The thought of returning to her soulless apartment and going through the Christmas holiday before classes resumed in January had little charm. She and Pickett had always braved the crowds together for last minute gifts, helped decorate one another’s trees, and seen the New Year in together, either because they were at the same party or decided to forego that year’s offering.
Emmie had other friends, of course, but most were more colleagues than companions. With the excitement of Pickett’s wedding waning, she had time to consider the future, and Emmie’s future looked a little bleak.
She had focused on Pickett’s needs exclusively for several days. Perhaps it was the sudden cessation of her supporting role that made her see that her life wasn’t about her. If someone made a movie of Emmie’s life, she wouldn’t be the central character.
She lived her life in muted colors, staying in the background. She had thought it was the way she liked it. But she looked around the beautiful room, and yearning stirred in her. She wanted the sense of color for herself, wanted the surges of sound, the glitter, the rich intensity of feeling a thousand emotions.
And she wanted it more than she needed to stay in the background.
“Would you like to dance?” Do-Lord’s question called attention to the fact that other couples were joining Jax and Pickett on the dance floor.
Yes, she wanted to dance. She wanted to feel the rhythm through her bones. She wanted to twirl and soar. She wanted the awareness of herself that quivered across her skin whenever his changeable eyes swept over her. “I don’t dance very well,” she felt obliged to say.
He nodded, and his eyes left her to glance around the room. He’d taken her apology as refusal. She could let the moment go by. It might already be too late, and the disappointment dragging in the wake of that thought stung her into action.
“But I’d like to dance anyway,” she said.
Chapter 14
“OKAY IF I CLEAR THIS TABLE?”
Caleb gestured his assent and looked at his watch. The first wedding he’d ever been to was winding down. Apparently, what he heard about people hooking up at weddings was true. Davy had, predictably, left awhile ago with his arm around a girl, and—big surprise—Lon had gone back to his hotel room with Jax’s ex-mother-in-law! Both of them were going to get lucky, which he wasn’t, even if Emmie was willing. It was too soon.
Emmie was no live-for-the-moment party girl. Letting her do something she might regret would be the biggest mistake he could make. Inserting himself as a sleeper, an agent who becomes part of a society, able to wait years to strike if necessary, made this his most covert operation ever. He wanted to be in solid and long-term with these people, and that meant he must build slowly. He could wait. He had no doubt he’d have his chance at Emmie, sooner or later, and he intended to enjoy it when he did.
In the meantime, the more they expected to see him around, the better. To that end he approached Grace. With an enlisted man’s sensitivity to lines of command he had observed that, without ceding one ounce of her power, Pickett’s mother delegated most of her authority to Grace. People more often looked to Grace for direction than to Pickett’s mother. Leaning closer to be heard over the band, which was playing to a thinning crowd of dancers, he said, “As soon as she comes back from the ladies’ room, I’m going to take Emmie home. Is there anything I can do for you, before we leave?”
“All these presents”—Grace indicated a table piled with boxes, all wrapped in white paper and tied with white bows—“have go to my mother’s house. Since you’re going there, do you have room for some?”
“I’m in my truck. I have room for them all.” He would make sure a couple got “left” in his truck, so he’d have to go back to the house in the morning.
“Would you? That’s great. Thank you. And thank you for looking after Emmie. She’s a member of the family, you know. And she’s been such a trooper.” Do-Lord could almost see Grace going down her mental list and checking items off. “Oh, and would you make sure she gets her next dose of medication? Emmie’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, but she lives in another world, you know?”
Do-Lord opened the door with the key he took from Emmie. Light glowed through the beveled glass pane of the door, illuminating the tired droop of her shoulders.
“Thanks for bringing me home. Pickett’s mother, and Grace, and Lyle, will stay at the country club until all the guests leave, but I admit, I was ready.” She stumbled over the threshold, and Do-Lord put his arm around her.
“Here, let me help you up the stairs. Oh, come on,” he urged her when she protested, “letting you fall down the stairs would be what we call a career-limiting event.”
“‘Career-limiting.’ You sound ambitious.” She leaned into him, tacitly accepting help.
“Where you’re concerned, I am. Now, which room are you staying in?”
Emmie directed him to a room to the right of the landing. The wall switch turned on the bedside lamps, spreading pools of warm light across a mahogany bed with a lace canopy. An open suitcase and feminine items laid across a rocker spoke of temporary occupancy.
Emmie slid his jacket from her shoulders and handed it to him with her thanks. She looked around the room as if she was too tired to think of what to do next.
“While I’m here, I’m supposed to make sure you take your medicine. Where is it?”
“The bathroom.”
In the medicine cabinet of the adjoining bath he located the two prescriptions. “The label says to take these with food. Why don’t you get undressed while I go find you something?”
She nodded absently but continued to stand in the middle of the room looking bemused. “What’s the matter?”
“I just realized I can’t get out of this dress. The zipper is on the right under my arm. Oh well, Lyle can help me once she gets home.”
“That could be a couple more hours. I’ll unzip you.”
“Um, that’s okay… I can—”
“You can what? Sleep in the dress?” Do-Lord began working on the straps that held the sling in place.
