The Cocktail Collection Read online

  “I’m hardly just someone. I think I rate a little higher than that,” he told the side of my neck, which he was now feathering with the tiniest of kisses. “So, are you going to say hi to your boyfriend who flew all the way across the globe just to show you his hammer, or are you going to punch me again?”

  “Not sure yet; I’m still a little freaked out. My heart is literally racing, can you feel that?” I asked, pressing his hand over the left side of my chest.

  Only so he could feel my heart. Yep. That’s the only reason. Heart was in fact delighted to have Simon home early; she loved a good romantic reunion. Other areas were delighted as well.

  “See now, I thought it was racing because of me,” he said with a low chuckle, dipping his nose along my collarbone as he “felt my heart.”

  “Dream on, Wallbanger,” I said, feigning indifference. The truth? My heart was now in Simon mode, and it was pounding for him. And speaking of pounding.

  “So you came home early just to see little ol’ me?” I breathed into his ear, sneaking a wet kiss just underneath it. His hands dug a little deeper into my hips as he shifted on the bed.

  “I did.”

  “Think you can help me with this turtleneck?”

  “I do.”

  “And then after that, you wanna show me your hammer?” I asked the front of his T-shirt, nuzzling at him, positioning my legs on either side of him. In answer, he thrust up and let me feel that very hammer. I chuckled. “Mmm, am I gonna get nailed?”

  He lifted my turtleneck off, then unsnapped my bra and my breasts tumbled out, causing his eyes to flare, then focus with precision. “No more questions,” he directed, sitting up underneath me as he pulled me closer.

  I mimed zipping my lips just before he flipped me over onto my back. God, I loved this man.

  His lips danced along my collarbone, nipping occasionally with his teeth in a way he always knew got me warm, fast. I got it; I’d missed him too. Arching my back, I pressed my breasts against him, twisting and turning to bring me into contact with him as much as I could be, my skin needing to feel his. After a year, he could still bring me to my knees in seconds with one touch, one kiss, one look.

  I pushed back against him, flipping us once more and pulling at his jeans. “Off, now,” I instructed.

  When his belt was gone, his buttons unbuttoned, I pulled apart his jeans to find that once more my man had gone commando.

  It’s like he was put on earth just to make me come out of my skin.

  I snuck one hand inside, grasping him firmly, feeling how warm he was; ready to take me on my own trip around the world.

  “Fuck, I missed you,” he breathed, his body lean and taut. I slid down the bed, kissing and licking at his skin hungrily. His hands came up to my face, fingers fluttering along my cheekbones, sweeping my hair back. So he could watch.

  I took him into my mouth, entirely. His hands clutched at my hair, freezing me in place, holding me exactly how he wanted me. “Mmm, Caroline,” he moaned, thrusting ever so slightly. Slightly, my ass—that wasn’t how this show was going down.

  I pulled back then took him in again, hard. Using my hands I caressed him, alternating my touch so he never knew quite where I was coming from, using my tongue and mouth to tease and tempt him, coaxing the sweetest dirty words out of that sent-from-heaven-mouth of his. That mouth that I knew would exact the sweetest dirty revenge all over my body.

  I loved him this way, loved that I could make him this insane. But just before he got too far gone, he pulled me up his body and took my panties off before I could say, hey, those are my panties.

  Then he pushed up my skirt, nudging my knees apart with his own. Gazing down at me with those piercing sapphire eyes, he ran his fingers over me, through me, making me groan and moan and shake and shimmy. “So gorgeous like this,” he breathed as I cried out.

  “Need you, Simon—need you, please!” I was ready to tear my hair off my head and throw it at him, if I thought that would get him inside any faster.

  Any further thoughts vanished as he slid home. Thick, hard, and ten kinds of fantastic were all I knew the second Simon pressed inside me. “God, that’s amazing,” I moaned, the feeling of him filling me overwhelming me.

  And when he rolled us so I was on top, and he thrust up hard inside me, it was perfection.

  Until afterward, when we lay in a heap of sweaty limbs, and he asked me how I liked his hammer.

