Flat-Out Sexy (21 page)

“Okay, we’ll be in my office.” Tamara led Imogen down the hall. “I’m really sorry about Ty … he wasn’t trying to be rude. He just honestly didn’t understand what your name was.”

“I know.” Imogen shrugged. “I’m used to it. When I was a kid, I wished desperately that if my parents had wanted a Shakespearean name, they could have chosen Paris or Portia or even Juliet, but I’ve grown into it. I hear it’s a very popular baby name in Britain now, which strikes me as amusing. I’m never quite in the right place at the right time. And it definitely could have been worse. They could have named me after a piece of fruit.”

Tamara laughed. “That’s true. Hey, for what it’s worth, I love your name. Try having everyone call you Tammy. It’s so ordinary. And virtually no one outside of my professional environment calls me by my full name.”

“I noticed Ryder and Ty call you Tammy. It surprised me.”

“I ask them to call me Tamara, but they never do.” Tamara stepped into her office, which was her kid-free haven. It had an abundance of turquoise, pink, and splashes of black on a completely white backdrop. “Have a seat.”

“Ty is, um, quite attractive,” Imogen said, settling into a faux Louis IV chair that Tamara had painted turquoise and reupholstered in a zebra print, and resting her bag in her lap.

“Yeah, he is,” Tamara said, somewhat surprised. Ty didn’t seem like the type Imogen would find good-looking, especially after he’d butchered her name twelve times.

“Very … masculine.”

Uh-oh. Tamara knew that tone and that look and she figured she might as well nip this one in the bud. Ty and Imogen would be about as good together as bacteria and penicillin. And she wasn’t sure who would destroy who, but it wouldn’t be pretty.

“He’s definitely a true driver—great reflexes, competitive … and interested in young bimbos. You should see the latest he’s been dating. If that one could string three words together, I’d be stunned.”

“Oh, really?” Imogen looked disappointed. “Why do men do that?”

“I don’t know. Because it’s easy? No danger of hurt feelings? I have no idea.”

The wheels in Imogen’s very intelligent head seemed to be turning, so Tamara changed the subject back to work. “So about the summer … I’m scheduled to teach three courses.”

Ten minutes later, she had shown Imogen out the front door, satisfied that they could continue their mutually beneficial working relationship over the summer. No one was in the family room, so trying not to worry, Tamara went into the kitchen.

Petey was sitting at the table eating spaghetti. Elec was putting an aluminum dish into the oven, his behind looking mighty nice in his jeans when he bent over.

“Wow, you’re eating,” she said to Petey, feeling a little flustered at the domestic scene laid out in front of her. Her husband had never put anything in the oven, ever, and the fact that Elec did so easily was a little unnerving. “Where’s your sister?”

“I’m hungry,” Petey said, like that was an obvious reason for eating, which she supposed it was. He slurped up a noodle. “This is good.”

“Hunter’s in bed,” Elec said. “She was worn out and wanted to lie down, so I figured this time of night, might as well put her in her bed so you don’t have to move her later.”

“She let you put her to bed?” Tamara was amazed. Hunter wasn’t an easy kid to settle down at night.

“Yep. She was just about asleep by the time I left the room.”

“Oh. Wow. Thanks.” Tamara rubbed her temples. “I’ll just run up and check on her.”

“Dinner should be ready by the time you get back,” Elec said with a smile.

Tamara walked out of the room, fighting the urge to run. She didn’t understand the chaos of feelings she was experiencing. Anxiety, anger, longing, pleasure … they were all swirling around inside her and she didn’t know how to deal with any of them.

When she got to Hunter’s bedroom, her daughter was indeed already asleep under her checkered flag comforter. Inhaling the lingering scent of rubber, Tamara stared in the dark at her baby, her mouth open on a silent snore, and wondered what the hell she was doing.

