Balancing Act (Silhouette Special Edition)

by Darcy, Lilian

  “Yes, I wondered— Your mom seems to love kids so much, but she only had—”

  “Oh, tell me about it! She tried, Lib, for years. Had I don’t know how many miscarriages. Three or four in a row. Got to six months with another one, then lost it and couldn’t get pregnant again.”

  “Oh, dear God!” She was close to tears at once, thinking about how it must have been for Delia, and for Brady’s dad.

  “Then Stacey’s infertility was a body blow. That’s one of the reasons Mom was so thrilled to hear about Colleen. She’s hungry for another grandchild.”

  “Of course. Of course she is.” Libby understood, and yet she felt possessive and protective, too, and was ashamed of herself. What did she think Mrs. Buchanan was going to do? Kidnap Scarlett’s twin? “When they get to know each other better…” she offered lamely, vaguely “…they can, uh, spend more time together.”

  “That would be great,” he answered. “She’d love to have Scarlett and Colleen to herself sometimes.”

  “Sure. That’d be fine.”

  But not yet. When I feel safer.

  She went back to cutting the meat, knew he was looking at her but pretended not to see. After a moment, he said, “Hey, shall I put on some music? Want coffee, or a beer?”

  “Coffee would be good.”

  “If it’s coffee, I want cookies, too.”

  “Yes, please!”

  “Here you go.” He reached into the pantry and took one of the new packets they’d bought at the supermarket this afternoon, tore it open, stretched across and stuck one in Libby’s mouth while she washed her meaty hands. Turning away from the sink, she tried to crunch on the cookie without letting half of it drop, but it didn’t work. Brady lunged and caught the falling piece on its way to the floor, then lobbed it into Libby’s wet, clean hands.

  “I’m not eating it now.” She lobbed it back to him. “It’s soggy, and it’s going to taste of chili and onion.”

  “Fussy!” Brady took her throw with a backhand like a tennis pro and the traumatized piece of cookie ricocheted and landed in the sink, on a bed of discarded green onion roots and torn cabbage leaves. They laughed, and looked at each other, and the kiss they were both thinking about seemed so real that Libby could almost see it in the air.

  Chapter Seven

  Brady took Libby to the Ohio State versus Indiana game the following Saturday. Mainly this was because he had his friend Matt’s season ticket as well as his own, since Matt was out of town, but also because his mother virtually corralled the girls in his backyard and pushed him and Libby out the door.

  “Go on,” she told them. “You’re young. You can sit on those rock-hard seats and still walk the next day. Parenthood isn’t like joining a monastery. Have some fun.”

  Brady wasn’t sure if Mom had intercepted any of the vibes between himself and Libby. If she had, she’d been unusually tactful. If she hadn’t, she was losing her touch.

  Since it was Libby’s first game, he wanted to do it properly, so he packed a backpack with a scarlet-and-gray plaid picnic blanket for them to fold and sit on, a vacuum flask filled with hot soup because it was cold and she might not want beer, and a few other things. They also made a lightning stop at one of the stores on Lane Avenue, opposite campus, so he could buy her a Buckeye sweatshirt, a cap and a scarf.

  When they’d driven halfway back home again looking for a place to park, had stepped out into the cold air, and she’d put on the things he’d bought, she looked—he sighed between his teeth—yeah, cute. Pretty.

  Be honest, now. She looked completely irresistible.

  Of course.

  Mom was wrong. In his and Libby’s case, parenthood, and doing it right for the girls, was exactly like joining a monastery. Brady had been resisting the irresistible all week, running for miles in the park every morning, taking those useless cold showers, and it was killing him. They flirted a little, but they didn’t touch. They laughed, and then laughing got dangerous—too nice and warm and close—so they stopped. They talked, but they didn’t talk about this.

  He felt as if he was being pulled apart. He ached with wanting the good things—not just the sex, but the laughter and the sharing. And then he thought of the other stuff. All the things he’d hated in his marriage. The emotional landmines and man-traps and mazes with no exit.

