by Isabel North
“I ain’t that sweet, honey. I never said it was free. Said the price had changed.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I am not going to sleep with you for fixing my car.”
“No,” he agreed. “That is not why you’re going to sleep with me. You’re going to sleep with me because, sooner or later, you’re going to get tired of pretending that you don’t want this as much as I do. And, honey? It’s going to be sooner.”
“Wow.”
“That it?” he asked after a beat of silence. “That’s all you got? I was expecting a tirade.”
“A tirade? I’m sorry, I’m too busy reeling at your arrogance to muster up anything as dramatic as a tirade. But rest assured, as soon as I’m done with the reeling, a tirade is incoming.”
“Thanks for the heads-up.”
“Sure.”
“Since we seem to agree that I won’t be charging you in orgasms, we’d better hash out exactly how you’re going to pay me back.”
Jenny’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes sparkling. “I’m great at garden design.” She waved a hand at the sketchpad. “You need something landscaped?”
“I have an apartment. No yard.”
“I’m good with window boxes. Ask Ms. Irwin.”
“Another time.”
“What is it I’m going to give you, Derek, if not orgasms or a window box? Should I bake you cookies?”
He shook his head. “Cookies aren’t going to cut it.” He leaned in, placing a hand at the small of her back so she couldn’t shuffle away. Not that she even tried. He placed his mouth at her ear. “What I want,” he said, low, appreciating her responsive shiver, “is pizza.” He stepped back.
“Pizza?”
“Yep.” Derek sauntered out the kitchen and into the living room, where he flung himself down on the couch.
He heard the solid thud as Jenny hopped down from the counter. She marched in to stand before him. “Pizza?” she said again.
Derek lifted his boots to the coffee table.
Jenny leaned down and smacked them off. “No boots on the table.”
He braced his arms behind his head and grinned up at her.
“All right,” she said. “I can do pizza. I already know how you like it. Extra jalapenos. I’ll order it and have it delivered to your apartment for, what, seven? Or is that too early?”
“If you’re talking about today, yes, it’s too early. The pizza is pending. And don’t send it to my apartment. We’ll be having it here.”
“We?”
“I want a do-over.”
Jenny studied him. She opened her mouth to say something, but cut herself off.
“I am referring to the last time we had pizza,” Derek said.
“I remember it.”
“Then you’ll remember what happened the morning after? What I told you?”
“Other than the jalapenos, the details are fuzzy…”
He reached out, snagged her wrist, and fell back, pulling her down on top of him. “I said if I find out you’re free again, you’re mine.”
Jenny landed with a shriek. She propped herself up on her forearms. “What makes you think I’m free?”
“Sterling is having a baby with another woman.”
Her eyes dropped.
He caught the point of her chin between finger and thumb, and turned her face to his. “Somehow I doubt that you’re good with carrying on a secret affair when he’s some other woman’s baby daddy.”
Jenny hiccupped a small laugh. “Maybe it’s a relief to share the load. Maybe I can’t keep up with his sexual demands.”
“That’s not what I want to hear, Jen.”
“What can I tell you? Gabe may have turned forty last month, but you couldn’t tell by his stamina. And of course, he’s got all that experience.”
“I was thinking more that if you can’t keep up with Sterling’s demands, you’re gonna have a problem keeping up with mine.” He settled her more comfortably against him. “I want to hear you say it. Your affair with Sterling is over.”
Jenny exhaled slowly and chose her words with obvious care. “I can assure you that there is nothing sexual whatsoever between me and Gabe.”
Derek’s arms tightened. “You telling me you’re free?”
She hesitated then nodded. “Yeah. Yes. I’m a free woman.”
Derek brushed her hair from her eyes. “Are you okay with it?” he asked.
“Being free? Hell yeah. Right where I want to be.”
He scanned her for signs of hurt, but she seemed positively chipper. “It was an amicable breakup?”
