Page 32 of Take Me Tender

Jay watched her lips move with each word and he remembered the soft feel of them under his, the heat hidden inside her mouth, the sweet touch of her tongue against his. At the memory, an echo of that euphoric high he’d felt last night seemed to thin the blood in his veins. His head took an odd spin, and he put his hand on the back of the couch to steady himself.

Cassandra was talking now. She had knitting needles in her hands, but for the moment they were still. Jay told himself he wouldn’t have eavesdropped if it wasn’t something she’d already revealed to him before—and if he wasn’t so damn dizzy. “…never thought of keeping it a secret any more than she thought the two of us required a man. To her, it was more a matter of feminism than family. She wanted to prove we two women didn’t need a man.”

A smile flashed over Nikki’s face. “Makes you wonder what she would have done if you were born a boy.”

The knitting needles started clicking. Cassandra bent her head and Jay studied her profile, blinking. There was something…

“I wondered for a long time if I had a brother,” she said.

“What?” Nikki glanced over her shoulder at the other woman. “Your mother had another—”

“No. The sperm donor. When I was a kid, I often wondered if one of my classmates, or maybe a little kid I saw being pushed on a playground swing was really my half-sibling, because another woman had also used that same donor.”

“I used to imagine I was the princess of an exotic country who’d been adopted by my parents in order to save me from a dastardly plot to overthrow the royal court. There was more than one long summer afternoon when I expected an envoy to come and retrieve me to my rightful throne.”

Cassandra laughed a little. “I see. So, you didn’t feel you entirely…belonged with your mom and dad?”

Nikki’s shoulders gave a little shrug. “Doesn’t every kid at some time or another? After my mom died, well, my dad wasn’t very demonstrative and I took a short but self-destructive path, hoping to belong to someone—anyone. Bad mistake. After that I learned to be independent. Parents, siblings, who needs ’em? I have myself, my cooking, my fish.”

Her plastic fish. Jay tightened his grip on the sofa. She was doing it again. Killing him. He knew all about her need to belong and how hellishly that had worked out for her.

His Nikki, so independent because who she should have been able to count on had not been there for her. His Nikki, who didn’t even know that she needed…she needed…

Not him.

She wasn’t “his.”

What had happened last night, he reminded himself, was nothing more meaningful than dozens of other nights he’d experienced. She was not any more special than other women with whom he’d scratched that same particular itch.

He hoped to God Nikki understood that, but if she wanted to turn it into something bigger and brighter, well, he had practice in making clear it had been nothing more than Wally Weasel’s drive for nonspecific-woman sex.

Even if that meant he was destined to lose out on that morning repeat he’d been hankering for. Striding for the kitchen, he was determined to set things straight.

“…I’m not the only one curious about possible brothers and sisters,” Cassandra was saying. “Donor sibling registries are cropping up on the Internet, and it’s not that hard, with a little digging, to discover—”

She broke off as Jay rounded the breakfast bar.

“Ladies. Good morning.” His voice sounded clipped and he kept his eye on the prize—Nikki. He steeled himself for her reaction. If she cuddled up to him, he was going to be firm and set very certain boundaries.

Her swift glance at his face revealed nothing. Neither did her silent move toward the coffeemaker. In seconds, he had a mug of coffee in hand.

And she was back to her mango. “I’m sorry, Cassandra. You were saying…?”

“Um…” The other woman rose to her feet, sending Jay an odd look. “I think I’d better be going.”

“Oh. Okay,” Nikki said. “I’ll walk you to the door.” Strolling past him, she followed Cassandra toward the entry.

Leaving him barefoot, barely caffeinated, and alone with his morning-after anxiety.

Nikki wasn’t cuddling up to him.

Nikki wasn’t making more out of the oh-good-God wasn’t-it-incredible they’d done together last night.

Nikki wasn’t doing a single thing that set his alarm bells ringing.

And the fact that it bugged the shit out of him that she didn’t made them finally start to clamor.

Fourteen

Honest to goodness it’s the absolute ultimate!

