In Too Deep (23 page)

She convulsed around his fingers,
moaning his name over and over. West stood, pinning her to the wall
to keep her from a boneless slide to the shower floor. Kissing her
again, the knowledge she would taste herself on his tongue almost
undid his resolve not to come like a horny teenager on his first
sexual encounter. Need roared through him at her dazed look when he
gently rolled the pebbled bud of her nipple before sliding his palm
over her soft flesh.

God, she was so damn
beautiful.

Piper’s eyes fluttered half shut
and she hooked a leg around his hip. Her hand snaked between their
slippery flesh, found him and stroked, her thumb circling the pearl
of moisture that wasn’t from the spray. She tugged him closer,
angling her pelvis so he nudged intimately against her.

“
Wait—condom.” With a groan West
eased her back, dropping his head to suckle on the nipple he’d
toyed with. “Don’t move. I’m not finished with you yet.”

“
I hope not.”

Pure male satisfaction zipped
through him at Piper’s shaky voice.

He stepped out of the shower,
dripping rivers of water across the floor into his bedroom. Sliding
open the drawer in his nightstand, he spied the small, rectangular,
and unopened box. Bingo.

While his impatient fingers
scrabbled over the cellophane wrapping, other sounds penetrated the
lust-fog in his brain. A car engine turning into his driveway.
Donny’s joyful greeting bark. A car door slamming and Ben’s voice
shouting, “See ya, Ford.”

Shit, shit, shit!

West dived back into the bathroom,
caught a glimpse of Piper stroking soap over the swell of her ass
and groaned. “Ben’s here.”

She looked over her shoulder with
huge eyes. “What?
Here
here?”

“
Downstairs, here. Ford just
dropped him off.”

“
Oh, crap. He’ll likely come up to
check on you—”

“
Exactly. I’ll divert his
attention while you swap bathrooms.”

Piper twisted the shower mixer and
the water cut off.

“
But what about you? What about
your…?” she waved in the direction of his cock, left splendidly and
uselessly waving in the breeze.

“
I think your brother’s arrival
will take care of that.” He cast one last longing look at the
bubbles sliding over her bare breasts, snatched a towel from the
rail and exited the room.

Fuckity, fuckity, fuck. He wanted
her so much he thought his head would explode.

Drying his body in four swipes of
the towel he hauled on a pair of shorts, just as Ben rattled around
in the downstairs hallway.

“
You better not have hogged all
that hot water, West. I know how you are in the shower.”

Blown away was how he’d been in
the shower. Blown away and about to have the hottest sex of his
life.

So the last thing he’d do before
he died of sexual frustration was to kill his best
friend.

***

Horniness and desperation
destroyed any sensitivity and understanding as West contemplated
sorting his parents out.

He strode down the hill toward Due
South, Donny trotting at his heels with a dumb, gleeful expression
on his ugly mug. Good for Donny. Donny wasn’t sexually frustrated
because Piper disappeared into his office and wouldn’t come out,
and her big lug of a brother had settled in for the afternoon at
the kitchen table doing accounts.

At least the rain had eased off,
the sun deigning to make an appearance. His steps slowed as he
approached the beachfront. Toddlers paddled in the gentle surf.
Girls sprawled on beach towels, and guys played with a Frisbee, or
tossed rugby balls back and forth.

A woman in oversized sunglasses
and a red bikini gave him a once over, her lips curling in silent
invitation. He could take her up on it, find his release at her
B&B or hotel room. Scraps of spandex hugged her full breasts
and even from this distance, the outlines of her nipples jutted
through the thin fabric.

He thought of the perfect handful
of Piper’s breasts and turned away. He didn’t want a nameless woman
to perform a perfunctory twenty-minute sex act with. He wanted the
connection he’d had with Piper. A bone-deep, all-consuming,
block-out-the-world connection that transformed what they’d done in
the shower from sex act to something else. Making love.

They walked to Bill’s place, Donny
making a half-assed attempt to chase a seagull before brushing up
against West’s leg with an inquiring stare.

“
Yeah, listen to me.” West
scratched the dog’s head. “What would I know about making love?
It’s just sex. Sex with someone you know is better than with a
stranger, right?”

And why ask his dog for an
opinion? Jesus, he was totally losing it. Time to pack those
thoughts into a mental locker and bolt it shut.

He tapped on Bill’s open front
door and without waiting for a reply, walked inside. “Yo, anyone
home?”

Once, the front hallway had been
scented with lemon furniture polish and the mysterious bowls of
dried leaves his mother religiously changed every few months.
Nowadays the hallway leading to the kitchen at the back of the
house stunk of damp wool and sweaty shoes.

Except today it didn’t.

Today no balled-up old socks lay
scattered in corners, no shoes piled around an empty plastic crate,
and no dirty mugs remained on the kitchen table as he entered the
room. The drapes were flung wide open and sunshine poured
inside—highlighting the absence of dust that usually coated the
cabinetry. Chugging, spinning noises came from the tiny laundry off
the kitchen.

His mother, stationed at the
kitchen sink, held up a mug with one pink rubber-gloved hand,
looking for stains to banish, no doubt.

“
Ah, there you are, Ryan,” she
said, like she’d just returned from a quick trip to Oban’s grocery
store down the road, instead of thirteen years spent in L.A. “I
wondered when you’d show up. Feel better after a
shower?”

An image of Piper riding the crest
of her orgasm flickered into his mind, but he caught it and stuffed
it back into the same mental locker. “Sure.”

Claire placed the mug on the
drying rack and peeled off the rubber gloves. She must’ve caught
him staring, as she said, “Bill’s never liked housework even though
he keeps his workplace spotless, so I came prepared.”

“
I can see that.”

