Secret Maneuvers

by Jessie Lane

  He nodded his head. “That’s good.” Then, he socked me in the gut with a light punch. “But stop yelling at Aunt Teagan now. I haven’t seen her in over year.”

  Stepping out from underneath my arm, I watched my son walk over to Teagan and pull her up into a bear hug, which wasn’t hard for him to do since they were the same height. There were a few low murmured words while they hugged and I found myself jealous. Teagan obviously had an easy, close and loving relationship with my son. Something I should have, too, but didn’t. Instead of letting the familiar anger of my situation sweep over me, causing me to potentially grind my molars down into nothing except tooth dust, I reminded myself that this was what I was trying to fix. This was my second chance to get it all right.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Annabelle

  If I never see a stack of paperwork that high again, I can die a happy woman. Who knew you had to cross so many t’s and dot so many dag-gum i’s just to request another department to share their reports from an arms bust that was related to your case? It was freaking ridiculous. Trudging up the front steps of my porch, my shoulders sagged, and I was hoping I had enough energy to thank Bobby before kicking him the hell out of my house so I could fall into a semi-coma from my lack of sleep the past few days.

  When I walked through the front door, though, a smell so heavenly it could have been a gift from God hit my nose and I had to make sure my mouth wasn’t open or the drool would start pouring out of my mouth. Leaving the entryway, I was met with a sight I would have never expected to see in my entire life. Standing in my kitchen, in front of the stove with a spatula in his hand as he flipped something over in the pan, was Bobby.

  I don’t know what it was exactly about him in that moment. It could have been the jeans that he was wearing that cupped those strong thighs and that sinful ass of his. Or it could have been that t-shirt he was wearing that hung loose around the waistline and snug across the back of those broad shoulders. More than likely, however, it was because he was such a big, strong, mouthwatering man that was doing something as domestic as cooking a freaking meal. He was suddenly the sexiest thing I’d ever laid eyes on.

  That was saying something since I’d once had to go into the Texas Longhorn’s locker room after one of their practices to look for a suspect I’d been chasing. I’d run into a vision of muscled, naked, wet bodies fresh from the shower that started scrambling for their towels the minute they’d seen me enter the room. After that day, I considered myself a bit of an authority on sexy men. Bobby Baker standing in my kitchen, cooking a meal, was now firmly at the top of the list of sexual fantasies. It was too bad fantasy wouldn’t meet reality and he would not be giving in to the sudden urge to spread me out on the dining room table and pretend I was dessert. Not that it would matter if he was interested. I was so tired right now, I’d probably fall asleep even if it was the best sex of my life.

  Walking into the kitchen, he heard my footsteps and turned his head to see me. “Hey. Glad your home safe. If you wait just a second I’ll have this served up and you can sit down and eat.”

  That stopped me in my tracks. He’d cooked for me? I’d just assumed he was cooking himself dinner. Or maybe Seth a late meal even though it was ten o’clock and the kid was supposed to be in bed by now because he had school tomorrow. Why in the world would he cook for me?

  “Well, why would I cook for myself and not cook for you? I’m not that much of an asshole. And Seth is in bed. I thought teenagers were supposed to give you a hard time about when they went to bed? I didn’t even have to say anything to him. He got up from the couch at ten, gave me a hug goodnight and went to bed. Is he like a Stepford kid or something?”

  I’d said all of that out loud? Holy shit.

  “Yeah, and you’re still saying it out loud. You realize that, right?”

  Giving my eyes an exaggerated swipe of the hands, I looked back up to find Bobby’s lips twitching. “I must seem crazy right now. Just ignore me. I’m really tired.”

  “Get yourself something to drink, babe.”

  He turned back to the stove and started dishing out food onto two plates. This whole scenario seemed surreal. He’d been worried that Seth was a Stepford kid? Pft. I was worried that he was a Stepford Bobby! Getting a glass down from the cabinet, I filled it with cold water from the tap and started taking sips out of it as I leaned against the counter, watching him.

  “You want to sit at the table or what?”

