Just Desserts

by Barbara Bretton

  “I didn’t plan this.”

  “You stopped to tell me that?”

  “I’m talking about protection.”

  It was hard to think when you were on fire from the inside out. “I thought men always had something with them.”

  “It’s been a while.”

  “Don’t look at me,” she said. “I’ve been living like a nun.”

  “I saw a drugstore down the street. I could—”

  “No!” She grabbed his arm. “Mary Jane Espo’s brother owns the drugstore. I’d have to join a convent.”

  “Sister Goldstein? I like it.”

  She wasn’t about to be mollified. “What are we going to do?”

  “You mean besides stripping each other naked?”

  “Besides that.”

  He lowered her to the mattress and slid her panties down her legs. “I can think of a few things.”

  The bed was soft beneath her back. He wasn’t soft anywhere. His arms. His chest. His thighs. The rock-hard erection burning against her belly. She reached for him but he shifted position and began tonguing his way down the center of her body, the valley between her breasts, her navel, her belly, her—

  Her cry of pleasure pierced the silent room and on its heels came an almost paralyzing moment of self-awareness. What was she doing…She barely knew him…No secrets…no secrets…

  His tongue slid deep inside her and she arched against him, taking him deeper, wrapping herself around him, sailing over the edge of the earth. She loved the feel of his big hands on her hips, the way his breath tickled, the parry and thrust of his tongue, his lips tugging gently on her clitoris. His sounds. His smell. His touch. His broad, muscular shoulders and powerful chest. The small tattoo of an intertwined cross and flower on the inside of his right forearm.

  He was doing something magical, mystical, with his hands and his mouth, something amazing, something so unbearably wonderful that she came hard against him and would have climaxed again if he hadn’t shifted position, trailing his mouth back up her body in a way that made conscious thought all but impossible.

  His eyes widened in surprise, then excitement, as she pushed him over onto his back and straddled him. She took his erection in her hands, sliding the length of the shaft, teasing the head until it throbbed visibly. He groaned and gripped her by the waist.

  “Don’t start something we can’t finish.” He wanted to bury himself inside her silky wetness as she took him deep and hard.

  She leaned forward and flicked her tongue against him. “Wait,” she said and slipped from the bed. “I just thought of something.”

  He watched as she crossed the room. Her body was long and slim, her breasts surprisingly full and round. Her nipples were hard. He saw faint red marks on her thighs where his teeth had grazed her tender flesh. Her sweet taste lingered in his mouth and made him want more.

  She opened the top drawer of her dresser, rummaged for a second, then pulled out a small white plastic bag.

  The words Introduction to Sex—Grade 8 were emblazoned in bright red letters.

  She slid back into bed next to him and spilled the contents between them. A booklet. A DVD. One lone condom.

  “It’s been a while,” she said with a rueful laugh. “Do these things have expiration dates?”

  He held it up to the light. “Tomorrow.”

  They locked eyes.

  “It’s fate,” she said.

  “Definitely.”

  “You open it. I’m out of practice.”

  “Been a while for me too,” he said, tearing open the package with his teeth.

  “Really?”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “I am.” Glad, but surprised.

  He fumbled with the condom. His fingers felt huge, clumsy. Her breasts brushed against his arm as she reached for the condom.

  “Let me.”

  He loved the feel of her fingers as they worked the condom over his shaft. The sight of her naked body bent to the task, damp hair falling across one shoulder. The fact that they were both there, in that bed, at that moment.

  The fact that he was falling in love.

  Later

  “Where are you going?” Finn leaned up on one elbow and peered through the gathering dusk as Hayley darted for the door.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “Is everything okay?” Most women liked the cuddling afterward as much as the main event, but once again Hayley was proving herself to be not like other women. She was already halfway out the door.

  “We left the Chinese food on the kitchen table. I hope Rhoda and the cats didn’t help themselves.”

  They had just had inventive, incendiary sex right there in that still-warm bed and she was thinking about lo mein? “I’ll be down in a minute.”

  “Take your time,” she said over her shoulder. “No problem.”

  “Are you sure everything’s okay? You seem a little distracted.”

  “I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be fine? I’ll start warming things up. You want beer or iced tea or soda? Actually you don’t have to tell me. I’ve got all three. You come down whenever you’re ready.”

  He wrapped the sheet around his waist and swung his legs from the bed. “Are you sure nothing’s wrong?”

  Even her laugh sounded false. “Why would anything be wrong?”

  “This was great,” he said, gesturing toward the bed. “You know that, right? You were amazing.”

  She looked like she wanted to fling herself out the window. “So were you,” she said. “I’ll see you downstairs.”

  Of all the stupid, reckless, idiotic things to do, sleeping with an almost stranger in the middle of the day with her daughter just six blocks away had to be at the top of the list.

  Hayley sagged onto the bottom step and buried her face in her hands.

  What were you thinking, Goldstein? Were you thinking at all?

