“Anytime,” Alex said, touched by his big brother’s faith in him. “Hey, anytime.”
“Well, don’t go mushy on me,” Max said. “Now let me give you some advice about Nina.”
Nina. Alex groaned and fell back against the couch again. “There is no advice. I have known that woman for three months. If she was at all interested, she’d have said so by now.”
“No, she wouldn’t have,” Max said. “She’s ten years older than you are.”
Alex glared at him. “That doesn’t—”
“Not to you, it doesn’t matter,” Max said. “It does to her. Women do not handle turning forty well.”
Alex looked at him with contempt. “And you know this because of your vast experience in dating hundreds of women twice.”
“No,” Max said, sounding not at all perturbed. “I know this because I’m a gynecologist.”
“Oh,” Alex said. “Right.”
“Forty is when they start rethinking plastic surgery,” Max said. “They look at magazines and see all those damn seventeen-year-old anorexics in push-up bras, or they go to the movies and see actresses with tummy tucks and enough silicone to start a new valley, and then they look at their own perfectly good bodies and decide their sex lives are over.”
Alex thought of the Jell-O mold conversation he’d had with Nina a couple of weeks back and winced. “Oh, hell.”
“And if you tell them their bodies are normal and attractive, they think you’re being nice,” Max finished. “Sometimes, I swear to God, I’d like to set fire to the fashion industry. They’re screwing with my women’s heads.”
Alex raised an eyebrow. “Your women?”
Max looked philosophical. “I like to think of all women as my women. I’m just here looking out for them.”
Alex nodded. “The way you couldn’t look out for your mom when Dad dumped her.”
Max pointed his last beer at Alex. “Don’t try to be Freudian. It’s not only useless, it’s out-of-date. Think Jung.”
“I don’t want to think young. That’s the reason Nina won’t look at me now.”
Max looked at him with disgust. “And you wonder why I drink when I’m around you.” He finished his beer and put the can on the table. “I haven’t met Nina, so I’m sort of working in the dark here, but my guess is that if she’s spending that much time with you, she’s interested.”
“We’re friends.” Alex picked up his beer again, needing the alcohol. “She likes me.”
“Well, that’s a hell of a good start, Alex,” Max told him. “What you have to do next is kiss her.”
The thought of first Nina’s mouth, soft and pink, lips parted, and then of his mouth on Nina’s mouth, hot and hard, was such a jolt to Alex’s system that he shivered.
“Boy, you’ve got it bad,” Max said.
“I can’t kiss her,” Alex said, recovering. “She’d slap me silly and never let me back in her apartment.”
Max shook his head. “Nope. You just have to pick your moment. Sooner or later, if she’s interested at all, she’ll give you an opening. It may be just a little one, just the way she holds her head when she looks at you, or a hesitation at the door, but she’ll give you one.” He picked up his last beer and leaned back. “And then, my boy, you take it and run with it.”
Alex thought about Nina and the way she always looked over his shoulder when they watched movies. Sometimes he’d turn his head and her mouth would be so close, he’d almost go for it until he’d think of the look that would be in her eyes if he tried it: startled, insulted, upset. Nope. “I’ll lose her. One wrong move and I’m history up there.”
“Wait for it,” Max said. “There’ll be a moment, trust me.” He took another drink. “There’s only one real problem.”
Alex closed his eyes. “Only one? I see about twelve.”
“When you finally get your shot,” Max said, “don’t blow it. You’d better be the best damn kisser in North America, or she’s going to remember the ten-year difference and say no.”
“Thank you, Max.” Alex drained his beer and cracked another one. “I’m going to drink these next two beers and throw up now.”
“You can do it,” Max said. “Hell, I did it under a lot worse circumstances.”
“Did what?” Alex sat back with the rest of his beer. “Kissed North America?”
“No, seduced an older woman.” Max smiled, remembering. “Betty Jean Persky.”
Alex swallowed more of his beer, trying to remember Betty Jean Persky. “I have no recollection of this woman.”
“She was a senior, I was a freshman,” Max said. “They said it couldn’t be done.”
