Treading Water

by Marie Force

  “All righty, then. I’ll let you get to it.”

  “Thanks.”

  In preparation for the meeting, Jack forced himself to take note of the files Quinn had given him, while trying to stop thinking about Andi and THE KISS. That damned kiss! By the time he dialed into the call, he was almost mad with her for twisting him into knots and then leaving him hanging without a word for two days.

  But then he heard her voice on the phone, and a burst of wild desire chased away the anger. He tried to focus on the call and not on the memory of how it had felt to hold her, to kiss her, to be engulfed by her alluring scent. When he tuned back in to the meeting, ten minutes had gone by, and Jack had no idea what he’d missed. They wrapped up a short time later, and Andi asked him to stay on the line. While she waited on her end for the others to leave, he suffered in silence.

  “How are you?” she finally said.

  “Great. You?”

  “I’m good. It’s always nice to get home to Eric.”

  “I’m sure.” What’re we doing? he wanted to shout. What’re you doing to me?

  After a long, pregnant pause, she said, “So, I’ve been thinking…”

  “About?”

  “Coming back to visit.”

  Jack sat up straighter in his chair. “And?” Please don’t let her say no. Please.

  “How does the weekend after next sound?”

  Thrilled, he gave the calendar a quick scan and found the second weekend in September wide open. “That sounds good.”

  She released a long deep breath that told him this conversation was making her as nervous as it was making him. “So I’ll send you my flight info?”

  “I’ll pick you up. Do you think…”

  “What?”

  Feeling like an awkward teenager, he said, “Could I maybe call you before then? Ten days is a long time.”

  Her soft laughter rippled through the phone and stirred emotions he hadn’t experienced in far too long. “Sure. I’d like that.”

  “So, um, what about the guy you’ve been dating?”

  “I told him last night we couldn’t see each other anymore.”

  Overwhelmed with relief, Jack wanted to rest his head on the desk. “What did you tell him?”

  “That some things had changed, and it wasn’t going to work out.”

  “What’s changed?” he asked in a teasing tone, needing to hear her say it, to confirm he wasn’t the only one who felt the magnetic pull.

  “I’m not quite sure yet, but I couldn’t come visit you as long as he thought we were together.”

  Jack released a deep breath he hadn’t even realized he was holding. “Andi?”

  “Yes?”

  “Are you scared? Of whatever this is?”

  “I’m petrified.”

  Laughing, he said, “That makes two of us. How am I supposed to wait ten days to see you again?”

  “You could come here…”

  “I can’t,” he said, groaning with frustration. “Jill has a lacrosse game, and Maggie’s playing soccer.”

  “It’s only ten days. You’ll survive.”

  “I’m not sure I will. How do you feel about spending the weekend on the boat?” In a rush of words, he added, “There’re plenty of beds and a shower and everything we need.”

  “That sounds great. Perfect, in fact.”

  “All right, then. It’s a date.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  Chapter 9

  Jack and Andi fell into the habit of talking late at night, sometimes for hours, about the kids, work, friends, places they’d been, people they knew. Jack lived for that time with her at the end of every hectic day. The night before she was due to arrive, he got home late from a dinner meeting with clients and found Frannie in the family room, watching a movie.

  “Where is everyone?” he asked, plopping down next to her on the sofa.

  “Finishing homework and taking showers.”

  “I’ll run up to see them in a minute.”

  “Everything all set for this weekend?”

  Resting his head back on the sofa, he glanced at her. “I guess.”

  “What’s wrong? You’re not having second thoughts, are you?”

  “Not about wanting to see her. I can’t wait for her to get here. I just feel kind of…”

  “Guilty.”

  Nodding, he said, “I went to see Clare today, and it was so weird knowing I’d be spending the weekend with someone else.”

  Frannie reached out to rest her hand on his arm. “There’s nothing you could do for Clare that you haven’t already done or tried. It’s time to move on.”

  “You’re sure I’m doing the right thing by not telling the girls I’m seeing Andi?”

  “I can’t see any reason to involve them until you know where it’s going.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” Jack didn’t like keeping things from them but didn’t want to upset them when they were finally getting back to some semblance of normalcy.

  “I’m going to head over to Jamie’s now that you’re home, but we’ll be here this weekend.”

  “Thanks, Fran, for everything. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  “Have a great time, and don’t worry about anything.”

  The flight was thirty minutes late. After waiting ten torturous days, the extra half hour was unbearable. Jack paced the waiting area at the bottom of the escalator, keeping an eye on the passengers descending from the second-floor arrival area. Just when he thought he’d go mad if he had to wait another second, he caught sight of those curls, those eyes, that smile. Oh, that smile gets to me.

  She signaled for him to stay put rather than fight his way through the crowd. The metaphor wasn’t lost on Jack as he watched her come toward him, knowing exactly what she could expect from him—and what she couldn’t. In that moment, he realized with clarity he couldn’t easily understand or explain—even to himself—that he loved her. At some point over the last two weeks of talking to her and sharing confidences he had fallen hard.

