“You’re on.” She pulled her top over her head. “Knock yourself out.”
He gazed at her breasts cupped in pale yellow lace, and the way he looked at her filled her with pleasure. She loved feeling desired, never mind that she was merely a convenience.
He snared her wrist. “This time I want a bed. So I can see every inch of you.”
She nearly dissolved, right there in the middle of his bedroom. As she gazed into his smoky lavender eyes, she reminded herself she didn’t care enough about him to ever be hurt. Then he kissed her, and she stopped thinking at all.
This time there was no slow striptease. They threw aside their clothes and fell on each other. Until yesterday, she’d never given herself without love, but now she offered up her body with abandon. He explored every inch, opening her legs, propping one of her ankles on his shoulder. She teased and tormented him in return, not to turn him on, but because she wanted to, because this affair was about her pleasure and not about trying to hold on to a man who didn’t love her.
He was earthy. Thorough. Demanding. Using his fingers, his mouth, his sex. She experienced a blissful, soaring freedom. The final explosion was cataclysmic.
Afterward, she lay limp beneath him, so drained she could barely muster the words. “Oh, well…I’m sure the next time will be better.”
He rolled over on his back, his skin as damp as hers, his mouth curling in a lazy smile. “Let’s face it, you’re a lot of woman for one man to handle.”
She grinned. The air-conditioning kicked on, blowing a cool breeze across their hot bodies. She felt…
She struggled to put a name to her emotions and finally came up with one.
She felt happy.
Bram was theonly guy who’d ever been in Chaz’s apartment, but now Aaron was sitting on her couch, his headphones still around his neck, the jack dangling by his knee. He wore farmer jeans and a wrinkled green T-shirt that said all your base are belong to us, which made no frickin’ sense. His curly hair exploded around his round face, and his glasses were crooked. “You can’t stay here,” Chaz said. “You have to leave.”
“I told you. My car keys are in Georgie’s office.”
“Take my car.” Bram had bought her a shiny new Honda Odyssey, but she didn’t like leaving the house unless she had to, so she didn’t use it for much except household errands. Otherwise, she stayed mostly in her apartment. Bram had let her furnish it the way she wanted. She’d chosen modern pieces in chocolate and light brown along with a basic black shelving unit, an angular reading chair, and a couple of simple black-and-white abstract prints. No clutter. No mess. Everything neat and peaceful. Everything except Aaron.
He rubbed his chest through his T-shirt. “My driver’s license is in my wallet, and that’s in Georgie’s office, too.”
“So what? I drove without a license for years.” She’d taught herself to drive at thirteen, figuring she posed less of a danger on the road than her drunken stepmother.
She and Aaron both had door keys, but neither of them was anxious to go back in the house right now. At least her garage apartment was on the opposite side of the house from the master bedroom. She couldn’t imagine having to listen to Bram and Georgie getting it on. She hated Georgie. Hated watching Bram laugh at some stupid thing she said, hated listening to them talk about movies Chaz had never seen. Chaz wanted to be the one who came first with him. Which was stupid.
He’d better have remembered to turn off the stove.
“You’re not sleeping here,” she said.
“Who said I was? I’ll give them some time, then go back in and get my stuff.” He got up and wandered over to her bookcase, which held a TV, cookbooks, and some other books Bram had given her, including some by this important food writer named Ruth Reichl, who talked about how she got interested in food and everything. They were the best books Chaz had ever read.
“You should stop acting like such a bitch around Georgie.” Aaron took one of the Reichl books off the shelf and flipped it over to read what was on the back. “You might as well hang a sign around your neck saying that you’re in love with Bram.”
“I’m not in love with him!” Chaz shot up, grabbed the book from Aaron, and shoved it back on the shelf. “I care about him, and I don’t like the way she treats him.”
“Just because she doesn’t kiss his ass like you do.”
“I don’t kiss his ass! I always tell him exactly what I think.”
“Yeah, and while you’re cussing at him, you’re running around making him special meals and ironing his T-shirts. Yesterday, I saw you jump up to brush some crumbs off a chair before he sat on it.”
“I take care of him because it’s my job, not because I’m in love with him.”
“It seems like more than a job. It seems like your whole life.”
“That’s bullshit. I just…owe him, that’s all.”
“For what?”
For everything.
