Just About Sex (18 page)

Jumping up, she paced the hardwood floor in restless strides that only made her more agitated. In her mind’s eye, she saw it all slipping away—everything she’d worked her whole life to achieve: her career, her sterling reputation and, most precious of all, financial security.

Alex Greene had started this snowball rolling down the mountainside, and all because she’d embarrassed him a little. Now she was about to pay far too steep a price for his revenge.

Alex Greene had started this. Alex Greene had to stop it.

Right now.

Greene’s house sat on exactly the same kind of quiet, tree-lined street as Simone’s dream home, Simone discovered as she stalked up the front steps and rang the bell. A tall, red brick with white columns in front—Georgian was the style, wasn’t it?—and gaslights marching in front of it, the house took up most of its block. Warm and inviting, with a glowing porch light and magnolia tree on the southeast corner, Greene’s home was as irresistibly homey as gingerbread fresh from the oven.

What would it be like to live in a house like this?

Through the narrow, curtained windows framing the door, Simone saw a shadowy, backlit figure approaching from down the hall. Her fury returned and didn’t wait for the door to swing open all the way before it exploded.

“Enough is enough, Greene! I want you to pull that blog
right now!
” she screeched, much to the alarm of a calico cat who sprang from the bushes to the right of the door, shot her a look of quiet disgust, and darted off through a hole in a white picket fence on the border of the neighbor’s property.

Startled by the cat, it took Simone a moment to register that the person who’d opened the door was Laurel, not Greene.

Laurel stared, openmouthed, at her. She held a checked blue kitchen towel upon which she absently wiped her hands. From the depths of the house came the vague sounds of laughing male voices and music.

“Oh.” Embarrassed to be caught shrieking like a banshee, Simone wished she could follow the cat and disappear through its hole. “Sorry, Laurel. I…didn’t know it was you.”

Laurel’s expression could only be described as bemused fascination. “I gathered that.”

Simone took several calming breaths, crossed her arms over her chest and spoke in her calmest, most civilized voice. “Is that demon spawn you like to call your brother here?”

Laurel’s eyes widened, and then she threw her head back and roared with laughter. “I can’t blame you for having issues with Alex,” she said finally, dabbling her eyes with the towel. “He’s a pretty strange bird. But I can’t let you in the house if you’re going to kill or maim him.”

Bristling on Greene’s behalf—what kind of sister was this?—Simone opened her mouth and uttered the single most nonsensical sentence of her life. “He’s not strange at all—just tragically misguided.”

Laurel’s bottom jaw dropped.

Seeing no immediate signs of being invited into the house, Simone edged by her and, her heart beating faster, stepped into Greene’s world.

The first thing she noticed was the delicious, garlicky smell of tomato sauce. They’d had pasta for dinner, then. Was Greene the cook?

Staring with unabashed curiosity, Simone performed a silent inventory. The house was spacious and lovely, with nine-foot ceilings and what seemed like more windows than walls. Center hallway with wide, runner-lined staircase climbing gracefully to the second floor. Mirror, table, settee and Persian rug on the wood floor here in the foyer. Dining room, with elegant antique mahogany table and chairs, through the huge carved doorway to the right. Masculine, comfortable living room to the left. Male voices laughed again, through the dining room.

Helpless to do otherwise, Simone crept toward them with Laurel on her heels. At the far side of the dining room, she paused and looked over the threshold into the bright, new kitchen. Again she stared and took impressions. Huge granite island with a half-eaten chocolate cake on a glass plate. Windowed cabinets. Stainless steel appliances. Tiled floors. A built-in booth in the far corner.

And there was Greene, laughing as she’d never heard him laugh. He sat with his back to her, talking to a smiling, bespectacled boy of about twelve or thirteen. Suddenly Simone knew what Greene had looked like as a child: exactly like his nephew. Thin and lanky, but dimpled and bright-eyed. Adorable. She couldn’t believe Greene was only his uncle—it looked like he’d spit the boy out. Dr. Evil and Mini-Me.

Was this how Greene’s own children would look?

On the table sat some monstrous, three-dimensional, three-foot high puzzle—the kind that gave her a tension headache just to look at it. It was a lunging, snarling T-Rex skeleton, mostly complete. Next to it lay a few remaining bones.

