Blame it on Cupid (23 page)

“Oh,” she murmured. “So that's what you're here for.”

She told herself that she'd lost the mood. It's not as if she'd stopped thinking about Jack, stopped wanting to jump him, stopped wanting to push and see where the relationship could take them. But she'd just assumed there was no way to follow through tonight, after which she'd had absolutely nothing on her mind but Charlene….

She was sure of that. Absolutely sure.

Until she identified the look in his eyes. Even as he strode toward her, looking darker than thunder, crabbier than that cooped-up bull, she knew what he was going to do.

Probably before Jack did.

J
ACK SURE AS HELL
hadn't stormed over here to touch her. Or kiss her. Or anything like that. He'd come home to his boys after that crazy kid dance, anticipating that both his sons would be up and dying to grill him in minute detail about the whole chaperoning thing. Instead, he'd found them snoozing up a storm, Kicker sprawled on the floor, Cooper splayed the length of the couch, the TV still on—as well as every light in the house, or close to it.

So big deal, he'd go to sleep, he told himself. Instead, he'd found himself pacing from room to room, hall to hall, aimless as a summer wind, restless as a storm. Eventually he found himself at the sink, glaring at the light across the yard in Merry's kitchen.

She was there. Moving around. Wide awake like him.

He certainly didn't intend going over there. It was midnight, for Pete's sake. He didn't do impulsive things. His life was as well ordered as a textbook, as mathematically organized as the puzzles he solved.

There was no cupid in his life. He wasn't the kind of guy to give Cupid or Chaos or Fate credit for anything that happened in his life. Responsibility was on him, period, and his goals and choices were crystal clear to him.

Or they had been until the damned woman moved next door. He'd analyzed it until he was blue in the face. Possibly her mouth had some intoxicant genetically ingrained in her lips—a drug, like one of those exotic plants in the rain forest. Only rarer. The kind of thing where you could die if you couldn't have it, even if you'd never wanted it and never heard of it. And it could even look like the weed. It could look like something you
totally
knew better than to touch.

Not that her lips looked like weeds. It was just so difficult for him to understand how or when or why he'd become so addicted to being with her. She was too young for him—maybe not in years, but in maturity. And for that reason alone, Jack knew he couldn't possibly be knocking at her door past midnight for no good reason whatsoever.

Furthermore, once he'd barged in and found her leaning against the counter, in bare feet, wearing some kind of girly, pink fuzzy robe with white cream on her nose, you'd think he'd get some sense, wouldn't you? Wouldn't anyone?

Yet he heard himself say gruffly, “I just don't think it's a good idea. That's why I haven't jumped you. Trust me, that's the
only
reason I haven't jumped you.”

And then he jumped her. Walked right in, left the door hanging open—which should have set off some loud internal alarms that he was picking up her bad habits. But the warning just didn't take. Next thing, he framed her face and took her mouth. Hard and completely.

He meant to stop. He'd never pushed himself on a woman, couldn't imagine it, had every intention of backing off and then apologizing up the wazoo…but he kept waiting for her. He intelligently assumed that she'd perk up with a clear
no—
or else have the brains to smack him upside the head.

Instead she made a winsome, yearning sound, as if all this time, she'd needed him desperately. His lips sank in, feeling cushioned by her endless softness. Her arms folded him in, folded him up. His mind…who could explain the inexplicable? Merry just completely sucked him into her vortex. It wasn't his fault. She was the wild one.

“Hey,” she murmured. “I'm right here. Take it slow.”

That voice of hers…she sounded as if she were nurturing someone, being careful with someone who was coming apart at the seams.

Not him.

That wasn't anyone remotely like him. Jack never had a needy bone in his body and sure as hell didn't plan to take up neediness at this late date.

Her fuzzy robe peeled off. Beneath was nothing but her warm skin, smelling of some kind of warm lotion. The scent reminded him of summer rain, and the texture of her skin under his hands…God. Nothing was this soft. His palms whiskered over her arms, shoulders, back, sides, anywhere, any how he could touch.

