by Jan Feed
“Imagining?” Her voice sounded scratchy.
They’d reached his pickup truck, parked on a dark side street.
He faced her and said roughly, “You.”
“Oh.”
Brilliant, she chided herself, feeling the flush of embarrassment in her cheeks. Way to flirt.
He grunted. “It makes me feel cheap to be turned on by naked bodies on a movie screen.”
Jo drew a deep breath. “Is that the only reason you’re turned on?”
“You know it isn’t.” He sounded ticked. “I’m trying to be patient. Not push you.”
Cheeks now flaming hot, which thank heavens he couldn’t see, Jo said in a small voice, “I was beginning to think you didn’t, um, want me.”
She felt him jerk.
“What?”
“If you’d like to be just friends…” she began.
His fingers bit into her upper arms. “That’s not quite what I had in mind.”
She moistened her lips and whispered, “Then…then what did you have in mind?”
His head bent so fast she didn’t see it coming, his mouth capturing hers with the ferocity that had always been missing. Her knees buckled, but he yanked her against him so tightly she felt the erection he’d already admitted to having. His tongue slid against hers in a primitive rhythm that brought a whimper from her throat.
Groaning in turn, he lifted his head, hands stilling on her.
“Will you come home with me?”
She tried to speak and failed; nodded.
“You’re sure?”
This time, she managed a squeaky, “Yes.”
“All right.” Ryan shoved a hand in his jeans pocket and swore, presumably because they fit more tightly than they had when he’d put the keys there. A moment later, he had the passenger door unlocked and was giving her a hand up.
A hand that lingered on her buttock.
Warmth pooled in her belly. He had a nice big pickup truck. Bucket seats, sure, but they could manage. She fantasized about how as he circled the hood, unlocked his side and swung himself up behind the wheel.
On the other hand, he did live only a couple of miles away, in a charming old house near Greenlake. He’d made dinner for her once there, steaks and baked potatoes, apologizing for his unsophisticated cooking skills. She’d wondered about his bedroom upstairs, which he hadn’t offered to show her.
Without a word he started the engine, giving it enough gas so that it awakened with a roar. Jo sat quietly in the dark cab, more nervous now that she was getting what she wanted than she could ever remember being.
It wasn’t like he would be her first lover, or even her second or third. In her angry, rebellious phase in high school, she’d flaunted a twenty-year-old boyfriend who her father had hated—not for the reasons she’d wanted him to hate Greg, of course. Not because he’d hated to see his little girl’s innocence lost, or feared she’d get hurt, or thought she could do better. No, Dad had detested Greg because his jacked-up beater of a car made too much goddamn noise when he brought her home in the middle of the night, because the punk called all the damn time, because what would the neighbors think when they saw his ragged, gang-colored clothes?
By college she’d had slightly more sense, but not much. Then at least she chose a boyfriend because he met needs more personal than that of irritating her father, although Jo could see in retrospect that unfortunately she hadn’t understood her own needs. She could forgive herself, though; what college student did?
Since then she’d dated regularly and had two relationships that lasted a year or more. Both had died with a whimper, one because they both lost interest, one because he wanted to “take it to the next step.” He indicated as much when he went on one knee and offered her a diamond engagement ring even though he knew quite well how she felt about marriage. Jo could still remember her shock and the flutter of something like panic in her breast.
But not even when she was a foolish sixteen-year-old embarking on something she didn’t understand and wasn’t ready for had she felt so nervous that her palms sweated and her heart drummed and her breath came in shallow gasps she kept quiet with an effort.
Always before, she had felt sure of herself, protected by a shell of indifference she told herself was her birthright. Why should she give a damn what anyone thought about her? She would create a fulfilling life without depending on another person. Just like Aunt Julia. She didn’t need George, or the senator, or anyone else.
Unfortunately, right this minute, what she felt toward Ryan was too close to need. That was what bothered her, Jo realized. She would have preferred a mood that said, This will be fun, but if I change my mind before we get to his house, no big deal.
