Our Options Have Changed: On Hold Series Book #1

by Julia Kent

  “Morning.”

  She smiles, still not looking at me, and my palm squeezes her, the air freezing in my lungs. What’s she thinking?

  I take the lead and lean in for a kiss. She wiggles closer, her legs entwining with mine, mouth cute and tentative until the kiss deepens. Within seconds it’s clear what we both want.

  “Last night was amazing,” I say, putting words to what I’ve been thinking.

  “I don’t usually do this,” she says with an open smile, those dark brown eyes alert yet sultry, aware but still relaxed.

  “Do what?”

  “Have a sleep over.”

  “Me neither.”

  “We’re breaking all our rules,” she says, her arms reaching up around my neck, her torso pressed against me, hips finding my erection, grinding just enough to make it more than clear what she wants next.

  That’s how exceptions work, I think, but before I can say it, I’m over her, hands taking in the smooth fullness of her breasts, pert and small but more than enough, one nipple tasting like sweet musk and sunshine.

  Blood pounds through me, sending energy to places long dormant, and all I want is to be in her again. The easy intimacy is so foreign. Pure.

  Perfect.

  And then her head disappears under the covers. No giggles, no hesitation, no awkwardness. Chloe knows what she wants and goes for it.

  I’m dreaming, right?

  The slick warmth that envelops me and makes my abs tighten isn’t part of any dream I’ve ever had before, though. Miles Davis plays in the background, a tune that morphs into a rhythm that becomes damn near feral.

  “Chloe,” I choke out, overcome by the hot surprise of this morning gift. I look down to see the covers tenting her, her mouth working magic on me, one hand on my inner thigh, the other cupping my ass.

  No woman has ever been so uninhibited in bed.

  And then she does something with one hand and her tongue that makes me forget anything exists but her, this bed and—

  RING!

  I sit up sharply, pulling back, shocked by the sound of my phone’s ringtone.

  “Nick?” Chloe’s muffled voice comes from under the covers, then her face peeks out like a turtle in a shell.

  “Damn it. That’s my phone. Someone’s actually calling me.”

  “Ignore it.” Her head disappears under the covers again and oh, God....

  I sigh. “I can’t.” Regret infuses every syllable as I twist and reach for the phone. Where is it? I climb out of bed and search the floor for my pants. “My kids. You know...”

  “Oh.” Her voice holds a tone of surprise. “Right. Of course.”

  I don’t want to blow this. I don’t. And if this is some stupid work issue, I’ll kill the caller. But if something happened to Elodie or Amelie or Jean-Marc and I didn’t answer the phone...

  I grab my phone and climb back in bed.

  Elodie.

  Chloe snuggles up as I answer.

  “Hello?”

  “DADDY! OH MY GOD, YOU’RE ALIVE!” Elodie screams, the sound so loud I flinch and pull the phone back from my ear, dropping it on my knee.

  Chloe’s eyes pop open and she gives me a questioning look.

  A deeply amused, questioning look.

  “Of course I’m alive. Has someone told you otherwise?”

  “I came home to do laundry and no one is here!”

  I look at the time. Seven fourteen a.m. The one time that child is awake before noon. Damn. Long night. Early rise.

  Chloe starts playing with the hair on my chest, then gently teases one nipple with the end of a perfectly-manicured fingernail.

  I clear my throat with meaning.

  Her eyes go impish.

  Oh, no.

  “Yeah, well....” I can’t really speak. I need to get off the damn phone. My erection deflates like a blow-up kid’s slide at closing time at a New England town carnival.

  “Where are you? On business?”

  “You could say that. What are you doing at the house so early?”

  “Getting down to business,” Chloe mutters, reaching up to bite my earlobe.

  Electricity shoots through me.

  “Daddy! Amelie said she couldn’t find you, either! Remember I’m here early because we need to do all our laundry at once? I’m going on that trip to D.C. for one of my classes tomorrow night. Is something wrong? Have you been kidnapped? The security alarm says you haven’t been home since 5:42 p.m. yesterday.”

