“You want to sleep with me tonight? This night? Sunday night?”
“This very night,” he said. “I also agreed to fix your deck at 8:00 a.m. and if I’m already there I can sleep later.”
“Now I know why Ruthie punches you in the arm all the time.”
He braced himself for an arm punch. Instead Clover rested her forehead on his shoulder and laughed softly. After two seconds her head was still there. He put one arm around her waist and pulled her a little closer to him. She didn’t seem to mind that one bit so he wrapped his foot around her leg and pulled her even closer...
“Your shampoo smells good,” he said. “Lemons?”
“That’s not my hair. That’s my office,” she said, pointing up at the tree. “But you smell good.”
“That’s hard to believe.”
“You smell like sweat and cedar. It’s nice.”
“We’re like a couple of dogs sniffing each other,” he said. “If this continues, my nose is going to end up in your crotch.”
He felt her shaking with laughter against him. He heard the laughter, too, but that was normal. Feeling a woman laughing against him...it had been a long time since he’d felt that.
“Clover?”
“Yes?” She lifted her head and met his eyes. Their faces were only inches apart.
“How about I kiss you? And after I kiss you, then you can tell me where you think I should sleep tonight. What do you think about that?”
“I... I think that’s a good idea,” she said.
“Great. I’m going to kiss you now. You ready?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
He leaned in and she raised her hand to stop him.
“What?” he asked, pulling back.
“I was trying to remember my breath situation. I had gum about an hour ago. I think I’m okay.”
“You’re okay, I promise. Now are you ready?”
“Ready now,” she said. “Go for it.”
“I’m going for it. Right now. This second.” Except he wasn’t because he remembered he hadn’t kissed a woman on the mouth in over a year and he wondered if he’d forgotten how. To stall for time, he put his hands on Clover’s waist and positioned her between his knees. She put her hands on his shoulders and he wished he’d taken his coat off so he could feel her body heat better.
“Did you do it?” Clover asked. “I might have blinked and missed it.”
“Hold your horses. I’m getting there. Just lining up my target. I want to make sure I don’t miss. That would be embarr—”
Clover put her lips on his. Thank God one of them finally did it, he thought. But that’s all she did, put her lips on his. She wasn’t actually kissing him. She was leaning her mouth against his. He would have laughed but he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Nothing for it, he’d have to kiss her back.
He wrapped both arms around her and drew her against him. Slowly and softly he moved his mouth over her lips as he ran his hands up and down her back. Her lips were warm against his and full and tender and he wanted to bite them but decided to maybe wait on the biting until later. It wasn’t an electric kiss but he did feel something warm in the pit of his stomach and that warmth was getting warmer with every passing second. Clover opened her mouth.
Not warm.
Hot.
Very hot...
He slipped his tongue gently between her lips and Clover murmured a sweet sensual sound of pleasure and approval. He kissed her a little harder, pulled her a little closer. Her hands moved from his shoulders to the back of his neck. Good sign. She wanted to touch him. And he definitely wanted to touch her. What was with this damn hoodie? Was it made of wool? He couldn’t even feel her heat through it. Stupid sensible wardrobe. He wanted this woman naked or at least in a T-shirt. He gave a little sigh of frustration and Clover pulled back from the kiss.
“Did I do something wrong?” she asked, wide-eyed.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“You put on appropriate fall clothing this morning. Why did you do such a thing?”
“It’s fall.”
“No excuse.”
She rolled her eyes.
“You’re already trying to get me naked?” she asked.
“Not naked. Just less clothed. Can we get rid of this hoodie? I can’t even feel your bra strap through it.”
“You’re the one wearing the big coat.”
“I can take my coat off. I can take off anything you want if it’ll get you to kiss me again.”
“You liked it?” she asked.
He nodded. Vigorously.
She smiled, her skin pinking again. God, she was pretty.
“I liked it, too. A lot. A whole lot.”
“Enough to invite me home tonight?”
“If we do...does that mean you’ll expect, you know.”
“Sex?”
“That.”
“No. I’m not going to expect sex from a woman too nervous to say the word sex to me.”
“Sex. Sex, sex, sex. I’m not nervous. I’m just...”
“What?”
“Nervous. Yes. You got me. I am nervous. I feel like I know you really well because of Ruthie and everything she’s told me about you. But you and I don’t actually know each other that well because...”
“Of Ruthie. I know. I get it,” he said. “I would like to get to know you a lot better. Especially if it means more kissing. Et cetera.”