She wasn’t changing her mind. Jo wanted too badly to know what his hands would feel like stroking her body. Whether he would be tender or aggressively ardent. Whether he’d make her laugh or whimper with need or both. She wanted to see him without clothes, to rub her cheek on his chest, to make him moan with a small touch or a nip.
Jo didn’t like knowing how very much she wanted all of that, and more.
“I took Pirate to Ginny’s classroom today,” she said loudly.
Ryan’s head turned sharply. “What?”
“Helen couldn’t go, and Ginny wanted to take Pirate to show-and-tell. It seemed to mean a lot to her, so Emma and I took him.”
Okay. Why was she telling him this? Now, of all times?
To fill the silence, maybe. To block herself from further troubling reflections. To ward off nervousness.
Or was it because she wanted him to know that she’d done a good deed?
His mouth softened, she saw under a passing streetlight. “Was our Pirate a hit?”
“Big-time.” She told him about Ginny’s quiet pride. “I don’t think she has any friends at school. Not that one cool show-and-tell can turn the tide…”
“You never know.” He turned onto his street. “They’re six-year-olds. A new toy gives you status. A kitten with a patch over one eye could turn you into a princess, for all I know.”
Jo doubted it would be that easy for poor Ginny, but she didn’t say so. Couldn’t have, even if she’d wanted to, because Ryan was pulling into the narrow driveway of his house. Her mouth went dry when the pickup stopped and he reached for the key in the ignition, killing the engine.
For a moment they sat in silence, neither moving.
Jo squeezed her hands together. “Do you have any, um…”
“Yeah. I bought some a couple of weeks ago.” He paused. “Hoping.”
Jo nodded.
He made a sound that might have been a laugh. “Am I the only one who’s nervous?”
She bit her lip. “No.” Shyly she looked at him. “I didn’t think you’d be.”
“You know, you’re the first woman since my divorce. I’ve dated, but, uh, never gone any further.”
“Why?”
Hands still loosely clasping the steering wheel, he furrowed his brow and stared straight ahead, at his closed garage door and the basketball hoop that hung above it. “Just didn’t feel the urge.” He shifted uncomfortably. “Maybe I was married too long, but it seems to me that sex is more than tearing off your clothes. I guess I thought I’d be exposing more than I wanted to expose, just to scratch some kind of itch.”
Jo gazed at him in wonder. A man who didn’t see sex as a sport akin to a good game of one-on-one down at the gym. Sweaty, competitive, ultimately triumphant, and forgotten by the next game. What kind of idiot was his wife?
“Damn it,” he growled suddenly, “I sound sensitive. I wouldn’t have had a friend in high school if anyone had heard me talking like this.”
Jo giggled, then clapped her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry! I’m not…”
He stiffened. “Laughing at me?”
“No!” Another giggle erupted from her belly. “Just…just at the idea of you sitting on the locker room bench telling a bunch of macho seventeen-year-olds with nothing but t
owels wrapped around their waists that sex goes deeper than scratching an itch. I just—” another hiccup of laughter “—just had this picture of everyone freezing, then turning to stare at you with complete incredulity.”
He muttered an obscenity. “At that age, I would have stared incredulously at some pantywaist who said something like that. Hell, I was busy trying to get down my girlfriend’s pants.”
Relaxed at last, able to enjoy herself, Jo asked, “Did you?”
Ryan grinned wickedly. “Oh, yeah.” The smile faded from his mouth. “So, are you going to tell me whether you’re nervous?”
“I was. Terrified, actually,” Jo confessed. “Laughing helped.”
“Good.” His voice became grittier and he lifted a hand to touch her cheek. “Then what say we actually go inside?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
RYAN COULDN’T BELIEVE that he was getting so lucky. Exultation rose in his chest, hot and fierce. He’d wanted Jo Dubray from the first time he saw her, sitting at his sister’s kitchen table, petite, intense, fiery.
Wanting had long since metamorphosed into something more complex. She intrigued him with her passionate defenses of ideals and her icy memories of her childhood and her little-girl shyness mixed with all-grown-up boldness. She insisted she didn’t want children, but then she did things like take an afternoon to please Hummingbird. She worried about Emma, stood up to his sister, the queen, and wielded a circular saw with the best of ’em. She was smart, funny, sweeter than she wanted to let on and sexy.
