“I brought a bag,” he replied calmly. “And I ordered a few items for a female companion. I believe you’ll find I’ve thought of everything you need to be comfortable.”
“And you don’t think this is at all creepy?” With her free hand she picked up her water glass, intending to take a sip. But her fingers shook so much she set it back down immediately.
Jeff released her, his expression sober. “You’re the one who came to see me, not the other way around. If you want me to take you home, all you have to do is say so. But I’m hoping you’ll give us this one night to see if the spark is still there.”
“Why are you doing this?” she whispered. He was breaking her heart all over again, and she was so damned afraid to trust him. Even worse, she was afraid to trust herself.
Jeff summoned the waiter and dealt with the check. Moments later, the transaction was complete. Jeff stood and held out his hand. “I need your decision, Lucy.” He was tall and sexy and clear-eyed in his resolve. “Shall we go, or shall we stay? It’s up to you. It always has been.”
Twelve
Jeff’s heartbeat thundered in his chest. He wasn’t usually much of a gambler, but he was betting on a future that, at the moment, didn’t exist.
It was a thousand years before Lucy slid her small hand into his bigger one. “Yes,” she said. The word was barely audible.
He led her among the crowded tables and out into the hotel foyer. After tucking her into an elegant wingback chair, he brushed a finger across her cheek. “Stay here. I won’t be long.”
Perhaps the desk clerk thought him a tad weird. Jeff could barely register for glancing back over his shoulder to see if Lucy had bolted. But all was well. She had her phone in her hand and was apparently checking messages.
When he had the key, he went back for her. “Ready?”
Her face was pale when she looked up at him. But she smiled and rose to her feet. “Yes.”
They shared an elevator with three other people. On the seventh floor, Jeff took Lucy’s arm and steered her off. “This way,” he said gruffly as he located their room number on the brass placard. They were at the end of the hall, far from the noise of the elevator and the ice machine.
He’d booked a suite. Inside the pleasantly neutral sitting room, he took off his jacket and tie. “Would you like more wine?” he asked.
Lucy hovered by the door. “No. Why do you want me to go talk to Kirsten?” Her eyes were huge...perhaps revealing distress over the shambles of their past.
He leaned against the arm of the sofa. “She was your friend from childhood. You and I had dated less than a year. As angry as I was with you, on some level I understood.”
“Why were you angry with me?” she asked, her expression bewildered. “You were the one who cheated.”
He didn’t rise to the bait. “It’s been two years, Lucy. Two long, frustrating years when you and I should have been starting our life together. Surely you’ve had time enough to figure it out by now.”
“You didn’t come after me.” Her voice was small, the tone wounded.
Ah...there it was. The evidence of his own stupidity. “You’re right about that. I let my pride get in the way. When you wouldn’t take my calls, I wanted to make you grovel. But as it turns out, that was an abysmally arrogant and unproductive attitude on my part. I’m sorry I didn’t follow you back to Austin. I should have. Maybe one good knock-down, drag-out fight would have cleared the air.”
“And now...if I agree to go talk to Kirsten?”
He swallowed the last of his wine and set the glass aside. “I don’t want to discuss Kirsten anymore. You and I are the only two people here in this suite. What I desperately need is make love to you.”
Thirteen
Lucy sucked in a deep breath, her insides tumbling as they had the one and only time she rode the Tilt-A-Whirl at the county fair. On that occasion, she had tossed her cookies afterward.
Tonight was different. Tonight, the butterflies were all about anticipation and arousal and the rebirth of hope. Why else would she be here with Jeff Hartley?
She nodded, kicking off her shoes. “Yes.” There were a million words she wanted to say to him, and not all of them kind. But for some reason, the only thing that mattered at this very moment was feeling the warmth of his skin beneath her fingers one more time.
She felt more emotionally bereft than brave, but she made her feet move...carrying her across the plush carpet until she stood face-to-face with Jeff. His gaze was stormy, his fists were clenched at his sides.
He stared into her eyes as if looking for something he was afraid he wouldn’t find. “God, you’re beautiful,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I thought I could put you out of my mind, but that was laughable. You’ve haunted every room in my house. Kiss me, Lucy.”
With one of his strong arms around her back, binding her to him, she went up on her tiptoes and found his mouth with hers. The taste of him brought tears to sting her eyelids, but she blinked them back, wanting this moment to be about light and warmth and pleasure. He held her gently as he took everything she thought she knew and stripped it away, leaving only a yearning that was heart-deep and visceral.
She wanted to say something, but Jeff was a man possessed. He found the zipper at her back and lowered it with one smooth move. Then he shimmied the garment down her body and held her arm as she stepped out of the small heap of fabric.
Beneath the dress, she wore lacy underthings. Jeff didn’t pause to admire them. The lingerie went the way of the crumpled dress.
Suddenly, she realized that she was completely naked, and her would-be lover was staring. Hotly. Glassy-eyed. As if he’d been struck in the head and was seeing stars.
She crossed her arms over strategic areas and scowled. “Take off your clothes, Mr. Hartley. This show works both ways.”
