The Fixer Upper

by Judith Arnold

  She was a terrible mother. Her daughter’s first time out of the apartment after last week’s debacle, and Libby hadn’t even spared her a moment’s worry.

  It was a bit late to start fretting about Reva now. It was also impossible. Ned was kissing the corner of her mouth, the rise of her cheek, her temple, his lips as light as a gentle rain on her face, and that rain washed away all thoughts of Reva.

  He steered his lips back to hers and sighed happily when she opened for him. She kissed him eagerly, kissed him wantonly, kissed him the way she imagined women without daughters to fret over might kiss irresistible hunks.

  Her fingers went numb around the wineglass she was gripping. If she dropped it, they’d wind up mopping spilled wine and broken crystal from the floor rather than kissing each other. Which might be a good idea—but kissing Ned seemed like a better one. She grazed the slightly rough surface of his chin, the edge of his jaw and then his mouth again. When his lips met hers, they were aggressive, his tongue sliding hard against hers. He dropped his hand from her hair to her waist and pulled her against him. She felt his erection and clutched her glass so tightly she came close to snapping the stem with her fingers.

  “Ned,” she murmured when his mouth released her.

  “Yeah.” His voice was hoarse, a little breathless.

  “Ned, it’s just…”

  “Don’t say it’s Eric,” he warned her. “He can sleep—”

  “Through a nuclear explosion. You’ve told me. But…you are a daddy. I’m a mommy.”

  “How do you think we got that way?” he asked, his eyes bright with amusement. Gradually his smile faded. “This isn’t about the kids, Libby. It’s about you and me.”

  “I know.” You and me. What an amazing phrase.

  He touched his lips to hers. “I want you, Libby. I want to make love to you.”

  “I noticed,” she said, then smiled nervously. “It’s been…awhile for me. Since the last time I…well…”

  “Me, too,” he said, then grinned. “It’s kind of like riding a bike—once you’ve learned it, you don’t forget.”

  She laughed. She imagined making love with Ned was not going to be anything like riding a bike—except maybe for winding up with tired thigh muscles.

  “Libby…” He kissed her forehead. “I’m crazy about you. Nothing that happens tonight is going to change that. If you say no, I’ll still be crazy about you. But I really…” He brushed his lips against her brow again. “I really hope you’ll say yes.”

  “Yes,” she said, because she couldn’t come up with any other response that made sense.

  He opened the door to his bedroom. It was smaller than hers but bigger than Eric’s, just barely wide enough for a queen-size bed flanked by twin oak night tables. A tall oak bureau stood against one wall, and another faded Persian rug covered the floor. A narrow chair was wedged into one corner. The curtains were drawn. A framed photo of Eric dressed in a colorful ski parka and knitted cap and holding a pair of skis against a backdrop of a snowy slope stood on the bureau, and an abstract art photo of a skyscraper under construction—steel girders rising into the sky like a jungle gym on steroids—hung above the bed.

  In all its modesty, it was a lovely room. It reminded her of Ned—straightforward, honest, nothing frilly or phony about it.

  He took her wineglass and set it beside his on one of the night tables. Then he gathered her into his arms. “Take this jacket off,” he said. “I’ve been dying to see what’s underneath.”

  Feeling a little shy, she removed the jacket. He sucked in a breath. The top she had on was a long-sleeved T-shirt made of a white lace fabric that wasn’t really sheer, although she’d never have the nerve to wear it without a jacket or sweater. “Nothing shows,” she said as he stepped back to scrutinize her.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “That shirt is my favorite thing in your wardrobe.”

  “You haven’t seen everything in my wardrobe.”

  “I don’t have to. The shirt wins first prize.” He pulled off his own jacket and tossed it onto the chair, then eased her jacket from her hands and laid it neatly on top of his. The sight of their two jackets draped together like that, one lying on top of the other with the sleeves tangled, struck her as erotic.

