Love Game (16 page)

“S
URE YOU DON’T WANT
to
see the New Year in with the revelers in the bar? There’s quite a party going on down there and I could impress you with my knack for working a crowd.”

Chris’s chuckle was strained. “That’s okay. I’m sure your social skills are just fine. Heck, if you can impress my brother and parents, the Queen of England probably wouldn’t think twice about inviting you to dinner.”

He patted his stomach. “I’m still stuffed. How about you?”

“After steaks with my folks and strawberry shortcake with yours, it’ll be two days before I’m hungry again.” Her own stomach growled, calling her a liar. Spending time with both sets of families while their own inevitable goodbye too fast approached had worn her nerves thin and eating had been the last thing on her mind.

“I, uh, I really appreciate you putting in an appearance for my mom and dad.” Pulling her closer on the couch, he tucked her head against the crook of his neck.

Lord, but he smelled good. And the sound of his low voice, so strong and calming…dear God, how she would miss it.

“You know, Chris, they’ve been real curious about this old girlfriend I’ve been ‘courting,’ as Mom puts it. Hope you don’t mind all those nosy questions she was asking you. I got the feeling you were starting to feel a little tense. Especially that last half hour it took to get out the door.”

Chris mentally
rolled her eyes. She’d thought they would never get away and escape to their suite. All that time with their families when they had next to no time left for themselves. Only good manners had kept her where she did not want to be.

“That’s okay,” she told him. “My family’s just as bad if not worse. And besides, this is New Year’s Eve and it was only right for us to spend at least a little of it with our folks. I think they were all pretty disappointed that we had plans to go to a party and couldn’t share a toast with them at midnight.” She pointed to the champagne bottle on the coffee table. “So, ready to party?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be.” When he turned her in his arms, their gazes met and she wondered if her own was as troubled as his. “But the truth is, I’m not in much of a partying mood. I’m feeling somewhat depressed.”

“Me too, Greg. Me, too.” She knuckled his jaw. “We’re a sight, aren’t we? Half an hour to the New Year and here we are, crying in our beer. Wanna make love? Maybe that would cheer us up.”

“I’m not sure I can get it up just yet,” he said. “If it’s all the same to you I’d just as soon settle for some heavy necking and lots of snuggles, cop a few feels on the couch and—ah shit.”

“Ah shit, what?”

“I forgot to pick up a box of rubbers. We used the last one last night.”

“All the more reason to settle for some heavy necking and plenty of cuddles.” Hugging him tightly, she said, “Actually, Greg, I’d rather end it that way. Just enjoying each other’s company and not getting into an argument about where you want to go from here. I don’t want to remember our last night as being spoiled by a fight. When I look back I’d like to think of how good it was just to be together.”

“And how good it is,
Chris.” He kissed her softly, deeply. “Know what? You’re the best company I’ve kept, ever. And I already promised myself that I won’t spoil the night by rehashing our differences. You know how I feel about things and vice versa. We’ll let it lie for now and I’ll just have to gamble on distance making your heart grow fonder.”

“It’s plenty fond already, big guy.” Touching her nose to his, she gave him an Eskimo kiss. “Did I ever tell you how much I like you?”

“Not in so many words, but you’ve let me know in a thousand different ways. Like giving me half of your cheesy rags. If that’s not love, what is?”

Love.
He’d said it again, and not in the heat of a mind-bending fantasy. Chris ducked her head. She didn’t want to think about that word and she didn’t want Greg to use it. It tugged at that place she’d sewn tight that night in the car and had vowed never to let tear her apart again.

As if he sensed her feelings, Greg busied himself with the champagne.

There was no hurling of glasses into the mock fireplace, no ribald laughter or putting the bottle anywhere except on the coffee table as they saw midnight in with a toast. His simple “Here’s to a new year as wonderful as the last week has been,” and her, “Hear, hear” pretty much said it all.

After that, they talked about everything and nothing, hugged and kissed and fondled until his watch called it five.

“I should get you home,” he said, looking seductively rumpled after all their cuddling on the couch. “You’ve always been in by two. Sure your family won’t think I’ve totally corrupted you by keeping you out all night?”

“I told them it
was an all-night party and we were meeting some old pals from high school.”

Laughing wearily, Greg shook his head. “Seems I didn’t do a good enough job of corrupting. That reputation of yours is still intact despite my best efforts. Except your neighbors are probably still talking about what happened on your porch.”

“Let them talk,” she said with a tight little laugh. Their time was up and they were actually leaving. Where was her breath? Why was it so hard to draw one past the constriction of her throat? And her stomach, it was so tied in knots that she’d surely throw up if she had any food in it.

