“Go make brownies?”
“Okay.” Erica reached for her clothes and Clay sat up, stunned until she burst out laughing. “Your face! Oh that was precious!”
“Ha.Ha.” Clay grabbed her and pinned her down on the seat, holding her wrists above her head while he tickled her ribs and under her arms, making her howl with laughter.
“Bad girl,” he chastised, kissing the tip of her nose. “That’s what bad girls get.”
Erica pouted. “I thought bad girls got spankings.”
Clay’s eyes brightened. “You asked for it…”
“No, no!” Erica protested, twisting from side to side under him so he couldn’t reach her bottom. “But wait… do that again, what you were doing before…”
He frowned. “What?”
Erica put her wrists above her head. “Hold my hands up here. By my wrists. Yes, like that.”
“Now what?”
“Now put it me.”
Clay eagerly complied. Erica sighed happily, feeling him slide inside of her, taking the weight of him, the heat of him, so hot inside she felt like the core of the earth pulling him toward her center.
“Oh Erica,” he whispered. “Oh God that feels so good. I can’t stand it. I can’t…”
“Hold me down,” she whispered, urging him with her voice, her hips, “Hold me down and take me. Yes, like that. Do whatever you want to me, Clay. I’m totally yours. Do whatever you want.”
“Oh God!” he exclaimed, hand tightening around her wrists, hips thrusting deep, deeper, deepest, Erica taking all of him at the end, feeling his final release not just between her thighs, where he was spilling his seed like a white river of molten liquid, but in the way he squeezed her wrists in his hands, with the same rhythmic pulse, keeping her locked in his little prison of pleasure.
“Mmm.” Erica kissed his cheek as he started to come back into his body. “That was a very good lesson. I learned how to throw newspapers and you…”
Clay lifted his head and looked down at her. “And you have newsprint all over you.”
Erica glanced down to see his handprints on her thighs, her waist, even her breasts. The ink from the papers had rubbed off on his hands and then rubbed off on her skin.
“Something to remember you by.” She giggled. “Now you’d better take me home. I have to meet my best friend at Hudson’s tomorrow to pick out a wedding dress, so I need my beauty sleep.”
“No you don’t.” He kissed her nose and shook his head. “You couldn’t get any more beautiful. If you did, my head would explode.”
“Well we can’t have that. I hate cleaning up messes.”
“That explains the swallowing.”
Erica laughed and punched him in the arm.
Chapter Seven
“Erica?” Leah hesitated in front of Erica’s bedroom, calling softly. She rapped on the door-such a foreign gesture. Before things had gotten so complicated, Leah would have just walked into her room and climbed in bed with her best friend. But they weren’t just best friends anymore. Leah was about to marry Erica’s father, and whether they liked it or not, whether they talked about it or not, that changed everything. Erica’s mood changed like the wind lately. One moment they were the best of friends, the next you’d have thought Leah was responsible for all of the failings of the Western world
“Go away!” came the muffled reply.
Leah sighed, knocking again. “Erica, can I talk to you?”
Rob could sleep through a nuclear blast, but since Grace was born, Leah had slept lightly and she’d heard Erica leaving the warehouse late at night, coming back in the wee hours of the morning. Leah knew the pattern well-she’d done it herself when she was sneaking out to meet Rob. Erica clearly had a new love interest, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that it was Clayton Marshall Webber III.
“It’s almost noon. Are you going to sleep all day?”
Leah heard Erica’s gasp and a moment later the door flew open and Erica stood there in a pink satin robe, holding the ends together with one hand, her hair a tousled mess, eyes bloodshot. Without makeup to cover it, Leah could see the dark circles under them.
“What time did you say?”
“Noon,” Leah repeated, watching Erica bolt to her dresser, rifling through her clothes.
“Shit!” Erica stepped into a pair of panties, pulling them up. “I’m late!”
“For what?” Leah sat on Erica’s bed like she used to, looking around the familiar room, everything frilly and pink. “I thought we could go to lunch at Hudson’s. I wanted to buy you jewelry to wear for the wedding. As my bridal gift.”
“Can’t today.” Erica hooked her bra, pulling a white sweatshirt over her head, making more of a mess of her blond hair. “Have you found a place to have this shindig yet?”
Leah sighed, shaking her head. “I hate to go to the Justice of the Peace. I don’t know how in the world I’m going to plan this wedding on such short notice. I may have to give up the idea, I don’t know. How are we going to find a reception hall on this sort of a notice? It will have to be the fastest wedding planned. You’d think I was pregnant or something!”
Erica snorted. “And what about invitations?”
“Well as soon as we know when and where!” Leah rolled her eyes. “Rob said he’d have a courier hand deliver them if he had to, in order to save time. Tomorrow we’re going for the blood test and to apply for the license.”
“Blood test,” Erica muttered. “Right.”
Leah frowned, hesitating before asking, “Erica, where have you been sneaking off to at night?”
Her friend paused as she reached for her dungarees. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Come on, you can tell me. We’re best friends, remember?” Leah reminded her, watching Erica pull on her pants. “Is it that boy Clay, the one you invited to Christmas dinner?”
“If you must know… yes.” Erica scowled, grabbing a hairbrush off her dresser. “But don’t tell
Leah flushed, shaking her head. “I won’t.”
“I know better.” Erica scoffed. “Now that you’re getting married, you’ll tell each other everything.”
“Why are you so mad at me?” Leah wondered out loud. “Is it because I’m marrying your father? Because I thought we were over that…”
“Over it?” Erica snorted, yanking the hairbrush through a tangle. “Yeah I’m over it. Besides, he’s not my father. And you are most definitely not my mother.”
“What?”
Erica opened a jar of cold cream on her dresser. “My mother wasn’t even my mother, so as far as I’m concerned, none of you can tell me what to do.”
Leah sat up straight, frowning at her friend’s reflection in the mirror as she spread white stuff over her face. “What are you talking about?”
Erica rolled her eyes. “Look, I know you’re living in your own little world right now, and everyone’s walking on eggshells trying to protect you, but God, Leah, you aren’t the only person in the world. You’re not even the only person in this house.”
Leah’s heart felt like it was beating in her throat. “What do you mean Rob’s not your father?”
“You know the blood test which proved he wasn’t your father?” Erica asked, using tissues to wipe away the white cream on her cheeks.
Leah nodded. She had been so grateful to Father Michael for volunteering to do some digging while she was still at Magdalene House and see if he could prove, one way or the other, if Robert Nolan was her biological father, as Leah’s mother had initially claimed. The test had mercifully come back conclusively ruling him out as her biological father.
