Everything in Between (9 page)

With abandon, he had returned her kisses, giving her not just physical elements but claims on every emotion behind them—joy, apprehension, curiosity, passion. So much passion, he hadn’t known how to manage it, at first. She had heeded his need for her to keep still upon their initial union. The pleasure at being inside her had been so keen, he’d been certain that he’d have taken her mindlessly, perhaps too roughly, if she hadn’t allowed him to muster control.

Such torture had never paid greater dividends.

Even now, his equipment drained and pressed against her, he wanted more of her. More of her eyes gazing at him, her lids heavy in the throes of her climax; more of her lips suckling his and pursed around his shaft; more of her soft, slippery heat clamping around him; more of her heart and the piece of her soul she’d given him when she muttered his name in her sleep, and pressed her face into his neck.

He kissed the top of her head, earning another sleepy sigh of contentment. Colin’s time with Zae had been spent. Turning his head from the thread of sunlight shining between the drawn curtains, Chip considered that Colin wasn’t the person with whom he had to contend. Zae was the one who had yet to let go.

Cinder and Gian were in the garage sorting unopened wedding gifts, so Zae volunteered to get the door when the bell rang. She opened it to see Chip on the front porch. “What are you doing here?”

“That’s a fine greeting,” he said, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Gian asked me to come over and help with the heavy lifting. Apparently, they got loads more gifts than they expected.”

Zae stepped aside to let Chip in.

“Woulda been nice if you’d said goodbye before you disappeared this morning,” he said in a low voice.

“You were sleeping so soundly, I didn’t want to disturb you.” Zae led him through the wide foyer and into the spacious, airy living room. Gian had purchased one of his brother Pio’s “greenhouses,” the environmentally friendly houses his company builds. Chip admired the bamboo floors and skylights anew as he followed Zae through the kitchen.

“I appreciate that,” Chip said, “considering I didn’t fall asleep until you stopped snoring around sun-up.”

Zae’s shoulders tensed. “I don’t snore.”

Grinning, Chip said. “Yes, you do. And you talk in your sleep, too.”

Zae whirled on him, her long, white tunic swirling about her hips. “Really? What did I say?”

“You said my name.”

“You—” Her expression softened. “I don’t—”

“I’d like to talk about what happened last night.”

“I was there. I don’t need to talk about it.”

“Are you ashamed of what we did?”

“Hell, no.” Zae detoured to stop at the refrigerator. She grabbed the handle of the big, stainless steel door and hauled it open. “Are you?” She grabbed two bottles of water, tossing one to Chip.

“I’m looking forward to being ashamed like that again.”

Chip’s lazy, one-sided smile softened Zae’s knees. She quickly walked past him, hanging a right to enter the garage. “Last night was a one-time thing. It won’t happen again.”

Chip took her arm, stopping her from opening the garage door. “What happened last night was special. You didn’t feel it?”

“Oh, I felt a lot of things.” She unscrewed the cap of her water bottle to give her hands something to do other than dive into his curls.

“Then why not give it a chance?”

Her voice low, she said, “You can’t build a relationship on a one-night stand between strangers.”

“We’ve known each other for near on nine years.”

“Last night, we were strangers,” Zae insisted. “We weren’t ourselves.”

“You sure looked like you when you came to my room last night, looking for some.”

In her white tunic and short, black skirt, Zae matched the stainless and white décor of the kitchen. She looked more like a cobra about to strike when she responded to his assertion. “I went to your room to give you the answer to the quote you gave me in the garden.”

“That was just an excuse. You could have told me the answer this morning, or tomorrow night at the dojo.”

“I couldn’t wait to let you know I knew the answer. I was excited.”

“I’ll say.”

“I’m going to kick you in the head if you say one more word about last night,” she threatened.

“I’ll kick you right back, and I might use my titanium leg.”

“You’d kick me?”

“You’re a third-degree black belt! You’re damn right I’d kick you back.”

She cupped his face. “Last night was a mistake. A lapse in judgment.”

“No, it wasn’t. It was the beginning.”

“The beginning of what?” she scoffed, giving his face a little push.

“Of whatever comes next for us.”

Zae tossed open the garage door, little concerned if it happened to hit Chip, who stood close on her heels. She stomped down the three stairs leading to the garage floor and took a seat on one of the cedar Adirondack chairs Gian had set up. Her heart raced, her pulse thumped, and, worse, every nerve between her thighs throbbed in remembrance of her night with Chip. His words touched her with results nearly as successful as the touch of his hands, his lips, his tongue—

“Zae, are you all right?” Cinder asked. She leaned forward to grip Zae’s knee. “You look funny.”

“I’m fine,” Zae snapped, glaring at a smiling Chip. “Never better.”

* * *

“You and Gian should still be at the mansion in bed, not cataloging wedding gifts,” Zae said.

Cinder sat next to a small mountain of gaily wrapped boxes and gift bags. She and Zae unwrapped each gift, sorted it into Keep or Return piles, then recorded the gift’s sender. “We need to empty the garage so we can get our cars back in here, and I don’t want to put off writing thank-you notes. I want to get them out of the way as soon as possible. I didn’t realize we’d gotten so many things. Gian’s people in Italy sent gifts even though they couldn’t make the wedding.” Cinder picked up a silver platter from the stack of items waiting for Gian or Chip to carry into the house. “Gian’s great-aunt gave us this. It’s been in her family since the 1920s. Isn’t it beautiful?”

Without looking at the item, Zae grunted in agreement.