Forcing herself to smile, she said brightly, “See? You have corrupted me, after all. I really don’t give a damn about what old Mrs. Howard thinks. If she had a life, she wouldn’t have to keep herself busy by sticking her nose into mine.”

“Good for you, Chris,” he said, pulling her up. Holding her close, all but crushing her to him, he whispered, “Good for you.”

Hugging each other by the waists, they walked slowly to the suite’s entrance. Greg opened the small closet where their coats were hung and reached inside. He stood there, just stood, his hand poised over the hangers. And then his fist smacked the adjoining wall.

“We can’t leave it like this,” he said hoarsely, breathing hard. “God, this is tearing me up, babe. It’s tearing me up and—and—” He gripped her to him and she clung with an equal desperation. “What am I going to do without you? Jesus, I want you. I
need
you.”

“Why didn’t we make love?” she whispered, her hands
frantic in their search of his chest, his wonderful, strong chest she’d never touch again. “We had all night and we didn’t even take off our clothes. All that time and we wasted it talking, doing everything but—”

“It’s not too late.” His voice urgent, his palms just as urgent as they raced over her breasts with a fever to match her need. And kisses, hungry, eating kisses. His lips memorizing her face, their mouths clinging as she fumbled to release him from his pants, then holding him, stroking him, pressing his turgid flesh possessively against her belly.

“Be inside me,” she pleaded while he gave up on pulling down her hose and ripped them with a fierce, savage yank. Her back to the wall, he lifted her up and she wrapped her legs around his waist.

Just before he pushed inside her, he said raggedly, “We’ve got no protection.”

“Thank God. For once, just this once, I want to feel you without anything between us. It should be safe, my period’s due in a few days.”

“I’ll make it safer and pull out before I come. Now hold me, babe. Hold me like you’ll never let me go.”

She held him as if her very life depended on it and her body accepted his fevered upthrust without resistance. She was wet for him, her womb starved and already weeping at the loss for what she had now. Again and again he thrust, each departure a painful reminder that her body would soon be empty of his presence—and so would her life.

Gripping him inside, and gripping his waist, his shoulders, Chris could feel her back hitting the wall, her head thrashing against it, the desperation surrounding them and closing in while she moaned his name, over and over. She did not want to come. Not her, not him; never did she want this to end.

She fought the inevitable as long as she could but all too soon her
body opened up, then closed in a greedy fist around him where he pressed. Her hungry womb sucked at his tip and she bore down, instinct demanding he fill it. A cry of his name ripped from her throat. And then he was groaning, “Oh God, oh God,” and jerking out of her.

Warm spurts on the inside of her thigh, Greg pressing hard there while she commanded herself not to force him back inside where they both wanted him to be.

His arms were shaking as he lowered her legs; neither of them capable of standing, they slumped to the floor.

“What’s this?” he whispered haltingly, his fingertips trembling as they stroked her cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” she said, a sob catching while the tears continued to ignore her demand to stop. Maybe if she said “Roses” they’d listen, she thought with a piercing sadness.

That only made her cry harder.

“Hey, it’s okay, babe,” he said, his voice a croon sweeter than a lullaby. “You just go ahead and cry until you’re all cried out.”

“If—if I did that then we—we might be here forever.”

“That’d suit me fine,” he said solemnly, and Chris struggled not to say that it would suit her fine, too.

It took a while for her tears to recede, but eventually they did. In silence they put each other back together. In silence he helped her on with her coat. In silence he handed her the empty champagne bottle with pretty pink flowers on it.

And in silence, they shared a parting glance at the room filled with the memories they had made. Then left arm in arm, never looking back after the final close of the door.

“I’
M WORRIED ABOUT YOU
driving home sleep-deprived, Chris. Can you put off leaving long enough to catch a few winks?” It was hard to talk.

“Actually, I’m pretty wired. Don’t worry, between
some coffee and the radio, we’ll make the trip fine. And it’s only five, six hours away.” She touched his hand, which gripped and ungripped the steering wheel while the car continued to idle in her parents’ driveway.

They sat there a few moments longer, neither of them seeming to know what to say. Heaven knew he didn’t. But whatever it was, it sure as hell wasn’t goodbye.

“I guess this is goodbye,” she said, breaking the heavy silence. And then she offered her palm, sideways.

A handshake?
She actually thought they could part with a handshake? Greg stared at her in disbelief.

“Don’t you think that’s a little formal, considering?”

Chris dropped her hand and wiped her palm on her skirt.