  He’d never found a way of handling it. Had to be him, didn’t it? His fault, or his lack of perception? He should have…what? Listened more? Understood Stacey better? Or should he have yelled? Laid down the law?

  Instead, he’d felt paralyzed by it all, and he’d ended up turning his back, withdrawing from the contest, steering his own steady middle course, keeping to what he believed, because maybe if one of them did that, things would end up okay.

  He’d never confronted Stacey. He’d stopped listening, stopped taking her seriously, put everything down to her need for games. It had shocked him, after her death, to discover the evidence of her infidelity. He hadn’t thought she would have gone that far, and he’d wondered, could he have pulled her back if he’d handled the earlier stuff differently?

  He didn’t want to end up in a mess like that again: so much anger, so many doubts. He wanted to stay well clear. So why was he letting himself feel like this about Libby?

  She’d been to a couple of job interviews during the week. She’d looked at some more apartments, and had seen one she liked, but it wasn’t near any of the jobs. She’d called the manager at Scarlett’s day-care center, but she hadn’t been to see her yet. “Her schedule was tight,” she’d told him. “We couldn’t find a time.” She hadn’t sounded like there was any urgency, and he’d been disappointed—he wanted to get things settled, hated hanging fire like this—but he’d let it go. Again.

  Bundled up in hats and jackets, they walked down to the game, feeling the excitement build as they got closer. Streams of fans were converging on the huge stadium, and the Lane Avenue lot was crammed with cars, and people having tail-gate parties. Ticketless fans prowled around, looking desperate. Didn’t anyone have a seat to sell? Noise overflowed from the top of the stadium. The band was already playing.

  “Wow!” Libby said when they got to their seats.

  The atmosphere was pumped up, energized, loud. The seats were an ocean of red and gray. The band was precision-perfect in its moves, and the announcer’s voice echoed up to the sky and bounced back off the clouds.

  Brady spread out the blanket, sat down next to Libby and thought about what Mom had said on the subject of rock-hard seats. Yeah, she was right, they weren’t great, and they were cold, even through the blanket. To keep warm, you needed old friends to josh with. Failing that, you needed—ah, hell!—you needed to snuggle up to the gorgeous woman sitting next to you in her matching team colors and you needed to kiss the heat back into your blood.

  “Soup?” he said desperately.

  “Mmm, yes.”

  “It’s canned. Sorry.” His tongue and his brain were both on strike. She shouldn’t be smiling back at him like that, as if this was fun and he was the perfect host. He felt as suave and as erudite as a block of wood, and his libido was yelling louder than the fans.

  “Lib?” he said roughly, watching her face and her mouth. She had pink cheeks and bright eyes and glossy lips. And she was sitting very close. Was it just because she was crowded by the very large guy on the far side of her?

  No, it wasn’t.

  “Mm?” she answered.

  His voice dropped, still sounded way too husky. “Do me a favor before the soup?”

  “Kiss you?” she suggested softly.

  He just closed his eyes and nodded, then felt the soft, lingering press of her mouth. It went away too soon.

  “It’s okay,” Libby said. Brady opened his eyes, and she was watching him, intent and warm and close. “I mean, it’s cold, and we, uh, just seem to get into this kind of trouble when we’re alone.” Alone because, somehow, the other ninety-seven thousand fans in the stadium didn’t count.
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br />   “What are we going to do about it?” he asked, letting the agony show in his voice.

  “The not doing anything idea doesn’t seem to have worked out, this past week, does it?”

  “Not as such, no.”

  “In fact, I kind of almost feel…”

  “Yeah, that it’s worse.”

  He couldn’t remember when the outcome of a Buckeye game had meant so little to him. Maybe never. Even last year, when he’d still been suffering anger and loss, and had been struggling to take care of a baby on his own, he’d cared about the games. He’d bundled Scarlett up in a baby backpack and brought her along, and talked to her about every play as if she could understand.

  Today, he talked to Libby about the plays, but really it was just so he could look at her, watch her mouth move when she asked questions—sensible, interested questions, most of them. He liked the way she was so ready to be involved, the way she entered into the spirit of the whole event.

