Page 26 of Living at 40

“Don’t worry about the ice cream. I hate when Chloe enforces Lorna’s eating habits.” He air quotes the word enforces, further mocking the term as he speaks.

“Right? Who wants salad at eleven?”

Logan swipes a hand through his hair. “Chloe just worries Lorna will grow . . . large like I was and develop diabetes.”

“She’s not fat,” I blurt.

“It’s a sensitive issue. Even Lorna gets upset that she’s bigger than some of the other girls in her grade, but she’s also a year older than them with a late birthday, and she just has solid genes.” While Lorna might still have baby fat, puffing her knuckles and thickening her belly, she isn’t large by any means. She’s eleven. She’s healthy and active from what I’ve seen, and any concerns aren’t warranted. But I remember how I was when I was her age. I was fuller than others and self-conscious about it.

“Has she gotten her period?” I ask although that’s a bit intrusive.

“Not yet.” Logan looks at the ceiling. “God help me when that happens.”

“You’ll be fine,” I tease, stepping toward him. With his foot planted on the footrest and his knee pointed to the side, I step into his space. “You’re a great dad.” My hand lands on his chest, smoothing down his tee. As if I can’t control my own body parts, my palm lingers on the warmth seeping through the cotton and the firmness underneath that I witnessed on our first day at the beach. My fingers splay over his pec and stretch toward his nipple. What am I doing? However, I can’t seem to pull my hand away until Logan catches my wrist. Slowly, he lifts my hand for his face and presses a kiss to my palm.

“My nipples are sensitive,” he says in all seriousness while his eyebrows dance. Heat forms between my thighs. Logan lowers his fingers, reaching for the edge of my denim miniskirt, curling under the hem and playing with the frayed material at the edge. He’s also brushing his knuckles on the skin of my upper thigh, sending small currents of need straight to my core. It’s embarrassing to admit, but if his fingers drifted north under my skirt, he’d find me wet.

“Again, I’m sorry about the ice cream.” Needing something to do with my own hands, so I don’t grab his wrist and force his fingers higher up my thigh, I reach around him, leaning my breast against his chest as I stretch for an apple in the permanently stocked bowl of fruit on the counter. As I lean back, my eyes lower for his crotch, wondering if our nearness is having any effect on him like it’s having on me. The knuckles just under my skirt intensify their stroking, and I take a bite of the crisp apple, eyes still focused on his zipper region. Here’s the thing, Logan is tall—like six-four—and if he’s proportional, he has to have a long thing behind those shorts. I’ve experienced where someone isn’t proportional, and let’s just say the relationship was short-lived, every pun intended.

We remain quiet, although the sound of the crunching apple seems to echo around the kitchen. Logan watches me chew while I’m nearly salivating around the fruit on my tongue. I’m not a big one for giving head, but I really want a taste of him. I want to know if he’s salty-sweet and a little juicy as he hardens. My thighs clench, and Logan stills his fingers. We both breathe unevenly, staring at one another until he stands quickly. His hand rushes up my back and under my hair, curling around my neck, and my body is flattened against his. He leans forward, and I anticipate our mouths meeting.

“Logan, are you . . .” The sound of Ben’s voice stills time, and then we break apart. Logan knocks the stool back, causing it to screech loudly against the wood floor before colliding with the one behind it. I step away from him and drop the apple I was holding, feeling as if all the blood has drained from my veins and the use of my muscles isn’t something I can control. What was I thinking? I almost climbed on his lap right here in the kitchen and begged him to take me.

Briskly stroking his fingers through his hair, Logan’s eyes shift from me to over my shoulder, where my brother stands somewhere behind me.

“Yeah, I’m ready.” His hand drops, and he adjusts himself, which would normally be inappropriate, but it’s an admission. He was getting as turned on as I was. Stepping up to me, he leans forward and offers a chaste kiss to my cheek.

“See you later, beautiful. Behave yourself,” he murmurs before pulling away, and my eyes follow his retreat like a left-behind puppy.

“You too,” I whisper, fear filling my belly that he’ll meet someone younger, hotter, and easy to please for one night, and I’ll be left with all these roiling hormones. Not to mention my desperate need to use said hormones and work on making a baby.

The thought snaps me out of my lusty haze, and I turn my back on the guys as Logan follows Ben to the front door. Logan is not the man to sleep with me. I need a man who can let me go after giving me what I want, and I’m afraid I wouldn’t want Logan to leave if we’d done the deed.

+ + +

After another evening down on the beach, where I prove I can still do a cartwheel at almost forty—although I give myself a little vertigo from doing one—the girls need showers, and then we watch a movie. I’ve given Anna the night off, telling her to go do something for herself while I cater to two little beings full of giggles.

“I feel guilty not spending time with Mila,” Anna admitted. Calvin and Bryce have graciously agreed to take on Zack’s hellions and have them quarantined in the apartment above the garage for a night of video games.

“Let me do this for you. I love playing the greatest aunt in the world because I can always return her to you,” I teased. The truth is I don’t want to have to return children to their parents, as wrong as that sounds. I want a child of my own, to keep close to me.

As we watch some girly movie starring an actress I don’t know, I reflect on Logan’s interaction with Lorna. I realize one day a baby will grow into a teen and eventually leave me behind as my mother often complained Ben did to her. But I also accept that’s the way of things. If I do my job as a parent, I should be able to set the human being I’ve groomed and loved free into the world as a responsible citizen and decent person.

Considering the ice cream dinner, I question my ability to parent for a full three seconds. I’d never want to put a child in harm’s way. The fact I didn’t ask about allergies concerns me. There are a million factors that could go wrong in parenting. Not to mention, I’m aging, although I’m not ancient. Still, over thirty-five and pregnant is considered a risk, and I don’t like to think about how something might happen to my future child because I’ve waited so long to have him or her. The thought almost paralyzes me by the time the movie ends, and I’m saying good night to Mila and Lorna. I should seek out Anna, but she has enough on her plate, and this two-week holiday has already turned into a little bit of Autumn wants a baby more than Ben’s big hurrah.

Slipping into my room, I change into the loose boxers I wear to bed and a thin cotton camisole. The breeze coming off the beach is pleasant, and I keep the windows open, listening to the rush of waves echoing up the cliff as I climb onto my bed. I try to read, but my thoughts keep wandering, so I skip back to a favorite in my ebook collection and find a section that’s hot torture. My sex pulses. My thighs clench, and I slip my fingers down my belly and into my shorts. I’m almost to the promised land when my door flings open and then quietly closes with a click. My hand moves so quickly out of my shorts it knocks into the ereader in my other hand, forcing me to drop it and smack my chin with the device. Glancing down the length of my body, I can’t move. My eyes find Logan standing with his back to my door. His head tips toward the ceiling. His chest rises and falls.

“Was I interrupting something?” His teasing tone tells me he caught me, but his refusal to look at me hints he’ll let me deny it.

“What are you doing in here?” I whisper although we’re the only two inside the room. Perching up on my elbows, I stare at him over my feet which seem to frame him in as he’s plastered to my door.

“What the hell are you wearing?” He swallows hard, and I watch his Adam’s apple roll as I did the first day on the beach when he guzzled a beer. I want to lick him there. I want to feel the edge of his scruff against my tongue and then rub my cheek along his, allowing the soft scratch to tickle my skin.

“Pajamas,” I state of my attire.

“Whose boxers are those?” The old pair is something I’ve had for years. The traditional male boxers with small polka dots on the blue material are comfortable and all mine.

Tilting my head to the side, I ask, “Why?”