“What would you suggest? A farewell kiss?” Her small laugh was dry, brittle. “I don’t think so, Greg. You know us. Once we get started, one thing leads to another and—”

“I love you, Chris.” There it was, without warning, the one right thing to say. “You don’t have to say you love me back, but I do love you and no matter what, I’ll always be there for you. I’m as close as a phone call or an e-mail away.”

“Greg, please. Please, don’t do this. Don’t make it any worse than it already is.” She reached for the handle and he gripped her wrist.

“Marry me.”

Chris wrenched her hand free. “This is horrible enough. Why did you have to ask me something like that when you know full well what my answer will be? I
can’t
marry you!”

“Why not?” Damn, but he was losing it, losing the control
he had sworn to himself he would keep. And here he was, ready to grovel, get down on his knees without a stitch of pride and beg her to marry him. The third time would be the charm, he wanted to scream. He wanted to yell at her that if she would only give him the chance, he’d prove what a good father he could be.

Screaming and yelling—yeah, that’d convince her, all right. He had to get out of here, get away from the beautiful, tormented face he was dangerously close to kissing senseless, roll down the window and get some fresh air into this car that was so crowded with raging emotions, he was choking on them.

“Never mind.” Reaching past her, he flipped the handle and flung open her door. “Go on. Get out.”

“Greg, I—”

“Goddamn it! You heard me. I said
get…out
.”

With a sharp cry, she lurched from the seat and ran toward the house.

He told himself not to watch until she’d gotten in safely. But he did. He told himself not to act like an asshole and peel out of her driveway. But he did. And he told himself that tears were for women, and men who cried them were weaklings, and strong as he was, he would not cry.

But he did.

T
HE ONCOMING
M
ACK
truck’s
blaring horn mingled with Audrey’s scream and the squeal of tires beneath them as Chris swerved from the interstate’s middle line and onto the shoulder.

Once the car had rolled to a stop, Chris gagged on the coffee and bile trying to come up. Grabbing Audrey to her, she assured herself they were still alive.

“Are—are you okay, sugar?”

“I—I’m scared, Mommy,” she whimpered. “The big truck was coming at us and—and—”

“Shh, shh. Mama’s sorry, so sorry.” More than sorry, Chris was furious with herself. How close they’d come to being killed and it was all her fault. She should have been watching the road, not replaying that horrid scene with Greg in her mind. Just another sign that getting involved with him had been a lapse into temporary insanity and the sooner she put it behind her, the better.

What was done was done and now it was time to wise up, get her head back on her shoulders where it belonged. Thank God they were almost home. There, she could think clearly.

G
REG EYED THE TELEPHONE
in his kitchen. He wanted to call Chris and
assure himself she and Audrey had arrived home safely. Chris had no business driving after staying up all night, and the state he’d left her in wasn’t conducive to alertness on the road. If anything happened to them, he’d never forgive himself.

He picked up the phone. Put it down.

If he called, she’d surely hang up on him. But he’d go crazy worrying about them. He picked up and dialed. After five rings he was ready to hop a plane and go in search. On the sixth ring, she answered with a breathless “Hello?”

Her voice washing over him, he forced himself to say, “Sorry, wrong number.”

C
HRIS REPLACED THE
receiver with unsteady hands. Still shaken from the near miss, she wondered if the raw edge of her nerves had made her imagine Greg’s voice. Covering her ears, she screamed in silence, tried to drown the echo of
“I love you…. Marry me…. Get out.”

A tug at her arm caused her to look down. There was a wealth of insight in the somber brown eyes peering at her.

“What the matter, Mommy? Are you missing Uncle Greg?”

“He’s not your uncle, Audrey.” Kneeling, she clung to the little girl who was her reason for living. The one who hadn’t called her “Mommy” in years but seemed as needful of a security blanket as Chris was herself. “We’ll talk about it later, okay? Right now, Mommy just wants to be with you. How about a cup of hot chocolate?” A vision of Greg with a cup of cocoa assaulted her.
Damn him.
Even something as ordinary as hot chocolate was riddled with memories.

“I’m not thirsty. Can I go play with Lizabeth?”

With difficulty, she let Audrey go. Out of her arms, then out of the kitchen, out of the house. Though her child was just next door, Chris felt deserted. She needed Audrey to keep her company, to give her a sense of order while inside she was coming apart at the seams.

And what comes
of those who build their lives around a child who’ll eventually be gone is a pretty sad thing to witness.
Insidiously, Greg’s words filled her mind. Her gaze fell on the cup he had sipped from, unwashed on the countertop. She lifted the cup and her lips hovered where his had been. Quickly, she grabbed a bottle of dish soap. Scrubbing furiously, she cleaned the cup, then put it in the dishwasher for good measure.

