Partners In Parenthood

by Raina Lynn

  Rolling to his side, Mason’s hands blazed trails across her sensitized skin. “Let go of the towel, Jill,” he whispered, each word a seduction of promised passion.

  She had nothing left to fight with, no willpower to call up the strength to get up off that floor and walk away.

  “Touch me, honey,” he moaned. “I need you.”

  His lips covered her again, and she matched his fire with an inferno of her own. For the second time ever, her hands roamed the warm satin of his body at will, and she reveled in the pure drunken freedom of it. The towel fell away. He dragged his thumb across the fullness of her breast, then possessively closed his hand over her. She groaned, unable to move. With painstaking slowness, he kissed his way from her throat to her breast, taking a maddeningly slow journey.

  Finally, the warm firmness of his mouth closed over the erect nipple and the drop of milk poised there. The primal groan that rumbled from his chest catapulted her over the edge, and waves of ecstasy pulsed through her body. She had no idea she’d been that close, but Mason held her tightly, fanning the flames as she writhed under the onslaught.

  Time crawled by unheeded as the world regained some of its focus, and then he brought them together, taking them both to new heights. Once more he took her crashing over the edge of sensual insanity. Only then did he allow himself his own release. Finally they collapsed against each other in sated exhaustion.

  It wasn’t love. Jill accepted that. It was pure sex, driven by stresses and needs too overwhelming to keep at bay. They drove each other to the pinnacle and beyond an impossible number of times, or so it seemed to her. They didn’t even stay in the same room. She’d never considered using a kitchen table in quite that manner before. Calling Mason an inventive lover was a major understatement.

  “Convinced?” he murmured, breathless, his heart still pounding beneath her ear.

  “Only that we’re fools.”

  “Is that always bad?” he asked.

  “Not necessarily.” She burrowed more deeply into his embrace, only slightly surprised to discover that they’d found themselves back where they’d started—the hall carpet outside the bathroom. A sigh rippled from her throat that sounded embarrassingly like a purr. Mason’s chest vibrated with unabashed male satisfaction.

  Before they turned out the lights for the night, they closed up the sofa bed in the spare room and brought a few of his things back into the master bedroom where they belonged. She lay in his arms, physically sated but unable to sleep. Mason drifted off within minutes, but Jill’s mind picked up a few disjointed thoughts—others adding their voices along the way—until she realized she didn’t have any more chance of sleeping well than she’d had on their wedding night.

  Being in his arms again was every bit as wonderful as she’d remembered from the night they’d conceived Claire. Then, she’d been so bound by heartaches of the past and the need to be loved that she’d grasped at the chance to feel complete, if only for a little while. Tonight was different and a thousand times worse. She needed more now.

  Mason’s body wanted her, but not the part that counted. She tried to tell herself it would have to do, but she couldn’t. She prided herself on facing life head-on, but she didn’t have the strength now. Where it concerned him, she wondered if she ever would again.

  At ten weeks, Claire finally began sleeping through the night. Mason brought home a bottle of champagne to celebrate. If he was this thoughtful when he didn’t love her, Jill couldn’t begin to imagine what he’d be like as a man in love.

  For the last two weeks, she had been an eager participant in the sexual escapades Mason initiated virtually every night. She couldn’t bring herself to call it making love, not when the magic left her achingly hollow and alone. Putting on a brave front when Mason popped the cork and poured the champagne wasn’t easy.

  He raised his glass. “To one day at a time.”

  She dutifully touched her rim to his and took a sip. From the looks of things, tonight would be one more nail in her heart’s coffin.

  “Tired?” he asked, pulling her closer beside him on the couch.

  The loneliness had built up inside her to the point she couldn’t contain it any longer. “I can’t live like this, Mason. I can’t.”

  He froze. “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning, our lives were easier before. We never touched. The buffer zone and walls between us kept things from getting too close.”

  “You preferred that?” His eyebrows rose in incredulity.

  “Actually, yes.”

