immensely thrilling and squealed accordingly. “I think you should start a business.”

  All her attention had been focused on the kimono’s slide away from her lower body as she came to rest on her back and the way Sean took his time about climbing onto the bed and kneeling between her bent legs, so it took her a minute to get her head in the game.

  “What?”

  “I said that you should think about starting a business.” Taking exquisite care about it, he ran his gentle hands up and down her thighs, his long fingers just grazing her pussy from underneath each time. She began to writhe, her hips pumping of their own accord. “Isaiah will loan you the startup money. Sofia mentioned over dinner that Journey’s End needs an upscale resale shop. She thinks there’s a huge market for it. I think that’s got your name written all over it. You’d be great at that. So think about it.”

  There wasn’t much that could have distracted her from the pleasures of Sean’s hands on her body in that hormone-drenched moment, but this information managed to do it in spectacular fashion.

  Matter of fact, it managed to make the hair on her arms and the back of her neck stand at attention the way it always did when she heard a great idea and knew she was on the right track.

  “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” She stared at him, her mind spinning with thoughts, plans and to-do lists to make this dream a reality. “I could totally do that. I would love that.”

  “I know,” he said, grinning with boyish delight.

  “Sean!” She squeezed his forearms, excitement getting the best of her. “I worked in retail and merchandising when I was in college! I have a degree in marketing with a minor in sales! I always thought I’d be a stylist or a buyer!”

  “I know,” he said, laughing now.

  “You wonderful man! Do you think Isaiah would really lend me the money?”

  “I don’t see why he wouldn’t,” he said, shrugging as his smile slowly faded and he regarded her with renewed intensity. In case she had any doubts about his intentions, he reached between her thighs and firmly stroked her slick core, eliciting an unabashed moan from her. “And that brings me to the last thing on our official agenda for the night.”

  “And what’s that?” she asked, hips pumping again and chest heaving in a futile attempt to get air into her lungs.

  “I know we want to get to know each other better. And we talked about holding off on the sex while we do that.”

  “You talked about that. I thought it was a stupid idea.”

  “I’ve decided it was a stupid idea.” Those fingers stroked her back and forth. Back and forth, languid and gentle as the waves on a beach in Bora Bora. She tried to stifle her cries and let him finish talking, but that turned out to be impossible. “We’re both adults, right? There’s no reason why we can’t fuck each other and get to know each other, is there?”

  “There is not,” she said, her words breathy and serrated.

  “Good,” Sean said, flashing a wicked smile as he clamped his hands on her hips and dragged her closer to show he meant business.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Sean eagerly untied her belt. Opened the two halves of the kimono, baring her nude body for his viewing pleasure and looking his fill. Made a rumbling sound of unmistakable male anticipation. Helped himself to every part of her that his mouth or hands could reach.

  He kissed her with those consuming sweeps of his tongue that made her feel as though he intended to set her body alight and burn her to ash by morning. His lips devoured her mouth. Her neck. Her torso and breasts. He sucked her nipples with hard pulls that made her belly spasm and her toes curl. He murmured his encouragement in response to her disjointed efforts to say his name and pleas for more, clearly reveling in his effect on her.

  But not as much as she reveled in it.

  There was something unbelievably liberating about letting him take the lead and use and move her body the way he wanted it. She didn’t have to think. Her only job was to feel. And she experienced it all, until it seemed like every part of her body had been replaced with shimmering diamonds and molten gold.

  She tried to grip his back and shoulders to keep him close, but he remained frustratingly out of reach, working his way lower and lower down her body until there was no mistaking his intent. Tears of ecstasy and relief gathered at the corners of her eyes and trailed past her temples to her pillow by the time he settled between her legs and urged her to grip his head with her thighs.

  Oral sex had never really been her thing with Edward. Oh, she appreciated his enthusiasm and generosity, sure, but there were too many variables. Too many things to get exactly right and too many nerve endings that eluded him while the seconds ticked by and she became painfully aware that she was taking too long and being too selfish.

  But Sean…

  Sean.

  He went right to her hottest spot. Put his tongue there to bookmark it. Exerted exquisitely rhythmic pressure with his lips. Found every hidden pleasure point like a rabbit unearthing baby carrots in the neighbor’s garden. Left nothing behind, nothing undone. Until her back arched and the orgasm came, rocketing through her stiffening body and escaping on a shout of rapture.

  And he was all about the multitasking as he used her brief recovery period as his chance to ditch his pajama bottoms and sheathe himself with a condom from his wallet. By the time she recovered the ability to move her arms and reach for him, he was right there, levered over her, poised and ready with his big dick in his free hand.

