His hands slid up and down her thighs as his green eyes looked at her through his lashes. “I’ll show you what happens next.” His palms moved to her waist and his fingers searched the tie on the side of her dress.
She settled more firmly between his legs and asked, “Is that a tent pole or are you happy to see me?”
A blatantly sexual smile pushed the corners of his mouth upward. “Both. Wanna see?”
“Oh yeah.” She moved her hands from his shoulders and down his chest. Her palms covered his nipples and she leaned forward and kissed the side of his throat. The thick towel and the thin layer of her panties separated them.
Jack tugged and the top of her dress loosened. “Raise your arms,” he told Daisy. She did as he asked, and he slid the dress above her waist and pulled it over her head. Her hair fell free about her bare shoulders, and Jack looked into her brown eyes, at the passion staring back at him. He tossed the dress on the floor, then covered her naked breasts with his hands. Her puckered nipples poked the centers of his palms and he brushed them with his thumbs. Her lids lowered a fraction and she licked her lips. He knew her. He knew the weight of her against him and the beat of her heart in his palms. He knew the sigh of pleasure on her lips and the scent of her skin.
This was Daisy. His Daisy.
“Are you sure your shoulder doesn’t hurt?”
Shoulder? He didn’t give a shit about his shoulder. The only pain he felt was in his groin. “Nothing hurts as bad as wanting you.” Every fantasy he’d ever had had begun and ended with Daisy Lee. Now here she was. Except for a strap of silk panties, naked in his lap. If he had his way, she would never leave.
Her soft hand slid down his belly and she pulled at the towel around his waist. She unwrapped him like a Christmas present, then reached inside and closed her fist around his erection. He was so hard he throbbed. He sucked in his breath. He looked at Daisy, past the rose-colored tips of her breasts, down her tan abdomen and belly button to her tiny white panties. Within her small hand, she held his thick shaft. She brushed her thumb over the head. Lust pulled his gut into a hard knot and he had a difficult time drawing air into his lungs. He wrapped his hand over hers and moved it up and down, sliding within the soft velvet of her palm. She leaned forward and kissed his throat. Her warm moist tongue leaving a trail of fire.
He raised her face to his, and his hungry mouth slanted across her lips. He gave her hot, feeding kisses; there was nothing tender or soft in what he gave this time. The moment his mouth touched hers, it was greedy, a maddening chase and follow. A slick advance and retreat of hot tongues and mouths. She arched into him, crushing her hard nipples into his chest and shoving her crotch against his erection.
He wanted this. He wanted it every damn day of his life. He wanted the drive of her tongue in his mouth, the weight of her in his arms, the catch in his chest when he looked into her eyes or buried his nose in her neck.
He wanted her. All of her. Forever. He loved her. He’d always loved her.
Jack stood and the towel fell to the floor. He set Daisy on the kitchen table in front of him and looked down into her dazed eyes.
“Lie down, buttercup.” She rested back on her elbows and watched as he kissed her breasts and sucked her puckered nipple into his mouth. He worked her over until her breath was choppy, then he worked his way south. He sucked a patch of skin next to her belly button and reached for the chair behind him. He pulled off her panties then sat between her thighs.
“Jack,” she said, her voice a dry whisper. “What are you doing?”
He put her bare feet on his shoulders and kissed each ankle—“I’m going down.” He bit the inside of her thigh as he brushed his thumb across her slick clitoris and pushed a finger deep inside where she was very hot and very wet. He parted her slick flesh and placed a hand beneath her bottom. He raised her as he brought his mouth down on her.
She tasted like Daisy. Good. Like sex and desire and everything he’d ever wanted.
She moaned his name as her head fell back. He kissed her between her legs. In the same spot he’d kissed her fifteen years ago—only he was better at it now. Better at knowing how to use his tongue and how hard to draw her into his mouth. He teased and sucked until she used her feet to push him back.
She rose from the table and stood in front of him, a little unsteady on her feet as she looked down at him. “I want you, Jack.”
He picked up the towel from the floor and wiped his mouth. “I need to get a condom.”
She stared at him as if she didn’t know what he was talking about. Then she said, her voice heavy with passion, “How long has it been since you’ve had sex without a condom?”
So long he couldn’t remember. “Probably the last time I was with you fifteen years ago.”
She smiled as she grabbed the towel from him and tossed it aside. She grasped his shoulders, then she put her feet on the low rung at the bottom of the chair and stood. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her stomach. “I had my period last week,” she said as she lowered herself over his lap. “I won’t get pregnant this time.”
He might have protested. He might have questioned her more, but the head of his penis touched her slick crotch, and he slid inside her hot wet body. There was no thought of protesting anything after that.
A groan tore into Jack’s chest. Her hot flesh surrounded him and a shudder worked its way up his spine. Her lips were parted. Her breathing shallow, and her cheeks were flushed pink. The hunger in her brown eyes was focused on him as if he were the only man who could give her exactly what she needed.
She squeezed her muscles around him and he felt every ripple of her tight passage. He had to fight to keep from coming right then and there. Every cell in his body was focused on her. On the way she felt inside. On the warmth of her contracting muscles. On the sharp pain and dull ache twisting his groin.
