The You I've Come To Know (A Mother's Love Book 1)

by Alison Kent

  Willa made quick work of bathing her. At least, as quick as she could considering Leigh seemed to have decided this was the most fun she’d had all day. And Joel, the adoring uncle that he was, seemed determined to egg her on, tickling her, splashing her, making more of a mess than his niece.

  Knowing a lost cause when she saw one, Willa shrugged out of her flannel, tossing the shirt to the kitchen table before more than the cuffs ended up as wet as the baby in the sink. Joel leaned into the elbow he’d propped on the countertop and rubbed a cloth over Leigh’s back. The baby responded with a hard slap of both hands onto the water’s surface.

  Big fat drops splattered the front of Willa’s tank and Joel’s black T-shirt. She yelped and sputtered and glared in his direction, beads dangling from her lashes.

  “The Wolfsleys are suckers for water sports,” he said, the picture of boyish innocence, a fat droplet plopping from the end of his nose to his upper lip.

  “So I see.” She swiped the back of her hand across her cheek, tempted within an inch of her life to return the wet favor. The way Joel’s gaze swept over her, lingering on her damp tank before seeking out her eyes tempted her further.

  But then he looked back at Leigh and snorted, bursting the bubble. “I’ll be so glad to get out of this.” He knocked on the cast. “It took me forever to figure the easiest way to shower without soaking the damn thing. By the time I’m mobile again, I’ll have the technique down pat.”

  Willa thought about Joel’s technique. She thought about his shower. She thought about the day behind them leading up to the night ahead. She finished rinsing the baby, lifted her onto the towel, and wrapped her to dry.

  Then she looked at Joel and softly said, “That’s what I’m here for. To help.”

  He sucked in a ragged breath, then shoved it out between clenched teeth. His control wavered and seemed to mirror the anxious feelings that closed Willa’s throat on the rest of the words there. She’d been waiting for this night forever when forever had only been a couple of days.

  “For now, though,” she finally managed when a vein at his temple throbbed, “why don’t you take this one and get her dried and dressed while I fix her a bottle?”

  Taking the baby from Willa’s arms, Joel nodded, grimly silent as he left the room. It wasn’t the grim of dark thoughts, or worry, or studied concentration. No, it was the grim of frustration that responsibility came before fun.

  Willa knew all this because the same set of jaw and tightly drawn mouth was making her face hurt. She shook it off and turned back to the bath leftovers, wiping down the sink and countertop then fixing a bottle.

  And Willa’s timing was perfect. Joel limped back into the kitchen just then with his niece clad in pink cotton, her cheeks rosy, her hair brushed back in damp ringlets. His expression had calmed but remained intent as he took the bottle Willa offered.

  He’d stripped off his shirt, which had suffered a fair drenching, and now leaned back against the refrigerator, holding the baby to his chest. Leigh snuggled close, her sleepy eyes held wide open by sheer will. She studied Joel’s face, her bottle in one hand, the tiny fingers of the other weaving through the dusting of chest hair tickling her cheek.

  Willa couldn’t help but appreciate Joel’s physical beauty. His shoulders were body-builder wide without the excessive bulk that often came with that obsession. His chest was broad, muscled, covered with fine hair that tapered below his sternum into a darker line that disappeared behind Leigh’s lower half. Willa caught a brief glimpse of the stripe at Joel’s low-riding waistband before she realized where her gaze had wandered.

  She continued to let it wander, wondering about his leg and the suffering from his injury. How badly it had hurt when it happened and if it pained him still. How long it would be before he regained the strength so apparent in his good leg. The one muscled and firm, filling out the denim of his jeans as it bore the brunt of his weight.

  The picture he made was one Willa knew would stay with her long after tonight. It was a color snapshot, a greeting card, the Big Bad Wolf and the baby captured forever in her mind.

  And it came to Willa then that one day there would be another woman savoring moments such as this one. That she wouldn’t be the one sharing them with Joel. He wouldn’t be her husband and she wouldn’t have a child sending this warmth through her body, a warmth that blossomed into a sense that this world, this man, offered the safest of harbors.