She came around the edge of the
counter and before he could move out of the way her warm fingers
gently probed his temple.

“
Ow—hey.” He jerked away from her
touch.

She tutted, but didn’t reach for
his face again. “You’ve a cut there. I’ll just get my first
aid—”

“
Claire.” His tone halted her in
mid-turn.

She glanced back at him over her
shoulder. Deep grooves bracketed her mouth as her lips pinched
together. Hell, when had his mother gotten old? He prepared to
gentle his voice and explain that he didn’t need her to fuss, when
she cut in first.

“
I forget you’re all grown up. You
don’t need Band-Aids and a bit of candy to make it better
now.”

They studied each other for a
moment before Claire sighed and waved a hand to the door leading
off the kitchen. “You’re dad’s just having a rest. I’ll make
tea.”

West sat staring out the window to
the tiny yard, then back to the empty spot at the dining table
opposite where Del had fired green peas at his head in a silent but
violent war. Dad or Ma often caught them at it and half the time
joined in the battle.

That hadn’t happened much in the
last few years before his mother and brother left. Dinners were
terse blocks of time where his parents instructed him or Del to,
“Ask your mother to pass the butter,” or “Tell your father about
your weekend plans.” And if the two of them weren’t in a snubbing
phase, there were shouting matches followed by his mother’s tears
and his father’s stoicism.

Claire placed a steaming mug on
the table and then a plate of chocolate chip biscuits.

He looked up, incredulous. “You
baked biscuits.
Already
”

She shrugged. “I’m American, and a
mom. We bake and clean house in times of stress.”

West snagged one, dunked it in his
mug and bit off half. “Bill probably shouldn’t be eating
these.”

“
No. That’s why I’ve boxed up the
rest for you to take home.” While he worked through his second
biscuit, she added, “I could never understand why you’d ruin a good
cookie by sticking it in hot tea.”

“
It’s a Kiwi thing, like gumboots,
and the All Blacks. And we call them
biscuits
, not
cookies.”

“
Well, blow me down, ay? Good onya
mate, I’d best remember that while I’m here,” she said in a
terrible attempt at a Kiwi accent.

West swiped the last biscuit off
the plate. “Talk like that at the pub and someone’ll stick you on
the next ferry.”

Humor drained from her gaze as she
studied him across the table. “Like you, Ryan?”

He tipped his chair back on two
legs, part of him waiting to see whether she’d swat him on the
kneecaps like she once used to. Dragging both hands down his
stubble-roughened jaw, he tried to assemble his thoughts into
coherency after a blast of mixed emotions cartwheeled through him
by sitting there eating her damn cookies.

“
Why are you here, Ma?”

Instead of answering, she rested
her arms on the table. “What has Bill told you about his
health?”

“
That the specialist’s said his
kidneys aren’t working too well.”

“
It’s worse than that.” Her voice
was gentle. “Bill needs dialysis treatment—once a week to start
with—and we need to look into the possibility of a finding a donor
in the future.”

Bill Westlake, tough as a dried
out pot roast, the one constant in his life, the man who’d never
given up on him throughout his revolting teenage years, who made
him manager when he was twenty-five so he’d be his own boss—
his
dad
was sick enough to need a kidney transplant?

His chair banged down on all four
feet and he swore viciously.

“
So. To answer your question,
that’s why I’m here.”

“
To donate a frickin’
kidney?”

“
I’ll get tested to see if I’m a
match, but since I’m not a blood relative, the odds are slim. I’m
here to look after him—and to help out at the hotel if I
can.”

“
You didn’t have to travel
thousands of miles. I’ll see to Bill. You have a life back in
LA.”

Claire’s face crumpled and she
dropped her gaze. “Not much of a life since Lionel
died.”

Ah, hell. What was he supposed to
say? Sorry for the loss of the man you dumped me and Dad for? He’d
never met Lionel or Lionel’s daughter, Carly, his unknown
stepsister. On his one trip to LA in his early twenties, he’d
battled to re-establish some kind of relationship with Del, but he
refused to make contact with his mother and her new
family.

West braced for the histrionics.
“Yeah, that must’ve been hard.”

But his mother remained dry-eyed
and sipped her tea. “Yes, it was. I looked after Lionel until the
end and when Glenna phoned me to tell me how sick Bill was…I had to
come. I needed a break from all the memories in LA and I couldn’t
lose another husband.”

“
He’s your ex-husband.”

“
And a good man and right now he
needs me.”

“
He needed you
then
.” West
nailed her with a jab of his finger as his gut took him back to the
day he awkwardly hugged his mother and Del goodbye at Oban’s tiny
airport. “But you shed your husband and eldest kid like a fucking
pair of out of fashion shoes thirteen years ago. We don’t need your
bleeding-heart pity now.”

“
Enough, West,” Bill said from the
kitchen doorway. He plopped onto the seat next to Claire with a
gusty sigh. “Don’t talk your mother like that. We settled our
differences years ago and her being here is none of your
business.”

“
Your health makes it my business.
You’re head chef and Shaye’s not ready to step into your
shoes.”

Bill thumped a fist on the table
and glowered. “She won’t have to, boy, because I can still work
part-time on the days I’m not travelling to the hospital. And stop
talking about me like you’re about to shop for a bleeding
casket—I’m not dead yet.”

Both of his parents mirrored each
other’s folded arms and scowls. Since when did Bill side with the
woman who’d walked out on him?
On them?

West stood. “Well, if you’re
staying, I’ll take your bags up to my place. You can have my room
and I’ll take the sofa until we can figure something
out.”

Bill and his mother shared a
glance.

“
Your mother’s in the hotel at the
moment, but once I get some of the lads in to clear some of the
piles of junk from the spare room, she’ll sleep there.” Bill
said.