Authors: Marie Force
Tiffany scooped her up and waited to see what the men had for her. She nearly fell over in shock when they carried in a sofa. “Where… What… Where did that come from?”
“We picked it up from the old Ridgeway place,” one of the men said.
Tiffany glanced at Maddie, who watched the proceedings with bug eyes.
“Who sent it?” Tiffany asked.
“Not sure exactly, but we have a note for you in the truck. We’ll get it on the next run.”
“Wait. There’s
more
?”
“Heck, yeah. A lot more.”
“Who could’ve done this?” Tiffany asked her sister after the men went back outside.
“I figured you might know.”
“I have no idea.”
“It sure is nice,” Maddie said, running a hand over the soft fabric.
“Yes.” Anything was nicer than nothing, but the sofa was one she would’ve chosen herself.
Over the next fifteen minutes, the men brought in a gorgeous area rug, end tables, lamps and a kitchen table and chairs that fit perfectly in her empty breakfast nook. By the time they handed over the note that accompanied the gift, Tiffany had tears rolling down her face.
Maddie put down Thomas and took Ashleigh from her, entertaining them while Tiffany wiped away the tears and opened the card.
“Now don’t kill me,” it said in a masculine scrawl, “but I happened to be going by the Ridgeway place and noticed a sign for the estate sale. I went in to check it out and saw exactly what you needed for dirt cheap. The temptation was too great to pass up. I hope you’ll accept this gift in the spirit in which it was given and not kill me or hold it against me or punish me in any way, except for ways that I’ll leave to your fertile imagination… I find myself thinking about you pretty much all the time. Blaine.”
“Who’s it from?” Maddie asked as she stretched out on the sofa.
“Blaine.”
“Are you
shitting
me?”
“Shit,” Thomas said, making both women laugh.
“Don’t say that word, Thomas,” Maddie said sternly. “Mommy shouldn’t have said it.”
Tiffany plopped down next to her. “I can’t believe he did this.”
“Can I see the note?”
Tiffany handed it to her.
“Oh, wow, Tiff. How sweet is that?”
“It’s very sweet,” Tiffany contended with a new flood of tears. “I can’t believe he did this.”
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s possible your sex-only fling just became a bona fide relationship.”
“What does that mean?”
“He really
likes
you, honey.”
“I’m not ready for that. I just got divorced.”
“Your marriage has been over for a long time. It only
officially
ended. If you like him as much as he seems to like you, why can’t you take a chance and see what happens?”
“I’m afraid to,” Tiffany said softly. “I’m so afraid of how I already feel about him, and then he goes and does something like this.”
Maddie reached for her hand. “Do you remember when you sat in my kitchen and told me you wanted what I have with Mac?”
Tiffany nodded.
“This,” Maddie said, gesturing to the furniture, “is right out of Mac McCarthy’s playbook. Blaine is a good guy, a
decent
guy. He’s nothing like Jim. Not to mention he’s hotter than sin.”
“Yes, he is,” Tiffany said, laughing through her tears. “You don’t know the half of it.”
“Oh no?” Maddie raised an eyebrow. “Do tell.”
“No way.”
Thomas crawled into his mother’s lap and popped his thumb into his mouth.
“As much as I’d love to stick around for the dirty details, that’s my signal to get this tired boy home to bed,” Maddie said, lifting her son as she stood. “Think about what I said, okay?”
Tiffany walked them to the door. “How will I think about anything else?”
“I gotta say one more thing.”
“You always have to get the last word in.”
Maddie laughed. “Mac accuses me of the same thing.”
“What’s your last word on this matter?”
“Blaine has good taste. Not just in furniture but in women, too.” She kissed Tiffany’s cheek. “Talk to you in the morning.”
After her sister left, Tiffany went through the motions of getting Ashleigh into bed as her head spun over the implications of Blaine’s grand gesture. Thankfully, it took only one story, rather than the usual three, to send her baby girl off to sleep. For a long time after Ashleigh fell asleep, Tiffany stayed in bed with her, snuggled up to the child who’d brought her so much joy and comfort during the last three difficult years of her marriage.
Ashleigh smelled of baby shampoo and sweet little girl. Tiffany couldn’t wait until she was older and they could go shopping together. She’d be starting ballet class at the studio in the fall, and Tiffany was excited to share her love of dance with her daughter. So much to look forward to all of a sudden, Tiffany thought, at peace, finally, with the changes her life had undergone recently.
Her daughter was healthy and thriving, the store was holding its own, she was free of Jim and the terrible strain of their failing marriage, her mother and sister were happily in love with men who cherished them, and she had a sweet, wonderful new man in her life who couldn’t stop thinking of her. It had been a very long time since the inventory of her life had looked as perfect as it did right now.
She was on her way to sleep when the doorbell rang. Shaking off the slumber, she went downstairs, wondering if Maddie had forgotten something that Thomas couldn’t live without until the morning. She opened the door, and her mind went blank when she found Blaine looking sinfully sexy in a white button-down shirt and plaid shorts.
He held out a pizza box to her. “A peace offering.”
“Why do you need a peace offering?”
“I figured you’d be mad at me for changing the rules on you.”
She took his hand and led him inside, placing the pizza box on the coffee table. Turning to him, she put her arms around him and rested her face on his chest. “Thank you.”
His arms came around her, holding her snugly and perfectly. “Wow, I got off way easier than expected.”
