by Addison Fox
“Mary, Julia and Sophie don’t let anyone out of manual labor, do they?”
“No, not really.” He offered a small, rueful smile. “Taskmasters, those three are.”
“Yet they remain surprisingly lovable.”
“That they do.”
Jack’s gaze returned to his Coke can and she wondered again what they were doing here. He’d been all warm smiles and friendly conversation at the diner. Nothing overtly sexual and damn it, she was so crazy about him, she was willing to settle for even that.
When he’d suggested they go back to her place so Nancy could close up the diner and go home, she’d been so surprised she’d agreed without a backward glance. But now that they were here, she was fast coming to think this hadn’t been one of her brighter ideas.
Of course, nothing had been the same since that glorious weekend she spent with Jack all those long, long months ago. Bright ideas and her reaction to the man just didn’t belong in the same sentence.
Even if—in her own defense—her skin did crawl with anticipation and excitement every time he came within her field of vision. It was like some torture designed especially for her. The damn man could make her hot and bothered from a hundred paces.
And all the son of a bitch wanted to do was have a friendly chat over a soda.
God, she was hopeless.
“Jess?”
“Hmmm? Sorry?”
“You look a million miles away.”
“Just thinking.”
“About?”
“Oh, nothing.” She waved a hand. “Nothing important at all.”
“Yeah, it’s funny. Thinking.”
“Oh?”
His gaze never left the can and his words were soft as he exhaled on a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking a lot about you.”
“Oh?” Her breath caught in her throat.
Even as her hopes soared, she tried desperately to rein in her feelings. He could be thinking about any number of things, none of which had anything to do with her. Or more to the point, her unrequited feelings for him.
He lifted his gaze from the can and his fingers stilled. “Are you participating in the games this weekend?”
She shrugged, her hopes plummeting again as she mentally called herself an idiot a million times over. “Yeah. Why?”
“Would you reconsider if I asked you to?”
“Why would you want to do that? Ask me to, I mean? I compete every year.”
His dark gaze never left her face. “Because I’ve been thinking a lot about you. And I realize I haven’t been completely honest with you.”
“Honest about what?”
At that he stood and moved over toward where she sat, kneeling down in front of her. His long fingers spread over her knees and she felt the heat of his touch through the heavy material of her jeans. As if branded, that simple, light touch shot sparks through her and she grew damp at her core.
With gentle movements, he pushed her knees apart and positioned himself between the cradle of her thighs. His arms came up and caged her into the chair as he moved in, his lips so close to hers she’d barely have to lean forward to kiss him.
“About how I feel about you. About the way you make me feel.”
Tears welled low in her throat, almost painful as she swallowed around the lump. Was it possible?
Could he actually feel something, too?
Had all these long, lonely months of waiting actually led to something?
“How’s that?”
He leaned forward and pressed a kiss against her throat. Whatever heat she’d felt from his fingertips was nothing compared to the flames that immediately consumed every part of her. “Alive,” he whispered against her skin, and at that Jessica lost it. “You make me feel alive, Jess. That and so many other wonderful things.”
Her arms came up around his shoulders and tugged at his hair so he’d look up at her. “Are you sure? Because I can’t go through another eighteen months like the last ones.”
“I’m sure.”
“Really sure?”
Jack shifted and sat back on his heels, but he reached for her hands, his fingers threading through hers. “I’ve been so unfair to you. So fucking unfair.”
The tears she fought to hold back welled up on their own volition. “Yeah. I understand why. I mean, I think I understand why. But yeah, you have.”
“Ah, Jess, I’m sorry. Really sorry. I’ve been so torn. Between feeling like I’ve betrayed Molly in the worst way and feeling like I finally have hope inside me again.”
She wanted to believe him so badly, but she had to see this through. Had to understand why he’d behaved as he had. “What changed your mind?”
“A lot of things. The last few days. Those guys Mick picked up on Denali. The games and all the talk about bachelorettes that hits this time of year. But it was Mick who clinched it.”
“Mick?” At the thought of his rangy, devil-may-care partner, Jessica couldn’t keep the smile off her face. “What in God’s name did Mick have to do with this?”
“Grier’s got him in a twist. And he’s not sure why.”
“I don’t think she knows.”
He waved a hand as his brows furrowed. “I really do not want to know the details. Avery was chewing my ear off earlier and the way I see it, Mick’s love life is none of my business.”
“I still don’t see what his love life—or lack thereof—has to do with you here in my house.”
“I got to thinking about how I’ve treated you over the last year. And how it’s the last thing Molly would have wanted. For me or for you. She liked you, you know.”
“Molly?”
Jess thought about the pretty, petite woman who had been Jack’s wife. They’d been several years apart in school and Molly had even babysat her a few times when she’d been that awkward age of not old enough to stay by herself but almost too old to need sitting. They’d read teen magazines and oohed and aahed over celebrities.
