by Leslie Kelly
Even with that, she still looked better than any woman ever had to him. And he’d admit that to her about the same time he’d admit he’d once owned a Michael Bolton CD.
“So, life’s a picnic and you’re thrilled as can be. And you came back to Joyful for what?” He tilted one corner of his mouth up into a humorless grin. “To go to a reunion with a bunch of people you told to go straight to hell the day you left?”
She narrowed her eyes. “What would you know about the day I left? You were long gone by then, weren’t you? Probably still driving like a maniac back to college.”
He nearly laughed. No, the day she left he’d been circling Joyful in his old, beat-up pickup. He’d spent the morning after prom contemplating slamming into a tree. It was either that or drive back to her house and kick in the door. Then he’d have demanded to know why she’d felt the need to rip his guts out the night before. Because, by making it perfectly clear that she’d settled for him when she’d really wanted his brother between her pretty white thighs, that’s essentially what she’d done.
“Yeah,” he finally retorted. “While you were busy packing.”
She didn’t deny it, but went quiet, as if thinking about that night. He couldn’t help remembering, either.
He hadn’t shown up in Nick’s stupid, too-tight tux and taken her to the prom with the intention of nailing her. He’d planned to take her arm, let her hold her head up, then walk away, having righted the wrong Nick had done her.
But, no, she’d made him believe she needed more. Hell, any guy would have gone for it when a girl as beautiful as Emma Jean had made it clear she wanted him. Since Johnny had been half-gone on Emma since the first time he’d seen her, he hadn’t thought twice. No question, he’d been a Walker through and through in those days. Hot blood combined with no frigging common sense.
Emma hadn’t, however, been playing by the rules. Because, dammit all, she’d been a virgin. And virgins did not decide to give it up to a guy on the spur of the moment. Which meant she’d planned all along to lose her virginity on prom night.
To his kid brother.
Christ, it still rubbed him raw to think about it. What made it worse was that he and Nick had been close at the time. Two boys who’d raised each other when their workhorse mother wasn’t around and their drunk father didn’t give a shit.
He couldn’t let himself think about Nick too often, now, other than to curse his refusal to be involved in his son’s life. It wasn’t Jack’s fault Daneen had trapped Nick into marriage. Johnny figured Nick must never have forgiven Daneen for costing him Emma. Because, as Johnny had learned, his brother and Emma Jean Frasier had been a lot more serious than anyone ever knew.
A part of him had died that night when Emma had looked up at him with guilt-filled eyes and started crying over her stupid necklace. She’d gone all to pieces over a hunk of dime store, gold-plated jewelry, which had broken when they’d made love.
Nick had given it to her.
Her tears had rushed out while they lay there, still naked, in the gazebo. The look in her eyes when she’d told him Nick had asked her to wear the necklace on their honeymoon—had sent Johnny over the edge.
From mild discomfort to major guilt trip. Combined with a heaping helping of that hot-blooded Walker temper.
He’d already been tearing himself up with regret. Bad enough to have stabbed his kid brother in the back by relieving his girlfriend of her virginity. To find out Nick had planned to marry Emma was worse. The real shocker, though, judging by the way she was crying, was that Emma wanted to marry his brother. Which left Johnny feeling completely sucker-punched.
He’d reacted like any hormonal nineteen-year-old who’d found out the girl of his dreams was in love with a jerk who’d cheated on her. Badly. Meanly. Saying things he wasn’t proud of.
Then he’d left her there, naked and crying, illuminated in the spotlights of a bunch of cars when the rest of the senior class showed up for a late-night, after-prom party.
“Jeez, Johnny, did you even change out of your tux before you headed back to campus?” she asked, interrupting his waltz down the not-so-pleasant lane called Memory.
“You sure you want to go there?” he asked, knowing she heard the challenge in his voice. “You ready to talk about prom night?”
The color rose higher in her cheeks. “No. I want to forget it ever happened. It was one more lousy teenage moment to go into the record book of lousy teenage moments.”
