Big-Bucks Bachelor

by Leah Vale

  She sat back and dropped her gaze to her hands in her lap. “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

  He shot her a glance. “What do you mean?”

  She shrugged. “Nothing.” A long curl escaped her knot, dropping onto her breast like a thick strand of honey. She met his gaze again. “Is that what he did with his lottery winnings?”

  His train of thought lost in the urge to undo the rest of her hair and bury his hands in it, he didn’t answer for a moment. Forcing himself to focus, he said, “From what I could tell, Henry didn’t do a single thing with his share. Except maybe buy newspapers. There were a lot of newspapers. And he never got rid of a single one. Everything else was exactly the way it had been ten years ago.”

  She shrugged again. “From what I can tell, all you’ve bought are those fancy cowboy boots you had on the other night.”

  He thought of his boots sitting next to his back door drying, and pushed aside the uncomfortable twinge her words caused. “You know what I’m saving my money for.”

  She considered her hands again, her luscious mouth slightly downturned. “Yes, I do.”

  Her soft voice pulled Jack toward her. He leaned forward and snagged the curl from where it clung to her flannel shirt above her breast. “At least I have a plan for the future, Melinda. I’m not stuck in the past.”

  She looked at him, her brown eyes as rich as sable beneath a sheen of moisture. “Are you sure, Jack?”

  A spasm gripped his heart and he placed a hand against her warm, satiny cheek, his thumb stroking her cheekbone with the lightest touch he was capable of. “I am now,” he murmured, then he kissed her.

  Chapter Ten

  Her heart soaring, Melinda opened her mouth beneath Jack’s and allowed him to deepen the kiss. He tasted of savory soup, man and sorrow. A sorrow she could at least provide a balm for, if not heal. She wanted to show Jack he wasn’t alone in this world; he didn’t have to bear the weight of his loss like a single scrub pine heaped with heavy snow out in the middle of nowhere.

  She reached up and wrapped her arms around the back of his neck, praying with everything she was worth that he understood her message. He slanted his head to better fit his mouth against hers and her entire body wanted to be there to meet the tip of his tongue when he thrust it into her mouth. It connected with hers, and she felt like she’d grabbed hold of a wire fence electrified with pleasure.

  He slid his hand from her cheek into her hair and splayed his fingers across her scalp, kneading and holding her while he made love to her mouth with his. His other hand slipped beneath her arm and held her side, just off her breast, tempting her to turn into his touch. The simmering desire she’d always carried for him rolled to a full boil, creating a pressure inside her chest she had no choice but to relieve with a moan.

  As if she’d given him a signal, he abruptly dropped his hand from her side and grabbed a leg of her chair, jerking her closer to him with the loud scraping noise of wood on linoleum.

  Against his mouth she said, “Good thing I bought a round table instead of a square one with dangerous corners.”

  With a half chuckle, half growl that reverberated around in his chest and spurred something very instinctual deep inside of her, he said, “But you’re still not close enough.”

  She was darn near giddy with a resounding need. “Tell me about it.”

  He kissed her again, hot and teasing. Without ending the kiss, he took his hand from her hair and found the backs of her knees with both hands. Before she realized what he meant to do, he yanked her off her chair and into his lap, her legs straddling his lean hips. The heat and hardness she came in contact with made her gasp. He took advantage of it and kissed her deeply.

  His big, capable hands went between them to her breasts, cupping, kneading and stroking them through her clothes with just enough pressure to make her ache for more. She reminded herself that they weren’t teenagers making out in a car or college students fumbling through a hasty, almost perfunctory introduction to adulthood. They were two people who’d been alone for far, far too long, who deserved this sort of connection, who had every right to take it all the way.

  Made bold by his desire, Melinda took her arms from around his neck and reached over his hands to find the buttons on her shirt. Bold or not, her fingers still shook as she unbuttoned her shirt, yanking it from beneath the waist of her jeans so she could unfasten it completely.