“Do you want to spend the night at my house? I won’t guarantee there’ll be more than kissing but there’ll definitely be kissing. And lots of it.”
“I’d like that,” he said. “I would like that very much.” He took her hand in his and squeezed it. Her hand trembled. She really was nervous. More reason to spend as much time together as possible. Nobody would believe they were a real couple if she was this nervous around him.
“Okay. You have my address in your pocket. I’ll head home and you come by whenever you’re ready. You know, after you find a twenty-four-hour UPS store.”
“Ruthless will have to wait for her phone until Tuesday. Serves her right for setting her old man up.”
“You’re not an old man. You’re only thirty-eight, right?”
“Yeah, but in parent-of-a-teenager years, I’m ninety-eight.”
“You look great for your age.”
“You look great, period.” He stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. It was the only part of his hand soft enough to touch a soft part of her.
“You’re too good at making me blush,” she said. “I hate being so pale.”
“It’s fun. I can see when I’m getting to you. It’s like an indicator light.”
“I think my indicator light says, ‘Engine needs servicing.’”
“God, I’d love to service your engine.”
She groaned in horrified amusement.
“I don’t even know what that means,” he said, “but I’m pretty sure it was dirty.”
“I kind of hope it was,” she said.
“Can I sleep in your bed with you tonight?” he asked. “No sex necessary. Just sleep. I’d like to get comfortable with you.”
“I would...yeah. I would like that, too.”
“Great. I’ll be right over after I get some stuff at my house. An hour. No later.”
He hopped off the desk and walked to the door.
“Erick?” Clover said.
“Yeah?”
She walked over to him and put her hand on the back of his neck again. She was a good height, perfect height for kissing while standing, which he discovered when she kissed him once more.
“Okay,” he said when she stepped back.
“Okay, what?”
“Okay, I won’t be over in an hour. I’ll be over in half an hour.”
“Don’t rush,” she said. “I want to take a shower and change the sheets on the bed.”
“Take your time.” He kissed her on the cheek and went to leave again. But he stopped and looked back at he
r.
“Ruthie and I drive each other crazy but she’s my daughter and she’s the best thing that ever happened to me. She doesn’t need to know all the dirty details about her father’s personal life, but I wouldn’t feel right keeping this a secret from her. It would really hurt her if I didn’t tell her something.”
“You’re absolutely right. She may act like she’s thirty-seven, but she is still seventeen. She should hear it from you.”
“I’ll call it a date. Can we call it a date?”
“Yes, you can call it a date.”
“I’m glad she forgot her phone,” he said, putting “forgot” into quotes.
“She’s a smart girl.”
“Sexist,” Erick said.
“She’s a smart fellow American,” Clover said, laughing. “Even if she can’t mind her own business.”
“Better me than Sven,” Erick said. “I’ll give your money back at the end of the week if you’re not satisfied.”
“Sounds like a very good deal especially since I’m not paying you.”
He zipped up his coat and patted his pocket to make sure Ruthie’s phone and Clover’s address were still there. “You need me to pick up anything before I come over?” he asked. “Food? Wine? Whips? Chains? Condoms?”
“I’m on the pill,” she said. “Heavy periods. Sorry. TMI.”
“I have a teenage daughter. You’re going to have to do better than heavy periods to TMI me. And I’m buying condoms, anyway. Not because we have to use them. Just because I want someone to know I might be getting laid this week.”
“I’m allergic to latex.”
“It’s okay. I’m so clean it’s depressing.”
“We’ll talk about it. Later. We’re just sleeping tonight. Right?”
“Right. Just sleeping. And kissing.”
“That, too.”
He started to leave.
“But maybe more than kissing,” she said.
He didn’t answer. He just walked out the door before he walked back to her and kissed her for a good three or four hours. Soon as he was in the cold night air on the way to his truck he pulled his own phone out of his pocket and sent a text message to Candace, his ex-wife.
Give your daughter a message for me, he wrote. Tell her she’s in trouble.
For what? Candace wrote back. She should know better by now than to ask that question.
She’ll know what I mean.
I’ll tell her. Anything else?
Yeah, Erick wrote. Tell her thank you.
3
DON’T PANIC, CLOVER told herself. Then she told herself that again. It wasn’t working. She was panicking.
