by Linda Warren
For the next hour, Jessie did filing and typed counselors’ notes into the computer. She thought how much easier it would be if counselors had laptops, could access the shelter’s network and type in their own information. She’d speak to Fran about that later. A big donation would help Fran to make a decision. Of course it had to be presented to the board for approval, but if someone was willing to pay for them, she didn’t see a problem.
As Jessie left she had to restrain herself from going into the family room to visit Nina. But Nina had made her decision, right or wrong, and Jessie had to respect it. Just as Jessie wished the people around her would respect her own wishes.
She checked on Mirry again. Gavin was out but the tech let her sit with the dog for a while. The little thing was so swollen, and Jessie realized it would probably take a long time for Mirry to be well again. She was alive, though, and Jessie clung to that.
The doctor’s appointment went smoothly. There were no signs of infection, but he wanted to see her again in a week. When she got out of his office, her energy level dropped considerably. She needed a nap so she went back to the apartment and fell into a deep sleep.
CADDE HADN’T HEARD FROM Jessie all day and he wondered if she was okay. Had he made a mistake letting her take his truck? Was it too big for her to handle? This morning she’d sounded so miserable when he’d refused and it was clear she didn’t want Rosa to drive her around. He could feel her fight for independence. Before he knew it he was giving her his keys.
At the oddest times today when he was in meetings and people were expecting his undivided attention he found himself glancing at his watch, waiting for quitting time. There was no such thing to him before. He worked long hours and never watched a clock. But now he was thinking about seeing Jessie again.
On impulse he went down the hall to the apartment. The lights were on and Jessie was sprawled across the bed, asleep in her clothes. The night had finally caught up with her.
He backed out, not wanting to disturb her. In the living room he saw her purse on the sofa and retrieved his keys. He had to pick up something for dinner.
JESSIE SCRAMBLED OUT of bed and glanced at the clock. It was almost six. Where was Cadde? They hadn’t made any plans for the evening so she assumed they’d meet back here. He might plan on working late, but she had his truck. That worked in her favor.
After taking a quick shower, Jessie searched through her case for her shorty pj’s. They weren’t there. Of course not. Rosa hadn’t expected her to spend another night in the apartment. Now what? She wasn’t sleeping in that hospital gown again.
She opened the closet and saw a row of color coordinated shirts; white, pale yellow and light blue—all solid colors, no plaids or prints or checks. Next to the shirts were three pairs of Wrangler jeans and two pairs of slacks, black and khaki. At the top were two Stetson boxes and at the bottom two pairs of boots, black and brown. He had this same wardrobe at the house. What did this say about Cadde? That he was organized and knew what he wanted and what he liked. Yeah, that described him. He wasn’t wishy-washy or indecisive.
Her father had told her ever since Cadde was a kid his focus had been the oil business. Through the years that had never changed. And his personal life was much the same. She’d bet that he bought his clothes at the same store, wore one brand of boots and jeans, wore a certain kind of Stetson and had his hair cut at the same place. Cadde Hardin was a creature of habit. He was orderly and had probably never been late for an appointment in his life.
As for her, she’d been lobbying for change since she was seven. And inside a mall she could have a ball. She wondered if Cadde had ever been in a mall. She’d guess not, because the image didn’t fit. His territory was an office or an oil field.
One white shirt was pushed to the end of the rack and she pulled it out. It wasn’t pressed and she wondered why. Then saw the tear on the sleeve. Even though she knew it was too big for her, she slipped it on and rolled up the sleeves, the rip disappearing in the folds. Buttoning it up, she thought it would be perfect to sleep in, soft and comfy.
The entry door opened and she tensed, a reflex action she couldn’t control. “Cadde,” she called.
“Yeah,” he answered. “I brought supper.”
She hurried into the living room and Cadde just stared at her, a bag in one hand.
The silence stretched. She became self-conscious and rushed into speech. “I hope you don’t mind I borrowed your shirt.” She tugged at the hem that came almost to her knees. “Rosa didn’t expect me to spend another night and she didn’t pack anything to sleep in.”