“It’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.”
“That can’t possibly be true.”
“It is.” She let her hands wander under his shirt and reveled in the tremble that traveled through him when her hands found his back. “I want to pay you back, but I can’t right now.”
“It was a present, and doing it made me happy, so no more talk of paying me back, okay?”
“Do you really think about me all the time?”
“
All
the time.” This was said against her neck, where the brush of soft lips and rough whiskers made her shiver.
As they stood there wrapped up in each other for several minutes, Tiffany realized her sister was right. This was no longer the uncomplicated sex-only relationship she’d planned to have with him.
“Where’s Ashleigh?” he asked.
“Asleep.”
“Could I see her?”
“You’ve seen her before.”
“I know, but I bet she’s awfully cute when she’s asleep.”
“She is.”
“That’s what I want to see.”
His words went straight to her heart, making it flip-flop precariously. She took his hand and led him up the stairs. Outside Ashleigh’s room, she turned on the hall light and opened the door. Her little girl’s dark hair formed a swirl on the white pillowcase, and her lips were pursed into an adorable, kissable bow.
“So pretty,” Blaine whispered. “She looks just like her mama.”
“I’ve heard that a time or two.” Tiffany rearranged the covers that Ashleigh had already kicked off, kissed her daughter’s cheek and followed Blaine from the room.
“Thank you for that,” he said.
“You’re welcome.”
“I’d like to get to know her. If that’s okay with you.”
“That depends.”
“On?”
“What exactly this is that we’re doing here.”
“What do
you
think we’re doing?” As he spoke, he stepped closer to her and kept coming until he had her backed up against the wall. With his body—and his erection—pressed tight against her, he raised his arms over her head.
Tiffany swallowed hard, overwhelmed as always when close to him. “Until today, I thought we were hanging out, having sex, having fun.”
“What changed today?”
“I found out you think about me
all
the time.”
“You liked that, huh?”
Looking up to find him watching her intently, she nodded.
“So what’re we doing now?”
She linked her fingers through the belt loops on his shorts. “The same thing we were doing, only now it seems to mean more than it did before. For some reason.”
He bent his head and rested it on her shoulder. “Yes, it does.”
Tiffany ran her fingers through his hair.
“Do you think about me once in a while?” he asked in that gruff, sexy voice she was growing to love.
“Pretty much all the time.”
He sighed deeply. “I should go.”
She hadn’t expected him to say that. “Why?”
“Because your daughter is here, and you didn’t want me to come over tonight, but I wanted to see you, so I came anyway.”
“It wasn’t that I didn’t want you to come over. I didn’t think you’d want to hang out with Ashleigh.”
“Now you know better.” He raised his head and stared into her eyes for the longest time.
Tiffany was about to grab him and drag his mouth down to hers when he saved her the trouble by tipping his head kissing her so softly and so sweetly she almost forgot to breathe. He kept up the gentle assault, devastating her with his lips alone. When he raised his head, Tiffany moaned.
“Don’t stop,” she said, desperately. She could only imagine how wanton she sounded to him.
Apparently, he liked how she sounded, because he looked at her with barely restrained lust stamped all over his face. “It doesn’t feel right to be doing this when Ashleigh is here.”
“She’s asleep, and we won’t hear from her until bright and early in the morning.”
“You’re sure?”
She nodded.
With his lips hovering a fraction of an inch from hers, he said, “I want to do something kinky.”
Tiffany’s belly fluttered, and her pulse beat hard in her throat. “Isn’t everything we do kinky?”
The slow, sexy smile that unfolded across his handsome face was positively sinful. “Sweetheart, we’ve only scratched the surface of how kinky I want to get with you.”
She swallowed the lump of fear and emotion and overwhelming anticipation that lodged in her throat. “What do you want to do?”
“Trust me?”
Without hesitation, she said, “Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded.
He kissed her again and drew her away from the wall, walking her backward to her bedroom. “Get naked. I’ll be right back.”
“Where’re you going?”
“To get something out of my truck. I’ll be quick, so get ready.” He took her hand and pressed it against his erection. “I’m more than ready for you, babe.”
Tiffany wanted to tell him not to go. She wanted to tell him they already had everything they needed. But she was so painfully curious to know what he had in store for her that she let him go and went into her room. Her hands were shaky as she unbuttoned her blouse and took it off. She had to tug twice on the button to her shorts before it came free.
By the time she removed her clothes and turned down the bed, she was a bundle of nerves with all her pleasure points tingling in anticipation. She lit candles and experimented with several poses on the bed, before she settled on her side with her head propped on her upturned hand.
Blaine returned a minute later and stopped short to take a long, leisurely look at her.
Before him, she’d only been with Jim, so nothing in her experience had prepared her for a man who could turn her on just by looking at her in that particular way.
She wanted to tell him to hurry. She wanted to tell him she needed him. She wanted to beg him to make her feel the way that only he could. But she stayed quiet and waited to see what he would do.
He closed the door and pressed the lock, the sound reverberating through the quiet room and making her shiver again in anticipation. “Will you be able to hear Ashleigh if she wakes up?”
Tiffany pointed to the monitor on the bedside table. “She hardly ever wakes up.”
“Good,” he said as he approached the bed.
“Close your eyes.”
Tiffany looked at him for a long, intense moment before she did as he directed. She felt something satiny slide over her eyes and opened them to total darkness. He’d blindfolded her.