“So when you’re in California,” she said suddenly. “What . . . what are we going to do?”
“As far as what?”
“A month is a long time,” Tracy said. “I just wondered whether you would be . . .”
“Socializing?” Brendan asked, preparing himself to talk her down from the ledge of jealousy once again.
“Yes.”
“I’ll be there to work. I don’t think I’ll have much time for that.”
She was making little waves in the pool, lifting and lowering her feet in the water.
“And what about me?” she asked, casually. A little too casually, Brendan thought.
“What about you?” he asked, alert now.
“If I wanted to . . . would you have a problem with that?”
No, he wouldn’t “have a problem with that” but he would want to find the dude and bury a fucking meat cleaver in his head. Their little close encounter with Kelvin had helped him make a new and intimate connection to an emotion he had rarely if ever experienced before: sexual jealousy.
“Somebody in particular you want to ‘socialize’ with, Tracy?” he asked, his voice tight.
She didn’t say anything for a long time.
“Someone asked me out.”
Brendan nodded. “Figured as much.”
She said nothing in response so he looked at her.
“What?” Brendan asked. “You need my permission? Or are you telling me you’re about to say yes?”
So all her possessiveness, jealousy and drama, what the hell had that been about? But then again, Tracy was never one to care about things like fairness and reciprocity. It was all well and good to keep him under lock, but made perfect sense for the rules to be different for her.
Forget the meat cleaver to this guy’s head. He felt as though someone had already buried the damn thing right in the center of his chest. But what could he say? They’d never labeled this bullshit quasi-relationship thing that they’d been doing the last few months. And while it was implied, she’d never voiced the expectation that he would be monogamous. In fact, jealous tantrums notwithstanding, she seemed to expect that he wouldn’t.
Hell, when she wanted them to stop using condoms, she asked that he continue using them with “other partners.” And he’d taken the bait and said he would when he knew good and goddamn well that even then he’d already stopped being interested in sleeping with anyone else.
When Shawn and Riley returned, he went to sit with them and even managed to laugh and carry on a conversation as though nothing was wrong, as though his world didn’t feel like it was about to come crashing down around him. Much later when he and Tracy finally set out for their drive back to the city, neither of them had much of anything to say to the other during the ride.
“You want me to drop you off in Brooklyn?” he asked.
Next to him Tracy’s head whipped around. “No,” she said right away. “You’re leaving the day after tomorrow.”
Either she was the best actress in the world, or she was genuinely confused by his suggestion that she go home. So she really believed in this arrangement they had going here; that it was possible to keep going like this, the two of them inseparable until and unless she decided it was time to do some dabbling in the dating world, just in case there was something better out there.
Back at the apartment he headed straight for the shower and stayed in there for a long time. She didn’t join him and when he got out was already in bed. Without a word, Brendan covered her body with his, kissing the side of her neck and pulling the shirt she was wearing over her head.
She wasn’t the only one who could fuck their problems away. His hands moved to her breasts and he kneaded them, his touch was more aggressive and caused her to wince, but he didn’t care. When he put a hand between her legs, he was frustrated to find that she was still wearing underwear.
“Take it off,” he ordered.
Her eyes were fixed on his as she complied. She looked a little uncertain, like she didn’t recognize him, but he didn’t care about that either.
“Brendan . . ?”
She was forming a question in her mind, but he didn’t allow her to complete it and pushed himself into her, keeping up a punishing pace, holding her by the calves and slinging her legs over his shoulders. When she began to meet his rhythm, he stopped and pulling a pillow from above her head, flipped her over onto her stomach and shoving it under her, entered her from behind.
Damn, she felt good, so fucking good.
Brendan tried to put out of his mind that she might be dating while he was gone; no doubt some dude whose goal would be to do to her precisely what he was doing now.
“Brendan,” she breathed. “Oh god, Brendan.”
Why the hell did she keep saying his name like that? It made it hard for him to concentrate on his anger. And it was essential that he concentrate on his anger because if he didn’t all that would be left was the hurt.
He wrapped both arms about her waist and reared back, pulling her with him so she was sitting on his lap with him still buried deep inside her. He could tell by the frantic clenching and unclenching of her muscles that she was nearing her orgasm so he grabbed her by the hips, his fingers digging into her, and hoisting her off him and back again, controlling the pace so that when he felt her about to come, he could stop it, keeping her close but making sure she never quite got there. Not until he was good and goddamned ready for her to get there.
She wasn’t saying so much as panting his name now, and he knew he was about to explode himself, so he pulled out of her and let it rip, all over her back. His heart was pounding and he could scarcely catch his breath so he was only vaguely aware of her moving, away from him and curling onto her side in a semi-fetal position.
He fell onto his back, waiting for his breathing to subside, waiting for the ache in his chest to subside, a part of him marveling at how swift, certain and complete his new realization was that he was in love with this woman. Not that it made a damn bit of difference.
For the first time in a very long time, she didn’t try to hold him, or get him to hold her, and instead grabbed one of his body pillows and coiled around it, her back to him. Brendan did the same, drifting off into a deep, but strangely restless post-coital slumber.
