Sweet Dream Lover

by Karen Sandler

  With the headlights off, Norma could barely see Fritz’s face. “I could leave if you’re too tired.”

  “No!” She put a tentative hand on his shoulder. He seemed too thin under the polo shirt he wore. “Come on inside.”

  * * * * *

  Fritz retrieved his Louis Vuitton suitcase as they climbed the steps, and held it close to his side, wishing for the hundredth time he hadn’t brought it at all. He’d seen Norma’s curious glances at the shabby valise, the questions in her eyes, and the handles dug into his hand as if the case contained a two-ton boulder.

  She smiled, but there was a strange edge to her voice when she asked, “Planning to move in?”

  If God had any mercy at all, He’d strike him down with a lightning bolt right then and there. If He didn’t, Fritz would probably die of mortification, anyway. He squirmed at the reminder of his deadbeat status, that he was virtually homeless, and if the suitcase didn’t currently weigh more than a neutron star, he would have flung it across the lawn into the street.

  She must have seen his anguish in his face because she let go of the keys in the front door lock and turned toward him. “What did I say?”

  “Nothing. I’m sorry. Maybe I should go.” He edged off toward the stairs.

  She grabbed his arm and waited for him to face her. “Fritz...” Her voice trailed off to a whisper. “There isn’t much that can distract me from my grandkids. But you...” She ran her hand lightly over his arm and the sensation jolted straight to his toes.

  “I’ve hardly been able to think about anything but you waiting here for me.”

  Okay, this was good. The way she touched him, the look in her sweet brown eyes, that wasn’t exactly grandmotherly. A tiny speck of hope sparked inside him. The Louis Vuitton suitcase suddenly seemed lighter than a soap bubble, skipping along across the sky hand in hand with his heart.

  He shook off the bizarre image. “Can we go in?”

  She giggled, an endearing sound, and unlocked the door. Flipping on the porch light and entryway lamp, she stood aside to let him in. He shut the door, but still gripped the suitcase, still unsure of whether he should open it.

  Her hand fluttered toward the vintage Louis Vuitton and he could see she was nervous. “So if that’s not all your worldly goods, what is it?”

  The gentle light of the entry softened the lines of her face, made her smile, her hazel eyes, impossibly beautiful. Her generous curves filled out the gray sweater she wore, drew his gaze to the row of pearly gray buttons that ran from throat to waist. Suddenly the contents of his suitcase lost significance. If he didn’t touch her, kiss her right now, he might just die from wanting.

  “Norma...” Her eyes widened as he put down the suitcase. “I have to...”

  His first step toward her, his toe caught in the tile of the entryway and he tripped, nearly stumbling into her. She grabbed his arms to steady him, then quickly let go. He felt like a clumsy idiot and had to fight the urge to turn tail and run.

  But he was tired of giving up, tired of being such a coward. Norma was more important than his trivial fears. He would damn well touch her, caress her, kiss her, and if she didn’t like it, she’d let him know, out loud or with her reaction, and he’d stop. But if he wimped out like he always did, he’d never know.

  His palms curved around her face and her skin was so warm, so soft, it took his breath away. He was nearly eye level to her, just a smidge taller, just enough to have to tip her head back to kiss her. His few girlfriends had always been taller than he was and he’d always felt a little stupid leaning back to kiss them. Norma felt just right.

  He’d given her plenty of time to pull away and she hadn’t. He brushed his mouth lightly against hers, melted at the contact. She still stayed right where she was and so he kissed her again. This time he tasted her lipstick, a flavor he could only describe as pink, and the heat inside him burned a little hotter. Deciding he’d gone too far to retreat, he slipped just the tip of his tongue across her lower lip and nearly imploded when she opened her mouth.

  Okay, this was good, really good. He dropped one hand to the small of her back and pressed her tightly against him. Despite the pounding in his ears, the racing of his heart, he was ready to let her go if she gave him the slightest indication she wanted to call it quits. But she wrapped her arms around him, holding him just as close.