  Then it was beyond perfection.

  chapter two

  The next morning, I crawled out from under a sleeping Simon. After a second round of hammer time, when he collapsed on me, spent and . . . Wait a second. You know in romance novels, when they say the guy collapses on top of the girl, spent and exhausted? Take that, add a transatlantic flight, and then you have what happened to Simon. He literally collapsed onto me, sated and jet-lagged. I barely had time to set my alarm before 190 pounds of warm boy collapsed on me and wasn’t letting me up.

  But when you go weeks without that same 190 pounds in your bed, the truth is, it felt kind of nice to sleep underneath that. Or at least, off to the side just a little bit. I loved him, but I loved my kidneys too.

  After attending to Clive, I quickly showered. By the time I was dressed, he was at his post in the front window, making sure the neighborhood was still out there. Pulling my damp hair into a ponytail, I took a moment to admire Simon, sawing logs in lumberjack land. Dark messy hair, made messy by my own hands, fell across his brow. Strong nose, killer cheekbones, a few days’ worth of sinful scruff and full lips that had chanted my name several times just before he . . . Mmmm.

  I took another moment to appreciate the still life in front of me: stretched out, arms above his head, torso long and lean, and nothing between him and that sheet but a promise.

  I shook my head to clear it, then crossed the room and sat next to him. In his sleep, he mumbled and reached for me. Smiling, I let myself be caught into a sleepy bear hug, kissing him on the forehead until those gorgeous blues opened into mine.

  “Morning, babe.” I grinned as he pressed against me more fully. I knew this game. I didn’t have time for this game. “No, no, I gotta go. The girls are waiting for me.” Breakfast with my two best friends, Mimi and Sophia, was something I always made time for, Wallbanger or no Wallbanger.

  “Girls? Where do you think you’re going? I just got back,” he complained, still half asleep.

  “I’m having breakfast with the girls. You weren’t supposed to be home until tomorrow, remember?”

  “But I’m here now,” he mumbled, his eyes struggling to stay open.

  “You stay here and get some more sleep. I know how tired you are,” I whispered, kissing his forehead once more and tucking him back under the covers. Which really was a shame, because, come on, Simon on a bed? It seemed a sin to cover any of that up.

  But as he scrunched up his pillow and settled back in, he sure seemed cozy. With a deep sigh, he said, “I’ll stay here and get some more sleep.”

  I bit back a laugh as he slipped back to dreamland.

  I made my way toward the front door, nodding at Clive as I put on a jacket. “Everything look good out there today?” He looked back out the window, then back at me again. He blinked, then I’m pretty sure he shrugged.

  I grinned and left my boys to go have breakfast with my girls.

  • • •

  “I’ll have two eggs scrambled dry, whole wheat toast with peanut butter, a cup of berries, and a coffee, please.”

  “I’ll do the egg-white omelet with spinach, tomatoes, and feta, no toast, and the strawberry smoothie, please.”

  “I’ll take the large waffle platter with blueberry syrup and whipped cream, please, side of bacon, side of sausage, and a chocolate milk. And could I please get a side of rice pudding also?”

  I’d been having breakfast with Mimi and Sophia ever since our freshman year at Berkeley. The three of us knew each other exceedingly well, so much so that we could tell what kind of a mood each w
as in based on our orders at the diner.

  Mimi and I looked at each other with raised eyebrows as Sophia ordered and then went back to making a town out of the jelly containers. It was quite elaborate, with several buildings already. I shrugged as Mimi inclined her head toward Sophia, trying to get me to broach the subject.

  “Stop talking about me and get me the jellies from the table behind you,” Sophia snapped, looking up from her Jelly Town. I rolled my eyes but grabbed the jellies.

  “Here you go. Make sure you put a roof on City Hall there.” I nodded toward the recent addition.

  “No, Caroline, that’s City Hall down there. Right now I’m working on the fire station,” she huffed.

  Mimi’s eyebrows disappeared into her hairline. “Okay, that’s it. I’m staging an intervention,” she cried, reaching over to sweep the town off the table.

  “You touch that jelly and I’ll punch you in the throat,” Sophia warned, her mouth set in a grim line.

  “Ladies, let’s not get violent so early in the morning, shall we? I haven’t even had my coffee yet,” I said, just as the waiter brought my coffee. “Okay, never mind—fight it out, you two.” I laughed, leaning back in my chair.

