by Alison Kent
"He won't find out from me, sweetie," Neva said, returning to her chair. "I promise you that."
"And you won't tell Candy?" She felt like a hypocrite of the highest order for even having to ask when she'd been the one to put the truth out there.
"Jeanne, I promise. I won't tell anyone." Neva's eyes glittered with tears. "It's not my place to tell."
"You know, I don't think I ever thought but once about not having him," Jeanne said, tucking her feet together beneath her chair and sitting forward. "I didn't know what had happened that night. To this day, I can't remember. I could've been a willing participant. It seemed so wrong to punish a baby for that."
"Are you sure you weren't punishing yourself?"
A friend who was both understanding and perceptive. Jeanne felt the return of her smile. "I very well might have been. I can hardly remember back that far," she said with a sigh. "And of course I have a wonderful son who makes it easy to forget." A wonderful son who was hurting.
She pushed her hair from her forehead then braced an elbow on the table and propped her chin in her palm. "I think he and Candy may have broken up."
Neva's face came alive when she smiled. "So you brought me a pie to bribe me only to find out I don't know a thing."
"I'm so transparent. And such a nosy busybody. Just what Spencer doesn't need," Jeanne added with a laugh.
"No, Jeanne. You're a mother who cares," Neva said sagely. "And that's exactly what all children need."
"Yancey wanted more children. He brought it up once or twice, asked me how I felt. But he never insisted." She swayed back and forth on her elbow, unconsciously mimicking her inner distress. "He thought it would be good for our son to have a sibling. He thought Spencer would be lonely. But I just couldn't do it. I'm a terrible, terrible person."
"No. You're human. You were probably afraid he'd love his biological child more. That's a natural assumption," Neva said in a calming voice.
Sighing, Jeanne sat back, crossed her arms, shook her head. "I couldn't stand the idea of being pregnant again. It was too much a part of the rape that I couldn't remember."
The same familiar sensations tingled now in the pit of her stomach, dread and panic and nervous clawing fingers. "I used to wake up in the middle of the night scared to death that I would give birth to a hideous monster. Silly, I know, but I've never been able to explain that to Yancey. Especially when it seems so simple to explain it to you."
Neva waved a dismissive hand. "It's not silly at all. You can tell me because you know I won't be hurt. You've been carrying this tremendous load of guilt for years. It had to come out sometime." She cocked her head and considered her friend thoughtfully. "How do you feel now?"
How did she feel? "Like I've just shit a bowling ball," Jeanne admitted, relief sweeping through her, cleaning away years of emotional detritus.
Neva sputtered into giggles, Jeanne joining her, until both women were laughing so hard they blew pie crumbs from the table to the floor—a fact that wouldn't have been so funny had both not reached for the same paper towel at the same time and knocked Jeanne's coffee cup into Neva's lap.
Neva gasped, jumped back, then continued to laugh while Jeanne sat horrified. "Oh, God, Neva. Is it still hot?" She rushed around the table, dropped down to a crouch and started wiping at the stains. A useless endeavor. She was doing nothing but leaving paper towel balls on the denim. "Let's get you out of your pants and get you some ice."
She was fumbling to tug the jeans down Neva's legs when she heard the squeak of the kitchen's screen door, and then a deep male voice saying, "Uh, I can come back later. Or I can come back right now with a video camera."
A silent second ticked by, and then Neva laughed so hard Jeanne lost her balance and fell back to the floor. She sat there, staring at the big man who'd walked in wearing camouflage gear over a very hard body and a tattoo almost as sexy as his shaved head and goatee.
His bright gray eyes twinkled with glee, as did his smile, completing a picture that left her unable to find her dignity or her voice. She had no trouble finding her appreciation.
And Neva wasn't hindered at all. Jeans around her knees, she made the introductions. "Mick, this is my good friend Jeanne Munroe. Jeanne, another good friend of mine, Mick Savin. We were just cleaning up a spill, Mick."
He reached into the refrigerator for a quart carton of orange juice, considered them for a moment before heading back outside, leaving them with a wink and a cryptic, "Don't let me get in your way. But if you need any help ..."
"Wow," Jeanne said once the door slammed shut behind him, because it was the only word she could find. "Who is he}"
Neva sighed wistfully. "To tell you the truth? I really don't know."
Neva had lied to her friend earlier. When Jeanne had knocked on the door at seven-thirty, Neva hadn't been staring into the fridge waiting for a meal to jump out. She'd been staring into the fridge and trying to decide what to do about wanting Mick Savin.
The sustenance he offered was the only thing on her mind. She was so very hungry for him, so wary of taking her fill. The battle between her appetites had been raging since she'd looked into his glazed eyes that day on the side of the road. Yet she still wasn't able to make up her mind.
