by Nicki Elson
Cliff scrunched his lips into a sympathetic pout. “Karen told me. Sorry.” He’d gotten the news a week and a half earlier.
Patty shrugged. Cliff didn’t know if it was stress or the layers of makeup, but the creases around her eyes and mouth were more pronounced than he remembered. “He didn’t share our vision. A little disappointment now is better than a nightmare down the road.”
“True.”
An older woman in a sequined dress approached. “Sorry to interrupt. Patty, when you get a moment, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
Patty shot a regretful look at Cliff.
“Please, don’t keep your fans waiting,” he said.
Patty slid her eyes toward Jo. “Is he always this cheeky?” She reached out her hand. “It was nice meeting you. Cliff, again, thanks for everything.” She gave him a kiss on the cheek before following the other woman.
When they were gone, Cliff looked down at Jo to find her smirking. She arched an eyebrow.
“What?” Cliff asked.
“Nothing,” JoAnne said in a far-from-convincing tone. The corners of her mouth twitched as she fought a smile, telling Cliff it was nothing to worry about.
“Would you like to dance?” he asked. The brass ensemble was playing his favorite brand of Rat Pack.
“Sure.” Her smirk was gone, but the coy eyebrow remained slightly curved.
He guided her toward the band and showed off his dexterity on the dance floor, swaying and spinning like he’d been doing this his whole life. Jo followed his lead, her teasing look fading as she concentrated on the dance moves. She stumbled a few times, but Cliff was always able to guide her right back into step. When a quieter number started, he slowed their pace, wrapping an arm behind her back while they held hands and rocked to the calmer beat.
“You gonna tell me what that look was about back there?” he asked.
“You gonna explain why you’re telling people I’m your girlfriend?”
His expression sagged. He wasn’t sure exactly when it had started, but at some point during the past couple of weeks, he’d begun thinking of her as his girlfriend. He’d assumed she felt the same, but apparently, she didn’t.
“It’s okay,” Jo said in response to his frown. “I don’t mind being used as cougar spray.”
“Cougar spray?”
“That charity chick is obviously into you. I can see why you’d say you have a girlfriend to get her to flake off.”
“I don’t think she’s much older than us. Why would you call her a cougar?”
Jo pushed her mouth into a tight frown as they spun in a slow, swaying circle. “Am I being mean? Sorry. I didn’t like the way she laid her paws on you.”
“Huh,” Cliff mused, feeling the smirk that had been on Jo’s mouth transferring to his. Taking both of her hands in his, he prompted her to take a step back so they could stretch their arms straight. Then he twirled her so that she ended with her back to his chest. His arms crossed around her waist. “Sorta sounds like the kind of thing a girlfriend might say,” he murmured into her ear.
Her back stiffened, pressing against him. She felt so good and warm in his arms. Her perfume was soft and powdery with something wild teasing its edges. The longer he held her, the more urgently he needed to put an end to “too soon.”
“Just so you know, I was interested in her, too,” he said.
“Was or are?” Her fingers slackened between his, but he gripped harder.
“Was. The conflict of interest that kept me from asking her out disappeared, and the irony is that I don’t even think of her in that way anymore.”
“Why not?”
Spinning her again, he brought her to face him. He wanted—needed—to look straight into her eyes. Through the dimmed lighting of the enchanted ballroom, he could see they were rounded, half-frightened. “Why do you think?”
The song ended and a new one started, but they stood still, staring at each other.
Finally, Cliff asked, “Jo, are you my girlfriend?”
She clamped her lips together and her throat tightened in a swallow. Then she stepped toward the edge of the dance floor, pulling him with her. “Take me to your place and let me show you.”
Chapter 16
JO DISTRACTED CLIFF during the entire drive to the city, twirling her fingers through the back of his hair and jamming her tongue in his ear at every red light. She’d gone from prudent fox to sex kitten at the flick of a switch. As she hiked up her dress, exposing more and more of her milky thighs, he was in agony. The thirty-minute ride felt like days.
