by Carol Rose
But that didn’t mean hearing his wistfulness didn’t hurt her. If her sister hadn’t been marrying the man of her dreams in two short weeks, Amy would have walked out of his apartment and gotten on a plane for bound for anywhere but here.
Yet, with Kelsey marrying, there was hope.
“You know, Jared will take care of her now,” Amy said deliberately. “He’s there for her. He’ll love her and make it all up to her.”
Doug was silent for a long moment. “Do you really think so?”
“Yes,” Amy said as if the single word were a prayer. “You can let go of her now.”
***
A week later, Doug stood in Amy’s kitchen, pouring coffee he didn’t want while he waited impatiently for her to finish dressing.
“Come on, Ames,” he called out. “We’re wasting daylight here. How hard is it to get dressed to go running?”
“Be right out,” she called, her voice muffled through the door and whatever layer of clothing she was pulling on over her head.
A sudden mental image assailed Doug. Amy’s slender body clad in running tights, every toned muscle visible through the stretchy spandex. On the other side of that door, she’d be pulling on a running bra, her naked breasts bouncing as she wiggled into the snug garment.
He slammed the coffee cup down, sloshing hot liquid over his hand. “Shit!”
Turning, he quickly stuck his hand under the faucet and turned on the cold water. What the hell was he doing? Fantasizing about Amy’s breasts. Her butt. Her strong legs.
About a month ago, he’d found himself kissing her suddenly, her mouth hot, her breath sweet. They’d laughed the moment off and he’d told himself it hadn’t meant anything. One of her sappy movies had gone to her head and she’d gotten caught up in the moment.
Why he’d gotten equally caught up, he wasn’t sure. It had been a great kiss, though. The kind that kept replaying itself, leaving him half-aroused every time he remembered it.
Snapping the water off with a vicious twist, Doug grabbed a kitchen towel from a nearby hook, wrapping it around his stinging hand. He was losing his mind.
It had always been Kelsey for him. Always. He knew he could make a difference in her life. Make her happy when all the other jerks she dated couldn’t.
All week, he’d been in a foul temper, knowing he was snarling at his employees—hell, at his doorman, but unable to stop himself. And every day Kelsey’s wedding crept closer.
In the beginning, he hadn’t thought she’d really go through with it, but now he had to admit—it was really happening.
For years now, he’d beguiled the monotony of his life, the ordinary sameness of his world with dreams of winning Kels. Silly ideas of sweeping her off her feet, of making himself so much a part of the fabric of her life that one day she’d turn to him in realization. He—ordinary, always-there, Doug—was her real hero. Not all these guys she flirted with and went out with.
He was her white knight on his steed, charging forth to make her world a better place.
They were heady dreams in which he was transformed from his humdrum persona into Superman. No more dull Clark Kent. When Kelsey realized his love—she would be his ticket out of himself. No more boring, average Doug.
What a joke, he thought savagely, gulping down half a cup of still-scalding coffee in one sweep.
“Shit!” Grabbing the towel, he wiped at the burned spot at the edge of his mouth.
How did a man handle the death of his own pathetic dreams?
“Hey!” he yelled toward the closed bedroom door. “How many damned clothes are you wearing?”
Her door opened then and Amy pranced out, looking so much like his fantasy of running tights and jogging bra that he almost swallowed his coffee-singed tongue.
“Don’t get your knickers in a twist,” she told him with a smirk as she propped her foot on an end table and leaned forward to stretch. “It’s not like you’ve got someplace important to be.”
“Shit! Why do I put up with this?” Doug demanded, glaring at her, trying not to notice how faithfully her running tights hugged her butt.
“Put up with what?” she looked up at him in a teasing, scoffing tone.
“Disrespect!” he bellowed, frustrated with the tangle of his thoughts, the mess in his head. Hell, he didn’t even feel like himself today.
Standing there in her snug running clothes, she looked like a spunky, sexy slice of hormonal heaven.
Amy smirked at him again. “What are you going to do about it? Spank me?”
Goaded beyond belief, he could only stare at her, his head feeling like it was about to blow off his body. God, he wanted to spank her. Wanted to yank down those tights, lay her across his lap and paddle her ass with his bare hand.
Then he’d kiss her better. Oh, so much better.
He wanted to kiss her smirky mouth, to plunge his tongue between her moist lips again.
“Huh?” she said, smiling up at him with that sassy glint in her smile. “What you gonna do?”
“This,” he said between gritted teeth, crossing the small kitchen and taking her by the arm. Yanking her upright, Doug jerked her into his arms and kissed her hard and long.
Instantly, he felt himself harden. Soft and so female in his arms, Amy tasted like fresh, willing woman. She smelled clean and sexy, her lips opening beneath his after her momentary surprise.
To his shock, she immediately wrapped her arms around his midsection, pressed her body to his and thrust her tongue in his mouth.
Doug reared back his head in shock. With Amy still locked in his arms, her flushed face raised to his, he shuddered with the most powerful bolt of pure lust.
“So…what you gonna do,” she whispered, touching the tip of her pink tongue to her lower lip and looking up at him with hunger in her beautiful eyes.
