by Amber Cross
She laughed, and he sank into his oversized easy chair, kicking off his shoes and staring at the dark ceiling. He hadn’t even turned on the living room lights when he got home. Talking to her was more important. “Jason tells me you don’t sleep on Friday nights, anyway.”
“Eventually I do. It just takes a while to unwind.”
He wished he could be there to help her relax. Just thinking about her reaction to his nearness, when he pressed her against the wall and told her to remove his cuffs, could raise his blood pressure. He tried not to think of the kiss at all. A man could only take so much excitement and still hold onto his sanity.
“Do you play chess, Abby?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
Deliberately lowering his voice because he knew she liked it, he said, “Will you play with me?”
Her breathing was loud in his ear. Like a favorite symphony, the sound rippled through his mind and spread out through his body, making him lean back in his chair and stretch to accommodate the sensation. He flipped the footrest up and let his head fall back against the padded cushion.
“Is that a yes?”
“I’d love to be your playmate,” she whispered.
Glen groaned out loud. She was a quick study. After the first night’s call, he had been using sexual innuendos as a form of telephone foreplay because a six-hour drive lay between them and prevented the real thing. By midweek she had mastered the art.
“Let’s get started then.”
Hours later the game ended in a draw. He put away his chess board, where he had been making both his own moves and moves for her, and since she had yawned twice in the last thirty minutes, he thought they would end the call, but she surprised him.
“I wanted you to know that I remembered you.”
What was this?
“I mean, I remember you from that day at the courthouse in Guildhall.”
Oh.
Part of him was glad she brought it out into the open while another part of him didn’t know if he was ready to go there yet. They had a mutual attraction and so far, a harmless flirtation. He liked that she was a career woman whose brain matched her body. He wanted to know more about both. If they discussed his downfall before the judge, what they had could be ruined before it even had a chance to grow.
“Do you remember me?” she asked when he didn’t speak for several moments.
Should he tell her? Did he want her to know how much he’d resented her presence that day? How, in a twisted way, she had come to symbolize everything he lost?
Instead of a direct answer, he said, “The things my ex-wife told the judge…”
“Were they true?”
There was truth and then there was truth, mere shades apart depending on the situation, the audience, perceptions. He didn’t know how much truth she could handle. “Would you like me more or less if they were?”
Silence. He had to know the answer to the question before he could trust her with anything more.
“Abby? I’m too old to play games, and I don’t want to mislead you.”
“Then be honest with me, and I’ll do the same.”
Glen sat up in his chair and flipped down the footrest. This could be a big mistake. “I haven’t slept with a woman in almost two years.” And none of them had known anything about him that he didn’t want to share. She already knew more than most.
“Slept?”
“Slept with one or slept in bed with one.”
“And before that?”
“I had a few relationships. Most of them were over in three or four months.”
At first his ex-wife had tried to sabotage every relationship. She didn’t want him to be happy with anyone else because she simply didn’t want to see him happy. So he’d stopped dating for years and only started again when the kids were old enough to know it was normal.
“And now?”
“Now I’m ready for a mature woman. One who knows what she wants and wants me for myself. Not my income or what I can provide.”
He had a feeling she could be that woman.
Abby’s voice was low when she spoke next. “Did she tell the truth about your sexual preferences? About how often you like it, or how you like it?”
The direct question forced him to be honest with her. Vulnerable. “I’m afraid to tell you.”
“The world has changed a lot in fifteen years. People don’t look at things like that the same way anymore.”
So she knew how long it had been. He didn’t dare read too much into it, though. This was the same woman who knew what time it was two days, nine hours less six minutes in the past. He jumped restlessly up from his chair and paced the length of the dark living room. “I don’t care what people think. Only what you do.”
“Then I hope it’s true.”
That breathy comment ensured he was in a state of semi-arousal for the rest of the weekend and all of the following week. Their nightly phone calls were sweet torture. He didn’t know what her condo looked like, but he could imagine her sprawled across a sofa, only her tiny feet and hands visible while the rest of her body was swathed in pink fleece. Soft fabric that had intimate knowledge of golden curves he wanted the right to.
By the time he left New York City on Friday afternoon, his nerves were shot and it showed.
“Geez, Dad, don’t bite my head off. I was only asking if we could stop for supper somewhere,” Darcy complained.
“I don’t usually take her side, but we do need to eat,” Colin chipped in. “And you know she’ll get carsick if she has to go without food for too long.”
True. His daughter, almost fifteen, was having trouble regulating her blood sugar. The doctors thought her thyroid was the problem, but until they finished analyzing her blood work, she was supposed to eat every three hours to keep it level.
“Sorry, guys.” He didn’t usually neglect something that important, and his kids knew it. “Just let me get north of Hartford, and then we’ll stop.”
But even in Windsor his thoughts turned to Abby. How could they not when the kids chose to eat at a Chinese restaurant?
“You got something on your mind, Dad?” Colin asked after they placed their order.
“What? No.”
“More like someone, I think,” Darcy offered.
