Diplomacy is the art of saying ‘Nice, doggie’ until you can find a stick.
“Your mommy will see you after school tomorrow,” Maya reassured the tearful five-year-old as she led him back to bed.
Axell had all but thrown Cleo and Stephen into his car and driven them to town when the local cab couldn’t arrive soon enough to suit him.
“Don’ wanna go to school,” Matty replied sullenly.
Oh, great. Loving, obedient Matty had turned on her, too. Sometimes, she had to wonder if she’d started down the wrong path somewhere and if she should turn back and see where she’d lost her way.
“Mr. Pig would miss you.” She used her best no-nonsense voice as she tucked him in. “And you wouldn’t get to play Duck, Duck, Goose with Peggy and Billy,” naming his two favorite friends of the moment. “Now off to sleep.” She pressed a kiss to his forehead and slipped out the door.
Matty had stayed in his room several nights in a row this past week. Maya had the distinct feeling tonight would not be one of those nights.
Oh, well. She checked on Constance and got a rundown on the evening’s events. Poor Dorothy had apparently put up a valiant front, but she’d been called away on a family emergency, reassured by the so-called “adults” in the house that everything was under control. Maya couldn’t really blame the woman. Cleo and Stephen looked old enough to handle three little kids and a few cats.
“Well, learn from example, love,” she warned Constance. “Never swing Alexa in the air after she’s had her bottle.”
Constance giggled and snuggled beneath the covers. “Aunt Cleo yelled at Mr. James for saying those words. What does ‘bugger it all’ mean?”
With the whole scene vividly clear in her mind, Maya chuckled. “It means Alexa’s daddy was very, very angry. Now go to sleep. I’ll take care of the carpet.”
By the time she’d checked on Alexa and made certain the other two were settled, Axell had apparently returned from town and rescued the kitten from the drapery rod in the family room.
“I’m thinking tile and throw-away rugs in here,” he said in disgruntlement as he surveyed the interestingly stained carpet.
“Don’t you mean ‘throw’ rugs?”
“No, in this case, I mean exactly what I said.” He didn’t explain but looked down at her instead.
She was still wearing her evening gown, and Maya shivered at the focus of his gaze. Making love in total darkness the first time seemed somehow symbolic. She didn’t know if she could do it again, in the light, in a bed. Commitment was not something she understood, but “bed” and “husband” seemed irretrievably linked with “commitment,” and it scared the hell out of her. A condemned building just seemed more her style. She bit back a grin remembering just how completely her dignified husband had lost his cool.
“My bed, or yours?” he asked when she didn’t answer his rather pointed silence.
“Matty will come looking for me,” she murmured, fretting at a loose thread. “And Alexa wakes in the night. And Constance has nightmares.”
“Fine, your room, then,” he said confidently, steering her in the right direction. “Matty will have to learn to knock.”
Maya gulped. She didn’t know why this was so difficult for her. She was a grown woman. Men had slept in her bed before. Not many, admittedly. She’d never had much time or patience before. And none of them had erased all thought of sleep. She didn’t know why Axell should be different. He was just a man. An arrogant Virgo. With a strong streak of passionate Scorpio.
The labels didn’t help. Her heart still fluttered and her breath did a little raspy number as Axell loomed large and strong beside her bedroom door, waiting for her to enter. Labels didn’t make the man.
“We’ve done this before,” he said gravely as she hesitated, but Maya could see the twinkle behind his placid expression. Add “impossible” to her list of labels.
She swept past his imposing frame. “I want to shower first.”
Axell closed the door and propped a chair beneath the knob. “You showered before we left. You can shower later. Right now, everything is quiet. We might not have another chance.”
He didn’t even look at the chaos that was her bedroom. With his gaze focused totally on her, Axell began unfastening the buttons of his shirt. He’d discarded the fancy jacket and tie before climbing after the kitten.
Maya bit her bottom lip as Axell’s spectacular chest emerged from his starched shirt. Tanned, muscled flesh rippled temptingly as he flung the shirt over a chair. Golden brown hair formed an inverted triangle between flat brown nipples. Stephen didn’t have chest hair. Heck, compared to this, Stephen didn’t have a chest.