  The thought of just how close she had come to total disaster had her struggling to take a deep breath. Finn was wonderful. Everything about him was wonderful. If she didn’t have Lizzie to consider, she would run back upstairs and fling herself at him another ten or twenty times and even that wouldn’t be enough.

  All these years of being careful, of worrying about how her actions would affect her daughter, and she almost threw it all away with one thoughtless, crazy act.

  Lizzie could have popped through the door any second. She could have forgotten a book, a CD, anything. If Lizzie had found her in bed with Finn—

  She couldn’t finish the thought. How did you explain the importance of choosing a partner carefully, getting to know someone before you decide to have sex, when you leaped into the sack with a guy five days after you met him?

  Clearly somebody had been watching out for her this afternoon, some benevolent goddess of stupid, stupid women who let themselves be knocked off track by a man.

  It’s more than that, Goldstein. At least have the guts to admit it.

  The sex had been the best of her life. There wasn’t a woman alive who wouldn’t sacrifice an IQ point or two for the kind of pleasure she had found with Finn. But the scary truth of it all was the fact that it wasn’t just great sex that had her feeling like somebody had turned her world inside out while she wasn’t looking.

  It was Finn himself. The man who drove four hours to deliver Chinese food. The lawyer who had treated her daughter with respect. The guy who gave Lou an egg roll and a fistful of cash and did it with a friendly shrug of the shoulders.

  Finn.

  The man she absolutely, positively had no intention of falling for.

  “I heated up the soup,” Hayley greeted him when he entered the kitchen fifteen minutes later. “Do you want me to slice some extra scallions?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t go to any extra trouble.” Basically he wanted to eat and get the hell out of Dodge.

  “Sesame oil?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “I have the hot oil if y
ou—”

  “It’s fine,” he said. “Really. I like it straight out of the container.”

  “I put the egg rolls in the oven. The microwave turns them all soggy.”

  “I’m going to skip the egg rolls.”

  “The shrimp in garlic sauce is ready to pop in the mike. Just say when.”

  He met her eyes. “The soup’s good enough. I think I probably should hit the road before it gets too much later.”

  “But you brought all this stuff.”

  “Never order Chinese when you’re hungry,” he said with a small laugh. “I always forget.”

  “I’m sorry,” she blurted out.

  “For what? I’m the one who ordered too much food.”

  “I hurt your feelings. I can see it in your eyes.”

  He looked down at his soup. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I shouldn’t have run out like that. I guess I panicked.”

  He put down his spoon. “I’m not following.”

  “Upstairs. After we made love. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice that I ran out like I was escaping a bank robbery.”

  “Was that you?” He tried to make a joke but he was still feeling a little raw after her escape. “You moved so fast I wasn’t sure.”

  “It’s Lizzie,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking clearly.” She met his eyes. “I couldn’t think once we started kissing.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “She’s fourteen. It’s a difficult, dangerous world. That’s not the message I want to give her. Lizzie could have walked through that door anytime. How would I explain the fact that you were in my bed?”

  There was nothing like reality to bring a man’s libido into check.

  “I didn’t think of that at all.”

  “Why should you? She’s my daughter. This is my house. I should have been the one doing the thinking but I wasn’t and I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

  “I should have told you this upstairs. I would have but—” She shook her head. “Like I said, I’m out of practice.”

  “So am I.”

  The corners of her mouth began to curve in a smile. “I beg to differ, Mr. Rafferty.”

  “Muscle memory,” he said with his own answering smile. “It comes in handy.”

  “Stay,” she said, brushing a soft kiss against his mouth. “I’m not ready to say good-bye.”

  He pulled her down onto his lap and nuzzled the side of her neck. “Neither am I.”

  “We can’t—”

  “We won’t.”

  “But you’re—”

  “Yeah,” he confirmed. “How do you like that?”

  “Very much,” she murmured. “Very, very much.”

  “We could—”

  “We shouldn’t.”

  “You could lock the doors.”

  “Lizzie has a key.”

  “Call her. Make sure she’s still at her friend’s house.”

  “She’d think I was checking up on her.”

  “Isn’t that what parents do?”

  “You have a point.” She flipped open her cell and pressed 1 and waited. “Hi, Lizzie…No, nothing’s wrong…I can’t find Aunt Fee’s extra set of keys…Oh, we did…I forgot…Are you having fun…Great…No, that’s it…Enjoy the movie.” She flipped her cell closed. “They’re watching Grease. It just started.”

  He slipped his hand under the hem of her shirt and cupped her breast. “So have we.”

  15

  “What time is it?” Hayley murmured into the side of Finn’s neck after they both drifted back down to earth.

  “Around seven thirty.”

  “We’re safe,” she said. “Danny and Cha Cha DiGregorio just won the dance contest at Rydell High. There won’t be any surprise visits.”

  “You wore me out.” His laugh was a low rumble. “There won’t be any more surprise visits from me either.”

  They hadn’t made it out of the kitchen this time. Their coupling had been fierce, sensual, and inventive. An erotic play of hands and mouths that sprang from the powerful, amazing chemistry between them.

