chapter Seven
“May, that was delicious. Thank you.” Claudia got up and started clearing paper plates and used plastic ware after they’d had cake and mimosas to celebrate the great news. May had just had a flute of orange juice.
“Here, let me help you with that.” Peter got up from the table and gathered his father’s plate, his own, and Brad’s.
Before she could protest, he led the way into the kitchen. Left with plates in her hands and a sinking feeling in her heart, she didn’t have much choice but to follow unless she wanted to look like an idiot by putting the plates back down and sitting in her chair like a petulant child.
But walking across the dining room and into the kitchen was the second hardest walk of the day. Zoe was caught in conversation with May and neither seemed to realize what had happened. Which left her to walk on her own.
Once inside the kitchen with the door gently swinging shut behind her, she placed the plates in the trash can and turned to go back out as quickly as she could. Peter caught her arm before she made it two steps from the trash.
“Claudia.”
She stared down at his hand on her arm. His tanned flesh looked odd against her winter-white skin. And yet that used to make them laugh. They’d compare how she never tanned to how he could be a burnished gold within days of summer starting.
The moment lasted too long with her continuing not to look up, but keeping her eyes on his hand.
He backed up. “Sorry.”
Finally she looked up at him and struggled to find some trace of the boy who had taken her virginity in the back of the Mustang he’d received from his dad before he went off to college and a career in business.
She waited for him to say more. Crossing her arms over her chest, she stood as still as she could and tried to mentally prepare herself for whatever it was he needed to say.
“That should have been how it was for you, and I should have been more mature.”
She didn’t move a muscle. Peter didn’t say he was sorry, and he certainly didn’t admit he’d done something wrong. “Should” didn’t mean shit to her. “What does that do for me?”
He dropped his gaze and seemed to have a great fascination with the tiles on the floor.
She hadn’t wanted to bring Justin up again. They’d talked enough earlier. As much time as she’d been willing to give the subject. She’d be just as happy if Peter decided not to try to see Justin again at all while he was here. And now she had to deal with the fact that he had seen him and was offering her something she’d never thought she’d get. “I asked you a question.” And she wasn’t budging until she got some answers.
He ran a rough hand through his perfect dark hair but wouldn’t look up.
She fought the ridiculous urge to bend down to make eye contact.
He saved her from embarrassing herself by finally looking up and piercing her with the eyes so like her son’s. “I should never have left the way I did or gotten angry at you for what I saw as you getting yourself pregnant and trying to ruin everything for me just when I was about to get started with my life.” His words came out haltingly and unsure. It was not reassuring.
“I didn’t do it on my own.” Why was she pursuing this conversation at all? She needed to move out of the kitchen, finish collecting trash, and take her son home where they could resume their own life.
“I know that. Your mom pulled me aside earlier and asked me not to interfere in your lives since you’ve been doing fine on your own. She said he may look like me, but he’s nothing like me as a person. That he already has more honor at ten than I ever did.”
Oh, that probably had gone over like a fly in the cake batter. “And?” She couldn’t help it. There had to be more, and she needed to hear it.
“And I didn’t really say anything to her. I didn’t know what to say. I can’t believe how much he looks like me.”
“He does look a lot like you.” She tried to make a joke and take back control of the conversation. “How is it that I did all the work, and he looks nothing like me? Shouldn’t I have at least gotten a nose or a chin for all my efforts?”
He put his hand on her arm again, and her weak laughter stopped in mid-ha.
“You shouldn’t have had to do it all by yourself. I know that now. And I want to make it up to you.”
She took a step back, breaking the contact, but coming up against the wall. If he came any closer, she’d have nowhere to escape. “There’s nothing to make up, Peter. He’s a great kid and my pride and joy.” She couldn’t help it if she’d put more emphasis on the word “my.” But she did feel a slight pang in her chest when he winced.
“Yeah, your kid.” His fingers speared through his hair again, and it stood up on end before he smoothed it. “Anyway, I would like to make it up to you. I didn’t even pay you child support, and you never asked for anything.”
She didn’t need anything from him. It was on the tip of her tongue to say so, but he was still talking.
“I was a horrible person. I should have stayed. I should have done a lot of things I didn’t do.” Backing up, he rested his rear end on the butcher block but didn’t break eye contact. “Isn’t this where you berate me and tell me how horrible things have been and what an unmitigated jerk I am?”
