“This is humiliating,” she muttered.
He didn’t budge. “You’ll live.” His voice was hard.
She huffed out a breath and lifted her feet so he could thread the jeans up her legs. When he reached her thighs, she stood, and he pulled the soft, well-worn denim up over her narrow hips and those all-but transparent panties.
Looking anywhere but at him, she gathered the hem of the scrub top higher around her hips so he could pull up the zipper.
The zip went up, but the button at the top was a no-go.
Suddenly face-to-face with the evidence of her pregnancy, his hands slowed.
His chest felt tight and he couldn’t seem to stop himself from inexorably lowering the zip right back down again.
His thumb grazed over her abdomen and he felt the shimmer in her smooth flesh. “I should have noticed.” Realized. Her deception aside, it now seemed obvious.
Her slender throat worked. “I made sure you wouldn’t.” She sucked in her lower lip just long enough to leave it wet and distracting. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you?” His voice seemed to come from somewhere deep inside him. “You’re going to profit plenty from bearing a Forrest.”
He felt her tense. “I shouldn’t have kept it from you,” she said unsteadily. “I know that. But not once have I earned a comment like that.”
“Right. You’re never about the money. Only about family. And feelings. And doing what’s right. Saint J.D.”
Tears glistened in her eyes and he hated himself just a little more.
He turned his hand until his palm rested on the small bulge of the child she carried.
“I grew up knowing that I was a carbon copy of my father. He said so. My mother—before she skipped—said so. I stepped into his shoes at Forco before I was even legal to drink. Everyone there said I was a chip off the block when I didn’t drive the place into the ground, but actually made it even more successful.”
“You can be a more successful father, too.” Her voice was barely a whisper.
His gaze slowly dragged up from his darker palm pressed against her pale flesh. Despite everything, her nipples were hard points, easily discernable through the thin cotton top.
He hadn’t touched her in weeks. But he hadn’t stopped wanting to touch her, ever.
It didn’t matter that his aunt was just outside with the boys. It didn’t matter that J.D. had lied to him, or even that her arm was in a sling.
He wanted to slide her jeans back down her hips and take her, right then and there.
Maybe then he could get rid of this damn ache inside of him.
She exhaled softly and his gaze rose to her face.
She couldn’t hide her expressions any more than he could hide the fact that he was rock hard. Pink rode her high cheekbones. Her eyes were even greener than they usually were. Her narrow nostrils flared slightly and that minute smear of toothpaste beckoned, tauntingly.
His fingertips grazed the tempting edge of her lace panties. A centimeter more and he could reach beneath them.
Moments stretched to minutes. Minutes to forever.
Her flesh seemed to warm beneath his palm and he couldn’t tell if the fire was burning in him, or her.
Or both.
He watched the pulse beating wildly at the base of her throat. “Do you want me to close the door?” he asked, his voice a little deeper. His tone a little harder.
Her head fell back slightly. Her damp eyes glowed between her thick eyelashes. The waving ends of her long hair tickled his arm. “What do you want to do? Prove how weak I am where you’re concerned? Yes, I want you to close the door. But it won’t solve anything.”
It would solve plenty for him.
He went to the door and closed it. Flipped the tiny lock beneath the old-fashioned, porcelain knob.
Then he turned to face her. She hadn’t moved a muscle. “I won’t hurt you.” Not her shoulder. Not the baby.
“I know.”
But he could see in her eyes the same lie that was in him. Because he could hurt her. In so many ways. Since the night they’d made love at Forrest’s Crossing, that fact had never been more apparent.
“And I won’t love you,” he added roughly.
Her eyes darkened. “I never believed you would,” she whispered. But she slowly stepped toward him, stopping only when her bare toes were inches from the toes of his boots. Her lips lifted toward his. Her free hand settled, feather light, on his chest. “But you want me,” she whispered. “So, touch me.”
It was more challenge than invitation and he was suddenly wondering who was pushing whom.
