Shaken (11 page)

“It’s a date.” He kissed her cheek and let her go. She stared after him while he headed up the street, wishing with every fiber of her being she’d gone with him.

“Zipporah, it’s freezing out here, and you’re mooning after that boy. It’s not very attractive.” And, with that icy splash, her mother brought her abruptly to her present predicament.

“I’m not remotely cold, Mom.” She looped her arm through her mother’s and led her inside the building. “And I didn’t know you were coming down today. We usually have lunch on the weekends.”

“Yes, but someone was far too busy for me on Sunday. With work.”

Oh ,boy. It’s going to be one of those conversations…. “Mom, I was busy, and I didn’t say it was with work.” Instead of heading for the elevator, she guided her toward the coffee shop on the opposite side of the lobby. It would be packed, but, hopefully, her mother’s interest in appearances would mean she’d keep her voice low.

Her mother found a table while Zip ordered. While standing in line, Zip took a moment to check her e-mail via phone in the vain hope her office was burning down so she’d have to run. But no such luck. In fact, she’d received no new e-mails in the forty-five odd minutes since she’d slipped out for a pretzel and coffee. What a wretched time for that miracle.

Resigned to her fate, she carried the cups of coffee over and sat with her mother. Anne Collins had stripped off her coat and gloves. “Is that young man someone I should be concerned about?”

Sucking in a deep breath, Zip fought to stay polite. “Not at all. And I’m not a teenager, Mom, so don’t treat me like one.”

“You were practically making out in the street.” She didn’t shout, but then she didn’t have to. Disapproval radiated from her.

“No, we were flirting, and our clothes were on.” And, since her mother didn’t want to be reasonable, Zip went for shock value. “Had we been at my house or in a more private location, I can assure you—making out would have been the least of our activities.”

Anne froze and stared at her. Her mouth worked open and closed, but no sound came out. “Zip,” she finally managed in a long hiss of air. “Really.”

Taking pity on her, Zip stretched forward and caught her hand. “Mom, I like him. I really like him. And I don’t work with him, we’re friends—” She was friends with Tony. They’d been friends for a while. Okay, maybe acquaintances, but still. She’d known him for a year—a year of welcoming smiles, thoughtful conversation and genuine caring.

Caring made them friends.

Friday night had made them so much more.

“Baby, you’re not acting like you.” Worry coated every word.

Squeezing her mother’s hand, Zip tried to reassure her. “I think maybe I’m acting a lot more like me than you realize. But it’s good, Mom—he’s good.” She did her best to make her mother believe it, too.

****

She’d been in her house long enough to toe off her shoes and dump her work bag and jacket when the doorbell rang. Pulling the door open in a rush, she squeaked at the speed Tony swept her up into his arms. There was nothing tentative about the kiss he claimed. Aggressive and hungry, he picked her up, and some distant part of her mind acknowledged the door closing and the distinctive snick of the deadbolt locking.

Striding up the hall, Tony didn’t stop until they reached the bed. Jerking off his knit cap, Zip sank her fingers into his hair and added a demand of her own. The low fire he’d stoked at lunch roared to life, and she was melting—and they were wearing way too many clothes.

Apparently, he agreed because he pulled away from the kiss only to tug at her shirt. A button popped and flew across the room. “Sorry,” he muttered.

Zip yanked his T-shirt out of his jeans. “I don’t care about the buttons,” she assured him, and the rest went flying when he jerked her shirt wide. Cupping her aching breasts, he teased her nipples through her bra and she didn’t know which one of them groaned. It wasn’t enough. She wanted skin. Pulling his belt out and fumbling with his zipper, Tony wrapped his hand around her nape and drew her in for another panty-wetting kiss.

Drawing back, he whispered, “On the count of three, strip, or I’m ripping the rest of your clothes off.”

“You get naked, too,” she ordered.

“One—”

“Two-three,” she finished in a hurry, and their clothes flew. Wild laughter surged up to collide with need until she was drunk with both sensations. They collapsed on the bed, and his hot palms began to massage her nipples, and she gripped the steel length of his cock. Their kiss grew desperate.

Tony apparently had other ideas because he caught her wrist and broke the kiss at the same time. “You said you wanted lips, tongue, and fingers earlier….” he reminded her. She tried to clench her thighs, and her sex flexed in anticipation, but he’d already begun his descent, kissing a languid path to one nipple and toying with the other.