“No, actually, this is where I tell you that I adore Justin with everything I have and if I had it all to do over again, I wouldn’t change a thing. I love him. He’s my whole world. He’s a joy when he’s not being a typical boy, and he’s smart. Your money or your guilt won’t change any of that.”
The kitchen door creaked open and Zoe peeked her head in.
“Go away,” Claudia said when her sister opened her mouth. “I’ve got this.”
The door creaked back closed after Zoe shot Peter one last evil eye.
“Your sister doesn’t like me very much.”
“She has nothing to do with this conversation. You wanted to talk about Justin. Let’s talk about Justin.”
He pulled at the collar at his throat. “I don’t know if I want to talk about Justin. I only wanted to tell you I realize I made a mistake, and I’m sorry for not being there for you and him.”
Here was a moment she could back down from or take as an opportunity. She took the opportunity because she didn’t know if she’d ever get another like it. He seemed so open right now, and he was never a very open kind of guy. Witness ten years of silence. “It’s not the money or not being here that was the problem. I knew you had your whole future planned out, and a kid thrown into the mix didn’t sit well with your dad.”
“He—”
“No, let me finish.” She drew a deep breath and fought swatting him with her hand. Why did everyone always want to interrupt her? “The bigger part was cutting yourself off altogether. I’ll admit I might not have been open to anything when Justin was first born and you left, but you could have come back and tried again. There are plenty of fathers out there who are only peripherally involved in their child’s life, and you could have been one of them.” She zeroed in on him. “It wasn’t easy for me, but I’m not going to let you waltz in and start taking over things now.”
May popped into the kitchen and ignored Peter’s raised eyebrows. “Claudia, I need you back out in the living room. Zoe’s about to go kamikaze on Brad’s friend Dex, who just showed up, and you’re the only one who can calm her down. She’s muttering something about pruning him, and it doesn’t look good.”
Claudia sighed, knowing the conversation with Peter was over and she probably wouldn’t have a chance to get back to it. But at least she’d been able to get her remarks in. It had gone better than she could have hoped. She’d have to settle for that. For now.
“Lead the way. God knows she can’t seem to handle herself right now with the whole Casanova thing.”
****
After calming down Zoe and sending her upstairs for a timeout until the infamous Dex left, Claudia had an overwhelming urge to find Nate. May had said he was going to be here a little late, and Claudia sure could use him now. As if she’d conjured him, he strode in through the back door.
His light hair was swept back from his forehead. The wind followed him in and stirred the air in the kitchen. He looked like salvation and yumminess all wrapped in one.
Something snapped inside her, an elemental something that told her to stop p-ssyfooting around and go after what she wanted. With that in mind, she strode right up to him and grabbed his arm.
But she faltered at the pitying smile on his face when she got so close. After years and years together, virtually in each other’s pockets, she knew each and every expression his face could twist itself into—from happy to silly, from mad to totally pissed. They all held subtle differences, but she could tell. And this one said he knew things were hard having Peter here and he was by her side. He’d help her through this as he had every other thing in her life. But she didn’t want to lean on him. She didn’t want him to think of her as a helpless person who needed him to save her. She wanted him to think of her as an independent woman who wanted his hot body.
She tried to wrap a hand around his wrist to bring it to her lips and kiss his palm, but he patted her head instead and gave her that smile again.
She almost gave in to the childish urge to step on his foot. But that wasn’t going to further her cause, either. Taking a deep breath, she centered herself while trying to remember what Zoe had said about flirting. It was lowering to have to take her younger sister’s advice, but if it worked Claudia would just claim it as her own inspiration.
She sidled up to him, ran a hand up the buttons of his shirt and gave him a sultry wink when he glanced down at her. She ignored the baffled look on his face and soldiered on. She was going to see this through even if it killed her libido.
Justin chose that moment to walk into the kitchen. He took one look at Claudia wrapped around Nate, snickered, and ran back out.
Nate stiffened under Claudia’s hand, but she wasn’t letting go. She figured she had about twenty seconds before someone came rushing in to see if she really truly was clinging to Nate like a vine.
So she took advantage of her small amount of time and boldly laid her lips right on his. Let him try to offer her first aid for that.
****
Nate stood stock still for a moment while the warmth of Claudia’s lips heated to scalding. Her tongue probed the seam of his mouth, trying to gain entrance. The feel of her pressed against him flamed through his blood and would have set him back on his ass if he hadn’t grabbed onto her hips with both hands, sinking his fingers into the flesh there and feeling the rasp of her dress against the calluses on his palms.