“No, it’s fine.” He walked into the kitchen and placed the bag on the table.
What was wrong? He wasn’t this stiff or unfriendly this morning. Maybe he was just tired.
“How are you?” he asked, his eyes on her.
“Fine. No infection, but I have to see the doctor again next week.”
“And Mirry?”
“Oh, Cadde.” She sat in one of the wood chairs, feeling more self-conscious than ever. “She looks bad. Gavin had to do a lot of repair work and Mirry’s in terrible pain. I could hardly stand it. I want to take her home, but that’s probably not going to happen for a while.”
“She’ll get better. Give her some time.” His voice relaxed and so did Cadde.
Jessie felt the tension in the room tiptoe away. “What’s for dinner?”
“Chicken fried steaks, baked potatoes and salads. I got us the same thing so you don’t have to eat off my plate.” He pulled take-out containers from the bag.
She tilted her head. “That’s no guarantee.”
He lifted an eyebrow but the only sound that came out of his mouth was, “Mmm.”
She stood and made ice water for them to drink. Opening the lid on her salad, she asked, “You sent Barbara out for food again.”
“No, I went.”
“How did you go?” She took her seat and poured ranch dressing over her salad.
“In my truck.”
She looked up. Had he seen the smudge? Was that the reason he was so standoffish when he’d first arrived? “Do you have an extra pair of keys?”
“Yes, but I didn’t use them,” he replied, opening the containers. “I came in here earlier and you were asleep. I got my keys out of your purse.”
“Oh.” She hadn’t even heard him.
Cadde grabbed forks and knives out of a drawer and sat across from her. “Funny thing, there’s a discoloration on my steering wheel. Have no idea what caused it, but it wasn’t there last night.”
“Oh.” Feigning innocence was the best plan, she decided.
“Any thoughts on how it got there?”
“Okay. Okay. I ate a hamburger for lunch and got mustard on the steering wheel. I rubbed it off immediately. It’s only a tiny smudge.”
“You ate in my truck?” he asked in a horrified tone, much as if he’d been asking if she’d killed someone.
She leaned over and whispered, “Is it against the law?”
He tensed and then his face relaxed into a grin. “No.”
“I’ll try to get it out tomorrow. Whatever to make you happy.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He cut into his steak. “I can live with a smudge.”
“I don’t think so.” She took a bite of salad. “Your closet looks like something out of a magazine, everything in its place.”
“When you’ve lived in a twelve-by-twelve room with two sloppy brothers, you learn to be organized. Our mother always picked up our clothes from the floor and they just magically appeared in our closet. But Aunt Etta was different. If you didn’t put your laundry in the basket, they didn’t get washed or ironed. Kid didn’t get the knack of it until he had to wear dirty clothes to school. From then on he knew Aunt Etta was serious.”
“How did he get the name Kid?” She covered her potato with toppings.
“When my dad was small he used to watch The Cisco Kid, an old Western. He wanted to name me Cisco, but Mom wou
ldn’t hear of it so Kid got stuck with it. Chance teases him that he should have been named Poncho, the sidekick.”
They continued to talk as they ate, but Jessie knew they were skirting around the main topic—the night. How did she bring it up? How did she tell him she was ready to make love? She trailed her fork through her potato and stuck with an easy subject. “All three of you have unusual names. How did Chance get his?”
“After two boys, my mother wanted a girl. There were some complications with the delivery and she knew she wouldn’t be able to have any more children. It was her last chance for a girl and that’s what she called him.”
“And you?”
“It’s my grandfather’s name. My parents were just teenagers when they got married and they lived with him. My grandmother had died long ago. When I was eight, he passed away and he was so proud I carried on his name.”
Cadde took the remains to the trash and Jessie helped. “How did you get yours?” he asked.