  Now the problem of his age came pretty clear. She was probably used to an older man with some self-control, who could take his time with a woman. But his body was on immediate overload, a thermonuclear device about to reach crisis point. He was pretty sure if they took this kiss a whole lot further, he would completely embarrass himself.

  He let himself taste her one more time, then relaxed his arms, not enough to let her go, but enough to get a safety zone between the monster between his legs and her sweet body. He saw the question in her eyes, the first trace of concern that maybe something was wrong.

  “Not your fault.” He gasped for breath. “Just a little...hair-trigger here.”

  When she understood what he was saying, she smiled, color rising in her face. “That was a pretty good kiss, then.”

  “You crazy woman.” He shook his head. “That kiss was amazing. Phenomenal. A bigger explosion than the Death Star.”

  She giggled. “No explosion yet.”

  Now he felt his own face get hot. “Premature discharge is not what I had in mind with you.”

  She grabbed the collar of his polo shirt and tugged him closer. “We can always relight the fuse.”

  Could a guy die of arousal overload? His skin felt suddenly way too tight, especially south of the equator. When she brushed his mouth with hers he was ready to chuck circumspection and carry her off to the bedroom.

  But in his periphery, he saw the suitcase sitting on the tiled entryway floor. Yeah, he could tell her what was in it after the fact, reveal his secrets later. But although he might be a loser, he had a conscience and, before they went any further, he wanted to make clear to her who he really was, and wasn’t.

  “Time-out, love.” He took her hands, pressed a kiss into each palm. “I have something to tell you.”

  “Fritz, you don’t have to.”

  He put a finger against her lips. “Yeah, I do.”

  Retrieving the suitcase, he took her hand and led her to the living room sofa. The suitcase on the coffee table, Fritz’s fingers trembled as he unzipped it. He pulled open the top, revealing rumpled wads of tissue paper.

  Norma’s brow furrowed. “What’s in there?”

  For the moment, Fritz sidestepped that question. “I’m not what you think I am.” Admitting it didn’t seem as hard as he thought it would be. “First, I’m dirt-poor.”

  She still looked confused. “I thought your father supported you.”

  “He kicked me out. Disowned me. Disavowed any knowledge.” Fritz dragged in a breath. “Got tired of my million failures and cut off the trust fund.”

  Her hazel eyes flashed. “You’re not a failure.”

  “Tell that to the twelve colleges and universities I flunked out of.”

  “Not everyone’s cut out for college. My older daughter barely made it through two years. Now she runs her own business from home.”

  “The thing is, I don’t seem to be cut out for anything.” A weight settled in his stomach. “I’ve failed at every entry-level position within Denham. Made expensive mistakes, alienated co- workers, nearly set one of the test kitchens on fire.”

  “But you’re doing great with Kandy for Kids.”

  “Mark and Kat are doing all the work. And Phil Roth is pulling the strings in the background.” He held her hand between his. “Besides, Kandy for Kids is just a front. The real job is Mark and Kat, and I haven’t done a damn thing right with them.”

  “You’ve done the best you could,” Norma protested. “You’ve had some great ideas. The cabin, the concert. You’ve done everything to nudge them closer.”

  “Fat lot of good that’s done.” He
felt himself sinking into his usual funk over his misguided life and realized he was pretty sick and tired of being sick and tired. “Forget Kat and Mark. I have something to show you.”

  He reached for the Louis Vuitton bag, his stomach in knots. He still remembered his father’s scorn when he’d finally worked up the nerve to reveal what he’d hidden so long. Norma didn’t have a mean bone in her body and would probably try to conceal her disappointment in him. But even the slightest indication from her that the one little scrap of talent he thought he had was just as trivial as he suspected, he might just die on the spot.

  “It’s really just a hobby,” Fritz warned her in a preemptive strike.

  Pulling out the topmost clump of tissue paper, he carefully unwrapped it under Norma’s interested gaze. He kept his own eyes on the precisely carved wooden train engine in his hand, terrified to see dismissal in her face. Her reaction, an Oh! of wonder, the enchanted smile he dared to take a peek at, filled him with undiluted joy.