“I liked her, too. She was a wonderful person. And I can’t imagine the hell you’ve lived with. Losing her. And before that, her getting sick.”
“She loved life and it was taken from her too soon. But she wouldn’t have wanted me to lose mine along with her. I’m not sure why I couldn’t see it for so long, but sitting there tonight, watching those guys flirt with you in the diner. I just knew.”
“Knew what?”
“Knew it was time to do something.”
She squeezed his fingers, wanting to believe him. Desperate to believe they’d turned some sort of corner.
“I never meant to go after you. I hope you know that.”
“What?”
She unthreaded their fingers, twisting hers before her as she tried to find the right words to explain.
“I don’t horn in on my friend’s husbands and even though she and I didn’t know each other that well, I liked Molly, too. I wasn’t one of those women waiting in the wings, hoping to land you. I hope you know that.”
“I never thought that.”
“Yeah, well, a lot of other people have.”
“No one knows what happened between us, Jess.”
“I suspect more people know than you think.”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter if they do. It doesn’t concern them.”
“We live in a small town, Jack. And gossip is the engine that keeps it running.”
“Well, then”—he smiled up at her as he nestled closer, his fingers reaching for the bottom of her sweater—“maybe we should give them something to talk about.”
Chapter Eighteen
Walker knocked on Sloan’s hotel room door, his stomach in more knots than a teenage boy on his first date. He’d watched her from his front door until he saw she had safely arrived at the Indigo and had intended to go back inside and finish his beer, followed by a chaser of scotch.
It had taken exactly two more minutes to acknowledge he was the world’s biggest asshole.
“What are you doing here? I didn’
t think the hotel let strange visitors up after ten?”
“Sloan. Come on.”
Her arms folded and the mulish expression on her face let him know she wasn’t only mad, she was good and mad.
An important distinction that made a difference to war generals, police officers and men who were about to grovel.
“Can I come in?”
“What’s the point?”
He stood there a moment, letting her words penetrate.
What was the point?
Either he was in or he wasn’t, but he knew this parade of bad behavior wasn’t fair anymore.
“Maybe I’ve been thinking about what you said.”
“Yeah. Well, maybe I’ve been thinking about what you said, too. And it dawns on me”—she reached for the door to push it closed—“we’re way too far apart to come to any sort of compromise.”
With a quick step, he put his foot inside the doorframe. “Not so fast.” She arched an eyebrow, but stopped pushing on the door. “Can I come in?”
“Be my guest.”
He moved into the room and shut the door quietly behind him. Her room was exceptionally neat, with everything put in its place. Her suitcase was perched on a small stand in the corner and he couldn’t find a thing lying on the floor, the bed or even peeking out of the closet. The TV blared a twenty-four-hour news station as he made his perusal of her living arrangements. “Can you turn that off? I’d like to talk to you.”
She flipped the TV off with the remote and took a seat in the chair in the sitting area of the room.
Now that he had her attention the nerves whipped up again, battering his stomach with a series of dive-bombs that made him very glad he hadn’t added the scotch on top of his beer.
“I owe you an apology. I was surly when you wanted to look at the lights and then I got all moody and assholeish on you.”
“Assholeish?” Her lips maintained their frown, but he thought he might have made a slight dent in her armor—the light note in her voice was encouraging.
“It’s a very special legal term, reserved for very special occasions. And it’s an incredibly apt description of my behavior this evening.”
“I see.”
“Look. The whole thing with my parents is ugly and raw and just not something I share.”
“Obviously.”
“And looking at the lights brought it all up. Add your questions on top and, well . . .” He trailed off as the mulish expression resettled itself on her face.
Whatever inroads he’d made with the joke had evaporated. The deep blue of her eyes had gone a stormy gray.
“So it’s my fault?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Yeah, but if I hadn’t asked you any questions . . . If I had just closed my eyes on the damn town square and kissed you and not made a big deal about the lights, none of this would have happened. Right?”
“Yeah. Well, no. I mean.” He ran a hand through his hair, tugging on the ends before he took a deep breath. “Okay. Look. I’m fucking this up royally and you’re not making it any easier.”
“You don’t deserve to have me make it any easier on you.”
He stopped at that, his fingers going slack midtug on his hair. “What?”
“You’re not the only one with a shock of emotions you don’t know what to do with, Walker. Did you ever think about that?”
“Well . . .” As he broke off, he realized the answer was simple. No, he hadn’t thought about it.
“I didn’t come up here to meet a man and I sure as hell didn’t come up here to get my groove on with one. I came up here to help my friend who’s in a tough spot.”
He couldn’t stop the smile that broke across his face and he’d dare any healthy, red-blooded American male to resist the same at the image of this woman getting her groove on. “What would be so bad about that?”
“About what?”
“The groove part.”
“Nothing, except grooving and caring have no place together.”
“They do when they’re done right.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about here.”
“So what are you talking about?”
