She would still make her seafood fettuccine Alfredo, but she would make it for one instead of two. And she would even have a glass of wine with her pasta. She’d bought a sauvignon blanc that she knew would complement the cream sauce and she wasn’t going to deprive herself just because she was dining alone. After she’d finished eating and cleaned up the kitchen, she poured a second glass and took it up to the bath.
It was a rare event for her to have the house to herself, so she was going to indulge in a soak in the tub. She added bubbles and lit some candles and told herself she had everything she wanted. She didn’t need a man to complete the picture.
But with her body feeling loose and warm from the bath and her mind pleasantly fuzzy from the wine, she couldn’t deny there were times when she missed having a man around. Times when she missed Jacks. She pulled the plug to drain the tub and wished she could empty her mind of thoughts of her daughter’s father so easily.
* * *
It didn’t take Jack and Luke long to figure out where Einstein was going under the fence. As soon as his master let him into the yard, the puppy made a beeline for the back corner, where the ground dipped just slightly. And Einstein was little enough to be able to squeeze under the boards.
They secured a piece of two-by-four horizontally across the bottom of the other fence boards and, as an added precaution, shoved a big rock against the post.
“Well, that was an easier fix than I expected,” Luke said.
“That doesn’t mean you get to renege on the offer of pizza and beer,” Jack warned.
“I’m not reneging,” his brother assured him. “I just figured whatever Kelly’s making is probably better than pizza.”
Jack shrugged. “I already told her I wouldn’t be there for dinner.”
So Lukas ordered the pizza and popped open a couple of beers.
“What’s going on with you and Kelly?” he asked when the pizza box was empty.
“Nothing,” Jack said.
“Then why don’t you want to go home?”
There was no point in denying that he didn’t. “Because there’s nothing going on.”
Lukas nodded his understanding. “She’s got you all tied up in knots, doesn’t she?”
“You don’t have to sound so damn pleased about it,” he grumbled.
“But I am pleased. When I finally put two and two together and realized that you were the guy who got my best friend pregnant, I was furious—”
“Were you?” Jack casually rubbed a hand over his jaw. “I didn’t notice.”
His brother just shrugged, unapologetic. “I was furious with you because I was sure that you’d somehow taken advantage of Kelly,” he continued. “But the more I’ve seen you with her, the more I’ve started to wonder if she wasn’t the one who took advantage of you.”
“Yeah, I tried to fight her off, but she overpowered me,” he said dryly.
Luke chuckled. “Women might look all soft and feminine, but when it comes right down to it, they have the power because they make us weak.”
“Aren’t you in a philosophical mood tonight?”
“Am I wrong?”
Jack thought about it for a minute, shook his head. “No, you’re not wrong.”
“So what are you going to do about it?” his brother demanded.
“I’m going to marry her,” he said simply.
Luke’s jaw dropped open. “Well, hell, Jack, that isn’t quite the answer I was expecting.”
“I’ve been thinking about it for a while,” he admitted.
“Do you love her?”
“It seems that I do.”
“I hope you manage to sound a little more enthusiastic than that when you tell Kelly how you feel.”
“It’s hard to be enthusiastic about something so terrifying,” Jack admitted.
“If it wasn’t scary, it wouldn’t be real.”
“How would you know?”
“Because I’ve never been scared,” Luke admitted.
He considered that while he finished his beer.
When he set down the empty bottle, his brother said, “Go home, Jack.”
“That’s the thanks I get for helping to fix your fence?”
“We nailed up one board,” Luke reminded him. “Go home to your woman and you can thank me later.”
Jack decided that was good advice.
* * *
Kelly toweled off and dressed in her favorite pajamas. They were soft flannel and covered in pictures of candy hearts, but they were her favorite because they’d been a Mother’s Day gift from Ava last year. She had just settled on the couch with a DVD and a third glass of wine when she heard a key in the door.
“I thought you were helping Lukas tonight,” she said when Jackson came in.
“I did. We finished.” He settled on the other end of the sofa. “Where’s Ava?”
She swallowed. “At Laurel’s.”
He nodded toward the bottle of wine on the table, and the half-filled glass beside it. “She’s spending the night?”
She nodded. It was an easy assumption to make, because he knew she didn’t drink if she was going to be driving. She also didn’t indulge—at least not in more than one glass—around Jackson. She had enough trouble thinking straight when he was around without alcohol fogging her brain.
“Are you going to finish the bottle yourself or can I have a glass?”
“Help yourself,” she said, wishing he would go away again. She didn’t want to be alone with him, not when her preteen chaperone was away and her blood was already humming in her veins.
“What are you watching?”
“Casablanca,” she told him.
He settled deeper into the sofa, but she felt his gaze on her. “I’ve never actually seen the end of this movie,” he admitted. “In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen anything beyond the first half hour that we watched at that second-run theater the weekend I spent with you in Chicago.”
