Sleeping With the Enemy (22 page)

Rose grimaced.  “Why does that name keep popping up?”

“Forget Eddie.  He’s history.  Do you still have the green teddy?  The one that’s cut way down to your—”

“I’ve got it, but I’m not wearing it.”

“Damn it, Rose, you have a bureau drawer full of the most enticing unmentionables this side of heaven, and you’re wearing a football jersey to bed.”  Maeve closed her eyes and shook her head.  “And you wonder why your husband isn’t overcome with lust.”

“I won’t parade around looking like the happy hooker.  I’m thirty-six years old and four months pregnant.  I have an enormous belly and more wrinkles than George Burns.”

“Don’t exaggerate.  You’re barely showing.  You have a set of boobs I’d kill for.  And the only wrinkles you have are the laugh lines around your eyes.”

“My thighs are fat.”

“Honey, you put on that green teddy, and you might have to pick him up off the floor and revive him, but once he comes to, I guarantee he won’t notice your fat thighs.”

***

She looked preposterous.  Like those damn Barbie dolls she’d never allowed her daughter to play with.  It was beyond pathetic, the sight of her thirty-six-year-old body crammed into a frothy scrap of silk and lace designed for a nineteen-year-old who didn’t have stretch marks on her belly or cellulite on her thighs.  The lace was itchy, she had goose bumps on her behind, and whoever the turkey was who’d invented the thong—a man, no doubt—he should be shot twice and hung upside down to die.  She couldn’t believe she’d let Maeve talk her into this.  What the hell did Maeve know?  Her body hadn’t been decimated by babies and ridiculed repeatedly by a man who’d promised to cherish her until death did them part.

Damn all men, anyway.  It was humiliating, the things women had to go through just to make themselves attractive to the miserable creatures.  And for what?  Five minutes of foreplay, two minutes of rock and roll, five seconds of nirvana, if you got lucky, and a mate who was asleep within ten seconds.  For this, men slayed dragons and conquered kingdoms?  Too bad women didn’t realize just how easily they could take over the world.  Just get Frederick’s of Hollywood to dress the entire female population, and every heterosexual male on the planet would fall in worship at their feet.

She gnawed on her lower lip and wondered if she really had the nerve to do this.  What if this ludicrous get-up didn’t work?  Maeve had sworn it would, but what if she was wrong?  It would be so humiliating.  As a man, Jesse was subject to the same illogical and immature thought processes as the rest of his kind.  Technically, as long as that Y chromosome was present, the early twenty-first-century strumpet look should be a turn-on.  But he wasn’t like other men.  She couldn’t read him the way she’d been able to read Eddie.  Jesse Lindstrom was an enigma.  Who the hell knew what went on behind those seductive dark eyes? For all she knew, there were entire worlds back there that nobody had ever seen.

This was ridiculous.  She was standing here dressed like some porno queen, freezing her ass off, waiting for a shot of courage that just wasn’t coming.  To hell with courage.  It was time to take the bull by the metaphorical horns, and march into battle.

***

The words were flowing.  He’d hit one of those creative spaces where he couldn’t type fast enough to catch it all as it rushed past.  His fingers raced over the keyboard in an attempt to keep up with the images floating through his head.  The worlds he brought to life on the computer screen were vastly different from the one he’d left behind.  That was why he kept doing it, why he couldn’t stop doing it.  Creating universes gave him a high unlike anything else he’d ever experienced.

When she spoke his name, it took a moment for him to come back from that other world.  He blinked a couple of times, swiveled his chair around, and opened his mouth to answer her.

It was sea green, the thing she wore, a diaphanous dream that covered little and hid nothing.  “Laugh,” she said in a quavering voice, “and you’re dead meat.”

As if he could have laughed.  As if he could have made any sound at all after being kicked in the stomach.  He turned off the computer and cleared his throat.  Twice.  “Rose?” he said hoarsely, wondering if he was dreaming.

She moved toward him apprehensively, as though afraid he might eat her.  He reached out a hand, then withdrew it, not sure what to touch first.  There were so many choices.  She removed choice by taking his hand and resting it on her abdomen.  It felt different than before.  More solid because of the baby growing inside her.  He lay his other hand flat against her hard little belly, leaned forward and nuzzled this warm woman place that cradled his child.  She braced a hand against his shoulder as his fingertips danced across her thighs, and when he touched the tip of his tongue to her belly button, she gasped.