  Damn safety system. Installed it to manage escaping kids when they were younger and now they’re using it to track me.

  “I’m fine.”

  “He’s fine,” Chloe says, just loud enough for Elodie to hear.

  And I let her.

  “DADDY! IS THAT A WOMAN?”

  I wince. Honesty is the best approach.

  “Yes.”

  “Where are you? Having coffee with someone?”

  “Mmm, coffee,” Chloe purrs. “Want some in bed?”

  “ARE YOU IN BED WITH A WOMAN?” Elodie screeches.

  I do what any red-blooded man with a naked woman in bed beside him and his barely-adult daughter screaming on the phone about his sex life would do.

  I end the call and turn off my phone.

  Before Chloe can get out the room, I grab her from behind and gently throw her on the bed, laughing with her.

  “You enjoyed that, didn’t you?” I growl, half embarrassed, half amused.

  “Do your grown daughters always track you down when you’ve slept with a woman?” Her tone is light, but I can see the mild horror in her eyes. If the roles were reversed, I’d hesitate, too.

  I go serious, brushing a stray lock of hair from her forehead, taking my time to answer. Her body is trim and smooth beneath mine, our exposed skin hot and needy, my elbows supporting my weight as Chloe’s pensive look makes me feel everything.

  And want more.

  “This is the first time.”

  “The first time you’ve slept with a woman?” she jokes. “I’m honored.”

  “The first time I’ve slept over.”

  “Ever?” Her eyes are intense, asking questions she can’t ask with words.

  “Since their mother and I divorced, yes.”

  Chloe blinks, just enough times for me to tell she’s processing the detail, trying to glean meaning. There’s plenty to find.

  I kiss her, our mouths soft and urgent, and she opens her legs, wrapping them around me, her intent clear. I feel like I’m wearing new skin, trying it out for the first time, finding it’s a better fit than the old one.

  And feeling every sensation with an acuity that is like being reborn.

  Last night was the frenzied rush to taste and tease, to conquer new territory, to try a sample to see what we liked. This morning is slower, more sensual, like a wine tasting where the goal isn’t to get drunk.

  It’s to swirl the glass, inhale deeply, find exactly which bouquet is most appealing.

  And oh, the mouthfeel.

  I’m not going to miss a single drop.

  Sex with Chloe was hot and quick the first time, the frantic rush that comes from wanting to try each other out, from the anticipation that fires the blood and makes everything urgent.

  This time, we’re more deliberate, and as I kiss my way down her torso, I find myself tasting her sweetness for breakfast, the small sounds of pleasure she makes helping to clear my mind, pushing my body to the limit. Chloe is a delight in bed, her body mine to explore, yet she surprises me now, pulling me up.

  “I want you,” she gasps, hands wrapping around my ribs as I glide up her body, our kiss twinned with my entering her, her legs wrapping around me as if we planned this all long ago and are executing it in perfect synchrony.

  Which is what happens minutes later when we come together, my face buried in her neck, her long legs impossibly twisted around my back, her warm and melting center encasing me, my breath unsteady and my body more at ease touching hers than I’ve felt in years
.

  “Nice,” she murmurs, “now I understand why they call you Focus Man at work.”

  As I chuckle, she reaches up to cradle my jaw in both hands, giving me a smoldering kiss that tells me we’re not done yet.

  Thank God.

  The ringtone for the song It’s Raining Men jingles from the floor.

  “I know that’s not my phone,” I mutter, my mouth now full of sweet nipple.

  “Henry likes to change my ringtone,” she groans. “But no one actually dials my phone unless the spa’s on fire,” Chloe says, twisting out from under me, leaving me throbbing and slightly chilled as cold air replaces warm woman.

  She picks up the phone. “Private number.”

  “Telemarketer?” I say hopefully.

  She shrugs and answers. “Hello? Yes, this is Chloe. Excuse me?” Her eyes look like she’s wearing coke-bottle glasses as Chloe turns to me, gloriously nude, one hip jutting out as her arm extends to me, phone in hand, holding it like it’s a live, poisonous snake.

