Sparring Partners

by Leigh Morgan

  "I think I'm in love with my wife."

  Sensei chuckled, shaking his head. "Loving your spouse is like being thirsty. You either are or you're not. Thinking doesn't come into it."

  "Yeah, well it ought to." Jordon tossed off his foot pads, angry and puzzled that those were the words his brain chose to spill out. Puzzled won out over anger, which never served Jordon well at any time in his life. In for a penny, in for a pound, as William so often philosophized. Jordon never really got that saying on a gut level, until right this minute.

  "She hates me, Sensei. At least she does now. She seemed to like me well enough before."

  "On any given day that could be said of any man and his wife." Sensei's expression and tone were neutral enough, but his eyes narrowed slightly as he continued. "What changed to make Reed dislike you?"

  Jordon guessed Sensei's avoidance of the word 'hate' was intentional. He appreciated the effort. "She found out who I really am."

  Sensei's eyes widened. "Who are you really?"

  Jordon kicked his gear away. "You mean besides the asshole who moved into her home, lied to her by omission, and turned her whole life upside down in the process?"

  "Besides that."

  "I'm second in command of the world's most profitable investment company. I'm a billionaire who figures out how to make other people very, very rich. That's what I do. That's all I do...all I've cared about doing since I turned eighteen."

  "Seems to me you're confusing what you do with who you are." Sensei said, picking up his gear. "Reed can tell the difference, even if you can't. She's a smart kid."

  Jordon assumed that meant he had some learning to do to catch up with his wife. That would be a hell of a lot easier if she'd come home. Sensei must have sensed his frustration because he laughed deeply and slapped Jordon on the back.

  "Loving isn't always easy, Jordon. It's a lot like karate in that respect. You either do it or you don't. Anything in the middle, and you're in for a world of hurt."

  Jordon cocked his head up at Sensei as he bent to retrieve his own gear. "Did you get that from a great Okinawan master?"

  "Yep."

  "Who?"

  "Mr. Miagi. In the first Karate Kid movie. He says it better, but then he's got that whole 'wax on wax off' thing going for him." Sensei demonstrated in the air with his hands. "He's right about both things. 'Wax on...wax off' is solid technique."

  Jordon shook his head and found a small smile. He still wasn't sure how to take Sensei Schwartz, but there had to be some pearl of wisdom in there. He'd mull it over with popcorn and beer. Since he'd never seen The Karate Kid, perhaps it was time to pick up the DVD.

  He could probably talk his stepson and Irma into watching it with him. He could even ask Charlie and some of his fru-fru poetry buddies to join them. They could have a 'Potters Woods movie night'. Some family bonding over snack food, sugar and beer was definitely in order. It wasn't a clever or complex plan, but it just might keep him from flying to New York with a net.

  Elf hunting wasn't in season yet on the east coast.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The new concrete driveway was completed and cured to the point of drive-ability, with nary a work truck in sight, as Reed pulled onto the expanse of smooth grayness glistening in the moonlight. Lantern lights lit the perimeter, casting a soft amber glow that was relaxing and illuminating at the same time. The whole thing probably cost more than she earned last year with her few mediation clients and her candle sales combined. Who was she kidding? Her income wouldn't have paid for the lights.

  It grated and stung that Jordon and his family could do something like this on a whim, with little thought and even less effort, when she and Finn couldn't save enough or do much more than cover the mortgage. It shouldn't affect her that way, Reed kept telling herself, but it did. The best she could do was accept the way she felt and try not to explode over it. Reed did the imaginary ohm sound in her head, in an attempt to calm herself and bring down her rapidly escalating heart-rate before she got out of her car. She purposefully parked in the drive so she wouldn't wake anyone by opening the garage door.

  It was late by Potters Woods standards, and just getting started by New York standard time, which surprisingly she'd gotten used to quite quickly. No lights were on inside, but then she didn't expect anyone to still be up. That's why she decided to come home late. Her mother-in-law accused her of wanting to 'slink in under the cover of darkness'. Reed had learned over the past few days that Lily had a flare for the dramatic.

  "I don't slink." Reed said out loud to no one but the night sky.

  The crickets seemed to sing louder contradicting her.

  "Oh shut up."

  Reed closed her car door as quietly as possible and made her way to the back of the house. Pushing open the door, the first thing she noticed was the smell. Buttered popcorn, beer, and something else, that was definitely not health food, hung in the air.

  The next thing she noticed was the sound. Two separate and distinct, although equally loud, male snores coming from the family room. The flicker of a brand new gigantic T.V. illuminated the room enough for Reed to recognize the culprits responsible for the syncopation: Lance and Micky from Charlie's poetry club lay passed out on each of the sofas.

  "Could you at least try for harmony?" Reed whispered. Two loud snores followed.

  "Apparently not." Reed moved silently back through to the kitchen.

  Her foot caught something and sent it barreling across the ceramic kitchen tile floor until it hit the wall with a thud loud enough to get her pulse rate up again. Reed slid on the liquid that it left behind, but she didn't fall. It stunk. Old beer. She wiped it up with paper towels as best as she could, with only moonlight as her guide. She didn't want to turn on the lights, and wasn't sure what she'd say to any member of her household, knowing that they were 'partying' while she was away.

