by Jane Graves
“Hey! Pepé’s got attitude! He once bit the mailman’s ankle.”
“Did he draw blood?”
“No, but he did snag the guy’s sock.”
“You’re not taking this seriously.”
“I’ll be fine,” she told him as she stuck the dishes in the dishwasher. “At least Pepé barks. That’s a good thing. And I always carry pepper spray.”
“Forget pepper spray. Tomorrow I’ll bring you a gun.”
“Will you stop?”
He held up his hand. “Fine. I’m out of here. Just remember what I’ve told you.”
He went to the counter to pick up his toolbox. As Darcy was leaning over to close the door of the dishwasher so she could follow him out of the kitchen, she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. She spun around. Something was crawling along the counter.
The biggest, ugliest roach she’d ever seen.
She screamed and backed away, banging her leg on the open dishwasher and almost falling into it. John turned, saw the roach, grabbed a newspaper Darcy had left on the kitchen counter, and smacked the bug. Then he ripped off a paper towel, scooped up the carcass, and deposited it, along with the newspaper, in the trash.
As John was wiping the counter, then washing his hands, Darcy just stood there with her hand at her throat, frozen with revulsion. She’d seen genetically enhanced creatures in horror movies that weren’t that hideous.
“Are you”—she swallowed hard—“are you sure it’s dead?”
“Yep,” John said. “Flat as a pancake.”
Slowly her eyes drifted closed. “I can’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“I can’t live here. I know I talk big, like it’s nothing, but I can’t.”
He turned around, drying his hands with a paper towel. “It was just a bug, Darcy.”
“No. It’s everything. This place is horrible. It smells funny. The neighbors are insane. And those who aren’t insane are probably criminals.” Tears came to her eyes. She tried to fight it, but she couldn’t. “There are holes in the wall. The plumbing hasn’t backed up yet, but you can bet it’s going to. Gross things crawl out of the woodwork. I can’t do this.”
“Sure you can.”
“No, I can’t. Even though I’ve got a barking dog and pepper spray and you were so sweet to come over here and install that deadbolt . . .” She let out a shaky sigh. “Maybe I should go back and live with my parents.”
He took her by the shoulders. “No. You’re staying right here.”
“But you said it yourself. This is a hellhole.”
“And you said something, too. It’s your hellhole. And that means a lot.”
Something was wrong here. John was supposed to be saying things like, “If you see another bug, just whack the damned thing. You’re bigger than it is,” and “Hey, you were the one who wanted move into a place like this, so don’t bitch.”
Instead, he eased closer and rubbed his hands along her upper arms. “I know you didn’t ask for this. But you can do it. I know you can.”
She wasn’t convinced of that, but whenever John declared anything, it always sounded like something you could take to the bank. His grip softened until it was more like a caress, those big, strong hands surprisingly gentle. But the gentler he became, the more awkward she felt. Being with John when he was tough and authoritative was one thing. Being with him when he was like this was something else entirely.
“You’re a complicated woman, Darcy,” he murmured. “Sometimes I have a hard time keeping up.”
She had no idea what he meant by that. She couldn’t imagine John having a hard time keeping up with anything, and she’d never thought of herself as complicated. On the outside, maybe. It took a lot of intricate rituals to keep herself looking good. But she’d never stopped to think much about what was on the inside.
“Complicated?” she said.
“Bridges expected you to go with him tonight, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Actually, the answer to that wasn’t complicated at all, and thinking about it made her feel warm all over again. Jeremy had brought her what she wanted.
John had brought her what she needed.
“Because I love pizza, of course,” she said. “But just for the record, if I’d known it was pepperoni, I’d have opted for the limo.”
To her surprise, his mouth softened into a warm smile. “Then it’s a good thing I didn’t open the box before he left, isn’t it?”
It was the first time she’d seen a smile on his face that wasn’t accompanying a sarcastic remark. As sexy as his rugged, tough-as-nails demeanor could be, that smile catapulted his already-handsome face into an entirely new realm.
“You don’t do that very often,” she said.
“What?”
“Smile.”
“I have to do it sparingly,” he said. “I have a reputation to protect, you know.”
A long silence stretched between them, but their eyes were locked together in some kind of mutual expectation that gave Darcy goose bumps.
“Did I hear you correctly earlier?” he murmured.
“What?”
“You said I was sweet.”
“Yeah. I guess I did, didn’t I?”
That smile again. “Wait until Tony hears that.”
Their voices were quieter now, and still they stared at each other.
“You’re complicated, too, you know,” Darcy said.
“I am?”
“Yes. Why did you come by with the deadbolt?”
“This place isn’t safe, and since you’re a better clerk than I thought you’d be, it’d be a real pain to lose you now.”
“So Tony was right? You’re all about business?”
His smile faded, replaced by a hot, penetrating gaze. “Tony doesn’t know me as well as he thinks he does.”
At the low, erotic tone of his voice, Darcy just about melted into the cheap linoleum. He set his palm on the counter beside her, and just his proximity made her breath come faster and her pulse kick up a notch. She swallowed hard, trying to maintain some kind of composure, but then he caught a strand of her hair with his fingertip and swept it slowly back over her shoulder, a tiny gesture that made a million of her nerve endings come to life. When he moved closer still, she put her hand against his chest in a pale attempt to stop him. But the minute it met bone and muscle, it became a useless appendage that just lay there in ecstasy.
