“How’s everything going with your mom? She doing okay?” Rachel’s parents were both living. They were back in the Midwest, so she didn’t get to see them often, but she didn’t want to even imagine losing one of them.
“My mom’s stoic. She’ll be fine.”
That being Bree’s stock line, it wasn’t the first time Rachel had heard it. “And you? Are you okay?”
Bree smiled then. It wasn’t self-deprecating. It wasn’t even sad. “I’m actually pretty good, too. I…” She stopped, looked at her hands a moment. “I’m better than when I started crying in front of you. A lot better.”
That had happened two months ago, when her father started going downhill fast. Bree hadn’t told anyone else at DKG, but she’d confided in Rachel. “I’m glad to hear that.” Rachel touched her hand briefly, afraid to hold on too long. Bree was skittish. “I’ve been worried about you.”
“You’re a good friend, Rachel.”
Not really. Rachel had a feeling that Bree didn’t have friends, just work associates. So why had she invited Rachel out? “I get the feeling you want to talk about something.”
Again, Bree smiled, then shook her head. “I just thought it would be nice to…” She shrugged and raised an eyebrow. “I don’t go out a lot…with friends. Maybe it’s time I started.”
Wow. Rachel was honored Bree had chosen her, but she was sort of at a loss as to what to say to keep the conversation going. “I met a man.” Oops. Rachel almost covered her mouth. She hadn’t meant to talk about that with anyone. “But I’m not sure I should date him. I mean, I’ve been divorced less than six months.” Can anyone say motormouth? But then she realized she wanted to talk about it. Bree wouldn’t gossip. “The boys wouldn’t be happy at all with me dating.”
Bree munched thoughtfully on a tortilla chip. Rachel had gotten a small assortment of things from the buffet, but Bree just had the chips. Rachel was eating the rest; after all, it was her dinner.
“Does their dad date?”
Rachel tipped her head. It hadn’t occurred to her to even think about it. During the last few years, Gary hadn’t had much of a libido. He’d said it was work. He was an accounting manager for a division of some huge conglomerate, and he’d hated his job. He claimed he didn’t have anything left over when he got home. Gary and sex? Gary and dating? “I don’t think so.” Maybe Gary’s lack of libido had been part of the reason Rachel’s had disappeared. There was only so much rejection you could take before you stopped asking. But it was certainly returning now.
Suddenly she needed to talk about her Viking. “I don’t know his name. And I don’t want a relationship or anything. But sometimes I think about—” She stopped. She didn’t know Bree well to reveal her sexual fantasies. In fact, she didn’t discuss sex with anyone. It just wasn’t something she’d ever done.
With that same look on her face that could have meant anything, Bree said, “If you don’t want to have a relationship, then just have sex with him.”
It was as if the whole bar went stone quiet. Rachel could have heard a pin drop. Not really, but she was in such complete shock that she felt like she’d lost her hearing. All she could see were a bunch of mouths moving out in the crowd and faces contorted with laughter. “I can’t believe you said that.”
Bree simply looked at her. “I’m not a saint or anything. If you don’t want to have a relationship, it really is okay to just have sex.” She opened her purse, pulled something out, and slid it across the table. A square of gold foil.
A condom. Rachel slapped her hand over it before anyone saw. “You carry one in your purse?” She was aghast. Only teenage boys doing a lot of wishful thinking carried around condoms.
Bree laughed. It wasn’t that Rachel had never heard her laugh before, it was just…different. Bree was different in some way she couldn’t pinpoint. Different since her father died. Since that confrontation with Marbury. The laugh was almost natural, even confident.
“I’m not a prude, Rachel. Though I have to admit I’d forgotten I had that condom until today when I was searching for something.” She smiled. “Perfect timing.” Then Bree leaned close. “But I do believe in being prepared for whatever comes my way. I even have a man. A very good man.”
“You have a boyfriend?” Rachel heard the wonder in her voice and was ashamed, because why shouldn’t Bree have a boyfriend? It was just that Bree had never indicated it.