  Before he had time to process the startling discovery, she was standing in front of him, and he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to hug her or kiss her or maybe both. Reaching out to frame her face with his hands, he bent his head and brushed a light kiss over her lips. “I thought you’d never get here.”

  Her eyes flittered shut as she dropped her bag and stepped into his embrace.

  He held her for a long time, breathing her in and wanting her more than he’d wanted anything in longer than he could remember. They held each other for several minutes before he released her, reached for her bag, and walked with his arm around her to the parking lot.

  In the car, he turned to her. “I’m so glad to see you.”

  Her face flushed with a slight blush that he found charming. “All the way here,” she said, “I kept thinking, what am I doing? But I wanted to see you again. So badly.”

  “I wanted to see you just as badly.” He cupped her cheek and brought her close enough to kiss. Skimming his tongue over her bottom lip, he fought the urge to devour. “Mmm,” he whispered against her lips, “all I’ve thought about since that amazing kiss in the office was doing it again.”

  Her fingers combed through his hair, encouraging him to take more. “Me, too.”

  He kissed her again, this time holding nothing back. Her slick lips and teasing tongue made him want her naked and horizontal under him with a fierce urgency he wouldn’t have thought himself capable of anymore before he met her.

  Breathing hard, he rested his forehead against hers and gazed into her soft brown eyes. “I told myself I wouldn’t do this.”

  “Kiss me?” she asked with that teasing smile he so adored. “I would’ve been disappointed if you hadn’t.”

  “Jump all over you like a hormonal teenager the minute you got here.”

  “We jumped all over each other.”

  “I can’t remember the last time I made out in a parked car,” he said with a smile
as he reluctantly pulled himself away from her to drive them to Newport. “I’d forgotten how fun it can be.”

  The ride was punctuated by small talk and comfortable stretches of silence. On the way, Jack struggled to process the strong reaction he’d had to seeing her again as well as the discovery that he’d fallen in love with her.

  “What’re you thinking about over there?”

  Startled out of his thoughts, Jack glanced at her. “A lot of things.”

  Reaching over, she linked her fingers with his. “Care to share any of them?”

  “Maybe,” he said with a coy smile. “Eventually.”

  “Are you feeling okay about…well…everything?”

  “I’m conflicted. I won’t lie to you about that.”

  “I wouldn’t want you to.”

  “This feels like it has the potential to be a very big deal. And it’d be one thing if we had only ourselves to think about, but there’re so many other people to consider.”

  “May I make a suggestion?”

  “Of course.”

  “How about we take this weekend just for us? No worries or talk about the future, the kids, the logistics, or any of the other issues standing in the way. Just us.”

  Overwhelmed by the relief of having her and her thoughtful sensibility with him for the next few days, he brought their joined hands to his lips. “That could very well be the best idea you’ve ever had.”

  Laughing, she said, “Oh, I’ve got a few others you’ll like just as much—if not more.”

  Jack groaned and pressed harder on the accelerator.

  When they arrived at the marina, Jack was relieved to find it oddly deserted. He wasn’t prepared to explain Andi to people he and Clare had known for years, nor did he want rumors reaching the girls before he was able to talk to them himself. But remembering their vow to keep this weekend all about them, he pushed those thoughts aside and took her bag down to the cabin.

  Turning to go back outside, he discovered she’d followed him.

  “Hey,” he said, his heart racing.

  “Hey, yourself.”

  They stared at each other for an emotion-packed moment before she was back in his arms, clinging to him as he plundered. He pulled her in tight against his instant erection.

  A mewling sound erupted from her throat.

  When he lifted her, she wrapped her arms and legs around him without breaking the intense kiss. Pressing her against the wall freed his hands to cup her breasts, and he ran his thumbs over pebbled nipples.

  Gasping, she tore her lips free. “Jack…”

  “What, honey?” He dropped soft kisses on her neck. “Tell me.”

  A tremble rippled through her. “I want you.”

  Her softly spoken words went right to his heart—and a few other places. “Let’s get out of here and go someplace where we can be alone.”

  “All right.” She slid down the aroused front of him until her feet were back on the floor.

  A few minutes later, Jack cast off the last of the lines and backed the boat out of its slip.

  She watched him maneuver the big boat in the small space. “You’re good at that.”

  “Lots of practice. It used to scare the hell out of me,” he said with a grin as he guided the boat into the channel that circled Newport Harbor. He steered the boat into the bay so they could see the hotel site from the water.

  Zeroing in on the construction site, she said, “It’s going to be spectacular.” The dreamy expression on her face caught his attention.

  “Tell me what you see.”

  “The rolling lawn is sprinkled with umbrellas and Adirondack chairs filled with guests enjoying the view of the bay. Sunday brunch is being served on the veranda. Green-and-white-striped awnings and huge terra cotta pots filled with lush flowers.”

  “Wow, I can picture it. How do you do that?”

  She grinned and shrugged.

  “I added a second veranda to the plans on the south side, right about there.” He pointed. “I can’t take too much credit for the initial design, but I’m very pleased with what our gang came up with. I wouldn’t have done it much differently myself.”