She stood in the middle of her living room and glanced around at her house. No denying, she had a cute house. Not big. Perfect size for a woman who lived alone. Living room, office and kitchen downstairs. Master bedroom and guest bedroom upstairs. Half bath by the kitchen. Full bath by the master. Bamboo floors covered in woven rugs. Walls painted a rustic red downstairs and a pretty lake blue upstairs. Plants were everywhere, of course—ferns, ficus and flowers. She hoped Erick wasn’t allergic to flowers. This slumber party would be over before it started if he was. Ruthie had worked for her nearly a year and Erick picked his daughter up all the time. Had she ever seen him sneeze around the plants? Not that she recalled, but then again that would be a really bizarre thing to remember. She was freaking out and she knew it.
“Calm down, Clover,” she told herself.
“I am calm,” she said but she knew she wasn’t. She hadn’t been expecting company tonight. Certainly not tall, handsome, male company. She was torn between excitement and panic.
“Priorities, Clover. First things first. Man coming over...spending the night. What do I do? Clean stuff. What stuff? All the stuff.”
She’d fallen asleep on the sofa last night reading and the throw pillows and blankets were still a mess. She straightened the pillows and folded the blanket neatly. But it was a throw blanket and didn’t look right in a neat rectangle so she tossed it over the back instead. It ended up looking nearly identical to how it looked before but at least it was purposefully messy and not accidentally messy.
All the dishes in the kitchen sink she crammed into the dishwasher and started it running. She put the basket of her yet-to-be-folded socks and underwear in the laundry room, draping a clean towel over the piles of panties on top. She dug through the linen closet upstairs for clean sheets. Currently on her bed was red and blue flannel. She liked a cold house to sleep in at night with warm blankets piled high. Sometimes she even slept with the window cracked to let in the cold night air. She lived near Lost Lake and the air was as clean and fresh as anyone could ever want, and it seemed a shame to not have some of that crisp clean air in her house. If she remembered correctly, men tended to be warmer than women. Maybe no flannel sheets, then. She found her summer sheets, plain blue cotton, and stripped the white-and-blue-checkered quilt off her bed. She replaced the sheets and fluffed the pillows. Then she had to decide—did she want to remake the bed? Hadn’t she already told Erick she had to change the sheets? Would he think she was some kind of freak if she made the bed all of an hour before unmaking it to sleep? Was she overthinking this? Yes, she was overthinking this.
“You’re overthinking this, Clover. Stop it.”
She stopped it and just made the bed, anyway. She liked made beds. The room looked more inviting when the bed was made. On the bedside table was a little milk glass lamp that she switched on, flooding the room with low gentle light. Clover stepped back and took in the effect. Nice. Her small bedroom looked almost...romantic? Like a room at a cozy inn. Rustic but pretty.
What else? Bathroom. Oh, yeah, she better clean the bathroom. Erick had said with Ruthie gone he looked forward to using a clean bathroom all week. Clover wiped down the sink and the tile counter, wiped the toothpaste spots off the mirror, opened the drawer and slid into it everything from the counter. When that was done she heaved a sigh of relief. Then she saw herself in the mirror.
While frantically cleaning, she’d gotten a little sweaty and her hair was matted down on her forehead and what little of her makeup she’d still been wearing when she’d arrived home half an hour ago was now gone. She undressed fast and hopped into the shower. That morning she’d washed her hair so she didn’t do that again but she managed to soap up and shave her legs in a record time of seven minutes. Wearing only her towel, she brushed her hair again and pulled it into a neat ponytail. She put on a fresh coat of mascara and lip gloss and found her nicest pair of normal underwear—white cotton boy shorts—and put those on. The question was, what to wear over them. Put on her jeans again? She had some cute Christmas pajamas somewhere—shorts and a tank top—but it wasn’t even Thanksgiving yet. And those did show a lot of skin. She didn’t want Erick to think she was trying to seduce him. She wasn’t. Was she? No, of course not. They’d already talked about it. No sex tonight. Just a sleepover. Of course then he’d joked about buying condoms and she’d told him about her latex allergy, which sort of kind of maybe made it sound like she did want to have sex with him. Or maybe—
“Stop it, Clover. You’re thirty, not fifteen.” Truth. But she felt nervous as a teenager for some reason. She knew the reason. She hadn’t told Erick the reason but she would. Or maybe not. She’d simply tell him she was out of practice.
“Now you are acting like a kid,” she told herself. “Grow up.”
Her Naughty Holiday Page 4