  “My God, Fritz, this is more than a hobby.” She stretched tentative fingers toward the glossy painted wood toy. “Can I hold it?”

  He passed the engine over to her. “There are four more cars and the caboose.” He took another mass of tissue paper from the bag. “They hook together and make a clacking sound when you roll them. Put a little baby powder in the engine and it puffs out smoke.”

  Before long, he had the entire train set unwrapped and laid out on the table, the cars and caboose hitched to the engine. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to incorporate a windup mechanism in the engine, but I haven’t quite got the details worked out.”

  Norma rolled the train across the table. “You carved these? Painted them?”

  “Yeah.” Warmth glowed inside him at her obvious admiration. “I did the engine first, after a few trial runs I had to trash. The caboose came last, so it’s got the fewest mistakes.”

  “What mistakes? They’re perfect.”

  “The black smeared a little on the engine’s wheels.” He pointed out a blot in the paint. “There’s a gouge in the smokestack.”

  “That just shows it’s handcrafted.” She unhooked the caboose and turned it over in her hands, examining it. “Not turned out by a machine.”

  His father had seen every error, every flaw. But Norma saw only perfection. He struggled with an entirely unmanly urge to shed a few tears.

  She set the caboose back with its mates. “What else do you have?”

  He emptied them all from the suitcase. An elephant that shook its head from side to side as it rolled on its wheels, the carousel horse that rose and fell on its pole with the touch of a lever, the collection of garishly decorated tops that clattered and jingled as they spun. Norma oohed and aahed them all until he felt as puffed-up with pride as a rooster.

  “You should have shown these to your father.” She stroked the soft strands of leather of the carousel horse’s mane. “Shown him how talented you are.”

  “He’s...seen them.” He could still picture his father’s face when Fritz had opened up this bag, unwrapped the toys. The anger, the disappointment.

  Norma’s hazel eyes met his and her gaze roamed his face for a long quiet moment. Then her mouth tightened with determination. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Fritz. But your father’s a complete ass.”

  There they were, past nine in the evening in Norma’s living room, but the sun rose right over Fritz’s head. Angels sang, heaven opened and the weight of twenty-six years of being the one failure of his father’s life vanished in an instant.

  Tears stung his eyes and, although he felt a little foolish, he let them gather. “You are a miracle,” he told Norma, then he pulled her into his arms.

  Before long, the feel of her close to him brought him back to where they’d been in the entryway. Now that he had his secrets out of the way, he intended to follow through on an entirely new matter.

  He kissed her cheek, inhaling her perfume. His mouth close to her ear, he whispered, “I want to take you to bed.”

  “Yes,” she sighed back.

  They rose together and Norma led the way. He wasn’t sure if he’d manage much more than a heated rush the first time, but he’d learned a few tricks in his twenty-six years he was pretty certain would prove satisfactory. And he had one advantage over an older guy, excellent recovery time.

  In his nervousness, his elbow jostled her bedside lamp and it nearly toppled before he could catch it. But she just laughed, sounding jittery herself as she helped him right the lamp. She slipped out of her shoes, the simple act impossibly erotic. He kicked off his loafers, cringing a little when one crashed on her dresser. But she ignored whatever he might have broken, instead urging him toward the bed.

  As he lay with her, the soft light golden on her face, his happiness was tempered by the failure of his matchmaking project. He sighed, guilt weighing on him.

  “What?” she asked, her fingers toying with his hair.

  Her touch made it hard to frame a response. “Kat and Mark.” She nodded, her thumb grazing his ear. “They should be perfect together.”

  “But they hate each other.” Fritz ran his hand down Norma’s arm, then fingered the bewitching line of tiny gray buttons. “Too bad.”

  “Yes...” She moaned as he kissed her throat, arched back as he released the top three buttons and dipped his fingers inside. Suddenly Fritz didn’t give a damn about Kat or Mark or anything except the woman in his arms.