From some source she couldn’t see came the wail of Miles Davis’s trumpet, but Miles in this house sounded mellow and soulful, not suicidal like he sounded in her apartment.

Despair washed through Simone, hollowing out her insides until she felt empty. Less than empty. Because here was exactly the kind of house—
home—
she’d wanted all her life. Where people laughed and enjoyed each other’s company, and the chances were good that the adults who were here today would be the same ones who were here tomorrow. Where children were important, and not just props to make the adults look like good parents.

The kind of house, in short, she doubted she’d ever have.

Laurel must have sensed some of her turmoil because she stepped around her, pinned her with her sharp gaze and pressed a hand to her arm. “Are you okay, Simone?”

At the sound of Laurel’s voice, Greene turned and saw Simone for the first time. His smile faded and his eyes widened with disbelief, as if Laurel had ushered a unicorn into his house. He leapt up, bumping the table in the process. The T-Rex disintegrated, the pieces showering to the table in an endless clatter.

“Awww, man!” cried the horrified boy, staring at the mess as if surveying earthquake damage. “What’re you
doing?
”

Greene seemed not to hear him. He hurried forward, his intent gaze on Simone. “You’re here,” he said hoarsely. “Why?”

A charged moment passed.

Drawing herself up, preparing for a fight, Simone jammed her fists on her hips. “I want to talk to you—
right now!
—about pulling your blog.”

A light seemed to go out behind Greene’s eyes. “No.”

Simone waited for more, but there was nothing. She blinked with disbelief. “
No?
That’s it?”

His lips pulled back in a crooked, mocking smile. “Well, you’re fond of the word, aren’t you, Simone? You say it to me every chance you get. I thought I should start to use it a little more myself.”

Chapter 15

D
eadlocked, they glared at each other in a moment of mutual loathing before Greene seemed to rethink his position. Dropping his head, he ran a hand along the back of his neck. When he looked up again, his expression had softened.

“Look, Simone,” he began in a low, beseeching tone that would no doubt convince birds to stop flying in favor of taking the bus, “it’s Saturday night. Can’t we take the weekends off from hating each other?” She started to protest, but he held up a hand and she shut up. “Sit down. Stay a while. Have some cake with us.”

“I can’t,” she said automatically, even though his offer sounded like an all-expenses paid trip to Tahiti compared to the lonely night she had waiting for her in her awful apartment.

“It’s not for me,” he said, waving a hand in his nephew’s direction. “It’s for Keith.”

“Keith?”

“He’s always wanted to meet you. Isn’t that right, Keith?”

They both turned to look at the boy who, sure enough, stared at Simone with the same sort of openmouthed, dreamy expression with which she’d seen kids stare at ice cream trucks.

“Keith?” Greene frowned.
“Keith!”

Keith jumped.

“Say hello to Dr. Simone,” Greene told him.

A fine gentleman now that he’d snapped out of his hypnotic state, Keith stood and shook her hand. A few microscopic tufts of black hair marred the baby-soft smoothness of his chin. “How are you?” His voice cracked on every other syllable, making him sound like Peter from
The Brady Bunch.
“Can you stay for a while?”

Simone smiled at Keith, but then turned to Greene and tsked with disapproval. “What kind of man uses a teenager to help him get what he wants?”

“A desperate one.”

The effort not to smile became so painful Simone decided to give up. When she did, Greene laughed, too, and that strange, wonderful light behind his eyes came on again. Flushing and too delighted for words, Simone looked down at her shoes and shoved her restless hands in the back pockets of her jeans.

“You know,” she said to Greene lest they all forget why she was there, “this isn’t a social call.”

“I know. That’s why I’m pretending.” He turned to the cake and cut her a two-inch wedge. “Laurel,” he snapped, flipping the cake onto a plate, “get the ice cream.”

“Yes, sir,” Laurel muttered, springing into action.

“Oh, I couldn’t—” Simone began, and was universally ignored. Just as well, since her knees went weak and she couldn’t remember what she’d meant to say when she saw Greene lick a smudge of chocolate icing off his thumb.

