“Abby!” Tossing the bottles over his shoulders, Jack lunged for her. If she fell out the back door!
His fingertips grazed her, missed. She landed with a yelp in a pile of sheets and towels, not six inches this side of the drop-off.
“God, Abby, I’m sorry! Are you okay?” He crouched beside her. “Talk to me. Where does it hurt?”
Her mouth was rounded to a perfect O. Her chest heaved, once, twice, but no words came out, just a series of soundless whoops.
The air was knocked clean out of her, and doubled over like this… “Here.” He took the pad she still clutched, set it to one side, grasped her arms. “Let’s have a look at you.” He pulled her to her feet, but her knees wobbled and gave. She wasn’t ready to stand yet.
He caught her slender waist and lifted her to the top of the washing machine. “Do you hurt anywhere?” She hadn’t banged her head, but maybe he shouldn’t have moved her?
“Y-y-you!” she sputtered.
Ah, temper, that was a healthy sign. “’Fraid so,” he agreed, scanning her for signs of damage. She wore a white V-neck T-shirt, washed so thin it was almost translucent. Limp with sweat and spattered with buttery paint, it clung to the curves of her body. Her nipples stood up beneath it, crying mutely for a lover’s caress. The machine whirled and thumped. Braced on both arms, she let out a shaking breath and gulped in a deeper one.
“Good. A few more of those…” And she’d be ready to blast him, which of course he deserved. He stooped to retrieve her pad, straightened—and froze.
On the paper, materializing out of a whirlwind of looping and curving pencil strokes, two figures stood, locked in a passionate embrace.
Behind him, Abby made a wordless sound of dismay. Absorbed in the sketch, he turned slowly to face her.
There was one question—the question that mattered. Was this an old aching memory that Abby was drawing?
Or her longing to create a new and better one?
And then he saw it, the few bold, abstracted lines that formed a cat—a disgusted cat that was leaping down and away from the lovers’ embrace. Abby had improved on reality. With a few pencil strokes she’d removed the wriggling obstacle that had divided them that morning.
Which means— “May I make a suggestion?” He set the pad aside to step forward between her knees.
Face pink as a rose, she shook her head mutely.
“Imagination’s wonderful, but—” Planting a hand on either side of her thighs, he leaned in till her blush seared his face. “Some things are best shared.”
“Who-who said I—” She retreated in the only direction available—backward. He followed her down till she reached the last possible point of vertical equilibrium and stopped. “Wh-what are you—?”
“This.” He closed the last eighth of an inch and claimed her mouth—hot, honeyed, his for the taking. Trembling with shock and desire. I’m doing this! No sane man could do otherwise.
Deep in her throat, Abby moaned—and kissed him back. His hands curled around her hips; he dragged her forward till their zippers clashed. He groaned in delight. Her lashes drooped, her head fell back, and he went on kissing her. Tore his lips away to suck her bottom lip, then kiss his way down the damp velvety side of her neck.
“Oh, Jack, what are you—”
Oh, no. No questions. Don’t think, just feel! He stopped her words with another kiss—plunged deeper, caressing, seducing. This is what we were meant to do. Fated to do. No way could she question that.
She whimpered and laced her hands in his hair, urging him closer.
He bent to her breast. Kissed her open-mouthed through the sheer fabric, then closed his teeth lightly along the exquisite peak—she yelped and came, her legs shuddering as they wrapped around him, her body arching and leaping. The machine rumbled beneath her, its vibrations driving him wild with desire, her wavering song in his mouth.
He rode her bucking convulsions till gradually they slowed in intensity. Oh, Abby, oh, my hot, beautiful, crazy lady! He covered her face in kisses, licking the salt off her skin, savoring her taste, marveling at the rosiness blooming under her skin. The softness of her eyelids, the pulse at her temples. This shy, tremulous smile.
Her lashes fluttered down, shutting him out. She averted her head and murmured, “Oh!” in a tiny, stricken voice.
He had to grin. Oh, she was embarrassed, all right! Satisfied beyond any denial, but mightily embarrassed.
