by Zoe Chant
"I'm tired," the little girl said plaintively, and the moment was shattered.
Lee's attention was all for Clara again, and Patricia fled to the kitchen while they bundled up in their coats and left.
Chapter Five
JUST AS LEE TURNED off the power sander, the sound of the doorbell jarred him out of his working reverie. "Coming!" he hollered, navigating the maze of sawhorses and power tools to get to the big receiving room.
The house was a chaos of moving boxes and construction sites. Fully half of the house was still being refinished, with painter's tape on all the trim and plastic taped over the old fireplaces. Only Clara's bedroom and his own had been fully finished, as well as the bathrooms for both of them, and the kitchen downstairs, which had been gutted and combined with servant's quarters to become one big open, airy space with a breakfast nook. The outside looked worse, with the siding power-washed but not repainted before the winter had settled in. Two of the windows in the unfinished wing were boarded up. The roof was due for a full replacement, but had been temporarily patched and tarped in places, giving the house a look of utter disrepute.
Lee's frustration at being interrupted in his work turned to fear when he flung open the door and saw Patricia standing on the porch, the limp form of Clara over one shoulder, draped in a puffy orange and blue down coat dusted with snow. Behind her, big, fat flakes of snow were blanketing the yard and obscuring the view of the valley.
"Clara," Lee said, fighting past the paralyzing fear. "Clara?"
"She's fine," Patricia said swiftly, and Clara stirred and mumbled, putting her arms more firmly around her teacher's neck. "She just fell asleep on the way over."
"It's not time to pick her up yet," Lee said lamely, checking his watch to confirm. His heart rate eased only slightly at the relief of his daughter's safety; being this close to Patricia made him feel all undone and filled with need. His bear growled inappropriate suggestions at him.
"It's snowing like the apocalypse," Patricia explained, carrying Clara in gently. When Lee went to take her, trying not to be distracted by the delicious warm scent of snow melting in Patricia's hair, Clara buried her head further into Patricia's shoulder and protested wordlessly. "We canceled the last half of school today. I tried to call, but it went straight to voicemail. The roads were getting so bad, I wanted to get her home while we could still make it."
Lee remembered the blinking red battery symbol on the phone when he'd hung up with his sister Bella. He hadn't put it back on the charger. "We haven't gotten a landline yet," he said apologetically.
"You, ah, seem to have a bit of a work in progress here," Patricia said diplomatically.
"Clara's room is finished," he said defensively.
When another attempt to remove Clara from Patricia's shoulder met sleepy protest, he said, "Bring her this way," just as Patricia said, "Maybe I should put her into bed..."
The grand front steps had not been refinished yet, but the upper hall had been, and Lee was gratified when Patricia stepped into Clara's room and said with a little gasp, "Oh!"
Lee had spared no expense on the room, and had let Clara take a role in the decoration. She had picked a mermaid theme, one that Lee wholeheartedly approved of. The walls were teal blue and white, with decals of tropical fish, coral, and sunken treasure. The bed had a shell-shaped headboard, and a shimmery bedspread of blue. A windowseat as broad as her bed was cluttered with seashell pillows and an enormous knitted red squid. Short bookshelves lined one wall, filled with books and coloring books and bins of crayons and blocks. There was a dollhouse in one corner, and a riding-size excavator and dumptruck, but the current feature of the room was a battered moving box with a door and several windows cut out. Childish artwork adorned every wall and part of the roof, and a small table (another moving box) was inside and spread out for tea with a lace tablecloth. Across the room, white doors were open to show a walk-in closet and a glimpse at a private bath.
Patricia took her armful to the bed as Lee drew the curtains shut, and she peeled off Clara's boots and laid her down. Lee, watching her helplessly, could only marvel at how perfect and wonderful it was to watch her draw the blankets up over his daughter, smoothing the comforter up around her shoulders as Clara gave a contented sigh and snuggled in. He flipped the light switch, and Patricia padded her way out by the light from a muted blue nightlight.
