Just Desserts (15 page)

“What's the point?” Hayley asked her mirror as she tugged on a pair of jeans. Once a man saw your cellulite and spider veins, it was all over. She could go downstairs in a giant one-sie and it wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference. The chemistry was dead. Their fantasy romance was over before it even began.

The crackling jolt of pure electricity she had felt lying in the mud with Finn Rafferty had been fleeting and very much one-sided. Whatever she thought he had felt had been a product of her overheated imagination.

And even if there had been the slightest flicker of interest on his part, it was gone now. The sad truth of the matter was that not every adult looked great wrapped in a towel. Finn might have been camera ready in his mucho macho hot-pink bath sheet, but the sight of a grown woman (who had borne a child, thank you very much) in a Scooby-Doo towel wasn't likely to inspire romantic fantasies.

And clearly it hadn't. When two healthy, unattached adults found themselves in an enclosed and private space with only a few layers of terry cloth between them, it was reasonable to think that one or both of them might seize the moment. Not that she had been seizing any moments lately, but still it hurt to bump up against the fact that she wasn't young enough, blond enough, sexy enough, fill-in-the-blank enough for him to consider making a move.

She knew what she must seem like to him. A single mother from South Jersey who smelled of flour and vanilla instead of perfume. A woman whose puff pastry had more cleavage than she did. A woman whose thighs alone were enough to guarantee her celibacy until the next millennium.

She got it. She really did. She wouldn't have made a move either.

But she couldn't help wishing he had tried.

 

“What're you looking at?” Finn asked Murray, Ted, Mary, and Rhoda as they watched him pace the kitchen. Hadn't they ever seen a man plan his escape before?

He had made a mistake. A big one. One of those colossal, could-have-been-fatal mistakes a man made once or twice in his life and, if he was lucky, lived to tell the tale. He could handle his emotions from a distance but here, in her house, he was veering out of control.

This time last week he hadn't known Hayley Maitland Goldstein existed. Now she was all he could think about.

Maybe it was loneliness that had propelled him. Maybe it was the sound of her voice or her unguarded laughter. Maybe it was the fact that he never knew what she was going to say or how she would say it or when. Maybe it was the strange sensation of having come home to a place he had never been before.

Whatever it was, it was wrong. The timing. The cast of characters. The inevitable not-very-happy ending.

The thing to do was get up, say good-bye, and walk out the door before he did something he would regret. His car was parked out front. His keys jangled in his pocket. She was upstairs getting dressed. He would leave a note, phone her from the car. Things happen. He didn't live an ordinary life. She would understand.

“Finn?”

He turned to see her standing in the entrance to the kitchen.

“Is something wrong?” Her voice was light, her tone a little uncertain.

Her wet hair was scraped back into a sleek ponytail. She had replaced the muddy T-shirt and jeans with clean clothes. Her feet were bare. Her toenails were painted a pale icy pink. Her only jewelry was a pair of gold hoop earrings that danced with every step she took.

Sunlight streamed through the open window, igniting gold and red flames in her light brown hair. An aura of something so wonderful it didn't even have a name.

And that was when everything suddenly spun out of focus like a kaleidoscope. Colors brightened. Shapes shifted then rearranged themselves into brand-new patterns, each one more beautiful, more amazing than the one before.

Sound flew at him from all around the room, random words thrown his way in random combinations, Scrabble letters forming Scrabble words that made no sense at all. His heart made a quarter turn inside his chest and the sound of its rapid beating drowned out everything else.

The world around him snapped back into focus and all he saw was Hayley.

 

She was a grown woman. She knew how these things worked. She should have seen the kiss coming but it surprised her just the same. He had been looking at her with a crazy kind of unfocused intensity and she had been about to ask him if he was having a stroke or something when she suddenly realized she was about to be kissed by a man she actually wanted to kiss back.

Every now and then life handed you a perfect moment and this was one of them.

The knowing was almost enough.

That one perfect moment of certainty, of sweet anticipation—a woman could live off that memory for a very long time.

She hadn't known how much she wanted to feel his mouth on hers until it happened, how she wanted that kiss more than she wanted her next breath of air.

He kissed her mouth, her chin, the tip of her nose, her lower lip, her upper lip, her right temple, her left, her mouth again…oh God, her mouth. Long, hot, slow, deep, luscious kisses that made her feel like a candle with a quick-burning flame.

“Is this why you drove down here?” she whispered against his lips.

He kissed her again. Deeper, hotter, slower. A sigh of almost unbearable pleasure escaped her lips.

“You ask too many questions,” he said and then he kissed her again.

“You're right.” She sighed. “I do.”

Her back was against the fridge. She could feel the handle pressing against her spine. Nothing mattered but the heat from his body, the moist warmth of his mouth, the insistent pressure against her hip. She was burning with hunger, melting. If he let go of her, she would sink into a puddle right there at his feet.

“Rhoda,” she said when she could catch her breath.

He looked at her like she had started reciting the Gettysburg Address from memory. “You're thinking about the dog?”

“She's never seen me with a man before. I don't think she's enjoying it.”

He looked across the room to where Rhoda guarded the doorway.

“Is her fur supposed to stand straight up like that?”

“I don't think—”

“Maybe we—”

Seconds later they closed the bedroom door behind them.

