Crossing the Lines (17 page)

“You’re saying it doesn’t have to mean anything more than we want it to mean.”

“Yes.” Henry lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles. “It means precisely as much as you wish it to mean, sweet girl.”

She could live with that. Some days, it would be just fucking. And sometimes she’d practice this love thing. She’d never have a long-term, stable relationship without it. Never be an adult until she conquered this.

The lesson was Henry’s gift to her. Showing her the way to handle love like a grown-up. So when she found the perfect guy, she’d know what to do. What love felt like. What it should look like.

“Thank you, Henry.” She worried he’d interrogate her the way he had before she’d signed the contract. The way he sometimes did on their nights together.

She wasn’t ready for that, not now. Raw and exposed, she struggled to wrap her head around the idea that real romantic love existed. Even if most people in relationships faked it or fooled themselves, Henry and Jay truly loved
each other.

Henry led her across the bedroom without questioning her. He carried the second lantern in one hand, with hers clasped in the other. His quiet laugh startled her. She’d missed the joke, and his face gave no answer.

“The shower,” he murmured.

The shower had come on after the toilet flushed. Her ears worked fine. But what—a yelp from the bathroom, and she covered her mouth to stifle her chuckle.

“He forgot about the boiler.” Despite the extra buckets of water sitting on the tile, despite the lantern Jay had taken to the bathroom, he’d turned on the shower and been greeted with frigid water.

“Distracted,” Henry said as they exited the bedroom. “Or he didn’t consider how cold the water would be.”

“Think we should go rescue him?” A cold shower lacked appeal, but some places cried out for a good washing.

Henry squeezed her hand. “He does need a fair amount of looking after.”

“Jay’s worth it, though.” She squeezed back. “And he always appreciates everything you do for him.”

Henry pushed open the bathroom door and ushered her inside, setting the lantern beside Jay’s on the counter. A large, lidded stockpot sat on the other side of the sink, a bath towel wrapped around the base. She touched the metal. Warm. Not hot, but warm, at least. Magic trick?

“Easy enough to warm water alongside chocolate, Alice, particularly when one wishes for a double boiler.”

Of course he’d warmed water for cleaning up. Kept the water near boiling and left it in the bathroom before bringing the strawberries to the bedroom. She pressed her lips together to avoid laughing. Henry nearly set her off anyway, calling to Jay over the sound of the shower.

“How’s the water, my boy?”

“Cold. So cold. I’m never having sex again.”

“Never?”

“Never until the hot water is back.”

“If you’d waited for us a moment, my boy, you’d
have
warmer water.”

The shower turned off. “What?”

“I heated water on the camp stove, Jay.” Henry lifted the lid from the stockpot and pushed three washcloths into the water.

“This is a lesson in patience, isn’t it.” The shower curtain opened on a naked, dripping Jay with a slight pout. The woodsy scent of his bodywash hit her nose. The boy made for one sexy drowned rat.

“The cold water hasn’t hurt you. And you’ll warm up in bed soon enough.” Henry reached into the pot and pulled out a washcloth, wringing it out and tossing it to Jay. “Finish with this, my boy. I believe you’ll find it much nicer.”

Jay’s exaggerated moan mimicked orgasm. “Oh, glorious warm washcloth! The greatest of all the gifts Henry provides.”

She laughed as Henry laid a towel across the side of the tub and urged her to sit. It wasn’t until he touched her with the warm washcloth that her laugh turned into a moan.

“Ha, see? You agree with me.” Jay stepped around her and out of the tub. “The warm washcloth is fantastic.”

“I don’t
disagree
with you, Jay.”

Henry kneeling naked in front of her and gently washing between her legs made keeping up her end of the conversation impossible. His hand rested atop her thigh, fingers idly rubbing. When he finished, he folded the washcloth and used the clean side to wipe Jay’s ejaculate from her chest. The touch was hardly less distracting.

“Henry has great hands.”

Jay laughed, and she blushed at her unintended oversharing.

“He has great everything
,
” Jay corrected.

“He does,” she agreed, her eyes on Henry as he ran the washcloth over the top of her breasts.

He lifted his head, smiled at her, and kissed her cheek. “All done, my girl. If you’re cold, take one of the lanterns and go burrow under the covers. Jay and I will be a moment longer.”

So clean he squeaked, Jay didn’t need to stay, either. But he’d given her and Henry a moment to themselves when Henry told him to. Henry’s command to her was less direct but still recognizable.

She placed a hand on Henry’s shoulder to get to her feet.

“Take your time. I might be asleep when you get to bed,” she teased. “I’ve had a big day.”

“Is ‘day’ a new word for Henry’s cock? Because I’ve had a big day, too.” Jay smirked from his spot beside the sink, one towel wrapped around his hips and another rubbing his chest.

She stepped forward, stood on her toes, and delivered a firm, affectionate kiss. “Sure, why not?” She waggled her eyebrows. “Remember that at our Tuesday lunches when I ask you how your day is.”

Henry’s bark of laughter echoed off the tile as she sauntered out the door.

She recapped the lube and put it and the unused tissues back in the nightstand drawer. Straightened the sheets that had gotten kicked to the bottom of the bed and reclaimed the extra blankets that had tumbled to the floor.

Crawling under the covers, she settled on the far side of the bed. Leaving space for Henry in the middle seemed right tonight, and she didn’t question the impulse.
Go with it. Jay would.