  Jack rumbled his approval and broke away from her mouth to kiss his way down the path she was creating. Melinda dropped her head back and lost herself to the ripples of incredibly wonderful sensations his moist, warm mouth created on her skin. When his lips reached the lacy edge of her white demi bra, he darted his tongue beneath the fabric and sent a bolt of sizzling pleasure straight to her womb.

  She groaned his name, and he responded by opening her shirt wider, then unerringly found the front clasp between her breasts and opened her bra. Vulnerability lanced through her when the cool air contacted her overheated flesh, making her skin tighten. She dropped her chin to watch him.

  The kitchen light glinted off where the sun had kissed his thick, light brown hair and his strong, square jaw, shadowed by emerging whiskers, was set as he focused his attention on what he was doing. His touch featherlight and his gaze hot and heavy, he pushed the undergarment to the sides. With near reverence he placed a hand beneath each breast.

  His voice thick and rough edged, he whispered, “How could I have been so blind?”

  Before she could think of a suitable response, one that wouldn’t remind him of his pain, he dipped his head and took the puckered tip of her right breast into his mouth. Any thought not directly related to the way her breast felt trapped between his lips as his hot, moist tongue rolled around her nipple evaporated from her mind. She let her head drop backward again.

  He lavished her breast with attention until every bone in her body felt soft and ready for him to shape her around him like the most pliant of clay. Replacing his mouth with his fingers, he kissed his way to her other breast and rewarded it with equal attention.

  The passion he’d so casually thrown a match to flared suddenly and raced through her like a wildfire across tinder-dry plains. She arched toward him, into his kiss, rocking forward against the hard ridge beneath her. He growled and raised his head from her breast and found her mouth again.

  He gripped her hips, encouraging her to ride him, but it was too much, the sensation was too intense. She broke the kiss and bowed away from him, her heart thundering in her ears.

  Resting her forehead against his, she breathlessly said, “Ah, Jack. You’re killing me here.”

  “I think that’s suppose to be my line.” He bucked against her slightly as if she could have missed how turned on he was.

  She automatically ground down on him and made him groan.

  His expression intense, an undeniable need darkening his field-green eyes, he reached up a hand to cup her cheek again. “I want to be inside of you, Melinda.”

  Her breathing hitched as every muscle in her pelvis clenched in anticipation, but despite her body’s response to the potential reality of his words, her brain stuck on the noticeable fact he hadn’t used the words make love. But how could she expect that from Jack? Loving had cost him so much once. She doubted he’d ever want to risk having to experience that sort of pain again.

  Her body didn’t give a damn and overruled her mind, caring only that he wanted to be a part of her.

  Between shallow breaths she said, “Okay.”

  He pulled back to meet her gaze, his pupils dilated by desire, providing her a way inside of him in return. He raised a playful brow. “Just okay?”

  “Yep. I’m a woman of few words, Jack. Action is loads better.” She rocked against him again and was rewarded by him closing his eyes in obvious pleasure.

  “Mmm. When you’re right, you’re right, darlin’,” he drawled. He shifted his big, hot hands to cup her bottom. “Come on. Let’s go do some living.”

 
The muscles in his legs flexed and he stood in one fluid motion, his chair thunking against the wall as he pushed it back.

  “Oh!” Melinda reflexively tightened her hold on his neck and wrapped her legs around his waist, but it was clear he could easily carry her without her help.

  A part of her was unable to fully accept that what was about to happen was really going to happen. The part of her Eric had beaten down by choosing another, “better” woman made it hard for her to believe that a man as desirable as Jack could want her. And she had fantasized so often of making love with Jack that to have it actually happen made her feel incredibly awkward.

  He headed toward the short hall off the living room. “I’m assuming your bedroom’s down here?”

  “The door on your left. Bathroom’s on the right.”

  But rather than watching where he was going, his gaze dropped to her bared breasts again. It had been so long since she’d shared any sort of intimacy with a man, a ridiculous sort of shyness had her searching for a way to distract him.

