Call it Love

by Kress, Alyssa

  Drawing in another breath, he threw one of his arms over his eyes.

  "You like?"

  "Yes," he said from beneath his arm.

  But she remembered what else he'd done. And it wasn't like she was completely ignorant. She did read books and watch movies. Feeling very curious and bold, she put her lips to his tip.

  A low moan came from him.

  She flicked out her tongue. Oh, he tasted good, musky and a little salty. Regarding him as a particularly savory adult treat, she fit all of him into her mouth.

  She was rewarded with a much louder moan from beneath his arm. So she did it again and once more.

  Chess hadn't been kidding. He really couldn't sustain a high level of excitement for very long. She'd only performed her loving taste of him three times when he bucked his hips and exploded. His whole body jerked and hot liquid spurted into her mouth.

  Honestly, she was a little taken aback, but she wasn't given a chance to wonder what to do next, for Chess lurched up, grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her against him.

  He was trembling.

  Cookie threw her arms around him. She felt incredibly powerful—and humbled. She wished she could tell him— That he'd believe—

  For now, she smiled against his chest and observed, "Do you know you taste salty? Like the sea." She burrowed closer. "The stuff of life."

  At her words, he stilled.

  She silently grimaced. What a stupid thing to have come out of her mouth. A man who didn't even want to talk about love wouldn't care to discuss procreation.

  But he merely hugged her closer and smoothed a hand over her back. "The next time," he said in a deep voice. "I'm going to be inside you."

  He hadn't made the same connection to her words that she had, then. Cookie relaxed. She even yawned. Neither one of them had to think about procreation yet. Oh, true, it occurred to her they hadn't used protection earlier, but she was thirty-five years old and not at a fertile time in her cycle. This was not an issue.

  "I don't know how to do that one yet," she told him. "You'll have to be in charge."

