Loving Lies

by Lora Leigh

  Slade fought the flush rising in his face. Yeah, he had. It was that or fuck her.

  “I’m going to spank you, Jessie.” He watched the shock fill her face. “I’m going to paddle your ass until it’s beet-red then flip you over and make you show me exactly how you made yourself feel so good.”

  Jessie stared at him in shock.

  “Have you heard a single word I’ve said to you?” she threw at him, anger still surging inside her. “Slade, I seduced you. I put you through hell thinking this was all your fault and you’re going to fuck me for it? Oh yeah, big punishment there, stud.”

  His eyes flared at the title, the gray depths darkening, his cheeks flushing with lust.

  “I heard you, Jezebel,” he grunted. “Let’s see, what should I do with a woman who deliberately gave me the most incredible weekend of sex I’ve ever had? Who filled my soul with light and gave me a reason to believe in the love I never thought existed?”

  He tilted his head, watching her eyes widen.

  “I think I should fuck you. First your sweet, tight pussy, then that hot little ass until you beg me for forgiveness. Maybe both at once.” He nodded sharply. “That should teach you your lesson.”

  “Slade?” She licked her lips nervously, watching him, misery battling with hope. “Don’t you understand what I did? I slept with Jazz. I hated you…”

  He shook his head, breathing roughly. “I still want to castrate that damned farm boy for touching you, Jessie, stop reminding me.” He reached out, brushed back a fringe of hair and smiled with a gentleness that wrapped around her heart and healed the pain that had throbbed there for so long. “But, baby, I thank God in the same breath it was Jazz. I didn’t ask him to hold you for me. I didn’t ask any of them to do anything but keep me from prison by not letting any of those half-witted pricks who pushed and shoved to get next to you, into your bed. I would have killed one of them.”

  She stood still, silent, as he moved closer to her, his hands framing her face, a small smile tilting his lips.

  “I loved you, Jessie, even before I let you seduce me. I loved you until I was fucking a path through three counties in an attempt to keep from killing you once I got my dick inside you. You terrified the hell out of me and drew me like a moth to a flame. If that weekend held your heart while that fiasco with Amy played out, then all the better. I deserved to suffer for being so brick-dumb in the first place. But you didn’t.”

  He lowered his head, his lips smoothing over hers as they trembled, as she stared at him in disbelief.

  “I’ve loved you since you were sixteen, all big eyes and lush, sweet lips. That night we danced, I marked you as mine and I made it stick. There wasn’t a boy or a man on that lake that didn’t know who you belonged to, and the minute there was even a whiff one of them was stepping over the line, they walked funny for a week.”

  Her eyes widened, memories sweeping over her. The last two years of high school when getting a date was like pulling teeth. After that, the way men shied away from her after coming on hard enough to gain notice.

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “That was dirty.”

  “And what you told Melissa Loring wasn’t?” He lifted his brow as she felt horror sweep over her.

  She swallowed tightly. “She told you?”

  “She didn’t have to tell me.” He chuckled, the sound wicked and all too sexy. “Her brother told Jazz when she asked him if you really owned a gun and if he thought you were ballsy enough use it.”

  Jessie ducked her head, a flush staining her cheeks.

  “She was a floozy,” she accused in embarrassment. “Bragging to me about the things she could do with your hard body. At least Amy had the good sense to stay the hell away from me.”

  His thumbs smoothed over her cheeks as she laid her palms tentatively against his abdomen.

  “I don’t want to grow up, Slade,” she whispered. “I don’t want to worry about being sophisticated and wearing damned makeup all the time and wearing the right shoes. But I will. I’ll do it. But that’s not me…”

  “Jessie baby.” He groaned, a teasing smile crossing his lips. “You look like a dream no matter how you’re dressed and I don’t give a damn what you wear. If you hadn’t noticed, even before, the social bullshit didn’t pull me. We’ll do what we have to do, then come home, shuck the glad rags and pull on our shorts and be ourselves. Sweetheart, you’re what I want. Wearing makeup or not. Naked or dressed. Though, I’d go for naked as often as possible. I love you, Jessie. Every sweet inch of you, inside and out.”