  She saw no hurt in his eyes, just puzzled disagreement. Miserable, she looked away.

  “Now the buffer zone is gone, and my face is smashed against the walls.”

  He blinked.

  “Mason, you can’t, don’t or won’t love me. I don’t know which, but I can’t give you my all when the best you can do is lie to yourself.”

  He pulled away, and something broke inside.

  “So what are you suggesting?”

  “I need some space.”

  His expression tightened with displeasure. “How much?”

  “I don’t know. But what’s going on in the bedroom has to quit for a while. It’s too much.”

  Mason didn’t move a muscle, but she felt the distance between them expand until it seemed as though they stood on opposite sides of the Grand Canyon.

  “If that’s what you want.” He set down his glass and left the room.

  Mason didn’t know who he was more angry with, himself or Jill. Blaming Jill meant he could avoid examining his own feelings. She’d been incredible in bed, and he’d focused on the pragmatic. They were married, They had needs, and that’s all he’d chosen to think about. Now the whole truth landed back in his face where it belonged. She loved him. What had been sufficient for him had been agony for her. Somehow he’d found a way to ignore the love in her eyes whenever she looked at him.

  When she’d asked for space, guilt slammed into him. She’d been right. He’d truly intended to play the role of loving, devoted husband until he one day believed it.

  He found his briefcase and sat at the dining room table. Getting a jump on tomorrow might keep his mind off the fact that his marriage had returned to square one.

  “Mason, are you angry with me?”

  He didn’t look up from his notes on the editorial column he wrote for the Sunday edition. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

  He sensed her gaze on him. When she didn’t say anything, he glanced over his shoulder. Her big brown eyes were liquid with regret.

  “You made the right decision for you, Jill. It’s not as if this marriage hinges on an active sex life.”

  “For now, maybe.”

  Swiveling in his chair, he faced her. “What are you saying?”

  Her shoulders drooped, and she rolled her head back in abject misery. “That every decision we make seems to be the wrong one.”

  “Don’t, Jill.” He stood. “Wanting sex again will help my libido but nothing else.”

  At first she didn’t react. Then her face clouded in anger. “Why can’t you be a louse?”

  Startled, he felt his eyes widen. “Come again?”

  “There’s such a thing as too considerate, too nice, too Mr. Wonderful. Why can’t you have flaws?”

  This made no sense whatsoever. “Are you telling me that after all we’ve been through, you think I’m perfect?”

  She blushed. “Oh, stuff it, Bradshaw. I’m going to bed.”

  Bewildered, he watched her leave. Did she love him to the point that she dismissed his shortcomings? The thought humbled him. No one had ever accepted him that completely before, and humility gave way to raw intimidation.

  He dragged one project after another from his briefcase, unable to concentrate. Even so, he kept at it until he was certain Jill had fallen asleep.

  When he climbed into bed, she lay on her side, facing away from him. The tension across her back told him she was no more asleep than he was. At a loss as
to how to solve anything, he carried through the charade, carefully pulling back the sheets so as not to disturb her. Reaching out and pulling her into his arms tempted him, but hadn’t that created part of the problem? Turning out the light, he watched her until a troubled doze claimed him.

  Vicki and Wilson Haynes invited everyone at the paper over at least once a year for a party, and Jill decided this one couldn’t have come at a better time. She and Mason needed to spend an evening around people other than just themselves. It had been a week since she’d asked for a little space. What she’d gotten was a marriage where neither spoke unless necessary.

  Tonight, they made the drive in a silence broken only by Claire cooing in her car seat. Occasionally, Jill spared a glance at him to gauge his mood. His expressive face had closed, leaving her nothing to even guess at.

  She thought about his upbringing and his first marriage. Neither had given him much by way of love. After being raised by self-serving parents, it was little wonder he’d married a self-serving woman. Scraps of affection had probably been thrown his way only if it suited someone’s needs. She had no trouble imagining him pouncing on the flawed tidbits like a starving puppy. The walls he’d built around himself couldn’t have been by choice, and she found it miraculous that he was capable of any tenderness at all.