The click of Clara's door closing seemed to be a changing point, and if Lee had been painfully aware of her nearness in any other way, he was suddenly keenly aware of her as only a woman now–his woman. His soulmate. They were alone, in his house, and she was standing close enough that he could smell the delicate scent of her shampoo. His erection was making his utilitarian jeans uncomfortable, and he had to wrestle back the bear who was singing in his head that she was his, and to take her now.
If I make a move now, she'll run, he thought. She needs a... subtle touch. "I could... ah... show you the rest of the house," he offered.
Patricia looked up at him and bit her lip, her eyes shy but steady. "You could show me your bedroom," she said in a rush.
It was all the invitation Lee needed; his heart filled with triumph. He enfolded her into his arms and kissed her.
Chapter Six
IF PATRICIA COULD BRING herself to be jealous of a four-year-old girl, she might have been jealous of Clara. Her bedroom was like walking into a fairy tale fantasy, and filled with things that even grown-up Patricia would have enjoyed playing with. Four-year-old Patricia would have had raptures.
Twenty-six-year-old Patricia was having raptures at the closeness of Lee, instead. He was wearing only a tight t-shirt that hid nothing of his amazing physique, and he smelled like sawdust and sweat and manliness that was deeply distracting. Patricia tucked Clara in and retreated from the bedroom, Andrea's admonition ringing in her mind.
This was an opportunity. This was the opportunity. There would never be another opportunity so opportune.
Was she reading his signals wrong? Was he really attracted to her? She thought she caught his gaze lingering, wondered if he didn't smile at her just a touch more than the conversations they had deserved, but maybe she was misreading the situations.
The door to Clara's room shut with a tiny click, and they paused together. "I could... ah... show you the rest of the house?"
The way he offered, so tentatively and hopefully, gave Patricia the rest of the courage she needed. She made herself hold his gaze and brazenly offered, "You could show me the bedroom."
She had a split second to wonder at her own forwardness, then he was kissing her, pressing against the length of her, his embrace like a bear's as his mouth found her own.
Her doubts vanished with his kiss–kissed her with his whole body and being, and Patricia felt like she was being swept away in a river of passion. His erection was hard against her through the fabric of his jeans. She clutched at his shoulders helplessly, tipping her head to take as much of his kiss as she could. They collided with the wall of the hallway, and broke apart, shushing each other and giggling.
"The bedroom," Lee said breathlessly. "This way..."
They kissed and grabbed the entire length of the unadorned hall, plucking at each other's clothing as they went and running into the walls twice more before Lee opened the door to his own bedroom and they fell inside.
His hands were big and callused, but gentle and nimble, and Patricia's shirt was off before they'd made it halfway to the bed. She had his belt unfastened and was working on his jeans by the time they'd made it to the wide bed, and they paused a moment together, gasping for breath. Lee's gaze could only be classified as 'appreciative,' and Patricia didn't even try not to stare back. If anything, the tight t-shirt had only been a tease, and the physique beneath was even more delicious. His shoulders were thick with muscles, and his core rippled with abs. And as amazing and gorgeous as his body was, it was his face that continued to draw her back. He was beautiful, and his eyes were adoring in a way that made Patricia weak
and wet.
"I'm not usually like this," she said, swallowing. She'd made her last boyfriend wait three weeks of dating before she'd taken off her shirt. What was it about this man that made her so crazy?
"I'm not, either," Lee said, and just the sound of his husky voice made her knees tremble.
Then he leaned in and kissed her, and it was a different kiss than the first–less passionate, but more controlled, deeper, and more meaningful. Patricia lost herself entirely in it, putting her arms around his neck and letting him lay her back down onto the silky bedspread.
