The Couple Most Likely To

by Lilian Darcy

Hed done a good job. Everything was already set out on the table when they sat down, so she didnt need to keep jumping up in search of ketchup or napkins or spoons, the way she had had to do during her most recent spectacularly unsuccessful visit with the twins to her parents in San Diego, over Christmas.

  And so far no one had cried, no one had refused to eat, no one had discovered any inventive and messy new uses for their lunchoh, except Ella with the juice, and that was an accident.

  With nuggets and fries, juice and grapes all going down nicely, Stacey relaxed and began to eat her soup, with crusty pieces of bread on the side.

  This little dining alcove set in a bay window that opened from the kitchen was a great place for family eating. With the rainy days and dull skies of winter in this part of the country, even native Portlanders could crave extra light in January. The large, double-glazed windowpanes on three sides of the dining alcove almost made her feel as if the four of them were eating outdoors, and the warm air coming up through the floor vents kept everything cozy. The twins noses werent pink anymore. Her own ears had warmed.

  She saw a couple of gray squirrels chasing each other across the grass and around a tree trunk with their fluffy tails rippling. The sun broke briefly through the cloud cover, making the wet trees glisten and the grass steam.

  This is great, Jake. I love your house.

  Thanks. Im actually not thrilled with the decorating, but I cant work out why. Have some cheese. The ham is really good, too.

  I think its too coordinated. Yes, please cut me a piece of that one, and excuse me for reaching across.

  Too coordinated? By the way, I think Im getting the hang of the two conversations at once thing.

  Max, honey, lets keep your sleeve out of the ketchup. She looked at her son, then back at Jake. Youre doing great with it. Its verbal multitasking. Men arent supposed to be good at it. I guess because it was done professionally, all in one swoop.

  Swoop is right. She descended, she decided, she decorated, she left.

  You need a few things that dont fit. Thats great, Ella. Its empty now, put it down, thats right. You didnt pick up anything during your travels? Tribal art, or landscape photographs? No knickknacks passed down from your grandparents?

  Ive resisted that sort of thing.

  No moss gathering. The original rolling stone.

  Did you want beer or wine, by the way?

  At lunch? Fatal! Makes me too sleepy, and the worst thing is if I ever nap along with the twins. I feel off-line for the rest of the day.

  I wouldnt call myself a rolling stone.

  She gave him a crooked smile. But if you did, which one would it be? Mick Jagger? Keith Richards? Or Charlie Watts?

  He sat back and laughed.

  Definitely a relaxing meal.

  Afterward, she offered to clean up and he took the twins into the great room where they were delighted to discover the huge, brand-new tub of blocks, which were big and chunky and exactly right for their little fingers. She could hear the three of them through the open doorway as she wiped down the table and stacked the dishwasher.

  Ship? Shall we make a ship now? Great tower, Max. Way to go, Ella! Knocking it over! Oh, Max, youre not happy about that? Hey, little guy, no big deal, look, well build it up again.

  When shed finished in the kitchen, she couldnt stop herself from creeping to listen and look without announcing her presence. Jake was on his denim-clad knees on the elegant handwoven rug, his eyes narrowed and the tip of his tongue escaping between his lips as he pushed each block into place. He had his gray sweater pushed to his elbows and a lick of hair out of place.

  Max trotted to and fro, providing further raw material for an already enormous, wobbly, multitiered construction. Meanwhile, Ella did her own thing with great concentration a few feet away, and Jake found time to make comments and suggestions that kept her interest high.

  Okay, now here comes the storm, Jake said. Are you going to be the storm with me, Max, are you going to be the wind? Were going to see if we can blow it down without even touching it. Man, its wobbly enough, I dont think were going to have a problem. Okay, ready? Blow!

  They both blew with all their might and the towers swayed and toppled and scattered noisily across the rug. Jake sat back on his heels and went, Woo- hoo! He grinned and slapped his palms against his strong thighs.

