A Date on Cloud Nine (25 page)

Mooch finally ventured out in a low, wary crouch, glancing this way and that, evaluating whether this was a good move. Eventually he decided it was, because he climbed onto Jake’s waiting lap and found himself engulfed in a firm hug that no amount of claws discouraged.

“I’ve got him!” he called to Lilly, who ran around the corner.

“Is he okay?”

“It looked like he might be limping, and there’s something on my fingers.”

“Blood?”

“I think a better question is his or mine? Let’s get him inside.”

Side by side, they checked him out on the floor of the laundry room, where they could close the door and not have to chase him through the house if he wiggled free. He kept up a long, drawn-out yowl, just in case they had any question as to how undignified this was for him.

“He’s lost weight,” Jake said. “I can feel his ribs too much.”

“There’s blood caked on his right paw.”

“See a cut?”

“No, not yet.”

“Let’s give him a bath.”

“You can’t bathe a cat.”

“Sure you can. Though”—he winked—“it might take both of us.”

“And a set of steel gloves.”

“Nah. Fill the sink with water.”

“Yeah, what’ve you got to lose? Your arms are already clawed up.”

“You never considered nursing school, did you?”

She sniffed. “I know something about first aid.”

“Yeah, what?”

“You need peroxide and Polysporin.”

“Wow, bill me in the morning.”

A slow smile spread across her face, warming him to the core. “Nah, advice is free, as long as you take it.”

“And if I don’t?”

She rose first. “Then you pay the price.”

He was willing to find out what the price was. Later. “Mind filling the sink now?”

“Oh. Sure.” She activated the sensor.

“You have time to change into a white T-shirt.”

“Very funny.”

“Okay, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He rose beside her and had all he could do to hold on to Mooch, who probably was wondering why the hell he’d come home for this. “Check the temperature on the inside of your wrist.”

“That’s for baby formula.”

“Huh. Then what do you do for a baby’s bath?”

Strange how Lilly’s face fell as she stuck her elbow in the rising water, as if she were sad. Who could be sad with Mooch back? But when Jake got no more sass from her, he knew she was. They both turned quiet and thoughtful, until the water started flying. Besides, who could listen to Mooch’s moaning and not laugh?

Twenty minutes later, they were all soaked to the skin.
Mooch, the lucky one, got a quick blow-dry. Every time the cat moaned his disgust with the whole procedure, Jake felt bad for him, so after he was dry, he tried his best to cuddle the fur ball. At the same time, Lilly was applying Polysporin to the worst of his claw marks.

“Ow.”

“Baby.”

“Not you. He just clawed my thigh.”

“Watch how I’m doing this then, because you’re doing your own thigh.”

After that, they piled into Jake’s bed and curled up together, the cat snuggled between them. He purred.

Jake sighed contentedly.

So did Lilly.

Then Mooch wanted the hell out of there and squirmed free, though he dug in the blanket and nested near their feet.

Lilly scooted closer to Jake, curling up against him where Mooch had been, fitting her head beneath his chin.

Jake’s heart leaped into his throat as Lilly came to him. This was
so
much better than snuggling the cat.

“He’s dumber’n I thought,” she murmured, her breath tickling his neck.

Did making love to Lilly require ousting the cat?

Jake pulled her on top of him. Didn’t hurt to remind her how strong he was, how thoroughly he could love her.

She sighed deeply against his chest then. Her whole body went lax.

It was going to be long time until morning.

F
irst thing in the morning, nothing to eat, nothing to drink. Swish, swish, swish. Get a saliva sample. The procedure had become so routine for Lilly that she barely gave it any thought. It was just another step before washing her face.

“You look awful.” The mirror covered the whole area above the double-bowled vanity, so it was impossible to ignore her image. “Really awful.”

Last night had been blissful, with her head pillowed somewhere on Jake’s body—his shoulder, his chest, sometimes his arm, depending on how she’d moved about, because she hadn’t slept restfully.