He released his kiss, only to move it to her neck, which left her writhing in helpless excitement, and resumed undressing her. He unclipped her bra first, slipping it off her with reverence, and then slid a finger into the waistband of her jeans as he kissed the breasts he revealed, toying with her a moment before unbuttoning and slowly– so slowly!–unzipping her jeans. Patricia whimpered and clutched at his thick hair and broad shoulders. She wanted to beg him to hurry, but was enjoying the build-up too entirely to truly protest.
He shimmied her out of her jeans with no effort, stroking her thighs and kissing her tummy as he did so. Patricia couldn't help but squirm and screw her eyes shut to try to stem the overwhelming cascade of sensation. She must be wet right through her simple cotton panties–there was no way he couldn't notice how excited she was.
Then he paused, and her eyes flew open as he shifted on the bed. He was suddenly not moving slowly at all, but tearing off his own jeans, and releasing the huge erection she had felt earlier. She was glad that her eyes were open for the reveal– he was magnificent!–but also rather alarmed. It didn't look geometrically possible for it to fit within her. Then he was tearing her panties off and growling like an animal, the weight of him deflecting the bed around her as he straddled her, and she wanted nothing more than to take the entire thing right then.
"Please," she murmured, and he was burying himself into her with one long, slow thrust, filling her with his length and heat.
PATRICIA ARCHED UP into his advance, gasping and clawing and begging in a way that lit Lee on fire. His need for her was deep and wild, but he concentrated on her pleasure first, and was rewarded by her blistering orgasm and moan of delight within a few careful thrusts. Her cry was passionate and she tensed beautifully before relaxing in the wake of her release. He kissed her neck and shoulders, pinning her under him on the bed, but had to slow himself to an agonizingly slow speed, or risk cutting off their fun too soon with his mounting need.
She kissed him back, then rolled until she was straddling him, her luscious breasts swinging in rhythm as she took him deep inside her.
She was glorious, riding above him, matching his leisurely speed until he had wound himself into a frenzy. "If you don't stop, I'm going to–"
She only sped up, the vixen, and clutched at his shoulders as she achieved another moaning, arching orgasm, and her pleasure was the inescapable catalyst of his own sexual climax. He flung his arms out and clutched at the blankets on either side as she rode him wildly and they both came with abandon.
Patricia collapsed atop him, and Lee continued to thrust slowly in the afterglow of his pleasure until the last ripple of the orgasm was finally played out.
"Oomph," she said finally, voice husky near her ear. "I'm too heavy to lay on you like this."
In response, Lee wrapped his arms around her and held her close. He loved the feel of her curves against him, the silky touch of her skin along the whole length of his body, and wasn't willing to let her go quite yet. She didn't struggle, only gave a blissed-out sigh and snuggled closer.
"I'm not usually like this," she said, as she had earlier, and Lee chuckled.
"I'm not, either," he agreed.
But then, it wasn't every day that he made love to his soulmate, either. He rolled over so that they were side-by-side on the bedspread, and he could look directly into her face.
"This... is terribly unprofessional of me," she confessed.
"Are you sorry?" he had to ask.
Her face took on an impish expression. "Not in the slightest."
He had to cup her face in his hand and kiss her again, to see if he could taste the laughter on her lips. She kissed back with all of her earlier passion, and Lee knew that he could be ready for her again in short order. She was the most perfect armful that he had ever held, and there was a feeling of loss when she slipped away from him and went rummaging for her clothing.
"The bathroom is through that door," he indicated, and he sat up in the bed just to appreciate her graceful pad across the plush carpet.
Then he flopped back across the bed. He had to tell her. He had to explain that she was the one for him–the only one. She was his everything, for all that they'd only known each other a few short months, and he wasn't willing to let her get away.
He'd have to tell her about being a bear.
That was where he tripped up. It was an impossible conversation to have.
"I'm a bear shifter," he imagined himself saying. "I can turn into a grizzly bear." She would laugh and not believe him. Would he have to shift, and prove it? Would she react with terror and flee him? Faint on the spot? He just couldn't imagine Patricia fainting. Shooting him, maybe–she looked like the kind of farmgirl who had handled a gun before.