  As Mason knocked on Vicki and Wilson’s door, Jill came to another unpleasant realization—just how much she’d defeated herself since the day he’d found out about the baby. She’d been so convinced that her second marriage would turn out like the first that she’d unconsciously given up and, in her mind, become too close to the mousy doormat that Donald had enjoyed tormenting. Granted, a lot of it had to do with pregnancy having made her weird, but even so the realization made her furious.

  Quietly, she stood there, running it all through her mind. As clearly as if a spotlight had been thrown on her mistakes, she saw how the barriers she’d thrown up to protect herself had sabotaged the greater goal.

  The Jill she liked to believe herself to be would never have retreated. She spared another glance at Mason’s expressionless face. “I love you” were words he undoubtedly rarely heard. The whole picture finally came together. No matter how threatened the words made him feel, he needed to hear them—frequently.

  Vicki pulled open the door, her face wreathed in smiles. She gave Jill an enthusiastic hug. “How are you?”

  “Not bad for an idiot.”

  The other woman’s eyes grew huge, and Mason’s head snapped around.

  Once Vicki recovered, she started to laugh. “Do I detect a note of awakening?”

  “A loud one,” Jill fired back, grimacing. With a sigh, she looked at Mason, wanting desperately to be alone with him so she could tell him.... No, right now she needed to finish thinking through the details. Their marriage couldn’t afford any more trial and error. “Come on, Bradshaw. Let’s get this show on the road.”

  He blinked warily at her, as if she’d suddenly sprouted two heads—or perhaps lost the one she’d had. He hesitated a fraction too long. Jill grabbed his hand and dragged him inside the ranch-style home where they’d been married.

  The living room was decorated with expensive but family-friendly sofas and chairs in inviting blues. Wilson came from the kitchen carrying two glasses of white wine. He smiled broadly and, with a kiss, handed a glass to his wife. Then he shook Mason’s hand.

  “Welcome. You’re the first ones here.”

  A war-whoop of delight blasted the air, and a three-year-old boy with a tobacco-brown, adult-size ball cap hanging down around his ears blitzed into the room from the hall. Hot on his heels strode a jeans-clad black man in his late twenties, maneuvering crutches, a full cast on his left leg, and a five-year-old clinging to his right crutch. Vicki squeaked in horror and lunged for the second boy.

  “Get off Uncle Winston! You’ll knock him over.”

  “Aw, Vicki,” the man drawled, “cut the kid some slack. It’s not like I’m some sissy teacher.” He canted a mischievous grin at his older brother.

  Wilson ignored him.

  “I heard you tangled with a wall somewhere,” Jill said, remembering how disgusted Vicki had been when she’d mentioned the injury over lunch one day. “How are you healing up?”

  “Just fine.” The grin widened. “I was third with five laps to go. Hit some debris on the track, blew a tire and spun out.”

  Mason looked blank. Wilson, his face tight with condemnation, enlightened his guest. “My fool brother is a professional race car driver.”

  “How interesting,” Mason answered, his eyes avid. Jill watched his journalist’s radar come out.

  “When the boys get old enough to reach the pedals,” Winston said, “I’m teaching them to drive. They’ll love it.”

  Wilson’s expression became a frozen parody of a smile. “Over my dead body.”

  Vicki rolled her eyes at him. “Baby, why do you fall for his nonsense every single time?”

  Jill chuckled. Those two brothers heckled and harassed each other mercilessly. Tonight was tame compared to some episodes.

  “Well, hell, it beats them being something horrible like a high school principal. It’s bad enough that your sons will have to admit to their friends what their daddy does for a living.”

  “I like what I do,” Wilson muttered.

  Winston shuddered and retrieved his hat. “Son of Principal Haynes. What a stigma to stick on a kid.”

