Letting Go

LETTING GO …Zack finished setting up the small pyramid of logs on the grate. Samantha watched his hands as he crumpled newspaper. When he reached to tuck it under the logs, the play of muscles in his back, clearly defined under the hugging material of his long-sleeved Henley, caught her attention. The shirt pulled up above his waistband when he stretched, without standing, to reach the fireplace matches on the mantle. His skin was smooth, the dip of his spine above his butt just the right curvature. He had long, long legs that folded up under him, one knee bent up against his chest. He laid match to paper, and the fire flared. He tended it quietly for a few minutes. Then he closed the doors most of the way, turned to rise, and caught her staring. He didn’t tease her, only smiled. She smiled back. The voice that had niggled at her all the night before had fallen silent. Maybe all she’d needed to stop resisting was her mother’s blessing. God forbid. “You’re not reading,” Zack observed. His voice was lower, husky, and Sam let her gaze drop to his crotch. Just to check. Sure enough, his button fly strained just a bit more than it should have. He’d felt her watching him that whole time. Awareness blazed to a new level, and attraction made an abrupt left turn into desire. Samantha’s body flushed from toe to scalp and went moist in places that hadn’t been moist in a very long time…

ALSO BY NATALIE J. DAMSCHRODER Blue Silver: Lost Our Forever Brianna’s Navy Seal Cat’s Claw Elemental Passion Indulgence Institutional Sex Kira’s Best Friend A Matter Of Choice The Passion Of Tanner Black Rebuilding Forever Renegade Slow Build Sophie’s Playboy To Catch A Cowboy The TreeKeeper

LETTING GO BY NATALIE J. DAMSCHRODER

AMBER Q UILL PRESS, LLC http://www.AmberQuill.com

LETTING GO AN AMBER QUILL PRESS BOOK This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental. Amber Quill Press, LLC http://www.AmberQuill.com All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review. Copyright © 2008 by Natalie J. Damschroder ISBN 978-1-60272-368-9 Cover Art © 2008 Trace Edward Zaber

Layout and Formatting provided by: Elemental Alchemy

PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

This story is dedicated to the attendees of the 2008 CPRW writer’s retreat, where I completed this novella under the enthusiastic support of some of my favorite people in the world.

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CHAPTER 1 Samantha Pearson hated grocery shopping. She hated crowds, and when she went late at night to avoid them, the shelves were under-stocked. She preferred the self-scanning checkouts to the obnoxious teenage clerks, but inevitably her coupons wouldn’t scan and she had to deal with the exhausted-by-life, oh-my-aching-back “senior” clerk who griped at her about all of the above. Samantha wasn’t very good with people. Not random people anyway. She didn’t have the patience for them. Tonight, though…tonight was different. Tonight the overhead lights shone instead of glared. Everything she wanted—all of Christopher’s favorites—was on sale. And 1

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even the overtired toddler dragging bread off the shelves to pile on the floor amused her. Her son was coming home. She skirted the scowling little boy and reached the section where Chris’s favorite sandwich bread usually sat. The shelf was empty. She realized that, except for the dense wholewheat loaves making up a toddler fort, there were very few left at all. She looked left, to the milk section at the end. That, too, was decimated. She groaned. “I know,” said a voice behind her. “Give a ten percent prediction of snow, and they clean the place out.” She turned to see a young, shaggy-haired man smiling at her. She smiled back. “You’d think they’d have figured out we don’t get three-day snow-ins in Pennsylvania,” she agreed. “This is insane. I hadn’t heard there was a storm coming, though.” Unease pierced her bubble of joy. “Is it coming up from the south?” The man shrugged and reached for the last package of English muffins. “I’m not sure. I didn’t pay much attention. Sorry.” “No, it’s okay. My own fault, I should’ve checked.” Mothers were supposed to be obsessive about weather when their kids were traveling, but she’d been so involved in getting the Geary campaign wrapped up so she could take extra time leading into Thanksgiving break that she hadn’t even considered the possibility of snow. “Well, thanks,” she said belatedly, watching the guy head on down the aisle. He had a very nice ass, she noticed, his 2

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jeans snug enough to showcase it. Then her face burned as she realized what she was doing. He looked to be her son’s age, for cripe’s sake! “Never hurts to look,” she muttered. “Old, not dead, and all that crap.” She gave up on the bread and went to pick up the deli order she’d keyed into the automated kiosk at the front of the store, then made for the checkout line. Chris and his roommate were due in a couple of hours, and she hadn’t made up the beds or put out towels yet. She’d been standing behind a little old lady wearing a very determined look in the self-scan line when the voice returned. “Hello again.” Deep and smooth, it matches his ass, she thought, and almost giggled at the stupid comparison. But it did—both were grade A. She turned and couldn’t help but smile. The guy was an inborn flirt. His green eyes sparkled like he’d been hoping to see her, and his full mouth curved, emphasizing the cleft in his square jaw. “Hi.” She nodded at the lilies he held in his free hand. “Amazing you can get such nice flowers in a grocery store, isn’t it?” “Yeah, really. Saves my bacon, too.” He chuckled, and oh, Lord, he had a dimple. Attraction zipped through her. She hoped she wasn’t blushing again. The determined old lady moved up to a register and started jabbing at the touch screen. Samantha eased forward to take her place, and her flirt moved closer. “Forgot a birthday or something, huh?” She usually hated 3

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small talk, but felt compelled to continue the conversation. “Yeah. Well, something. I don’t plan ahead very well,” he admitted. “You look like you do, though.” He motioned to her small cart. “I see ingredients for beef stroganoff in there.” Samantha raised her eyebrows. “Impressive. You cook?” “Love it. I took some courses in high school, but college dorms don’t really have very good kitchens. I’ve been living off campus this semester, though, so I’m back into it.” Two registers on the right opened up, and they moved forward in unison to start scanning side by side. Samantha couldn’t help noticing the rest of his few items. A fancy fruit tart, a bag of gourmet coffee, and a pack of condoms to go with his flowers. The English muffins were nowhere in sight. “You go to school around here?” she asked, trying to sound like a motherly type and not someone who was noticing how long-fingered and strong his hands were. “No, out west.” So did Chris, but she didn’t mention it. She concentrated on scanning her items, while he finished up his order. When she pulled the package of ham out from under a jar of sauce, the bag of tortilla chips tipped and hit the floor. Before she could bend to grab it that long-fingered, strong hand did so for her. She noticed a rawhide bracelet around his wrist, then noticed his wrist. It had obviously been way too long since she’d had sex. “Thanks.” She smiled at him. “My pleasure.” He grinned back and lingered, his bag looped through his left hand, his right handing her items from 4

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her cart. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see electricity arcing between them. She could certainly feel it well enough. “So, do you use beef bouillon or broth in your stroganoff?” he asked, and they chatted about food while she finished checking out. Then he insisted on carrying her bags for her. “Do I look that decrepit?” She laughed, pushing the cart into the holding area just outside the door. “Quite the opposite,” he said. “Actually, I’m hoping to charm you into giving me your number.” She laughed again, delighted despite the fact he couldn’t mean it. “Well, you have charm enough to spare, that’s for sure.” She pulled out her keys and opened the trunk to her Mustang convertible, turning to find him a few feet away, staring open-mouthed. “You okay?” His gaze went from the car to her. “This is your car?” “Yeah.” She sighed and tilted her head up at the snowflakes that had just started to fall. “I shouldn’t be driving it now, but it’s my feel-good car, and today I felt good.” “How can you not?” He ran his hand reverently over the midnight-blue curve of the fender. “She’s gorgeous.” “Thank you.” “So’s her owner.” He lifted the bags into the trunk and lowered the lid. “Oh, please,” was her knee-jerk response, but he frowned. “Don’t do that. You are.” She cleared her throat. “Thank you again.” “So, can I get your number?” “I don’t think so. But I appreciate the suggestion.” She 5

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smiled and went around to the driver’s side, climbing in and pretending to fiddle with the radio and heat controls after she started the car, but really taking the time to watch him. He did look disappointed, his mouth turned down, hands shoved into his jeans pockets, and his shoulders slumped as he walked away. The parking lot lights gleamed on his dark blond hair, and, even rounded, his shoulders looked wide. He was built like a wide receiver, her favorite football player shape. She stopped herself from reaching for a pen and getting back out of the car. “He’s your son’s age, for God’s sake, Samantha!” And he probably had a girlfriend waiting for him. A guy could be buying flowers for his mother, but that wouldn’t explain the condoms. She put it out of her mind and cursed the weather instead. It had been snowing for only a few minutes, but the temperature had been below freezing for days, and the snow slicked the streets. She had to call Chris, but her cell phone had died after hours of usage today, and she shouldn’t talk on the phone while driving anyway. Especially in this. She curbed her impatience as she negotiated the rush-hour traffic, passing cars that had skidded off the road. She made herself empty the car and put away the cold groceries, then shook ice melt over the driveway and front walk before closing the garage and turning on the front lights. Then she called Christopher, fully expecting to get his voicemail because he’d forgotten to turn his cell back on after getting off the plane. But he answered. “Mom, I’m so sorry.” 6

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Joy at hearing his voice made her silly. “It’s okay, we can buy another lamp. But no more baseball in the house!” He snorted at the joke, but his tone was sober when he spoke again. “No, I mean the weather. I figured that’s why you were calling. I tried to leave a message for you earlier, but you must have had another power outage.” “Damn it, we did, the other day. I forgot.” Every time the power went out, she had to reprogram the answering machine or it wouldn’t take any messages. The last “outage” had really been just a blip, not even enough to reset the clocks, and she’d forgotten the answering machine. She didn’t get enough calls for anyone else to have mentioned it. “But what’s the problem? Are you stuck at the airport?” “Yeah, and I just talked to the ticket agent. They don’t have another flight out until tomorrow morning. I tried DC and Baltimore, but they’re already shut down, too.” It took until he’d finished for Samantha to comprehend what he was saying. “Wait. Flight out? You’re still in Chicago?” “Yeah, they delayed takeoff to see which way the weather system went, and it went the wrong way.” She held in her response, hoping Chris didn’t hear it in the tightness surrounding the words when she said, “Okay, honey, no problem. Tomorrow’s only Wednesday. You know how storms are around here. You’ll be here by tomorrow night, and we’ll still have the holiday.” The doorbell rang, making her frown. She was only expecting Christopher. 7

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“You bet, Mom, it will still be a great visit. But listen. I haven’t been able to get a hold of Zack.” The doorbell rang again. “What do you mean? He’s not flying with you?” She started through the kitchen to the living room, heading for the front door. “No, he finished his finals on Monday and decided to drive out. He hates flying. So he should be getting there any minute. Is that okay?” “Of course, sweetheart, you don’t even need to ask. In fact, it sounds like he’s here now.” “Good. He’s kind of a daredevil, and for sure he’d have crashed trying to drive in the snow. And like I told you, he really had nowhere to go.” She reached for the doorknob, glimpsing a tall, lean shape through the frosted glass next to the door. “Don’t worry, I’ll treat him like my own…son.” Christopher’s response was lost to her as she stared at the man outside her door. Her son’s college roommate, presumably. And the man from the grocery store.

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CHAPTER 2 They stared at each other in shock. The lilies in his right hand drooped, as did his jaw. He looked toward the driveway, as if checking for the car he’d admired. “It’s in the garage.” Her voice sounded muffled, far away. She could barely hear Chris’s voice in her ear. “Mom? Mom! Are you all right? Who’s there? Damn it, answer me!” “Sorry, hon. Um, yeah, it’s—” She pulled the phone away from her mouth. “Are you Zack?” He nodded, the twinkle starting to return to his eye, and she quickly put the phone back to her mouth and stepped aside to let him in. “Yes, it’s him. We met in the grocery store, but of course I had no idea 9

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who he was.” She clamped her jaw shut before she said anything to telegraph her nerves. Or her attraction. “Cool,” Chris said. “Let me talk to him.” Samantha closed the door and handed the phone to Zack, who handed her the flowers and bent to kiss her on the cheek. “For your hospitality,” he murmured, taking the phone. “Thank you.” Samantha whirled toward the kitchen to get a vase, inhaling the scent of the flowers and flushing when she heard Zack tell Chris he hadn’t mentioned his mother was a MILF. Samantha was familiar with the term—mother I’d like to fuck—but she could tell by the humor in Zack’s voice that he didn’t mean it, that he was teasing his friend, her son. She could imagine Christopher’s response. But the image that flashed through her head of Zack’s naked body looming over her in bed was anything but comfortable. She had to get a hold of herself, if she was to be alone in this house—snowed in, no less—with her son’s roommate. Repeating those words should help. Son’s roommate. Son’s roommate. Son’s roommate. It would be her new mantra. Except, the more she repeated it, the less meaning it had. Gah. Out in the living room Zack laughed, the sound welcome in a house that had been too empty for too long. It should make her remember Christopher’s last visit. Generate motherly responses. Right? Not the shiver of desire that went down her spine and through…other places. Zack said goodbye and entered the kitchen a moment later, setting the phone in its cradle and moving around the room as if he’d been there a thousand times before. 10

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“Chris had to go…they were calling passengers to the service counter. He said he’ll do his best to get here by tomorrow night.” “Thanks.” Samantha focused on adjusting the lilies’ heights in the tall vase. “The flowers are beautiful, thank you.” “You’re welcome. Chris said you liked lilies, and I wanted to show my appreciation. Inviting a stranger to a family event.” She shrugged and tried not to eye his folded forearms. “You’re not a stranger. You’re my son’s friend. And we have a small enough family—just him, me, and my mother—that one more is always welcome. Especially a male one more.” Shit. She blushed when she said it, and wondered if she’d read innuendo in everything that came out of her mouth. Worse, if he would. “So, funny that we ran into each other in the store, huh? Oh.” He jerked away from the counter. “I left the fruit tart in the car. I’d better get all my stuff before the snow gets too heavy. I don’t want to track it in here.” “I’ll help you.” “No need, I’ve got it.” He headed out, and Samantha dashed for the linen closet and hurried to make up the spare bed before he came back in. Zack was quicker, though, and called to her from the front of the house before she’d finished smoothing the top sheet. “Back here,” she called, listening to the familiar sound of large feet thumping down the hall. It jarred her when the face that peered around the corner, and the body that followed, 11

