Heat Wave (13 page)

Sections of the
Boston Globe
and
the
New York Times
lay scattered across the dining table. A crooked pile of
folders sat on a side table, next to a mug with an inch of cold
coffee in it. The room reminded Meredith of Caleb himself—nice
looking, if a little rumpled.

He gathered her into his arms and took her
mouth in another deep, long kiss. When they finally broke apart, he
whispered, “Am I rushing you? We could…I don’t know, eat dinner
or—”

“Rush me,” she murmured. If they slowed
down, her brain might start functioning again. The song would fade
from her mind, losing its power over her. She’d stop burning. The
heat wave would recede.

 
That would be a good
thing. A sensible thing. A proper thing, and she was supposed to be
a proper lady. But damn it, she’d already starred in a stupid
cell-phone video topless. She was already up to her neck—or at
least her nipples—in trouble. Thinking was the last thing she
wanted to do.

Caleb clearly didn’t need any more urging.
He took her hand once more and led her to the stairs. They climbed
to the top floor, then down a short hall to the room facing the
ocean.

His bedroom.

It was marginally less tidy than the great
room downstairs. Several books stood in a teetering pile on one
night table, an empty glass on the other. A T-shirt was draped over
the arm of an upholstered chair in one corner. The curtains stood
open, displaying another bay window and another French door opening
to another terrace.

Meredith flashed on a picture of herself and
Caleb sitting on that terrace, wrapped in bathrobes, sipping coffee
and watching the sun rises over the water. They would be smiling,
their hair bed-messy, their naked feet touching. A gentle wind
would rise off the water to caress them.

Not that she had any expectation of waking
up in this room with Caleb. Surely her mind would return to her
before they could spend the night together. This was…a one-off. A
moment of madness. The dangerous undertow of a heat wave, capturing
them in a powerful riptide, pulling them deep into a sea of
passion.

Shifting her eyes from the panoramic ocean
view, she surveyed the rest of the room. A teak dresser, one drawer
open a half-inch, on its surface an e-reader sitting atop a pile of
journals. Above the dresser a mirror, framed in matching teak. A
closet door, open a crack, a pair of battered sneakers wedged
against the jamb, looking as if they were trying to escape. A beige
area rug. Chocolate-brown bed linens. A ceiling fan above the
bed.

He spun her to face him, then kissed her
again. And then all she saw was him. His dark brows and lashes. The
dimple punctuating the left corner of his mouth. The sharp edge of
his jaw. His hair, his neck, the golden hue of his skin. His eyes.
His lips.

Even with own her eyes closed, she saw every
detail of him. It was as if her fingertips were trained to see. As
she traced his shoulders, her mind conjured a vision of their
breadth. As she reached up to caress his chin, she pictured the
rough stubble of a day’s growth of beard. His tongue tasted faintly
of beer and mint. His embrace engulfed her in simmering, scorching
heat.

Without breaking the kiss, he tugged the
already loosened knot of his tie until it came undone, then tossed
the contoured strip of silk across the room and got to work on the
buttons of his shirt. Meredith dropped her hands from his chin to
grip the edge of her blouse and lift it up. They had to stop
kissing long enough for her to pull it over her head, but as soon
as she was free of it Caleb’s mouth was back on hers, nipping,
nibbling, drinking her in.

Still kissing, he reached behind her and
plucked the hook of her bra. She slid her hands the length of his
chest from his shoulders to the waistband of his trousers, his skin
practically singeing her fingertips. She felt sleek muscles,
arching ribs…and heat.

He unfastened the button of her skirt, then
the belt buckle beneath his navel. Her skirt and his trousers fell
to the carpet together, as if synchronized. Underwear gone, shoes
gone, and two long steps brought them to the bed. They tumbled onto
it, still kissing, touching, sighing, groping.

Meredith was tall, but Caleb was taller, his
body hard in all the right places and steaming hot everywhere. He
rolled her onto her back and propped himself above her, gazing down
at her. He looked dazed, intoxicated, his skin damp. A quiet groan
escaped him.

That one faint sound expressed everything
she was feeling. Need. Yearning. Helplessness. The keen, sweet pain
of arousal.

