by Isabel North
He pushed her away.
Away from him.
Turning on his heel, Derek left without another word.
“Ah,” Gabe said as they watched him stalk out of Kurt’s. “‘Oh, shit’. Think I get it now.”
“I’m sorry,” Lila said, rushing up. “I tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t wait.” She came to a halt beside Gabe and craned her head back to look up at him. “Hi.”
“Hellcat,” Gabe greeted her.
“Wet dream,” she replied. “How’s your wife?”
“Still putting up with me.”
“Let me know if that changes.”
“Nope.”
“What the hell is going on, Jenny?” Dean broke in.
“I’m squashing you,” she said with distraction, staring at the door Derek had disappeared through, feeling as if he’d taken all the oxygen in the room with him.
“What?”
“Okay. Here it is.” She spun and laid her hands flat on the table. “I’ve been handling this as delicately as I can. I had an elegant solution all planned out, but it doesn’t seem to be working, so. Here comes the sledgehammer.”
Dean’s nervous gaze flicked to Gabe and Lila.
Jenny rapped her knuckles on the table, bringing his attention back to her. “You’re not getting custody of Kate. Not ever. Not shared, not full, nothing. End of story. You know what I hate, Dean? Debt. I hate debt. I hated your debt, and I have an extreme aversion to getting into debt myself. Asking someone for help, especially when I can’t pay it back, ever, is the worst kind of debt for me. But, no joke, I will sell my soul to protect my daughter. My pride can take a running jump.” She turned to Gabe. “Forget the bluff. I want to hire Bill for real. Loan me a couple of hundred thousand to bury this jerk? I’ll babysit anytime you like until your son is eighteen.”
“You got it.”
“Wait.” Dean jumped up. “Jenny. This is spinning out of control.”
“On the contrary. This is me taking control.”
Dean said again, “Wait.” He ran his hands through his hair, and dropped them limply to his sides, palms out. “I’m sorry.”
Jenny waited, but he didn’t say anything else.
“Shall we get started?” Bill said into the charged silence, opening up a wafer-thin laptop and placing it on the table between him and Mr. Hubble, whose eyes showed white around the edges.
“No,” Dean said. “I don’t want…”
“Do you fold?” Jenny asked when he fell silent again.
He gave an abrupt nod.
Sighing, Bill dropped his head back and aimed a long-suffering stare at the ceiling. “Really,” he said to Gabe, shutting the laptop with a discreet click. “I told you we didn’t have to come in person.”
Gabe waved it away. “We were in Seattle. It’s a short drive. It’s not like we helicoptered in.”
“It’s not a short drive, and now I’ve missed my squash game.”
Jenny grabbed Dean’s arm and pulled him aside. His lawyer followed, hovering beside Dean until Jenny gave the man a pointed glare.
Clearing his throat, Mr. Hubble said to Dean, “I’ll invoice you,” and left them.
Jenny looked at Dean. Her lips twitched.
Dean glared, then his shoulders slumped. “Did it again, didn’t I?”
“What? Screwed up?”
“Yeah.”
“So bad, Dean. So bad.”
“I don’t know what to say to you.”
“I know what to say to you. Go away. Leave me alone. Don’t try to hurt me again.”
He gave another short nod.
“And in a month or two, maybe we try this properly.”
“I don’t really want full custody.”
“I know. You’re shit at bluffing, remember? I get that you’re going to find it tough, me and Derek, and the implications for Kate. It’s why I suggested you lose the lawyer and the three of us sit down and talk.”
“I don’t even understand why you’d be willing to do that.”
“For Kate. Don’t you get it yet? I would do anything for Kate.”
Dean touched her shoulder lightly. Jenny drew back, shaking her head. His hand fell away. “I’m sorry.”
She’d heard I’m sorry from him more times than she’d ever heard I love you. “Go away, Dean.” She said it with a smile.
He did. Jenny turned back to the booth to find Lila, Gabe and Bill all watching.