She had to do something, keep herself busy. Seeking to rid her house of his last traces, she mopped the kitchen floor he’d walked on, shoveled out the fireplace, took off ornaments and hauled the Christmas tree out to the alley’s trash bin.

Needles pricked her and she was glad for the little jabs of pain; they took her mind off the far worse pain clawing for attention that she was desperate not to give.

She willed the vacuum cleaner to suck up more than dry pine needles, to inhale and devour the memory they’d made in the living room. And then bedroom.
Why had she let him in here? Why had she let him lie on her bed?

It was still unmade from their lovemaking. Chris jerked off the top sheet and flung it to the floor. But as she touched the bottom one, the one on which they had lain, she hesitated. And then she softly stroked the sheet.

A sob in her throat, her knees gave way. She threw herself on the bed and imagined Greg was there, holding her.

Hold me, babe. Hold me like you’ll never let me go.

She had to find the strength to let him go. She had to wash the sheets that had touched him. Tomorrow. Tomorrow she’d wash them. But tonight she’d be weak and remember….

T
HE HOUSE WAS SPOTLESS
, just as he’d left it. God, but it was
like a museum around here, Greg thought. Funny, he’d never seen it that way, everything in impeccable order but a lack of warmth in the high-tech decor.

The place needed a woman’s touch. Crocheted doilies covering up worn spots on some lived-in furniture, ugly panty hose draped over a towel bar, toys that got underfoot on the floor. What the damn place needed was signs of the living, sounds of laughter and even an occasional fight.

The silence around him pressed in and he continued to stroke the small mitten he held.

“Chris,” he whispered, then, gripping Audrey’s glove, he yelled, “Hey, babe, let’s grab the kids and go get a bite!”

Yeah, lots of fun eating alone. Just about as much fun as torturing himself with visions of Audrey on his shoulders, a minivan, dirty diapers and coming home, roses in hand, to a frazzled wife.

He had to get out of here. Where, Greg didn’t know, but anything was better than talking to the walls that didn’t talk back and pacing through a house that was far from a home.

N
EVER HAD CHRIS BEEN
so glad to see Audrey off to school and get back to work herself. For the next eight hours she wouldn’t have to field questions about why Mommy seemed so sad or why they couldn’t go visit
their
friend. And at work she wouldn’t have to remember Greg’s visit with every room she entered, or the bed she had yet to change linens on.

But most important, at work she’d be too busy to think about the questions that assaulted her: Had she been too convinced of her own rightness and made the mistake of her life as a result? Could it be that he actually did love her in the ways that counted, lasted? And was it possible
that she loved him just as much but was too afraid to admit it?

Quit beating a dead horse, Chris,
she mentally chided herself as she poured a cup of coffee in the teachers’ lounge. The answers were plain. Cutting things off was the wisest move she’d made since they’d met. And as for love, the kind that lasted? No way. A whirlwind affair did not a workable marriage make.

Marry me.
The coffee lodged in her throat and Chris forced it down past the sudden lump there. She had to remember he’d asked two other women before and it must be force of habit, a weakness he had for buying into a fantasy, then wanting out once reality set in. No, she had no intentions of being another divorce statistic, nor of Audrey being a casualty of domestic war.

“The bell’s about to ring, Mrs. Nicholson. Why aren’t you in your homeroom? I’ve a good mind to report you to the principal. Or better yet, the assistant principal.”

Startled, Chris whirled around and sloshed coffee onto Jerry’s coat sleeve. “Oh, Jerry, I’m so sorry,” she said, frantically grabbing for some napkins.

He caught her dabbing hand. “If you really want to make amends, say you’ll chaperon with me at the school dance this Friday. I’ll even throw in a corsage.”

“I—I—” She couldn’t get past the stammer, nor her gripping urge to turn him down flat. “I appreciate it, but—”

“Look, if you’re worried about school policy, nobody has to know we’re on a date. As far as anyone else is concerned, you had car problems and I gave you a lift. No big deal.”

But it
was
a big deal, she wanted to tell him. It was a big
deal that he obviously cared about the no-fraternization policy, and his PC mentality irked her.
Wait. Hold it right there.
What was she thinking? A week ago she would have been concerned about the same thing—their reputations and jobs dictating social discretion.

Greg again. Damn him, anyway. His influence was a bad one and she had to start thinking her way, not his. A date with Jerry, the most levelheaded person she knew, was exactly what she needed to get her feet on the ground where they belonged.

“What time should I expect you?” she asked, managing a halfhearted smile.

“Why don’t I pick you up at five and we can have an early dinner. Someplace quiet, you know?”