  She put the beer bottle in the sink and threw away the drenched paper towels. Tomorrow, whoever was responsible for this was mopping the floor.

  By hand.

  Twice.

  Reed held her breath as she tossed the towels. The contents of the garbage stunk to high heaven and didn't contain the remnants of anything that could remotely pass for organic. Not even the empty popcorn bags that left an oily butter-ish goo on the side of her biodegradable garbage bags. Where in the world was Finn, and why did she let this happen?

  Jeeze. I wasn't gone that long. And obviously I wasn't missed.

  'The cat's away', and all that, went through Reed's head. She'd never been particularly fond of rodents, and tonight she'd even consider setting out traps. These rats were too damn big to shoo out with a broom and a shoe box.

  Reed washed her hands in the sink and went up to bed.

  ...

  She'd only been gone for a few days and already her bed didn't feel like her bed anymore, it had been usurped by a giant hunk of truth-slayer who slept naked. How could she think she'd just slip in unnoticed and fall into an exhausted sleep next to him. It seemed silly now. Reed was exhausted enough, she just wasn't sleepy anymore.

  He'd left the shades open, probably after consuming too much beer and not enough popcorn. Moonlight streamed from the windows and the skylight, painting her room in pearlescent glow that made everything clearly visible yet softer than the harsh light of day.

  Not bothering with one of the ancient concert t-shirts she usually slept in, Reed slipped under the sheets. They were the same ones she'd put on the bed the night before she left. They were less than a week old, but she'd have bet a Snicker's bar that Jordon would have replaced them with hundred-thousand thread count Egyptian cotton or hand-dyed silk, or whatever else it was the astronomically-rich-and-out-of-touch slept on. She'd gotten these for twenty bucks at T.J. Maxx.

  The moment she settled in, Jordon rolled on top of her.

  The first thing she noticed was how hard he was.

  The second, that his hair was still damp from the shower.

  The thir
d, he didn't smell remotely of beer.

  He captured her between his legs as his hands came up to hold her face. His hands were gentle, his legs were not. He held her body to him, between the twin beams of steel that were his thighs and by shifting his weight, so Reed couldn't squirm away. She couldn't make out the color of his eyes in this light, but Reed had no trouble reading their intensity. His silence, and the raw emotion he was draping her with, eclipsed her sense of being the injured party, and left her feeling only the need to be near him. That left her feeling less righteous and more vulnerable than she had when she sought out Lily.

  Reed could feel the steady, although accelerated beat of his heart reaching out to hers through his chest. The feeling was disconcerting enough that she said the first thing that popped into her emotion fogged brain.

  "You didn't change the sheets...you don't smell like beer."

  "I won't drink in front of Jesse, and the sheets smell of you." He said matter of fact. Not the least amount of sentiment, romance, or anger at her disappearance made it's way into his voice, but his heart rate started a tap dance on her chest. He was less calm than he wanted her to believe. For some reason, that didn't make her feel any safer or in control.

  His gaze moved to her mouth, but he didn't move to kiss her. His hands cradled her face, and his thumbs began gently drawing spiral patterns at her temples, easing some of the tension she was feeling there and causing it to pool between her legs. He shifted one thigh so there was no mistaking his intent.

  "Sex doesn't fix everything." Reed said, not sure she really believed it.

  "If all I wanted was sex, I'd be snoring by now." His tone raw now, less controlled.

  "What do you want, Jordon?"

  "You're the second person to ask me that today."

  "Does that surprise you?"

  "Since before today it hadn't happened since I left home, yeah, it surprises me. As to what I want..." He let his words trail off as he moved his gaze from her mouth to her eyes. His thumbs stilled. He took a deep breath and his erection pulsed against her inner thigh at the same time. It was like they were both gearing up for something.

  "I want you to kiss me. I want you to wrap yourself around me and pull me inside. I want to sink inside you so deeply I can't tell where I end and you begin. I want you to be with me every second...every heartbeat...I want you to scream into my mouth everything that made you run. I want you to never want to run from me again...I want..."

  Reed didn't want to know what else he might have to say so she wound both hands into the long hair at his nape and pulled him closer to her. He resisted for a second, maybe just to show her he could, something hot and dangerous flashed in his eyes and then was gone as fast as it came. He groaned low in his throat, more animal than man and allowed her to bring him to her.

  Surrender. The way the lion must have surrendered its paw to the mouse.

  Hesitant.

  Wary.

  With a need that obliterated sense.

  Reed's grip eased on the back of his neck when she no longer had to lift herself off the pillow to reach him. Jordon lowered her slowly, not breaking contact with her mouth, not kissing her back either. Reed tilted her head to draw more deeply from him, pouring her heart, what was left of her anger and her fear that somehow she wasn't enough for a man like him into her exploration of his mouth. She didn't stop until he took it all, including the air from her lungs.

  She broke away then panting, writhing against him like some wild thing. She was beyond caring now how transparent her responses were to him. She was running on pure need and something else she didn't want to define. Even to herself.

  "Open your eyes."

