That's Amore (4 page)

“See you when you get back.” She hung up the phone and fanned herself, wondering if she needed to turn the air conditioning up. It seemed awfully hot in there.

“This is bad, going to worse,” she told Justin, who plopped on his bottom and studied her curiously. She didn’t even want to know what he saw when he looked at her.

Five minutes later, the phone rang again.

“Hello?”

“I’m drowning here.”

It was Jeff, sounding more than desperate, all trace of the nipple inspired lust gone from his voice.

“What is it now?”

“If I want apples, do I just grab one out of the bin? I just take as many as I want?”

If he didn’t sound so adorable, it would be just downright pathetic. “How have you managed to survive to the age of twenty-nine and not know how to grocery shop?”

“A mother, four aunts, six female cousins, and two grandmothers. That’s how.”

“There has never been a sexual revolution in your family, has there? No bra burners in the Benedetto clan.”

“Sure there has. That’s why Gina had a kid without being married and my cousin Annmarie is a lesbian. But that still doesn’t mean I know how to grocery shop.”

“Then why did you offer to go?” she said in exasperation.

“I was trying to protect you. I didn’t think it was safe for you to go.”

Now why did that make her feel strangely and unbearably warm in certain spots?

“Take as many apples as you want. They have little plastic bags in front of the bins for you to put them in. They’ll weigh them when you check out. Got it?” If he couldn’t figure it out from there, he was on his own.

“Got it. Thanks, Paige.”

“No problem.”

When the phone rang again, she debated not answering, then feared it might be Gina. Or worse, her boss, wanting to know why she had canceled her appointments for the next three days.

“Hello?”

“Okay, say I wanted to cook something like chicken. What kind of chicken would I want to buy?”

“Jeff!”

“Well, there’s all these parts here… there’s thighs and legs and… breasts.” His voice went hard.

She went limp on the couch like an overcooked noodle. “Breasts,” she managed to choke out. Then she hung up on him before a whimper could escape her mouth.

Jeff came back an hour later with approximately twenty-seven bags of groceries.

“Oh, is this all you got?” she asked in amusement, once he was done running up and down the stairs with arm loads of bags five times. The entire kitchen counter and floor were covered with grocery bags.

Justin was sitting on the ceramic tile staring at the sea of blue plastic in awe.

Jeff shot her a panicked look. “It’s not enough? Should I go back?”

“No! I’m kidding.”

Now he looked offended. “Well, what do I know? I did the best I could. Now give me a house to frame or a basement to drywall, and you better watch out.”

His male ego obviously needed soothing. Paige started poking in bags, hoping there was more than just guy food like beer nuts and pork rinds. “You’re right. And it’s better to have too much than not enough.”

He preened a little. “That’s exactly what I thought.”

Paige pulled out a bag of ready to eat salad and put it in the fridge. At least Jeff had remembered that vegetables exist, which is more than she could say for a lot of men.

“Hey, uh, Paige, why don’t you let me put everything away and you can change Justin’s diaper.”

Like she was falling for that. “No way. You said we would do it together. So we’ll put all the groceries away together, then do the diaper bit together.”

Her hands dipped into the bag and she pulled out a pack of bagels and six green apples. Very nice. No wonder Jeff was in such great shape. He ate healthy. Not that she had really noticed his shape. Much.

After putting the apples away, she hung the plastic bag on the doorknob to the pantry and started on another bag.

Jeff was digging through half a dozen bags, but wasn’t pulling anything out of them.

She watched him skeptically. “You might want to actually take the groceries out and put them away, you know.”

Paige found a box of crackers and ripped it open. She bent over and started to hand Justin a cracker. Looking at his little mouth, she pulled her hand back and broke it in half. That seemed better. “Here you go, sweetie, I bet you’re starving.”

The cracker was rammed into Justin’s mouth and he held his hand out for more.

“Hold on, let me get you some milk first.”

“Jeff, where’s the milk?” Paige started going through the bags on the counter, riffling around for a sippy cup and the milk.

“I’ll find it.” Jeff brushed her aside, none too gently.

Paige stumbled backwards and caught the heel of her shoe in the handle of a bag. “What are you doing? Trying to kill me?”

“No, I’m trying to help.” Jeff was pawing through all the bags frantically.

Ignoring Jeff’s weird behavior, Paige reached for a bag on the floor, conscious of Justin’s urgent wail at not getting more cracker. But if she gave Justin more cracker without milk, she had an image of dry cracker bits mixed with spit forming a choking sized ball in his mouth.

Better to get the milk.

“Don’t look in there!” Jeff yelled, pulling her hand back.

“What is the matter with you?” she snatched her hand away, disturbed by the warm feel of his skin.

“Here, I found the milk.” He held it up, his eyes studiously avoiding hers. His arm muscle bulged as he held the gallon of milk in front of her face, with no apparent strain whatsoever.

“Thank you,” she said in suspicion, setting it on the counter. “And the cup?”

“Right here.” He smiled at her as he handed her the blue plastic tumbler in colorful packaging.

As she turned and ripped it open, she saw Jeff bag diving again. “Are you looking for something?”

“No.” Then he gave a hiss of triumph and Paige saw him tuck something into the waistband of his jeans.

“What was that?” She dropped the packaging on the counter and ripped the lid off the cup.

“What?” He stood up and stared at her in wide-eyed innocence. His shirt, which had been tucked in a minute ago, was now out and hanging over his waistband. There was a slight bulge under the shirt above his jeans.

“What did you stick in your pants?”

“Nothing.”

Like she believed that. “You are such a liar. There’s a big bulge in your pants.”

Okay, wrong thing to say.

Jeff grinned. “There’s always a big bulge in my pants.”

