“Hey, this is John, you know what to do.”
BEEEEEEEP
“Shit!” I whispered to myself. Who the hell has a freaking answering machine? Then a woman’s voice came through the speaker and I froze.
“Get off your lazy butt and answer the phone, John!”
My eyes widened, and I didn’t know what to do. There was a pause, and I guessed she was waiting for him to answer, but there was no way in hell I was picking up that phone.
“Fine. Be that way.”
I leaned forward to find the off button, but then she started talking again.
“I let Suzy in like you asked. Your house was a pigsty by the way, so I hope you’re paying her well…”
The door opened and John walked in. I looked over, swallowing hard as blood instantly rushed into my face.
“…I was thinking about your little problem, and I think you should go for it. You only live once, and you just never know. Oh yeah, and I bought you underwear, which is probably a weird thing for your sister to do, but I was buying some for Tom, and well… It’s time you started wearing them. Anyway, that’s it. Call me back when you get home.”
Click.
John unfastened the leash from Ginger’s collar and looped it around the banister. She pranced off in the direction of the kitchen, where I could hear her taking a drink of water, but I couldn’t take my eyes off John, where he stood watching me but hadn’t said a thing.
I pointed to the coffee table and cleared my throat again. “You have an answering machine.”
He grinned and stuffed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “I like to screen my calls.”
“Oh.” I bit my lip to hide my smile. “Do you really not wear underwear?”
His eyes narrowed and he tilted his head. “You didn’t notice?”
I pushed my hair behind my ear and stood. “You’re avoiding the question.”
He walked toward me and shrugged. “My boys like to fly free.”
“Boys?”
He nodded. “We’re kinda close.”
I couldn’t believe we were having this conversation—or that I was enjoying it so much, but I found myself enjoying everything I did with John, talking, touching, breathing.
“Did you notice, Tuesday?”
I shook my head, feeling the blood rush to my cheeks once more. “Well, it all happened so fast.”
He nodded, stepping closer, and took my hand. “I think we’ll go slower tonight.”
He threaded his fingers through mine, turned around, and started walking down the hall.
“You think?” I laughed.
He pulled me into the bedroom and closed the door. “Yeah. I’m afraid that’s all I can promise right now. I’ve never wanted anything more in my life, and I don’t know how this is going to go.”
The way he said it made my stomach flutter. He was so stinking adorable; I couldn’t help myself from grinning like an idiot. He looked at me like he was a little boy in a candy store, and I was his favorite variety.
He pulled his shirt over his head and threw it in the hamper. “If I was patient, I’d take a shower, offer you dinner, and make you a drink, but I’ve never been a patient man, and I’ve already reached my limit today.” He stepped closer, wrapped his arms around my waist, and pressed his lips to my neck. “I hope you like it dirty.”
My knees went weak. Oh my God. He had barely touched me but my panties were already soaked. My back fell against the wall, he closed the gap between us, pinning my hands above my head, and I wanted to scream. Yes! I like things dirty! Hard, sloppy, anything—as long as you’re the one doing it. But his lips were moving down my throat, stealing my breath, and all the thoughts slipped right out of my head.
His hands came to the bib of my overalls, unfastened each clasp, and let them drop to the floor. Without removing his lips from my body, he lifted me in his arms, carried me over to the bed, and lowered me to the mattress. “God, you’re beautiful.” He unfastened the button of his jeans, and I pulled my shirt over my head.
He said he’d lost patience, but I was worse. Never in my life had I wanted sex as badly as I wanted it now. I wanted him to touch me, to have him on top of me, to have him inside me.
He discarded his pants on the floor, sans underwear, and I lifted my eyebrows to let him know I noticed. And boy did I notice. He pulled a condom from the top drawer of his nightstand, grinning as he crawled up the mattress. He was perfect. Sexy as hell, funny, and even though the lights were still on, he made me feel so comfortable I didn’t try to shield my body even once. I felt beautiful when he looked at me.
