harder and harder to remember he had a business to run.
"Cleo will do what's best for Matty," she called after him.
As if that reassured him any. Squaring his shoulders, Axell marched out.
Women were for motherhood and sex, he repeated mentally as the sound system blared on behind him. Sex—sex—sex...
* * *
"This is what I wanted, Kitty," Maya muttered as she ripped the sheets from her bed, crumpled them in a ball, and flung them into the hall. It was nearly midnight, and Axell wasn't home.
The tangerine kitten—one of several named "Kitty" because Matty couldn't tell one from the other—peered down from his perch on the dresser and licked his paw.
"You're a fat lot of help. If you're so tidy, why haven't you cleaned this room by now?" She shook out a fresh pillowcase and jammed a pillow into it. "I'm not waiting up for him any longer," she warned the kitten. "We don't have that kind of marriage. He'll probably go straight to his room rather than risk life and limb coming in here."
Maya studied the explosion of clothing strewn over every surface and spilling from drawers. She'd never owned so many clothes in her life, and she wasn't entirely certain what to do with them. Sorting between dry cleaning and laundry alone required a Ph.D. in household maintenance which she didn't possess. She wasn't even certain where all the clothes had come from.
She supposed she could put away the card table with the remains of the dragon mobile, but if she didn't use up the rest of those paints soon, they'd dry out. And she had this idea for...
In the distance, she heard the garage door open. Double-D bad word, she grumbled to herself, punching the pillow deeper into the case. If Axell came back here, he'd probably think all this excess energy was for him.
She'd never known sexual frustration, and she wasn't about to admit to it now. Axell Holm could go directly to his own bed, Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect Maya. The kids would be up at the crack of dawn, and she needed her sleep.
She heard his step in the kitchen below as she punched the second pillow into its case. She should have turned out the light. She shouldn't have stayed up in the first place. She was still mad at him for thinking her school expendable and Cleo, unreliable. He obviously thought her a real ditz who couldn't get her head out of a bucket. She could have gone for the Ph.D. if she'd had any money—or if she'd thought it necessary. She wasn't a ditz.
She knew the instant Axell appeared in her doorway, even though she deliberately kept her back to the door. His subtle aftershave wafted on the currents she was stirring. She glanced up at the mirror and saw him prop his shoulder against the doorjamb. His tie was unknotted, his golden hair rumpled, and his suit coat hung over his arm as he watched her. His eyes looked tired, but damn, he looked too sexy for words.
He threw the coat over a chair already decorated with two dresses. Silently, he crossed to the other side of the bed and helped to pull the bottom sheet across the mattress.
"Matty's in his room?" he asked cautiously.
"Matty's with Cleo. Social Services said she could have him for the weekend." She sounded stiff, even to herself. Matty with his forlorn waif eyes and puckish grin had wormed so deep in her heart, he would always be a part of her.
"Is Stephen still over there?" Axell asked with lingering wariness, smoothing a sheet corner at the bottom of the bed.
He shouldn't look so damned handsome and masculine making a bed. Maya's wormy heart pounded a little louder. "He skipped out for Nashville yesterday, something about fixing a track on the new album."
"That figures," he said dryly.
"It's not as if working is irresponsible," Maya snapped.
The kitten pounced on the fresh pillowcase. As casually as if she were stripping a sheet, Maya scooped the cat up, tossed him into the laundry in the hall, and shut the door.
"I didn't say otherwise," Axell protested. "Why are you mad now?"
"Because you want to tuck us into little boxes," she retorted without thinking. Because she'd wanted him home hours ago. Because she wanted to be on this bed with him right now. Because he'd taught her to want things she knew she couldn't have or that wouldn't last. "Mad" didn't even begin to touch her mood.
"All right,"