Loving Mr. July (11 page)

Kurt pulled her hand out of his pants. If her
finger dropped any lower, she was going to be stroking his
privates, which had become hard as a rock.

“I feel like an idiot.” Kurt said the first
coherent thought he could put together. He ran a hand through his
hair, and then remembered they’d styled it with some sort of goo.
He looked at his sticky hand with distaste. “So no, I’m not feeling
particularly sexy right now.” Geez, am I going to burn in hell for
this lie?

“Maybe this will help.” Cynthia said. She
stood on her tiptoes, reached up and pulled his head towards hers.
She covered his lips with her own.

It was completely unexpected. But instinct
quickly took over his startled initial response. And his instinct
had been telling him to lay her on that sheepskin rug and make love
to her ever since she’d first walked over and started stroking
him.

He molded his lips to hers, enjoyed her
sweetness, reaching up to cup her face with his hands. He had
started to trail his fingers along her neck, touched the lace
covering her breasts when she pulled away.

She ran a finger along his jaw, touched it to
his lips. “That’s the look.” She abruptly stepped back, called to
Patty. “Think we’re good to go now.” She walked back behind the
lights.

Patty was already snapping away.

Kurt looked after her in a daze. What the
hell was that? He realized he was still reaching for her and drew
his hand back, licked his lips, and tried to sort out his
feelings.

He was trying to wrap his head around it when
Patty called out. “Okay, think we’re good Kurt. We’ve got some
awesome shots here. I’m sure we can use one for the calendar.”

Her voice jolted him back to reality. “Do I
get a vote?”

“Not a chance.” Patty smiled at him. “But
we’re going to make you look great, don’t worry.”

Kurt sat for a moment longer, then got up,
gathered his things, and left without another word.

~ ~ ~

Patty looked after Kurt’s retreating back, a
thoughtful look on her face. She turned to Cynthia. “You guys got
something going?”

“Uh. No. Just friends.” Cynthia couldn’t
quite bring herself to look her friend in the eye.

Patty snorted. “Yeah, right. I was ready to
ask you guys to get a room.”

Cynthia shrugged. “You wanted him to have
bedroom eyes. Thought I would try to get him in the mood.”

“He was more than in the mood, I’d say. And I
don’t recall you ever using that tactic to get some of the other
guys in the mood.”

“Kurt’s almost like family. He’s the
brother-in-law of my best friend.” Cynthia busied herself tidying
Patty’s studio.

“Uh huh.” Patty looked unconvinced. “That
wasn’t exactly sister-like attitude you got out of him.”

Cynthia didn’t answer. Patty had been a
friend for a long time, but her moment with Kurt just now was
something she wanted to cherish to herself. Damn the man was a fine
kisser. For a moment, she’d almost forgotten Patty was in the room
too. She wondered who Kurt had been imagining she was during that
kiss.

“Take a look at some of these shots.” Patty
called her over to the computer where she’d been transferring the
photos from her camera.

Cynthia walked over to peer over Patty’s
shoulder. The first dozen or so shots, Kurt smiled at the camera.
But Cynthia had been around Kurt long enough to know those smiles
weren’t genuine. He looked like he was posing for a boardroom
photo, except that he wasn’t wearing a shirt.

Midway through the photo shoot, Patty had
started cracking jokes. And the smiles on Kurt’s face did become
genuine. But they weren’t the look that Cynthia knew sold
calendars. She’d been doing this long enough to know.

Cynthia could see exactly where Kurt had
started to lose patience with the whole process. He looked cold and
more than a little irritated. But it was when Patty scrolled to the
end that Cynthia took in a startled breath.

The shots Patty had taken at the end, after
their kiss, showed Kurt with slumberous eyes, one hand reaching out
to the camera, a look of desire on his face and an unmistakable
bulge in his pants.

“Oh my…” Cynthia put a hand up to her mouth.
“You can’t use that Patty. Kurt would be mortified.”

“Oh yes we are. It’s perfect.” Patty laughed
at Cynthia’s horrified look. “Don’t worry. I will Photoshop the
evidence away.” She pointed to Kurt’s groin area. “But the look in
his eyes, his face. Oh my gosh, do you know how many women would
die to have a man look at them like that? You sure you guys don’t
have something going on?”

