“Thomas,” I laughed. “No. He’s engaged, and apparently, his fiancée’s really beautiful.”
“Rats.”
“I know. But he seems happy, and I guess the crushes you have when you’re eighteen aren’t always the same crushes you have when you’re twenty-eight.”
It seemed odd to be talking about Thomas. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in my thoughts. I realized that over the last couple of weeks, I’d spent all my time thinking about his older brother instead.
My cousin and I talked for a little while longer until she yawned and said she was ready to go to bed. I’d forgotten it was nearly one a.m. for her, and we said our goodbyes and hung up. I finished my pizza and walked back to the apartment where I took a long, hot bath.
I had plenty of time to think about things. About Mathias, and Thomas, and Alexander. Three men who’d had such an impact on my life but in completely different ways. I nearly laughed when Lois said she’d been talking to Mathias. Thinking back on him now, he seemed so pathetic. A little boy, when I’d been with a real man.
My phone was ringing in the other room, and I got out of the bath, dripped across the carpet and grabbed it from where it lay on the bed. When I saw it was Alex, there was a leap in my heart for the first time, rather than a feeling of dread churning in my stomach.
“Hello?”
“Rachel, it’s Alex.”
Alex. He’d never referred to himself as that before. It was always Alexander.
“Hey.”
“I was wondering if you were busy tomorrow. I know that you usually head home after work on Fridays.”
“Um, I still have to call the glaziers to see when the window panes for the jazz bar will be finished, and—“
“Oh, I meant in the evening,” he said. “For dinner.”
My heart was thumping now. Was he asking me out on a date? A real date?
“I don’t have any plans, I don’t think,” I said.
“Good,” he said, briskly. “It’s for Noah. He’s been pestering me all week to have you over for dinner. I think he really likes you.”
“I like him, too,” I said, softly, but I couldn’t hide the disappointment in my voice. After all, I’d dared to hope that it was Alex who wanted to see me, not his son, no matter how much I loved the little cutie.
“Great. Seven thirty, at the house. Just bring yourself.”
He hung up, and I scowled at the phone. It was as though he’d switched back to being a complete asshole, as if nothing had ever happened between us. His son wanted something, and he was damn well going to get it for him. There was no warmth in his voice, nothing that gave any hint of the two times in quick succession that we’d had sex. Hot, passionate, mind-blowing sex.
I suddenly hated him again. He was such a prick. But my body was giving me away once more, the throbbing between my legs had returned, and he wasn’t here to sort it out for me. I got back into the bath and played word games on my cell phone to keep myself from thinking about him any further.
~~~~~~
As soon as I finished at the office, I went back home and changed out of my pantsuit and into a little black dress. I wore my hair up and applied a bit more makeup than I usually would. I rolled silk stockings over my legs and slipped my feet into a pair of high heels. When I came out of the bedroom, Dad looked at me from across the table, his fork in the air and his eyes wide.
“Where are you off to? Going on a date?”
I forced myself to laugh and to look incredulous at such a notion. “I’ve been asked to have dinner with Noah and his father,” I said. “I think Alex wants to say thank you for my teaching Noah how to ride every Saturday.”
“Alex?” Dad’s arched eyebrow clearly showed that my little slip wasn’t lost on him. He narrowed his eyes, and I could feel his gaze burning into me as it had when I was eleven and I was trying to lie about having done my biology homework so I could go and get on a horse.
“Oh, I’ve started calling him that now that we’re working together so closely,” I said. “Anyway, I’d better be off. Have a good night.”
I gave him a peck on the cheek and left as quickly as I could. The air was warm, and I could hear crickets starting to chirp in what appeared to be from every corner of the estate. I walked past the stables and over to the house, where I hurried up the steps and rang the doorbell. Alastair let me in, and he had a similar look on his face to the one my father had. I rolled my eyes and stepped inside.
