Blame it on Cupid (17 page)

“Because I could come over. Just hang with you two sometimes, if you think it'd help—”

Aw, hell. He wasn't exactly saving her. It's just that the damned woman was going to back into a mountain of melons and cause an avalanche if he didn't do something. “Robert. Merry. Amazing who you meet in the grocery store, isn't it?”

Merry spun around, obviously surprised to see him—more than surprised. Her huge, grateful smile could have brought a sixteen-year-old to his knees. It was that stunning.

It was that dead wrong. He was so not a hero, and that was the whole reason he should never have stepped in. Merry kept getting the mistaken idea he was a good guy. She kept giving him those kinds of smiles because she trusted him.

He didn't want her trust. He hadn't earned it, didn't want to earn it. The truth was, he wanted to lust after her in silent, guilty peace.

Boner, typically, was oblivious to any side undercurrents—or guilt for that matter. They neighbor-talked for a couple more minutes, and then Robert wandered off. When Jack glanced around, he found Merry had stepped over to the apples—not far. At least, not far enough. He could feel her taking in his crew-neck sweater, the old jeans, the scuffed shoes. He had a list in his hand. She had a list in hers. But when he picked up a bag of oranges, she suddenly zoomed back to his side with another big smile.

“I'm guessing you'd like them a little more ripe, wouldn't you?” She replaced his chosen bag of oranges with one she picked.

“How do you tell?”

“No yellow or green tinge. The shape of them.” Color bloomed on her cheeks. He hadn't been trying to look her over in an evocative or noticeable way. It was just the way T-shirt material cupped her breasts. How could a guy not notice?

He said casually, “You might want to be a little watchful around Robert.”

“Believe me, I watched enough to know he's on the prowl.”

“His wife's a prowler, too. A guy isn't safe alone in his own house sometimes,” Jack said mournfully. That made her chuckle.

He wanted her to chuckle. Wanted her to feel easy with him—just not too easy, because every instinct warmed him that if a wolf knocked on Merry's door, she'd invite him right on in to dinner.

“The first time Robert stopped over, he seemed so nice. Welcoming me to the neighborhood, offering to help. Only offering a little too hard,” she said wryly.

“I've been known to hide in the basement if Susie knocks,” Jack said
sotto voce.

Again she chuckled. By the time they'd made it back to the apples, she'd taken over as shopping supervisor, didn't even bother asking permission to exchange the bag of apples in his hand for a different one.

“What's wrong with those?” The two bags looked the same to him.

“The ones in the middle were all bruised, started to go soft. You're not much of a grocery shopper, huh?”

He made a face. And she grinned. “Okay, I guess I can trust you on your own with the cherries,” she teased. “I have to hustle. Have a sleepover to shop for.”

When she ambled away, he told himself that he felt relieved. But the produce section had proven so traumatic that he instinctively pushed his cart toward a guaranteed safe zone. Hardware.

He knew that part of the store. There was no possibility of getting into any trouble there, no anxiety, no threat of harm's way. And the library shelves he'd been building were to the point where he needed to make a decision on stain.

He didn't want too dark a color, but the birch wood was too darn light by itself. So he was thinking maybe maple. Maybe maple blended with some English oak. With maybe a few drops of mahogany to richen it up.

It took a few minutes to make up his mind and choose the staining products. When he turned the corner into the next hardware aisle, though…damn, there she was again. All alone this time. Her cart looked more stuffed than a pregnant whale, rounded with pop and popcorn, brownie mixes and mounds of chips, all the major junk-food ingredients for a sleepover. He was envious of anyone who could finish a cartful of shopping that fast—yet oddly, her expression appeared frazzled and frustrated as she studied the shelves of electrical supplies.

He could hardly duck from sight. What if she'd turned and seen him?

“I take it it's my turn to save you?” he asked wryly.

She spun around. Immediately her face lit up, brighter than sunshine. “Oh, God. You can't imagine how glad I am to run into you again! Charlene said we needed a three-prong thingie for some electronic whatchamacallit in her room. And she drew me a picture so I'd know what it looked like. But I can't find it. And there's no point in asking a clerk because—”

“Because he might not know how to identify it from the fancy ‘thingie' terminology?” How could he not tease her?

“Give me all the grief you want. As long as you help me,” she teased right back.

He had to come close enough to see the drawing on her list. “I hate to lose my hero status, but honest to Pete, this isn't remotely tricky. All you need is an adaptor.”

“Yeah, that's what I thought I needed. Only there isn't a single package here that spells out a three-prong whatchamacallit.”

“Damn men must have marketed this stuff. What do they know?”

She chuckled again. Only at that point he couldn't help but touch her. The part was right over her head. And he just barely brushed her shoulder, yet damnation, somehow it was enough to put a velvet ripple up and down his spine.

He was
not
the kind of man who experienced velvet ripples. Up and down the spine or anywhere else. Ever. “Well…”

He didn't have to finish the sentence. She did. “You're off. Me, too. Want to get the rest of this done and get home. But if by some crazy chance we're ever in the store at the same time again, maybe we should just switch lists. I'll do your food. You do my…”

“Whatchamacallits.”

Another shared smile—why did it always have to feel as if he'd shared something private with her? But then she took off and so did he. He made a fast trek through frozen foods and was just aiming for the checkout—relieved he hadn't run into her again—when he realized he'd forgotten to make a quick run through the book section. There was a new Iles and Coben out.

He found both books at the end-cap. Discounted, just as he'd hoped. Only he spotted her there again. Apparently she bought books with the same exuberance she bought everything else, because there were tomes heaped on her grocery stack.
Soccer For Dummies. Mechanics For Dummies. Geometry For Dummies. Wicked.
Three Harry Potters.
Talking To Your Preteen About Sex. College Planning. Even You Can Learn Computer Skills.

