“Mr. Ramsey has instituted a working schedule for you that will include time spent in an assortment of facets within the home,” she said, her tone cordial but firm. “It’s a common practice to have interns rotate tasks and spend time in other areas of the workplace like the office. It’ll give you a full, all-around knowledge of the business of eldercare.”
One couldn’t argue with logic like that, but I suspected I would be spending the most of my day outside the area I was supposedly here training for.
“Come on, I’ll introduce you to the doctor. He’s very nice.” Liz cupped the side of her mouth with a hand, her eyes twinkled with mischief. “And single. Just about every woman on staff is in love with him. The young ones want to date him, and the older ones are eyeing him for their daughters.”
“Elizabeth, please tell me you aren’t spreading those terrible, inflated rumors again!” A smooth masculine voice called out from one of the offices.
“Oh, Dr. Berger, I didn’t realize you were standing right next to the door.” Liz cleared her throat, her face flushing with embarrassment. Unable to contain my curiosity, I peeked around to see the famed bachelor doctor, the object of all the gossip.
“Andrew?” From a vague memory, his name materialized on my lips.
Avid green eyes found me, and his smile grew with recognition. “Well, hello there.”
“You two know each other?” Liz’s gaze ping-ponged between us.
“Not really. We were both at the Mad Monkey—”
“I plowed into her and sent her cell phone flying,” he said, a look of chagrin. “Phone okay?”
I nodded. He smiled.
“Good. I didn’t stay long after I ran into you. I liked the live music, but it isn’t really my kind of place.”
“Mine either, but my boyfriend is in the band that performed that night,” I said.
Andrew was hands-down the best-dressed guy at the Monkey that night, but mostly, I remembered, like me, he seemed out of place. With April giving him the bum’s rush, I’d never got a chance to appreciate how attractive he was.
His short blond hair was gelled into a neat and traditionally formal style, his face hairless and smooth. He was probably in his early thirties and wasn’t much taller than me. Impeccably dressed in a stylish pair of high-shine black loafers and a dark blue suit that looked tailored to his trim frame, he looked as if he could’ve easily been an actor on one of those daytime soap operas April sometimes made me watch.
“What a small world.” Almost as if habit, Liz laid a hand on my arm. “Claudia is our new staff intern.”
I stepped forward and offered my hand. “Pleased to formally meet you, Dr. Berger.”
He held my hand in greeting, and I felt a bit self-conscious standing so close to him. No wonder all the women in the place were gaga for him. Those emerald green eyes were killer.
“Too late for formalities. You’ll have to call me Andrew,” he said, releasing my hand. “Are you currently going to school or a new graduate, Claudia?”
“A student. In the fall, I start the master’s program in medical humanities and compassionate care at Stony Brook University.”
“Planning on getting a doctorate?” he asked.
His question caught me off guard. “I only have my eye on the master's right now.”
“It’s something to think about,” he said, offhandedly. “Several of your classes parallel my work. I’m certain we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other. I look forward to working with you.”
Even though we’d just met, I already felt like I had an ally at work.
* * * *
As absurd as Toby’s early morning proposition was, throughout the day, my mind continually strayed to inappropriate thoughts, which kept me from obsessing over learning the duties of my new position.
I stopped home after Sterling to brush my hair and teeth before heading back out to pick up Toby. I stood in front of my mirror and saw a woman taking charge of her life staring back at me, a woman bold enough to delve into something new—and just daring enough to indulge her boyfriend’s sexy suggestion.
I shimmied out of my underwear and tossed them in the hamper.
Any nerves I’d felt about starting at Sterling earlier were dwarfed by the feelings I had sitting in my car, watching the ferry pull in. When I spotted Toby among the throng of disembarking passengers, my earlier chutzpah waned. He came around the passenger side, and my fingers fumbled to unlock the door.
I was already leaning in for a kiss before he had the door shut. He pecked my mouth with a quick kiss and whispered in my ear, “Have you been thinking about me as much as I’ve been thinking about you?”
