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“Like you did yesterday morning?”
Was it only yesterday morning he’d had his hand down her jeans? He flicked off the chipped white ginger jar lamp April had brought over from the cottage. Moonbeams penetrated the room, painting his body in light and shadow. As he approached the bed, she reminded herself he was a player, and this was a game to him. By saying no, she’d waved a green flag.
“You’re not that irresistible.” He threw back the sheet and climbed in. “You know what I think?” He propped himself on an elbow and glared at her over the pillow wall. “I think it’s yourself you’re afraid of. You’re afraid you won’t be able to keep your hands off me.”
He wanted to spar. But their sparring felt like foreplay, and she bit off every smart-ass retort that sprang to mind.
He lay back…and reared right up again. “I don’t have to put up with this!” With a sweep of his arm, pillows flew, and her wall came crashing down.
“Wait!” She tried to sit up only to have his weight press her back into the mattress. She braced herself for an attack, but she should have known better. His mouth nuzzled softly against hers, and for the second time that day, he began teasing her lips.
She decided to let him kiss her for a while—he was so good at it—but only for a few minutes.
His hand slipped under her T-shirt, and his thumb found her nipple. She tasted toothpaste and sin. Heat began spreading through her body. His erection pressed against her leg.
A game. This was only a game.
He dipped his head and began suckling her nipples through her T-shirt. As long as she kept her clothes on…He teased her with the hot, wet cotton, then pressed his hand between her thighs, against the fabric. Her knees slowly fell open. He toyed and dallied, thinking they had all the time in the world. But he played too long. Her head fell back. The moonlight shimmered then splintered into a thousand silver slivers. Through her barely muffled cry, she heard a soft, answering groan and felt him shudder along with her. Only as she came back to herself did she grow aware of something damp against her leg.
With a curse, he rolled off her, flung himself out of bed, and disappeared into the bathroom. She lay there—sated, angry, self-destructive. So much for her willpower.
Eventually he emerged from the bathroom. Naked. His soft growl drifted across the room. “Don’t you say one word. I mean it. That is the single most embarrassing thing that’s happened to me since I was fifteen.”
She waited until he’d resettled before she propped her head on her elbow and gazed down at him “Hey, Speed Racer…” She leaned forward and brushed his lips with a quick, casual kiss that told him their encounter meant nothing to her. “You owe me another hundred bucks.”
The birds woke her the next morning. She’d slept as far from him as she could to guard against any middle-of-the-night coziness, and her leg dangled over the edge. She slipped out of bed without waking him. His skin looked golden against the stark white sheets, and a patch of pale hair grew on his chest between formidable pecs. She took in the tiny hole in his earlobe and remembered the silver skulls Jack had been wearing. She had no trouble imagining Dean doing the same. Her gaze moved lower and came to rest on the mound pushing against the sheet. All that could be hers…if she’d only leave her brain behind.
He didn’t stir as she headed for the shower. She turned her face into the spray to clear her head. This was a new day, and as long as she didn’t make a big deal out of the relatively innocent events of last night, he couldn’t rack up any points on that scoreboard he carried around in his head. It was true that she still had no job, but she did have a temporary bargaining chip until she found work. He wanted to keep her right here at the farm, standing between him and the people who’d invaded his world.
As she dried off, she heard the water go on in the hallway bathroom. When she came out, the bed was empty. She hurriedly pulled a sleeveless black T-shirt from her duffel and a pair of jeans she’d cut off at midthigh. She felt a bump in her pocket and discovered her missing mascara and lip gloss. She made use of both, but only because there was a good chance she’d see Jack Patriot before he left for Nashville.
On her way downstairs, she smelled coffee, and as she walked into the kitchen, she saw Mad Jack himself sitting at the table, sipping from one of the white china mugs decorated with cherries. The same light-headedness that had rendered her mute when she’d met him last night struck again.
He wore yesterday’s clothes, along with some rocker stubble. The flecks of gray in his hair only made him sexier. He observed her with the familiar, heavy-lidded eyes she’d memorized from a dozen album covers. “Good morning.”
Somehow she managed to squeeze out a wheezy, “M-morning.”
“You’re Blue.”
“B-Bailey. B-Blue Bailey.”
“Sounds like that old song.”
She knew what he meant, but her face had frozen, so he clarified. “Won’t you come home, Bill Bailey? You’re probably too young. April tells me you and Dean are getting married.” He didn’t quite hide his curiosity. She wondered if he’d looked in on them sleeping or if Dean had wasted two hundred dollars. “Have you set a date?” he asked.
“Not yet.” She squeaked like Minnie Mouse.
His cool survey continued. “How did you meet?”
“I was, uh, doing some…promotional work for a lumber company.”
Seconds ticked by. When she realized she was staring, she stumbled toward the grocery bags in the pantry. “I’ll bake panmakes. Make! I’ll make pancakes.”
“All right.”
She’d had adolescent sexual fantasies about this man. While her classmates argued over who had dibs on Kirk Cameron, she’d imagined losing her virginity to Dean’s father. Ew. Ick.
Still…
