Between Sisters

Freddie served a beer and left again.

“I suppose you’re a baseball player. ”

He grinned, and damn, it was sexy. She felt the first twinge of desire. Sex with him would be great; she knew it. And it would make her forget—

I’m sorry.

—about her bad day.

“You know it. I’m gonna make it to the show. You watch. Someday I’ll be famous. ”

That was why Meghann gravitated toward younger men. They still believed in themselves and the world. They hadn’t yet learned how life really worked, how dreams were slowly strangled and right and wrong became abstract ideas instead of goalposts for all to see. Those truths usually hit around thirty-five, when you realized that your life was not what you’d wanted.

That, of course, and the

fact that they never demanded more than she wanted to give. Men her age tended to think sex meant something. Younger men knew better.

For the next hour, Meghann nodded and smiled as Donny talked about himself. By the time she’d finished her fourth drink, she knew that he had graduated from WSU, was the youngest of three brothers, and that his parents still lived in the same Iowa farmhouse that his grandfather had homesteaded. It all went in one ear and out the other. What she really focused on was the way his knee brushed up against hers, the way his thumb stroked the wet beer glass in a steady, sensual rhythm.

He was telling her about a frat party in college when she said, “You want to come to my place?”

“For coffee?”

She smiled. “That, too, I guess. ”

“You don’t screw around, do you?”

“I’d say it’s quite clear that I do. I simply like to be direct about it. I’m . . . thirty-four years old. My game-playing days are behind me. ”

He looked at her then, smiling slowly, and the knowing sensuality in his gaze made her engine overheat. This is going to be good. “How far away do you live?”

“As luck would have it, not far. ”

He stood up, reached his hand down to help her up.

She told herself he was being gallant. As opposed to helping the elderly. She placed her hand in his; at the contact a shivery thrill zipped through her.

They didn’t talk as they made their way through the now-dark and empty market. There was nothing to say. The niceties had been exchanged, the foreplay initiated. What mattered from this point on had more to do with bare skin than baring questions.

The doorman at Meghann’s building did his job wordlessly. If he noticed that this was the second young man she’d brought home in the last month, he showed no signs of it.

“Evening, Ms. Dontess,” he said, nodding.

“Hans,” she acknowledged, leading—Oh, God, what was his name?

Donny. As in Osmond.

She wished she hadn’t made that connection.

They stepped into the elevator. The minute the door closed, he turned to her. She heard the little catch in her breathing as he leaned toward her.

His lips were as soft and sweet as she’d thought they would be.

The elevator pinged at the penthouse floor. He started to pull away from her, but she wouldn’t let him. “I’m the only apartment on this floor,” she whispered against his mouth. Still kissing him, she reached into her bag and pulled at her keys.

Locked together, they centipeded toward the door and stumbled through it.

“This way. ” Her voice was harsh, gruff, as she led him toward the bedroom. Once there, she started unbuttoning her blouse. He tried to reach for her but she pushed his hand away.