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were not as familiar. How the hell was she going to get through the next day? “This is nice.” “Thank you.” She tucked the gold-and-burgundy comforter over the pillows on the double bed and straightened. Zack let his military-style duffle fall to the floor and dropped a pile of things onto the bed. Samantha catalogued two pillows, a denim jacket with a sweatshirt hood and sleeves, and three books whose titles she couldn’t read. “I do have plenty of pillows.” She winced at her motherly tone. “I hope you didn’t feel you had to bring your own.” “No, I just like mine. They’re top-of-the-line. Wanna try them?” His eyes were twinkling again. “No, thank you.” She blushed and shoved her fingers into her pockets so she wouldn’t press them to her cheeks. “Um, let me show you around, okay?” “Absolutely.” He flicked the light switch as he followed her out, and Samantha caught a whiff of spicy cologne that tightened her insides. “Christopher’s room.” She motioned to his closed door and the obvious “Christopher’s Room” sign on it. “I’m down there.” Her door was ajar, but they couldn’t see into her room from here, thank God. “Bathroom in between…it’s all yours. Well, until Chris gets here.” She waited while he peeked into the bathroom. “Towels on the bar are clean. If you need more or any supplies or anything, they’re in the closet next to the tub.” They walked single file back to the living room. 12

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“Lotta house for just the two of you,” Zack commented. “I know.” Samantha sighed. “Too much when I have to clean it. But my mother lived with us for a while after Chris’s father died, and by the time she moved out, he was in school and it never made sense to move.” “I can appreciate that.” They went into the kitchen, and Zack settled onto a stool at the center island, while Samantha started getting ingredients for the beef stroganoff out of the refrigerator. “I had to move a lot. Hard to feel like the ground is stable beneath your feet when you never know when it’s going to shift again.” She nodded. “I know. My parents were in the Air Force. It wasn’t as bad for me as for some because we moved only a few times, but the uncertainty was always there.” “It sure shapes how you look at things.” He waved long fingers at the meat she was slicing. “Can I help?” “I’ve got it under control, thanks. You want something to drink?” “I’d love a beer.” He laughed when she narrowed her eyes at him. “What? I’m twenty-two.” Her brain and libido went to war over that. “Yay, he’s plenty old enough!” her libido cheered. “Christ, he’s young,” her brain grumped. She ignored them both. “Help yourself,” she told him. “Can you grab the sour cream while you’re in there, please? I forgot it.” He got up to retrieve his beer and the sour cream and didn’t sit back down. Instead, he smoothly inserted himself 13

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into her cooking process. She barely noticed at first, but somewhere between adding flour to the sauce and stirring the egg noodles, she realized what he’d done. Pretty remarkable, since she hated having anyone trying to cook with her. Her mother had had to teach Christopher because Samantha ran out of patience with anyone in the kitchen. Amazing, too, that the attraction she’d been trying to fight since the grocery store had dissipated, making her comfortable talking and working with him. She realized it when Zack dipped a spoon into the stroganoff and held it to her mouth, cupping her chin in one hand and leaning forward to blow on the sauce, cooling it. His breath feathered across her mouth, making her lips part. She became utterly absorbed in watching his own mouth pucker slightly. Faint freckles were scattered across his cheeks and nose, and his hair settled lightly over those bright green eyes. The skin of his hand was rough and warm against her jaw, his gentle fingers generating tingles. The spoon touched her lower lip and she opened automatically for it, watching him watch her taste the sauce. He drew the spoon away, and she licked her lips. His eyes darkened and he leaned forward a fraction. The “mmmm” that came from the back of her throat wasn’t for the sauce, which she couldn’t taste, but for the need to close that small gap and kiss him. Luckily, the sound snapped the spell that surrounded them, and she pulled away. “Mm. Good. Um, it works.” She crossed the room to pull a colander from the cupboard, and when she turned back Zack 14

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was there, reaching to take it from her. They were like magnets, unable to separate more than a few feet. Flustered, Samantha backed up as he drained the pasta. “I’ll, uh, be right back. You can use the big bowl there, toss it all together. I’ll grab the salad and meet you—ah, in the dining room. Thanks, Zack.” And she dashed for the bathroom. “You’re a fool,” she muttered at herself in the mirror, scrubbing her hands under the running water just to have something to do. She didn’t look like a fool. She looked aroused, with her pink cheeks and her bright eyes, the hazel more blue than she could remember them being. Her hair was escaping the clip she’d held it back with for work, wisps curling around her face from the steam in the kitchen and rising up from the water in the sink. She looked like someone about to get it on. And she looked…good. Samantha straightened and stared at herself. She considered herself a contented woman. She’d been widowed young, sure, and left with a two-week-old infant to take care of by herself. No one would ever say single parenting was easy, especially for a twenty-one-year-old with a liberal arts degree and little work experience. But she’d gotten through, had a good, solid job at a marketing company, a few wonderful friends, and a son who’d burst her heart with pride far too many times to count. If anyone had asked her yesterday if she was happy, she’d have said yes. But if she’d been able to compare the her in the mirror this morning with the her in the mirror now, she’d have to admit that happiness wouldn’t have been the right word. Overall 15

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contentment wasn’t the same as transitory happiness, just as overall dissatisfaction wasn’t the same as momentary sadness or anger. She couldn’t remember the last time her heart had thumped like this. The last time she’d anticipated something as simple as walking into her dining room. “So not good,” she muttered. She knew something about Zack, of course. Chris had met him freshman year, and they’d roomed together since. Her son talked about his best friend all the time, and as she’d raised him to be a good judge of character, she knew Zack was a good guy. But he was twenty-two. And her son’s best friend. And he’d be wondering what the hell she was doing in here so long. She yanked the clip out of her hair and dragged a hairbrush quickly through it, then hurried back to the kitchen. She’d hesitated too long. The salad was gone from the counter, and when she glanced into the dining room, she saw Zack had set the table and put out all the food, including dressings and bread and butter. She took a deep breath and stepped into the other room. “Sorry about that.” She started to sit, but Zack jumped up and held her chair for her. She had to smile at him. “Thank you. Someone taught you manners somewhere along the line.” He chuckled and sat next to her, handing her the salad bowl. “You did actually.” “Me?” “Through Chris,” he explained. “I really didn’t have many 16

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good role models growing up. Not truly bad ones, either.” He accepted the salad and tonged some onto his salad plate. “No abusive foster parents or gang influences. But no men who were respectful to the women around us.” “And Chris changed that?” She dished some stroganoff onto both their plates. “Kinda hard to imagine.” “Well”—he looked sheepish—“I shouldn’t tell you this. He’ll kill me.” Samantha raised her eyebrows. “Oh, come on. You have to tell me now.” “He was the guy who—well, he got the girls. We’ll leave it at that.” “Lots of them. I know.” She buttered a slice of bread and handed it to him. He thanked her. “I’m not stupid. I know how good-looking he is, and how he took advantage of that once he was surrounded by hundreds of girls.” “It wasn’t just his looks.” Zack took a bite of the meat and closed his eyes. “Oh, wow, this is good.” Samantha laughed. “Of course it is. You made it!” “No.” He shook his head, his mouth curving as he chewed. “No, I never made it this good.” “Both of us then.” She tasted it and was amazed to find he was right. “Anyway, Chris’s womanizing?” “Yeah, that. Being good-looking isn’t enough. I mean, I should know,” he joked. She rolled her eyes. “And charm can get you a date. But he treated them all so well, and was so honest with them, that not a single one ever fussed when it was over.” 17

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“Fussed.” Zack must have heard the dangerous tone in her voice because he turned red and wouldn’t look at her. “I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.” “No, I get it. He got to play around and no one gave him a hard time about it.” “Yeah, until Miranda, anyway.” A startled look passed over his face, like he’d said something he really shouldn’t, and he changed the subject to the football game on Thursday. Samantha let it go. Chris had mentioned Miranda, in that studiously casual way that told her his feelings were anything but casual. She’d wait for him to tell her more, instead of pressing his roommate for the dirt. They continued to chat comfortably as they ate, the conversation full of ease as Samantha warned him about her mother, told stories from Chris’s childhood and her job, and choked with laughter at Zack’s evil impersonations of his professors. Zack insisted on clearing the table and serving the fruit tart without letting her help, which she had to admit was a nice change. She couldn’t remember the last time she hadn’t been the one to cook, clear, and clean up outside of a restaurant. He even made Irish coffee, and she hadn’t even known she had the stuff for it. Somewhere around ten o’clock, she sighed. “This has been wonderful. I hate for it to be over.” “Why does it have to be? It’s early.” Zack reclined in his chair, one elbow hooked around the post on its back, the other 18

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hand toying with his coffee spoon. “Early for a college student who can choose the hours of his classes, maybe.” She felt a surge of satisfaction at his acknowledging grin. “Not so early for old women who have to get up early for work.” In a blink, Zack changed. “Don’t do that,” he said sharply. He jerked upright and half flung his spoon onto his empty dessert plate. Samantha flinched. “Don’t do what?” “Try to put that distance between us. That reminder. You’re not even close to old.” “I’m old enough to be your mother,” she said softly. “My son is your age.” “That’s irrelevant.” “Maybe it’s irrelevant to a flirtation in the grocery store, but not—” She stopped when Zack flung up a hand. “This is more than a flirtation, Samantha.” Her name in his voice flowed over her like warm satin. She hoped he hadn’t heard her tiny gasp. “You can’t tell me you don’t feel it.” “Feel what?” She stood and stacked plates, brushing his hands away. “Nothing worth—” “Tell me this didn’t feel like a date to you,” Zack interrupted. He’d backed off the intensity a little, and her shoulders relaxed. She placed the last fork on the little pile of dishes she’d collected. He waited, not pressing, and she couldn’t help but admit it. “Yes, it felt like a date.” No matter how she tried, she 19

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couldn’t generate the kind of mother/son—or mother/friend of son—relationship she’d expected when Christopher first asked to bring Zack home. “That doesn’t make it appropriate,” she felt obliged to add. “It’s hardly inappropriate.” The twinkle came back into Zack’s eyes. “I’m well over the age of consent, Samantha. And we’re not related or working together.” She didn’t restate the obvious, her only protection. He was starting to make too much sense. And then he made her feel ridiculous. “What’s inappropriate about talking and laughing with someone you get along with?” Samantha jerked the stack of dishes off the table and strode into the kitchen. She wanted to accuse him of disingenuousness, but what if she was misinterpreting? Maybe he didn’t want more than talk and laughter. Maybe the flirtation was just his natural way of being, and the tension was all on her side. She didn’t want to discuss it anymore. She dropped the dishes in the sink, and when Zack came into the kitchen, she moved into the living room to look out the window. She’d forgotten all about the snow, and was dismayed to see it still falling heavily. At least six inches were already on the ground. She folded her arms and hunched in on herself, chilled by the cold coming off the glass and the realization that Chris might be delayed more than they’d originally assumed. Zack’s image appeared behind her in the window 20

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reflection. His big hands came up to land on her shoulders, squeezing comfortingly. “He’ll make it, Sam.” “I hope so.” Longing swelled in her chest. She hadn’t seen her son in too long. Her life was so gray and mundane between holiday breaks. He lit it up, gave her a reason to smile. Gave her purpose, she realized. It wasn’t exactly a revelation. She wasn’t blind to the fact that her whole life was wrapped up in her son, especially now he was in his senior year of college and talking about getting a job on the west coast. But she hadn’t cared. She wasn’t unhappy—or so she’d thought, until today. When someone else brought color to her day. “It’s getting late,” she said after a minute of letting her body absorb the heat from his hands. He let her go, but the warmth remained. “I’m going to go to bed. Help yourself to anything you need.” “I will. Thanks.” He backed up a step, and she moved away without looking at him. His voice stopped her at the door. “Samantha.” “Yes?” “Thanks again for letting me stay.” “Any time, Zack.” As she walked down the hall to her bedroom, she wondered how many ways she meant it.

