Daddy By Design? & Her Perfect Wife

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  No worries. Apparently, Jack had the same idea. He didn’t bother to pour oil in his palm; he just leaned over and lowered his hands to her thighs.

  Then he covered her lips with his and while their tongues danced and mated and thrust and explored, his hands slid upward to pull down her top, then cup her breasts. When his thumbs brushed the tips and circled their sensitive flesh, she thought she’d levitate off the planet.

  His mouth followed the path blazed by his fingers. His lips, his tongue, even his teeth—gently—driving her wild and wilder. Afraid she’d come off the lounger as he laved her beaded nipples, her hands came up to clasp his rib cage and the hard sheath of muscles covering it.

  Jack moved his hands, too. Lower…and higher again.

  Mel moaned with pleasure. The man knew exactly where and how and what to touch. He was playing her like a Stradivarius—and she was singing!

  “O-ooh!” She couldn’t help gasping as his fingertips teased along the lower edges of her suit.

  Yes, she thought through the delicious haze encompassing her. Touch me. Deep. Hard. Touch my feminine core with your—

  Jack’s hands jerked away, leaving her body humming like an eight-hundred-person kazoo band. His head swiveled, aiming his face skyward. He appeared to be jutting his jaw and clenching it at the same time. “Are, are you sure about this?” he asked hoarsely. “I—I don’t want to rush you into anything, Mel.”

  He didn’t? Because he didn’t want to rush or because he wasn’t as hot to go as she was?

  Either way, it’s time to hit the pause button, Burke.

  As she waited for her pulse rate to drop to mere stroke-out levels, Mel restored her suit to its appropriate location.

  Once she had herself decently covered again, she looked over at Jack. He had his eyes closed and both hands in his hair.

  “Hey, Halloran!”

  Who the—?

  “You out here?”

  An elderly man’s face, topped with silver hair, appeared above the side fence. “Well, hi, Melinda. I didn’t know you were home today.” Without waiting for her to reply, the neighbor addressed Jack. “I found that pension notice you were talking about,” he announced cheerfully, waving a sheet of paper above the wooden slats. “You wanna see it now?”

  After throwing a helpless, pleading look in her direction, Jack called out, “Sure, Pres. Why not.”

  Mel slid off the lounger, stood on still-shaky legs and started walking away. Carefully, like a drunk trying not to show it.

  Neighborly interruption or not, she knew they ought to stop here. At least for now. Until at least one of them thought through the whole sex question. Consciously. Sensibly.

  Mel hoped she’d make it into the house before her bones liquefied completely. She definitely needed to think before they went any further, but all she wanted to think about was going all the way. With Jack.

  “Go over and see Mr. St. Clair,” she encouraged him when her hand gripped the door leading inside. “I’ll—” take a cold shower “—make dinner.”

  “No!” Jack leaped to his feet. “I mean, let’s go out. Get some Mexican food to go with our margaritas.” Still agitated, he practically skipped around the pool and across the grass to tell her parents’ neighbor they’d talk tomorrow.

  Mel frowned as the reason for his agitation came to her: maybe he didn’t want to have to consume her cooking.

  That frosted her. At least until they were sharing a single serving of flan for dessert and she realized they’d been talking, easily, honestly and nonstop for almost three hours.

  Part of the comfortable mood derived, she thought, from not having to wonder who was playing what role. El Mirador’s chef cooked, the waiter waited—and she and Jack just ate their chicken enchiladas and enjoyed each other’s company.

  Well, there’d be other meals…like breakfast, tomorrow. She’d show Jack she wasn’t completely undomestic—just in case that mattered.

  A HOLIDAY MONDAY MORNING. Jack ruffled his hair as he strolled into the kitchen. Wow. Almost nine already. It was great getting a break from the predawn coffee patro—what the hell was that smell?

  And what the hell was he seeing? Jack rubbed his eyes and gave it another try. Same image: someone crouched over the trash can, cradling the toaster under one arm, wielding a knife with the other hand.

  Not someone. “Mel?”

  She spun around. Guilt, then something else flashed across her features. As she straightened, she tried to hide the toaster behind her.