He climbed over me, pushed my panties down my legs so nothing but skin was between us. Warm, dirty, delicious skin. I opened my legs, allowing his hips to settle between my thighs, and his expression hardened a bit. “I was wrong, Tuesday. I can’t go slow.”
His mouth found mine again, and his tongue plunged inside with an urgency that made me cry out.
His hand wedged between our bodies, and his fingers moved down, slowly, until he found me wet, slick, and ready. He groaned into my mouth then lifted his hips, positioned himself at my entrance, and pushed inside.
I arched my back, determined to take all of him. His head came to rest on my shoulder, and I grabbed his arms, kissed his neck, tasting the sweat, his salty skin, and him. The him I couldn’t get enough of. The him I would take any way I could. I didn’t even care that he hadn’t taken a shower, that we were both dirty from a long day of work. In some way, it made things hotter, sexier, knowing that he wanted me so much that even a shower was too much time to ask.
He slammed into me, making me cry out from the force of it. He did it again, over and over, ravaging me, causing waves of pleasure to echo from the walls of my body. His fingers came between us, massaging me, adding more pressure, pushing me closer to the edge of a crazy, primal release. His thumb found the nub at my center, adding the perfect amount of pressure to my clit. His teeth sunk into my shoulder, and his body stiffened—and—and—I lost it.
Everything shattered inside me, my legs began to shake, but I forced them to hold on just a second longer. He pressed into me one last time then stilled, heavy, warm, dirty, and perfect…
I pulled in a breath, then another, and my shoulders relaxed into the mattress a little more with each wave of my orgasm. Until my body became…thoroughly, completely, and utterly…limp.
Chapter TWENTY-ONE
Tuesday
An hour later, exhausted and sore—in the most perfect way possible—we lay in bed. My chest to his, his arms around my back, my ear pressed to his skin, listening to his heart beating. He’d made love to me two more times. Once in the shower, where I almost reluctantly washed the dirt from his skin, and again back in his bed. But this time he did go slowly, just as he promised.
If I was asked to pick a favorite of the three, I don’t think I could. Because each time showed a different side of him. The side that was young, eager, and maybe a bit too excited, and the other that was controlled, deliberate, and made me believe there was more to this thing than what we were both acknowledging. Something deep rooted, raw, that had the potential to hurt and leave scars.
But I didn’t want to think about that now. All I wanted to do was let him hold me, to enjoy the feeling of my chest lifting with each of his breaths, and our bodies fitting more perfectly than if we were made as one.
He trailed his fingers up and down my spine, so softly I wondered if he realized he was doing it. I lifted my head to look up at him, to find him watching me. He smiled, a slow, easy smile that only came after a night like this. From being satisfied in the most primal way.
I looked into his eyes, deep brown and slightly droopy from exhaustion, to his straight nose that fit his face perfectly, and his lips. I didn’t know if I’d ever get the chance to examine him this closely again, and I wanted to memorize every part of him. My eyes settled on the scar I’d noticed the first time I met him—the one wedged in the crease between his li
p and chin, and I lifted my hand to touch it.
“How’d you get this?”
He closed his eyes, as if remembering, and I wasn’t sure if it was exhaustion that made him look so somber, or something else. My body stiffened, and I instantly regretted having asked the question.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he said then, and his lips curved a little. But it was a genuine smile, and my body relaxed a bit.
“Try me.” I folded my hands on his chest, turned my head, and pressed my ear against his heart.
He paused for a long time, and I wondered if I was being too personal, but then he blew out a breath and adjusted his pillows. “Well, you remember I have sisters, and they’re all older.”
I nodded, remembering, and smiled at the deep rumble of his voice as I snuggled in deep.
“And I don’t know if you’re aware, but around twelve, boys tend to go through a temporary bout of insanity where girls are concerned.”
I smiled, already enjoying this story way too much. My fingers trailed up down his chest as he continued to speak.
