by Marie Force
"Screw you."
Luke's tanned face lifted into a small smile. "Never have liked that guy. Something not right about him."
Appreciating the other man's support, Joe grinned. "Couldn't agree more. So, hey, I guess I'm supposed to throw a bachelor party for Mac. You in?"
"Sure thing. What do you have in mind?"
Joe hadn't given it a thought. "Um…"
"How about poker and beer after work one night at the marina? We can take over the restaurant after it closes. Day after the Fourth? Mac's brothers are due to arrive that day for the wedding."
"That's perfect. I'll get Mario's to do the food. Will you spread the word on the docks?"
"Yep."
"Appreciate that. You have a good night."
"You, too."
At least this day hadn't been a total loss, Joe decided as he set out for Janey's small saltbox house, which was set back off Ocean Road, within walking distance of the veterinarian's office. Like her mother, Janey had filled her front yard with fragrant rose bushes that grew through the slats of the white picket fence. Joe let himself in through the gate and took a quick look around to make sure no one was seeing him approach her front door.
She must've been watching for him, because she swung open the door and ushered him into her world for the first time. He'd been invited to cookouts and other parties there in the past but had used work as an excuse to decline. He had gone out of his way to keep his feelings for her hidden from everyone, and had always suspected stepping into her private space would be too difficult for him. Now he wanted to take in every detail, every nuance. On first glance, he decided her tiny home was warm and cozy, everything he'd expect from her. Rich colors, shelves full of books, comfortable. Welcoming.
"Janey—" Joe forgot what he was going to say when she wrapped her arms around him and rested her face against his chest. He wondered if she could hear his heart hammering in response to her. All his good intentions were shot to hell when the scent of jasmine invaded his senses and soft hair brushed against his jaw.
What choice did he have but to put his arms around her? Once again, he was struck by the perfect fit, the click of two halves becoming a whole. Did she feel it, too? There wasn't supposed to be any touching, his conscience reminded him. Shut up. Just shut up.
"Thanks for coming," she whispered.
"We have to talk, Janey."
She tightened her hold on him. "I know, but can we just do this for a minute first?"
Even though a burst of emotion closed his throat, he managed to say, "Sure." Joe told himself they were going to talk. They needed to talk, but then her hands found their way under his shirt and all rational thought left his head in a tsunami of desire. Her hands were warm and soft on his back, and all he could think about was how soft the rest of her had felt under him, wrapped around him.
"I missed you last night," she said. "How is that possible when we only spent two nights together?"
His heart staggered, and his resolve disappeared. Drawing back from her, he caressed her face and brought his mouth down on hers for a kiss that was equal parts desperation and urgency, as if it had been years rather than days since their last kiss. As he feasted on her, a sense of calm came over him. This was what he needed. All the anxiety and despair he'd carried around since their return to the island faded away. He lifted her, felt her legs curl around his hips and her arms tighten around his neck.
"Bedroom," he mumbled against her lips.
She directed him through the one-level house to a room at the end of the hallway.
Joe couldn't have described the room. All he saw was the bed. Locked in another sensuous kiss, they landed hard.
A shriek from beneath them stopped his heart. "What the hell?"
"Trio," Janey said breathlessly, raising herself up. A large three-legged cat darted out from under her and bolted from the room.
"Jesus." Joe leaned his forehead on hers, still breathing hard. "That took five years off my life."
Janey laughed and ran her fingers through his hair. "Where were we?"
"Here," he said with a soft caress of lips touching lips. "And here." He ran his tongue over her bottom lip, and she responded by pressing her hips against his erection. Through the haze of desire and emotion, he became aware of other noises in the house. Scratching, moaning, more scratching. "What is that?"
"Dogs."
He raised his head so he could see her face. "How many?"
"Five," she said with a sheepish grin.
"You have five dogs in this little house?"
"And three cats."
Joe chuckled and fell even further into a love so deep it knew no boundaries or limits. "Do you know that one of my favorite memories of you was when you were about six? You had adorable pigtail braids and no front teeth. You had rescued a squirrel that had been hit by a car in front of your house. You carried him around in a shoebox. Remember?"
"Rocky." Sadness radiated from her as if it had been minutes rather than years. "I tried so hard to save him."
"Your mother was freaking about the germs, but you didn't care."
"I wasn't allowed to bring him in the house, so I snuck downstairs after everyone went to bed and brought him up to my room. She still doesn't know that."
"Probably just as well." He ran a finger over her soft cheek. "You had those overalls with strawberries on them."
She started at him, amazed. "Strawberry Shortcake."
"Huh?"
"My favorite doll. I loved those matching overalls. I can't believe you remember that."
"I remember everything." Joe made a trail of kisses on her face. "I think I might've started loving you that long ago. You were something else, even at six." More kisses, drawing soft sighs from her as the whining coming from the other room grew louder. "Could I meet your friends?"
"Now?"
"Sure, why not?"
"I thought you wanted to…" Pushing her soft center against his hardness, she reminded him of why they'd come to her bedroom.
As badly as he wanted her, he knew they needed to talk more than they needed to have sex again. "I'll still want to later."