  She teased, “You know, your soup is going to get cold.”

  “I’m hungry for something else, sweetheart. Starving, in fact.” He captured her lips and proceeded to walk them into the living room wall, having missed the opening to the hall.

  Though far too sensitized by what was going on with her front side to give a darn about what happened to her backside, she was surprised enough to let out a grunt.

  He tried to pull away from their kiss, but she wouldn’t let him, so he murmured against her lips, “Sorry.”

  She giggled, sucked at his bottom lip, then pulled away enough to say, “No problem. I just hope you have better aim with other things.”

  His grin was wicked. “Hey, I happen to know all sorts of things about mating.”

  A delicious shiver of delight and anticipation wracked her, and she buried her face against his neck as he readjusted his course and went down the hall. She couldn’t believe this was actually happening.

  A dark voice reminded her of the reasons why he was doing this, that he’d been hurting and needed a distraction to get through it. And that he’d said nothing to suggest he’d changed his mind about leaving.

  She refused to care. She wanted this memory, this moment with Jack. She’d deal with the baggage later. She proved her point to herself by lifting her head and kissing him for all she was worth.

  He paused and made that rumbling sound deep in his chest again. Using his shoulder along the wall to find the door opening, he turned into her darkened bedroom, a place she’d thought he’d never see. He didn’t end the kiss until he’d laid her gently on the queen-size bed.

  He straightened and looked around the small room. Melinda cringed, knowing what he saw in what light from the kitchen that made it into the room. While she wasn’t a slob, she wasn’t exactly a neatnick, either. The batch of dark laundry she’d washed two days ago still sat where she’d dumped it in the room’s lone chair—a cute, skirted, overstuffed chair upholstered in white-and-rose checked chintz. She’d bought it thinking she’d use it to sit and read in or at the very least use to put her shoes on. It was always too buried beneath laundry, clean or not, to do either, so much so even the cats wouldn’t risk jumping up on the teetering pile.

  Jack returned his gaze to her, the green of his eyes darkened and intense. “You are so much more than I’d first thought you were.”

  She resisted the urge to close the front of her shirt. “How so?”

  “I hadn’t expected such…femininity.”

  Though she knew what he meant, she raised her brows and glanced down at her exposed chest.

  A corner of his mouth kicked up and he put a knee on the bed and climbed on next to her. “Not that, so much as girly-ness.”

  Jack seeing her as feminine unsettled her. When she was ten, her dad had finally put to words his dearest wish that she’d been born a boy. She’d finally understood why he would look at her, his mouth tight and downturned, then walk away. Since then, Melinda had shunned the trappings of femininity in an attempt to win his love. And it hadn’t worked.

  She glanced toward the padded headboard she’d covered with the same rose and cream fabric she’d made the duvet cover from. The material had been on sale. She used the mound of crochet-edged pillows she’d made during a stretch of long, lonely nights to prop herself up with while she read veterinarian journals in bed.

  Above the bed hung a wreath of dried lavender her mother had made her as a housewarming gift when Melinda had first moved to Jester. Mom had picked the lavender from a plant that grew outside the kitchen door, and it reminded Melinda of her childhood home.

  Each and every touch in this room had sprung from a practical or sentimental reason. But was that why she’d failed to win her father’s love? Because she’d failed to minimize the fact she was a girl? Or did it go deeper than that?

  Jack took her mind from her thoughts when he dropped his head and starting kissing his way down her neck, following the same path with his mouth that he’d taken in the kitchen. He kissed and licked his way to her left breast, then took her hardened nipple between his lips and sucked. Suddenly not giving a damn what anyone but Jack thought, Melinda was exceedingly glad to be a woman.

  His tongue played at the sensitive tip and she arched toward him as if he’d winched her tight. An urgency overtook her, and Jack seemed to sense it. He quickly stripped her clothes from her, kissing every new patch of exposed skin. Whenever she could, she unbuttoned and tugged off what she could reach of his clothes. What she uncovered made her heart pound.