  He moved his hand down the front of his shirt, undoing the buttons. Stay focused, her mind ordered. Forget about the jackets getting intimate on the chair. This is about you getting intimate with Ned. And it was about Ned’s chest, which became exposed as his shirt fell open. She saw golden skin, rippling muscle, a small patch of honey-colored hair. Heat surged through her body and gathered in her womb, making her feel woozy. She sank onto the bed.

  Ned accepted that as an invitation to kneel before her and remove her shoes. He slid his hands up her legs to her waist, popped open the button, eased down the zipper and stripped her slacks down her legs and off.

  Okay, she thought as her heart thudded. Stay calm. It’s just like riding a bicycle.

  In less than a minute, they were naked. She acknowledged that Ned naked was one of the wonders of the world. He didn’t resemble a buff model, some callow, cute pinup boy advertising Calvin Klein underwear on a poster in a bus stop shelter. He had a real body, a man’s body, taut and healthy but lived in. Hairy legs but no hair on his back or on his knuckles, thank God. Broad, bony shoulders. An abdomen that a desk jockey would have to do a hundred sit-ups a day to accomplish, but that Ned probably obtained naturally, through physical labor.

  Her abdomen was soft. It had endured a pregnancy and many years of her jockeying a desk. But Ned didn’t seem to object to her lack of buffness. He kissed and licked and touched her with a healthy, uncritical enthusiasm that would have amused her if she could squeeze amusement into her mood. She had no room in her soul for amusement, though. Only arousal, deep and fierce, threatening to burn right through her.

  He caressed her breasts. He caressed her arms. He kissed her collarbone and the tips of her fingers. Most men she knew would have started with her breasts and stayed there, leaving them only when it was time to move down to her crotch. Not that she was an expert, but the few men she’d been with hadn’t considered her fingertips a particularly important part of her anatomy.

  Ned did. The way he touched them, they became prime erogenous zones.

  Libby touched him back. His fingertips were blunt, his palms smooth. His chest was firm muscle overlying the thick bones of his rib cage. Free of his work boots, his feet weren’t as big as she’d expected. His hair was surprisingly silky.

  She couldn’t imagine he was as aroused as she was—it simply didn’t seem possible—but his body was definitely ready for action.

  Kissing her deeply, he slid one hand between her legs. Her body lurched at his touch. One brief stroke of his fingers and she came, so quickly she blushed with embarrassment. Ned’s hand stilled and he lifted his head to gaze down at her.

  She averted her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

  A roaring laugh escaped him. “You’re sorry?”

  “Well…that was so fast, and…I just…”

  “You’re sorry.” He fluttered his fingers against her, nearly making her come again. “Libby, love, by the time we’re done, you’re going to be sorry you were ever born.”

  His laughter was contagious, and she relaxed. She understood she could do anything with Ned—even come too soon—and not feel embarrassed.

  He kissed her once more, then rolled away and reached into the drawer of his night table. “So we won’t be sorry,” he whispered as he unwrapped the condom he’d pulled from the drawer. And then he entered her, took her, filled her so completely she couldn’t imagine ever being sorry about anything ever again. His name fell from her lips as he moved inside her, long, deep thrusts that made her cling to his back and wrap her legs around his hips. She mouthed his name again as he pumped harder, as his hands fisted against the pillow on either side of her face, as he groaned softly and arched his back and grazed her lips with a kis
s.

  Her climax pulsed through her, and for a moment she felt as if she’d never had sex before. She’d had what she thought was sex, good sex even. But it hadn’t been like this. Nothing in her life had ever been like this.

  He shuddered in her arms, his breath escaping him in a broken sigh, then sank heavily against her, his cheek pressed to hers as she cupped her hands around his head and raveled her fingers in his hair. Was he as astonished as she was? As utterly blown away?

  After a minute, he recovered enough to raise his head. He gave her a sly smile, then crooned the old Connie Francis song: “‘Who’s sorry now? Who’s sorry now?’”

  Laughing, she shoved him away. “Don’t make fun of me when I’m—” Falling in love with you, she almost said.

  He stopped singing, but he didn’t stop smiling, and Libby admitted that his smile was one of the main reasons she was falling in love with him, quite possibly as important a reason as what they’d shared just moments ago. “Don’t go away,” he murmured as he lifted himself off her. “I’ll be right back.”