She paused in picking up a container. “I have no idea. I guess it was a name my dad liked. When I was in first and second grade, the teachers kept trying to put Jessica on my papers. But it’s simply Jessie—Jessie Marie.”
Cadde leaned against the counter. “We don’t have middle names.”
“Really?” Her elbow brushed his arm as she rinsed the forks and knives. He instantly moved away.
“I have to go back to the office. You get some rest.”
What?
“Cadde!”
He stopped with his hand on the door.
“Don’t treat me like a fragile, helpless woman.”
“I never think of you as fragile or helpless. You can ruin my day faster than anyone I know, including Kid.”
“I don’t want to ruin your day,” she said with as much finesse as she could without blurting out, “have sex with me.”
He got the message. “You were attacked by a dog yesterday. That alone was traumatic and you said the other night you weren’t ready. I don’t think…”
“I’m ready.”
CHAPTER NINE
“JESSIE…”
“Let’s have a glass of wine,” she suggested, never dreaming it would be this hard to, well, seduce him.
He walked farther into the room. “You got mad the last time I drank wine.”
“That’s because you were guzzling it.” She opened the built-in liquor cabinet. Her father had always kept it well stocked, but she didn’t know how it was now. There were several bottles. Evidently Cadde had continued the tradition. “How about a merlot?”
“Fine.”
She handed him the bottle and their hands touched, and the sexual tension was a thing she could feel—pentup sexual tension, in him and in her.
Suddenly he set the bottle on the coffee table. “I don’t need wine to sleep with you.” His eyes roamed over her. “All I have to do is look at you in that shirt with your hair mussed up like you just got out of bed and every male muscle in me kicks in.”
She stepped closer to him, so close she could feel the heat from his body. “Then why were you leaving?”
“Because…”
She trailed her hands up the front of his shirt and felt the solid wall of his chest. As she slipped a button through a hole, his arms snaked out and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her even closer until there was nothing left to the imagination. Her soft curves welcomed the hardness of his body.
His lips tentatively kissed the hollow of her neck and paused over the tape for a brief second, then moved to her ear, her cheek. She gasped from the sheer satisfaction when he finally took her lips. Slowly, he kissed her, their tongues tasting, exploring and needing more. He groaned as his mouth moved over hers in urgent need. She didn’t know much, but she knew this was the real thing. Real emotions. Real sexual desires. He wanted her.
He swung her into his arms and carried her into the bedroom. The room was in darkness but the bathroom light was on, heightening the romantic mood. Cadde made fast work of the buttons on her shirt, his fingers caressing her soft flesh. She scooted back on the bed and removed her panties.
The muscles across his broad chest rippled as he removed his clothes and boots in record time. Without losing a second, he yanked off his Jockey shorts. She could only stare at his perfect male body. At the sight of his full arousal, her stomach lurched in anticipation and moisture pooled between her legs.
With one knee on the mattress, he hovered above her and then gathered her into his arms in the most powerful embrace she’d ever felt; gentle, loving and exhilarating. Her feminine body pressing against his hardness was an erotic sensation. Her mind swirled as she got lost in his masculine touch.
“What’s that scent?” he asked, his lips against her skin.
“It’s…cherry blossom…lotion.”
His lips trailed from her neck to her breasts and pinpoints of heat permeated her body. Unable to resist, her hand went to hard muscles and thus began a ritual of them really getting to know each other intimately. He moaned at her tentative efforts. She became bolder, holding and stroking him.
After tasting every part of her until she wanted to scream from the unabashed pleasure, he took her lips once again, deeply, riveting. She couldn’t even think. She just craved him.
He rolled onto her and she instinctively opened her legs, needing him in a way she didn’t quite understand. At his first thrust, she stiffened. She didn’t want to do that, but it was natural and she had to get past it. Breathing heavily, Cadde paused and his body stilled.
Tightening her arms around him, she whispered, “Please, Cadde.”
He moaned. “Jessie.”