  She looked upset. Dammit, he didn’t want her upset. Jack hurried forward to make it better. “Whassup, darlin’?” he asked as he pried the knife and the toaster from her.

  Whew! He still didn’t know what the smell was, but he’d found its source. “Get something stuck in here?” He peered into the bread slots.

  A yellowish, plastic-looking substance covered most of the heating wires and filled the bottom of the slots.

  Jack looked up from the strange mess admiringly. He’d never thought of using the toaster to melt stuff. “What happened?”

  “I was trying to make French toast,” Mel said stiffly, which Jack didn’t know how she managed to do with her lower lip quivering like that. It was making his primary male part quiver, too. “I wanted to make you breakfast and I thought…”

  Hellfire. Her beautiful green eyes were dripping tears. “Don’t,” Jack murmured as he dropped the toaster on the counter and gathered her in his arms. Where she belongs.

  “Don’t cry,” he soothed. “I’m not big on French toast anyway. And breakfast is still my job. Nobody expects you to turn into Donna Reed the minute you have a day off.”

  He put bacon in a skillet, turned the burner to the right temp, then rushed off to buy cinnamon rolls at the supermarket bakery while she “cooked” the strips of cured pork.

  After breakfast, they took turns showering. Jack considered suggesting a water-saving technique, but forced himself to hold that one back for now.

  You’ve got all day, he told himself as he shaved. Take it slow and easy.

  MEL CAME DOWNSTAIRS, rosy from her bath, her silky chocolate hair now turned to black satin—er, damp. Her hair was wet.

  The hell with slow and easy.

  Jack plucked her from the third stair, twirled her around and let her slide slowly down his body.

  Just as her feet touched the floor, every phone in the house shrilled, breaking the moment’s spell like divine intervention.

  “I…I’ll answer tha—” Mel started to say, moving backward until they broke contact.

  No way. “I’ll get it.” Jack strode over to snatch up the nearest receiver. No distractions allowed today.

  “Burke residence,” he said, trying to lock her gaze with his.

  “Then put Burke on the phone!” snapped the caller. Male, irate, obnoxious.

  Bowen, Jack mouthed without thinking, then showed Mel a palm to keep her back.

  “Oh, never mind!” Dr. Congeniality snarled. “Just give her a message. Tell her Zunica broke an ankle sky-diving, the imbecile. Tell her if she wants to scrub in on a liver transplant, she’s got seventeen minutes to get her tail down here.”

  Dial tone.

  “Nice talking to you, too,” Jack told the dead receiver before replacing it in the charging dock.

  He ought to lie like a lawyer, he thought darkly, but relayed Bowen’s message to Mel. Who immediately started flurrying around looking for her beeper, scraping her hair back with one of those zigzag torture bands and wishing aloud she’d eaten something more substantial than sugared bread.

  Jack slapped together a turkey and Swiss on oat bran, threw some baby carrots into a zip baggie and filled a travel mug with milk.

  “Here.” He handed the lunch off resignedly as she darted past. “Eat in the car. See you when I see you.”

  “I have to go,” she said softly. “I want to go. This is too big to pass up. You have to understand that.”

  Jack shrugged graceless acceptanc
e. His gaze shifted to the refrigerator.

  Then Mel cupped his cheek with her free hand. Her palm urged his face downward, toward her.

  “But I also want to stay here,” she whispered, her lips curving into that sweet smile that just fried him. “With you.”

  “Go!” Jack insisted hoarsely. “Now!”

  Mel went.

  As he listened for her departure, Jack made himself—and Melinda—a promise. One of these days, they’d finish what they’d started this weekend. One of these days soon.

  And if his vote got counted, that would be just the beginning.

  9

  SINCE IT WAS NOW just another Monday, Jack tossed in a load of clothes and started loading the dishwasher. As he did, he continued to ponder what he’d learned during the Bowen-shortened weekend.

  He wanted to live with Mel. For more than six months. And not as her wife. And mostly not because she needed him as her housekeeper.