“Yes. Amicable. No drama. None at all. Went straight back to normal. It’s almost as if nothing ever happened. I’m thrilled for him. He’s going to be an amazing dad.”
“Good—”
“And we’re still friends. In fact, best friends. Lila is my best girl friend, and Gabe is my best guy friend.”
Derek tightened his jaw. “What does that make me?”
“My mechanic?” Jenny smoothed a palm over his chest, her attention fixed on it as if it was the most interesting thing in the world. She added after a brief hesitation, “You haven’t talked to me for six months, Derek. I know I deserved it, but…it wasn’t very friendly of you.”
He examined her face again, and blew out a surprised breath. There it was, the hurt he’d been expecting her to feel over Sterling. “I made you unhappy, baby?”
“I’m a big girl. I can handle some frost.”
Not from him, though. “I never intended to hurt you.”
“I know. I never intended to hurt you, either.”
Jenny was still stroking his chest. Her palm coasted over his pecs and stopped, her brow furrowing. She lifted up a little. “What’s that?”
She’d found his piercing.
Well.
She’d found one of them.
Suppressing his smile, Derek shrugged.
Jenny brushed her fingertips over it again, seeming fascinated. She went back and forth a few times, then glanced up at him through her lashes.
He waited.
She lifted a hand and touched a fingertip to the small barbell he had in his eyebrow. Then she dropped it to his chest again and brushed over the one he had in his nipple. She squinted at him.
He grinned.
“Are you going to show me or not?” she demanded with a breathlessness that she was trying, Derek could tell, to make sound like annoyance.
“Are you going to ask me nicely?”
“Maybe I’ll stick my hand up your shirt without asking at all. You know. Like a dude. It’s all right, baby, I just want to touch you a little bit. It’s no big thing. I won’t even take off your bra. Swear.”
“Mmm,” Derek said. “Your man voice—I’m assuming that’s what the last bit was supposed to be—is very arousing. You keep sweet-talking me like that, I can’t promise to control myself.”
“Derek.”
He did an ab curl, taking her with him. He reached for the hem of his tee, lifted it up and over his head, and tossed it over the back of the couch. Then he lay back down.
Jenny remained bolt upright, straddling him.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Jenny stared down at Derek.
Holy. Shit.
Her hands hovered over him but she didn’t touch. She didn’t even know where to start.
Derek was a well-built, solid man, but she’d never realized quite how…big…he was. His shoulders were wide and muscled, his chest was broad, and his arms were flat-out beautiful. All of this was covered with tanned skin. And tattoos.
She’d seen the ones on his arms before, of course. Many times. He only had one tattoo on his body, and it was an exquisite angel on his ribs, wind-ruffled wings spread wide and a sword in one hand.
Much as Jenny liked tattoos and muscles—hello, who didn’t?—she couldn’t seem to drag her attention off his nipple piercing.
“Aren’t you going to touch it?” Derek broke in on her scattered thoughts.
>
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” he murmured back, lips curving in a slow smile.
Jenny stared at the metal and clasped her boobs protectively. She realized what she was doing when Derek’s eyes flared, and she dropped her hands. They landed on his ridged stomach.
She decided to go ahead and leave them there.
“Doesn’t it hurt?” she demanded. “I can’t even imagine the pain of having someone pierce your nipple. And I have given birth. I have the capacity to imagine a lot of pain.”
Derek took her wrist and slid her hand up over his abs, leaving it on his chest. He settled back and watched her.
Jenny sucked her lower lip between her teeth.
She touched him.
The metal was warm from his body heat, and slipped smooth against her cautious fingertip. She circled the rounded ball at one end. Then she took it between finger and thumb and wiggled it. Then she tugged it lightly.
Derek hissed, his neck arching.
Jenny snatched her hand back. “I’m sorry!”
“Don’t be. I like a bit of pain. Good thing, as it happens. You do not have a subtle touch, Finley.”
She snapped her gaze up to his, indignant. “I am as gentle as a kitten! I am the queen of Jenga. I am the reigning family champion at Operation.”
