Chapter Seventeen
Elizabeth remembered her Friday night Skype date with Pat about twenty minutes after Kayla left. “My elderly neighbor looks forward to it so much,” she told Zander. “I can’t cancel at such short notice.”
The baby on his lap, he glanced up from the couch where he and Maddie were playing Snap while Elizabeth restored some order to the chaos. “Bring your laptop here.”
“It’ll be quieter in my room.” And after the dramas of the day, she needed to regroup. “I’ll be back in thirty minutes to put the kids to bed.”
As though a conversation and a whiskey with an Irishman ever ran short. By the time she returned to Kayla and Jared’s suite, an hour had passed. There was a note propped on the coffee table. Party moved to my place.
Glancing at her watch, Elizabeth packed up pajamas and diapers. Zander didn’t answer his door, but when she tried the handle it opened. She stepped inside to an eerie silence, a room service trolley blocking the hall and the overpowering scent of synthetic strawberries. “Hello?”
“In here.” Moving the trolley, she followed the sound of Zander’s voice, opened another door and was enveloped in a billow of escaping steam.
The mirror-tiled bathroom was dominated by an enormous spa bath. Clusters of iridescent bubbles dotted every surface, and overflowed the tub like a frozen glacier.
Wearing a pink bathing suit and a tiara, Madison stood amidst the bubbles eating daintily from three bowls of ice cream balanced on the bath’s wide rim. His bare shoulders punching through the foam, Zander lounged at the other end, balancing a diaper-wearing, ice cream-smeared Rocco on his raised knees. Tattoo transfers decorated the rocker’s cheekbones—a butterfly, a frog, a raccoon in a party hat. Rocco held a wand and, seeing Elizabeth, he shrieked happily and batted at the bubbles.
The movement dislodged the heart-shaped tiara perched on Zander’s head. “Looking after kids is easy,” he said, straightening it. “You just let them do whatever they want.”
Laughing, Elizabeth leaned against the doorjamb. “Love the tiara.”
“It’s a crown when it’s on a boy,” Madison corrected. Finishing one bowl of ice cream, she raised it to lick it clean.
“My apologies, Your Highnesses.”
Zander dodged a wild swing of Rocco’s wand. “Welcome, wench, to the Kingdom of… What are we called again, Princess Madison?”
Madison’s face reappeared, ringed in banana yellow. “Fairydragons,” she said. Dumping the empty bowl, she picked up a sheet of tattoo transfers wilting over the rim and waded over to Zander.
He watched her approach warily. “Aren’t I pretty enough yet, Princess?”
“One more.” She pressed a word tattoo to his left cheekbone and climbed out of the tub to assess her handiwork.
Elizabeth burst out laughing again. “Girl Power.”
Unperturbed, Zander switched Rocco to his other knee. “I’ve always been a feminist.”
Straight-faced, Elizabeth said, “You did tell him they take a week to wear off right, Princess Maddie?”
Water spilled over the bath as Zander jerked upright. “What?”
“But you like tattoos.” The little girl leaned over to pat the angel wingtips cresting the bubbles and knocked the bowl of strawberry ice cream into the tub. Two pink scoops bobbed to the surface and started melting into the suds.
Rocco lunged for one and Zander tightened his grip. “You’ve had enough, buddy.”
Madison frowned at the spreading pink slick. “I can’t get into that now,” she complained. Seeing her opportunity, Elizabeth grabbed a towel, warm from the heated rail. “Let’s get you in your jammies and I’ll read you some bedtime stories.”
A muffled voice came from the towel. “But Zander said I could stay up as late as I want.”
Zander rose from the bubbles. “And that’s my exit cue.” He turned and dipped Rocco to his neck into some uncontaminated water, and his boardshorts dipped low.
Tearing her eyes away from two perfect cheeks, Elizabeth concentrated on drying Madison. “You’re not leaving me with two sugar-enhanced demons.” She planted a kiss on the little girl’s forehead to show there were no hard feelings. “Your pajamas are in a bag in the hall. I’ll help Zander clean up your brother.”
Soaking a washcloth, she rubbed gently at the streaky ice cream clumped in Rocco’s fine hair while Zander held him over the bath. The baby voiced his displeasure in a low-level whimper. Elizabeth murmured soothing nonsense and tried not to notice the steaming biceps of the near-naked man beside her.
Stripping off Rocco’s sodden diaper—empty, thank you, Jesus—she opened a towel, but the baby writhed when Zander tried to hand him over, so she wrapped it around both of them. Her breast brushed Zander’s chest as she pulled it across his shoulders.
