A Surprise Family: Against The Odds
But when he realized she didn’t have a checkbook, a debit or a credit card with which to pay, his interest had been piqued even further.
Because it would do him no good to do otherwise, he accepted the cash she thrust at him. “Don’t trust banks?”
She busied herself connecting the two halves of the false can and replacing it in the cupboard. “They’re never open when you need them, are they?”
He weighed her words. There were people who didn’t like banks. He’d run across a few.
He’d also come across people who needed to travel light and fast. Having to get money from a bank account would slow them down. He couldn’t help wondering if Lindsay was one of them.
Since it would do no good to ask, he took his time placing the bills in his wallet. And wondered at the nerves shimmering off her.
She’d been calm as they’d dealt with the idiot at the Blue Lagoon. Shaky but determined as she risked her life in the kitchen at Piper’s. But now that she was safely home in her apartment, she looked as jumpy as a turkey at Thanksgiving time.
Natural enough, maybe. He jammed his wallet into his back pocket. Anyone who’d recently had a bullet crease their skull was entitled to feel a little tense afterward. Most women he knew would be in hysterics by now.
Trouble was, Lindsay wasn’t most women. It would be easier all around if she were.
She shut the cupboard door, then leaned against the counter, facing him. Other than the bandage he’d changed, which no amount of fussing was ever going to completely hide, she didn’t look much the worse for wear. If she still had a headache, she was hiding it. Jack figured she had plenty of practice hiding all kinds of things. And it must be his occupation that made him want to strip her of all her secrets.
Okay. He jammed his hands in his pockets. Stripped might be a poor choice of words. And an impossible one to shake free of his mind, joined with that brief flash he’d gotten of her changing a few nights back. That memory had proven difficult to dislodge. Although there was nothing remotely sexy in the baggy flannel pants and loose T-shirt she’d donned after her recent shower, it was all too easy to recall what lay beneath them.
“So.” He rocked back on his heels, trying to think of a blessed reason to stay. “You haven’t eaten. I can call out for Chinese. Or grab a bucket of chicken.”
Lindsay was already shaking her head. “I don’t have much appetite. I’ll get something later.”
His gaze went to the cupboard door she’d closed behind her. “Soup?” The contents of the shelf had been bare of much else. He hadn’t checked her refrigerator, but he was betting that would be sparsely stocked, as well.
“Probably. I eat—ate,” she corrected herself, “a lot of my meals at Piper’s. But I’m not really that hungry, anyway.”
Too bad he couldn’t say the same. Hunger, if that was the name for the heat firing through his veins, was about all he could think about right now. His reputation with women might be exaggerated on some counts, but not significantly so. Regardless, even he wasn’t the type to make a move on a woman only hours out of her hospital bed.
“You probably need to rest.” He meant to move toward the door. His legs just weren’t taking orders from his brain yet. “Don’t forget the information the nurse gave you. Keep up with the medication to stay ahead of the pain. Call the hospital if the headaches get worse or if the bleeding starts again and you can’t—”
Her lips quirked. “I was there, too, remember?”
“Yeah, you were.” Because he didn’t trust his hands if he took them out of his pockets, he kept them tucked away. It took a supreme effort, but he finally got his feet to move. Unfortunately, in the wrong direction.
He took two long strides toward her, leaned in the rest of the way to lightly brush his lips across her forehead. “So make sure you follow the doctor’s orders. You’re not as tough as you think. No one is. If you need anything, give me a call.”
It was just the right tone. Casual. Light. No sign of the knots coiling in his belly. Knots that tightened suddenly when her hands went to his waist. Lingered.
She tipped her face up to his, her green gaze steady. “You don’t have to leave.”
For a moment his mind blanked. It must have been his earlier sinful thoughts that had him painting her words with a deeper meaning. Could be it was just his nature to interpret things to suit himself. But a man could be forgiven for thinking that short quick glide of her palms up his waist a few inches, then back down, was more of a stroke. That the feminine fingers were curling, just slightly, into his flesh to convince him to stay.