  She could hear his smile. "I intend to be."

  ~~~

  Alex wished he were dead. Every muscle he owned was a stiff block of wood. The cut on his arm that they'd closed with fifteen stitches felt like a red-hot razor on his skin. His head pounded so hard he could barely think.

  In a way, he wished his head hurt badly enough that he couldn't think at all. He lay in his bed, clutching a pillow, and wished he wasn't able to remember what had happened the night before. Unfortunately, he did remember. Crystal clear.

  There'd been three of them. They'd come out of the car like sharks coming after blood. Fear had gripped Alex though he'd been half expecting them. Fifteen thousand dollars he owed. Fifteen grand! You couldn't owe that forever. Alex had known that his continued promises to pay off the balance of his debt had begun to fall on hard and disbelieving ears.

  He'd had a beating coming.

  After a soft knock on his bedroom door, his mother walked in. She smiled gently. "You hungry yet? I brought you some toast."

  Alex's battered stomach was definitely not ready for food. He managed a half smile for his mother. "No, Ma. I think, maybe, just something to drink?"

  "Hot tea?"

  He nodded and attempted to rise to a sitting position against the headboard. The motherly attention wasn't bad. It was a kind of buffer against the danger he knew still awaited him. With his mother's tender care, he could pretend for a little while that things weren't so awful.

  "Oh, by the way." His mother stopped on her way out the door. "A man called, said it was about the car?"

  Alex nodded and wracked his aching head for a suitable lie. "It's been acting up on me. I'm thinking of selling it, then using the money I'm saving from the job for a better one."

  The worry on her face vanished. "That's a great idea. I'll be right back."

  Alex pinched the bridge of his nose. His used Camry wouldn't bring in much, but it would stave off his creditors for a month or two. After that...? Well, after that he had that last ditch option, the path of complete desperation. The one offered him by the same disguised voice on the phone who'd paid him for the prototype bottle of Love.

  It would involve a huge risk and some heavy-duty sin, but he could get out of debt and then some... Alex's stomach knotted as he considered it. Selling the car would give him a few weeks respite to ponder the matter.

  He was so deep in thought that he started when his mother returned to the room with his tea. He did not relax when he saw she had Chess in tow.

  "Look who's here," Kate brightly announced.

  Alex's half-brother was nattily dressed in one of his expensive Italian sweaters. He looked perfect, as always, and in complete control. Chess would never have got himself into the kind of idiotic mess that Alex was in.

  "Look, indeed," Alex muttered. One of his options had effectively closed last night: that of confessing his problem to Chess. Never in a million years.

  "I see you're being well-tended." Chess's eyes narrowed on Kate as she handed Alex his cup of tea. "How are you feeling?"

  Alex set the cup on his night table without taking a sip. "Well enough." He wished right then he were feeling a whole lot better, good enough to pull Chess to pieces. "It's okay, Mom," he grumbled at his mother, who was trying to fluff the pillows behind his back.

  "Can you stay a little while?" Kate asked Chess. "I want to run down to the market." Her gaze slid worriedly toward Alex.

  "I'll be fine by myself," Alex growled.

  "As it happens," Chess smoothly put in, "I can stay." His gaze sharpened on Alex. "I'd be happy to."

  A flicker of fear managed to get past Alex's rage, but it quickly passed. Now that he thought about it, maybe he actually wanted a private conversation with his half-brother. "Go ahead, Ma. Chess will take care of me."

  Kate missed the sneer that accompanied these words.

  Chess didn't. He raised a dark brow.

  "Well, all right, then. I won't be more than twenty minutes or so." Kate swept briskly from the room.

  There was silence between the two men once they were left alone together. They both heard the sound of the kitchen door closing, the one that led to the garage. Kate had left.

  Chess spoke first. "What did you think you were doing?"

  Alex's earlier flicker of fear returned. "What are you talking about?" Chess couldn't know what had really happened. It wasn't possible!

  Chess leaned against the wall of Alex's bedroom. "Last night you were careful to pretend you didn't know who attacked you, but you do know, don't you?"

  Panic flooded Alex. "You're crazy!"

  "Am I?" Chess crossed his arms over his chest and narrowed his eyes. "Did you hear N.J. Williams call Mom? Did you follow her?"

  Alex stared at Chess with his mouth open. Is that what he thought?

  "Then you followed him," Chess theorized. "And he didn't like it."

  "No—" Alex denied before he thought it through. Damn. He should have allowed Chess believe this is what had happened. Then his brother would stop pursuing the truth.

  Chess tilted his head. "No?"

  It was too late to backpedal. Alex was stuck with his original story. "I tell you, I don't know what happened."

  "Are you protecting him now?"

  "For the love of—" Alex sat up so fast it made his head spin. His stomach took an alarming lurch. "I—I'm not protecting anybody, dammit!" Alex clutched at his head and gritted his teeth against a moan.

  Chess's voice softened considerably. "Take it easy."

  Alex felt the bed sag as his half-brother took a seat.

  "Settle down. I'm trying to help." Chess's hand went over the one Alex had at his forehead.

  Alex flinched and jerked Chess's hand away. "Don't touch me, you bastard."

  Chess pulled back sharply. "What did you call me?"

  "I called you what you are. A sneaking, lying, hypocritical bastard. How
dare you blame Mom for having an affair when you— I noticed the way Cookie was dressed last night." Alex gulped a deep, angry breath. "Or, rather, the way she'd been undressed."

  Chess didn't say anything. He just stared at him.

  "You're sleeping with her," Alex accused.

  Still Chess didn't reply.

  His stony silence had Alex's rage climbing higher. "It was supposed to be business. Just business. You said that was all. You said it couldn't hurt her. That you wouldn't hurt her. You lied!"

  Chess finally woke up enough to speak. "I'm not going to hurt her."

  "You already have!" Alex had to gulp down more rage. "You've slept with her, dammit."

  Chess stood up from the bed. His eyes and his voice were blank. "She's my wife."

  "Oh, right. You're using her! Dammit, dammit." Alex had to hold his head, it was throbbing so badly. "You promised you wouldn't do that."

  Chess's voice was as cold as the North Pole. "This is really none of your business."

  A harsh sob escaped Alex. His head was killing him. "You told me it was."

  Chess didn't seem to have any answer to that. He remained silent, looking down at Alex. At last he asked, his voice oddly subdued, "Am I really so objectionable?"

  Alex simply glared at him, unwilling to admit this was a good question. Considering Cookie's other boyfriends, prime turkeys most of them, he couldn't rationally explain how Chess was worse. "What about January?" he asked, knowing he had Chess there. "What about the divorce?"

  Chess visibly paled. Uneasily, he claimed, "We'll deal with that when it comes."

  "Yeah, right." Alex turned his face away. Everything was falling apart around him. Nothing was solid and stable any more. Even his mother—the one person he thought he could count on—she was probably having an affair with a married man. And his own life—? He didn't like thinking about that mess. But somehow it was Chess who put the final straw on the camel's back. "Just get out of here." Alex felt sore, weary, and drained. "I don't need you, and you're making me feel worse."

  Chess hesitated and then walked toward the door. He paused with his hand on the knob. "Look. I understand you don't trust me. Maybe you even have good reason to feel that way." He turned to regard Alex. "But you have my word that I'm not going to hurt Cookie."

  Alex had to lower his eyes. There was something in Chess's expression that was painful to look at.

  "And another thing," Chess went on. "Maybe I'm not the one, but you'd better tell somebody what really happened last night."

  Alex was glad his eyes were still lowered. "I already told what I know."

  "You're just getting in deeper," Chess warned in a soft voice before walking out the door.