  He wanted to care for, protect and help Melinda. He wanted to do everything he could to make her life easier. And what he wanted in return was affection, not gratitude.

  Well, hell. Wasn’t that l-o-v-e?

  Sure felt like it.

  The idea stunned him. Then stunned him some more. Love was the last result he’d expected from this crazy arrangement, but he hadn’t expected this arrangement in the first place. He’d seized an opportunity.

  Now…he had a choice to make: reclaim his former disdain for the mushy L-emotion—or turn himself into a personal investment opportunity too good for Mel to pass up.

  Jack checked the time. Hmm, he had about twenty minutes before the boys would be showing up. Better get the Danish warmed up and the assignments compiled.

  By now, most daily household tasks had become second nature, though he still had to check himself when he used the oven. To broil or to bake, that was the question. He still couldn’t see what difference it made where the heat came from, but after that smoke-alarm disaster…Who knew mac-n-cheese could actually explode? Choosing Bake on a hunch, he popped in the pastry.

  As he went back to fill the dishwasher soap dish and flip the lid down, Jack wondered how to convince Mel she needed a husband, not a wife, and that he’d be the best candidate for the job.

  “What exactly does a husband do in this millennium, anyway?” Jack asked the dust bunny who lived under the table in the breakfast nook.

  He’d made his gender-equality statement and he stood by it. But maybe racking up a few traditional male-role accoutrements, like a decent income—and a mortgage to match?—would raise his attractiveness quotient.

  He could take the next Certified Financial Planner’s certification exam, scheduled for July, instead of waiting until November. Was he ready? Butterflies rioted in his stomach.

  Luckily for Jack, the old guys arrived to tell a few war stories and kaffeeklatsch until, calmed by their distraction, he handed out job slips and made sure O’Banyon had a ride. Despite the geezer’s insistence, Jack wasn’t about to let those cataract-clouded eyeballs navigate Dallas streets.

  Ever since ol’ Bob fixed Sherry’s ceiling fan by replacing the switch, she’d been circulating Jack’s phone number as Handyman Central. It didn’t take a genius to jot down addresses and problems and match them up with a retiree having the needed skill. And the men loved the extra money.

  They were always offering him a cut of their earnings, but so far, he’d traded his clearinghouse act for their financial info, using it as practice problems for his test.

  Once he had the oldsters situated for the day, Jack shuffled the laundry into the dryer, got something out for dinner and paid bills.

  “Guess I’ll work up Preston’s profile,” he decided as he peered around the stack of sheets and towels before starting up the stairs. And he’d send in his registration form and fee for the July test.

  Just in case his wife preferred an old-fashioned, breadwinner mate.

  AS Mel clamped off a blood vessel and stepped back, she acknowledged the thrill of participating, even so secondarily, in a transplant operation. But while Dr. Patel and the main team removed the child’s diseased liver—to be replaced by part of a donor organ being shared with an adult recipient—she couldn’t help cursing the personal opportunity she’d lost this morning.

  Her hunger had been reflected in Jack’s eyes. A few more minutes and they’d have been out of earshot from Earth. She could have let nature take its course then.

  Now one of them would have to make a play for the other. But who?

  Not that it mattered. They were both consenting adults with no other exclusive relationships. They even had a marriage license to legitimize such activity.

  She’d do the asking, Mel decided. Because surgeons treat aggressively rather than dose and wait. Besides, Jack made her feel like a woman, but she didn’t have the faintest idea how to play the more traditional female role and get him to ask.

  Jack’s feelings were a complete mystery, but she knew what she wanted: one wonderful, womanly memory of union with her husband.

  If they could get to it before he booked.

  And he would. A guy like Jack Halloran had better things to do than stay married to a geeky doctor with little free time and—Mel recalled her French toast fiasco—no wifely skills at all.

  Tonight. When the surgery ended, she’d go home and proposition her hottie husband. Get it over with. Get on with it. Get it on.

  Oh, yeah. If Jack agreed to revise the no-sex clause, they’d explore each other thoroughly tonight. Listen to their hearts beat in rhythm. Let their bodies join together. Melt and mold, meld and mingle.