Alex frowned. “You’re talking about college? Hell, Max—”
“I’m talking about high school,” Max said. “And if you think ten years is a big difference now, you try getting a senior cheerleader to look at you when you’re a freshman science geek.”
Alex thought about it. “You may have a point.”
Max nodded. “That’s what I’m telling you. You pick your moment, and then you make damn sure she’s never been kissed like that before.” He shrugged. “Of course, I was a damn good kisser even at fifteen.”
Alex nodded. “I remember you practicing on the dog. So how did you get Betty Whosis to kiss you?”
“Kissing booth at the Spring Boosters Carnival,” Max said. “I paid a buck.”
Alex grinned at him. “And?”
Max grinned back. “And that was the last time I paid a buck to kiss Betty Jean Persky. Hell of a set of lips, that Betty Jean.” He grew reflective. “Helluva summer before she went off to college. She’s a prosecuting attorney in Columbus now.” He shook his head. “I do remember her fondly.”
“I don’t think Nina is going to volunteer for a kissing booth,” Alex said.
“Well, then, you’ll just have to wait until she volunteers for something else,” Max said.
UPSTAIRS, a couple of hours later, Nina had her own problems.
“Really, Guy,” she told her ex-husband. “I’m fine. It was a bad cut, but the ER stitched it up. I’m perfectly okay.”
“Nina, if you were at the emergency room, you weren’t perfectly okay.” Guy sat relaxed on her couch, tall, dark, handsome, sure of himself and annoying as hell. “I was stunned when they called my office for your insurance number. My wife in the hospital and nobody calls me until the next day?”
“Ex-wife,” Nina said automatically. “They shouldn’t have called you but they got confused. And I’m fine. See?” She held her bandaged hand up in front of her. “All fixed up and taken care of. Thanks for coming by, but—”
“But you’re not taken care of.” Guy leaned forward, earnest and patronizing. “You can’t take care of yourself, Nina. You never have. You need someone to look after you. That’s why I kept up the insurance after the divorce. I knew you wouldn’t think to get any. See, I’m still taking care of you. You need me.”
He looked very smug as he spoke, and Nina repressed the urge to throw something heavy at him. It wasn’t his fault he was convinced she couldn’t exist without him. She’d spent a good part of their marriage convinced of the same thing. She felt sad for him suddenly, for the boy she’d married so long ago and laughed with so long ago and made love with so long ago, a boy who’d worked night and day until he’d grown up to be a successful suit without a sense of humor. That was one of the many good things about Alex; no matter how successful he became, he’d never lose his ability to laugh.
Poor Guy.
She shook her head at him. “I did get insurance through Howard Press, Guy. I’m covered. I appreciate it, but I’m covered. And I can take care of myself perfectly well. In fact, I have ever since the divorce. I like taking care of myself.”
“Yes, I’m sure you do,” Guy said, obviously not listening to a word she’d said. “And now that you’ve proved that to yourself, I think it’s time we talked.”
Nina gave up on tact. “We have nothing to talk about, Guy. We?
??re divorced. We’re not supposed to talk.”
Guy looked deep into her eyes. “I think we could make it work again, Nina.”
Nina gaped at him. “What?”
“I was wrong, I know that.” Guy looked honestly guilty and honestly miserable. “I had a midlife crisis, and you got fed up and left, and I understand that I wasn’t paying enough attention to you. I nearly ruined everything, I understand that. But I’m over that now, and I think we could make it work this time.” He leaned closer. “I’ve changed.” He reached across the space between then and flicked a curl off her forehead.
Nina jerked back. She’d left him because she was fed up and wanted a new life, and he’d still managed to turn the divorce into something about him. Amazing. She tried not to glare at him. “You can’t mean you want us back together.”
“Yes.” Guy gazed into her eyes. “I didn’t realize until I heard that you were hurt how much I’ve missed you. How much you need me to take care of you. How much I want to take care of you. And I know you’ve missed me, too, living in this tiny apartment with a dog, for heaven’s sake.” He looked at Fred with contempt.
