So much for discerning tastes.
“No one’s cutting in anywhere,” she informed him coolly.
Andrew began to slip his arm around her shoulders, but Courtney shrugged him off. Anger flashed across his face, then faded into a smirk as he looked at John.
“Aren’t you going to introduce us, Courtney?”
“No.”
“Ashamed?” he guessed.
She placed her hand on John’s chest, anticipating his desire to separate Andrew’s head from the rest of him. “No, just tired of you and whatever game you think you’re playing.”
“No game. I’m just curious to meet the man who finally won your purse strings, that’s all.”
Firmly moving Courtney aside, John placed himself between her and the man he had taken an instant dislike to. “I’d watch my tone if I were you.”
Andrew’s eyebrows rose mockingly. “Oh, he’s physical, too. But then, I forgot. He works with his hands, doesn’t he? Just like Daddy wanted.” Andrew circled John slowly. “I suppose I can see some of the attraction.” Standing in front of John, his smirk deepened. “Or what», Mr. Tool Belt? You’ll hit me with your level?”
Courtney saw John’s eyes darken and knew the look well.
“I won’t need a level,” he said evenly.
She had to put a stop to this now, before it got out of hand. Courtney placed a restraining hand on each of them, though she wanted to hit Andrew herself. “Andrew, I don’t want a scene here.”
“Then you shouldn’t have come with him.” Contempt colored his features. “He’s just cramping your usual style.”
Mandy took hold of Andrew’s arm. “Andrew, they’re playing our song. Let’s dance.” She tried to pull him away..
But he wasn’t about to move. “We don’t have a song,” he snapped. His pride had been stung. Courtney had walked out on him, yet she had married someone. like this. “Really, Courtney, when are you going to come to your senses? Whatever he does for you in bed, I can certainly do bet—”
“That does it.” Before anyone else could stop him, John swung one well-aimed punch at Andrew’s jaw. Andrew crashed to the floor, shouting obscenities. He remained there, holding his face.
John waved his fist to and fro, trying to work through the pain radiating over his knuckles.
The music stopped and everyone looked in their direction”.
Mandy quickly stepped over Andrew, waving at the crowd. “And so much for our floor show,” she announced. “Now please, go back to what you were doing. Next show will be in an hour. Jugglers and mimes." Mandy grinned mischievously. “I promise to cancel them if you all make another round of donations.
Turning, she looked at Courtney and John, then shooed them out
“Go on,” she urged. “Make your getaway while you still can.” Mandy winked broadly at John.
Taking, her arm, John led Courtney out. He grinned despite the situation. “I guess you were right about Mandy. She can handle things pretty well.
Courtney looked down at his hand. The knuckles were red and skinned. “Hurt?”
His knuckles stung like the devil. “They make it look really easy in the movies.” John glanced over his shoulder as they walked out. “He’s the first guy I ever punched.”
“Til have him bronzed,” Courtney promised. “Now let’s just get out of here.”
He waited until she had picked up her wrap from the cloakroom. Helping her on with it, John tried to gauge her mood. “You’re not angry?”
“Angry?” Where would he get that idea? “You just defended my honor. Why should I be angry?” Actually, she was secretly thrilled. No one had ever done that for her before.
John shrugged as they walked outside. “Diane chewed me out for using the wrong fork at a dinner party.”
She turned to face him. When was he going to understand? “I am not Diane.”
He looked into her face, emotions tugging at his heart The lines weren’t blurred any longer. “No,” he agreed. “You’re not.”
They found Katie curled up on the sofa when they walked in. Sloan was sitting beside her, an unread magazine laying open on his lap. It looked as if it had been there all evening. Sloan, that old curmudgeon, was completely captivated by the little girl.
He rose to his feet when he saw Courtney come in. The magazine fell to the floor and he stooped to pick it up.
“She’s been waiting for you,” he whispered.
Courtney crouched down beside the sofa and brushed the hair from Katie’s face. She looked like an angel, Courtney thought. “You should have put her to bed, Sloan.”
“She refused.” And he hadn’t had the heart to insist. “Said she wanted to see her‘beautiful Mommy and Daddy’ when they returned.”
“She really does have a way with words.” Courtney laughed.
“Okay, it’s off to bed, honey.” John gathered Katie in his arms.
Katie stirred, then, still asleep, she placed her arm around his neck. As John began to walk toward the staircase, she sighed. Her eyes fluttered open for a moment.
“Was the party nice?”
Courtney exchanged glances with John. She looked at the bruised knuckles. They contrasted so sharply with the silken head they caressed. Her hero, she thought fondly.
“Yes, it was a very nice party, pumpkin.”
“Did you bring me some cake?”
Courtney opened her purse. To John’s surprise, she took out a neatly wrapped piece. “Sure did.”
“That’s good,” she murmured, her eyes shutting again.
They both put Katie to bed.
Chapter Fourteen
“Here, let me take a look at that” Courtney reached for John’s bruised knuckles as soon as they slipped out of Katie’s room.