  “You ready for this?” he asked, his bright eyes monopolizing her field of vision as they stared at her.

  “I’m so ready,” she said, spreading her legs and raking her nails across his ass to get him started.

  They were off to the races after that, with him plunging deep inside and startling her with the tightness and intimacy of their connection. The perfection of having this man fill her up like this, until her body felt as though it couldn’t take it for another second but also seemed to beg for more. She looked up at him, cupped his face between her hands and opened her mouth, intending to slow things down and savor this moment. Why? Because when you came across a shooting star or a unicorn it was appropriate to say hey, did you see that? To appreciate it and note that something special had happened. Something unusual.

  But Sean was already right there with her, and that was the most amazing thing about him.

  “I know, Sweetness,” he said, slowly shaking his head with a disbelief that matched and maybe exceeded
hers. “I know.”

  He dipped his head and kissed her again, little licks and nibbles designed to inflame and enslave. And she met him kiss for kiss. Thrust for thrust. She wrapped her legs around his waist, encouraging him to grind against her. To grind harder. To never stop.

  They held hands. They whispered nonsense words that somehow meant everything. They stroked each other’s faces. He pulled her hair. She slapped his ass.

  They used each other up until there was nothing left but sweat and ecstasy and their unabashed cries as they made each other come and come and come.

  He rolled to one side when it was over, his possessive hands bringing her up against him and molding her there. She rested her leg on top of him and her head on his chest, running the very real risk of suffocating him between her arms because she couldn’t let him go.

  She could not let Sean go. He brought way too much to her table.

  “Yeah,” he said softly after a while, stroking her hair. “I’m really regretting making that drive tonight.”

  She broke into startled laughter. “Big mistake, huh?”

  “Big.”

  They laughed together until she smacked him on the chest and raised her head to really let him have it. But when she looked him in the face in the most delicious moment of the night, their smiles and all the humor suddenly slipped away, leaving only this terrifyingly huge and as-yet unidentified thing between them.

  Did it feel like it might really be something?

  Yeah.

  But so had the thing with Edward, and look how that turned out.

  It wasn’t the right time for a huge shadow to cross her heart, but the sun was suddenly nowhere to be found. So she put her head down again, adopting an impromptu don’t ask, don’t tell policy when it came to any discussions about feelings or where this might all lead.

  They fell asleep. Drowsed in each other’s arms for a while, until Sean slipped away to the bathroom, returned wearing his pajama bottoms and sat on the edge of the bed, tracing lazy circles on the small of her back.

  “Wake up, sleepyhead,” he said. “I got you something for Christmas.”

  She opened her eyes, certain she’d misheard in her half-conscious state.

  “You got me something? For Christmas?”

  “And housewarming.”

  She blinked, kicking herself for not getting him anything or for following her instinct to ask him if they planned to exchange gifts this early in their relationship. But she’d ignored the impulse, once again unfairly comparing him to Edward, who had never wowed her with any gift-giving enthusiasm.

  And now this.

  Of course Sean’s gift might well turn out to be a pair of holiday socks, but still. It was the thought that counted. And the fact that Sean had thought to get her anything counted for a lot.

  “You didn’t have to,” she said.

  “I wanted to.”

  His quiet enthusiasm melted another section of her heart. She scrambled to a sitting position against the pillows and adjusted the sheets, grinning with a sudden childish delight that would put her own daughter to shame.

  “It’s not that big a deal,” Sean said, but there was no mistaking the banked excitement in his eyes and his air of expectancy as he handed her a beautifully wrapped large—and heavy—rectangular package. “But I saw this. I figured you’d like it.”

  “I love that you were thoughtful enough to get me something this early in our relationship.” She tore into the package with unabashed giddiness. “A lot of men would try to weasel out of—oh, my God.”

  Her lower jaw hit her lap. She blinked, stole a quick glance at a gleeful Sean, then looked at her present again just to make sure she wasn’t imagining things.

  She wasn’t.

  They were three coffee table books about three of her favorite fashion subjects in the entire world: Chanel, Vogue and Audrey Hepburn.

  “You got these for me?” she asked helplessly.

  “No, I got them for the woman in 2B,” he deadpanned. “Maybe you could point me the way to her apartment?”

  “But these are perfect for me. How did you know?”

  He shrugged, looking immensely pleased with himself.

  “I pay attention,” he said, flapping a hand at her overflowing basket of fashion magazines over in the corner.

  He paid attention.

  Why did that simple sentence suddenly make her so teary?

  Maybe because the differences between her evolving relationship with Sean and her relationship with Edward were so glaring. So profound.