This wasn’t supposed to be like this. She was supposed to keep her relationship with Elec, which was supposed to revolve solely around sex, separate from her children. In one night, he had shattered that compartmentalization and questioned her very ability to have that kind of secretive affair anyway. She was too apt to get attached to think that she could have a sex-only fling and not be affected. Already she was feeling jealous of women like Crystal.

In the hallway she heard Petey coming up the stairs loudly, telling Elec some kind of fact about cockroaches being able to survive a nuclear war. Tamara leaned on the door frame of Hunter’s room, glancing over her shoulder as they walked past her to Petey’s room. Elec reached out and brushed his hand across her waist and the small of her back and she clenched her fists in her armpits, fighting back tears that had suddenly popped into her eyes.

This was too much. This was too much a reminder of what she’d lost. Hell, it was a reminder of what she’d never
had
. Pete had been a great guy who had loved his family, but by no means had he been hands-on. She could count on her hand the number of times he had tucked his children into bed. Which was why it always struck her as interesting that doing so was one of Petey’s primary memories of his father.

“Meet you in the kitchen, okay?” Elec whispered to her.

“Okay. Good night, Petey,” she called to her son.

“Night. Love you.” He waved from the door of his room, popping his head in and out and grinning. Clearly he was bouncing right back from being sick.

“Love you, too.”

When Petey disappeared into his room, she was left standing alone with Elec, his intense stare on her in the moonlit hall.

“I’ll be down in a minute,” he said in a gravelly voice.

“Good.”

Because they clearly needed to talk.

After he kissed her.

CHAPTER TEN

ELEC walked into the kitchen, not sure what his reception was going to be. Tamara had pulled the lasagna out of the oven and put it on two plates on the table. She had opened a bottle of red wine and poured one glass. Next to the other plate was a bottle of beer, which stupidly touched him. She remembered that he didn’t drink wine.

God, he was in way too deep and they were only ten days into this thing. Being in her house, with her and her kids, was comfortable and satisfying, just as much as being in bed with her was, though in a totally different way. Making love to Tamara satisfied him physically and as a man, a lover. It was hot and sexy and emotional, intimate and intense. Sharing an evening at home with her satisfied his need for a friend, for companionship, for the need he had to protect and take care of someone.

Together, it was dragging him under quick and he wasn’t at all sure how she felt.

“I broke the rules, didn’t I?” he said when she turned around, napkins clutched in her hand.

She nodded. “Yeah, you did.”

“I’m sorry, that really wasn’t my intention. I wasn’t trying to push or manipulate you. When you told me about being stuck in the house, I just thought that it would be a help if I stopped by with dinner. That’s all.”

“I know. I can see that.” She set the pink napkins down on the table. “It’s just that the minute you walked in the door, it changed. It’s not just you and I hooking up for fun.”

“Were we really going to be able to do that?” he asked. “I know we fell into this impulsively, but at least on my part, there is a deeper attraction than that. I agreed to keep it quiet and casual because that’s what you wanted. It’s never been what I wanted.”

Tamara didn’t answer his question. She just chewed her lip and fretted. “My kids are going to ask about you. Hunter will root for you on the track. They’ll wonder why you don’t come over.”

“Ty and Ryder don’t come over all the time, do they?”

“No.”

“So chalk it up to them getting special visitors because they were sick. We don’t have to involve them if you don’t want, I promise.” Even though he could honestly say he would enjoy spending more time with her kids. “But don’t shut me out. I want to see you, Tamara.”

She gave a little laugh. “Funny how you’re the only person outside of work who calls me Tamara.”

He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. “That’s how you introduced yourself to me,” he said, baffled. “Would you rather I call you Tammy?” Hell, he’d call her whatever she wanted as long as he got to see her again.

“No. I like Tamara.” She looked at him over the table with those big blue eyes, wide with uncertainty. “I like you, I mean really like … and I’m so confused. I don’t know what we’re doing, I don’t know how to date. I haven’t dated since I was eighteen years old, Elec.”