  A table with Bobby seemed too intimate. Sitting next to each other. Perhaps even closely. His knee accidentally touching mine under the table. Low conversation and lingering looks. Too much like a couple sitting down to enjoy time with each other. It was best to avoid things like that. He wouldn’t understand why that would hurt me and that wasn’t his fault.

  “I’ve been sitting at a desk all day long with paperwork. I’ll just stand here at the counter and eat. You can go to the table if you’d like to, though. Promise it won’t hurt my feelings.”

  He gave me a considering look, put my plate on the counter in front of me, and then placed his own plate a few feet away from my own. Leaning over the counter a bit to tuck into his food, he started shoveling forkfuls of chicken and herbed rice as if he was afraid it was going to disappear. It kind of reminded me of how Seth used to eat his food when he was four or five. He’d had oodles of energy and he’d practically swallow food whole in his attempt to get it down quickly.

  He noticed my lack of movement and looked up from under his eyelashes, taking a pause with his fork in midair on the way to his mouth. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

  “Do you even bother to chew? Or do you just swallow and hope you don’t choke?”

  His cheeks turned a tad bit pink and he put his fork back on his plate. “Sorry. Some habits die hard. Including the one you pick up in mess halls about eating quickly.”

  “Well, at least you’re not eating like that because you’re in a race to get away from me.” Picking up my fork, I speared a piece of chicken and put it in my mouth. A buttery, lemon flavor exploded on my tongue and the next thing I knew my eyes rolled back in my head and there was a moan slipping out of me. “Gawd, Bobby. That’s just… yum.”

  “Do you always make sounds like that while you’re eating?”

  “Only when the food is good enough to deserve it.”

  “That’s going to be a problem for me when we’re eating dinner with Seth then, because I don’t know how comfortable I feel sporting a boner when my son is around.”

  Now it was my turn to blush. Unable to look at him, I kept my eyes fixed to my plate as I used my fork to push my food around a bit. “Just how often do you think you’ll be cooking us dinner?”

  “Every chance I can get. Especially if I get to hear you make sounds like that again.”

  Sucking in a surprised breath, I missed the fact that he’d moved closer to me until his hand was there cupping the side of my face, moving it up so that I had to look him in the eye. We were only inches apart, the heat from his body warming the front of my own. Just that little bit of contact was too much. “Don’t, Bobby.”

  His gorgeous blue eyes searched my face. “Don’t what, baby?”

  The familiar pricks of tears forming started in the corner of my eyes. I’d told myself I wasn’t going to cry anymore and not even twenty-four hours later, I was about to start blubbering like an idiot. “Don’t do this to me, please.”

  A thumb slowly swept over my cheekbone. “What am I doing, Belle?”

  “I can’t handle it. Don’t make me beg.”

  His face moved a little closer. “What am I doing that will make you beg?”

  “You’re acting like you want me and I know that’s not possible because you hate me now. I understand why you hate me, Bobby, I do. What I did was wrong and I’m so sorry.” Sucking in a ragged breath, I gave a tortured whisper, “Please, if you ever truly cared for me, don’t do this to me. Don’t act like you want me when I know you don’t.”

 
“I can’t do that.”

  Sniffling now, I ask, “WHY?”

  “Because I do want you. I’ve never stopped wanting you, and I never will, no matter what’s happened between us. You pissed me off. You hurt me so bad that I’ll never be the same, but you’ll never be able to do anything that will make me stop wanting you.”

  His free arm slipped around my waist and pulled me roughly into him. The hand holding my face slid back into my hair, pulling my ponytail out and causing the heavy weight to drop to my back before he fisted the strands to hold me where he wanted me. Closing the remaining distance between us, his lips skimmed mine as he spoke, “You can break my heart. You can scoop it right out from inside of my chest with a dull, rusty spoon and, even then, I wouldn’t be able to stop wanting you.”