He was so worked up by the time they stepped into his apartment that he didn’t bother unfolding the bed, didn’t even take off his pants or her dress. Opening his mouth wide on hers, they practically swallowed each other as he backed her up to the granite kitchen counter. Within seconds, he’d unzipped the back of her dress so he could claw his hands down her back, unhooking her bra along the way.
He grabbed onto her hips and turned her around, then pushed her pelvis against the granite and licked down her spine. Jo pressed her hands flat on the counter and arched her back, moaning as he tasted each bump of her vertebrae. Lowering to kneel behind her, he gave her panties a swift yank, pulling them down to her knees.
Tickling his fingertips across her slippery folds was enough to have her whimpering. He couldn’t take it anymore. In one swift motion, he stood and unzipped his pants. He reached into his wallet, ripped open a packet, and rolled on a condom. Half a second later, he plunged into her, moving with the ferocity of an animal mating in the wild, dominating her from behind like he had in San Diego.
Her hands pawed across the slick, hard granite while she mewled and shuffled her legs, trying to keep her footing in her spiked shoes. Cliff knew it was Neanderthal of him, but he liked feeling her struggle and smacked himself more roughly against her, shaking her off balance and making her work to stay upright. Soon he wasn’t aware of what he was doing. He’d become a throbbing mass of pure pleasure as she squirmed and he pounded. They both shouted obscenities into the apartment, writhing against each other.
She erupted first, with him following seconds later. As the neurons in his brain reconnected and sensible thought returned, he found his heated chest molded over Jo’s back. Her torso pressed flat to the countertop. Their breathing was ragged.
“That was fan-freaking-tastic,” she huffed.
The tiny spikes of her zipper nipped into the side of Cliff’s face as he nudged the back of her dress farther open with his mouth. He pressed his lips onto the flushed skin of her bare shoulder blade, seconding her sentiment.
After another deep inhale, she continued, “I was worried that now that we’re actually dating, we might lose the spark from when we hated each other.”
Pressing a final kiss to her cheek, he lifted off of her, and she followed. “You can put that worry to rest.” He disposed of the prophylactic in the bathroom and returned, carrying his pants. He folded them neatly over the back of the leather easy chair.
“So just a wham bam? You’re not even going to drive me home?” Jo’s tone was teasing as she reached behind her, fastening her bra and pulling up her zipper, but the pained hitch of her cheek betrayed her hurt feelings.
“I’m going to drive you home—tomorrow.” He stepped to her and lowered her hands from their work at the back of her dress.
“What are you doing?” she asked as he slid the zipper pull back down.
“You don’t have to go into work until late tomorrow afternoon, so tonight you’re staying with me.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Uh huh.” Jo didn’t try to stop him from pulling her dress over her shoulders and letting it drop to the floor. “Step out,” he commanded.
She obeyed, and he picked up her dress, smoothing it on the way to the leather chair where he laid it over his pants. He turned to see his beautiful girlfriend’s lush curves in only a black strapless bra, matching lace panties, and ankle-strap heels. “Damn, woman,�
� was all he said before crossing back to her and pulling her into a long, wet kiss. When they finished, he couldn’t pull away, and they continued touching their lips together in small pecks.
“But tomorrow’s my day to sleep in,” she whined between tiny kisses. “I don’t want to have to get up at the crack when your alarm goes off.”
“I have a surprise.” He lowered his face to nuzzle the soft, warm tops of her breasts. “I took tomorrow off—I’ll make up for it on Saturday. So we can sleep in as late as we want tomorrow. And then, if we’re not sick of each other yet, we can spend the day together.”
“Really?” The little squeak at the end of the word told him she was pleased with the surprise.
He lifted his face to hers and gave her one more kiss before pulling off his tie and removing his jacket. “I have one rule for tonight, though.”
“What’s that?”
He unbuttoned his shirt and arched an eyebrow. “We sleep naked.”
She laughed and leaned one hand on the counter for balance as she worked at the buckle around her ankle. “I’m all for naked sleeping. But I have an appointment at eleven, so we can’t spend the day together.”
“What kind of appointment?”