Pleasure licked everywhere, but he continued his relentless, pleasurable assault down her belly to her sex. He rubbed a bristled cheek against the inside of one thigh, and her need ratcheted up a notch. And then he spread butterfly kisses to the tender skin at the juncture of her thigh to her body.

A long, low cry burst loose, and she pushed up on her elbows. He was killing her, and, judging by the delicious smile on his face, he knew it. He met her gaze and dragged one finger along the seam of her sex, teasing the labia apart, and tormenting her by coming perilously close to her clit, but not quite touching it.

“One touch?” he murmured. “Which one do you want?”

Half-crazed with it, she swallowed. “You.”

His breath teased across her sensitive flesh, and his mouth closed over her clit. Bliss exploded through her in the most intense orgasm. And then he did it to her again. By the time he abandoned her long enough to roll on a condom and thrust into her, she didn’t think she could move.

She was wrong—gloriously, pleasantly wrong. Every glide of his body against hers set off a new riot of sensation and, when he pitched her over the edge again, he followed her with a shout and a kiss that sealed his hold on her heart.

Floating to earth, she felt more than saw Tony slip away. The water turned on and then off. A moment later, he returned and pressed a warm, damp cloth to her sex and cleaned her gently and carefully. Opening her eyes, she stared up at him in wonder. “Hey….”

“Hey,” he smiled. “I missed you.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” Boneless—completely boneless. “You’re some kind of awesome, you know.”

“I was just thinking the same thing about you.” He eased off the bed and returned the washcloth to the bathroom. Zip tracked his progress.

“How can you move?” She would die happy if she never moved again—she didn’t think she could even if she wanted to.

“Hmm.” He brought a glass of water back with him and caressed her with a look, affection softening his eyes. “I have lots of inspiration to move. Thirsty?”

“Not right now.” Holding out her hand, she beckoned him, and he didn’t need much encouragement. He took a drink then set the glass on the nightstand before sliding onto the bed and pulling her into his arms. Snuggling to his chest, she pressed a kiss to his sweat-dampened skin.

He stroked her arm. “Hungry?”

“Nope.” She might be later, but she didn’t want to move. “I’m good right where we are—unless you’re hungry.”

“I could eat.” He tightened his grip when she began to rise. “But I can wait. It feels like forever since I had you here.”

Her stomach did that nervous, twisting thing. “Yeah, our pretzel lunch made it worse.”

A soft chuckle met her complaint. “Hey, everything okay with your mom?”

“You do realize talking to a girl about her mother while you’re naked isn’t a good plan.” Maybe deflection would work.

The bed shifted with his movement, and she lay flat with Tony staring down at her. “She didn’t like me. Moms have lots of influence with daughters. I think talking about it naked gives me my best shot to dissuade you from following any unfriendly advice.”

Her eyes widened, and, for a moment, she worried he was utterly serious—and then his mouth twitched. “Mom doesn’t like any guy I date.”

He squinted at her. “So not a big concern?”

“To be fair—I’ve dated some real jerks.” If he wanted to play, she could do that, too. Maybe it would quiet the anxious jitters tensing her muscles. “And we were right outside my office, and I was wondering how impractical it would be to find a dark corner and jump you right there.”

He rested his arms on either side of her head, his eyes intent on her. “Good to know we were on the same wavelength. And, if your mother doesn’t like me, that’s okay, too.”

“Yeah?” She bit her lip, because Anne made no bones about her dislike of any man in Zip’s life.

“Yeah. The only Collins woman I care about liking me is you.”

“Well, I think you’ve got that one in the bag…and the bed…and the—wooo!” She squealed when he dragged her up and tossed her over his shoulder. Hanging upside down, she stared at his very fine ass while he moved. “Where are we going?”

“To find out if you like me in the shower.”

It didn’t remotely surprise her that she did. An hour later, curled up together on the sofa, they nibbled on pizza. “It’s really not fair,” she murmured.

“What’s that?”

“You’re sexy even when you eat pizza.” She swiped at some escaping sauce.

“I think you’re biased.”

“Oh, I know I’m biased.” She stretched over and picked up her beer.