  He strolled out of the bedroom, totally uninhibited in his nudity. She wondered what he’d do if he ran into Eric in the hall, then remembered how many times he’d assured her his son was a sound sleeper. She heard the rush of water running in the bathroom, then the flush of the toilet, and then Ned returned, still smiling, still gloriously, gorgeously bare-assed.

  He lifted one of the pillows, propped it vertically against the headboard and sat back against it, stretching out his legs, looping one arm around Libby’s shoulders and handing her her wineglass. She leaned into him, even though that heightened the risk that she’d spill wine all over him. If she did, she supposed she could lick it off….

  She drew in a cleansing breath. She couldn’t lick wine off him because she had to go home, and if she licked wine off him they’d undoubtedly wind up making love again, and if they did that she might not ever be able to leave him at all. Could a person get hooked from only two exposures to an addictive experience?

  “I’m not spending the night,” she said.

  He twisted to look at her. “What makes you think I’d want you to?” he asked, then broke into a laugh. “Of course you’ll spend the night.”

  “I can’t.” She was absolutely certain about this. Spending the night with him would turn her into a Ned junkie.

  He moved his hand up and down her arm, and reflexively, she snuggled closer to him. “You can if you want to,” he said, emphasizing the words to imply that he’d be insulted if she didn’t want to.

  She wanted to, desperately. “I couldn’t face Eric in the morning,” she said. “What would he think if he saw me here?”

  “He’d think you spent the night,” Ned said. He sipped some wine, then gave her a squeeze.

  She supposed he could afford to be casual about the situation. He faced Eric every morning. She didn’t, and she was sure confronting the ten-year-old son of the man who’d spent the night making love to her would be at best awkward and at worst traumatic. “Maybe I’m not sophisticated enough,” she said, “but I’m not ready for your son to be aware of my sex life.”

  “Okay.” He drained his glass and set it on the night table. “I can’t walk you home now because I’d have to get Lindsay to come and sit with him while I was out, and it’s too late to be bringing her back here.”

  “You don’t have to take me home. I can get a cab.”

  “Oh, right. We get tons of cab traffic on this block at this hour.” He shook his head. “You’d have to walk down to West End Avenue to get a cab, and by then you’re halfway home. And you can’t walk home alone.”

  “Why not?”

  “I won’t let you.” He smiled. “It’s late. It’s dark.”

  “I know.” The logistics loomed before her like a thunderhead. “So what are we dealing with? I’m a prisoner here until the next time your babysitter is available?”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” he said, striking a thoughtful pose. “Imprisoned in my home, naked and willing.”

  “Who says I’m willing?” she asked indignantly, then allowed herself a chuckle when he laughed. “I could walk home once it got light out. When does the sun come up?”

  “Around six? Six-thirty? Eric never wakes up that early on weekends.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’ll set the alarm for five-thirty and we’ll see how light it is outside.”

  “Okay.” She was a prisoner, forced to remain for hours and hours in Ned’s bed, forced to sleep with his arms wrapped around her. By morning, she’d be totally addicted, hopelessly inebriated on the potent substance that was Ned. But really, what other choice was there?

  He eased her nearly empty wineglass out of her hands and drew her into his lap. “Life stinks sometimes, huh. You’re stuck with me.”

  “I’m feeling terribly sorry for myself,” she told him.

  “‘You’ve had your way…’” he sang. “‘Now you must pay…’” He planted a lusty kiss on her mouth.

  “‘I’m glad that you’re sorry now,’” she finished, then made her peace with the inevitable and kissed him back.

  Twenty

  Reva’s mother telephoned her at Kim’s house around 8:00 a.m., which sucked because Reva and Kim were still sleeping. People weren’t designed to wake up at eight-thirty on Sunday mornings, especially not after a sleepover.

