16 Marsden Place

by Rachel Brimble

  Sienna held up a glass of white wine outside the window and pulled her face into a goofy expression.

  Jack laughed. “What?”

  “Get your butt out here,” she shouted. “I’ve plenty of brushes we can use in the garage. Leave that one to ruin. I don’t care. Come on. It’s a gorgeous evening.”

  He didn’t need telling twice. Especially seeing she’d not pulled that damn T-shirt out of its knot yet. Tossing everything into the sink, Jack filled it with warm water and rushed outside like a prepubescent teenager about to cop his first feel of a breast.

  She offered him the wine. “Dusk is falling, Blue Eyes. Why don’t we sit on the swing and watch the sun go down? After that, I might think about buying you takeout to say thanks for all your hard work.”

  Jack clinked his glass to hers. “Sounds like a plan.”

  They walked to a long three-seater swing, and Jack lowered into it beside her; the swing moved softly backwards. He stared ahead at the horizon. “Wow.”

  The sky bled into the shades of pink and purple that now covered Sienna’s shop walls, blurring the line where the sky ended and the sheep-dotted hills began.

  “And my mother wonders why I won’t leave,” Sienna whispered.

  Jack took a sip of wine, controlling the need to take her hand, which lay so tantalizingly close to his. She appeared so delicate but was a damn firecracker inside. The combination was irresistible. He liked her, admired her, and feared her in equal measure. Her eyes told him she felt the same way, but there was a barrage of reasons for them not to overstep this silent mark of friendship. It was as though Martina, the girls, his mother-in-law, even Sienna’s dead father all stood between them, telling them to behave, to maintain control, to not touch each other or sit together in the twilight as they were.

  Was that fair? Was it what she wanted? What he wanted?

  “Sienna—”

  “Jack—”

  They laughed as their spoken names blended into one in the soft silence.

  Jack nodded. “You go first.”

  She exhaled. “I just wanted to say I’m happy you’re here. I’m even happier you’ve decided to trust me and not quarrel about the shop anymore. I won’t let you down. I never let anyone down if I can help it.”

  “I believe you.”

  She smiled. “Good. I know I said I don’t do kids, but your two…” She shook her head. “Your two are kind of special.”

  “They are, huh?” As he grinned, a faint blush colored her cheeks.

  “Yep, somehow the pair of them have snuck under my armor. I’m not happy about it, but there you are.”

  “Well, if it’s any conciliation, they like you, too. A lot.” He took a sip of wine as the panic of the other night flashed through his heart. “I have never known Katy to do anything like leave the house on her own. Not even when things were bad with Martina.”

  Sienna frowned. “But wouldn’t the girls have only been two by the time she walked out? Katy couldn’t have left the house at that age even if she’d wanted to.”

  “You don’t know kids, do you?”

  Her cheeks grew redder. “What does that mean?”

  Touching her forearm, he said, “Hey, it’s not an attack. Just before we split up, I came home from work one night to find Martina slumped on the settee, half-drunk. The front door was wide open. Either one of the girls would’ve wandered out of there eventually without thinking twice.”

  “God, Jack.” She cupped her hand to his jaw. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that kind of worry.”

  The air all around them fell silent. Jack’s heart pounded in his ears as he studied Sienna’s beautiful face. Before he could stop himself, he put his drink down on the low table in front of them and slid his hand across the length of thigh revealed beneath her short skirt. Her breath caught, but he kissed her anyway. Every nuance of tension left his body and drained away, leaving him unable to think or care about anything but Sienna.

  He gripped her soft skin, increased the pressure of his kiss. She seemed to tense up with hesitation, but Jack kissed her deeper. After another beat of his heart, her body slumped against him as though defeated, and the tip of her tongue found his. Jack poured his entire being into that kiss, let her know he meant it, that she mattered.

  Who knew if this would happen again? If, when they drew away, she’d tell him he’d lost his mind and he’d tell her the same.