  ~~~

  Kate found Chess sitting in the living room when she came home from the market.

  He rose immediately from his perusal of her Architectural Design magazine to help her with the grocery bags.

  "Is Alex asleep?" she asked.

  Chess lifted a shoulder. "He didn't want to talk to me anymore, so I left his room."

  Kate lifted a carton of milk out of the grocery bag, her brow furrowing. "I think he has a bad headache."

  Chess opened the refrigerator and stuffed a slab of cheese inside. "I think I pissed him off."

  "Oh, dear." Kate bit her lower lip. "You shouldn't have done that. Poor Alex isn't feeling well."

  Chess straightened and reached for the milk carton still in Kate's hand. "Poor Alex is lying."

  Kate relinquished the carton from suddenly bone-weak hands. "What?"

  Chess looked into her eyes. His held that cold hardness she knew all too well. "Your precious son is lying about the attack last night. He knows who beat him up. He knows why they beat him up, too."

  "Wh—what makes you say that?" Fear bloomed in her stomach. He was making the random attack sound even more sinister than it already did.

  Chess lowered his eyelids a fraction. "I can tell when someone is lying."

  The breath stopped in Kate's lungs. He could? What about her own secrets? Could he somehow tell she'd gone to Bernard's house last night?

  Deliberately, she released her breath and relaxed her shoulder muscles. "I don't think Alex is lying. I'm sure he would prefer his assailant get caught and put away." She met Chess's eyes boldly.

  He raised an eyebrow. But he didn't challenge her. He didn't uncover her own secret. "Of course," he finally agreed. Then he finished putting the milk carton in the refrigerator.

  Kate tilted her head. "Is that all you argued about?"

  He closed the refrigerator door. "No."

  "For goodness' sake, Chess. I was only gone twenty minutes."

  A smile played around the corners of his mouth as he turned back to face her. "It doesn't take Alex and me long to find some area of contention."

  There was a strange, pregnant pause. Kate had the sense he wanted to add or you and me.

  But he didn't.

  Perhaps he should have. Maybe Bernard was right, and she should start being more honest with Chess. At the very least—

  "Thank you," Kate said.

  Chess froze. "What?"

  Kate spoke quickly. "For coming last night. For watching Alex just now. It—it helped a great deal."

  Chess's brows drew together. "Did it?"

  Somehow, Kate managed to smile in the face of his cold incredulity. "Of course. And—and I'm glad Cookie was with you last night. That you seem to be getting along again now."

  Staring at her, Chess was visibly incredulous.