Glen wrapped an arm around her neck and knuckled the top of her perceptive little head. “Don’t be a brat.”
Unperturbed, she pulled out of his embrace and leaned back against the banquet seating, patting her hair back into place. Once the soft, brown curls were rearranged to her liking, she turned wide, blue eyes on him. The picture of youthful innocence. Only to spoil the image when she smirked at her brother and said, “See? Told you so.”
For the remainder of the trip they were either harassing him about his alleged preoccupation or bickering over the music choice on the radio. Their constant noise mixed with the stress of the long trip and two weeks of nervous anticipation finally got the best of him until he demanded, “Haven’t you two ever heard of a nap?”
“Nope,” Colin answered. “This is our way of keeping you awake.”
“I’ve never fallen asleep at the wheel before.”
“Well, there’s always a first time. You being so old and all.”
“He’s not old,” Darcy argued.
“Thank you.”
“But he’s getting there,” she added.
“See?” As if his sister had justified his own observations. Smug little brats.
“Really, Dad, you should start thinking about retirement. You know, maybe getting away from the city, slowing down a little bit.”
Glen knew exactly where this was going. His kids lived in Scarsdale, rural to many of his co-workers and friends but not to them. Nothing meant country to them like Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. Even when they were little, they would pester him about when they were making the next trip up to see his family. They forgot the hours it took to get there. Overlooked the fact that Darcy regularly got carsick sev
eral times during the journey.
“She has a point, Dad.”
“Uh-huh. And how would I see you if I did that?”
“We could come with you,” Darcy exclaimed, and he knew at once he had been set up for this assault. Walked right into it because he was thinking about a luscious, little body when he should have been giving his kids his full attention. “Just consider it. I could get a job with Aunt Linda at the diner. Colin could help on the farm.”
“And what would I do?”
“I don’t know. There must be a company there that needs a computer guy. Maybe a bank.”
Although she didn’t realize it, his daughter had ripped the scab off a fifteen-year-old wound, and despite the passage of time, it left him raw and bloody inside.
A month after getting his degree, he had returned home to Somerset and took a job managing the local Community National Bank branch. He loved it. Despite his fear of public speaking, he was good at talking to customers. He understood farmers and small business owners. Enjoyed working with people he had known all his life, those same people who had raised money for scholarship programs like the ones that helped send him to a second-tier college for a first-class education. He joined the Rotary Club and took a seat on the Chamber of Commerce. Played basketball once a week with Jason and the other guys from their high school team.
There was only one problem. His wife hated it. Everything. She hated his job, the town of Somerset, and the people in it. She had expected more from him when she met him during his sophomore year of college and seduced him a few months later. And it was a seduction. It hadn’t taken him long to realize that right from the beginning she set her sights on having him. She thought she was landing a future paycheck with the added benefit of it looking good on her arm. The last thing she expected was for him to move back to his childhood home, where cows outnumbered people and nothing was open past eight o’clock at night.
Just as effectively as she had seduced him into an “accidental” pregnancy and marriage before he was even done with his degree, she set out to sabotage his new life. As far as she was concerned, he had owed her more than that. Felt she deserved more.
“Earth to Dad?” Colin sing-songed from the front passenger seat.
Glen shook himself back to the present. “What?”
“You missed the Lyndonville exit. Are we getting off in Lyndon or going all the way to Newport?”
“I guess we’re getting off in Lyndon.”
“Want me to drive for you?”
“No, I’m good.” Then he softened the rejection. “I’ll let you get some driving in this weekend.”
“Told you he has a woman on his mind.”
Chapter Five
Abby would be lying if she said she hadn’t been waiting to hear the elevator swish. She even left her door open most of the night so she wouldn’t miss it, but when the grandfather clock in the corner of the living room chimed two in the morning, she accepted that something must have happened to change his plans. She closed and locked the door.
It was too late for a bath, so she tossed her thick hair into a loose topknot and made do with a short steam facial. Applied a generous layer of night cream to her face, neck, and shoulders. Then, because that felt so good, she slipped out of her fleece robe and took a scented body lotion from the cabinet that Romney had given her after one of his European trips. Starting with her toes, she rubbed it into every inch of exposed skin. Moved on to her ankles. By the time she finished with her calves and reached the tender spot at the back of her knees, she was relaxed to the point of bonelessness.
Naturally thoughts of Glen Plankey slipped into the humid atmosphere. When she smoothed lotion into her thighs, she wished it was his hands kneading the muscles. Her fingers skimmed dangerously close to a place that no man had ever satisfied. He could.
Fifteen years ago she hadn’t known fulfillment would be so hard to achieve. Until she had some experiences of her own and knew the disappointment that came with each and every one. Eventually she’d found release in the same way women had been finding it for centuries. By imagining someone else was in bed with her. A man whose name she couldn’t remember but whose face was imprinted on her brain; dark hair, blue eyes, and an innate dignity radiating from him even while his life was being torn to shreds on the courtroom floor.
