“Oh, yes, ma’am.”
“Then I’ll see to it that you do,” Gert said flatly and Victoria for one didn’t doubt for a moment that the ferocious old woman would do exactly that. “In the meantime,” Gert continued, “you can come home with me.”
Raising her head, P.J. gave the office manager a suspicious look. “You’re not one of those women who has a thing for girls, are you?”
Gert snorted. “Not likely. Sex with either gender is highly overrated, if you ask me.”
“Me, too!”
“Good. Then it’s settled.”
“No, it’s not.” The young girl’s spine snapped straighter than a plumb line. “I ain’t no charity case, lady.”
“I never thought you were. The truth is, I could stand some help around here, filing and organizing and such. Do a good job for me and you’ll not only work off your room and board, but earn a little spending money to boot.”
“Well, okay, then.” P.J.’s skin seemed to glow from within at the prospect. “That’s different.”
“Good. I have a feeling you’ll like my house. It’s filled with all that—what did you call it? Retro stuff.”
John turned to Jared, whose eyes had grown moody the longer he’d listened to Gert make plans for P.J. “Are you okay with that arrangement?” he asked in a low voice as Mac explained a few things to the young girl.
The teen shrugged. “I guess. But why can’t she just come home with us?”
“Mac had to work to keep her from feeling like a charity case before she’d agree to stay with her. Your home is a mansion. How do you imagine being a guest there would affect her?”
“Shit.” Hands stuffed in his front pockets, the boy hunched his shoulders up around his ears. But he met John’s gaze squarely. “It’d intimidate the hell out of her.”
“That’s kind of the way I figured it, too. It doesn’t mean you can’t see her once you’ve gotten your legal mess straightened out, though.”
Jared agreed graciously enough, but Victoria, watching the two of them, could tell her brother wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of being separated from his young friend.
She had a feeling Rocket knew it, too, for his voice was less brisk than usual when he said, “Do you mind being left here for a while with P.J. and Gert?”
Jared appraised him for a moment, then shook his head.
“Good. There’s food in the kitchen. Help yourself.” John turned to her. “Grab your purse,” he said heading for the door. “We’re going to my place to grab a few things. But first we’ll head over to your hotel to pack you up and settle your bill.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ROCKET FOUND HIMSELF going from professionally impartial to seriously hot and bothered within moments of climbing into the car and he set his jaw as he drove them to Tori’s hotel. What the hell was the matter with him? He’d always been the King of Cool when it came to sex, but now, when he should be concentrating on Victoria’s brother’s situation, where was his damn head instead? On her scent, for God’s sake. On the tantalizing curve of her thigh beneath her jeans, which he kept catching glimpses of from the corner of his eye.
He was a real deep guy—clearly there was just no getting away from those Miglionni genes.
Arriving at her hotel gave him the opportunity to get his mind off his fly and on to something else. They went up to her room, grabbed her things and his box of condoms, and were back down in the lobby in record time to take care of the bill. Then they headed for his place.
During the ride over, he worked to keep his focus on what could be done for Jared and by the time he unlocked the door to his apartment a short while later, sex actually wasn’t the first thing on his mind. Instead, for some odd reason, wondering what Victoria would think of his place suddenly loomed large in his thoughts.
But when he closed the door behind them, she whirled around, threw herself into his arms and planted a hot kiss on his mouth. That was all it took to send his moment of decorator anxiety and all his high-minded intentions winging straight out the window. Wrapping his arms around her, he swiftly got with the program.
Victoria pulled back a moment later and looked up at him. “Thank you,” she said with breathless fervency.
“You’re welcome.” He slid his hands around to the front of her jeans and began unfastening them, meeting her heavy-lidded gaze with a slight smile. “How grateful are you?”
“Oh, very.” Her own hands went to his waistband. “Let me show you.”
The next thing he knew, his pants were down around his ankles, and he’d stripped her of her jeans and panties. Kissing her feverishly, he stroked her wet heat with one hand as he used the other to don a condom. The instant the protection was rolled into place, he lifted her against the door and sank into her in one smooth thrust.
She moaned, and it only took a few deep strokes to make her come. Emitting breathy sounds that grew increasingly higher pitched, she tightened her grip around his neck and crossed her ankles behind his waist. The slick, muscular contractions squeezing his dick like a languorous fist didn’t encourage a leisurely pace.
“God.” He was filled with a raft of emotions…only part of which had to do with the imperative need to get off. Bending his head, he opened his mouth against the tender join where her neck flowed into her shoulder and sucked the sun-kissed skin up against his teeth. Feeling her clench even harder around him, his hips began to thrust with more force and speed. He raised his mouth and laved the spot on her neck with the flat of his tongue.
“From the first night we met, you’ve had the craziest-ass effect on me,” he muttered. He pressed kisses from the rapidly beating hollow at the base of her throat up to her ear, where he whispered hoarsely, “I could never hold back with you the way I can with everyone else.”
Then he raised his head and stared down into her passion-hazed eyes as his own climax began agitating for release. “You changed me,” he said, then groaned as his orgasm roared up his cock. He slammed his hips forward, but just before he gave himself over to the scalding pulsations, he vowed, “You did, Tori. You made me a better man.”
