Take Me Tender

by Christie Ridgway

  She hooked her finger over the edge of his khakis, and drew him closer to her. “I…I don’t know what to say.”

  At the Pearson house the other day, she’d seen her reflection in his eyes. Now she was on his body, inked onto his skin, and she could only think how much she wanted to be in his skin. Her own flesh shivered.

  In the moment, she reminded herself. In the moment, yet in his skin. From the heavy-lidded, suddenly sexy look on his face, she thought he’d go along with the plan.

  On their way to her bedroom upstairs, she remembered the condoms. She snagged them from the lower shelf, nudging aside that bottle of prescription pills and thanking heaven for the three-times-a-week housekeeper who thought of every eventuality for the potential guests who might visit.

  In her second-floor room, the long windows caught every ray of sunlight, making it warm despite the humming air conditioner. Shanna flipped on the lazy overhead fan and then dropped her towel to the white carpet. Jorge moved toward her as if he was fighting molasses to reach her side.

  Or maybe that was just his technique, because he kept it up like that, everything slow, every touch measured, every minute drawn out to its full sixty seconds. At some point they made it to her white sheets and she admired the strength of his body and its tanned contrast to hers.

  The fan ruffled his hair as he leaned over and touched her with hands that were calloused and lean but that could whisper over her skin as if her flesh was as fragile as those transparent bougainvillea blossoms next door. She remembered him holding that sharp-clawed kitten and wondered why it had worked so hard to get away.

  She wanted him to touch her, hold her, forever.

  No! Not forever, but for now. This moment. This loooong moment in the heated room that smelled now of his soap and of her body’s sexual perfume.

  This moment became the next moment and the next and the next and the next. The condom was unwrapped, Jorge was still unhurried, and then…and then…moment upon moment upon moment until Shanna and her quiet, edgy, exciting lover came undone.

  Afterward, she rested her head on his shoulder and traced that tattoo of herself. Her fingernails were short and natural, for the first time in years, thanks to her work next door.

  “What were you thinking when you had this done?” she wondered aloud.

  His hand slid over her hair. “I was young. At that time I wasn’t big on thinking. As you can tell by the trouble those tattoos symbolize.”

  “Is that why you keep them? To remind you of the trouble you left behind?”

  He laughed, and rubbed his chin against the top of her head. Her hair caught in his already-rough beard. “I keep them because I’m afraid of the pain I’ll be in when getting them off.”

  Shanna frowned, trying to determine how she felt about Jorge ridding himself of her image—or of him being inked with it forever.

  Forever! No, that didn’t sound like in-the-moment language. Not at all.

  Jorge’s hand swept over her hair again. “I lied,” he said softly.

  She turned her head, propping her chin on his warm, hard chest to look at his face. “About what?”

  “I remember exactly what I was thinking when I had the artist tattoo you over my heart. That’s the woman, I told myself, who will be my wife and carry my babies.” He smiled, as if indulging the young man who he once had been. “Dumb, eh?”

  She was dumbfounded. And dumb as well. Mute. Because she couldn’t think of a single thing to say in return, not when her mind was only filled with images of things she suddenly wanted more than anything she could remember in a long time. Images she couldn’t put out of her head. Shanna as a man’s wife. Shanna, the mother of a man’s babies.

  Jorge’s wife. Her stomach growing big with the child that would be their future.

  That would be a kind of forever.

  Sixteen

  A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.

  —INGRID BERGMAN, ACTRESS

  When Nikki heard the back door of Jay’s house slide open it was too late to jump from his couch and hide the signs of what she’d been doing. So she stayed where she was, her butt on the cushions, her gaze on her knitting needles, her ear cocked toward the television and the show playing there.

  Scrambling up would only make her appear undignified, agitated, or both, and she was determined to restart her relationship with Jay as something calm and—finally—completely professional now that they’d released the sexual tension that had infused their previous encounters.