“I’ve only just started to understand how important he is to me. He’s the one who thinks I should have more friends.” Bree gave Rachel a look. “Friends like you.” She patted Rachel’s hand. “So take that”—she gestured toward the condom hidden beneath Rachel’s palm—“and have some fun with this new guy you’ve met.”
“I don’t even know his name,” Rachel repeated.
“That’s even better.”
Egad. The things she was learning about Bree, the woman hidden beneath the quiet facade.
“Everyone’s a stranger until you get to know them,” Bree said, and there was such a look on her face, soft, as if an inner light had switched on. She glowed. “Then all of a sudden, there’s so much potential you never had a clue was there.”
“I’m happy for you, that you’ve found someone like that.”
Bree blinked, came back from whatever blissful place she’d been in. “Maybe one day you’ll suddenly discover how special this man you’ve met is. Like a bolt of lightning.”
Rachel pressed her lips into a flat line. “Yeah, well, not until the boys are older.” Until they’d gotten over the anger. Things had to settle down. “But Gary has them every other week.” She grinned and waggled her eyebrows. “So who knows what kind of trouble I might get into on my own?”
Could she do it? Have a hot, sexy, but casual affair?
Rachel curled her fingers around the condom, then slid her hand across the table and dropped it down to her purse on the seat.
Yes. Oh yes. She could.
OF COURSE, IF RACHEL WAS GOING TO DO IT, SHE HAD TO FIND HIM again, a next-to-impossible feat. The week had come and gone without a single sighting. So here she was at the grocery store early on Saturday morning, a complete slut because she hoped she’d see him. She could have done the shopping later since Gary had the boys, but no, she thought she’d catch her Viking after his run. Like last time.
No such luck. Rachel slammed the minivan’s hatch on the load of groceries. She’d used her new and nifty vibrator every night this week to fantasies of him. There was a particularly delicious one she’d entertained several times. He was a masseur at a posh spa, and while she lay there with nothing but a towel draped over her and slices of cucumber on her eyelids—what did the cucumber do for your eyes?—he’d started a deep tissue massage on her arms and hands, then her feet, her calves, her thighs. Then he’d gone very deep indeed, this complete stranger, touching her in oh so many intimate places.
Years ago, a friend whose wedding she’d been in had taken the bridal party to a resort in Napa the weekend before the big day. The bride even paid for a spa treatment. Rachel’s massage therapist was a man, and he’d been good with his hands. There wasn’t the least thing sexual about it. He wasn’t even attractive; he was too thin, too short, nothing like the Viking. But when she’d told Gary, he’d completely flipped, like she’d committed adultery. He’d gotten even angrier when she didn’t understand the gravity of what she’d done, acting as if there was something wrong with her moral fiber. Don’t you know what massage parlors are, for God’s sake? At the time—she was only twenty-five—she’d thought he was right, that there was something wrong with her for not seeing how bad it was to let another man, even a masseur, touch her. She’d actually been a bit inhibited in bed after that, afraid she would do something Gary might find unacceptable.
It was all so long ago. She was completely over that skewed thinking, yet somehow, the very fact that Gary had been outraged turned the episode into a powerful sexual fantasy for her, even today, close to fifteen years later. Go figure
why an argument would cause that; she’d been horribly embarrassed and humiliated. She’d never told anyone. Yet now Rachel saw her Viking in the role of sexy masseur, bringing her to orgasm in a compact room with jasmine-scented incense and cucumber slices on her eyes. She could actually feel his hands on her, stroking her, slipping beneath the edge of the towel.
Rachel blew out a breath, and her skin felt flushed. Oh yeah, she’d played that fantasy a few times this week. Maybe she’d use that one again tonight. Oddly enough, the vibrator fantasies didn’t relieve the sexual tension. She simply wanted more. And better. With someone else doing the touching. Though it didn’t look like she was going to have that anytime soon.