Most of the time he’d have no difficulty testing just how accurate that impression was—and lingering to persuade even if his interpretation was flat-out wrong. But this wasn’t most times. Lindsay wasn’t most women.
It was a bitch to have to call on whatever better instincts he had, which he usually kept buried conveniently deep, to do the right thing. He should push her hands away. Remember she was hurt, shaken and probably not thinking clearly. Walk away while they both could look each other in the eye and head back to his place, alone.
He got as far as the first step. He covered her hands with his palms, but somehow forgot what he’d meant to do from there. Her next words managed to wipe his mind clean.
“I’m asking you not to go.”
CHAPTER SIX
A little thrill zipped through Lindsay at the shock in his expression. It was more appealing than it should have been to have a man like Jack Langley—who looked like he capably caught every pass life threw at him—fumble a bit when she issued the invitation.
And it was curiously arousing to watch his shock morph to hunger, to have the intense heat of it directed at her.
He didn’t move but he loomed closer somehow. Didn’t touch her, but she was crowded back against the counter just the same. “You’re hours out of a hospital bed.” The bitter regret in his words warmed something inside her. “I’m going to do the best thing for both of us and head home.”
She would have been dismayed by his words if they were accompanied by action. But he remained motionless. Unless you counted the tension that seemed to radiate off him in waves.
She smiled, something easing inside her as she skated a palm up his chest. “You do that and your bad-boy reputation may never recover.”
He caught her hand, held it fast against one firm pec. She could feel the rapid tattoo of his heartbeat beneath. “My reputation is solid. It can withstand the shock.”
Heat transferred from his hand to hers. It surged through her system and had her bones taking on the consistency of warm wax. Or maybe that sensation was caused by the frustration she sensed beneath his words. Who would have thought to find chivalry beneath Jack Langley’s tough, capable exterior?
“If this isn’t what you want, by all means, go.” Her hand curled, fingers entwining with his. “But don’t leave out of some misguided need to ‘protect’ me. I have to admit, I’ve never been big on decisions others made for me. It’s a weakness of mine.” One she’d apparently never outgrown, despite the drastic consequences.
The skin seemed taut over his cheekbones. His mouth looked hard as he stared down at her with eyes as dark as sin. “Maybe I’m afraid you’ll become a weakness of mine,” he muttered. But she was encouraged when his mouth went to her throat, where the pulse was beating madly beneath the skin. “You need to take it easy, the doctor said.”
Little flickers of desire spread through her muscles. She was helpless to stop it. “You’re making this more complicated than it needs to be.” Doubt niggled through her then, even as his mouth cruised up her throat, before getting sidetracked to the sensitive spot beneath her ear. Jack was the last man she ever would have expected complications from. But he had consistently surprised her since they’d met, with contradictory layers beneath that glib surface charm he wore like a mantle.
That alone should have had her inner alarm bells shrilling in warning. But they were muted by the thrill of his hands, sliding around her waist to pull her close. He widened his stance so that she was pressed against the V of his thighs. And the evidence of his interest was unmistakable.
His palm slipped inside her loose top, fingers tracing each individual vertebra of her spine as he smoothed his mouth along her jawline, nipped at her chin. His lips hovered above hers for a moment, long enough for their breath to mingle. Long enough for her to inhale his scent in greedy anticipation. And then his mouth came down on hers and the floor rocked a bit beneath her feet.
He packed a wallop, she thought dimly, senses drowning beneath the sensual onslaught. Need jittered inside her and her mouth returned the pressure of his, opening beneath his demand.
And that wanting didn’t frighten her, not now. Because she wouldn’t be here long enough for regrets to surface. She’d be gone before those complications could take shape.
If that thought brought a pang, it was also accompanied by a feeling of freedom. She could forget reservations and focus only on the hunger that was melting her system like overwarmed chocolate.
His tongue slicked along the surface of hers before flicking the sensitive roof of her mouth and drawing a shudder. The taste of him was simmering heat and dark promise. But she sensed restraint as well and wondered at it. Jack Langley wasn’t a careful man. She knew that intuitively. He was wild and a little reckless, and she was honest enough to admit those qualities appealed. They mirrored her own.
