Break On Through (12 page)

Eli sank to Cleo’s other side and Reed joined them there, putting the tray down on the pallet. Then he handed around the mugs. “There’s a ritual we have to do first for this to work.”

God, the big eyes. All three of them were buying into this, hook, line, and sinker, even the mama. Or maybe she was just tired and willing to do anything to get back to sleeping.

“Repeat after me. With each sip, bad dreams die. Now it’s time for beddy-bye.”

“Beddy-by?” Cleo questioned.

He sent her a quelling glance. “Magic requires an incantation. Nobody said it has to be a good incantation. Just go with it.”

With a twitch of her lips, she complied, leading her boys in the words.

Then everyone enjoyed their warm beverage, which he had to say wasn’t half-bad. With the empty cups back on the tray, Obie and Eli wiggled between layers of blankets, making clear this wasn’t an unusual occurrence. Cleo got to her feet to turn off all the lights in the room, leaving the only illumination coming from the kitchen. Reed placed the mugs in the sink there, ran a little water into them, and then headed back to the front door.

Time for goodbye.

He paused when he saw Cleo in the blankets now too, Obie snuggled beside her. “Just until they get back to sleep,” she whispered.

“You too,” Obie said now, voice still croaky from tears. “To make sure the magic works.”

“Obe—” Cleo began.

“To make sure the magic works,” Reed agreed, but not certain why. He dropped to the floor and rolled to his back on the outside of the blankets beside Eli, tucking one bent arm behind his head.

After a few minutes he glanced over to see that the kids’ remained awake. “Close your eyes, men. Morning comes early.”

The boys obeyed and he saw Cleo turn on her side. “Thank you,” she whispered. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I remember bad dreams.” He still had them. “Maybe I wish there’d been an adult willing to watch over me.”

Wasn’t that the truth.

“You kids were really left to your own devices?”

“Pretty much. I did have my maternal grandfather, a navy captain. He tried a variety of measures to instill some discipline in me—including a year at a military boarding school—but none of it took.”

“Speaking of schools,” Cleo said, still whispering. “I finished the first book in your series.”

“Yeah?” He braced. Some people steered clear of him knowing he wrote in the horror genre—even without reading a single word. “Scare you off?”

“I’m in the dark with you right now, aren’t I?”

“Foolish woman,” he said, joking.

“I know who I shouldn’t fear and who I should.”

Her ex. The monster that put that panic onto her sons’ faces. The one that inserted a strained note into Cleo’s voice. Reed didn’t want her bringing talk or thoughts of that man into this shadowed room with her boys just inches away.

He decided on a diversion. “You know what, Cleo? Maybe it’s that magic potion. Maybe something else. But right now I have the strongest urge to—” He glanced down at the boys, who appeared to have drifted into sleep. Still… “—k-i-s-s y-o-u.”

Her breath caught, the noise loud in the quiet night. Then came a soft giggle.

It got him hard, God, it did, because it sounded girlish and pleased. “Those are pretty easy spelling words,” she said.

Turning on his side, he propped his head on his hand. “Oh, good, I was hoping I hadn’t made it too hard for you to understand.”

She laughed again, then sobered. “But I’m not sure that I do. I thought…”

“You thought?”

“Maybe you were just kidding around the other night. You know, about you and me and…”

He tried thinking of a term, one beyond the reach of the eight-year-old spelling list. “You and me and s-e-x-u-a-l c-o-n-g-r-e-s-s?”

“Yes, that.” She sounded both amused and serious.

He wished he could see her expression better. “I never kid about that.”

She cleared her throat. “I have them. Kids.”

“I’m aware. I’m guessing that means I don’t have to explain to you the, uh, process.” He noticed she wasn’t saying no.

There was a long pause. “And, see, there’s also the fact that you’re…well, you. And I’m, well, not,” she finally said.

“That’s the best part of all. You might remember that means we have parts that line up just a little bit differently, and very interestingly to my mind—”

“I’m a girl from a dairy town. You’re glamorous and…and…maybe almost wicked and way, way out of my league.”

Glamorous? He could just see his brothers busting a gut over that one. Payne would fall off his chair if he ever heard about it. “What I am is often surly and unusually reclusive.”