You won’t be for long, sweetheart, I guarantee it. No shame allowed in this man’s fantasy. One hand on her taut hip, he straightened, dragged a fingertip along the front zipper of her shorts. May I?
Her eyes flew open. She looked like Bambi under the hunter’s gun—if Bambi had green eyes ringed in white.
His heart sank.
Still he slid his fingertip back up her zipper and leaned to nibble one delectably dainty earlobe. Come on, Sweet and Shy, the party’s just begun. If you think that last one was wonderful…
Her legs clamped tighter around him; her bare feet came to rest against the backs of his thighs. She let her hands drift down his neck to his shoulders, molding and exploring their shape with her palms even as her fingers arched away in rejection. “Umm…”
This was a sound of doubt, but not yet a no. He kissed the corner of her mouth. She sighed—and parted her lips. Their tongues met like long-lost friends. Her fingertips dug in to his muscles. All hope hadn’t yet faded, not by a long shot.
The machine wheezed…let out a final whump! And went silent, its load within coasting gradually to a halt.
The silence was as loud as a slamming door.
Abby tore her mouth away. Leaned back, panting. She planted a hand on his chest. “J-Jack?”
An immature man would have kicked the damned washer from here to Kentucky.
Jack gritted his teeth and straightened. “Well.” He curved his palms to her outer thighs, so slender, so enchantingly toned; he rubbed regretfully up their silky length and down a few inches. Woman, what you do to me. Divorce Crazies? Much more of this and they’d be dragging him off, gibbering, in a straitjacket! “Well, well, well, Ms. Abby Lake…”
Meant as a teasing endearment, it was a tactical error, he saw instantly. Lake was her married name—her ex’s name. Not a good time to remind her.
“Oh, golly…” She looked aside, a blush rising from somewhere south of her beautiful bosom. If he pressed his lips to a rosy curve, he’d surely be scorched. “Oh, gee…” She gathered her tousled hair in both hands to shove it behind her ears, and he groaned out loud as her breasts rose with the movement. Arms lifted, she narrowed her eyes at him and bit her lip—was she only now realizing that she was in the presence of a thwarted male? A monumentally frustrated—
Temporarily frustrated, he amended. Because there was going to be a repeat of this. And soon, soon, sometime very soon. He smiled reassuringly and cupped the side of her face. “Glad I came home early. Wouldn’t have missed this for the world.”
“J-J-Jack, I…” She blew out a defeated breath, looked away, looked back warily, worriedly, from under her lashes. “Could you…um, forget this ever happened?”
His laughter just about rocked the bus. “Sure I could, when the Rocky Mountains crumble and it rains up, instead of down! By the time I’m a hundred and ten, maybe, but…” He shook his head as he rubbed his hands up and down her legs. “Till then, every last time I see a washing machine I’m going to grin like a hyena and—”
“Jack!” She flattened both hands against his stomach and shoved.
Laughing, he caught her waist and stepped back as he lifted her down. Then she was so adorably flustered, there in his arms, he had to kiss her again. But she ducked her head against his chest, so he settled for kissing her temple, then rubbing his cheek back and forth through her fragrant hair. Oh, Abby, I want to carry you straight to my bedroom and nail the door shut! What was it about her that got to him like this?
He sighed. “Sure you wouldn’t care to, er, come clean again
, before the kids get home?”
“I would not!” She twisted out of his arms, spun around to lift the washer’s lid and drag out a tangle of sheets. “If you think I was sitting out here, thinking or—or wishing or… It was just that the machine was off balance. I guess it’s not level here in the bus. And maybe because of the paint fumes, I was feeling…not myself? But since it wouldn’t stay balanced, I had to stay out here and so I—”
“Did you ever.” He traced the course of her spine with one fingertip. He wasn’t going to be able to stop touching her now…hungering for her, not till he—
“Here.” She swung around and thrust a load of sopping laundry into his hands. “Put that in the basket over there, will you, please? And then if you and Kat need a load done…”
SATURDAY, Sky helped them frame the new house. Well, he helped Kat’s dad, but he wasn’t talking to Kat, except when he had to. He wasn’t talking much at all. Sky just banged in each nail as if he hated it and he hardly laughed when her dad made silly jokes, which Kat thought was very rude. She supposed he was still mad ’cause of what she’d said about their parents marrying. Grow up and get over it, she told him silently. But even if he was being a dork, she missed hanging around with him.