Noah was sitting on the stairs, fastening his shoelaces, his tongue sticking out of his mouth in concentration. When he saw me, he beamed. “Rachel!” he cried, and he ran over to me and leaped into my arms.
Alex came down the stairs behind him, looking incredibly handsome in a white shirt and gray pants. Goddammit, he always knew how to make me look twice. The prick. He was doing up his cufflinks, and he took his jacket from the coat rail near the bottom of the stairs.
“Are we ready?” he asked.
“Aren’t we eating here?”
He stopped and looked at me, his eyes moving slowly down my body and then up again. “You’re certainly not dressed for a dinner here,” he remarked wryly, and I blushed. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. I’d dressed up for him and he knew it.
“I thought we’d go into town. I called and made reservations at Noah’s favorite burger place.”
“Daddy says we can’t take the chopper,” Noah said. “It’s not fair.”
“Next time, maybe,” Alex said, and we walked out to the Jeep. I was tempted to ask if I could drive, but I settled for being a passenger. Then we drove out of the main gate and along the country lanes. The sun was setting and the grounds of the estate looked beautiful as the last rays of the sun kissed the fields goodnight.
“I saw the first preparations have started for the Fall Bash. I thought it strange, but Dad said they expecting quite a large turnout this year, so the sooner they start getting the fields ready and laying the fresh concrete for the parking lot, the better,” I said, and Alex nodded.
“True, and your father’s just the man to make sure everything goes like clockwork,” he said and flashed me a quick smile. It warmed my heart hearing him say that about my Dad, and I smiled in return.
Then I turned to Noah. “Are you excited about seeing the horses at the Bash?” I asked.
“Yes!” he nodded. “Uncle Tom’s going to ride.”
“I believe he’s very good,” I said, and I noticed that at the thought of Tom, I felt nothing. At one time, the mere mention of his name would have made my skin prickle. Now, though, he might as well have been a distant cousin in the family, someone I’d never even laid eyes on.
Instead, my mind was now full of thoughts of the man sitting next to me and more than once, I glanced over at him, looking at his lips, remembering what it felt like having them kiss every inch of my body.
Chapter 24
________
ALEX
She looked stunning. Her black dress was simple and elegant, a deep V at the neck giving a hint of the roundness of her breasts. My mind drifted to an afternoon, not too long ago, the memory still fresh in my mind, of how she’d tasted, lying back on her bed, hot and yearning for me.
God, I missed her.
The thought took me by surprise, yet, strangely, it didn’t make me feel uneasy. Another stolen moment alone with her was certainly not an unpleasant idea.
But, tonight was all about Noah. He’d been pestering me for weeks to go for a meal with Rachel and, finally, I was giving in. I wasn’t about to tell my son that I’d been looking forward to dinner all day, even more than he had.
During these last few weeks, I’d seen several different sides to Rachel, and I liked every one of them. One moment she was a hellcat and the next, a sexy minx. She certainly had my attention; that was undeniable.
I wasn’t about to give anything away, though. Tonight, she was here for Noah, and my son chatted excitedly with her from where he sat in the back of
the car. She didn’t ignore him; she pulled on her belt and turned around in the seat to talk with him. They gabbled on about horses, and Noah’s favorite cartoons, and what toppings they liked on pizza. Rachel liked pineapple. I grimaced and she caught it.
“What’s wrong with pineapple on pizza?” she asked, incredulous.
“Why not throw a strawberry on there while you’re at it?” I asked. “It’s the same thing.”
“It really isn’t.”
“Fruit’s fruit. And fruit doesn’t go with meat.”
She made a pfft noise with her lips. “Bullsh—” she started to say, and then corrected herself, remembering that there was a minor in the back seat. “Nonsense. Pork and applesauce? Turkey and cranberry sauce?”
I shrugged. “I don’t like those either.”
She tutted and Noah piped up from the back. “I like turkey and cranberry,” he said. “I like it when grandma makes it for Christmas.”
And at that, Rachel looked at me smugly. “See?”