  “They’ve learned from the best.”

  “So did I.” Jack steered the boat toward Mackerel Cove to anchor for the night. “Working for Neil was so important. It made everything else possible.”

  “I’d love to meet him.”

  “You’d be surprised at how normal he is. He’s not at all affected by the attention he’s received. It hasn’t spoiled him.”

  “Sounds like you learned more than just architecture from him. You could be describing yourself.”

  “Thank you for that, but my career certainly doesn’t warrant the same attention his did.”

  “You’ve gotten your share. I knew about your firm for years before we hired you.”

  “It still amuses me to hear that. We had no intention of working at the level we are now. We just wanted to keep it simple. That’s why we left Neil’s company, but it hasn’t worked out quite the way we planned.”

  “You know what John Lennon said about life? It’s what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”

  “Ain’t that the truth? If my father had his way, I would’ve been a banker.”

  Andi grimaced. “I can’t picture that.”

  “Neither could I. My grandfather started the bank, and my father took it over when his father retired. It was assumed I’d follow in their footsteps.”

  “What bank?”

  “Bank Atlantic.”

  “I had an account there when I was in college!”

  Jack grinned. “Thank you for your business. Anyway, after I told him I was forgoing business school at Yale—his alma mater—to go to architecture school at Berkeley, he flipped his lid and didn’t speak to me for years.” He’d carried the pain of his father’s unreasonable anger with him for years. “I’ve never regretted my choice, but I always wished that I could’ve had the career I wanted and made him proud of me, too.” Shrugging it off, he added, “But that’s neither here nor there now.”

  “It must still hurt a little.”

  “I never think about it anymore.”

  “He has to be proud of you, Jack. How could he not be? Look at all you’ve accomplished.”

  “I hope he is, but I really don’t know. It stopped mattering to me years ago. For a long time, I wondered if anything could ever bridge the awful gap between us. Then I brought Clare home to Greenwich to meet them. Since he can be a world-class snob, I figured he’d disapprove of me marrying a schoolteacher from working-class Hartford, but he loved her from the minute he met her. She helped to smooth out a lot of the rough edges. After Jill was born, we let go of the anger and got over it.”

  “Kids have a way of putting things into perspective.”

  “True, but we’ve never talked about what happened.”

  “At least you talk. That’s something.”

  He smiled at her, marveling at how easy it was to tell her things he never spoke of to anyone else. “Also true.”

  Once they’d anchored in the quiet cove, he opened a bottle of wine and turned on the CD player. Sinatra roared to life on the boat’s sound system. Jack turned it down and went up on deck to join her. They sat together on the wide bench seat as the sunset over Jamestown faded into darkness.

  He drew her closer so her head rested on his chest.

  She wrapped her arm around him.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked, rubbing his cheek against her soft curls.

  “Not really.”

  He tipped her chin and studied her face for a long, intense moment, as if there was still a decision to be made. Who was he kidding? Taking her wineglass, he put it on the table next to his.

  “Every time I kiss you,” he said, gliding his lips over hers, “all I can think is how long I have to wait until I can do it again.”

  “I seem to have the same problem.” She sighed. Her arms tightened around him as she met the
ardent thrusts of his tongue with her own.

  He slipped his hand under her T-shirt and pushed up her bra to free her breasts. Groaning against her lips, he teased her with his fingers until her nipples were hard and tight. Suddenly in a rush, he tore his lips free, pulled the T-shirt over her head, and kissed his way to her breasts. He reached behind her to unhook her bra. Tugging on one nipple with his lips, he gave the other the same treatment with his fingers.

  Andi took a deep breath of the salty sea air as the water lapped against the hull and his hot, hungry mouth fed on her breasts. She opened her eyes to a sky sprinkled with stars and a moon that might’ve been hung just for them. Arching her hips, she found him hard and ready for her. She reached for his shirt and tugged it off to discover his chest was muscular but not bulky. The light dusting of dark hair was soft under her hands, his nipples firm against her palms.

  He unbuttoned her shorts and skimmed them down her legs until only a thin strip of lace covered her. Taking a long, leisurely look at what he’d uncovered, he got rid of his own shorts and lay on his side next to her on the narrow bench seat.

  Breast to chest, hip to hip, hard pressed to soft, he kissed her gently, patiently, with easy thrusts of his tongue. He slid a hand into her panties and groaned when he found her damp with desire.

  She gasped as his fingers parted her and delved deeper.

  “Andi, honey, I want you so much,” he whispered against her lips.

  She replied with the lift of her hips against his fingers and cried out when he eased them into her, reducing her world to the throbbing need between her legs.

  Suddenly impatient, he got rid of the panties and hooked her leg over his hips. Kissing her with deep thrusts of his tongue, he moved his fingers over her and into her, in a steady, relentless rhythm that quickly sent her flying.

  “Jack! Oh!”

  He kept it up until she came a second time, trembling and gasping. Nothing had ever been quite like this.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, shifting so he was between her legs. “I love you, Andi. I can’t offer you anything else, but I do love you—”