  Sophia stuck her tongue out at Mimi, which carved a small smile into her tiny face. Mimi was darling as always this morning, clad in a plaid miniskirt, kneesocks, and a turtleneck sweater. Give her some pigtails and a backpack and she’d look like a Filipino schoolgirl—an outfit I’m sure her fiancé, Ryan, would love.

  Yep, Mimi and Ryan were engaged. Like a scene from a romantic comedy with a twist, Mimi and Sophia had met their knights in shining sweaters on the same night. Best buddies to my Simon, Ryan and Neil had fallen head over feet for my ladies. After a little switcheroo, mind you. So between Jillian and Benjamin, and now Mimi and Ryan, wedding fever had hit my little circle in San Francisco.

  But part of my circle was broken. Broken up, rather.

  As Sophia and Mimi bickered, I noticed again how tired Sophia looked. She wasn’t sleeping well—not that I could blame her.

  When she first told us that Neil had cheated on her, we didn’t know what to do. Our first instinct was to set fire to his car, something Simon wisely talked us out of. Arson charges are a hard thing to have following you the rest of your life.

  For a brief and crazy moment we considered breaking into the studio during one of his broadcasts and telling his viewers that they got their sports news from a cheating dick, but again, wiser heads prevailed.

  So Mimi and I simply stood by our friend as she fell apart.

  It started when I got a call from Sophia late one night, after midnight. She was swearing nonstop; sailors all over the world would have been proud. I could only catch occasional phrases like “asshole cheater” and “the nerve of that fuck” and “balls are in my pocket.” By the time she walked over to my apartment and came up the stairs, the swearing was beginning to calm down and the tears were falling fiercely. She pushed away my offer of tea, sucked back some scotch, and told me what had happened. By the time Mimi made it over, it was all out on the table.

  Neil had had dinner with an old girlfriend; dinner turned into after-dinner drinks; after-dinner drinks turned into kissing. Or a kiss, depending on who was telling the story. Regardless, that’s what caused her to flush his car keys down the toilet.

  We were all stunned. They’d seemed so happy; perfectly matched and twisted in the best of ways. Neil was the local sportscaster for NBC, great looking, sweet, lovable, an all-around great guy. Who was a cheater, something no one saw coming.

  She broke up with him immediately, livid. She refused to see him, refused to take his calls, refused any attempt through Simon or Ryan to have any contact with him at all. She was mad, then got really sad, and now she was . . .

  Well, it was weeks later and she was sitting in a diner in her pajamas with her gorgeous red hair in straggles around her puffy face, wearing no makeup and fifteen extra pounds, and was making a town out of jelly. A musical child prodigy, she was a cellist for the San Francisco Symphony. One of the most beautiful and accomplished women in all of San Francisco was now making it snow in Jelly Town. God, no—not with dandruff, but with sugar packets.

  “Sophia stop, stop—stop!” I yelled, grabbing her hand and spraying sugar snow everywhere. “This is enough. No more pouting, no more hiding. This is ridiculous!”

  “Yeah!” Mimi chimed in.

  “Seriously, this has gone on long enough. I don’t want to go all Afterschool Special here, but my God, woman, wash your hair!”

  “Yeah!” Mimi added.

  “You’re fucking hot, and you’re fucking great, you’re a fucking catch. And if fucking Neil doesn’t get to have you anymore, who cares, because you’re fucking awesome,” I finished.

  “Fuck, yeah!” was Mimi’s contribution.

  The table fell silent. Sophia played with one last sugar packet, running it along her fingernails, then stopped to really look at them. Bitten down to the quick, jagged, polish peeling. She sighed, and then looked up at us, two big tears rolling down her cheeks.

  “I hate him,” she whispered, drawing a shuddering breath. “And I miss him.”

  “We know, sweetie,” Mimi said, drawing Sophia’s hand into hers.

  I leaned over and gave Sophia my napkin, which she used to wipe her eyes. She looked down at her sweatshirt, rumpled and stained.

  “I kind of stink,” she said with a grimace.

  “We know, sweetie,” Mimi said again, which cracked a smile out of Sophia for the first time in a while.