“If I’d come up here for a fling and nothing more, I’d treat this thing between the two of us like a fling. We’d groove a bit and I’d go on my way. No harm, no foul.”
A tight fist closed around his chest and he was helpless to hold back his next words. “You do that often?”
She only smiled, the broad grin a mocking reminder to him of what he’d just stepped in. “I’m not answering that. But let’s just say that I’d guess I’ve done it far fewer times than you have. And never with a perfect stranger.”
He skipped doing a quick estimate and refocused on the other thing she’d said. “And the other? About meeting someone and a shock of emotions?”
“Yeah. That. I’m not looking for a relationship, Walker. But damn it to hell if you don’t make me see dates and picnics and all that other mushy shit that lives in a woman’s mind and reaches up to grab her around the throat at the most inopportune times.”
“Mushy shit? Is that another legal term?”
“It’s a fucking pain in the ass is what it is. I see picnics and dates with you, Walker. And it pisses me off. You’re supposed to be fling material and instead you look at me the way you do and you engage in snowball fights and you even think I’m sexy in the most hideous hat in the entire world. So, yeah. You make me think of mushy shit.”
He moved in, unable to stop himself. Leaning down, he neatly boxed her into her chair, his hands wrapped around each of the wooden arms. “Maybe I like the fact that you think about mushy shit.”
“You mean you’re not ready to run for the door?”
“Not by a long shot.”
“So what are we going to do about it? We want different things and we have different lives.”
“We both want the same thing now.” It sounded like a line. He knew it, even though he didn’t mean it that way. But all he could see was Sloan. And while he couldn’t see his future, he couldn’t imagine anyone else in it.
Didn’t that count for something?
On a soft sigh, she reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I know.”
Pulling her to her feet, Walker drew her against him and wrapped his arms around her slender frame. He settled his hands in the curve of her lower back and whispered in her ear, “I’m so glad we agree.”
With a dark growl, he pressed his lips to hers, suddenly desperate to feel the connection between them. Her arms tightened around him and their tongues met in a fiery wash of need. Desire speared through him in hard, pulsing waves and he abstractly realized he’d need to make the most of these moments because he wasn’t likely to get many more of them with Sloan.
The thought of her leaving stopped him momentarily and he pulled back to look at her. Her blue eyes were heavy lidded and she opened them slightly to peer up at him. “What?” she whispered.
“Nothing.” He hesitated, almost saying more. Like how glad he was she’d come to Indigo and how he’d like her to stay. Like how his feelings for her went beyond a fling. This wasn’t just a groove or a booty call or whatever adults came up with to explain scratching an itch.
She wasn’t an itch.
She was Sloan.
And she had become everything to him.
How had she managed it? How had she gotten under his skin, forcing him to reevaluate everything he knew to be true?
Everything he thought he wanted.
But he held back and didn’t say anything, pushing it all to the back of his mind. It was just the heat of the moment. The satisfaction of finally having her back in his arms.
Refocusing his attention on her, he dropped back into the here and now. “It’s nothing.”
Another searing kiss ignited between them, the soft mewls in the back of her throat so erotic it threw his already hard body into overdrive.
He pulled his mouth from her lips a
nd kissed a path toward her throat. “Are you sure you want this?”
“Yes, Walker.”
With her arms still wrapped around his neck, she took a step backward, pulling him with her. With unerring movements, she maneuvered them toward the bed, tugging him down on top of her once her knees hit the edge.
She sighed. “Yes.”
As he followed her down, he couldn’t escape the thought that everything was about to change.
Everything he thought he knew.
Everything he thought he wanted.
Everything he thought he was.
Sloan reveled in the feel of Walker’s large body pressed over hers and the wanton reactions he could pull from her with the lightest touch of his fingers. Her core pulsed almost painfully where he fitted against her and she knew her panties were already damp.
With questing fingers, she ran her hands over the broad width of his shoulders, intrigued by the tight play of muscles at the backs of his arms before she moved on to explore other places. Her five-foot-eight-inch frame had ensured she never felt all that small, but Walker’s large, heavy musculature had her almost feeling petite.
The sensation was heady and enticing, all at the same time.
Her explorations continued as she ran her hands along the planes of his chest, captivated by the mix of hard muscle and heat that warmed her palms.
Suddenly impatient to feel him without so many pieces of clothing, she fumbled between their tangled bodies for the snap at his waist, sighing when the rough material of his jeans gave way. She gently loosened the zipper, insanely pleased when he let out a harsh groan as her fingertips grazed his hard length.
She couldn’t have stopped the exhale of breath if she’d tried. “Why, Counselor, that’s quite an impressive argument you’ve got there.”
“If you think my opening remarks are good, wait until you see me close.”
“By all means, then”—she nipped at his jaw—“please state your case.”
Heat and need coalesced and the laughter fled from her voice as he shifted, rolling to his back and taking her along. Straddling his hips, she shuddered as he ran his fingers under the edge of her blouse, skimming her stomach on their way to her breasts.