He didn’t want her fussing over him—at least, not over something so inconsequential. Tonight, at the fundraiser, when that jerk in the tuxedo had tried to put moves on Courtney, he had begun to realize just how much he cared for her. How much she had come to mean to him in such an incredibly short time.
John had never been one to lead with his emotions, yet that was just what he had done when Andrew had begun making insulting remarks. He’d allowed his emotions to spill out and get the better of him.
That was when he knew. Courtney had crossed the line between the outside world and the world he had created for himself and Katie. She was in his world now.
He didn’t know whether he was happy about that or not.
John drew his hand away. “It’s not my best feature.”
He could play macho if he wanted, but she wasn’t about to be ignored. Courtney took his hand again, this time holding on to it firmly. She looked at it closely. There was a cut, no, two, right across his knuckles. That needed attention.
Still holding his hand, she led him into the connecting bathroom. “No, your best feature would be your sunny personality.”
He laughed, sitting down when she silently pointed to the closed commode. He had a hunch that he wouldn’t win this round and that resistance would be futile. Just as resisting her had proven to be.
“I wouldn’t throw stones if I were you.”
Courtney took out the small bottle of peroxide from the medicine cabinet, then searched for cotton balls in the cabinet under the sink. “I guess I really did give you a hard time in the beginning.”
He was enjoying the view. The gown adhered to her like a second skin as she wiggled farther into the cabinet. “You could have given lessons to a marine drill sergeant.”
Courtney snaked her way out, then sat back on her heels, her prize in her hand. She grinned as she looked at John. “That good, huh?”
He smiled. “No.” A few times there, he’d wanted to wring her neck. “But you turned out to be.”
She unscrewed the bottle cap. “You’re just trying to get my mind off your knuckles.”
“Maybe.” He didn’t think of her as particularly the handy or nurturing type. “Like I said, they’re not my best feature. What I am trying to do,
in case it’s not obvious, is get you into bed.”
Courtney soaked the cotton ball in peroxide. “If you want to play doctor, let me play nurse first.”
He shrugged, bracing himself. “Whatever turns you on.” With an exaggerated leer, he moved his eyebrows up and down. “I can be the lonely, wounded pilot, shot down over World War ∏ France during a reconnaissance mission.” Casually, he stroked her thigh with his other hand:
That went right to the heart of it, all right, she thought. Warmth spread out tributaries in all directions. She was done for. “Feeling your oats, are you?”
There was nothing innocent about the look he gave her. “I’d rather feel yours.”
She’d never seen him this playful before. The longer she knew him, the more she found to like. “Boy, hitting Andrew certainly did give you a rush.”
He hadn’t thought of it that way, but maybe she was right. “I guess.” John shrugged. “It just felt good shutting his mouth. Like I said, I’ve never hit anyone before.”
Holding his hand, she slowly dabbed the cotton ball over the cuts. He winced, but said nothing. She hadn’t expected him to. He’d probably borne up to his first inoculation the same way, tight-lipped and macho.
“Never been in a fight before?” Her eyes swept over him. Even the tuxedo couldn’t hide the body beneath. “Just one look at those manly muscles always sent everyone running, huh?”
His knuckles were really stinging. He hadn’t realized he’d cut his hand when he hit Andrew. Must have been. on his pointy chin, John thought. “I didn’t always have muscles.”
Tossing the cotton away, she raised his hand to her lips and blew softly along his knuckles, drying them. And warming him.
“Tell me about it,” she urged.
The thing he liked least in life was talking about himself. He was even less inclined now, when she was unwittingly tying him in knots.
Or was she doing that consciously?
“I just did.”
He was being too literal. And too stubborn, she thought. “No, I mean tell me about childhood. Specifically, yours,” she elaborated when he said nothing.
John shifted, growing more uncomfortable. What was the point of talking about growing up with an aunt and uncle instead of a mother and father because neither one of them had wanted him? His aunt and uncle hadn’t wanted him, either, but they were big on responsibilities. They never missed an opportunity to tell him that, either. He’d lost count how many times they’d reminded him in fifteen years.
He had struck out on his own as soon as he could, using scholarships, student loans and a part-time job as a carpenter to get him to that degree he wanted.
And then he had met Diane and his life had changed forever.
Old news.
“Nothing much to tell.” John shrugged, as if he were dismissing a movie that had been too boring to sit through. “I was born, I grew up and here I am.”
Courtney screwed the cap back on the peroxide bottle. “Wow, even those outlines that college students use to cheat on their term papers with give you more than that.”
She replaced the bottle and tossed the box of cotton back underneath the sink, her eyes on his, waiting for more.
He didn’t want her pity, and he knew he’d arouse it if he told her what she wanted to know. “Maybe they have more to work with.”
Planting herself in front of him, she looked down into his eyes, searching for the answers he wouldn’t give her. “I really doubt that.”
The bathroom light played off her sequins, sending the lights it reflected dancing along his skin. He found himself wanting her all over again, just the way he had more than a dozen times tonight. “You want to spend all night talking?”
“Some of it,” she said honestly. There was so much she wanted to know about him. She wanted to hear every scrap of detail he could remember, no matter how minor. “I want to know who I’m kissing.”