Now that image had matured. Taken on a name. Instead of a stranger dominating her late-night fantasies, it was a real man. One with a quick smile, a demanding job, teenage children, and a penchant for dirty telephone talk.
Just as she slid lotion-filled hands over the tips of her breasts, the phone rang.
She squawked. Feeling as if she had been caught in the act of touching herself, she snatched up a thin dressing gown and wrapped it around her body before plucking her cell phone from the counter. It was two thirty in the morning. It was Glen.
“Hello.” Her greeting was breathless, excited, the way she felt.
“Hi, yourself. Did I catch you in the tub again?”
“No.”
“But you’re okay? You sound a little…rushed.”
“I’m fine. Now.”
“Show me.”
Abby was confused. He said photographing herself wasn’t a good idea. “How do I do that?”
“Come to your terrace door and I’ll come to mine.”
He was here! She almost spun around in circles, so thrilled to hear his voice and know he was in the same building again. Instead she clutched the phone to her chest and rushed into her bedroom. Was her racing heart loud enough for him to hear over their connection? Did she care?
She couldn’t even pretend she wasn’t desperate to see him again. Hear his voice. More.
Hurrying to pull the heavy drapes aside from the glass door, she hooked them so only the sheer curtain stood between her and the glass panel. A single lamp glowed from a table in the corner of the room. Across the snow-covered grillwork, his outside light was on, but she couldn’t see into the interior of his unit.
“Are you there?”
He flicked the light twice. “Kids just crashed. I’m trying not to wake them.” His voice was a whisper in her ear.
“Can you see me?”
“An outline. Do you have more light?”
Her thin robe gaped open at the neckline when she bent to turn on the second bedside lamp. The material was soft against her lotion-scented body. It wasn’t his hands, but it felt good, and it gave her an idea. She returned to stand at the door but kept the sheer in place. “Is this better?”
“You haven’t convinced me yet.”
Feeling completely decadent, she slipped the knot on the robe’s tie and let it fall from her shoulders and pool at her feet. She knew the lamps would reveal her outline to him. Although she wasn’t vain, she also knew that they would flatter her short hourglass figure.
“How is this?”
“Better.” His voice was rough.
She came closer to the glass pane. Put her phone on speaker and lay it on a small shelf beside the door so she could take the filmy sheer in both hands and stroke it between her fingers. Gathered it until it was a few inches wide and lay it over one shoulder, then turned so that it wrapped around her body, covering her breasts, curling around the base of her spine and across one hip to fall in a pleated skirt at her feet.
“You look like a pinup goddess from another century.”
She laughed, flattered, glad the image he saw was the same one she was going for.
“Is your hair in a bun?”
“Sort of.”
“I can see ringlets all around the bottom.”
She fingered a few curls with one hand while holding onto the sheer with the other. “I was in the bathroom. It was steamy.”
“I want to lick the steam from your body.”
Abby’s tummy dipped. His voice was a throaty growl, and it vibrated through her. “That sounds…delicious.”
“Every inch of it.”
Emboldened by his reaction, she bent h
er knee at an angle and ran her toes up and down the opposite calf. His groan was loud in the room.
“If I was a dog I would be drooling right now.”
Laughing, she stroked her hand down the length of the sheer curtain. Smoothed it between her inner thighs.
“Since I’m only a man, I’m willing to get on my knees and beg you for mercy.”
Need stole the breath from her lungs. This little game was supposed to be for him, to tantalize him into wanting more, but heat rose through her bloodstream. She pressed her body to the cool door panel but found no relief. She rolled her cheek against the frosted glass. “I’ve never had a man on his knees before.”
The admission was a loud whisper filling the muted shadows of the room.
He didn’t even pretend to misunderstand. Or miss the invitation. “Then I’ll be the first.”
“When?” Her voice caught, but she didn’t care. “When can I see you?”
“What are you doing in the morning?”
“Swimming at Somerset Academy. Eight o’clock.”
“I’ll be there.”
Abby dropped the sheer and stepped back from the glass door. Cool air was replaced by a sense of desolation. Her hand was trembling when she took the phone from the shelf and turned off the speaker, bringing it to her ear. Unexpected tears gathered in her eyes, and she couldn’t think of anything to say. She didn’t want to let him go.
“Abby?”
His voice was soft, as if he understood the physical loss she was experiencing.
“Yes?”
Her limbs were shaking with need. When he spoke again, just three words, they filled the empty place inside her.
“I remember you.”
****
Somerset Academy was a large brick building with wings added to either side sometime after it was built a century before. Back then it was simply called The Academy, but since the three gores officially merged to form a township just before Glen was born, it had been renamed. The old name could still be found on the granite doorframe and etched into the marble steps in the main entrance.
He cut through the elementary school parking lot at the opposite end of the fifty-acre parcel shared by both schools and drove behind the academy building to the gym’s back entrance. When he went there, it was a greenhouse. A few years ago, while renovating the adjacent science wing, the townspeople decided to replace it with an indoor swimming pool.