  The clink of her glass on the table and the feel of her hand coming up to grip the back of his neck spoke volumes. Her fingers scored up his nape and into his hair, fanning the flames of desire ripping through his body. He’d forgotten about this…need, desire, rush of want. Sobriety wasn’t going to come any time soon, and he hoped the hangover wouldn’t be too harsh to handle.

  Kissing her deeper, he took more of what he wanted. Her thigh was hot beneath his hand as he inched it over the curve, moving between her legs. Her lips left his on a gasp.

  Her eyes were closed as she tipped her head back, revealing that damn sexy neck as his for the taking. He leaned forward to discover and taste the barely-there scent of perfume she must have sprayed on naked and alone that morning. That notion sent his senses soaring, his need rushing. He caressed the soft silken skin inside her leg.

  His cock ached under its tightened restraint of denim as Sienna trembled. Jack hesitated. He wanted to go further, discover more of this amazing woman who lived next door, but he wouldn’t unless…

  “Touch me, Jack,” she sighed.

  He lifted his head from her neck. Her huge brown eyes were glazed with lust but totally aware and beautiful.

  “This is crazy,” he said, the need for her winding tightly inside his gut.

  “That’s why I’m not going to think. We can think anytime. Not now.”

  So he plunged his tongue into her mouth, and she welcomed it. Her lips were soft like silk but firm. Jack held her tighter as she kissed him back with a ferocity that seemed to demand more. Keen to oblige, he slid his fingers inside her panties, felt the smooth slick of moisture and lost his mind. She groaned, and he moved back, wanting to see her, needing to see if she wanted him as much as he did her.

  Her eyes were closed to his scrutiny, but she clutched one of her breasts in her hand, her mouth open. Jack couldn’t remember seeing a woman so confident in her sexuality. So open, bare, raw. She trusted him—in that moment, it was as clear as if she’d said the words. They were alone, and whatever happened, this would be their memory.

  Returning to feast on her neck, Jack massaged her hardened nub, and she writhed against him, inviting him inside. Squeezing his eyes shut, the urge to satisfy her, to have her call out his name in the quiet semi-darkness rose up inside him. His erection actually hurt; he couldn’t remember wanting a woman so much or feeling such urgency of a woman wanting him.

  With one hand gripping her neck, he plunged two fingers deep inside her. Her heavy lids opened and her mouth dropped wide. Her harried breathing was like an airborne aphrodisiac coursing through the pores of Jack’s skin and into his blood. He was in over his head, and he gritted his teeth to control his own desire to come right then and there.

  She was his for the taking. He rubbed and pushed, massaged and teased. Her excitement slipped between his fingers, and Jack’s need to have Sienna pummeled through him at a hundred miles an hour—this woman could make him live again.

  “Jack, I’m going to come.”

  Pride surged through him. “Do it. Let yourself, Sienna. I want you to.”

  She reached for his zipper, but he trapped her hand there. “No, this is about you. I want you to take it all. There will be other times. God, let there be other times.” The breath left his lungs.

  “Oh, God.”

  Her hand dropped from her breast to grip the cushion beside her. Her other hand clutched his bicep as her muscles tightened around his fingers. Jack kissed her, silently telling her he was so very, very afraid but so damn loath to ever leave her alone again. The shudder of her o
rgasm was all the permission he needed to stay. Right there. With her.

  Sienna sat back in Jack’s arms as the night closed in around them. Their half-empty takeout dishes lay strewn across the table by their knees, their plates wiped clean, and their bellies full. She couldn’t remember feeling so scared yet liberated. The fact she’d shimmied back into Jack’s arms so carelessly and he’d drawn his legs over hers as though they did this every night was neither lost on her nor taken for granted.

  Were they together now? A couple?

  She wrinkled her nose. God, he’d just brought her to orgasm, and now she debated whether they were together or not. What sort of woman was she? He might have had his arms around her body, his warm, soft lips nibbling her ear at the moment…but tomorrow? Tomorrow was going to be damn awkward when the twins came home and fatherhood slammed Ol’ Blue Eyes back to reality.