  Chapter 15

  Mark burst through the door of the Denham estate’s guest cottage, stumbling backward as he pulled Kat in after him. She kicked out behind her to slam the door shut, then continued to pull at his T-shirt, fumble with the button of his jeans, all the while driving him insane with her mouth and tongue. He’d nearly crashed his car on the way to Mercer Island, Kat’s hands all over him, her tongue in his ear, her voice whispering all the things she wanted him to do to her.

  Their awkward tango collided with an end table and he heard the sound of breaking glass as a lamp toppled. She had his T- shirt off one arm and bunched at his neck; he’d gotten the buttons of her silk dress undone, but probably half of them were scattered in the front seat of his BMW.

  With a four-legged swoop around the living room sofa, Mark took the navigator’s position and aimed Kat toward his bedroom. Her dress was bunched at her hips, the last button too stubborn to release from the buttonhole. Leaving the dress for the moment, he unhooked her strapless bra with an impatient jerk of his fingers, then stripped it from her. She yanked his T-shirt over his head, catching an ear, but he didn’t give a damn about the momentary pain. With his T-shirt on the floor and her bra gone, he could finally hold her hot, satiny skin against him.

  He nearly exploded from the feel of her breasts, nipples hard, her chest heaving. Her hands on his zipper didn’t help matters and he would have pushed her clever fingers away, but she’d finally achieved her directive and had his jeans unzipped and sliding down his hips.

  While she worked on his briefs, Mark sent the last button of her dress to its death on the bedroom carpet and the dress followed it to the floor. While ridding her of panty hose and panties, his hand tangled in one of the stretchy legs and she had to help him work it free. She still had one sandal strapped around her ankle and she broke the buckle clean off the strap in her effort to get it loose.

  They fell to the bed, blessedly naked, and Mark shot straight to heaven with Kat’s soft, lithe body above him, straddling his. Something kept tickling him each time she bent to kiss him and at first he thought it was her hair trailing across his chest. But Kat’s short-cropped hair barely brushed the tops of her ears, so whatever it was that kept dancing across his chest and belly, it wasn’t hair.

  The next time it skittered over his abs, he grabbed it. It took a moment to parse out the tiny square of satin, then he remembered Kat’s ridiculously minuscule purse. The satin cord suspending it was still slung across her body.

  He pulled it over her head, then made to t
oss it off the side of the bed. She stopped him, gasped out, “Just a sec.”

  Unsnapping the tiny purse, she retrieved a small foil packet from inside it. Mark’s lust-riddled brain could still add two and two and come up with the requisite answer.

  “You and that beef-brain?”

  She put her hand over his mouth and his wounded male pride sank without a trace in a sea of erotic images, sucking on Kat’s fingers, licking her palm, her wrist, the crook of her arm...

  Then she ripped open the foil packet, and he didn’t give a damn about what she might have thought she would do with the goon at the restaurant. Because she never would have. Never.

  Her hands unrolling the condom over him punched the breath from his lungs and he thought he might die from the pleasure. But then she took him inside her and pleasure leapt into an entirely new universe. Her body arched back, her head tipped up, eyes closed. Then he reached for her, pulling her down, slender form pressed against him.

  Through some miracle of self-discipline, he didn’t come in the three seconds he’d feared he would. It helped that Kat just lay there at first, shuddering, breathing ragged. Then when he tilted his hips up at her, she matched the motion, so that each thrust brought him deeper.

  He’d never made love to her in this bed, had bought a new one after their divorce. But Kat in his arms was exquisitely familiar, a paradise he thought he’d never again possess. He must have done something good, beyond good, to deserve this second chance.

  The moment Kat came, her body pulsing around him, pulling him even deeper, a realization burst inside him in the scant second before his own climax. His mind didn’t even have a chance to register the epiphany before his body took over, waves of sensation crashing over him and washing away everything that wasn’t Kat’s touch, Kat’s scent, Kat’s heat. In the aftermath, he was so addled, he wasn’t sure which way was up, let alone what great insight had just crystallized in his brain.

  It wasn’t until later, as Kat fell asleep in his arms, her body half covering his, her soft breath curling against his face, that it hit home. He lay frozen for a moment, scared to death, his heart slamming against his chest. Bit by bit, he let the understanding creep inside his head.