“No, really.” She tried to step away from him.
“Nothing’s going to happen,” he snapped, a little testy that she still protested his help. “I’m not going to lie and say I don’t wish it could. But it’s not going to. Not tonight, anyway.”
“It’s not?”
Did she sound a little disappointed?
“No.” He lifted the sling away from her arm. It had rubbed off the makeup Trish had used to conceal the bruises around her shoulder. He skimmed a careful finger over the discolored skin. “You’re not ready, and even if you were, you’re not up to it.” He turned her to get a better look at the zipper. “How does this thing work?”
“You have to unhook the placket. The zipper is underneath.”
He slid his fingers into the hot, moist skin under her arm, bending his head close to see the tiny hook. Her woman smell came to him, and primal need started a slow, heavy thud of his heart. He noted her sudden in-breath and tiny shudder when his fingers grazed the underside of her arms. So she was sensitive there. He filed the knowledge for future reference.
The zipper parted, and Emmie clapped her hand to her breast to keep the dress up. Caleb turned her back toward him.
“Now the bra.” He pushed the material of the dress aside, baring her back and the hooks of the bronze bra. Her skin was silk, gleaming over the feminine shape of her back. If he hadn’t just promised nothing would happen, he would slide his hands around to cup the fullness he had just released. He let his hands linger only a second longer than he should have.
“What have you been sleeping in?”
“Grace brought me one of her husband’s pajama tops. Something I can get into without lifting my arm. It’s hanging on the bathroom door.”
“Stay there.” Do-Lord found the pajama and the equally oversized robe hanging with it.
He bunched the sleeve together as you would a stocking and slipped it ove
r her hand, then drew it up her arm. Moving behind her, he spread it over her back and draped it over the other shoulder. “Okay, put your other arm through.”
“I can’t without letting go of the dress.”
“Let go. I’m not going to look.”
Emmie snorted. “Do you think I believe that?”
Do-Lord reached around her neck and pulled the lapels of the huge garment together. “I’m going to look, but I’m not going to see much, okay?”
Emmie giggled. She released the top of the dress to put her arm through the sleeve. The dress slid down to snag on her hips.
It was the giggle that did it.
The pajama top, having been slept in for several nights, was full of her scent. He had fully intended to help her out of her dress without pushing for more. But with her womanly scent going to his head, he needed a taste of her sweetness. Just a taste to tide him over.
He walked around her. Swallowed in pinstripe flannel, she should have been the opposite of allure, and yet he longed for one taste, just one taste, as a parched man craves the cool replenishment of water. With deliberate fingers he buttoned the pajama top, hiding her from his temptation.
She watched him with the absorbed curiosity of a child. She didn’t chat. He’d noticed that before about her. If she had something to say, she said it. Otherwise, she watched and listened.
Loathe to stop touching her when he finished with the buttons, he settled the shoulder seams, then straightened the collar. Her hair was trapped, and he slid his hand under it to free it. His palms encountered the smoothness of her neck while the cool, sleek strands flowed over his knuckles. “I don’t even wear pajamas,” he told her, his voice a little husky, “but I think I might buy some—just so you can put them on.”
The tiny travel clock on the nightstand ticked loud in the breathless silence, and deep inside the house the furnace came on. The long-case clock that stood in the entry beside the stairs bonged once.
She raised those wide, innocent blue eyes, invitation and curiosity in equal parts in their depths. “Are you going to kiss me now?”
“Yes, I think I am.” He was a man. It wasn’t in his nature not to take what was offered, not when he wanted it with a wanting that clawed his insides and tightened every muscle. Even though it wasn’t a good idea. He should stay focused and remember he wasn’t looking for a roll in the hay. He needed to make Emmie his ally, and sex would bind her to him. It would work in his favor precisely because she wasn’t the kind of woman who casually took men to her body. But she was vulnerable tonight. Exhausted by constant pain, befuddled by unaccustomed alcohol and drugs, she might do what she would regret tomorrow. If she decided her pride was wounded, he understood her well enough to know he’d never get another chance.
He wanted to unsettle her and give her something to think about, but not something to regret. A kiss or two and he would stop. He threaded his fingers deep in her hair and cupped the back of her head. “Come closer.” He put his hand at her waist. He wanted to feel the softness of the breasts he had freed crushed against his chest and press himself against the notch of her thighs, but his hand encountered the crumpled top of her dress under the pajama where it had snagged on her hip. “Wouldn’t you like to step out of the dress?”
She looked down at the dress bunched around her hips as if surprised to learn she still was wearing it, as if she wondered how it had gotten there. She pushed at it left-handed. “Help me.”
He ran his hands under the flannel and tugged, but the dress wasn’t going to move. There was nothing to do but peel it away, his hands against her bare skin. He encountered lacy elastic. My god, she had on a thong!
No amount of telling himself to take it easy was going to restrain him. The slightly cooler skin across her hip, even silkier than her nape, called him to explore its textures and test the soft resilience of the flesh underneath.