  The thought of going to bed with Jack made Mel so giddy, she laughed at one of Bowen’s stupid Texas A&M Aggie jokes.

  The ancient one about the Aggie being so proud of his Olympic gold medal, he had it bronzed.

  HOURS LATER, still awed by Dr. Patel’s skill and the human body’s amazing intricacy, Mel walked into the kitchen.

  Empty.

  Hmm. His car was here. “Jack?”

  She walked through into the family room. Also empty. A quick circuit of the rest of the downstairs yielded the same results.

  Maybe he’d gone somewhere. In someone else’s car. Without leaving a note.

  Not that she was disappointed, discouraged, distraught, depressed or anything. She was just…tired.

  So crash, Burke.

  Good advice. Also frustrating as hell. Glumly she climbed the stairs.

  Dammit, she’d geared up for a confrontation that would end in consummation, not another night alo—

  Mel paused with her hand on the doorknob to her room. What was that sound? And was it coming from Jack’s room?

  She moved down the hallway swiftly and silently, like a SWAT team closing in on a crack house. His door was ajar. Holding her breath, she put her ear to the narrow opening between door and frame.

  Hmm. Either someone was torturing a small animal during a rainstorm or Jack was singing in the shower.

  Refusing to let herself stop and think, Mel slipped into the room, climbed over the clothing strewn across the floor and stepped into Jack’s bathroom—just as the water and the caterwauling cut off.

  When he swooshed open the shower curtain, Mel had her hands on the hem of her pullover tee. “Oh,” she said as calmly as she could, which wasn’t very, since she’d never seduced anyone before. “I was just coming to join you.”

  Jack grabbed the shower curtain and covered his, ah, assets.

  Which, Mel had time anyway to see, were quite substantial.

  She tried to remember even one of the logical points she’d thought up on the drive home to convince Jack there was no reason they shouldn’t add sex to their approved-marital-activities list.

  Hopeless. That gorgeous male body, slick and flushed, drove everything out of her mind. Sent it all rushing south.

  “You…” Jack’s voice raveled the word into about three syllables. “Mel…” With a visible effort, he swallowed. His sapphire
eyes darkened to midnight-navy. Finally he managed a complete sentence. “I’m wet.”

  Mel smiled. Here goes. “Me, too,” she murmured, releasing her shirt hem and closing the distance between them.

  MAKING LOVE WITH MELINDA was everything he thought it would be. And more. Much more.

  He knew they should probably talk first. Establish ground rules, clarify what the sex meant, all that stuff. Or at least exchange some sweet compliments.

  But when a naked man gets propositioned, then kissed and caressed by the woman he’s been wanting forever—only a very dead, very crazy person would refuse to respond.

  Jack wasn’t dead or crazy. Not yet, anyway.

  Freeing the towel she’d jerked from the rack and stroked him with, he dropped it in the tub. “I’m dry enough,” he said, not caring now how ragged his voice sounded. He wanted her—so much, he’d be lucky to get her undressed first. “Let’s get some of these clothes off you.”

  “Yes,” she breathed.

  With her help, Jack set a record for disrobing a female. He set another record carrying her to his bed.

  That’s where he slowed the pace. He wanted her as aroused as he was. He thought he’d torture her the way she tortured him, making her teeter for days on the edge of orgasm until she begged him to take her over.

  And it might have worked that way. Turning down the comforter and pulling back the sheet, arranging the pillows—and her hair on them—Jack got himself under enough control to kiss her slowly, thoroughly. He cupped and fondled and suckled her breasts. Concentrating on control and technique.

  But somewhere along in there, Mel moaned with pleasure.

  He was already at peak capacity or he’d have swelled with pride. He throbbed, instead. Then he suckled more. He licked, he used his teeth to gently scrape her sensitive flesh. He moved his hand between her thighs, threading his fingers through her damp curls, blazing a path to…

  She moaned again.

  That’s when Jack quit worrying about technique. Since she seemed to like it—and he sure as hell did—he just kept doing what he was doing. Somehow he still clung to his control.