by Nancy Bush
“I’ve got some things to say. Some thing to say,” she corrected herself.
He wasn’t listening. He was gazing out the back windows toward the silvery stretch of beach and the ebony waves cresting against the sand, their frothy edges sliding forward, then slowly receding.
“I feel like I’m in a dream,” he said, his voice sounding as if he found the idea slightly confusing.
“How so?” she asked, sipping the wine.
“I don’t feel like I’m thirty-three and that it’s been almost fifteen years since graduation. I especially don’t feel that way now — because you’re here.”
“Okay,” she said cautiously.
“In a way. It just feels like everything stopped.”
“Stopped?”
“Maybe not for you, but well, look at me. I slid into the family business and I never wanted to. I didn’t not want to enough, I guess,” he admitted. “And I’ve resented the hell out of my mother and Caroline ever since. God, my mother… ” In a gesture of frustration, he ripped off his bow tie and tuxedo jacket, flinging them across a chair. The white shirt looked cool and seductive against his dark flesh, and unwillingly, Sherry’s eyes feasted on him.
“She’s been crazy since you got back to town. I always thought she was over the top on a few things, but now she’s way over.”
Sherry’s fingers clung tightly to the stem of her wine glass. “Really.”
“She’s been grilling me like I’m sixteen again.”
“About me.” She took a long swallow of wine.
“Well… yeah, as a matter fact,” he said, shaking his head. “I swear, it’s like a recitation. ‘Did you see her? What did you talk about? What did she say?’ It’s nuts.”
Patrice knew she was going to tell J.J. about Mandy and that meant revealing Patrice’s involvement. Sherry had half expected J.J.’s mom to beat her to the punch and direct all the blame to her somehow, but there was really no way to do that without revealing her own duplicity — something Patrice was undoubtedly loath to do.
“But that’s her problem. What’s my excuse? I’ve just stayed in the same rut, waiting for something to happen.” His gaze shifted to her face, making Sherry feel suddenly vulnerable and transparent.
“Well, something has.”
“What?” she asked her heart starting to pound.
He didn’t answer and Sherry was forced to look away first. Complications. The situation was rife with them. It felt good to see the yearning in his eyes, the same yearning she felt.
“Now, I know why Caroline didn’t want me to talk to you.”
“J.J., I have something to say,” Sherry began, but he cut her off.
“I always blamed you for throwing me off track. ‘It’s Sherry’s fault’. That way I didn’t have to do anything, so that I ended up here, wasting my life.”
“You haven’t wasted your life.”
“I chose the path of least resistance. Isn’t that wasting it? You were right, back in high school. I was a bastard.”
“I never said that,” Sherry muttered uncertainly.
“Something like it. And you were right. I always knew what you thought of me — deep down. All those sarcastic remarks. You wanted me to recognize what a shit I was. So full of myself. And all I wanted to do was…” He shook his head and finished, “All I wanted to do was sleep with you.”
Silence pooled in the warm room. Sherry stood speechless, weakened by those simple words. Unknowingly, she let every feeling she possessed flood her smooth features.
I want you, she thought, her pulse beating hard and ever faster. I love you.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he whispered. “I don’t have the strength to resist, and you didn’t come here for this.”
“I came to tell you something important,” Sherry responded, her gaze sliding to his mouth.
“Tell me.”
“When we were together …”
“In high school,” he prompted.
“Yes.” She swallowed. “I know it was high school, but I loved you very much, and it does count.”
“I loved you, too,” he answered.
That shocked her to silence. The words had come so naturally, so perfectly. Unrehearsed. From the soul and heart of him.
“I don’t know why it’s been so hard to say,” he admitted.
Her lips parted. Naked emotion filled her eyes. J.J. was powerless against her and with the muffled oath, he took two ground-devouring steps toward her and gathered her close, burying his face in the tangled glory of her hair.
“I always loved you,” he said tautly. “I still do.”