  Took them a while to get home afterward. They didn’t push to get out of the stadium. It didn’t matter if other people got ahead. And then there was the long walk up to the car, which they took slowly. Like lovers.

  Delia was eating at a friend’s, so she left as soon as they got home. Libby changed out of her fan gear into something soft and pretty, giving him painful fantasies about what she was probably wearing underneath. They fed the girls eggs and bacon and toast, and ordered in some take-out Chinese for themselves, and, hell, Brady hoped that Libby was imagining like he was what would happen as soon as they got the girls to bed.

  “Night-night, little girl,” Libby whispered to Scarlett.

  She was teetering on the brink of sleep already, all warm and soft and content. Brady had laid her in her crib a few minutes ago, while Libby was still singing to Colleen. Now Colleen was asleep, and—it was getting to be a habit now, something she did every night—she had crept in to say good-night to Colleen’s sister.

  “I love you.” It still took courage to say it, still made Libby’s stomach drop with fear when she thought about the vulnerability it gave her, but she said it anyway, because it was true.

  Then she turned and met Brady in the doorway. She wasn’t surprised to see him there, waiting for her, and she went right into his arms.

  This time, they both knew from the start that this was more than a kiss, and that they weren’t stopping. They simply held each other at first, too overwhelmed to move. With her head pillowed against his strong chest, Libby felt the heavy, shuddering movement of his breathing, and the solid weight of his arms.

  He waited, giving her time, holding himself back on the slimmest off-chance that, even after the way they’d suffered through the game this afternoon, she might not say yes to this. For some reason, she didn’t want him to think this way—to put himself through any more waiting and doubt—even for a moment, so she took the initiative, curved one arm around the back of his warm neck and pulled him down to her.

  He groaned against her mouth, eyes closed, body trembling. They kissed for a long time, anchored to the spot, unable to gather the will to move. Then Scarlett made a laughing sound in her sleep and they froze, looking toward the dim shape of the crib on the far side of the room. She settled and stilled again.

  “Let’s go,” Brady growled. He grabbed Libby’s hand and pulled her next door to his own room. She hadn’t even set foot in it until now.

  And now I know why.

  It was his personal space, intimate in a way that the rest of the house wasn’t. Before this moment, it would have been an invasion of his privacy. Now it was a major milestone in their response to each other.

  He didn’t switch on the light, so the space was filled with thick shadows. Having glimpsed its interior through the open doorway on visits to Scarlett’s bedroom, Libby already knew it was a masculine room. Tonight it seemed even more so.

  The bed was king-sized and furnished with sheets and comforter in a pattern of navy, gray and brown. The two bedside lamps were plain and practical, with cream shades and round ceramic bases, and the tallboy and dresser were massive antiques, with an antique mirror to match. The bed was unmade, although she knew the sheets were fresh from the wash just yesterday, and he muttered an apology about the untidiness even as he pulled her onto the rumpled surface.

  She might have thought him clumsy, if she hadn’t been just as clumsy herself. This wasn’t lack of grace and finesse on his part, this was overpowering, urgent need, and she felt just the same. One reach and pull and toss, and his shirt was over his head and onto the floor. In the dim light, his chest was an expanse of shadowed contours, narrowing to the waistband of his jeans.

  Libby reached for the buttons that ran down the front of her cotton-knit cardigan top, but Brady closed his big hand over her fingers and said, “No, let me do this.”

  She gave a breathless agreement that barely counted as speech, then watched as he slipped each button free, opening the top wider as he went and letting his hands trail across the cups of her bra. “Ah, Libby…” he muttered. When he had finished, she sat up and he slid the garment off her shoulders and down her arms, then buried his face between her breasts.

  She fumbled for her bra clip, impatient with it, and let him slide the bra free from her shoulders, too. Her breasts weren’t lavish, but they filled his cupped hands, incredibly sensitive to his touch. He slid beside her and brushed her hair back onto the pillow, then kissed her again, sweet and slow, with his fingers still teasing her breasts, making her peaked nipples ache and her insides writhe like snakes.