  “I love you, Slade. I always loved you.”

  Slade felt the sweet relief rushing through his system even as his blood began to pound with lust. It was sweeping through him, eating at his guts as his cock jerked to full throbbing strength, pressing against his jeans and demanding release.

  Jessie was staring at him with stars in her eyes, her expression easing from the bitter, grief-stricken pain of moments before as she let his words sink in.

  “You should be angry with me,” she said softly. “I may have gotten older, but I didn’t get a whole lot wiser, Slade.”

  Hadn’t she?

  “You waited for me,” he whispered. “Admit it, Jessie. You did something I never believed was possible for a woman to do for a man. You waited for me. You saved your heart, and despite that damned Jazz, you saved your body.” He leaned his forehead against hers. “Who did you think about when he touched you, baby? When he was holding you, whose arms did you feel? Who was loving you?”

  “You. Always you.” Sweet innocence. It filled her eyes, shaped her expression. She was like a breath of early morning air, soft and untainted, as sweetly innocent as life itself.

  “And it was the same for me.” His heart clenched at the years they had lost. “I dreamed of you, I held you. Amy claimed the title, but in my heart, you were my wife, Jessie. Forever and always. I won’t regret the past. I can’t regret Cody. I love that boy. But we have our chance now. I want to grab it with both hands, hold on tight and claim everything we lost the first time.”

  “I still think you’ve been an ass,” she pouted prettily. “You should have told me about Cody, Slade. That first night, you should have explained.”

  “Yeah, I should have.” He kissed her forehead, pulling her to his lap as he sat back in the chair, his arms going around her. “I wanted you to accept me first, Jessie, before I asked you to accept a child another woman bore. I wanted to be sure, before I got Cody’s hopes up.” His son needed a mother. Amy had failed as dismally there as he had failed as a husband.

  Jessie curled into his arms now, her hand lying against his chest, her head resting on his shoulder as he let his hands rove over her. He wanted her until he had to force himself to breathe, but God this was good. Just holding her, feeling the silence of the evening wrapping around them, feeling her, soul deep, so much a part of him he knew he couldn’t survive without her touch.

  “He’s really okay?” she whispered. “You took him to Dr. Gladmore’s clinic right? Old Doc Morrison shouldn’t be treating dogs, let alone children. You should have found a pediatrician to oversee him when you first got home.”

  Slade let a smile tug at his lips.

  “I didn’t know that.” He kissed her neck gently, reverently. “Maybe you could kind of help me out there some.”

  She was silent long enough that he began to get worried.

  “Doctor Stephens…” She named a doctor in a neighboring county. “She’s a good pediatrician. My sister used to take her kids there, before they moved. I’ll call and make him an appointment. Have you enrolled him in school yet? It starts soon, and I’d like to have a chance to make certain he goes into the right room. Getting with the proper teacher means everything, Slade. I want you to come to the school the first of the week and get him enrolled.”

  “Hmm. You’ll help me with that too?” He nuzzled at her ear as she nodded briskly.

  “I’ll go in with you. Clarissa is a damned bitch,
but hopefully she’ll be nice to family…”

  Slade sighed regretfully, worrying now. “Glenna dropped him off at the dock, Jessie. She pointed him to the offices and just left after she saw me coming out of the door that led to the apartments. She left him out there deliberately. She knows you live here too, and guessed where I had been.”

  Jessie tensed, then began to shake with fury as she turned to stare at him incredulously, her eyes wide, shocked.

  “Is she still breathing?” Her voice was rough with rage. “Because if she is, she won’t be for much longer.”

  His arms tightened around the little wildcat. Damn, he loved her.

  “J.J.’s taking care of it, Jessie. I won’t press charges, but don’t trust Clarissa too damned far. Maybe we’ll move him to one of the other schools.”

