“Sorry. What’d you say?”
“I asked if you were still husband hunting?” He bit into the sandwich.
Goldie had the distinct impression he was deliberately goading her. She nodded earnestly, widening her eyes. “Absolutely. I take it you’ve managed to elude the hordes pursuing you.” Sarcasm wasn’t a one-way street.
“I’m usually armed with a stick.”
“It must be a really big stick.” Oh, she was so going where she didn’t need to go, but she just couldn’t seem to help herself. “You know, crowd control and such.”
“It’s not so much the size of the stick that’s important, but the ability to use it effectively.”
She leaned in toward him and lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Sounds like a male myth to me.”
He chuckled and washed the last of his sandwich down with a long swallow of beer. Leaning back against the counter in front of the sink, he cocked his head to one side as if studying a specimen. “So, why so desperate to get married? It would be nice to have a little insight into the female psyche.”
She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to laugh or smack him. Maybe a little bit of both. “I’m not, as you so charmingly put it, desperate. Why are you so scared of commitment?”
He shook his head. “Scared is a poor word choice. Smart enough to avoid is more apt. But you didn’t answer my question.”
“Why should I discuss that with you?”
“Why not?” His glance slid over her and seemed to say if she could wear his clothes, she could surely answer the question.
“Sure. Okay. I simply don’t see the point of wasting my time on men who think like you.”
“Ouch.” He pretended he’d taken a blow to the gut. Then he straightened and leaned his forearms on the counter, which put him within breathtaking proximity of her. She could literally feel his body heat. Or was that her body heat? Or maybe an intoxicating mix of both? She had no idea because when he was this close, she couldn’t think straight. Straight? She wasn’t even sure she could think at all. “I can assure you none of my former girlfriends considered dating me a waste of time.”
Goldie wasn’t given to jealousy. However, the thought of Jake’s former girlfriends made her irrationally want to grind her teeth. Instead she smiled sweetly and rallied a brain cell or two, “How fortuitous for you that all women don’t think like me.”
Outside, rain began to beat on the tin roof once again. A clap of thunder made her jump. Jake’s former girlfriends instantly became irrelevant. “It sounds like another thunderstorm rolling in,” she said. Was that the sound of hail on the roof? Panic threatened to swamp her. In her experience, hail signaled tornadoes. Still striving for some measure of calm, she slid off the bar stool and headed for the big screen in the den. “I’m going to check out the Weather Channel. If we’re going to be blown off the map, I’d like a heads-up.”
JAKE WAS FLUMMOXED. One minute they were talking about relationships and the next, Goldie looked as if she’d seen a ghost and was running for the TV. What was her problem? He liked women, but he didn’t pretend to even remotely understand them. With no sisters or even close female cousins, he’d never had the inside track on the female mind. He did have a mother, but helping them understand the opposite sex had never been part of her relationship with her sons. Actually, perhaps a greater part of the equation was what had been involved in her relationship with her sons—an ongoing dialogue of pointing out, via the example set by their father, what a man shouldn’t do. It was usually coupled with his father’s favorite catch-phrase—” What the hell is she going on about now?” In self-defense, Jake had blocked it all out and simply formed the opinion that not having a long-term relationship with a woman was the easiest way to go.
That way a guy didn’t have to juggle the one-hundred-plus rules thrown out by his mother and end up clueless like his father. As far as he was concerned, avoidance was the name of the game. He wouldn’t end up in a horrible relationship like his parents had and he wouldn’t fall short of the mark. Simple enough.
At his own pace, he followed Goldie into the den. She’d settled into Scott’s chair and was engrossed in the weather report. Since Jake’s chair was temporarily history, he sat in Chad’s.
Goldie heaved an audible sigh of relief when the weather anchor announced that thunderstorms were rolling through and there was still flash flooding, but the cabin wasn’t in the list of counties under tornado warning. Her smile was shaky. “Yay. We’re not going to get sucked up by a tornado tonight. We’re not going to die.”
Jake slanted a look her way. “You were seriously worried about it?”
“Of course. Otherwise I wouldn’t have had those beers earlier. I just wanted to be buzzed when the time came.”
She had the strangest sense of humor. But it was kind of funny. He laughed. “So, you thought you might die and you wanted to die drunk?”
“Go ahead and laugh. Isn’t there anything you’re afraid of?”
Crap. She wasn’t being funny. She was serious. She’d really been afraid. He reached across, spanning the distance between their chairs, and caught her hand up in his, offering solace, reassurance and a measure of apology. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m sorry I laughed. I didn’t realize you were really afraid.”
For a second he thought she was going to pull her hand away from his, but he felt the instant she decided not to withdraw. An odd sense of relief washed over him. “I can handle spiders, snakes, the dark, but tornadoes do me in.” Her fingers curled around his.
He rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb. “Then we’re in luck. The tornadoes have bypassed us tonight.” He paused. “Failure.”
“What?”
“You asked me if I was afraid of anything. Failure. I’m afraid of failing, of letting people down.” Well, damn. He’d never actually said that to anyone else. He wasn’t sure that he’d actually ever realized it before. And it should be frightening to offer her an inside glimpse of the man he was, but in front of the fire, with the TV on in the background, it seemed the most natural thing to do, to reveal himself to this woman. “I think it comes from being the last in a long line of overachievers.”