  Max jumped up and down and clapped his hands and howled with happiness. It was gorgeous, but he would never settle down enough for his nap if Jake kept this up, and when Max didnt nap he was a miserable, tantrum-prone mess by five oclock and he dragged his sister into the emotional vortex along with him, so

  Wow! Stacey said, coming forward, wondering how she was going to handle this.

  Her heart gave a sudden twist.

  Jake had been so great today.

  Really, seriously, great.

  Hed thought about the twins needs in advance. Hed dealt with the chaos and mess they inevitably generated, and had laughed about it. Hed even managed to carry through that whole if-you-were-a-famous-music-star-who-would-it-be conversation to the point where shed admitted to a secret and pretty implausible affinity with all three Dixie Chicks.

  You sing their songs in the shower?

  Yes. She did.

  But she still couldnt let Jake unknowingly sabotage Maxs nap.

  What a great storm! she finished when she reached them. You flattened the whole block city.

  Were guys, Jake said. We like a little destruction along with our creativity. He grinned, pleased with himself. His green eyes glinted with a hint of wickedness, inviting her to grin back, arrowing their charm deep inside her.

  Her heart shifted again.

  Max was already gathering up the blocks, making bulldozer noises, eager to do it all over again.

  Maybe she just had to play this straight.

  Can we start to bring it down a little bit, energy-wise? she asked Jake quietly. Naps, you see

  Oh, right, of course.

  I mean, occasionally they skip them, but it makes the end of the day

  Trust me, Stace, I have no desire for them to skip their naps. I was hoping to tire them out so theyd take nice long ones.

  Kind of doesnt work that way.

  No?

  You have to bore them after lunch. Bore and soothe and quiet She made spreading motions with her hands, as if calming the wild seas of toddler twin energy.

  Hmm, big mistake with the fun, destructive tower stuff, then.

  Well work with it. Itll take a little longer, thats all. She began to tidy the blocks into different colored piles, turning the task into a gentle game. Max and Ella grew more attentive and sat down to watch. Twenty minutes later, they began to yawn.

  Stacey changed their diapers and set up the portable crib in a spare bedroom. The twins still liked to share it, even though there was barely enough space. She didnt darken the room, but left each child with a book to look at, knowing that theyd eventually lie down, let the books fall onto the sheet beside them and close their eyes.

  She told them, Have a yummy, sleepy rest, now, my two honeys.

  Then she went slowly and quietly out of the room. She knew from experience that it was fatal to betray any impatience at this point. If the twins somehow sensed just how much she craved some one-on-one adult companyadult, male, Jake Logantype company, right now, to be honestafter being with them solidly since six this morning, they might easily decide that napping would mean missing some fun, and ten minutes from now theyd start to cry, louder and louder, until she returned.

  There were a couple of days recently when shed cried because they hadnt napped, and on those occasions she hadnt even had Jake waiting for her, with all the promise shed seen in his eyes today.

  She wanted the fulfillment of that promise.

  Best to be honest with herself about it. She just wanted him. She wanted the sensual magic of their connection, the rightness of his body pressed against hers, the sweet secret she saw in his eyes when they looked at each
other up close, the touch of his mouth, even deeper than outside the restaurant on Tuesday night.

  She wanted time itself to stop, and the whole world to shrink to a cocoon surrounding herself and Jake, so that all she had to think about was him, their two bodies, their two hearts.

  And since the twins would nap at most for ninety minutes, she couldnt afford to wait.

  She told him at the foot of the stairs, I think were going to be okay with napping. And thank you.

  For what?

  For trying so hard today.

  But failing miserably?

  No, no, for doing such a good job with it all, I meant.

  Not convinced that I was especially wonderful, if you want the truth.

  No, really. Some people have no idea of the reality of kids at this age.

  She teetered on the edge of telling him that he was better than Johnthat John sometimes expected too much from two-year-olds, wanted the kind of control and consistency he experienced in his work, and usually yelled in an attempt to get itbut even though they were divorced she tried not to betray that kind of disloyalty toward her ex. After all, he was the twins father, and always would be.