“Whatever,” she whispered as she pulled out of the grocery store parking lot. She’d done without before, and as Bree always said about her mom, Rachel was stoic. She’d have to hide the vibrator after tonight. She couldn’t risk the boys finding it. She certainly wasn’t going to use it while they were in the house. It vibrated too loudly. And she moaned too loudly.
At the corner, about to turn for home, she spied a Starbucks. Expensive coffee drinks were definitely not in her budget, but Yvonne had given her a gift card for Christmas, and it was still unused in her purse. Of course, she could re-gift it, but there wasn’t anyone to re-gift it to because it was too small for a family or really-good-friend gift.
Why not treat herself? A vibrator, now a mocha. She was developing a wild streak, and she turned into the parking lot.
The line was long inside, stretching close to the door, and she almost backed out. But there was nothing pressing at home, just laundry and housecleaning and prepping some meals she could freeze for the week. Chili with lots of beans and hamburger with a low fat content was actually healthy, easy to make, and easy to freeze and take out later.
She fished in her purse for the gift card as she waited in line, inching forward. Ah, there it was. She looked up to gauge her progress to the counter.
And straight into a pair of startling blue eyes. He was a head taller than everyone else, his hair blonder, his shoulders wider, his jawline stronger, his features more handsome.
Rachel bit her lip hard. It wasn’t possible. She’d have thought the only explanation was that the man had been following her, except he’d arrived first.
When, not if.
She fell into the fantasy all over again, his hands on her, his touch intimate, the lighting low, the jasmine scent laced with a subtle, sexy male aroma, the cool press of cucumbers on her eyelids. She couldn’t see; she could only feel.
Heat swept through her body. She’d put on makeup, fixed her hair, worn the tight jeans from last week and a pink T-shirt that showed her peaked nipples even through her bra. She’d dressed for him; now here he was.
And she had a condom in her purse.
3
HE SMILED, SPOKE BRIEFLY TO THE MAN BEHIND HIM, THEN CAME back to her.
“What are you drinking?”
Oh, that voice. Rachel remembered it precisely. Her body reacted accordingly, practically melting for him. “A white chocolate mocha.” She had time for a coffee; the groceries would be fine for a bit.
He stepped back. “Get us a seat.” Then he returned to his place in line.
Two people were vacating a corner table, and Rachel made a beeline for it. Darn. She shouldn’t have let him get the mocha. Now she’d have to pay him back with cash.
Unless she paid him back in other ways. That was a delicious thought.
He was so good-looking. Not like a Brad Pitt or a Matthew McConaughey, but something more rugged. She smiled. Gladiator. Or King Arthur.
She leaned on the tabletop, chin on her fists, ignoring all the chatter around her. He’d looked yummy in running tights, sexy in shirt and tie, but the jeans molded to his butt were perfection. She wanted to drool. He drew stares with his looks, his height. The young woman taking his order beamed with a hundred watts. He had that effect on people, on women. On her.
His order miraculously appeared as if the clerk had put him ahead of everyone else. Then he was heading toward her, wending through the tables, heads turning in his wake.
“How tall are you?” she asked when he set her cup in front of her.
“Six-four.” He sat and still seemed taller, the little chair too spindly for his body.
She loved his height, his width. His power. “Thanks for the coffee.” She didn’t offer to pay him. It was bold, like turning this into a date.
“My pleasure. I’ve been saving up for the next time I saw you.”
“You’re confident.”
“I just know what I want.”
Her blood fizzed inside her. “And whatever you want just miraculously happens?”
“Law of attraction,” he said. “You think about it, you create it.”
“Well, that explains why I saw you here. Because I’ve certainly been doing a lot of thinking.” Ooh, she was bold. She liked it.
“Then great minds must think alike.” He was bold right back at her. “My name’s Rand—”
She shot a hand out to cover his mouth. “No names and no personal questions.” She didn’t think about the intimacy of the gesture, but once his lips were warm against her palm, she suddenly felt hot from the inside out. Her brain short-circuited. She dropped her elbow back to the table. Rand could have been short for Randall, or Randy. Except that he didn’t look like a man who would call himself Randy. He had more class.
