Single Mom Seeks... (12 page)

“Jake is just fine,” Nick said as pleasantly as he could manage. “In fact, he’s right here—”

Jake was shaking his head like a madman, mouthing vile threats toward his uncle if Nick dared give the phone to him.

“I didn’t call to talk to Jake. I called to talk to you,” Joan said.

Nick mouthed to Jake,
Fine, you’re off the hook. Now get upstairs.
Then turned around and tried to find some patience to deal with Joan.

“You’re still determined to be responsible for these boys?” Joan asked him.

“Nothing’s changed, Joan. We’re still here. We’re still fine. There’s nothing for you to take care of,” Nick insisted, wondering how his sister stood having this woman as an in-law.

He knew Joan made her a little crazy, but lately he wondered how they’d never come to blows. Joan was…pushy would be the nicest Nick could imagine. She thought she knew everything, including all there was to know about raising teenage boys successfully.

Jake ran from her when he saw her coming and thought her kids were freakishly perfect on the outside and a complete mess on the inside. Nick thought Jake might be right.

He felt like he could see her glaring at him through the phone.

“Fine. Take your six months, although I doubt it will require that long for you to see what a mistake this is,” she said. “I’m calling about Thanksgiving. I think it’s very important that the boys be with their family this year, of all times, and I thought I might cook dinner and serve it in their house, so they could have one more Thanksgiving at home.”

Nick’s first thought was that he’d rather eat in front of the TV, watching a football game, and suspected Jake would be fine with that. Jake’s father would have been fine with that, too. Nick had spent Thanksgiving at their house, doing just that, until his sister dragged them all away from the TV long enough to serve dinner in the big dining room.

Joan would have pitched a fit, but his sister had lived in a house full of men and understood. They’d eat, digest awhile in front of more football games on TV, and then move into the backyard for a vicious game of football of their own.

It was relaxed and raucous and just about time being spent together as a family.

“Well?” Joan asked, pushy as ever.

“I’ll think about it,” Nick said. “And I’ll ask the boys what they want to do. We’ll get back to you.”

He got off the phone as fast as he could, swore long and loud in a way he tried not to do in front of Jake, but when he turned around, Jake was still standing there behind Nick, looking worried.

“She’s still trying to get you to give up custody, isn’t she?” Jake asked.

“No,” Nick said, finding a feeling of satisfaction from seeing that Jake really did want to stay with him. He was never sure how things were going, still wasn’t sure he could do this and do it right. “Joan just wants us to spend Thanksgiving with her.”

“Ooh! No,” Jake said. “She’d have a fit if we wanted to watch a game.”

Nick shrugged. “I’ll try to be a bit more diplomatic than that when I turn her down.”

“You know, I was thinking maybe we could spend it with Lily. You think she’ll ask us?”

“I don’t know. She may have plans with her family. Her sister’s house is only about thirty minutes from here.”

“I bet Lily makes a killer Thanksgiving dinner.”

Which had Nick picturing her in the kitchen.

Which led to him picturing other things.

Things he shouldn’t be picturing with Jake in the room.

“You have work to do,” Nick said. “Go.”

And Jake went.

Nick paid some bills, did some paperwork and watched Lily’s house as one-by-one the lights went out, then saw her walk into the kitchen.

So, she’d gotten the girls to sleep.

Then he walked across the side yard and knocked on her door.

She stared at him through the glass door for a moment before opening it, looking very pretty and hesitant and a little embarrassed.

“I wasn’t sure you were going to let me in,” he said.

Her cheeks took on a pink tinge and she looked away, biting her lip not to say anything.

Nick laughed softly, feeling like in this moment his life was as close to blissful as it had ever been. He was surprised he even recognized the feeling.

Digging a hand into his front pocket, he tugged on pink lace until a bit of it showed. “I got everything else in the cabinet above the refrigerator—”

“No, you got my shirt and my jeans in the cabinet. The bra didn’t quite make it. It was lying on top of the refrigerator. Mostly on top, I should say. My sister found it.”

“Oh.” Nick nodded. “Sorry. I thought I got it all in there. I tried. Really, but it all happened so fast.”

Was she mad or just embarrassed?

He couldn’t quite tell.

“I was going to do my best not to tell Marcy anything, but with the bra as evidence, I didn’t stand a chance against her,” Lily said. “You’ve met her. You know what I was up against.”

She still wasn’t looking at him, and he wasn’t going to let her get away with that all night. He took a step closer, planting himself right in front of her, backing her up against that spot on the counter with two hands at her side, holding her loosely, not touching her with anything but his hands, but needing to know.