Lousy? Huh-uh. Not on her life. It might have ended badly, but the sex itself had been phenomenal. The best he’d ever had up until that night. Though he could admit it only in the confines of his brain…the best he’d had ever.
That was probably the one and only time he’d made love to someone, rather than just having sex. With Emma Jean, he’d allowed himself to fall into her fantasy and imagine he was the hero she’d thought him to be. He’d wanted to be the stupid, sappy Prince Charming. For a while, there in the gazebo, he had been.
Then they’d both turned into warty green frogs. Him with his temper. Her with her unspoken admission that she’d given it up to the wrong brother.
“You sure have a selective memory, Emma Jean,” he said, leaning toward her across the kitchen table. “Because I somehow doubt ‘lousy’ would have prompted your…shall we say, appreciative and vocal…reaction that night?”
Though she shot him a contemptuous glare, she couldn’t disguise the deepening pinkness in her cheeks. No, Miss Emma didn’t like to be reminded she’d been a screamer.
“I’m all grown-up now, Johnny. And I’ve learned orgasms aren’t gifts that have to be bestowed by small-town studs who like to take off five minutes after they get off.”
He pushed his chair back and stood, stepping closer until he practically towered over her. “Yeah, and I guess you have a lot of experience now to know.”
Professional experience.
Emma tilted her head back and stared up at him, refusing to back away though he knew he was crowding her. Not a bit cowed, she also rose to her feet, until they were practically eye to eye. “That’s none of your damn business.”
Her face was so close, her warm breaths touched his chin. Her tousled, bed-messed hair begged to be tangled between his fingers, brushing his cheeks…or spread across his groin. The image and the sweet, morning smell of her skin proceeded to suck every thought out of his head.
Take a big, giant step back.
He leaned closer. “I have a vested interest when you’re standing here lying like a politician caught with an intern.”
She obviously chose to misunderstand him. “I’m not lying about it being none of your business.”
He gave her a taunting smile. “No. But you’re lying about it being lousy. Admit it, that moment was one for the record books.”
Stubborn to the last, she set her lips in a straight line. “You’re delusional. It wasn’t that great, Johnny.” She gave an exaggerated look of pity. “I don’t blame you, it wasn’t your fault. You were a teenager. Heck, I don’t imagine any teenager could be classified as good.”
Shaking his head, he tsked, letting her see his amusement. Not to mention his determination. “You’re the one deluding yourself,” he told her. “Which I can prove anytime, anywhere.”
Her eyes flashed at his mildly voiced threat, and her lips parted on a quickly sucked-in breath. God, those lips. That mouth. That tiny hitch of a sigh she couldn’t hide.
His threat hadn’t scared her. It had excited her. And with that realization, his last tiny bit of resistance evaporated.
Hot blood. No friggin’ common sense. Just like old times.
Before he even realized he was going to do it, he crowded close to her, and growled, “Like right here, right now.”
CHAPTER SIX
JOHNNY KNEW he’d regret what he was about to do, but he was determined to do it anyway. He didn’t give her time to figure out what he meant. Instead, he showed her. Before she could protest, he slid his fingers into
her short tangle of hair, cupping her head and tugging her mouth to his. She gasped a little, deep in her throat, just before their lips touched. Then the same old spark ignited. He fell into that hot, burning place where thought didn’t exist, only sensation.
Only her.
When she parted her lips, he took full advantage, inhaling her, sweeping his tongue against hers to savor the taste of warm, sweet coffee and hot, sweeter Emma.
In his memories, she’d always tasted like strawberries. Now there was no slick lip gloss. Nor had any tears fallen down her cheeks to make her skin taste salty like it had on prom night. There was only Emma, who had driven him crazy with lust from the first time he’d seen that flash of gold on her ankle when they’d both been practically kids.
She tilted her head, inviting him deeper. He accepted the invitation, his entire body seeming to spark and burn. Hers felt equally hot beneath his hands. He cupped her hip, dropped his other hand down her spine until his fingers brushed the small of her back. She whimpered against his lips, pressing herself hard against him as she slipped her arms around his neck.