Before she knew what had happened, Simone found herself sitting in the booth next to Keith, who set about rebuilding the demolished T-Rex. Laurel, smiling as if she knew a delightful secret, went back to the dishes in the sink, humming absently. Greene poured himself a cup of coffee, slid Simone’s cake and ice cream across the table to her, and sat down.

Right next to her.

The semicircular booth immediately shrank by half. How a man his size could fit into the space at all was a mystery she’d have to ponder some other time. Flustered, Simone discreetly slid toward the center of the booth, closer to Keith.

Greene, a wicked light in his eyes over the rim of his mug, slid closer again, but this time, as if in punishment for her thinking she could get away from him, he rested his long, hard, warm thigh, snugly encased in faded jeans, against hers under the table. For emphasis he put down his cup and slid his arm around the back of the booth, mere inches from her shoulders.

Now he was within smelling range, and his light, delicious, vaguely woodsy scent was just strong enough to tantalize Simone. It was like when her neighbor down the hall made chocolate chip cookies and she could catch a faint whiff of them, but never enough to saturate her senses the way she wanted to.

Her whole body—not just her thigh and shoulder—began to burn. Surely the gases at the center of the sun couldn’t be any hotter than she felt, but unless she wanted to climb into poor Keith’s lap, there was nothing she could do about it.

Trapped, she drew herself up as best she could, shot Greene a threatening sidelong glance, and took a big bite of her third dessert of the evening.

The homemade cake, so fudgy and rich she thought she’d died and gone to heaven, could not be eaten silently. “Mmmm,” she murmured, quickly cutting another bite. “Laurel, this is
delicious.
”

Laurel giggled mysteriously, but Greene snorted. “Why do you assume
she
made the cake?”

“A thousand pardons.” Simone rolled her eyes and felt some of her enjoyment for this treat—the best chocolate cake she’d ever eaten—slip away. “Of course you made the cake, DaVinci—or should I call you MacGyver? You probably also milled the flour and cloned chickens to get the eggs. Maybe after I’m done here you could take a couple of Q-Tips and turn my car into a helicopter so I can fly home.”

The bottom half of his grinning face disappeared behind his mug again. “Or I could just take you home.”

To her everlasting horror, it was not as much of a stretch for her to imagine him taking her home as it should have been. In fact, when he looked at her with those bright, sultry eyes, and her blood began to heat, the impossible became not just imaginable, but probable.

To her right, Keith cleared his throat, reminding her he was there. “Ignore him, Dr. Simone.”

“Oh, I plan to.” Tearing her gaze away from Greene, she took another bite of cake.

“I have a question for you,” Keith told her as he carefully slid what looked like a shin bone—did T-Rexes have shins?—into its place.

“Oh, Lord,” Laurel muttered from the sink.

“Go ahead, Keith,” Simone said, laughing.

“What’s the craziest question anyone ever wrote in and asked you?” He clicked another large piece or two into place, and suddenly the T-Rex was a biped once again.

“Let’s keep it G-rated,” Laurel said, raising her voice over the running water and clank of dishes.

“That’s tough, since my column’s subject matter is R-rated.”

“Try.”

Laurel’s tight warning smile said it all. Laughing again, and excruciatingly aware of Greene’s rapt gaze on her face, Simone searched her memory. “Well, one time this kid wrote in wondering how to get his dogs to have sex because he wanted puppies. I called his parents and they had me tell him that the male was neutered and the female spayed. He was
not
happy.”

Greene put one elbow on the table, rested his chin on his palm and leaned in to study her closer. “What about the opposite?”

Simone kept her gaze on her plate and slid a spoonful of ice cream into her mouth. “Your dogs won’t stop having sex?”

“No. What if someone can’t get over his attraction to someone else?”

Simone looked up and their gazes locked with a surge of electricity that, by rights, should have caused a citywide blackout. She froze midswallow and forgot about Keith, who worked on his puzzle and hummed a toneless song, and Laurel, whose tight-shouldered stance, slightly cocked ear and unblinking blind gaze on the dark window over the sink told Simone she was as riveted to Greene’s words as Simone was.

The rest of the world, in fact, fell away—as if some huge hand had chiseled away great chunks of the earth, until all that remained was the man sitting next to her and the raw longing on his face.