No way was this going to work. It was a conviction that had come to him in his sleep; this just wasn’t going to work for him. Something told him Tracy on the other hand could keep this going indefinitely; telling herself that it was casual, but slowly but surely changing everything about his life.
Just about every day, one more thing was different, like stocking up his fridge with groceries, even though he’d asked her expressly and repeatedly not to. The first time, she’d done it on the sly. It was actually kind of cute, the way she kept running ahead of him up the stairs to the kitchen whenever he headed in that general direction. It had taken Brendan a little while to figure out that something was afoot because she’d always brought him food, and cooked for him, from the very first night she ever spent there.
If he’d had to guess, he would never have pegged Tracy as the kind of woman who liked to take care of her man domestically. But she did. Not only the cooking, but she dropped off his dry cleaning and picked it up without him asking, and he’d once overheard her chiding the lady from the cleaning service for doing what she called a “superficial job” on the stove, and the woman replying that she wasn’t accustomed to seeing the stove in this unit used, so had mistakenly overlooked it.
The evening he’d figured out what was going on with the groceries, Tracy had made her third run up to the kitchen in a half hour to fetch him something, when Brendan finally followed her, ignoring her protests that she didn’t “mind at all” getting him whatever he needed. When he opened the refrigerator and saw that it was stuffed to the gills with food, he’d looked at her and she grinned back at him with her shoulders hunched and the cutest little grimace on her face as though she expected him to yell at her.
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br /> Brendan, she said. We can’t go to the store every single day. And if I’m not here one morning, I just know you’re going to buy something junky from the deli near your office.
He was touched that she cared whether he ate junk or not, but was more focused on another part of what she’d said.
Why wouldn’t you be here one morning? he asked, eyes narrowed.
Well, she responded, looking almost shy. I can’t be here every night, Brendan.
He’d just barely stopped himself from asking her why not. But it had to have been written all across his face because she’d gotten up on her toes and looked up at him, and he leaned in to kiss her, right there in front of the open—and thanks to her—overstocked fridge.
But that kind of shit couldn’t keep going on. Nope. Didn’t work for him. Especially not when she was dropping little bombs on him like the news that “someone” had asked her out. What the hell did that mean anyway? Who was this “someone”? They were together damn near every minute unless they were working. So that was it—someone at her job had asked her out. Working in that testosterone-driven environment that was Wall Street, he would be shocked if it didn’t happen all the time. But she’d mentioned this someone because maybe she wanted to say ‘yes.’
Before she could wake up, Brendan dressed for a pick-up basketball game and stayed out as long as he could. It was past noon when he turned, and by then he had been gone for a good number of hours, an uncharacteristically long period of time, knowing full well that she would be waiting for him—anxiously, he hoped—to return.
And she was. As he entered the bedroom, Tracy sat up, cross-legged in the middle of his bed, looking at him as though she’d spent the entire morning waiting to confront him, but had suddenly forgotten what she planned to say.
“Hey,” he said; his voice was emotionless.
“You want to talk about last night?” she asked finally.
Brendan shed his perspiration-soaked shirt and looked at her.
“What part of last night? The part where you told me you’re about to start dating?”
“Everything.”
But she seemed not to have thought of anything to say. Good. That was good. He had her off balance, like he’d been knocked off balance by the realization that Tracy wasn’t the woman he thought she was.
Tracy wasn’t the one you got your fill of and let go; no, she was the one you couldn’t get your fill of. She was the one you keep. And that last part was what killed him because he didn’t know what that looked like quite yet. The epiphany was way too new. So thank God for Sam Gaston and this trip he was about to take.
“Look,” he said wearily. “No heart-to-hearts necessary. You’re off the hook. We made no promises, no commitments, and as far as I know, we told each other no lies. So let’s just have breakfast and enjoy the rest of the day.”
Tracy blinked a few times and Brendan turned away from her.
“I’m about to take a shower,” he said. “You want to come with me?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ll wait till you’re done.”
Did he really not care if she went out with someone else?
Last night, he’d been angry; very angry, she was certain of that. He didn’t kiss her on the mouth when they were having sex, didn’t wait for her to finish, didn’t even seem to want her to, which was not just unlike him, it was downright cruel. She wasn’t even sure what had gotten into her bringing up Jason’s dinner invitation. Maybe a perverse need to cut through the thickness of her growing feelings for him, to dilute it a little bit, maybe even to self-sabotage. A part of her wondered when she brought it up if he would dump her. If he did, it would be easier, because she wasn’t sure anymore whether she would be able to walk away from him when the time came. And the time was coming, she was sure of it.
But this morning when she woke up and he was gone, without a word, or an attempt to wake her first, she felt a stab of hurt. That was not the kind of thing Brendan did, ever. He was almost scarily attuned to her moods, and could predict her reactions with such precision, she almost resented it.
Tracy recalled a Thursday evening a month earlier when she’d come in from work stressed and bitchy, and Brendan told her to get dressed so they could go out. As usual, he told her nothing about where they were going.