He'd never told anyone before–not even Clara's mother. Guilt and confusion chilled him, and he found himself rising and going to one of the unpacked moving boxes. A pile of framed photographs were stacked near the top–photos of Angela, and Clara as a baby. He hadn't been able to bring himself to hang them yet, using the state of the rest of the house as some kind of excuse for not hanging things here in the bedroom yet. He tried to tell himself he liked the austere bareness of the off-white walls with the pearly-gray carpet.
Mostly, he couldn't bear to have Angela looking at him from those walls.
This was a new house, a new start. He wanted this to be his house with Patricia, though he hadn't known that until he met her. But wasn't it unfair to Angela's memory to cut her out? Wasn't it cruel to Clara to have her mother excluded from their family walls? It felt like a terrible disservice to his brief years of marriage, and even now, years later, he had difficulty separating his grief and his guilt from his memories of joy.
Chapter Seven
PATRICIA GAVE A LITTLE gasp as she went through the empty walk-in closet to the master bath. From the little hallway, it opened up into an oasis of marble and chrome. The shower door was pristine, clear glass, and there were two showerheads, one from each side. Beside it was a jetted bathtub in the corner, big enough for several people at once. A counter with two sinks ran the length of the room just opposite, and the toilet was tucked around a discrete corner. Big windows opened out over a winter wonderland of trees and snow-covered lawn.
She turned on the water and watched the windows fog with steam. It was enchanted, magical, like making love to Lee had been.
And just as impermanent.
She would shower and get dressed, then go home and then they would pretend this had never happened. It was the best possible outcome.
She showered swiftly, though she wanted to savor the delicious heat and roomy shower. Lee apparently had only a single kind of shampoo/body wash, and Patricia had no regrets lathering herself in the manly scent.
She dressed as efficiently as she had washed, but left her socks off rather than try to pull them on over her wet feet. She was drying her hair with one of the big plush towels (there was no sign of a hair-dryer and Patricia was loathe to snoop through his drawers) as she walked back to the bedroom and she had to pause in the doorway with her breath caught in her throat.
Lee was sitting at the edge of the bed looking away, his big shoulders bowed. There was a framed photograph in his hands. Patricia couldn't see the subject of the photograph, but she could guess: Clara's mother. Had she been the first since...?
The scene felt painfully intimate, and Patricia wrestled with her desire to go immediate
ly comfort Lee, and the sad understanding that she could not, and that she was simply not part of Lee's intimate sphere. She wanted to be, she realized keenly. It wasn't just that she was irresistibly attracted to this man; she would have admired him with half the looks just for his handling of Clara, and every time they spoke, she found something new to like in him. She wanted him on levels that she'd never experienced before, and always thought she never would. Her friends would talk about true love and settling down, but she had never wanted to, until Lee. Now, unexpectedly, she wanted nothing more.
She chewed on her lower lip, then crept backwards several steps. If she couldn't be his everything, she could be the best for him that she could at least, and that meant letting him keep his dignity. She started humming, and was whistling by the time she came back into the doorway so that he had a chance to toss the photograph back into the box and sit up straight.
"What a shower," she gushed, as if she hadn't witnessed a thing. "That whole bathroom is a work of art. You must have spent a fortune on that room alone!"
He looked uncomfortable–Patricia couldn't decide if it was because he knew he'd been caught in his moment of vulnerability, or because she was talking about money again like an idiot.
She clamped her mouth around her desire to babble moronically and tried to simply appreciate the view. That wasn't too hard–he was lounging in unselfconscious nudity, and his muscles were ripples of masculinity under a layer of perfect, barely-tanned skin. She was sorely tempted to tear off her clothing and go diving back into that bed again.
"I should... ah..." Not undress and throw myself at him again... "Be leaving. Before the snow gets too deep to get home."
Lee was standing up now, and he was as impressive upright as he was reclining across the sheets. "I fear you are too late for that," he said apologetically, with a gesture towards the window.