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CHAPTER 3 Samantha turned on the TV while she changed for bed, flipping to the Weather Channel. The clouds over Pennsylvania were huge, stretching out three states to the southwest and moving, according to the announcer, very slowly. They were predicting two feet by the time it ended late tomorrow. Which wouldn’t have taken away her hope for the holiday. Even if Chris had to wait until the end of the day to fly home, it wasn’t that long of a flight and he could arrive before morning on Thursday. But another storm system was approaching Chicago. She’d be lucky to see Christopher before Saturday. 22

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She snapped off the set and slid into bed, completely ignoring the sense of anticipation under her disappointment. She woke the next morning to the aromas of coffee and bacon and stretched, smiling. Christopher had made breakfast. He only did that on her birthday and Mother’s Day. Then she remembered. He was snowed in, in Chicago, and Zack was here. Another man had slept in her house, cooked her a meal. The notion was so foreign it made her whole morning routine feel off. The snow was still falling, albeit smaller flakes than the night before, and the accumulation had slowed. But the heavy clouds told her it wasn’t going to stop anytime soon. After showering and dressing in a fluffy sweatshirt and jeans, then changing out of the mom clothes and putting on a V-necked sweater instead, she stepped into the kitchen, where Zack was just setting a platter of pancakes on the table. His eyes lit in appreciation when he saw her, and she flushed. She had a feeling she was fighting a losing battle. One that she’d actually lost the evening before, at the grocery store. “You didn’t have to make breakfast for me,” she chided. Zack pulled out a chair and motioned for her to sit. “When was the last time someone did?” “Ummmm…” Since Christopher had been at school for both her birthday and Mother’s Day for the last four years, it had been a long time. And, she thought, surveying the table, he usually made cereal and toast. Not pancakes with what looked like fresh blueberries, crisp bacon, sliced melon, and— “Are those home fries?” 23

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“With onions.” He lifted her plate and started dishing food onto it for her. “Every time we eat Sunday brunch at Stuy, Chris complains about the onions in the home fries, and says how you always make two batches. Onions for yourself, plain for him.” She smiled. “Did he ever tell you I used to not put onions in anything, just because he didn’t like them?’ He smiled back. “Yeah, and that you acted like adding onions was a huge rebellion.” “That was the idea, the first time.” She sprinkled salt on the potatoes and took a bite. They were perfectly cooked, and she shook her head. “At the risk of sounding cliché, you’re going to spoil me.” “Nah. I’m not gonna help with tomorrow’s dinner at all.” She laughed, but sobered when she saw the look on his face. “What’s wrong?” “Chris called this morning.” Her heart sank. “I didn’t hear the phone.” “He called my cell, ’cause it was early and he said you never take a day off. He wanted you to sleep in.” “Liar. He was using you to give me the bad news.” She set down her fork, appetite gone, and raised her napkin to her mouth to cover the action. “O’Hare is shut down. They don’t expect to have any flights out until tomorrow night, if that.” Samantha let the loneliness wash over her, the despair that came with the knowledge she’d be alone for another month. Hell, this wasn’t a big deal. It was only a month. Time flew, 24

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even when it dragged, and she knew how to keep herself busy. And it was hardly the first time this had happened. She pushed aside the wails that it was their last guaranteed Thanksgiving together, their last one with just the two of them, if, as she suspected, he was getting serious about his girlfriend. They would start splitting holidays between families, assuming they ever came back from California or wherever they wound up. “I’m sorry.” Zack’s hand on hers pulled her out of her whirlpool of misery. “It’s okay,” she said automatically, and picked up her fork again. “Is he stranded in the airport?” “No, Miranda came and got him. Her folks live a couple of hours outside the city. He called once they reached their place, but he was going to bed and didn’t want you to worry.” She nodded. “Thanks for letting me know.” “Of course.” They ate in silence for a while before Samantha got tired of wallowing and asked Zack about his major and his postcollege intentions. Their camaraderie of the night before returned slowly. Samantha found herself impressed with Zack’s self-insight and plans. Christopher had an idea of where he was going, but with a lot less detail and goal-setting than Zack did. When they were done eating she rose and went to the sink to do the dishes, noticing for the first time that the sink was empty, the counters cleared and wiped down. The only things left were the ones they’d dined on. “You did the dishes.” She turned to Zack, who’d come up 25

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next to her with the empty serving platters. “Yep.” “Thank you.” She stretched up to kiss his cheek, realizing too late the opportunity it presented. Zack didn’t move, didn’t turn his head, but she thought about changing trajectory and landing on his mouth. Her eyes met his as she dropped back, and her breath caught at the blaze of awareness in them. So she wasn’t a fool. “What are your plans today?” he asked her casually, turning on the water to rinse the plates. “Flexible. I don’t really need to prepare anything for tomorrow until later this afternoon.” She looked sadly out the window at the unplowed street on the other side of the house behind hers. “I was supposed to go pick up my mother. I’ll have to call her.” “I can go,” he offered. Samantha laughed and poured herself a cup of coffee from the warm carafe. She never got to have coffee at home that she hadn’t made herself. “How will you get there…snowshoes?” “I have four-wheel drive.” She shook her head. “No, thanks. She won’t want to come out in this anyway. She’s feisty and active, but my father had a bad accident in a snowstorm when I was a kid, so she’s overly cautious. She’d be furious if someone risked himself for her.” “Okay.” He put the last fork in the dishwasher, shut the door, and dried his hands on a dishtowel. “So you have some unexpected time to relax. Read a book, maybe?” He motioned with his chin toward the living room. “There’s quite a stack of 26

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unread novels in there. I can start a fire.” She imagined curling up on her cushy sofa, under her chenille throw, with the Misty Simon romantic comedy she’d bought last week. Want! her head yelled, and she didn’t see any reason to argue with it. “That sounds heavenly.” “Great.” He turned her and gave her a little shove toward the living room. “Go. Start. I’ll be right there.” “I’m going to call my mother first, but then, I promise, I’ll grab my book and not move for two hours.” “At least.” “At least.” The conversation with her mother was short. The elderly woman hadn’t gotten the concept of free weekend calling on cell phones, and still kept every conversation under three minutes. Used to this, Samantha gave her the facts, told her she loved her, and promised to come get her as soon as the weather allowed. But her mother surprised her. “So, what’s this Zack look like? Hot?” Sam’s mouth dropped. “Mom! What—I mean, he’s—you can’t—he’s Christopher’s friend!” “Which means he’s probably hot. And you’re all alone with him, hey?” She couldn’t be any more shocked. “Yes, but—” “You should shag him.” Okay, she could be. “I’m hanging up, Mother.” But she couldn’t put the phone down. Who was this woman and what 27

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had she done with Samantha’s mother? “Oh, don’t be such a prude. It’s done all the time now, you know. Look at Ashton and Cher.” “Demi Moore,” Sam corrected automatically. “I’m no Demi.” And Zack was cuter than Ashton. Not that she’d say that out loud. “You don’t have to be. You know, young men have stamina. You deserve stamina.” “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” “That gardener guy on Desperate Housewives, he’s got stamina. Not that Eva Longoria is as old as you. But still. You have experience. You know things. You’d make it more fun for Zack than all those college girls.” Samantha had reached her limit. “I’ll keep it in mind, Mom. Thanks for the thoughts. I love you.” “Love you, too. And remember! Just do it!” Sam shook her head and snapped the phone closed as Zack came into the room, his hair dusted with snow, carrying a stack of wood that he carefully laid in the holder on the hearth. He’d taken off his shoes before coming through the house, and the gray socks hugged long, well-formed feet. Jesus Christ. When had she ever been into a man’s feet? “How cold out is it?” she asked to distract herself. “Not bad. Might have to drag you out for a snowball fight later.” He tipped his head to look over his shoulder. She couldn’t see his mouth, but his eyes crinkled at the corners. “Drag, nothing.” She sipped her coffee and straightened the blanket over her legs while she watched him work. “I am 28

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the neighborhood snowball fight champion, I’ll have you know.” “Sounds like a challenge.” “It is.” “Then I’ll take you up on it.” He finished setting up the small pyramid of logs on the grate. Sam watched his hands as he crumpled newspaper. When he reached to tuck it under the logs, the play of muscles in his back, clearly defined under the hugging material of his long-sleeved Henley, caught her attention. The shirt pulled up above his waistband when he stretched, without standing, to reach the fireplace matches on the mantle. His skin was smooth, the dip of his spine above his butt just the right curvature. He had long, long legs that folded up under him, one knee bent up against his chest. He laid match to paper, and the fire flared. He tended it quietly for a few minutes. Then he closed the doors most of the way, turned to rise, and caught her staring. He didn’t tease her, only smiled. She smiled back. The voice that had niggled at her all the night before had fallen silent. Maybe all she’d needed to stop resisting was her mother’s blessing. God forbid. “You’re not reading,” Zack observed. His voice was lower, husky, and Sam let her gaze drop to his crotch. Just to check. Sure enough, his button fly strained just a bit more than it should have. He’d felt her watching him that whole time. Awareness blazed to a new level, and attraction made an 29

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abrupt left turn into desire. Samantha’s body flushed from toe to scalp and went moist in places that hadn’t been moist in a very long time. She forced her mind back to what he’d said. “I, uh, forgot to grab my book.” “I’ll get it.” He stood and pivoted toward the bookshelf, his right hand making an obvious adjustment between his legs. “Which one?” Samantha bit back a grin. She hadn’t anticipated this feeling of power that came with knowing she turned a guy on. “The Misty Simon.” His long forefinger traced down the spines of the stacked books, stopping at a white one with Stranger in black script. “This one’s good. You should read that.” She raised her eyebrows. “How do you know it’s good?” “I read it. Last week, after a poli/sci exam. Took me all night and part of the next day. Almost missed a computer class.” “No way!” He shrugged. “One of my foster fathers is in publishing. He’s always got stuff lying around the house, advance reader copies. I had dinner over there last month, liked the cover, and grabbed it.” “So you read it for the sex.” He shook his head and plucked the Simon out of the pile to toss to her. “She’s always got a dense plot. This one addresses grief and fear, but it’s lighter than her earlier stuff, believe it or not.” 30

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“I’ll read that next. But I’m more in the mood for snortinducing laughter.” She picked up the book that had landed in her lap and opened it, but paused. Zack was still examining her to-be-read pile. “You read these authors before? Victoria Smith? Burkholder?” “Yeah. Smith does intense paranormal thrillers. Burkholder is more adventurous fantasy. Opposite ends of the spectrum.” He looked back at her, his eyes slightly glazed, like he was only half here. “Mind if I read the Smith? I promise I’ll be done before I leave.” “Help yourself.” He did and settled on the sofa across from her love seat, not glancing up as he rested his head on the arm rest and propped his feet on the opposite end. He filled the whole damned couch. After a minute she tore her gaze from his flat stomach and the rise of his chest and forced herself to concentrate on the book. It was surprisingly easy to do, given how tasty he looked stretched out so close, but before she knew it the clock over the fireplace was chiming one in the afternoon, and she was halfway through the book. Zack yawned and stretched. His shirt rode up to expose his entire abdomen, with that thin line of hair men had down the center, and evidence that he did more than study and read at school. She imagined him doing crunches, bare-torsoed, and flushed again. 31

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He turned his head and blinked sleepily, and it was all she could do not to go over and lie down next to him. Or on top of him. “Good book?” he murmured. She nodded, but her throat stuck so she couldn’t return the question. He raised the book in his hand to study the cover. “I like this chick. She’s got a dark brain.” She tried to agree and made some kind of noise in her throat. Zack laughed and rolled to his feet, reaching for her hand to pull her up. He stood close so when she rose they were body to body, hers at a slight angle to his. His hand pressed for just a second against the small of her back, and she swayed toward him before he stepped away. “I think it’s time for that snowball fight.” A few minutes later, Samantha, bundled in her parka and a wool hat and gloves, with snow boots on her feet, met Zack in the back yard. She stopped abruptly at the top of the porch steps when she saw him. “You’re not dressed for this!” “Sure I am.” He bent and scooped up snow in his bare hand, lobbing it at her as he straightened. She didn’t flinch when it went wide and thudded against the siding. “I’m wearing boots. See?” He lifted a foot to display his work boots. They’d do, but the jeans hanging over their tops were worn and holey. His jacket hung open over the thin shirt, and his head was as bare as his hands. “You’ll freeze,” she tried again, knowing she sounded motherly, but unable to help it. She’d say the same thing even 32

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if he were forty. Zack’s answer was a snowball against her chest. “That does it!” Samantha darted off the porch, yelping when she floundered into the deep drift. Zack pounced, covering her with the fluffy snow, but she managed to stuff a fistful down his shirt. The shock sent him scrambling backward, and she hit him with three snowballs before he got to his feet. They darted and dashed around the yard, her squeals and grunts as she dodged and threw interspersed with his low, breathless laughter. She got her licks in, but was definitely coming out the loser. She had to do something clever. Thinking hard, she ran to the back of the yard and hid behind a tree, carefully drawing down a snow-laden branch. She held her breath, listening to Zack’s footsteps crunching across the snow, following her trail. Just as he jumped around the tree, shouting a “boo”-type sound, she let go of the branch. It flung its load sideways, full in Zack’s face. They stood, frozen for a second. She wondered, seeing the cold wetness on his eyelashes and filling his hair, if she’d gone too far. “All right.” He blew snow off his mouth. “No more Mr. Nice Guy.” He lunged. She gasped and jumped back, just out of his reach, then spun and struggled through the snow toward the house. He growled and threatened behind her, and she moved faster. But nowhere near fast enough for his long legs and big feet that made short work of the drift. He caught her arm. She tried to yank it away, twisted, and fell on her back, dragging him down with her. 33

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The snow shot upward around them with a soft “whomp” and fluttered down again. It felt like a feather bed, so soft under her. Zack tried to brace himself over her, but the snow was too deep and his arms sank until his body pressed hers, chest to knee. “Sorry,” he murmured. He stopped struggling and his gaze fell to her lips. “You okay?” She nodded and tried not to lick her lips. In this cold, they’d dry and chap immediately. “That was fun.” He nodded. The movement brought his face closer to hers. His eyelashes floated down over his eyes, almost but not quite closing. She waited. He didn’t move. Her lips parted. His breath seemed quicker, blowing against her face, but still he didn’t take advantage. After her protestations last night, he was leaving it up to her. So she took what she wanted. To hell with their ages, with his relationship with her son, with the perceived impropriety of anything they did. She curled her wet-gloved fingers around the edge of his jacket and pulled. He didn’t resist. His mouth came down without effort, covering hers with a heat she hadn’t expected. He kept it gentle, his mouth slightly open but not invading. She concentrated on the velvet of his lips, the amazing firmness underneath. The taste, so foreign, but so delicious. And his scent, intensified by their exertions, emanating from the warmth of his skin. Within seconds, foreign became familiar and not nearly enough. She touched her tongue to the gap between his lips. 34