If there had ever been a time in Jake’s life when he needed self-control, this was it. All day. Hell, all week, month — whatever it’d been since Sherry had reentered his life — he’d denied and fought feelings that wouldn’t do him any good. And now she stood before him in beautiful splendor. Truth to tell, he’d been unable to look at any other woman at the church–even the bride!–and all he could think about was their kiss in the darkened back hallway.
I love you had slipped past his lips as naturally as daybreak. He did love her. He always had. Her distraction only added to her mystique. Whatever mission she was on, whatever secrets and decisions she wanted to reveal, he didn’t give a damn. Recklessly, foolishly he only wanted to take her in his arms and kiss and caress her until the hot beat of desire was assuaged.
“J.J… .” she murmured, a soft protest.
And even that stoked the flame of his overheated senses. Memories. Lustful, passionate memories of a careless, reckless time. She was the only person who could get away with calling him J.J. and make them feel like more than a little boy.
Her uncertainty was an aphrodisiac. He could feel the beat of her heart and the uneven tenor of her breathing. Jake inwardly groaned, wanting, needing to passionately join himself to her. But she didn’t feel the same. Not while something hung on her mind and prevented her from giving in.
Carefully he released her from his urgent hug. She gazed at him, but her eyes had a faraway look, almost as if she were in a dream. He could relate. It was a dream. One he never wanted to wake up from.
Gently he took her drink away from her and set it on the mantel. Sherry’s lips quivered, as if she wanted to say something. Jake waited, watching her with eyes that devoured the side of her. Something in his expression must’ve registered with a kindred spirit within her, for she seemed to melt in front of him, all the armor falling away without a word spoken.
He reached for her, holding her at arm’s length for a moment as he studied her.
“Is this okay?” he muttered.
Her answer was a soft expellation of breath. Slowly, inexorably, he pulled her to him again. She didn’t quite resist, but she didn’t quite come willingly, either.
Her palms were pressed against his chest. She couldn’t miss his galloping heart. She looked down at her hands, as if surprised at the feeling beneath them. He saw her eyelashes flutter. It was too much.
“Sherry,” he whispered, bending his head until his lips were near the soft, escaping tendrils of thick brown hair that swung like a curtain to her shoulder.
“I… don’t… can’t,” she struggled.
She turned her head but not before his lips grazed the corner of her mouth. His own body’s reaction was unmistakable and suddenly he wanted her to feel his sex, to know what she was doing to him. It seemed incredibly important; or maybe lust was making him crazy. He certainly felt crazy.
His hands crept down her back to the curve of her spine. He wanted to grab her rounded bottom and press her against him. She was a perfect fit. She’d always been a perfect fit. It had just taken years for him to understand it. Hell, he didn’t understand it yet.
He did as he wanted, letting his palms slide over the delicious curve of her hips. His mouth crushed hers at the same moment he pulled her to his hardness and her slight protest was more a mew of pleasure — at least to his biased ears and inflamed sen
ses.
Her own hands betrayed her, fluttering ineffectually somewhere near his waist, then softly pressing against his chest, then crawling up his back to clutch the fabric of his shirt between damp fists.
Memories were long gone. The moment was now. His tongue slid into her mouth, hot and seeking. Almost afraid, she reacted by sucking gently. Emboldened, he held her as tightly as he could, melding her to him possessively. She made no protest now. Her legs separated to accommodate him. Jake groaned, masochistically refusing to take advantage of the moment and press her against the wall to relieve the ache between his thighs.
“I want you,” he admitted thickly, against her hot humid breath.
It was redundant, he realized. She already knew. She hesitated, inhaling light and fast, her chest rising and falling against his in rapid succession. His hand crept upward to cup her breast, just as lightly, which sent her breathing into warp zone. She wore no bra. He could feel her raised nipple through the weak shield of fabric. Jake, drunk with desire, leaned down and sucked her breasts through the black dress, eliciting a groan of pleasure from Sherry that sounded like sweet torture as she threw her head back, exposing the vulnerable curve of her throat.