Instead of answering, he fished his wallet out of the inside of his jacket. Opening it to his driver’s license, he handed it to her.
She pushed the wallet back at him, shaking her head. “I had no idea you had such a droll sense of humor.” And then she grew serious. “Who are you when you’re not being Katie’s father and defending my honor?” When he still didn’t answer, she tried to get the ball rolling with a basic question. “Why was an engineer rebuilding my guest house?”
Knowing she wasn’t going to be put off completely, he gave her the most general of answers and hoped it would temporarily satisfy her.
“I was laid off.” Technically, it was true. He had to take so many days off to take care of Katie, he’d lost his job. But those were details he didn’t want to share. “And work in the field is scarce these days, so I had a career change. I like working with my hands.
“Speaking of which, they feel rather empty right now.” He placed them on the swell of her hips and drew her to him. “There, that’s better.”
There was nothing to do but give up. John was clearly not in the mood to open his past to her. But he would someday, she promised herself.
If worse came to worst, she could always get her hands on the report Parsons spoke of. It might be awkward, but she could make up some excuse.
For now, all she wanted was to be taken back to the place they had found within each other. The place where he made her feel so loved, so wanted.
She threaded her arms around the back of his neck, her body leaning temptingly toward him. “I’ve got something in mind that’s even better.”
John rose, his body sliding seductively against hers as he gained his feet. They both felt the electricity crackling between them. Calling to them.
“Nice to know we think alike on some things.” He’d had enough of talking. Going with his feelings, John covered her mouth with his own.
They had all night.
They wanted this instant.
Passions ignited in a heartbeat, sending them racing to recapture ground they had already consecrated. Somehow, it felt like a race against time.
Maybe, in a way, it was. A race against things that existed just outside them that could ruin everything for them. An inevitability that would ultimately rob them of this paradise they had discovered.
For there were secrets between them.
Courtney had never felt such intense urgency racing through her as she slid her palms along his chest. She dragged his jacket from his arms, tossing it aside. Her fingers were barely functioning as she fumbled to unbutton his shirt.
As she worked to free his body, he worked to free hers. There was less for him to do. And more frustration.
“Where’s the zipper to this damn thing?” John rasped impatiently against her mouth when his search along her back had yielded nothing.
Giddy, Courtney laughed and raised her left arm. “Hidden under here.”
It was one of those zippers that was visible only if you knew where to look. It figured. Grasping the end, he tugged on it.
“This was designed by a woman, wasn’t it? Made to frustrate a man and make him beg.”
And if that’s what it took, tonight he was up to it. He could beg if it meant one more night of ecstasy with her.
He’d certainly come a long way, he thought. Or fallen a long way.
The zipper rested on its base. The shining material parted from her body, genuflecting as it went down to the floor.
Courtney shivered in anticipation as she felt the zipper sliding down along her side.
Her laugh was deep, throaty in response to his question. And completely captivating. “How did you know?”
“Just a hunch.” The dress fell away, coming to rest around her high-heeled, sandaled feet like a bright pink wave. He could have swallowed his tongue and very nearly did. “You look like a fantasy.”
She felt like one. A bright, beautiful, enticing fantasy. Because he made her feel that way.
She could have given him anything. Everything.
Courtney felt the air backing up i
n her lungs as his hands worshipped her skin, sliding along its curves roughly, bringing her closer to waves of ecstasy even as he managed to hold her back.
She’d all but ripped the clothes off his body to be closer to him, to seal the union that was so vital to her. She didn’t remember doing any of it, only the feeling that was driving her.
And when she’d divested him of everything, he was more stunning to her than Michelangelo’s David had been to its creator. His mouth took hers, heat searching for heat.
She let herself be enfolded in his hunger, in his passion, ready to be taken quickly. Her body demanded it. Begged for it.
But he surprised her.
Again.
John held off, choosing now to introduce her to the wonders of her own body. He became her teacher and he seemed to know her body far better than she did. He knew its secrets and its releases. And he showed them to her, one by one.
On the bed, as John stroked her, as he kissed her over and over again, he brought her to the brink of one crest, and then another. Each release was more sumptuous than the one before. With the promise of another shimmering just beyond.
She thought she was going to explode.
And when she did, when she thought it couldn’t get any better, any richer, it began all over again.
She felt his hands, his hot breath, everywhere along her body as he explored, charted, claimed.
This wasn’t fair, her mind cried. She wanted to make him as crazy as he was making her. Wanted to make him yearn the way she yearned, to toss him in the midst of a fever pitch the way he did her.
But for that she needed strength and he kept sapping hers away from her. For that she needed to tear herself away from his plundering mouth and blaze her own trail along his body. And she didn’t want to tear herself away, not yet. Not just yet Because he was reducing her to a state that was so delicious, so addictive, she couldn’t find enough willpower to make herself leave.
A little while longer, everything within her pleaded. She urgently pressed his head against her as she felt the heat of his mouth burning its way along her thighs.
Just a little while longer.
His lips and tongue stole the very life from her. And created it anew. Courtney twisted against his mouth, craving more, needing more, knowing if she had more, she would die.
Wanted: Husband, Will Train Page 18