She twined her arms around his neck and went on tiptoe, pressing her body more tightly against his, wondering just what it would take to slip the leash of his control. Her clothes hadn’t been chosen with seduction in mind. The shower had wiped her face clean of the makeup Jolie had brought to the hospital along with her clothes.
If it weren’t for the distinctive hardness prodding her belly, she’d believe he was disinterested. So it must be his misplaced concern that was holding him back. Keeping the demand in check and leaving her feeling slightly bereft.
And knowing he was the type of man who’d step back despite his own raging hormones revealed yet another layer, hinted at a depth she would have doubted the first time she met him.
Taking his bottom lip in her teeth, Lindsay scored it, not quite gently. A man like this could be dangerous, in more than the usual way. A man like this could be difficult to walk away from.
So she would run instead. The way she’d been running for the last thirty-eight months.
She eased back, opened her eyes, nearly lost her nerve. The control Jack was harnessing so tightly was visible in his expression. There was a primitive cast there, a grim resolve in his eyes that spoke of a man battling between nobility and emotion. To tip the scales, Lindsay grasped the bottom of her T-shirt and hauled it up over her head to drop it, forgotten, to the floor.
The leap of desire she saw on his face fanned her excitement and put to rest any lingering doubts she had about how this encounter would end. If Jack Langley was waging an inner war, nobility didn’t appear to be winning.
His hands held an edge of roughness when he pulled her closer, and the evidence of his fraying control brought a jolt of sensual pleasure. “Chaste as a nun on the outside,” he murmured, one long finger tracing the edge of the white lace bra where it skimmed the top of her breasts. “And all sorts of sexy surprises underneath.” With his other hand he stroked the tiny hoop she had in her belly button. “Which is the real you, I wonder?”
His words had caution rearing belatedly, but it was dimmed when he hooked a finger in the elastic waist of her bottoms and tugged them down her hips. And the sudden savage hunger in his expression wiped her mind clean.
Jack leaned his forehead against hers for a moment, fought for control. She was a study in contrasts, the casual, careless attire covering lingerie fashioned to drive men wild. And somewhere in the recesses of his mind he realized the contrast was deliberate. He’d recognized she was a woman of secrets.
But the ones he wanted to bare right now were all too basic.
The scrap of matching lace panties were cut high on her sleek thighs, and he swept his hand up that satiny expanse to cup her bottom, to pull her more tightly against him. To hell with chivalry. It had never worn comfortably on him at any rate.
His mouth lowered to hers, all hint of gentleness gone. His kiss demanded more, and then more still. She wasn’t a woman to give up her secrets readily, but he’d have no pretension between them now. In this area, at least, Lindsay would be totally honest. Emotionally. Physically.
His palm skated upward, fingers lingering on that spot on her shoulder blade where he’d find the tattoo he’d once gotten a glimpse of. He’d explore that, too. Along with every other exquisite inch of her. Places that made her sigh. Those that made her moan. He’d sample every soft and sleek spot of her and drive them both a little mad in the process.
He dispensed with the back latch of her bra with a twist of his fingers and drew a shuddering breath. He released her lips to lean back, as he dragged the straps down her arms.
And when the fabric peeled away to reveal the mounds of her high firm breasts, a hot fist of need clenched in his belly.
Her nipples were taut knots that begged for his lips. And the taste of her, when he bent his head to take one in his mouth, screamed through his system like a rocket.
He feasted on her, his free hand kneading her other breast while he sucked deeply from its twin. The little sounds coming from the back of her throat torched his passion, shredded any thought of going slow. As the sensations washed over him, taste and scent and sound, the world receded to hold only the two of them.
A woman like this could be addictive. One who could work her way into his system and have his blood chugging like a racehorse. She affected him with the speed and strength of a narcotic and was just as intoxicating.
Her fingers were unsteady on the buttons of his shirt, and masculine satisfaction flickered at the sign of her response. He lowered his hand and brushed the mound between her thighs, felt her jerk helplessly against him.