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An invitation. His tongue met hers, stroked. It was a bare touch, gentle and introductory, but it sent a surge of need through her body. She whimpered and pulled harder on his jacket, wanting him closer. Zack managed to get one of his hands under her back and tugged upward. He was so hard, and in their position she couldn’t even feel his erection. And she wanted to. She wanted a lot more than the snow and their clothes would allow. She dragged her mouth away from his, her breath misting the air in rapid pants. “Let’s go inside,” she breathed. She expected him to question her, ask if she was sure, but he didn’t say a word. Seemingly without effort he got to his feet and helped her out of the bank. He kept his arm around her waist as they trudged across the trampled snow to the back porch, letting go only when she opened the back door. The small foyer afforded little space to maneuver. They bumped and knocked into each other trying to get off snowy outerwear and boots, but finally managed it, leaving them all in a heap against the door. Zack leaned against the wall, his feet spread slightly. His hand encircled her wrist. “Come here.” Samantha started to tilt into him, but icy cold against the hand she rested on his shoulder for balance stopped her. “Your clothes are wet.” His mouth twitched. “So are yours.” There were patches of moisture on her jeans and the collar of her sweater, but he was soaked by comparison. 35

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“You should get out of those.” “I will.” He tugged her wrist and she fell into him, their mouths slamming together, open and hungry. His hands roamed up and down her back and sides, occasionally clenching around her hips or sliding up to change the angle of her head. After a moment he pulled back, his fingers caressing the back of her neck. “You’re shuddering.” She tried to deny it. She’d made her decision, but part of her was still afraid that, if given too much time to examine it, she’d chicken out. “N-n-no, I’m not.” Zack chuckled. “Come on. You’re freezing.” He eased her through the kitchen and down the hall to her bathroom, where he sat on the edge of the tub to turn on the water. Samantha watched him. “You’re running me a bath?” She sounded as incredulous as she felt, and Zack smiled at her again. With one final adjustment to the tap, he rose and pulled her back into his arms. “Don’t worry. We’re not done.” “I’m not worried. I’m just—I’ll warm up, you know.” In bed. With you. She wondered how much she should spell out. “Relax.” He kissed her forehead, then the top of her cheek near the corner of her eye. “When was the last time someone took care of you?” She frowned. Probably at some point in her childhood, which was irrelevant. But apparently not to Zack. “Let me take care of you,” he murmured. She sighed, and he swallowed it, kissing her so gently, his focus so intently on her that her eyes prickled. 36

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“Get undressed.” He opened the doors of the vanity and rummaged around until he came up with a bottle of bath salts. “Get into the tub.” He unscrewed the cap and poured some of the salt into the water, which began to froth. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He kissed her one last time and left the room. Samantha stood for a moment, then shrugged. She was cold, so why waste the water? Half afraid Zack would return before she was ready, she quickly stripped off her clothes, heaping them in the corner, and slid into the half-full tub. Oh, God, it was heaven. She hadn’t known how cold she really was until the heat enveloped her. She closed her eyes and sank down, not bothering to care about her hair getting wet. She hadn’t taken a bath in a long time. Her tub was good for it—deep and wide, with a full lip curved just right for her neck, preventing the need for a pillow or rolled-up towel. But she just never thought about doing it, her focus too external, too much on keeping busy so she didn’t notice the emptiness of her house or the loneliness of her life. Don’t think about that. Now was not the time to feel sorry for herself. Now was the time to indulge. Who would it hurt anyway? A soft tap sounded on the door. The water had risen over her body, the salts foaming enough to create a peek-a-boo effect. One that made her feel covered enough to say, “Come in.” Zack eased into the room, two mugs of what smelled like hot cocoa in his hands. He set them on the edge of the tub and settled on the floor next to it. “Warming up?” 37

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“Gloriously so, thank you.” She reached for the mug Zack had released and sniffed. “You put kahlua in here.” “Duh.” She laughed. “Thank you.” She pulled in a little whipped cream with her first sip. “Yummy.” His eyes crinkled. “You don’t seem like the type to say yummy.” “I’m not. Except when whipped cream is involved.” His smile faded. “Chris called while we were out.” Some emotion surged in her. Annoyance? At what? “On which phone?” “Probably both. Your answering machine light is blinking. I didn’t check it. It’s not mine to check.” She relaxed, but that hadn’t been what annoyed her. God, was she annoyed at her son for interrupting her interlude? Even though he really hadn’t? Before guilt set in and ruined everything, she pushed it ruthlessly away. “He also called my cell and left a message. Said the forecast is still bad, and if he can’t get a flight out by Friday, he’ll just stay there.” Disappointment came down like an anvil. She set the mug back on the edge of the tub and lay back, closing her eyes with a sigh. “I was afraid of that.” Zack didn’t say anything for a long while. She could hear him sipping his cocoa now and then. Carefully making her mind blank, not wanting to dwell on negative things, she floated and drifted, part of her constantly aware of the man at her side. 38

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There was a clink. A mug on the tile floor. Then another. A rustle of denim as he shifted, of cotton sliding up hairroughened forearms. Silence. The barest touch of fingertips on flesh made her jump. Zack touched the far side of her collarbone. Traced it across to the dip in the center, then to the other shoulder. Fingertips became finger pads stroking her shoulder, down her arm, to her hand, dipping between her fingers, gliding with the aid of the oily bath salts. Then the back of his hand up the inside of her arm, the fingers now brushing against her side, the outside of her breast. She let her body rise, floating. Her nipples puckered as they broke the surface of the water, emerging into the cool air. Zack drew a quick breath, and she surged and swelled, that old, familiar ache between her legs bringing a moan to her lips. Zack cupped her left breast. His hand was large enough to cover the whole thing. Nerve endings buzzed and tingled, shorting out any worry she might have had that her body wouldn’t be attractive to him, compared to the nubile pertness of his fellow college students. Her breathing started to labor. She arched, wanting more. He seemed to read her mind, covering her other breast with his other hand and squeezing, tightening even more when she cried out and pressed up harder against him. His breath harshened, too, and water splashed over the edge of the tub when Samantha couldn’t hold still. She thrashed a little, dying to have his touch lower, but not wanting to speak. With one hand still on her breast, Zack smoothed the other 39

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palm down her abdomen to the crease of her thigh, where he gave a light squeeze and dipped his thumb close to her core, but not far enough. She moaned again. He ran his hand down the ouside of her thigh, catching her behind the knee to bend her leg and draw it up to the far side of the tub. He rested her heel there, then released her. She lay, holding her breath, completely open to him. Instead of feeling vulnerable or helpless or embarrassed, she just felt completely turned on. Then he touched her. The hand on her breast moved behind her back to brace her. The other fingers dove into the water and found her slick and hot. It was his turn to moan, a slight release of breath that made her swell even more. His fingers stroked and prodded, exploring, before two slid into her and pressed upward. She cried out, shockwaves slamming through her body until every muscle tensed. And that wasn’t even approaching orgasm. She reached up and clutched Zack’s arm. The muscle was rock hard beneath the soft fabric of his shirt. He lifted her and bent, his mouth fastening onto her nipple as his thumb rubbed over her engorged clit and his other fingers pushed deep into her. It didn’t take long to send her up and over the edge, the orgasm slamming through her, making her convulse and throb. It used to be—and still was, on the rare occasions she felt compelled to self-satisfy—that she was “once and done.” A good orgasm relaxed everything and put her to sleep. Not this time. Need followed the pleasure, surprisingly strong. When Zack straightened, she reached up to catch him, her hand 40

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gripping his hair and bringing his head down to hers for a carnal kiss. She hungered, and bit at his mouth, driving her tongue between his lips and sucking his between hers. He cursed, struggling to pull off his clothes without breaking the kiss. She didn’t bother trying to help him, just touched and squeezed and stroked every part of him she could reach. As soon as he had his clothes off, she pulled him over the edge of the tub on top of her. Water sloshed over the side and swept across the floor, soaking the rug and his clothes and hers in the corner, and probably the edge of the hallway carpet underneath the bathroom door. Samantha didn’t care. She wanted, and she would have. They thrust and plunged and groped, their murmurs and grunts and sighs echoing in the little room. Samantha reached between them and closed her hand around his erection. He was smooth and strong, big enough to make her crave, but not monstrous. They’d be a perfect fit. She arched and rubbed his tip against her clit. Pleasure vibrated through her. “Wait,” he mumbled against her mouth. “I can’t— condoms won’t work in here.” “Wanna bet?” Finally opening her eyes, Sam half sat and leaned over the edge of the tub, looking. Of course he had to have brought some in when he came. She snagged his soaking jeans and dug into the rear pockets, coming up with a strip of six of the flat packets. She separated one and dropped the rest on the floor before ripping the packet open with her teeth. “That is so hot.” Zack knelt so his cock was out of the water. She flipped the condom over, placed it over the tip, and 41

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paused to run her thumb down over the crease at the front of his penis. His eyes closed, his mouth dropped open, and he tilted his head back. She did it again, then squeezed him hard. His whole body jerked. “God, Sam, you’re torturing me.” She smiled and rolled the condom down over him. It was a nice, tight fit. She snugged the collar against the base of him, then guided him to her. Zack took over then, bracing himself with one arm and wrapping the other underneath her, pressing slowly against her opening until she started to take him in, inch by inch, a slow glide. Even with the condom on he was hot inside her. She clenched. He hissed. “Fuck me, Zack.” He cried out and threw his head back, pulling out and thrusting into her hard and fast. She braced her knees against the side of the tub and held onto him, raising her hips so he drove deep, rubbing against her clit with every thrust. She started to climb again and urged him on, digging her nails into his ass. He shouted, shuddered, and slammed against her, over and over, as she exploded around him. His movements slowed and he released his arm, letting her float away from him. His forehead came down on hers and he pushed slightly deeper, his body jerking one last time. Samantha’s hands caressed his face, swept through his hair, ran down his back and soothed the marks she’d left in his butt. “Wow,” he finally said. “Mmm-hmm.” 42

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“I mean…wow.” He held the condom on while he pulled out, efficiently disposed of it in the can next to the toilet, and settled on his side next to her, cradling her against his chest. “That was not at all what I was planning.” “I think it went okay.” She traced the muscles of his chest, fingered his nipple, and refused to think for real. “I feel like I should thank you.” “Hell, no. I should be thanking you.” He rose up a little to survey the bathroom, and groaned a totally different kind of groan. “I made a mess.” “We made a mess.” “Whatever. It’s messy.” “I have a mop.” Nothing could perturb her right now. “It occurs to me, in the aftermath of my thunderous ecstasy”—she smiled at his pleased chuckle—“that there is a brilliantly silver lining to Christopher not coming home.” He sighed. “I was hoping you’d say that, because I’ve been thinking it since he called this morning.” Sam turned her face into his chest, loving everything about this moment. The pure satisfaction in her body. His smell, his taste, his limbs wrapped around her. His feet, rough… She lifted her head and looked toward the end of the tub. Sure enough, Zack’s feet were still incased in now sopping, stretched-out socks. She burst into laughter. “What? You pulled me in here before I could take them off.” “Sorry.” “Really not complaining.” He sighed again. “We should 43

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get out before you get cold again and defeat the whole purpose of the bath.” She rolled into him. “I don’t think I’ll ever be cold again.” “Let’s not test that theory.” He eased out from under her and stood, climbing out before picking her up, hauling her out of the tub, setting her on her feet and wrapping her in a bath sheet, and sweeping her back into his arms before she could say a word. Seconds later he deposited her on her bed. “Stay there.” She didn’t see any reason to disobey.

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CHAPTER 4 Samantha had dried off, climbed beneath the covers, and drifted into that fabulous sleep you only get during midafternoon naps. She woke here and there, hearing the phone ring once and Zack laugh, and noises that might have been him cleaning up the bathroom. At one point she tried to get up to help, but drowsiness dragged her back down, puncturing her guilt. A while later the bed got warmer, and she snuggled against it with a sigh. She dreamed of sex. Of languid stroking, hands touching every inch of her body, a slow-building need. When she craved a hand between her legs, the dream man obliged, fingering her lightly, drawing out the pleasure until it tingled 45

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through every nerve. Only then did he roll on top of her, thread his fingers through hers, and slide inside her. They moved together in a tender rhythm, their mouths holding each other more than kissing, tongues touching the barest bit. The orgasm rolled up and over her, as much his as hers, their connection powerful. Her cry as the orgasm peaked woke her, and she realized it hadn’t been a dream at all. Zack bent and kissed her gently, propped on his elbows to hold his weight off her. They both heaved a sigh together. “That’s more like what I was planning.” “Mmm.” Samantha stretched her arms up to touch the headboard and watched his face tilt down to examine her breasts. “What time is it?” “Not sure. I dozed off, too.” He lifted his head, realized she’d been watching him, and grinned sheepishly. “Sorry.” “It’s okay.” She pushed his hair back off his face. “I’m glad you like them.” Craning her neck, she twisted to check the clock. It was nearly four. She moaned. “I’ve got to start getting things ready for tomorrow.” “Nope.” “What do you mean, nope?” “I mean, no, you’re not cooking Thanksgiving dinner.” She stared at him. “Of course I am. I always do.” “That’s the point. You always do, and this year, you’re not. You’re getting a break.” “I don’t understand.” Who wouldn’t want Thanksgiving dinner, especially when he’d had so few growing up? “I 46

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thought…I mean, Chris said…” “I know. He said I couldn’t wait to have traditional turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes, blah blah blah, sad childhood, yada yada.” “Well…yeah.” He shook his head. “It’s not important.” “But it’s Thanksgiving.” Zack shifted to the side and propped his head on his hand. His right leg maneuvered between hers, his foot wrapping around her calf, securing her to him. “Did you hear the phone ring earlier?” “Yes, but—oh. Oh, no.” He grinned. “Yeah.” “Noooo!” She covered her eyes with her left hand. “You talked to my mother.” “I did. She had some interesting things to say.” “I don’t want to hear it.” “Oh, but I think you do.” His hand tickled across her ribs. “She told me about—what was it, three years ago? Chris wanted to try turducken?” “Don’t.” She shoved at his hand and tried not to giggle. “I don’t want to talk about the turducken.” “Apparently, there was a lot of cursing in your kitchen that year. You wouldn’t let anyone help, wouldn’t give up.” “Hey, we ate that turducken!” “At midnight.” He smoothed his hand over her shoulder and down her arm. “And you didn’t enjoy yourself.” “Of course I did. I love making my family happy.” 47

