Not Another Bad Date (15 page)

She swallowed hard and shook her head. He kissed her stomach and bit the inside of her thigh as he placed his warm palm between her legs, then slid his hand up until his thumb brushed her clitoris.

She moaned deep in her throat and felt his satisfied laugh against the inside of her thigh. He parted her slick flesh and placed his hand beneath her bottom. He raised her like a feast and brought his mouth down.

Fourteen years ago he’d kissed that same spot. Only he was better at it now. Better at knowing how to use his tongue and how hard to draw her into his mouth. He teased and sucked until she almost came apart, then he slid a finger inside and touched her g-spot. He hadn’t known that trick fourteen years ago, and she came apart. “Zach,” she called, as a fierce orgasm clinched her insides and spread across her body. Her spine arched off the bed, and he stayed with her until the last shudder shook her body. Then he brushed his mouth across her inner thigh and stood.

“I’ve wanted to do that for a couple of weeks now.” He reached into the back pocket of his pants and pulled out a condom. “Are you ready for more?”

She felt boneless as she looked up at him. She should have been sated, ready to roll over and go to sleep, but as she stared at his beautiful body and powerful erection, she wanted more. A lot more, and she knew she would not be truly sated until she got it.

She sat up just enough to grasp his hand, pulling until he landed on top of her. His thick penis burned into her belly as she kissed his throat and shoulder and pushed him onto his back. Their heated skin stuck together where it touched, and she took the condom from his hand and opened it. He was more than ready, and she fit the latex over the plump head and unrolled it down the long, hard length of him.

“I think you’re going to like this.” She straddled his hips, positioned herself, then slowly sat. He was big and extremely hard, and she took her time, feeling every bulge and ridge through the thin latex until the head of his penis bumped her cervix.

His breath hissed from his lungs as his hands slid up her thighs and hips to her waist. “You look good up there. I like it already.”

“It gets better.” Slowly she raised herself, rocking her hips and sliding back down. She teased him with her body, clenching her muscles around him, drawing his flesh deeper, using him to build and stroke the sexual fire burning through her.

“You’ve learned a few things,” he said, his grip on her waist tightening.

She rolled and rotated her hips, feeding his need and hers, and looked into his drugged eyes as he watched her. She bent forward to kiss the side of his neck. Her breasts pressed into his chest, and she whispered into his ear, “You feel good. Hard. Huge.”

He rolled with them until she was on her back looking up into his face. His fingers curled with hers, and his mouth came down hard. His tongue drove into her mouth as he drove into her body. She felt light-headed like she might pass out as he pushed her up the bed with the powerful plunge of his hips. She tore her mouth from his, wrapped one leg around his waist, and matched him thrust for thrust. He propelled them toward orgasm, pushing again and again.

“Don’t stop. Don’t stop,” she whispered with each hard stroke, until the first wave grabbed her and wouldn’t let go as it rushed across her over and over for an eternity. It curled her toes and clenched her fists, and she opened her mouth on a silent scream.

He groaned words of pleasure and praise. He told her she was beautiful and how good she felt inside. With one last powerful drive of his hips, he shoved into her and stopped. His grasp on her fingers tightened, and he buried his face in the side of her neck. His release turned his back and shoulder muscles to stone and elicited a final groan that seemed to come from the pit of his soul.

His breath whispered across her cheek, and he kissed her ear. “Are you okay?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“I didn’t hurt you?”

Hurt her? She laughed. “No.”

He raised his head and looked into her eyes. A totally unrepentant smile tilted his lips. “I got kind of rough there at the end. Sorry.”

She ran her hands up his shoulders and down his back. She looked up into Zach’s familiar brown eyes. Nothing about the sex she’d just had with Zach reminded her of the boy she’d once known. He was different now, and so was she. The biggest difference was that she didn’t love him. He’d just given her great sex. Incredible sex, but it wasn’t love. It had nothing to do with love, and that was just fine with her. The last thing she needed was to fall in love with the man who’d once broken her heart.

“Are you hungry?” He pressed his forehead into hers and ran his hand up her thigh. “Could you eat some pizza?”

Nothing had reminded her of the boy she’d once known until that moment. He’d always been ravenous right after sex. “How about a sandwich instead?”

“What you’re wearing.”

“This?” Adele glanced down at her white T-shirt, pinched the fabric, and held it away from her stomach. She was a little embarrassed that she didn’t have anything truly sexy to wear, but when she’d packed for her visit, she hadn’t exactly packed with sex in mind.

“Yeah.” He took a big bite of his ham-and-Swiss sandwich and washed it down with the sweet tea.

“It’s an old T-shirt.”

“But that’s what I always liked about you. You’re sexy without even trying.”

She was?
She didn’t feel sexy these days. Between her work and her sister and Kendra, she mostly felt tired.

“If you think this T-shirt is sexy, you don’t get out enough.”

“Honey, I have a teenage daughter.” He set his glass on the bar. “I don’t get out at all.”

Adele found that hard to believe. “At all?”