He bowed to kiss her throat. He flicked his
tongue along the twin ridges of her collarbones. He slid lower,
kissing one breast and then the other, twirling his tongue over her
nipples, savoring each one. Her breasts—the part of her anatomy
that had caused her such problems this past week—seemed only to
delight him. His kisses burned through her. His hand slid between
her thighs, probing, teasing, entering. She sent a vague prayer of
gratitude heavenward, thanks for being a woman capable of feeling
such pleasure, and then she did her best to return the pleasure,
trailing her hands down his back, over the rock-hard contours of
his buttocks, along his narrow hips and forward. She circled her
fingers around his erection, stroked, and smiled when he groaned
again.

He rose from her and she heard the rattle of
a night table drawer being opened. He unrolled a condom over his
length with one deft hand, then kissed her again, kissed her and
stroked her, kissed her and stroked her until she forced him on top
of her, her legs wrapping around him, taking him.

He thrust hard, and this time they groaned
in harmony. Good lord, was sex really supposed to feel this
amazing?

She clung more tightly to Caleb, drawing him
closer, deeper. Their bodies arched, rocked, pulled, pushed, shared
an intimate rhythm. It was as if they’d done this an infinite
number of times, as if they’d known each other longer than forever.
This was their heat, their waves, the burning in their hearts.

And then she climaxed, her orgasm tearing
her apart. Caleb was with her, pulsing, trembling, sinking as the
waves slowly ebbed and the heat misted their bodies.

Neither of them moved for a long moment.
Caleb lay heavily on top of her, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable
weight. She savored the strength of his legs resting between hers,
his knees nudging her thighs, the pressure of his taut abdomen
against her belly, the tickling silk of his hair brushing her
cheek.

Gradually his breath slowed and he eased off
her, one arm wrapping around her and bringing her with him as he
rolled onto his back. He lifted a remote-control device from the
night table beside him, pointed it toward the ceiling fan and
pushed a button. The blades began to rotate, slowly at first and
then just fast enough to churn a gentle breeze down onto their
overheated bodies.

She rested her head against his shoulder and
he twined his fingers through her hair. “I think Heather should
represent you,” he said.

She wasn’t sure what she’d expected him to
say—not necessarily a declaration of love, or even a chipper
thank-you for a superb roll in the hay—but she certainly hadn’t
thought his first words would be about… “Heather?”

“One of my partners. Or Niall—my other
partner. Either of them can handle your business. They’re both
excellent.”

She didn’t need an excellent lawyer. Well,
she probably did—but she wanted it to be Caleb. He was the one
Henry had recommended, reputedly the best lawyer on the North
Shore. “I’d rather work with you,” she said, surprised to hear the
undertone of hurt in her voice.

“I can’t have sex with a client, Meredith.
It’s not ethical.”

“You
did
have sex with a client,” she
pointed out. Did he regret that?

“And I’d like to have sex with you again.”
He brushed his lips against her brow, and she felt a little of her
tension wane. What he’d said qualified as at least a little bit
romantic. “I’d feel more comfortable about that if I wasn’t
representing you.”

“You aren’t,” she pointed out. “Didn’t you
advise me to ride out the storm until some other video surfaces and
makes everyone forget about my video?”

“I also advised you to view the video and
see if you could identify anyone in it. It doesn’t matter,” he
concluded. “I gave you my best legal advice. That makes you my
client.”

“I don’t see a problem with that.” She
wanted to remain in Caleb’s bed, in his arms. She also wanted him
to remain her attorney. Why did he have to be so damned
ethical?

The thought made her chuckle. She felt his
head shift on the pillow; he craned his neck to peer at her. She
gave her head a slight shake, not wanting to explain her silly
thoughts.

Actually, she didn’t want to think at all.
Or talk. She just wanted to lie here beneath the quietly whirring
fan and ruminate on the most satisfying lovemaking she’d ever
known.

She wasn’t terribly experienced. Nearing her
thirtieth birthday, she’d had only two other lovers. One had been
her college boyfriend. She’d dated him for more than a year before
they’d finally gone all the way. They’d been game, and very much in
love, but they’d both had to learn on the job, as it were. She and
Philip had learned a fair amount, though. They’d remained a couple
until the distance between her Teach for America assignment in
Massachusetts and his graduate work in linguistics at UCLA became
too great for them to bridge.

