By some kind of unspoken agreement it was understood that any sex that was going to happen today wasn’t going to happen until Molly had paid her visit and they were on their way back down river, heading for home.
But now here it was. Lunch was over, good-byes were said. And they were alone again on the boat.
All the way up river, Molly had spent the time telling him about her childhood in Iowa, about her mother, about her sitcom perfect, sainted father who’d died when she was only ten.
She told him detailed, personal stories that made him envision her as a child, and he knew she’d wanted him to do the same in return.
He’d managed only a few sentences, scattered haltingly throughout their conversation.
“I grew up in Ohio,” and, “I used to love playing baseball,” and, “I haven’t seen my mother in at least ten years.”
She hadn’t pressed him for more information. She’d just smiled at him as if he’d given her a precious gift.
Jones reached down to start the outboard motor, but she stopped him. “Let’s just drift.”
He couldn’t speak, so he nodded. Drift. Right. Good idea.
“You want some lemonade?” she asked. She sat down right there in the sunshine, on one of the benches that lined the stern of the boat.
All morning long he’d fantasized about this moment. She’d lead the way beneath the canopy, taking her clothes off as she went, smiling that smile that made him rock hard. Then she’d lie back against the air mattresses, completely naked. He’d just look at her for a good long time before he joined her there. Before he sank down into her and . . .
“I’m going to have some,” she told him, reaching for the cooler. “I’m a little nervous in case you didn’t notice. It’s been a while since I’ve tried to seduce anyone. Particularly someone so much younger than I am.”
“Chronological age means nothing,” he said. “I was older than most people I’ve ever met when I was twenty-five.”
She looked up at that. “What happened when you were twenty-five?”
Jones shook his head. “Let’s not go there. I shouldn’t even have brought it up.”
He could see from her eyes that she knew it had to do with his scars. She didn’t press. “Okay.”
Molly had some scars of her own—even more faded than his, pencil point thin on both of her wrists. He’d first noticed them last night, when he’d come to her tent for the second time. But if he wasn’t going to talk about his, it didn’t seem fair to ask about hers.
Molly opened the container of lemonade and poured them each a cup. She handed one to him and took a long drink from the other. “However, there is something you need to know about me before we go any further.”
Jones was silent, knowing that she would tell him whatever it was she wanted to tell him if he just waited long enough.
“True confession time,” she said.
He waited.
She wasn’t done stalling. “Before we, you know, pass the point of no return.”
She took another slug from her cup, then, balancing it on her knee, she put the lemonade back into the cooler. The boat was drifting close to the river’s edge, and the sun was streaming through the trees, the dappled light playing games with her face. Jones just watched her and waited and tried not to worry about what she was about to say.
She was married, she was dying of cancer, she was really a man . . . Christ, he knew. She was a nun.
“I need to tell you that . . .” Molly took a deep breath. “I’ve recently become a grandmother.”
He laughed in relief. He couldn’t help it. “No shit?”
“Nope.”
“Well . . . congratulations.”
She was looking at him as if she expected him to do or say something more.
“Boy or a girl?” he asked.
“Girl,” she said. “My . . . daughter had a little girl. Caroline.”
“That’s great.”
But that still wasn’t what she wanted from him. So he said, “I didn’t know you had a daughter.”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I do.” And still she looked at him expectantly.
Jones gave up guessing. “Molly, if there’s something I’m supposed to do or say, you’re going to have to give me a bigger hint. This is kind of out of my realm of experience. Children, grandchildren . . . What am I supposed to say here that I’m not saying?”
“Nothing,” she said. “You’re not supposed to say anything. It’s just . . .”
Here it came, thank God.
“Isn’t it a total turn-off?” she asked. “Knowing I’m . . . Lord, I’m someone’s grandmother.”
Jones had to use every one of his poker-playing skills to keep a straight face. “Gee,” he said. “I don’t know. But maybe if you promise to keep your teeth in while we’re doing it . . .”
She laughed. “Dave. I’ve just exposed myself to you. I’ve shared one of my biggest insecurities, and you’re making fun of me?”
Jones put his cup down. He stood up, took her cup from her hands and put that down, too. Pulled her to her feet. “Give me your hand.” She did. God, he loved her hands with those long, graceful fingers. “Promise not to be offended?”
She nodded.
He brought her hand down to his package. Placed it right there, right on top of him, so she could see for herself that he was far, far from being turned off.
“Oh, my,” she said, but she didn’t pull her hand back. On the contrary, she wasn’t at all shy about exploring what was beneath her fingers.