  She reached for his hips, unfastened his jeans and pushed her hands inside, finding heat and hardness pressed against soft black cloth. He shuddered, and she dragged at the side seams of his jeans so that he was freed a little.

  Her own skirt was twisted around her lower body. Brady found the zipper and left her wearing only her cream net-and-lace panties. “You don’t know…” he said, then stopped.

  “Mm, what don’t I know?” She smiled.

  “…what this does to me. Can’t decide. Which is sexier? On or off? They’re sheer, Libby, and I can see everything I want in this world.”

  He curved his palms over her bottom, caressing the soft texture of the fine-woven net, and pulled her to him so that the ridge of his arousal, still straining to escape his black briefs, was pressed against her swollen heat.

  They were explosively ready for each other.

  He rolled onto his back and discarded his briefs, and she went willingly to rest on top of him, lifting herself a little so that he could take her breasts, first in his hands and then in his mouth. She gasped at the hot, wet suction, and he intensified the pull of lips and tongue until the sensation was so powerful she had to push his mouth away.

  “I can’t wait, Libby.” His voice was rough and jagged as splintered wood.

  “I know,” she said. His arousal nudged at the apex of her thighs, and she ached to give him entry. “I don’t want you to.”

  She rolled away again and slid her underwear down her hips, while he grabbed a packet from the bedside drawer and ripped it open, sheathing himself fluidly. She held out her arms and he fell into them like a man come home from battle, his release already imminent.

  “I’m rushing you,” he groaned.

  “You’re not. Don’t make me wait.” Libby wanted him, slick and full inside her, heavy on top of her, hot against her skin, spilling her over the edge. And she wanted him now.

  She splayed her hands across his back and closed her eyes, her breathing ragged and shallow. He slipped inside her, completing a perfect joining that seemed like a beginning and an ending at the same time.

  “Oh, Libby,” he said.

  “Brady…” She kissed him, hungry for his taste, then opened her mouth and dragged her teeth across his shoulder, hard enough to skim the boundary between pleasure and pain. He shuddered.

  They rocked and bucked and clawed, while time twisted and folded. They were centered together in the wild, dark storm th
ey’d made for each other, clinging for dear life, crying out in astonished ecstasy at the power of their shared climax.

  Even as it ebbed, it overtook them again, like the aftershocks of an earthquake. When they were finally still, holding each other, quite breathless, Brady pulled up the forgotten comforter draped at the bottom of the bed and covered them, and they were silent for a long time, just feeling each other breathe, listening to each other’s hearts.

  “Hello, you,” Brady finally said.

  “Hello, yourself.”

  “I’m not going to talk.”

  “No.”

  “I’m not going to say a million times that this was amazing.”

  “Okay.”

  “But it was amazing, Libby.”

  “I—I thought so, too. Did you, um, know it was going to happen when you met me in the doorway of Scarlett’s room? Did you come looking for me?”

  “What do you think? Could have pretended, I guess, that I was checking she hadn’t kicked off her covers.”

  “She had. I tucked them back.”

  “Thanks.”

  He lifted himself onto one elbow and looked at her, touched his fingertip to her nose, and to her lips. Then he replaced the finger with his mouth. It was a kiss like a ripe berry—small and juicy and sweet, but soon it grew.

  He touched her breasts, lightly and gently at first, as if afraid that they might still be too tender from before. They weren’t. She wanted this delectable friction across each hardened nipple, and she wanted his mouth—the hot caress of his breath, the pull of his lips and tongue as he drew those throbbing crests into his mouth and suckled her.

  She writhed at every touch, and he whispered, “I love the way you can’t keep still. Watch me try to make you stay in one spot.”

  He lifted her arms over her head and anchored her wrists to the pillow with the press of one forearm. His other hand held her hip, and that mouth just kept on doing everything it had done before, and more. Much more. She laughed, tried to move, couldn’t. He moved lower, bringing her hands down with him and turning her onto her side, but still keeping her wrists anchored to the bed with his easy strength. His mouth moved lower, too, and she gasped.