IT WAS JUST A little birthday kiss. A peck, really, yet she felt she would have fallen on the floor if she hadn’t been clinging to Seth. Her lips still tingled with the remnants of heat from his mouth. She wanted—
“I’m starving. Can we have pizza now Seth?”
“Ma-atthew! Come in the kitchen,” Laura ordered, then she gestured frantically at the other kids who scrambled to obey.
“Oh, dear. Is she upset?” Melissa pulled away and straightened her perfectly straight blouse.
“No-o. I’m not the child expert you are, but I think she likes to see us kissing.” Seth picked up his glass and drained it.
In the awkward silence that ensued, Melissa busied herself picking up wrapping paper and folding it neatly.
Seth fiddled a CD into the player, and soon Diana Krall drowned out the rustling of the gift paper.
“Shall we see if dinner’s ready?”
She nodded her agreement, and they headed into the kitchen, where pizza steamed on a round oak table laid with what was obviously the best china.
It seemed so right, sitting there with Seth and his children. Although, she knew it was corny, she was beginning to believe in the Brady Brunch as she looked around the table. Jessie was helping Alice to a slice of pizza. Laura scolded Matthew in a low voice about the way he picked every vegetable off his pizza.
And there was Seth, caressing her with his gaze every time their eyes met. She almost choked when she caught him staring at her mouth. She licked her lips, wondering if she had a blob of pizza sauce on them. Seth seemed transfixed by the movement of her tongue.
She felt hot and excited and nervous. Like a woman being pursued by a man. And she realized that’s exactly what she was. Her pleasure was totally out of proportion with the casualness of the interest she was certain he felt, but it was still nice to feel desired. It had been such a long time.
After they’d all stuffed themselves with pizza, Melissa made a move to start clearing the table.
“Sit.” Seth ordered. He and the girls cleared the table and then everyone but Melissa disappeared. Within minutes, she heard the ragtag sounds of the happy birthday song, and around the corner came the cake.
“We made it ourselves,” Laura proudly exclaimed.
Melissa shot an alarmed glance at Seth, remembering the disastrous brownies the girls had once baked, but it was Jessie who calmed her fears. “Dad and Aunt Janice and me and Laura all made it together.”
“And me and Alice helped decorate it.”
“Oh, it’s beautiful.” And it was. From the candy heart decorations to the crooked lettering. “Come on, everybody help me blow out the candles.” She pulled the kids around her.
“Wait.”
She paused on a big indrawn breath and glanced up at Seth’s command. A camera flashed.
As soon as the chocolate cake and ice cream was consumed, the kids begged to watch a video.
“I don’t know. It’s getting kind of late.” Melissa checked her watch.
“You should probably have some coffee before you drive home. We have lots of room if the kids want to doze off here.”
“Can we have a sleepover?” Matthew begged.
“Sleepover, sleepover.” Alice jumped up and down.
“I don’t know. I hate to impose.”
“There’s plenty of room, you’re all welcome to stay,” Seth said in a too-casual voice that sent shivers of excitement up her spine. He was inviting her for a sleepover, as well.
“Please, Mom. Please.”
“I’d like you to stay awhile,” chimed in a much deeper male voice.
“Well, maybe for a little while.”
“Come on.” Matthew wasn’t waiting for her to change her mind. And with the maximum possible amount of noise, the four kids bounded off.
In the relative quiet after the stair-pounding died down, Melissa fussed about clearing the dessert things, keeping her hands busy while her brain reeled. Seth wanted her. Unless the champagne was making her delusional.
Bent over the table, picking up scattered birthday candles, she peeked up at him through her lashes. He seemed engrossed in measuring coffee into a filter, but she sensed he was as keenly aware of her as she was of him. It was as if an invisible current hummed between them. She tried to imagine what it would be like to make love with Seth.
“How do you like it?” he interrupted her thoughts.
Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. She liked it pitch-black and under the covers, where sagging boobs and stretched abdomens didn’t show. And she did not like discussing sexual preferences in a well-lit kitchen with a man she hadn’t yet decided she would sleep with. She closed her mouth and glared at his back.
“Black? Cream and sugar?”
Coffee. Oh, God, he was asking her how she liked her coffee.
“Melissa?”
“Uh, cream and sugar please.”
She cursed herself for a fool. But as she eased behind Seth to load the plates in the dishwasher she felt it again. No way all that heat was being generated by her. Working together in the U-shaped kitchen brought them into close contact.