He hauled her off her feet and into him, warm scent of woman floating inside his head, over and under and around him, heated rush of bodies melting together, her mouth and her arms and her legs opening to him.  He shoved back the chair and it rolled away and thumped against the desk as he took her to the floor.  Her fingers kneaded his back as he raised himself on his forearms and lowered his head to kiss her, long and slow and sweet.

When he’d temporarily gotten his fill of kissing those lush lips, he worked soft lace down off her shoulder and followed its descent with his mouth.  Pregnancy had changed her body.  Her breasts were fuller, heavier, the nipples darkened to a pale cocoa, blue veins prominent beneath alabaster skin.  He touched his tongue to a flat brown orb, heard her sharp intake of breath and felt the flesh swell to his touch.  Closing his mouth over it, he suckled gently, and her hips moved restlessly against his.  Excited by the warm, musky scent of her, he peeled silk and lace down her body, unwrapping her like a Christmas gift.

Jesse tasted every inch of her as it was revealed, followed the green silk trifle past her hips, his tongue tracing a damp line down the inside of her thigh to the knee.  He tossed aside the teddy and began working his way back up the trail he’d blazed.  He took his time exploring her body, the smooth line of thigh, the rounded belly, the shallow swells and indentations of her ribcage. 

Rose tugged determinedly at his shirt tail, hauled it from his jeans, worked at the buttons of his shirt.  He shrugged it off, and her cool, slender fingers trailed a heated path along his shoulders.  He closed his eyes and groaned as those fingers tangled themselves in his hair, sending ripples of delight through his body.  “Rose,” he whispered. 

She yanked his belt from its buckle, loosened his jeans, and as he worked them down over his hips, her fingers dug into his flesh so hard he knew he would have bruises tomorrow.  He kicked aside the jeans, buried himself inside her slick heat, and lost himself. 

She wrapped her legs around him, and together they danced toward the sun.  Rolling and tumbling, hot and hard and greedy, he took her with him to the zenith and beyond.

They shattered together in a hard, violent surge.  Muscles screaming, lungs afire, he collapsed on top of her, his heart threatening to burst from his chest, his face buried in her tangle of coppery hair.  Her hands wandered aimlessly up and down his back as his body slowly came back to him.

After a time, he raised his head.  Drawing aside a strand of the wild red hair that lay in a tangled mass of curls around her shoulders, he said, “I wasn’t sure we’d ever get to this place again.”

Her chest rose and fell beneath him.  “I didn’t think you wanted me.”

“Jesus, Rose.  How could you think that?  Jesus.”

“What was I supposed to think?  You moved out of our bedroom.”

“It’s just that you make me so crazy sometimes.”

“That road runs both ways.”

“You know,” he said, “I honestly think that if we both tried a little harder, we could make a go of this marriage.”

She studied his face.  More gently, she said, “You really think so?”

“I really think so.  Look, I’m waving the white flag here.  Let’s call a cease-fire.”

“I’m willing to try, if you are.  But not here.  Damn, this floor is hard.”

The corner of his mouth twitched.  “Is this why your sister took the kids for the weekend?”

Her eyes grew wary, and he mentally kicked himself for saying the wrong thing.  “Why?” she demanded.  “What difference does it make?”

“I’m just wondering who I should address my thank-you note to.”

chapter thirteen

Outside the window, feathery white clouds drifted in a rain-washed sky.  Inside, it was beastly hot, and she’d been having heartburn since breakfast.  Rose crossed her legs, adjusted her skirt, and glanced at the clock for the twelfth time since the Monday morning meeting had begun.  The heat and the soft drawl of Jim Davidson’s voice were making her sleepy.  She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the wall as Jim outlined the newest set of policy changes about to be implemented.

“Rose? What do you think?”

She started, blinked, glanced up guiltily as twelve pairs of eyes looked at her in mild reproach.  She cleared her throat.  “I’m sorry, Jim, I missed your question.”

“We were talking about widening our catchment area to include some of the towns in northwestern Androscoggin County.  I asked what you thought of the idea.”

He was trying to help her, feeding the information to her, one spoonful at a time.  And she had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.  “Sure,” she said.  “Sounds like a great idea.” She crossed her arms, stared down Mary Lumley, who quickly found somewhere else to look.  Rose reached for her coffee cup, bumped it with the back of her hand, and spilled coffee all over herself.