“Oh, please.” Paige turned back and poured the milk, her hand only shaking slightly as she tried to forget that she had ever been acquainted with Jeff’s bulge.

It only took them twenty minutes to change Justin’s diaper, which Jeff thought was pretty good considering their amateur status as babysitters.

Unfortunately, Justin had been sitting in that diaper for a couple of hours by the time they got to it. At one point, Jeff thought they were going to need to bring a pressure washer in to get the kid clean.

But Paige had prevailed, and now Justin was squeaky clean and the two of them were… not so clean. And the apartment smelled from one end to the other like dirty diaper.

“Let me see if I can open a window.” Jeff headed towards the long windows in the living room.

“No, you can’t open those. Justin could push the screen and fall out. Open the one in the kitchen and the bedroom. He can’t reach those.”

And Paige claimed to know nothing about babies. He was finding it incredibly sexy to watch Paige’s maternal skills surface. Of course, everything about Paige was sexy.

She tugged at her blouse. “Do you mind if I take a shower? I feel disgusting.”

He wondered how she would react if he asked to watch. His groin spasmed at the thought as he shoved open the kitchen window, which resisted a little.

“Go right ahead. These bags left on the floor here have shampoo and stuff in them. And I went to that T-shirt shop next door to Giant Eagle and bought you some stuff.” He figured if they were going to be stuck here for days, she wasn’t going to want to hang around in the same business suit twenty-four-seven.

He didn’t add that he had bought her panties as well. That had been an agonizing five minutes spent staring at his choices. If he went thong or bikini in some silky material he was sending a message of sexual intent, and if he went cotton briefs he was suggesting she was big boned or something. He had gone with the high cut leg in solid colors and had hoped for the best.

“Thanks.” Paige took the bags and headed off towards the bedroom.

Justin was on the floor in the bedroom doorway playing with the blocks Jeff had bought him. Jeff went past him to open the window next to the bed. The shower was running.

As he pushed and shoved on the window, the image of Paige in the shower rose in his mind. Taunting him. He knew what she looked like naked. He remembered every curve and valley. The window went flying up with the force of his sexual frustration.

Damn, he was in trouble here.

He reached into his waistband and pulled out a box of condoms. What had he been thinking to buy these?

Well, he knew what he had been thinking. But it was a bad idea. Paige was out of his league. She always had been.

He tossed the condoms in the nightstand drawer and sighed as he sat on the bed. That had been the best and the worst moment of his life when he had realized that Paige had been a virgin. He had never even suspected she was until it had been too late.

She hadn’t told him he was her first, and when he had stared down at Paige, he had felt the most overwhelming tenderness for her. She had trusted him and he had felt thrilled, yes, but big time under-qualified for the job.

Paige was class, with her pretty manners and her shiny blond hair, and her private college education. He was construction, T-shirts and tools. He had gone to the local community college and preferred beer over wine any day of the week.

So instead of calling Paige like he had promised, he hadn’t. It had been a jerkish thing to do, but he felt like in the end it had been better for Paige.

He had left her free to find someone her mother could approve of.

Of course, now here he was sitting ten feet away from her, only a closed door between him and her naked, wet body, bubbly soap sliding up and down…

He sprang up. His pants were way too tight to stay sitting.

“I will not make love to Paige,” he said firmly out loud, to make it have more meaning.

Steam filtered under the bathroom door and the smell of berries drifted over to him.

“Unless she really, really wants me to,” he amended.

Paige adjusted the water temperature and told herself she was being ridiculous. Unless he had acquired x-ray vision, Jeff could not see through the bathroom door and through the shower curtain.

Yet it felt like he was.

Or maybe she just wanted him to.

And standing in the shower with nothing on and imagining all the interesting possibilities of showering with Jeff was not sticking to her vow to be indifferent.

She had left the door unlocked, which was probably her subconscious desire rearing its ugly head. What would she do if he strode into the bathroom, stripped, pulled back the curtain and stepped in behind her? One or six thousand ideas came to mind.

Slapping shampoo on her head with one hand, Paige turned the water faucet until a cold stream was hitting her. It was steamy hot in there without Jeff. She would erupt into flames if he stepped into the shower with her.

Rinsing her hair in three seconds, she cut off the water altogether. It was better to get some clothes on and step away from the taunting image of Jeff and cascading hot water.

With her clothes on she could think.

Or not.

Five minutes later Paige was appraising her image in the mirror. While it had been extremely considerate of Jeff to pick up some clothes for her, his efforts had fallen a little short.

In the midriff and the thighs.

Jeff had said he had gotten them at a T-shirt shop, but as Paige tugged at the body hugging belly top with the cleavage strategically ripped to show
everything
, she thought it was more likely he had gone to Sluts R Us.

Or the children’s department.

The black knit shorts were approximately seven inches shorter than she would normally wear them.

She suspected she made the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders look modest.

At least Jeff had gotten her reasonable underwear, and she was impressed with his thoughtfulness. If he had brought a thong back, she might have been tempted to shove it down his throat. And anything larger than a size medium and she wouldn’t have been responsible for her actions.

But he had gotten nice middle of the road panties, in a size small. Lucky him.

Trying to pull the pieces of cleavage together, she assessed her options.

She could stay in the bathroom forever. And starve or die of boredom, whichever came first.

She could put her business suit back on. And do what? Sleep in it? Not appealing.

She could go out there like this, rest assured that no one but Jeff was going to see her.

The third option made the most sense, really. After all, she and Jeff were mature adults. They could control themselves.

Or hopefully Jeff would be able to. She was starting to doubt herself.

HEN PAIGE WALKED into the room, hoping she looked nonchalant, Jeff was fixing himself a turkey sandwich and drinking a soft drink.