  "You are, aren't you?" Kate asked.

  "Perhaps." Chess's frown deepened. "Better than we were."

  "Good," she said brightly. "I think...you are good together."

  So much for honesty. Chess looked down and quickly turned away. "Goodbye, Mother." His tone was the blank one he usually used toward her. He couldn't seem to leave the house fast enough.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  "It only took all day to get one decent batch made," Chess muttered to himself, frowning over the inexplicable problems they'd had since morning with quality control.

  As soon as he opened the door to his office on the ground floor of the plant, though, his disgusted relief turned to joy. "Cookie." He smiled. "This is a nice surprise."

  She was standing by his old desk. Hugging her every luscious curve was a soft dress in a turquoise color. She smiled back at him. It seemed a bit of a shy smile to Chess, not the smile of warm and overflowing affection for which he lived.

  Observing it, he felt his own smile falter. Was something wrong? Was she upset with him? Fear briefly gripped his gut.

  The fear struck him on a fairly regular basis now that she'd started sharing his bed. He figured it was only a matter of time before Cookie realized he wasn't as desirable as she now appeared to believe. She'd discover his fundamental flaw, his unlovability.

  But there was no reason to anticipate the moment before it came.

  Deliberately relaxing, Chess came up to kiss her. "I thought you were shooting this afternoon."

  "We finished early." She lifted her chin for his kiss. Definitely not a rejection. "Thought I'd surprise you by dropping by, but I heard from your head tech it was a difficult day."

  "Nasty," Chess admitted. He brushed his lips over her mouth again. "But it's getting better by the minute."

  Cookie chuckled. "Henry said something went wrong with the chemical proportions. He seemed oddly cheerful about it, though."

  "Henry has been cheerful about everything lately. I think he managed a deal refinancing his house or something."

  At least, Chess hoped that's what had Henry cheerful, despite losing a day's production of perfume. He hoped it wasn't because Henry was actually Korman's inside man.

  Chess had a strong suspicion that today's problems were the work of this saboteur. There was no other decent explanation for why quality control—Chess—had discovered today's batch of the perfume was subtly, but distinctly, wrong.

  Korman had goo
d reason to try something desperate. October sales for Scents Allure had been so good that if they stayed as high through November, the company would break even on the money spent on the launch. From there on out they'd be making a profit.

  After discovering the mishap today, Chess had kept a sharp eye on Henry and everybody else, but too many people had had access to the tanks for Chess to narrow down the suspects. All it would have taken was a bottle of water to mess up the proportions.

  On the other hand, mistakes happened. The messed-up batch could have been a true accident.

  "Is it fixed now?" Cookie asked.

  "It's just peachy." Chess drew her into his arms. This was not quite true, he admitted to himself. His need for Cookie, for example, continued to grow by leaps and bounds. The more time she spent as his wife, the more he felt his life intertwining with hers.

  Not that he wouldn't be ready to hand her a divorce in January if she wanted one. He knew this was a possibility and was prepared to keep his word.

  "I'm glad to hear it." Cookie snuggled comfortably in his arms. "Because there's something I wanted to show you." She sent him a coy look.

  Chess raised his brows. She was clearly not about to reject him...today. "What is it?"

  She held up one finger and then unwound from his arms to go over to the door.

  Chess watched her, his earlier fear receding even further and, in fact, growing into a nice, heated arousal when Cookie made sure the blinds were closed and then locked the door.

  So that's why she was here. Cookie had become rather adventurous in the sexual escapades they'd enacted at home over the past five weeks, but she'd never before seduced him at work.

  Chess smiled. His difficult day was definitely taking a turn in the right direction.

  "I went shopping on the way over here." After swiveling at the door, she sashayed back toward him.

  "That sounds interesting." He could hear his voice start to go hoarse. Cookie had a taste for fancy lingerie.

  She smiled, apparently knowing what it meant when his voice did that, and snuggled back into his arms. "You see, I've noticed how much you hate pantyhose."

  He drew in a ragged breath. "You bought stockings."