He dropped his mouth to hers and flicked his tongue over that toothpaste dab.
She inhaled sharply and he angled his mouth over hers, taking everything that she offered.
Trying not to jostle her sore arm, he slid his arm around her hips and lifted her to the dresser. The collection of old-fashioned perfume bottles sitting on top of it jangled softly. The mirror above it swayed back a centimeter, the wood frame brushing the wall.
He smoothly pulled her jeans back down her legs and this time she didn’t look at him as if it were the least bit humiliating.
“Help me with my sling.”
They could leave it in place. It would probably be better if they did. He carefully worked it off, watching her face closely for signs of pain.
All he saw, though, was her desire.
It was like a drug to him. One that he knew enough to avoid. One that he couldn’t.
He tossed the sling to the side and ran his hands beneath the top. Closed around her satiny waist. Her breath tumbled more unevenly over her parted lips when he dragged the cotton upward. Found the taut slopes of her breasts, the nipples that prodded the pads of his thumbs, seeming greedy for attention.
He exhaled roughly and started to lift the shirt higher, but she gave a soft huff and he immediately stopped.
“Sorry.” She was the one who apologized.
He let the fabric slip out of his hands.
“No.” She tilted her head, finding his lips with hers. Her left hand dragged at the buttons on his shirt. “I want it off. Everything. I want to feel you against me.” She slipped her hand beneath his shirt, pushing at it.
He yanked off his shirt, scattering the last of the buttons and tossed it aside. Taking his cue from the day before at the hospital, he closed his hands over the V-neck of her thin shirt and with a swift tug, rent the thin fabric right down the middle.
She let out a long, shaking breath. And still she didn’t protest. Didn’t back away. Just stared at him with those emerald eyes that haunted his sleep.
He could see her pulse beating in her throat as she slowly slid off the ruined shirt. It slid easily down her slender back.
Her shoulder was swollen. Angrily bruised.
He swore softly. “J.D.”
“Don’t even look there,” she whispered, and lifted his clenched hand. She spread his fingers and pressed his palm to her racing heart. “Look here.”
The ache inside him deepened. “Don’t.”
“Why not? You tell me the worst about your father, not because you want to share yourself with me. But because you want to prove that you’re right. That you can’t chance being any sort of father. Can’t chance loving someone again. Can’t expect someone to love you unless it’s all wrapped up in dollars and cents.”
“Stop.”
“Or what?” Her head tilted back. Her hair streamed down her shoulders. “You’ll stop?” She boldly grazed her knuckles down his straining fly. “I don’t think so. We have it all on the table, right? You won’t love me. So, just take what you want from me, Jake. I give it.”
He grabbed her hand, pressing it firmly against him. Seeing the flare in her eyes. “Because you want me.”
“Because I love you.”
He let go of her hand. “Don’t try putting a prettier slant on it.”
“Don’t worry,” she returned huskily. “Loving you isn’t all tha
t pretty right now.”
They stared at each other for a long, tight moment.
“I don’t know what the hell to do with you,” he finally muttered.
She pulled his hands to her breasts. “Yes, you do.”
He’d wanted to prove something but the only thing he was proving was that he was the weak one when it came to her. And she was right. He wasn’t going to stop.
Couldn’t make himself.
He cupped the weight of her breasts, newly aware of the differences her pregnancy had wrought. They were fuller. The crests darker. Even more seductive than what lived in his memories.
He lowered his mouth to them and she moaned softly, her head falling back to the mirror, her good hand sinking through his hair, holding him to her.
He tasted. He suckled. And she trembled harder, the little perfume bottles jangling again, when he kissed his way down her abdomen, no longer flat, but softly rounded, lushly erotic. Then he reached that narrow hank of lace and drew that, too, away from the sweet flesh that was damp and warm, just for him.
She gasped, her racehorse legs parting as he tasted her there. Boldly. His hunger only growing as she shuddered and abruptly convulsed beneath him, her fingers clenching his hair.