“God,” he groaned, lowering his mouth to hers again.
****
Jared closed another box with strapping tape, lifting it to the stack by the door.
“You really didn’t have to help me with this,” Kelsey said again. “I know how busy you are.”
“Never too busy to help a damsel in distress,” he said, well aware that she’d never admit to needing rescue. He’d cancelled his appointments today and put on his rattiest jeans to come help her pack because he wanted to be with her.
They’d be married the day after tomorrow, if everything went as planned. As the time grew closer, he felt as if he were holding his breath. He was so close to calling her his own. Once she was committed to him legally, he’d be on more solid ground.
“Moving is distressing, all right,” Kelsey said, glancing around her small apartment. “It’s always a pain.”
He’d have been more than happy to move in here with her, but Jared suspected she’d offered to live at his apartment because she wanted some space of her own. His place was at least twice the size of hers.
He hadn’t asked, but he suspected she planned on keeping the lease on her apartment, as well.
“You’ve moved a lot?” he asked. Since meeting Kelsey’s mother, Jared could see a picture of his fiancée’s childhood. Chloe was sweet, but she appeared to be driven by pure emotion.
Kelsey laughed, the sound almost derisive. “It seems like every time I got a new stepfather, we changed zip codes, usually states, sometimes countries.”
Jared frowned. “That must have been hard on you and your sister when you were kids. How many times has your mother been married?”
Taking a photograph off the wall, Kelsey paused to glance over her shoulder at him. “She’s been married to Carlos, husband number eight, for two years now.”
“Whew! Husband number eight?” He stopped packing and stared at her. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Let’s see, that makes seven stepfathers.” Jared closed another box and added it to the pile, his mind ticking away a mile a minute. “All that change had to be traumatic for you and Amy.”
>
He’d known she’d come from a broken family, but seven stepfathers? No wonder she’d lost faith in marriage.
Kelsey shrugged, busily piling paperbacks into another box. “We managed. Kids are adaptable, I guess. I’ve certainly learned how to pack.”
“Yeah,” Jared said, “but moving is the least of it, I’d think.”
She walked across the tiny living room without responding, starting to unload some things from a small desk.
Jared watched her for a moment, trying to judge how much he could say without going over the line. She’d welcomed her mother with affection, despite the fact that the woman had made her childhood an emotional revolving door. By the time she’d have gotten attached to a stepfather, her mother would have been at the lawyer’s office again.
“You don’t hold any of that against your mother?” he ventured, busying himself while he waited for her response.
“No,” Kelsey said quietly after a moment. “She’s a character, but I love her. She’s always been there for me. Chloe just falls in and out of love a lot and she thinks she needs to marry a man when she falls.”
“Where’s your dad been?” Surely her father’s life had been more stable.
“Beats me. Like I told you before, we never saw him as children. He lives here in New York, I think,” Kelsey said, her hair a dark curtain over her face as she bent to put envelopes into the box.
“It amazes me that you don’t know where your father lives.”
“I know he used to work in the city, but I’ve no idea if he still does.” She looked up, her blue eyes jewel-like against the purity of her skin. “He saw us last when Amy was six months old. I was two at the time, so I don’t exactly remember his address.”
“He’s never even written, never tried to visit you?” Jared asked incredulously. He wanted to throttle the man. How could any father not want to see Kelsey? Jared couldn’t understand how a father abandoned any child.
“Nope. I guess his life got too busy,” she said, her smile crooked.
“Why haven’t you and Amy looked him up?”
Kelsey didn’t answer immediately. Stashing another handful into the box, she looked up at Jared. “Why hasn’t he looked us up?”
“Because he’s an idiot,” Jared answered, fighting the urge to take her in his arms and comfort the hurt away. He felt thrilled that she’d let him this much into her emotional life. Somehow he knew not to push it.
“Yes, he probably is. But you can see that compared to him, my mother’s been an admirable parent, when all’s considered. She raised us on her own and sent us both to college herself.”
“I can see you love her very much,” Jared said, his voice grim, “but I personally want to show your father the error of his ways. Three or four times.”
Kelsey recognized the hostile note in his voice and couldn’t help smiling. She was learning that Jared was a champion of the underdog, a man who wanted to bolster the small and the weak—except when it came to contract negotiations and his bottom dollar.
A long time ago when she was fighting her way through adolescence without a father, she would have welcomed Jared’s attitude and eagerly taken him up on his hint of doing her father bodily harm.
But she was an adult now. As much as her father’s abandonment had hurt at one time, she’d long since determined to make her way in life despite his lack of interest. She didn't need him just as he apparently didn’t need her.
Now that her curiosity had been satisfied, she didn’t see any reason to open up old wounds by trying to make actual contact with John Layton.
“Does your father even know you’re getting married?” Jared asked, hefting several boxes in his arms.
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Not unless he saw that announcement your mother put in the newspaper and even then, he might not recognize it was actually me.”
“Damn,” Jared said under his breath as he turned toward the door. “I’m taking these down to the truck.”
“Okay.” Kelsey watched him leave, balancing three boxes. Jared was a marvel in so many ways. Now that she knew him better, she couldn’t imagine him fathering a child and leaving it to grow up without his love.