The warmth lingered. She glanced down, saw wet, transparent chiffon and her lacy bra cup. Zander’s gaze followed, then lifted to hers. The steam caught in her lungs, and she suddenly found it hard to breathe.
Zander lifted his arm free of the towel, baring a shoulder, and said huskily, “I’ve got it.” Only then did she realize she still clutched the towel around him and the baby. Releasing her grip, she stepped back.
“I’ll fetch his pajamas.” Elizabeth grabbed what she needed and checked on Madison. She felt she was standing on a bridge with a bungee cord around her ankles poised for a free fall, while Reason waved red flags and yelled, “Are you crazy, get down from there!”
Maddie was in her pajamas looking in the hall mirror and readjusting her tiara.
“We’ll leave as soon as I’ve dressed your brother.”
“Okay.”
Elizabeth diapered and dressed Rocco while he sat on Zander’s lap, trying to ignore the way Zander’s biceps shifted and tightened as he adjusted his grip to hold the restless baby. Domesticity made him dangerously accessible.
“You’re good at this,” he commented, removing his tiara.
“These kids are close to my nephew and niece in age.” Her fingers were clumsy with buttons and tabs. “They stayed recently while my sister was having a house built.”
“That’s right, I had to go through them the first time I phoned you.”
She smiled. “Sandy Free-something, I remember.” He helped her fasten the last snaps on Rocco’s jumpsuit. She could resist the rock star—just—but the kid charmer, the mommy whisperer… Thankfully, he was unconscious of it.
“Madison,” she called. “We’re ready to go. No need to come with us,” she told Zander as she reached for the baby, but he clung to the rocker.
“Someone wants me,” he said dryly. “Okay buddy, we’ll all go. Grab me some clothes, Doc, whatever you can find.” He started crooning to Rocco.
The man was killing her. Elizabeth grabbed jeans and a tee and shoved them into a bag. Zander could go commando because she was not fossicking for underwear.
An elderly woman already in the elevator blinked when they got in—Maddie in pajamas and tiara, Elizabeth in her damp blouse, and Zander, bare-chested in boardshorts carrying Rocco.
“I love your jewels,” she commented to Maddie, who preened. “And your cute tattoos,” she said to Zander, a twinkle in her eyes.
“I forgot about those,” he said dismayed. “How do I get them off?”
“Acid peel?” Elizabeth suggested innocently.
“Oh, face cream will do it,” the old lady reassured him.
“Is that so?” His gaze swung to Elizabeth, and she pressed the button for their floor.
“Are you having a nice stay?” she asked the old lady, and they chatted until they reached her floor.
“You have a darling family,” she said to Zander as the elevator doors closed.
His mouth fell open. “Tell me I don’t look like a father?” he begged.
Trying not to laugh, Elizabeth looked at the boardshorts, the kiddy tattoos and the clinging baby.
“Worse,” she said mischievously, “a good one.”
* * *
In Jared and Kayla’s suite, Elizabeth prepared Rocco’s bottle while Zander walked him, singing lullabies he must have learned in childhood. Every tender note undid her. When he’d given Rocco his bottle, sitting on the couch, and the baby had fallen asleep in his arms, she couldn’t resist.
“Thank you.” She bent to press a swift kiss to his cheek.
As she straightened, Zander curled his free hand around the nape of her neck.
“What are you—”
“Shush,” he warned, his mouth inches from hers. “You’ll wake the baby.” He kissed her with a controlled passion that thickened her blood with dark, hot lust and weakened her knees. She sank slowly to them, cupping his jaw to hold him in the kiss, his stubble a voluptuous rasp against the skin of her palm. Their bodies perfectly still, their mouths plundered and ravaged, the sleeping baby between them both a restraint and a permission slip.
A sound broke them apart.
Madison emerged from her bedroom carrying an armful of storybooks. “Story time!”
Elizabeth stared at Zander. His lower lip was wet where she’d sucked it and she longed to lean forward and lick and bite. “That’s great,” she managed, pushing shakily to her feet.
Zander said nothing as he continued to look at her with an intensity that made her want to strip naked or back carefully out of the room—she didn’t know which.
“Let’s read them in bed so we don’t wake Rocco,” she said to Maddie. “Zander,” with an effort she broke eye contact, “if you put Rocco in his cot, I can take it from here.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Was she?
“Which book do you wanna to read first?” Madison said slyly.
Elizabeth stared blindly at the pile. “Anything with a happy ending.” That would scare him off. She shot him a sideways glance.
“Happy endings are my favorite,” he said.
Oh. My. Lord. Her mouth went dry. Elizabeth struggled for common sense. “I meant ever after,” she clarified. Every step away was an exercise of will. “Good night, Zander.” Following Madison into her room, she shut the door firmly on temptation.