She nodded slowly. This time, she was the one plying her thumb on the back of his hand in a soothing motion. “One of my college professors always told us that without failure we would never realize our true potential.”
“Easier said than done.”
“That’s true of anything. You need to cut yourself some slack. I’m sure Chad has made some bad business decisions. Surely Scott doesn’t win every sporting event he enters.”
“I guess I never really thought of it that way.” Living up to his older brothers had always seemed a mountain to be scaled, a point to be proven. That was one reason he was so damned proud of the job he did in the sales department. He was kicking butt and taking names in his job. “What about you? Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
She tucked her feet beneath her to one side. “Nope. I’m an only only.”
That was an odd term. “An only child?”
“Yep. An only child with only one parent.”
He hazarded a guess. “Your mother?”
“Right in one. My parents were never married and when my mother got pregnant, my father skipped. He didn’t think he was parent material.”
Jake was at a momentary loss for words. That explained a whole helluva lot about Goldie Dawkins right there. And he knew exactly where she was coming from, even though he was on the flip side of the proverbial coin. “I’m not saying you’re lucky because…well, that would be presumptuous. But if it’s any consolation, my parents fought constantly. The classic case of staying together for the kids’ sake. In fact, they still fight constantly. Family holidays are hell.”
“They’re still together?”
“Yeah. I think they’ve grown so used to making one another miserable, they don’t know what else to do.”
Goldie smiled, but there was a tinge of melancholy
about it. “I…uh…saw their picture.” She nodded her head toward the Grand Canyon photo in the corner.
“They almost look normal and happy there, which is why Scott has it on the wall. He likes to pretend there’s nothing wrong with their relationship.” Jake shook his head. He’d given up trying to figure it out. “At some point they must’ve liked one another well enough to have three kids, but I can’t recall them ever getting along.”
“And that is precisely why I’m going to try very hard to get it right when I choose a mate,” she said.
“And that is precisely why temporary mates are a beautiful thing,” he countered. “You make a mistake and none of the parties involved suffer any long-term consequences.”
A small frown crossed her face as she seriously weighed his comment. For some weird reason, she struck him as incredibly beautiful at that moment. She shook her head. “No. I want what I didn’t have growing up.”
He took up his position on the opposite side of the fence. “So do I.”
Whatever she might’ve said was lost when, in rapid succession, it thundered, lightning flashed and the cabin was suddenly plunged into darkness except for the flickering, dying firelight.
What happened next, Jake wasn’t exactly sure. He and Goldie jumped up out of their recliners at the same time. Whether she tripped or he bumped into her he didn’t know. One second they were upright and the next, they were on the floor on the braided rug, with all of Goldie’s soft womanly curves beneath him.
ALL THE BREATH WHOOSHED out of her.
“Are you okay?” Jake asked, his breath feathering against her face.
“No,” she said without thinking. She’d never, ever be okay again, now that she knew just how good it felt to have him on top of her. Her resolve fractured and weakened beneath the weight of his hips against hers.
“What hurts?” he asked, concern evident in his voice.
Well, hell. Now she had to make something up to cover. “I landed awkwardly on my hip.”
He shifted against her and, dear God, it was all she could do not to grind her hips up against him. “Which hip?”
“My left,” she lied through her teeth. “But it’s fine now.”
“Here?” Oh. My. God. His broad hand smoothing over her hip bone, even through the cotton pants, left a trail of fire in its wake.
“Uh-huh.” It was all she was capable of uttering.
Jake began making small circular massage motions. “Is that better?” He sounded winded, short of breath, which was precisely the way she felt.
“Much.” And it would be better still if he’d just move that motion around to the front, right to that hot, hard ache between her thighs. All rational thought disappeared. She reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, weaving her fingers through his hair, stroking his skin.
His harsh intake of breath was almost as arousing as his touch.
“But now I seem to have developed a different kind of ache altogether,” she said.
He lowered his head until his lips were warm and firm against the corner of her mouth. “Tell me I shouldn’t kiss you. Tell me this is a bad idea.”
“You shouldn’t kiss me,” she said quite insincerely, since she wanted nothing more at that moment than to have his lips against hers. “It’s a seriously bad idea.”
His lips feathered over hers, the gossamer touch of butterfly wings that left her with a deep ache for more.
“Beyond seriously bad,” he said.
“Uh-huh,” she uttered, her breath mingling with his, her whole body singing at the scrape of his five o’clock shadow against her cheek. Jake deepened the kiss and simultaneously she seemed to melt into the rug and press upward against him.
And then the kisses became slow, drugging touches that were almost pure magic. Goldie liked to kiss and Jake was a good kisser—make that a great kisser. Some guys were sloppy, some wet, some perfunctory, some rushed as if swapping some spit was nothing more than a prerequisite for the final act. Kissing Jake, on the other hand, was sublime.
Somewhere along the line, they’d rolled onto their sides to face one another and he caressed her beneath the T-shirt. She dragged her toe up his sweatpant-clad leg.
