Spicy with a Side of Cranberry Sauce (20 page)

“You don’t have to tell him. Not yet, not right away. Maybe not for a while. But you have to acknowledge that what he did was wrong, and that you can’t go back and change it. And you have to make a real effort to let go of the anger and forgive him. Not because you want to do him any favors. Not because you want to let him win or even because he deserves your forgiveness, because honestly he doesn’t. Do it because
you
deserve to not be angry and resentful anymore. Just like I do.”

He nuzzled her chest between her breasts, the stubble of his cheeks grazing her. He shaved his goatee for work in the morning, but he’d let it grow out yesterday and today. She liked it better this way. With her he was a little wilder, a little more himself and less the slick ad man he projected to the rest of the world.

“How’d you get so smart?” he said.

“Years and years of surrounding myself with idiots.” She smiled.

He shifted. “I hope you don’t mean me?”

“Of course not.” She leaned down and kissed him. “It will take time. For both of us.”

* * * *

Amy’s hands shook as she placed the last fork into the drying rack. The past few days had gone so well, but her stomach was tied in knots. Mason took her fingers in his and lifting them to his mouth. He placed soft kisses on the pads.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. It’s silly,” she said.

He shook his head. “Not if it’s making you shake like this.” He pulled her closer. “Tell me.”

She rested her head on his shoulder. It fit perfectly there.

“I’m just nervous about the interview tomorrow. I know I shouldn’t be. It’s just… Well, you know me. I haven’t planned that far ahead.” But it was more than that. If she got the job she wanted, she had no idea what her life would be like in six months. The idea terrified her. She’d have to make a plan. She knew that. But she didn’t know if she was ready.

He rubbed her back and chuckled. “Okay. We can fix that,” he said. He led her to the table, and she sat down. “I’ll be right back.”

He disappeared down the hall into the rest of the apartment, and she took a deep breath. She hadn’t really meant to come unprepared for her interviews. She knew kids; she knew how to work with them, how to teach them. And once she got started talking about that, she’d be fine. But it was like a switch had been flipped inside her head, allowing her to look more than two or three days into the future and wonder. She knew wondering about the future was dangerous. But it might be the only way to survive.

Questions plagued her as she sat and waited. She hated playing the what-if game.

Mason stepped back into the room. He’d changed out of his jeans and T-shirt and into a full gray suit. It looked fabulous on him. “Ms. Easton. Thank you for taking the time to come out here and meet with me today,” he said, extending his hand.

Role-playing?

She stood and shook his hand. “Of course, Mr. Rider.”

“Please have a seat.” He waved his hand before him and sat across from her. He set the yellow pad of paper and a pen on the table and smiled. She wanted to thank him for doing this, but breaking character would make her laugh. This wasn’t the kind of role-playing she thought she’d be doing with him, but maybe they could play Naughty Secretary after.

“So, Amy, tell me a little bit about yourself.”

“Well, I grew up in the Northeast with my dad, and I’ve been working with kids for as long as I can remember.”

He picked up the pen and scribbled something on the pad. She couldn’t see it from her side of the table. Was he just doodling, or was he a method actor? She’d have to wait to find out, because he fired a follow-up question.

She answered it and the one that came after. With each one, she became more relaxed. More herself. He grinned.

“See? You’ll do just fine tomorrow,” he said.

Yeah, as long as they didn’t ask her where she saw herself in five years. That question always tripped her up. But she didn’t want to worry him with more of her issues. He’d gone above and beyond anything she’d ever expected. That was one good thing about her life. If she never expected anything, she could be pleasantly surprised when the world didn’t suck. He turned the pad of paper toward her.

One Month Plan
was written at the top. Along the side, he’d written the dates of the coming four weeks. Down at the bottom, by December 25, he’d written,
Spend Xmas with Mason and his family
. The note made her smile instead of cringe. That was right; she was going to spend Christmas with him. That was three weeks away. She could plan something three weeks into the future. It wouldn’t kill her. She hoped.