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“And you spent the entire day alone in the kitchen, fighting with three birds that didn’t want to cook.” Samantha ground her teeth. “It was one time, three years ago.” “Hey.” He ran his hand down her arm again. “I’m not trying to make you mad. I just want to reverse the trend a little.” “We can’t exactly make my family do the cooking this year.” She regretted her tone as soon as the words came out. “I don’t want you to cook turkey for me,” she said more reasonably. “I’m not planning to.” “Then what?” “I’m going to follow your mother’s orders.” Horror swept over her. “She didn’t.” “Didn’t what?” His mouth twitched. “She didn’t tell you—to—” She couldn’t say it, but by the look in his eyes, her mother definitely had. “Tell me to what? Keep you in bed all week?” “No.” “And make you happy?” “God, no.” “And give you—” “Stop!” She slammed both hands over his mouth. “You are not going to mention…that…and my mother in the same sentence.” He twisted his head away from her hands. “What? She said she told you the same thing, to have your wicked—” 48

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She shrieked and tried to cover his mouth again. They wrestled, laughing, and Zack tickled her in all the places no one except her husband had ever known she was ticklish. Suddenly Zack stopped. “Oh, fuck.” Samantha gasped and he grimaced. “Sorry.” “It’s okay, you just hadn’t said it before. Shocked me.” She shifted to her left to give him space, as he seemed to be examining the sheet. “What’s wrong?” “I forgot about the condom.” She giggled. “Oh.” “It’s not funny.” She laughed harder. “Of course it’s funny. But don’t worry, we’ll just change the sheets before we go to bed tonight.” Her voice caught at the end of the sentence. So far, she’d just been going along with whatever happened. What she’d just said was more like planning, and planning meant the future, and maybe she hadn’t thought even this was possible or advisable, but she knew for sure there was no future for them. She sighed and climbed out of bed. “Regardless, I can’t lie in bed all night. I have things to do.” “I told you—” “Forget about the dinner.” She pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, not bothering with underwear. “If you don’t want me to cook, I won’t cook. I brought some work home, though. The mall is one of our clients, and you know Friday is a big shopping day. I have some analyses to prepare.” “Okay.” He hadn’t gotten up, just lay there watching her. “I have homework, myself. Okay if I set up my laptop at the 49

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kitchen table?” She shrugged and left the room, with no idea why she felt so annoyed. *

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They spent the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening apart. Mostly. Samantha kept finding herself in need of coffee, or a snack, and around seven she went in and made sandwiches. When she passed close enough to the table where Zack seemed to be writing a paper on the fall of the Roman Empire, he reached out to touch her, usually without even looking away from his computer screen. She found it hard to concentrate on work knowing he was in the kitchen, remembering what they’d done earlier that day—twice!—and wanting more. Her mind would picture him in the glow of the laptop, chewing on a pencil, and she’d imagine taking it out of his hand, watching his eyes refocus as he looked up at her, basking in the pleasure that would dawn over his face. Her skin tingled with anticipation as the fantasy continued. He’d catch her hand and draw her down onto his lap. Cup her neck…she loved the warmth and strength of his hand spanning the back of it, kneading or caressing or simply holding. Damn it. She shook her head, which dispelled the imagery but not the tingles, and tried to refocus on the projection sheet she was creating. She got three more lines labeled, realized she’d typed Zack’s name on one of them, and shoved to her feet. This wasn’t working. Maybe the snow had stopped. If it 50

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had, even if they didn’t go anywhere, she might feel less caged. She paced to the front window and pulled the curtain back. No more flakes were falling. She could call that positive, if it didn’t seem to be so recent. The white blanket that glowed orange in reflected light from the nearby city rose and fell in huge drifts. The pile under her window, a relatively flat area, came up at least three feet. But the front door of her neighbor across the street had snow halfway up it. Nothing had been done to the street yet. Even though she’d accepted that the holiday was ruined, she still felt a pang of sorrow she wouldn’t see her son. Or her mother, though that one didn’t sting so much, considering what she’d supposedly said to Zack. Not that Samantha didn’t believe she had—the woman subscribed one hundred percent to the adage that old people had earned the right to say whatever they wanted to say. Samantha didn’t hear Zack come into the room, but she sensed him as soon as he crossed the threshold. She stood still while he stepped up behind her, wrapping her in his arms and pressing his mouth to her neck. “How’s work going?” His words vibrated against her skin. Samantha held herself stiffly, trying not to relax into him. It would be an invitation to take her back to bed, and while that ship had already sailed, she wanted a little distance between thinking about her mother and son and having sex again. “All right, I guess. Your paper?” He sucked on the spot where her shoulder curved into her neck. Samantha suppressed a shiver. Zack raised his head and 51

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rubbed her arms, apparently believing her to be cold. “Same. I keep having to delete double entendres and inappropriate descriptions.” She chuckled. “I’ve been a little distracted, too.” His hands spanned her waist again and squeezed gently. Samantha reached one arm behind her and buried her hand in his silky hair. Zings radiated down her other arm from where he kissed her skin again, nudging aside the collar of her shirt to taste lower. Her nipples puckered. He noticed, because he smoothed both hands up under her shirt to cup her breasts, lightly abrading her nipples with his palms. Samantha sighed and arched. “How did you get those calluses?” Zack squeezed, and desire pooled in her stomach, chasing away any residual tension she’d been holding on to. “Weight training, mostly. The bars give me calluses. Is it too rough?” “Mmm. No.” He left one hand on her breast and smoothed the other down and then across her stomach. The zings spread, following behind his warm hand and sending showers of sparks to coalesce in her lower abdomen. The ache and burn started between her legs and she shifted, trying to ease it. Zack tilted her chin up and back to kiss her. His tongue pressed between her lips and stroked deep. He took his time, his hands unmoving, concentrating fully and completely on their mouths. Samantha’s bones softened, and she understood the metaphors in romances about melted wax and golden 52

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liquid. She felt like her entire body shimmered from the inside. She tried to twist in his arms, to press her body flat to his, but he held her in place. When he gently pulled back an inch she moaned. “How does a boy your age know how to kiss like that?” He smiled against her mouth. “Just comes naturally, I guess.” “Like I believe that.” She sighed and closed her eyes as his hands began to roam again. Lifting her other hand to join the first in the hair at the back of his head, she ground her backside into his erection. He hissed, and she grinned. “Zack.” “Samantha.” Her name, said in a longing whisper, sent a shiver through her. “I want you again.” It was a difficult admission, crossing a line from passive participant to active pursuer. If she thought about it too hard, she would feel like a predator, with the innocent young man her unwitting prey. And no matter what “rules of society” might say about their tryst, that really wasn’t how this was. She blocked out the thought and let herself just feel. Zack dipped the tips of his fingers into her waistband, spreading them wide over the smooth skin of her lower abdomen before bringing them back together and pushing lower, through her curls, into the dampness between her legs. She moaned and let her head fall back against his shoulder. He paused to nibble on her earlobe, tickle the curve of her ear with his tongue. She shivered again, a surge of desire making her wetter, making 53

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her start to pant. His fingers slid down, into her slickness, and pressed between her folds. She gasped. His mouth fastened onto her neck and sucked hard. His long finger pushed inside her, its length rubbing against her clit. A pulse of pleasure. She squeezed. He moaned almost inaudibly, but his hips lurched forward. She ground back again, and they took up a dance, their bodies finding a rhythm despite the inherent awkwardness of their position. Samantha forgot about the window framing them, forgot their age difference and the work waiting behind her on her computer. Her entire being centered on the piercing pleasure his fingers drew out of her and on his hard, tall body surrounding her. His teeth closed over her earlobe again and she shattered. She dropped her hand to put it his over his, holding his fingers on her clit, and rotated her pelvis to wring out a few more throbs of ecstasy. “God, that is so hot,” Zack murmured. He pinched her clit between two fingers. She shuddered. It wasn’t enough. She craved the length of him inside her, slamming into her from behind—something she’d never done in her life. Never even thought about wanting. But she didn’t know how to let him know. She reached around and fumbled with his jeans, opening them enough to get her hand inside. “Zack.” “Yes.” She didn’t have to say any more. He swung them around to the back of the couch and positioned her over it, sweeping her 54

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jeans down and off with more grace than she’d ever managed. She heard the crinkle of a condom packet, then the snap of latex, and then he was there, probing her, his hands gripping her hips. She threw her head back and arched to give him a better angle, and slowly he thrust, in a few inches, back out, then a little harder, a little deeper, his breath coming in harsh pants that matched hers. “Don’t hold back,” she ordered, and cried out when he complied, driving deep into her, deeper than anyone had ever been. “Oh, God.” “Samantha, Jesus.” He held her shoulder and hip and thrust back and forth, hitting something on each penetration, something almost like a bruise, but so good, so intense, she sobbed with the rapture of it. Her previous orgasm had been on the outside of her body. This one came from inside her, so deep and wild it took her over. She screamed and bucked, barely hearing Zack’s shout as he came, too. She didn’t want it to be over, but it had to fade, and when it did, it took all her ability to stand with it. She collapsed on the back of the sofa, laughing breathlessly. “I’d be embarrassed if that hadn’t been so fucking good.” Her own language surprised her, but it felt natural. She heard Zack’s zipper close before he wrapped an arm around her waist to lift her. He rolled her up into his arms and carried her, legs trembling, around to the front of the sofa, where he tried to set her down and half fell on her instead. They shifted and maneuvered, laughing, until he half reclined 55

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against the back, cradling her against his chest, their legs entwined. Samantha pulled the chenille throw off the back and draped it over them, then settled into the crook of his shoulder, unbuttoning a couple of buttons on his shirt so she could touch skin. “You’re incredible, Samantha.” Zack kissed the top of her head. “I never want to leave here.” That brought enough reality into the room to sober her. “Let’s not talk about that yet.” His arm tightened around her shoulders and his body tensed underneath her. “I was kind of hoping you’d say you don’t want to see me go.” She sighed and ran her hand over his chest soothingly. “I don’t.” He relaxed. “But the idea of it brings up a lot of stuff I just don’t want to think about.” She could almost hear him making a mental list of what those things could be. “See? I’m not ready for that yet.” “Neither am I.” He rolled them so he towered over her and she lay flat on the couch cushions. “So let’s take our minds off of it.” His head dropped and he kissed her with enough need to be unbelievable. They’d had sex three times in twenty-four hours. Even at his age, that was more stamina than she would have thought possible. When he broke the kiss she started to say, “No way you can—” But his deft fingers had opened her shirt and the front closure of her bra, and his mouth plucked at her nipple. “Ooohh-kay, maybe you can.” He sucked, and she arched, reaching to catch the back of his head. “Zack.” 56

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He pinched her other nipple and moved down her body, leaving hot kisses across her belly and briefly tonguing her belly button. She’d never thought of it as an erogenous zone, but it sent more zings than ever flying out to her extremities. She shuddered as he moved still lower. “Zack.” “Samantha.” His voice vibrated against her pubic bone, and all throught of protest disappeared. All she could do was spread her legs and lift her hips. His hands slid under to help raise her higher, and then he feasted. The first touch of his amazingly soft tongue on her clit was like a religious experience. She’d never felt anything like it, and it wasn’t like she hadn’t had oral sex before. But not in a long, long time, and not with this much skill. He stroked with the flat of his tongue, then flicked with the hardened tip, across and around, slow and then fast, going lower to taste her, to press his tongue inside her. The slight penetration was a tease, enough to build a craving for more. She lifted her hips to his mouth and he sucked hard on her clit. She cried out and shuddered. “More,” she gasped, and he slid a finger inside her, then two, thrusting them in and out as he rubbed her clit with his tongue. She clutched at his head, feeling the general tingling start to tighten, the orgasm to approach. Her body tensed… And he stopped. She screamed her frustration, subsiding back onto the couch and tugging his hair. “You’re cruel.” “Hardly.” He lowered his head and started over, building her higher and higher until she tensed again, her head thrown 57

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back, her entire body arched against his mouth, ready to explode…and he stopped again. Samantha cursed, making him laugh, and she pulled at his hair a little harder than she meant to. He gasped and looked up at her, a fire in his eyes that sent a shaft of need through her that was even more powerful than the constant throb of it he’d started when he first touched her with his tongue. “Oh, you are so going to regret that,” he murmured. Her breath caught in anticipation. This time, when he lowered his head, he barely touched her. He licked her skin lightly, probed her clit with the merest touch, tantalized her cunt with the tips of his fingers without going inside. She moaned and writhed and tried everything to make him give her what she wanted, and he refused, just kept teasing until she thought she’d go insane. Then he brushed one finger against her anus, and the sensation against the delicate skin was more than she could bear. “I’m sorry!” she sobbed, begging with her body. “I’m sorry. Make me come, please.” He dove in, shoving his fingers deep into her, moving his tongue lightning fast over her clit, and pressing the pad of one finger on her anus. She exploded, her scream echoing against the ceiling, her body touching the couch only with her shoulders and heels, her hands holding his head so tightly between her legs he probably couldn’t breathe. It went on and on, throbbing, pulsing, and he just kept licking her, making it last longer and longer. Finally she reached saturation point and pushed him gently away, her entire body shaking. 58

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She opened her eyes to look at him, kneeling on the floor next to her, eyes shining. “That was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he murmured. “Thank you,” she whispered. “That was—” She shook her head. “I can’t even describe it.” “You’re welcome.” He leaned as if to kiss her, then backed away. “Sorry.” “For what?” “Some…um…don’t like the smell.” She had the feeling he’d been about to say some girls and thought better of it. She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.” He pushed to his feet and covered her body with the throw. “I’m going to take a shower.” “Okay.” Samantha lay there watching him walk away, down the hall toward the guest room. The sudden silence rang in her ears, and despite the blanket over her, she felt cold. She’d grown used, already, to cuddling or at least touching after they had sex. Jesus Christ, she’d just orgasmed three times in half an hour, and she was mentally whining about Zack wanting a shower. Well, to hell with it. She wasn’t going to lie here feeling bereft and she wasn’t going to start thinking of all the ways this could be messed up before it was over. The best way to keep it from falling apart was to keep it going. She threw off the cover and stood, finding her jeans and stalking off to her own bedroom. After cleaning up in her private bath, she dug into the bottom drawer of her dresser, 59