"Promise?"
"Mmm," he said against her lips. "Always."
With what seemed to be great reluctance, Janey released him and sat up to run her fingers through her hair. She sat next to him for a long moment, studying him.
"What?" he finally asked.
"I'm still trying to figure out how everything changed between us so quickly. I look at you and I see Joe, my friend forever."
He swallowed hard. "Is that all you see?" His heart pounded as he awaited her reply.
"No," she said softly, "and that's the part I'm trying to understand. I see all this other stuff now."
Joe wanted to weep with gratitude and relief and amazement. Finally. Finally. Finally. "You're seeing all the stuff I've always seen when I look at you."
"I feel like I've just met you for the very first time and anything is possible."
Moved, he took her hand and linked their fingers. Bringing her hand to his lips, he said, "Anything is possible, Janey. You just have to be sure you're ready for it."
"I know you're worried, and I don't blame you for that, but I am ready for this. For you. I want this, Joe. When I see you, now, since we, you know…"
"Screwed each other's brains out?" he said with a grin.
She shoulder bumped him. "Stop making fun of me."
"What happens when you see me now, honey?"
"I want to be alone with you. Even today, when I was so upset about the confrontation with David, all I could think about after I saw you at my parents' house was getting rid of them so I could be alone with you. I used the dogs as an excuse to come back here tonight. I told them my dog sitter had plans, and I needed to take care of my guys. Maddie wanted to stay with me, but I sent her home." Her face flushed to a rosy red that he found utterly captivating. "I can't stop thinking about how good it was. How good we were."
&nbs
p; Joe let out a low groan. As if he hadn't relived every second, every nuance, a thousand times in the last few days.
"It was never like that for me before."
"Janey…"
"Hmm?" She leaned her head on his shoulder, and Joe experienced a wave of contentment unlike anything he'd ever known. Her hand wrapped around his, her head on his shoulder. Everything he wanted, right here. He cleared his throat, hoping the words would come. "You were going to introduce me to your pets."
"Oh right." She got up but kept her firm grip on his hand as she led him across the hall to the other bedroom. "I put them in here earlier so they wouldn't rush you when you came in." Janey opened the door to a room outfitted for pets. Each one had a bed with his or her name embroidered on the cover, and the beds circled the small room. Right away he noticed they were all special needs animals. One had no ears, and another was missing a tail. A third sat stoically, watching Joe with an intimidating intensity. The dog's wise eyes zeroed in on the firm hold Janey had on Joe's hand, and right away, Joe understood that he needed to win over the German shepherd if he had any hope of a future with her.
"This is Sam." Janey released Joe's hand so she could pick up and cuddle a white ball of fluff. "She's blind, but you'd never know it. She gets herself around using all her other senses." Janey lowered herself to the floor, and the others rushed in to vie for a spot on her lap. Except the German shepherd. He continued to stare at Joe. "We found Dexter," she said of the cocker spaniel, "missing his ears. I don't even like to think about how he lost them."
Joe sat down next to her. "Why didn't they bark when they heard me come in?"
"Since they've all been abused, they tend to keep quiet so as not to attract any attention until they know the visitor is friendly."
Sam, the white fur ball, left Janey's lap to take up residence in Joe's, giving him a thorough sniff and a friendly lick.
"I'll never understand how anyone could harm a helpless animal," Joe said.
"Neither will I. We see far too much of it, even out here on the island where you wouldn't think people would be capable. The summer folks have been known to leave their dogs behind when they go home. I found Muttley starving and malnourished by the side of the road up at the Northeast Light about a year ago. His tail was all bloody and infected." Shuddering at the memory, she stroked the brown and black mongrel.
Joe noticed how the dog shied away from her first tentative stroke before settling into the caress.
"He still thinks he's going to be hit. He prepares himself for the blow and seems surprised when it doesn't happen."
"Poor baby." Joe reached out to pat him, but the dog turned away from him.
"He might take awhile to warm up to you, so don't be hurt by that."
Joe smiled. Could she be any more adorable? "I won't. What's the story with the general over there?"
"Oh, that's Riley. He's large and in charge."
"No kidding." Joe was quite certain the dog hadn't blinked once since they came into the room. "He looks like he wants to rip my heart out."
Janey laughed. "He's probably a little jealous. He never did care for David."
"I like him already."
She smiled at him, warming him all the way to his bones. "Riley, come say hi to Joe."
As the dog dragged himself forward using only his front legs, Joe realized he didn't have any back legs. "Oh, God, what happened to him?"
"He was hit by a car and left for dead. Doc Potter was able to save him, but no one wanted a two-legged dog."
"So of course you brought him home."
"I had cared for him for weeks by then. He was already mine."
"How can you afford them all?"
"Well, Doc squares me on vet care and meds, so it's really just food. I worry about what I'll do when Doc retires and a new vet comes to town. They need a lot of care, especially Pixie." The Jack Russell terrier licked her hand and plopped down in her lap, bumping Muttley onto the floor. "She has a persistent skin infection that makes her itchy and miserable, but it doesn't stop her from acting like she's queen of the roost."