If the situation hadn’t been so emotionally fraught, she might have chuckled when Jeff dragged his shirt, still half-buttoned, over his head. His pants and socks and shoes were next in the frenzied disrobing.
Underneath, he wore snug-fitting black boxers that strained to contain his arousal. Suddenly, she felt shy and afraid and clueless. Had she ever really known this man at all?
He didn’t give her time for second thoughts. “We’ll be more comfortable on the bed,” he promised, scooping her up and carrying her through the adjacent doorway. She barely noticed the furnishings or the color scheme. Her gaze was locked on Jeff’s face.
His cheekbones were slashed with color. His eyes glittered with lust. “You’re mine, Lucy.”
Fourteen
The bottom dropped out of her stomach. It was as simple as that. Even if he hadn’t said the words, she would have felt his deep conviction in the way he moved his hands over her body.
He still wore his underwear, maybe to keep things from rushing along too rapidly. He was tanned all over from his days of working in the hot sun. His chest was a work of art, sleekly muscled...lightly dusted with golden hair.
Even as she took in the magnificence that was Jeff Hartley, she couldn’t help but question his motives. As a rancher and a member of the Texas Cattleman’s Club in Royal, he was a well-respected member of the community. Had his reputation suffered when she walked out on him? Was there a part of him that wanted revenge?
He loomed over her on one elbow, his emerald eyes darker than normal, his forehead damp, his skin hot. It was all she could do to be still and let him map her curves like a blind man. Need rose, hot and tormenting, between her clenched thighs.
How could she want him so desperately while knowing full well there were serious unresolved issues between them? “Jeff,” she whispered, not really knowing what to say. “Please...” Despite what her head told her, her heart and her body were in control.
It was as if they had never been apart.
He rolled her to her stomach and moved aside a swath of her hair to kiss the nape of her neck. The press of his lips against sensitive skin sent sparkles of sensation all down to her feet.
When he nibbled his way along her spine, her hands grabbed the sheets. He lay heavy against her, his big body weighing her down deliciously.
At last she felt him move away. He scrambled out of his boxers and rolled her to face him once again. She let her arms fall lax above her head, enjoying the way his avid gaze scoured her from head to toe.
It had been two years since she had seen him naked...two years since she had seen him at all. Beginning with what would have been their wedding morning, he had phoned her every single day for a week. Each one of those times she had let his call go to voice mail, telling herself he should have had the guts to face her in person.
Had she wronged him grievously? In her blind hurt, had she rushed to judgment? The enormity of the question made her head spin.
For weeks and months, she had wallowed in her self-righteous anger, calling Jeff Hartley every dirty name in the book, telling herself she hated him...that he was a worthless cad, a two-timing player.
But what if she had been wrong? What if she had been terribly, dreadfully wrong?
He used his thumb to erase the frown lines between her brows. “What’s the matter, buttercup?”
Hearing the silly nickname made the lump in her throat grow larger. “I don’t know what we’re doing, Jeff.”
His smile was lopsided, more rueful than happy. “Damned if I know either. But let’s worry about that tomorrow.”
She cupped his cheek, feeling the light stubble of late-day beard. “Since when do you channel Scarlett O’Hara?”
Without answering, he reached in his discarded pants for a condom and took care of business. Then he moved between her thighs. “Put your arms around my neck, Lucy. I want to feel you skin to skin.”
Fifteen
Jeff tried to live an honorable life. He gave to charity, offered work to those who needed it, supported his local civic organizations and donated large sums of money to the church where he had been baptized as an infant.
But lying in Lucy’s arms, on the brink of restaking a claim that had lain dormant for two years, he would have sold his soul to the devil if he could have frozen time.
Lucy’s eyes were closed.
“Look at me,” he commanded. “I want you to see my face when I take you.”
Her breath came in short, sharp pants. She nodded, her eyelids fluttering upward as she obeyed.
Gently, he spread her thighs and positioned his aching flesh against the moist, pink lips of her sex. When he pushed inside, he was pretty sure he blacked out for a moment. Two years. Two damn years.
It was everything he remembered and more. The fragrance of her silky skin. The sound of her soft, incoherent cries. His body and his soul would have recognized her even in the dark, anywhere in the world.
He felt her heart beating against his chest. Or maybe it was his heart. It was impossible to separate the two. Burying his face in the crook of her shoulder, he moved in her steadily, sucking in a sharp breath when she wrapped her legs around his waist, driving him deeper.
He thrust slowly at first, but all the willpower in the world couldn’t stem the tide of his hunger. His body betrayed him, his desire cresting sharply in a release that left him almost insensate.
Lucy hadn’t come. He knew that. But his embarrassment was blunted by the sheer euphoria of being with her again. He kissed her cheek. “I’m sorry, love.” He touched her gently, intimately, stroking and teasing until she climaxed, too. Afterward, he held her close for long minutes.
But reality eventually intruded.
Lucy reclined on her elbow, head propped on her hand. “May I ask you a very personal question?”
Though his breathing was still far from steady, he nodded. “Anything.”
