He kissed her again before he lost his chance. Just one quick caress… A quick caress that turned into minutes of mutual hunger, of mutual response, inciting something—a feeling—he’d never experienced before.
Kirk knew about passion. The giving of it and the receiving. He knew about desire, about blood that boiled and bodies that consumed. He didn’t recognize the compulsive drive pushing him to know this woman. An instinctive perception that he would be changed, and that if he missed this chance, his life would never be what it was meant to be.
Still, he drew back a second time. They had an understanding. Important decisions and choices that had already been made.
Her moan of disappointment cut through him. Laying his forehead against hers, bringing an end to an inexplicable interlude, he forced words he didn’t want to speak. “What are we going to do?”
“Well…” She sounded as though she’d been running. “I guess my bed is the most logical choice, but the couch is closer.”
The surge of pressure in a groin already swollen to uncomfortable proportions consumed all awareness for a second. And then he was kissing her again. Like a man who was on his way to much more than kisses.
She took his hand, this judge who was also completely woman, soft and sensuous, a mystery and a coming home. She led him through a house he’d yet to see and, eventually, into a bedroom every bit as large and elegantly appointed as his own. Where his wall of windows overlooked the mountain behind him, hers had a view of the city lights.
Not that he gave them more than a cursory glance.
Her bed was king-size, a four-poster of light pine, that stood a foot higher off the ground than normal beds. Just the right height for him to lean her back against it, letting the bed support her while he pressed into her.
“You’re wearing too many clothes, Judge Simms,” he whispered. He’d used the title without thinking, but knew the distinction was important. He could do this, couldn’t not do it if he was honest with himself, but he could be under no illusions about who she was. Who he was.
While his mind was occupied with the things he couldn’t forget, Kirk’s hands were just as occupied, removing the lime-green button-down silk blouse Valerie had worn to dinner. A blond curl snagged on the top button as he pulled the blouse off her shoulders. Bending closer to gently free it, he found his lips irrevocably drawn to the indentation between her neck and shoulder blade.
“You’re as soft as powder,” he said.
“And you, sir, are far too good at this,” Valerie answered back, her chuckle turning into a moan as his lips continued across her chest to the opposite side of her neck.
His hands shook as he dropped her blouse on the floor at their feet and ran his palms along her lower back, around to her belly and up to her waist. All the while, his lips were floating across her skin, to her lips, along her neck. He felt as though he was never going to get enough of her. She was exquisite.
When he could stand the anticipation no longer, he moved to the front clasp of her bra, hardly daring to believe he was finally going to see her breasts. To touch and taste them. He’d been trying for weeks to pretend he hadn’t noticed them. Or wanted them.
“Hold it.” He could hardly suck in breath when he heard Valerie’s demand. Didn’t she get that it was about half an hour too late?
He stopped anyway, hands at his sides, and stepped back.
For someone who’d just put an end to sublime sensation, she wasn’t doing much to help the recovery process. Still spread before him, arms splayed behind her, hips jutting out at the edge of the mattress, she looked more like a wanton than a woman of the court who’d just given a mandate she meant to have followed.
“I might be slightly desperate, but you gotta join me here.” Her words didn’t make sense.
“Take off your clothes, Kirk, if you’re planning to take off mine.”
Never had he undressed so fast, or so clumsily. The old Kirk Chandler might very well be alive and well inside him, but it was definitely the new Kirk in this woman’s bedroom.
“Better?” he asked, standing before her completely naked, reveling in what had to be the best moment of his life.
Judging by the reaction he was getting, she liked what she saw. Eyes wide, in spite of passion and wine, she stared. Licked her lips. Glanced at his face, and then up and down his body again.
“So, Judge, do I meet your standards?”
“I—” She coughed. Swallowed. “I don’t think I had standards,” she said shakily, “but if I did, you definitely surpass them.”
He pushed her farther back into the bed. Kissed her hard. Long. And unclipped her bra. Then, with his face only an inch from hers, he said, “You kiss like you’ve had plenty of experience.”
His hands covered her breasts, holding them, supporting their weight. Their softness ignited him all over again.
“Believe me, it’s surprising me as much as it is you,” she said slowly, gasping.
Because her hands and arms were supporting her weight, she still wasn’t touching him while he caressed her everywhere. An experience more erotic than he’d ever have guessed.
“Have there been many others besides your husband?”
Her eyes locked on his, filled with smoky desire and an admiration he knew he didn’t deserve but accepted anyway. For the moment.
“One before him.”
He pushed his naked hips against the silk of her panties.
“And afterward?”
“Do we count this?”
Oh, God, if the woman got any sexier he wasn’t going to be able to last.
Still keeping her gaze captive, he hooked a finger under the top edge of her panties, sliding them off her hips. “Okay,” he answered her. “Sure.”
“One.”
Her panties on the floor at her feet, Kirk lowered unsteady hands to her thighs. He intended to explore, to bring her to the heights beside him. But when her legs parted at his touch, he had no ability left to carry out his intentions. He quickly pulled on a condom that had been in his wallet and then, with a hand on each of her thighs, he thrust himself inside her, dying a small death when her tightness took him in, hugged him, as though that special place had been waiting just for him.