I shook my head at Noah in the rear-view mirror; pretending I was disappointed in him, but in reality, I was pleased they got on so well. Noah liked Rachel. Rachel liked Noah. That was a good sign, surely?
At dinner, we ate burgers that made our fingers sticky and followed them up with ice cream milkshakes that left our faces sticky, too. The waitress came over with fresh, hot towels and I leaned over and wiped Noah’s face.
“I need the bathroom,” he said.
“Come on. I’ll take you.”
We stepped down from the table and walked to the bathrooms, where I pushed open the heavy oak door. Noah went into a cubicle and I waited for him outside. Once he was done, he washed his hands in the sink and reached for a paper towel. “I like Rachel,” he said.
“I do, too,” I said.
“Are you going to marry her?”
My eyes went wide. “Uh, I don’t believe so,” I said.
“Oh.” He looked crestfallen.
I knelt down to look into his eyes. “Why do you ask that?”
He shrugged. “Because she’s alone and you’re alone and I want to have a mommy.”
My heart, only held together tenuously in the first place, now broke all over again. “I don’t think she likes me like that,” I said.
“Well, why don’t you just ask her?”
“Ask her?”
“Yes. Sometimes it’s scary to ask, but she’s nice. She won’t be mad.”
His logic was so simple, and yet so profound. I didn’t know where to begin. I couldn’t explain to him that it wasn’t easy to just find a single woman and marry her.
Or was it?
We drove home, and Noah played with a toy he’d received from the waitress as we’d left. Driving up to the house, Rachel asked me to stop the car. “I’ll get out here,” she said, unbuckling her belt.
I knew that I didn’t want her to go home just yet. “I was going to ask if you wanted to join me for a nightcap,” I said.
She hesitated for the slightest of seconds but put her seat-belt back on and I smiled.
Noah was surprisingly eager to go to bed; I carried him upstairs and he took off his t-shirt and jeans, climbing into his pajamas. “Come on, brush your teeth,” I said. “Those milkshakes were enough to give anyone a cavity.”
“What’s a cavity?”
“Something you don’t want,” I said. “And something you’ll get if you don’t brush your teeth.”
“Is it like a bug?”
“No.”
“What’s a nightcap?”
“You’re full of questions tonight, aren’t you?”
“Is it a hat you wear to bed?”
I squeezed a small amount of toothpaste onto his toothbrush. “It’s a fancy word for a drink,” I said. “Usually something strong that adults like to drink, like whiskey.”
“Oh. I hate whiskey.”
I raised my eyebrows. “When have you ever tried it?”
“Uncle Tom let me sip some once.”
“That doesn’t surprise me one little bit.”
When he was tucked up in bed, I gave him a book to read, and I leaned over and kissed his forehead. “Go, Daddy. Rachel’s waiting for you downstairs,” he said as he placed the book on the nightstand and snuggled under the covers.
I kissed him again and chuckled. “You’re quite the little matchmaker, aren’t you?”
Back downstairs, Rachel was waiting for me in the lounge, where I’d invited her to sit down. She was looking over some of the designs she’d done for me, ones I’d been looking over in the evenings, sitting alone with a glass of scotch.
“You don’t want to worry about that now,” I said. “It’s the weekend.”
She looked up at me. “I didn’t think you knew what a weekend was,” she said, but her voice was soft, with none of the edge it usually had.
I smiled and poured us each a glass of scotch each, dropping in a single cube of ice. I handed her one and sat down beside her.
“Has he gone to sleep?”
“Yes. He usually makes much more of a fuss, but tonight he seems happy to go to sleep with no bother at all.”
“Right.” Rachel sipped her whiskey, and at that moment, and I wondered if she had any idea of the conversations Noah and I’d had, peppered throughout the evening.
“How’s his riding?”
“He’s doing great. He learns quickly, and he really cares about Bonnie. She likes him, too. She wouldn’t be so good with him if she wasn’t happy with him riding her.”