But the dreams! As a natural method for a person to work things out in her mind while she was asleep, it wasn’t working. It was normal to relive a traumatic experience in dreams, but surely not for that experience to morph so much that, as she woke up each day, she wasn’t a hundred percent sure where she’d be. She’d resorted to
testing her senses before she opened her eyes, concentrating first on touch to make sure she was in a bed, not on a parking lot. Then hearing, grateful for Jake’s deep breathing, not a crackling building and sirens. Then smelling, always reassured when smoke didn’t burn her nose. Only then did she open her eyes.

Dreams of being poor came less often, of being pregnant more often, but that was only normal, given how the focus of her life had shifted.

The last thing Lilly did before leaving the bathroom neat as a pin was check the predictor for the telltale fern pattern she was supposed to see as her estrogen level increased. Instead of throwing it in the drawer and slamming it, she stared at it.

Was that—?

Could that be what the manufacturer called a fern?

She yanked open every drawer in the room, searching for the instruction sheet with the side-by-side diagrams that she needed for comparison, and finally found it in the box in the first drawer she’d already searched three times.

She took a deep breath. Could it finally be time? Would she get the full nine months? Hands shaking, she held the slide next to the diagrams.

“Lights, on!” she ordered, afraid to look away.

So many emotions ran through her simultaneously that she couldn’t function. Her mouth was open, but she didn’t yell. Maybe she squeaked her euphoric “Yes!”

Her muscles quivered, yet she couldn’t move, couldn’t run to Jake’s bedroom and jump in bed with him. Her knees shook, and she had to lean against the wall.

As for breathing, forget that until she grew lightheaded and finally gasped for air.

Heart pounding, she caught her reflection in the mirror again. Quick!—finger comb hair, massage that one crease on her cheek. Maybe it’d go away before she jumped in bed looking like a scarfaced Halloween ghoul and scared Jake out of the mood. Brush teeth. Strip off her T-shirt.

Not bad. But she had a slinky teddy that’d be better. Having him unsnap the crotch was half the fun.

As her heart soared with delight, her very soul swelled with a hearty dose of peace and satisfaction. It was about to happen. She was about to get pregnant. She’d get her extra months with Jake. In that time, she’d find a way to prepare him for what was to come. She’d badger him until he believed in something,
anything
, until she knew he’d accepted it, so she’d know he’d be okay after she left. There was so much good he could do, he and their son.

“Oh my God, I can’t believe this!” she whispered for herself alone. And hugged herself, blissfully alive, ready for the next level. A quick scan of the information sheet said that to get pregnant, sex was advised within the next thirty-six hours.

Well, okay!

Finally, all systems go, cleared for take off. Lilly ran down the hall to her room and yanked a teddy—red, of course—out of the dresser. She was all thumbs and clumsy feet and nearly fell on her butt getting into it, but she managed. The silk skimmed her skin, all smooth and sexy and begging to be torn off. What else could she do to make this a morning to remember?

Hey, the vibrator had been his idea. It was her turn. She raced down to the basement, where Jake had stored the undamaged stock from Cloud Nine. The first item she grabbed happened to be a tiny spray bottle.

“To enhance pleasure, spray one time on tongue prior to oral activity,” she read off the label, laughing at how it was worded, as if not saying oral sex cleaned it up for marketing. “Guaranteed to give your man ecstasy. He’ll think he’s on fire.”

“Yeah, we’ll see.” Of course, it was one of the items Jake had salvaged from the store, so it must be pretty good. “Well, here goes.”

She uncapped it, spritzed once on her way upstairs, thought it was too light to be effective—since it was new, it wasn’t primed properly—and spritzed again. Yeah, definitely more mist on the second go-round. Kind of warm and tangy. No time to read what was in it. She was uncertain how this was going to enhance Jake’s pleasure, but discovery would be fun.

“Oh Ja-ake,” she sang out in the hall.

No, too perky.

She lowered her voice, trying for smoky and sexy, slipped one red strap off her shoulder and slinked into his room. “Ohhh, Jake.”