When she emerged thirty minutes later, the room was empty.
Elizabeth released a long shaky sigh and called it relief. She’d read all six of Madison’s storybooks, even though the little girl had fallen asleep halfway through the third—Dr. Seuss’s Oh, The Places You’ll Go.
“We’re not going anywhere near those places tonight, Dr. Seuss,” she murmured. And sighed again.
Once to satisfy their mutual lust, how could it hurt?
Two weeks ago she wouldn’t have asked the question, a month ago she wouldn’t have understood the question. Such was the impact of that impossible bloody man. Bending to pick a cushion off the floor, she torpedoed it onto the couch in frustration.
“Madison asleep?”
Elizabeth spun around. Zander stood in the doorway of Kayla and Jared’s bedroom, holding a damp towel and his boardshorts. He wore the clothes she’d collected, which meant—She stopped her gaze short of his jeans. “I thought you’d gone.”
“I took a shower and changed into dry clothes. I thought maybe you might take them off me.”
His tone was so conversational it took Elizabeth a moment to process his words.
“What?”
He dropped the bundle. “I think we’ve moved past being sensible, don’t you?”
She shrugged, conflicted. “I don’t know.”
“Doc, I’ve slept with a lot of women—”
“Be still my beating heart.”
“—and I’ve never wanted a woman like I want you.” Not for a second did she doubt his sincerity. The raw need in his eyes made her feel desired, feminine and powerful. “We have a rare chemistry, Elizabeth. You must know that.”
Every time their gazes locked, she lost more brain cells. Elizabeth bent to pick up toys, the better to think. “I’m sure the first experience of heroin is awesome too, until it leads to a place that’s very, very bad for you.”
“Because it becomes addictive?”
That’s exactly what she meant. “I can’t handle my love life being in the news.” She threw a ball into the toy basket.
“Then we’ll keep our affair secret.”
Needing clarification, she turned. “An affair, not a relationship?”
“Does that ease your mind?” He knew her so well.
“Yes,” she admitted, then feeling she’d conceded too much, she returned to cleaning up.
A fur seal toy squeaked as Zander’s arms closed around her waist. He pulled her back against his body. The shower hadn’t done anything to remove the scent of strawberry and the contrast of warm, male muscle and bubble bath was as disarming as a stick of dynamite rolled in glitter. “I like you, Elizabeth—a lot—and I need you as my biographer,” he murmured against her ear. “I’d hate to jeopardize that and we both know I make a lousy boyfriend. An affair keeps things simple.”
Nothing about Zander was simple. Dropping the toys, she leaned into him. “We’re surrounded by people, press. How could we keep it secret?”
“We tell nobody, lower the risk of a leak.” Warm lips trailed slow kisses along her neck. “Outside closed doors we don’t touch ever.”
He reached the tender spot below her ear and lingered, raising goose bumps. Closing her eyes, Elizabeth tilted her head to give him better access.
“I meet all your relationship criteria.” The rich timbre of his voice stroked and seduced. “I’m someone you can manage and you’ve got your exit date.”
“Wait.” She opened her eyes. “How are you someone I can manage?”
“You’ve set the pace, haven’t you?” With a groan, he turned her to face him. “Do you realize I haven’t had sex since Auckland because I’m obsessed with you?”
“Oh, Zander.” She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. “You call two months celibacy?”
“You know what my lifestyle has been. But just because I’ve never been in an exclusive relationship doesn’t mean I’m incapable of it.”
“Stormy—”
“Told me what I wanted to hear.” He added wryly, “You would never do that. And you don’t have crazy expectations that I’ll suddenly change from thoughtless and arrogant to sensitive and sharing.”
Even tormented over a decision, Elizabeth had to laugh. “And I thought you and I were different species.”
He smiled. “You do have something in common with Stormy. You’re both givers, only you know how to set limits.” He added, completely seriously, “I won’t hurt you by being myself.”
Sometimes he stepped into her heart as if he belonged there and it was taking her longer and longer to show this trespasser the door.
“It’s not rocket science to work out that an open relationship would be a deal-breaker for you, so I’ll be exclusive while we’re involved.” His blue eyes were very intense, “Hell, I’m nearly forty, Doc; I don’t make all my decisions with my dick anymore.”
“In the spirit of full disclosure,” she matched his solemnity, “libido might be a driving force for me. I haven’t had sex in over a year.”
The roguish twinkle she loved reappeared. “So you’ve been relying on self-service. One day I hope you’ll let me watch.”