“I’m taking a second look at a condo I’m thinking of buying.” She slid off her second shoe and sank onto flat feet, wiggling her toes. “Ah, that’s more like it.”
“Would you care for a second opinion on the condo? I’d be happy to go with you.”
She tilted her head and smiled. Stepping over to slide her arms around his bare waist, she kissed his chin. His shirt now lay with their other discarded clothes. “Aren’t you just the sweetest boyfriend in the whole wide world?”
“I am. And you haven’t even snuggled with me yet.” He wrapped his arms around her shoulders.
“Oh, no—you’re a snuggler?”
“I’m the best snuggler. Real-life women have told me so.”
“How do you know they weren’t just saying that?”
“All you need is one night of me snuggling the shit out of you to make you a believer.” He unhooked her bra for the second time that evening and tossed it onto the chair.
With both of them only in their undies, he went to the couch and folded out the mattress. He offered her one of his extra toothbrushes and gave her time alone in the bathroom to wash up for bed. Then he did the same. When he returned to the main room, she was in the bed, covered up. He noticed her panties rolled into a neat little ball on top of her bra and slid out of his boxers. With her hair down, falling in a loose cascade to her shoulders, he could see more of the red. She was his Claire.
As he climbed under the blankets, he slid a hand over the smooth, bare flesh of her thigh. Curving his arm around her, he sidled up close and slipped his other arm under her neck so that her head rested in the crook of his shoulder.
“Now that we’re officially a couple, should we talk about those other women?” Jo tucked her arms into his chest, tickling her fingers through his dark, thick hair.
“What other women?”
“The ones who put the stamp of approval on your snuggling.”
“Ah, the past-relationships talk. I don’t have a lot to tell. I’ve gone on approximately three-and-a-half-million dates in the last fifteen years, but not counting you, there’ve been only four women who could’ve been considered a girlfriend. My longest relationship lasted just over a year, in high school. Our standard-fare teenage insecurities kept us together more than anything else.
“At Iowa, there were a couple of girls, for a few months each. At Duke, I focused on law more than women, but there was someone during my final year. She stayed in North Carolina after graduation and didn’t want to try the long-distance thing. We haven’t even kept in touch since.”
As he talked, he’d brought his arm up from her leg and now traced his fingertips up and down her arm. Like a cat, she curled closer against him. His snuggle powers were at full force. “That’s it for me. Your turn.”
“Mine’s more a history of hookups than boyfriends. But there was Randy in high school. We went to most of the dances together, even when we were broken up. Brian was my go-to guy at Iowa, so I guess he was sort of a boyfriend. I went out with a guy named Craig for a while a couple of years ago. Turned out he was also dating someone else. I’m still not sure if she was his girlfriend and he was cheating on her with me or if I was his girlfriend and he cheated on me with her. Either way, when I told him to make a choice, he picked her.”
“So we both kind of suck at this boyfriend/girlfriend thing.”
Jo chuckled. “We have that in common, for sure.”
“Maybe we’ll finally get it right this time.” He kissed her forehead.
They filled each other in on more of their personal histories, mostly talking about their families and growing up. Cliff had learned several dates ago that she was from a small town in eastern Iowa, where her parents and two of her four siblings still lived. She went back there for most major holidays. Besides her brothers, she had two sisters close to her age, one older, one younger. The younger was twins with one of her brothers. Jo didn’t say it, but as she revealed more about her childhood, Cliff silently diagnosed her with classic middle-child syndrome—she often felt lost in the shuffle.
Though he’d been born between two sisters, Cliff had never felt like a middle child since he was the only boy, thus garnering a fair dose of special attention. But he told her about the hidden disappointment he’d felt from his parents when he hadn’t shown an affinity for team sports, choosing the debate team instead. Jo had been a cheerleader, joking that it was either that or raise cows in 4H. She teased him for being a rich brat growing up in a North Shore suburb. He couldn’t argue.
