I Got You, Babe (27 page)

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” he asked sharply.

“Because I was afraid you’d think I couldn’t possibly have changed since then,” she said, trying to keep her voice sure and steady and failing miserably. “I was afraid if I told you I had a record, any kind of record, I didn’t stand a chance of staying out of jail. But I’m not that person anymore. Just because I did a little shoplifting and joyriding as a teenager doesn’t mean I committed armed robbery.”

“Shoplifting and joyriding, huh? Anything else?”

“Uh...maybe a little vandalism here and there. And public intoxication. I only got arrested once for that, and I think the cop might have let me go if I hadn’t poured beer on his shoes. But that’s it, John. I swear it is.”

“You poured beer on a cop’s shoes?”

“It was light beer.”

“Jesus, Renee.” He dropped his head to his hands and blew out a long breath. Then he started to get up off the bed. She reached out quickly and grabbed his arm, clutching it desperately, praying he wouldn’t leave.

“I did those things when I was a kid, John. I was just a dumb teenager with a bad attitude who didn’t give a damn about—”

“Just a dumb teenager? Where do you think adult criminals come from, Renee? They used to be dumb teenagers.”

“I know I lied to you. But I never will again. Never. Please,
please
don’t let this change things!”

He expelled a breath of disgust.

“There’s more. Please let me tell you everything.”

He stared down at his hands. At the wall. Anywhere but at her. But at least he didn’t get up and leave.

“When I was seventeen,” she went on, “I got caught riding around with my boyfriend in a car he’d stolen, and the judge threw me in a juvenile detention center for three months. God, how I hated that.
Hated
it. I’d never really understood until then what it would be like to be locked up, and I was starting to think seriously about my future, about how stupid I’d been and how I needed to make some changes. But I was still way too cool to let anyone know that, so I got a special invitation to a ‘scared straight’ program at the state prison.”

She paused, the memory so awful she didn’t even want to think about it, much less talk about it. But she had to. John had to know everything that had happened to her back then or he’d never understand where she was coming from now.

“I didn’t think it would be any big deal. See, I’d been through all the drug-and alcohol-awareness stuff in high school, where they have a former addict or alcoholic come and tell his story and tell you not to do what he did. I guess I expected more of that. I was radiating my usual screw-you attitude, just daring them to slap my hand one more time.

“Then one of the women got up and started talking. No, actually she started screaming, like a boot-camp sergeant. I remember my heart was beating about a thousand times a minute.”

Renee paused again, the memory so vivid that even now it put her on the verge of tears.

“Then one of the women looked me up and down in this leering kind of way and ran her fingers through my hair. She told me not to worry, that a pretty girl like me would be
real
popular in prison. It was awful. I mean,
awful.
It was as if I were already in that prison, feeling every horrible moment of what my life would be like if I didn’t straighten up. And that’s when I finally made the decision to change. No matter what, I was
never
going to step foot in a prison again. Just the idea of going back to a place like that terrifies me.” She lowered her voice, trying to keep it from trembling. “I’ll do anything to stay out of jail, John.
Anything.”

He didn’t respond. He merely stared straight ahead, his face tense and immovable, and she could tell he was still reserving the right to leave the room at any time and slam the door behind him.

“It was hard as hell after that,” she went on, “but I scraped myself off rock bottom. I got a waitress job at Denny’s. Polyester, sensible shoes. The whole ugly thing. After a while, though, I got better jobs. The night of the robbery, like I told you, I’d just gotten the assistant manager’s job at Renaissance. I’d wanted that job forever, and then I got it. I was so excited. I thought my life had finally turned around for good. And then...” She sighed. “And then this. I’m not that rotten teenager anymore, John. I didn’t rob that store. After what I went through at that prison, just the thought of taking one step outside the law makes me break out in a cold sweat. You
have
to understand that.”

He faced her. “Is that all?”

His voice had faded into a monotone, and she couldn’t read him. She couldn’t tell what he meant to do next. He’d put on that stoic cop face again, and she just couldn’t tell whether he believed she wasn’t that dumb, screwed-up kid anymore.
Everything. You have to tell him everything.

