Pulling the nightgown higher she considered her thigh. Still too soft, but you can’t fight genetics. She stroked the lotion higher.
Jax heard a drawer slide open in the bathroom. She must have come in through the hall. He didn’t hear her go out again. A drawer slide again. Faint clinking sounds. But she hadn’t closed the bedroom door.
His mouth stretched in a grin. She had the funniest little habit of talking to all kinds of things, animate and inanimate. Right now, she was talking to … her legs? He moved so that he could see past the partly open door.
Taking advantage of concealment was second nature. If he remained in the shadow of the door she wouldn’t see him, but he could see her in the mirror. She had one leg up on the lavatory counter, stroking the smooth curve of the calf. The movements were slow, sensuous. His palms tingled at the thought of touching silky skin, of letting his hand slide up. Then she pulled the gown to the top of her leg. Now she was stroking her thigh. His eyes followed the path of the hand. Oh yes. In the mirror he could see the shadow of curls, darker than her hair, where her womanly secrets hid.
His groin tightened with a speed unmatched since he was seventeen.
“Still too soft,” she said, smoothing the lotion across the gleaming skin, “but you can’t fight genetics.”
He shouldn’t be spying on her. He should let her have her privacy.
She thought she was alone; he should leave her alone.
He wasn’t going to.
He stepped soundlessly into the bathroom. “I like your thighs.”
“I like your thighs.” The warm, dark voice rumbled quietly from the open doorway.
Pickett jerked the gown down, hastily standing up. My God! How long had he been standing there? Had she spoken aloud? With only the dogs for company, it was a habit she had gotten into.
“Um. They jiggle. A little.”
“A little jiggle is nice on a woman.” He took a lazy step into the bathroom.
Pickett snapped the cap onto the tube of lotion. “I’ll get out of your way. I just ran in here to grab—”
He took the tube from her nerveless fingers. “I like how this smells.” He snapped it open, squeezed a little unto his fingertips, and lifted it to his nose.
“You missed a spot here,” he touched the lotion to her neck, “and here,” he smoothed his hand across her shoulder. The feel of his slightly rough, warm fingers under the cool silk of the lotion was unbearably erotic.
Unable to move through the sudden wave of pleasure, Pickett watched with almost detached fascination as he put more lotion on his fingers and smoothed it onto the other side of her neck and shoulder.
A heavy feeling of heat began to gather at the juncture of her thighs as his hand slid across her chest and dipped beneath the neckline of the gown to brush the tops of her breasts.
He felt the hitch in her breath, and his eyes grew even more lazy-lidded. “You like this, don’t you?” He stepped a little closer, angling his head to bring his lips to her neck. “I like it too. I’ve wanted to touch you all day. Like this.”
Tyler cried out in his sleep, babbling something indistinguishable, then was quiet again. The sound broke Pickett’s sensual trance.
“I shouldn’t be in here. We shouldn’t be doing this.”
Jax capped the lotion with slow deliberation and handed it to Pickett. “You’re right, this isn’t the time or place to make love, but we should be doing this.” His lips barely brushed hers before she backed away.
He’d spooked her. But he hadn’t imagined it—how her lips had clung to his for a second. He smiled almost grimly as she backed through the door into the hall, lotion clutched between her breasts.
He’d let her run away, for now. But he wanted her, and he would get what he wanted.
FOURTEEN
The next morning Pickett eyed her face in the guest bathroom mirror with disfavor. Too tired to stay awake last night and then too revved up to sleep.
She was an idiot. Hopeless. There she was with absolutely the sexiest, most virile, not the handsomest but still to her eyes the best-looking man she had ever been within six feet of, and he was coming on to her—it wasn’t her imagination, he definitely was—and she had run away.
Was this what she always did? Run away? Freeze up?
And not only was he sexy, he was likable. He kept surprising her with his decency. She was impressed with his brains, and she respected his willingness to learn from her but then to work to master the information for himself. Not once had he acted as if, since she was available and female, he’d expected her to take over Tyler’s care.