Kelly reached for her glass and sipped her wine.
“You didn’t think I even remembered what movie we’d gone to see, did you?” he challenged. “The movie that we walked out of because we wanted so desperately to be together that seeing the end of the movie didn’t matter.”
“Young lust,” she said lightly.
“That’s what I thought,” he admitted. “What I hoped. That the desire I felt for you would be easily sated. But it wasn’t. It didn’t seem to matter how many times I had you that weekend, it wasn’t enough.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“More than thirteen years—and in all that time, I never forgot how you felt in my arms. I never stopped wanting you.”
She looked up at him, tears shimmering in her eyes. “You’re not playing fair.”
“All’s fair in love and war,” he reminded her.
She didn’t know if this was love or war. She only knew that she loved him, that she’d never stopped loving him. She didn’t really know how he felt about her. He’d told her that she was under his skin and in his heart, but he hadn’t actually said that he loved her. But she knew he was physically attracted to her and, right now, with his body angled toward her and his mouth hovering mere inches above hers, that was enough.
She lifted her arms, linked them behind his head and brought his mouth down to hers. She kissed him, deeply, hungrily. Using her lips and her teeth and her tongue, she told him what she wanted, how much she wanted.
After several minutes, Jackson drew away, his breathing ragged. “How much of that wine have you drank?”
“Enough. But not too much.” She nibbled on his bottom lip. “I know what I’m doing.”
She wasn’t sure she wouldn’t have regrets in the morning, but right now, she knew she would regret it even more i
f she didn’t give in—not just to the desire pulsing in her veins, but the feelings in her heart.
He lifted her into his arms and carried her the short distance to his bedroom. He set her gently on her feet beside the bed, but it wasn’t until he started to unbutton her pajama top that she remembered what she was wearing.
“Obviously I didn’t dress for seduction,” she said.
“You’re sexy no matter what you’re wearing.” He slipped the top off of her shoulders, then pushed her pants over her hips so they pooled at her feet. “And even sexier in nothing at all.”
She wanted him in nothing at all, too, and quickly stripped away his clothes. He eased her down on top of the mattress, then stretched out beside her. She reached for him eagerly, ready for the hot and hungry demand of his mouth on hers, ready for the fast and frantic pass of his hands over her body, ready for the relentless and dizzying drive to the peak.
But Jackson apparently had different ideas, because when he kissed her this time, there was patience to temper the passion, tenderness layered over desire. He brushed her hair gently away from her face and feathered kisses over her cheeks, along her jaw, down her throat. The soft brush of his mouth against her skin made her burn; the tender stroke of strong male hands made her quiver.
“You’re trembling,” he noted.
“I’m a little nervous,” she admitted.
“We have done this once or twice before.”
They had, and yet— “Not like this.”
He smiled as his fingertips skimmed over her, a tender caress. “No, not like this,” he agreed. “I’ve never before made love with you knowing that I was in love with you.” His mouth brushed over hers. “I do love you, Kelly.”
She wanted to believe him. She desperately wanted to believe that this was real, that it could last forever. But she was afraid to hope, to want, to believe.
“Jacks—”
“I don’t need you to say anything,” he told her. “Not yet.”
He covered her mouth again, so that words were impossible. Then he deepened the kiss, until her mind was spinning and her body was aching, and he took her hands in his, linked their fingers together.
And when he finally slipped inside of her, they were connected as intimately as any two people could be.
Chapter Fourteen
In the warmth of Jackson’s embrace, Kelly had to admit that all her warnings to herself had been for naught. She was in love with him. Undeniably and irrevocably. Just because she hadn’t said the words out loud didn’t mean it wasn’t true.
The first love that she’d experienced as a sixteen-year-old had been little more than a girl’s innocent infatuation. She’d been a woman when they’d met again, with a woman’s heart and a woman’s desires. Her feelings for him had been intense and overwhelming, but without much of a foundation. She’d loved the man she wanted him to be, then hated him when he’d broken her heart, but she’d never really known him.
Since coming back to Pinehurst, she’d realized how misconceived her own emotions had been. She’d accepted that he wasn’t a hero any more than he was a villain. He was simply a man. He had strengths and weaknesses, virtues and faults. He was a dedicated attorney, a caring father, a loyal friend, an incredible lover. He could be arrogant and obstinate, but he was undeniably the man she loved.
“Okay.” He stroked a hand lazily down her spine. “You can say it now.”
She propped her chin up on his chest. “What was it that I’m supposed to say?”
“That you love me.”
Oh, yeah, he was arrogant. And sexy. And she was completely head over heels. “I love you, Jackson.”
She shifted so that she could press her mouth to his, and the delicious friction of her naked skin against his set off sparks all over her body.