Even as she ran water over the dishes and stacked each one carefully into the dishwasher, she sensed his movements where he worked scant feet away. The aroma of coffee filled the air. Idly, she hoped it was decaf. Any more stimulant and she might go spinning off into space.
“Here,” he said, handing her a cup.
“Thanks.” She followed him into the living room. So formal. For a few minutes, conversation was stilted. He told her a dull story about the bank. She told him a cute story about Alice and Jessie, then had an awful feeling she’d told him the same story the day before.
Suddenly, he laughed. “This feels weird, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” she agreed. “It does.”
“We’re friends—at least I think we are?” He glanced at her, and she nodded confirmation. “But this feels like a date.”
“I know.” She didn’t mention the strange undercurrent between them that was making her so jittery.
“What do you think would have happened if we’d met socially? Instead of the way we did?”
“What do you mean?”
“If I’d met you somewhere, a party through mutual friends, say, would you have said yes if I’d asked you out?”
“I don’t know.” She put her empty coffee cup down. “Would you have asked me?”
“I think so. I hope so.”
She tilted her head to one side and studied him, trying to imagine meeting him for the first time without the fear of losing her house topmost on her mind. “I probably would have said yes.”
“Okay.” He crinkled up his eyes in a sexy smile. “So I’m asking.”
“You’re asking me out? On a date?”
“Yes.”
“When? Where?”
“I don’t know. Dinner. Next week sometime.”
“Who’d look after the kids?” she asked, stalling.
“A sitter, I guess.”
She blew out a breath. “I feel so old going out on a date. I’m thirty-five today.”
“I’m thirty-eight. And we’ll still be thirty-five and thirty-eight whatever we do.”
He was suggesting they take this unspoken attraction out into the open. Was she willing to? She looked at him. “Okay.”
“Excellent. How about next Friday?”
“Sure, so long as we can find sitters.” She rose and carried their cups to the kitchen.
“More coffee?” he asked.
“I’d better not. I should get the kids home.”
She put their cups in the dishwasher and noted the machine was full.
“Where do you keep dishwasher detergent?”
“Under the sink. Here let me.” He moved forward but she was already there. As she’d bent and placed her hand on the cabinet handle, she felt the soft, warm impact behind her as he toppled over her. His hands grabbed the counter on either side of the sink and his hips plowed into her backside. If she’d needed hard evidence that he was as keyed up as she, it was pressed up against her.
Very evident.
And very hard.
For a stunned second, neither of them moved, then she heard her name in a strangled whisper. A whisper that spoke to her own secret torment.
She made some kind of a noise in her throat, not a moan or a sigh but a combination of both with a hint of nervous giggle thrown in.
His hands came down off the counter and wrapped around her, straightening them both in the process. He held her like that, his front warm and solid against her back, his arms wrapped around her torso, below her breasts. She let herself lean into him and absorb his warmth, his scent. In a slow caress he brought his hands to her shoulders and slowly turned her to face him.
She gazed into the blazing hunger of his eyes, and then his face blurred as he claimed her mouth in a kiss. It was as though she had walked across the Sahara and stumbled onto an oasis of sweet, pure water, so greedily did she drink in his affection. Circling her arms around his neck, she opened her lips and welcomed the hot wetness as his tongue slipped into her mouth.
She splayed her hands in the springy hair at the back of his neck, letting her fingers learn the shape of his head. She wanted to learn all of him. The curves and ridges of his entire body. And she wanted it now.
Her own lust embarrassed her.
Pulling away she dragged in a lungful of air. “This is crazy,” she gasped. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea.” She’d gone as far as agreeing to a date. That was a big step for her.
“Don’t analyze it, Melissa, please. Let it happen.” The urgency and dark promise of his words sent passion skittering along her nerve ends.
He was right. If she stopped to think about it long enough, she’d call a halt. And she couldn’t bear to stop, not now.
She ran her tongue over her swollen lips. “Let me check on the kids.”
“Okay. But hurry.”
She crept downstairs and smiled. They’d pulled out the Hide-A-Bed, and all four of them were sprawled on it, sleeping deeply. A woolen throw had fallen to the floor, so she picked it up and laid it over the kids. The TV blared. She flicked it off and left a lamp burning, then tiptoed back upstairs.
Seth was waiting for her. The dishwasher hummed, so obviously he’d turned it on. She knew how the thing felt.
“Everything all right?”
“They’re sound asleep.”