VALERIE HAD A HARD TIME waiting until four o’clock Saturday afternoon to drop off the boys’ uniforms. She wanted the excuse to see Kirk again. After all the other kids had come and gone, she’d invited Kirk to have burgers with her and the boys, and she didn’t feel a single qualm about doing it. She’d already promised the twins a trip to their favorite gourmet-burger restaurant.
The resiliency of kids—or was it their oblivious self-centeredness?—was something she didn’t think she’d ever get used to. She was almost shocked to find that apparently she’d worried for nothing all those months when she’d been so anxious about how her sons would react to their basketball coach joining them in private. Other than a hastily offered “cool,” their biggest concern was how soon they were going to get to the restaurant.
Not even the stomachache Blake couldn’t quite hide marred the evening. He’d just neglected to take his pill at the sleepover Friday night.
She swore to herself that she wasn’t going to assign too much significance to the changes the weekend had brought, but as she lay, relaxed and peaceful in her bed Sunday night, drifting off to sleep, her heart was filled with possibilities.
BY TUESDAY NIGHT, Valerie had finished all her Christmas shopping and had a lot of the wrapping done. She and the boys had gone to her office Christmas party Sunday afternoon, and then she’d spent most of the night wrapping their gifts from Santa Claus. She was on call for emergencies, but she had the next two weeks off as the courts typically shut down over the holidays.
To celebrate the last day of school, she invited Kirk over for dinner. At least that was the excuse she gave everyone. The invitation had nothing to do with the fact that the woman who’d slept with the crossing guard on Friday night was dying to see him. She wouldn�
��t let her obsession with him mean that much.
At least not yet. Whether the boys made a big deal about Kirk’s entrance into their lives or not, she knew how vulnerable they were. Brian was much better, miraculously better, but she’d had her warning. She was going to take things very slow where her sons were concerned.
He joked with the boys over dinner, helped with the dishes, evened up the teams for shooting hoops and spent an hour in their room when he went in to say good-night to them.
“What was that all about?” Valerie asked, beside herself with curiosity by the time he emerged. She’d been sitting at the counter in the black sweats and tennis shoes she’d changed into after dinner, writing out her grocery list for the next morning, planning the kinds of cookies she was going to bake, making certain she had everything for Christmas dinner.
Hands in his pockets, Kirk stopped behind the stool where she sat, looking over her shoulder at the list on the counter.
“Basketball, mostly,” he said.
“You’re evading again.”
“It was guy talk, Mom,” he told her in a voice a couple of octaves above his own. “And it’s Christmastime.”
Although she had a pretty strong hunch there’d been more than Christmas to the conversation, Valerie was content to let it go. While part of her needed to know everything that went on in her sons’ lives, more of her reveled in the chance to share some of the burden.
“That’s quite a list.” Valerie tilted her head to the side. He was close, reading over her shoulder. If he leaned down just a little bit farther…
“I make a lot of cookies.” The boys couldn’t possibly be asleep yet. And even if they were, she wasn’t going to have sex with their basketball coach while they were anywhere close.
Not that he’d asked.
She also knew that what they’d done the other night could not be described so callously. Maybe they hadn’t made love—she wasn’t ready to acknowledge anything so frightening and dangerous—but they’d certainly done more than “have sex.”
“You’re buying a ham?”
“The boys don’t like turkey.”
She’d promised herself she wouldn’t ask, wouldn’t hope. Or impose. But… “What are you doing for Christmas dinner?”
If he said he was—
“Eating out.”
“No.” Valerie whirled on the stool, looking up at him. “You are not going to a restaurant on Christmas Day. If you’re going out anywhere, come here.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?” If she’d known it was going to be that easy…
“I was hoping you’d ask.”
Anything she might have said to that was lost in the touch of his lips against hers. And in the all-consuming need that soared through her the instant he touched her. Four days had been too long.
Apparently for him, too, as his breathing was heavy and uneven when he finally pulled away. “We’re going to have to find a way to be alone sometime during the next two weeks, or I might not be responsible for the results,” he said with an exaggerated grimace.
Because she was ready to throw everything to the winds in her need to be with him, Valerie didn’t dare tell him that the boys were going to be spending the week between Christmas and New Year’s with her parents. She was afraid to say anything yet; afraid to make that much of a commitment. The trip had been her parents’ Christmas present to her, some time all to herself with no responsibilities. Until recently, she’d been dreading the loneliness.
Now she was dreading what might happen—would happen—if she had a week without supervision, even of the twelve-year-old variety.
Especially that kind.
“What’s going on with us?” she asked Kirk, her face serious as she gazed at him. In his usual jeans and, tonight, a faded maroon sweater, he stood there, the epitome of everything she wanted in a man.
Or almost. She would’ve preferred a little more drive to make the most of his God-given talents, but it was such a small thing compared to his work with the kids, his need to make a difference in their lives. To his honesty. His loyalty.