Shit, Miglionni, he thought once things had cooled down and they were both slumped bonelessly against the wall. Could you possibly get any more chatty? His uncharacteristic loquaciousness left him feeling exposed and vulnerable. When Victoria’s ankles uncrossed and her legs started to unfurl from around his waist, he grabbed her by the backs of her thighs to keep her in place and carefully pushed back. “Where do you think you’re going?” he growled, feeling the need to reassert his old this-ain’t-serious-so-don’t-go-getting-comfortable sexuality. He pulled up his jeans enough to keep from shuffling and carried her into the living room, stopping to squat here and there so she could scoop up her discarded panties and jeans.
“Ooh,” she said the second time, when her bare ass rested on his thighs for a moment before he surged back upright. “Feeling all those muscles work is very…interesting. It makes me wish I’d taken off more stuff.” But her cheeks flushed and she ducked her head out of his line of vision. He could feel the heat radiating from her face as she murmured into his ear, “You’re still hard. I didn’t expect that.”
He laughed and just like that discovered the need to be in control gone the way of his long outgrown love-’em-and-brag-about-’em persona. Victoria had always had that effect on him. “Enjoy it while you can, because it’s fading fast.”
“Ah.” Smiling, she rested her head on his shoulder. “That must be one of the advantages of being so very, um, long. It takes you a while longer to slip out.”
Reaching his destination, he sat down and for a moment simply held her draped astride his lap. It unnerved him to realize he wasn’t even embarrassed to know he could happily sit this way all afternoon.
Too soon she raised her head and straightened in his lap. The movement drove him deeper within her and eyebrows elevated, she looked down at him like a young queen with the village idiot. “I thought you said that thing was goi
ng down.”
“It was. But it’s kind of excitable and you feel very, very good.” It was with true regret that he lifted her off of him, scooting her back to perch upon his knees. He smoothed his hand along her hip. “Unfortunately, we don’t have time for round two. I don’t want to leave your brother cooling his jets in my office too long.”
“No, you’re right.” She straightened her legs and stood, bending quickly to press a fleeting kiss on his mouth before straightening to her full height. “He seemed relieved enough to be going home again, but if he has a change of heart and takes off again I truly don’t know what I’d do.”
“I don’t think that’s something you need to worry about,” John assured her. “I just have this thing about erring on the side of caution. Harks back to the days when physical lives hung in the balance.” Removing the condom, he tucked himself back into his jeans and gingerly did up his fly as he watched her dress. He had no intention of bringing up their relationship, but when he opened his mouth to tell her that it would take him just a moment to get his stuff together, he instead heard himself demand, “So where do we go from here, you and I?”
The question caught Victoria by surprise and she froze for a moment with her hand stuffed midtuck in the waistband of her jeans. Then she turned to stare at him. He gazed back at her oh-so-casually as he lounged on the couch, his hands crossed behind his head and one ankle propped upon the opposite knee. The slight rigidity of his shoulders and the intensity of his gaze, however, gave her the definite impression that he was very interested in her answer.
She finished tucking in her shirt. She had a feeling she knew what she would choose, even if she couldn’t quite bring herself to say the words out loud. Once said, they couldn’t be taken back, and she’d ruthlessly submerged the impulsive part of her nature years ago. There was also John’s reticence about certain matters to consider. “What did you mean when you said your father was a mean drunk?”
His expression closed down. “Just what it sounds like. He was a drunk. I’m not. So what the hell difference does that make?”
“It’s the difference between whether you’re willing to talk to me about things that matter to you, or you’re just interested in getting me in the sack.” Looking into his turbulent eyes, she slowly admitted, “When we were together in Pensacola, you set rules of not getting to know each other in more than a superficial way.”
“Because that’s what worked for me before I met you. And the way you took off without a word, I figured it must have worked just dandy for you, too.”
“Would you like to know why I left the way I did?”
“Oh, I think I know, darlin’. You didn’t like my rules.”
“I went into that arrangement with my eyes wide open, Rocket.” She moved closer to him. “But I found myself caring way too much and it scared me silly. It’s not a lot of fun being the only one to harbor feelings in a relationship. I was afraid it would hurt too badly if I developed serious emotions for you when your only interest in me was my body.”
“I had a jones for a helluva lot more than your body,” he said flatly. “I’d always done just fine with the arrangement we had, but I found myself wanting to know every little thing about you. What you loved, what you hated. I wanted to know what made you tick. So, hey, if you want to know what a mean drunk is, then I’ll be a good little Marine and share.” He flashed her an easy smile, but his dark eyes were distant when they met hers, as though he’d gone somewhere she couldn’t follow. “Mean drunks would rather use their fists when they’ve had a few too many than exercise the need to think things through or, God forbid, rein in their tempers.”
“So your father was a fighter? I’m sorry. I’m sure that must have been difficult and embarrassing.” But something in his stillness made the reality of what he was saying sink in and she jerked. “Wait a minute. He hit you?”
He shrugged as if it were nothing and Tori’s gaze ran headlong into hard-eyed pride that defied her to offer a sympathetic word.
