Mary Margret Daughtridge SEALed Bundle

by Mary Margret Daughtridge

  His hand, warm, companionable, utterly male, stroked her foot, while he let his head loll against the cushions of the sofa back. In the candlelight the color of his eyes was lost. She could only see their glitter under lazy, half-lowered lids.

  All she had to do was put the other foot where he could reach it. Stretch her leg just a little to stroke his thigh with her toes. Everything was in place to live out her fantasy, including the fact that she really liked the man. Except, well, now that it was coming true, she couldn’t be sure she’d enjoy it when she got it, because—

  Jax jiggled her foot, indicating he’d waited long enough for her answer, “Say something.”

  “I don’t like sex,” Pickett said.

  The hand covering her toes stilled. Jax did a slow sideways take.

  Pickett felt her face heat up, and her eyes widened in horror as she realized she’d spoken her thoughts aloud. “Oh God!” she clapped her hands over her mouth as if she could stuff the words back in. “I don’t know why I said that! Blame it on—on—hurricane insanity.” Hurricane insanity—now that sounded insane. “Just—just forget I said it, would you?”

  Jax hooted, loud, masculine, confident, throwing back his head so the candlelight revealed the strong column of his neck. “No way!” He turned to her, eyes still gleaming with mirth. “Is it true?”

  “Yes.” She was frozen. Too shocked, too mortified to lie. How could she have let slip what she had never told anyone—not even her therapist?

  “So, you can’t get off, or what?”

  Somehow the very crudeness of the question punctured some of Pickett’s ballooning embarrassment.

  “That’s not it. If you must know, I don’t like it because it’s embarrassing, and messy, but mostly I don’t like it because it is so bor-ring!”

  “Let me make sure I’m tracking this. You think sex is embarrassing and messy and boring, and you get off?” Jax threw back his head and roared. “Jesus! Imagine what you could do if you liked it!” Images of what she could do, what he could do, flooded her face with heat.

  Pickett snatched her foot away. She pulled both knees under the baggy T-shirt and smoothed the cotton over them.

  “You could try for a little sensitivity, here, you know. And the correct term is ‘orgasm,’” she added primly.

  “I know what the fucking correct term is.” Jax didn’t really mind that she had taken her foot away. With her knees pulled up like that the T-shirt gaped at the neck. If he tilted his head, only a very little, he figured he could see the tops of her breasts.

  He tilted his head.

  “But I don’t see how talking about sex in Latin and Greek will clarify the subject.” He smiled the smile of a bridge player laying down an unexpected trump card. “The words that were good enough for Chaucer are good enough for me.”

  Pickett’s eyes widened at the accuracy of his riposte. Good. Let her find out right now that intellectual intimidation wouldn’t work.

  Intellectual intimidation wouldn’t work on him but he bet it had worked plenty of times in the past to keep men at arm’s length. It would take a guy with a lot of confidence and a tough skin to get past her cool façade. But prissy one-upmanship, combined with her air of vulnerable femininity, would act like an irresistible lure for guys who liked to score for the challenge of it. All right, he was one of those guys, but he damn well made sure that the woman involved knew it was a game and she liked to play it too. That way everybody won.

  “Good sex is messy. But embarrassing and boring are pretty much the opposite of good sex. How much experience have you had?”

  “Enough to know, all right?” Pickett snapped. “I really don’t want to talk about this. I’ve never told anybody—not even my shrink—how I feel.”

  “How much experience?”

  “Twice. It didn’t take three strikes before I realized I was out. I discovered I was being used …” Embarrassment wasn’t even the right word, although there had been plenty of that. Humiliation was more accurate.

  God, she’d been so stupid. She had thought Doug liked her, a college freshman. She’d been flattered by the sophomore’s attention and had believed he admired her for her mind.

  As it turned out, he did. He wanted her to write his term papers.

  He had charmed her, and curiosity, her besetting sin, had done the rest. She wanted to know what all the fuss over sex was about.

  Pickett had been reluctant to let him see her body but he had kissed her softly as he unbuttoned her blouse, overcoming her doubts. He had aroused her skillfully, patiently, and the experience of losing her virginity hadn’t been bad. The first time at least had novelty to keep it interesting.