  With the house empty for the last several hours, she’d made that her new plan. Except now that she was no longer alone, the way he was just standing there, staring, made her nervous. She didn’t look at him, but she didn’t need to, she could feel his gaze. It rolled across her skin, and in response, each of her tiny hairs stood at anxious attention. Her fingers slipped, and she dropped a stitch.

  Swallowing a curse, she fished it back onto the needle, then shot him a glance, unable to stand the charged quiet a second longer. “What? What?”

  So much for dignity.

  “Just doing a quick systems check,” he said, his voice calm. “And I’m operating on the same wavelength as I was at Gabe’s this morning.”

  Puzzled, she sent him another glance. “Well, uh, good for you.”

  He laughed, though it didn’t sound as if he was much amused. “Anyway, what’s up, cookie? Is that some new method of food preparation I haven’t heard of?”

  “Hah-hah.” She adjusted the bag of frozen vegetables draped over the knee she’d propped onto pillows on the coffee table in front of her. “You said you don’t like peas, so I thought you wouldn’t mind if I put the ones I found in your freezer into service in another capacity.”

  “I like them better now that they’re giving me an excuse to check out so much of your bare legs.”

  She resisted the urge to yank on the hem of the mid-thigh skirt she’d changed into an hour ago. The short length was for practical, not prurient reasons, surely he could see that. It made the cold compress process easier—not to mention how it saved her from having to shuck a pair of pants anywhere near where he lived and breathed. That was part of history now—and better left there.

  Jay took a seat on the coffee table beside her foot, facing her. He tweaked her big toe. “I didn’t hurt you last night, did I?”

  “What?” Her face burning, her hands stilled on her knitting even as she registered a delicious twinge at the tender space between her thighs. “No. Of course not. My knee is an old injury.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I taxed it last night rushing away from that beach party, and then this morning after you left I went for a walk on the beach while I was waiting for the bread to rise. I twisted it in the sand.” She was usually more careful, but once she’d kneaded her dough into submission, her head was still teeming with memories that hadn’t yet cleared. “In a few minutes I’ll be good to go and can finish the dinner prep.”

  “Don’t rush.” He switched seats, taking a spot next to her on the couch.

  Did he notice how she inched away from him? She hoped he’d get the hint.

  His shoulder nudged hers. “What kind of injury is it?”

  “ACL.” Edging away again, she figured that brief answer would be sufficient. He was a guy, and damage to the anterior cruciate ligament was a common injury among pro football players, she’d learned from her time in the waiting rooms of orthopedists.

  “Damn that defensive line,” he said, proving he knew exactly what she was talking about. When an athlete, say like a running back, took a hit that caused him to pivot in a direction different from his planted feet, the trauma could damage one of the ligaments connecting the femur and the tibia. “Tell me you at least made the first ten yards.”

  “It was the game-winning touchdown, actually. The crowd’s reaction was insane.”

  He chuckled. “Nice to know you went out in a blaze of glory, cookie. I wouldn’t doub
t it for a minute.”

  Nice to know she could bamboozle him when she wanted. Twelve years ago, it hadn’t been a blaze of glory but a blaze of pain—followed by that life-altering lesson in what could go wrong when you got too needy.

  “Not a complete tear, then?” he asked. “Since you haven’t had surgery.”

  “Mmm.” He knew more than most, darn it. A complete tear, when the ACL was actually severed, almost always required reconstructive repair. Without it, her doctors said, a person’s activity level should only be limited to walking and “maybe” golf. She hated golf.

  But she loved working in restaurants, and cooking full-time for one was more strenuous than eighteen holes on a three-par course. Every orthopedist she’d seen had recommended a surgical procedure that wasn’t just of the two-teeny-holes-and-get-up-in-an-hour variety. What she required was a reconstruction of the knee that meant opening it up and harvesting part of her patella tendon as a replacement for the severed ACL. Then there was the drilling into bone, the grafting, and the stapling it all back together, followed by an overnight-or-two stay and weeks of limited mobility. Months of physical therapy.

