Daddy By Design? & Her Perfect Wife

by Cheryl Anne Porter

“How am I with you?” His sidelong glance met her heated gaze.

  Cinda’s amber eyes darkened. Finally, the words came out. “You’re awful.”

  Trey’s heart damn near stopped. Still holding her hand, he lowered it with his to his thigh. “Awful? How?”

  “You waltz into my life on a cold day in January and then I don’t hear from you for six months.”

  “I wasn’t sure I should call you. I didn’t know what to say.”

  “How hard is ‘I want to see you’?”

  “Real hard. A guy could get shot down.”

  “And yet I gave you my phone number, Trey. Didn’t that tell you anything?”

  He nodded, feeling troubled. “Look, this is hard, Cinda. Yeah, I wanted to call you and see you. I just…couldn’t. No matter what you say, your world is really different from mine. And everyday, with the men I work with, I see love going sour. I promised myself I wouldn’t get caught in that trap, Cinda. I just said, ‘No way, man, not for me.’ And then I met you and I knew it could all fall apart. I got scared…”

  Looking down at her hand in his, Cinda said, “Then why did you call me?”

  Trey inhaled, then let out a slow breath. “Because I thought I could fool myself into thinking this was just a pretend thing. Just one weekend. To see what it felt like.”

  Cinda puckered her mouth. “Oh, thanks. So you’re just shopping? Trying on a family to see if it fit? But not buying?”

  “No, I didn’t mean it like that.” Trey frowned. “Or maybe I did. Maybe that is what I was doing.” He sent Cinda a look of troubled sincerity. “If it is, it sucks when you say it out loud. But no matter what it was, I don’t mean it now.”

  “But that still scares you, doesn’t it? I understand. I mean here I am, this rich widow with a baby. That’s a lot of baggage.”

  Warming to her, Trey reached out and caressed her shoulder. “I don’t think of you that way at all, Cinda. Not as baggage. Not as a burden. If anything, you’re a sweet, sweet gift.”

  She smiled. “Trey, I’m going to go out on a limb here, okay? I’m just going to say this.”

  “All right.” His heart thumped leadenly in his chest as he watched the play of emotions over her face.

  She leaned in toward him and put her hand on his knee. “Trey, Cooper, you are the sexiest man I have ever met. Ever. I can’t get enough of looking at you. And you excite me and make me laugh. And I love that. But you also make me crazy. You make me behave in ways I never have before. I mean I haven’t even been around you for a total of twenty-four hours, but I…Well, I want….” She stopped, smiling at him, wide-eyed…and yearning.

  In awe, Trey stared at her, his gaze roving over her features. Could it be that, after being stuck in neutral for so long, their gears had finally engaged? The edginess he felt right now, the tension, the dry mouth and tightening muscles were the same things he experienced right before the starter’s flag came down on a big race. He loved that adrenaline-pumped feeling. Lived for it. Or he had. Until now. Until Cinda. Now she was the source of his excitement and the one who consumed his thoughts. “What are you saying to me? I want to be sure.”

  Her expression was troubled, vulnerable. “Trey, I just need to know something, all right? I need to know if there is an…us. Or I guess a chance of an ‘us.’ I’m not a casual person, and I don’t think you are, either. But I—” Her expression became plaintive. “Is there an us?”

  Trey’s heart thumped happily. “God, I hope so.”

  She didn’t say anything, just stared at him. Without thinking about it—and damned tired of thinking about it and dodging it—Trey said, “So, you wanna make out?”

  Surprised, Cinda sat back, her face alight with humor. “What? Are you serious? Make out? We’re not in high school, Trey.”

  He shrugged. “Okay, we’re not. But this is my high-school reunion. I thought we might as well act like it.” He added an evil, suggestive grin.

  Cinda smacked playfully at his arm. “You’re not serious.”

  He grabbed her hand, holding her as he leaned in close. “Am so. We could even go outside to my car and get in the back seat, if you want.”

  Her mouth gaped open, but then she grinned and arched her eyebrows, sending him a speculative, suggestive look. He couldn’t believe it. She was actually thinking about it. Not wanting to lose her or the moment, Trey arched his eyebrows in answer. “Yeah? You want to?”