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searching for a nightgown one of her friends had given her for her birthday a few years ago, when she’d dated a guy who’d turned out not to be worth the silk. Compared to Zack, he might as well have been impotent, given all the imagination and care he’d put into their one encounter. “Ah-ha!” She triumphantly pulled the red froth of silk and lace from under an old set of flannels and held it up. A bit wrinkled, but it fit so closely Zack wouldn’t notice. She slipped it over her head and smiled at the decadent feel of the silk on her skin. The lace edged the plunging neckline that somehow managed to enhance and lift her breasts, as well as the high-cut, off-center slit that ran from ankle to hip. The jacquard pattern rose and fell over her curves. She looked damned good, but she had a feeling it wasn’t all the nightgown that made her think that. It was just as much the afterglow of Zack’s attention. She quickly covered her mouth with a red lipstick that didn’t quite match the gown, but was close enough, and padded barefoot down the hall to the other bathroom. She’d been quick enough that Zack was still in the shower. She slipped inside the room, leaving the door open a crack to let out the steam. The curtain was open a few inches. Zack had his back to her while he rinsed his hair, and she stood, admiring the lean lines of his body, the play of muscle in his back and shoulders, the taut curve of his ass and hair-covered, powerful-looking legs. He was beautiful. She watched him soap his body and turn to rinse, his hand lingering on his cock, eyes closed, and she wondered if he was 60

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thinking about her. He pulled his hand away suddenly and blew into the water before hitting the handle to shut it off and sluicing it away from his face. She shifted to the side so he couldn’t see her when he reached for a towel hanging on the bar. He dried off before he shoved the curtain aside and froze, one leg hovering over the side of the tub, the towel bunched in his hand. “Samantha.” “Hi.” She leaned her weight on one leg and cocked her hip, her fingers tapping on the jutted hipbone. “Good shower?” “Could’ve been better.” She watched as his gaze went down to floor, then traveled more slowly up her legs, past the top of the slit, hovering at her chest. His cock swelled gratifyingly. “I thought you’d be tired,” he said, stepping out of the tub and hanging the towel. “Nope.” “I was wond—” He broke off abruptly as she dropped to her knees. “Samantha?” “Shhhh.” She snagged a small tube of lotion from the vanity and squeezed some into her palm. After rubbing her hands together, she smoothed the cool lotion over the red marks on Zack’s knees. “You got rug burns.” He chuckled. “I didn’t even notice.” “Liar. These look angry.” “Okay, I didn’t notice until I got in the shower.” He twisted and leaned against the sink, widening his legs and angling them so she had better access. “That feels good.” 61

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“I get really dry skin in the winter.” She squeezed more into her hand and lotioned his calves and shins. He flinched when she did the backs of his knees. “Ticklish, huh?” “No way.” She smiled and brushed the sensitive spot again. He jerked his leg away, but his erection tightened. Once again, she filled her palm with lotion, this time smoothing it over his thighs. It took some effort to work it into his skin through the hair, so she rubbed over and over and over again, up and down, closer and closer to his groin, until Zack’s breathing started to sound ragged. She dug her thumbs into the creases at the top of both legs, smoothing inward, until her knuckles brushed his penis. He groaned. One last time, she squeezed lotion onto her hand, then capped the tube and set it on the counter. The action brought her up on her knees, her mouth even with his cock. He groaned. She smiled and peered up at him through her lashes, lightly licking her top lip. “You’re killing me.” “That’s the idea. Turnabout is fair play.” “I knew I was gonna regret that.” Samantha smeared the lotion around her hand, then wrapped it around the base of his penis and glided up to the tip, squeezed, and glided back down. He hissed. She worked up again, this time massaging the lotion into his skin, circling her palm over the head, spreading the liquid that had beaded there. His pants turned into moans. She continued massaging until all the moisture was thoroughly worked into his skin. 62

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Then she wrapped her mouth around the head of his cock, making sure he could see the brilliant red lipstick circling him, and took him in, as far as she could, opening her throat to take him in farther. He groaned and gathered her hair to hold it on top of her head. “God, Samantha.” Sucking hard, she pulled back until he was almost out, then licked around his cock, pressing hard on the sensitive spot on the front seam. She held him at the base, squeezing in time with her sucking motion, stroking as she took him inside again, using her tongue and lips and sometimes her teeth along his length. He was trying hard not to pump his hips now; she could feel him holding back. She rotated her head as she mouthed him, alternating her speed and suction until her palm cupping his balls felt the skin covering them start to tighten and shrink. His gasps and moans rose. She pumped him, fast, using her free hand to hold onto his hip while his body shook and thrust. He gave a shout and gripped her head, pulsing into her mouth and grunting as he came. She slowed her motion, taking her cues from his body, and finally pulled away to settle back on her heels. She smiled at his dazed expression. “Where—how—” She laughed. “I’m not completely asexual, Zack. Apparently, it’s just like riding a bike.” “Thank God.” He sank down onto his own knees and put his arms around her. “You didn’t have to do that.” “I wanted to.” “This is supposed to be all about you.” 63

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Her eyes narrowed. “What to you mean, ‘supposed to be’?” He made an impatient motion. “I’m trying to get you to let go. To do something for yourself. To have pleasure you don’t seem to think you deserve.” She could have been annoyed, but his intentions seemed honorable. And he wasn’t wrong, truth be told. “It pleased me to do that.” “I think it pleased me more.” He hugged her. “Thank you.” Intentions flickered through her mind again, and she couldn’t rest on the satisfaction of surprising and pleasing him. She pulled away and rose to her feet. “I ask again, what do you mean, ‘supposed to be’? Did you plan this from the beginning?” He frowned. “Plan what?” “This.” She waved at hand at herself, then his rather gloriously naked form. There was a lot to be said for the young male body. “Did you come here knowing Chris was stranded? Did you plan to seduce me?” Zack shook his head, water flying off the ends of his hair and splotching her nightgown. He groaned as he pulled himself to his feet, and rubbed his knees. It sounded so much like, “Oh, I’m getting old,” it boosted her unease into annoyance. “Knock it off. It doesn’t balance anything for you to act like you’re getting creaky.” “You’re too much woman for me.” He tried to toss a joke and sighed when it thudded to the floor. “Samantha, I swear to 64

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you, my only intentions about this weekend were to decompress from school and have a traditional holiday with my best friend and his family. I didn’t know who you were in the grocery store.” She’d forgotten about that. “I could never have predicted how I’d feel about you.” Samantha froze. “What?” Zack looked down, seemed to realize he was standing there naked, and turned toward the sink. “I wouldn’t have known I’d be this attracted to you.” He turned on the water to wash his hands, even though he’d just gotten out of the shower and she’d done all the touching. His discomfiture did more to alleviate her annoyance than anything he could say, even though, in the big picture, it didn’t bode well. Zack turned and leaned against the vanity, drying his hands on a fluffy white towel. He seemed to have collected himself. “I’m probably more in my rights to call you Mrs. Robinson.” Samantha snorted. “Yeah, all my ‘no, no, we can’t’ fretting was really seductive.” He wrapped the towel around his waist and held out a hand, pulling her against his chest and wrapping his arms around her. “Can we not make up agendas and motivations and just enjoy each other while it lasts?” Samantha nodded, ignoring the pang of loss in her chest. From the start, she’d known this was an aberration, an immoral dalliance that wouldn’t go beyond the walls of this house, wouldn’t extend to anything more. 65

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She should have known better.

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CHAPTER 5 The rumble of a plow on the street outside broke the stillness the next afternoon. After sleeping late and eating cereal for breakfast, Samantha had finished her work and Zack his paper. Then they’d built a fire in the fireplace and cuddled on the sofa to watch the football game. Every so often Samantha closed her eyes and reveled in the slow, absentminded stroke of Zack’s fingers up and down her arm, or the tug on her scalp as he played with her hair, or the slow, sweet relaxation seeping through her body when he massaged the back of her neck. Whatever this was they were doing had become far more than just sex. If that was all Zack wanted, he wouldn’t be 67

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bothering to clean up the kitchen every time they ate, or to stoke the fire when it died down, or to deliberately say things to make her laugh. He’d woken her in the middle of the night to make love again, doing it slowly and with his whole body, murmuring her name and other things she couldn’t hear, and making sure she had her sixth orgasm of the day—or something, she’d lost count—before he let himself go. And afterward, he’d held her so tightly she couldn’t breathe. Samantha had embraced their cocoon, had almost begun to believe they could sustain it. But the plow shattered the illusion and threatened them with reality. Zack turned the TV off. “This is out of hand. Let’s play a game.” He tossed the remote onto the coffee table and stretched. Samantha caressed his abdomen under his shirt. He grabbed her hand and grinned. “Not that kind of game.” “What kind, then?” “What have you got?” She shrugged and sat up. “Not much. Yahtzee, maybe, and an old game of Guess Who? that Christopher loved.” “I’ll pick Yahtzee. If you get it set up, I’ll go make us some cocoa.” “Mmmm, perfect. Don’t forget the whipped cream.” He waggled his eyebrows at her, then kissed her sweetly before getting up and going into the kitchen. Samantha dug the old Yahtzee game out of the storage cabinet and blew off the dust. She remembered playing this with Chris when he was small. She almost expected the memory to mar the contentment she felt right now, but it only 68

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seemed to enhance it. While she never would have said she was unhappy before, the absence of joy wasn’t noticeable until she felt it. Zack would probably become very cocky if she told him he’d made her joyful. She smiled at the thought. Like he had a long way to go to be cocky. His charming confidence managed to avoid insufferableness, though, and was part of the reason she was fal— Screeechhhh. “Don’t even think it, Samantha,” she muttered fiercely. There was absolutely, positively no room for that. Ever. “Here we go.” Zack stepped carefully into the room, balancing two overfull mugs towering with whipped cream. Her heart sighed. He settled next to her on the floor and picked up a die. “Roll to see who goes first?” “Go for it.” The first round went fast and furious, Zack’s surprising competitiveness drawing a streak out of Samantha that she’d almost forgotten she had. In the end, her judicious use of the Chance and Ones spots put her over the top. “The shirt,” she ordered. “Wha—” Zack stared at her. “I want the shirt.” She made a “come on” motion with her fingers. “Hand it over.” His lips curved slowly. “Is that how it’s going to be?” “Very definitely.” “All right then.” 69

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The second game was even fiercer, with each trying to interfere with the other’s dice or talk them into making a risky decision. In the end, Zack came out two points ahead. “Yeah, baby.” Grumbling, Samantha shifted away from him and made to pull her sweater over her head. “Ah, ah, ah!” Zack grabbed the hem and tugged it back down. “Did I say shirt? I want the pants.” “Uh-uh!” She tucked her legs under her. “Too cold!” “I’ll stoke the fire again.” He dragged himself around the table to shove another log on the smoldering embers. “You have perfect legs. I want them.” Samantha made a big show of disgruntlement, but was secretly glad he’d made the choice. Her legs had turned out to be a pretty intense erogenous zone, and if she was right… Yep. As soon as she’d settled back next to him, Zack was cradling the back of her knee and the zings had returned. “Yahtzee!” Zack lined up his five fives and dragged her legs across his lap. “That means a kiss.” “What? When did we decide that?” She laughed when he tried to lean closer and her legs got in the way. “Just now. These games take too long. A kiss for the first Yahtzee, a fondle for the second.” He gave up trying to bridge the gap between them and knocked her on her back, covering her with his body and taking her mouth wide open, full tongue. She curved her fingers over his shoulders and hung on, trying to memorize the way he tasted and smelled at this moment, trying not to let the return of the plow outside make 70

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her aware of the clock, of their borrowed time. She pulled him closer and kissed him harder, desperation igniting desire. “Zack,” she panted. “Game over. You win.” He scooped her up and scrambled to his feet, running with her to the bedroom, cursing when his foot slammed into the bathroom doorjamb. He hopped the last few yards to the bed and dropped her on it. Samantha tamped down her need and swiveled to sit on the edge of the bed. Zack bent to check his toe, and when he straightened, she grabbed his waistband to hold him still. He hesitated, and when she pressed her face to his stomach and wrapped her arms around his waist, he dug his fingers into her hair and rubbed her scalp. “Samantha.” She shook her head and swallowed back the lump rising in her throat. She wasn’t going to do that to him. Not after he’d given her so much in the last two days. Pulling back, she unbuttoned his waistband and lowered the zipper. “Run out of underwear?” she asked. He was already hardening. “That can’t be comfortable.” “It’s easier.” He pushed her hair back off her face and tilted her head back. “Sam.” She shook her head again, but couldn’t look away from his eyes. They burned into hers, saying things she just couldn’t believe. Not from him, not after only two days. Without breaking eye contact, she pushed his jeans down and stripped off her shirt. She hadn’t worn a bra, so she sat there only in the tiny panties she rarely wore because they weren’t comfortable. 71

