Finally a light emerged from the all-encompassing darkness. Darby leaned forward and squinted at the single bulb hung out on a rough-hewn wooden pole near the road and eased her foot from the gas. Despite how long the drive had seemed to her, John didn’t live any farther than fifteen minutes out of town. The only problem was, it was the opposite side of town from where her farm was, making the drive doubly long.
She coasted to a stop next to John’s mud-caked Jeep and switched off the engine. The sudden silence made the thud-thud of her heart sound like a jungle drum. She swore that if there was so much as a noticeable scratch on John, she might have to leave a few visible marks of her own on her brother-in-law. What was he thinking, going after John like that, instead of coming to her?
A shadow moved in one of the windows of the one-bedroom trailer and her breath caught.
What had she been thinking coming out here?
Her clogs sloshed through the mud that was John’s driveway, then clunked on the wood stairs. She lifted her hand to knock when the door was pulled inward and John—one hundred percent sexy hot John—stood looking at her with one of the nastiest shiners she’d ever seen.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” John said as Darby stared at him.
“Oh, my God.” She lifted a shaking hand to his face.
Suddenly it seemed an effort to even take a breath.
John had spent the past half hour since Darby’s brief phone call pacing the trailer as if it was his first time in it. Now that she was there…well, he wondered if he’d be able to move an inch. He was completely spellbound, watching the myriad emotions cross her beautiful expressive face. First, shock drained the color from her satiny skin. Then her soft brow creased in concern. Then a spark of anger backlit her sexy green eyes. His gaze fastened on her mouth, finding she’d moved even beyond that as the corners of her lush lips tipped up.
“Um, it looks like he really hauled off and popped you one,” she whispered, the words sexy despite their meaning.
She seemed to realize that her fingers still lightly probed the area around his eye and awkwardly withdrew them.
John instantly missed her touch. “Yeah. If I’d seen it coming, I could’ve at least ducked.”
Pain erased all other emotion from Darby’s face. “Oh, John, I’m so sorry. I don’t know how…I mean, I didn’t think…” She briefly closed her eyes, then opened them again. John watched, transfixed as the velvet black of her pupils adjusted. “I’m going to kill Tuck.”
John realized they were still standing in the open doorway, him inside, her out. He forced himself to step back to allow her entrance. “It’s chilly out. Come in.”
“Um…okay.” Her actions mirrored her words as she hesitantly stepped forward, her gaze taking everything in.
John had never felt so exposed. The only other women who’d been in his trailer were his mother and sisters. Not even when he occasionally went out did he bring a date back here. There was the distance issue. But mostly he’d never felt moved to invite a woman over.
And having Darby there now seemed…strange, somehow. When he thought of her, he thought of the farmhouse. Her with her slender hands in the fertile earth. Running her fingers over animals as she groomed them. Putting together her mail-order specialty frames of pictures she’d taken herself. Picking up one or the other of the twins.
Now the image that flicked into his mind was of her stretched across the sheets on his water bed in the back bedroom, as naked as the day she was born.
He cleared his throat and motioned toward the brown leather sofa. “Have a seat,” he suggested as he headed in the opposite direction, toward the tiny but neat kitchen and away from her. “Would you like some coffee?”
She hadn’t budged from where she still stood near the door. “No. I think I’ll pass. Thanks.”
“A beer? A soda? How about some cocoa? I think I have some of those packet things around somewhere.”
Her gaze briefly met his. She smiled, the tiny gesture hitting him squarely in the solar plexus. “You’re not going to stop until I have something, are you? Okay, water. Please.”
“Water.” He pried his gaze from her enchanting face and looked for a glass, noticing from the corner of his eye that she moved toward his recliner, instead of the couch. He grabbed a beer for himself from out of the fridge, then handed her the water.
“Thank you.”
He hummed his response and sat on the edge of the couch. When the movement put his knees in direct contact with hers, they both jumped. He moved a little farther down.
“So tell me what happened,” she said quietly.
A simple enough question. Only, John had to search his brain for what she could be talking about. Oh! Dusty.
He shrugged. “No big thing. Dusty heard…well, the news that you’re…with child….”
She smiled and lowered her eyes.
“Um, namely, my child, and decided he had a few issues to work out with me.”
“With his fists?”
“One fist.”
“To the eye.”
“That’s about the extent of it.”
She searched the eye in question. “Does it hurt?”
He shrugged. It had hurt like nobody’s business only a short time ago. But right now he couldn’t seem to think beyond the hammering of his pulse and the simmering heat of need thrumming through his veins. “Not much.”
“Did you put something cold on it? A frozen bag of peas does wonders.”
Peas? “I have a cold pack.”
“Oh. Good.”
Conversation evaporated like rain on a hot day.
For a guy who could make conversation with anyone and usually did, John was fresh out of ideas on where to go with this one. He rubbed his hand down his jean-clad thigh and watched Darby stroke her fingers down her glass. She looked for a place to put it down, but he didn’t have a coffee table, so she settled back, the glass still in her hands.