“When I was in that prison, one of the women asked me if I screwed around. I told her no, but of course, that was a lie. I’d seen the backseat of every jacked-up, souped-up teenage hot rod in the city of Tolosa. And suddenly all I could think about was how lucky I was that in all those times I hadn’t gotten pregnant, because not one of those guys would have taken responsibility for anything.”

And then she thought about how all those encounters had made her feel, as if she needed to take a shower after every one to wash away the shame. Why was it that when John had touched her she hadn’t felt that way at all?

“What I said out there in the woods was true,” she told him. “I wasn’t trying to bribe you. All at once I thought about being locked up for years and never seeing a man, touching a man, and I remembered the way you’d kissed me in that cabin, and I wanted to...to feel that way again, feel
more
than that, just once, before...”

Frustration welled up inside her. “It’s not that I wanted it one last time, John. It’s that—” She closed her eyes and exhaled. “I wanted it for the first time.”

He looked at her with surprise. “But you said—”

“I know. I’m not a virgin. Not technically. But high school sex by the dashboard lights doesn’t really qualify.”

He looked at her with surprise. “How old are you, Renee?”

“Twenty-six.”

“You mean, in the past eight years—”

“That’s right. I haven’t.”

He stared at her, trying, she knew, to make some sense out of this mess he’d found himself in, trying to make some sense out of the way he felt about her. His dark eyes seemed deep and endless, and caught in his gaze now, she felt as if she’d only seen a tiny glimmer of the man he really was. His help was more than she ever could have hoped for.
He
was more than she ever could have hoped for. It wasn’t just any man she wanted so she could feel the heat of passion before the coldness of prison surrounded her.

It was John.

“You told me once that you like a woman who knows what she wants.” Renee spoke the words softly, singularly, her gaze never leaving his. “I know what I want.”

“What’s that?”

“You.”

He stared at her a long time. “Why me?”

“Because I trust you.”

“You might want to think twice about that.”

“Why?”

“God, Renee—don’t you know there’s only so much I can do where the evidence is concerned? I can’t guarantee—”

“When I say I trust you, I don’t mean just about that.” Understanding seemed to come to him slowly, and when she saw in his eyes that he knew what she was talking about, she felt embarrassment creep in. But she wasn’t about to turn away now.

“I don’t know what it’s like to have a man make love to me, John. I want him to be you.”

“If this is about gratitude—”

“Yes. It’s about gratitude. And a whole lot more.”

Seconds passed. She couldn’t imagine what he might be thinking, and for a moment she regretted everything she’d said. Then, slowly, the tension that had kept his body rigid and defensive seemed to melt away, and the wariness disappeared from his eyes. Very deliberately, he reached over to the nightstand and picked something up.

The key to the handcuffs.

“No matter what Sandy thinks,” he said, “the kinky stuff has never really appealed to me.”

He took her hand in his, then slid the key into the lock of the handcuff and twisted it. The cuff clicked open. Slowly he slid her wrist free, then disengaged the other cuff from the headboard and laid them on the nightstand. When he glanced back at her, she saw it in his eyes.

He wanted her, too.

At that moment, it was as if the very air in the room changed, became electrified, molecules dancing between them, drawing them together, and she could barely breathe for the anticipation she felt. For the first time she felt free to look at him, to stare at his handsome face without fear of his looking back at her with anger or recrimination. She focused on the purplish bruise that still ringed his eye, a reminder of how quickly he’d jumped to her defense when Leandro had grabbed her. She touched his face.

“I never wanted you to get hurt,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’ll heal.”

He leaned toward her, moving slowly and deliberately, and when she realized he intended to kiss her, she literally stopped breathing. When he finally touched his lips to hers, he did it so softly she wasn’t quite sure he’d even made contact. Then he pulled back a scant inch, waiting several long, excruciating moments before kissing her again—a gentle kiss that was only a faint whisper of what she ached for. She waited for him to kiss her hard and deep as he had out in the woods, but he didn’t. He slid his hand up and down her arm in slow, mesmerizing strokes, just firmly enough to make her realize he was actually touching her and just softly enough to drive her crazy. Still he was kissing her, always kissing her, every touch of his lips and his hands incredibly slow and endlessly erotic. It should have relaxed her. It didn’t. She grew edgier and edgier, her body sizzling, every nerve humming with anticipation.