And then his shirt was unfastened and her hands were streaking over his chest, down his sides, on a tactile journey of discovery. Reluctantly, he released her nipple, but his hand never left her femininity, rubbing and circling gently until the fabric separating his fingers from her sleek softness dampened against his hand.
Her voice, when it came, sounded a bit frantic. “Take off your clothes.” It was a demand, made more so by her attempts to tug his shirt from his shoulders, down his arms.
Nuzzling the base of her throat, he inhaled the scent there, and it sped to his pulse like a shot of tequila. “What’s your hurry?” He kissed her then, all the demand coiling in his system impossible to hide, and gathered her closer so her nipples stabbed at his chest. And his hand continued to work her as his lips ate at her mouth in a frenzy of need.
He had a dim thought that a woman like Lindsay would seek to hold something back; she wouldn’t give freely and she wouldn’t give all. Mysteries deeply buried would be protected. But he’d have this. Every tremor, every shudder to her body. Each helpless moan and sigh. And he told himself that could be enough.
When he finally released her to step a few inches away, she used the small distance to rid him of the shirt. And then she seemed to go boneless when he dragged the panties down her legs and pressed his mouth to where she was wet, aching. Inviting.
Lindsay jerked against his mouth, unable to do anything other than feel. Mindlessly, her head lolled back, her fingers reached up to twine in Jack’s hair to press him even closer. Her breath caught on a sob as his tongue tortured that taut bundle of nerves between her legs, and every ounce of strength leached from her limbs. Individual sensation careened and collided within her until all she could do was be and feel. And when he slipped one long finger inside her, she exploded into a thousand jagged shards of light.
She was faintly aware of the breath sawing in and out of his lungs, of being scooped off her feet and floated across the room. But then she felt the bed at her back, felt the mattress of the daybed sag beneath his weight. Excitement streamed through her again, a hard pull of renewed desire.
She rose to a sitting position and pressed herself against that broad expanse of back, the muscles sleekly jumping and working against her lips as he pulled off his boots. Sliding her hands down his arms, she curled her fingers testingly over the taut biceps, felt him quiver beneath her touch. She slid her palms over hot bare masculine skin, exploring hard angles and bone and sinew as pleasure quickened inside her.
When he turned, her hands were impatient, battling with his as she unfastened his pants. But when he dropped his hands, allowing her free rein, her touch slowed, grew teasing.
Hunger was already reigniting inside her, a thousand little pinpricks of pleasure humming to life again. But this time he’d join her in that intimate explosion. She’d demand his total surrender the same way he had demanded hers.
With excruciating slowness she worked the tab over the hard ridge of his arousal behind the zipper. She heard his strangled breath and risked a sly glance up at him. What she saw had the oxygen abruptly seeping from her lungs. His eyes were slitted. Sweat sheened his forehead. And the arousal on his face called a like emotion from her, flame leaping to meet flame until she shuddered with the longing to dive into that fire once more.
His hands took over for hers and shoved his jeans and briefs down, freeing his sex, which sprang forth, huge and hard and rigid. Lindsay took his length in both hands and lowered her mouth to lick the drop of pearly liquid from the tip. And when she took him in her mouth, his ragged groan torched something deep inside her.
His fingers were tight in her hair, her name a ragged groan on his lips. Until finally, with actions tight with tension, he freed himself and joined her on the bed.
A leap of wildness sprang forth at the expression on Jack’s face. Primal savage desire. And in this, she could be completely open. Completely honest. Because the ferocity of his hunger mirrored her own. And the evidence of it called forth every wild and reckless part of her that she had fought so hard and so long to suppress.
But she could indulge it now, with him. And the sensual freedom of that was heady.
With quick, desperate movements he sheathed himself with a condom. Then his mouth covered hers again, hot and urgent. His hands, when they skated over her, were just shy of rough.
The daybed shrank as Jack’s large frame joined her on it. And when they pressed together, flesh to flesh, every nerve in her system flared to sharp, edgy life. Her neck arched beneath his questing mouth as he spread tiny stinging kisses along the sensitive chord there. And she realized, with a mournful tug from deep inside her, that this man was going to be far more difficult to walk away from than she’d led herself to believe.