She took the offered pen and wrote
Interview
beside tomorrow’s date. For Tuesday she wrote
flight home
. Mason reached out and squeezed her hand. She made an effort to calm her heart and moved down the list. She only added insignificant things, like buying Christmas presents. She’d gotten something small for her dad and something for Martha and Mason, but what she’d bought Mason would be insufficient. Too impersonal.

She knew him now much better than she had when she’d been Black Friday shopping. After she was finished with the list, she put the pen down and looked at the paper. Her heart constricted. She could do this. She had to. She could no longer allow her past to interfere with her future. It was her inability to plan ahead, to turn in an entire year’s worth of lesson plans to the principal, that had helped lead to her contract not being renewed for another year. She wouldn’t let that happen again.

“How do you feel?” Mason said.

“Terrified,” she whispered, raising her eyes to his. The blue made her jolt, like it always did when he gazed at her with such intensity.

“It’s okay to be terrified,” he said.

His voice was so solid, so reassuring she couldn’t help but believe him. This was a big deal for her, though, and she needed to forget her terror for just a little while. She slid the pad of paper aside and grinned. “Can we play Naughty Secretary now?”

“God, yes.” His whole demeanor changed. He sat up in his chair, straightened his tie, and looked at her. “Ms. Easton. Where is that fax? You better have done it properly this time, or you’re fired. And there’s only one thing you’ll be able to do to save your job.”

She grinned. “Oh, but Mr. Rider, it wasn’t my fault,” she said, standing. She moved around the table and sat on the edge of it before him. “Please, sir, can’t I have another chance?”

“I don’t know. I think you really need to show me your dedication to this company.” His eyes darkened. She would enjoy showing him her dedication and much more.

Mason burst through the door into his apartment. Where was Amy? She hadn’t answered when he’d called his landline earlier. He’d been dying all day to know how her job interview had gone. He found her on the couch, one leg tucked under her rear and a book in her hands.

“So?” he asked. He couldn’t wait any longer to find out.

She smiled, but it wasn’t the same megawatt grin he’d gotten used to. His heart fell into his stomach. Those idiots. If they couldn’t see what an incredible teacher she was, they didn’t deserve to have her.

“It actually went pretty well,” she said. But she didn’t elaborate. She didn’t seem happy, despite that it had gone well. Did she not like the school after having seen it? He didn’t understand. “Thank you for last night.”

He raised his eyebrows. Was she thanking him for their little office tryst?

“Not that, perv! For asking me questions and helping me prepare for the interview. During which I did not blow my prospective boss. Who was a woman, by the way.”

He blushed at her crude phrasing. Yes, she’d gone down on him, and she’d had sex with him on his “desk” as punishment for her lack of faxing skills. She’d let him tell her what a naughty girl she was and how disappointed he was in her abilities as his secretary. He’d loved every minute of it, and she’d certainly enjoyed herself, if the smirk on her face was any indication.

He shook his head. She grinned and stood up. After setting the book on the end table, she came toward him and wrapped her arms around his neck. Oh, yeah, a man could get used to coming home to this every night. She kissed him, a deep, sensuous roll of her tongue against his. He groaned at the taste of her. She was leaving in the morning, and he would have to give her up.

But it wasn’t morning yet, and he was going to enjoy her affections until the second she went through security at the airport and he was forced by men with guns to let her go. He’d taken the morning off so he could go with her and say good-bye. Because even though he would see her in just a few weeks in Austin, this was the end for them as lovers.

She rubbed her fingers against the stubble of his jaw. He’d shaved this morning, but he had a good amount of five-o’clock shadow.

“I love…” she whispered.

His heart stopped.

“This,” she finished.

“What?” he said. He had to have her clarify. Did she love waiting for him to come home? Kissing him?

“This,” she said again, running her hand back and forth over the short hairs on his face.

“Mm, yeah, that feels nice,” he said.

She nodded and leaned up to kiss her way along his jaw, his cheek, his nose, and finally his lips. He stayed still beneath her assault, letting her tongue glide across the seam of his lips before he opened his mouth to hers. She deepened the kiss, rocking her hips against his pelvis. He groaned at the feel of this firecracker in his arms. She wrapped herself around him and pushed the coat from his shoulders. She was just as eager to have him as he was to taste her.