Then he leaned away, and it was all she could do not to take him by the shirt collar and drag him right back. His gaze drifted down her face, to her throat, to her breasts, and back up again.

“Take off the shirt.”

His voice wasn’t demanding. Instead, it was full of desire, and the very sound of it sent a wave of excitement sweeping through her. She wanted this. God, how she wanted it. So why was she still sitting there, frozen in place?

He watched her intently, waiting, she knew, for her to do as he asked, to take off her shirt, to initiate a far deeper intimacy with a man than she’d ever experienced before. But she remembered how things had been out in the forest, when she’d wanted him so much, only to feel shock and humiliation when he’d suggested she had an ulterior motive. He didn’t feel that way now. She knew he didn’t. But still she couldn’t get it out of her mind.

She swallowed hard. “You first.”

He gave her a tiny smile. “A show of good faith?”

“I’m sorry, John. It’s just that—”

“It’s just that this has been a game between us up to now, and you want to make sure the games are over.”

She turned away, feeling totally transparent, wondering how he could have known exactly what she was thinking. Was he thinking, too, about how she told him she trusted him, and now she was acting as if she didn’t?

He caught her chin with his fingertips and eased her back around. “It’s okay,” he whispered, then got up off the bed and stood beside it, reaching up to unbutton his shirt at the same time. Inch by inch he revealed himself, until finally he tugged the tail of the shirt out of his jeans, unbuttoned his cuffs, and pulled it completely off, revealing a lean, muscled chest that flexed sharply with every move he made. She remembered how she’d stared at him when they were out in that cabin, after he’d taken a shower and had been naked from the waist up. He’d noticed her staring, and she’d felt so embarrassed. Now that she could look at him all she wanted to, she took full advantage of the opportunity.
Gorgeous.
That was the first word that came to mind to describe him, followed by
strong
and
sexy
and a dozen more adjectives of total appreciation.

He tossed the shirt to the floor. “Okay, sweetheart. Your turn.”

It was now or never. And no matter how apprehensive she felt, never just wasn’t an option.

She took a deep breath, then grasped the hem of her sweatshirt and pulled it off over her head, her long blond hair swooping through the neck. She held it up against her for a moment, then dropped it to the bed beside her. She leaned back against the pillow, trying desperately to be cool about this; at the same time her cheeks were so hot it felt as if they’d caught fire.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen her bra before, or even her bare breasts, but they weren’t in the middle of something hot and wild and mindless now as they had been out in that forest, moving so fast she couldn’t get her bearings. This was slow and sensual, his eyes taking in every square inch of her exposed skin. She’d never felt so naked in her entire life, and she wasn’t even naked.

Yet.

“Your turn,” she said, barely able to speak, because she knew what his
next
was going to be.

He reached for his belt and unbuckled it. She watched his dexterous fingers at work, her pulse skittering wildly. He pulled the belt out of its loops, moving slowly—so slowly that either her perception of time was really warped right now, making her feel as if every second were an hour long, or he was deliberately teasing her, making her want it. Making her want
him.

If so, it was working.

Finally he dropped the belt, its buckle clinking against the hardwood floor. She waited for what came next, but he just stood there expectantly.

“Your turn,” he said.

She blinked with surprise. Technically she guessed the belt qualified as an item of clothing removed, but fair or not, it put her in a precarious position.

She reached down and touched the button of her jeans, then changed her mind and fingered the clasp of her bra. John’s gaze followed the path of her hands, attentive to the tiniest movement they made. His breathing had quickened slightly, and there was a look in those dark eyes that said patience really wasn’t one of his virtues. She wavered back and forth between the two options, either of which would leave her nearly naked and completely vulnerable.