Fred looked back at him with more contempt.
Guy gave up and turned to Nina and shook his head. “All alone. I don’t like to think of you alone.”
Nina closed her eyes. He thought she’d go back to him just because he asked. Well, that was Guy for you. He was ready to be married again, so she must be, too. “Look, Guy, I’m happy in this apartment. I like—”
“Living alone?” Guy finished for her. “Sleeping alone?” He smiled at her. “You liked sex too much to be happy sleeping alone now.”
Nina pulled back, indignant. “What makes you think I’m sleeping alone?”
Guy shook his head. “I know you, Nina. You’re not the type to have casual affairs. And let’s face it, it’s not easy for women of your age to meet someone new. The numbers are against you. There are more single women than men in their forties, you know.”
You smug bastard, she thought, but what she said was, “He’s thirty.”
Guy blinked. “Who’s thirty? You have a thirty-year-old lover? You’re joking.”
“Why?” Nina scowled at him. “You’ve dated younger women since we’ve been divorced. Compared to most of them, Alex is practically senile.”
“Alex.” Guy leaned back against the couch, his confidence in place again.
“Alex.” Nina nodded. “He’s a doctor. A resident at Riverbend General.”
“This is the kid you told me about, the one who lives downstairs, right?” Guy said. “You’re sleeping with your thirty-year-old neighbor.” He shook his head again. “Not you, Nina. You’re a lovely woman, but you look your age. And you know how people would talk. You’d never do anything that humiliating.”
Over by the window, Fred whined and scratched at the screen. “Excuse me,” Nina said with exaggerated dignity and went to let him out before she picked up a knife and eviscerated her ex-husband.
Humiliating, she fumed as she unlatched the screen. Well, that was just fine. It was liberating for him to screw around with twenty-somethings, but it would be humiliating for her to make love with—
Unbidden, the thought of making love with Alex leaped into her mind, and she stopped for a moment. It wasn’t unfamiliar after three months of dreaming about him, going hot whenever he was near her, all but leaping on him every time he appeared in her doorway, but for the first time it seemed feasible, something she might actually do. Seeing Alex in the ER the night before had jarred her ideas about him considerably. His hands had been so sure as he’d stitched her up, and he’d been so focused, so controlled. She thought of his hands again, and then she thought about them on her, unbuttoning her blouse, unhooking her bra…
And then she thought of her body, softened with age, everything lower than it used to be, lower than Alex was accustomed to, Alex who dated twenty-somethings with silicone embellishments. Even if he was interested in her, he’d only seen her clothed. She could hide a lot of flaws with clothing. But naked…
Guy was right. She looked her age.
“Nina?” Guy called to her, impatient, and she remembered his “humiliating” crack.
So, all right, maybe making love with Alex wasn’t something she could do, but Guy didn’t need to know that. It would be great if Alex would drop by and flirt with her. Okay, that was juvenile of her, but it would be great. Just long enough to make Guy wonder.
Fred whined again, and on an impulse, Nina grabbed a pen from the table and wrote “Help!” on his collar. “Go see Alex,” she whispered into his ear, and then she slid the screen out of the window. “Alex,” she whispered again as Fred tensed himself for his leap. “Alex.”
Then Fred jumped, and Guy moved off the couch and over to a chair by the window to join her while she waited for Fred to come back.
Twenty minutes later, Guy was presenting another logical reason why they should reconcile, and Nina was getting ready to go down the fire escape to look for Fred the Unreliable. If Fred had been Lassie, Timmy would still be in the well, growing gills.
“I don’t know where he got to,” she said, peering out the window. “He hasn’t done this since the first day I got him.”
“Will you forget that damn dog!” Guy scowled at her. “I’m telling you, I think if we saw a counselor, we could—” The pounding on the door stopped him in midsentence, and he turned, his scowl changing to a glare. “What the hell—”
“Nina?” Alex’s voice through the door was frantic. “Nina, open up. Fred’s collar—”
Nina ran to the door, threw it open and grabbed him before he could say anything else. “Alex! Darling!”