“Need help?” he taunted, moving closer.
The muscles of his shoulders bulged. His biceps flexed as he reached for her. Underneath those expensive business suits, he was all animal muscle. Her gaze dropped to below his buckle. All muscle.
“Your turn,” he whispered challengingly.
Wits fled, she didn’t slip away in time as he closed the distance between them. For the second time that night, Axell popped the tiny hook holding up her dress.
“If the cat’s got your tongue, I want it back,” he murmured beside her ear as her dress fell to the floor.
Axell’s kiss was as devastating as she remembered. Maya tasted traces of the wine they’d consumed earlier before her mind hit sensory overload.
Her palms stroked over solid muscles that rippled and surged beneath her caress. The heat between them was intense enough to ignite spontaneous combustion. His mouth savored hers as his hands explored, and his touch brought the realization that except for garters and stockings, she was completely naked. Somewhere in the trash of the storeroom, she’d left behind what remained of her panties.
He stroked between her thighs and she almost crawled up his leg. Axell stepped back to study what he’d bared. Maya had known the intensity of his concentration could be a dangerous thing. She melted beneath the heat of it now.
“You’re so...so...petite,” he struggled for the words as he stared.
Maya saw the worried frown form between his eyes as Axell fingered her nipple. She knew she wasn’t anything to write home about. “Disappointed?” she asked lightly, as if the bottom hadn’t fallen out of her stomach. People had rejected her all her life.
He looked startled at her question. “Disappointed? Are you kidding? You’re so perfect, you scare me. Did I hurt you earlier? I didn’t realize...” He gestured helplessly, but his hungry gaze dropped to the dainty blue garters on her thighs.
Maya didn’t know if it was his words, or his gesture, or his gaze, but suddenly, it was all just right. He wasn’t rejecting her. He wanted her. She was woman to his man, and all their other differences disappeared.
She reached for his belt buckle. “Do I look hurt?” she asked in a sultry voice she scarcely recognized.
“You look glorious.” He unfastened the buckle on his own, stripping off trousers and briefs faster than she could think of it. “I’m thinking that I got the best of this deal.”
Without any warning, Axell caught her waist and dropped her on the bed, falling down on top of her so that his knees splayed her thighs wide. “Were the garters for my benefit?” he whispered as he nibbled her ear.
Yeah, they were, but she didn’t think she’d inflate his ego further by admitting it. “I just thought I’d make things easier, in case you’d forgotten how,” she teased.
“The basic principles don’t seem to have changed any.” He teased her breast into a pucker and kissed her until time stood still. Then, lifting his head, he finished thoughtfully, “It goes in like this, right?”
Maya squealed as Axell drove home with a thrust so powerful it lifted her from the bed.
Amazingly perceptive was this business-suit husband of hers, she reflected wryly in those few seconds left in which she could think at all. It went in just like that.
***
He breathed the heady aroma of roses. Air-conditioning cooled his backside, but the warmth of summer snuggled against his morning arousal. How long had it been since he’d held a woman in his arms when he woke? Not even Angela...
He didn’t need to take that path. For the first time in his life, he held a woman who caused him to forget the bar and all the demands of his day. He didn’t want to just make love to her, although the physical pressure to do so was strong. But the urge to see Maya’s eyes when she woke was stronger. He wanted to watch her wakening interest, hear the humor in her voice, longed to see the affection...
Hell, he wanted a lot more than the same affection she gave to her students, but he wouldn’t dwell on that now either. Maya’s generous nature encompassed one and all. He just happened to be the lucky recipient of her physical favors too. That’s all he’d wanted when they entered into this arrangement, wasn’t it? He had no right to demand more.
Axell cupped his hand around a full, firm breast. He’d take his pleasure where he found it, and he found it in the warm curve of buttocks pressed against his arousal, and the enticing moan his caress elicited from the woman snuggling into his arms. His woman. He really, really liked the idea of this wonderfully imaginative, inherently passionate woman belonging to him, alone. If that was disgustingly prehistoric, then so be it.