  “You know…I do.” She said it like she couldn’t believe it, either. “But first I have to tell you something.” She leaned toward him, her mouth almost touching his. “When Bobby Jean kissed you, Trey, I wanted to do more than hit her. I wanted to scratch her eyes out.” She kissed the corner of his mouth. “And right now I want to wash away her kiss on your mouth.” She tipped her tongue out against his lips. “I want you to have only my kiss, my taste, in your mouth. Do you mind so much if I do that?”

  Trey could barely breathe, much less shake his head. His limbs felt heavy, and all of his blood had left his head. This woman was going to kill him with sensuality right here tonight on his mother’s couch. Then she surprised him by grabbing him around the neck and pulling him to her. “You owe me this.” Without further preamble, she took his mouth in a deep, heartfelt, wet and hungry kiss.

  She was right. He did owe her. Trey’s heart leaped and his body responded. Without breaking their kiss, Cinda pressed herself to him and he toppled over backward onto the cushions, taking her with him. He wrapped his arms around her slender body and held her tight. She stretched out atop him, along his length, and their kiss became little biting moans and tugging on lips and delicious swirls of passionate heat.

  When it finally ended, Trey was in a sweat and breathing hard. And Cinda’s face was only inches from his. In her eyes he saw awareness and need and everything he’d ever wanted. She lowered her head to him again and placed a tender, nibbling kiss on his chin. Her long blond hair tickled his face. “So. Why don’t you show me the back seat of your car, Mr. Trey Cooper?”

  CINDA COULDN’T BELIEVE their boldness. After checking on Chelsi and getting the necessary condoms from Trey’s suitcase, they’d actually crept out of his mother’s house, across the dewy grass, and, with the neighbor’s dog barking at them, unlocked Trey’s car. He’d rolled the windows down while she’d taken Chelsi’s car seat out of the back and propped it up on the front floorboard. And then they’d both silently slipped into the back seat. Right there in the driveway. In the middle of a neighborhood. Oh, it was wonderful!

  They’d looked at each other and laughed. “We’ll probably get eaten alive by mosquitoes,” Trey had said. And she’d answered, “So?” And then they’d come together for more of those passionate kisses and heated embraces, which had quickly led to just plain groping and moaning and tugging off of the necessary clothes to accomplish the deed. The car was hot and uncomfortable. The vinyl back seat sticky. And their love-slick bodies made funny, sucking noises every time they tried to switch positions or figure out how they were going to get “what” where “it” needed to be. A time or two, when it proved impossible, they’d ended up laughing out loud and then shushing each other.

  Every now and then, Trey poked his head up to look out a window or the back windshield. He’d keep saying, “Did you hear that? What was that? Was it the cops? Or my mom?” And Cinda, who knew he was just trying to scare her, would pull him back down to her and say, “Oh, shut up. Who cares who it is?” And then they’d go at it again. Just like two damned teenagers in heat.

  Finally, they’d sat up. And, breathless, sweating, not quite really sated yet, they’d stared at each other.

  “You know what? This sucks. How did we do this when we were kids? I still can’t honestly say yet if I’ve made love to you or not. I mean, how sure can you be in the back seat of a car this size?” Trey said.

  “True. I guess we could go back inside to the couch,” Cinda said seriously.

  He’d nodded. “Or I could get a blanket out of the trunk and we cou
ld go out to the backyard to the gazebo and do this under the stars.”

  And Cinda had melted. “Oh, that sounds wonderful, Trey. What with the full moon and all. I’d like that.”

  And so they had. They’d put on enough of their clothes for the sake of decency and, carrying the rest, had sneaked back into the house, where they’d checked again on Chelsi, who blessedly slept on. Then they’d treated themselves to big drinks of water, enjoyed the air-conditioning for a minute or two…and then their eyes had met and awareness had again flared. Then out the back door they’d gone.

  And now, here they were…their bodies bared to each other, their hearts open, and the two of them atop a blanket under the stars. The wood gazebo floor had proved too hard. So onto the more forgiving grass they’d moved.

