Loving Jessie

by Dallas Schulze

  Irritated, Reilly looked away. He’d watched Jessie grow up. They’d both watched her grow up, dammit. He’d always thought of her like a kid sister and had assumed Matt felt the same way. Now Matt was looking at her like… Well, hell, he was looking at her like a man looked at a woman he wanted, a woman he knew he could have.

  He didn’t like thinking of the two of them together, didn’t like the idea that there was a Matt-and-Jessie apart from Reilly-and-Matt-and-Jessie or even from Reilly-and-Matt. It made him feel…shut out. Alone.

  Great. So now he was jealous of his best friends. His own marriage was screwed, and he was sitting here mentally bitching because his two best friends had a relationship that didn’t include him. Perfect. Just perfect. He downed the last of his coffee without tasting it. As if adultery wasn’t bad enough, now he could add petty jealousy to his list of personal lows.

  Life didn’t get much fucking better than this.

  Neither Dana nor Reilly spoke during the drive home, but there was nothing unusual about that. Dana couldn’t remember the last time they’d managed to exchange more than the most banal of conversation with each other. Did you get a chance to have the car serviced? I picked up the dry cleaning on the way home. And the ever-popular Have you heard the weather report?

  Watching Jessie and Matt, the way they were so easy with each other, the casual touches, the quick smiles, all the myriad bits of wordless communication that went into a relationship—into a marriage—had made her acutely aware of the gap between her and Reilly. Gap? That was like calling the Grand Canyon a little crack in the earth.

  She ran her fingers restlessly over the webbing of her seat belt. Her eyes were focused out the windshield, but her thoughts were turned inward, looking back over the last year, seeing the distance growing between them and looking ahead to…To what? More years like the one just past? Empty. Lonely. Silent. Watching her marriage slip further and further out of reach.

  She stole a glance at Reilly. She wondered what he would do if she reached out and put her hand on his leg, let it rest there the way she used to do, when they were first married and they hadn’t been able to go for more than a few minutes without touching each other, even if it was just her hand resting on his thigh while he drove. What would he read into the gesture if she touched him now? How could she possibly guess what he might read into it when she didn’t even know what she wanted it to mean?

  Leaning back against the leather seat, she turned her head to look out the side window. She did know what she wanted it to mean. She wanted it to mean I forgive you and Please forgive me and Let’s put it all behind us and I still love you. All in all, it was an awful lot to expect from one small touch. If she could be sure he would understand… If she could be sure she really meant it…

  She wanted to mean it. She’d never wanted anything so much in her life. It wasn’t even the fact that he’d slept with another woman that made her hesitate—or not only that. She could accept, had accepted, the act itself. It had been a mistake. She believed him when he said that, believed that he regretted it. She even believed that it would never happen again. Or she believed it as much as she could without letting time prove the truth of it. It would leave a scar, but she could get past that, move on. But she couldn’t quite still the small voice that kept insisting that he wouldn’t have strayed if there hadn’t been something wrong with her. That she’d failed. Again. And this time the price hadn’t been a silver crown. It had been her marriage.

  Reilly pulled the truck into the garage, where it loomed over Dana’s black Porsche. They’d bought the car the first year they were married, joking that they might as well enjoy a sports car while they could, because once they had a kid, they would have to trade it in on something with less style and more room. The way things were looking now, they could keep the car until it qualified for classic status.

  The thought did nothing to cheer his mood as he walked around the front of the truck and followed Dana through the connecting door into the kitchen. She pulled open the refrigerator door and began putting away the leftovers Jessie had insisted on sending home with them. Thanksgiving wasn’t official without at least one leftover turkey dinner, she’d said.

  He shut the door behind him and then stood there, watching his wife take neatly labeled plastic containers out of a paper grocery sack and put them in the fridge. She hadn’t bothered to turn on a light. From where he stood, she was a shadow, a silhouette against the pallid glare of the bulb in the refrigerator. She bent forward to put something on a low shelf, and a lock of pale gold hair slid loose from the tidy French braid to swing against the perfect curve of her cheek.