“Do you like mornings?” He leaned over her, admiring the tousled spill of colorful hair across the pillow. He pulled the purple strand, discovered gray at its roots, and smiled as he realized Maya didn’t believe in dyeing her hair in any normal manner.
“I do now,” she murmured sleepily. “No one’s pounding on the door?”
“Not yet.” Even as he said it, Axell heard his namesake cooing in her cradle and a pair of feet hit the floor running in the room next door. “I don’t suppose even a quickie—”
Small fists thrashed the door. “Maya! Maya! It’s late. Wake up. Why is Matty sleeping in front of your door? We gotta get to school.”
“You’ve taught her to murder the English language,” Axell complained as he pulled his aching loins away from temptation. Self-denial did not improve his humor.
“Constance can speak properly when she likes. Slang just means she’s comfortable with us.” Maya groped under her pillow and produced a long purple football jersey.
“If comfortable equates lazy,” he grumbled.
The sudden silence on the other side of the door seemed ominous. Axell grabbed his clothes.
“Did I hear Daddy?” a timid voice squeaked.
“Now we’re in for it,” Maya said cheerfully, wriggling into the jersey. “You may be sorry she’s talking again.”
“Women and children should be seen and not heard.” He jerked on his trousers. Only Maya’s admiring glance over her shoulder restored some of his humor. Maybe she was right. Maybe he didn’t notice women when they looked at him. He sure as hell noticed when Maya did it though. It made him wish his pants weren’t so damned tight.
Assured that he was at least decent, Maya opened the bedroom door to a silent Matty sucking his thumb and a wary Constance. “All right, I’m running late,” she admitted. “Why don’t the two of you fix cereal? I’ll be out to help in a few minutes.”
Axell could see Constance straining to peer past Maya as he pulled on his shirt, and dread filled his soul. He didn’t know how to handle these awkward situations.
“Did Daddy sleep with you?” Constance asked, half-accusingly.
“That’s what daddies and mommies do. Now hurry up. Alexa will be hollering for her bottle soon. You can pour your milk, can’t you?”
Not entirely accepting this new arrangement, the kids reluctantly reacted to the command in Maya’s voice. Some people talked to animals. Maya spoke to kids. By the time Constance and Matty hit the kitchen, Axell could hear their giggles.
He looked at her wonderingly and with definite admiration. The jersey emphasized all the right curves and almost matched her purple streak as she turned around. “I can see why you teach school.”
And he could. All this time, he’d thought her teacher act was just something she did for the money because she couldn’t do anything else. He’d known the kids liked her, that the school was clean and decent and had the kind of teacher/student ratio he preferred for Constance. Other than that, he’d thought the school a duplicate of every other school of its kind. He was just beginning to grasp what the kids understood instinctively: that with Maya on board, the Impossible Dream was unique.
He didn’t want it to be that way. He wanted the school to be dispensable. He wanted Maya for Constance. He didn’t care about the other kids.
But Maya did. Maya cared for those kids as much as she cared for her own.
Someone may have murdered for that school. He didn’t want Maya or the kids in their path. How the hell would he talk her into closing?
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Maya slid her arms around his waist and stood on tiptoe to kiss him.
Groaning, he kissed her back, then firmly set her away. “There’s only so much denial I can handle in one day. And I was looking to see if you wore wings and a halo or sported a magic wand. How do you do that?”
“What?” she teased, slipping her hand beneath his unbuttoned shirt and teasing at the curl of hair above his waistband. “You don’t know how sex works?”
“Not with two kids and a whimpering infant underfoot,” he said dryly, removing her hand from temptation. “I think I’ll hire a nanny.”
She snickered and headed for the shower. “You had three of them here last night. Just let me know when you want your peace back.”
An icy breeze washed over Axell as the bathroom door closed between them. She was still thinking of their marriage as a temporary arrangement that would end the minute he tired of it.
She still kept her teacups packed in a box at the school, ready to move at a moment’s notice. Maya didn’t know the meaning of permanence, didn’t share his ability to ride out life’s storms.
The druggies in his restaurant last night were probably the opening volley of the mayor’s new war against his license. What would happen to their marriage if he was forced to trade Maya’s school to protect their livelihood — and maybe even his family’s safety?