  For a woman who was scared spitless of hospitals since her mother’s death and who was without the human support system to make it through a lengthy convalescence…well, she was living with her bum knee.

  As well as with the ridiculous attraction she still felt for the man beside her, apparently. He’d eased closer, his upper arm against hers and the fabric of his jeans soft against the naked flesh of her good leg.

  She shivered.

  He glanced over. “Cold?”

  “Um, yeah. You know, the ice…” She was getting good at this fibbing stuff. Because he bought it again, going so far as to drag that crocheted throw folded over the sofa arm across the two of them.

  Her needles stuck in the blanket and he obligingly reached under it to help her untangle them.

  She gasped, and pulled her knitting free. “Do you mind?”

  “What?”

  Oh, he was so bad at the innocent look. Or just so bad, period. “That’s, um, my thigh you’re playing Pat the Bunny with.”

  He grinned. “Darn. Bunny wasn’t the animal I was going after.”

  Squirming, she adjusted her needles and ball of yarn to avoid his laughing, charming, knowing eyes. Damn man. Did he enjoy flustering her? Did he know she was definitely not interested in him any longer—despite whatever her pounding pulse and clenching…bunny were saying? What an ego rush he’d get from that!

  But Jay was not going to know he still held residual power over her. It was supposed to be a one-night-only thing, and she was going to stick to the rules they’d tacitly agreed upon.

  Maybe he was of the same frame of mind, because he suddenly switched subjects. “What are you making there?” he asked.

  A fool of herself, she worried, despite the neutral turn to the conversation. Between the stupid blanket and his maddening closeness, she was hot and her skin so sensitive. When he breathed, it caused the sleeve of his T-shirt to brush against her bare arm, making sure her goose bumps got goose bumps.

  And her breath, she didn’t have enough of that. She was supposed to be putting last night behind her, but memories of the way he’d felt against her, the way he’d kissed and touched her, kept stealing into her head and under her skin and then robbing all the oxygen from her lungs.

  He had to know.

  He couldn’t know. She couldn’t let him know.

  She just had to find her famous detachment.

  Jay grabbed the dangling end of her piece of knitting and wiggled it to get her attention. “So what is this?” he asked again. “Are you knitting something special?”

  “Well…” She looked down at the rectangular swatch. There was still that kerchief to complete, but she was playing with this yarn instead, its color the exact down-to-business blue of Jay’s eyes.

  “Because I could use a sweater,” he said.

  “No!” The word rushed out of her mouth, too loud and too fast, and she cleared her throat and tried again. “No, I’m not up to sweaters yet.”

  Not to mention that little piece of conventional wisdom she’d learned at the Tuesday Night Knitters’ Club. The Curse of the Boyfriend Sweater, she remembered the women calling it. No guy lasted for the length of time it took to start and finish such a labor of love.

  Though, hey, she was used to that, she mused. No one stuck by her. Certainly pro-bachelor Jay wasn’t interested in that, anyway.

  “All right,” he said. “I give up.” In another sudden mood change, he grabbed the needles and yarn from her hands and tossed them on the table. “I’m done trying to warm you up the slow way, cookie.”

  Startled, she looked over at him. “What?”

  But his only answer was to capture her chin in his long fingers and hold her like that as he closed in for a kiss. His mouth was hot and impatient, but she found she was impatient, too, and she opened her lips so he could sweep his tongue inside.

  He groaned, as if she’d offered food and he hadn’t eaten all day. Her body trembled and he drew her closer, the frozen peas sliding off her knee as he turned her into him.

  It was last night all over again. Jay surrounding her with his touch, his taste, his relentless maleness that overpowered her senses. She closed her eyes and let herself be taken up and taken over.

  Then he tore his mouth from hers. “Damn.”

  She jerked back. Damn was right. She knew better than this. She’d made a plan this morning. Calm and professional. Her face burned and she started to babble. “Sorry, sorry. We had rules, didn’t we? An agreement it was just the one night?” Her hand went to her mouth.