  Reilly felt suddenly as if he were choking, as if there were something huge and painful caught in his throat. Allergies, he told himself as his eyes began to burn. Had to be allergies, because he sure as hell wasn’t standing in his own damned kitchen, driven to tears by the sight of his wife putting away leftover turkey and dressing.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone actually label leftovers,” Dana commented as she put the last container away. “She even added instructions on how to reheat it all.”

  Reilly swallowed, willing his voice to steadiness. “I don’t think she really trusts anyone else to know what to do in a kitchen.”

  “If I could cook like that, I probably wouldn’t trust anyone else, either.” Dana pushed the refrigerator shut, plunging the big kitchen into near darkness until she reached out to snap on one of the under-the-cabinet lights.

  Reilly watched her shrug out of her black swing coat and then reach up to smooth that stray lock of hair back from her face. He wondered if she had any idea how even her simplest gesture moved him, and then wondered if she would care. What would she do if he closed the distance between them and took her in his arms?

  Would she let the barriers drop and melt against him? Push him away? Or close her eyes and think of God and country? There was that damned knot in his throat again. Maybe he was coming down with something. He pushed away from the door.

  “I’m going to see if I can catch the news before heading up to bed.” He was careful to walk on the opposite side of the maple island as he crossed the kitchen. He didn’t want to brush against her. Not tonight. Not when he so desperately needed to touch her, to hold her.

  “I…guess maybe I’ll take a bath and then go to bed,” Dana said. He could feel her eyes on him as he walked past, but he didn’t—couldn’t—look at her.

  “Fine.” He summoned up something that was almost a smile. He could feel her eyes on him, but he didn’t turn. “I’ll see you in the morning, then. Sleep well.”

  “You too,” she said, and he hoped she would take his nod as acknowledgment, because he wasn’t sure he could get his voice to work past the damned knot in his throat.

  Dana watched him walk away, opening her eyes wide against the sudden sting of tears. She wanted to call him back. Say something. Anything. But she didn’t have the words, didn’t even know what she wanted to say.

  She heard him go into the living room and then the tinny mutter of the television. Swallowing hard against the tightness in her throat, she got down a wineglass and then opened the refrigerator and pulled out the half-full bottle of white wine in the door. She started to pour herself a glass, hesitated a moment, and then picked up the glass, carrying both it and the bottle out of the kitchen with her.

  Chapter Fifteen

  In all his years of travel, Matt had seen a lot of different definitions of sexy. Skinny women, plump women, bones through the nose, earlobes stretched to touch the shoulders, tattoos, miniskirts, veils, high heels—it was all a matter of your cultural perspective. And then there were fetishes. Guys who got turned on by eyebrows or big toes or a woman in a plaid apron. Sex appeal was a pretty flexible concept.

  Matt had always considered himself a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy when it came to what turned him on. Sheer stockings on a long slender leg. A neckline that dipped low enough to show the swell of a woman’s breasts
. Skimpy lingerie on a curvy body. Those were the kinds of things that got his motor humming. Nothing exotic. Nothing surprising. Just your basic male lust triggers.

  How had he managed to get this close to forty without realizing what a turn-on plain white cotton could be? Matt’s eyes narrowed as he watched Jessie cross from the bathroom to her dressing table. Her nightgown was designed more for function than seduction. Long-sleeved and knee-length, with a row of small pearl buttons up the front and little frills of lace at the collar and cuffs, it was more Victorian England than Victoria’s Secret. So how to explain the quick, electric burst of lust that ran through him.

  “I think everything went really well,” Jessie said as she picked up a brush and began to pull it through her hair. “I mean, the food was okay, and everyone seemed to have a nice time.”

  “The food was incredible, and everyone had a great time.” He slid off the bed and moved toward her. The feel of the cool wood floor under his bare feet did nothing to soothe the heat rising in his body.