And Merry, darn her, didn't have the protective instinct of a goose. He wanted to growl. Even his thoughts came through his head in growls. She just gave and gave and gave, as if she had an inexhaustible well of sensuality and warmth and giving. And heat.

Talk about
heat.

“Good grief, Jack,” she murmured again. “How long since you've done this? Years?”

She had him
so, so
wrong. She was the one broadcasting needs in silk whispers. She was the one who was speeding this up completely out of control. She suddenly loosed free from a kiss, tugged at his hand.

“Not here,” she said softly. “Charlene sleeps really deep, but I still don't want to risk her waking up and finding us.”

“Your room,” he agreed. But his head was so thick he couldn't remember where the master bedroom was, even though he'd been in the house tons of times when Charlie was alive.

“I sleep in the far spare room,” she murmured.

Thankfully she was coherent enough to offer that information, because he sure wasn't. She was so hot, so ready. Any place would do, as far as he was concerned—as long as they could get there within the next ten seconds.

A phone rang somewhere. Hers. His mind registered that only emergencies tended to call this late, but the ringing stopped after a couple of peals. Wrong number maybe. Whatever. Wherever the spare room was, he didn't know. He found a room with a door, got her behind the door, closed it, punched the latch, and then focused on what mattered, which sure as hell wasn't doors and phones and life.

It was her.

Damned if he knew where they were. Some place with a floor instead of carpet and a ton of sweet darkness, not a hint of light, nothing to distract his concentration. His mouth leveled hers again, sweeping the texture of her, sailing on the taste of her, drinking her in every which way, his hands just as busy. Her breasts were so nubile, plump, not huge, not small, just so damned perfect. And she sucked in a hoarse breath as if no one had touched them the right way before.

It was hard to work up any performance anxiety when she was this easy to please, this readable. He had no problem understanding what needed to be done. Her body begged to be treated with tenderness and reverence.

Still it was hard to reach where he wanted, with both of them standing up, so he lifted her up. She let out a low squeal of laughter when her fanny plunked down. “You
do
know where we are, right? That's
cold,
” she murmured, her whisper full of laughter.

He startled momentarily, trying to decipher what she was talking about, but she wound her arms around him and honed in for another kiss, the greedy woman. “Okay, you,” she said possessively. “Speed's okay. Wild's okay. We'll get a little fancier another time.”

She made it easy for his mouth to reach her breasts, to find a way to nuzzle, snuzzle, lavish attention on both. Easy to glide his palms up her sides, up, until her hands reached high in the air, and then came down to him yet again, lassoing him softer than petals.

Fingers pulled off his sweatshirt.

He yanked free the snap and zipper of jeans himself, and then the height wasn't right. He needed light to see, but the room was chimney-black and he had no idea where a light was. If he'd thought about it, he'd likely realize where they were, but he just didn't need to think or care about irrelevant issues like that. There was a relevant crucial issue that mattered right then—getting inside her. Initially she was perched too high, so he eased her toward him, slid her down the length of him.

Agony tasted just like that, her earthy groan blending with his, at the sensation of her bare breasts against his bare chest, her tummy against his abdomen, her soft fluff of down against the rougher hair on his upper thighs. Oh, yeah, and Wilbur, weaving around like a thick, drunken pointer gone amok.

It was pretty rude, to be constantly pointing at what it wanted, but Wilbur, for damn sure, never had a problem with indecision. It wanted her. Now. Ten minutes ago. Forever. To be immersed tight inside her.

To do that, though, it seemed he had to lift her up against the wall. Thankfully, there was a wall. Right. There. Right where he could lift her, where she could wrap her legs and arms tight around him, where she could duck her head and let all that silky, lustrous hair sweep around his cheeks as he impaled her deep and slow and completely.

If he could just die this way, he'd never ask for another thing.

