Three were from Windy, Tess and Alexandra, the women who made up her core circle of confidantes. They’d attended and graduated University of Texas together, still vacationed together and tried each year to co-ordinate their holiday greetings.
This year, unfortunately, Claire was suffering from overcoordination. She hadn’t even found time to buy cards, forget personalizing, addressing and mailing them.
A shame, too, because reading the handwritten notes from her girlfriends, even though she talked to them at least once a week and exchanged e-mails with each more often, brought a silly smile to her face.
Seeing their handwriting, imagining where they’d been sitting when they’d dashed off the words, picturing their quirky habits—Windy tugging on the ends of her hair, Tess requiring a certain fountain pen, Alex keeping one eye on the task, her attention on her computer screen and a role-playing game…
Claire sighed. First thing tomorrow she was stopping for cards. For her girlfriends, her family. Enough even for the neighbors she had gotten to know. Chloe who owned the café. Josie, the social worker living in number sixteen. Perry who seemed to run on Claire’s same manic schedule.
Hmm. Maybe she’d even slip one underneath the door belonging to the object of her lustful affection. Welcome him to the neighborhood properly and all that. Invite him over for a holiday drink. Keep the introductions sweet and simple and…sweaty.
At the sound of his balcony door opening, Claire forced her attention to her drink and the rest of her mail. She didn’t think he’d ever caught her out here looking her best. And lately, with the heat…she grimaced. Imagining what he’d see should he glance over hardly got her hopes up.
But then she thought twice. She’d had a great pedicure over the weekend, and was waxed, trimmed and plucked smooth way beyond where the hem of her skirt had settled high on her upper thighs.
Her blond chignon was no longer as sleek as it had been this morning. The humidity had taken its toll; stray wisps blew around her face thanks to the overhead fan, adding to her look of coming undone.
Her camisole was lacy, her skin sticking to the silk, the cups of her bra pushing up and shaping as advertised. The overall look was one more Maxim model than corporate image consultant, but it was also one suited to her mission of indulging in a holiday fling.
Overt sexuality was not her personal style. At least not when it came to an outward display. She enjoyed subtlety; a hint of skin went a lot further in her book than nudity. She preferred a quick flick of a tongue wetting lips to a mouth sucking on a lollipop.
The glimpse of a man’s chest in the open neck of his shirt. An expensive watch on a hair-dusted wrist. Both of those got to her in ways biker shorts or rippling abs did not. And a gaze cut short by a flutter of lashes hit her a whole lot harder than a long hungry stare.
Yet even as those thoughts crossed her mind, she felt her neighbor visually taking her measure. She pulled her feet from the chair and reached for her attaché. As she did, her blouse gaped open but only for a second, maybe a fraction more.
Then she stood, leaning forward to tuck her Day-Timer and the cards she hadn’t finished reading down inside the leather case, knowingly exposing her cleavage above her camisole.
That done, she picked up her glass of iced tea and moved to stand at the balcony’s railing, looking down at the twinkle of colored lights on the Christmas tree in the courtyard below, and letting her thoughts run wild.
She imagined her neighbor standing behind her, felt the heat of his body that was so much larger than her own, absorbed his strength as she leaned back against him.
She fantasized about the touch of his hands, his broad palms skimming up her bare arms, her skin pebbling, her hair standing on end.
The reality of her body’s reaction should not have been the surprise that it was. Her breasts tightened. Her sex tingled. She drank some of her tea, finding it difficult to swallow, much less move.
The condensation from the glass dripped onto her throat; the dampness did little to cool her because, as she turned to go in…She made a huge mistake and glanced over to the next balcony.
His balcony.
He stood in the doorway, hands shoved in the pockets of the day’s dark suit pants, his tie loosened at his neck, the sleeves of his white dress shirt cuffed to midarm.
His chest rose and fell heavily, his pulse popped at the base of his throat. With his jaw set tight, his temple throbbing, he looked the picture of a man barely restrained.
She forgot how to breathe. In that instant, she felt as if she would never again need food or water or air. Only him. She would need only him. And as self-sufficient as she was, as independent—living on her own, pursuing her goals with only the occasional encouraging “attagirl” from her circle of friends—the thought of needing a man for anything left her reeling.