Cynthia shook her head. “Just got him
thinking along the lines you wanted him to think.” She waved at the
photo. “Can I get a copy of that?”

Patty smiled at her knowingly. “You want the
before Photoshop or after?”

Cynthia looked at her and grinned. “What do
you think?”

A note in Blake’s unmistakable scrawl, taped
onto his office door caught Kurt’s attention when he returned from
his lengthy business trip. The need to visit both current and
potential customers in Asia had come at welcome time. He hadn’t had
a whole lot of time to think about a certain photo shoot. At least
that’s what he told himself when he had buried his nose in business
briefs on the plane, valiantly trying to focus on the mind-numbing
information, and resolutely brushing aside the memory of Cynthia’s
touch.

He ripped the note off the door. It was an
urgent summons to see Blake in his office. What was wrong with the
phone? And where the hell was his assistant, Holly? Maybe he
shouldn’t have hired his cousin for the job, he thought. She took
far too many liberties, even if she was amazingly good at what she
did.

Kurt dumped his briefcase on the floor by his
desk, threw his suit jacket over his chair, and headed for the
other side of the building, his mood getting crankier with each
step. All he wanted to do was sleep, but the time change worked
against him on the return trip, and he had landed at 9 a.m. Going
to bed now meant being jet lagged for much longer than if he just
toughed it out. But come five o’clock, he was out of here, work
done or not.

He gave Blake’s open door an impatient rap
with his knuckles as he strode into the office.

Blake was on the phone, but indicated he
should shut the door and have a seat in a chair. Kurt sighed and
plopped into a chair. He scrubbed at his face, willing his eyes to
stay open.

“So you remember the night I came over before
you left?” Blake started talking as soon as he hung up the
phone.

“How could I forget? I haven’t been that hung
over in years.”

“Well, I found out why the moodiness.”

“Geez, Blake. You have me haul my butt over
to your office ASAP because you want to talk about your marriage
troubles?” Kurt drew his hands down from his face to scowl at his
brother. “Couldn’t this have waited?”

Blake held up a hand. “Sorry, Dude. I know
you’re still on China time. But I thought you’d like to know that
you’re going to be an uncle.”

Kurt’s mouth dropped open. “Seriously?”

Blake got a silly grin on his face. “Yep,
Sharon’s pregnant.”

“Well, congrats, Bro.” Kurt shot to his feet,
and moved around the desk to give Blake the man hug. His brother
had wanted kids for a while now. And he’d be a great dad. “You just
made my day!”

“I wanted you to hear it from me, hence the
note.”

“And I was being a prick about it.” Kurt felt
sort of bad now.

“Yeah, you were.” Blake grinned at him. “But
you’re allowed.”

“So when? Give me details.”

“She’s about two months along now. She didn’t
even realize she was pregnant. Cynthia figured it out.”

At the sound of Cynthia’s name, Kurt felt
himself tense up. He had not contacted her. Not once since the
photo shoot. Granted, he’d gone straight from the studio to shower
and jump on a plane, but still. Out loud he only said,
“Cynthia?”

Blake nodded. “I guess they’d gotten together
and Sharon wasn’t herself with her either. Only instead of getting
upset and confused like me, she put it together because of her work
at the women’s shelter. Guess she’d been around enough pregnant
women to know.”

Cynthia worked at a women’s shelter too?
There was so much he didn’t know about her, Kurt thought. She’d
never once mentioned it. “The shelter as in the one where Mom
volunteers?”

“They’ve apparently known each other for a
while. I had no idea either,” Blake said, nodding. “Anyway, she
goes out and gets Sharon a test. It comes back positive, but they
still don’t tell me.”

“They knew already when you were over at my
house, crying in your beer?”

“You were doing some crying of your own,”
Blake reminded him with a smile. “I guess Sharon wanted to wait
until she had it confirmed by her doctor. She knew how badly I
wanted kids, so she didn’t want to disappoint me. And you know how
she is about technology, she didn’t trust the stick.”

Kurt laughed. It was so like his
sister-in-law. “So you found out sometime in the last couple of
weeks?”

“About a day or two after you left on the
trip.”

“Big news to keep to yourself all this
time.”