The searching look of those soft blue cashmere eyes warmed me from the inside out.
As much as I wanted him, I held back. “No thanks to you, I was distracted all day.”
“Too distracted to be nervous?” He thumbed my lips.
“Oh, you!” I attempted to bite his thumb, but he pulled it away and chuckled.
“I’d say I was sorry, but I wouldn’t actually mean it. Besides, I knew you wouldn’t take the idea seriously, but it was fun to watch you squirm.” He pulled the door closed and settled in his seat.
“Oh, so you were kidding?”
“Did you think I wasn’t?”
My ears warmed. “That wasn’t the question.”
“Hold the phone.” His gaze sluiced from my face to my skirt. “Did you—”
Suddenly he arched toward me, his fingers closing over my knee, sliding upwards, and pushing my skirt aside. I tried to stop him, but his hand was like a band of steel on my leg. My efforts did little to deter him from his target. Darting my hands into my lap, I held down the hem of my skirt as he felt over my hip.
When his work-roughed hand encountered only bare skin, his eyebrows shot up.
“You actually went to work without panties?”
“I only took them off before I came to meet you.” I said, my voice breathy so close in confinement with him.
“Holy hotness,” he wheezed. “Is your father home?”
“No, he’s on late shift this week.”
“Perfect. Let’s go to your house.”
“This is a big step for us.” I twitted nervously, despite the heat wave cloying between my legs.
A frown line creased the space between his eyes. “Too much?”
I wanted to kiss the frown line away and tell him how much I’d been fantasizing for months about him doing that very thing, but I didn’t dare confess it. “No, but it’s strange to talk about it.”
“No, it’s exciting to talk about it,” he countered and firmly squeezed my thigh. “Now be a good girl and put the car in drive.”
Hit with a sudden twinge of apprehension, I said, “Let’s go to your house, instead.”
“Too far. Can’t wait that long.” His hand between my thighs skirted exceedingly close to sensitive areas.
I wavered. “It only takes five minutes.”
“Five minutes too long. Claudia, if you don’t drive us back to your house, I’ll go down on you right here.” Tugging at my skirt, his head descended on me.
A needy, hot pulse beat between my legs.
“No, no!” I pulled at his hair, mortified at the thought of someone seeing us.
He leaned back and met my eyes. “Then get this car rolling.”
The acute urgency of that one look had me moving, and I jerked the car into gear.
“You’ve been thinking about me doing this to you, haven’t you?” His hot breath fanned my already heated face as his hand skated up the inside of my thighs.
“Yes.” My reply mangled with a long sigh, and I was almost unable to push my foot down on the accelerator. “Seriously, you cannot do that while I’m driving. I’ll crash!”
“Keep your eyes on the road and don’t pay attention to me.” He nuzzled the corner of my mouth, his breath nearly as course as my own.
“You’re making that impossible,” I said as his stro
king fingers made me writhe in my seat.
“I know you want my mouth here. Drive, baby,” he whispered.
Rendered practically feeble by his touch, I edged down on the gas pedal, doing my best to not drive up onto any of my neighbors’ front lawns. I did a lousy parking job in front of my house, and rushed to get the keys out of the ignition and into the front door, but with him kissing my neck and impatiently pressing into me from behind, I was all thumbs and dropped the keys. He retrieved them and, with more dexterity than I, unlocked the door for us.
We didn’t make it past the kitchen when he pushed me up against the wall and dropped to his knees.
“I’ve been patient, but I need to taste you now,” he growled, his eyes dark with lust. He blew a hot breath against my pelvis, and my legs almost bowed out from underneath me.
“Oh, my God, not here.” My protest was weak, but somehow, I managed to push him back. Clearly not expecting it, he toppled backwards. I laughed at his surprised expression and scooted out of his reach.
He made a swipe for me. “Come here.”