  With Trey’s hard-muscled, exciting weight atop her, Cinda still could not believe her hunger for the man. Or the sweet intensity of his kiss as his arms again went around her. Trey was everything she’d known he would be. A thrill right to her toes. His lips fit hers perfectly. His breath was warm, his arms around her strong and supporting. His body was hungry and insistent. And he was inside her, trying to hold back. She felt it in the bunching of his muscles. He was waiting for her, even as he broke their kiss to trace tiny kisses over the outline of her mouth, even as he ever so gently held her bottom lip between his teeth and sucked softly. He was waiting for her.

  Then he was tracing kisses down her jaw, her neck, up to her ear, where he whispered, “Bobby Jean means nothing to me, Cinda. You have to know that.” With his nose, he nuzzled the sensitive spot behind her ear and traced her skin with his tongue. Shivers ran over Cinda. Trey spoke again, his voice low and husky. “That kiss wasn’t my idea. I had no idea she was going to do that.”

  “I know.” Cinda loved the feel of his chest pressed against hers. He was solid as a rock, just as she remembered from when he held her on that cold day last January when Chelsi had been born. And now he was smiling down at her, his blue eyes so dark they looked black. “Take me, Trey. Love me.”

  “That’s all I’ve ever wanted to hear from you, Cinda.” Trey pushed fully into her. How he filled her. How gentle yet insistent his strokes were. How wonderful the play of his muscles as Cinda freely ran her hands over his body, over the broad expanse of his back. As he kissed her deeply, she wrapped her arms and legs around his neck and waist, banishing forever the sight of Bobby Jean Diamante’s pose that had mocked this intimacy.

  In only moments, Trey’s pace became rapid, more plunging. The good sweetness was tightening, building deep inside Cinda. She was very close. So was he. Right then, the demanding urgency of the love act took over, robbing her of conscious thought and taking Cinda to a place she’d never gone before, not even in her marriage…the place where her heart was at one with the act of loving someone.

  10

  CINDA AWOKE the next morning to the soft grays of curtain-filtered daylight. And to a soft whispering her sleep-fogged brain couldn’t identify. She lay still, not quite oriented to time and place, and frowned. Okay, she was not in her bed and was facing a wall. Aha. She was in the double bed in Trey’s old room at his mother’s house. And he’d slept with her. He’d more than slept with her. There’d been the car, the backyard…and the bed. Cinda smiled. Her senses told her he was not in the bed with her at this moment, but that was okay. He certainly had been in the bed last night. He’d held her close, they’d made love, and then they had gone to sleep like two spoons in a drawer, his arms around her, his knees bent to hers.

  How wonderful that had been. And now it was Saturday, the Fourth of July. For some silly reason it felt like the first day of the rest of her life. Always before, that sappy saying had made her roll her eyes. But now, today, she really understood it. And love poetry. She now got that, too. All the yearnings and the hunger that the poets wrote about. The desperation to be together, to see your loved one’s face. To wax maudlin over the color of someone’s eyes, his hair. But best of all, she told herself, she now had a face to put to the love songs.

  So today, couldn’t she begin marking time on a future brighter than it had been yesterday? Yes she could. A secret grin captured her mouth and Cinda stretched in what promised to be a luxurious loosening of love-sore muscles—

  Then she heard it again, behind her, the whispering. She held still, listening. Low talking. Like love talk, only not love talk…like someone talking to a baby. Her mind put two and two together, and Cinda’s expression brightened. Ever so carefully, not wanting to disturb the scene she felt certain was playing out behind her, she rolled over in the bed. And was rewarded. The sight that greeted her melted her mother’s heart and brought tears to her eyes. She felt so silly, so emotional. After all, hadn’t she ever seen a man wearing only his pajama bottoms and sitting in a rocking chair and holding a baby before?

  No. She hadn’t. Not in real life. And not this man with her baby. It struck Cinda then that Trey was the only man to hold Chelsi—one who could possibly qualify as a father figure, that is. Of course, her own father and Papa Rick and her brothers had held Chelsi. But they weren’t, well, her man, someone who could play a significant role in her daughter’s life as well as her own.