“I haven’t been in the same room with a naked woman in a long time.”

“How long?” She took a drink of her tea.

“Let’s see. It was since before Devon died. I know that. Probably about four or five months before I served her with the divorce papers.”

The tea went down the wrong pipe, and she sputtered and coughed. “You were divorcing Devon?”

“Yeah, but don’t let it get out. Tiffany doesn’t know, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“Okay, but…” She set the glass on the bar. “Never mind.”

He took a bite and chewed thoughtfully. “Never mind what?”

“It’s none of my business, but if you were divorcing Devon, why is your house practically a shrine to her?”

He set his sandwich on the plate and turned on the stool to face her. “We really haven’t changed much in the house since Devon died. The furniture in my bedroom and in the media room are new, but Tiffany likes things left the way they are.”

“Oh. That explains the big spooky portrait of Devon.” But sooner or later they would have to change. Keeping things the same couldn’t be healthy for either of them.

“You think it’s spooky?”

“Oh, yeah. You don’t?”

He shrugged. “I’m used to it, I guess. I don’t really even see it anymore.”

“The first time I was in your house and saw that portrait of Devon, I about had heart failure.”

“I bet.” He laughed and scratched his bare chest. “When I came home and saw you standing under the portico, I thought maybe I was hallucinating. You were standing there with your wild hair and white sweater, and you didn’t look very happy to see me.”

She turned to face him, and her bare knees slid between his denim-covered ones. “I was shocked. First by that enormously freaky portrait of Devon, then by you.”

He reached for her hand and kissed the backs of her fingers. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you after that day.” He flipped her hand over and kissed her wrist, sending warm tingles up her forearm to her elbow. “I know you’re only in Cedar Creek to help out your sister, but I’m glad. I’m a selfish bastard, and I’m glad you have to stick around for a while yet.”

After he finished eating, he made love to her again. He didn’t demand food afterward, and Adele drifted to sleep wrapped up in his arms. When she woke the next morning, she was alone.

Like all good one-night stands, Zach had left without so much as waking her. No empty promise to call her later. No awkward good-bye.

Those were the rules of sex without love. Those were the rules of two people hooking up. She was fine with it, even if it did feel a little hollow.

She turned onto her back and looked up at the patterns on the ceiling. Yes those were the rules, but she couldn’t help wondering where Zach was and what he was doing.

For some reason, the curse didn’t seem to zap him. At least not yet, and she wouldn’t mind using his body a few more times before the curse kicked in, and she had to kick him to the curb.

Devon jumped over a stack of shoe boxes, did a roundoff into a back handspring, and finished with a left-side hurdler, accidentally landing her foot in Jules’s ample chest. Jules flew backward and knocked over a rack of Hanes Her Way thigh slimmers.

“Sorry,” Devon said, hardly winded as she grabbed the black jersey from the rack.

Since getting sentenced to Walmart three years ago, Devon had learned a few things. First, that just because she’d been reduced to wearing Walmart couture didn’t mean she had to let herself go. Being dead hadn’t changed her fashion sensibilities. Naturally, she was envied by the other associates.

The second thing she’d learned was that she had the energy and stamina of a teenager. She could do herkies and pikes and back handsprings like no one’s business, just like when she was on the UT squad. Unfortunately, she wasn’t the only one with her former body. There was a woman in Beauty who delivered a mean karate chop to the throat if you got too close to the lip liner.

The third thing she’d learned was that behind the smiley face logo lived a lot of severely pissed-off dead people who, like herself, had been unjustly charged, unfairly sentenced, and doomed to a life of Muzak.

She’d been assigned to an eternity of shelving shoes. Which should have thrilled her, but just made her long for the days when she’d sunk her feet into Prada, Manolo Blahnik, and Valentino. Cheap shoes just didn’t smell like Fendi.

She supposed it could have been worse. She could have been sentenced to the kitchen, where she’d have to churn out cole slaw and chicken nuggets for eternity.

She moved into the changing room and shed the print chiffon she’d wrestled from the grasp of a woman from home appliances just yesterday. She pulled the black jersey over her head, and it clung to her body. As she gazed at herself in the full-length mirror, she smiled. She was beautiful and perfect, as always.

But unlike always, the image wavered and dissolved in front of her eyes. The racks of clothes shimmered like a mirage, then disappeared. She stood in a gray mist, and her skin tingled. She looked down at herself and gone was the black Metro7. In its place was her Chanel bouclé tweed and Mikimoto pearls.

“There you are. You never did stay where you were supposed to.”

She looked up. “Mrs. Highbanger?”

“High
barger,
” her sixth-grade teacher corrected. “You were supposed to be in shoes. Not apparel.”

Devon shrugged.

“Come along.” Without moving her feet, Devon slid along through wispy clouds behind her old teacher. “You have earned another chance to move up.”

“I have?”

Mrs. Highbarger inclined her head slightly. She still wore that hideous purple suit with the gold buttons, but Devon supposed it wasn’t her fault someone had buried her in that fashion-hell-no. Although it must have been hanging in her closet when she’d died.