Then, reaching across her sons, he cupped Cleo’s face in his palm. “As for different leagues, why don’t we see if I and my wicked ways can coax you out of yours and into mine.” Under his hand, her cheek heated.

“Oh, Lord,” she breathed out.

“He’s not going to save you, darlin’,” Reed said. “I promise.”

Chapter Seven

People were doing it in the public library.

Cleo’s jaw dropped as she witnessed the kiss between a couple deep in the stacks of books. Okay, maybe “doing it” was a bit of an exaggeration, but this wasn’t any small peck on the lips, either.

Her mouth tingled as she continued to watch them and she plucked her T-shirt away from her chest, fanning herself with the fabric. Then her conscience spoke up—bad Cleo!—and, appalled at herself, she quickly moved to the next aisle.

Bad Cleo.

Why don’t we see if I and my wicked ways can coax you…

A shiver of anticipation rolled down her back as Reed’s words echoed in her head. She’d been so stunned by them the night before—and by her own wild, willing response to his deep voice in the semi-darkened room—that she’d been barely able to utter another word to him.

And some time after that, she’d fallen asleep.

Unbelievable, with the gorgeous, wicked Reed Hopkins only a few feet away. Probably a case of self-preservation, she decided. A way to buy time.

He’d been gone when she’d awakened in the morning.

For a moment she’d wondered if she’d dreamed the whole thing, but there were the mugs that had held his “magic potion” in the kitchen sink. She’d also considered that his leaving without a goodbye indicated he hadn’t been serious about the kissing and the “sexual congress”—funny man!—but she was afraid believing that would leave her unprepared for the next time she saw him.

She’d practically agreed to go to bed with him, and now she had to think her way into how exactly that would happen. There were steps, right? A sequence of moves that must be made.

Turning another corner, she found herself at a selection of cookbooks and pulled a couple out randomly. Once the boys had left for school, she’d tidied the house and started a load of wash, and then felt as if the walls of the cottage were closing in on her. Every place she looked she seemed to see Reed, his tall, male body, his watchful eyes, the rare flash of his smile.

Needing fresh air, she’d decided on a walk, and that walk had taken her to the library. Cleo glanced down at the books. The first in the stack focused on French cooking, and the cover was comprised of several photos taken, obviously, in France: the Eiffel Tower, an outdoor market, grapes growing on vines, a couple in a passionate embrace.

She stared at the image, struck by the pair’s intimate connection. One of the woman’s hands was pressed to the back of his head. His was on her hip, just above the curve of her butt. His partner had to be aquiver with anticipation, waiting for that palm to slide down and—

Flushing, Cleo shook her head then quickly re-shelved the book. The one left in her hand was a thick tome on Italian cuisine. Perhaps it was from the same publisher as the French cookbook, because the cover featured another montage of photographs. More grapes, a beautiful image of a layered pasta dish, and then…of course, another happy pair, wrapped in each other’s arms. Their kiss appeared even more ardent than the French couple’s. The dark-haired man had his tongue in the blonde woman’s mouth. She was crowded so close to him there wasn’t even a sliver of daylight between their bodies. His erect shaft would be pressed against the pad of her sex and her lower belly, and the hot, wet kiss was making her desperate to grind against the hardness.

The muffled clatter of footsteps on the library carpet gave her a guilty start and yanked her out of her European fantasy.

What was with this crazy turn of her mind anyway? She couldn’t know such details about that couple, their kiss. The photo was a long-distance shot and the pair was standing on a bridge. The only certain thing was they were hugging, their faces close. For all she knew the two were whispering to each other.
“That Cleo Anderson, what a freak.”

Except in Italian, of course. “Ciao,” she whispered to them, and returned the book to its regular slot.

Unfortunately it seemed the library wasn’t the place to figure out what to do next about Reed. On a sigh, she left the stacks, keeping her gaze forward so she wouldn’t be tempted to ogle the kissers she’d glimpsed earlier. Five feet from the exit doors, a hand closed around her elbow.

“Hey,” a familiar voice said in her ear, causing goose bumps to tumble down her neck. “My morning just got better.”