  A deep breath steadied her fanciful mood. She was here for the moment, not the future. She needed desperately to keep that in mind or else the road leading into the night would be paved with so much disaster and none of the uncomplicated pleasure that seemed ages in coming.

  “Criminy, Willa. Keep looking at me that way and I’m liable to drop Scout here.”

  Willa let her gaze crawl back up Joel’s body to his face. His arousal in no way escaped her notice. In fact, her notice lingered longer than decorum would deem proper. Neither was it proper for her to want to touch him the way she did.

  The way she was going to.

  Right now.

  She stepped closer, feeling the heat of his body as she moved into his space, a very sleepy Leigh between them. “You’re not going to drop your niece, Joel.”

  “Then how ’bout I drop my pants?”

  Willa tossed back her head and gave a quiet laugh. She felt so good, so full of joy, of possibilities, of desire for him. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “I think it’s a damn good one.”

  “In about three minutes Leigh is going to be out.” The baby’s lashes barely fluttered at the mention of her name. “And with your pants down, you’d be stuck in a bind worse than the one you seem to be in now.”

  “Bind isn’t even the half of it.” He handed Willa the bottle, which had fallen from Leigh’s hand and now lay on her chest. Then he shifted the sleeping baby to his shoulder.

  His broad hand spanned the width of Leigh’s back, his other arm supported her rump. Her lips had parted against his shoulder as she settled into untroubled sleep.

  Willa crossed her arms over her chest and smiled up at Joel. “You’re a natural, you know.”

  “Yeah. The perfect nanny. Mary Poppins, at your service.”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of daddy.”

  “Come closer.” He crooked one finger. “I’ll show you daddy.”

  She did come closer. And closer still. A step at a time until they were separated by the baby he held and nothing more. Willa crooked her own fingers. And then she ran the back of her knuckles down the front of his stomach, beneath his navel, where the waist of his jeans rode low.

  “You’re a sexy man, Joel Wolfsley.”

  He sucked in air through his teeth. “You just like the way my pants fit.”

  “I like that you have a sense of humor.”

  “Ranks right up there with my great personality,” he said, then hissed as her hand began to move. He glanced up at the ceiling, squeezed his eyes tight as her fingers slipped beneath his waistband, looked back once his control was marginally regained. “And my pants. Don’t forget my pants.”

  “Hmm.” She continued the slow rub of her knuckles over his skin. “What about long walks on the beach? Candlelit dinners? Ballroom dancing?”

  One brow arched. The same side of his mouth crooked up wryly. “These days I dance best flat on my back.”

  Willa rolled her eyes. “That was terrible.”

  “It was bad, wasn’t it?” His expression grew serious then. His eyes darkened, summer green turning to a winter forest pine. “But not as bad as the way I want to make love to you.”

  Chapter Twelve

  JOEL WASN’T SURE HOW THEY’D made it to his bedroom, only that they had. He wasn’t going to complain about the trip, not when they were finally here. Sure, he would’ve loved to have wrapped Willa’s naked legs around his waist and kissed her senseless the length of the hallway.

  But he wasn’t a miracle worker. What he was
was in a cast. Keeping himself upright when his motor control had been cut off by his libido’s jet engine, well... He wouldn’t have passed a sobriety test if he’d been asked to walk a straight line.

  And even if he had been stone cold sober and able to stand arrow straight, Willa was wearing work boots and jeans, and he couldn’t handle either of those with any measure of finesse. Then there was the fact that he’d had his sleeping niece to tuck in before he could get to Willa.

  Not that the sweet talking of a first time necessarily guaranteed smooth moves. The opposite was usually the case. The guy came fast because, well, hell, he couldn’t take the wait any longer. And because of that, the woman didn’t come at all.

  Joel might not be able to sweep Willa off her feet or strip her naked without her noticing his sleight of hand, but he would damn sure make her come.

  “You weren’t lying, were you?” she asked.