“Are you mad, Lily?”

“No,” she said, staring at the floor.

“Do you think I pushed you into doing something you weren’t ready for?”

“No.”

“Something you didn’t want?”

Her gaze came up to his then. “From what happened here, I don’t think there’s any room for doubt about me wanting you.”

Yes.

He’d needed her to say it.

He knew. No question from the way she’d caught fire in his arms. But he’d needed it spoken out loud between them.

“And what do you want now?” he asked, because just as much, he needed to know where they went from here.

“My girls are upstairs,” she said.

“I know. But they won’t always be here,” he said, watching her breathe in and out, watching the space between them and knowing how easy it would be to erase it completely, wanting to sink into her all over again, thinking she really was the most amazing woman.

All quiet and comfort and gentleness on the outside, as much toughness as she needed to handle whatever life threw her on the inside, and a sweet, innocent, eager sexiness that had blown him away.

He couldn’t wait for the girls to leave again.

“No, they won’t always be here,” she said.

“But I could be. Anytime you’ll let me. On any kind of terms you want.”

She laughed, sounding a bit nervous. “I just give you a little sign—” She raised a finger and motioned him closer. “And that’s it?”

“That’s the signal?” He nodded. “Then I’ll be here.”

“Well, that’s handy. A man at my beck and call.”

He laughed out loud then.

Lily shushed him with her fingers pressed to his lips. “The girls might still be awake, and I don’t want them to know about this.”

“Okay. Sorry,” he said. “Now kiss me, and I’ll give you your panties back.”

Lily wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close, into a soft, devastatingly inviting, womanly embrace, opened herself up to him and gave herself to him as sweetly and eagerly as she had that morning.

He pulled away long moments later with a groan, pulled her panties out of his pocket and gave them to her and left, thinking he would sleep deeply, satisfyingly, and dream of her.

D
reaming of her was not enough, Nick discovered.

And the next day was Saturday, and her ex backed out on taking the girls again, that rat. He did take them on Sunday, but Jake just always seemed to be underfoot.

So Nick had to wait until he watched her get the girls off to school Monday morning, watched Jake leave, had some coffee and then waited some more, trying not to seem as desperate for her as he felt.

He made it twenty minutes before he showed up next door to find her painting fancy wooden trim to use on her walls.

She just looked at him, a paintbrush in her hand, a bit of white paint on her nose, and said, “I don’t recall giving you the signal.”

“Well, I was afraid I might have missed it, being next door,” he claimed.

“So you came over just to be sure you hadn’t missed it?”

He nodded. “And then…I had an idea.”

“Nick, I have to get some work done.”

“I know. But I’m not bad with a hammer. I mean, I built that great tree house in the backyard. I was thinking, I could help you with your work. With two of us, we’d get it done in half the time, and that would free up some time in the afternoon for…whatever you want.”

“For whatever I want? It’s what I want?”

“I was hoping we’d want the same thing,” he admitted.

And they did.

He knew it.

“You think I’m going to spend every afternoon in bed with you?” she asked, like it was ridiculous to even think that.

“I can hope, can’t I?”

She laughed as he came closer, held him off with her wet paintbrush, and said, “Well, I’m going to have to see how productive you can make these mornings. Because, if you think you’re going to come over here and make me forget all about how much I have to do—”

He got her then, grabbed the paintbrush with one hand and her with the other arm, pulling her close, holding her weapon carefully out of reach.

“Nick—”

“Don’t make me use this,” he threatened, pointing the brush at her.

“I mean it. I have to work.” She tried pushing him away, but didn’t get very far with that. He had her, and he wasn’t letting go just yet. “I have to fix up this house and sell it and make some money, so I can feed my growing girls—”

“Make me a deal, Lily.”

“Make you a deal? I have to bargain for—”

“Time, honey. We’re negotiating about how we’re going to allocate our time to accomplish the things we both want during the day, since we don’t have our nights free.”

“You make it sound so reasonable,” she said.

“I’m a reasonable man,” he claimed.

She laughed once again, and he got her close enough to kiss her soundly and then had to remind himself they were in her garage and the garage doors were open, and it was not quite ten o’clock in the morning.

“All right,” she said when he got done kissing her for the moment. “We’ll make a deal.”

“Good. What do you need to get done today?”

She gave him her list, and he said, “Okay. Once we do that, the rest of the day is ours. Deal?”

“Deal.”

He’d have her in bed by twelve-thirty, and the girls didn’t get home until three. Nick thought this would be the beginning of a thoroughly satisfying way to spend their days.