His hot chest under her exploring hand heaved with laughter.
“I am freaking gentle!”
“No, baby. This is gentle.” Derek had been holding her hips, and now one hand drifted around to the small of her back. He eased below the waistband, callouses playing whisper-soft against the fragile skin above her panties. And almost without her noticing, even though she was looking right at him, he dipped his entire large hand down the back of her jeans and into her panties, and cupped the naked curve of her butt.
Jenny jerked, her knees tightening around him. “May I remind you, Tate, before you start groping—
“You started the groping, the way I recall it—”
“—that I have you in a very vulnerable position.” Damn her voice for coming out high and breathy.
“Is that a fact?”
She tweaked his piercing again. She wanted to make him jump. Only Derek didn’t jump.
He took in a deep breath, and his eyelids lowered. His eyes were a hot dark gleam behind his ridiculous lashes.
“Oh.” Jenny had a moment of clarity. “When you say you ‘like’ a bit of pain…”
“I’m not finishing that sentence for you.” Derek slid the hand she’d somehow forgotten he had in her panties back out and up her spine to play with her hair. He took the tie out and hummed with approval when her hair fell down around her shoulders.
“Is this a sexual thing?” Jenny said. “All the piercings?”
“No. They make me feel pretty.”
She stared at him. Could not tell if he was being serious. “Rebelling against your parents, being the pastor’s son?”
He lifted a brow. “Hard to rebel against parents who would support you in all and any life choice you care to make, bar crime. You know my mom, Jenny.”
Yeah, Jenny knew Mrs. Tate. If Derek said he wanted to dye himself blue, Mrs. Tate would supportively try to pick out the shade with him, and then she’d send him a hand-crafted greetings card, with glitter, saying something like, ‘So, You’re Blue: That’s Great!!!’
“You like my tattoos,” Derek said.
She wanted to lick his tattoos.
He studied her. “You don’t like the piercings?”
She didn’t quite know how she felt about them. “This is my first time, is all. Seeing a piercing other than, you know. Ears and face.” She traced his eyebrow. “I like this one. As for the other? I don’t know. I am aware of the Internet, I’ve seen pictures. I’ve just never touched one before.”
And she couldn’t stop touching Derek’s. What the hell, he liked it, right? She kind of thought she did, too. She flicked it.
Derek shifted under her, and Jenny got a thrill of pure feminine power.
Now that, she liked.
“I’m wondering,” Derek said, catching her wrist and bringing it up to his mouth. He turned it, pressed his lips against the sensitive underside and continued to speak against her skin, “if you plan on kissing me any time soon?”
Jenny stroked her thumb over his cheekbone. “I’m considering it.”
“Anything I can do to sway you? This, maybe?” His fingers threaded through her hair and fisted lightly as he drew her down.
She stretched out on him full-length.
Derek’s dimples flashed. “Kiss me, Jenny,” he said, “and I’ll let you play with my other piercing.” He rocked his hips up into hers. “It’s the best one.”
Jenny had been a second away from laying her mouth on his, but at this she pulled back. “You haven’t really got a piercing down there, have you? You’ve bragged about it a lot, but you haven’t really. Have you?”
“I don’t brag. Kiss me, and you can find out.”
“Are you kidding? I can’t concentrate on kissing you if I’m thinking about that. It’s one thing to be pierced here, and here—” she flicked his barbells, “—but come on. For real?”
“You’re killing me,” Derek said. “I’m trying to be a gentleman. You are not making it easy.”
“Nothing about me is easy.”
“I’d noticed.” He broke off to stare at her lips with such intense focus, goosebumps prickled over Jenny’s skin. “God,” he said, deep voice edged with something that sounded like despair. His fingers in her hair flexed. “You can look in a minute, baby. First I have to…” He exhaled sharply and his hold in her hair tightened. Derek drew her down even as he arched up, closing the distance between them. “Jen,” he said on a groan. “Waited so long for this. For you.”
