Sleeping Arrangements (Silhouette Desire) (15 page)

The weather continued unseasonably warm for Chicago as the weeks passed, spring deciding to skip the usual late-April blizzards that reminded Chicagoans not to break out their shorts and tank tops until after Memorial Day. After the second or third sunny, if chilly, weekend in a row with no snow on the ground, Addy decided to take a chance and plant some summer bulbs in the garden at the base of the front porch.

She raided a nursery of their stock of daylily and dahlia bulbs on the way home from work on a Friday. The spring light hung softly in the sky that evening as she ruled lines representing the garden on graph paper and orchestrated the placement of each bulb in the thawing ground. When she threw her pencil down at midnight, she crumpled the paper in her fist and admitted that she was only distracting herself from listening for Spencer to come home. She finally fell asleep, still listening for him.

In the morning, determined not to spend the day as she had the evening, mooning over him, she lazed in bed until ten,
reaching the final chapters of
Pride and Prejudice.
She’d been unable to uphold her vow to give it up and stopped now, a handful of pages from the end, because she didn’t want the story to come to a halt.

Finally bouncing out of bed, certain she’d heard Spencer leaving with Elwood earlier, she headed down to her garden, making a brief pit stop in the kitchen to snag a couple of granola bars and stuff them in her pocket. Outside, the ground proved to be harder than she’d expected, so she went in search of a shovel. There was a disreputable-looking shed at the back of the property that seemed likely to contain gardening tools.

Rounding the corner of the house, she skidded and cart-wheeled her arms as she slipped on the edges of what looked like a lake of mud and water.

Parked in the middle of this new geological feature was an enormous blue plastic tub, in which sat a happily soapy Elwood, a crown of bubbles slipping off the back of his wet head as he barked at the sight of her. Spencer’s back was to her, presenting her with the fine prospect of his naked torso, bare to the waist. She spied his sweatshirt draped like a flag over a nearby bush. He’d caught some sun during what was obviously bath time, and the faint flush of color only added polish to the muscles sliding under bare skin.

Stop drooling, girl. It’s nothing you ain’t seen before.

That she’d been wondering for the past several weeks if she’d see it again made the “stop drooling” command difficult to follow. She swallowed hard before she spoke.

“Bath time?”

Spencer shaded his eyes when he turned, a hose in one hand dripping water.

“Wanna join in?”

“No, thanks.” It was a beautiful day for late April, but it wasn’t
that
warm. She glanced back at Spencer’s face and caught the instant that a very bad idea took shape in his mind. “Don’t you dare.”

“Dare what?” His fist tightened for a second on the noz
zle and a jet of icy cold water blasted the soggy earth at her feet. “Oops. Must’ve slipped.”

“Reed, I swear to you—” And she took off shrieking as he aimed the nozzle at her butt and soaked her pants. Passing the tub, she scooped a softball-size sponge out of the water and nailed him in the chest with it, but she had no more ammo and he had the hose. Thirty seconds later, she was drenched, clothes plastered to her skin, facing him with murder in her eye.

He walked up to her, ran a finger down her nose and flicked water droplets off it. Dropped his gaze to her chest.

“I’ve never had my own private wet T-shirt contest before.” She was immediately aware of her breasts, wet cotton molded around nipples hard with the cold, and shivered, anticipation overriding the chill.

He knelt at her feet as the dog trotted over to say hello, and looked up at her, squinting in the sun.

“You’d better go inside and change. Wouldn’t want you to catch cold.” Rising, he strolled back to the tub.

Her jaw dropped.

She waited until she was inside the house to let out a shriek of raging frustration.

“Do I have to hit him over the head with a two-by-four?” Her shout echoed in the empty house.

When she took matters into her own hands, she decided no one could blame her. A woman could only be pushed so far before she needed to jump a man’s bones just to get thoughts of him naked out of her head.

The click of the catch releasing beneath Addy’s hand as she turned the knob to Spencer’s bedroom was loud in the quiet house at midnight. Holding her breath, suddenly nervous now that she was actually going through with it, she eased the door open and slid through, closing it softly behind her. Moonlight glowing through the window picked out the straight edges of furniture. The long, low line of a bureau. A high, spindle-backed chair. The straight columns of his canopyless four-poster bed.

