Seeing Red (12 page)

“I’m going to be seriously disappointed if you suck.”

“Suck at what?”

She didn’t answer, just crawled to the center of the bed and peeled her shirt off. She tossed it to the floor, her bra immediately after it, then leaned back against the headboard. Bringing her knees up to her chest, she parted them and pointed to what was between them.

Oh.

He kicked off his shoes and climbed onto the bed between her legs.

“Maybe next time we can crack open my box of goodies.”

He let his brow furrow. Was that a euphemism?

He shrugged and dipped his head, pressed his body flat against the mattress, only for her to pull her knees up to her chest to block him.

With her eyes closed, she blew out a breath and snapped her fingers. “Never mind. There are some condoms in the drawer.”

Never mind?

That may have been the first time he’d ever been stopped before he’d even gotten a chance to start.

“Hurry.”

“Right.” He eased off the right edge of the bed and opened the drawer she indicated, plucking out the sealed box of condoms right on top of all the other miscellaneous junk. Before cracking the tape, he made quick work of peeling his T-shirt over his head and unfastening the tab of his shorts. He had his hands on the box again before his boxers hit the floor.

The impersonal nature of their trysts weighed on him somewhat as he tore open the package. Before Curt had met Erica, Seth had often heard him mumbling, “I’m too old for this shit.” That’s precisely how Seth felt at the moment. He felt as if the time for casual affairs had passed, and that now it was time for something steady—something meaningful.

He unrolled the condom onto his erect cock, now feeling somewhat ambivalent. Obviously, he wasn’t going to say no to the woman. He’d give her whatever she wanted, even if it pained him. Maybe that was his problem.

Meg scooted down so she lay flat on her back, red hair fanned over two abutting pillows, and gave him a beckoning wave.

He straddled her, wrapping her legs around his waist as he lay on top of her.

Her breath escaped in a whoosh.

“Am I too heavy for you?” He propped himself up on his forearms to redistribute the weight.

“You’re very heavy, but the beautiful thing about mattresses is that they absorb some of it.” She slid her hands down his back and suddenly her right palm handed on his ass in a hard smack that made him hiss. “Now, if you don’t mind?”

“Witch.”

She closed her eyes and damn near purred as he eased into her. “Yep. What’s the Russian word for witch?”

“
Ved’ma
…” God she felt wonderful at that angle, and she wanted to talk? “But it doesn’t mean quite the same thing.”

“Mm-hmm.” She moved her legs up higher, draping them over his shoulders. The clench of her fingers into the meat of his back urged him on, so he increased his pace incrementally, savoring the tight clench of her cunt around his shaft with each attempted withdrawal.

She angled her torso upward and pressed soft lips to his chest, kissing across his pecs, then up his neck. Given her height, that was about all she could reach.

If he eased back a bit, she could meet his lips, but before he could follow through on the thought, her head met the pillow again, and her eyes fluttered behind her eyelids.

“Do that again,” she whispered.

“What?”

“That thing you did—on your knees.”

“Oh.” He shifted into the transitional position he’d taken moments before, on his knees, sitting back at about forty-five degrees, angling her bottom up off the bed toward his core. He’d only wanted to improve his passage a bit as she was so tight—her body so narrow. He hadn’t thought she’d noticed the brief reconfiguring.

She tucked her hands around the backs of his thighs and held on as he increased his pace.

With each thrust, she let out a little whimper, growing gradually louder until he had to clamp one hand over her mouth.

Her eyes took on a malevolent glint for a moment. Then her expression relaxed as if she understood what they were doing and precisely who could catch them.

Briefly, he considered pulling his hand away, but the shuddering movements of her body and the feral grunts vibrating from her throat forced him to reconsider. And knowing that he’d done this to her, rendered her wordless and pliant, aroused him that much more. His skin tingled, belly contracted, and when her short nails pierced the flesh of his thigh backs, he toppled over the edge, bringing her along for the ride.

He pulled out of her, drawing one more whimper from her throat, and rolled onto his back. His throat burned and lips were chapped from harsh breathing. He drew his tongue over them and tried to steady his breaths as he stared at the gentle swirls in the ceiling plaster.

Was that three times? He’d never had any other woman three times. There were a few who’d come back for a second round, but they’d just wanted sex. No talking. No follow-up. They didn’t push their luck for round three. Meg had passed them in that race, but their situation was a far more perverted one. Equally stagnant, unless someone labeled their relationship as something more.

And that someone would have to be Meg. That’s what Sharon said, and Carla had hinted at as much. But neither woman had given him any clues as to how he could get her to turn the tide. Perhaps he’d been asking the wrong questions.

Perhaps he always had.

Chapter 9

Meg felt an unusual surge of desperation and didn’t understand the origins. She’d been restless, waking up at ungodly hours to pace the floor in front of her bed. She hadn’t really left the condo in days beyond riding the elevator down to the lobby to fetch her mail, and that one trip to her gynecologist who’d squeezed her in between a prenatal exam and a scheduled C-section. She’d worried that conversation would shape up to be rather uncomfortable, perhaps, “Yes, Doctor. I know this is highly unusual, but I’d like you to run a full panel of STD tests because I let my rock-star ex-husband sleep around on me. Here’s my arm.”

Fortunately, her doctor hadn’t lectured. Hadn’t judged. She did, however, cringe, then called the nurse in to order the tests. She’d put a rush order on them, but it would still be a couple of weeks before they all trickled back in. The doctor thought Meg was probably fine since she was asymptomatic and had been abstinent for so long, but she didn’t want to take any chances.

Meg had pretty much avoided everyone in the days following her return from Bermuda, and didn’t even turn on her phone until she caught one particularly scathing e-mail from Sharon while she was finishing up that technical writing project.