Jack felt the change in her as her body melted against his, her touch slowing, as if she were a woman determined to sample a banquet destined to disappear. But the need inside him wouldn’t allow him to slow. Wouldn’t let her fade back from the sharp-edged precipice. He turned her over so he could trace that delicate butterfly with his lips as he kneaded the full, round globes of her bottom.
And he tasted. The sweet curve of her breast, the sleek slope of her arm. The narrow shoulders and surprisingly delicate vertebrae punctuating the long sleek back. Hands stroking and teasing, until she rolled to her side and her mouth to his, sealing her body against his.
Her hands as they raced over him were just shy of frantic. She touched him where he was hard and aching with deft, devastating strokes until he drew her hand away and loomed over her.
His blood was raging like a firestorm, embers of desire singeing him from the inside out. But still he lingered, even as his mind fogged and his vision hazed.
Nibbling at her breast, he sent a finger inside her, held it there, to savor the sexy little tremors that raced through her. And when he moved over her, slipped inside her with one smooth stroke, their moans mingled.
She was tight as a fist as she pulsed around him, and desire pounded through him, raging for release. Her legs climbed his waist, locking him to her in a gut-wrenchingly sexy prison. Jack stopped a moment to haul in a breath, struggling for his shredding restraint. But then she bucked beneath him, embedding him deeply inside her, and abruptly his control shattered.
He thrust into her, a wild, savage lunge, and she met the motion, increased the pace. Flesh slapped against flesh, and the frenetic ride to completion became the focus. His hands slipped under her butt to lift her, to seat himself inside her more fully.
Sensation chased sensation as their hips pistoned, bodies straining together. The sting of her nails, her short, harsh pants in his ear beckoned him like a siren’s song.
He tried to drag his eyes open, to focus on her face, but everything was blurred as he lunged into her over and over again. He felt her crest beneath him, felt her inner walls milking him. Her orgasm signaled his own, and with one more wild lunge he followed her over the edge into a free fall of pleasure.
Her heart rate had slowed. Her breathing steadied. But the stillness of her form, still curled up against his side, was all nerves. Jack recognized it and knew better than to comment on it, so he did what he could to calm her. “Tell me something I don’t know about you.”
What the hell? Where had that come from? He frowned, shifting position, uncomfortable. He’d never had much patience for idle chatter after sex. Not when it was much more pleasurable to channel that energy into round two.
“That’s wide open. You don’t know anything about me.”
“Not true.” He settled her head more comfortably into the notch of his shoulder, skated a hand down her back and up again. Lingered on the tattoo on one smooth shoulder. “I know you had a misspent youth.” She seemed to stop breathing for a moment. “Bet you ran off and got this tattoo and pierced your belly button to piss off your parents. Probably hooked school to do it, too.”
He felt her lungs expand again. “You don’t know as much as you think. I was done with school and no longer living at home when I got both.” Her voice turned amused. “And you call yourself a detective.”
Jack could feel the tension ease from her body at the lighthearted exchange. “Let’s see what else my renowned deductive skills can come up with.” His hand wandered over her hip, lingered on her inner thigh. “I know you’re a natural redhead.” She made a rude sound, and something lightened inside him. With the back of his hand, he brushed lightly at the auburn curls between her legs. “And I know you’re traveling fast and light for a reason. Maybe it’s a man. Maybe some other sort of trouble. But I could help. If you’d let me.”
This time there was no mistaking her response. A chill chased over her skin. And noting it, he wasn’t fooled by the light tone she managed. “Struck out again, Langley. But don’t worry. I won’t tell your captain you’re losing your touch.”
She pressed him back and settled herself on top of him, propped up on her forearms. “Since you’re not doing so hot on your own, I’ll tell you something you would never guess.”
Something quickened in his chest. His arms came up to link around her waist. “Shoot.”
“I’m a master whistler. Through my thumbs, both index fingers, thumb and forefinger…I can even whistle with my toes. Although you’ll have to take my word for that one, because my mom convinced me when I was twelve that it wasn’t ladylike.”