For a few seconds, he couldn’t speak. He had to clear his throat to get his voice to work. “Say ‘I’m a grandmother,’ “ he instructed.
She laughed. “I’m a grandmother.”
“I don’t know,” he said, gazing into her eyes. “I think that might’ve made me even harder. Kind of tough to tell if it’s knowing more about you or if it’s your touch that turns me on the most.”
The smile and the kiss that Molly gave him was right out of his wildest dreams.
“Do you know what I’ve been fantasizing all morning?” she whispered as he held her close, as he ran his hands up beneath her blouse and touched her incredibly smooth skin. She was so soft.
“No,” he said, “but I’m praying it involves me.”
“I fantasized that once we headed down river, I wouldn’t have to say a thing. We’d both just know it was finally time to make love. I’d just smile at you and go under the canopy, and I’d take off my clothes.”
He had to laugh. “I was thinking almost exactly the same thing.”
“And you’d look at me that way you always look at me.” Her voice was husky. “As if I’m the most desirable woman in the entire world.”
“And then you’d lie back on the mattress,” he continued, “and let me look at you some more—”
“While you take off your clothes for me,” she finished, “and let me look at you.”
“That wasn’t part of what I was thinking,” he said. “But I can work with it.”
“Good,” she said as she pulled out of his arms and headed for the canopy.
Her sandals came off and she shook her hair free from its braid.
She watched him, a small smile playing about the corners of her mouth as she worked the buttons open on her blouse, giving him only the briefest glimpses of what lay beneath. Black lace. Pale skin. Full breasts.
The combination of all three together was heart-stoppingly erotic.
Finally the last button was opened, and her blouse slid down her shoulders and onto the deck. Her skirt followed with a swish of silk and there she was, Molly Anderson, in the black lace underwear that he knew—he knew—she’d put on just for him.
She unhooked her bra, slipped out of her panties and . . .
Granny was not the first word that came to mind.
She was overweight by America’s foolish standards, but not by Jones’s. To him, she was perfection. Soft and smooth and completely, lushly, provocatively
female.
She was Mother Nature, Mother Earth—with beautiful, full breasts peaked with generous dark nipples and womanly hips that could cradle and comfort and take a man to heaven without him fearing he’d snap her in two.
She laughed. “I love it when you smile like that.”
“I love it when you’re naked like that,” he countered.
“I’m not feeling nervous anymore,” she told him. “Just . . . really ready for some of that full penetration sex that you’ve spoken of so often.”
She settled down on the air mattress, arranging herself back on the pillows so that she was half sitting up, hair spread out around her. Gravity did amazing things to her breasts, accentuating the taut erection of her nipples. With her eyes heavy lidded and that little smile on her face, she was a picture of total female arousal.
It was all he could do to walk slowly toward her, to keep himself from tearing off his clothes and lunging into her.
He kept his movements controlled, deliberate, as he pulled his T-shirt over his head, as he kicked his feet free from his sandals.
He hesitated for only the briefest fraction of a second before he unfastened his shorts, but then he remembered. This woman had already seen him naked. She knew about his scars.
All of them.
And she’d even promised not to ask him about them.
Jones pushed off his shorts and Molly’s smile widened. “Still no underwear,” she said. “I’m curious, Dave. Is that by choice, or from the lack of a reasonably priced department store in the neighborhood?”
“By choice,” he told her. It was bizarre. She was naked and he was naked, and they were having a conversation about his lack of underwear. “Although, I got used to not wearing any back when I didn’t have much of a choice about anything. Now wearing it makes me feel like I have too much clothing on.” He paused. “You’re unbelievably beautiful, by the way.”
“You are, too,” she said. “Come over here.”
“Not yet. I’m not done looking.”
“I want to touch you.”
“Yeah, well, the feeling’s mutual. But too bad. I’m taking my time. I’ve been waiting months for this.”
“Months?”
Jones smiled at her. “I’ve been walking around in this state ever since I first saw you. A few more minutes isn’t going to hurt too much.” It was the day he’d gone to the village to hire men to help him clear the airfield. Everyone had been so suspicious of who he was and where he’d come from—except Molly, who’d given him a warm smile. “I’m a fan of anticipation, so if you don’t mind, I’m just going to sit down over here for a little while and anticipate.”
She laughed as he did just that. “You are such a liar. You’re the King of Immediate Gratification. You just want to hear me beg. That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”
It was remarkable how well she knew him. He’d barely told her anything about himself, and yet . . . “Begging would put a really nice spin on this particular fantasy, yeah.”