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They were made to be seen, as they were now, and she was gratified by Zack’s attention on them as she scooted back on the bed. “Come here,” she said, and he did, crawling up the bed toward her, covering her like he had on the floor in the living room, like he had last night in the dark, supporting himself over her in that way that filled her senses. Her world. She ran her hands over his torso, tracing the muscles that bunched and vibrated under her touch, watching the skin tighten and relax. He emanated as much heat as the fireplace had, and she wanted to be burned. He eased his body down between her thighs and rested on one elbow so he could touch her, too. “Your skin is like satin,” he murmured, watching her nipple harden as goose bumps rose around it. “Satin and strawberry.” His fingertips ran over the nipple. More zings. Then he cupped her breast and bent to taste her. She loved the look of him, his big hands making her body parts look small, his hardness contrasting with her curves. But this wasn’t what she wanted this time. She pushed him over onto his back and rolled onto him, straddling his hips and sitting up. That was better. Now they could both touch and see. If someone had asked her a week ago if she’d have sex in broad daylight, she’d have said not for a million dollars. But now, letting Zack count her stretch marks or risk disgusting him with her cellulite was worth the view of him below her. Wasn’t this her treat after all? She pinched his nipples and he hissed, cluching her hips. 72

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Her cunt contracted in response, and she rocked over his cock, letting it grind into her. “Jesus, Samantha.” Zack tipped his head back and bared his teeth. She reached to bite his neck and he arched upward, growling. “How do you do this to me?” “Do what?” She licked his pulse, then scraped her teeth over the tendon in the side of his neck. He wrapped his arms tight around her so her breasts rubbed his chest. “Turn me into an animal.” “I don’t think you were far from that anyway.” She rose up enough to take his mouth, sucking his lower lip between her teeth and biting down just enough to sting. Something was welling up inside her, something she knew she was going to be unable to resist, and she rocked her hips, trying to distract herself from it. Her throat swelled and she clenched her teeth, rubbing harder. “God, Sam.” Zack grabbed the sides of her underwear and yanked hard, ripping them off her and tossing them aside. “I need you…now.” “Yes.” She almost did it. Almost took him in, just to avoid saying the words that were ridiculously stupid and dangerous. But not as stupid or dangerous as that mistake. “Wait.” She pushed back and rested on his thighs. “Do you have any condoms left?” Zack caressed the backs of her legs, her ass, her hips, and let one hand briefly drift across her belly. “Will you think I’m crazy if I say I don’t want one?” Tears pricked her eyes. “Depends on why.” 73

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He looked up at her, the emotion making his eyes shine like a twin to that pressing at the lump in her throat. “I could say it’s because it feels better.” His voice dropped lower. “Or because it’s more intimate, and I want to be as close to you as I can, since I can’t crawl inside your skin.” He ran his hands up her arms, then drew her palms to rest on his chest, where she could feel his heart pounding like it needed a bigger chamber. “Those would be true, but not the whole truth.” “Zack.” He gripped her fingers with one hand, circled the back of her neck with the other. “The whole truth is, Samantha, that right now, I desperately want to have a baby with you.” Tears pricked her eyes. One spilled over, and he caught it with a forefinger before pulling her down to kiss her. “Don’t say anything,” he begged against her mouth. “Don’t tell me it’s reckless and stupid and you don’t want a baby and it would ruin my future. Don’t.” He kissed her again and pushed up inside her, just one thrust, holding her tight, his lips quivering against hers, his whole body tense. Then he pulled out and leaned over to the bedside table to dig a condom out of the drawer where he’d put some the night before. He didn’t look at her as he rolled it on. He moved his hand as if to test her, to see what she needed, but she shifted forward and sank down onto him, taking him as deep as she could, and squeezing him hard. He groaned and thrust upward. She rocked, he thrust, and in a few seconds she could feel the orgasm approaching. Instead of concentrating on it, however, she watched him. 74

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His eyes were closed, his teeth bared again, his body bowstring-tight. He was holding something back, something that answered the thing in her that welled her throat and stung her eyes. She lifted herself high and sank down hard, reveling in the look on his face. His mouth slackened and opened, and she rode him hard, knowing by his expression when he was about to come. Tears rolled down her face as it happened. He didn’t shout or grunt or make any move to signal her that it had, but she could see it in the deepening of the faint crinkles around his eyes, hear it in the catch of his breathing. She closed her eyes, put her hand between her legs, and came, too, feeling it much, much deeper than her clit or cunt. *

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They lay quietly for a long time after that. She sprawled across his chest. He pressed his hands to her back, not caressing this time, but holding her in place. Samantha was trying not to think, trying not to wonder if she should say something about his declaration, when she heard a click and clatter from the front of the house. It took several seconds for her to process the sound, and by the time she realized it was the front door, Chris’s voice was drifting down the hall. “Mom?” “Shit.” She rolled off Zack, panic making her stiff, and fell off the bed, landing on her feet. Her mind raced, imagining Christopher seeing her jeans on the floor, Zack’s shirt on the back of the sofa, the abandoned Yahtzee game. “Shitshitshitshit.” 75

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“It’s okay,” Zack murmured, but he was moving faster than she was, yanking on his jeans and trying to pull up the bed covers at the same time. “Here.” He tossed her shirt at her, but that was no good. She needed more. She dashed to the closet, knowing a robe was stupid, he’d know, but everything else took too long. She grabbed a dress and pulled it over her head. “I’ll be right there, honey!” She tried to sound excited, even as she wondered how the hell she’d explain Zack in her bedroom. “We’re—I’ll be right there!” Her hair. It was so saying “hey, I’m tousled from great sex!” She shoved it up in a pile and wrapped a scrunchy around it. “What’s going on?” His voice was closer. He was about to come down the hall. Samantha made frantic motions for Zack to hurry to the guest room, but it was too late. They’d barely moved a step when Christopher appeared in the doorway. He took in her disheveled, probably rosy-faced appearance by the closet, then Zack’s bare-chested attempt to look casual and not at all guilty, before he spotted the torn underwear on the floor. Samantha closed her eyes, despair falling over her. She waited for the explosion, but it didn’t come. The tension in the room grew. Finally, she opened her eyes. She looked at Zack first. He stared at his friend, determination and pride gleaming in his face. She turned to Christopher and her heart sank. He looked devastated. Instead of anger and shock, he wore betrayal and disappointment. Finally, he opened his mouth. “I got a flight.” “Chris, I—” 76

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He held up a hand. “Get dressed, Mom. You—” He pointed at Zack. “In the living room.” “Man, don’t—” “Shut up.” He spun and stormed back down the hall. Zack turned to Samantha, but she shook her head. If he said anything she’d burst into tears. She was too raw, too flummoxed by what had happened moments before Chris came in, and now his presence had dredged up every reservation she’d had from the moment she’d opened the door to find Zack on the front porch. It would take all her strength to get through the next few minutes. She left the door open while she put on clean clothes. First she reached for a big, bulky fisherman’s sweater, but something reared up and shouted, “No!” No matter how wrong she’d been to sleep with Zack, he’d been right about several things. She wasn’t only a mother. She was a woman. The sweater she chose instead wasn’t revealing, but it was a softer, drapier fabric with a V-neck. She set it on the bed with a tank top and her jeans and pulled her hair back into a ponytail. While she dressed, she listened. At first their voices were too low for her to make out the words—they were obviously working to keep her from hearing them. But that didn’t last long. “She’s my fucking mother!” “She’s also a very desirable woman.” “Shit, you sound like an old man. You’re supposed to be my best friend. I let you come here—” 77

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“You didn’t ‘let’ me come, you invited me. I was all set to stay in Chicago, and don’t act like I was sitting there feeling sorry for myself.” “All right, fine, I invited you.” Despite the acid churning in her gut, Samantha couldn’t help a small surge of pride. She’d raised Christopher to be fair. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. But then he continued. “I trusted you. Never in a million years would I have thought you’d have done this to me.” “To you?” Zack scoffed. “What have I done to you? You weren’t in that bed, or on that couch, or—” Samantha struggled into her jeans and rushed to pull the tank top on. She heard Christopher shout, and a smack that was probably his fist hitting Zack’s face, and then a crash that might have been a chair falling over, or bodies hitting the coffee table. Her arm tangled in the strap of the top and she cursed, sobbing, as the sounds of fighting continued. “I’m sorry,” she finally heard Zack say. There was audible panting and a grunt or two. “That was uncalled for. But you’ve got to understand, Chris, this has nothing to do with you. It’s between me and her.” “She’s my mother! What’d you do, find out I wasn’t going to make it and decide to get your rocks off for the first time in a year?” Samantha slowed down enough to get untangled while she absorbed that bit of news, unlikely as it was. “I ran into her in the grocery store. I didn’t know who she was.” 78

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She stopped moving completely, arrested by the ability to see inside his mind without him knowing she heard. “I tried to get her number.” “No way.” Chris sounded less angry now, more incredulous. “Totally, man. She was just…I don’t know. For me.” Tears welled in her eyes again and she swatted them away. “Come on. You’re trying to tell me it was love at first sight?” “No.” Zack sounded appropriately derisive of the idea. “But it was just one of those things. It wasn’t that her ass looked fantastic in her suit—” “Hey, don’t!” “Or that her smile made me feel…targeted, or something. I don’t know. I can’t explain it.” “And that’s your excuse?” Zack’s voice lowered a little, but not so much she couldn’t hear. Of course, now she was dressed, she stood in the hall instead of behind her bedroom door. “I’m not making excuses. I got here and she was all frazzled from trying to make the house nice and get your favorite dinner prepared after a long day at work, and it didn’t seem like she ever, you know, lets go. Does stuff for herself.” He paused, and Chris was conspicuously silent. “So I wanted to do stuff for her. And we were alone, trapped in the house, and I…we…well. You know.” “God.” There was a thud and the sound of Chris pacing. His voice faded in and out as he talked, and she pictured him 79

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moving up and down the room, or circling the furniture. “I can’t even— The thought of it, man.” “I know.” “So, what, you were just going to bang her for four days and say sayonara?” Zack didn’t answer for a long time. Then he said, “It’s a lot more than that.” “Like, what?” Silence. “Dude, you can’t be saying—” “I don’t know. It’s only been two days, for cripe’s sake. But…” His sigh was audible even from down here. Samantha hurried down the hall, trying to get there before he could say what was coming next, but she didn’t make it. “I’ve never felt like this.” She skidded to a halt just out of sight, stunned and not wanting to walk in on the heels of his admission. He hadn’t said it to her, and she couldn’t let him see her reaction to it. She caught her breath while silence rang in the room just around the corner. After half a minute, she felt composed enough to face the guys. Composed, if not ready. She stopped dead almost as soon as she entered the room, her gasp breaking the silence. Zack, who sat on the couch, had a fat, bloody lip and a split eyebrow that probably heralded a black eye, too. The game they’d left on the coffee table was scattered across the floor, the table itself askew. One leg looked crooked. Chris had taken off his overcoat, and his sweater was torn at the shoulder seam, but he didn’t look like Zack had hit him. Samantha was grateful, but couldn’t help but be angry at her 80

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son. She tried to contain it; she knew he deserved at least a little of his feelings, and as unfair as his hitting Zack was, her defense of him would only inflame the situation. So without a word she went into the kitchen and came back with a bag of peas large enough to cover the whole left side of Zack’s face. “Thank you,” he murmured, not looking at her. Chris glared. Samantha positioned herself halfway between the two of them, the point of a bizarre triangle. “Christopher.” He reluctantly turned his head, resentment shaping his jaw and narrowed eyes. “I’m sorry about the timing. I know it’s rough to walk in on a parent like that.” A muscle in his cheek flickered. “What I was doing is really none of your business.” She held up a hand when he cried out in outrage. “It’s really not. How would you feel if it had been Phil?” She named the last guy she’d dated, the only one in recent years Chris had met. They hadn’t even come close to being intimate, but Chris didn’t know that. “I wouldn’t have liked it,” he insisted. “But that’s true of any guy who defiled my mother.” She laughed. “Defiled? No one can defile me. I was defiled a long time ago, honey.” “Stop it.” She sighed. “I’ve spent the last twenty years of my life dedicating every minute to you. Even with you at college, I’m 81

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just in a holding pattern all the time, waiting until I can do what I’m ‘meant’ to do and cater to your every need.” She ignored the noise Zack made at that. Chris scowled. “You make me sound like a spoiled brat.” “You’re not. It’s not about you, it’s about me. Doing for you has always made me happy. The last two days with Zack…well, they were for me, and made me realize something was missing. I don’t know what, exactly.” She carefully didn’t look at Zack, didn’t want to know how her words affected him. She’d prefer to do this with just Chris, but she had to be sure her son forgave his friend. Had to be part of that. And maybe it wouldn’t be so bad for Zack to hear it. Maybe it would be easier for it to end now, without awkwardness and proclamations they didn’t mean or couldn’t follow through on. “So you’re saying you want to start having sex with random guys or something?” She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be an ass, Christopher. I’m saying I need something in my life that’s just for me. This week, it was Zack. It has nothing to do with you.” “Well, I’m sorry if I can’t see it that way.” He snatched up his coat and stomped to the door. “I busted my ass to get here, thinking you’d be miserable if we didn’t have the holiday together. I took a train and a bus to another airport, and a cab from HIA so I could surprise you. And—and there isn’t even turkey cooking.” He jerked open the door and glared at her with as much fear as derision in his eyes. “I don’t even know who you are.” He walked out and slammed the door. Samantha pinched the bridge of her nose, squeezing her 82

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eyes against the infernal tears pressing there. She didn’t know what to do, what to say to Zack, how to get Christopher to come back, to forgive her for something that shouldn’t need forgiving. It would be easiest to go back to the way things were before. To make a rush turkey dinner, pretend nothing had happened with Zack, tell Christopher she was sorry and it was an aberration. But besides the fact it wasn’t possible to reverse what had just happened, she didn’t want to. She liked who she’d been for the last couple of days, from the flirting in the grocery store to the blow job on the bathroom floor and the intense, scary-emotional sex from an hour ago. She liked feeling like a woman, not just a mom and an employee. And God help her, she liked Zack. More than liked him. She ached all over at the thought of him going away, as much as she usually lamented Christopher’s return to school after every visit. The loneliness when Zack was gone might even be worse because, once he left, it would be for good. She hadn’t heard him move, or sensed him near her, but suddenly his arms were around her. She almost pulled away, retreated to her bedroom, but that wouldn’t do any good for any of them. She didn’t want to start wallowing. And damn it, it was nice to have someone to comfort her, for the first time in way too many years. Something cold pressed against her back. The peas. She flinched, and Zack cursed and dropped them on the crooked table. “Sorry.” 83