So when her dad drove off to Mo’s Truckstop to buy them take-out sandwiches, she was glad Sky put down his hammer and wandered over to where she was working. “What’re you making?” He stood beside the old picnic table beneath an apple tree, where she’d spread her materials.
“Falcon trap.” She’d formed a hoop like the rim of a huge butterfly net, out of steel rebar left over from pouring the foundation. “Dad got me some mosquito netting at the army-navy store.” She was sewing it to the rebar with string. Making holes in the fabric with a nail, then hooking the twine through with a hook made out of coat hanger wire.
Sky measured the width of the hoop with his outstretched arms. “What are you gonna do? Make a gigantic handle for it? You’ll never be able to swing it.”
She gave him a pitying look. “Wait and see.”
“Haven’t seen that stupid hawk all day. Bet he flew on.”
“Maybe.” He wanted to argue, she could tell, so just to spite him she wasn’t going to take offense. “Where’d you guys eat last night?” Her dad had sent her over to invite them to share their meal of leftover macaroni and cheese, since he figured the Lake’s kitchen was all fumey with paint, but they’d been gone. He’d been crabby all last night; he’d even growled at her when she tried to cheer him up, suggesting they watch G.I. Jane.
“We ate sandwiches down at the park. Mom called it a picnic, but it was nothing like the fancy ones she used to make when—”
She cocked her head, waiting for him to go on. But Sky stood there, turning pink for a minute, then blurted, “You were wrong about my mom! That day she—” He stooped, picked up a fallen branch and turned it over and over in his hands. “She only kissed your dad ’cause she was grateful when he found DC. She kisses people thank-you all the time.”
“Don’t you ever watch TV? Thank-you kisses don’t last that long. And kissing thank-you, they wouldn’t move their heads back and forth.” They might even have used their tongues, though that was so disgusting Kat tried not to think about it. “Besides, they’re always looking at each other, funny-like.”
“Are not!”
“Are, too.” She jumped as he snapped the stick in two and threw the long half as far as he could. She marked where it landed, then added, “It wouldn’t be so bad, you know. My dad’s the best dad in the world.”
“Huh!”
“For me, anyway,” she amended. “But since your parents have broken up—”
“That’s only temporary! That crummy lady he married, the stupid flight attendant, is having triplets and a gentleman couldn’t let her do it alone, Dad said. But once the hard part’s over and they’re out of diapers, he’ll come back to us. It’s where he belongs.”
“He said that?”
“He didn’t need to! DC came back, he’ll come back, too. We just have to wait and be patient, that’s all.” He glanced up as her dad’s car bumped up the drive. “That’s all.” Off he stalked toward the foundation, his head down, his legs stiff.
Kat took a deep breath. Maybe she should offer to share her falcon, once she caught him? That would cheer Sky up.
But no, she’d be taking her bird with her when she left Trueheart. It would do fine on a ship, probably eat flying fish. Or if she joined the SEALS, instead, possibly it could be trained to attack.
“Lunch!” her dad called, waving a couple of brown paper bags as he swung up onto the flooring.
She nodded and stood, then glanced down and bent to grab another stick off the ground. Turning, she took careful aim, took two running steps, then threw it as hard as she could.
It hit the ground twenty feet short of Sky’s mark. An odd little feeling, almost like a stomachache, but lonelier, swirled in her stomach. If she wasn’t any good at this, what was she good for?
“Cold grilled-cheese sandwich, Kat. Yum!”
She scowled and trudged toward the house. Maybe she should start lifting weights.
STANDING ON A STEPLADDER, Abby positioned her stencil just below the ceiling, dabbed her brush in the paint—a shade of warm lavender that had taken her most of the morning to perfect—then carefully dabbed in the design. In the end she’d gone with her columbine-bumblebee idea, since she’d wanted a pattern that would appeal to renters of either sex. This one worked; the feminine, fragile flowers would be balanced by the bold black-and-gold bees, plundering nectar with the same sense of entitlement as Jack, helping himself to her mouth.