“Do you honestly think anyone knows what the hell they’re doing when they start a relationship? I don’t know what I’m doing either. Do you think I meant to come over here and make you upset? I was just thinking it would be a nice thing to do, and now I’m regretting that I ever met your kids because it’s going to be damn hard to promise you I won’t get involved in their lives. I like them. I like you.” Elec jammed his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Being here with you … it feels so good. But I know we can’t fool around with this, that protecting Pete and Hunter is the most important thing. I swear to you I’ll make that my number one priority.”

“Thank you.” Tamara fiddled with a fork next to her plate. “I think maybe you got more than you were expecting with me. I’m a bit of a mess.”

“No, you’re not. You’re just trying to do the right thing for your kids at the same time you’re trying to respect the fact that you’re a woman with a woman’s needs.”

She gave a slight smile. “I do have a woman’s needs.”

Elec moved closer to Tamara, wanting to taste her lips so bad he ached. “For which I am very grateful. As a matter of fact, I’d like to respect those womanly needs right now if you’ll let me.”

Tamara looked at him suspiciously. “What are we talking about here?”

“Just a kiss. That’s all.”

“Then I’ll let you.”

He already had her in his arms before she even finished speaking. Elec breathed in the scent of her, running his lips over her neck.

“Oh, God, I’ll let you,” she said, her head falling back.

That sensuous capitulation nearly did him in. Elec pulled her closer to him, burying his hands in her hair. Then he kissed her, feverishly, urgently, desperately. He wanted her to understand how much he desired her, how beautiful he thought she was, how much he wanted to bury his body between her soft, wet thighs. How much he wanted to make her come over and over until she was limp from pleasure, begging him to stop.

She kissed him back with the same furiousness, her tongue meeting his, her hands running over his shoulders, and landing low, down on his ass.

“Oh, shit,” he told her, pulling back breathlessly, bumping his cock into her thighs one last time. “We’ve got to stop.”

Nodding and panting, she whispered, “This is going to be a problem.”

“We can get creative. You get a lunch break, right?”

“Yes.”

“I’m usually free on Mondays. We can meet for lunch, if you know what I mean.”

Tamara looked a little shocked, but she did nod. “I could do that.”

“What time?”

“One thirty would work. I’m actually done for the day at one on Mondays. I guess we could meet … here.” Her face had lost some color and her voice had dropped to a whisper, but she was in agreement and making plans.

Good enough for him. Now he figured he should retreat before she changed her mind. “Perfect, I’ll be here. Now should we eat or what? My stomach is digesting itself.”

“Oh, right, dinner.” Tamara pulled her chair out abruptly and sat down. “Just ignore the fact that I’m eating dinner in my pajamas.”

“I won’t tell if you won’t.”

She gave him an earnest look. “I do appreciate all of this. Please don’t think that I don’t. I’m really grateful that you’d go to all this trouble for me.”

“I’m not looking for gratitude,” he told her as he took a seat in front of the beer. “Just your friendship.”

“That you have,” she said with a small smile. Then she took a deep breath, like she was digging into her reserves for fortitude. “Now tell me how things are looking for Pocono.”

“I’d love to. If you will then explain to me what courses you teach.”

“Deal.”

They talked as they ate, and Elec was enjoying their easy conversation so much, he lingered way past when he should have left. A glance at the clock on her oven showed it was ten already and he knew Tamara had to be tired. They had cleaned up the dinner dishes together and Elec was itching to touch her again. But he knew if he started, he wouldn’t want to stop.

She looked to be thinking the same thing. The dish towel in her hand, she kept leaning forward, then swaying back on her feet. “Wow, I didn’t realize how late it was.”

“Yeah, I should shove off.”

Neither one of them moved an inch.

There was no telling how long they might have stood there gazing at each other with sexual longing flying between them, but Elec’s cell phone chimed in his pocket. He was going to throw the damn thing off a bridge if it didn’t stop making that noise when he got a text. The minute he was alone, he was going to change the setting to silent.