Despite all that had happened, he wanted her more than ever. That short time in the barn three months ago had been meant to assuage his desire for her. Instead, that desire had spiraled up to even greater heights. There wasn’t a morning he didn’t wake up imagining her soft moans, his palms itching to shape her breasts, pluck her taut nipples. And the taste of her. He swore he could still sense her there, on his tongue, sweet honey and saucy determination.
He cleared his suddenly tight throat. “So…who’s watching the girls?”
He noticed the way she cleared her throat, as well. Had her mind been traveling down the same naughty road as his? “My mother. She, um, stopped by earlier for a visit and offered to stay when I told her I had to go out.”
Her mother. Now there was a woman to put the fear of God into a guy. John shifted uncomfortably, thinking that what had happened with Dusty might be a piece of cake compared to what he’d probably suffer at Adelia Parker’s hands. Adelia had raised her daughter all by herself when Darby’s father had run out on them just before Darby was born. So it was understandable that she might be a little biased when it came to another man impregnating her daughter.
“Does she know?” he asked.
Darby shook her head. “I told her I was going to Jolie’s.”
“I meant about…”
“Oh!” Her cheeks flamed, making her that much prettier. “No. Word hasn’t made it that far yet.”
John sat forward, resting his forearms on his thighs. “From what I understand from Dusty, word isn’t exactly out.”
“How do you mean?”
“Tuck called him directly. Said he hadn’t told another soul but that he felt Dusty should know.”
“Kudos for Tuck,” Darby whispered. “I wonder if it ever crossed his mind that I’d like to do the telling myself.” Fire flashed in her eyes and John smiled. “What is it about men, anyway? Why do they feel they always have to protect women? That whole ‘weaker sex’ argument never cut it with me. I mean, Dusty isn’t even technically my brother-in-law anymore. And
anyway, the first place he should have gone with the information was my place. To talk to me. Not hunted you down and punched your lights out.”
Well, that was certainly one way of putting it.
“He thought he was doing the right thing by you, Darby.”
Her gaze slammed into his. And this time he was completely unable to read what she was thinking. Strictly because his libido kicked up and rendered him completely incapable of thinking anything at all.
Suddenly she was all heat and beauty and irresistible. She slowly got up and he made a sound deep in his throat as she moved the few feet necessary to sit next to him.
“I can’t believe he did this,” she said quietly, putting her hands on either side of his face, her gaze skimming his black eye. “I thought we’d advanced out of the Dark Ages.”
John tensed, not quite knowing what to do when her mouth followed her gaze and she rested her lips against his injured eyelid. Fire, pure and undiluted, rushed straight to his groin.
“I’m tired of everyone doing what they think is the right thing for me,” she whispered, her lips dropping to his cheek. “I think it’s time for me to start doing what I think is right for me….”
Darby trailed her lips along the length of John’s jaw, his skin like warm velvet. He smelled like soap. She flicked her tongue out, finding that he tasted like one hundred percent pure, needy male. And so very, very alive.
When Erick died, it was as if a fundamental part of her had died with him. The part that knew how to live. The part that threw caution to the wind and hungrily grabbed what she wanted. In its place grew fear. Fear of living. Fear of losing.
When Darby finally pressed her mouth to John’s, she was filled with a longing so intense, so incredible, that she shuddered from her head to her toes. Oh, how she wanted this. Had wanted it ever since he’d last kissed her in the barn, in the aftermath of their lovemaking.
The truth was, she was tired of trying to do the right thing. Fed up with townsfolk trying to help her and, instead, making a bigger mess for her to clean up. Angry that her ex-brother-in-law thought it his job to take care of her. From here on out, any trouble she got into would be hers and hers alone.
And oh, boy, was trouble with a capital T on her mind right now!
The expression on John’s face was one of shock and confusion. Darby smiled slightly and then ran her tongue across his bottom lip, finally slipping it inside his mouth. The action seemed to trigger a switch and suddenly John’s hands were in her hair, tugging her closer, his mouth crushing hers.
A sigh swept through Darby, taking her bones with it. She melted against him, her softness against his hardness. She’d be the first to admit that this was the last thing on her mind when she decided to come out here. But now that it was happening, she was glad it was. Something existed between her and John that no amount of rationalization could diminish. Not even the fact that she was pregnant could calm the clamoring of nerves for his touch, his kiss. Let the twins hate him. Despise her. She needed this. She needed John. Right here. Right now. Touching her. Kissing her. Making her feel like a woman. Not a mother. Not a wife. But a hungry, desirable female to his delectable male.
John groaned and increased the cadence of his kiss, his tongue sliding the length of hers, then retreating even as his hands sought and found her breasts beneath her shirt. Flames licked along Darby’s skin, hardening her nipples, making her ache all over.
“Good God, woman,” John ground out against her ear, holding her so close she could barely breathe. “Do you know what you’re doing to me?”
Darby grasped his back tightly. “Oh, I don’t know, but I think I’m trying to tempt you?” she whispered, moving just enough so their gazes could meet. “Seduce you?”
His pupils instantly took over the warm hazel of his eyes. “Is that what you’re doing?”
