20. Derek
20
DEREK
“ S he’s going to sleep in so late tomorrow,” I predicted after I checked on Naomi in bed.
Joining Claire in the large living room, I reclaimed my seat on the couch and picked up my glass of wine. She sighed, nestling back against my side.
In front of us stood the tree, glittering and twinkling with specks of bright lights strung “proportionally” over the branches. Naomi guided me and Claire on how to “precisely” and “correctly” lay the strings.
I knew it could bug Stacy sometimes, who was a control freak herself. And I wasn’t so biased as to think my daughter had no flaws. She was a control freak, and she could get a little bossy and sound uppity. But I’d never met another person who could take her attitude in stride like Claire did. She didn’t get annoyed. She didn’t get defensive or combative. Nor did she try to lecture or sway the discourse of the argument.
Somehow, she just knew how to get along with Naomi without catering to her demands.
It was an art. One I’d never really mastered too well without hiccups.
“It’s still?—”
“I know,” I groaned.
“To the left,” she added.
“But I thought the issue before dinner was that it was tilting to the right.”
“No. Stacy and I spun it when you guys weren’t looking. Naomi’s idea.”
Ah. That accounted for that mysterious surplus of needles on the floor.
“I think it looks good, though, not that I’m an expert,” Claire said.
“Everyone can be an expert. We’ve all had Christmas trees to compare to in the past.”
“My mom was a little bit of a stickler about them. Dad always teased about her wanting it to look picture perfect, like we were preparing for a magazine shoot.” She leaned back to face me with a sweet smile. “And she would argue that she couldn’t turn that side of her off. She was always hands on with staging homes for showings, back before Dad made the company that much bigger.”
“She was a realtor too?” I asked.
“No, just helped with staging and such. And she was good at it.”
We were quiet for a long moment, but I wanted to know more. Nothing was ever awkward between us. No silences or conversations. Earlier, when I told her that Naomi had told me that she wanted a mommy, Claire handled that somber topic with ease.
But each time we stopped talking, I feared that she’d ask what we were doing. If this was serious. When we’d decide to call this real and not fake. More than that, I worried that she’d put me on the spot and ask about the land I didn’t want to part with, the land I’d led her into thinking she could have for a deal.
It seemed like neither of us wanted to label anything, but I doubted we could ignore that discussion forever. I didn’t want to. I wanted to go to sleep with her in my arms knowing she felt—deep down and in her heart—the same way I felt about her.
“Is this time of the year hard for you?” she asked. “Jenna’s passing and all?”
“Yes and no. It’s hard when Naomi says she wants a mom, seeing all the whole, complete families at holiday events. And it reminds me of when Jenna was pregnant, so close to giving birth and… and all that fell apart from there.”
She stroked her hand on my chest, a gentle, soothing rub that comforted me. “She died from complications of that?”
“Yes. It came out of the blue. She bled out, and it happened so quickly, without warning, that we were all blindsided.”
“It’s hard when it’s so sudden. My mom was diagnosed with cancer, so we knew. But she might have recovered.”
I frowned, not following. I hoped tracing my thumb on her knee, keeping her legs over my lap, soothed her as she talked.
“She was in and out of remission. Yet not. Lab work was never clear. We all wanted to hope. But it was a car accident that took her life. We were prepared to lose her, but never like that.”
“I’m sorry, Claire.”
She sighed heavily, staring at the tree. “Drunk driver.”
I pressed my lips to the top of her head, hoping that holding her close would help somehow.
“It’s that suddenness. That flip of a switch. The change of one minute into the next. So much can happen so quickly, but the aftermath lasts forever.”
“I’ll always miss Jenna,” I said. “But with that, I’ve realized that she’ll never be gone. I see her in Naomi. I feel her in my memories.”
I felt the rise of her cheek with a smile on my chest. “I know. I’ve often thought that too. I am reminded of my mom in so many ways, and it comforts me. It’s been years, but I still haven’t lost sight of the good she gave me in life.”
“The first couple of years were the hardest,” I admitted, “but now that I look back on it, they really did flow by so fast.”
“I imagine being a single parent does that.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I had a heck of a learning curve to deal with. But it displaced my grief, too. I was in survival mode, focusing on Naomi. I didn’t let myself get lonely or wallow in the loss. It was when Naomi was older that it really started to hit hard. When she became more self-sufficient, time dragged slower and I would think more about the loss.”
“Look at us, talking about pacing again,” she mused.
“Grief has no set timeline,” I said.
“No.” She exhaled a long breath. “It doesn’t.”
“Damn, did this get depressing,” I admitted.
“I didn’t intend to talk about such a heavy topic.”
I guided her to climb onto my lap. “But I didn’t mind. I like talking to you. Opening up to you.”
She leaned in to kiss me, taking my wineglass and setting it on the side table as she straddled me closer. “I like spending all this time with you too.”
Between kisses and exploring touches, we left the heavier topic of loss behind and focused on the present. On us. It wasn’t as though I were replacing her with the memories of my wife. And it didn’t seem like she was getting turned on because she was desperate for an escape from talking about losing her mother.
It just happened. Naturally and instinctively. I was drawn to her, and she was just as needy for me.
“That thing about time,” I said as I slipped my hands under her sweater to treat myself to the silky smoothness of her skin.
“Yeah?”
“It can go so fast,” I said as she kissed along my neck, holding onto my shoulders as she ground into me.
“Or slow,” she teased.
“It’s hard to believe we’ve only just met,” I told her between hard breaths.
“Bizarre,” she agreed.
“But it feels so right, Claire. When we’re together…”
She nodded, letting me see the feral lust shining bright in her eyes. “Yeah. I know.” She silenced herself with a hard kiss. I grunted against her open mouth, so swayed with desire that I held her tighter, never wanting to let her go.
Digging my fingers into her sides, I urged her to work with me as I stood. She got the message. She understood that I wanted to move us off the couch.
Wrapping her legs around my waist, she clung to me as I picked her up and carried her. This was becoming a habit, taking her into my room. We were getting used to this, sneaking in here when Naomi slept.
This time, I let Claire down to stand as I closed and locked the door, and she continued to show me the pace she wanted.
Fast and frantic. It hardly mattered if we rushed to get naked. It just promised that the encore would be slower. We were that desperate for each other, that insatiable for one another.
Her lips stayed flush to mine, warm, wet, and greedy. But as she walked toward the bed, urging me to move with her, she unzipped and lowered my pants. She dropped to her knees, stroking her fingers up and down my dick, but I grinned and stepped out of her reach.
“Hey!”
“It’s my turn,” I argued playfully, leaning down to toss her onto the bed.
“You had your turn yesterday, and I want?—”
I kissed her hard, removing her pants. Leggings were so easy. One tug and they went.
“Let me be greedy,” I growled against her lips as she kicked her pants and panties off. She held my face, breathing hard as I wrestled her sweater higher. “Let me be greedy and take what I want.”
She nodded, smiling as she leaned up to get her sweater and bra off.
Then I sat back, feasting my eyes on the present I’d just unwrapped.
She was my gift. My blessing.
And I wondered how I could tell her that she was the Christmas wish I hadn’t realized I’d been waiting for.
“Derek?” She reached up for me, and I sighed.
Maybe this time could be an exercise of showing, not telling. Because when I confessed that I’d tricked her into fake dating me, I had to be prepared for losing her from the damage of my lies.
“Take all you need from me,” she said breathily, spreading her legs wider and lifting her arms higher to embrace me as she lay there.
I didn’t need to be told twice. Lowering to kiss her, I set out to show her how much I wanted to give her, too.