“No!” I shook my head, sidestepping him, and made a run for the staircase. He thundered after me, his footsteps pounding the steps behind me. The sound of them made me move faster. I almost made it to the top step when he caught my ankle. I squealed and dropped to the soft, carpeted upstairs landing. Giggling and breathless, I tried to fight off his hands, but at the sight of him closing in on me, the last dregs of my laughter dried in my throat.
Kneeling a few steps below me, he took hold of my ankles and spread my legs.
“Pull your skirt up,” he urged.
The demand whipped through me, tearing at my self-control. A hot pulse beat in my core, and yet there was something else there, too. I was like a fly caught in a web, a fight or flight instinct, as irrational as it was, wedged painfully in my chest. I held the edges of the fabric in my hand firmly against my legs and refused him.
“Remember how it felt the first time I did it and how much you liked it?” He moved his hands slowly up my calves to my knees, his thumbs pressing into the soft flesh inside them. Angling down toward me, the gravity of his intention evident in his smoky eyes. “I’m not trying to take anything from you, Claudia. Just the opposite. I want to give to you. I want to give you pleasure, and there’s no shame in that. Stop fighting me. Let me make you feel good.”
A sharp pang of need snaked inside me, but my absolute lust for him mingled with the hard edge of self-consciousness. He waited for me, his thumbs sliding up the sensitive skin on my thighs. Rebelling against the clawing inclination to resist, I let baser instincts take over and slowly drew the soft cotton fabric back, revealing myself to him. He watched me, his body knotting with noticeable desire at the sight of my nakedness, and a subtle shift of his hands softened his hold on my legs. My retraction altered everything. The air crackled and popped, almost painfully with raw need.
“Claude—” My name hung on his lips, and I had the powerful urge to suck it from his mouth. He lowered his head, his hungry mouth trailing over my upper thighs. With a gasp, I lay back and forced myself to concentrate on nothing but how his hot, seeking mouth made my body come alive. Toby, so powerful and ardent in his lust, could also be gentle and generous, effortlessly asserting his will over my body and forcing me to concede to a need I had ignored for far too long.
“Make some noise, baby,” he coaxed, his voice strained as he lifted his eyes to mine. “Let me hear how my mouth on you makes you feel.”
I stared down at him, at his face low over my hips. He was so achingly handsome and beautiful, his eyes dark and intense as his fingers stroked me, intoxicating me with a vast array of sensations until I couldn’t think straight anymore.
I grabbed his hair, just hard enough to indicate what I wanted. With a sly smile, he lowered his mouth to me. Under the focused swirl of his hot tongue, it took little effort to let loose. His persistence to the task drove me off a cliff. An extreme tension had me struggling to stay still under him. I was powerless to do anything other than let the white-hot energy of pleasure sweep through me. It took hold of my body, orchestrating my motions like a puppet. I cried out as my body shook with release.
While I panted, he moved up to lie next to me atop of the steps, his body still rigid with his unquenched need. We kissed, and he began grinding himself against my hip and pelvis. I reached down between us to stroke him until his breath came fast and he had his own release.
“I like these new, widened parameters,” he said. “I can live with them for a while.”
“Thank you for being so patient.” I tucked myself into his arms and snuggled close. “Every step we take means something, and, everything feels different about this—about us. It’s better, isn’t it?”
I wasn’t sure exactly what made it different, but it was true. We were more in sync, and something was there between us now that hadn’t been in place those two years ago.
“Yes,” he said, kissing the top of my head and sitting up. “How’d your first day at Sterling go?”
“I like the new office secretary, Liz, but it doesn’t sound like I’ll be doing exactly what I was hoping for. Oh, remember the guy who bumped into me at the Mad Monkey and made me drop my phone?”
“That yacht club chump?”
I ignored the disparaging label and sat up to fix my skirt. “Yes. Turns out he’s a doctor. His name is Andrew Berger, and he’s the staff physician at Sterling.”
“You work with him?” he asked, a perceptible snarl in his voice.
“Yes, but only when I’m not remanded to boring office work,” I said. “If I had my way, I’d work with him all day every day.”
