Her sister was already dressed for the evening in one of the many timeless creations she crammed in her closet. Tonight it was a polka-dot dress with a pleated skirt that looked like it belonged on Lucille Ball, paired with black boots that laced up to her ankle. Her make-up was, as usual, enviable compared to the basics Miranda put on to go to her job: bronze and bold and making her blue eyes look like jewels in the sand.
‘I’ve been dying to know all night what the deal was with that text,’ Juliet said from the kitchen table, where the contents of her enormous handbag were strewn.
‘I got a ride with someone from work I didn’t know very well,’ Miranda lied as she hung her own bag on the hook by the door and draped the damp jacket over it. ‘He asked if I wanted to grab a coffee first and he had a kind of serial-killer vibe to him, so I wanted to be sure.’
‘Hot serial killer like Dexter or –’
‘More like the kind who sits alone in his Mom’s basement.’
Juliet laughed and unscrewed a jar of perfumed lotion, something homemade she’d gotten off of Etsy. Ever since Miranda started to sell her drawings on the site, Juliet had become a raging addict. If she needed something – clothes, make-up, jewellery or a new iPhone case – she went right to the site. While Miranda’s canvas was watercolour paper, Juliet’s was her own body.
‘Is someone picking you up?’
‘I’m meeting Giselle down at Starbucks. I need a caffeine and sugar fix before I go.’ Having daubed her pulse-points with jasmine, Juliet swept her arm across the table and loaded her massive purse once more. ‘I’ll be back before the sun comes up this time, I promise. I’ll bring you breakfast.’
‘I’ll pass,’ Miranda said, remembering the last time Juliet brought her breakfast of a soggy meatball sub.
‘Then you can make me breakfast when I roll in,’ Juliet teased, and for the first time since Miranda entered she looked at her younger sister. ‘Jesus, your make-up. You really ought to switch to waterproof.’
As Juliet pulled her into a hug, Miranda made a mental note to check her face in the mirror before letting Simon into the house.
‘Do me a favour and don’t drink too much,’ she entreated Juliet.
‘No promises.’
‘And please don’t put anything up your nose tonight.’
‘No promises.’
Miranda bit her tongue as Juliet swept out. She didn’t have it in her to be too hard on Juliet about her vices, especially not tonight when Miranda was about to bring a man into the house for near-anonymous sex.
She darted up to her bedroom, to the window overlooking the street, and watched her sister run effortlessly down the street in those heels, then turned on the bedside light and drew the curtains.
She went down the hall and checked on Eddie. Out like a light, just like she’d hoped. On her way home, she’d fostered the fear that he’d still be sick and finicky, but the toddler-sized lump in the middle of the crib reassured her.
She did a quick make-up check, then sent a text to the number she’d punched into her phone on the ride over.
By the time she made it back downstairs there was a gentle knocking at the door. She didn’t even think about the mess in the living room, with toys stuffed into couch cushions and empty soda bottles on end tables. As soon as she opened the door and saw him standing there, filling the doorway, she could only think of how he would look sprawled across her bed.
‘Should I have brought the poncho?’
Miranda stepped aside to let him in. ‘Don’t need it. I’ve got protection.’
As she closed the door and leaned against it, Simon shimmied off his trench and draped it over the back of the rocker. He took a sweeping look around before turning his attention to her.
‘You did the paintings on the walls?’
‘That depends. Do you like them?’
‘I do. They’re simple, but they take you places.’ He strode in front of the sofa and gestured to the painting above it. It was Juliet’s favourite, a grey birch forest with a tiny spot of colour in the branches where a fat bird, a cardinal, rested. ‘And they sell pretty well?’
‘I’m not making a living yet, but I’m not starving. They usually end up in nurseries or kids’ rooms, which is kind of ironic since I started doing this type of thing when Des was pregnant.’
He pointed to another painting, this one above the credenza. ‘And this is her?’
‘That’s Des.’
She pushed away from the door but kept her hands behind her, twisting her fingers together as he gazed at the portrait of her sister. She wanted to hook him by the tie he’d now loosened and draw him up the stairs to her bedroom, but couldn’t bring herself to do so at such a moment, when he was showing reverence not only to her craft but also to the subject.
‘Des,’ he said thoughtfully, then laughed. ‘Desdemona. It has to be Desdemona.’
‘Well done,’ she said as she came up next to him.
He laughed and turned, pulling his tie off. ‘I was a little slow on the uptake, but I get it now. Juliet, Desdemona and Miranda. Shakespeare’s women.’
‘Yeah, that was my Mom. She had that old book for children and she loved it, even if she couldn’t stand to sit through even an hour of Shakespeare By The Sea. I always wonder what she would have called us if we had all come out boys.’
‘And the baby …’
‘Eddie. Not after Shakespeare, after my grandfather. The whimsy passed, thank God, otherwise some kid named Orlando would be getting his ass kicked on the playground in a few years.’
Simon laughed, a wonderful rolling sound that surrounded her like fog, and Miranda gravitated towards him.
‘You weren’t asking about his name, were you?’ she murmured as he swiped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer.
‘Does he sleep through the night yet?’
‘Yes, thank God, and he could sleep through a bomb. He might need me once or twice, but otherwise …’
With a low growl, Simon cupped her ass. He lifted her onto her toes and pushed forward, letting her know first-hand that he was as eager for her now as he had been in the car.
‘It was a bad idea to leave me stewing in my own juices out there,’ he teased her as he ground against her, the point of his cock pressing against her still-sensitive clit. ‘I mean, leaving me out there to think long and hard about what to do when I had you alone again.’
Miranda rocked in tune with him. The friction was perfect, absolutely perfect, even through the layers between them, and she was still sensitive enough that the pressure against her clit sent ticklish pulses through her pussy.
‘What did you have in mind?’ she asked, slipping her arms around his waist.
Simon bent low, evading the kiss she offered to brush his lips against her ear. ‘For starters, I want you to repay my chivalry by sucking my cock.’
Miranda groaned and melted in his arms as he chased the effect of his words along the slope of her neck.
‘That’s not a very gentlemanly thing to say.’
He chuckled as he lifted her onto her toes. ‘I’m only a gentleman when it gets me what I want.’
‘I knew it.’
Her giggle was stopped by his hard mouth on hers. His tongue pushed away every other thought, leaving only the feverish awareness of the extent of his desire for her. He gave her just a moment to drown in it, long enough for his hard body to tell hers