The mirror rattled softly. A little glass bottle tipped over, falling undamaged to the braided rug beneath them. Jake shoved off the rest of his clothes and closed his hands around her hips, urging her toward him though she hardly needed urging. Her thighs clasped his and he took her weight, sliding deeply.
Her eyes flew open, staring into his and he felt oddly disembodied, swallowed whole by those emerald depths.
But then her legs wrapped around him and she seemed to tighten even more as she tilted her hips against him, and he came back to earth with a soaring crash.
And then there was nothing but the blind need to go deeper. Slower. Harder. Faster.
Another bottle tipped off the dresser. Her mouth, open, hot, pressed against his shoulder, stifling the sobbing breaths she couldn’t hold back. Her good arm gathered him closer, as if she knew every cell in his body was gathering together; as if hers were, as well.
Then she cried out, softly, muffled, long and low as she shuddered. And the intimate quakes gloved him, pulling him with earth-shattering force headlong after her. His teeth ground together as he forced himself not to crush her while an endless pleasure ripped through him, draining himself inside her.
After, when his legs stopped feeling like wet cotton and his heart didn’t feel like it was going to explode, he carried her to the bed and settled her carefully in the center, drawing the sheet over her beautiful body.
Her eyes were wet.
“The stalls need mucking out,” he said. “And I’ve got a conference call in a few hours.”
She paled, but didn’t look away from him. “Okay.”
He pulled on his shirt. Made a face when he got to the missing buttons and shoved the shirt tails into his jeans. Then he yanked open her closet door and pulled out the first flannel shirt he came to. He dropped it on the mattress next to her, and proving not only to himself but to her what a bastard he truly was, he walked out of the room.
He’d solved absolutely nothing.
Chapter Fifteen
It took a while, but J.D. finally gathered some composure together after Jake’s exit and went downstairs.
She’d managed to dress herself, but there was no way she was able to pull on the sling without assistance.
She had no intention of asking him. There wasn’t a breath of privacy between them anymore, but her pride still crept around her, even if it did feel more like a hole-ridden sweater than armor.
“You’re looking much better this morning,” his aunt greeted when she reached the living room.
“My shoulder feels better.” It was all she could do not to blush when her body still ached from Jake’s possession and her heart still ached from his rejection. “It’s tender but nothing like yesterday.” She lifted the sling slightly. “Would you mind terribly?”
Susan immediately set down her camera and came over to her. Between the two of them, they managed to get J.D.’s pained arm secured again. Then J.D. went to the kitchen and pulled down a glass, setting it on the counter. She opened the refrigerator door, popping off the lid of the milk jug before pulling it out to pour herself a glass. “Have you seen Jake?” she asked casually when Susan followed her.
“He blew through here a little while ago.” Susan was holding her fancy camera again, pressing buttons, scrolling through the digital images. She held one up for J.D. to see. “Look at this one.”
J.D. obediently looked. It was a close up of Zach sitting astride the fence as if he were bronc busting. “He’s smiling.”
“He’s having fun. Both boys are.”
J.D. just wanted to sit down and bawl. Instead, she forced down several gulps of milk. “Speaking of boys. Are they outside?”
“Yes. I checked on them a few minutes ago. They were still sitting on the fence. I made them promise on threat of creamed spinach that they wouldn’t go inside the ring. I think they might actually listen, given what they saw could happen yesterday.”
J.D. managed a small smile and choked down a little more milk. “Have you all had breakfast?”
“We ate at a little diner by the motel. They had wonderful cinnamon rolls.”
“That would be Ruby’s.” J.D. pulled a granola bar out of the cupboard and slid off the wrapper. She wasn’t hungry by any stretch, but knew she had to put some calories in. “Seriously good rolls,” she agreed. “I, um, I want to go check on Latitude.”
“Of course.” Susan waved her hand slightly. “I don’t need entertaining, dear. Go. Do what you need to do.”