She muttered a soft curse.  Vicky ran for a paper towel while Rose sat there in abject mortification.  After a brief assessment of the situation, Jim rolled his eyes and moved on to another subject.  Vicky came running back in with a handful of towels, and Rose mopped up as best she could.  “Here,” Vicky said, “I’ll get rid of that.  You go on into the bathroom, Mrs.  Lindstrom, and see if you can wash the stain out of your skirt before it sets.”

Wring would have been a more appropriate word.  What in hell was the matter with her lately?  Did pregnancy make all women this ditzy, or was she the only one?  She scrubbed furiously with a soapy paper towel, succeeded only in working disintegrated scraps of cheap paper into the nap of the tweedy fabric.

She was bent over, picking minuscule fragments of paper towel from her skirt, when it happened, a soft fluttering inside her belly that felt like she’d been kissed by butterfly wings.  Rose dropped the paper towel, and her hands went to her belly.  Silently, she willed it to happen again.  Could it have been her imagination?

But the second time, there was no question.  Sixteen years might have passed, but some things you didn’t forget.  The tiny, perfect individual she and Jesse had created had chosen this moment to announce his presence.  Her wrists began to tremble.  She was thirty-six years old.  Was she really ready for this? Diapers and midnight feedings and colic? What if she couldn’t handle it?  What if she was too damn old?

In a panic, she fled to her office and dialed the high school.  When Hazel answered, she said briskly, “This is Rose Lindstrom.  I need to talk to Jesse.”

There was a pause.  “Right now?” Hazel said in her abrasive voice.

“Yes, of course,” she snapped.  “Right now.”
Damn the woman
.

Inside her womb, the baby moved a tiny arm.  Or maybe a leg.  Tears sprang to life behind her eyelids and she tapped a foot in impatience while she waited.  An eternity seemed to pass before he picked up the phone.  “Rose?” he said.  “What’s wrong?”

She suddenly realized that Hazel must have dragged him out of class.  Oh, hell.  She always did everything ass-backwards.  “Nothing,” she said, and began to cry.

“Rose?”

“I felt the baby move.  God, Jesse, I felt the baby move.  He’s really there.”

“Well, of course he is.” His voice softened.  “What did it feel like?”

She searched through the rubble on her desk for a tissue.  Found one, and wiped her nose with it.  “Like little butterfly wings.  It’s the most incredible thing.  But I’m so scared.  What if he hates me because I’m almost old enough to be his grandmother?”

“Aw, Rose.  He won’t hate you.  Is that why you’re crying?”

She dabbed at her nose again.  “How the hell should I know?  I’m pregnant.  All I do is cry.”

At the other end of the phone, he chuckled and said, “I have to get back to class, or there’ll be no classroom left to get back to.”

“Yeah.”  She sniffed.  “Okay.  Listen, Jesse?”

“What?”

She paused, not sure why she’d detained him.  “Never mind,” she said.  “I have to get back to work, too.  I’ll see you tonight.”

Rose hung up the phone, swiveled in her decrepit chair, and stared out the window.  “Holy mother of God,” she said aloud.  “I’m going to have a baby.”

***

She hadn’t attended a high school dance in nearly twenty years, but when Jesse had asked her to help him chaperon the annual Christmas dance, Rose had thought it sounded like fun.  She and Jesse checked their coats and strolled into the gym.  The kids were loud and rowdy and ready to kick up their heels.  The lights were dimmed, the polished wooden floor sprinkled with sawdust, and a wave of nostalgia swept over her.  “It reminds me of when I was a kid,” she said, inhaling a deep breath of that fresh-sawn aroma.  “Do you remember going to school dances and necking in the corners?”

Jesse raised his eyebrows.  “I thought you went to Catholic school.”

She grinned.  “Only through eighth grade.  I went to public high school.”

Since this was the holiday event of the season, the customary deejay had been upgraded to a live band, whose members were on stage, tuning their instruments with more enthusiasm than talent.  Beside the stage, a small artificial Christmas tree stood at an awkward angle, light glinting from the shiny silver balls that hung from its branches.  Red and green streamers hung from the ceiling and were looped over the basketball hoops at both ends of the gym.  “Great decorations,” she said.  “Original.”