by Marina Adair
“Are you saying that you wanted to get me alone, Miss Peach?”
She smiled back, flirty with a hint of naughty, and it was hot as hell. So Jace, always the gentleman, gave the lady what she wanted—the kind of kiss that required privacy. That was all it took. For him to make the first move. Because Charlotte crawled up his body, shrink-wrapping herself to him to gain leverage.
His mind went ballistic, trying to reconcile all of the emotions and pent-up tension from the past week that had twisted into a really freaking complicated hot ball that settled right in his groin. Especially when her hands smoothed down his chest, teased across his stomach, and—bingo—his zipper was down in record time and before he could remind her they were in a stairwell, less crowded or not, his pants were around his hips and her warm hands were firmly wrapped around him.
Two strokes that had his eyes rolling to the back of his head. and then he was somehow back against the wall and she was on her knees.
In. Front. Of. Him.
Officially blowing his mind. Which was the only excuse he had for forgetting about the stairwell, forgetting that at any moment someone could walk through that door, right in on them. Because Charlotte was one of the most talented pianists in Sugar, hers fingers were deft and sure. But her mouth? Ah man, her mouth was something of legends, a fact that was confirmed as she moved from base to tip, tightening a little more every time the motion was repeated, driving him closer to the edge with each pass.
“Charlotte,” he said, taking her hands and helping her up, because even though a part of him cried at the thought of her stopping, another part of him knew that he was one lick from done. And in his world it was always ladies first. “Just a few more flights.”
“Charlie,” she whispered, her mouth wet and her hair a beautiful mess. “I like it when you call me Charlie.”
And before he could tell her that he liked it when he called her Charlie, too, that it was his name for her, for the woman she was behind closed doors, and now apparently the woman she was in stairwells, her mouth was on his, hot and demanding.
And everything else faded. His plans, his garage, his entire reason for coming. Jace no longer wanted to get those papers signed then get the hell out of Sugar. All he wanted in that moment was Charlie. His Charlie, kissing him as if he were her lifeline.
Her life. And even though he knew she was caught up in the moment, and hell, maybe he was, too, he couldn’t get past how perfect it all felt.
She started using her teeth to nip and tease and Jace gave up. More like gave in to what he’d been too afraid to admit until now—when it came to Charlie, he was unable to resist.
He flipped them around and pressed her to the wall, pinning her with his hips, and freeing up his hands to do some exploring of their own. He ran a palm down her breasts, over her stomach, and, following her lead, right down her skirt and—holy hell.
Jace pulled back.
“You aren’t wearing panties,” he said.
She bit her lower lip, a little nervous and a little brazen. Great combo on her. “It’s today’s risk.”
“Risk?”
“Yeah, Sunday it was red lace. Yesterday, I wore my hair down. And today.” She looked down to where his hand had disappeared beneath the hem of her dress and shrugged.
“Tuesday is now my new favorite day of the week,” he admitted, pulling a condom out of his back pocket. One he’d bought earlier as part of a gag and slipped into his pocket when she was sipping her shot. “This was my risk.”
“That, Jace”—she said, taking the condom in his fingers and smiled—“is my kind of risk.”
He wasn’t sure how he felt about being one of her risks, but he was pretty sure it was a green light all the same. So Jace ran his hands down her sides and mile-long legs until he met the hem and reversed, touching every inch of skin she’d kept hidden beneath that dress. Mapping it and memorizing it as her breaths became shorter and shorter.
“Now,” she said, and Jace was nothing if not a gentleman.
He palmed her gloriously naked ass and lifted her until she was so flush with him she had no choice but to wrap her legs around him. Which she did, then tightened, creating enough friction that would have brought him to his knees if he hadn’t been pressing them into the concrete brick wall.
“Oh God, baby.” She was wet. He could feel it even through the soft cotton of her dress. She was wet and so primed, her body shook when he slid his hand beneath and pushed one finger in to see if she was ready.