“So do you want to talk about your mother not liking me?”

Zip sighed. “It’s really not that big a deal.” Maybe he would accept that. She tipped the bottle for a long pull.

“Hey, I saw your face when she got there, and I noticed you trying to avoid the question. If I’m being pushy—tell me to shut up. But you’re important to me, and if your mother’s disapproval is going to make you unhappy, I want to know about it—I want to help make it better for her.”

Leaning her head back, she stared at the ceiling. “To understand, you have to understand my mom. She doesn’t like any men in my life because men are a passionate distraction.” Which sounded utterly ridiculous, but that was how she always put it. “Mom really loved Dad. I mean, really loved him. He was her everything. When he died, I think a part of her went, too. She got tougher. She had to be Mom and Dad. She had to work a lot to take care of me and my brother. She always put us first, and she wanted us to put ourselves first. Good careers. Solid foundations. I mean, I bought a house—I’m not married, I don’t have kids. An apartment would be fine, but, no, I bought a house because it was the sensible thing to do.”

Zip licked her lips and found Tony watching her, his attention laser-focused. “She doesn’t want me to get my heart broken or to do crazy, impulsive things I might regret.”

“I get that,” he said after a long moment. “She loves you.”

“Yeah, she does. And Veronica—and Jem and Kaley—even Lucy—they think my mom is too tough, too strict, too sensible. Maybe she is. But she also knew what passion was. I know she did.”

“And?”

Admitting the next would bare another piece of her soul. “And I want to know what it is, too.”

Catching her chin with his hand, he urged her forward and kissed her, lazy and slow. “You’re a complicated lady, Zip Collins—”

Nipping his lower lip, she winked and snuggled into the sofa with her beer. “And don’t you forget it.”

Her gaze tracked to the entry hall and all the work she’d brought home with her. But, the next night, Tony would be working, and she wanted to enjoy the evening she had with him. “Okay, enough about me and my mom. What did you do today?”

“Hey, I could take you to meet my parents if you want—”

Zip’s stomach bottomed out, and she stared at him. Was he serious?

When he cracked up, she wanted to beat him. Unwilling to risk the pizza, she snatched up a couch pillow and whacked him on the arm. “Mean. So mean.”

“Yeah, but you looked like I’d offered to execute you.”

“Meeting parents is serious stuff.” And she could say that because, even at thirty-one, meeting parents was very serious stuff.

“It seemed pretty damn serious this afternoon when I met your mom,” he reminded her, still grinning. “And it’s only fair. My mom would love you.”

“Okay, so if we run into your parents outside Coveted, I’ll meet them.” She put her plate and bottle onto the coffee table and crawled into his lap. The great thing about Tony was he wrapped his arms around her and snuggled her close.

He went quiet and then let out a little sigh. “I want to tell you a story, and I want you to listen to the whole thing, and then I’m going to make love to you until you can’t walk.”

“Okay.” The word shook on her tongue, and her nipples tightened. She didn’t think she’d ever get enough of the man. The liquid heat between her thighs became an inferno. It didn’t take much for Tony to turn her completely inside out.

“See, I know how to take charge. I grew up with a dad in waste management and a mom who taught at P.S. 122 for thirty years. She dealt with some of the hardest knuckleheads in the neighborhood, and you didn’t walk out of Mrs. Giordano’s class without an education or a goal that you wanted to achieve. She still gets letters from her students, telling her what they’ve accomplished and what they are going after next.

“My dad busted his ass sixty hours a week because they had five kids, and we all knew how to pull our own weight. My youngest sister is graduating high school in the spring, and she’s already got a full-ride scholarship to Yale. She’s gonna go to law school. My sister Tia is a teacher like Ma, and Jake’s in the Marines. He’s a commissioned officer. Mike’s a social worker married to the meanest little Italian lady you ever met, with two kids and a third on the way. My parents taught me from the beginning to think before I acted, to look at everything and plan it out, to check the consequences before I walked in a door because, if I wasn’t ready for ’em, I didn’t have any business doing it.” Tony blew out a breath. “When I was in college, I met Robin. She was fire and ice. Magic. She knew just how to get my motor revved, and she demanded a lot, but she was gorgeous and fun and everything I thought I wanted in a girl.”