She was talking, but I couldn’t hear her properly. Sure, there were words coming out of her mouth, but I wasn’t really paying any attention. I was too captivated by her mouth, the way her tongue moved over her teeth and the way her lips curled. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her.
Fuck, I thought. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. Any of it. She was meant to work for me simply to keep her away from Thomas, but it had been so long since my brother had even entered my mind, particularly where Rachel was concerned.
I realized that if he were to come back and make a play for her now, I’d have a much better reason to tell him to back off than something as dumb as a business deal. I realized that I was becoming fiercely protective, not of Rachel, exactly, but of what we had together.
But what did we have together? I knew there was something, but it was undefined. There was heat, of course, so much so that it had my head spinning at times. Just sitting here in the quiet lounge made me want to grab her, tear off her dress and taste her delicious skin again. I was hard just thinking about it, and I shifted in my seat.
Besides the sexual chemistry between us, there was still so much I wanted to know about her. So, I began to ask her about her life in Madrid, and how she found living in Spain and having to deal with not speaking the language. I was surprised to find out that she’d been engaged before and couldn’t, for the life of me, understand what kind of a fool would ever let her slip through his fingers.
In turn, she asked me delicate questions about Amy, always respectful and soft, and I told her about my wife’s illness.
“We always knew she was sick,” I said. “We met in the fall when I left for Washington straight after college and we were together almost immediately. Her father and my father knew each other, strangely enough. It was love at first sight, well at least for me it was. She was delicate in body, but she had a strong mind. And she loved Noah so much, however, she had so little time with him.”
“I was so sorry to hear what happened. I can’t even imagine what that must have been like for you.”
Was I going to play it safe, dismiss talking about this part of my life with Rachel, or was I going to take the risk and let her in, sharing something with her that I’ve never really voiced to anyone? I looked into her beautiful green eyes, soft with compassion and I decided to take the leap.
“Her heart just couldn’t take it. And she was so young that it didn’t seem fair. That’s why I started to work so much, I guess.
God, when she died, I thought my heart had shriveled up and died. Everything reminded me of her at first, Noah most of all. I’d be fine one second and then a sound, a song, a smell, small things would made me think of her and grief would just come like a wave and knock me down.” I paused, taking a deep breath, but pushed myself to carry on. “The strangest thing was that after Amy’s death, life just seemed so normal; everyone carrying on with their own business, living their own lives while I felt mine had just ended, and my world just seemed so wrong.”
Rachel took my hand and gently squeezed it, a soft smile on her lips.
“But Noah, my parents, and Tom were like beacons of light to me during that time. Most of all Noah. Knowing that little boy needed me more than ever, got me out of bed every single day. Even my work was a kind of therapy for me. Guess that’s why I love it so much now.”
I felt lighter, relieved. Not because I shared what I’d been through, but because I’d shared it with her.
I slowly placed my glass back on the table and then I took her hand. “Stay the night with me?” I asked.
“Yes,” she breathed, and I leaned in to kiss her.
She stroked my face, and I savored her lips, neither of us wanting to rush anything this time. We wanted to go as slowly as possible, continuing our discovery of one another.
I kissed her with passion, with feeling, and she kissed me back in the same way, her eyes closed, her touch soft and gentle.
I pulled her onto my lap, and she sat with one knee on either side of my thighs. She undid my tie slowly, pulling it out of my collar. She undid the top button of my shirt, kissing the dark shadow of my jawline, and her hips moved slowly, as though I was already inside her.
With my hands on her back, I slowly pulled down the zipper of her dress, so that it fell apart like angel wings on her back, and I could feel that she wasn’t wearing a bra. This caused me to groan loudly.
Then she stopped and pulled her face away, looking into my eyes, her lips parting slightly. “What are we doing, Alex?” she whispered. “What is this?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, truthfully. “But I don’t want it to stop.” Then she closed her eyes, fell against me, and kissed me again.
ELEMENTAL LOVE: A Second Chance Single Dad Romance Page 14