Molly didn’t say a word. She just held his gaze, smiling that smile that made his blood run hot as she let her legs fall open.
“Or not,” Jones said, up and heading toward her. “Not begging also works for me.”
She reached for him, sitting up to kiss him as he knelt between her legs, as he took her in his arms and lowered himself on top of her. She wanted him inside of her, and God, he wanted to be there, too, but he hadn’t yet put on a condom. Besides, he wanted to touch her first. To touch her and kiss her and taste her, to breathe her in.
But she was naked beneath him, and all that soft, smooth skin against his felt too damn good.
And when she pulled away from his kiss to gasp, “Okay. I’m begging. Please. Please—”
It was a long ride home. There’d be plenty of time for foreplay after they got it on.
She had a condom waiting for him. He covered himself in record time, and then . . .
He’d always prided himself on being good in bed, good with women. He’d always had willpower to spare and could pleasure a woman for hours, giving her exactly what she wanted, without ever losing his own control.
But with Molly—the one woman in the world he was willing to die to be with—it was as if he were seventeen again.
A woman liked the first time to be meaningful. She liked eye contact and acknowledgment—a certain amount of reverence—that this, his very first moment inside of her was special and unique.
But Jones crashed his way inside of Molly as if she were a hooker at one of the assembly line whorehouses in Jakarta. He was completely out of control even before he buried himself inside of her, and once he did, he couldn’t have stopped if his life had depended on it.
She was ready for him, thank God. She was hot and wet and oh Jesus so tight, and the sound she made was sheer pleasure, and that word she was crying was more.
So he gave her more. Hard and fast and deep as she sucked his tongue into her mouth and gripped him tightly, her legs locked around him. He fucked her—there was no other word for it—with absolutely no finesse.
It was sheer luck that she climaxed before he did. All he knew was that he was on the verge, and that it was going to happen too goddamn soon whether he slowed down or not. Not even the potential humiliation was enough to act as a damper.
“God, Molly,” he gasped. “I can’t keep from—”
But then she shattered around him, the power of her release making her shake.
That was all he needed. He was right on her heels, shouting her name in a rush of mind-blowing pleasure.
She still clung to him, so he let himself stay right there, on top of her, his heart still pounding, his face buried in her fragrant hair.
They drifted. It might’ve been two minutes, it might’ve been twenty. All he knew was that he wanted to stay right there, just like this, for the rest of his life.
But then Molly laughed. “Good Lord,” she said. “You certainly do deliver, David.”
David. Dave. Maybe it was frustration that, despite her words of satisfaction, he knew he should have made the sex better for her.
But whatever the cause, he knew that he didn’t want her to call him Dave. Not now. Not ever. But especially not while they made love.
“Call me by my real name.” Jones lifted his head and looked down into her eyes. “Call me Grady.”
“Shhh,” she said, skittering away from him, forcing him to pull out of her. “Are you crazy?”
“Yes,” he said. He was. Definitely crazy. “Come on, Molly. Do you know how long it’s been since someone who doesn’t want to kill me has called me that?”
“Too bad,” she said. “It’s because I don’t want to kill you that that name is never going to cross my lips. Never.”
She was serious, but he was, too.
“Please.” It was his turn to beg. He gestured around them at the boat, at the river. “It’s not going to get any safer than this.”
“I don’t want to get into the habit,” she told him. “I won’t risk your life that way.”
“Please.”
“Don’t ask me to do this!”
“Just this once.” Jesus, why was this so important to him? “Just today. Let Molly Anderson make love to Grady Morant, not some lowlife loser named Jones.” His voice broke. “Please.”
Molly had tears in her eyes as she reached for him. As they sank back on the air mattress, he didn’t know if he was holding her or if she was holding him.
She kissed him—sweet kisses—as she ran her fingers through his hair.
“You’re a dangerous man, Grady Morant,” she said in a voice that was softer even than a whisper. “You have the power to make me want to do things I know damn well I shouldn’t do.”
He kissed her—her mouth, her throat, her breasts—and she sighed. “Maybe we should just stay out here on the river forever.”
“I don’t know,” Jones murmured. “Something tells me people would miss you and send out a search party.”
/>
“No search party for you?” she asked.
“No. A lynch mob, maybe. But only because they would all assume I’d kidnapped you.”
“Oh, come on.”
“I could disappear,” he lifted his head to tell her, “and unless you disappeared, too, no one would even notice I was gone.”
Molly touched his face. “Not anymore.”
Troubleshooters 04 Out of Control Page 18