Alex stood in the doorway in Daffy Duck shorts and a white T-shirt that was on backward and inside out with the label sticking out like a flag under his chin. He blinked at her. “Darling?”
“Daffy Duck?” Nina said, looking down.
“Darling?” Alex repeated. “What’s going on? Fred’s collar—”
“Darling!” Nina said again and threw her arms around him, planting a quick, clumsy kiss on his parted lips to shut him up as she tripped against him. “I was just telling Guy about us.”
“About us.” Alex’s arms had gone around her when she’d thrown herself at him, and he looked down at her now and shook his head. “You told Guy about us. Well, I hope poor old Guy took it well.”
Alex’s arms felt great around her, but it was hard to think with him pulling her close. What were they talking about? Oh, right, Guy. Guy who was still there. Nina began to turn back to her ex-husband. “Well, actually, he’s still—”
“Because I’m not giving this up,” Alex finished and kissed her.
Nina froze for a moment when his mouth touched hers and his arms pulled her tight against him. She made a tiny sound and then her brain shorted out, and there was a rushing in her ears, but mostly there was just Alex, everywhere, his body against hers, his mouth on hers, everything about him wiping out reality. He pulled her closer, and she tried not to moan at the ache in her breasts as they squashed against his chest, and then he slipped his tongue into her mouth, and shut down all her thoughts and her knees went away. She grabbed at his shoulders and closed her eyes, and all there was in the world was the lush heat of his mouth on hers and the glow that pulsed from her solar plexus because he was pressed against her.
“Oh, God,” she breathed when he moved his lips off hers, nibbling his way across her cheek to her ear.
“He doesn’t look like he believes us,” Alex whispered in her ear, and the tickle of his breath made her shudder against him. “I think we’re going to have to have sex on the couch to convince him.” He began to pull her toward the couch, and Nina was so blasted with lust for him she would have followed him anywhere, but Guy cleared his throat.
“Oh, you’re here.” Alex peered toward the window at Guy. “Sorry. Thought we were alone.”
“Nina and I were discussing our reconciliation. Weren’t we
, Nina?” Guy’s voice demanded an answer, but Nina leaned against Alex’s chest, clutching him to her, still mindless from his kiss, and said, “What?”
Alex grinned down at her and tightened his arm around her, and she felt the heat flare again and breathed harder. Stop this, she told herself and turned her head to look at Guy. Looking at Guy was usually a complete turnoff, so that should help her get her mind back.
Guy was surveying Alex’s outfit with palpable scorn. “So this is what an up-and-coming young doctor wears these days, is it?”
“Only on his way to get laid,” Alex said cheerfully, and Nina shivered at the thought and he held her tighter. “Nice suit,” he said to Guy. “Bet it takes hours to get out of that.”
Nina tried to listen, but she didn’t give a damn what Guy said. He’d been irrelevant before, but now he was invisible. She had things to think about. Like why Alex had French-kissed her to impress Guy when Guy couldn’t have known the difference. Alex must have wanted to. Of course, he did like women in general. It didn’t mean anything in particular.
Don’t lose your grip here, Nina told herself, and then Alex moved his hand down her side to her hip, and the heat that small stroke generated in her made her dizzy all over again, and she let her head drop to his shoulder.
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Nina,” she heard Guy say from far away, and she said, “Mmmhmm,” not caring, and then the door shut behind him, and she was alone with Alex.
Nina tried hard to pull herself together. “Uh, thank you. That was—”
“Shut up, Nina,” Alex said, and kissed her again, and Nina leaned into him so eagerly that she gave up any hope of pretending to herself that she didn’t want him.
He had the most amazing mouth. She’d known since yesterday that he had surgeon’s fingers, but this was the first she realized he had a surgeon’s mouth. He could work miracles with that mouth. He could bring the dead back to life with that mouth. He sure as hell was bringing her back to life with that mouth. She wanted to tell him that, but to do that she’d have to take her lips off his, and she had no intentions of ever taking her lips off his, of losing that insanely glorious stroke of his tongue in her mouth, of…