All of Me (32 page)

“That’s horrible.”

“There are lots of people in this world who had it worse. I know that. I had a roof over my head and food to eat. But I wanted
out of there. I studied hard in school, luckily it came easy to me. I excelled. Got scholarships to college. Got my wish.
Got the hell out of there. Graduated magna cum laude from law school.”

It aroused something inside Tuck that she’d trusted him enough to tell him all this. He wanted to touch her, to comfort her
for that long-ago pain, but he had no business, no right. Still, he couldn’t just leave her with her shoulders tensed, her
chin clenched, her mind ensnared in the past. He skimmed her forearm with his fingertips—briefly, lightly, just enough to
let her know he cared.

“I’m sorry.”

Tuck couldn’t handle the swell of emotions flooding through him. He couldn’t keep looking at Jillian. Instead, he got up and
threw another log on the fire. When he turned, he saw tears reflected in her eyes.

It shook him. She was so strong, so brave. He didn’t think of her as the sort who cried. Unlike Aimee, who had bawled at Hallmark
commercials.

“Jillian.” He went to the couch and put his arms around her.

She blinked. “I’m sorry. I don’t usually do this. I don’t even talk about it.”

“Thank you for telling me.”

“It was so long ago. I got over it. I survived.”

Tuck squeezed her tighter. “You never get over something like that.”

Jillian made a noise, half bravado, half sorrow. “Hey, we all have our crosses to bear. You lost someone very precious to
you.”

Every cell in his body ached. He knew what it was like to suffer a great loss. She looked over at him. This shared intimacy
forged a deeper understanding, a tighter bonding between them.

“Losing Aimee changed me forever, you know.” He swallowed, unable to believe he was talking about his wife with her. “I’ll
never be the same.”

“Right.” She moved from him, dabbed at her eyes.

His arms felt strangely empty. He liked holding her, but he wasn’t sure that he liked that he liked it.

“I think this calls for a stiff drink. You want something to drink?”

“I don’t think we have anything stronger than Coke.”

“Let me see.” Tuck got up, grabbed the flashlight off the table, and rummaged around the kitchen. He thought there might be
a beer or two in the fridge, but it was empty. He checked the kitchen cabinet. Nothing. Then he checked the cabinet over the
stove.

Score!

“Look what I found,” he said, coming to the archway between the kitchen and the living room and holding up a bottle of Baileys
Irish Cream for her to see. “Irish coffee anyone?”

“Oh me, me.” Jillian waved at him from the couch. “With this cold weather outside, I could use some warming up inside.”

Tuck had to bite his tongue to keep from saying something raunchy and totally inappropriate. He concentrated on pouring the
coffee and stirring in the Baileys and trying not to think about how much he wanted to kiss Jillian. He couldn’t very well
go back in there with a boner.

Think about carpentry.

Finger joint, butt hinge, tongue and groove.

Oh crap, that was only making things worse. He’d never realized before what erotic terminology his profession employed.

“Hey,” she said, sashaying into the kitchen. “Can I help? Need me to hold the flashlight?”

“Yeah,” he said, and passed her the flashlight. “Thank God for battery-powered coffeemakers.”

“Thank God,” she echoed.

She was standing so close that he could smell her unique Jillian scent. He was in serious trouble here, and there was nowhere
to run.

And at that moment, Tuck realized running was the last thing on his mind.

T
WO HOURS AND THREE
Irish coffees later, Jillian was giggling like a teenager. They’d been playing truth or dare, and Tuck had just dared her
to stand on her head.

“Ten years of yoga,” she said from her upside-down position, with her back against the wall beside the fireplace.

“You win, pretzel lady. Come down before you get a headache.”

Jillian dropped her feet to the floor and sat upright, combing her fingers through her hair.

Tuck laughed. He was at his most alluring. Dark eyes filled with anticipation, his mouth quirked up at one corner, warm, inviting,
sexy.

And Jillian was at her most suggestible. Tipsy and snowed in with a sexy man she’d been having erotic dreams about for quite
some time. In a flash of sudden knowledge that almost knocked the breath from her body, she recognized she was falling for
him.