She swallowed hard and tried for a smile, but it somehow didn’t make it to her lips. Instead, it took up residence in her chest along with other burgeoning emotions. “I would be if you’d stop interrupting me.”
With a groan, John roughly thrust a hand up into her hair and tugged her head back, gaining access to her throat. Shivers skittered down Darby’s nerve endings, pooling in liquid heat between her thighs.
This couldn’t possibly be even better than she remembered. But it was. Three months ago they’d had to contend with a blustery Ohio winter, most of their caresses made under cover of layers of clothing, their coming together as quick as possible. Darby had told herself at the time that that was why it had happened at all. It had all happened so fast, her hormones had burned so out of control, that had they taken their time, she would have backed out, stopped it from happening.
As she threaded her fingers through the strands of John’s hair, reveling in the feel of his wet mouth nipping and kissing its way toward her breasts…well, she recognized that lie for what it was.
His lips nibbled at a hypersensitive nipple and she cried out.
With a sound deep in his throat, John picked her up and lay her across the soft leather of the couch, nudging open her knees with one of his before settling into the cradle of her thighs. The long ridge of his arousal pressed against her throbbing softness through her jeans. Heat arced through Darby, bringing her back up from the couch, her hands sliding down and over his hard rear. He felt so good. So hot.
John launched a fresh assault on her mouth, delving more deeply, breathing more heavily, and she responded with growing hunger. His fingers tunneled under her shirt again, not stopping until his hands cupped her breasts under her bra, teasing, plucking and caressing her flesh until she thought she would spontaneously combust.
“I want to see you,” John whispered through her hair. “I want to see all of you.”
She met his intense gaze and offered a tremulous smile. “What’s stopping you?”
He began tugging at the buttons of her shirt. “This, for one.”
She pushed at him gently until she’d gained enough room to stand. He reached for her and she stayed him with a hand. “Allow me,” she said, standing beside the couch.
Feeling like a woman gone mad, she began slowly, deliberately undoing the remainder of buttons on her blouse, watching his eyes shift as he followed her movements, his eyes darkening further as each inch of flesh was revealed. Shrugging one shoulder, she allowed the material to drop halfway down her arm, then followed with the other, goose bumps peppering her skin. Not from the cold. Rather, from the gathering heat in John’s eyes, on his face, the obvious restraint he used to stop himself as he lay on his side on the couch. As she shifted out of her bra, the air on her nipples made her shudder.
John tucked his fingers into the front catch of her jeans and hauled her forward, placing his hot wet mouth against her lower belly, then searing her skin with long laps of his tongue.
He gazed up at her, his expression serious, full of desire. “I can’t believe you have our baby growing in there.”
A different kind of heat surged through Darby’s veins at his quiet wonder. She might have pulled away, but she suspected he wouldn’t have allowed her the escape. Instead, she watched him close his eyes and slip the tip of his tongue into her belly button. He undid the button on her jeans, then slowly slid the zipper down, his decadent tongue following the opening metal until the elastic of her underpants stopped him. Or should have. Instead, he dipped his tongue into the waist of those, as well, and Darby’s legs nearly gave out from under her.
She pulled away, suddenly urgent to strip all the way down. “Take off your clothes,” she ordered.
He leaned back again, head propped up with his hand, watching as she shed her clogs and her jeans. When she slid her thumbs into her underpants, he stopped her. “No. Leave them. I want to do that.”
Before she could blink, she was sitting on the couch again. She knew a moment of self-consciousness as he knelt on the floor in front of her knees, his gaze raking her bare skin. Every nerve ending leaped, sizzled, longing for more than he
was currently giving her. She reached for him, but he caught her hands and held them at her sides briefly, before moving his fingers to the top of her underpants. Darby watched him, completely spellbound, as he slowly, torturously tugged them down, her springy dark curls emerging from the plain white cotton millimeter by millimeter. Finally all was revealed and she moved to cross her legs.
“Uh-uh. I want to see.”
His hands splayed against her hips, holding her still.
Darby held her breath, waiting for what he would do next. But feeling his tongue burrowing through her curls, then finding the center of her womanhood was the last thing she would have expected. She threw her head back and moaned, her thighs automatically opening to allow him easier access.
“That’s more like it,” he murmured, but before she could respond, his tongue returned, laving circles around the tight pearl, around and around.
Darby’s breath came in quick, ragged gasps and she found herself reaching for his head, torn between wanting to pull him away and needing to press him closer.
John grasped her hips and repositioned her so that she was in a semireclining position, her bottom even with the edge of the couch, her legs on either side of him. She automatically obeyed and wasn’t disappointed when his mouth fastened over her again and began sucking.
The air around her drew in, then exploded outward in a mind-shattering burst. Waves of heat crashed and pounded through her as she grasped the cushion and cried out. But before she could explore the myriad wonderful, fascinating emotions the climax brought, John was filling her, his considerable length fitting tightly in her slick opening as her muscles contracted, his hands holding her hips still even as she instinctively strained against him.
Darby gasped, the decadent change in attention chasing her right over the edge again even as he brushed a thumb over her hooded flesh, drawing out her crisis.
What a Woman Wants Page 7