  She’d known he was in excellent shape, having seen him in action hauling an unwilling cow into the chute for vaccinations or lifting a full-grown sheep over a fence. But a show of strength or even the hint of rounded muscle beneath his clothing didn’t prepare her for the male beauty of Jack’s naked body. Every muscle was perfectly delineated without being too bulky. His broad chest had just enough hair spread across it to tempt her to tangle her fingers in it.

  She reached for him, and his touch and kisses took on a similar air of urgency.

  “Ah, Melinda, Melinda,” he murmured against the base of her throat as he settled his big, muscular, hot body on top of her. Melinda understood. Despite his teasing, despite his seemingly casual air, Jack desperately needed this. He needed to be reminded that he was still very much alive. Alive, and for this moment in time, entirely hers.

  “Make love to me, Jack.”

  He kissed her hard and deep and covered her with his incredible body, bringing every inch of her skin to life. But before she could wrap her arms around him and open her legs to him, he groaned and rolled off.

  Fear shot through her. Had he changed his mind? “What? What is it?” she asked, her voice tinged with panic.

  He rubbed a hand over his face. “I had no idea this would happen tonight. I mean, I guess I decided it might at Henry’s but…”

  “But what?”

  “I don’t have any protection.” Staring up at the ceiling, he blew out a heavy breath. “We can’t risk a pregnancy.”

  Because he’s leaving town.

  Her heart ached at the intrusion of reality. The very good chance that Jack would never allow himself this close to her again brought tears to her eyes. And frankly, the thought of having Jack’s child didn’t freak her out, despite the fact that she’d never given being a mother a moment’s consideration. All she’d ever wanted to be was a vet. But to have a part of Jack forever in her life…

  He’d never allow it. She knew as sure as she knew her name that he would get up and walk away before he took the risk. And that would be the end of it.

  A flash of memory sent a bolt of relief and excitement through her.

  “Oh! Wait. I just might…” She rolled to the other side of the bed and flipped up the white table topper covering the beat-up nightstand she’d used during college. She pulled out the lone, slender drawer and felt beneath the forgotten vet journals and a shallow box of tissue.


  “Aha!” she extorted when her hand connected with a length of cool plastic. She pulled the long string of forgotten condoms from the drawer and held them up triumphantly.

  He arched a brow at her.

  “From college.” She checked the expiration date. “They’re still good.”

  His other brow went up.

  She heaved an exasperated breath. “Remember the guy I told you about who—”

  “Needs to have his face pounded in? Yeah, I remember.” He rolled back toward her and pulled her tight against him. Leaning down, he looked directly into her eyes. “I’m glad he never had the chance to use those with you.”

  She felt compelled to explain, “There were originally more of them, Jack.”

  He curled his lip in a look of jealousy that sent her spirits soaring. “A guy like that could never deserve a woman like you, Melinda.” He dropped a gentle, heart-rendingly tender kiss on her lips.

  Her heart swelled with love for him and crowded the air from her lungs.

  Raising his head, he reached for the packets. “Well, I’m glad I don’t have to suffer through the, er, ribbing I’d have taken at The Mercantile for buying a case or two of these at a dead run.”

  She pulled back her chin. “You were going to go buy some? Tonight?”

  “Damn straight. In case you haven’t noticed,” he rubbed his erection against her hip. “I want this, Melinda. I want you. Right here, right now. You game?”

  Her throat tightened so much with love for him that she couldn’t speak, so she nodded and slipped her arms around his smooth, strong shoulders.

  Jack kissed her once, hinting at what he might do to her with his tongue, before pulling away long enough to put one of the condoms on. Then he was back, covering her with his body, his hands, his mouth. This time he blazed a new trail down her belly, not stopping until he was kissing and licking her exactly where she wanted him the most. The reality of what his tongue could do to her was incredible in ways beyond her imaginings.