He’d been so sweet to his pregnant sister, actually seeming interested in the normal aches and pains of bearing a child. Carla and he were really close. Their whole family appeared to enjoy each other which had startled her at first.
Jared kept surprising her, like when he announced his intention of helping her move the small stuff from her apartment to his. The man certainly didn’t act like a millionaire.
He hefted her heaviest box with a mere rippling of muscle. The sight almost made her wish the professional moving men weren’t handling the few pieces of furniture. Watching Jared move was more engrossing than a night at the theater.
Dumping more books into a box, along with her bills and blank checks, she acknowledged that the man actually seemed interested in her family. In her. When they’d first agreed to this marriage, she hadn’t envisioned them sharing personal information. In desperation to right her wrongs against Amy and Doug, she’d bartered a year of much-anticipated, but not yet experienced, mind-blowing sex for his willingness to play her love-struck husband.
But for some reason, she hadn’t thought about spending quiet moments together. Hadn’t really considered the hundred daily intimacies they’d share.
Heck, Jared had even seemed tolerant of her admittedly different mother, something Kelsey’s previous male companions hadn’t managed. One boyfriend had even called Chloe a parasite. But Jared, while surprisingly understanding about the difficulties she and her sister had encountered as children, seemed to accept her mother as the mixed blessing she was. He was altogether an unusual man.
Kelsey felt drawn to him. Of course, she’d always thought he was a decent man, despite his teasing comments and gloves-off business style. Otherwise, she’d never have accepted his proposal, regardless of how urgent her need to make things right for her sister. But closer contact had revealed him to be strong and sensible as well as considerate and thoughtful.
More dangerous because of all that. He made her want to trust him. She couldn’t let herself fall for him, though.
There was no denying that his presence made her heart beat faster, his touch sending it into supersonic speed. She’d never been indifferent to him, not since she’d first met him.
Being with him left her itchy and breathless, like taking the first puff of a cigarette when your body craved more. Jared was like that. He packed a punch that could be addictive. She’d just have to be sure she didn’t inhale.
If he could warm her just by threatening to break her father’s face, make her feel so cherished with a simple hug, how much more of…everything would she feel when she lie in his arms?
***
“…then he grabbed me and kissed me!” Amy exclaimed, her face lit up with excitement.
“Wow.” Kelsey sat back in her desk chair, thrilled that her sister’s dreams were coming true. When Amy had swept into her office, minutes ago, carefully shutting the door behind her, Kelsey hadn’t known what to expect.
Now, Amy paced the small section of clear floor, dodging a chair and several stacks of files. “We ended up making love for an hour! It was beautiful and incredible. He’s the most wonderful man alive!”
“You and Doug…?” Kelsey stared at her sister in bemused fascination. “You actually did the nasty? Right then?”
“Uh huh,” her sister said, giggling. “You wouldn’t believe how…inventive he is.”
Kelsey threw up a hand. “No details, please! Not yet. I’m still getting used to the thought of the two of you as a couple. Later, we can exchange sisterly confidences when I’ve adjusted.”
“Take your time,” Amy told her smugly. “The hot romance of Amy and Doug has just begun.”
Reaching out, Kelsey grabbed her sister, bringing her exuberant pacing to a halt. “Amy, you don’t have any doubt that he’s the rig
ht man for you?”
“None,” Amy said firmly. “I love him and I know he loves me.
“Good,” Kelsey replied as she hugged her, feeling as if a huge burden had been lifted from her shoulders. “Then everything is all right.”
“For you, too!” Amy exclaimed, resuming her buoyant progress around the small room. “You’re getting married to the man of your dreams tomorrow and the man of my dreams is finally getting a clue. We’re both gonna be so happy!”
“Yes,” Kelsey confirmed, ignoring the flutters in her midsection. “We’re going to be very happy.”
CHAPTER TEN
Kelsey stood at the altar, heart racing, her hand in Jared’s. The minister read from a small book, his face serious.
“We are gathered here to celebrate the union of Jared and Kelsey….”
The man’s words faded and ran together. She was conscious of the oddity, standing here where she’d seen her mother so many times. Only this time it was her wedding, her groom standing darkly confident beside her.
Behind them sat a chapel full of friends and co-workers. Chloe sat sobbing quietly in the second pew. Somewhere in the church, she’d seen Doug sitting next to Amy.
All the times she’d watched her mother participate in this same ceremony hadn’t prepared Kelsey for her own. Regardless of the reality that few marriages amounted to little more than side-trips, it still felt monumental, life-changing. She hadn’t expected the moment to feel so meaningful.
She’d walked down the aisle alone over Amy and Jared’s protests. He’d actually wanted her to contact her father to do the job, which was at odds with Jared’s own professed desire to rough the man up.
Tom Barrett, Jared’s father, had offered to escort her down the aisle, sweet man that he was. But she’d gently declined. She was entering into this thing with her eyes open, and though she was woman enough to enjoy the spectacle of a modern wedding, she didn’t feel the need of borrowed fatherly support. Until she’d heard the bridal march and every eye in the church turned in her direction. That had been different, certainly more daunting than she’d expected.