Her head whipped around, and just looking at Reed, her morning got better too. His hair had that sexy, rumpled look. He wore expensively cut khakis that were worn to a luxurious softness and his white T-shirt was emblazoned with a black line portrait of Edgar Allen Poe. His blue eyes held heat as he stared down at Cleo, his mouth curved in a faint smile.

“Did the boys wake up well-rested?” he asked, his thumb stroking the tender skin at the bend of her elbow.

Her nipples reacted to the subtle touch, pushing into the cups of her bra. She fought the shiver attempting to snake down her spine. “I…fine. All set.”

His lips twitched then turned up in a full-fledged smile. “Cleo?”

She put her hand to her head, trying to get it screwed on straight. When he was touching her like this, she couldn’t seem to make sense. “I… Can we talk?”

“Sure.” He took her hand and tugged her in the opposite direction of the door. “There’s a courtyard this way, perfect for quiet conversation.”

As they passed the aisles of books, she caught a glimpse of that canoodling couple again. The girl’s hands were fisted in the boy’s shirt at the small of his back. His palms cupped her face. Their mouths were fused together. Still.

Cleo’s feet slowed—of their own accord!—and Reed slanted her a glance. “Problem?” he whispered.

Yes. The whole world seems to be on the verge of making fiery love right in front of me.

Cleo swallowed. “No problem,” she said, lengthening her steps. If she told him that, he’d think she was nuts. “No problem at all.”

In the secluded courtyard, he led her to a small bistro set beneath the shade of a lush Queen palm. They both took seats and Cleo folded her hands on the table, staring at them as she wondered how to begin the conversation.

“I was thinking, um, we should get to know each other better.”

“Okay.”

When he didn’t add any more she cleared her throat. “Is there some, I don’t know, hobby you’d like to share with me?”

“A hobby?”

“Or maybe there’s an activity we could do together.” She watched an ant wander across the glass tabletop, its aimless trail making it seem confused and out of its element, just like she was. “You could bring your car over, maybe, and we could wash both of ours together.”

“You want us to wash our cars?”

She shrugged. “Something.” Glancing at him, she couldn’t begin to read the expression on his face. “Don’t you think?”

“Cleo, are you trying to schedule a playdate?”

Oh, God
. Heat crawled up her neck. That’s exactly what it sounded like she’d been doing. Hobbies. Activities. Next she’d be suggesting he come over one afternoon for a frolic in her Legos bucket. “Forget it,” she muttered. “Forget this whole stupid thing.”

She rose, but he caught her arm and pushed her back into her chair. “Don’t run away.”

Glaring at him, she yanked out of his hold. “I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know how to do
this
at all.” Her hand gestured wildly between them.

“Cleo—”

“I like you,” she admitted. “And—” Her attention snagged on another couple passing through the library doors and into the courtyard. Carrying books and coffees, the gray-haired pair took seats at another table behind Reed’s back.

He glanced over his shoulder at them, then focused on her again. “I like you too, Cleo. So what’s the problem?”

Instead of answering him, she found she couldn’t look away from the new arrivals as the older gentleman reached for his female companion’s hand. He brought it to his lips, and kissed her knuckles.

At the fond gesture, a ribbon of sensation surged up Cleo’s arm. Then the man’s hand disappeared under the table and a moment later the lady jumped. She sent the gentleman a mischievous grin.

Closing her eyes, Cleo pressed her thighs together, trying to ignore the little throb pulsing between them.

“Are you okay?” Reed asked, studying her with those incredible eyes.

“No.” There was something distinctly not okay about her at all. She was seeing kisses and caresses and…and foreplay everywhere! That couldn’t be normal. How much longer could she manage to be around Reed without making a fool of herself? In another minute she’d be begging for what everyone else in her universe seemed to be enjoying.

“What can I do?” Reed asked.

She swallowed her groan. “Maybe we should just be friends,” she muttered. It was an option, right?

“Does that mean you’ll invite me over for another dinner? I know I’d be in for a treat.”

Disappointment surged through Cleo. After all this, he wanted their relationship to be platonic now? Talk about getting her all hot and bothered and then pouring a bucket of ice over her head.

But she sure as heck wasn’t going to let him know he’d pulled out the rug from beneath her. “Sure, I’ll make you dinner,” she said, in an offhand tone. “As thanks for your help last night.”