For the past fourteen years, walking a flight of stairs had made her heart beat faster than it did when she was with her husband, but being with John made her feel as if she’d run a marathon. She knew what it felt like when he kissed her, and she wanted him to do it again.
No. Stop it. This is wrong, wrong, wrong.
They were oil and water. Fire and ice. Night and day. And if she didn’t back off right now, the immovable object was going to meet the irresistible force, and God only knew what would happen then.
“Maybe this isn’t a good idea,” she said.
“Why not?”
“The last time we did this, all hell broke loose.”
“Is it Bridges you want?”
An hour ago, she’d have said yes. No amount of physical pleasure could compensate for this pitiful lifestyle. But now, with John only inches away from taking her to heaven all over again, she wasn’t so sure.
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
“Then I’ll help you make up your mind,” he said, and lowered his lips to hers.
Chapter 15
Darcy saw it coming, but still it was a shock when John’s mouth fell against hers. Up until an hour ago, her brain was stuck in Wal-Mart, where she’d thought, No way in hell will I ever let him do this again, only to think now that she’d die if he didn’t.
With one hand threaded through her hair and the other locked on her waist, he gave her one kiss after another, the deliciously steamy, insistent kisses of a man who knew what he wanted and t
ook it. He pushed her right up next to the sink, the open dishwasher on her right and his thigh trapping her on the left. He was so big and demanding and overbearing that she should have told him to back off and let her have some say-so in this situation. Should have.
Didn’t want to.
He reached over and flicked off the overhead light, leaving only the dim glow from the living room lamp to light the kitchen, and the sudden darkness in this unfamiliar place made what they were doing seem deliciously illicit, as if he’d pulled her into an office broom closet during a coffee break. As she wound her arms around his neck, he slid his hands from her hips to her thighs, then curled them around her bottom and dragged her up to her tiptoes, crushing her breasts against his chest. With the length of her body pressed against his, she felt his erection against her abdomen. Suddenly she knew what he wanted, and it was more than a little making out in the dark.
She dragged her mouth away from his and spoke breathlessly. “Wait a minute. What are we doing?”
He kissed her neck, then whispered in her ear, “Darcy, we’ve been dancing around this since the moment we met. And God, I hate to dance.”
He was right. They’d been on a collision course since the Battle of Mercedes-Benz. All the banter, the sarcastic remarks, the sidelong glances, the inadvisable kisses in inadvisable places—now she realized all of it had been nothing more than a whole lot of vertical foreplay, and they were moving to the main event.
“I’m taking you to bed,” he murmured. “And for the next couple of hours, we’re not even coming up for air.”
His words were a sexual one-two punch that almost knocked Darcy to her knees. This was what she wanted. To get swept away by electrifying sex with a man who knew how to deliver it. For a moment she imagined John simply hurling her down on the kitchen table and having his way with her. But then he took her by the hand, led her out of the kitchen and down the hall, moving so fast she had to trot to keep up, only to stop halfway there, push her against the wall, and kiss her all over again. After fourteen years of Warren’s brand of sex—lights out, under the covers, over with before it even got started—this man scared her a little. Okay, maybe a lot.
But that only made it that much more exciting.
He unfastened one of her shirt buttons, then another. He fought with the third one, his big fingers dueling wildly with the small button. With a groan of frustration, he grabbed the sides of the shirt and ripped it open all the way to her waist. Darcy gasped.
“Four ninety-nine,” he said. “That’s the beauty of cheap clothes. I’ll buy you ten more.”
Darcy was stunned. She couldn’t have imagined a man wanting her so much he’d rip her clothes right off her body.
John peeled the shirt away from her shoulders. It fell to her elbows, gathering there and trapping her arms so she couldn’t touch him. She wiggled and squirmed, but he just backed her up against the wall again and seduced her with that incredible mouth of his. This was going to be good, so good, the kind of fantasy sex she’d always imagined on those nights when she’d been in bed with Warren, staring at the ceiling and counting the minutes until it was over.
Finally John pulled the shirt off her arms and let it fall to the floor. She caught the fever, fumbling with his shirt buttons like a woman possessed. She unfastened only three of them before becoming impatient and slipping her hands inside to touch him skin-to-skin. He undid the rest, then yanked the shirt off completely. But when he reached for the clasp of her bra, all at once she was struck by the most horrific thought.
In about thirty seconds, she was going to be standing naked in the hall of her ugly new apartment. She was almost forty, with gravity working more of its evil on her with every moment that passed. John had already pegged her age just by looking at her Botoxed, microdermabraded, cosmetically enhanced face. What was he going to think when he saw those places where the ravages of age couldn’t be concealed?
She grabbed his hands. He stopped suddenly, breathing hard. “What?”
“I don’t know about this.”
“Don’t know about what?”
“You were right about my age,” she confessed.
“Okay.”
“I’m . . .” She took a deep breath. “I’m almost forty.”
