Page 12 of Shopping for an Heir
“STOP!” Suzanne gently led Smoochy to her little crate. The dog was so obedient. So passive. Suzanne had never heard her bark. Not once. She settled into her bed and resumed her nap, chin on paws.
With an evil laugh, Kari tapped on her phone screen, clearly requesting an Uber as Suzanne ran out into the dark night, needing to pound away the racing thoughts about Gerald.
Please, he’d begged at the arts center.
Please what?
The words became a chant inside her as she ran, please what please what please what taking over until she was nothing but feet, knees, hips, arms, lungs, a body in motion staying in motion, running to make the mind less important than tendon and bone. If she could just get her emotions to step back, step down, and let her body assume center stage, then the temporary relief of setting down the burden of the past might give her a break.
Pushing herself, she found a comfortable six-minute-mile pace, and in under eighteen minutes was done, panting and covered in sweat, but ready to feast.
Kari was inside, flirting with a bearded counter guy with a man bun, her spoon already deep into a sundae.
This man bun fashion had to end soon, right?
Right?
“Hey! Here’s my crazy friend I was telling you about,” Kari said to Man Bun, who looked at her with a grin. Bright green eyes, thick brown beard. He was what—twenty?
Why did all the guys in Cambridge look like fetuses?
On second look, she realized what appeared to be a man bun from outside was actually a nest of snakes.
The guy had long dreads curled up into a festering pile of hair.
Give Suzanne a freshly shaved recruit any day of the week.
“Hi. Salted caramel and pumpkin two scoops in a cup with hot fudge,” she ordered.
The guy snapped back and saluted. “Yes, ma’am!”
Kari snickered.
Suzanne frowned.
“What was that about?”
“You pulled out your commanding tone, Suzanne. You sounded like a drill sergeant.”
“No, I didn’t! I just asked for ice cream.”
“You have no idea how you come across sometimes. Especially when you’re pissed.”
“I am not pissed! I just want some damn ice cream!” The glare she shot Kari should have melted the store’s inventory.
“Right. Totally not pissed,” Kari murmured, rolling her eyes. She flashed a sweet grin at Snake Head, who winked at her.
“He’s too young for you,” Suzanne said in a judgy tone. She owned it.
“Is not!”
“He only wants to date you so you can smuggle him into R-rated movies.”
“Suzanne!”
“And buy him cigarettes.”
“He’s twenty-four!”
“Which is ten years younger than you.”
“Rawr.” Kari pretended to be a cougar. “Young guys are impressionable. Experimental. Adventurous in bed.”
“Is that all a euphemism for inexperienced? No, thanks. I don’t want to have to play the sexual version of Pokemon Go with my body as a gym and my clitoris a rare Pokemon.”
Kari looked at her in horror. “Way to ruin Pokemon forever! Ew! Now your clit will be in my brain forever as a Charmander.” She paused, deep in thought. “But erotic Pokemon sounds like a great business idea.”
The store went silent. Suzanne turned and looked around.
Everyone was staring at them.
“Uh, here’s your ice cream,” Snake Head said, trying to suppress a smile.
Suzanne handed him a sweat-soaked bill. Kari took the change. They skedaddled, bursting into giggles on the sidewalk, wandering toward Central Square. Just as they composed themselves, a siren pierced the air, the fire station across the street opening up and a big fire truck making its way down Mass Ave. A police cruiser turned on its blue lights and left them flashing.
Sudden sirens no longer triggered Suzanne, but the damn flashing lights drove her eyes crazy. Cutting down a side street, she hurried to get away from the flashes. Kari followed quietly, knowing exactly why Suzanne made the route change, not saying a word. They’d been through this before.
“I,” Kari declared in an arch tone, “am totally calling that guy.”
“The butt guy or Snake Head?”
“What?”
Suzanne laughed through a mouthful of ice cream. “Sorry,” she mumbled.
“You invented nicknames for men I haven’t even dated yet?”
“You don’t want to date them. You want to sleep with them.”
“Same difference.”
Suzanne shuddered. “I didn’t sleep with my date tonight. Can you believe I ended up on a date with Steve Raleigh?”