  She stood in front of him, facing the bed, holding her flannel shirt to her chest. Nuzzling the shell of her ear from behind, he reached over her shoulder and tossed the shirt to the bed. Then he pulled her back into his body. Biting down hard on a shiver, he savored the contact, the supple skin of her shoulders, the heat of her, the scent that made him think of citrus and cedar.

  Still savoring, he followed the direction of her gaze—toward his headboard from which a dozen pair of handcuffs dangled. Complete with keys, each was shackled to the narrow railing by one bracelet. No, he hadn’t lied. But right now he didn’t want to explain the history of the collection.

  He growled low in her ear and said, “The better to have my way with you.”

  “Is that so?” She dropped a light kiss on the forearm hugging her collarbone inches above her breasts.

  “Or,” he added with a bit of a chuckle, “the better for you to have your way with me.”

  Leaning her head back against his shoulder, she brushed fingertips over the tiny mark she’d left on his skin. “I think I’d like to have my way with you.”

  At that moment, he couldn’t remember having ever wanted a woman with this degree of possessive fierceness. Her head was still tilted back, and her ponytail brushed his skin. Feeling her hair against his bare chest was torture. He hissed out a long low breath.

  “If I don’t get inside you and quick, I’m afraid I’m gonna go off.”

  She kept the line of her mouth straight, but he knew it wasn’t easy. He knew that because when she turned in his arms to face him, he saw she’d caught her lower lip between her teeth to hold back her grin. Of course, she couldn’t hold it long.

  “Are you saying we may be dealing with an accidental shooting?”

  He grinned, too, drawing his fingers down her spine, stopping when he reached her bottom to squeeze. “Does the term weapon misfire mean anything to you?”

  Her blue eyes flashed with humor. “You do need help.”

  And then her fingers were moving over his skin, unbuttoning the copper buttons that barely held his fly together. When she’d finished with the buttons and stopped moving, he had a hard time not jerking his pants to the ground.

  “Joel?”

  “Willa?” he ground out.

  She looked up. “I’m having trouble with your pants.”

  The trouble was that she didn’t have them off yet. “What kind of trouble?”

  “I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to get them down. I’ve run into an”—she tilted her head to one side and frowned—“an obstacle.”

  What she’d run into was his dick. “Trust me. It’s... surmountable.”

  She rolled her eyes at that. “I’m sure it is. You got your pants on, after all.”

  Joel frowned. They were either suffering a serious miscommunication here or he was more impressive than he’d thought.

  “I mean, I can get them down to your knees without a hitch,” Willa continued. “But I’m not quite sure what to do after that.”

  His cast. She was talking about his cast while he was talking about parts of his body that were as hard as the navy fiberglass. “Ah, that’s easy. An old stripper’s trick.”

  And then he ripped open the pants leg from the point above his knee to his crotch.

  Willa smiled. “Velcro?”

  “Pretty cool, huh? The wife of a buddy at work fixed me up.”

  “This is great,” Willa said, fingering the hidden closure.

  “Yep. Four pairs of my jeans are now ready for showtime.” He did a little bump and grind. She ran her fingertips up his bare inner thigh to the leg of his boxer briefs, and he hissed out a long, low, frustrated breath. “I just need you to know...”

  Criminy. After all the promises he’d made to himself, he was going to blow it. He’d be doing good to last as long as it took to run the Kentucky Derby.

  “Know what?” She’d slipped her fingers into his shorts now and was feeling up his backside.

  He was going to have to stop her before she made it around to his front. “I need to be inside you, Willa. Now. And it won’t be slow and romantic. Not this time.”

  “You don’t have to woo me, Joel,” she said, her eyes drowsy with arousal and a crazy bright blue. “I’m here because I want you, too.”

  He wasn’t sure how to respond to that, but if she felt even half the need ripping open his gut, this was gonna be a hell of a coming together. “So, you think we can get busy here? Or do you need directions?”

