A Promise for the Baby

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“When did you learn to knit?” He was focused completely on her, the book on his lap closed, without even his finger to mark where he’d stopped.

Vivian admired Karl’s ability to focus, although she was afraid she might come to crave it. When his hazel eyes fixed on her, her heart raced and her entire body warmed by ten degrees. Between pregnancy and being in the same room with Karl, she didn’t need a winter coat.

“About ten years ago—when it seemed like everyone was learning how to knit. I’ve always liked activities that used my hands.” Mostly she’d made dishcloths, which she’d had to donate to the thrift store before driving to Chicago because she couldn’t justify taking them with her.

“Like card dealing?”

“The casino had automatic shufflers and the fancy shuffling techniques my father taught me would have been forbidden anyhow.” Some of which made counting cards really easy and had been designed to facilitate cheating. But she’d always preferred the ones that looked fancy without being deceitful.

“Can you show me?”

“Card shuffling tricks or knitting?”

He appeared to take her question seriously, even though she’d meant it as a bit of a joke. “Card shuffling tricks.”

“Really?” Karl had tried to hide his opinion of her previous career, but he hadn’t been as successful as he probably thought.

“We’re trying to be friends, right?”

Friendship had been a great idea in the doctor’s office when she’d been lying back on the examination table feeling about as sexy as an ottoman. Now, sitting on the couch with him scooching closer to her, those intense eyes burning into her, friendship seemed a sure path to sex, and sex was a bad idea. They’d had sex as strangers and look where it had gotten them.

What’s stopping you? The horse is already out; no use shutting the barn door now. Think of how his hazel eyes will burn when he explodes into you.

That was just the pregnancy talking. The books had warned her that pregnancy made some women horny. It had to be the pregnancy. It couldn’t be seeing the fine hairs on his strong, bare forearms and being reminded of why she’d broken her own rules and slept with a resort guest to begin with.

“Um, sure.” She stood up quickly—to find a deck of cards, not to escape Karl and her own lustful thoughts.

When she returned, she had a new deck of cards and a plan. She sat in the chair Karl normally used and faced him across the coffee table. He gave her a knowing smile, as though what was bothering her was bothering him, too, but he didn’t argue or ask her to sit next to him.

Friendship was a good idea. This wanting she was feeling would only lead to bad things. He had bought her two winter coats, was paying for her health insurance and providing her with a place to live because they were married, but they weren’t married because they were in love. The child growing inside her wasn’t an expression of their love. She’d been feeling vulnerable and he’d been talking about how important family was to him and she’d succumbed to a dream that didn’t exist. They’d had hot, dirty, wonderful, random stranger sex, and now they couldn’t stay strangers.

Sex would change the bargain. Sex would put them uncomfortably close to an exchange of pleasure for material goods, and that wasn’t a bargain she was willing to make. In that moment she made a promise to herself. They would be partners when she was finally able to put her lips against one of his chiseled cheeks and lick her way to his collarbone and down his chest until she made his heartbeat pound and echo through her body. She would have a job and contribute something other than dinner to his day. She wouldn’t be helpless anymore.

“What do you want to see?”

He shrugged. “Impress me.”

She held the deck of cards in her left hand and gripped two corners with her right. Both thumb and ring finger two-thirds on the corner, one-third off, just as her dad had taught her. Then she lifted the deck of cards with her right hand nearly two feet from her left, angled her thumb and let the cards fall.

* * *

THE CARDS BARELY made a whisper as they cascaded into her left hand. When Karl had been in high school, there was a kid in his class who’d liked to show off his card tricks. The kid had bragged about his mastery of the cards, but when he’d done that trick, the cards had sounded like someone was rustling through a trash can and he’d had to brace his arm against his body in such a way that the cards shot into his gut, rather than flowing through the air.

“Wanna see it again?” she asked.

“Yes.” At the bar that fateful night, he’d watched her long fingers wrap around her drink and wondered if he could let go of himself long enough to enjoy the company of a beautiful woman. She had smiled, a little shy and a little sad, and suddenly making her laugh had become more important than his own problems.

He paid attention to those hands again, now, watching exactly where she placed her fingers and how she bent the cards before releasing them. He wasn’t any less impressed seeing her card trick the second time.

You were so focused on what her lips would feel like on your body that you didn’t stop to think what effect those dexterous fingers could have. Her eyes were twinkling and the way her pink lips curved into a half smile when he looked from her fingers up to her face confirmed that he’d been right to focus on the power of those lips. The nimble fingers were an added bonus.

“You weren’t expecting to be impressed,” she said.

“No. I’ve never seen cards shuffled that way so well.” He realized that compliment sounded hollow when Vivian’s eyes narrowed. “I couldn’t do it and I’m not foolish enough not to credit expertise when I see it, even if I don’t fully understand it.”