  “I know what you’re thinking, you know.” His breath whispered along her earlobe.

  Sienna shivered involuntarily and smiled. “What are you? A mind reader now?”

  “No, but I feel as though I’ve known you for three years rather than three weeks.”

  Three weeks? She’d let a guy massage her to orgasm, in the open air of her back porch, and she’d only known him three weeks?

  “Please, don’t say that out loud.” Covering her face, she groaned into her hands. “That makes me sound like such a cheap—”

  “Sexy. Gloriously sexy woman.” Jack kissed the sensitized skin just beneath her earlobe and continued lower. “It makes you a woman who coerced a guy out of his blackened, doomed, and pessimistic world. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

  Sienna’s nipples leapt to attention when he teased his teeth and tongue over her shoulder. His hand gently caressed her breast through her T-shirt.

  “Jack, stop.”

  He froze, his hand still at her breast, his lips still on her shoulder. She hadn’t meant to sound so abrupt, so cold, but it had come out into the night air like a warning. His hand slowly slipped away, and he sat back yet pulled her with him, his hand smoothing up and down her upper arm instead.

  “I know what this looks like, Sienna, but I’m not the kind of man who…gets physical with a woman and then tosses her aside. I promise.”

  She offered a coy smirk. “I’m not the kind of woman who goes around letting men do what you just did either.”

  Pressing a kiss to her hair, he said, “Good.”

  “But this…thing between us is moving at the rate of a freight train, and I need to catch my breath, okay?”

  Silence. Doubt over what she meant to him—and fear of what he could come to mean to her—beat like a drum inside Sienna’s chest. Jack’s children set the pace even higher.

  “You’re right,” he eventually replied. His fingers gripped her arms, and he gently eased her forward so he could swing his legs around and sit up. “I haven’t a clue what we’re supposed to do next either. I didn’t expect this to happen. Not at all. At the same time, now it’s happening, I feel as though we need to ride with it.”

  Sienna turned to sit beside him, and they stared into the darkness. “I’m not saying no, but…I don’t know if I’ll be any good at this. I don’t know if I can let you in and certainly don’t know if I can let Holly and Katy in. I have…stuff going on.”

  He huffed out a laugh. “You say that like I don’t.”

  Sienna looked at him. “I know about your stuff. You don’t know about mine.”

  “Are you talking about your dad?”

  Sienna lifted her shoulders. “Partly…maybe. When he died, I changed. I loved him more than life itself, so the fear of losing Mum as well, of not being there for her, kind of took over. Now I can’t not be there for her. I know it doesn’t make sense, but if we get into this and I lose you…”

  Jack took her hand and raised it to his lips, kissing her knuckles. “Hey, like you said. One step at a time. Neither of us has to make any promises right now. I just…like being with you. Why don’t we go with that for now?”

  She smiled, her shoulders relaxing. “How did you get to be so sensitive? Aren’t guys supposed to be blind-dumb about this sort of thing?”

  “I’m not your usual kind of guy.”

  “You got that right.” Sienna bit her lip as the red-hot memory of her orgasm thundered straight back to her nether regions. She looked away and mentally fanned herself. “So you have your stuff. I have mine. I think the best thing to do is say we’ll take this as it comes. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  She leaned against him. “What a duo of tortured souls we are, huh?”

  He touched his finger to her chin. “Tortured and honest. As long as we’re honest, no one gets hurt.”

  Her body responded to just that feel of his finger at her chin, and she examined his handsome face. “I’ll never lie to you, Jack.”

  His finger slipped from her chin. “I know that. This is my problem. Trust. Trusting myself. Trusting others. I was an idiot to not be there for my family when I knew Martina was struggling. I don’t want to make that mistake with anyone ever again.”

  “You won’t.”

  He released a tremulous breath and drained his glass. “I’ve spent the past two years thinking it would just be the twins and me, but you’ve changed that. I want a life past my ex-wife and the mistakes I’ve made. If I’m ever going to move on…let my kids move on, I have to take a risk.”

  “Same here.”