  The second time thoughts about a really good book she was only halfway through and eager to finish kept intruding. She moved her hips to get him to pick up the pace. She’d forego an orgasm to get him to finish this. Though intellectually lazy, he was thorough in other ways, so he held back until he felt her contractions begin. She lay there, with his sweaty body sticking to hers, and wondered how anybody could think this was wonderful.

  The next day, studying at her favorite table tucked in the stacks, she saw one of Doug’s fraternity brothers pass down the aisle. He didn’t see her, and it was possible he wouldn’t have recognized her even if he had. In a few minutes her study was disturbed by low male voices. One of the voices was Doug’s.

  “Whatcha doing in the stacks, Doug? I thought you had a way to ace that lit course without doing research papers.”

  “I do. But if I show up with the right books, it will be easier to convince her I really need her help.”

  Male laughter.

  They were talking about her! Doug had said he would drop by the library today to pick up some books she’d recommended. Pickett’s face grew hot. Her heart pounded, and her sweating palms left droplets on the oak table.

  “So, is she easy?”

  “You’re wondering if you can get the same deal next semester.” More male laughter. “She’s easy for me. Who knows if the same would be true for you, my man.”

  “Just let me know when you’re ready to move over. She’s got great boobs and I could use an A.”

  “She’s okay if you keep the lights off.”

  She’s okay if you keep the lights off. Pickett could never remember afterward how she got back to her dorm room. All she could remember was that phrase that seemed to repeat over and over.

  “Twice. With the same guy, right?” Jax’s dark rumble broke into her memories. Pickett nodded. “Were you in love with the jerk?” Jax’s voice called Pickett back to the present.

  She realized she’d been silent a long time and roused herself to speak. “No.” She hadn’t thought she was in love with Doug or vice versa. It was not her heart that got broken that day, but something much more fragile.

  “Let me get this straight. You had sex, all of twice, with a jerk, and on the basis of that vast experience, you decided you don’t like sex? Forever?” Jax sounded angry, frustrated, as if something about his summation had pushed him to the edge.

  Pickett shrugged and fell silent again. In spite of his sarcastic tone, she had the feeling that he had said something really important. Something that made all the difference, if only she knew what.

  Jax could tell she was lost in introspection. The wind blew almost continuously now, and rain could be heard hitting the side of the house, even where it was protected by porches. With the air conditioning off, the house had grown noticeably warmer and more humid. Jax let the silence between them grow.

  The thought of some man getting under her guard, of carelessly using that sweet little body with no appreciation for the jewel that she was, made his gut clench. One thing was clear: Pickett might say now that she hadn’t been in love, but she wouldn’t enter into sex lightly, and she wouldn’t think sex was a game. Much as he might wish to run his hands across her soft curves, to touch her, and taste her, and sink himself into that soft awareness—he was half hard right now—it wasn’
t going to happen.

  Lucy woke up and stretched, yawning wide to reveal her pink tongue.

  Pickett stirred herself from her reverie. She aimed the flashlight across the room to look at the little crystal battery-driven clock. “It’s quarter to six. There’s no point in going back to bed. I am now officially declaring tonight over, and today to have begun. I’m going to take a shower while there’s still hot water in the tank.”

  Jax rasped a hand over his dark early morning stubble. He looked thoroughly rumpled and incredibly sexy. “Good idea. I’ll start the generator. Save some hot water for me?”

  Pickett gave him a smile of such sweetness it took his breath away. “Sure.”

  TEN

  Is my mommy really dead, do you think?” Tyler swung his legs, kicking the opposite chair with every other swing.

  Pickett’s hands paused in the act of cracking an egg against the counter edge. Okay, where had this come from? “What makes you ask?”

  “You said Hobo Joe would get dead if he didn’t come in from the hurr’cane.”

  “I know. I wish he would come inside.” And let that be a lesson to me to watch what I say around this child. “But he’s a smart dog and I’m sure he’s safe, and so are you. Is that why you asked about your mother?”