Lucky guy that he was, she was more than ready. Her whole body was humming, begging for release, so he shifted her skirt up and positioned himself, pausing to look her in the eye. To see the truth. He’d known what it was like to be her biggest regret. He didn’t want to be that guy ever again. “You sure?”
She unwrapped the condom, rolled it on, and, giving him a stroke or two to insure it was applied correctly, she kissed him gently on the lips. “Never been more.”
That was all the confirmation he needed. In one long push he was inside her and they were both moaning at the sensation. It felt familiar and completely new all at the same time. It was like coming home.
“You feel so good,” he rasped as she arched, causing him to sink even deeper until he was so deep it was enough to drive a man insane.
Slowly, he started pumping, and slowly her hips shifted to deepen the friction. She pressed forward, her body tightening around him, and things got serious real fast. Breathing turned nonexistent, his chest felt too big for his skin, and he knew he was close.
“Jace,” she moaned, and man, he loved hearing his name on her lips. He loved it even more when he felt her tighten further, felt her body start to shake, and—
“Fuck.” He hit the right spot, he could tell. Charlotte screamed out and her body exploded, just like that. Just like he remembered. Just like he knew she would. And then he let himself fall. And he fell hard. Or maybe it was that he’d never gotten back up. Either way he knew he was in trouble, because this wasn’t just the best conversation of his life.
It was the only conversation he cared to continue.
Chapter 7
Well, it seems that both parties are in agreement to annul the marriage,” Elvina Larson said, her bifocaled eyes peering over the box of doughnuts Jace had brought. “You are both in agreement, correct?”
Yes, of course she was in agreement. It was why she’d skipped work, disappointed her father who’d in exchange disappointed her, forfeited her last chance to talk to the Mercy Alliance board before they decided, and had sex with her estranged husband—in the stairwell.
Yup, she was all about agreement at this point. Twenty-four hours of playing Mrs. McGraw had nearly cost her everything she’d worked so hard for. It had also reminded her what it felt like to take chances, to be spontaneous and really live in the moment.
To really live.
“Charlie,” Jace said in gentle question, resting his hand on hers. The simple contact sent a warm tingle of awareness up her arm and right into her chest, settling above her heart.
“What?” She looked up, surprised to find all eyes on hers. As though she hadn’t already answered the question. Then she realized that she hadn’t. She’d thought it, but for some reason saying it out loud was harder than she imagined.
“Are you in agreement?” the recorder repeated, and Charlotte noticed just how much Elvina looked like a Keebler elf. She was a pocket-size woman with short, bottle-orange hair, and kind of pointy ears. “You need to state it for the record.”
Jace looked right at her, and she was momentarily distracted by his eyes. They were the perfect shade of blue, not cool or icy but the color of twilight, warm and comforting and twinkling with intensity. Today they also had a sparkle of hope in them, and more than anything Charlotte wanted to drown in that hope.
If she wasn’t in agreement. Which she was. So Charlotte refused to acknowledge that small tug in her heart that told her his kind of hope was just what she needed, because s
he knew better.
And wasn’t that the right decision? Because Elvina said, “That way I can send a preliminary letter to Mr. McGraw’s loan officer explaining the situation,” reminding Charlotte of why they were there to begin with. Not for hope or second chances, but so they could both move on with their lives—separately.
As in two hundred miles apart.
Charlotte pulled her hand back and sat straighter in the chair. “Of course I’m in agreement.”
“Great,” Elvina said, setting down the doughnut to lick the chocolate residue off her fingers. She picked up her pen, which meant that Jace was in agreement, too, and even though that should bring relief, it only seemed to bring on a strange sense of sadness.
“Great,” Charlotte repeated, clasping her hands in her lap. It felt strange sitting on the arm of the chair, so close to him, yet not touching.