She drew him in, and he forgot who precisely he was kissing in the meeting of their lips, the wild feel of her in his arms. For a second she was just a woman, not a mother, not his best friend, not the girl he’d stood by all those years ago when she was pregnant. A woman who was making him forget every thought in his head. But then it all came back to him in an excruciating instant, and his fingers pushed instead of pulled, trying to get away instead of holding fast.
Her lips were swollen and her skin flushed. Moisture glistened on the crest of her upper lip, and it was all he could do not to rub his finger just there to see how truly soft she was.
But, between one ragged breath and the next, his gut churned. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t let her be anything more than his best friend. A friend he wouldn’t lose to his lust. Or hers.
He walked out the door before he could change his mind.
****
“Argh!” Claudia was grateful for the empty apartment when she crashed through the door and slammed her purse onto the front entryway table. “Could that have been any better or gone any worse?” She’d stayed at May’s long enough to find out that Justin’s grandfather wanted to give him a vintage collection of baseball cards and a ball he’d caught during some long-ago World Series game. She’d left without another word from anyone, avoiding the grasp of Peter’s hand as he’d tried to head her off at the door. She’d had no patience left and little enough time to breathe before she feared she’d cry over Nate’s abrupt rejection.
Feeling a particular violence welling up inside her, she kicked the side table, then hobbled around on her injured toes.
All she’d wanted was a little nookie. All she’d wanted was to continue to feel the absolute thrill that shot up her spine when Nate’s fingers had dug into her hips, pulling her closer to him, as if he wanted to pull her inside him.
But then everything had changed.
He’d shoved her away like she had the plague or something. And had taken off as if she was going to drag him to the ground and make him gnaw his own arm off to get away from her. Was she that repulsive? Was it so out of the realm of possibility that she might have some needs as a woman? Something that had nothing to do with being a mother or a friend? Something that was all female and all sexual? All she’d wanted was a little icing, and she’d got nothing, not even a piece of stale cake.
Throwing herself on the couch, she wondered what she’d done wrong. Then again, maybe he hadn’t wanted her at all. Maybe he really did only think of her as an asexual person who was his best friend and nothing more.
But the sizzle of that kiss was hard to miss. At least until he had pushed her away. Damn.
A knock sounded on the door, startling her out of the doldrums. Justin had gone home from the luncheon with his grandma and grandpa and was due back any time, according to the big clock in the kitchen.
She composed her features with a great deal of effort. The very last thing she wanted to do was explain her mood to her son. Or her mother, for that matter. Her mother who had nagged her about dating Nate for years but then had seemed to get the hint, only to start setting her up with completely boring guys.
Reasonably sure she had things under control, she took care opening the door, not wanting to yank it off its hinges.
Claudia didn’t even let Nate draw a breath when she opened the door. She swooped in on him, capturing his mouth with hers. She planted one on him like she’d never planted before. He wasn’t going to get away from her this time. His interest, or lack of it, be damned.
He kicked the door shut behind him and twirled her around to press her back against the wood. Snaking his arms around her waist, he held on tight, pressing her curves up against his chest and stomach, melding her thighs to his, thrusting his tongue into her open mouth and taking command of the kiss.
He turned her so he rested against the door. She wasn’t sure her knees would hold her up while he plundered and took, giving back in kind. But his arms locked around her kept her upright. For now, at least.
****
Nate’s mind whirled while his hands roamed up Claudia’s back and cupped the base of her skull, changing the angle of the kiss. She followed his lead. Her fingers crept into his short hair and played with the neckline his barber had put there just the other day. The exposed skin was tender and sensitive. Her light touch sent a shudder through his body and had his cock swelling in his pants. She must have felt him getting hard, because she gasped into his mouth and snuggled up closer, cradling him against her stomach.
He slipped his hands up under her hair, loving the way the strands sifted through his fingers and clung to the calluses on his palms. He changed the angle yet again. Tilting her back just a little, he pressed his hand to her spine, wishing she wore a shirt instead of this dress. He wanted to feel her flesh under his now that he’d let himself get a taste of her lips. He swept his hand from her spine to her butt and reached for the hem.
She surprised him by revealing a hidden zipper on her side. Yanking it down, she then shoved his hand into the opening and pressed it to her tightly beaded nipples under her satiny bra. Something about this whole thing felt illicit, but when she pressed more fully into his palm, he could do nothing less than feel her.
“God, yes, Nate.” She moaned into his mouth then nibbled on his tongue. He was so hard in his pants he could have drilled a hole in the wall.