Heard your parents are coming into town. That’s great. Super. So wonderful that the big guy is going along with this so prettily, right? How are things going on your end? Do you feel better about yourself now that the faux-moving company you staged moved all those empty boxes into your condo? That was a good one, girl. Good job keeping up appearances. I hadn’t even thought of crossing that T myself.

While we’re on the subject of your faux-marriage, I had lunch with your husband yesterday when I was down in Fayetteville meeting with a couple about their wedding reception. For some reason that idiot turns into a big Russian lump whenever you’re the subject of conversation, so whatever you’re doing, stop it. Don’t lead him on. He’s not the sort of alpha schmuck that seems so predominant in our circle. He’s going to let you walk all over him like cheap carpet because he thinks you’re some kind of princess.

He’s an idiot to be a genius.

Meg didn’t read beyond that. She’d turned on her cell phone for the first time in days, ignored the flashing voice-mail notification, and dialed her friend’s number.

“Shalom,” Sharon answered.

“That was completely unnecessary,” Meg said.

“I know you, Meggie. I know I coordinated this debacle, but you need to be cooperative and put some slack in his line. He’s not a chew toy. Don’t string him along.”

More like sex toy. Not that Meg would ever share that information. He brought out a forcefulness in her that made her question why she’d never been able to get her needs met before, considering they weren’t all that outrageous.

“When are your parents supposed to be in?”

Meg slung the basket full of Toby’s dirty play clothes onto her hip and padded down the hall. “Tomorrow morning. I think Seth is going to spend the night here. I’m not sure.”

“Have you maybe considered telling your parents what you’re up to? They might be sympathetic.”

Meg forced a huff through her lips and nudged the laundry-closet’s accordion doors open with her foot. Of course the thought had crossed her mind. Given the embarrassment of the past few years concerning Spike, they might have gone along with the arrangement out of spite, but Meg didn’t want to drag any more parties into the scheme than necessary. “I don’t think them knowing is in my best interest.”

“What’ll happen if they actually like Seth?”

Meg puffed out another of those breaths and turned the knobs on the washing machine to cold water, extra rinse. Her notoriously picky parents actually liking him? Wasn’t going to happen.

* * * *

“But I don’t understand. Where are your parents?” Mrs. Scott’s nose crinkled and she stared at Seth over her reading glasses’ top edge.

Seth set down his fork and wiped his fingertips on his cloth napkin. “I honestly don’t know. I lost track of them when I was thirteen or fourteen. They could be on Mars.”

A bird landed on the balcony’s half wall, chirping brightly for a moment, with no regard to the human beings at the nearby table.

They all seemed in awe of the red-bellied critter, stopping their conversation, and ceasing movement of their utensils until the bird grew bored or otherwise distracted, and flitted away on the wind.

The attention of the Scotts, on the other side of the round table, returned to their former target.

“I’m appalled anyone would abandon a child,” Mrs. Scott said.

“Here we go,” Meg murmured under her breath and shoved her watermelon rind to her plate’s edge.

Mrs. Scott turned her right ear to her daughter and cupped it. “What’d you say, Megan? You know how I feel about mumbling.”

Meg stared at her mother a long moment, unblinking. Then, she leaned back in her seat and folded her arms. “I know what you’re doing,” she said. “Stop it. He doesn’t have a pedigree for you to examine and shine a light behind.”

Mrs. Scott groaned and rolled her eyes.

Toby, who’d been curiously quiet for most of the meal, asked, “What’s a pedigree?”

This time, Mr. Scott took up the slack. “It’s something people use to prejudge other people without knowing a lick about them.”

“It’s not nice to judge,” Toby quipped.

Mrs. Scott chortled. “Who on Earth fed you that line?”

“Erica,” he responded, and his little cheeks flushed red. He looked away from the table down to the hem of his immaculate polo shirt and fidgeted with it.

Seth understood the sentiment perfectly well. Toby would have been silly to not have a crush on Erica. She was easy to talk to and didn’t try to monopolize conversations. She had her own interests and supported Curt in his. Not to mention that she was gorgeous and a dynamite cook. Seth was man enough to admit that he could most certainly fall in love with a woman who fed him as well as his babushka had.

Meg nudged Seth’s foot under the table and twirled the tines of her fork through her pasta. “You don’t have to answer any of their questions. Tell them your history is none of their business.”

Mrs. Scott huffed. “If it’s not our business, then whose is it? This is what families do. Tell each other things.”

Seth was fairly certain Mrs. Scott’s water glass was one squeeze shy of shattering, judging given how white her knuckles were as she gripped it. He turned to Meg. “The questions are fine. I don’t mind answering, assuming I have an answer to give. But, no. I don’t have much of a pedigree. I know just enough about my father to fill an index card. My mother is the kind of woman who dislikes sitting still, so I was never surprised they wanted to travel.”

“But without you?” Mrs. Scott pressed.

He raised his shoulders and let them fall. “I was quite young the last time they left. Seemed best for me to have some constancy.”

“But then they didn’t return after your grandmother died?”

He shrugged again, not knowing what to tell them, except, “Not everyone is destined to be a parent. I truly believe that some people are meant to have children, but not necessarily raise them.”

“Do you do that all the time? Try to rationalize truly shitty situations in your life?” That came was from Meg, who had turned in her chair toward him, and propped her cheek against her left fist as she stared at him.

Did he do that? Had he turned into some sort of Pollyanna in all his years, or had he always been that way? Maybe it was one more thing he’d inherited from his grandmother beyond her dark skin. In life she’d been an incurable optimist, even when the forecast was dire. She’d always smiled, even if she had to cringe before she made it there.