Their talking eventually tapered off, and he fell asleep with Jo securely in his arms. At some point in the night, with pale moonlight painting faint stripes over their naked bodies and the rumpled sheets, he woke. She’d turned with her back now facing him. He pushed up on his elbow so he could look at her. The blankets had been pushed down to her torso while she slept. Her chest fell and rose ever so slightly. With the moon kissing her flawless skin and the peaceful smile across her plump, perfect lips, he felt as if he were looking upon a marble sculpture of Venus or Aphrodite.
A Greek goddess in his bed. And she was his. With the selfish lust of Zeus, he pressed his mouth to the silken skin of her shoulder, half kissing, half biting, not caring that he’d disturb her slumber. Her eyes half opened in a lazy squint. He clamped his hand around her jaw, tilting her face toward him. Arching over her body, he pushed his lips onto hers, not waiting for her to kiss back before thrusting his hot tongue into her mouth.
She groaned, and flipped her body around toward him, leaning in. Cliff pulled away the blankets that tangled between their legs so that every inch of their flesh could touch. Their movements were leisurely now, less desperate than earlier. They savored each other.
Cliff reached for the side-table drawer, fumbling until he found the box of condoms. This time, he took her from above, facing her, watching her arch her neck and close her eyes, smiling as he pumped into her. She didn’t shout like she had in the kitchen. Instead, soft moans of pleasure rolled out of her throat.
Combing his fingers through the crimson-tinted hair at the side of her head, he whispered, “Look at me, Claire.”
She opened her eyes, and he stared into them. The silvery pools in the dim light carried affection mixed with fear. She had nothing to be afraid of with him. He’d had other sexual relationships, had even called other women his girlfriend, but this—the swelling within his chest as he rocked his body inside hers—was nothing he’d ever felt before. Her loving, apprehensive eyes swallowed him whole.
Chapter 17
THE GRATING BEEP of Cliff’s phone alarm yanked him from a foggy dream. On instinct, he shot out his hand, silencing the blare. Lying flat on his back, he stared at a small smudge on his ceiling. Though the mark never changed shape, he often co
ntemplated it as if it were a mutating cloud. Sometimes it looked to him like a fierce mythical creature, other times it simply struck him as a stain he should ask the maintenance guy to paint over. This morning, it was a fluffy, happy bunny rabbit.
The occasional rattle of Jo’s breath as she lightly snored told Cliff she remained sleeping. Rolling onto his side, he was unable to stop himself from nuzzling against her. Under the blankets, her skin was warm, like a fleshy furnace. When she half lifted an eyelid, he kissed it, coaxing it to reclose. “Didn’t mean to wake you,” he whispered. “You can sleep a little while longer.”
He crept off the bed and took a quick, hot shower, grinning as he replayed the prior night in his mind. He liked the image of Jo/Claire still in his bed. Not many girls had ever slept over at this particular apartment. After toweling himself dry, he pulled on a pair of striped boxer briefs and rummaged through the walk-in closet off the bathroom, selecting a pair of dark distressed jeans and a charcoal Henley for himself and a pair of sweats and a blue-and-gray hooded sweatshirt for Jo.
When he reentered the main room, Jo threw her arms above her head, stretching all the way to her fingertips like a cat waking from a nap. The glittery polish on her short-clipped fingernails caught the morning light.
Holding up the sweats and hoodie, he asked, “Want to wear these for your short walk of shame from the curb to your front door?”
Through her yawn, she said something Cliff couldn’t decipher. Then she pushed up onto her elbows, keeping the sheet tucked over her chest. “This mattress sucks. How do you sleep on this thing every night?”
He tossed the clothes onto the bed and crawled across it to her. “I didn’t hear you complaining last night when I was pounding you into it.” He dug his chin into the crook of her neck, wagging it back and forth and throwing her into a fit of giggles.
She clawed her fingers into his sides, ticking.
Clamping his arms around her like a vise to still her attack, he leaned and rolled onto his back, pulling her on top of him, sheet and all. He gave her one swift kiss on the mouth and lay his head on the pillow, loosening his grip. “I know it’s time for a big-boy apartment with a room for an actual bed. Maybe condo-hunting with you today will inspire me to begin my search. I re-signed my lease in January, but I can break it mid-year for a small penalty.”