“I only want to make you feel good,” Steve wheedled.
“Out! Now! Out of my house!”
“Hey, didn’t I just rescue you? You said you wanted to pay me back.”
“Not with my body! And you’re my friend’s husband, too!”
“I thought all you fat girls were desperate” were his parting words as he turned and slunk out of the room. Kari listened to his retreating footsteps on the stairs. Only when she’d heard the front door slam did she take off the robe again and put on the sweater, layering the robe on top of it.
Cautiously, she inched down the stairs, looking for him all over, till she reached the front door and verified that his Cherokee was gone. Even then, she double-locked both doors and looked around the house, needing to reassure herself he wasn’t lurking anywhere before fear finally relaxed its grip, leaving only anger.
She put on some music. Classical, not her usual thing, but what she happened to be in the mood for. Cranking up the volume, she blasted Tschaikowsky throughout the house. Then she trudged back upstairs to run a nice hot bath, taking her refilled coffee cup with her.
The coffee warmed her body, and the brandy warmed her spirits. The bath finished the job of banishing the chill that had gripped her physically, and between the brandy and her anger at Steve, her spirits seemed revitalized too. She started thinking of how she might spend the weekend—if she wasn’t snowed in for the duration—and making plans for
next
weekend with Max.
Of course, food was always a comfort. She had a fridge full of food she’d bought for Max. To the tune of Tschaikowsky’s soaring violin concerto, she charged into the kitchen under a full head of steam to go through the foods and see what she could freeze, what she’d need to just use up...and what she could make for herself for dinner.
She whomped up a large meal for herself, not minding how long it took to cook. She had all the time in the world...till 11:00, to be precise. While the dinner cooked, she logged on, finding two letters from email friends and putting them aside to answer later. She wandered onto several of her favorite websites, then logged off when dinner was ready.
After wolfing down her meal, she returned to the computer, answering her email. She began to shiver again, so she boosted up the heat and ran another hot tub, as steamy as she could take it, adding bubble bath for good measure. While the tub filled, she turned off all the downstairs lights and did her usual nightly double-check. Doors locked? Computer turned off? Coffeepot off? Stove off? No need to check the windows—they surely hadn’t been opened today!—or the thermostat—she had just tinkered with it a short while ago. Then, fearful that her bath was overflowing, she raced up the stairs.
Sinking into the suds, she luxuriated in the warmth while giving further thought to the weekend. She supposed she’d call Larrimore’s headquarters in the morning and see if she could be of help. Maybe she’d pick a nice, thick book from among her to-read pile. She could even start it tonight, reading till Max called...and make a serious dent in it by the end of the weekend. If the weather tomorrow wasn’t conducive to going out, she’d skip working for Larrimore and just read all day.
She was reading in bed, snuggled under the covers—replete with two extra blankets—when the phone rang at five of eleven. It was Max. “Am I too early? I couldn’t wait any longer to talk to you.”
“No, honey. You’re not too early at all.”
“What are you wearing?”
“Absolutely nothing...I’m ready for you.”
“If I were there, I’d keep you warm on this cold night.”
“I’ll have to settle for two extra blankets and the heat turned way up...which isn’t the same at all.”
“The telephone isn’t the same, either, but we’ll have to settle for that, too. And email...I reread all your letters tonight. It was the best way I could be with you under the circumstances.”
Kari was pleased to think he’d saved all her correspondence and reread it.
“How did you spend your evening?”
Kari thought of the incident with Steve, but skipped any mention of it and just talked about going through the fridge to see what could be frozen for next weekend, making a large dinner, spending time online, luxuriating in a warm tub twice, and reading.
“Did you have any trouble getting home in all this weather?”
“Yes...but fortunately my friend’s husband came along and rescued me.”
“That was nice. Maybe you should have cooked him the dinner as a thank you...or I guess his wife was expecting him home.”
He paused. Kari had to answer. “His wife is out of town.” She hesitated. “And he had a different kind of thank you in mind.”
“Ohhh?” His voice rose. He had clearly caught her meaning, though he didn’t know the scenario.
“It’s going to be awfully awkward going over to Lylah’s house now. I slapped him. I don’t ever want to see him again.”
“He didn’t just
ask
, then?”
“I think I hurt him. I hope I hurt him.”
“He didn’t...he didn’t hurt you, did he?”
“The only thing he wounded was my feelings. Christ!” She burned all over at the memory. She, again, felt his hands, his lips, his male hardness. Shame burned her cheeks. Then she heard his remark again, about fat girls being desperate. Anger flooded her. But she kept that part of the story to herself.
“My poor baby,” Max cooed. “If I were there, I’d kiss you to make you feel better.”
“I think if you hit him for me, that would help even more.”
“That can be arranged too.”
“I didn’t mean it literally. It’s nice to think about, but I wouldn’t want you to really do it.”
“Well, how
can
I make you feel better?” His voice had dropped to a sexy purr.
“Just talk to me awhile.”
Max was understanding. He obliged her with a recounting of the day, his work, his drive home under adverse conditions, the dinner he’d scrambled to put together with nothing much in the house. In anticipation of being away for the weekend, he’d bought little in the way of groceries, but he’d made a cheese omelet and home fries, a strong cup of coffee, and he’d had some frozen blueberries too. “An odd combination...I hope I can get to the store tomorrow, or I may be reduced to eating cat food!” he joked.
“Did you remember to call off the neighbor who was coming in to feed Pandora?”
“Yes...I don’t need any surprises when I’m in the kitchen in my underwear.”
“Now there’s an interesting picture.”
“I can picture you making coffee in your underwear...mmm.”