  After a moment of hesitation, she pressed her lips together and said nothing.

  Chapter Six

  J ake saw the movement of Staceys mouth and wondered what was on her mind.

  Wondered if maybe shed read his mind too clearly.

  Shed thanked him for doing a good job, and he thought that he sincerely had, but it was a drop in the ocean. A couple of hours of being good-humored about squished berries and spilled juice, of making the effort to push swings and build towers, of putting the needs of two small children ahead of his own

  It hardly added up to any kind of commitment.

  He was left with exactly the same fears as hed had before.

  If he started to care too much about Stacey and her kids, he would feeland beas vulnerable as a patient on an operating table in the middle of surgery. If he couldnt manage to care about Max and Ella enough, then they would become an irritating, impossible drag on the relationship, a cause of conflict and dishonesty and mess that would be even worse than what he and Stacey had gone through when Anna had died.

  He couldnt see any middle ground.

  Meanwhile, here was Stacey, mouth still pressed shut, blue eyes big and wide and jewel-like as she looked up at him, the slow beginning of her million-watt smile creeping into her face, and he wanted her so muchjust enjoyed her so much, everything about her, her humor, her warmth, her courage, her sexy body, the things hed always enjoyed about her but that seemed so much richer in her nowthat he simply didnt have the resolve to push her away, the way he knew he should.

  He was the scum of the earth.

  Look it in the face, Logan.

  He was pond slime.

  He was going to kiss her right now, take her to bed within the next week or two if he could, and pretend to himself that he hadnt even noticed the looming emotional disaster zone lying ahead.

  Oh, hell, Stace, he muttered as he stepped toward her.

  She met him halfway, sighing her body into his arms, holding his face between her hands, initiating the kiss more than he did, with her sweet mouth. She closed her eyes, and so did he. He wanted her to sweep him away so that he wasnt fully responsible for any of this. He wanted to know in his heart that, whatever happened, she could never truthfully say that hed pushed too hard.

  She covered his mouth with her soft, full lips and kept her hands in place against his jaw, making their kiss into a prison that felt like heaven. He tried to take control, but she wouldnt let him and he loved every second of her purposeful, teasing dominance. With slow, sensual deliberation, she backed him against the wall at the foot of the stairs and pushed even closer, anchoring his groin against her hips.

  They kissed for a long time.

  It was glorious.

  Fabulous.

  Hot.

  I needed this, she whispered at last.

  Me, too.

  Good

  Very good. He deepened the kiss again, using his tongue to draw an even fuller response from her.

  because I need more.

  Who had the initiative now? Who was pushing this faster and further? He couldnt have said. He let his shoulder blades loll against the wall and his hips push forward a little, his increasing arousal coexisting with a delicious sense of laziness and a huge appreciation of her feline assertiveness.

  He hadnt yet used his hands. They fell to his sides, while his total focus narrowed to the sweet contact of mouth on mouth. When she dragged her lips away, he wanted them back, kept his eyes shut, kept his mouth open a little and waited and just wanted her.

  Jake? For the first time, she sounded tentative. Touch me?

  He was a total mess, and hed lost all power to think. Where?

  Wherever you want. She took her hands away from his face, gripped his wrists and brought his arms around behind her, planting them on her rear. I just need to knowthat this is coming from you as much as from me.

  How can you even ask? Its you. Its me. I dont even know where you finish and I begin, anymore.

  Prove it, she whispered. Prove it to me, Jake

  The need for action surged into him at last. He caressed the two soft curves of her cheeks, found the creases at the tops of her thighs, slid his fingers in closer together. His arousal was packed in tight and hard and large against the front of his jeans. She liked it. She touched him through the cloth, teasing him, smiling while they still kissed, then slid her hand away so that the tips of her fingers brushed his aching, impatient hardness.

  Thank you, she said again. Breathed, rather than said.

  Will you stop that? he whispered.

  Thanking you? Or?

  Yes. Thanking me. Arousing me, definitely do not stop that!