Joe reached for Muttley and was honored when the dog gave him his belly to scratch. "You could always go to vet school and then you wouldn't have to worry about affording their care when a new vet comes to town."
"I told you," she said, "that ship has sailed."
"No, it hasn't. And don't tell me you're too old. You're only twenty-eight. Give me a break."
"But—"
Riley edged closer to Joe and sniffed his leg. "You won't know if you don't apply."
"How would I ever afford it?"
The question proved she'd at least considered the possibility. "Didn't your parents offer to give you the money? I believe David convinced you that the two of you shouldn't be so in debt to them, which was flat-out ridiculous, if you ask me."
A black cat with one eye wandered into the room and rubbed against Janey, vying for some attention, which of course Janey gave her. "None of you like him, do you?" she asked in the small voice that rattled him. It was so not her, and it pained him to see her questioning herself in the wake of the David disaster.
"We often didn't like the way he treated you."
"Why did it take seeing him with another woman to open my eyes?"
"You loved him, Janey. You don't have to apologize for that. Not to me, anyway."
"Was he always bad? Deep inside where it matters most, do you think he's always been a bad person, and I never knew?"
"Aww, honey, I can't answer that. All I can say is if I'd been fortunate enough to spend years with you, I would've considered myself the luckiest guy in the world."
"You really mean that, don't you?"
"Of course I do."
"How did I not see that you felt that way about me? It's like I've been walking around with blinders on all these years, and when they were finally ripped off this week, I found out that David's a scumbag and you're…"
"What? What am I?"
Her clear blue eyes shifted to meet his. "I'm not sure yet, but I want to find out."
Joe reached over to tip up her chin to receive his kiss.
Riley growled a low warning.
Janey laughed and patted the dog. "Easy boy. It's okay. He's one of the good guys."
Joe decided that was, without a doubt, the best compliment he'd ever received.
Chapter 11
Janey raised Joe's right hand to her lips and pressed gentle kisses to each of his abused knuckles. She ached when she thought about how he'd injured his hand and how out of character it was for him to hit someone. "I wanted to do this earlier when I got to my parents' house and saw your hand all swollen and bruised."
"That would've shocked them, huh?"
"Just a little. Well, except for Maddie. She knows. About us."
Joe gasped. "Oh, my God, Janey! If she tells Mac—"
"She won't. She promised me."
He released a long rattling deep breath. "He'd kill me. You know that."
"After everything that happened, I had to talk to someone."
"And it had to be her? Your insanely protective older brother's fiancée?"
"We've become very good friends, and I knew she'd understand."
"I don't like it, Janey. I don't want any trouble with him. We go back too far, and with his wedding right around the corner…"
Anxious to quell his worries, Janey straddled him, pressing him into the back of the sofa. "I trust her to keep it quiet, or I wouldn't have told her."
"People will think I took advantage of you—"
She silenced him with a kiss that, like most kisses with him, quickly spun out of control. "If anything, I took advantage of you, and we both know that."
"That's not how it'll look to other people, especially Mac, because he knows how I've felt about you for years. He'll think I jumped you the first chance I got."
"When it was quite the other way around."
"He'll never believe that, Janey. Never."
/> "Then let's keep this between us for now. No one else needs to know until we're ready for them to know."
"And what is this that we're keeping between us? What would you call it?"
"Fun." She kissed him. "Exciting." Another kiss. "Passionate." This time, she ran her tongue between his lips. "Delicious."
Joe's fingers combed through her hair, anchoring her for another desperate kiss. Tongues tangled in a violent, exhilarating battle that sent pleasure darting from her breasts to her core.
Janey pulled her lips free and pressed them to the pulsating nerve in his cheek. "Is it later yet?" she asked as she turned her attention to his neck. The tremble that rippled through his big frame filled her with a sense of her own power.
His fingers ventured beneath the hem of her tank top. "Mmm, definitely."
"And have we talked about everything we need to talk about?"
"Not even close."
She rolled the tendon that joined his neck to his shoulder between her teeth.
He jolted, gasped and his fingers dug into her hips, holding her tight against his erection.
"Will it keep?" she whispered.
"I suppose it'll have to." He shifted his hands to her bottom and stood, accommodating her weight effortlessly. "Because this won't."
In a cacophony of claws on hard wood, her menagerie followed them to the bedroom.
"Are we going to have an audience?" he asked, setting her down next to the bed.
"Come on, guys." She shooed the animals from the room, closed the door and turned to him. "Alone at last."
The whining protests from the hallway reminded them they weren't completely alone.
"Whatever do you plan to do with me?" he asked.
Smiling at his playfulness, she sashayed over to him, shedding her top on the way. There was something about knowing he'd loved her from afar for so long that had Janey also shedding inhibitions that had plagued her relationship with David. She'd often found it difficult to be free and unguarded around him because she never seemed to have his undivided attention. That wasn't a problem with Joe.
His hands slid from her ribs to cover the lacy bra she'd worn with him in mind. Judging by the hot gaze he directed at her breasts, the bra had done the trick. "You're so beautiful, Janey. So incredibly sexy."