To the fact that he was well known at the coffee shop he frequented many nights a week instead of at a local bar.
It took him so long to answer, she almost wished she could take back the question. She hadn’t wanted to ruin the moment.
“I’m not sure,” he finally said, his eyebrows drawn as he held her gaze. “With my paternity suit still undecided, I’m still not free. Nor has enough changed for you and the boys. Blake’s continued to have stomachaches, and we can’t be certain that Brian will hang on to those pounds he gained.”
“I know.”
“But the companionship is damn nice.”
“Yeah.”
“So I guess we just take things one day at a time and see how it all plays out.”
It was no answer at all. She knew that. And suspected he did, too. But it was the best they had. “Okay.”
He backed away a step. “You ready to go for a walk?”
“Sure.”
And just like that, she’d made a commitment she knew she couldn’t keep.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“I KNOW YOU TOLD ME not to say it again, but I just have to.” Valerie’s words made Kirk a bit uneasy as they walked slowly through the holiday-lit streets. “Did you see Brian at dinner tonight?” she continued, her hand sliding into his so naturally he wasn’t sure which of them had instigated the contact. “He had seconds of everything. And I have you to thank for that.”
He’d noticed every bite the boy ate, eager to tell Alicia. This was what his life was about, helping kids. He’d promised his dying daughter that he wouldn’t lose sight of himself again. Ever.
That reminded him of another boy who needed his help. Desperately. He’d seen Abraham Billings on Sunday. With the holidays drawing near, the boy was agitated and depressed, and Kirk didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to talk the kid into hanging in there. Each time he dropped Abraham off, the boy seemed more depressed. Kirk had to have something to give Abraham, some promise he could make that would combat the hopelessness that overwhelmed him.
And about the only place he could get that promise was from Valerie. Juvenile court in Mesa wasn’t that big. Valerie had to know the judge on Abraham’s case.
If she wasn’t the judge herself. But he still didn’t think so. He’d made millions reading between the lines of what people said, and while she’d been understandably evasive, protecting the confidentiality of the court, he really didn’t believe she’d actually made the decision she’d defended. She’d been a little too detached.
“I’ve been to see Abraham Billings.”
She stopped, dropping his hand. “You what?”
He stood in the street, facing her, noticing that her hair glinted with the reflections of green and blue, red and gold Christmas lights on the houses and in the yards around them. “I’ve visited Abraham Billings.”
“That’s what I thought you’d said.” She started to walk again, as slowly as before, yet her whole demeanor was different. She was stiff with tension now.
“Valerie, you’ve just admitted for the umpteenth time that I was right about your own son. Can’t you give me the benefit of the doubt about a boy you hardly know?”
Arms wrapped around the velour jacket that matched her sweatpants, she shivered, although the night wasn’t cold. “You don’t understand.”
He might have acknowledged that…if he hadn’t been so sure that he did understand. Far more than she ever could. He’d been with Abraham, worked with him one-on-one, witnessed his despair, felt the change coming over him. He had the honor of being the only person Abraham even halfway trusted.
“What does Abraham need more than anything?” he asked her.
“Solid ground to stand on.”
“And that’s exactly what basketball gave him. It’s also, believe it or not, what his mother gave him.”
“You don’t know everything.”
<
br /> “I know that one of his mother’s potential tricks beat him up.”
She stopped again, stared at him. “He told you that?”
“You want the details?”
He sensed as much as saw the confusion cross her face before she shook her head. Shoulders hunched, she stood there, hugging herself.
“Knowing that, how can you say that boy’s mother gave him any kind of security?” she suddenly asked, not hiding her anger.
“The man was a potential trick. He’d never met Abraham or been to his home. He’d merely stopped to ask if Abe knew where Carla Billings lived. He was sent on a wild-goose chase, came back loaded for trouble and found Abraham still hanging out where he’d left him. In the end, it was his mother who saved him. She’d been worried when he wasn’t home on time, and went to his usual haunts looking for him.”
“For God’s sake, Chandler! His mother turns tricks right under his nose.”
“The situation is not ideal, granted,” Kirk said, uncomfortable with that truth. “But there’s got to be a better way to deal with this. Abraham feels a very real and strong responsibility to his mother. His identity is, to a great extent, wrapped up in the part he plays as a family member. Not only has he lost basketball, but your court system, this judge you’re supporting so adamantly, has even stripped him of his identity.”
“I—” She stopped, looked at him with a second of stark fear in her eyes.
It was Kirk’s turn to feel anger. At her—although he knew she was just doing her job. And mostly at himself for being such a fool. He could hardly believe what he was seeing in her eyes. “You’re his judge,” he said, incredulous. Hoping she’d deny his words, deny that she’d deceived him. How could he have been so far off the mark?
“I can’t comment on that.”
“You are.” He’d felt warm moments before. Now he was cold.
“I’ve told you all along I can’t comment on that.”
“There I was, telling you about his problems at home and you were using that information against him, weren’t you?”
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