Blake shrugged. “Not something you tell over
the phone.”

“I assume Mom is beside herself?”

“Picking out baby stuff already.” Blake
grinned at him.

“Good. That means I’m off the hook for a
while.” Kurt sat back in his chair. His brother looked happy. So
happy, he was a little envious, he had to admit to himself.

“Wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Blake
said. “Might just add fuel to the fire. But you can find out for
yourself. Mom’s requested a family night tomorrow. Can you make
it?”

Kurt got up, gave his brother another man
hug. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

Later that evening, Kurt pulled into his
driveway, Lucky in the seat beside him. His house was dark,
unwelcoming. Opening the door and bounding up the stairs, he
reached the main living area, turned on the lights. Everything was
perfectly in its place, the familiar smells of the cleaning crew in
the air.

He walked over to the guest bedroom where
Cynthia had stayed. It was completely empty of any personality.
Almost like she’d never been there.

~ ~ ~

“I don’t want to go,” Cynthia told Sharon,
shaking her head for emphasis. “It’s a family dinner. I’m not
family.”

“Why are you being so stubborn about this?”
Sharon peered at her closely. “You’re my family, closest thing I
have to a sister. Marjorie specifically asked me to bring you. And
I know she called you directly.”

Cynthia shrugged. She wasn’t about to tell
Sharon about her move on Kurt at the photographer’s studio. Or the
fallout from that—complete radio silence from Kurt for the last
three weeks now. She vaguely remembered him saying something about
a business trip. But he hadn’t been close to a phone or computer to
email for three weeks? She wasn’t buying that. She didn’t want to
see him. It was too embarrassing. Obviously his reaction in the
studio hadn’t been to her. She wondered for the hundredth time who
he had been imagining she was when she kissed him.

Sharon put her hands on her hips. “You don’t
have any good reason, and you know it. And this time, I’m pulling
the ‘I’m pregnant and you need to do what I ask because I’m in a
delicate condition’ card.”

Cynthia snorted. “You’re about as delicate as
a horse. I’ve watched you shove furniture around the store when you
think no one is looking.”

Sharon sighed. “Okay, fine. But you’re still
going. Because I’ve already RSVP’ed for you to Marjorie.”

Cynthia set her mouth in a mulish line. “You
had no right. And I could still just not go.”

“But you will,” Sharon told her with a smirk.
“Because you like Marjorie and you would find it rude to back out
now.”

“Remind me again why I thought you were my
friend?” Cynthia threw her pencil down on the desk, sat back in her
chair and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Look.” Sharon sat on the desk and put a hand
on Cynthia’s arm. “I don’t know what happened between you and
Kurt.”

“Nothing—”

Sharon held up a hand. “You may be able to
fool other people, but not me. I know something happened. And if
you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. But you and Kurt are going
to have to be around each other because you’re both family to Blake
and I. Now is as good a time as any to smooth things out.
Everyone’s going to be focused on the baby anyway.”

“So it’s all about you, is it?” Cynthia gave
Sharon a wry smile to let her know she was teasing.

“As a matter of fact.” Sharon winked at her.
“So I will see you there tonight?”

Cynthia sighed, but nodded. Sharon was right.
She might as well get it over with. She couldn’t avoid Kurt
forever. And she had to admit to herself that she wanted to see his
reaction to her appearance.

While Kurt may have decided to forego the gym
workouts since the photo shoot, Cynthia had found such satisfaction
in her success that she had decided to hire a personal trainer to
keep her honest. If she thought the workouts with Kurt had been
tough, it was nothing compared with this guy. But the results had
been staggering. For the first time in years she actually was
starting to have a defined waistline. And she was starting to see
muscles develop in her arms and legs.

She peeked at her watch. She had a good six
hours until the dinner. Time to go shopping.

Kurt arrived first at his mother Marjorie’s
house. He wanted to spend some time with his mother alone, because
it had been a while. His mother wasn’t someone to let moss grow
under her feet. You almost needed an appointment to see her, he
thought with a grin. And he was glad that was the case. For a while
after his father had died, she had been sort of aimless, and had
worried both him and his brother. Now she didn’t seem to have
enough time in the day for all her causes. But she managed it
somehow.