Wild Irish (Book 1 of the Weldon Series) (7 page)

Jesse rubbed Alexi’s thigh through the warm wet silk of her dress and slowly inched his fingers higher. His blood zinged with anticipation, but his brain shouted a different tune, telling him he was making a major mistake. Hell, look at what she’d already cost him. Sure, he’d made out that what had happened in the past was over and no big deal. And in some ways that was true, but some inner part of him kept whispering.
She didn’t believe in you. When push came to shove, she’d hung you out to dry. What kind of fool are you?

All the way back to his place, he warred with himself. His fingers never moved that next inch to her sex, but he couldn’t stop touching her either. She was driving him more than crazy. Her eyes were shut, her mouth open to a soft kiss-me-now moue, and it took all of his military training not to pull off of the road and seduce her again. And that was the crux of the situation. He wanted her bad and the only way to get her out of his system was to have her. One of the many valuable things the military had taught him was to boil situations down to their brass tacks then grab them by the balls and deal with it. He wanted Lexi, had wanted her for twelve years, and now was his chance to have her.

Even though he’d reached this conclusion just as he zipped into his driveway, his gut was still tied into a knot. But the volcano of want rumbling through his blood took precedence. He forced his hand down to her knee. “We’re here.”

Alexi opened her eyes slowly, as if she didn’t want to leave one moment for the next. After blinking at his house, she sat up and smiled. “This is nice.”

“
It’s simple and I like it, but I don’t guess it’s what you’re used to,” he said, getting out of the car and running a critical eye over the beach house, not seeing much that would appeal to someone with her kind of money. The concrete block construction didn’t have a grain of style to it. It was serviceable and built to endure whatever the forces of nature dumped on its doorstep. Only the multitude of lush plants crowding against its white washed walls and blue shuttered windows added character. He followed Alexi along the walkway to his front door, trying to keep his mind off the edge of sexual excitement that kept nudging him.

Every cell in his body seemed to be aware of her following him, aware of her clinging silk and satin dress dripping water, aware of her bare feet, aware of how just a short while ago he’d been inside her.

“
Don’t,” she said so softly that it made him stop and turn toward her. She leveled her gaze at him. “Don’t make less of what you have because you think I have more. People have done that to me all of my life. Do you know what that’s like? How it makes me feel? I’ll tell you. It makes me feel bad. It makes me want to hide who I am.”

Feel bad? Hide? Those emotions had shaped the wrong-side-of-the tracks-Weldon chip he had on his shoulder while growing up and part of what he’d come back to Savannah to deal with. Jesse blinked, surprised. For a moment, he didn’t know what to say as he ran her questions through his mind. Hell, she’d hit the nail on the head. The reasons for their feel bad emotions came from opposite poles, but it was a kicker to realize the results were the same and that he was guilty of making her feel exactly what he used to resent others making him feel.

Drop it, Weldon. Don’t relate to her emotions. That’s quicksand. Don’t go there.
Jesse bent down and kissed her, succeeding in distracting her from the conversation.

She
was quicksand, he thought, deepening the kiss. He should get back into his car and take her home. But once with her had only whet his appetite for more.

To tell the truth, he even wondered if having her six ways to Sunday would be enough. This time he wanted her naked. Nothing but sweat between them. “Let’s go inside.”

Keying in the security code, he opened the front door. “Why don’t you head to the bathroom and I’ll hunt up something dry for you to wear.”

She scrunched her nose. “I smell like mud and I’m cold. Mind if I use your shower?”

He slid his gaze over her. “As long as I can picture you in it. But before you go that route, there’s a hot tub on the deck. You can soak the chill away. Are you game?”

Her mouth opened then shut as he watched her wrestled with the idea.

He stepped closer. “You willing to walk a little more on the wild side, Lexi?” he asked, low and soft, already seeing her in the steamy water, feeling the silk of her skin, and tasting her arousal.

She swallowed and her shoulders straightened.

He expected her to turn him down. “Maybe next time?”

“
No,” she said, firmly and throatily enough to add more heat into his blood. “Not next time. This time.”

Yes, baby! The things he imagined doing with her made him hard. One day, he told himself. He’d play this little game out, give it one day, then he’d let it go. Any kind of relationship with her, even a temporary fling, would be a mistake. But he’d wanted her for a damn long time, and there wasn’t any reason he shouldn’t have her right now--not if she was willing.

“
I’ll dig up something for you to wear. Or do you want to do without?”

Her brows lifted at the suggestion, and she didn’t immediately respond, letting him know he was pushing his luck. So he laughed and said, “Just kidding. Bathroom is down the hall on the left. I’ll hang a shirt on the doorknob.”

“
Right,” she said then scurried to the bathroom so fast that he swore her feet had grown wings. His conscience tried to elbow him, telling him he was taking advantage of her. She was a woman on the rebound. She’d regret doing this tomorrow. She was trouble. But he ignored it all. Regrets were a part of life and Alexi was woman enough to make her own decisions. He went looking for a T-shirt. See-through sounded damn good to him. In the end he picked out a navy blue one. Considering his aroused state, anything else would be masochistic.

Sticking a condom in the pocket of his snugger than usual swim trunks, he grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge, and headed for the hot tub to put on some music.

He’d just climbed in when she came out still wearing her dress. “Change your mind?”

“
No. This dress wasn’t designed for doing it solo.”

“
Good,” he said, laughing. “I wouldn’t want you to fly alone. Not when I’m around.”

“
Do you ever not have a line?” Her sinner’s mouth held a hint of a grin.