“You are so classy,” Lila told her. “I’d have kicked him in the nuts again.”
* * * *
Jenny thanked Gabe and hugged him goodbye, gave Bill a wave, and high-fived Lila on the way out. Then she leapt into her car and went after Derek.
Her plan had worked…in a manner of speaking. It had solved the Dean problem. But it had created a Derek problem. And Jenny was just as determined to solve this one.
She started with calling him from Kurt’s parking lot, and was unsurprised when he sent her to voicemail.
His apartment was next. She hadn’t been there before, but she knew where he lived. Again, she was unsurprised when she couldn’t see his bike outside. Or his SUV.
Rawlings’ Auto Repairs was her last stop. By the time she’d pounded on the locked-tight door and scanned the lot without seeing his bike—although the SUV was there—panic was starting to creep in.
She turned her car homeward and drove on autopilot.
What if Derek was really angry?
What if he was angry enough to call it done?
Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel.
Tough. Jenny wasn’t done. She’d never be done. She was almost certain Derek felt the same.
Almost.
Gabe showing up in person was unforeseen. In retrospect, she should have expected it. He was the most generous soul she’d ever known. Add to that his protective streak and his fierce loyalty, and it was a no-brainer.
Dean wasn’t the only one who’d screwed up today.
Her biggest mistake, though, wasn’t in failing to predict Gabe’s arrival. It was in using him as a shield to protect herself from Derek six months ago.
Which neither Gabe nor Derek knew about.
Wow. Maybe this was karma, biting her in the ass.
Jenny pulled into her driveway. She dropped her forehead to the steering wheel. She didn’t know how to fix this. All she knew was, it was going to be damn hard to explain to Derek when she couldn’t find him.
She sat there in the car, drained. Should she go and pick Kate up from Elle’s, since the romantic night she had planned seemed to be doomed? Jenny sniffed. She should, probably. But she wouldn’t. Apparently, she was going to sit in her silent car and snivel.
Like that was going to help.
When she was done with sniveling, maybe there would be ice cream. Or maybe she’d drag herself into the house and curl up on her bed and try to pretend tonight hadn’t happened.
Or…
Jenny sat up. Was that a motorcycle she heard?
She cocked her head and listened as it grew louder.
Yep.
Bike.
She yanked open the car door and stumbled out in time to watch Derek turn in to her driveway and kick out the stand, removing his helmet.
Jenny didn’t run this time. She was too nervous to take her eyes off him. Derek closed the distance between them and stood before her, as he had at Kurt’s, vibrating with emotion. Jenny swallowed, then slipped her fingers into his belt loops. He didn’t say anything, and the ability to speak seemed to have deserted her entirely. She took a step back and tugged.
Derek’s eyes narrowed but he allowed her to draw him up the driveway and onto the porch. She fumbled with her keys, dropping them twice.
Derek didn’t move to help.
Jenny’s palms were damp with nerves. This wasn’t going well at all. Why hadn’t he thrown her up against the door like last time? Or said something, at least?
It was because, when he did speak, it was going to be bad, wasn’t
it?
As in, it’s over. She wrestled the door open and stepped in.
He didn’t follow.
Panic. A streak of it, from the top of Jenny’s head, all the way down into the floor beneath her boots. Like a bolt of lightning, leaving her queasy and electrified.
Derek braced his arms in the open doorway, poised on the threshold as he studied her face. What did he see? Anything? Because she was trying to read him, and she got nothing.
Letting her breath out in a little gasp, she hooked a hand in his belt—subtle, Jenny, why not just grab him by the junk—and tried to pull him in.
She could read the expression on his face now. Distant.
No.
Jenny went up on her tiptoes and kissed him desperately.
For a horrible moment, he didn’t respond. She felt the vibrations of his anger surrounding her. Then he made a savage sound at the back of his throat, drove one hand into her hair and cupped the back of her head, and clamped the other hand on her ass as he hauled her against him, hard.