Kari frowned. “That name sounds famil—wait! Oh, my God! He’s that super pompous guy who was all over Jessica Coffin’s Twitter stream when he was dating her, right? Couple years ago? This is all ringing a bell. He was your date? I didn’t put it together when you called.”
Suzanne shrugged. “I didn’t research him. Just knew his name was Steve and he worked in the financial sector. Met him in public, so....”
“That’s bad?”
“I need to bathe in plane wing degreaser after spending an hour with him.”
“Sounds like a rough night.”
“You got the phone numbers for two different guys tonight.”
“You got kissed.”
“Yeah,” Suzanne said through a sigh, restraining herself from touching her lips. Gerald. “What am I going to do?”
“Let him make the next move. He certainly owes that to you. All these years, and not a word. He just dumped you?”
Suzanne nodded, eating her sundae. Memory has a funny way of protecting the psyche at all costs. It pulls out every stop, like a mother sensing danger near her child. The will to survive trumps all, and in Suzanne’s case, memory protected her heart.
But it wasn’t infallible.
“He did. He got his discharge before I did. Sent me an email.”
“I know. You told me. A single fucking email, and then he disappeared.” Hearing it from Kari’s mouth always made it seem as stark as it felt. Confirmation from another person that pain was real made bearing it slightly easier.
“Not his style at all,” Suzanne mused. “Never was. Gerald was direct and forthright, completely blunt.” She smiled, her mouth twisting with bitter reverie. “It made him perfect for me.”
“Because you’re the epitome of passive-aggressive,” Kari joked.
“We were a pair.”
“A powerful pair, I’ll bet,” Kari said, smiling, giving Suzanne a look only a good friend could give. “You must be reeling.”
Suzanne held a full spoon of carbs aloft. “Exhibit #1, your honor.”
“And he’s a client.”
“Not quite.” Suzanne paused. “Okay, he is. Sort of. The billionaire’s estate handed this portion of his will to our firm. I’m just passing on the information to Gerald.”
“He’s a client, Suzanne. Don’t mince words.”
“I’m asking to be reassigned tomorrow. I can’t take this.”
“And you generally can take a lot.”
“I can. But not this. Especially if it drags out. There is no way I can let Gerald Wright back into my life.”
“He already is,” Kari pointed out, gently.
He already is.
Chapter 7
It was hot, the kind of heat that permeates every cell, flowing through you like your bones conduct it. He was a conduit and she was a live wire, the rough press of skin against lips a ritual they’d performed so many times before, a ceremony that should have been routine but that inspired new revelations. Her breast was heavy in his hand, ripe and full, the perfect size for his mouth. Her gasp made him smile against the hollow of her throat as he kissed her, inhaling deeply.
Days.
It had been days since they’d been together, and the desperation clung to their skin like a unique scent. He smelled her need. She tasted him, licking the fine groove between his ribs, her mouth making his abs quiver, his sharp intake of air curling his belly inward. Away.
Sweat rolled off them like water, pure and evoked by the desert heat but vanquished by their mutual need. Her face was flushed by this connection, the way his hand found her between her legs, how his tongue played with her nipple, how she moved to wrap her palm around his shaft and stroked once, twice—just enough before he stopped her, needing more heat.
Wet, wild heat.
Her breath on his hip chilled him, cooler than the ambient temperature, the rise and fall of her chest as the air tickled his slick skin making his body tingle.
As she sank lower, her mouth a fortress, a temple, an asylum, he groaned and pulled her up. Straddling him, she sank home, her hands sliding up from his navel to his shoulders, her long, blonde hair free and spilling behind her back as she arched.
The tent felt like nirvana, her body heaven, their union complete as they both—
Gerald awoke with a start, gasping into the strange box of reality, the room dark with shadows and filled with the scent of deeply anticipated horror.
“Oh, God,” he grunted, breathing erratic, heart in flames in the center of his chest.
That dream.
That fucking dream.
He hadn’t had that dream about Suzanne in eight years.
Drawing on every tool in his psychological coping toolbox, Gerald started with deep breaths. Inhale for eight, exhale for four. Something like that. His hands fisted the sheets, which were damp in sections. Sweating profusely, Gerald stood, throwing the sheet off him, stomping through his bedroom naked, headed to the kitchen for a glass of water.