  She shook her head slowly, thoughtfully. “No, I’ll take care of him. I know the teacher I want him with and Clarissa doesn’t mess with me. She knows I’ll pull every hair in her head out if she does. She just pisses me off. She’s a lousy principal.”

  Slade sat silently. He could hear her thinking, feel her making plans and it radiated through him like sunlight. She would accept Cody, and she would be a hell of a mother.

  He finally sighed. “Cody’s not my biological child, Jessie but…”

  She stared back at him, silent, disbelieving.

  He glanced away for a long moment. “He’s still my kid…”

  “You let her lie to you like that?” she asked. “You know, Slade, I admit, I can have tunnel vision at times, but I think you just shut the lights off. What the hell do you mean he’s not your biological child? There’s not a chance in hell that child could belong to anyone else.”

  Jessie remembered looking at him, seeing the turquoise eyes as they jerked open, that wild mop of dark curls. And he was so damned scraggly he looked like he never ate. She bet he ate like a herd of elephants after a drought.

  “He doesn’t look like me or Amy.” He snorted. “She told me when she left…”

  “Come here.” She knew better than to argue with Slade when he was convinced of something. You had to show him proof, and that was something she had.

  She moved from his lap and walked to where she had dropped her purse at the hall table. She had pulled the pictures out while she was in her apartment, not certain why she needed to see the old photos of Slade as a child. To be certain herself maybe. She had taken them from her mother during one of her odd visits to Florida. “Dad was the principal at the school, remember?” She pulled the photos free as she walked back to him. “Mom was always taking pictures of the kids for the yearbooks. Especially those kids whose parents never bought their school pictures. She was a fanatic.”

  She lifted the most revealing photo from the pile. Slade, at Cody’s age, scrawny as hell, his dark brown hair wild with curls, his turquoise eyes somber as he stared back from the picture. Her mother had always loved the children without parents best.

  “Do you remember Mom?” she asked him.

  “I remember her.” His lips tilted into a grin. “I remember your dad too.” His frown was the same of any other boy who had ever gone to school during her dad’s reign. “And his paddle.” Yep. He remembered her dad.

  “Look at this.” She handed him the picture, watching his eyes widen, flare with shock, his face slacken in surprise before his gaze lifted to her.

  “Don’t you have any pictures of yourself when you were little?” It was criminal that he shouldn’t.

  He shook his head slowly. “No one took pictures.”

  “Well, Mom did.” She handed him the rest. “From kindergarten to the seventh grade, Slade. Your looks began changing when you hit high school. The dark blue of your eyes lightening, your body starting to fill out. You were one of those kids who just didn’t look the same as you got older. I suspect Cody will follow you.”

  Slade blinked, going through the pictures, his throat tightening with emotion at the proof that Cody was indeed his son. Not just because Slade loved him, because he was a part of Slade.

  “Amy was a mean bitch.” She sat in the chair in front of him, breathing out deeply. “You knew that before you fucked her,” she griped disdainfully. “You couldn’t trust a word she said.”

  “She used Cody,” he said bitterly. “The organization was run by fanatics. I couldn’t reach the upper levels without the required family. Something for them to threaten, to hold over a man’s head. Amy decided to take the risk of losing a child if the operation went to hell.”

  Jessie lowered her head, her hands gripped in her lap as she nodded slowly. Yeah, that sounded like Amy. She was the type of woman who made certain all her demands were met her way. And she had wanted Slade, operation or not.

  “Damn, I was scrawny.” He sighed as he went through the photos. “I was starting to worry about Cody. That kid eats like a horse and never seems to grow an inch. I swear, some days I think he’s going to bankrupt me in food. His voice was full of love, whispery-soft with his devotion to his son.

  “Well, you’re not a lightweight yourself,” she grunted. “I’ve seen you eat, Slade. You would put a horse to shame.”

  She glanced up in time to see his smile, thankful, adoring, filled with a very male, very possessive love. It sent heat spiraling through her, made her breasts swell, her nipples rasp against the soft material of her T-shirt.

  “Damn.” His face clenched, a grimace of emotion twisting his features. “He’s just like me, huh?”