  Wishing she could paint, could sculpt…heck, just wishing for a camera so she could preserve this scene forever, Cinda lay on her side and tucked her hands under her cheek. She couldn’t get enough of watching Trey with Chelsi. Holding the little girl under her arms, his fingers interlocking over the baby’s back, he had her in his lap, facing him. Dandelion-fluff baby hair stuck up all over Chelsi’s round head. Still in her little pajamas, she was cooing and flailing about happily and trying to stand on Trey’s knees. He was talking softly to her and chuckling at her antics. He then leaned forward and kissed the baby on the forehead. “Look at you. Such a big girl. So damn—uh, darned cute. Would you want to be my little girl? Would you like that?” he whispered.

  Had there ever been a more poignant, heart-warming scene in the history of humanity? The bonding of a man with a child. It was beautiful.

  Hot tears of strong emotion pricked at Cinda’s eyes. She spoke up almost before she realized she was going to. “I know I would. I’d like it very much for her to be your little girl.”

  Trey looked up, meeting her gaze. His blue eyes were soft and bright with welcome. “Hi. You’re awake.”

  “It would seem so.” Cinda smiled, wondering if he too was playing back in his head their funny, tender, and sweaty lovemaking scenes from last night. She ran her proprietary gaze up and down him, noting things like his bared chest, those broad shoulders. This morning she knew every masculine inch of him. She knew his kiss, what it felt like to run her hands over the crisp and curling hair on his chest, how his weight felt atop her, what it was like to sleep with him. She knew the scent of his skin, how he tasted, and the love sounds he made. Cinda let out a sigh of yearning and contentment.

  Trey raised his eyebrows. “You sound like a contented cat.”

  “I feel like a contented cat.”

  His grin was cocky, sure of himself. “Can I take any credit for that?”

  “You can take all the credit for that.”

  “Good.” Then he suddenly looked unsure of himself, as if he didn’t know what came next in this scenario. He resorted to the baby. He turned Chelsi in his arms until she faced Cinda. “Look,” he said, putting his face next to the little girl’s, “Mama’s awake.”

  “Hey, sweetie,” Cinda greeted her daughter. Chelsi caught sight of her and immediately began fussing for her breakfast. With a sigh for having to give up lying in her—their—rumpled love nest, Cinda dutifully sat up and arranged herself on the bed. “Bring her to me and I’ll nurse her.”

  With the baby held securely in his arms, Trey got up and approached Cinda. “Good. It’s only fair. I had to change her morning diaper.”

  “You poor, poor man.”

  “It was awful.” He handed the baby over to Cinda.

  She took her fretting da
ughter and settled her in place. “I can imagine,” she told Trey, looking up. “You’re very brave.”

  He leaned over and kissed her on the mouth. “I do what I can.”

  “And you do it so well.”

  Cinda knew it was silly, inane even, this morning banter. Yet it was intimate somehow. Private. The language of couples. The building blocks of a relationship. A time and a scene not open to the public. Could it be that this whole morning was enchanted? And if it was, could it please last?

  It did, for about twenty minutes of solitude. Then the door to the bedroom jerked open with a suddenness that had Trey whipping around and Cinda gasping. Chelsi even let go of her “breakfast” to see what was up. There, in the doorway, wearing a high-necked nightgown and with her tornado-resistant hairdo wrapped protectively in toilet paper and held in place with little metal clips, stood Cinda’s “mother-in-law.”

  With a plastic flyswatter in her hand, and squinting through the thick lenses of her eyeglasses, the older woman took in their one-big-happy-family and highly domestic scene. “Trey, how come that old blanket I gave you to keep in the trunk of your car is all grassy and draped over the gazebo railing out back?”

  The flames of embarrassment burned up Cinda’s cheeks, and she absolutely refused to look at Trey. Or to help him. Instead, and studiously, she focused on her darling tiny baby daughter, just fluffing the child’s hair and playing with her sweet little fingers…and leaving Trey to the wolves.

  “Oh, never mind.” Dorinda Cooper sighed. “You never could keep up with your things. Besides, we’ve got us some serious trouble here this morning.”

  Cinda looked up, exchanging a glance with Trey. Frowning, he’d come to attention and had his hands planted at his waist. “What do you mean, Mother?”

  “Well, here I haven’t even had my coffee yet and there’s a gangster on the front doorstep.”

  Not surprisingly, nobody said anything. All Cinda could do was squint back at the older woman and think You mean instead of a newspaper?