Elizabeth conjured a vivid image of him lounging in a chair as she’d first seen him, hands held loosely on his lap and his eyes hot and roaming as she pleasured herself. Light-headed, she sucked in some oxygen.
Zander’s pupils flared. “You’re killing me.” Dropping his hands from her shoulders, he dug them into the pocket of his jeans. “Make a decision.”
She wanted another taste, another touch. She wanted to stop thinking and be with him. “Maybe once we could do it.”
“Okay.” Behind his neutral tone, she suspected he was laughing at her.
Now that she’d made the decision, Elizabeth felt as jumpy as if she’d drunk too much coffee. She folded her arms. “Isn’t this where you say, ‘Baby, with me once won’t be enough’ or ‘Zander Freedman goes all night’?”
“I have a confession,” he said. “I figured if you said yes, I’d embarrass myself before we really got started so I jerked off in the shower. But if you need to be flippant about this, go right ahead.”
She began to feel desperate. “I need you to be flippant about it.”
“Elizabeth.” He spoke her name low and tender. “Relax. Two kids are sleeping in the next room and their parents could show up any second. The good times can’t roll until our babysitting duties are done.”
“Oh, that’s right.” Her panic subsided, she felt silly.
“That leaves you plenty of time to change your mind.” Zander caught one of her curls and slid it through his fingers to straighten it. “And you’ve only agreed in principle.” He released the curl and it corkscrewed against her cheek.
Elizabeth’s nervousness dissipated. “You’re making fun of me.”
“Hell, yeah.” Lifting her chin, he tilted her face this way and that, inspecting it. “You haven’t even turned scarlet yet, woman.”
“Wise guy.” He’d scrubbed off Madison’s tattoos, but she could see the faintest outline of Girl Power on his left cheekbone.
She kissed it, then his mouth, unable to help herself. Fell down another rabbit hole. Yes. She craved this. Their bodies molded together, breast to chest, thigh to thigh, groin to groin. When the kiss ended, they were both breathing hard.
“We could make out while we wait,” she suggested.
“Work on my ability to delay gratification.”
Elizabeth steered him backward toward the couch. “Clothes have to stay on.”
“Absolutely.” The gleam in his eyes suggested she was missing something.
“And we stay vertical.”
“Way ahead of you.” She didn’t understand what he meant until she landed on his lap.
Zander grinned. “What’s up, Doc?”
She laughed as Zander readjusted her position so she sat astride him. His erection pressed intimately through the barrier of their clothing and made Elizabeth feel like a babysitter taunting her sneak-in boyfriend. But the kisses, dear heaven, silky and rough, tender and slow, weren’t those of a callow teenager. The man was an artist with his kisses.
His hands skimmed under her skirt, easing her closer. His thumbs traced slow circles on her inner thighs. Combined with the hard press of his cock between her legs the sensation was exquisite. Not an artist, she decided. A torturer, a sadist.
With a gasp, Elizabeth moved against him. Her body wasn’t something under her control anymore, taking what it needed, shamelessly, wantonly. Except this wasn’t the place. “We need to stop,” she insisted, but her body moved.
Zander’s pupils were black moons, surrounded by a sliver of blue dawn.
“We’re delaying my gratification,” he said huskily, “not yours.”
She forced herself to stop, hot and wet and frustrated. “This is crazy, we can’t…”
He cupped her bottom, started her moving again. “When I was in the shower, working my cock, I imagined you.”
Her breath grew ragged; helplessly, Elizabeth shook her head.
“I want to see your face when you come, I want to see you lost in pleasure.”
She was almost sobbing now, craving it so badly. “I can’t, here.”
His fingers slid under the elastic of her panties, along her swollen cleft, while his other hand cupped her bottom and rocked her gently. Zander lifted his finger and tasted. “Come for me.”
Elizabeth broke apart, throwing her head back as an orgasm shuddered through her body. Catching Zander’s face between her hands, she kissed him passionately, recklessly. “Fuck me,” she whispered hoarsely, reaching for his zipper. “Now.”
Zander shoved her aside so fast she was sitting in a panting, untidy heap on the couch before she could process the change. Yanking her skirt into place with one hand, he slammed a cushion against his groin with the other.
“I heard a noise.” Maddie wandered in, rubbing her eyes against the light. “I thought Mommy and Daddy were home.”
“Not yet,” Zander croaked.
The little girl peered at him. “You rubbed off your tattoos,” she complained.
“You can give me a tattoo on my arm tomorrow. I won’t take it off.”
Elizabeth finally found her voice. “Let’s get you tucked up in bed.”
“But I wanna stay—” Madison swung toward the sound of a door opening. “Daddy!”