Her parents had hated
Philip. He was a northerner, raised a Quaker, of all things, and
linguistics had seemed to them a bizarre field to build one’s life
around. Besides, he had deflowered their darling daughter.
Deflowered,
she recalled,
suppressing a snort as she remembered her mother’s hysteria after
finding Meredith’s birth control pills in her toiletries bag during
her school break one Christmas. “He’s deflowered you!” As if Philip
had plucked a bouquet of daisies from Meredith’s crotch.

Then there had been Andre, when she’d
returned to school for her master’s degree in teaching. He’d been
ridiculously good looking and much more skilled in bed than she.
She’d learned a lot from him. But by the time she’d finished her
training and accepted a faculty position at the high school in
Brogan’s Point, she and Andre were no longer together. They’d liked
each other, but like wasn’t love.

She’d dated other men in between. She’d met
a couple of guys during her Teach for America days, and more
recently, her divorced neighbors in the Brogan Heights condo
community. But none of those dates had been anything serious.
Meredith didn’t have sex with men she wasn’t serious about.

So what was this? Was she serious about
Caleb Solomon? How could she be? She hardly knew him.

She knew he was smart. He was professionally
accomplished. He was sinfully sexy. And he’d heard the song, just
as she had. It had driven him mad, just as it had her.

Madness. That was what this was. A moment of
madness, because she and Caleb had heard that song.

She gazed up at the ceiling fan. The
rotating blades hypnotized her. The muted hum of the motor lulled
her. The breeze swirled down to caress her. Yet it failed to cool
her off. The heat wave continued to burn.

Blanche Larson phoned Caleb Monday
morning.

He hoped she had good news for him. He’d
arrived at the office in an edgy mood, his spirit a tangle of hope
and frustration.

After his bout of mind-blowing sex with
Meredith Friday evening, he’d assumed they would spend the weekend
together. He’d suggested dinner—true, his kitchen didn’t have much
to offer; he did his grocery shopping over the weekend, and by
Friday night his refrigerator was pretty empty. Meredith might have
considered that a blessing, since when it wasn’t empty, its shelves
held mostly microwave entrees, sandwich fixings and beer. A gourmet
cook he was not.

He’d proposed that they go out for dinner.
They could return to the Lobster Shack, or try something ethnic;
Brogan’s Point had two Chinese restaurants, a Mexican restaurant, a
few sushi places, Punjab Palace, and Italian eateries ranging from
exquisite gourmet to greasy pizza. Or they could celebrate their
mind-blowing sex with an elegant dinner at the Ocean Bluff Inn,
with its heavy linen table clothes, silver candlesticks, and
spectacular ocean views.

But Meredith had wanted to go home. “I have
to process this, Caleb,” she’d insisted. “I’m confused.”

Big deal. He was confused, too. They still
had to eat.

“Besides, if spending the night with you
means you can’t be my lawyer… Well, that’s something I have to
think about.”

He’d wanted to argue that Heather and Niall
were fine lawyers. And Meredith didn’t really need a lawyer,
anyway. The embarrassing video would make the rounds at the high
school and then evanesce, the way so many social media phenomena
erupted and then faded to nothing. And if she got screwed on her
tenure decision, Heather might be the better choice to represent
her. She could turn Meredith’s cause into a gender issue more
effectively than Caleb could. As Meredith had pointed out, men did
not get cited for running across a public beach bare-chested. Nor
did they wind up starring in YouTube videos simply because their
chests were exposed. Pair a righteously indignant teacher with a
righteously indignant female attorney, and you’d wind up with a
whole hell of a lot of righteous indignation.

“It’s just…” Meredith had nibbled her lower
lip, making Caleb wish he could nibble her lower lip, too. She had
delectable lips— sweet and pliant, not too plump, not too thin.
Beautiful, just like the rest of her. “I keep thinking,” she said,
“that maybe if we hadn’t heard that song, none of this would have
happened.”