  A little pink crept back into her cheeks. She pulled a ponytail holder out of her purse and wrapped her messy hair back into a bun, out of her face. She glanced up as the waiter came to bring our food, her eyes growing huge when she realized the mounds of food she’d ordered. Once he had left, she unfolded her napkin and tucked it in her lap.

  “Okay, no more wallowing. I ordered it, so I’ll eat it. But starting this afternoon, no more wallowing includes no more eating like a thirteen-year-old boy.”

  “Boys that age have to eat like that. They have to keep up their strength for their many boners a day,” Mimi said matter-of-factly, separating her blueberries from her raspberries, then lining them up on the side of her plate like tiny cannonballs. Sophia and I stared at her as she went on to explain the extreme impact of boners on the social lives of junior high boys. As related to her by her fiancé, apparently an expert.

  “Ryan really told you all this?” I asked as I sipped my smoothie.

  “Yep, he said when he was that age, he couldn’t keep his hands out of his pants for the life of him,” she prattled, oblivious to the attention the table behind us was now giving her.

  “You and Ryan sure seem to share a lot,” Sophia said, shaking her head incredulously as Mimi demonstrated a particular “technique” that had been employed by the teenage Ryan.

  “Okay, okay, no more!” I protested, waving my hands. “It’s enough that I won’t be able to look him in the eye next time I see him; no more yanky-wanky details. Let’s change the subject— Who has news?”

  The gossip section of breakfast had officially begun.

  “Okay, I’ll start. I found out the Palace of Fine Arts is available; looks like that’s where my reception will be!” Mimi sang.

  “Jillian asked me to head up the team bidding on the Claremont Hotel redesign in Sausalito,” I offered.

  “I’ve spent the last three weeks in a dark cloud, so I got nothing. But did you know that my hair is long enough that if I lean back far enough I can sit on it?” Sophia volunteered.

  We chewed.

  “I had a client ask me if I’d mind organizing her porn collection,” Mimi said.

  “I might have ordered a porn collection at three in the morning a few days ago,” Sophia told the inside of her sweatshirt.

  “Simon came home early last night and surprised me. So I had some live-action porn.”

  “He came home early? Wow, that’s
impressive. Seems like lately he’s been traveling more than usual,” Mimi commented, eating the cannonballs in alternating order. Blueberry. Raspberry.

  “Yeah, he has been busier than normal. What can I say? My boyfriend is the darling of the photography world.” I grinned, flushing when I thought about how sexy he looked when he was working.

  “I don’t know how you guys do that, be apart so much. I’d die if I didn’t see Ryan every day—I’d just die!” Mimi exclaimed. Blueberry. Raspberry. “I don’t know how you don’t miss him like crazy!”

  “Of course I miss him—some weeks it’s really hard. But this is who he is, this is how he’s always been, and we make it work. Honestly? Sometimes it’s kind of great: I have my time, he has his time, and then when he’s home, it’s our time.” I swiped my finger through a little bit of Sophia’s whipped cream, barely evading the tines of her fork. “Anyway, I like the idea that we’re not a couple who has to sleep together every night. Admit it. Don’t you sometimes miss having the bed all to yourself?”

  Mimi instantly began shaking her head, while Sophia just avoided eye contact.

  “Okay, change of subject again. Let’s talk about the wedding. The wedding of the century”—I started, then backpedaled as soon as I saw Mimi’s look—“at least until Mimi here takes that mantle. Until she does, though, Jillian is going for it! And wait until you see Benjamin’s tux. Good lord, the man can wear tails like nobody’s business.”

  At the mention of Benjamin everyone perked up, even Sophia. The category of sexy older man had been created specifically with him in mind, and we all sighed together.

  “Anyway, we gotta start thinking about dates for you, young lady. Who are you thinking about taking?” I asked, looking at Sophia. She turned white.

  “Ah shit, I didn’t even think about that! Neil’s going, isn’t he?” she asked, her expression panicked. She looked down at herself, then back up at us. “Ack, I can’t let him see me looking like this! What’s he going to think? He’s gonna think I’m, like, on the floor in a puddle over him!”

  Mimi started to interject, but I placed a hand on her arm and shook my head as Sophia went on.