“Goddamn,” he swore and he moved his hands to her hips. “You feel so good.” He lifted her and brought her back down. It was like white-hot liquid enveloped him, and he didn’t think he’d felt anything as good as the inside of Daisy.
She raised her hands to the sides of his head and brought his mouth to hers. “I love you, Jack,” she said as they moved together, building a slow and steady rhythm that turned into a fever. He grabbed her behind and brought her down hard, again and again. Driving up as she pushed down, and everything got a whole lot hotter and wilder. Their breathing became ragged with the punctuating thrust of his hips. She grasped his bare shoulders and clung to him as the walls of her body pulsed around him. It went on and on faster, harder, pumping into her again and again until the air whooshed from his lungs.
Daisy moaned and squeezed him tight, pulsing and constricting around him. The strong contractions of her orgasm wrung a release from him that he felt up into his chest. He came deep inside where she was hot and slick, and even as he pumped into her one last time, he knew he wanted more.
He wanted it forever.
Daisy didn’t burst into tears this time. She almost did the next time, though. Jack took her hand and led her to his bed where he made love to her again. He was so sweet and loving and drew out the torture until she’d had a multiple orgasm. The first of her life, and that had her feeling kind of weepy.
She lay on her stomach on blue sheets. The rest of the bedding was in a tangled heap by her feet. Jack lay half on top of her; his arm around her waist, one leg between hers. His groin pressed into her behind and hip. A lamp flooded the bed with warm yellow light, and the only sound in the room was of heavy, spent breathing. Their skin was glued together and a warm fluttery afterglow settled on her flesh. She hadn’t felt this happy and content in a very long time. Jack loved her. She loved him. Things were going to work out for them this time.
She thought Jack had fallen asleep until he moaned. “My God, it just keeps getting better. I didn’t think anything could top the chair.”
Daisy smiled.
“Damn, did you just come twice?”
> “Yes. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
His hand stirred at her waist, as if he tried to lift it but didn’t have the energy. Carefully, she turned onto her back and looked at him. His hair was stuck to his forehead and his eyes were closed.
“What time is it?” she asked.
His lids fluttered open and he lifted his arm from across her stomach. He looked at his watch and said, “Early.”
She grabbed his wrist and looked at the digital face. “I have to get going before Nathan gets home.”
Jack rolled on his side and spread his fingers wide on her stomach just below her breasts. “Don’t leave,” he murmured as he kissed her shoulder.
“I have to.” She sat up and pushed the hair from her face. “But I’ll come back for breakfast.”
“Don’t leave Lovett.” He lay on his side and raised onto his elbow. “You and Nathan should move here.”
She’d been thinking along those lines too. She just hadn’t known he had also. “When did you decide this?” she asked and looked down into his green eyes.
“Probably when we were fishing, but I got serious about it yesterday when we were swapping spit in your momma’s front yard and I didn’t care who was watching.” He sat up and took her hand in his. “I wanted people to watch. I wanted people to see us together. I wanted people to see us kissing today. I want everyone to know that you’re mine.” He kissed her fingertips. “I want a life with you and our son.”
It was exactly what she wanted too. Hearing him say it made it less scary.
“I love you, Daisy Lee. I’ve loved you all of my life.”
She looked into the pain and passion in his gaze. “I love you too, Jack.” But, a little voice in her head wondered, was it enough this time? It hadn’t been last time.
She excused herself to go to the bathroom, and when she returned, Jack had pulled on a pair of jeans. While she’d been in the bathroom, he retrieved her dress and panties and they lay on his rumpled bed. She stepped into her panties and he helped her with her dress.
“So, what are you going to feed me for breakfast?” he asked as he adjusted a strap on her back.
“I’ll think of something good.”
“Something with whipped cream?”
She tied the strap at her side. “And a cherry.”
He placed his arms around her and pulled her back against his chest. “I love cherries,” he said against the side of her neck.
His bare chest warmed her skin and she had to fight the urge not to turn and kiss his neck. If she did that, she wouldn’t make it home before Nathan. “Jack, I want this to work between us this time.”
He squeezed her tight. “It will.”
He sounded so confident she almost believed him. “Let’s talk to Nathan about it together.”
“Whatever you want.”
“I don’t know how he’ll feel about moving to Lovett, and I don’t want him to think we’re moving too fast.” She stepped out of his embrace and smoothed her hands over the wrinkles on her dress. “It hasn’t been a year since Steven’s death, and I don’t want him to be uncomfortable with you and me together.” She looked about the floor to see if he’d remembered her shoes. “I don’t care what other people think, but I don’t want Nathan to think we’re together just to replace his dad.” Her shoes must still be in the kitchen, and she returned her attention to Jack.
The loving man who’d just held her and assured her everything would work out this time turned to stone right before her eyes. His shoulders straightened. His jaws clenched and his gaze hardened.
“What’s wrong?”
He walked across the room, passed the yellow light that spilled into the gray shadows. “How long do we have to call Steven ‘Nathan’s dad’?”