Lily’s life had taken a turn toward decadence.

She spent a few hours a day working on her house with Nick and a few hours most every day in bed with him.

She’d sneaked into the lingerie shop one morning after driving the girls to school and bought a big bag full of new undies. When Nick found out what she’d done, he’d tried to get her to promise to let him go to the store with her next time, so he could help her make her selections. No way she could walk into a lingerie store with him.

Then he started sending her undies in the mail in plain brown paper packages.

She blushed all the way to the mailbox, and all the way back, and was sure her neighbors knew something was going on, watching her the whole time she was retrieving her mail, wondering what she could possibly be getting in those plain, brown paper packages.

He made it a game, to see how quickly he could convince her to abandon her work plans and get her into bed, and they always ended up skipping lunch, so they were starving by the time the girls got home. Lily had taken to making a meal at three o’clock, which puzzled both the girls and Jake, but no one objected to eating it. And then she fed the girls and herself a snack at eight o’clock or so, which, again, they didn’t really understand but didn’t object to, either.

Richard asked her something about moving mealtimes, and she thought about the look on his face if she confessed, “I’ve taken a lover, and I just can’t get myself out of bed long enough to have lunch, which throws my whole schedule off.”

She wished she had the nerve, but evidently, the look on her face said enough.

“Are you seeing someone?” he’d asked, the girls loaded into the car for one of those rare times when he actually kept his scheduled visit with him.

“I see a lot of people,” she claimed, then to herself added,
But I’m only having mad, passionate sex with one man, and he is soooo not you.

She went to the neighborhood association meeting, where different groups planned activities throughout the year and was bombarded with questions about Nick and wild speculation about his love life, and she just smiled and claimed not to know a thing. Except that he was the nicest man, and so was Jake.

And she couldn’t walk through the neighborhood grocery store without someone telling her he was surely going at it hot and heavy with Audrey Graham.

Poor Audrey.

Lily honestly felt sorry for her, missing out on the wonder that was Nick Malone.

She didn’t think she’d ever had a more delicious secret in her whole life or a more pleasure-filled time. A part of her knew there was no way it could go on being so good for any length of time. She knew he had serious reservations about his abilities to be the parent Jake needed now, and that Jake had an aunt, Joan, who was even more convinced that Nick was not the man to be the boys’ guardian. She knew he missed his job in Washington, D.C. She knew that he saw this time as something he owed his sister, to see how things worked out between him and Jake, and that even if he did keep Jake in the end, that didn’t mean he’d be here or that he’d be with Lily.

She knew all those things, and yet another part of her was falling hard for him, wanting everything he’d been so careful to never promise her, everything he’d never wanted from a woman.

But she tried hard not to think of that, tried to stay in the moment, especially the ones when they were alone.

Weeks passed.

Halloween came and went. She dressed up as a seventies flower child in some things she picked up at a thrift store, and when Brittany told Nick if he wanted to go trick-or-treating with them, he had to dress up, he pulled out a beautiful dark suit, a pair of dark sunglasses, clipped his shiny shield to his breast pocket and told Brittany he was going as an FBI agent.

Brittany didn’t think much of the costume until he pulled a pair of handcuffs out of his pocket.

He managed to convince Lily to let him chain her to her own bed the next day by telling her she didn’t have the guts to do it, then took complete advantage of her.

Thanksgiving was fast approaching. The twins were coming home from college. Jake was excited to see his brothers. Nick could not imagine the commotion, the sheer volume of noise that would be made or food consumed in a house with three adolescent boys, and Lily was thinking she’d have to do without having him alone for five whole days, which seemed like an eternity to her now.

How had she ever lived this long without him in her life?

He was nothing like Richard in bed.

Even in the early, heady days with Richard, it hadn’t been anything like this.

Nick was demanding, patient when it really counted, impatient at times and that worked, as well, paid such attention to the finest details, took note of everything she liked and exactly how she liked it, and taught her exactly what he wanted from her and when, could be adventurous and fun or exercise the kind of self-control that drove her mad.

She felt sorry for every woman in the world who would never have him as a lover, but she wasn’t about to share.

She found herself lying in bed with him one rainy afternoon in November, a chill in the air outside, but toasty and warm, curled up against him, thinking he was the most beautiful man.

He was sprawled out on his stomach in her bed, sleepy and satisfied, and she was curled up against his side, her head on his shoulder. She peeled back the covers a little bit at a time, running her hands over every bit of skin she revealed, her fingers making little patterns on his shoulders, his back, kissing her way down his spine.