“I can’t,” she whispered, holding on to him for dear life as if afraid he might actually heed her words.
“You want to.”
“Oh, J.J… .” Sherry’s eyes were squeezed closed, her expression one of intense need. Her hands had found the back of his neck, then crept up into his hair.
With no thought for anything but how he felt at the moment, Jake swept her into his arms, luxuriating in her warm flesh, wanting to devour her as if she were some sweet delicacy he’d been long denied. Vaguely he realized he hadn’t been this hot since high school — a situation that mildly worried him in some dark, neglected recess of his mind.
“What are you doing?” Sherry asked him alarm.
“Taking you upstairs.”
This was trickier than he thought, considering the stairway was narrow with a carved wooden rail leading from the tiled entry below and Sherry was fast becoming an adversary instead of a co-conspirator.
“I can’t,” she said in a louder, more controlled voice, all the while clinging to his neck while Jake, fueled by potent ardor, determinedly made his way around the landing and up to the bedroom loft.
“I can’t. Really. I can’t. Put me down. J.J., for God’s sake, this isn’t the tree house and we aren’t teenagers.”
He set her on her feet in the middle of the room. Now her hand was at her throat and she darted looks around the room like a scared rabbit. Watching her, he read her reactions as her eyes noted the smooth cream walls, recessed lighting, huge color-blocked rug that nearly covered the wooden floor, and the massive king-size bed with a deep, forest-green spread and collection of decorative throw pillows.
“I know it’s not the tree house,” he pointed out.
“I can’t go to bed with you. You — you have Caroline.” Her distraction merely fanned the flames of his desire. She was so beautiful, auburn hair flowing loosely around her shoulders, shadowed eyes seeking some escape while pride rooted her firmly to the floor. She wouldn’t run, although she wanted to.
“It’s ending,” Jake stated flatly. “We both know it. She just doesn’t want to believe it. We were really just friends anyway.”
“Friends with benefits.”
“What do you want to hear? That we didn’t sleep together? We did. Not as often as you might think though.”
“I didn’t ask for quantity.”
“You kinda did,” he said with a faint smile. “I have not slept with any woman but Caroline for almost a decade. And I couldn’t tell you the last time I slept with her.”
Sherry stared at him, registering the hammering honesty of his words with silence.
“What about you? When was the last time you slept with someone?”
“A long time ago,” she admitted softly.
It took a moment or two before Jake discerned her meaning. “No…”
“I didn’t want anyone but you.”
“The last time you slept with anyone was me? I don’t believe you!”
“Yes, you do.”
“God, Sherry…” He was undone.
“I came to Oceantides to see you. To talk.”
“Then talk,” he murmured, pulling her to him, capturing her lips one more time as he gently pushed her backward to the end of the bed. Her knees buckled and she slid onto the green comforter, with Jake fitting himself atop her. “I’ll do the rest …”
Sherry’s senses were aflame. Hot as lava. Sensitive as a new blossom. This wasn’t the way she’d planned things. Oh, be honest, she berated herself ruefully. You didn’t plan them. You just let them happen.
And let them happen, she did. From the moment she’d kissed J.J. at the church, those things she hadn’t planned began springing up like uncovered popcorn, flying at her wildly with no advance warning.
And now J.J.’s mouth was sensuously rubbing hers until her lips felt swollen and sensitized, begging for more. His body lay on hers in a position of intense intimacy, as if he were meant to be there.
She moaned and twisted with desire beneath him. Her fingers skimmed up his back to cling at his hard, muscled shoulders. The little sighs that issued from her lips were an invitation; she could hear that even above the furious pounding of her heart in her ears. It would be so easy to make love to him. The thrust of him between her legs was an irresistible invitation, and without thinking, she moved to accommodate him.