  Their return to reality should have been difficult but it wasn’t. They settled back down at the table like they had been sharing meals forever. The cats watched from the top of the fridge. Rhoda patrolled the perimeter in search of discards. The parrot observed everything from his perch on the curtain rod.

  Except for the phones it was perfect.

  “I’m sorry,” Hayley said as her cell rang for what seemed like the tenth time in an hour. “This is crazy even for me.”

  This time it was Michie pretending she wanted to discuss possible hairstyles for the after-party.

  “Michie, I can’t talk right now…The Chinese food is getting cold…Delicious, thanks…” She turned slightly away from Finn. “Yes, he is…Yes, he is…Yes, I will…Absolutely not…Good-bye, Michie.”

  “That Mary Jane Esposito really gets the word out,” Finn said after she hung up. “I think half the town has called you.”

  “Seems like it, doesn’t it? We take our gossip where we can find it.” She gestured toward his cell phone on the table. “You’re no slouch in the phone call department either, mister.”

  “You’d think I was waiting for a transplant.”

  “Did you ever think of turning it off?”

  “I will if you will.”

  “Can’t do it. I’m a mother. It’s in the contract they give you right after you deliver.”

  Right on cue, his phone rang. He picked up his chopsticks and attacked his plate of shrimp with garlic sauce.

  “You’re not going to answer that?” she asked.

  “Nope.”

  It rang again.

  “Don’t you want to see who it is?”

  “Everyone I know has already checked in today. I’m not expecting an emergency.”

  “Nobody expects an emergency, Rafferty. They just happen.”

  “Eat your chicken,” he suggested. “It’s getting cold.”

  “You really should answer that phone,” she urged. “It could be something important.”

  “You’re a worrier,” he responded. “I forgot that.”

  “A worrier and a mother. I can’t sit here and let a ringing phone go unanswered. At least see who it is.”

  He turned his phone over and looked at the display. “Damn,” he muttered, then looked over at Hayley. He flipped it open. “What’s up, Tom?”

  She tried to appear nonchalant but she was listening every bit as hard as Mary Jane Esposito listened to gossip at Jeannie’s Hair Emporium.

  “…I can’t do that, Tom…She’s your fiancée…so tell Willow that…Another few days…Tom, you’d better—Hey, Willow…It’s Finn…We’re working things out…Not much longer…Sloan and I have been playing phone tag…Tom’s right…Absolutely…I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  He powered down and picked up his fork. “That was Tommy.”

  “I figured that out.”

  “And his fiancée.”

  “I read about her in People last week.”

  He looked like he wanted to say something.

  “I’m a good listener,” she said. “Nosy but discreet.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You do realize it’s killing me not to ask for details, don’t you? The only thing keeping me from bombarding you with questions is the fact that between now and the after-party he’s a customer.”

  “The Code of the Baker?”

  “Don’t mock what you don’t understand, counselor. It’s a time-honored tradition. We don’t gossip about our customers until the last bite of cake has been eaten.”

  “And then?”

  “Let’s just say Mary Jane Esposito and our friend Lou have nothing on me.”

  He told her a few stories about lawyers and their love of gossip. She told him a few about bakers.

  “But when it comes to gossip, nobody beats academics. My mother may live the li
fe of the higher mind, but it’s dish that recharges her batteries.”

  “She’s an oceanographer, right? A pretty major one.”

  “Probably one of the most major,” Hayley said and not without a note of pride. “The thing about Jane is that she never went commercial. She’s all about the work, which means she pretty much lives on a shoestring.”

  “You never thought about following in her footsteps?”

  “I’m afraid of the water.”

  “You’re afraid of the water?”

  “Why are you looking at me that way? Lots of people are afraid of the water.”

  “Tommy’s kids hate the water.”

  “See? I told you I have plenty of company.” She pointed toward his food with her chopsticks. “Want me to nuke it again for you?”

  “Who am I kidding?” He tossed his chopsticks down and reached for a fork. “Am I less of a man because I use a fork?”

  “You survived the hot-pink towel,” she said with a grin. “I think you can probably survive just about anything.”

  They fell into an easy banter. She ate some of his shrimp. He sampled her kung pao. They made inroads on the veggie lo mein and shared the egg rolls with the menagerie.

  “Should we save some for Lizzie?” Finn asked.

  “Just a little. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but my daughter doesn’t fully appreciate the wonders of Chinese cuisine.” She polished off the last of the shrimp in garlic sauce. “You were right. This really is the best take-out food on the planet.” She looked across the table at Finn. “Why are you sniffing your sleeve?” Please, God, don’t let him start flying the freak flag now…

  “It smells like flowers.”

  “That’s your imagination.”

  “No, I smell roses and something else sweet and girly.”

  “I don’t perfume my laundry, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “Soap should smell like soap,” he said, “not a bottle of Chanel Number Five.”

  “You’re smelling plain-old garden-variety Tide.”

  “This isn’t Tide.”

  “Yes, it is.” She pushed back from the table.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to prove it to you.”