Jeans, sweaters, bras, panties, shoes, clean sheets, paperback books, and a major assortment of blow dryers were scattered from one end of the room to the other.

“Oh God,” she said, pressing her face against his shoulder. “That's the stuff I hid behind the shower curtain.”

“I don't see anything.”

He brushed her hair off the right side of her neck and pressed his mouth against her skin.

Pleasure ran straight from his lips to the molten center of her body.

She moved against him and laughed softly at his unmistakable response.

His mouth moved down the length of her throat. He pushed the neckline of her sweater aside and trailed his tongue along her collarbone.

It had been a long time…a very long time…so long that she couldn't remember exactly when she had felt this open and deliciously exposed…He was gorgeous…he liked Chinese food…he knew how to kiss…A fling…Why not…One juicy secret…Don't stop…don't stop…

“You stopped,” she said. “Why did you stop?” She could have kissed him for at least another week or two before she even considered stopping.

“I didn't plan this.”

“You stopped to tell me that?”

“I'm talking about protection.”

It was hard to think when you were on fire from the inside out. “I thought men always had something with them.”

“It's been a while.”

“Don't look at me,” she said. “I've been living like a nun.”

“I saw a drugstore down the street. I could—”

“No!” She grabbed his arm. “Mary Jane Espo's brother owns the drugstore. I'd have to join a convent.”

“Sister Goldstein? I like it.”

She wasn't about to be mollified. “What are we going to do?”

“You mean besides stripping each other naked?”

“Besides that.”

He lowered her to the mattress and slid her panties down her legs. “I can think of a few things.”

The bed was soft beneath her back. He wasn't soft anywhere. His arms. His chest. His thighs. The rock-hard erection burning against her belly. She reached for him but he shifted position and began tonguing his way down the center of her body, the valley between her breasts, her navel, her belly, her—

Her cry of pleasure pierced the silent room and on its heels came an almost paralyzing moment of self-awareness. What was she doing…She barely knew him…No secrets…no secrets…

His tongue slid deep inside her and she arched against him, taking him deeper, wrapping herself around him, sailing over the edge of the earth. She loved the feel of his big hands on her hips, the way his breath tickled, the parry and thrust of his tongue, his lips tugging gently on her clitoris. His sounds. His smell. His touch. His broad, muscular shoulders and powerful chest. The small tattoo of an intertwined cross and flower on the inside of his right forearm.

He was doing something magical, mystical, with his hands and his mouth, something amazing, something so unbearably wonderful that she came hard against him and would have climaxed again if he hadn't shifted position, trailing his mouth back up her body in a way that made conscious thought all but impossible.

His eyes widened in surprise, then excitement, as she pushed him over onto his back and straddled him. She took his erection in her hands, sliding the length of the shaft, teasing the head until it throbbed visibly. He groaned and gripped her by the waist.

“Don't start something we can't finish.” He wanted to bury himself inside her silky wetness as she took him deep and hard.

She leaned forward and flicked her tongue against him. “Wait,” she said and slipped from the bed. “I just thought of something.”

He watched as she crossed the room. Her body was long and slim, her breasts surprisingly full and round. Her nipples were hard. He saw faint red marks on her thighs where his teeth had grazed her tender flesh. Her sweet taste lingered in his mouth and made him want more.

She opened the top drawer of her dresser, rummaged for a second, then pulled out a small white plastic bag.

The words
Introduction to Sex—Grade 8
were emblazoned in bright red letters.

She slid back into bed next to him and spilled the contents between them. A booklet. A DVD. One lone condom.

“It's been a while,” she said with a rueful laugh. “Do these things have expiration dates?”

He held it up to the light. “Tomorrow.”

They locked eyes.

“It's fate,” she said.

“Definitely.”

“You open it. I'm out of practice.”

“Been a while for me too,” he said, tearing open the package with his teeth.

“Really?”

“You sound surprised.”

“I am.” Glad, but surprised.

He fumbled with the condom. His fingers felt huge, clumsy. Her breasts brushed against his arm as she reached for the condom.

“Let me.”

He loved the feel of her fingers as they worked the condom over his shaft. The sight of her naked body bent to the task, damp hair falling across one shoulder. The fact that they were both there, in that bed, at that moment.

The fact that he was falling in love.

Later

“Where are you going?” Finn leaned up on one elbow and peered through the gathering dusk as Hayley darted for the door.

“Sorry,” she said. “I didn't mean to wake you.”

“Is everything okay?” Most women liked the cuddling afterward as much as the main event, but once again Hayley was proving herself to be not like other women. She was already halfway out the door.

“We left the Chinese food on the kitchen table. I hope Rhoda and the cats didn't help themselves.”

They had just had inventive, incendiary sex right there in that still-warm bed and she was thinking about lo mein? “I'll be down in a minute.”

“Take your time,” she said over her shoulder. “No problem.”

“Are you sure everything's okay? You seem a little distracted.”

“I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be fine? I'll start warming things up. You want beer or iced tea or soda? Actually you don't have to tell me. I've got all three. You come down whenever you're ready.”

He wrapped the sheet around his waist and swung his legs from the bed. “Are you sure nothing's wrong?”

Even her laugh sounded false. “Why would anything be wrong?”

“This was great,” he said, gesturing toward the bed. “You know that, right? You were amazing.”