  “What are you doing?”

  “It’s...your...daughter.” Chloe gently places the phone in my hand and steps back, turning away, snickering.

  “What? My what?”

  “DADDY!” Elodie screeches from Chloe’s phone. “You really are there with her!”

  This is not happening.

  Red rage pumps through me, replacing desire, a poor substitute for passion, but it will have to do for now.

  “You did not call me on Chloe’s cell phone,” I grind out, trying not to explode with expletives the kids have only heard from my mouth when I banged something.

  Other than a woman.

  “I logged in to the family cell plan and found her number on your line, because I had to make sure you’re safe, Daddy!”

  Chloe is now wheezing with laughter, hugging a pillow. Our eyes meet and she sobers up suddenly, her face slack with surprise.

  “I’ll go make coffee,” she whispers, leaving the room, her ass the gift that keeps on giving.

  “YOU!” I bellow into the phone.

  “Daddy?” Elodie replies in a small, soft voice.

  “I cannot believe you did this, Elodie Laurence Grafton! My private life is mine. MINE!” I can feel the bed shake as I shout, a cat jumping off a chair in the corner and shooting out of the room, my own voice gaining volume as my ire pours out of me.

  “But—”

  “I am speechless! My private life is off limits. Period. Do not ever do this to me again. Are we clear.” It’s not a question.

  “If you were speechless, you wouldn’t be yelling at me,” she whispers.

  “And I am yelling at you, so what does that tell you?”

  “But Daddy, I thought you were—” She’s crying, her voice hitched.

  Good.

  She should cry.

  “Don’t even try it. Once I hung up on you the first time, that was it. Done. End of discussion, and now I’m ending this discussion.”

  Click.

  I felt passion when I woke up.

  Then rage, followed by boiling misery.

  Trying on a suit of guilt for size now.

  A suit that would fit the Incredible Hulk.

  “That sounded intense,” Chloe says from the other room. “Coffee’s brewing. I’ll bring some back in on a tray.”

  And embarrassment joins the soup of emotions.

  I am naked in Chloe’s bedroom. My co-worker’s bed. My child just tracked me down via my bedmate’s cell phone to chew me out for not coming home last night.

  I am pretty sure that’s a Dan Savage, Dear Abby and Maury Povich event rolled into one.

  “Damn!” I shout into a pillow, pitching it across the room, knocking over a towel rack. It clatters to the floor with an anemic series of clicks.

  Futile.

  “I never liked that accessory anyhow. It falls over every time the cat sneezes,” Chloe says with an overly-bright smile, watching me like one would watch a staggering raccoon in the alley. I don’t blame her.

  I’m feeling pretty damn rabid.

  Flashing her a grateful, but tight, smile, I take the coffee from her extended hand, forcing myself to sip the scalding liquid just to buy some time.

  Men’s Health magazine never has articles on how to handle this kind of mess.

  My burnt tongue feels like a rebuke, insult added to injury, and I finally explode.

  “This is what happens when you have kids! They rule your life and take all the oxygen in the room. You breathe for them when they’re little and when they’re older, they think they’re entitled to all the air.” I huff, trying to drain off the anger, wishing I could stop my tirade, unable to control it. “I’m so damn close. They’re all in college now and I can breathe again. Freedom tastes good.”

  Freedom tastes like you, I nearly say.

  And then our eyes meet.

  Chloe looks stricken.

  What the hell did I say that’s so wrong?

  Chloe

  Okay.

  Okay.

  There aren’t that many times in my life anymore when I just don’t know what I think.

  But this is one of those times.

  A kid falls into a gorilla habitat at the Cincinnati Zoo, and suddenly everyone in the country has an opinion on the parenting skills in that family. Sure, it looks bad, but what do I know? I’ve never been responsible for a bunch of active kids at a zoo. Am I entitled to judge?

  So when Nick’s daughter calls looking for him, frantic with worry, and he yells at her, is that bad? He’s her only real parent, her only security, right?