  For a long moment, neither of them said anything. He studied her face in a way that made Sienna feel as though she was the single most beautiful woman in the world. If she could bottle that look, she swore she could sell it in the shop for a hefty profit. He lifted her hand from his leg and pressed a lingering kiss to her palm.

  “When I saw you crawling along the garden that first day, it was like someone punched me straight in the gut. I thought…” He smiled, his eyes lighting with amusement. “I thought…wow. Then we started talking, and I struggled to think at all.”

  Her heart melted.

  “But I was right to do what I did,” he continued. “To back off. To try to fight my attraction to you given all that’s happened in my life and what could still be at stake. Now I’m sitting here with you in the dark, wondering when I can kiss you again.”

  Sienna smiled. “Right now if you want.”

  He leaned forward, and his delicious mouth covered hers. The frantic need that had rushed her senses when he’d touched her before now gave way to something softer, deeper; it was as though they were silently vowing a pact. The hair at Sienna’s nape and across her arms prickled.

  But then she felt her father. Felt the violence of his death, saw his open casket at the funeral, and worse, the anguish on her mother’s face when she’d dropped to the kitchen floor and mewed like a wounded animal once she’d heard he was dead.

  Sienna pulled back, but Jack smiled at her before they both watched the moon disappear behind the clouds. On a long inhale, she asked herself again: Could she really start something with Jack? A man who had so much baggage she needed a shopping trolley to help him carry it?

  She had to. She couldn’t stop this with him even if she wanted to.

  Chapter Thirteen

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Jack stood outside Sienna’s house and looked up at the drawn curtains of what he assumed was her bedroom.

  He’d left the night before with his lips swollen from kissing her. After such an explosive start, they hadn’t progressed past lip and tongue action again. That’s not to say their sexual restraint hadn’t lingered like a lit stick of dynamite between them, crackling and sparking hotter and hotter. Yet the confessions of their mutual fears had slowed things down, and now, as Jack knocked on her door for a second time, he couldn’t wait to start today’s slow burn.

  No answer.

  He glanced at the car. Holly and Katy watched him through the window, both sitting forward in their car seats, expectancy on their faces. He waved. Katy waved back, but Holly gestured
for him to come back to the car. He raised his finger, indicating he’d be one more minute. Stepping back from the door, Jack cupped his hands around his mouth.

  “Sienna!” he yelled. “Wakey-wakey!”

  Two seconds later, the curtains snapped back, and Sienna stood scowling, her glare trained on his face. Pushing open the window, she leaned out. “If someone ignores knocking at their door, it means go away.”

  “You were ignoring me?”

  “Yes. What’s the matter with you, banging on my door like a damn caveman at this time in the morning?”

  With her beautiful face devoid of makeup and her hair all mussed and sexy, she looked gorgeous. Grinning, Jack swallowed at the sight of her nipples jutting through her thin cotton tank top. Hot damn.

  Wishing he could take the girls back to his mum’s so he could pound up Sienna’s staircase, two steps at a time, Jack cleared his throat. “You’re running late. Get dressed.”

  She frowned. “Running late for what? It’s Saturday, and I’m planning on spending the whole day face-down on my pillow.”

  “You’re not going to break your promise, are you?” He lifted an eyebrow. “Not after I promised the girls.”

  Her gaze flicked behind him and hovered for a moment before she ducked away from the window out of sight.

  Smiling, Jack called after her, “Sienna!”

  A few seconds passed before she reappeared at the window wearing a pink robe. She pulled it tight with no idea her breasts were now round and inviting through satin. Jack pursed his lips together. What was the use in telling her? She’d be embarrassed, and the view was fantastic.

  She leaned her hands on the windowsill. “What promise?”

  “Don’t you remember?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “No, I don’t remember making you any promises. Least of all one that involves you shouting on my front lawn at eleven o’clock in the morning while your kids stare at me through the car window like I’ve grown an extra head.”

  “Go and get changed,” he said, laughing. “Trousers are probably better than a skirt.”