It was more than friendship. She wanted sex from him and lots of it.

His masculinity aroused her, his cleverness intrigued, his intricacy provoked her. She admired his dedication to family, his
loyalty to this town, his empathy to his friends.

She considered what he’d revealed by talking so intimately about Aimee. She sipped at the Irish coffee long past the point
where she should have stopped drinking. Her head spun and her heart pounded and she felt warm all over.

Wings of panic fluttered against her rib cage. The new understanding that her feelings for him had strengthened, deepened,
altered her reality. She wanted to make love to him.

Now and for a long time to come.

Jillian was scared, terrified that this glimmer of joy she was feeling would evaporate if she studied it too hard. How could
she trust in this tenuous emotion? She’d let down her guard with Alex and look what happened.

But Tuck’s not Alex and he isn’t married.

No, he was worse. He was a widower still in love with his dead wife, and there was no way she could compete with a ghost.

Confusion wrapped her in its grasp, and the most she could manage was a simple, “Thank you.”

Tuck said nothing, just sat there watching her in the firelight.

She didn’t expect him to feel the same way about her. That was too much to hope for. But the hungry expression in his whiskey-colored
eyes told her that at least he wanted her sexually. Wanted her quite badly, in fact. That was easy enough to read. His eyes
roved over her body and his jaw tightened.

Jillian had spent her adult life telling herself sex was enough, but with Tuck, she didn’t know if she could keep convincing
herself that was true. She gulped, suddenly swallowed up by unexpected melancholia. Jillian shook her head, mentally warding
off the sadness. She wanted him. She would take whatever she could get. If sex and friendship were all he had to offer, so
be it. She didn’t really believe in anything more than that.

“I … I need to go freshen up,” she said, and set her mug down on the coffee table. “I’ll be right back.”

She rushed into the bathroom that Tuck had just finished renovating the week before. He’d textured the walls in Venetian plaster.
The beautiful sage green color she’d picked out made her think of the prairie in springtime. Since the lights were out, they
had candles going in every room, and the dancing flames enhanced the old-world look of the new décor.

Jillian washed up in the new copper sink he’d installed in the stylish yet rustic bathroom cabinetry he’d built himself. She
splashed cold water over her face, trying to dampen the effects of the Baileys Irish Cream and snap herself out of the magical
spell the blizzard seemed to have cast.

She stared at her reflection in the mirror and saw how wide and shiny her eyes looked. “I don’t believe in magic,” she told
her reflection. “I don’t, I don’t, I don’t.”

But she did believe in great sex, and there was a handsome man out there, and it had been months since she’d had sex. There
were condoms in her purse, and he seemed as interested as she, so why not take a gamble?

She left the bathroom and went to change from her sweater and jeans into a pair of silk sapphire blue lounging pajamas and
a diaphanous matching bathrobe. She hesitated a moment when she remembered Alex had given her the pajamas and robe set, but
then she thought,
What the hell?
They looked good on her no matter where she’d gotten them. The material flowed like water over her body, soft and fluid,
and the neckline showed off just the right amount of cleavage.

Sexy but not blatantly so.

And that’s when Jillian knew she was going to seduce him. She went back to the bathroom and brushed her teeth and then her
hair. She put on just enough makeup to give her a fresh, dewy look—charcoal mascara, pink cream blush, cinnamon-flavored lip
gloss—applying it as best she could in the restricted lighting. She peeled off the slouch socks she liked to wear around the
house and went back to the bedroom in search of the blue feathered mules that matched the silk pajamas and robe.

Taking a deep breath, she affected her sexiest walk and sauntered back out into the living room, stopping long enough to open
her purse, find the condoms, and slip them into the pocket of her robe.

Tuck didn’t hear her approach. He was busy poking the red-hot embers and adding fresh logs to the grate. She paused a moment
to admire him in the firelight.

Even in studious repose, the man exuded a rugged sexuality that took hold of Jillian and wouldn’t let go. Maybe that was the
very reason she wanted him so much. He brought a raw, primal realness into her world.