  “Just like you,” she answered softly, and for a moment, just a moment, that sadness that the child he loved so dearly wasn’t hers as well, nearly overwhelmed her.

  “He needs a momma, you know.” He cleared his throat, laying the pictures aside before turning back to face her. “I want you to marry me, Jessie. I didn’t come back here to play games or waste more time without you in my bed where you belong, every night. I suck at romance and I know it. I wanted to give you the ring first, wanted to ease you into this, make everything right.” He touched her face, another of those caresses that sped through her body, clenching her heart with joy. There was nothing so perfect as when Slade touched her.

  Her eyes filled with tears. “I never want to lose you again,” she whispered. “I’ve been yours since I was sixteen, Slade. Always yours.”

  “That’s a yes, then?” He arched his brow, devilish, seductive humor creeping into his gray eyes.

  “Yeah,” she sighed, joy exploding inside her. “That’s a yes, Slade.”

  As though she could have said anything else.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The sound of her soft voice, accepting him, accepting his child so easily sent a pulse of pure emotion exploding in Slade’s chest. His breath caught with the incandescence of her smile, the love in her eyes.

  She didn’t want to grow up, she said. By God, if growing up meant she lost the waif-like innocence and steel-hard core of determination, then he’d beat her if she grew up.

  Before he considered anything else though, he had to have her. Rising to his feet, before Jessie could do more than gasp, Slade had her in his arms, stalking to the one place in the house he knew his Jesse could scream without little ears hearing her. The downstairs bedroom was well insulated, more because Slade had a habit of playing his old electric guitar as loud as the amplifier would go. Insulating the spare guest room had been his one concession to it.

  As he closed and locked the door behind them, he pulled a small receiver from his back pocket, looked at it, flipped a switch and laid it beside the bed. Jessie looked back at him in question.

  “Cody locator,” he grunted. “I had to install electronic strips around the doorways and at the stairwell to let me know when he passes through it. He likes to wander around by himself if he gets up before I do.”

  Yeah, she remembered her brother doing that. Shoot, they had all done it.

  “God, I can’t believe I have you here, Jess,” Slade whispered, his hands smoothing up her arms, pulling her
closer as the big bed loomed beside them. “I’ve dreamed of having you here. Loving you. Touching you.”

  Tangling his fingers in her hair, he lowered his head, taking her lips in a kiss that threatened to make his knees weak. Long, sipping kisses, a tangle of lips caressing, tasting, smoothing over each other as he moaned at the rippling effects of heat chasing through his system.

  His cock was iron hard, pounding beneath his jeans as he toed at his boots, working them off slowly, one by one. He tasted Jessie, nipped at her lips then soothed the little sting with a lick of his tongue. But he was a hungry man. One taste of her, one feel of those sweet curves and his tongue was a greedy bastard. It slipped into her mouth, delving into the dark honey taste as she met him with hers and the pleasure began to consume them.

  Within minutes his boots were kicked across the floor and Jessie was wiggling from her sneakers and jeans as she fought to hold onto his kiss. He gripped the neckline of her T-shirt and just ripped it off. He didn’t have the patience for careful seduction. Not this time.

  “You keep destroying my clothes,” she moaned as his lips moved from hers, his teeth raking across her neck while he dealt with her panties in the same fashion.

  “Then stop wearing the damned things,” he growled as her hands tore at his shirt, popping buttons in her desperation to get him undressed.

  God, he was going to come in his jeans if he didn’t get inside her hot body. She made him so fucking horny he felt as though he were going to go up in flames. Sweat covered his body before he managed to shrug the tattered remains of his shirt from his shoulders, while her mouth was attacking his flesh. Fuck, her tongue licked over his flat, hard nipples, her sharp little teeth nipping at them wickedly as he looked down at her, seeing the sensuality transforming her features.

  “You’re being a bad girl.” He groaned as her tongue curled around the dark disc it was tormenting. He hadn’t taught her shit, that left only one person. “You think I don’t know who taught you this shit?”