  Edward, for example, had always been the master of well-meaning but misguided gifts for every occasion, resisting every subtle and not-so-subtle hint she gave. For example? Gift cards to stores where she didn’t shop. Colorful beaded necklaces when she only ever wore plain pieces in sterling silver. Tchotchkes for her apartment that looked as though he’d stolen them from Archie and Edith’s place.

  There were plenty of women out there who never received a gift at all from boyfriends who either didn’t remember or didn’t care, true, so Amber had always been grateful for Edward’s effort and thoughtfulness.

  But she’d passed most of the gift-giving holidays in complete bafflement, wondering who the hell Edward thought he was shopping for, because it certainly couldn’t be her. Did he know the first thing about her? There were plenty of times when it had felt like he probably didn’t.

  Not to mention the fact that Edward had always teased her about her interest in the minutiae of fashion (whether heels were stacked, kitten or block during a given season was a pressing issue with her, for instance) and expressed good-natured puzzlement about her obsession with, say, the September issue of Vogue every year.

  Although, to be fair, she’d never understood his preoccupation with baseball, either. Why lose your mind over a bunch of guys standing around in a hot and dusty field for four hours with only periodic bursts of action?

  Maybe the real issue was that she and Edward were either poorly matched from the beginning or had grown apart over the years, as he’d said. They didn’t get each other, which meant that they didn’t belong together.

  And now this. Sean.

  He watched her with bemusement, his expression warm. Steady.

  While she, meanwhile, battled the growing fear that her mind was playing tricks on her. Because a man who was smart, sexy, funny, thoughtful, handsome and this wildly interested in her was surely too good to be true. Like a table stacked with free samples of hundred-dollar bills at the bank. It wasn’t the kind of thing you wanted to pin your hopes on. Unless you didn’t mind looking like the world’s biggest fool in the end.

  “It’s amazing,” she said as she leaned in for a kiss, trying not to act like the poor man had just donated a kidney to save her from dying. “Thank you.”

  “I got something for Ella, too,” he said, reaching around for something he’d set at the foot of the bed.

  It was a Grinch gift bag. Ella lived for the Grinch.

  “For Ella?” she echoed numbly. It was one thing for him to get something for her, but also remembering her daughter at this early stage of the game kicked things up to a whole new level of thoughtfulness that was, in her experience, unprecedented in today’s dating world. “You got something for Ella?”

  “It’s not a big deal. I just wanted you to see it. I think she’s really going to like it.”

  Sean’s palpable excitement seemed to have the perverse effect of filling her with dread. Just as she had two diametrically opposed feelings about this gift for her daughter. On the one hand? Sean bought her daughter a gift? Whaaat? On the other hand? Of course Sean got Ella a gift. Sean was shaping up to be the most thoughtful man she’d ever known. Why wouldn’t he think to get Ella a gift?

  “What is it?” she said, not sure she had the heart to open it.

  “Why are you looking like someone died?”

  Chuckling at her consternation, he took the bag back and divested it of all its red tissue paper, revea
ling the cutest and fluffiest little stuffed panda she’d ever seen. The kind she would have snapped up instantly if she’d run across it in a store. The kind for which she would have happily coughed up fifty bucks.

  The kind that Ella would absolutely love beyond all reason.

  Amber took it from him and cuddled it to her heart, his generosity and consideration getting the best of her and locking the words in her throat. She wanted to thank him. She wanted to tell him that he could have gifted Amber with the deed to her very own conflict-free diamond mine and it wouldn’t have meant this much.

  Most of all, she wanted to tell him to stop immediately because she was in very real danger of falling in love with him.

  Hadn’t painful history taught her what a poor judge she was of men’s intentions? Yes. It had. And it was one thing to risk her own heart. Hell, she was a grown woman. She could make her own decisions and suffer the consequences if they went south on her. That was the price of admission in the world of dating. But she had no right to play with her precious daughter’s emotions. Amber had already seen Ella stare at Sean with heart-shaped eyes. As a child who only spent half of her time with her father, Ella lived in a perpetual state of half-starvation for male attention. It was no surprise that she’d developed a soft spot for Sean. Amber had developed her own soft spot for Sean, God knew. But Amber knew that there was always a healthy risk of a man flaking out on you. Ella had no idea about this harsh reality. And she was far too young to learn.

  The bottom line?

  A responsible mother would never risk letting her child become too attached to a man who might or might not stick around for longer than it took for a few more quick hookups. A responsible mother wouldn’t let some new man woo her child with amazing gifts.

  And while Amber might be an absolute idiot when it came to men, she prided herself on being a responsible mother.

  So she gave the panda a final squeeze, carefully replaced it in the bag, put the tissue paper back on top and handed the bag back to Sean.