He intended to skid right by. Forget the Iles and the Coben, just get the hell out of the store.

But it itched on his heart—how damned hard she was trying with the child. She wasn't just a fish out of water. She didn't seem to have a clue how to swim. And when he wheeled closer this time, she was absorbed in the book about parenting advice on sex, flipping through the pages, a scoop of hair making a comma of dark satin on her cheek.

He said, “They knew more at ten than we knew at twenty-five. It's one of the scarier parenting things.”

She glanced up, this time not looking surprised to see him. “I heard her talking to someone on the phone. Another kid. About how some thirteen-year-old had given a blow job to some other thirteen-year-old on the school bus. I almost collapsed on the floor. I'm not that old, but I don't remember kids doing stuff like this. At least not that I knew anything about. She doesn't take the school bus, but my God. I didn't even know what to say, much less what I was supposed to
do
about a story like that.”

“You think it's tough raising a new daughter? Try raising sons.”

“I don't think it's easy for either gender. But whatever you're doing…it's totally right. Your boys are great.”

“That opinion's sure mutual. My boys took one look at you and decided you were cool.”

A flush spotted her cheeks. “I really like them both, Jack. They've been over to car-talk with Charlie a couple of times. They're so good with her, treat her like a little sister, but they don't talk down to her. And they just seemed to accept me. The way you have.”

His boys had done just that, accepted her, Jack knew. But he hadn't.

And something just snapped in his head. He knew what she'd been doing. Him, too. Both of them had been playing the moth game, maybe not exactly flirting, but still edging closer and closer to the flame. And when Jack stepped forward, he kept thinking that they might as well get the burn over with.

She had to quit looking at him with those idealistic eyes. With that open welcome in her smile. With that you-are-one-sexy-guy posture. Or he was going to get sucked in. So maybe it was an impulse, but it was real enough. Get the burn over with; quit with all that dangerous fluttering toward temptation.

So he grabbed her—with her hand still on the book about sex and adolescence, with the grocery store neon lights as unsexy as knees. And maybe no one else was in the book aisle at that moment, but like any other evening, there were people all over the store. Someone could show up at any second. Maybe a neighbor. Maybe someone at the school. For damn sure, it'd be someone neither wanted to be seen by.

So when he hooked her arms—book and all—around his neck and aimed for a kiss, he was thinking fast and dark. He was thinking, just get this completely over with right now, put the kaputz on her believing him a good guy, on thinking those inviting smiles were okay. He was thinking…

Well, he
was
thinking. But then the whole deal got murky.

Something noisy hit the floor. The book she'd been holding. Then some more books.

He ground his mouth on hers. Nailed her lips good. He was thinking frustrated, annoyed, thoughts, he was sure of it.

Only, for Pete's sake, the taste of her was like some exotic nectar. Wild and sweet. Alluring. Confounding. She arched against his body, leaning into him, her eyes closing as if she were lost in the moment. Lost in him.

Sixteen-year-olds got lost in the moment. Not grown-ups. With grown people it was about sex. Satisfaction. Of course you gave in to the mood when it was appropriate, but that wasn't the same as falling under some immature, amateur, dad-blamed
spell.

Her naiveté was yet another difference between them.

He shifted a leg. Had to, or risked falling. He hadn't broken off that punishing kiss yet. He was about to. But for that second or so…for that minute or so, he felt stirred into a wicked, forbidden soup, swirling around the taste of her, the wrongness of her, the texture of those plump, firm breasts teasing against his chest, the arch of her back making a meld of her pelvis rocking against his.

Her arms, that had been so tidily lassoed around his neck, suddenly weren't. Her hands were gliding down on his back, pressing, sliding down to his butt. Then pushing in, pushing his groin tighter against her pelvis.

Inviting murder and mayhem. Or worse. Right there in the grocery store. In public. With all those lights.

He couldn't very well end the kiss right then, when it was so completely obvious that she hadn't learned a thing. You don't poke a sleeping bear. You don't go into dark alleys alone. You don't entice a guy unless you're inviting the consequences.

That was the kind of stuff he was trying to make sure she understood. Stuff her mama should have taught her. Or a guy, a lot earlier than this. He didn't want to hurt her feelings, but darn it, get this over with and then she'd know. Then she'd be safer. Then she wouldn't poke any more bears.

Lights blurred. Under that thin shirt of hers, he could feel the suppleness of her skin. Feel the glossy softness of her. The scent of her.

The shape of her mouth, not too big, not too small, just devourably just right.

The tiredness of a long day seemed to float off, forgotten. His irritation with the grocery store, gone. The troubling mystery of Cooper's recent behavior…well, that wasn't gone, his kids never totally disappeared from his mind, but right then the problem had definitely disappeared from the docket. In fact, there was nothing on his immediate docket but—

But that lesson he wanted to teach her.

Right.

A sigh groaned from his mouth to hers.

His hands snaked down her spine, down to her fanny. Lots of clothes between them. Not enough. Too many. Either way, it didn't matter, because any touch was better than none. Any way he could grind against her—and be ground against—was better than not. Any way he could keep their lips glued, her flavor locked against his tongue, was worth fighting for, even if it meant a loss of oxygen, a loss of sanity, a complete loss of lucidity.

Her skin was softer than silver, the heat coming off her more erotic than nakedness—at least almost. Every kiss, every squeeze, made him imagine her naked. Prone. Rolling on the moonlit grass, somewhere in summer, somewhere there was no one and nothing but her. Just her sounds, her textures, her smells. Just that lustrous hair under his fingers, that winsome mouth, that wicked, willing invitation in the rock of her hips against him.