Toby pushed me onto my back, the weight of his body pressing me into the carpet. “This doctor guy knows you have a boyfriend, a serious boyfriend, right?”
He was jealous? Laughing, I kissed the tip of his nose. “Not that he’s interested, but I’ll make sure he knows about my wonderful, devastatingly handsome, serious boyfriend.”
Chapter 7 • Claudia
“Come to the Pines with me tomorrow,” Toby said on Friday night. “My boss gave me the keys to the rental house we’ve been working on. Wants it sold quickly and asked me to finish the fireplace mantel this weekend. It will only take me a few hours, and then we can spend the rest of the day together. We’ll have the place to ourselves.”
I immediately agreed. With the new level of intimacy between us, every day felt like an adventure.
Working overtime at one of his boss’s houses was a good sign. No one else in the company had been asked. The Delfino brothers liked Toby.
We packed up a few canvas totes with lunch, drinks, and snacks. Toby brought a circular saw and his toolbox. The weather was a bit overcast with a quick-moving, easterly wind, but the day felt brisk and fresh. We got an early start, arriving at the ferry terminal on Brown’s Creek Harbor before the masses of beachgoers and day-trippers arrived. Toby parked the Jeep in the dirt lot across from the Pines station and grabbed our sacks.
The ferry was only about half full, and as the Pines was an openly gay community, one expected to see many same sex couples aboard. I staked out an empty bench on the upper deck and got as comfortable as one could get on the molded fiberglass seat. Toby remained standing, jingling some loose change in his pocket and watching the landscape with mild interest as the ferry began its passage across the bay. Nearby, two handsome, middle-aged men sat close together on a bench—I assumed partners—but their eyes strayed to Toby with open admiration.
I popped to my feet and came up behind Toby, sliding my hands into the back pockets of his jeans. “I think I need to stand behind you and protect your ass-ets,” I said low, playfully squeezing his butt.
“Hey, now. Better be careful there,” he said. “Otherwise these guys will be drooling over the bulge on the flip side.”
I muffled my giggle against his back. “You can’t seriously be that sensitive.”
“To your hands grabbing my as
s? Hell, yeah, I can. I haven’t had sex in, like, forever.”
I inhaled, prepared to admit my own patience had reached a tipping point. The attraction between us was like a burgeoning thrill desperate for an outlet. “Who knows, maybe today is your lucky day.”
He didn’t respond and a stretch of silence lumbered between us, tearing at me like thorns. All of this was so new to me. I couldn’t help but wonder how many times had he been in the very same place we were—at the cusp of starting a sexual relationship – with some other girl.
As much as I wanted to make a big deal about crossing this physical boundary with him, I was going to have to settle for less fanfare from him. It was naive to think this milestone would be as significant to him as it was to me. I was trying to come to terms with that fact when someone near the front of the ferry shouted. We were only midway across the bay, but the forward motion of the ferry noticeably slowed.
“What the hell…” Toby leaned away from me and then dragged me in front of him and pointed out over the water. “Claude, look!”
An enormous, gray and white mottled tail stuck out of the murky depths. Everyone on the boat gathered near the railing and watched as the whale flopped down, inciting rolls of miniature waves across the surface of the water.
“It’s a humpback. A small one,” the guy next to us said. “Probably the same one sighted near the Shinnecock Inlet last week.”
A hushed silence of awe encompassed the boat. Our little coastal body of water never boasted such marine life. Toby’s arms tightened around me as we watched a huge fin smack the water’s surface a few more times before it finally disappeared under a current of frothing waves.
The ferry engine growled, urging the boat through the water, and the wind lifted my hair.
“Damn, that was unreal.” Toby snugged his cheek to mine. “Please tell me you’ve never seen a whale before.”
“Why?”
“I would like if we could call this moment ours and ours alone.”
His excitement was disarming. Maybe seeing a whale wasn’t as intimate as making love, but it proved there were many other firsts we could share in together.
Keeping Claudia (Toby & Claudia Book 2) Page 7