“Tell me again how I’m deluding myself,” he muttered as he drew his mouth away from hers to suck in a shaky breath. He didn’t wait for her answer as he bent lower, to taste the hot pulse point on her throat, then the vulnerable spot where her neck met her shoulder.
“You’re deluding yourself,” she mumbled, twisting against him even harder, bringing the vee of her legs in contact with his. Her moan of pleasure drowned out his own.
“So it wasn’t memorable?” he asked, nibbling her collarbone, even as he cupped her waist with his hands, then began to tug her T-shirt free of her shorts.
“No. Completely forgettable,” she replied, as she just as greedily stroked his sides.
“Truly awful, huh?”
“Uh-huh.” She sounded nearly incoherent. “Hate to tell you this, but it really sucked.”
Yeah. Sucked. Now didn’t that bring up a few interesting visuals? He wanted to suck on the tender place at the back of her knee. On the soft skin where her thigh met her ass. On those sweet, pouty nipples pressing hard against the cotton of her shirt. For a start, anyway.
“As bad as it is right now?” he continued. Though almost out of his mind with want for her, he still silently dared her to admit the truth—she’d loved it then. Following her admission, they could proceed to how bad she wanted it now.
“Every bit as bad.”
Picking her up by the waist, he turned around and sat her on the sturdy, butcher block table. He pushed her knees apart and stepped between them. “You make me crazy,” he mumbled. “And you make me want to kiss those lies right out of your mouth.”
“Don’t you dare kiss me again,” she growled back.
Then she made a mockery of her own words by wrapping her fingers in his hair and pulling him down for another kiss. A slow, deep, welcoming one that reminded him of the slow, deep, welcoming way they’d made love in the gazebo.
His hands moved of their own accord, under the loose T-shirt, sliding up her sides. No impediment whatsoever. Her smooth skin tingled under his hands as he edged up and around, tracing patterns on her bare back and her rib cage. Coming closer and closer to the front, until she started to shake and moan.
He really didn’t know how far they might have gone. One second they were on the verge of clothes hitting the floor and him showing her the meaning of the words multiple orgasm all over again, like he had ten years ago. The next there was a ringing sound and Emma Jean was sliding away from him, shimmying back on the table.
“Oh, my God,” she said, looking mortified.
Her eyes were glazed, her mouth full, pouty and swollen. Her shirt was twisted, almost hanging off her shoulder and he could see a faint red mark on her neck where he’d been nibbling on her a few moments before. Her heaved-in breaths made her chest rise and fall until his hands clenched with the need to touch her, cup her, have her.
“What was that?” she finally whispered.
“I think it was the doorbell. And I think I’m going to have to do bodily injury to whoever rang it.”
She glared. “I didn’t mean the doorbell. I mean that.” She pointed to his body, then to hers. “This. Us!”
Her anger and embarrassment finally sunk through the hazy red cloud of lust and satisfaction permeating his brain. Emma still wasn’t ready to admit a thing. Not about their past. Not about what had just happened. Stubborn as ever.
“I think that was called a lousy moment.”
Her face reddened. “You kissed me.”
“You kissed me back.”
She opened her mouth to deny it, then jerked it closed, unable to do so.
“If prom night was a moment, then I guess that kiss happened at the speed of light.” He tsked. “Or maybe not at all.”
“Not at all would have been better.”
“When’d you get to be such a damn liar?”
“When’d you get to be such a damn caveman?”
They were both panting, staring at each other across the width of the table. Emma’s choppy breaths drew his attention back to her loose cotton T-shirt, which had slipped down off one shoulder. The skin there was reddened…from his touch. From her excitement. From the heat sparking around them both. He wanted to kiss the spot, both to soothe away the redness…and to nip at her again because she made him insane, and hot, and ready to lose his mind.
He’d never wanted like this before. Never been stupid with it before—at least not since prom night. Christ, of all times to start acting like a Walker again, it had to be here. Now. With her.