Worse than when she was a teenager. Her own desire humbled her. She was putty. And no amount of berating herself seemed to matter.
Slowly, slowly, he was seducing her. Touching her, breathing in her ear, moving sinuously against her. But even so he was waiting — waiting for her to make that final decision, holding back until she was completely, utterly ready.
“I love you,” she murmured, shocked that she’d actually voiced the words she’d said only to him.
His answer was a kiss full of promise and the groan of release. His lips traveled to her neck where his tongue made crazy circles that fueled her desire until she was limp and throbbing. She sighed in sorrow for she knew it wasn’t going to last; she couldn’t let it last.
He was moving against her. “I missed you,” he murmured. “I missed you so much.”
“J.J… .”
“I know it’s crazy. It’s always been crazy. I love you. I always have.” His breath feathered her flesh as he kissed her throat, her chin, her mouth, her eyes. And all the while his body moved, hard and seductive in a way that left her powerless, weak and wanton.
He was so masculine and she’d shied away from men ever since her ill-fated affair with him. Now she wanted to indulge herself and so she pulled his errant mouth back to hers and plunged her tongue inside. His groans sent shivers down her spine, infusing her with new power. She wanted to be possessed by him. His kiss hardened and lengthened, thrilling her, seducing her with its own need. He thrust against her and she arched, glorying in his hardness, making them both aware how slight a barrier their clothing was, how quickly it could be shed.
And putting that thought to action, J.J. suddenly twisted away to remove the rest of his clothes. The tiny buttons of his shirt gave way beneath anxious fingers, hers and his, and when his chest was bare she slid her fingers over hardened abs and sculpted muscles.
He unzipped her dress and slid it from her shoulders. As soon as her chest was free, his tongue moistened the flesh at the base of her throat until she squirmed with desire. In slow motion, she felt him undress her and only when a cool stirring of air brought goose bumps to her skin did her long-sleeping conscience awaken.
“J.J.,” she whispered. And when that elicited no response apart from a movement of his mouth to her nipple that left her shivering, she said a bit louder, “Jake.”
That caught him off guard. He lifted his head, gazing at her with passion-drugged eyes. “Jake?”<
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“I can’t let this happen, without telling you why I left Oceantides before.”
“It doesn’t matter now that you’re here.”
“Yes, it does.”
“I won’t let it.”
As if he refused to recognize the ill wind that swept over them, he redoubled his efforts to make love to her. Sherry struggled to find words, struggled to keep focused on Mandy and her real reason for coming home.
But suddenly he was poised above her, the tip of his shaft seeking her warm sheath. She knew, without a doubt, that he would hate her for not telling him first; that he would feel used.
But she also knew this wouldn’t happen again unless she let it happen now.
“I love you,” she whispered, gasping as J.J. thrust himself inside her and they both succumbed to the rhythm of love and seduction, the moment spinning out of time and space, gone from reality.
In the darkness that followed, Sherry counted her heartbeats, waiting until they were at a normal enough pace that she could trust herself to speak with reason. J.J. was sprawled across her, totally abandoned to sensation.
“Birth control was never my strong suit,” she whispered with deepest irony.
He lifted his head, eyes flaring in alarm. “God, a condom!”
“No, it’s okay. I’m not completely crazy. I won’t get pregnant at this point in my cycle. I have learned one or two things over the years.”
He expelled a breath, gently disengaging himself from her but holding on tightly, his arms and legs surrounding her as if he never wanted to let go. “Apparently, I haven’t. We’ve been really lucky,” he added thoughtfully.
Sherry drew a breath. “Yes, we have. Really lucky.”
Her tension transmitted itself to him. “What”
“It’s what I came to Oceantides to tell you. We were lucky. Lucky enough to have a beautiful daughter.”
His gray eyes held hers, confused.
“I was pregnant, J.J. With your baby. That’s why I left Oceantides before graduation.”