She couldn’t even begin to imagine this man she’d known only as a big tough Marine getting knocked around by his father. Pushing the shocking revelation aside to mull over later, however, she crossed the room in a flash and climbed back into his lap. She curled her arms around his neck and rested her head on his chest, feeling the strong, rapid thump of his heart beneath her cheek. She ignored the fact that his arms remained stiffly at his side. “That asshole. He didn’t deserve you.”
He laughed, and instead of sounding bitter or mocking or any of the other dark emotions he had a right to feel, it was full of genuine amusement. He wrapped his arms around her, a chuckle still rumbling deep in his chest.
She tipped back her head to look up at him. “What’s so funny about that? He didn’t.”
“You’ll get no argument from me, darlin’. It’s just…hearing ‘asshole’ coming from these lips—” he rubbed a thumb over the mouth in question “—strikes my funny bone.”
“Well, hey. I’m always happy to amuse.” She kept her tone acerbic but spoke nothing short of the truth. She was very happy to have driven the shadows from his eyes. “So what do you think,” she asked slowly. “Are you willing to take a stab at a real relationship?”
His chest rose and fell beneath her cheek as he inhaled a deep breath and let it out. He tucked his chin to look down at her. “Yeah.”
“That means spending more time with Esme,” she reminded him. But the words had no sooner left her mouth than she reached up to touch his lean cheek. “You were actually beginning to do that, anyway, before we got the call about Jared.”
“Yeah,” he said slowly. “Maybe it’s not as…tough to do…as I feared it would be. She’s easy to be with.” He stroked her hair. “But as much as I know you’d probably like to talk it to death and much as I’d like to stay in this position for the next several hours, we do have people waiting on us.”
“I know. We have to get back.” She rapped his head with her knuckles. “But don’t think I’m just gonna let that ‘talk it to death’ crack go by. Be afraid, Miglionni. Be very afraid. Because just when you relax, just when you least expect it, I’m going to make you pay.”
“I’m shaking in my boots.” He boosted her from his lap again and surged to his feet behind her.
“You do know, don’t you,” she said a few minutes later as she stood in the doorway to his bedroom and watched him pack more of the silk T-shirts and exquisitely pressed slacks he wore into a small leather duffel, “that once we’re back at Father’s estate sex between us will be very limited, if not nonexistent?”
“What?” He straightened from his careful packing and looked over at her. “In that case, forget it. This relationship is over.”
Her heart sank to her toes, and her dismay must have shown, for he tossed down the shirt he’d been meticulously folding and crossed the room in two giant strides to stand before her.
“God, don’t look like that; it was supposed to be a joke.” He stroked his palms up and down her arms. “We’ll have to forgo the good stuff because of Esme, right? I know it’s unrealistic to believe we can continue carrying on the way we have the past couple days with an impressionable little girl running around the house.”
“She has a tendency to climb into bed with me in the middle of the night,” she said apologetically. “Not every night, of course, but that’s just it. I never know when she’ll show up.”
“I guess we’ll just have to keep our pants on then.”
Oh, man. She was trying real hard to be sophisticated about this, to take her pleasure where she could and not count the cost. But hearing him say stuff like that made her realize that she’d been secretly hoping for exactly what he seemed to be offering: a chance to take their relationship to the next level. His matter-of-fact acceptance of the limits she’d placed on an act he seemed to believe was an integral part of his personality made her want to reach out, grab hold of his implied promise with greedy hands and refuse to let go should he suddenly ch
ange his mind about what he wanted out of this deal. And she knew she wasn’t sophisticated at all.
Just desperately in love.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
JUMPY WITH NERVES, WITH excitement and unspent adrenaline, Jared slammed through the door to his bedroom Thursday and headed straight for the phone. He punched out the number John had given him for Gert’s house. The instant P.J. came on the line, he blurted, “I’m a free man.”
She whooped and tucking the telephone against his ear, he flopped back on the bed and grinned up at the ceiling. He felt like he’d been away from home forever and yet, since coming back, it continually caught him by surprise to see that nothing had changed. The disoriented feeling hit even harder after he’d spent the afternoon at the police station.
“Tell me everything,” P.J. demanded.
“Okay, give me a sec. I have to figure out where to start.”
“It’s not brain surgery,” she said impatiently. “Just start from the time you left the agency.”
He laughed because it was so…P.J. “Okay. We got home about ten Tuesday night, and to tell you the truth, I was wiped. I raided the kitchen said hi to Cook and Mary—”
“Cook? As in a cook? A cook who lives there? Omigawd! You are so on another planet from me!”
For some reason that gave him a small twinge of panic. “No, I’m not,” he hurried to assure her. “My family merely has money.”
“Merely, he says. Not just—merely. But forget that,” she said and he could practically see her flapping her hand around in a dismissive motion. “Who’s Mary?”
“She’s the housekeeper. My dad’s been married like a hundred times and the stepmothers come and go. But Mary’s been here for years and she’s always been really good to me. So anyway, I said hi to them and to the current stepmom, who pretended she was thrilled to see me, but who is really pretty underwhelmed, I think. Then I hit the sack.”
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