The curved lines of Spencer’s form facedown on the bed, a sheet slung low over his hips, one arm buried beneath a pillow, the other flung out at his side.

She stepped to the side of the bed and watched him. The rise and fall of his breath was visible, slow and even. His face, softer in sleep, looked gentle. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. With a soft expulsion of breath, she dropped her shoulders. Glanced at the bedside clock. 12:05 a.m.

She couldn’t do this. She turned to leave.

And found herself halted by the sudden shackle of a hand gripping her wrist.

“Where you going?”

His voice sounded sleepy but his eyes were wide open and resting on her as she stood between the bed and the window, backlit by the moonlight. She was conscious of every inch of her bare skin exposed in the skimpy tank top and cotton boxers she wore. She couldn’t think of a thing to say.

“Just stopping in to say hi?”

She heard in his voice the willingness to let her walk out of the room if she said yes. And suddenly it was very easy, simple even, to find the right words.

“As you pointed out to me once before, Mr. Reed,” she said and stepped closer to the bed. “We are married.”

W
hen she yielded, she yielded with conviction.

The slightest tug on her hand had Addy tumbling into his bed. Spencer rolled over as she fell forward so that she landed on top of him, breasts flattened against his bare chest, elbows planted on either side of his head.

His head framed between her forearms, she leaned above him and watched her shadow dim the silver edging of moonlight on his features. She lowered her head and traced the lines from memory with her mouth, skimming her lips over the edge of his jaw, the arch of his brow. Ran the tip of her tongue lightly over the outline of his lips, until his open mouth surged up to capture hers. His arms, loose around her waist, tightened almost painfully as he hugged her to him and rolled over until she lay beneath him.

She spread her legs wider as he settled between them, and shifted her hips until the hardness of him settled on just the right spot.

“God.” The words came between swooping attacks on her
face and neck with his open mouth. “I thought you were never going to get here.”

“I wasn’t sure you still wanted me to show up.”

Her hands were urgent in their need to feel the heat of him, sculpting the curves and planes of his hard back down to a narrow waist and hips. Reaching farther, she found nothing but skin.

The man slept naked. Praise be. It saved time.

“Not sure?”

He reached down and braceleted her wrists with his hands. Dragged them up over her head until she was forced to lie still and pay attention to what he was saying. Unbelievably, he was laughing.

She could feel his body shaking against some very sensitive areas.

“Addy. Sweetheart.” His teeth were a pale flash above her as he smiled. “I’ll probably have a five-hundred-dollar water bill next month from all the cold showers I’ve been taking.”

“You have been awfully clean lately,” she said and licked her lips, tugging to free her hands. Spencer braced himself above her on one arm, the other still clasping both of her wrists. All she could think of was that he wasn’t kissing her.

She twisted a little in his grasp, wanting her hands on him again, but he didn’t let go. She could see him, his eyes on her as her back arched and her breasts pushed up at him, taut nipples visibly peaking against the thin cotton.

She watched him watching her. Knew pleasure at the sight of her own breasts moving toward him on a deep inhale and felt heat bloom between her legs. She wrapped her thighs around his hips and locked her heels behind his back, searching for more pressure and clenching her muscles tightly around him.

He let go of her wrists for an instant, fisting his hand in the hem of her loose tank top and yanking it with one pull up over her head, tangling her too-slow hands in fabric cuffs.

“You can still stop this, even now.” His lake-blue eyes were
dark above her, his golden hair bleached pale in the moonlight. He rested his palm on her stomach, his hand spread possessively over her rib cage, the tips of his fingers brushing the undersides of her breasts. “Tell me this isn’t right for you and I’ll stop. But I’m warning you,” he murmured, dipping his head and running the tip of his tongue along her collarbone and then in a straight line down the slope of her breast, stopping a hair’s breadth from her nipple. His warm breath feathered over her skin. She pressed her shoulders into the mattress to make him take her in his mouth. “I’ll probably jump out the window if you do.”

He pulled her nipple into his mouth and curled his tongue around her, sucking lightly. Covered her other breast with his palm, tracing lacelike patterns on her shivering skin. The combined sensations burst in her like sudden white heat after a long, sizzling fuse.

She settled her linked hands behind his neck and pressed him to the heart of her. Freeing herself, she tossed her tank top into the dark room and yanked hard on his hair.