Indeed she did. He meant someplace where they weren’t likely to be seen and recognized. Distaste for such secrecy filled her and she felt a swift empathy for Greg and the feelings he must have had while she prattled on about her reputation and the sterling example she was compelled to set.

At the shrill sound filling the room, Chris could only think,
Saved by the bell.
Saved from her thoughts and making small talk with Jerry.

But as they departed the teachers’ lounge, their date made, she found herself thinking more of what she oughtn’t. Jerry had a fat butt. Chris blamed Greg for making her take notice of that. She’d never paid attention to a man’s rear end until she’d hung over Greg’s shoulder and realized what a work of art tight buns could be.

W
ORK
. W
ORK WAS THE TONIC
for all that had ever ailed him before. Only, after four days of work he was ailing worse than ever and he hadn’t gotten squat done, even putting in time and a half.

Greg glanced at the clock on his desk. Nine on a Friday evening and
he didn’t want to stay any more than he wanted to leave. He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t eat. And if he talked to the walls in his house much longer, they’d just maybe start talking back.

Clearly, he was emotionally and mentally in a place he’d never been despite his marital disasters. He wondered if Chris would have turned him down if he’d had a clean slate. Or did she think he was one of those Hollywood types who hopped in and out of marriage like other people changed clothes? If she only knew how seriously he took it, his failures making his need to succeed so much more imperative.

Hell, he was a safer bet than that Jerry jerk who surely didn’t have near his experience in damage control.

Jerry.
Chris would have seen him by now at school and what hell it was wondering if she was seeing him for reasons other than work. And what if she slept with him, took the advice Greg wanted to cut his tongue out for ever giving? And what if they got a hold of a faulty condom or Jerry wasn’t as careful as he was and Chris got knocked up?

Imagining another man touching her, putting the baby in her he himself had begun to crave, a red rage seized Greg. Struggling to control it, he asked himself if he’d love Chris as much, still want her for his wife, if she were to become pregnant with another man’s baby.

Greg pondered that unsettling question and emerged with a telling realization. Were the baby an accident, he’d blame himself, not Chris, for it. And he certainly wouldn’t blame an unborn child any more than he would Audrey for having been conceived. Yes.
Yes.
He’d love Chris just as intensely and still marry her in a heartbeat.

The only thing he wouldn’t be able to forgive would be if she
wanted
another man’s child instead of his. He’d had his chance to try beating the odds against her cycle and he hadn’t taken it, knowing that was one strategy that would be wrong, wrong. But a part of him regretted he hadn’t stooped to such ruthlessness.

He’d felt the first jolt just as he left her. Replaying it again, he frowned, trying once more to remember if he’d exited before that initial spurt. At the time he’d been too obsessed with possessing her to record such a minor-yet-major detail. Ah, hell, it couldn’t have been more than a drop, and though a drop was all it took to get pregnant, she’d said the timing wasn’t right.

The phone rang. Grabbing for it, he prayed it might be Chris come to her senses and as senseless in love as he.

At the sound of Eileen’s voice, his heart dropped flat and he damned himself for a fool.

After hanging up, Greg put his desk in order. At least he didn’t have to spend the evening alone. And just maybe ex-wife number two would help him figure out how to convince Chris she was meant to be wife number three.

“W
ELL, GOOD NIGHT
, J
ERRY
. Thanks for a great time.” Great? It had been
awful.
Worse than awful, she’d never been so bored in her life.

Chris quickly amended that. As he kissed her, a kiss that was dry as dust on her end and way too wet on his, she wasn’t sure whether she was more bored or disgusted.

Disgusted, she decided, when he slid a palm down her back and over her behind. Discreetly, of course, in keeping with his furtive glances around the restaurant where he’d forgone a glass of wine and raised a brow when she’d ordered one and lit up. As for his careful survey of the bill and stingy tipping, she hadn’t cared for them any more than his kissing and the butt handling that she put an end to with a quick step back.

He made a sound similar to the one he’d made when she had laid a five on the table for the waitress—one of disapproval mixed with a hint of embarrassment, as if he’d accidentally farted and turned an accusing glare on his dog. Greg, however, would not only claim such a fart as his, he’d probably rank it on a scale from one to ten.

There she went
again, Chris realized with dismay. She’d been comparing the two men all night.

“Mind if I come in?” Jerry asked, clearing his throat.

She did mind, but made herself say politely, “Maybe another time.”
Not.

“Then I’ll see you at church.” With that, he left and Chris breathed a sigh of relief as she let herself in, paid the sitter, and went to check on Audrey.

She was sleeping with the giraffe, the huge stuffed animal taking up most of the bed’s space. A wave of tenderness made Chris’s heart soften and lurch as she remembered the toy-store exchange between Audrey and Greg.