  No? Okay

  What are the thanks for, this time? Can I ask?

  For this. For kissing me. Wanting to kiss me. As much as I want to kiss you.

  Wanting it more.

  Oh, no. Not more She ran her fingers through his hair, rocked her hips to and fro across the painful bulk of his erection, pushed her softly rounded breasts into his chest. Did she realize thered be no stopping them, soon?

  She was a grown woman, not a naive young girl.

  She had to want this as much as he did, or else she was playing with fire.

  Meanwhile, hed already gotten burned. Seriously, if she was going to put the brakes on, she had to do it now or never, and he had to make it clear to her. With aching reluctance, he pulled his mouth away, brushed his nose against hersoh hell, he was throbbing, he just wanted to keep kissing her

  Who are you and what have you done with the real Stacey? he muttered. I mean, I love this, but

  This is me, Jake. She sounded more than a little shaky, and her hand was unsteady, lightly stroking his cheek.

  You claim.

  Its definitely me. She seemed wobbly on her feet, leaning against his whole length to shore herself up.

  Are you sure that this new you is fully aware of what shes doing, and how far its going to go?

  II admit, I hadnt intended it when I woke up this morning She looked into his eyes, frowning a little. Her mouth looked swollen and her jaw was pink from the rasp of his stubble, even though hed shaved less than eight hours ago.

  Or even when you came down the stairs? he suggested.

  I think I half intended it when I came down the stairs. I knew what would happen, what I would want, once we kissed. And I made damned sure that we kissed, so

  How much do you intend it now?

  All the way. I need it. I want it. With you. Its been a long time, and She bit her lip. With you, Jake Logan, she repeated, as if there were no other man in the world.

  Elation surged in him, along with his need. Hed begun to shake, too, his knees as weak as hers were. He wanted to squeeze her until she laughed and begged for a chance to breathe. Im not going to say, Are you sure? any
more, Stace, because youve had your chance.

  No. This is my chance, she whispered. When we go back up the stairs, thatll be my chance, and I cant wait.

  Now?

  Please!

  They went, touching each other all the way.

  There was a gratifying silence upstairs.

  Stacey didnt let herself think about the twins asleep behind the closed spare room door. She thought of the other bedroom insteadthe big one at the end of the corridor, with its high, wood-beamed ceiling, king-size bed covered in a puffy dark green comforter, and invitingly gaping door.

  She wanted this, and she was going into it with her eyes wide-open.

  She didnt know where it would lead. There could very easily be a broken heart at the end of ithers, of coursebut she knew it could never be classed as a one-night stand.

  Not with Jake Logan.

  They reached the bedroom and there was no slow, seductive teasing, just hunger and impatience and need. He swung her around, breathed a hot, moist kiss onto her ear and whispered, Raise your arms. Helplessly, she did. His knuckles brushed her sensitive sides as he peeled her sweater off, taking with it the snug-fitting black cotton tank she wore beneath.

  Before she could react, he cupped his hands over her breasts, and even through the lace cups of her bra, she could feel their heat and their familiarity. Jakes hands. Jakes magic hands. Oh, Stacey, oh, I want this! he said.

  She let out a sound that was half gasp, half moan, and closed her eyes, then felt him reach around and unfasten her bra. It slipped from her shoulders, brushed her nipples, then fell. He cupped her again, skin to skin this time, and bent to press his mouth to each hardened nipple in turn, like a kiss of greeting. Every nerve ending in her body tightened and sang.

  But he wasnt yet content. She heard fabric sliding across skin and opened her eyes again to discover him tossing his sweater onto the floor, reaching for his T-shirt, tossing that, too.

  Oh, shed forgotten that his body looked this good, had forgotten the natural olive tone in his skin that seemed to defy all of winters attempts to fade it, had forgotten the shading of hair across the muscles of his chest. They stood shamelessly looking at each other, and she knew how much he liked what he saw. The knowledge built her own pleasure higher, and already she felt achingly ready for him.