She wrapped her legs around him, refusing to let him stop. He moaned again and thrust inside her. Slow and easy, he kept up the rhythm and her body welcomed him, needing every thrust in a way that surprised her. The pain was forgotten as every nerve ending came alive in her. Slow and easy became fast and furious and she enjoyed the delicious rocking vibe. Her body convulsed in waves of unimaginable gratification.
It shook everything she’d ever thought about sex. About men. There was no way to describe what she was feeling. She felt as if she was falling off a mountain top and sailing into clean, fresh air, buffeted only by Cadde’s arms.
His body shuttered in release and she kept holding on, hoping this moment would never end—the moment she’d found out everything she’d ever wanted to know about sex with a man she loved.
“You lied,” he breathed into her neck.
“Yes,” she admitted without one ounce of shame, running her fingers through his hair.
He rolled away and her body felt bereft of his warm skin. “You should have told me.”
“Why?” She propped up on one elbow.
“Just because…” He turned to look at her. “Are you okay?”
She took his hand and placed it on her face. “Feel that smile. It’s from ear to ear. You did that.” She scooted closer and laid her head on his shoulder, her palm on his chest. “Now I’m tired and sleepy.”
Cadde stayed awake long after Jessie had fallen into a deep slumber. She was a virgin. All the signs were there but he never saw them. She wanted to wait. Well, there’d been a reason for that—a good reason.
He thought once again how sheltered her world had been with guards and guns. She didn’t have a life and maybe now she was going a little too fast. Running a hand over his face, he sighed. He’d wanted to stop, but she wouldn’t let him and the honest truth was he didn’t know if he could. Heartfelt emotions were exploding all around him and he just wanted her, virgin or not. He hadn’t had sex in a while so that could be the reason. Or it could be Jessie.
She knew how to push his buttons and she knew how to make his body respond. At the last she’d really gotten into it and he had a hard time keeping them on the bed. Wild virgin Jessie. If it got any better, he didn’t know if his heart could take it. But he was willing to find out.
Slipping out of bed, he went down the hall to turn
out the lights, doing the same in the bathroom. He crawled back in beside Jessie and pulled the sheet over them. Making a soft whimpering sound, she snuggled into him as if they’d been sleeping together all their lives.
For some reason sleep evaded him. The business deal kept tempting his mind. He’d fulfilled his end of the agreement. Now she had to do the same. Shilah—that’s what was important to him. But no matter how he tried to slice it in Shilah’s favor, he knew something special had happened tonight.
AROUND FIVE JESSIE WOKE UP. “Cadde, the light is off.”
“I know,” he mumbled. “Go back to sleep. I’m here.”
She kissed his neck. “I’m not sleepy.” Her lips moved to his shoulder, his chest and every muscle in him came to full attention and saluted.
“Jessie.”
“Hmm.” She slid one leg across him and sat on his stomach, her hair falling forward. “Don’t say you don’t want to have sex because you’d be lying. A man can’t hide that and you really can’t this morning without a stitch of clothes on.”
He leaned up and wrapped his tongue around one tempting nipple. “For someone so inexperienced you’re very wild in bed, do you know that?”
“I read a lot,” she murmured, and slid her body over his, her soft breasts pressing into his chest. He cupped her face, threaded his fingers through her long hair and kissed her. The emotions from last night fired to life. He rolled her onto her back and she giggled. It was the only sound in the room, beside sighs and moans, for some time.
A pounding on the door woke them from a lethargic sleep. “What the hell?” Cadde crawled from the bed and jerked on his jeans. “Kid’s supposed to be in Louisiana, but if that’s him, I’m going to wring his damn neck.” Kid was known for not knocking, though.
Cadde yanked opened the door and a dark-haired woman pushed past him.
“Where is she? Mama said she didn’t come home last night. What have you done to her?” She pointed a long finger at him. “Just so you know I have connections to the police.”
Cadde frowned. “Who are you?”
“Myra,” Jessie gasped from the doorway, wearing nothing but his white shirt. “What are you doing here?”