“You think I’m a caveman?” he finally asked, wanting her to admit that, though he’d started it, she’d ended up every bit as much a participant in their embrace as he’d been. “You’re saying I forced you? That you had no active part in this at all?”
Her mouth opened. Closed. Then she nibbled on her bottom lip. Finally she admitted, “Maybe I did. But you were still lousy to do it. You kissed me to try to prove something, and all you proved was that we both have overactive libidos and long-term memory problems.”
He raised an inquisitive brow.
She continued. “Because if there are any two people in the world who have no business kissing on my grandmother’s kitchen table, it’s you and me.”
Her words rushed out, choppy, thick with frustration and anger and maybe even a hint of vulnerability.
It was the vulnerability, combined with the redness on her shoulder and the brightness in her eyes, that made him try to make light of what had been the most explosive moment of his year. “It was just a kiss, Emma Jean. Your grandma’s kitchen table is a hundred years old and I’m sure it’s withstood a lot more.”
She didn’t relax. Instead, she just continued to glare at him until they both flinched at the insistent ringing of the doorbell. Johnny had almost forgotten what had driven them apart to begin with.
Whoever was ringing had apparently grown impatient because the ding-dongs were incessant. “I’ll get it.”
Not waiting for her reply, he turned and went to answer the door. He didn’t want to stand there for one more moment, knowing the spark of righteous indignation in her eye would have him ready to prove something to her all over again.
Like the fact that she was a screamer.
Hearing her clumping along after him within a second or two, he felt a sharp stab of regret for forgetting her injured ankle. “I said I’d get it, Emma Jean,” he said as she followed him out of the kitchen. “Stay there.”
She passed him in the hall, ignoring his command.
When Emma opened the door, Johnny somehow wasn’t surprised to see Claire Deveaux standing outside. Next to her, on the porch, stood her daughter, who was reaching out to jab at the doorbell again with the tip of her index finger.
“Enough, Eve, the door’s open,” Claire said with a sigh.
Eve, a tough little cookie whose daddy doted on her before the whole town, was wearing a pink b
allerina outfit. She looked like she’d rather be wearing a tool belt. Her ferocious frown dared him to make one crack about how pretty she was. He had a feeling if he did, she’d head-butt him in the gut or kick his ankles.
“Oh, my God, Claire!” Emma shrieked. She dropped the cane and threw herself into Claire’s arms, the two of them hugging and jabbering a mile a minute.
The longer they ignored the kid, the more she frowned and pouted. Johnny crouched down until he was face-to-face with her. “My mother used to tell me when I stuck my lip out that far that a bird was going to land on it and peck at my nose.”
She sucked the lip in, catching it between her teeth. Giving him a closemouthed grin, she raised a cocky eyebrow.
He grinned back. “Better.”
“Oh, Claire, is this your baby?” Emma said, staring down at Eve in amazement.
Claire nodded, then put her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “Yes, this is Eve. And she has something to say to you.”
Eve scuffed her little ballet shoe clad foot on the wooden porch and scowled up at her mother.
“Go on,” Claire prompted.
“I’m sorry you fell in the blue stuff I spilled at the store,” she mumbled. The girl sounded as pained at having to apologize as she would have at having to eat a plateful of brussels sprouts.
Johnny chuckled as a look of understanding slowly spread across Emma’s face. She bent down to face the child. “It’s okay, I’m sure you didn’t spill it on purpose. Everybody has accidents.”
Eve’s eyes widened into twin saucers. Then she glared up at her mother. “You said big girls don’t have accidents.”
Claire sighed and shook her head. “We try not to, sugar. And she didn’t mean that kind of accident!”
“She’s adorable,” Emma said as she straightened up to face Claire. “I still can’t believe it. You, a mother.” Then she grinned. “And married. You swore you’d never get married.”
Claire gave her a cheeky grin. “Ahh, ahh, I didn’t say never. Remember the article we read in Cosmopolitan magazine in senior year? I said the only way I’d get married was if I ever found a man who could do that.” She cast a glance at Johnny and her face pinkened.