She whipped the nightgown over her head and reached for yesterday’s clothes. She hadn’t remembered to get out clean clothes last night and no way was she going back into the bedroom until she was sure he was out of it.
She looked at her thighs. Thighs that jiggled a little, no matter how much she exercised. Thighs he liked.
She looked at herself, naked, in the mirror. For once she wasn’t trying to decide if her stomach looked a lot fat, or only a little fat, or if her butt looked too wide, or her breasts too droopy. She wasn’t even looking with satisfaction at evidence of improvement. She was looking at thighs that he liked. At a body that was desirable the way it was.
He didn’t have an ulterior motive.
The generator on the porch outside chugged. Lucy gave her an enquiring look from the doorway. Her heart lurched into another gear.
She could almost laugh. Generations of women had been taught men only wanted one thing. And yet, even with a degree in counseling, she had decided any attractive man coming on to her had an ulterior motive. She’d convinced herself that sex wasn’t very important, and that she had far more significant qualities to offer a man. The thought that she had been limiting her acquaintance to men who didn’t attract her very much—and, okay, thereby protecting herself from her own fears of inadequacy—staggered her.
She forced a breath through the tightness in her diaphragm. Jax had said something the night of the storm, that she knew was important even then, but she hadn’t realized why.
Now she did. You had sex with a jerk. Doug was a jerk. Doug was a jerk! At the age of twenty-one she had been crushed by Doug’s real opinion of her, crushed also by the knowledge that he had manipulated her sexually without finding her desirable, humiliated that others in the fraternity knew and figured they could manipulate her too. She never stopped to consider that Doug was not a representative of a class of beings. Instead, he was a jerk.
She had believed the opinion of a jerk.
The room suddenly seemed to be revolving, as every area of her internal life shifted and reordered itself. Pickett clutched the counter to steady herself, then slowly pulled on yesterday’s shorts and T-shirt. She couldn’t bring herself to put on yesterday’s panties, so she dragged the shorts over her bare bottom, sucking in her breath when the cold zipper touched her belly.
For a moment she considered going braless, but knew she didn’t have what it took. Not yet, said a little voice in her head. But she would go into the bedroom to get some clean clothes whether Jax was in there or not. And if he thought, well, whatever he thought, well … Pickett tossed her under things into the hamper next to the washer and dryer in the mudroom, smiling at the sun streaming in the windows, and headed through the kitchen to the bedroom before she could change her mind.
So focused was she on seeing Jax in the bedroom that she didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved when she entered the kitchen and found him pouring a cup of coffee.
Jax looked up from the cup of coffee he was pouring. It was so early he hadn’t expected to see her yet. He hadn’t planned to have this talk with her while sweaty from running and unshaven. He rubbed his hand across the morning stubble that darkened his jaw
She was wearing yesterday’s clothes but she looked clean and wholesome, without makeup, her golden curls tumbling as if they hadn’t been brushed yet. She halted in mid-stride when she saw him. He to
ok another cup from the cabinet. “I made coffee before I went out to run. Want some?”
Pickett nodded. “You’ve already been out? How do things look? Is there much damage?”
“Limbs are down. I stopped to help one of your neighbors move a tree that had come down in the road.” He poured coffee and held it out to her. “Water is standing in low spots and the ditches are full, but I didn’t see much real damage.”
When she came forward to take the dark brew from his hand, he could smell the lotion that she used, mingling softly with the aroma of coffee. It brought back memories of the night before, of the feel of her soft shoulder under his hand.
He clamped down on his lower body’s instant response. That was the problem. He kept reacting to this woman without thought. Which made the mess he had to clean up now.
“I am glad you’re up early. I needed to talk to you without Tyler underfoot.”
Her ocean eyes questioned but she didn’t step away from him immediately as she usually did.