“Wrong. I’m always dressed when I come down in the morning.”
“But you’re naked now.”
He was leading her toward hot talk, and she decided she was finally relaxed enough to be ready. She let herself be led. “Yes, naked and warm. Want to try for naked and hot?”
“I’ll get in bed with you and warm you up alllll over. Where shall we start? A kiss on the tip of your nose? And here’s a kiss on your cute little chin. I’ve been studying your picture. I’d know that chin anywhere.
“And now I’m moving down to your neck, kissing the hollow there, moving south to your breasts. I always did like mountain climbing. And those are worthy peaks to conquer. Mmmm. Soft breasts. So kissable. Flesh firm, yet yielding. Nipple hard...mmm, so good. Just the way I like them. Brown or pink?”
She gulped. “Pink areolas and nipples. And you—hairy chest or smooth?”
“A sprinkling of hairs, but I’m not one of those beasts.”
“Good. And your bellybutton—an innie or an outie?” She was feeling playful now.
“An outie. And yours?”
“An innie.”
“I’ll dip into it with my tongue, then. Feel it flicking into your navel? Just like another part of me wants to do to another part of you.”
“Oooooh.” She squirmed in the bed as her dormant female cleft awakened and began to thrum to the excitement of his words. At last, the bad day was truly relaxing its grip on her, and she could get into the excitement engendered by his words.
As they talked, a fever rose in her. His words, and the pictures they gave life to in her mind, fanned the flames that raged through her body.
“I want to make you squirm in high heat,” he said.
“You’re doing that now!” she gasped.
Between his words, her own words, and the pictures playing through her brain, her body seemed in danger of spontaneous combustion.
At last, the conversation reached a natural peak and subsided. They couldn’t talk any longer about what they longed to do to each other. Being unable to actually do it was too frustrating. She brought up a neutral topic instead—the political situation in Max’s town. It had the damping effect on their desires that she sought.
They talked for a few minutes more, making plans for the following weekend. “It wouldn’t
dare
snow again next weekend,” Max thundered as if issuing an edict.
“It would certainly be a meteorological phenomenon in October,” Kari said. Suddenly, she was exhausted. Sleep was ready to claim her.
Max heard it in her mumbling voice. “I’ll be waiting in your computer in the morning,” he promised softly.
“With my luck, the storm will take down the connection,” she answered.
“You’ll be fine,” Max soothed. “And we’ll see each other next weekend...and you’ll have a nice time all cozied inside this weekend. Or you’ll go work for Larrimore. Maybe try out some new recipes while you’re home. I’ll send you my recipe for pork roast with cranberry sauce. Invite a friend over, and think of me when you eat it.”
“My closest friend is Lylah, and I don’t see much of her anymore. And after tonight...that was her husband that....”
“Shh. Yes, I know. You’ll invite another friend over. Now go to sleep, and dream of me.”
“Goodnight, Max. You’re so sweet.”
“You’re sweet. You’re
my
sweet. Goodnight, my sweet.”
But Kari couldn’t go right to sleep. As Max’s voice went silent at the other end, his picture began to fade from her mind, edged out by other visions—those of Steve and Lylah.
First it was just Steve. Steve grabbing at her. Steve pawing at her. Steve thinking he had a right to claim her in return for rescuing her.
He was vile. He was awful. She had thought he was her friend, her rescuer, one of the good guys, but he had shown his true colors when he came upstairs to take her. To take her without even asking first, just assuming she would want him because “all fat women are desperate.”
She would have to be something more than desperate to mess around with her best friend’s husband!
Lylah! What was she going to say to Lylah? Should she call her and inform her that her husband, the man she’d said she trusted implicitly, was trying to cheat behind her back? Was possibly already cheating? Because if he had no compunctions about trying to score with his wife’s best friend, who knew who else he’d been chasing after, quite possibly with more success!
Or would Lylah somehow find a way to blame Kari? “What did you do to lead him on?” Lylah was her best friend—but in a contest between Lylah’s best friend and her husband, which would she choose?
Surely Steve would deny his transgression, forcing Lylah to decide which of the two was lying. There were no winners in such a contest, only losers.
And even if Lylah believed Kari implicitly, and even if Lylah didn’t seek mitigating factora—“You must have said or done something to encourage him!”—wouldn’t Lylah resent Kari? Wasn’t it typical to “kill the messenger?” And how could she not feel that Kari had been instrumental in breaking up her marriage? Humans were funny animals. Lylah might easily find a way to make this incident out to be Kari’s fault altogether!
Suddenly, Kari didn’t envy Lylah’s life as much as she had. Suddenly, being married and pregnant had lost some of its allure. Especially if you were married to someone like Steve.
Of course, Lylah didn’t know it. Lylah thought she was married to Mr. Perfect. But that was it right there...if Lylah could be fooled, so could any woman. And if Steve could cheat, so could any husband, including any potential future husband of Kari’s.
Was Max a cheater?
Yeeesh! She hadn’t even met him face to face yet, and already Kari was worrying if Max was a cheater.
Face to face—that reminded her. How was she ever going to face Lylah again? Kari had fairly well decided
not
to tell her about Steve’s advances—although, wouldn’t that be just what he was counting on? But how would she ever deal with keeping the secret buried? With not letting Lylah know her husband was a cheater?
Sleep was elusive for the longest time, and troubled and restless when she finally found it.
Chapter 12
Stretching in bed, half-awakening, Kari was aware that
something
had pierced the shroud of sleep, and it wasn’t the rooster alarm. Was it close to time to get up? Then she again heard the noise that had permeated her sleep. Snowplows.