And she’d agreed to come home with him. He wasn’t sure he deserved her, but he was damn glad she was here.
Barely inside the front door, Ryan turned her to face him. She slipped into his arms so naturally, he could tell she’d been waiting for him to reach for her.
“The last time you were here, I had a hell of a time keeping my hands off you.”
She peeked up at him, those huge brown eyes shy again. “Really?”
“What was it, our third or fourth date? I wanted to throw you over my shoulder and haul you upstairs to my bedroom.” He cradled her chin, enjoying the delicacy of her bone structure.
“I might not have minded,” she confessed.
“Might?” His thumb wandered over her lower lip.
“Wouldn’t,” Jo whispered, her lashes sweeping down as she tipped her chin up, as languorous as if she felt the sun’s warmth.
How could he not kiss her? And keep kissing her, once he tasted her again, felt the tremor of response run through her lithe body, slid his hand into the thick satin of her chocolate-brown hair?
He surfaced to realize that their coats had dropped to the floor and he was peeling her snug sweater over her head. At this speed they wouldn’t make it upstairs. Excusable on his part—damn, it had been a long time—but he wanted to make this good for her. So good, she’d come back for more.
Still, he finished pulling her sweater off. When he dropped it to the hardwood floor, she shook her head to shake her hair from her face. It shimmered, a gleaming deep brown curtain shot with brighter threads of auburn, and settled smoothly in place. Fascinated, Ryan plunged his hand into her hair again, feeling it slip between his fingers with the silken ease of water.
His voice sounded raw. “You have gorgeous hair.”
She shrugged indifferently. “It’s brown.”
“Not just brown. It’s like beautifully finished mahogany. You want to touch it, feel the grain, the warmth, the life that’s somehow still in it.”
Her eyes smiled. “You’re poetic.”
“Despite the angst-ridden stuff I wrote in high school, I’ve never been much good with words.” An adequate student, he hadn’t cared enough about future perfect verb tenses or algebraic formulas. He’d wanted to build, to create seamless joinings of old wood with new. He’d wanted to be able to touch what he made.
“But that was nice.” Her small hand caressed his face. “The first time I saw you, I didn’t see how you could be single. You’re too sexy.”
He turned his head enough to kiss her palm. “Thank you,” he said huskily.
“I didn’t know then,” this smile curved her mouth with mischief, “that you were sensitive, too.”
His laugh was half groan. “My mouth always did get me in trouble.”
“If you kissed other girls the way you do me, I can see why,” Jo murmured, standing on tiptoe to nibble at his jaw.
He kissed her again, of course, with hunger that stunned him. How had he lived without this? Without her?
She tugged at his shirt and he wrenched it off before returning to a kiss that could go on forever, as far as he was concerned. Two feet closer to the stairs, he flicked the catch of her bra and lifted his head to see her small, perfect breasts, paler than the ivory of her throat and chest, tipped with taut nipples.
“We’re not going to get upstairs,” he said thickly.
Her eyes were wide and cloudy. “Does it matter?”
“Yes.” Her breasts fit the palms of his hands as if sized for him, neither spilling over nor feeling skimpy. Their plump, satiny texture heated his blood. “Yes, damn it.” He sounded like someone else. Felt like someone unfamiliar to his mundane self.
Back arched, eyes closed, head back, she asked throatily, “Why?”
“I want you on my bed.” He’d fantasized enough nights about having her there; by God, he’d fulfill his fantasy. “Hold on.”
He lifted her effortlessly. She really was a small woman, although her legs were plenty long to wrap around his waist, her arms strong enough to hold on, her smile deliciously sultry.
“Oooh,” she cooed. “This is fun.”
“Yeah.” A primal grin tugged at his mouth. “It is.”
They left her bra and sweater, his shirt, scattered across the foyer. He mounted the stairs two at a time, pausing only a couple of times for kisses that made him drunker than swallows of cognac would have.