He laughed deep in his throat.

“Lily?”

“Hmm?” she said, her hand slipping under the covers to cup that sexy bottom of his.

“I thought you were too tired for this.”

“I’m just touching you,” she said, thinking about the way he looked in those faded, worn jeans of his, about the play of muscles in his hips when he was on top of her and inside of her, how she liked to have her hands here on his bottom when he was deep inside of her.

She leaned over and kissed the base of his spine, and felt his body slowly come to life, desire streaming through him like a golden light, heat following, breath quickening, heart thudding.

Even knowing what it was like, probably exactly what he was going to do, knowing how it felt, how he smelled, how he tasted, how hard and harsh his voice could get when he was really close to the edge of his self-control, even then, she still couldn’t wait to have him, to be in his arms, skin to skin, opening herself up to him, holding nothing back.

She couldn’t wait.

And she couldn’t seem to get enough.

“You’re going to cripple me one of these days,” he said, slowly rolling over, grabbing a condom and then pulling her on top of him.

Lily grinned.

She liked it this way, liked it every way, truth be told, but really liked it this way because of the way he watched her. She settled herself on top of him, close, but not taking him inside yet. She leaned down to brush her hair against his chest, brush a kiss against his lips and then her breasts against his chest. And then she rocked against him, still not taking him.

And all the while, he watched her, telling her how it felt when she did this or that, telling her how sexy she was, how pretty, how much of a tease.

After a while, he’d take a handful of her hair and pull her to him, take her hips in his palms and maneuver his way inside of her, and then let her do what she wanted for another period of time, fighting for control, while she tried to tear that control of his to shreds.

And then he’d take her by the hips once again and pull her into the rhythm he wanted, sometimes letting her stay on top, sometimes not.

It didn’t matter.

What did, was that she got to be with him, tease him, kiss him, torment him, end up spent and barely able to breathe, weak and boneless, wrapped up in his big, strong arms.

She felt so safe in his arms.

That day, she teased him for as long as she could, felt his hands on her hips as he slowed the rhythm down, until he barely let her move at all, so that the slightest movement at all felt like so much more. She dug her fingernails into his shoulders, tightened every muscle in her body around him, felt his hands dig into the flesh of her bottom, holding her still, right there on the edge.

Until they both just shattered, everything falling away.

She cried out his name, saw that hard, satisfied smile come across his face, and then she collapsed in his arms.

They stayed that way for a long time.

His hand stroked through her hair. He kissed her lips once, then again, then rolled her onto her side and disappeared for a moment, coming back a moment later to pull her back to him, spooning against her, his front to her back, his arms wrapped around her, her cheek pillowed on his arm, his lips kissing her cheek, then toying with her ear.

She was sure she’d never get enough of him.

Jake opened the door one afternoon in November and found Andie’s mother standing there, giving him a bright smile that somehow seemed odd.

“Mrs. Graham,” he said. “Hi.”

Standing in the doorway, teetering on ridiculously high heels, wearing a tight, short black skirt and a low-cut top, she struck a pose that seemed as if she were offering her breasts up for his viewing pleasure. He tried not to look.

“Hi,” she said, kind of purring in a way. She brushed past him and into the living room, uninvited. “Do me a favor, honey. Tell Phillip I’m here.”

Jake stood there. “Phillip? Who’s Phillip?”

She laughed, her voice all throaty and inviting. “You know. Phillip. He isn’t expecting me, but he’s always glad to see me.”

Jake closed the door and then followed her through the downstairs as she called out to someone named Phillip.

“Mrs. Graham, I think you have the wrong house,” he said, though honestly, how was that possible?

She’d been here three or four times flirting with his uncle. How she could not remember who Jake was and who his uncle was and that this was their house?

She headed for the stairs, missed the second step and started to fall. Jake caught her and then eased her down to sit on the step. And caught a whiff of her breath in the process.

She’d been drinking.

At four in the afternoon?

He tried to keep her where she was, not wanting her trying the stairs again, but she didn’t like that.

“I’m fine,” she insisted. “And I’m not leaving until I get to see him.”

“Okay,” Jake said. “He’s not here, but I can call him and maybe he’ll come home.”

That seemed like the best thing to do.

Except he’d call Andie.

He didn’t think her mother would know the difference, at least not until Andie got here.

Jake reached for the phone. He knew Andie’s home number because he’d thought about calling it a million times, but chickened out. He thought of the two times she’d been here, looking for her mother, and wondered if this was the problem—that her mother drank and wandered off or got lost or something.