  At that, she stepped back, spun him around, and pushed him onto the mattress. “Down is a direction, right? And up?” Leaning forward she ran her palms over his fly and up his belly. He squirmed on the bed, pushing back farther on the mattress so that if she decided to straddle him she’d have a place to put her knees.

  He just hoped she took both their pants off first.

  Her hands continued up his sides, over his armpits, his triceps, to his elbows, forearms, wrists, palms, lacing her fingers through his when she reached his hands which were now high over his head. She shifted on the bed until she was doing that straddle thing he’d been waiting for.

  Even with her pants on it wasn’t far from heaven, feeling her over him, her braless breasts suspended beneath her tank just out of reach of his mouth. His tongue wasn’t quite long enough to do more than flick lightly across her nipples when he wanted to draw her deep.

  She drew deep on him instead, teasing his mouth with light nips and love bites before kissing him full and hard like he wanted to be kissed, with her tongue and her body, both of which he was getting impatient to feel elsewhere.

  And then, while he was doing his best to kiss her senseless in return, while he was working to coax her into getting naked so they could get this show on the road, she snapped handcuffs around both his wrists.

  With a kiss dropped first on his forehead, then his nose, his chin, center chest, and low on his stomach, she hopped up off the bed, grabbed her flannel, and left him there.

  “Willa?” He called after her when she left the room.

  “Don’t go anywhere, Joel. I’ll be right back.”

  Funny girl, this one. He heard her in the kitchen, banging cabinets and slamming drawers. Then all was quiet and Joel realized he was half-naked with a hard-on and handcuffed to his bed.

  Paradise.

  Of course, he probably wouldn’t have been so cocky if he’d truly been trapped. But since each pair of handcuffs hung from the headboard by one bracelet and he was caught in the dangling cuffs of two separate pairs, well, it would be easy to slide his hands together and open either set.

  He only considered it for half a second, then decided to hang around instead and see what Willa had in mind.

  A minute or two more and she returned wearing nothing but her white cotton bikinis and her tank top. Joel’s heart slammed to the back of his chest.

  Her legs were long anyway, but those high cut panties seemed to add another six inches. The curve of her hip was sweet. He’d thought she might be more lean, more... solid and straight, but her muscles were all female. Nothing boyish here ab
out her figure.

  But what struck him most about her—even more than her legs, her strong arms and great shoulders, or even the way her breasts were as arousing now as they had been inches from his mouth—was her hair. This was the first time he’d ever seen it down.

  She’d brought two pie tins back to the bedroom with her, along with his box of squat emergency candles. As she went about setting the tins on his dresser on either side of the mirror, her hair swung about her shoulders. Once she had a half dozen of the plain white votives burning in their shiny metal bases, she flipped off the bright light overhead.

  Shadows flickered as the flames ate up the wicks. The mirror reflected the tongues of light back into the room, and over Willa’s hair. She turned to face him, leaned back against his dresser, framed on both her right and her left by the flames.

  Her hair was fair and colorless in the subdued glow, yet the light played the part of an artist’s brush and turned the strands to gold. He needed to remember to tell her how much he liked it down, how good she looked wearing candlelight.

  But he wasn’t sure he’d be able to coherently remember much of anything at all because right then she smiled.

  And while she was smiling she worked off the rest of his clothes. His jeans, already opened, slid down his legs freely. He’d only thought he’d found paradise, half-naked with a hard-on and handcuffed to his own bed.

  Paradise wasn’t even the half of it.

  This was like a fantasy he’d forgotten to create back when he was still conjuring fantasies that involved being at a woman’s tender mercy. And this fantasy was getting better because Willa had a bottle in her hand.

  Joel squirmed as she shot a stream of Leigh’s creamy baby oil onto one palm and then climbed onto the bed and knelt between his legs. “Uh, Willa?”

  “Yes, Joel?

  “What’re you up to down there, Baby?”

  She answered with her hands and Joel sucked in a sharp breath as the warmth hit his skin. The lotion was heated; Willa’s hands were cool. Both sensations were a shock to his system.