Not only was he no longer sprawled across the mattress on his back, it got worse. Right smack on the neatly made bed sat a dark blue carry-on suitcase. Open. Half-full. Jake—already dressed, except for a shirt, the rat—was sorting through a dresser drawer. When he noticed her, he did a double take, and clean socks drifted from his hands to the floor.

His stunned reaction did wonders for Lilly’s confidence. She strutted her stuff across the room and leaned back against a bedpost. Tipping her head back, she ran her fingers slowly down her neck, then her chest, until they settled in the V between her breasts. She cocked one
knee just so and hoped to heaven she projected sexy, not stupid.

From the sensuous gleam in Jake’s eyes, she figured she was on the right track, getting him hot. Beads of sweat actually popped out on his bare chest.

Which is why it was so totally unexpected when he stared at her with longing in those beautiful bedroom eyes, and said, “Now? But I’ve got a flight to catch.”

Jake yearned to pluck Lilly right off that bedpost, toss her on her back, and show her how excited he was. He had a lot to show.

Instead, what rushed out of his mouth before he could get his words right was, “I overslept. I have to leave, like, ten minutes ago.” He had a meeting, damn it, one crucial to wiping out his family’s debt.

“Oh,” Lilly said, but she didn’t look dissuaded.

In fact, just the opposite. She slowly slid her hands up the bedpost, stretching her arms overhead. Red silk inched up her thigh, tightening where it was anchored between her legs, which just threatened to anchor his gaze there, too, except that he wanted to see all of her. If she started stripping, he was in big trouble.

“I, uh—” He had to clear his throat so he didn’t sound like a puberty-struck teenager. “I don’t know if I can get a later flight.”

Okay, he saw something flicker across her face. He liked to think it was acknowledgment that today was very important, not just to him, but to several people.

“How long will you be gone?” Smoky and sensual, her words seduced every cell of his body.

He shrugged; not eloquent, maybe, but words were
damned near impossible right now. “Three days, maybe four. No, three. I’ll keep it to three.”

“I don’t think I can wait that long.” As she arched her back, her breasts thrust toward him, begging for his hands to touch her.
Just one touch.

“Go throw some clothes on.”

“W-what?”

“I’ll help you pack. If we get pulled over for speeding, you pay the ticket.”

“But—”

He plucked her off the bedpost then, careful not to let his hands stray from her face. Well, okay, he could grasp her shoulders or hold her by her arms, but that was it. “Look, I love you, you know that, don’t you?”

She nodded, but worry lines puckered her forehead.

“If it was just me, I’d be naked by now—trust me on that—but sweetheart, I don’t bail on anybody I love. I won’t bail on my family, and I certainly won’t ever bail on you. But my folks worked their whole lives to get where they are. They’ve risked it all for me. Let’s face it, financial solvency lasts a lifetime. Sex lasts five minutes.”

She grinned then.

So did he. “Yeah, I know, but that’s all I’d be able to give you right now.”

“Maybe that’s all I need.”

“Sweetheart”—he laughed gently—“that’s never been all you need.”

He kissed her deeply, thoroughly, until he knew her knees were mush because she was getting shorter—either that, or aiming for the bed. He tore himself away, one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do.

“Go get dressed. I’ll throw some of your clothes in my bag, you won’t need much.”

“But…but there might not be an open seat on the plane.”

“Then you’ll be on the next one.” He gave her a gentle push toward the hall, noticing little dots of moisture on her upper lip that he wanted to suck off. Later. “Let’s go, we’re wasting time. The sooner we get there, the sooner you get laid.”

Lilly flashed him a saucy wink and took off running ahead of him. She was in dark jeans and a red T-shirt in seconds, but due to the long layover scheduled in Phoenix, he’d be thinking about her in that teddy for the next six hours and thirty-seven minutes. Longer if he counted driving time.

No way, wasn’t possible to survive that.

Mile High Club, here I come.
He wouldn’t mind becoming a member.

“If you’re gonna zap me over the price of a ticket, do it now,” she muttered.