“I’m going to heaven now?” she asked.

“The choice is yours.” As if they stepped onto an invisible escalator, they moved up through the clouds.

“Okay. Let’s go.” After the hell of Walmart, she was ready for heaven.

“Not yet. The gift you granted the woman you wronged in your life has righted some of the harm you caused while you inhabited your earthly body.”

“Huh?”

Mrs. Highbarger looked back over her shoulder at Devon. “In the long run, your gift actually helped more than harmed.”

“It did?”

“Surprised?”

Shocked. Hadn’t she cursed what’s-her-name with bad dates? Which the woman had richly deserved for trying to steal Devon’s man. “Of course not.”

God knows when you lie.

Oops.
“Did she find someone?”

They stopped, and the clouds gathered and formed a filmy television screen. Images of a football game played out across the surface, and Devon recognized Zach standing on the sidelines. He looked as handsome as she remembered.

“What’s he doing?”

“Watch.”

He called a few plays, made some hand signals, then stood on the sidelines as the Cedar Creek Cougars snapped the ball. “Is he a coach at my old high school?”

“Yes.”

“I thought he took a job with ESPN.”

“He stayed in Cedar Creek for your daughter.”

“Oh.” Devon was glad. Tiffany loved her home and her friends.

The image cleared and re-formed and a silver Cadillac Escalade’s headlights cut through an inky night and burned up the flat Texas highway. Zach sat inside, his thumbs tapping the steering wheel. She recognized the impatient gesture and smiled. In her way, she’d loved Zach. He’d given her what she’d wanted and cared about most. Money and position. Their child.

“How’s Tiffany?” she asked her old teacher. She really didn’t worry about her daughter. She knew Zach would take care of her, but she missed her baby. Death changed a lot of things, but it didn’t change that.

“She’s well.”

The Escalade pulled up to a curb, and Zach got out and walked to the front door of a condo. He knocked, the door opened, and what’s-her-name stood in the threshold wearing what looked like a black slip that hugged her body. Devon gasped as Zach stepped inside and wrapped her in his arms.

“Oh hell, no! This can’t be happening.” Death changed a lot of things, but not a strong emotion like hatred. She watched Zach devour the woman’s mouth. Over the course of their ten-year marriage, he’d been with other women. She’d known and hadn’t cared. The day she’d decided to move back to Cedar Creek while he had to live in Denver, she’d known he’d fill his needs with someone else. She’d expected him to, and as long as he avoided getting caught in a sex scandal, she was happy with the arrangement. He could sleep with whomever he wanted—except
that
woman.

“How did this happen?” Devon stepped forward and waved her arms and hands until the image dispersed.

“Every date she’d gone on for the last three years has kept her single.”

“Why hasn’t the curse—or gift, I mean—worked on Zach?”

The old teacher shrugged. “God works in mysterious ways. Perhaps it is fate.”

“So they’re together?”

“The relationship is new, but yes. In part due to you. If not for your hand in things, she might have married someone else.”

Devon folded her arms across her suit. This could not be happening. Some people didn’t understand what it was like to have things that belonged to you taken away. To watch your momma’s car repossessed, your furniture removed, and your house foreclosed. Her momma’s second husband had cleaned out her bank account, and they’d lost everything. Like beggars, they lived off the kindness of relatives until Momma had found a rich man to marry and replaced it all. Devon had hated living like that, but she’d learned a valuable lesson. Win at all costs and don’t let anyone or anything take what belongs to you.

Ever.

“You said I’ve earned another gift.” She unfolded her arms. “Right?”

“Yes, but you don’t have to use it on the woman you wronged this time. That wrong has been corrected, and you can use this gift to serve mankind. You can do wonderful things. Help end poverty or aid in the research to find cures for diseases. I suggest you use this gift for the greater good.”

Greater-schmater.

I suggest you don’t do what you’re thinking.

She’d never listened to Mrs. Highbarger, and she wasn’t about to start now. There was one thing to do. One thing that Zach had always resented and hated her for. One thing he would hate what’s her-name for, too. She closed her eyes, and said, “There. It’s done.”

Mrs. Highbarger shook her head, highly disappointed yet again. “You still don’t learn,” she said, as her image began to shimmer.

“She can’t have him!” Devon hollered. “What’s her-name was always jealous of me. In the sixth grade, she took Tinkerbell away from me. Then she tried to take Zach, but he was mine!”

As before, the teacher took a step back through sliding glass doors that suddenly appeared. The doors whooshed closed, and the gray mist formed solid walls. Devon’s skin tingled as her beautiful Chanel suit warped and faded into a horrible polyester floral-print dress with a big lace collar. The hem hit her just below the knee and she looked like an escapee from 1983.

She looked beyond racks of clothes, shelves of towels and sheets, to a big wall of automotive tools. “Where the hell am I?”

A gentleman with a friendly smile and the name Norman sewn above the pocket of his polo walked toward her.

“Hello,” he said. “Welcome to Sears. Home of fine Craftsman Tools.”