She ran her hands along the pajamas, the silky material rubbing against her body, the feel of it escalating her excitement.
How she wanted him!

And how nervous she was that he might reject her.

Tentatively, she licked her lips, lowered her eyelashes, and stepped closer. She heard something clang to the floor, glanced
over, and saw Tuck had dropped the poker, along with his jaw.

“Jesus, Jillian.”

Startled, her hand flew to her throat. What? What had she done wrong? “Yes? What is it?”

He gulped. “It’s just that … you look …”

“What?”

“So damned
hot
.”

The gleam in his eyes sent a flush of pride pumping through her bloodstream. She couldn’t ever remember a man making her feel
quite this sexy. The air crackled with sexual tension.

They stared at each other.

Tuck smiled and closed the gap he’d opened when she’d taken him by surprise. “You never cease to amaze me.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“Oh, trust me. It’s a very good thing.”

She ran her tongue over her lips.

“Are you as tipsy as I am?” he asked.

“No doubt.”

Tuck splayed a palm to the nape of his neck. “I gotta admit, I’m feeling a little nervous.”

“Me too.”

“But excited.”

“Same here.”

“We don’t have to do this.”

“I know.”

They never broke eye contact, just kept looking and looking and looking at each other.

She had started this, but Tuck was the one who crossed the line. He closed the remaining space between them, reaching out
and pulling her up flush against him.

Jillian felt all the air leave her body in one long pent-up whoosh, and it was like she’d been holding her breath all her
life, waiting, just waiting for this moment. Waiting for him.

Tuck kissed her with the enchantment only a magic man could deliver. Strong, confident, decisive, he made his move, boldly
exploring her mouth with his hot tongue.

She felt a primal, dazzling need sewing her to him, strengthening her desire to see this thing through.

Their radiant energy grew, fused, swelled. She wrapped her arm around his neck, pulling him down closer. Her lips vibrated
with receptiveness.

“You can say stop at any time and I’ll pull the plug,” he said. “I just want you to know that.”

“Right back at you, but I don’t want to pull the plug.”

“Neither do I,” he said. “But you need to know I haven’t been with anyone since …”

Neither one of them wanted to say her name. Jillian nodded. “Yes, I understand.”

“It’s been over two years. I might not last five minutes.”

“We’re snowed in. We’re not going anywhere.”

He kissed her again. “Where shall we do this?”

“Let’s start right here on the rug in front of the fire.”

“Aw, you’re just a big romantic at heart.”

She smiled encouragingly.

Gently, Tuck ran his hand up under the hem of her top, his rough palm skimming her bare belly. With his other hand, he tilted
her chin up and brought his mouth down on hers for another soul-searching kiss.

She melted into him.

Enveloped in each other, pasted together by contact at the shoulder, hand, leg, hip, and chest, Tuck and Jillian sealed their
destiny and closed their fate.

She wrapped her arms around his waist, and he enfolded her to him. It felt as if their very cells were entwined. They were
oblivious to everything on earth beyond themselves and this moment.

They had fallen down the well of each other. Tuck’s energy filled Jillian with rapture. His masculine power rolled off every
inch of her in glorious waves. He evoked in her a desire immeasurable, a thirst so vast all the oceans of the world evaporated
in a single drop.

How was this possible? How could she have become so deliriously intoxicated with him?

Her emotions terrified her.

The air vibrated between them. One wrong move and they could fall off the earth. Their entire time together had been like
this. A daring adventure, and now they were embarking on a dangerous affair.

At last Jillian understood why she’d hidden behind casual sex all these years. By keeping her affairs casual, she could gamble
without risks. Feel without feeling.

But now all that had been stripped away. She was metaphorically naked. Fully exposed.

It felt glorious.

And scary as hell.

Q
ueenie.” He smiled and pulled her closer, pressing his lips against the hollow of her throat. “You’re so righteous and regal.”

She was afraid then, in the circle of his arms. Afraid of losing this precious moment, of never getting it back. She wanted
so much to hope for happily-ever-after, but she didn’t believe in it.