  He snatched it away and swooped in for another hard kiss. “Damn, cookie, Fern just came in the front door.”

  “Oh.” Oh. Thank goodness his hearing was better than hers. She leaned over to retrieve the fallen peas, taking the wool throw with her.

  Jay snatched it back, arranging it over his lap and then hers. “Need a little, uh, camouflage.”

  When Fern wandered into the living room a few moments later, they were two grown-ups, feet propped on the coffee table, watching television together.

  The teenager glanced at the screen, then gave them a sharp look. “Cartoons?”

  Nikki stared at the TV, finally focused on it, and then froze. Animated characters were dancing around the screen, ponies and stars and unicorns. She’d never seen them before in her life. “Urp.”

  The bleat seemed to galvanize Jay, who looked as if he was trying not to laugh. He made a hasty pat of the cushions, then lifted up to produce the remote from beneath him. “Nikki’s favorite show,” he said, as he flipped his thumb and a news channel took over. “But, cookie, I’m sorry. I require something more stimulating.”

  Fern regarded them for another moment. “You guys are so weird.” Then she turned toward the stairs and disappeared.

  Nikki managed to glare at the man. “Remember, those pastel ponies are my favorite.” She whacked his arm. “Thanks a lot.”

  Laughing, he captured her loose fist. Then he slid lower on the sofa cushions, her hand still in his. “Hey, I’m rehabilitating my rep, here. Wouldn’t do to be Peter Pan in the morning and a watcher of syrupy cartoons in the afternoon.” He kissed the top of her knuckles. “Now settle down and put your head right here.”

  “Right here” was his shoulder. He patted it again, his expectant gaze trained on her face.

  She wanted her hand back. Her sanity. The way things had been before she’d ever met him.

  Like when sex had left her as cold as the peas on her knee?

  “Jay…” Surrendering, Nikki flopped back on the couch and didn’t protest as he pulled her into place against him.

  “Nikki…” he mimicked in a gentle voice. “Just shut up.”

  And she did. She didn’t know why—well, she knew why, and she also knew it wasn’t her best idea—but she let herself lean against his body. When was the last ti
me she’d had someone else to hold her up?

  The newscaster droned on about gasoline prices and other economic indicators. Outside the blanket covering their laps, Jay held her one hand in the loose grasp of his. And though Nikki was a bit too warm and a bit too aware of him, she found herself relaxing against his body.

  But this was Hef Junior, and so she should have known the restfulness wouldn’t last. Under the daffodil-yellow throw, his free hand brushed her bare leg.

  She automatically moved away.

  He, naturally, moved in again.

  Her gaze cut sideways. His was glued to the TV. A finger wandered higher.

  Nikki gulped. “Jay—”

  “Shh,” he said, still looking at the screen. “I’m interested in this.”

  But a few seconds later, she had to wonder what “this” was that interested him so. The man, the naughty man, was drawing designs on her upper thigh with his forefinger. Tic tac toe, dirty words, maybe even calculus equations, she didn’t know. She couldn’t think. The plan she’d come up with that morning evaporated in the heat of renewed lust.

  Her heart was slamming against her chest, and surely he could hear its thundering beat, but he stared straight ahead as he caught at her inner thigh and drew her good knee up and over his hard leg. The hem of her skirt went along for the ride, hitching high, nearly to her hips.

  She made another urp sound again, but the newscaster was onto baseball scores now and Jay was watching the highlights with half-closed eyes as he approached third base. The pad of his forefinger played with the elastic edge of her panties.

  Nikki flashed hot and chills rushed down the inside of her legs. If he moved an inch, he’d know everything his touch did to her. “I don’t think, um…”

  “Oh, lighten up and let’s play, cookie.”

  Play. Of course that’s what he wanted, nothing more scary or permanent than a game. She shouldn’t be afraid of something like play. And she wasn’t afraid of…anything. With his hand so close to her throbbing center, all she could think was what was wrong with recreation and why was she fighting it so hard?