Daisy watched his bare back and said, “I thought you might be getting over that.”
“I thought so too.” He yanked open a dresser drawer and pulled out a T-shirt. “But I don’t think I’ll ever get over what that bastard took from me.”
She closed her eyes for several painful heartbeats. “Don’t talk about Steven like that.”
He laughed without humor. “That’s rich.” He shoved his arms through the short sleeves. “You defending Steven Monroe to me.”
“I’m not defending Steven.”
He pulled the shirt over his head and down his stomach. “Then what are you doing?”
“I loved Steven for most of my life. He was not only my husband; he was my best friend. We laughed and cried together. I could talk to him about anything.”
“Could you talk to him about how you felt about me?”
She’d almost had it this time. Almost, but it was slipping through her fingers like sand.
“Deep down the pit of your stomach where it gets tight at just the thought of being with me.” He stalked back across the room and stopped just inches from her. “Did you tell him that?”
“No, but he knew.” She looked up into his face, at the passion and bitterness in his green eyes. At the same passion and bitterness she’d seen the first night she’d seen him. “Being with Steven wasn’t at all like being with you. It was different. It was . . .”
“What?”
“Calm. It wasn’t scary. It didn’t hurt. I could breathe around him. I didn’t feel like if I didn’t touch him, I would die. Like a part of something inside of me belonged to someone else.”
“Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to feel? Isn’t it supposed to feel like I want to smash you against my chest so hard I can still feel you after you leave?” He grabbed her shoulders and slid his hands to the sides of her face. “Breathe the same breath. Feel the same heartbeat as you melt inside of me?”
Tears stung her eyes and she didn’t even try to stop them. Her heart was breaking and her dreams had just slipped through her fingers. Again. “It’s not enough. It wasn’t enough last time. And it isn’t enough this time either.”
“What does it take, then? I love you. I’ve never loved any woman the way I love you.”
She believed him. “Forgiveness,” she said as the first tears spilled from her eyes. “You have to forgive me, Jack. You have to forgive me and you have to forgive Steven, too.”
He dropped his hands from her and took a step back. “That’s asking a lot, Daisy.”
“Too much?”
“Where Steven is concerned, yes.”
“And me?”
He looked at her and his silence was her answer.
“How can we be together if you can’t forgive me of the past?”
“We won’t think about it.” He grabbed his boots and shoved his feet inside.
“For how long? For how long won’t we think about it before it comes up again? Tomorrow? A week from now? Next year? Do you really think we can live with that between us?”
“I love you, Daisy,” he said without looking at her. “It’s enough.”
“You also hate me.”
“No.” He shook his head and his gaze met hers. “No, I hate what you did. How could I not hate that you kept my son from me?”
“What I did was wrong.” She wiped her tears from her face. “I admit that. I should have told you about Nathan. I was scared and a coward. One day turned into one year. One year into two, and the longer I put it off, the harder it got. There is no excuse.” She held out her hand to him, then dropped it to her side. “You have to understand. Steven—”
“Oh, I understand Steven,” he interrupted. “I understood him the night y’all stood in my front yard and told me you were married. I understood that he loved you as much as I did and when he saw an opportunity to take you from me, he took it. He took my son too. And what you have to understand is, I can’t just forget something like that.”
“I’m not asking you to forget, but if you and I are to have a future, you have to get past it.”
“You say it like it’s easy.”
“It’s the only way.”
“I don’t know if I can. Especially
where Steven is concerned.”
“Then we can’t be together. It would never work.”
“Just like that? You get to decide?” He pointed a finger at her and slashed his hand through the air. “You get to say ‘get over it’ or get out of my life? You get to tell me how to feel?”
She shook her head and gazed at him through the blur of her tears. She breathed past the searing pain in her chest. She knew Jack felt it too. It was there in his raw gaze, and just like the last time, there was no way to stop it. “No. I’m telling you that you have a right to your anger. You have a right to it for the rest of your life. But it seems to me very lonely company when you can have so much more if you could somehow let it go.”
Chapter 20
On the drive to Daisy’s, neither of them spoke. The deep purr of the Shelby’s engine was the only sound within the dark interior of the Mustang. Jack pulled the car next to the curb, and Daisy looked at him through the inky darkness one last time. Giving him one last chance to change things that he could not change. To say the words that he could not say.
How could she ask him to forget and forgive? As if it were that easy. As if it hadn’t eaten a permanent hole in his gut. As if it wasn’t always there, right below the surface.
So he watched her walk away. Into her mother’s house, and he slid the Shelby in gear and drove home. He hadn’t tried to stop her this time. There would be no fight. No one to hit.
But the pain was just as bad as it had been fifteen years ago. No, he thought as he walked back into his house. It was worse now. Now that he knew what could have been. Now that he’d had a taste of that life.
The chair he’d sat in while he’d made love to Daisy was still pushed away from the table. The table where she’d lain while he’d taken her into his mouth. He stared at it as the hole in his gut burned hotter. Burned up into his chest and throat—he about choked on it.
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