“Okay.”
“Things aren’t necessarily where they used to be. They may be . . . you know . . . a few inches lower.”
“Darcy, I don’t care if you have one foot in the grave. You feel damned good to me.”
“I think—”
“No. Don’t think. That’s your problem. You’re thinking too much.”
Before she knew what was happening, he’d swept her into his arms, carried her to her bedroom, and lay her on the bed. The only light in the room was the faint lamplight filtering in from the living room and the streetlamp outside, and she thanked God for that. Maybe he wouldn’t see every imperfection she had.
He sat beside her and unhooked her bra, sweeping the cups aside, the lacy fabric tripping over her nipples. She held her breath as he looked down at her, staring at her for so long that she almost folded her arms across her chest. Then he put his palms against her ribs, slowly sliding them upward to take her breasts in his hands. He leaned in, kissing the swell of one, then the other.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured. “From the first moment I saw you, I thought you were so damned beautiful.”
“The first moment you saw me, I was yelling at you.”
“Make that screamingly beautiful.”
He unzipped her shorts, hooked his fingers in the waistband, and pulled them off along with her panties, leaving her naked. Self-consciousness seeped in again, but when he stood up and took off the rest of his clothes, she couldn’t think about her own body. She was too enraptured looking at his. He had the chest and biceps and thighs of a mythological warrior, radiating power from every pore. As her gaze traveled south, she had a fleeting thought about how she’d told him that men with big trucks were compensating for something. She’d never been so glad to be wrong about something in her life.
Stretching out beside her, he slipped his hand between her legs, stroking her there. She was already unbearably hot and swollen, and when he dipped his head to take her nipple between his lips, she thought she’d die from the pleasure. Teasing, licking, sucking, stroking . . . so many incredible feelings all at once. Her hands curled into fists, her fingernails digging into her palms. And then his lips hovered over her ear again.
“Don’t leave me in the dark,” he whispered. “Tell me what you want.”
John had always struck her as a man who took whatever he wanted and didn’t much care who he trampled in the process. But against all odds, here he was being sweet all over again, saying words her husband hadn’t uttered in fourteen years of marriage.
The truth was that she didn’t know what to tell John, because she didn’t know exactly what she wanted. This was good, but she doubted he’d want to keep it up forever. And even if she had known what to tell him, it would have embarrassed her to say it. So she reached down to his erection pressing against her thigh. She wrapped her hand around it, stroked the length of it, and said what she thought he wanted to hear.
“You. Inside me. Now.”
With a muffled groan, he rose immediately and grabbed his jeans from the bedroom floor. She wondered what he was doing, and when he pulled out a condom, she felt a jolt of relief. She hadn’t even thought about that. When a woman marries a man who’s already had a vasectomy, she didn’t have to think about those things. Thank God John had it covered.
He returned to the bed, parted her thighs, and hovered over her. For a moment he just stared down at her, his eyes shimmering in the near-darkness, killing her with anticipation.
Then he slid inside her.
She gasped at the sudden sensation of being filled completely, mindlessly curling her legs around him as he began to move inside her. She closed her eyes, stroking his back, loving the way his muscles flexed beneath his
sweat-sheened skin. This was good. So good.
But as much as it excited her, if history was any indication, in a few minutes John was going to be the only one feeling more than good. It had always struck her as patently unfair that men could have something so easily that came so hard to—
Wait. She felt something.
No.
Hold on. Maybe. A stirring deep inside her, something trying to catch fire. She couldn’t believe it. Oh, God . . . was it possible?
She arched against him, shifting her hips a little, trying to find just the right position. He picked up the pace, driving inside her, but the little flicker she’d felt began to slip away.
No, no, no! Concentrate. Think about sexy things.
Oh, hell. Like that made sense? She was having sex with the sexiest man she’d ever known. How much more sex could her brain fill up with?
She sensed him holding back. Gritting his teeth. Waiting to hear from her before going full speed ahead.
No. Don’t concentrate. Stop thinking about it. That’s your problem. John said it. You’re thinking too hard. But you have to do something. He’s waiting on you. Come on, come on, come on!
She squeezed her eyes closed, trying desperately to find that flicker again, but it wasn’t going to happen.
Just as it hadn’t happened for the past fourteen years.
Disappointment flooded through her. She’d eventually quit trying with Warren, finding it easier just to let him get there and think he took her there, too. And then she’d lain awake afterward, dreaming of sex with a man like John, assuming that if she ever had that opportunity, total sexual fulfillment would be a given.
It’s okay. Just get it over with now. It’ll be better next time.
Darcy took a deep breath. Everything she knew about faking an orgasm she’d learned from Meg Ryan, and the curtain was going up.
She started slowly, as always, just breathing a little harder. As he moved faster with more powerful strokes, she got a little vocal. And after a while, when she could tell he was close, she started in with some of Meg’s Yes! Yes! Yes! stuff, because that had always seemed really appropriate if a woman was truly on the edge. She congratulated herself, as she usually did, on just how exceptional her performance was. Or at least she thought it was, right up to the moment John stopped short and looked down at her as if she’d grown a second head.