Lucy reached out and smoothed a lock of his hair. Her gaze was troubled. “When was the last time you had sex?”
Here it was. The first test of their tenuous reconciliation. “You should know,” he said quietly. “You were there.”
She went white, her expression anguished, tears spilling from her eyes and rolling down her cheeks. “You’re lying,” she whispered.
Her accusation angered him. But he gathered her into his arms and held her as she sobbed. Two years of grief and separation. Two years of lost happiness.
“I know you don’t believe me, Lucy.” He combed her hair with his fingers. “Maybe you never will. Don’t cry so hard. You’ll make yourself sick.”
Perhaps they should have talked first. But his need for her had obliterated everything else. Now she was distraught, and he didn’t know how to help her get to the truth. Was this going to be the only moment they had? If so, he wasn’t prepared to let it end so soon.
Feeling her nude body against his healed the raw places inside him. She was his. He would fight. For however long it took. No matter what happened, he was never letting her go again.
Sixteen
Lucy’s brain whirled in sickening circles. Jeff wanted her to believe he hadn’t been with another woman since she walked out on him. He expected her to believe he had not cheated on her.
She should have been elated...relieved. Instead, she was shattered and confused and overwhelmed. Was she going to be one of those women who blindly accepted whatever her lover told her? Where was her pride? Her intuition? Her intellect?
Jeff was silent, but tense. She knew him well enough to realize that he was angry. Even so, the strong arms holding her close were her only anchors at a moment when everything she thought she knew was shattering into tiny fragments and swirling away.
At last, the storm of grief passed. She lay against him limp with emotional distress. Taking a deep breath, she tried to sit up. “We need to go back to Royal. Right now. I need to see you and Kirsten in the same room at the same time to hash this out.”
Jeff moved up against the headboard. His jaw was tight, but he scooped her into his lap. “It can wait until tomorrow. We deserve this night together, Lucy. You and I. No one else. Even if you don’t believe me.”
With her cheek against his chest, she seesawed between hope and despair. Was it possible she hadn’t lost him after all, or was she being a credulous fool? If she had placed more trust in what they had from the beginning, it might never have come to this. Was it too late to repair the damage and to reclaim the future that had almost been destroyed?
And what if Jeff had initiated the kiss with Kirsten? Could she forgive him and move on? Was what they had worth another chance? Would their relationship ever be the same?
She was deeply moved, unbearably regretful, and at the same time giddy with hope. Tipping back her head so she could see his face, she memorized his features. The heavy-lidded green eyes. The strong chin. The slightly crooked nose. The tiny scar below his left cheekbone.
He gazed down at her with a half-smile. “Are we good?”
“I’m not sure.” She wanted to say more. She wanted to pour out her heart...to tell him about the endless months of despair and loneliness. But now was not the time to be sad. “Kiss me again,” she whispered unsteadily. “So I know this isn’t a dream.”
Jeff leaned her over his arm and gave her what she asked for, warm and slow...soft and deep. With each fractured sigh on her part and every ragged groan from him, arousal shimmered and spread until every cell of her body pulsed wildly with wanting him. She grabbed handfuls of his hair, trying to drag him closer.
He winced and laughed. “Easy, darlin’. I don’t want to go bald just yet.”
His trademark humor was one of the things that had attracted her to him in the beginning. That and his broad-shouldered, lanky body.
Before she knew what was happening, he had lever
ed her onto her back and was leaning over her, shaping the curves of her breasts with his fingertips. Her nipples were so sensitive, she could hardly stand for him to touch them.
“I need you inside me again,” she pleaded.
“Not yet.” His smile was feral. “Have patience, Lucy, love. We’ve got all night.”
Seventeen
Jeff wanted to worship her body and mark it as his and drive her insane with pleasure. It was a tall order for a man still wrung out from his own release. Not that he wasn’t ready for another round. He was. He definitely was. His erection throbbed with a hunger that wouldn’t be sated anytime soon.
But somehow he had to make Lucy understand.
When he tasted the tips of her breasts, circled the areolas with his tongue, she gasped and arched her back. He pressed her to the mattress and moved south, teasing her belly button before kissing his way down her hips and thighs and legs one at a time. He even spent a few crazy minutes playing with her toes, and this from a man who had never once entertained a foot fetish.
By this point, she was calling him names...pleading for more.
He laughed, but it was a hoarse laugh. He knew the joke was on him. All his plans to demonstrate how high he could push her evaporated in the driving urge to fill her and erase the memory of every hour that had separated them.
His brain was so fuzzy he only remembered the new condom at the last minute. Once he was ready, he knelt and lifted one of Lucy’s legs onto his shoulder. He paused—only a moment—to appreciate the sensual picture she made.
Everything about her was perfect...from the graceful arch of her neck to her narrow waist to the small mole just below her right breast.
He touched her deliberately, stroking the little spot that made her body weep for him. Even though he was gentle and almost lazy in his caress, Lucy climaxed wildly, her release beautiful and real and utterly impossible to resist. “God, I want you,” he muttered.
One Week with the Best Man: Reclaimed by the Rancher Page 18