“I,” he pushed one hand through his sweat-damp hair and wished again he had cleaned up. “I need to apologize for last night—”
“Stop.”
“Why? I was wrong. I shouldn’t have—”
“Stop!” she interrupted again. “I don’t want an apology.”
“I realize my behavior was unacceptable—I’m a guest in your house for chrissake—but I do think you should let me—”
“Stop!” Pickett pushed her hand flat against his chest, blinked as if surprised by her own actions, and quickly withdrew it. The space between his pecs felt branded where she had touched him. Wait a minute. Something was different. He was definitely inside her space and she wasn’t backing away—in fact, she had touched him.
“Pickett, what’s going on here?” he asked, softening his voice.
“I don’t know.” She sneaked a peek at his face. “Okay, I do know, but I don’t want to tell you.”
She looked so brave and so doubtful, a peach blush tingeing her high cheekbones. Jax smiled. “Tell me.”
“I don’t want you to say you didn’t mean it, when you said you liked my thighs.”
Whoa. Nothing in this conversation was going the way he’d thought it would. Thighs. Unbidden, the image came of Pickett pulling the gown higher, smoothing lotion on her thigh, the image in the mirror.
That’s what he needed to apologize for, but he hadn’t intended to say it, exactly. More talk in a general way about invasion of privacy.
No, wait a minute, between the surge of lust to his groin and the embarrassment on his face, all the blood must have left his brain. Were those tears in her eyes? Desperately, he scrambled to find the thread of the conversation.
“Do you want me to say I do like your thighs, or I don’t like your thighs?”
“You already said you do like my thighs,” she said in the voice of one goaded past endurance, “and I don’t want you to take it back, okay?”
Had he said that? He had. Last night. And apparently, it was very important to her. Head held as proudly as always, but utterly vulnerable to his opinion, she blotted the corner of her eyes with the tip of one finger.
Something melted in the center of his chest. He didn’t dare ask why it was so important, but if it mattered to her, it mattered to him.
“I did say that. I do like your thighs,” God knows that was the truth, “and I am not going to apologize for it.”
Dark stormy-ocean eyes searched his face. He let her look deep into his own eyes so she could judge his sincerity. “Okay?”
She thought it over. He liked it that he could tell by her face when she was thinking intently, even when her next remark proved he didn’t know what she was thinking.
“Are you sure there was enough light for you to get a good look?”
He felt heat flood his face again. “I got a good look.”
“I’m embarrassing you. I didn’t mean to cross-examine you.” Picket reached for a sponge to dab at a drop of coffee.
“Pickett, can we start this conversation over again?”
Pickett tossed the sponge in the sink. She chuckled. “Okay.”
“The reason I wanted to apologize,” he preempted her protest with a raised hand, “which I am not going to do, was that I wanted to ask you something.” Pickett waited for him to go on. “I wanted to ask you to go to dinner with me. I thought I’d find a sitter for Tyler, and we could go out, just the two of us.”
The queen look was back. Pickett inclined her head regally, while keeping her eyes fixed on his. “I would like that.”
The queen look did it. His heart thudded like a teenager’s. “Pickett.”
“Hmm?”
“There’s something else I wanted to ask you. I really want to kiss you.” That was so lame. Now he sounded like a teenager. Fortunately for his teenage alter ego, she lifted her face. She looked at his mouth. That was a yes.
Slowly, giving her all the time in the world to pull back, he lowered his lips to hers.
Jax kissed one corner of her mouth, then the other corner, felt the moist exhalation against his lips as she let her mouth soften and open slightly. He slid his tongue just to the silky inside of her lower lip. She tasted of toothpaste and coffee and newness. When he felt her tongue shyly stroke his, he knew he must either have more, or pull back right now. He broke the kiss.
“That’s it?”
“I need a shower. I’m sweaty.”
Pickett leaned forward until her straight little nose was inches from his chest and sniffed delicately. “You’re sweaty, all right,” she agreed, then she looked up at him through her lashes and smiled a purely sensual smile. “I like it.”