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She mumbled something into his chest and hugged him. He tightened his hold and rocked her side to side, his lips pressed to the top of her head. Slowly, the anguish faded. “I’m sorry,” Zack said again. He eased back a little. “I don’t know what to say. I didn’t think—” “It’s okay.” Samantha pulled away and knelt to pick up the pieces of the game. “We didn’t know he was coming, or we’d have made sure that didn’t happen. But it did, and it’s his problem, not ours.” She could feel him staring at her. “Are you sure?” Samantha shrugged and tossed dice into the box. “He’ll come around, and if he doesn’t, that’s his choice. He doesn’t have any say over what I do.” “That’s…good. Surprising, but good.” She sat back on her heels and looked up at him. “You think I should moan and whine about it? Tear my hair and prostrate myself before him? Beg his forgiveness?” “No. I don’t think you should. But I kinda thought you would.” “Why?” She knew why, but wondered if he’d say it. He did. “Because you were like that when I first got here.” She shook her head, disappointed. “No, I wasn’t. I held back, yes. I let notions of propriety and appropriateness feed resistance—I mean, come on, Zack, you are my son’s age.” She got to her feet, carefully not wincing at the twinges in muscles she’d used hard and well. “It didn’t take you very long to get past it. But who I am hasn’t changed. When I make a choice, I do it deliberately and don’t look back.” 84

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He eyed her warily. “What does that mean for us?” She couldn’t do that now. She’d made one decision, to have sex with him, and the time they’d spent made her feel so good she couldn’t regret it. But that decision didn’t encompass their future, and she had too much to process. “I don’t know, Zack.” She bent to examine the table leg. “I’ll fix that.” “Don’t worry about it.” “No, it was my fault it broke, so I’ll fix it. Do you have, like, a toolbox or something?” He looked around, as if she stored it on a bookshelf. For the first time, he was acting his age. She smiled sadly. “Don’t worry about it.” She reached out and snagged his hand. “Come on.” “Where are we going?” “To make Thanksgiving dinner.”

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CHAPTER 6 The turkey was done at eight o’clock. Zack carved it at eight-twenty, while Samantha filled the dining room table around it with mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, stuffing, corn, and yeast rolls. She’d even managed a pumpkin pie, with Zack’s help. Their preparations had been more subdued than before, but their comfort with each other hadn’t disappeared. She still felt like they’d been working together for years. Her heart skipped beats when he smiled or made a joke to try to get her to laugh, and a brush of his hand on her arm or a touch against her lower back still generated zings. Christopher didn’t return. He didn’t call her back, after she 86

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called his cell phone. It rang several times before going to voice mail, so she knew he was screening her call. Zack tried from his phone, with the same results. “He’ll come around,” he reassured her as they served dinner, the stereo tuned to the local station that was playing Christmas carols, really chosen because Samantha couldn’t help the mother’s need to listen for traffic reports. The roads were plowed, but still icy. “I’m not worried about you guys,” she told him. She had to swallow hard when the mashed potatoes tried to glue her throat closed. “Boys get over this stuff pretty fast.” “Are you worried about you?” She lifted a shoulder and kept her gaze on her plate. “We have a strong relationship.” But it had never been tested. A few hours later, they’d eaten enough to say they’d stuffed themselves, though they hadn’t really, and cleaned up the dining room and kitchen, put the food away, and left a plate on warm in the oven, just in case. Zack hovered as Samantha put on the teakettle. “I imagine you want me to sleep in the guest room tonight.” She managed a smile. “Probably a good idea.” “Unless you want me to leave.” “No. Tomorrow is soon enough.” “Oh.” He folded his arms and scuffed a foot across a floor tile. “Okay.” Then his shoulders straightened and the uncertainty fell away. “But we’re talking about us before I go.” 87

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“Zack…” “I have to. I’m not leaving you without figuring out where things stand.” She got down a mug and dropped a tea bag into it. “You sound like a girl.” “Guys feel, too, Samantha,” he said quietly, and she heard it in his voice. “There are jerks out there, but I’m not one of them. This was never a one-night thing for me. Or two nights,” he added before she could. He stepped back. “I won’t push you now. I figure you want to get things resolved with Chris before you can look forward with me. But if that takes all weekend, then I’m staying all weekend.” He turned and left the room before she could respond. *

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Samantha didn’t sleep that night, and Christopher didn’t return. She sat on the love seat, curled up under the chenille throw, drinking cup after cup of tea, staring at the front door and listening to the occasional soft snore or creak of bedsprings that came from the guest room. She wished she was in there. This felt like wasted time. Part of her knew Christopher wouldn’t give in that easily. They had a strong relationship, yes, but he was independent and had a hard time shifting off his initial response to something. So he wouldn’t come home tonight, and that meant she could have had one last set of moments with Zack. Even if they did nothing but sleep—and frankly, that was all she had the physical or mental energy to do anyway—she craved him. 88

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What that meant after today, she had no idea. Zack had a semester left of school, and his job choice could take him anywhere. The fact she was even thinking in those terms made her feel insane, but it also felt right. Except that it might postpone or even prevent Christopher’s acceptance. At five-thirty, the front door opened and he stepped quietly in, spotting her right away. He shook his head as he dropped his keys on the tiny table next to the door. “I figured you’d stay up all night.” “So is that sufficient punishment?” she asked. “Staying away, though you knew I’d be waiting?” He looked sheepish. “I didn’t realize that was what I was doing until I pulled into the driveway.” He draped his coat over the couch where Zack had been reading the other day and sat next to her. “I guess I owe you an apology.” “Not really.” She rested her hand on his knee. “I understand your reaction, and emotion interferes with rational thought. What happens now is what’s important.” He leaned his elbows on his thighs and looked over his arm at her. “I guess that depends on what you’re going to do.” “Why?” He frowned. “What do you mean, why?” “I mean, either you accept that I’m a woman as well as a mother, and I’m going to find other things to make me happy, and I’m going to make those decisions based only on what’s best for me…or you don’t.” “What if those decisions harm me?” She shook her head impatiently. “I’m not talking about 89

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hooking up with drunks who will beat you while I turn a blind eye, Christopher. Who I date and what passions I find have no bearing on you. They might mean I don’t do a holiday with you here and there, but honestly, that time is ending anyway, since you’re proposing to Miranda in a few weeks.” His face darkened and he sat up. “That bastard. He told you.” “He did no such thing. He refused to talk about her, actually.” She rubbed her son’s back when he relaxed. “I guessed. I’m a mother. We’re pretty good at picking up the clues.” “I want you to meet her first,” he said. “But her parents’ anniversary is this weekend, and she couldn’t not go home, and trying to convince her to come here would have made her suspicious, and I want it to be a surprise.” “It’s fine. I understand.” She tried a smile. “See how easy that is?” He blew out a breath and sat back, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. “I guess. It’s not easy, thinking of you guys that way.” He cringed. “It took a long time to stop. But your voice came into my head, the way it always does,” he accused. “The mother’s curse,” she said. “Yeah. Hate it. Anyway, it reminded me to look at the situation from a different perspective. So I did. And I realized Zack is a great guy. He’s exactly the kind of guy I’d want for you. Just…you know.” He waved a hand. “Twenty friggin’ years younger.” 90

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“There are advantages,” she said mildly. He flinched away. “Geez, Ma, don’t be sayin’ stuff like that.” “Sorry.” But she had a feeling that was going to be fun. “Anyway. He’s good for you. I can tell without even really seeing you together. And the things he said.” He rubbed his face with both hands. “He meant them.” Warmth filled her. “Thank you, Chris.” “Yeah, whatever.” He raised his nose and sniffed. “Do I smell turkey?” “Yeah. We cooked for you after all. Plate’s in the oven, though it’s probably jerky by now.” He kissed her cheek. “Thanks, Mom. I love you.” “I love you, too.” She pressed her hand to his cheek, her eyes closed, relieved beyond measure that it hadn’t taken longer for them to be okay. Now for round two. *

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It actually took two days for her to be able to talk to Zack. The three of them did all the things they’d originally expected to do. The guys drove over and got her mother after breakfast, and they had leftover turkey and fixings for brunch, then played games the rest of the day, her mother cracking up both boys with stories from her wild youth. When she left, she nudged Samantha and winked. “See? Mother always knows best.” All she could do was laugh. 91

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She and Zack drove Christopher to the airport Saturday evening. He was taking his original return flight back to school. Zack had already announced he was skipping Monday morning’s econ class and would drive back Sunday. That gave them one night to hash everything out. Which meant no sex, despite the humming in Samantha’s body on the short drive back to the house. It recognized Zack’s proximity, and their aloneness, and it wanted to get busy. But they had a lot to talk about, and she figured it would be best if they didn’t sleep together anymore. Not that she was sure she could stick to that decision. As soon as they walked in the door, Zack turned on her. “Let me go first.” “Gladly.” She sat on the couch, but he paced in front of the coffee table he and Christopher had repaired together that morning. “I know you think this whole thing was a…a tryst. An interlude. That I’d leave and forget all about you.” She bit her tongue. It was only fair to let him have his say. “But it was never that for me. I didn’t know where it was going, and never in a million years would I have believed it could go this far this fast. But, Samantha, I—” “Wait, Zack.” She stood, changing her mind about letting him continue. Her stomach churned, and her heart practically buzzed with the need to hear the words. But she had to be responsible. One of them had to be, anyway, and she was the logical choice. So she said, “You have six months of school left. The best 92

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long-distance relationships are difficult to sustain, and the newer they are, the more impossible it is. You’ll get back to school and see the nubile young women around you, women with the same amount of life ahead of them, with the same goals and dreams you have, and—” She wavered at his glower. “Um…you’ll fall for one of them, and then I’ll be in the way.” He waited a beat. “Are you done?” She thought, then nodded. “I suppose. No need to belabor the point. I think it’s pretty clear.” “Yeah, except for one thing. I’m done in three weeks.” Her brow puckered. “What?” “Yeah, I thought I mentioned that. I did an independent study over the summer, and fulfilled all my graduation requirements. I get my degree in December.” “Oh.” “Changes things, huh?” “Maybe.” Hope blossomed. “What about the same goals and dreams and—” “I don’t need to have the same goals and dreams as the woman I’m with. I’m fine with being stepfather to a guy my age.” He laughed as she shook her head. “But that’s leaps forward anyway. I know we’re moving fast, but we don’t have to move that fast. Not yet.” He did have a point there. “What will you do with that degree you’re getting?” For the life of her, she couldn’t remember what he’d said way back on Tuesday, before it mattered. 93

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He smiled, knowing he’d won, and stepped forward to circle his arms around her. “We talked about this the other night.” “Yeah, but it was a totally different context.” “I have a job offer already actually. In DC. I haven’t taken it yet, but I’m going to.” Well, it was closer than Chicago. “I’ll be a contractor, working from home, and going to the city for three days once a month for meetings.” “That sounds pretty ideal.” “Yeah, the city’s too expensive to live in, and there’s this girl, about two hours north.” “Oh, Zack.” She sighed and rested her forehead on his chest. Part of her wanted to say it was ridiculous to think of having him move in after only a weekend, but it wasn’t a major thing really. Not like he’d be giving up an apartment or moving across the country for her. She would give him a place to stay. And, she realized, she’d probably have made the offer anyway, even if he’d been just her son’s roommate. “Will you let me say it now?” He lifted her chin with a finger, and he didn’t need to say the words. They were written all over his face. But she nodded anyway. “I came here expecting something different, and even once we started down this path, I had no idea where it would end up. Samantha, you’re an amazing, incredible woman, and I’ve fallen in love with you.” Stupid tears welled in her eyes. “From the moment I saw you on my doorstep, you were in my heart.” 94

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“Does that mean the same thing I just said?” he asked. She laughed and nodded. His face lowered. “Thank God.” His mouth covered hers, and they smiled before they kissed. And Samantha let go for good.

95

NATALIE J. DAMSCHRODER

Natalie J. Damschroder became a writer the hard way—by avoiding it. Though she wrote her first book at age five (appropriately titled, My Very First Book) and received accolades for her academic writing (Ruth Davies Award for Excellence in Writing for a paper on deforestation her senior year in college), she hated doing it. Colonial food and the habits of the European Starling just weren’t her thing. Shortly after graduating from college, however, she found her niche—romantic fiction. After an internship with the National Geographic Society, customer service for a phone company just wasn’t that exciting. So she began learning how to write the books she’d loved to read all her life. Four books and six years later, she finally sold. Now she struggles to balance her frenetic writing life (how else can she get all the stories in her head on paper?) with her family, the most supportive husband in the world and two beautiful, intelligent, stubborn, independent daughters (one of whom has already declared her desire to be a writer, too). She somehow also fits in a day job and various volunteer positions in and out of the writing industry. More can be found at www.nataliedamschroder.com. *

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Don’t miss Renegade, by Natalie J. Damschroder, available at AmberHeat.com!

Trex Samuels has lived her life for her best friend, Jake. Her job as an information broker allows her to stay in one place and keep tabs on Jake, who travels the world using his unique gifts to save abducted children. Trex is the closest thing to a home Jake has, and she waits for his infrequent visits that always bring both joy and pain. Things change, however, when Jake is on the run from the law. This time, he is haunted by his failures, tormented by waking nightmares. This time, he’s brought a partner. Dan awakens in Trex a new craving, but one that doesn’t eliminate the old. When she realizes the men need her, that she has the power to banish their demons—however temporarily— they embark on a journey of sensuality and desperate pleasure. In the end, she not only has the power to heal them, but to set them free. And only one will come back to her…

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