  “Well, they said she was lost and she wouldn’t come back. But Hobo Joe runned away and then he came back, and I think Mommy will too.”

  Having no idea where this had come from or where it was going, Pickett fell back on the therapist hum.

  “Hmm,” she said, and waited to hear if he would elaborate.

  The generator rumbled under the constant roar of the wind. Pickett glanced out the window but could see nothing except the blowing, almost solid curtain of rain. The wind had been so steady for the last hour that she had grown accustomed to it. It was only when sudden, heavier gusts struck the house that she heard it. Now what she heard was the intermittent slapping of sneaker on chair.

  “What’s this about your mom?” a dark voice asked from the door to the hall.

  Pickett dropped the whisk she was using on the eggs, and the dogs scrambled, scrabbling their nails on the smooth floor, vying to be first to lick up the puddle.

  “Sorry,” Jax muttered. He crossed the room in two strides, picked up the whisk, and rinsed it before handing it to Pickett.

  He was dressed this morning in loose shorts and a Navy T-shirt that said “The only easy day was yesterday.” There must have been enough hot water left in the tank to shave and she caught a whiff of shaving lotion. As always, his sheer physical presence seemed to overwhelm whatever space he was in. Pickett stood her ground when he reached past her for the coffee pot, but only just.

  “Stop kicking the chair, Tyler, and tell me what you were saying about your mom.”

  Two kicks. “Nothing.”

  “I said, stop kicking.”

  Two more kicks. Louder.

  “Tyler,” Pickett opened the silver drawer. “I need somebody to get out the knives and forks. Can you count? We’ll need three forks.”

  The little boy slid from the chair, “And three knives? I can count. I’ll get ’em.”

  “Great, now put them on the table next to the plates.”

  Tyler placed the flatware near and sometimes on the plates, but not beside them, and not with each place having one of each.

  Jax would have pointed out Tyler’s errors, but Pickett caught his eye and shook her head.

  “Good setting the table, Tyler. Thank you. Now maybe you’d like to make the toast. But you’d better get your dad to help. The oven’ll be hot.”

  “Okay!” The boy’s face lit with eagerness that almost instantly changed to bewilderment. He glanced around the kitchen as if looking for something. “But how do you make toast?”

  Pickett stirred the eggs, checked the home fries warming in the oven. “Jax,” she said, “did they teach you to make toast in the Navy?”

  The corner of his mouth kicked up. “Yes, ma’am, they did.”

  “Excellent.” Pickett gestured regally with the spatula. “Then you may be the head toast maker this morning, and Tyler will be the chief assistant toast maker.

  “I suggest that you,” Pickett aimed the spatula at Jax, “cut the butter into pats. I’ll bet, if you observe closely, you will see Tyler put the butter on the bread with remarkable dexterity.” And if you don’t see it, she telepathed, I will have your head.

  The man might be entirely too good-looking, but at least he wasn’t dumb. He snagged a chair for the youngster to stand on, and in a moment two dark heads were bent over the cookie sheet spread with slices of whole wheat bread.

  Pickett set the eggs aside and picked up the paring knife. She visually measured the bowl of sliced bananas and pineapple, then measured Jax, and reached for another banana.

  He was entirely too good-looking, but not because he was handsome, exactly. His straight brows, high cheekbones, and long nose combined into something too sharp to qualify as handsome. And yet handing Tyler pats of butter, he was so beautiful he took her breath away. He could have posed for Michelangelo with that perfectly toned and balanced body, but even that wasn’t it.

  It was something about the man. The memory of his kiss yesterday body-slammed her. It had definitely been more than a peck. Sweeter. More real. His lips looked hard, but had been soft.

  Pickett shook off the sudden hunger to put her lips against the strong column of his neck.

  He hadn’t meant anything by it. Of course not. He had looked at Tyler with such longing.

  Was she intervening too much between him and Tyler? Probably. Nothing she could teach Jax in twenty-four hours was going to make much difference. Ultimately, he and Tyler would have to work out their relationship for themselves.

  How was he going to integrate the needs of a small child with the demands of the life of a SEAL? He was walking proof of the sacrifices families made to a service career. One thing was sure, he couldn’t depend on any help from that ex–mother-in-law of his. She wouldn’t help him maintain a relationship with his son.