  Something dark and unfamiliar clouded Mason’s eyes, something Jill had never seen before. It took her a moment to identify it—envy. As a child, had he fantasized as much as she had about having brothers and sisters? The good-natured bickering grew louder, and Jill squeezed his hand. He shot her a sheepish look, as if she’d caught him during a particularly vulnerable moment—which she probably had.

  Masking his emotions under an unconvincing smile, Mason pulled his hand away, then turned to their hosts. “I just made the connection,” he said, conversationally. “You’re the Winston Haynes. Some of your races have set records that experts expect to hold for years.”

  “In the flesh.” He spread his arms wide, basking in the recognition.

  “A little humility wouldn’t kill you,” Wilson shot back.

  Mason stepped in, apparently unsure whether they’d draw blood or not. “Has the paper ever done a feature on you?” He set Claire on the floor on her blanket. Vicki’s boys immediately surrounded her, thrilled to have someone smaller than themselves in their midst.

  “You mean ‘local kid does good’ type of thing?” Winston asked. “Nobody ever asked.”

  Three other members of the Journal arrived. Assorted greetings interrupted the conversation, but Mason, true to his calling, returned to the subject at hand. He flagged Helen. “Let’s set up an interview for next week. Get some pictures.”

  “Cool.” Winston smirked at his brother.

  Wilson groaned. “Mason, my friend, if you do that, he’ll wallpaper my whole house with copies of it.”

  “It’ll improve the decor,” Winston chortled, his smug grin growing.

  This time the envy on Mason’s face looked like a raw and ragged wound. He caught Jill watching him and shook it off. Then he smoothly presented an idea for an angle on the story. The air of the professional surrounded him, outwardly calm and controlled, no inner turmoil showing.

  Pride ignited and grew until Jill thought she might be consumed by it. This quiet man of strength belonged to her. Maybe not for all time, but for now.

  “You look like a cat in the cream,” Vicki observed, pulling her aside.

  Jill curled up on the sofa and leaned back. “More like the cat who’s had the cream all along and just realized she’s starving because she’s been dumping it on the floor.”

  “And when did this revelation descend upon your psyche?” Vicki sipped her wine and poured a glass for her friend.

  “Your front porch.” Jill took it, knowing she’d only have the one. More than that wouldn’t be good for the bab
y. “Mason and I have both made so many mistakes. I don’t know how or if we can fix them all, but I’ve got some ideas now.”

  “So things are looking up?”

  “I hope so, Vicki. The alternative doesn’t bear thinking about.”

  Vicki raised her glass. “Then here’s to a woman with a plan.”

  After the party, as Jill and Mason got ready for bed, they said little to each other. They shut off the lights, slid under the covers, and she rolled over to face him. Now was as good a time as any.

  “Listening to all that bickering and nonsense between the Haynes brothers was fun, wasn’t it?”

  In the dark, she couldn’t see him, but she heard the pillow shift as he turned his head toward her. “It was... different.”

  “Hurt like crazy, too.” She felt all his defense mechanisms slam into place. “They’re lucky to have each other.”

  He didn’t answer, and she let it hang.

  “Bradshaw, when you and I were kids, we didn’t have anyone like that,” she added.

  After a long pause, he asked, “Jill, where are you going with this?”

  Then she drove her point home. “That we both envy them with every cell in our bodies.”

  He recoiled into himself.

  “When I was a little girl, I used to fantasize about having a big sister who would let me steal her sweaters or yell at me for losing her best pair of earrings. How about you?”

  He swallowed hard. “Why are we talking about this?”

  “It’s as good a subject as any.” He didn’t answer, but she hadn’t expected him to. “Did you ever dream of siblings?”

  After a long pause he said, “I spent a good portion of my childhood in boarding schools, Jill. There were a lot of kids.”

  “But none to call your own. No ‘just us against the world.’ Am I right?”

  He cleared his throat. “Jill, this conversation bears a bad resemblance to the one on the night of my divorce. You had a purpose then, and I suspect you have one now.”