For a second Jax contemplated taking her right there, sweaty clothes and all, on the kitchen counter. He didn’t know what, but something had turned Her Highness from cool to hot.
Part of what stopped him was the knowledge that Tyler could come in at any second. The other part was that she deserved more finesse than a caveman routine. “I’m going to hit the shower,” he said, with real regret. “Tyler will be up soon.”
“I’ll go with you.” His face must have registered the picture those words made in his mind, because she added hastily, “I mean, I need to get clothes from the bedroom closet. That’s where I’ll go. To the bedroom. With you.” She squeezed her eyes shut, rubbed her forehead, and began to laugh. “Everything I say just makes it worse, doesn’t it?”
FIFTEEN
A few hours later Jax, with Tyler in the backseat, approached the gleaming white bridge that curved across the inlet to access Topsail Island, only to see the road blocked by the distinctive gray-and-black cruiser of the Highway Patrol. The young patrolman waved him to a stop.
“The beaches are closed, sir. No one except property owners are allowed on the island.”
This whole trip was beginning to feel like war games for SEALs designed by the Army. Nothing had gone according to plan yet. He turned the Cherokee around, wondering where he would head now.
Tyler stopped kicking, at last, when he realized the car was turning around.
“We’re not going to the beach?”
“No. The beach is closed.”
“Good. I didn’t want to go to Gan-gan’s beach house.” No news there. Tyler had fussed and whined from the moment Jax had buckled him into his car seat.
It had been an unwelcome change from the child who had woken up sunny and full of chatter about everything. Tyler’s face had lit with joy when Jax told him he could dress himself in anything he wanted to. The results were a far cry from the matching outfits his grandmother insisted on dressing him in.
Pickett had taken one look at the orange bear-printed shirt with blue plaid shorts and exclaimed, “You dressed yourself! What a big boy you are!”
Thinking about how thrilled Tyler had been to pick his own clothes, Jax realized how rarely Tyler was offered choices about anything.
“Do you want to go to your grandmother’s house in Raleigh?” An hour a
nd a half down I-40 and Tyler could be happy and Jax could get his life back on track.
“No! I hate Gan-gan’s house.”
Was that fussiness talking or was Tyler telling the truth? “Why do you hate Gan-gan’s house?”
Words apparently failed Tyler. In the rear view mirror, Jax could see him looking confused and rubbing his ear.
“Is she mean to you?”
Tyler shook his head uncertainly. “No, not mean … ezackly.”
Jax fought the urge to say “just spit it out.” He would have to pull the answers out of Tyler one sentence at a time. Pickett, if she were here, would point out that four-year-olds would not say “I don’t know” even when they were out of their depth, and they tended to interpret words literally. What would Pickett ask? “Your grandmother’s not mean, exactly. Is she sort of mean?”
“Ye-es.” Tyler answered in the affirmative but in a high, uncertain voice. “Well, see?” he hesitated, searching for words. “She doesn’t like little boys very much,” he finished, as if that explained everything.
“She doesn’t like little boys—did she say that?”
“Yes,” Tyler sounded more definite, “that’s what she says. She says boys get dirty,” he went on, warming to his theme, “and make messes, and I give her a headache. I give her a headache lots,” he added matter-of-factly. “So I have to be quiet, so it won’t hurt her head in the morning.”
With the part of his brain that was always assessing performance, Jax noted that although Tyler strung most of his sentences together with and, typical of a four-year-old, occasionally he used other conjunctions, and even dependent clauses like the five-year-old he would be in a couple of months. A tender burst of pride warmed his chest.
“At night she drinks her drink, and she talks and cries and talks, and I have to be quiet and listen. She says she always wanted a little girl and she never wanted a little boy. Sometimes she lets me go to my room, but sometimes she makes me be quiet and listen, and that’s what I hate.”
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