At last the dress dropped with a silken whoosh to her feet, but not before sweat dampened his armpits and his heart chugged with driving demand.
He took her hand. “Step out of it.”
She did, and he pulled her to him. Good idea or not, he was not going to let her go until he’d had some satisfaction.
She came to him willingly, blue eyes wide with feminine curiosity. Just a taste, he promised himself. And if he wasn’t going to get enough to satisfy his hunger, he would make it last.
He nibbled at the corner of her mouth just as he used to nibble the edges of the cookies Mrs. McCrea brought to the library, his tongue licking to catch every crumb of sweetness until he found his way to the tender, moist center. He had known he would be even hungrier when the cookie was gone.
Afraid to break whatever spell kept her in its thrall, Emmie held herself very still. For days the big house had been full of clatter and banging doors, footsteps to and fro, excited voices of a constant stream of company. Now it had breathless waiting silence, even the soft sibilance from the heating duct ceased.
Whatever she had expected from this man’s kiss, it wasn’t this slow careful teasing with tiny touches of his tongue. His lips were soft, yet purposeful, and tiny prickles from his beard abraded her cheek. As if he sought a flavor hidden exactly there, his tongue burrowed deep in the corner of her mouth.
The sensation triggered the ancient primal reflex, present even in newborns, to open the mouth and seek sustenance. But the satisfaction she sought was of a woman’s desire. It shuddered through her body, and she fastened on his lips, frantic with the sudden craving to have her mouth filled.
The large, hard hand cradling her skull tightened. With a small groan he obliged her with slow, deliberate strokes and velvety glides along the edges of her tongue, but then he went back to the bites and soft grazes with his teeth that made her frantic.
His other arm had come around her at some point, pressing his unmistakable erection against her belly. She looped her good arm around his neck and rose on tiptoe to bring their bodies into better alignment. As if they had practiced a hundred times, his hand moved down to cup her bottom and balance her against him. With tender purpose he stroked the lower curves of her buttocks. Butterfly strokes so light she could have been imagining them. Not that she was. Oh, no, those light grazes were landing with far from accidental accuracy and awakening nerve endings across her whole vulva.
She’d always thought sex was for, well, sex, and the structure of interest, the clitoris. Since a woman had to lubricate, and that took time, a certain amount of stimulation was necessary. Foreplay would be better named forework—tasks to be checked off in preparation for the main event. She had never experienced being touched as a pleasure worth taking for its own sake.
The back strap of the thong posed no barrier when his magic fingers found their way into her cleft, questing deeper and deeper into her moist center.
He left her mouth to dot kisses down her neck. “You’re wet already.” His voice was a rumbly moan. “Do you want more?”
She tried to answer and discovered her voice was little more than a croak. She wanted to scream, “Yes!” She tried again and managed a not-quite-whispered yes.
“Do you want to come?” he asked against her lips. Before she could answer he brought his completely opened mouth over hers.
“YBuTH.”
He lifted his lips long enough to teasingly ask, “What’s that?” before he deliberately did it to her again, taking shameless advantage of the control he had of her head.
If he could hold her head in the place he wanted it, she could do the same to him. With her right arm, she reached for his chin. White hot pain, so intense she saw stars, streaked from her shoulder to her neck.
Immediately, he released her and set her on her feet.
“You’re not really in any shape to be doing this,” he snapped, his burnt umber voice more gritty than usual. He sounded disgusted, and as if he’d heard himself, he shook his head and offered a rueful, country-boy smile. “I have a hard time knowing what to get a hold of you by. I thought if I s
upported your head, you’d be okay.”
“It was okay,” she assured him, a little chilled to think he had calculated exactly how to hold her even though she had been the beneficiary of his care. “I moved my arm. Big mistake.”
He stepped around her and scooped the dress from where it puddled on the carpet. “Want me to hang this up?” The subject was obviously closed and he was moving on. He held up the dress by the bodice. “What do you hang it up by?”
As she showed him the tiny straps sewn to the inside lining and found the padded hanger, Emmie didn’t understand how he could be so matter-of-fact and businesslike, when hot, urgent desire still thrummed deep within her. It was like he had a switch he could turn off.
He’d been passionately engaged. Or maybe not. She’d felt his hardness straining through the front of his pants. A man could lie about a lot of things, but not about that. Still, a man didn’t have to feel anything for a woman to be aroused. He didn’t even need to want her. He only had to be horny. Maybe he could act like nothing had happened because from his point of view, nothing had.
“I’ll go forage in the kitchen for a snack,” he said when he had hung up the dress and evenly spaced the rest of the hanging clothes, “so you can take your meds.”
Emmie used the toilet while he was gone. After a minute, studying her face in the vanity mirror, she decided not to wash the makeup off, yet. She still felt a little zip of surprise every time she saw how much different hair and makeup changed her. He wasn’t going to hang around long, and she’d like for his last sight of her to be this.
“I brought you some of the pecan pie we had on Thanksgiving,” Caleb said when he returned. He grinned. “I brought me some too.” He set the food down on the nightstand and piled the pillows against the headboard. “Why don’t you get in bed, and I’ll eat with you.”
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