“Good.” He reached out and dragged Melissa toward him. He kissed her gently, then ran his fingers down her cheek. “I feel like a teenager, sneaking around while his parents are asleep. You never imagine you’ll have to sneak around behind your children’s backs.”
She laughed softly. And then he kissed her again, long and slow. His hands traveled over her back, cupped her butt and then moved up the front of her blouse. When he reached her breasts, she moaned. His lips moved steadily downward, stopping to kiss whatever they passed. Her cheeks, jaw, chin, neck. When his lips reached the vee of her blouse, he started undoing her buttons.
Nerves fluttered in her stomach. There was far too much light in the kitchen. “We should go upstairs,” she whispered, “In case the kids wake up.”
He hesitated, then with a quick kiss, grabbed her hand and led her down the hall and up the stairs.
She was so taut with a combination of desire and nerves—she was, after all, a woman who’d only ever been with one man—that when they reached the top of the stairs, she didn’t notice the tension radiating from his body until they paused before a closed door. Turning her toward him he kissed her again, hard and hungry but with an edge of desperation. Then, taking her hand again, he brought her farther down the hall.
They entered a bedroom, and to her profound relief he didn’t turn on a light, merely kept kissing her, all the while backing her toward the bed. The curtains weren’t drawn, so moonlight gave the room a dim glow. It was a tidy room, almost sterile. Lamps on the bedside tables and nothing else. A wooden bureau with an empty vase.
A vague uneasiness settled in her chest, then he was laying her on the bed and, as his bulk blocked her vision, she gave in to the sensations invading her body. The knowledge that he truly desired her was as intoxicating as the feel of his mouth on hers. Warmth unfolded within her, traveling stealthily along her limbs until her whole body was pulsing with heat. His hands trailed over her, slowly, molding her shape through her clothes, stoking the fire. He kneaded her breasts, pinching the pebbled nipples lightly so she gasped, wanting more. His hands moved lower, over her abdomen, her hips and down to her knees, then they tracked up her pantyhose and under her skirt, moving slowly and relentlessly up her thighs. He trailed his fingers over the centre of her sensible cotton panties and she bit back a gasp of pleasure.
She’d never felt like this, never. She was close to exploding right there and then, from nothing more than a little fully-clothed foreplay. But she felt, with Seth, something she’d long ago lost. Trust. He would never deliberately hurt her. She knew it as surely as she knew his eye color. Secure in that trust, she felt herself blossoming, her sexual urges flowing like sap after the spring thaw. Beneath those demure cotton panties, she was wet and throbbing with the need to be filled. Even as she thrust her hips up toward him suggestively, her hands reached for his belt buckle.
With equal urgency, he grabbed at the waistband of her pantyhose and started to pull, peeling the fabric from her skin with hands that were not quite steady.
Perhaps a breeze picked up outside, blowing clouds away from the moon, but just then a shaft of moonlight illuminated the bed, and her, as bright as day.
She shivered theatrically, pretending cold although her body burned with lust. “Let’s get under the covers. I’m freezing.”
He lunged up and dragged down the bedspread. Melissa moved to help him, but her questing fingers found only a blanket, and the dimpled surface of a mattress, no sheets. Where were the sheets? A slight musty smell rose from the disturbed bedding. The pieces began to fall into place. The impersonal feel, the lack of any signs that Seth inhabited the space. “This isn’t your room, is it?”
A glance at his face showed him looking both guilty and confused. “It’s the guest room,” he admitted. “I thought…ah…it was safer, in case the kids came looking for us.”
“Don’t you have a lock on your bedroom door?” she asked softly, dread building in her stomach.
“Well, yes. But—”
“Then I want to go there.” Had she been wrong about him after all? Maybe she couldn’t trust him.
“Look, can’t we—”
“I want to make love with you in your bed, where you sleep, like I’m part of your life, not some temporary guest.” Didn’t she deserve at least that? Or was this some casual thing, a one-nighter with a sex-starved divorcée. A pity— No. Even as the thought entered her mind, she knew Seth wouldn’t treat her so shabbily. Anguish was coming off him in waves.
“All right,” he said almost angrily. “Come on.”
They padded back down the hall, not holding hands this time, to the doorway where he’d paused earlier. He had intended to take her to his bed then changed his mind. She was getting a really bad feeling about this. Coward that she was, she wished she’d shut up and let nature take its course in the guest room. But it was too late to turn back now. With a deep breath, Melissa entered his bedroom. It was dark, but she had to see the room, she knew that. So she snapped on the overhead light.
“Oh, Seth,” she said with all the pity in her heart.