  “You don’t think the stuffing had too much sage in it?”

  “The stuffing was fine.” Did she really expect him to think about stuffing while she was standing there in that prim little gown with the lamplight catching in her hair?

  “I think using half maple syrup in the pecan pie was a good idea.” She tilted her head to one side and brought the brush up underneath her hair. “It added a little extra layer of flavor.”

  “Hmm.” He was close enough to smell her now. Soap and shampoo and Jessie. It was an intoxicating combination.

  “You know, I might be imagining things, but I sort of thought I saw sparks between Gabe and Lurene.” She was brushing the other side of her hair now, frowning a little. “Wouldn’t that be great? If they got together, I mean?”

  “Great.” Personally, he thought the odds of his older brother pulling his nose out of his laptop long enough to get together with anyone were fairly slim, but he wasn’t going to argue the point with her. He had other things to think about, like how long it would take him to unbutton the neat little row of pearl buttons that marched in such a demure line down the front of her nightgown.

  “I know it’s a cliché that a woman gets married and then turns into a compulsive matchmaker but I really do think there was something between them.”

  “They both like dark meat?” She’d put the brush down, and he reached out to catch a lock of hair between his thumb and forefinger, letting it slide through his light grasp before picking up another silky strand.

  “I was hoping their attraction might go a little deeper than a shared love of poultry.”

  “Every relationship has to start somewhere,” he murmured, sliding the fingers of one hand into her hair. God, he loved the feel of her hair on his skin. Silk and satin, alive and warm. His. She was all his.

  Jessie tilted her head into his touch, but her head was still buzzing with the day’s events. All the time she’d spent planning the meal had paid off, and everything had turned out just the way she’d hoped. But all the planning in the world couldn’t provide the feeling of family she’d gotten today. Maybe even better than family, because they all liked one another, which wasn’t always the case when it came to blood ties.

  She was even starting to think she might like Dana if she gave the other woman half a chance. Not that a ten-minute conversation over a pile of dirty dishes had made them best friends, but there had been a certain…connection between the two of them, something she couldn’t remember feeling before.

  “You know, I’m worried about Reilly and Dana,” she said.

  Matt stiffened, his fingers curling into a fist in her hair before he made a conscious effort to relax them. He was standing inches away, with an erection hard enough to pound nails, and she was thinking about Reilly?

  “It’s nothing obvious,” Jessie said, frowning a little as she stared into the mirror. “But there’s just this sort of… I don’t know. A kind of distance between them, maybe?”

  Yeah, screwing another woman will really cause problems with the whole closeness issue. Matt swallowed the urge to say the words out loud. It wasn’t his place to tell her why there might be a little distance in the McKinnon marriage, even if there was a small, nasty part of him that wanted to do just that, wanted her to know that Reilly’s size-eleven feet were made of clay. Nice, Latimer. Really nice. Betray your best friend’s confidence because you’ve got a little green monster riding your back.

  Matt closed his eyes and drew a long, slow breath. Jealous. He was jealous of Reilly. If it hadn’t been so damned pathetic, it would have been funny. During high school and college, there had been a few times when they’d both competed for the same girl, but he’d never felt jealous, never wanted to smash his fist into a wall—or into Reilly’s nose. No, he’d had to save that particular emotion for Jessie. For his wife. His wife, dammit!

  “I hope they’re okay,” Jessie said, frowning into the mirror without really seeing their reflection. She was a little surprised to realize she meant it. Somehow, in the last two months, she’d come to terms with Reilly’s marriage in a way she hadn’t been able to do in the five years that had gone before. “I hate to think of Reilly being unhappy.”

  Matt gave one of those noncommittal male grunts that could mean anything or nothing. She opened her mouth, intending to push him for something more substantive. Reilly was his friend, too, after all, but his hand was on her shoulder, turning her toward him, distracting her.

  “Do you know what that nightgown makes me want to do?”