He tilted his head to the side, opened her mouth with his, and then he was kissing her.
Jenny wound her arms around his neck and, when he dragged her up his body, she wrapped her legs around his waist and held on. He strode inside, kicked the door shut, then spun them both and shoved her against it.
The hand in her hair tightened, holding her as he kissed her without any of his usual finesse. Just raw, animal hunger. Jenny did her best to gentle him, to calm it down, but Derek wasn’t going to be gentle this time. All right, then.
She kissed him back harder.
She was lightheaded and starving for breath when he broke away to grate out, “Well?”
She stared into his eyes. “Make love to me.”
“I’m furious.”
“Make furious love to me.”
Derek gave his head a single, sharp shake.
Had she gotten it wrong all along? Jenny touched the tip of her forefinger to his bottom lip, drew it back and forth. “Have furious sex with me?”
Derek released her. “No.”
Jenny steadied herself, and set her shoulders. “Yes.” She pointed at the floor. “Right here.”
“It’s never sex with you,” Derek said. “It’s always love. It’s always been love.” With that, he reached for her shirt and ripped it open.
Ooh.
Game on.
Jenny shrugged off her shirt, unbuttoned her jeans, and went for his. He slapped her hands away, took hold of her waistband and yanked her jeans and panties down in one merciless move.
She braced herself against him as he tore off her boots, then she squeaked when, instead of straightening, he lashed an arm around her waist and dragged her down to where he knelt.
She lifted his T-shirt over his head and tossed it away.
Derek shoved his jeans down to mid-thigh and bore her down to the floor. He snatched his wallet out of his back pocket and dropped it on her quivering stomach as he kneed her legs apart and slid an arm behind her and up along her spine, protecting her—sort of—from the hardwood.
Jenny plucked the condom from his wallet, and got it on him in record time as he watched, eyes black with desire, breathing hard. The second he was covered, he was inside her.
After that first thrust he held still as they both moaned. He drew his hips back in a long, slow drag. Jenny dug her nails into his muscled back. “Move,” she said in a hoarse voice. “I’m ready. I’m ready. Derek, please.”
No more encouragement needed. Derek drove into her with aggressive, claiming strokes. He tightened the arm he had locked around her waist, lifting her up and into him even as he used his weight to pin her.
“You’re mine,” he said between harsh pants. “Say it, Jenny. Say it now. You’re mine.”
She tried to, she did, but he ground into her, his piercing rubbed deep inside, and all she managed was a stunned, broken noise halfway between a sob and a scream.
“Mine,” he said again. “Not Hansen’s. Not Sterling’s. Mine.”
“Yours.” Jenny framed his fierce face with shaking hands. “I’m yours.”
“Always.”
“Yes, Derek. Always.”
He lowered his head and groaned into her open mouth as he took them higher and higher until every part of Jenny tightened in a single sudden rush, then shattered. She screamed as Derek stilled in her arms and gave himself over to his own orgasm, right behind her.
The hall filled with the harsh, staccato sound of their breathing. Jenny wheezed a little. Derek levered his weight off her and, though he seemed to be having trouble opening his eyes all the way, looked down at her.
“I have a splinter in my ass,” Jenny told him.
“I don’t think I have any skin left on my knees,” he told her, and flopped onto his back.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
When Derek had seen Jenny sitting across from Dean Hansen and some other guy, about whom everything screamed lawyer, he’d been angry. When he’d seen Gabe Sterling saunter in, accompanied by a man who was clearly also a lawyer, his anger had flashed to fury.
It hadn’t been too hard to put things together.
Dean was going after Jenny. It must have been bad, because his little Miss Independent had called for help.
Sterling.
She’d called Sterling, not Derek.
The fact that she’d been astonished to see Sterling there didn’t do anything to calm Derek down.
And when Sterling had swept Jenny into an affectionate hug and then—the fucker—snuggled her into him while he stood beside her in Derek’s place, Derek had seen red.