Should she send him away before it was too late to do so? Or keep him around forever since it already was? She was falling for him. Stupid, stupid, stupid to fall for a man about whom she knew so little. And what a silly heart she had, thinking the things she did know were enough to make the risky tumble worth taking.
She paused in front of the guest room door, standing where she knew the floor wouldn't creak with any nervous shift of her body weight. The only light shining was the one she always left on over the sink in the kitchen. It reached this far, reflecting off the room's brass doorknob. She wouldn't have to fumble for it. She wouldn't miss it when she reached.
What a joke. If she went in, she wouldn't miss or fumble. Her body knew what it wanted. She just needed to make up her mind if this was the right thing. Or, if not, the degree of wrongness she was facing. And if she could live with herself when all was said and done. That was the biggest hurdle. The aftermath of her soul.
She reached out her hand, flexed her fingers, clenched them before taking hold of the knob. It turned easily in her palm, which was sweating, and she pushed open the door. She blinked, but she had no need. The guest room was no darker than the hallway. It was brighter, in fact. Mick had opened the shutters and tied up the shades on all four of the eight-paned windows.
The hardwood floor gleamed, as did the glossy pine furnishings. The white comforter embroidered with sprigs of blue flowers reflected the ghostly light, washing the entire room with a glow the same color as the pale blue walls. The atmosphere was eerily unreal and perfect. She could blame anything that happened on the light from the moon.
Mick stood staring out one of the windows, at what she had no idea. That side of the house faced nothing but wide open spaces. Maybe the emptiness was what he was looking at. Maybe he was feeling cooped up, wanting to fly. It was a good thing she'd never thought seriously about tying him down.
All she wanted was the relief he could give her body, a fulfillment more intense than anything she could give herself, more complete than what he'd shown her this afternoon.
That was all she wanted. She certainly didn't want the emotional sensations tugging at the strings of her heart.
He never turned when she closed the door and started across the room. He didn't say a word. He didn't move. The same light that brightened the room caressed his body; she saw details she'd never before seen. The dimpled skin on his side beneath his bandaged rib cage. A gouge of flesh missing from the bulge of his calf muscle. More damage from the life she didn't want him to tell her about.
She didn't want to know. She didn't want to care. She didn't want the involvement she knew she was walking into. All she wanted was to touch him. Her socks shushed over the floor, the sound barely louder than an indrawn breath as
she moved to stand at his back. He hadn't looked at her once, yet she knew he was aware of her presence. The tension in his body rolled off in waves.
She settled her hands at his hips, her fingers curling into the waistband of the gray sweat shorts that matched hers. Though the air in the room was cool, his skin was toasty warm. He wasn't feverish, his temperature not enough to cause concern, simply enough to tempt her.
And so she slid her arms around him, her hands up his torso, her fingers through the fine dusting of hair covering his belly and chest on either side of his bound ribs. She was gentle with her touch, remembering his bruises, feeling the rough scabs covering his healing scrapes.
He was taller than she was, and she couldn't see beyond his body to follow his gaze through the window. So she pressed her cheek to the center of his back, nuzzled against him, and breathed him in.
He shuddered as she held him, and she eased away a bit, not wanting to hurt him more than she had if that was the cause of his response. He assured her it wasn't when he moved his hands from the window frame, found both her wrists, and pulled her close again. She smiled against his skin, turned to kiss the indentation of his spine.
His gooseflesh tickled her; she was so pleased that he wanted her near, and that once he had her where he wanted her, he loosened his hold, threaded their fingers together, and pressed their one big fist to the center of his chest where his heart pounded more fiercely than hers.
He made this so easy, made it so hard. Made her want to open more than her body—a feat no man before him had ever accomplished. Past experiences, previous men had been nothing more than physical encounters. Those, she'd closed her mind and summarily enjoyed.
What Mick offered her that no one had before was as complicated as it was simple. She couldn't stop to break it down. She only knew she felt safe. Safe and secure and protected. Trusted. Believed. He hadn't laughed over her paranoia. He'd asked for facts so he could clear away her worries and fears.
She pulled her hands from his and slid her fingers to his shoulders, massaging tiny circles there, walking her fingertips along the slope to his neck, rubbing her knuckles softly against the base of his skull. She loved touching him. Didn't think she'd ever get enough.
With one index finger, she outlined the tribal decoration cupping his neck. "Tell me about your tattoo."
He shook his head and pulled her around in front of him. His eyes sparkled like silver coins in the moonlight. "I don't want to talk. Not about my tattoo, or your barn, or which one of us has been living a lie longer than the other and owes the biggest round of apologies."