  "Why." Reed asked, wanting no sensation other that touch and taste to interfere with the intensity of what he was making her feel.

  "Open your eyes, Reed. Look at me." When she did he continued, "I want you to see what you do to me. I want you to see me."

  Reed wasn't sure what he meant by that and she didn't care when he reached down and grabbed himself, probing her entrance. She was tight, but not unpleasantly so, and more than ready for him. She wondered now if she'd been ready for him forever.

  After the first painfully slow inch Reed couldn't wait. She did exactly what he demanded earlier. She wrapped herself around him and pulled him in tight. The effort cost her. Five days without him, and she'd forgotten taking all of him too fast bruised her. Jordon eased off a centimeter so he was no longer touching her cervix and held her there, unmoving, except for the pulsing inside her he couldn't control. When she tried to move he held her so tightly she could barely breathe.

  "Don't move."

  His breath was warm, teasing the rim of her ear. His tone, rough, like each syllable was ground out of him and burning like hot whisky with just enough honey to make you want to take another sip.

  She didn't move. He was holding her so tight she couldn't.

  Finally his grip eased and his lips found hers. She wanted to devour him, he only wanted to taste and explore her. He sucked her breath into him every time he kissed her, like he was trying to absorb her essence. He did it unconsciously, even when his lips brushed hers and moved on to her jaw line, behind her ear, to her neck.

  He drew back enough for Reed to slam her hips up to him. Something inside him seemed to snap and he was no longer holding back but pounding into her with an urgency they both needed. It was hard to say who was riding who as Reed's world crashed into a kaleidoscope of sensation.

  The emotion would come later.

  Jordon followed right after with a guttural groan and a rhythmic spasm that took his breath away. He gave her his weight for a second before rolling to his side and pulling her back against him. Reed snuggled into him allowing him to pull her even closer.

  Jordon held her pressed against him all night long. Every time she tried to roll away he reeled her back in until finally she gave up the fight. She matched her breathing to his, feeling the exhaustion creeping upon her again. This time she let it sweep her away into oblivion.

  Her last thought before she drifted off to sleep...

  Sleeping with Jordon was so much better than sleeping alone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  "I don't like sleeping with men."

  Henry chuckled and rolled over on his back. There wasn't much room in Finn's bed, and if he stayed here any longer he was going to have to spring for a new one. If she let him stay in her room in the house it wouldn't be an issue. She slept in a king-sized bed there, but she insisted on the pretense that no one in the house knew they were having sex - so they couldn't do it in the house.

  'Having sex' was her phrase, not his. She made him so angry with her constant attempts to pigeonhole what they shared as 'physical exercise and nothing more', that he'd reverted to his college vernacular and started asking her if she wanted to fuck every time she said sex. It wasn't getting him anywhere though. Half the time she was locking the door before he could even finish the word.

  Henry didn't mind that part. He did mind the part where he felt like an over-sized sex toy. Well, he minded that part after he got his rocks off. And, it was getting worse. This irrational feeling escalated every time he sank into her voluptuous softness. She treated it like it didn't mean any more to her than a good yoga class; she'd have another one tomorrow, and if she needed to find a new instructor, no big deal.

  Maybe she didn't like sleeping with men, but she sure got off on it, Henry thought, more irritated than he wanted to be. "Could have fooled me."

  Finn tossed a pillow at his head.

  "That's not what I mean and you know it." She said, grabbing a pair of yoga pants and pulling them on without panties. Everything she did made him hot. That irritated him too. Henry fluffed up a pillow and jammed it behind his back and the headboard so he could sit up without being jabbed by the headboard.

  Sounding calmer than he felt, he asked, "What exactly do you mean?"

  "I want to sleep alone tonight."

  "Really? Is th
at because you've already jumped my bones twice today?" His voice deceptively neutral.

  "Yes." She didn't miss a beat while throwing on a t-shirt two sizes too small without a bra to confine her magnificently real breasts. They jiggled at him as she plumped them so that the tightly stretched cotton would have a shot at confining them.

  He'd seen and heard enough.

  Henry pushed himself away from the headboard and off the bed in one agile movement and was standing over her in a tenth of a second. He was generally very careful how close he stood to people, women in particular, because of his size. Now he didn't care, he towered over her. He wanted her to feel intimidated. He wanted her to know there was only so far he was willing to play her version of 'hide the salami'.

  Her head shot up but she didn't back away. Far from it. Finn's blue eyes shot ice chips at him. He pulled her to him with one arm around her waist. The catch in her breath and the flash of something more than hostility in her eyes pacified him some, but not enough to back away.

  "For such an experienced woman, I don't think you have a clue what you like. Worse than that, you're lying to yourself about what you want."

  Henry bent and kissed her. Hard. Wrapping his hand around the back of her neck when she tried to pull away. His mouth mashed against hers until she stopped pretending to fight and began to kiss him back. The second she did he pushed her away.

  His eyes narrowed as he surveyed her heaving chest and her tossed sex-kitten hair, hanging in glorious disarray, covering her in its cinnamon scented cloud. Henry grabbed his shirt, shorts and sandals, and headed for the door. He quickly turned and executed a bow worthy of any king.

  "The lady has spoken. So be it."