“Ouch. Stop it. Busy here.” He barely lifted his head.

Soft hair waved between her fingers and what felt like the heat of the sun was radiating from his mouth to every cell in her body. But she wanted more. Now.

She yanked again and dragged his face up to hers. Nose to nose in the dark, she made her intentions clear.

“It’s right for me.” She gentled her hands on him, stroking her fingers through the hair she’d abused so roughly. “I want you. Inside me.” She could feel her own wet, melting heat and knew she was ready. “Now.”

“Just one more thing,” he said, and slid down her body, hooking his thumbs in the waistband of her pajama shorts and dragging them down her legs.

“Excellent idea.” She barely got the words out before he slid his palms from her ankles up the length of her legs, pushing her thighs apart, and the heat of his mouth on her had her gasping for air.

“Reed.” His name rode on a low moan pushed out from deep inside her.

“You only call me that when you’re impatient,” he said, and his breath on the most sensitive part of her was pure torture. His thumbs traced lines of fire up and down the inner crease of her thighs. “Just let me do this. I’ve been imagining it forever.”

His low hum of approval was still vibrating on his lips as he bent back to her, and the touch made her cry out. Clenching spasms wracked her body until she couldn’t even feel him touching because she was tight, so tightly spinning, and then melting in sudden release.

The last cry was still on her lips as he moved up her body and eased himself inside her in one smooth motion. The absolute rightness of the feeling, of their two bodies joined in exquisite stillness, made her hand tremble as she lifted it to his face. She stroked his cheek. And then he began to move and she was lost again to pure sensation, his flesh on hers, inside and out.

She barely heard herself whimper as she climaxed. He surged against her one last time and she felt him collapse over her. They were both heaving deep breaths and her muscles were weak and achy. She was warm where he lay on her, but the sheen of sweat on her limbs began to chill. With one tired arm, she reached down, dragged a sheet up over the both of them and fell asleep with Spencer still inside her.

When Addy woke up, the room was still dark. Spencer lay facedown next to her, one arm draped over her waist, his face buried in a pillow. She levered herself up on one elbow and peered over his sleeping form at the digital clock.

Less than three hours had passed since she’d walked into his room. Three hours and a world of difference.

She looked at her lover,
her husband,
laying next to her and wished she could see his face. Suddenly it seemed to her that he was a stranger. A stranger she was sleeping with, was married to. It was silly, but with only his back visible to her, it worried her that she might not be able to pick him out of a
lineup. She tried to grin at the idea, a row of men all stripped to the waist and her behind a two-way mirror, lips pursed, saying, “I’m not sure…could you ask number three to flex?” But the kernel of truth in the idea killed the humor.

Before she could change her mind, before she could lean over and press her mouth to his shoulder and stroke his hair until he awoke, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed, eased his arm off her lap and stood up. She stopped on her way to the door to scoop up her tank top, guessed that her shorts were kicked to the bottom of his bed, under the sheet, and decided to leave them behind.

She eased the door open and left as quietly as she’d entered. Back in her room, the sheets were cold and her body was sore as she crawled into her own bed. She set the alarm and curled up in a tight ball in the center of the bed. Sleep was a long time coming.

In the morning, she felt awkward, wondering if by leaving in the middle of the night she’d made things worse between them than if she’d stayed. She knew she’d been right, but still, regret washed her certainty away.

Suppose she had stayed. She didn’t know what would have been more difficult: to wake up to distance, Spencer gone from the bed before her or emotionally absent, or to wake up to moments of tenderness and gentle touch, like a husband and wife in love and coming to consciousness in each other’s arms, with a long slow morning of making love beckoning.

But it was Monday morning and the real world waited. They were husband and wife, but they weren’t in love.

And if she let herself live a fantasy when she was making love with him, she had to step out of that fantasy once the love-making stopped.

She lingered in the kitchen, eyeing her watch but unwilling to leave the house without seeing Spencer. When she heard his heavy footsteps on the stairs, she turned to the counter and poured him a mug of coffee, needing something to do so that she wasn’t just standing there, waiting for him.

She stepped back from the counter when he entered the room, leaving the full mug and indicating with her chin that it was for him, knowing by now that he wasn’t capable of speech for a minute.