The roof of his house narrowed to a peak, and this floor held only two bedrooms, an unfinished space with little headroom and the small bath he’d created from a closet. One bedroom was for the kids, when they visited. His was the larger, with slanted ceiling and dormer window, a chest of drawers built in where the ceiling dipped toward the floor. White plaster walls were stark, the furnishings simple antique pieces. He’d morosely thought of it as a monk’s cell these past two years.
No longer, as he strode across the hardwood floor. He let her fall onto the bed, following her down but catching his weight on forearms he braced to each side of her. Hair tousled around it, her delicate face was flushed, her eyes sparkling, as she laughed up at him.
“Very impressive,” she teased.
Ryan moved deliberately against her. “You think so?”
Her thighs parted and her hips rose as if instinctively to accommodate him. “Umm. I do.”
“Good,” he said roughly.
He made love to her with all the patience he could muster. Patience that eroded as he explored her body, from her slender, pale rib cage to boyishly narrow hips and legs that were slim and well muscled. Even her toes intrigued him. He doubted she’d ever bothered to paint her toenails or use a peppermint foot scrub or any of the other damn things his ex did. Wendy’s feet hadn’t been half as sexy. He kissed the arch of Jo’s foot and grinned at the way her toes curled and she giggled.
“I’m ticklish.”
“I can tell.” Just once, he taunted her with another kiss before he moved back up her slim calf.
By the time he settled between her thighs and slowly pressed into her, they’d both quit laughing. “Ryan?” she whispered, grabbing at his shoulders as if she feared she were falling.
Buried deep in her, he had to grit his teeth to pause. “Am I hurting you?”
“No. Oh, no.” She tugged his head down for an open-mouthed kiss.
He began moving again, slowly, loving the way her hips rose to meet him and her legs wrapped his waist. The thick silk of her hair spread on his pillow just the way h
e’d dreamed, and her eyes had a dazed look even as her gaze stayed fastened to his face as if she saw nothing else.
The pace quickened; they rolled briefly, so that she sat astride, her whole body arched like a drawn bow, before he rolled her again so that he could drive harder, faster, more desperately. Her deep tremors and exultant sob yanked him over the finish line, too. By the time he was done, collapsed on her, Ryan felt as if he’d been turned inside out.
“That was…heaven,” she murmured.
She sounded as sated as he felt, each word coming so slowly he guessed she was having to dredge deep to find it. But there was joy in her voice, too.
Ryan rolled onto his side, taking her with him. “Felt like it to me,” he agreed, inhaling the sweet scent of her hair.
“We’ll have to go see dirty movies every night.”
“Or not.”
“Oh, good,” she said contentedly. “I hated that movie.”
He traced her spine from neck to the small of her back with the heel of his hand. “Sex is a hell of a lot more fun to do than to watch.”
“Um.” Jo lifted her head, shoved her hair back from her face and gave him a radiant smile. “I just didn’t know how much fun.”
His hand was exploring the contour of her butt. “Want to do it again?”
Her eyes widened. “Can we?”
He’d never felt younger and more virile. “Oh, yeah. I think so.”
“Bragging, are you?” This smile teased, before she ducked her head and kissed his chest, rubbing her cheek against his flat nipple.
“Well, if you’d rather not…” He tightened his stomach muscles as if he were about to sit up.
Jo gave him a firm push back down. “I’d like to. Brag all you want to. Just—” she licked his nipple “—so that your performance measures up.”
With her help, ‘up’ was where he was going. Ryan just grinned and lay back to let her work. He always had been a man of action rather than words.
OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF WEEKS, Jo was blissfully, absurdly happy. As much fun as tiling the bathroom had been, she’d turned down Ryan’s offer of a job. Instead, she was working part-time in the university undergraduate library. When she wasn’t there or in class, it seemed she was with Ryan. Evenings, he either hung out at the old Ravenna neighborhood house or she was at his. More often the latter, so that they could make love. She was embarrassed at how often she’d switched her night for cooking or opted out of dinners Kathleen or Helen had made.