  His voice was dark and warm, full of promises. For the first time since entering the bedroom, she really looked at him, her eyes widening a little. He was wearing nothing but a pair of pajama bottoms that rode low on his narrow hips, and the soft cotton did nothing to conceal his arousal. Flushing a little, her breathing suddenly less than steady, she looked up into his face and felt her heart stutter at the hunger in his eyes.

  “My nightgown?” She had to swallow twice before she managed to get the words out.

  “I want to put my hands on that pretty, lacy collar.” Matt’s fingers curled into the shallow scoop of the neckline. “And I just want to rip it off you.”

  The fabric split with a sibilant hiss, punctuated by the clatter of buttons scattering over the wooden floor. Jessie gasped in shock, then gasped again when his hands slid inside the ruined gown to cup her breasts, pinching her suddenly taut nipples between thumb and forefinger.

  It was like being plunged from a steaming shower straight into a snowbank, every nerve in her body suddenly painfully alive, shivering with awareness, with need. Her breath hissed out, her head falling back, suddenly too heavy for her neck to support.

  Matt buried one hand in her hair, drawing her head back farther, exposing the taut line of her throat. He ravished it with teeth and tongue, leaving little biting kisses from collarbone to jaw. When his mouth closed over hers, it was with bruising force, demanding her response, plundering the sweet depths like a conqueror.

  When it came to sex, Jessie might have been a slow starter, but over the last two months Matt had been more than willing to help her make up for lost time. She’d thought that she had a pretty good grasp of the whole sex-hunger thing, even without years of practice, but she’d never imagined that passion could slam into her with the force of a fist, leaving her gasping for breath, knees weak and skin burning, in the space between one heartbeat and the next.

  Matt’s hands were everywhere, hot and hard, molding her, shaping her, branding her. His mouth ravaged hers, stealing what little breath she had before sliding away to taste the delicate shell of her ear and then down to devour the breasts his hands held cupped and ready. It was like being offered up at a feast, she thought, her fingers clinging weakly to his bare shoulders as panicked excitement trembled through her.

  She’d never imagined this much want. This much need. For her, she thought as her mind went hazy with need. He wanted her this much, needed her this much. The knowl
edge filled her with power, with a matching hunger.

  “Mine,” he said, his mouth leaving her breasts long enough to cover hers in an almost angry kiss. His eyes glittered down at her, blue fire and need. His fingers dug into her hips, pulling her forward, until the hot length of him was cradled against the trembling softness of her belly. When had he taken off his pajama bottoms? she wondered, arching to deepen the contact.

  “Mine,” he said again, stripping the ruined nightgown off her shoulders and pulling her down to the floor.

  Jessie gasped in shock at the feel of the cool wood beneath her back. She arched up and found herself pressed against Matt’s muscled frame. Talk about your rock and a hard place, she thought with her last few functioning brain cells. And then he cupped his hand over her, fingers sliding deep, and she forgot how to think, nearly forgot how to breathe, as he pressed his thumb against her and sent her, shuddering and crying out, over the first ragged edge.

  “Mine,” he whispered against her stomach, his fingers still moving on her, in her, pushing her up again even while she was still trembling in the aftermath of that first climax.

  “Matt, please, I can’t. I— Oh!” Her fingers tangled in his hair, tugged in weak protest as his mouth found her. She couldn’t do this again. Not with the echoes of the first time still making her heart stutter. But he ignored her incoherent protests, his tongue tracing her quivering flesh in a gentle, almost soothing touch that was guaranteed to drive her right out of her mind.

  Her breath catching in little half sobs, Jessie gave up trying to stop him. She couldn’t stop him. Couldn’t stop this. Didn’t want to. Had to find out what lay at the end of this glittering, shimmering path. Giving in to the need that was driving him, she opened herself further to him, knees falling outward, hips arching in ancient rhythm, her arms stretching over her head, grabbing hold of the bottom of the footboard to anchor herself as he pushed her off the side of the mountain again.