He splashed cream in the mug and then drained it in long swallows. Poured himself another cup and sipped it like a normal human being, eyes opening as the heat jump-started his system even before the caffeine hit him. He looked at her and made a wordless up-and-down gesture at her body with one hand. She read the question with ease.

“I have a zoning meeting tonight in Evanston.” Glancing down at herself, she wondered if it was the first time he’d seen her out of jeans. She imagined that the women he normally dated wore outfits like this all the time. The little black suit had cost her a month’s pay but went over well with aldermen and city council members when she had to make presentations.

Eyeing him, she conceded that he certainly didn’t need a suit to look good. The black sweatpants he wore rode low enough that she could see the wedge of muscle defining his hip bone. She remembered putting her mouth there the night before.

She dragged her eyes back up to his face as he leaned that hip against the counter and crossed his ankles. He cradled the coffee mug in both hands. The power of speech had returned to him.

“I didn’t think you’d leave.”

His voice was calm, measured. She envied him his cool, unemotional mind-set as she struggled to find a way to explain why she had.

“I had to,” she began. When he just waited for her, she remembered something he’d said to her last night. “Coming to you last night was right for me. For us, I hope. But staying until morning wouldn’t have been.” She knew that was no explanation but hoped it would be enough for him.

“Can you tell me why?”

Apparently not. Damn. More words.

“Look. If we were dating—” he lifted an eyebrow at her words “—sleeping together, whatever you call it, things would follow a certain course.” She started pacing, needing the outlet for her energy. The unfamiliar sounding of her heels clicking on the slate-tiled floor followed her. “Some days we’d see each other, some days we wouldn’t, right?” He nodded slowly, as if waiting to see where she would take this. “Maybe you’d stay over at my place one night and maybe I’d stay over at yours the next.”

His interruption was quick and to the point. “And I’d want you to stay until the morning every time.”

Clearly she’d chosen the wrong analogy.

She stopped walking and faced him with all she had left. The truth.

“You may have carried me over the threshold, Spencer, but I’m not ready to start acting like your wife, sharing a bed and a bathroom every day, just because I slept with you.”

She was holding her breath as she waited for him to say something. When he put the coffee mug down and walked over to her, Addy didn’t know whether to step back or move toward him. Indecision rooted her on the spot.

Stopping in front of her, Spencer reached out, cradled her face in his hands and kissed her on the mouth. His lips were gentle on hers for a moment. Then he lifted his head and looked in her eyes.

“Okay.”

She could breathe again. Her inhale was shaky as she leaned into him, wrapping her arms around him, hoping he could feel the gratitude in her hug. Once again, he was letting her set the rules.

And if she wondered for a moment why he never seemed to want more than she offered, that was her own damn fault.

Pulling away, he swatted her on the butt and sent her out the door.

“Go, I know you’re late.” She shot a last look of thanks over her shoulder as she scooped the briefcase she’d exchanged for
her usual backpack off the floor and left. He winked at her. “Feel free to stop in and say hi when you get home.”

She knew she shouldn’t. She’d managed to get through an entire conversation about how she didn’t want to be with him every night without ruining everything. The smart thing to do would be to hold back, sleep alone and give an example of what she meant. But the house was so quiet when Addy finally got home and her room was so empty. During the entire day, thoughts of him had never been far from her mind.

So she forgave herself when she went back to Spencer’s room, not trying to sneak in without waking him this time. He woke in a moment and reached for her in the dark. She flowed over him, already naked as he was, and covered his mouth with her own, not wanting the risk of words.

Their loving was silent except for the soft cries of pleasure she couldn’t keep from spilling past her lips. She curved over him in the night until he shuddered beneath her, and then found her own climax riding on the wave of his.

When he wrapped an arm around her as she lay next to him, sweat cooling on her skin, she let him. But she didn’t close her eyes, and when she knew that he slept, she left him and went back to her room.

She took the next day off work, thinking she needed the time at home alone to clear her mind. But after an hour of sitting with her thoughts and a cup of tea, on an armchair near a sunny window, she decided that her thoughts were beyond help and got up again.

Spencer found her on her knees in one of the upstairs bathrooms, peeling the last remnants of a puce-green wallpaper from the edge of the floorboards. When she looked up, she saw that he was holding a bottle of Diet Coke and a wax-paper-wrapped sandwich out to her.

“Somehow I knew you’d be home early today.”