  That’s when I lost the battle with the tears. A few escaped my eyes and slipped down my cheeks as I looked at him. He wasn’t hiding anything from me. It was all there for me to see. His pain. His anger. His lust. What I wasn’t sure about was his love. Even if it was still there—deep down inside, buried under everything else—I didn’t deserve it. The last time I’d tried to believe in a love between the two of us it damn near killed me when he left. What would happen this time if I let him in again—only to find out that I’d destroyed that love—and he had nothing else left to give besides desire? What would we end up doing to each other this time around?

  It felt as if he was surrounding me, closing me in a trap, and it was just too much to take. Pulling my head back as far as I could since he was keeping my body secured against his, I pleaded with him, “This is a bad idea, Bobby. We’re only going to hurt each other again. You’ll never get past all of the agony between us for it to work. If we give in to this… need we have for each other, we aren’t the only ones that can get hurt anymore.”

  His grip tightened until he was unconsciously hurting me. There would be fingertip bruises on my lower back tomorrow to remind me that whatever was about to happen had been no dream.

  “I fucked up and you ran. Now we’re going to make this work. We’re going to be the family we should have always been, Belle. We’ll find a way to fix this. You owe it to me to at least try.” There was a scary intensity in his eyes and I briefly wondered who he was trying to convince here, me or himself.

  I could be wrong. This could work out and we could be that happy little family I’d dreamed of having one day for hours and hours on end as a kid. The problem was, I was afraid to believe. Terrified to hope. Crazy to dream of it. There would be no middle ground with the outcome of this. It was going to end up being a dream come true with happily ever after’s or leave me the kind of broken that was unfixable forever and ever, amen. There was only one thing that swayed me towards the decision I made. Bobby was right. I owed him.

  Bobby

  Emotions were so messy. Somehow, as a teenager they’d felt a lot more simple. Back then, I was in love with Belle and that was all there was to it. Just being around her made me feel alive. Now, as an adult, I struggled between the parts of me that wanted to love her and the ones that wanted to rage at her for taking so much from me. From taking so much from us. Like our chance at being a family.

  On the flip side, the other part of me wanted to give her assurances and pretty promises wrapped up in the package that was my heart. Free and clear of all the resentment of past mistakes so that we could move on from it all together. The problem with that was I couldn’t seem to sort through it all to go one way or the other. I was stuck in the middle, wanting to both love her and hate her, which wouldn’t work.

  I refused to let myself be the one that ruined this second chance. If it fucking killed me, I was going to find a way to make this work. Impatiently waiting for Belle to say something, to admit that she would try to make this work, too, I tried to make myself say the words that she needed. Three little words that would erase her doubts. Three syllables that carried more weight than should be possible. Eight letters that my vocal cords were unwilling to say. Frustration with myself surged. What the hell was my problem? I did still love Belle, so why couldn’t I give her the words?

  Just as I was about to lose my ever lovin’ mind at her continued silence, she moved. Her hands came up tentatively, moving slowly up my chest until she gripped both of my shoulders with fingers that trembled. Pulling down on my shoulders to bring me closer, she lifted up on her toes and placed a soft, sweet kiss on my lips.

  “Okay, Bobby, we’ll try.”

  There it was. Vulnerability. She was scared shitless of what we could do to each other—the possibility that we would rip into each other with the kind of animosity that no love could repair—and, in the end, leave two emotional corpses behind instead of living, breathing people who had learned and loved. Despite her fears, she was giving into me anyway. Being the kind of bastard that I am, I was going to take the opportunity she was giving me, even if I hadn’t figured out how to stop hating her long enough to remember just how much I did love her.

  When it came to Belle, I was taking it all. There was no part of her that I wouldn’t touch. That I wouldn’t own. From her soft, satin-like skin to the depths of her very soul; she was going to feel me all over her, inside of her, and surrounding her until there wasn’t a doubt in that pretty, little head of hers that she was never running from me again. I wasn’t going to let anything stop me from conquering all that she was, even my own stupid pride.