“I’m not—Oh, them.”

She glanced upward. “Good, glad we got that straight.”

Was he prepared to live the rest of his life with this peculiarity of hers?

Lilly slipped into strappy red heels—his favorites, the ones that raised her ass several inches to a much handier level.

Yeah, guess I am.

“Is it getting hot in here?” She brushed her hair back off her face.

“Nope, you’re just burning up for me, babe.”

Surprisingly, she didn’t have a comeback for that corny line. Hopefully she’d be struck just as mute when he mentioned his plans for club membership. Could they get into the same bathroom without attracting attention?

He grabbed panties and bras out of her drawer, and what was that flash of red? Tights? He grabbed those, too. Adding a couple T-shirts, he flew back across the hall to stow it all in his suitcase, shouting instructions as he went.

“If you need anything out of the bathroom besides your toothbrush, go get it.”

“Oh my God—
no
.” Lilly charged down the hall, screaming.

Man, if she’d just gotten her period, she wasn’t going to be the only one.

He zipped the suitcase, ran downstairs, threw it into the car, and ran back inside to hurry things along. He found Lilly bent over at the kitchen sink, moaning, crying, her face under the faucet.

“What’s the matter?”

“Ibburns,” she burbled under the flow of water.

“This isn’t one of those angel moments, is it?”

When she tilted her head and glanced up at him, his heart seized. Her eyes were red and watery. Her face was splotchy beneath the sheen of water running off her chin. Her lips—

“Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod—”

“What—” He peered closer. “What’d you do to your lips?”

Swollen, they appeared tight and uncomfortable. An allergic reaction to her lipstick?

Geez
, why now?

She stuck her face back under the cold water. But she also held out a small, familiar bottle.

“You didn’t.”

Her nod consisted of tight little jerks, and Jake saw his meeting slipping away from him.

“Not water,” he said, pulling her away from the flow. “That makes it worse.”

“Can’t.”

When he let go to fetch a better remedy, she ducked back under the faucet and he had to pull her away again.

“I know it burns,” he crooned, trying to sound comforting, but from the copious amount of tears streaming down her face, he wasn’t having that effect. Dabbing at her cheeks with a towel, he grasped her chin and held it so she’d have to focus on him, so she wouldn’t go back to the water, which just spread that stuff everywhere no one wanted it to go. He tore off a piece of bread and held it in front of her mouth. “Eat this.”

“I need ice!”

There, he had it in. “No ice. Chew.” He stuffed in another chunk. “Keep chewing. Swallow. Here’s more. Better yet?”

“No. It’s hot, I need water.”

“Trust me, you need bread. Geez, I can’t believe you used that stuff.”

“I did it for you.”

“Yeah, think how well that’d be going right now.” As if chewing would’ve helped him.

“More bread.”

He knew she was recovering when she snickered. “What?” he asked.

“Just picturing you with a hot dog bun wrapped around—”

“I doubt it works that way. It hurts just thinking about it. And if you still think it’s funny, just imagine where the burning might have spread
to
.”

She clenched her thighs tightly. “Eww.”

“Exactly.” He tossed the bottle into the trash and risked a hug. “From now on, let’s vote on everything we try before we try it, okay?”

“Sure,” she said, leaning back and puckering up.

“Forget that.”

“Aw, c’mon, it doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“Want a glass of water?”

“Mm, maybe I’ll wait.”

“Yeah, maybe I will, too.”

“Can we still make the flight?”

He checked the wall clock. “It’ll be close.”

Twenty minutes later, they were caught in highway traffic as it slowed to a crawl.

“It might be an accident.” It was Lilly’s fault, they both knew it, but Jake was kind enough not to say so.

“Might be everyone rubbernecking a flat tire, too. Either way, we’re not going to make it.”

Moments later, all lanes were blocked. Jake slumped against his door, undoubtedly feeling the weight of the world on him at this moment. His parents. His uncle. Maybe others; things like this always had repercussions that trickled down.