Ever.

This was it.

All he wanted.

This was as good as it ever had to get—the feeling of her surrounding him. Her whispered voice, her breath, her vulnerable mouth.

He didn't want this to end, didn't want his body to go into the piston thing, but Wilbur wasn't into savoring frustration the same way he was. Jack had a tearing sensation the roof was coming off his mind altogether, no brain left, now or ever, and he didn't miss it even remotely.

“So beautiful,” he said thickly. “So beyond beautiful. Love you, Merry. Love you, love you…”

As if he'd shot her an infusion of power, she tightened around him, her throat bared, a shudder of bliss erupting from her in a low, fierce moan. That was all he could hold back. He let loose in a torrent, pumping out gallons, holding her, owning her—and for damn sure, being owned by her the exact same way.

And then it was over, the rush, the frenzy, that wild climb and claim. He kissed her a dozen times, but could feel his legs start to give out…and awareness start to seep in.

He was too damn old to make love against a wall. Worse yet, he had a horrible feeling they were in a laundry room.

They couldn't be, of course.

He'd never have done that to Merry. Hell, he'd had no finesse when he was nineteen, and he still wouldn't have done that to her back then. At his youngest and brashest, he'd understood—and valued—that a woman needed time, subtlety, tenderness, and maybe even some plain old charm.

Wherever they were, though, he did have to release her, let her stand on her own feet. It was either that, or cave in a puddle somewhere around her ankles. So he freed her, yet still couldn't let her go, holding her close, arms wrapped tight, his head against her head, eyes closed.

“Jack,” she whispered.

“I can't talk. And I can't open my eyes. Because if I do and find out I made love to you in a laundry room, I'm going to have to hit myself with a brick.”

A gurgle of laughter. “We could have picked a more comfortable place, couldn't we?”

We? It was up to the guy to pick the place, for Pete's sake. To make sure it was good for the woman. To take responsibility.

“Merry.” She was already swayed against him, but now he clutched her tighter than glue. “Tell me you're on the pill.”

“I'm on the pill.”

“No. I don't mean tell me what I want to hear. I mean tell me for real if you were protected.”

“Yes.”

Silence. It was still so hard to breathe, to catch his breath, when all he wanted was to be buried inside her for another few years. On a mattress. Not standing up. In a nice warm bed with a pillow. Not in a room with barely a window and no carpet and nothing but sharp, cold edges—except where she was. “Um, I'm trying to think if there's anything else I could possibly have done wrong,” he said. “But as far as I can tell, I did everything as wrong as you could get.”

“No.” There. She reared back her head. All that mussed, tangled sleepy hair. The eyes dark as midnight, the skin white as moonlight. “You did everything perfect. Trust me on that.”

He touched her cheek. No matter what she said, he knew perfectly well they'd been on a runaway train and now they were in a crash. He couldn't take her to bed. Couldn't even stay much longer because of the child in her house—and for damn sure, he couldn't take her to his place with the boys sprawled all over the living room. In the meantime they were freezing and naked—or mostly, he still had on socks—in her naked-windowed laundry room past midnight.

Oh, yeah. This could get worse. He just didn't know how.

“I don't want to go home,” he said fiercely.

“I know you have to. Just like I couldn't have you waking up here with Charlene. It wouldn't be right. It's okay, Jack.”

No, it wasn't. Nothing was right. Those vulnerable eyes suddenly communicated a little embarrassment, a little shyness. And a few moments before, she didn't have an inhibition in sight, but now she seemed in a hurry to drape a towel around her—a natural enough instinct, with a chill draft shooting under the door—but that wouldn't have been an issue, if he'd just had the prowess, the taste, the sensitivity to make love to her the right way to begin with.

“Thanks for chaperoning with me,” she said when he was finally at the door, wearing most of his clothes. He thought.

Chaperoning. Oh, yeah. They'd done such a good job…until they'd gotten home, and then there'd been no one to chaperone him.