  Reva hadn’t expected her mother to call at all. She’d phoned home twice last night, checking in like the good little girl her mother expected her to be, and both times she’d gotten the answering machine. That her mother wasn’t around to answer the phone at eleven o’clock—well, all right, she was still out with Mr. Fireplace. But after midnight?

  “I got home late,” was all her mother said about that. If her mom had gotten home so late, though, how come she was up and making phone calls at eight o’clock?

  Whatever. She’d probably been doing the nasty with Eric’s daddy. A totally gross thought, but they were grown-ups. Ned Donovan wasn’t so bad for an old guy. He’d fronted Reva the money to pay for Darryl J’s domain name, so he was okay. If he wanted to get it on with her mother, that was their business, and the less Reva thought about it, the happier she’d be.

  None of that excused her mother for calling her so early, though.

  “I’m trying to work out the logistics,” her mother said over the phone. “You have to see your father this afternoon. You should probably get home by ten so you’ll be ready when he comes to pick you up.”

  Reva rolled her eyes. She sat on a futon mattress on Kim’s floor. Kim had been asleep in her bed, but the ringing of Reva’s cell phone had awakened her. She lay on her side facing Reva, listening to her half of the conversation and making goofy faces.

  “You know what, Mom?” Reva said. “It’s silly for Dad to drive all the way uptown to pick me up. I can get downtown myself.” It was time for her mother to admit that she wasn’t a baby. She was certainly old enough to take the subway down to SoHo.

  “Your father loves driving his car,” her mother reminded her.

  “Yeah, but by the time Kim and I straighten up her room and eat breakfast—her parents are going to make a big brunch and they invited me to stay for it….”

  Kim giggled. If her parents made a big brunch, it would probably be sushi and rice noodles, not ham and eggs or waffles and fruit.

  “So what I was thinking is,” Reva continued, “I should stay for brunch and then take the subway down to Dad’s place. I know the route.”

  “You know the route because you went down to Greenwich Village without my permission last weekend,” her mother reminded her.

  So what? Reva was asking for permission this time, wasn’t she? “I won’t get lost,” she promised. “I’ll call Dad and tell him I’m taking the subway downtown. And I’ll call you from Dad’s place as soon as I get there.” Jeez. Maybe she ought to keep her mother posted on how often she went to the bathroom every day, too.

  Her mother did
n’t speak for a while. Finally, she said, “You have to phone me the minute you get there.”

  “The minute. I promise.” Reva sent Kim a thumbs-up. She contemplated asking her mother whether she’d had fun last night, but her mother might think she was prying, or she might be embarrassed because of the specifics of the good time she might have had. “I’d better go,” Reva said instead. “Kim and I want to help Mrs. Noguchi fix brunch.”

  “Be careful, Reva,” her mother said. “Not with Mrs. Noguchi—I mean, of course, be careful in the kitchen, too. But on the subway, sweetie. Don’t talk to strangers.”

  She rolled her eyes again. “I know.”

  “You’re better off standing than sitting next to someone who looks suspicious.”

  “Okay.”

  “Or smells bad. You don’t want to sit next to someone who’s dirty.”

  “I won’t, Mom. I promise.”

  “And remember to thank Mrs. Noguchi for having you over.”

  “I will.” She struggled not to sound exasperated. If she came across as angry or resentful, her mother might change her mind about letting her take the IRT to SoHo.

  “All right. I guess I’ll see you this evening, then. And don’t take the subway home. Make sure your father drives you.”

  “Okay. I will. I promise.” She’d promise anything just to get off the phone before her mother rethought the plan. “I love you, Mom. Goodbye.” She hit the disconnect button, cringed to think she might have been rude, then decided the “I love you” made up for her abruptness.

  “She said yes?” Kim asked, sitting up. Even after a whole night’s sleep—well, a half night’s; she and Reva had stayed up watching Nick at Nite until about one-thirty—her hair looked perfect, sleek and straight. Reva’s hair was undoubtedly a mess, and she’d have to do major work on it before she left Kim’s place.

  “She said yes,” she confirmed as she tucked the cell phone into her backpack. “I can’t believe I was on her shit list one week ago for doing what she’s letting me do today.”