  As for herself, she would do well to remember that they would be gone tomorrow.

  Pickett flicked the oven controls to broil and poured the eggs into the pan when she heard Jax’s “Good work, man. We’re done.”

  Jax scraped the plates while Pickett wiped the stove and counters, and Lucy and Patterson snuffled under the table for crumbs. He saw now why she had said not to worry about any food Tyler dropped. He suspected that most of Tyler’s toast was being scarfed by the dogs.

  Privately, Jax had agreed with Tyler when he said that the whole wheat bread looked dirty and tasted like sawdust. Still, he thought he ought to apologize for his son’s rudeness. Pickett had just laughed, though, unoffended. “I know what you mean,” she’d giggled. “It takes a strong person to eat whole wheat toast!”

  Jax had piled golden fig preserves on his and eaten it. He wasn’t swayed by her remark; he just thought he should set a good example. Even Tyler had nibbled the buttery parts before it started “accidentally” falling to the floor. However, large scraps of toast lay on Pickett’s plate. Mentally reassembling the pieces, he wondered if she had taken even a bite.

  Jax scraped Pickett’s toast into a plastic pail to be taken to the duck. “Tyler ate a little of his toast, but I guess you weren’t feeling strong enough.”

  Pickett acknowledged his teasing with a sideways nod and a wry smile. “Guess not.”

  Jax admired her slender waist, visible between the crop top and low-rider shorts. For all her curviness there wasn’t an ounce of excess fat on her. He didn’t see why she restricted herself so severely. But some women seemed positively afraid of food.

  He could step up behind her, slide a hand across that bare midriff, and drop kisses into the hollows of her collarbones that seemed shaped just right for his mouth.

  Too bad he’d decided she was off-limits. “I’m going out to check on the generator.”

  He snagged t
he pail of scraps from the counter. “I’ll feed the duck while I’m out.”

  “Fine,” Pickett answered from the floor where she was sponging up spots from the heart pine. “And could you make sure Hobo Joe is all right?”

  Jax doubted the huge dog would let him come anywhere near it, but in fact as soon as he stepped out on the porch, catching the screen door before the wildly gusting wind could tear it off, Hobo appeared around the west corner of the house. He was as rascally looking as ever and he swayed like a drunken reprobate as he fought to stand on three legs against the wind. But he wasn’t as wet as he might have been. He’d obviously found shelter somewhere. When he saw Jax he stopped, keeping a careful six feet between them, and sniffed the air, waving his black snout from side to side.

  “You don’t trust me, do you?” Jax kept his voice low. “Okay, I don’t exactly trust you either. But maybe you’d better stay here and keep an eye on things until I get back.” Jax pointed to the door. “Lie down, Hobo. Guard.”

  What do you know? The dog lowered himself slowly till he lay across the threshold. Maybe there was more to the ugly stray than met the eye. He wouldn’t have figured Pickett for the type to fill up her house and yard with strays. Although, come to think of it, he and Tyler had wandered into the yard and Pickett had taken them in. Should he wonder if he was as ugly and reprehensible-looking as Hobo, or hope he had as many redeeming qualities?

  Then stinging pellets of rain driven by hurricane-force winds slammed into him and he thought of nothing but forcing his way across the yard, inches deep in water, to the garage doors.

  Water had blown under the hanging doors and it looked like a leak had started in one corner. Nothing that looked serious. It was hot in the garage. The air was thick with moisture and the smell of earth and motor oil.

  Jax pulled off the dripping nylon parka before inspecting the vehicles. Pickett’s five-year-old Civic looked well maintained but it would be fairly useless if they had to evacuate. Jax was glad he had the Cherokee, with its greater road clearance. It could be driven through water without swamping the engine. He inspected the tires, checked battery cables and fluid levels, even though he had done it the evening before. It wasn’t likely that they’d need to evacuate. Until the storm passed, they’d be safest to stay at the house no matter what happened. Years of training held sway, however, and no matter how unlikely, if he needed the Jeep, he wanted it to be ready.