She’d come out wearing three-hundred dollar Chloe jeans and some similarly pricey top with wedge heels and he’d gotten a dubious look on his face. Tracy remembered her exasperation.
It’s all I’ve got, she snapped at him. So we either go with me wearing this, or we stay in.
No, Brendan said after a moment’s consideration. I think we definitely need to go.
And then he’d taken her to Queens to an enormous warehouse. For paintballing. She’d been livid enough to refuse to get out of the car for twenty minutes while he cajoled, teased and finally coaxed her into it. There were goggles and smocks to wear over your street clothes but by the time they were done, her jeans were still ruined, as was her pedicure because she’d had to remove her wedges and play barefoot, which was against the regulations, but Brendan made her do it anyway.
Tracy had laughed and squealed and ran like a kid, and Brendan had been merciless about hunting her down, as they’d hooked up with another group, and he joined the guys and she the women. When he ambushed her, just as she expected him to blast her with a pellet, he’d instead pulled her against him and kissed the living daylights out of her.
Traitor, she’d murmured against his lips.
Best date ever. It was precisely the kind of thing she needed, without even knowing it. The wild and reckless energy she’d expended paintballing had snapped her completely out of her funk. Back at the apartment, Brendan had washed paint out of her hair in the shower and even humored her when she asked him to help her blow dry it so that it was perfectly pin-straight afterwards; she always had trouble with the back near her nape.
The next day at work, when the receptionist told her she had a delivery, she’d expected flowers, but Brendan was never that obvious. He’d sent over a gift-wrapped pair of brand new Chloe jeans, identical to the ones she’d ruined the evening before. That he’d looked at her jeans and taken note of both the size and style had her staggered. But who cared about getting new jeans when the stained ones would always remind her of that night and of his kiss, behind the bales of hay, that took her breath away.
“What d’you feel like eating?” Brendan asked.
He walked out of the bathroom completely nude, and Tracy’s mind went completely blank as she took the sight of him in. Long and lean, with that tapered waist and his . . .
Brendan snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Chicken and waffles?”
That revived her. “Brendan, you know I hate that kind of heavy food.”
“Just checking for signs of life,” he said.
He seemed to be back to his old playful self she noticed; which would have been great but for the fact that now she was the one feeling unsettled. After his initial reaction to her dating, he’d let it go, like water gliding off a duck’s back.
Was he really willing to leave for a month and let her date someone else while he was away?
Tracy brooded on that question the entire time she was in the shower and still hadn’t made her peace with it by the time they got to the diner around the corner for brunch. The waitress who served them was named Pam, and had served them many, many times before. She had the rolling hips of a woman who was slightly larger than the fashion magazine ideal but so completely comfortable with her body that Tracy almost envied her. When she walked away to put in their order, it was almost impossible not to watch the rhythmic sway of her gait. But this time, it annoyed Tracy to no end that Pam seemed to be flirting and that Brendan was having fun with it.
No surprise there. He was the kind of man women flirted with because his appreciation of their gender was so genuine, frank and non-threatening. While most men wanted to sleep with any woman they found attractive,
not all of them liked women at their core. Brendan did, and somehow they knew it, and appreciated him back because of it. Some of that mutual appreciation was a little too apparent for Tracy’s taste.
But she was hardly in a position to complain. She was the one who had announced that she was about to date.
The entire meal was nothing short of painful; not because it was awkward and filled with silences but because it was not. Brendan was himself again, as though liberated by some new realization; or maybe just liberated. With the last of her coffee, Tracy swallowed the fear that in telling Brendan she might go out with someone else, maybe she’d made the hugest mistake of her life.
As soon as Tracy got to the door of the condo, she could hear Cullen’s cries from inside, advancing closer as someone—obviously carrying him—came to let her in. Shawn was holding the baby with one arm against his bare chest and grimacing against the noise of his son’s squalling. Tracy instinctively reached out to take him but Shawn shifted so that Cullen was out of her reach.
“Nah, that’s okay. I got him,” he said.
“Oh. Okay,” Tracy said, hurt.
Wow. He must really be pissed at her.
“He just needs to be fed,” Shawn explained. “I was about to get him something.”
Tracy followed him to the kitchen and sat well out of his way. Shawn moved around in a practiced routine, sterilizing a bottle, warming what looked like breast-milk in a plastic pouch and finally transferring it to the bottle, all while holding a crying Cullen with one hand. He even tested the temperature of the milk on the back of his hand like a mom would before putting the nipple into his son’s mouth.
“You’re a natural,” Tracy commented.
And it didn’t escape her notice that even though Cullen had been crying for at least ten minutes, Riley hadn’t once come out of the bedroom to check up on Shawn. They had become a team; so much so that Riley trusted that even if Cullen was crying, Shawn was handling it, whatever the problem might be. It was a lesson she might do well to learn. If Brendan fumbled around with the coffeemaker for more than fifteen seconds, she always stepped in and took over, nudging him out of the way never patient enough to let him do it on his own if she believed she might do it better.
Unsuitable Men Page 18