J.D. grimaced. If only she could figure out what that was. She pulled a heavyweight flannel jacket over her good arm as best as she could, and went outside.
The barn door was already wide open.
Jake’s doing. She gathered her tattered pride closer around her. She had work to do in the barn even if he was already in there.
The boys were where Susan had said they’d be, on top of the fence. Threat of creamed spinach or not, J.D. figured it was only a matter of time before they were inside the ring.
“Zach. Con,” she called. “Come into the barn.”
The boys looked at her for a moment, deciding the merit of that. But their legs swung back over the fence and they hopped down, heading her way. They wore different colored down coats, but aside from that, they were as alike as two peas.
Connor didn’t hide his curiosity as he followed her inside. The second Zach entered, he wrinkled his nose. “It stinks in here.”
“It does smell like horse,” J.D. agreed, surprised that she could feel even the slightest bit of amusement.
“What’s that thing?” Connor was pointing at the horse sling. The complicated contraption of straps and webbing was rigged up with pulleys to one of the solid barn beams and it hung, ghostly empty, over the last stall.
“A horse sling. We fit it beneath and around Latitude to take the weight off his legs a few hours every day so he can heal up.”
“Wonder if Mom’s in something like that.”
“Duh. Mom’s in traction.”
J.D. pointed to the wheelbarrow sitting by the tack room. “Roll that over to the first stall,” she told the boys, clinging desperately to the comfort of practical matters. “And bring a pitchfork. It’s hanging on a hook over there.”
“What for?” Zach’s gaze slid around to see what his father was doing.
“Gotta muck out all of the stalls I’m using. Have to keep the bedding clean for the horses. Which means we pick out the messed up straw and put down fresh,” she translated. “Standing around in soiled stalls isn’t healthy. Or good-smelling.”
Zach grimaced. “Like cleaning out a big cat box?”
She stretched her lips. “Kind of.”
With more enthusiasm than finesse, Connor was pushing the wheelbarrow t
oward her. “Zach and I are supposed t’ clean Freckles’ cat box during the summer but Lupe always did it for us, instead.” His expression fell a little.
J.D. quickly caught one handle of the wheelbarrow before he could run over her foot, and redirected him a little. “Have you talked to your mom?”
“She’s supposed to be outta the hospital by Christmas,” Zach answered.
“And moving into a convalescent center,” Jake inserted, surprising them all a little, judging by the way the boys started as noticeably as J.D. “It’s still going to be a while before she’s ready to go home.”
“That’s still good news though, right?” J.D. stopped next to Ziggy’s empty stall and handed Zach the pitchfork. “Your mom is getting better.” She pointed at the straw. “Have at it. Manure goes in the wheelbarrow in case you haven’t figured that out on your own.”
He looked like he wanted to argue. But he took the long handle. “Kind of hard to do this with only one hand, I suppose.”
“Yes.” She wanted to brush her hands over his rumpled hair but controlled the urge, knowing he wouldn’t be likely to appreciate it. Offering her heart on a platter to one Forrest man a day was as much as she could stand. “I’d be really grateful for the help.”
His lips pressed together and wriggled around a little. Then he turned to face the task. “This is totally gross,” he said under his breath. “Connor’s gotta do the next one.”
Judging by Connor’s rapt attention, she figured his twin wasn’t going to argue too much.
She left them and braced herself to move over to Latitude’s stall. “They’re good kids,” she offered. “Did you ever have trouble telling them apart?”
“No.” Jake was slowly running his hand down Latitude’s back leg. “Zach always had fire in his eyes. Connor had dreams in his. Even when they were babies.”
Her heart squeezed hard. Just then he didn’t sound at all like the closed-off man he claimed to be.
“He’s swelling.”
Her thoughts screeched to a halt.
Frowning, she stepped into the stall, settling her hand on Latitude’s rump and sliding it down his thigh as she crouched awkwardly beside Jake. “Where?”
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