She scowled and dabbed harder. Could we please forget that, please?
But how did you erase a sensation—a tactile memory of motion and heat—not words at all, only drenching sweetness and desperate longing?
And absolute, utter embarrassment!
It was one thing to entertain a wistful, woozy daydream in the privacy of one’s own makeshift laundry room.
But to be caught in the act of miming a kiss—by the very man whose lips she’d been conjuring?
And then to have him blithely hijack her fantasy—and the rest of her along with it!—and drive her straight past make-believe and what-if, on into outrageous, overwhelming…lip-buzzing reality?
How dare he? She felt as exposed, as mortified, as if she’d awakened from one of those dreams where suddenly you’re on the stage at your own high school graduation, wearing nothing but a tassel, mortarboard and a frozen smile! If she didn’t see Jack Kelton for the next hundred years, that would be too soon for her. And the passing hours since their encounter hadn’t lessened her humiliation; every time Abby remembered it, it seemed to have doubled.
And how could she not recall it, when every ten minutes or so she found herself shaping a kiss? Or touching the dampness between her lips. Could we please, please, please just think of something—
“Aa-abby!” Kat sang at the screen door. “Can I come in?”
“Please,” she called gratefully. Sky had petitioned that he be allowed to serve out his cooking sentence on weeknights only, so he could work late with Jack on the weekends. And perhaps to avoid kitchen chores with Kat, since they still didn’t seem to be speaking. “How’s the building going?”
“We got the side wall up and braced—it’s a little wall. And now they’re working on the third one.”
While Abby continued her painting, Kat was assigned to slice red bell peppers, mushrooms, onions and garlic at the kitchen table, components of tonight’s mystery menu, which Abby refused to reveal.
As she dabbed her way around the ceiling, she found herself smiling; Jack’s daughter was amusing company, chattering on about the falcon trap she was building, then her own ideas for stenciling her bedroom. She might do a pattern of fish, or falcons hovering. Or maybe a big sailing ship repeated again and again.
“Perhaps a pattern of dolphins and ships?” Abby suggested. “You k
now dolphins like to play around boats? I saw them surf along the ferries’ bow waves when we were stationed—” She paused. “A long time ago.” In a world far, far away. It was amazing how little she thought of her old life with Steven nowadays. A month ago she wouldn’t have believed it possible.
Kat’s mind was like a darting perch in the park stream; she changed the subject again. “Do you think my dad’s cute?”
Abby lifted a stencil and frowned at the wet design beneath it. Um, could I pass on that?
Apparently not. “Do you?” Kat asked insistently.
“I’m…not sure cute’s the word I’d use.” Try sexy. And a little breath-taking. And utterly maddening, for starters.
“What is, then?” demanded Kat, not to be derailed.
A game her own father used to play sprang to mind, and to the rescue. “Let’s say…that if your dad were a member of the cat kingdom, he’d be…a lion.” Sandy coloring, complete with shaggy mane. Built for power more than speed. Prone to roaring when thwarted. Tending to look mellow and a little bit lazy, but not—ever—to be underestimated.
“A lion!” Kat laughed delightedly. “And what would I be?”
“Mmm.” Abby turned around to study her. “You’re so graceful and restless. A leopard I’d say, but luckily, no spots.”
“Really?” Kat turned a lovely shade of shell pink.
“Absolutely. You’ve got a complexion most women would kill for.” Jack’s wife—what was her name, Maura?—must be gorgeous to have produced such a child.
A familiar feeling of dismay and despair drifted across Abby’s mood like a passing cloud shadow. A sense of terrible inadequacy had haunted her after she’d learned of Steve’s infidelities. If only I’d been prettier, wittier, nicer, sexier? No, she never wanted to feel jealous in her life again. Yet here it was, the green-eyed monster. But why would Jack want to bother with me, after having a wife like that?
Easy, she told herself wryly. You’re available. Right next door, and just begging to be kissed, the last time he wandered by. Cheeks burning, she turned to the wall, loaded her brush with paint and picked up the stencil.
Kelton's Rules (Harlequin Super Romance) Page 15