He pulled away from her mouth and immediately found the underside of her jaw and her neck with his beautiful, talented lips. A tremor shook her and she moaned low and deep in her throat.
“Goldie…” His eyes were fathomless in the shadows cast by the firelight. He sat up and scrubbed his hand over his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to happen. It shouldn’t have happened. It won’t happen again.”
Shaken, Goldie sat up and tugged her T-shirt and sweatshirt, well, his duds back down over her thighs. Thank God one of them had shown some sense. Unfortunately it hadn’t been her. If it’d been up to her, she’d still be rolling around on the rug making out with the last man she ought to be making out with.
How embarrassing that he’d been the one to call a halt. While her pump was more than primed and ready to go, he obviously found her utterly resistible.
“I’ll just head to bed now,” she said. For good measure she tacked on, “Alone.” Just so he’d know he wasn’t the only one who wanted to stop.
He stood and extended his hand to help her up. “That’s an excellent idea.”
She ignored his hand, not to be bitchy but simply because she didn’t trust herself not to fling herself on top of him if she touched him again. She was skating that close to the edge of insanity. She moved toward the hallway, eager to put some distance between them. “Good night.” She strove for a casual smile.
“Can you find your way in the dark?”
“I’ll manage. Thanks.”
She had known he was the brother to avoid. Now that she knew how dangerous he was, she was determined not to touch Jake Malone again with that ten-foot pole. And this time she meant it.
SONOFABITCH. THIS WAS precisely why he had avoided Goldie Dawkins. He’d kissed his fair share of women. No doubt about it, some were better than others. But kissing Goldie had been incredible. And touching her had been incredible. The feel of her skin, the taste of her mouth, the sheer rightness of the two of them being together… It made no sense given their diametrically opposed views on relationships, but still, it was there.
He scrubbed his hand through his hair, very much aware of the arousal he currently sported. Stopping had damn near killed him. While no one could accuse him of leading her on or making promises he didn’t intend to keep, he wouldn’t take advantage of her and the situation.
He stirred the fire, rousing sparks, and threw on another log. If he was honest, the staring-him-in-the-face truth of the matter was that he’d called a halt to the fun and games because she scared him. She shook him up. He felt more raw intense emotion, just in rolling around on the floor with her sharing a couple of kisses than he had making love to most women.
If it wasn’t the dead of night and the middle of a thunderstorm, he’d go out and chop some wood to vent his frustration. Unfortunately, it was both storming and close to midnight. Which left him with the option of—
Crash. This time, it wasn’t the boom of thunder. The noise came from his bedroom. Low, intense swearing immediately followed.
“You okay?” he yelled, sprinting down the dark, short hall.
“I’m fine, but stop at the doorway,” Goldie said with a catch in her voice. What the…? It wasn’t as if he wasn’t going to be able to contain himself. “I just knocked the lamp off the bedside table,” she continued. “There’s glass on the floor.”
Jake stopped in the doorway. The fire’s glow from the den did nothing to illuminate the dark bedroom. “You’re a one-woman wrecking crew.”
“I try.”
“Sorry.” Okay, he’d sounded like a jerk but actually the lamp was the least of his worries. She was wrecking him.
“I’ll clean it up,” she said. “If you’ll get me a flashlight and a broom.”
“Not barefooted, you won’t.” Ye
s, he’d noticed her bare feet. They were sort of long and narrow and her toenails had been painted a deep, dark red that had contrasted erotically with her white, white skin. “I’ll grab my shoes and a flashlight. Just stay put.”
Within a minute, he was back with the trash can, a broom and flashlight, his own feet shoved into his sodden shoes. His gut tightened and his willpower nosedived at the sight of her sitting in his bed, even though the covers were modestly pulled up to her chin and she was fully dressed. It didn’t make a damn bit of difference—because the image of seeing her there naked was forever burned into his brain.
He stopped at the foot of the bed. “Put this on the nightstand, if you would,” he said. The flashlight was really more of a battery-operated lantern.
“Sure.”
His fingers brushed hers in the figurative passing of the torch and he could’ve sworn there was a spark. The electricity might be out in the cabin, but there was plenty being generated between the two of them.
5
GOLDIE SCOOTED TO THE middle of the bed, desperate to put as much distance as possible between her and Jake in the small bedroom. He wielded the broom with the same efficiency he’d shown in everything else he’d done—including kissing her nearly senseless.
“I think that’s got it,” he said. However, the sharp crunch of glass underfoot as he stepped forward announced otherwise. Jake swore. “It’s going to be impossible to get this all up without better light and a mop. You can’t sleep in here because it’s not safe for you to cross the room without shoes.”
Much as she hated to say it, he was right. “Okay. That makes sense.”
He propped the broom and dustpan against the wall and crossed to the edge of the bed. “I’ll carry you out.”
She swallowed hard and repeated stupidly, “Carry me out?”
“You don’t want to pick up a piece of glass in your foot.” She wanted to protest, to refuse, because she really, really didn’t want the sweet temptation of being back in his arms, of sharing body heat and chemistry, but there was no way to refuse without looking irrational.
Leslie Kelly, Jennifer LaBrecque Page 15