Her eyes were closed, her thoughts drifting when they slid in beside her. Henry’s voice came softly to her ears. “Not too cold, my girl? You don’t want to be in the center?”

She half slapped her face against the pillow twice and curled her body into Henry’s.

“Sharing you with Jay,” she mumbled. “Like he does for me.”

She yawned and scooted closer. Henry lay on his back, and his shoulder made an excellent pillow. His arm curved behind her, his hand sliding down her spine.

“All right, Alice.” His lips brushed her forehead. “You’re better at sharing than you realize, dearest.”

She dropped off to sleep with the indistinct, low-toned lullaby of Henry and Jay’s conversation in her ears.

6

Henry.

His scent surrounded her. Not the citrus and leather she associated with him—just him
.
Warm, thick, sleeping maleness. She’d stayed pressed against him all night, and he still slept. Jay, too, his breathing steady and even on Henry’s far side.

She inhaled, an attempt at classification and memorization. Who knew when she might need to identify Henry while blindfolded in a room of strangers. She could get used to this.

Whoa.

Back up. Temporary. Imitation. This was a testing phase to see if the design worked. To root out the flaws. When she came off Henry’s production line, she’d be ready for anything. But finishing might take a while.

Jay’d been with Henry for more than four years, and he sure sounded like he’d started as a project, too. When had Jay stopped being a project? When had they fallen in love? If Henry had met her
first, would—

Do not do that. You don’t want to do that.

Jay wouldn’t be jealous of her if their situations were reversed. He wouldn’t resent her for having Henry’s love.

But if this feeling she had for Henry was like love, an imitation of Jay’s love for him, and if Henry used his love for Jay to make his nights with her fantastic, maybe that explained why her previous relationships hadn’t worked out. She’d found it so easy to kick men out of her bed. They’d never satisfied her.

If love was the difference, what if she couldn’t find it again? What if she only touched the echoes from Henry and Jay and never felt it herself?

She squirmed out of Henry’s embrace in a rush, rolling face-to-face with the pale blue of the alarm clock. Electricity. That was something, at least.

She slipped on her robe and grabbed her cellphone off the nightstand, carrying it with her to the bathroom. A companywide voice mail urged employees to stay home Friday. The company campus hadn’t been plowed and wouldn’t open until Monday morning.

Another day to spend with her boys, unless she wanted to say she’d tired of their company—a lie—or they wanted to kick her out. Doubtful, since Henry had said he’d finish reading to them today. Was it wrong to be as excited for story time as a kindergartner?

Fuck it. She felt how she felt.

If Henry wanted to help her recognize or understand or just
feel
her feelings, she’d give it her best shot. So once she’d used the toilet, washed up, and brushed her teeth, she headed straight back to the bedroom to crawl under the covers until the boys woke up.

A golden light flashed through the window. Faint beeping penetrated the glass. Pulling back the curtain, she scanned the street. Plow truck. Finally. Heaping snow even higher on the parked cars and sidewalks, but clearing the road. The boiler might get replaced today. Heat. Luxurious heat.

She shed her robe and got into bed, shivering. The air had been colder beside the window. Heat loss. Poor thermal insulation in older buildings. She should mention it to Henry, have him get Mr. Nagel to caulk the windows or add weather stripping.

“Alice.” Henry’s quiet voice surprised her. “Come closer, dear girl. I feel you shivering from here.”

“I’ll make you cold,” she objected.

“I’ll make you warm,” he countered. He stretched out his arm and stroked her neck. “Wouldn’t you like to be warm?”

Hell yes. She rolled into his embrace, snuggling against his side as she had all night.

He held her tight, his hand on her back pulling her half atop him. His lips brushed her forehead.

“What discoveries have you made this morning, my dear?”

Keeping her voice low to avoid waking Jay, she told him of the electricity and the plow, though he likely saw the light from both himself, and of her day off from work. The back of Jay’s head lay undisturbed on the pillow beside Henry’s cheek. He must’ve sprawled on his stomach during the night.

“Delightful,” Henry responded to her recounting. “If that’s the case…”

He laid out his plans for the day, and she agreed when asked for input. She liked lying beside him, listening to his voice and the soft snuffle of Jay’s sleeping breath, his face half-buried in the pillow. Participating in things like they were a family, like her opinion of what they did today mattered. With her parents in South Dakota and her sister at school in California, she didn’t have that feeling often. Not in the decade since she’d left home for college.

* * * *

The day went precisely as Henry had suggested.

Oatmeal with strawberries for breakfast. A call to Mr. Nagel afterward. Yes, he expected the boiler replacement to be completed today. Story time, with Alice and Jay snuggling beside Henry as he finished reading
Winnie-the-Pooh
. Venturing out, bundled in winter gear, to find a warm place to eat lunch, browse at the few open stores and replace groceries spoiled during the power outage.

The only hiccup came when Henry suggested they pick up a few things for her refrigerator. She sheepishly informed him of her fridge’s emptiness. She might toss out a half-finished quart of milk, a couple of eggs from a half-dozen carton and a container of tuna salad.

His frown matched the one he’d given her last month when she’d confessed to spending Christmas alone, and his nod was short. “I suppose it isn’t as enjoyable to cook for one, and in such cramped conditions as a studio apartment. I haven’t the authority to force you to eat homemade meals when freezer items and takeout are more convenient.”