“Does that mean this isn’t a date?” he asked, a curve to his lips as if he were about to tease her.
“I told you I don’t date.”
“I remember.”
She flashed him a smile despite her nerves and leaned closer, dropping her voice to repeat herself. “I don’t date.” He had to lean in, too, to hear her. “But I’m not averse to a one-night stand.” She should have gone up in flames. That was beyond bold. A girl should wait for a man to ask. She should hold out. She should—
“It’ll be more than one night, I assure you.”
Rachel didn’t want to hold out. She hadn’t been with a man other than Gary in close to twenty years. For so long, everything had been about watching money, making sure Gary wasn’t upset, taking care of the boys, appeasing everyone, pleasing everyone. Until suddenly Gary wanted a divorce, no discussion, no counseling, no trial separation, just poof…gone. She didn’t want to be a martyr or, as Bree had said, a saint. She wanted to be treated like a woman. Sometimes she forgot she was anything but a mother, and that was fine when she was married to Gary, but now, two weeks out of every month, she was alone. She didn’t want to be lonely anymore.
“We need to have some ground rules,” she said.
“Name them, and I’ll tell you if I agree.”
She liked that he didn’t act the complete pushover simply to get what he wanted. “We don’t meet at my house because I have two teenage sons with me every other week.”
“My house will work. I don’t mind telling you where I live.” Then he grinned and leaned forward to say with just a breath of sound. “Or somewhere more public when the mood strikes.”
Oh. Oh. “Are you kinky?”
His eyes suddenly seemed to gleam. “Very. Does that bother you?”
“I’m not sure.” Yet her pulse fluttered with anticipation. “We’ll find out.”
“Good. Next rule.”
She loved the idea that they were mapping out a sex plan in a coffee shop surrounded by chatting people. “You don’t call me when it’s a week with my sons.”
“You can do all the calling at your leisure.”
“You mean like just call you up for…” She trailed off.
“S-E-X,” he mouthed.
That was sexy. Wasn’t that a booty call? Yes, she loved it. “Okay.”
He hitched his hip for his wallet, pulled out a card, then hesitated. “Can’t give you that. Has my name.”
“No names,” she repeated. She was having fun. This was going to be so good.
Then he ti
pped his head. “What shall I call you?”
Superslut? Oh, she liked that. She’d never been a slut. But only a slut carried a condom in her purse. Did that make Bree a slut? Or did Rachel have to revise years of snap judgments? Whatever. “Call me Rachel.” After all, he wouldn’t know it was her real name, but so what if he did?
“Rachel.” He tested the sound. “I like it. You can call me…” He thought.
Studmuffin. That made her smile. “Rand is fine.” Since that was all she’d let him get out.
“Rand it is,” he finally said.
She retrieved a scrap of paper and a pen from her purse. “You can write your phone number on here.”
His writing was neat and precise. He slid the paper back to her. “Any other rules, Rachel?”
“Protection.”
“Absolutely.” He raised a brow, waiting for more.
She licked whipped cream off the top of the mocha she’d forgotten and felt a shiver as he watched. What other rules? “You don’t tell your buddies about me.”
“I don’t have buddies. I’ve only lived in the Bay Area for a few months.”
“Okay, well, those are the only rules I can think of.”
“Then let’s talk about my rules.”
She hadn’t expected him to have rules. He was a man; men didn’t need them. Sex was just sex to them. “Okay, shoot.”
He drank his coffee. No metrosexual mocha for him, but manly straight black and fragrant. “We experiment.”
She glanced around. No one paid them any attention in their corner. “What do you mean by experiment?”
He closed in again. “Do you know what vanilla means?”
“Yes.” She did watch TV, after all. And she’d bought a vibrator.
“We don’t do vanilla. We experiment.”
She thought about that. He could ask for anything. “Okay. But I reserve the right to say no.”
“Agreed. But you need to push your limits.”
The coffee drink was sweet and rich. She realized sex could be, too. “I’ll push as long as I’m comfortable. What else?”
The Principal's Office Page 3