  But what he’s saying about kids ruling your life, and having no freedom—well, that’s maybe my biggest fear right now. The fear I can’t admit to anyone. I think and pray that the best part of my life will begin when the baby comes, but what if it’s too much? I’ve never had to be utterly responsible for another human being before.

  A single parent.

  What if I am overwhelmed?

  Even Nick appears to be overwhelmed right now, and he’s been doing it—being a single parent—for more than fifteen years.

  What if, someday when my child is at college, I am having the most romantic night of my entire life, and my cell phone starts ringing and ringing? Will I feel needed and loved, or will I feel harassed beyond enduring?

  Moot point. I just had the most romantic night of my life. Nothing will ever top last night.

  Except this morning, of course.

  Usually the first time is a little bit awkward, right? Exciting, sure, and new, and fun (usually). But neither of you knows where to touch, or when, or how, or for how long. There’s no choreography.

  That’s not how it felt with Nick.

  It just felt right.

  And that’s terrifying.

  I need to talk to Jemma.

  You see? I just don’t know what I think.

  “Chloe. Come here,” Nick says. He puts down his coffee and opens his arms. “Looks like second runner-up for Father of the Year again. Third if Amelie gets to vote too. Damn.”

  “Maybe you should call her back?” I offer tentatively.

  “And what does she take away from that? That there are no boundaries? The house was not burning down, no one was hurt or missing or even upset. Once she reached me the first time, she knew I was fine. For her to call your phone was WAY out of line. She was playing a game.”

  “You told me the girls are used to being first in your life. That story about dressing up in your date’s lingerie?”

  “Yes, but they were ten. It’s not okay anymore. And if they start thinking they rank above you, we will have a big problem. Not unlike pack animals.” He smiles, his cheek against my hair. “Or toddlers.”

  “In less than two years, I’ll have one of those,” I whisper.

  “And then you will begin to understand.”

  He sits on the bed, pulling me down with him. We settle into spoons and he pulls the sheet over us.

  “Getting this baby fe
els like when you go on a trip to a country you’ve always wanted to visit, but you’ve never been there before.” I try to explain this. “It’s a completely different culture, and you don’t speak the language. So it’s exciting and fun, but when you get off the airplane, you don’t even know how to get to your hotel. And reading all the guidebooks really doesn’t help at all.”

  He laughs. “Fair enough. But you only have to learn one neighborhood at a time.”

  “But I’m moving there for twenty years!” I sit up, and turn to face him.

  He laughs harder. “Just when I am moving back to my country of origin.”

  And then he stops laughing.

  Chapter 10

  Nick

  “Wait a minute,” my brother, Charlie, chokes out in between deep, uncontrollable bouts of laughter. “You’re telling me your kid called your lover while you were in the middle of hot sex?”

  “We’d just finished having hot sex,” I correct him, draining my Sea Belt Scotch Ale. The soundtrack to Brother, Where Art Thou? strums away in the background. Charlie and I are eating pizza out of the box. Feels like twenty years ago. His half has banana peppers, anchovies, and pineapple on it.

  My half is trying desperately to escape his half, the pepperoni offended by his taste buds.

  I haven’t told Charlie exactly who my lover is. I also hate the word lover. Lover is what Simone called Rolf.

  I preferred the term schweinhund. Google it.

  Charlie shakes his head. “Elodie. Remember when she was four and she insisted on dressing like Coco Chanel and refused to speak English at school that day?”

  “How could I forget? My kid was almost expelled from Montessori for perpetuating cultural stereotypes.”

  As Charlie picks up his final piece of pizza, an anchovy breaks in half and lands on the cardboard.

  “Hey!”

  “What?” he says, his dismissive look one I’ve seen since he was little. Charlie looks like our mother, with dark brown hair and pale brown eyes the color of cafe au lait. No one ever thinks we’re brothers. Aside from the same body type, we’re nothing alike.

  “Your piece of salty fish nearly ruined my dinner.”

  “Maybe removing the stick up your ass will improve your appetite. The sex was that bad?”