He let her strip him bare, holding his desire in check. She seemed to need to touch him, to explore his body with her fingers, her tongue, even the edges of her teeth. There was a touch of desperation in her exploration. She remained fully clothed in a pair of tight yoga pants that hugged her rear. She hadn’t minded a bit of spanking last night while they played Naughty Secretary. He trailed his fingers around her left butt cheek as she licked his nipple. He moaned as she flicked it with her tongue and then moved to his other one.

“I’m going to miss this,” he said. She froze with her mouth still locked around his nipple, and he still cupped her behind. She straightened and looked at him. Her hazel eyes were wide, her eyebrows arched just a little too high. He hadn’t meant to say it. The words had just kind of slipped out. He couldn’t take them back now. His statement hung in the air between them. Way to ruin the mood. He’d been rock hard only a few seconds ago, but as the doubts swirled through him, he could feel the blood rushing to his brain instead of his groin. He held his breath, waiting for her to say something. Anything.

“Me too,” she whispered.

His shoulders sagged as air seeped back into his lungs. He caressed her backside, holding her close.

“Amy, if things were different, if you hadn’t been the girl in my mother’s kitchen with the cranberry sauce…” He didn’t know if he could finish. What? They’d live happily ever after? Not likely. Certainly not with his track record of weeklong relationships and sweaty flings. He couldn’t sustain a real relationship. But God, for the first time, he wished that were different. Wished
he
were different. But he was his father’s son.

She moved away from him, and he shuddered. Had he ruined the few hours they had left with his confession? She took his hand and turned around. She led him down the hall and into the bedroom, then shoved him none too gently back on the bed. He lay there, waiting.

“If things were different, we wouldn’t have met. And that would have been a shame,” she said.

At last he could take a full breath. She stripped for him. It was a slow slide of fabric against skin and erotic as hell. There was no music, but she thrust and writhed as if to a rhythm only she could hear.

“Even if it had been different, I don’t know if I could have given you romance and flowers like you deserve,” he said.

She laughed, but it was a hollow kind of sound. “Do you know me? Romance and flowers, honestly?” She shook her head. “I could maybe give a month or two. But with my lack of thinking ahead, that’s about my limit. Mason, stop looking so damned guilty, would you?”

He couldn’t help it. She climbed into the bed beside him and put her arms around him. Her body was warm, soft.

“We maybe would have made it a few months.” She nuzzled his neck and placed a gentle kiss there.

“I don’t know if I could have even done that. I don’t do well with the more, you know? The other stuff that comes after sex. I think that’s part of the reason I hate Dad so much. I’m terrified that I’ll do to some woman what he’s done to my mother.”

She nipped his ear. “You’re not your father. Have you ever tried to have a real relationship, long-term?”

“No. Not really.”

“Then you should. How do you know you’d be bad at it?”

“How do you?” he said.

“Touché.” She sighed. “Let’s not play the what-if game anymore. We’ve agreed that this would be it for us. No use torturing ourselves.”

She was right, of course. “But all I can do some days is play what-if,” he said.

She lifted her head. “Well, let’s see what we can do to shut off that part of your brain, shall we?” She straddled his hips and angled his growing erection toward her entrance. When she impaled herself slowly on him, he forgot everything but Amy.

* * * *

“So you’ll send the letter next week?” Amy said.

“Yes. I won’t forget. Promise.” He clutched her hand in his and dragged her suitcase behind them with the other. It was going to be quite a wait to check her in for her flight and get her through security. He couldn’t help but be happy about that, because it meant a few extra minutes with her. Once they reached Austin, they would have a very strict no-touching policy in place. She’d soothed him with her body and words last night, showing him what might have been. It was a good-bye, one he would remember for a long time to come. Maybe even forever.

“I’ve got the tickets for Dad and me. We’ll be down on the twenty-fourth. What happens if your mom calls him after she gets the letter?” She sounded nervous.