“Well, when I was twelve, two of my sisters made the high school dance team. One freshman, one senior. Penny was the team captain and invited the whole team up to our family cabin as a sort of bonding sleepover. I never really understood what the hell that meant. All I knew was that fifteen tight-bodied women were about to be sleeping right above my bedroom in the upstairs loft.
“Well, my buddy Joey, who lived down the hill, heard the news and tried to invite himself over, but my mom was too wise for that and nixed those plans before they even started. And that’s where we got inventive. Joey lent me his father’s video camera, and we rigged a pulley system that would go from our backyard tree over to the roof of the adjacent loft window. It consisted of rope, a bucket, and a bunch of knots we learned in Boy Scouts that year. To our amazement, it actually worked. We ran across it all day, had it perfectly fitted, even planted a few night lights in their room so I’d always have enough light to film.”
He laughed and shook his head against the pillows. “I snuck out of my room that night about eleven, climbed the tree, somehow not dropping the camera, and then got in the bucket and started to pull.”
I laughed. “Did you see anything?”
He nodded and bit his lip. “Oh, yeah. I don’t know what you guys do at sleepovers, but everyone was in skimpy, little night things, dancing around. It was amazing… well… until the rope gave out. I was a big kid, and Joey and I weren’t the best Boy Scouts. The rope must have loosened from us testing it all day. It slipped from the beam and I went plummeting to the ground.
“I must have called out, because when I stood up, Lisa was standing over me. She was so mad—she’s the youngest of my sisters and always the one to get me in trouble. Didn’t even care that my chin was busted open.”
He flicked his thumb over the scar then looked down at me. “She erased the tape and made me go up to the loft to say I was sorry. She promised never to tell our parents, so I agreed.”
My eyes widened and I grinned at him. “What did the girls say when you apologized?”
“They lectured me. Told me they should call the cops, made me promise never to do it again.”
“Did you?”
“Nah.” He shook his head. “One of the freshman girls actually snuck into my room that night. That’s when I realized all I had to do was ask.”
I pushed myself up on his chest, appalled. “What?”
He laughed. “I was in eighth grade, almost thirteen, and she was in ninth, just fourteen. There wasn’t that big of a gap between us—plus, I was big for my age.”
“Wow.” I lay my head back on his chest and grinned, knowing I probably would have snuck into his bedroom too. Actually, the me then wouldn’t have. The me then was too scared of breaking rules to do things I wasn’t supposed to do. But now, for some reason, I felt rebellious for the first time in my life.
We were both silent for a few minutes before I spoke again. “Do you have any brothers?”
His chin brushed against my hair as he shook his head. “No. But I always wanted one.”
I frowned slightly and looked up again. “Me too. Though I really just wanted a sibling. You’re lucky to have your sisters.”
He grinned and closed his eyes, obviously tired. “They’re okay.” Though the way he said it, the softness in his voice, made me realize they were so much more than that to him… He loved them.
“Becky’s kind of like my sister,” I said into the dark. I don’t know why I said it. Maybe because he’d just told me so much about himself, or maybe because I wanted to share a piece of me too.
He lifted his chin and looked at me. “Yeah?”
I nodded.
He scrunched his face and smiled. “Jake’s like that for me.”
I closed my eyes, and my stomach twisted slightly. Jake, his boss. More than once I thought about how our relationship would affect theirs. More than once I wanted to ask the question… “What would he think―” I stopped, not knowing what to call what we were doing. “Of this?”
He folded his arms behind his head and frowned slightly. “He wouldn’t like it.”
His tone was slightly distant, and I shouldn’t have been surprised by his answer, but for some reason, I could suddenly feel my heart beating—not hard or wild, just beating. It was in perfect unison with his, steady and rhythmic, but even so, it wasn’t comfortable.
He lifted my chin and touched the side of my face, obviously noticing a change in me. “Don’t worry about Jake, Tuesday. He has nothing to do with this.”