“
Can’t help it. Fishing is in my Irish blood and a good fisherman always has a line.” He stood up, his interest in her readily apparent, but before he could kiss her, she turned her back to him. Sitting on the edge of the tub, he worked the buttons on the back of her dress. They were tiny, satin, and too damn many. It took forever, and every button undone revealed just a little bit more of her soft skin and silky under things. “Whoever designed this didn’t know what they were doing. Any groom would be half mad by the time he got them undone.” He slid his hands inside her dress trying to reach her breasts.

“
That is the point.” She scooted from his reach. “It’s the old, undo until you’re undone trick. Why do you think women wore corsets and stuff? Men inherently appreciate what they have to wait for and fight for more than what they get easy.”

“
If that’s so then you’ve got to be about the most appreciated woman on the face of this earth. Twelve years is a damn long time to wait.”
Hell, Weldon, what did you just say?

Holding her dress to her breasts, she swung around and looked at him. That last night they’d shared together hung between them. “Why did you wait?” she asked softly. “Why didn’t you take what I had offered?”

He sat back down in the tub and grabbed a beer. “Hell if I know. Just one of those things.” He knew he lied even as he spoke and was glad to see her abandon talk and go back inside to change. Some part of him, the same part of him that had wanted to kill whoever had torn her dress and sent her fleeing the first night he’d met her, had known that having sex with him at seventeen would only mess up her life. Back then, she was everything he wasn’t, and she had everything he didn’t. Things weren’t that way anymore.

Alexi ducked back into the bathroom, her heart pounding and her palms sweating with an I-need-to-touch-you anticipation. She had an eye for great art and Jesse’s sculptured body inspired awe. Like the Adam from the photos at her gallery, Jesse’s sensual charisma and physical beauty might not be the sum of all things, but they added up to a big wow.

She slipped on Jesse’s T-shirt very glad to be free of the heavy weight of her ruined wedding dress. Her fingers brushed over the pearls at her neck and she started to take them off, wanting to shed any reminders of Alexandria Jordan’s life and heritage. But as she stared at her reflection in the mirror a little rod of defiance wrapped around her backbone and she left the pearls on. She’d wear them as she ventured on the wild side with Jesse, a clear message to everyone that she wasn’t going to bow to the ideology or strictures that had ruled her life for so long. But the diamond on her finger, a Holstead family treasure, was a different story. She pulled it off and dropped it on her wedding dress, closing the door to that part of her life. From now on, she’d listen to her inner self, march to her own drumbeat, and…explore her own sexuality?

She left the bathroom with her heart beating a wild tattoo.

Jesse’s seduction opened a whole different world of sexuality to her. Not the multiple lane highway Roger had driven down during his bachelor party, but something more exciting and she didn’t know exactly why. She wasn’t a virgin, yet his energy and charisma made everything feel new and different. The man was electric; leaving her with no doubt that he was man enough to generate enough sexual excitement to power Las Vegas.

She stopped in the hall, and before she could think twice, she pulled off her underwear.

“
Lexi, do you need any more help?”

She looked up to see Jesse coming down the hall. Damn. Caught red-handed, she bunched her underwear into her fist and faced him. “No. I was on my way. Did I take long?”

“
Long enough to make wonder if you’d changed your mind.”

“
No, but I could use a drink of water. Would you mind?”

He raised his brow. “Sure. I’ll be right out with it.”

“
Good.” They stood looking at each other. She waited for him to go so she could stuff her underwear back in the bathroom and he must have been waiting for her to leave so he could go to the kitchen. Finally, she couldn’t stand it anymore. “I, uh, forgot something,” she said and dashed back into the bathroom. Once there, she leaned against the door, her heart beating harder, as if she’d been caught doing something wrong. This wild side had a few tricky turns to it. Giving the bathroom a quick glance, she stuffed her underwear under her wedding dress and dashed to get into the hot tub before Jesse.

Jesse wondered about Alexi’s nervousness as he carried the ice water outside. It wasn’t like they hadn’t already broken the sexual ice barrier. Hell, if the Titanic had had half their bang, it’d have plowed through the iceberg and never sunk.

Did she think he was going to attack her the moment she got into the tub? He studied her as he climbed into the steamy water and moved over to her. She had her head tilted back against the side of the tub, her eyes were shut, and the sun gave her golden hair a sparkling sheen. He slid the cold glass against her cheek and she opened her eyes.

“
Thanks, that feels good.” She took the glass and bathed her other cheek and forehead before taking a sip.

Watching her gave him visions of making her nipples pebble with ice then heating them with his tongue. Would that turn her on? Would she go wild with the sensations? He wanted her wild.

Okay, so maybe he
was
going to attack her. Looking for a distraction, he nabbed a beer from the nearby cooler and sat next to her. “So, what do you do when you’re not running from weddings?”

Hell, this was as awkward as a football team trying to dance Swan Lake.

“
Art,” she said quickly. “Selling it. Not making it. I have a gallery down in the historic section where I mainly feature local artists. When I’m not managing that, I do fundraising and volunteering for the Memorial Hospital’s children’s ward. In fact, I’m putting on a charity auction in less than two weeks. What about you?”

His mother worked at Memorial Hospital, but surely she and Alexi weren’t acquainted. He rolled his shoulders, trying to ease some relaxation into the situation. “Security. Wes Sheridan, a buddy of mine from the military, and I run a security business. It’s what post military types do to be civilized.”

“
When I last spoke to your mom, you were living in DC. Are you here on a visit?”

The knot across his shoulders twisted. Hell, she knew his mother. “You must see her in the hospital cafeteria.”

“
Several times a week. I’m partial to the blackberry cobbler that she makes.”

“
Does she mention me often?”

Alexi shrugged. “Every now and then.”