But her voice snapped inside him. He leaned his forehead against hers, keeping just far enough away to feel her breath feathering his lips. “You’re my friend. I shouldn’t be doing this.”
Her fingers speared through the short sides of his hair, and she grabbed his ears. Yanking his head up, she stared into his eyes. “Don’t you dare get all noble on me now. I want you to take me and take me hard. Forget everything else and feel me.” She let go of his ears, pulling her dress farther up her thighs and tugging it to her waist. The fabric at her side gaped, leaving one breast peeking out through the hole.
Despite his thoughts to the contrary just a minute ago, he could in fact do this, his mouth watering at the duskiness of her nipple barely cresting the demi cup of her bra. He’d die if he didn’t take the pebble into his mouth and suck it for all he was worth.
And he wasn’t planning on dying today. Though he was apparently going to heaven.
Her skin in his mouth was the best thing he’d ever tasted. The faint vanilla trailing on her skin made him wild. He drew and drew on her breast, listening to her moans and words of ecstasy. With her skirt bunched up around her waist, he could also reach other parts of her, as close to heaven as he figured he’d ever get.
He trailed a finger up the inside of her leg, lingering at the lace holding up her thigh-high stockings. That small strip of lace and elastic made him mad for more. When he finally found his way to the soft skin beside the edge of her panties, he had a brief flash of not being able to go on. But Claudia disabused him of that notion right away when she thrust her pelvis into his hand and he felt the silky wetness dampening her panties.
He gave out a groan that she answered.
“God, you’re so wet.”
“Take me.” Her hands fisted in his hair and dragged his mouth back up to hers.
Her hips were restless under his probing fingers. She took one and then two with ease. Her inner walls squeezed him as her tongue thrust deep into his mouth. She was wild, and he wanted her more than he’d wanted anything in his entire life.
“Come for me,” he whispered in her ear, licking the delicate shell, loving the moans that were growing louder with every circle of his index finger. “Come for me.”
“No.” She tossed her head back and forth. “I want you inside me when I come for the first time.”
“But I want you wetter.” He drove her relentlessly, pinning her to him with his forearm. He wasn’t going to let her get away from him until he’d made her scream his name.
And then she did. And that one word had never sounded so good in all his life.
She panted with her head resting on his shoulder. He could definitely get used to this. Who knew his best friend was so passionate? He shunted the distinction off to the side of his mind. Right now he didn’t hold Claudia his friend in his arms, but Claudia the woman, who he was sure could take him to heights he’d never reached before.
He was ready to pick her up and toss her over his shoulder to head to the bedroom when knocking filled his head.
She broke away, a glazed look in her eyes. “I should get that,” she whispered from bee-stung lips, swollen and glistening from his kisses. Her eyes nearly rolled in panic. “It might be Justin and my parents.”
As if on cue, the pipsqueak’s voice came loud through the door. “Come on, Mom! I have to pee, and Grandma forgot her key. Hurry!”
“You better get that,” he murmured. He was reluctant to release her, but he couldn’t let his little buddy see him in this compromising position. Until he knew what the hell was going on for himself, he didn’t want anyone to see him this close to Claudia. “I’ll go in your room and wait for your mom to leave, if you want. You may not be able to explain your swollen lips when I’m standing right here.”
Pulling down her dress and zipping up the zipper, she shot him a grateful look, but it was tinged with confusion. Yeah, he didn’t know what the hell was going on, either. He bumped into the arched doorway on his way to Claudia’s bedroom, not sure that it was his best choice. But, for better or worse, he’d made the decision and couldn’t go back. All along the hallway, he wondered what the hell had just happened. He had a hard on for his best friend in the world. It was either his very best idea or the worst mistake he’d ever made.
****
“So, Justin didn’t say much on the car ride over here,” Mona Bradley said as soon as she walked through the door of Claudia’s apartment.
Claudia had been dreading this, not sure what she was going to hear, or even what the outcome was. She hadn’t been able to get Justin alone after her conversation with Peter because he’d decided to ride home with Grandma and Grandpa and play for a while. She’d used the time to roam around the streets in her car, but it hadn’t improved her mood at all. But those kisses from Nate and the orgasm that had blown her mind had gone a long way toward making her feel like she could float straight up to the sky. She couldn’t think about that now, though, because her mom might catch a hint of what was going on. She couldn’t afford that at the moment.