His arms banded around her, holding her tight against him as he deepened the kiss. They’d just finished making love, but sprawled on top of him as she was, she could tell that his body was fired up again, too.
“Energetic.” She murmured the word against his lips.
He drew back. “What?”
“I was making a mental list of your virtues and faults,” she admitted. “And I realized that I should add ‘energetic.’”
“What faults?” he demanded, sounding so indignant she couldn’t help but laugh.
“Your super-size ego would be at the top of the list.”
With his hands on her hips, Jack shifted her so that her soft feminine center was pressed against the hard length of his erection. “You were saying something about a super-size—”
“Ego!”
He just grinned and continued to rub against her, a slow, sensual caress. He heard the catch in her breath, saw the escalation of desire in her eyes.
“Energetic and insatiable,” she said.
“It’s your fault,” he told her. “No one has ever made me want the way you do.”
She smiled as she rose up, gloriously naked and stunningly beautiful. Her long dark hair tumbled over her shoulders, and her eyes—those gorgeous golden eyes—burned with fire when she positioned herself over him. Her gaze stayed locked on his as she angled her hips and took him inside of her.
His fingers tightened on her flesh as he fought for control. She was so hot and wet and tight, and his body was desperate to mate with hers. He had to battle against the instinctive urge to take, to claim, to possess, and focused on caressing, teasing, pleasuring. He let his hands skim over her torso, from her hips to her breasts. His thumbs circled her nipples, moving slowly but inexorably closer to the tight peaks. Her breath quickened, her body tensed. She was close to the edge, teetering on the precipice.
He’d been with a lot of women, but only with Kelly had the reality of making love outdistanced the fantasy. And he knew the reason had as much to do with the connection between their hearts as the joining of their bodies.
She was the one who had left Pinehurst, but it wasn’t until she came back that he truly found where he belonged, because it was with her. She loved him, too. It didn’t bother him that she hadn’t volunteered the words, because he didn’t doubt her feelings any longer. He could see her love for him in her eyes. He could taste it on her lips. He could feel it in the warmth of the body that embraced his.
As they moved together now, he knew that it was more than the giving and taking of pleasure—it was sharing and loving. And together, they finally tumbled over the edge.
* * *
Kelly squinted at the glowing numbers on the clock and resigned herself to getting out of bed...soon. She’d told Claire that she would pick up Ava around noon, and it was already ten o’clock. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept so late. On the other hand, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d spent most of the night making love. And while she was physically exhausted, she was also incredibly happy.
When 10:14 became 10:15, she eased toward the edge of the mattress—then let out a yelp when Jack’s arm snaked around her waist and hauled her back against him.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded, his voice still rough with sleep.
“To pick up our daughter.”
“But it’s not even morning yet,” he protested. “It can’t be morning—we haven’t slept.”
“It’s not only morning, it’s late, and I need a shower.”
She wriggled out of his hold, and Jack, with a groan of protest, shifted to sit up.
He looked so cute and grumpy in her bed, she couldn’t resist him. She brushed a soft kiss on his lips. “Go back to sleep.”<
br />
He scrubbed his hands over his face. “If I don’t get up, I’ll miss out on shower sex.”
“I don’t have time to go another round with you right now,” she told him, but she couldn’t deny that the outrageously blunt statement made her tingle.
“If you’ve got time to shower, you’ve got time for shower sex. It’s basic multitasking.”
“Well, I do like to multitask.”
He grinned and dragged her into the adjoining bath. “I know.”
* * *
“We should probably decide what we’re going to tell Ava about...this development,” Kelly said as she fastened the buttons on her blouse.
Jacks, already dressed, lounged on her bed watching her. “I have no doubt that she will be completely onboard.”
“You don’t think it will be a little weird for her...her mother and her father...dating.”
His lips curved. “Is that what we’re doing?”
She wiggled into a pair of jeans. “I’m not going to tell her that we’re having sex.”
“I agree that the ‘dating’ thing might be weird,” he admitted. “Maybe it would be easier for Ava if we just got married.”
The brush she’d picked up to drag through her still-damp hair slipped from her fingers, and she slowly drew in a deep breath as she bent to retrieve it. “Is that another hypothetical, Jackson?”
“No.” The fingers of one hand circled her wrist, drawing her toward him, as his other hand dipped into the pocket of his jeans. “It’s a proposal.”
Her heart lodged in her throat when she recognized the Diamond Jubilee logo on the top of the box.
Once, a very long time ago, Kelly had let herself dream about marrying Jackson. Then he had married someone else, and she’d moved on with her life. She’d married and divorced, and she’d never forgotten him. Even when she’d decided to move back to Pinehurst, she hadn’t let herself think that she could have any kind of a future with Jackson. She hadn’t, until recently, even realized that it was what she wanted.
His Long-Lost Family Page 19