“Hey pumpkin, what are you doing up?” Swinging her into his arms, he glanced, puzzled, at Elizabeth and Zander. “Where’s Kayla?”
* * *
“She went to join you,” Zander said, cushion still pressed strategically. Elizabeth had got him so wound up, his erection was taking forever to subside. “Didn’t you see her?”
“No, but she might have left a message.” Carrying Madison, Jared walked toward his bedroom. “I left my cell here.”
He reappeared frowning, his phone to his ear. “Damn. She couldn’t get into the venue, so she met up with Dimity and Stormy.” His expression darkened as he kept listening. “Let’s get you into bed, pumpkin, Daddy needs to call Mommy.”
“I wanna talk to Mommy too.”
“Great, we’ll disappear.” Elizabeth sounded choked. Head down, biting her lip, she shoved Zander toward the door, not even noticing he still held the cushion against his crotch. Fortunately, Jared didn’t either, intent on making his call as he carried his daughter to bed. “Thanks, guys,” he called, distracted.
Zander left the cushion inside the front door. Of course Elizabeth would be deeply embarrassed. Even he felt a twinge at nearly being caught fornicating by a four-year-old.
“You okay?” he said gently, looking at her bent head as they waited for the elevator.
Shoving a hand against her mouth, she looked up, giggling helplessly.
Wait. What?
“Oh my God, that was priceless.” She was laughing so much, she could barely stagger into the lift. “How old are we?”
Lifting the hem of his T-shirt, she wiped her eyes and Zander was almost offended. Wait, I’m the one who took this seriously? He shivered at the cooler air on his abdomen and Elizabeth fisted the fabric in her hand and reeled him in.
“That was fun, right?”
“Yeah,” he stared at her, disoriented. “Fun.”
As soon as the metal doors closed, she kissed him, sliding her hands under his T-shirt and across the planes of his stomach, up to the nipple ring. She gave it a light tug and the sensation went straight to his groin. Smiling into his eyes, she whispered teasingly, “Everyone should get a happy ending.”
Zander felt dazed. His survivalist instinct suggested it would be a great idea to think about all this, but then she skimmed a hand over his cock, restricted in his jeans, and he groaned, growing hard again. Her face was flushed, her lips rosy, and her expression wickedly playful as she stroked him.
“I expect you’ve made out in an elevator before?”
“Yeah.” But it wasn’t you.
“I haven’t.” She unzipped his fly.
His little puritan, his buddy, his biographer put her mouth on him. Shocked, seduced Zander fumbled behind for the handrail and gripped. “I’m in trouble.”
He didn’t know he’d said it aloud until Elizabeth paused to look up at him. “You want me to stop?”
Conflicting impulses darted around his brain. “No.”
By the time they tumbled through the door into Zander’s suite, they were both panting.
“I want to do everything,” she said, hot and sweaty and wild, a devil-woman. “This is such fun.”
Fun. Right.
Naked, she was beautiful with a sweet curve of waist, small, rounded breasts and womanly hips. She spread her legs for him with a wanton’s smile and a touch of intellectual coolness that was so essentially Elizabeth, he lost his mind.
He loved the way her eyelashes fluttered closed when they hit the sweet spot, the way she softly bit her lip to stifle a moan. Rolling on his back, Zander brought her astride him.
“I know what you’re doing,” she accused, breathing hard.
“Doing?” he said innocently.
“You’re showing off.” Her gaze lost focus as he lifted her hips, slid her down again. Oh yeah, just so. Elizabeth curled her fingers over his shoulder, lustful and savage with her hair a riot of tangled red. “Two can play that game.”
“Give me what you’ve got, babe.”
She slid her hands up his chest, traced the savage edges of his tattoo, with fingers and tongue. Zander shivered and surrendered.
She did nothing differently from other women he’d had sex with, and yet the experience seemed completely new. Because it was her.
He began experiencing the same sensation he got performing—the boundaries between himself and the audience blurring and dissolving until they were—
Zander invited Elizabeth to call a halt anytime if she was having second thoughts.
She told him to shut up and concentrate.
In desperation, he talked dirty.
Elizabeth talked dirty right back.
He joked, “Don’t fall in love with me now.”
Doc laughed and told him he was safe.
She broke him down piece by tiny piece until Zander couldn’t catch and contain every feeling that didn’t fit with how he lived. Until every touch released new, deeper emotion. And every emotion connected him to her.
When he was conscious of nothing but the catch of her breath, her heat clasping him, the scent of their sweat and the drum of his heartbeat, Elizabeth leaned forward. Her siren’s hair falling around him in tendrils of red, she looked into his eyes. “Come for me,” she ordered.
Powerless to resist her, he did.