After putting down her purse and taking off her light jacket, Mona looked around the living room. She chose a seat on the couch, and Claudia prayed she wasn’t settling in for a long talk. She certainly didn’t want to talk about too much with Nate hovering in her room. There were many things her mother could blurt out that would embarrass the hell out of her. And she didn’t want to give him time to rummage around through her things, if she could help it. She certainly didn’t want him to find her trusty vibrator and know how truly dry her dry spell had been lately.
Justin had already breezed by, shooting straight for the bathroom. “Hi, Mom. Bye, Mom. Gotta go!”
Claudia shook her head at the boy’s bladder and said, “What do you mean, you couldn’t get him to say anything?” Really, with Justin, it could be anything or nothing.
“Well, honey, I don’t know how to tell you this.”
It occurred to Claudia to let her mom off the hook, but then sometimes life’s little joys came from putting your parents in uncomfortable positions. She was perverse like that. Plus, if it was something else, she wanted to hear all about it. “You can tell me anything. What did he do now?”
“Do?” Mona’s clear brow wrinkled. “Oh, he didn’t do anything.”
“For once?”
Mona laughed. “Yeah, for once, he was actually quite the ideal grandchild for a whole afternoon. I was surprised myself. But what happened earlier at May’s lunch could account for that model behavior.”
So it was Peter. Claudia sat down to hear exactly what had happened. She didn’t know if she could take it standing up. “Did he say anything at all? I couldn’t corner him after he met Peter, no matter how much I tried.”
“Did you talk to him before the lunch at all? Prepare him for what it was going to be like to meet his father when he can’t even remember him?”
And just like that, Claudia was thrown on the defensive. Something about her mom’s tone didn’t sit right with her. “I found out only a few days ago from May that Peter had come home to help out with his father for a short time.”
Mona twitched on the couch, facing Claudia head on. “I don’t know what you had expected, but we probably shouldn’t have gone there. He hardly had anything to say to the poor boy. Even the few words he spoke were vague enough to be from a complete stranger. I probably iced half of the food May laid out while I stared him down.”
“Oh, Mom. He is a complete stranger.”
“Don’t ‘oh, Mom’ me. A body has a right to absolutely loathe the boy who left you. And you don’t seem too worried about it.” Her mom stared at her over the tops of her glasses and looked none too happy. “You seem pretty nonchalant, actually, for how much you used to curse him to hell and back.”
“Mom! Let’s not talk about that right now. I don’t want Justin to overhear us bashing his biological father.” Not to mention having Nate in her bedroom. If he’d left the door ajar and listened hard, he could probably overhear every single word.
“Justin said he was going to go straight to his room after the bathroom because he had a project to work on. I told him to go for it, since I didn’t want him to hear you swearing if you were so inclined.” She cocked an eyebrow and tapped a finger on the arm of the couch. “In fact, you don’t look like you’re going to bust a gasket at all. You look fine with my little revelation. Why is that?”
“Peter says he wants to help me out, pay child support, or do anything he can to make up for leaving us and continuing with his life as if nothing happened.”
“No!”
“Yes!” Claudia was mocking her mom and got swatted on the arm for her impertinence.
“I can’t believe he’s still alive after you got through with him. Did he try to sway you at all?”
Man, she must have really been carrying around a grudge if so many people thought she should have taken him apart limb by limb because he was breathing the Pennsylvania air again. “He did try to talk to me—”
“And you cut him down with your razor tongue?”
“Now you sound just like Zoe.” The women of her family were bloodthirsty. “No, I did nothing of the sort. Actually, he apologized for the way he acted when I told him I was pregnant, and for not being here for Justin and me when we were younger.”
“And you believed that tripe?”
“Oh, Mom,” Claudia said again and sighed. She leaned back in her chair. “I have to say, it soothed my ego to finally have him apologize. But do I believe him?” She sighed again and moved her hair off her forehead. “I think it’s convenient for him to look back and regret it. But I doubt it will change anything at all.”
“Just as long as you don’t fall for it—and for him—again, I’m sure you’ll be fine.” Mona peeked around the corner. “Since Justin’s still in the bathroom, I guess now is a good time to tell you he has something different to talk with you about.”
“What now? I don’t know if I can handle any more.”
“Oh, it’s nothing bad. But I think you might need Nate for it.”
Yeah, she needed Nate for quite a few things lately. Knowing he was most likely sitting on the edge of her bed right now shot a thrill straight to her core. But she couldn’t show her mom.
And whatever it was with Justin, she would handle it, just like she handled everything else.