Elvina jotted down a few notes in the back of a very full notebook, and Charlotte was tempted to ask if that was the Tried and Failed notebook or one that she used on all of her cases. Not that it mattered, but it would be interesting, from a simple research standpoint of course, to know how many people failed at what should be the easiest part of their lives.
Elf slid the glasses down her pert nose and peered at Jace and Charlotte over the wire rims. “I will write up a quick letter explaining what transpired and then send it to the presiding judge. It shouldn’t take long at all to receive his ruling.”
Made sense, Charlotte thought, they’d actually only been married three months, one week, and nine days, so of course the resolution of such a small blip in their lives wouldn’t take long.
Glasses perched in place, Elvina wrote one last thing in the book then set her pen down with a smile. “Three weeks or so and everything will be handled.”
This was not what Charlotte wanted to hear.
After her catastrophic failure yesterday with her father, then her decision to do the stairwell hustle with her husband, who was supposed to be her ex-husband by now, Charlotte needed something to go her way. And three weeks was not her idea of quick and easy—not when it would be spent trying not to dwell on the what-ifs.
“I’m sorry,” Charlotte said, noticing that swallowing had become difficult. “I was under the impression that we would come here, explain the situation, and it would be handled.”
She would walk out that door a single woman. Go home with the closure she needed to really start living her new life. It was to be her grown-up, sexy era. She’d even named it: Charlotte 2.0. That was the plan, the reason she’d agreed to last night, gone after her good-bye. And now someone was messing with the plan—and she was pretty sure she was going to be sick.
“You okay?” Jace asked, that concern he was so famous for bracketing his mouth.
“Fine.” She was fine. Everything was going to be just fine.
Fine, fine, fine.
She would go home, land that endowment, and in three or so weeks she’d be single. Completely, officially, according to the great state of Georgia, single. And then she’d go back to being grown-up sexy. It wasn’t as though she’d still be Mrs. McGraw with Jace around—reminding her of what they’d done, what she’d be missing out on, or what she’d lost.
Nope, she’d be fine.
“Where should I mail the final paperwork?” Elvina asked, slipping her glasses back on and opening that notebook again to their page. God, they had a page. “You’ll both need to sign it and mail it back to my office. One business week after receipt, you will receive an email that it is official.”
Charlotte opened her mouth to give Elvina her address when Jace spoke. “You can just mail it to me, since I’ll be staying in Sugar until the Founder’s Day Fair.”
* * *
“You can stop pretending to be asleep,” Jace accused, and Charlotte could feel his stare even though her eyes were closed, like they had been for the past three hours. “We’re here.”
Charlotte opened her eyes and, since ignoring had become her new way of life, she blinked a few times against the early afternoon sun that reflected off the glass walls of Sugar Medical Center and then, for added affect, feigned a stretch.
She was good, Oscar-worthy really, and not at all grown-up sexy. Which was fine with her since talking with Jace seemed to lead to sex with Jace, so Charlotte decided ignoring him was the safest solution. Not that she wasn’t interested in sex with Jace, quite the opposite. Sex with Jace had been a religious experience, a whole body-and-soul transformation, complete with the hallelujahs and amens. But if talking led to sex, then she was certain that sex would lead to feelings. And wasn’t that a way to complicate everything?
“Thank you for…” She stopped, unsure how to proceed.
Did she thank him for giving her the annulment she never wanted but now couldn’t move forward without? Or maybe she should just thank him for the amazing sex, because that’s what grown-ups did, right? They had sex, they enjoyed it, and they moved on. But she knew if she brought up the sex, they would only move on to what she’d been ignoring successfully since they left the recorder’s office: Jace was staying. In Sugar. Until Founder’s Day.
And she was going to have to pretend that there was nothing between them, that they weren’t still married and hadn’t rekindled more than a few flames last night, with him living right across the lake.
“Thank you for the ride.” There, polite and sincere, with a definite period on the end. As in, end of conversation.
“We’re going to have to talk about it,” Jace said quietly.