Tears pooled in my eyes, and I blinked a couple of times to clear them. My chest flooded with relief, and my little girl heart grew a little more hopeful.
“I don’t kiss and tell,” he said then. “He’ll never find out.”
I forced a smile and nodded, but quickly looked away so he wouldn’t see how badly his last statement hurt. I rested my head on his chest and waited for the panic that invaded my chest to dissipate, but it didn’t.
I knew I was being irrational. In two weeks, the job would be over and he’d be gone. I understood when I agreed to this, but for some reason, it felt different now. Maybe because talking like this made everything feel like so much more. Lying in his arms didn’t feel like we were just sleeping together. It felt like he was making love to me, and I wasn’t sure I’d never been made love to in my whole life until now.
We lay there a few more minutes, while I tried to convince myself I could handle it, but things had changed after tonight. It was different—somehow tainted by the fact that I knew it was almost over. I rolled over on the bed and pushed off the edge to collect my things from the floor.
He was quiet a moment as he watched me, then he finally sat up and arched a brow. “Are you leaving?” he asked, his words coming in such a casual way it made my heart hitch.
“Yeah.”
I found my overalls in the corner and pulled them on, not even fazed by the fact I hadn’t found my panties. “My cat’s going to be pissed at me.”
He threw his legs over the side of the bed, his brow furrowed as he pushed himself to stand. “I’ll walk you out.”
I laughed, even though what I wanted to do was cry, and shook my head. “Nah, it’s late, I’ll be fine.” I pulled my top over my head, slipped my sneakers on without bothering to tie them, then walked over to him and gave him one last kiss to say goodbye.
I intended for it to be just a peck so he wouldn’t worry and ask questions, but when my lips met his, he grabbed the back of my neck and held me captive. His mouth worked over mine, achingly slow, as if he were memorizing my taste.
He groaned in the back of his throat, sending tingles to my belly, then he finally pulling away. He ran his thumb one last time over my bottom lip and I closed my eyes. Allowing myself just a few seconds to collect myself before I grabbed my bag from the floor and made my way to the front door. Knowing this had to be the last time I allowed myself
to be this weak.
Chapter TWENTY-TWO
Tuesday
The next morning, I convinced myself I needed to end it. This thing between us wasn’t good for me, wasn’t good for him, and we needed to stop whatever this was before someone got hurt. Though even as I told myself this, I knew it was a lie. Because I would already be hurt by this ending. I knew that even if I got out now, it would hurt, but it would be a little hurt, a manageable one. If I waited, it would be a big, gaping artery of a hurt I may not be able to recover from.
When I pulled into the parking lot, I still wasn’t exactly sure how to end it… or if I needed to end it at all. Last night he said he wanted me again, wanted me more than once, but we’d done that. Multiple times. Maybe he’d gotten his fill, maybe we could move forward like mature adults, knowing it happened, but pretending it didn’t.
The guys were already busy in the back room, so I sat at the register and picked up the phone to call potential vendors. I didn’t realize until I got there, but I hadn’t bought the donuts today. A piece of me panicked when I realized it was the first time I’d forgotten in a month, but no one came to check for them, so I eventually let it go.
When I was done with my call list, I immediately began doing research for a summer line. The more I did, the less I thought about him, and that was exactly what I needed right now. To not think about him.
My nose was deep into one of my herbal magazines when my phone rang for my regular “Tuesday” conversation with my mother.
“Hey, sweet pea,” she said when I answered. “How’s the store coming along?”
I sat back on the stool and closed the magazine on the counter. “It’s good.” But my words were lifeless in a way I could even hear myself. Yes, the shop was going great—had turned out more beautiful than I had ever imagined. I was getting so many inquiries from vendors it was hard to keep up, but what was happening between John and me made those words feel like a lie. Because somewhere along the way, he’d become more than just my contractor. He’d become a part of this, a part of me.
Waiting for Tuesday: Suspicious Hearts Book Two Page 15