He kissed her, hard.
Derek held her face between his rough palms and angled her how he wanted. He stroked his tongue against hers in a confident demand that made her lower body tighten in a sudden, brutal clench. One hand curled at her neck. The other hand skimmed down her spine and he gripped her ass with raw possession.
Jenny gasped and moved against him, feeling his length pressing into her hip.
Derek tore away and threw an arm over his eyes. His chest heaved beneath her. “Shit.”
Jenny bit his neck, tasting the heat and salt of his skin.
So quickly it forced a sharp pant out of her, Derek flipped them, putting him on top and her back to the cushions. He slid a knee between hers and pinned her with his gaze as he used that knee to open her legs, making room. He settled his weight on her. “Now, where were we?” He pretended to think. “Ah, yes. I was about to show you my cock.”
Jenny’s face flamed.
Derek’s eyes widened and he burst out laughing.
She shoved him. “Don’t you dare laugh at me, deviant.”
Still shaking with amusement, he swept her hair back. “Why did that make you blush? I put my tongue in your mouth, and you bit me. I had my hands in your pants, and you yanked me. I mention my cock, and you blush?”
The fact of it was, Jenny Finley was all front, and she was terrified that Derek was about to find her out.
Jenny wasn’t inexperienced when it came to sex. She preferred to think of herself as a specialist. She was a specialist in having sex with her ex-husband. And no one else.
Ever.
Dean was nothing like Derek. Dean was a traditionalist. Sex had been kept to the bedroom, under the covers more often than not, and that had been fine by Jenny.
Dean had never once pinned her to the sofa in broad daylight and offered to show her his dick piercing.
He’d never offered to show her anything.
“Honey,” Derek said. “If you don’t want—”
“I do.” She gripped his muscled arms. “I want. But I’m kind of freaking out.”
“Mmm. What’s freaking you out?” He shifted off and she grabbed for him blindly. “Hey,” he said. “I�
��m not leaving you. Not going anywhere.” He settled on his side then dragged her against him, hooking her thigh around his hip and bracing an arm on the side of her that was open to the room. “Comfy?”
Jenny nodded.
Derek considered her. “Let’s switch,” he said. He lifted her with shocking ease, moved her over him, and tucked her so that his large body was between her and the room, and she was surrounded by him. He swept a hand down her thigh. “Up,” he said.
Jenny obediently slung her leg over his.
Derek smiled, his face soft and warm. “You are a puzzle, Jenny Finley. But I think I’m starting to work you out.”
Jenny didn’t think a trained professional could work her out, but what did she know?
She wanted Derek so badly she felt like her skin could barely contain so much raw desire, and at the same time she was scared. She knew she had no reason to be, but…she was.
“What’s freaking you out?” Derek asked again. “Us?” He flexed against her. “This?”
Jenny stared at Derek’s very obvious erection. Jesus, it looked big. “The thing is, Dean was what you could call…preppy.”
“Got a few things I’d call Dean Hansen. Preppy doesn’t even make the top hundred.”
Jenny grinned, pressing her forehead to his throat. “You’re kind of outside my comfort zone, Derek.”
A gentle touch feathered over the nape of her neck. “Fun, isn’t it?”
“Eh.”
Derek nudged her face up to his. “Preppy Dean,” he prompted.
“I like you,” she said.
Derek bent his head and dropped a hard kiss on her lips. “I know.”
She mumbled against his lips, “What if I don’t like your piercing? What if it…bothers me?”
He laughed.
“I don’t think you’re taking me seriously, Derek.”
“I am. You’re not gonna have a problem with it.”
“How can you know that? Okay. Confession time.”
“This is going to be good.”
She drew a pattern over his chest. “I may have looked up piercings on the Internet. On Alex’s computer, of course. There is no way I’d use my laptop, Kate would somehow know.”
“Ah.”
“I didn’t melt in a puddle of lust, Derek.”