Panic reached up and grabbed her by the throat, making talking a nonoption. She picked up her purse and fished though the grocery bag full of supplies he’d brought her, not wanting to face him. She knew if she did, she’d see that hope of his that was hard to ignore. See the man she’d once loved enough to marry with his good old boy swagger and soothing blue eyes that had a way of looking at her until she felt as though she were enough.
“I know we do, but I can’t right now.” Because right now she conveniently had to get into work, see what was so important that it warranted six texts over the past two hours, and do what she did best. Fix other’s people’s problems.
It was a lot safer than fixing her own.
Jace didn’t say a word, but she could feel disappointment and concern radiating off him, drawing her in. Then he unfolded that big, badass body of his until he was leaning across her. Pressing against her. And for one stupid, idiotic, gloriously amazing moment she thought he was going to kiss her.
Her good parts were the first to get on board, followed by her heart, which began to pound when his arm—the one that had hoisted her up last night—brushed up against her.
To grab her door handle.
He didn’t open the door, didn’t move his arm any farther, didn’t move at all, just sat there, his upper body acting as a safety belt across hers, his hand securing the door closed. She turned toward him and—big mistake. He was close, so close his broad shoulder and mighty fine chest filled her view, as though blocking out the rest of the world. He looked so big and safe and familiar, and Charlotte wanted to lean right in and make herself at home. But she had places to go, people to fix.
Then his other hand was on the move, sliding down the seat back—and into her purse.
“What are you doing?”
Ignoring this, he pulled out her cell, fiddled with it for a second, one-handed because he was that cool, then handed it back to her. She noticed he’d programmed in his number.
“For that talk we’re going to have” was all he said, but it was accompanied by a look that told her he was as serious as a bullet. Then he flung the door open and smiled.
Charlotte might have smiled back, she wasn’t sure, she was too busy grabbing her things and sprinting for the medical clinic so as not to be tempted to do some of that “talking” he was so good at in his backseat.
It wasn’t until she was on the elevator, riding up to the ER, that she felt herself breathe. Although the re
prieve was short-lived, because the second those doors opened Charlotte understood the reason behind all of the texts.
The waiting room looked like a scene from one of those end-of-the-world movies her grandfather was so fond of. It was at standing room capacity, with a line of jars, jars, and more jars held by arthritis-riddled fingers, winding their way down the hallway and toward the nurses’ station. Not specimen jars, but jelly jars. All with red-and-white gingham labels that read THE GREAT SUGAR JAM-OFF.
Which was today, and she’d completely missed it. Not good since it was a Sugar Peaches’ event that was applied to the Founder’s Day Fair collection, and as current regent it was Charlotte’s responsibility to make sure it ran smoothly.
Before Charlotte could sneak back inside the elevator, go home, and eat a gallon of ice cream, Glory Mann, pediatric nurse and one of Charlotte’s closest friends, was by her side—blocking her escape.
She was wearing dancing armadillo scrubs and had a stack of files in one hand and a cup of pencils in the other. Both nurse and scrubs were covered with a thin layer of what Charlotte assumed to be peach jam.
“Going somewhere?” she asked with a knowing grin, as if half the county’s Social Security recipients hadn’t staged a jam tasting in her ER. Glory was sharp, had a huge heart, and wasn’t afraid of hard work. That she spent quite a bit of time with her grandmother’s friends meant she was also immune to drama. That she was a soon-to-be stepmom to Cal McGraw’s teenage daughter meant that the calm demeanor wasn’t for show. Nope, under those bright pink scrubs was one of the most skilled professionals Charlotte had ever had the pleasure of working with.
“Are you kidding? I leave you for one day and you destroy the ER.”
“Your Sugar Peaches destroyed the ER and…” Glory trailed off, her skilled gaze assessing. Her forehead puckered in on itself, as if perplexed. “You look different.”
“I do not,” Charlotte argued, refusing to acknowledge the heat creeping up her neck.