“Gian had to meet with the contractor about about Sheng Li II this morning,” Cinder went on. “We’ve been living together for months, so it’s no big deal to put a honeymoon on hold for a while. We’re meeting with the adoption consultant this afternoon, too. We wanted to get the adoption proceedings underway as soon as possible. I think Gian’s even more eager to start a family than I am. We were talking about it last night, and Gian’s brother offered to give us his twins. Apparently, the boys are acting out in school, and—”

Zae balled up the silver and pink foil wrapping paper she’d just stripped from an eight-slot bagel toaster. “That’s fascinating. Chip and I had sex last night.”

“How was it?”

“Why aren’t you surprised?”

“It’s about time you two quit sniffing each other’s butts and finally got down and dirty. How was it?”

“There aren’t words,” Zae sighed. “The boy knows his way around a woman’s body. I haven’t been treated that well in months.”

Cinder looked up from her notebook. “Months? Who were you with months ago?”

“Huh?” Zae busied herself unwrapping a big square box.

“You said you hadn’t had sex in months. I didn’t know you’d been seeing someone.”

“I wasn’t. I haven’t. I didn’t say anything about having sex.”

“I can’t believe you were seeing someone and didn’t tell me.”

“It was nothing. He was…therapeutic.”

“Zae, are you saying you have a friend with benefits?” Cinder whispered.

Zae sighed heavily. “He’s more like a same-time-next-year.”

“Like that old movie?”

“Yes.” Zae displayed the rice steamer she’d just unwrapped. “Only neither of us is married.”

“That goes in the Keep pile,” Cinder said. “So who is he? How long have you been seeing him? Do the twins know? Who gave us the steamer?”

“Zebulon Rice & Family,” Zae read from the gift card attached to the wrapping paper. “I met him five years ago at a seminar. He teaches American literature at one of the state schools in New York. He lost his wife six years ago in a car accident. We bonded over a discussion about Nathaniel Hawthorne’s hatred for female authors, one thing led to another, and we ended up wiping the floors of his hotel room with each other. We’ve been meeting once a year since, and, until now, I haven’t told anyone about him.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

Zae shoved the scraps of wrapping paper into a black plastic garbage bag. “Then don’t say anything.”

“You deserve better.”

“I thought you didn’t know what to say.”

Cinder tucked her ballpoint pen behind her ear and set her notebook atop a stack of unopened gifts. She took Zae’s hands. “You deserve an everyday, all-the-time love, not a same-time-next-year.”

“I’ve got a drawer full of AA batteries, and the Hustler Boutique is only twenty minutes away. I’m fine.”

“You deserve to be loved, Zae. To be cared for.”

Zae stood and paced among the boxes. The garage door was open, giving her a full view of the Shady Creek Nature Conservatory, which abutted Gian’s property. The lush greenery and the trickle of the unseen creek gave Zae a sense of calm that almost—but not quite—stripped away her sarcasm. “I’ve got my kids, I’ve got friends. I’ve got so much love and caring, I could vomit sugar cubes. I don’t need anything else right now.”

“Then why did you sleep with Chip?”

“We didn’t sleep. We screwed.” She carefully kept her face averted from Cinder. If anyone could have spotted the lie, it was her best friend. What she and Chip had done had been far more than a mere screw. It had been hot and intense, and intimate in a way she hadn’t known since the earliest days of her marriage.

“I wonder if Chip feels that way about it,” Cinder remarked quietly.

Zae shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I left before he woke up.”

“Are you going to see him again?”

“Of course,” Zae snapped. “I saw him a few minutes ago. I’ll see him in class tomorrow night, too.”

“I meant
see
him again, and you know it. To see where this thing goes.”

Zae took her seat and grabbed another box. “It’s not going anywhere. It was a one-time thing, a momentary lapse in judgment resulting from too much champagne and romance at your wedding.”

“The wedding might have been the catalyst, but you and Chip have been building toward this for years.”

“Seven years. Since he graduated from high school.”

Cinder laughed. “He’s not
that
young.”

“Maybe not, but he lives like a college student and, come fall, he’s going to be one. He’s got no direction.”

Cinder threw up her hands. “He served ten years in the Marines and he probably would have made the military his career if he hadn’t gotten his leg nearly shot off. When he became a full-time martial arts instructor at Sheng Li, I don’t think he planned to make it a career. It was something to do until he figured out what he really wanted to do with his life. He would have taken advantage of his GI Bill last winter if all that stuff with my ex hadn’t gone down. Even though he’s interim manager of Sheng Li, he’s going to school full-time to get his degree in education. He’s even taking summer interim classes to get a head start. If that’s not direction, I don’t know what is. It just takes some people longer to know what they want to do in life. Were you born knowing you wanted to be a college professor?”

“Yes.” Zae gave up helping Cinder with wedding gifts, and she lounged in her chair, her fingers laced behind her head.

Cinder rolled her eyes. “Then you’re the exception. Be fair, Zae. Chip is a wonderful man. I think you’re the one who inspired him to go into teaching. He really admires you.”

“He’s a Democrat.”

“And? What of it?”

“I’m a Republican.”

“I don’t hold that against you. Neither does Chip. Besides, you voted for Barack Obama. Didn’t the Republicans revoke your membership for that?”

“He dresses like a retired surfer.”

“I think Obama dresses like he’s still teaching Constitutional law.”

“I meant Chip, not Obama.”

“Well, you dress like a stockbroker,” Cinder said.

“Honey, nobody looks better in classroom couture than I do, and you know it. So hush your mouth.”

“You’re nitpicking over cosmetic details,” Cinder said. “The things that really matter are the things you have in common.”

“Like what?”

“You both have nicknames.”

“You’re gonna have to do better than that,” Zae snorted.

“You love each other.”

Zae laughed out loud. “You’re leaping to conclusions, Mrs. Piasanti.”

“I don’t think so. Love is what enables you to put up with each other’s bull.”