—SANDRA DEE, ACTRESS, AS GIDGET

Nikki dawdled on her way back to the kitchen. Maybe by the time she returned to her half-made fruit salad, the bachelor by the coffeemaker would have taken himself away.

But there he was, looking more golden and gorgeous than one man had a right to be. His hair hung over his brow as he frowned down at his coffee.

“Careful, handsome,” she said, breezing past him. “Your face might get stuck in that ugly expression.”

The legs of one of the bar stools scraped against the floor as he seated himself. She sliced through the middle of a cantaloupe and gutted it onto a paper towel. Then, taking a breath, she turned to face him.

Leaning against the counter, she gripped it with both hands. “I could go for balls this morning. What do you think?”

His head jerked up. His gaze slammed into hers. “Huh?”

“Balls? I’m in the mood.”

“What?”

She snickered, doing her best to be that tough babe she only wanted him to see. “Melon balls. Get your mind out of the gutter, dude.”

“That’s not where my mind’s been playing, cookie,” he retorted, his eyes narrowing. His thumb gestured over his shoulder, toward the sofa. “It hasn’t had to go that far.”

The blush crawling up her neck was not allowed to make it as far as her face. “Oh? Well then, I’ll go ahead and give you good marks on your performance. Thanks and all that.”

He stared at her. “‘Thanks and all that?’ That’s it? That’s what you have to say?”

Putting one hand on her hip, she heaved a big sigh. Okay, so he’d given her the first orgasm of her life, but she couldn’t let him see how deeply the memory of it was imprinted on her brain. He wouldn’t want to know the brand he’d left on her and how she savored even the faint soreness between her legs.

“You’re not one of those, are you?” she asked. “A re-hasher?”

When he didn’t answer, she continued on, babbling as if she knew what she was talking about. “Fine. I’ll play Monday morning quarterback with you. That’s what all your NYFM readers would call this, right? Sure, some of the plays could have gone more smoothly and the defense didn’t do their job until late in the eleventh inning, but the offense was a well-practiced machine, showing the benefit of its many years of experience in the big leagues and deserving of its stellar reputation and many Super Bowl pennants.”

He sipped at his coffee. “I hope you recorded all that for posterity in your diary, cookie. I might want to go over it again—you know, for those days when my ego needs to be stroked by such a sports expert as you.”

“Oh, no. Sorry, but diaries are reserved for the diarist only—and her BFF, of course.”

“Don’t tell me—”

“Best Friend Forever.” She whipped back around to go to work on the melon.

He was so annoyingly quiet that she didn’t realize he’d moved until she felt his hands mold her hips. “Who is your BFF?” he said. His warm breath stirred the small hairs at her temple that had escaped her bandanna. “Who do you let get that close?”

“You shouldn’t sneak up on a woman wielding a knife,” she warned, willing her feet to root in the floor and her spine to stay as straight as steel. It was difficult, when everything female he’d found so deep inside of her now flared again and was insisting that she move back and nestle against the comfort of his body and heat of his sex. “As a matter of fact, why don’t you go about what it is you usually go about doing and I’ll call you when your breakfast is ready.”

“I don’t have anything that needs to be done.”

“Yeah? Well then, Narcissus, your reflection is probably lonely. Go give your mirror some company.”

His fingers slid up to her waist. “Narcissus? Wasn’t he cursed to fall in love with his own beauty because of his callousness toward his lovers?”

Nikki couldn’t keep still any longer. She slid away from Jay’s hands and edged toward the refrigerator. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“What did you mean it like then?” He grabbed her elbow and turned her, pushing her back against the brushed steel of the appliance and pushing his hips against hers. He was aroused, his erection pressing against the pad of her sex.

Immediately, she softened everywhere, getting warm, too warm. The skin south of her navel started to throb. But they’d had their one-night stand! She was supposed to be back in her metaphoric combat boots this morning. She pressed her palms to his chest, struggling to think, and to think of something to make him back away. “You’re…you’re scaring me.”

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