  Her lips brushed mine again, snapping the hold I had on my restraint. I left one hand in her hair, fisting the strands so that I could control her as I slanted my mouth savagely over hers. Thrusting my tongue inside like the marauder I was feeling like at the moment, to tangle my tongue with hers almost forcefully. It was no slow, gentle kiss. It represented exactly how I felt at that moment. It was deep. Intoxicating. So fucking hungry you would think I was starving, just not for food. Starving for her. Always for her.

  I slipped my other hand from where I’d had it clamped on her back, down to grasp one of those full, round ass cheeks of hers, pulling her body into mine so tight that I knew she could feel my dick, hot and hard, pushing against her stomach. The friction of her body rubbing against the length of me was good enough that I groaned into her mouth, but the pleasure was short lived because that was not what I wanted to rub up against. I was also not in the mood to fuck around with that anticipation shit right now. In some ways, I felt like I’d been anticipating Belle my whole life. What I wanted—no, needed—right now was to be buried balls deep in her, fucking her so hard that she’d be feeling the way I’d stretched and filled her for at least a week.

  Refusing to lose connection with her mouth, I slipped the hand from her hair so that I could grab her ass in both hands, then bending my knees a little, I lifted her up until she had to wrap those sexy legs of hers around my waist for support. Moving forward, I was so engrossed in her that I miscalculated where the kitchen entrance was at, completely missed it, and ended up slamming her against the wall next to it instead. She was grinding against me now. Rubbing her core up and down my dick until I thought my eyes were going to roll back in my head and I was going to shoot off like a teenager in my jeans.

  There was no cooling this explosiveness between us and I wouldn’t want to, even if I could. The chemistry between us was off the charts. So much so that even Marie Curie wouldn’t have been able to identify whatever it was that we were. We were burning so hot for each other that a part of me had to reluctantly admit that Belle was right, we were bound to get burned up in all of this, but I didn’t give a shit. I’d rather be burnt to cinders and left in a pile of ash than never have this with her again. It was self-destructive of me, but all I wanted to do was add more gasoline to our fire so that we would burn strong and out of control, instead of watching it fizzle away and be cold and alone. So, sexual gasoline it was.

  I felt my climax starting to build. The tell-tale tingling at the base of my spine going off like a warning beacon that it was about to be the beginning of the end. Since I wasn
’t exactly buried in her hot, wet depths yet, that was un-fucking-acceptable.

  Abruptly pulling my lips off hers, I listened to her ragged breathing as I tightened my grip on her, then started hauling ass down the hallway towards what I sure as shit was hoping was her bedroom. I hadn’t moved this fast since the last time I’d been under enemy fire. At least this time, instead of taking a bullet to the knee. I’d be taking her instead.

  Walking through the last door on the left I scanned our surroundings, saw bedroom furniture, and almost threw Belle bodily on the bed so that I could do a victory dance in celebration of my upcoming touchdown of the naked variety. Forgoing my need to act like an idiot, I kicked her door closed, used one of my hands in a ninja fast move to lock the door behind us, and then took three steps towards the bed before I did toss her on it.

  She squeaked in surprise at being momentarily airborne, but had no time to give me shit about it because, by the time she landed horizontally on the bed, I was already there, pulling her boots off to throw them out of the way over my shoulder.

  “If you don’t want your shirt to end up ripped to pieces on the floor, I suggest you take that shit off while I’m taking care of your pants.”

  Belle went bodily still for about two point three seconds at the hoarse demand before she was in motion. Pulling her shirt up and over her head as I peeled her khakis and panties down her legs and off, then they, too, went up and over my shoulder to disappear behind me. She unclipped the front enclosure on her bra and peeled it off as I grabbed the condom I’d placed in my back pocket earlier, hoping for this outcome and then shucked out of my clothes faster than ever before. By the time my jeans hit the floor, I was already moving towards her, condom packet ripped open and rolling it down my length.

  She was trying to scoot herself around so that we’d be laying on the bed in the right direction, but I crawled up her body, grabbed her hips and stopped her. I was so far gone that I didn’t care what direction we were facing; horizontal, vertical, hanging halfway off the bed, or tied up in pretzel knots, as long as I got to bury my cock in her within the next breath I took.