He didn’t even remember crossing the bar. One minute he’d been beside Lila, and the next he was staring down into Jenny’s guilt-pale face.
He did remember leaving.
Leaving had taken effort. He’d had to force himself to do it, before he flipped a table, or punched Sterling in the throat.
And he’d really, really wanted to do both.
Derek was an easygoing guy. Everyone said so. Derek agreed, he was. Easygoing. Cheerful. Had a tendency to look on the bright side. Took life as it came. Found all the joy in it he could.
But man, the last six months had done a number on him.
He slanted a look at Jenny. She lay there, her skin gleaming with her exertions and his, her breasts heaving as she caught her breath. He tensed his muscles so he didn’t jump back on her, demand her to tell him again that she belonged to him, that she was his.
He got to his skinned knees and pulled up his jeans. Before Jenny could do more than push to her elbows, he bent and scooped her into his arms. Juggling her up and over his shoulder, he strode for the living room.
“Ack,” Jenny said, and pinched his butt. “Put me down.”
“In a minute.”
“Right n-ow!” She yelped as he swatted her in retaliation for the pinch.
Derek made it to the couch and tossed her on it. She landed with a solid whump, and he landed on top.
“What are you—” she flailed at him as he calmly gripped her knees, opened her legs, and fitted himself between them.
“Hush.”
Her eyes flashed. “You and your goddamn shushing! No!”
He went nose to nose with her and whispered, “Hush.” He got comfortable, snagged one of her slender wrists and pulled it down between them. He tucked it at the small of her back, and did the same with her other hand.
Her eyes widened as he lowered his weight. She was effectively stuck.
Jenny didn’t make any attempt to move. She also didn’t stay quiet. “Derek, I’ll hush in a minute, but not right this minute, because this is the part where I explain.”
He couldn’t stop the grin from breaking free. She softened under him. “All right,” he said, and rubbed a thumb over the curve of her cheek. “Ladies first. Why?”
“Why…Dean? Or…why Gabe?”
“Why both.”
“I had a plan.”
“Guessed
that much.”
“It didn’t quite work out as I’d hoped.”
“Still not telling me anything I don’t already know.”
Jenny slid a foot restlessly up and down the back of his calf, then squirmed until she’d hitched her leg high over his hip. Just so happening to pop a hand free, which she used to fiddle with his nipple piercing.
She sent him a look from under her lashes.
Derek waited.
“Dean was trying to renegotiate custody of Kate.”
He went rigid.
Jenny grabbed his ears. “I fixed it! I made him back down.”
Derek disengaged her approaching-painful hold on his ears. “Did you? Or did Sterling?”
“I did.” She scowled. “It was a great plan. And then Gabe showed up.”
Derek bit back a smile. He didn’t know why he kept feeling the urge to smile when he was still angry.
Oh, right.
The woman he adored had made wild and passionate love to him, and now lay beneath him, her limbs wrapped around him.
That was why.
“Honestly,” she said, “the whole thing is a crap-load of nonsense. And it’s your fault in the first place.”
“My fault, huh?”
“Yes. For being so irresistibly sexy that I couldn’t say no.” She gave Derek another of those under-the-lashes glances that she had to know he wasn’t going to fall for, ever. “Dean turned up at my door the morning after you first spent the night.”
Derek reared back. “Hansen’s been hanging around for six months?”
Jenny’s cheeks tinged pink and she traced a circle around his nipple piercing, then gripped it and tweaked it. “Um. No. Oops. Not that time. The second time. Couple of weeks ago. Come back here.”
He allowed her to coax him down.
“Dean turned up and Kate mentioned you to him, and that was it. Boom. Green-eyed monster. I have no idea where it came from, no clue at all, but apparently the concept of any other guy in our lives hit Dean with the stupid stick.”
“It cannot have been the biggest surprise to the man.” Derek smoothed her hair back.
“It was, though. Dean said that he didn’t think I was the happily-ever-after type.”
Derek’s brows snapped low. “The hell does that mean?”