"Then what do you want?" she asked coyly.
He answered with a pirate's plundering grin and a growled, "Everything that's mine."
Thirteen
"Does that include me?" she asked, thinking she liked the idea of being claimed as a pirate's booty. Especially with this man doing the plundering. "Or are you still worried I'm not going to give you back your gun?"
"Screw the bloody gun. I've got a half dozen others." He hooked an elbow around her neck, pulled her flush to his body. "But you, Nevada Case, are one of a kind."
The way he looked into her eyes as he said it, the way it rolled off his tongue, as if he didn't know an endearment more precious, had never seen her in a light that revealed what this one did, she didn't even mind him using her full name. In fact, she kind of liked it. Liked, too, the idea of him owning that part of her, if nothing more.
She reached up and ran her fingertips over the patch of hair beneath his lower lip. "I think you're pretty special, too."
He pulled the elastic band from her hair. "Which is it, then? Pretty or special?"
She grinned. "A whole lot of both."
"Hmm. I'm not sure I've ever been called pretty," he said, spreading her hair out across her shoulders and admiring his handiwork. "Why don't you wear your hair down?"
"Because it gets in the way of everything," she said, loving the way he played with the strands, combing his fingers through the thick unruly waves. She closed her eyes, leaned back her head. "Do you know how good that feels?"
"Tell me," he nearly grunted.
"Well, my nipples are hard, if that says anything," she said, and felt herself blushing. Like she was some virginal schoolgirl. Please.
He dipped his head, drew one peak into his mouth— tank top and all—swirled his tongue around and around until the cotton covering her breast was as wet as that covering her sex. She dug her fingertips into his biceps to hold on.
And then he released her, moved his mouth to her ear. "It tells me that I'm going to love getting you out of your clothes."
"Oh, feel free," she said, and he laughed, nipping at her earlobe, her neck, the soft skin beneath her jaw. "I'll be glad to help."
"I can manage, thanks," he replied, working his way lower, to the scoop of her neckline where he drew his tongue along the edge of the fabric and over the slope of both breasts. His fingers followed, dipping beneath to tease the tightly puckered edges of her areolas.
"Okay." She panted, whimpered. "If you're sure. It's just that you're really taking way too long."
His chuckle was more of a roar than a laugh. One that was deep and throaty and tickled her in places already aching to be scratched. "You in a hurry to get somewhere?"
Only into your bed, she thought to herself as she curled her toes in her socks. "Uh, no."
"Good." He was back to licking her now, her neck, the dip in her throat, her collarbone. His hands at her waist held her where he wanted her, where he could get to her the best. "Because I'm not going anywhere. And there's a whole night ahead."
Oh, dear. Oh, my. She wasn't going to last that long. She didn't want to last that long. She wanted to come dozens of times. She wanted to smell him and taste him and feel the hair on his belly and between his legs.
"Oh, hell." She heard herself murmur, heard Mick laugh, heard the way his breathing was already as labored as hers. And then she wondered why he was having all the fun. Who said she had to wait?
She moved her hands from his biceps to his shoulders then down to his chest, threading tufts of the silky hair in the center through her fingers, pressing the balls of her palms into his pecs until he groaned. The sound echoed in the spartan room, rumbled in the pit of her belly. She leaned forward, drawing the flat of her tongue over one of his nipples, swirling the tiny bud with the tip.
He set her away, his jaw taut, his grin equally so as he stared into her eyes. "Following my lead, eh?"
Still using her fingers to play, she shrugged with all the innocence she could manage—not an easy feat with the tension throbbing between them and the room just waiting for the shedding of their clothes. "What's good for the goose ..."
"Okay, then," he said, and laughed, his teeth white in his dangerously beautiful smile. He captured her hand and held it. "Let's see if you can keep up."
Gulp. She might have been living a life of crime for five years, but she wasn't sure she was cut out to be a pirate. At least not the brigand she'd need to be to pillage at this one's pace. His hand was already settling in the small of her back, his fingers digging for booty beneath the elastic waistband of her shorts.
Chin lifted, brows, too, she met his gaze squarely, boldly, and slipped her hands to the skin of his back exposed beneath his bandaged ribs. He was warm there, warm everywhere, muscled and healthy and resiliently taut. She couldn't get enough of touching him and didn't hesitate, didn't wait, but breeched the fabric barrier.
His grin widened. All he needed was a parrot on his shoulder and a hoop in his ear, a cutlass between his teeth. Or so she had time to think before his hands made their way into her pants. Then she couldn't think of anything but spreading her legs.
"Have I mentioned how much I like fast women?"
She pinched his ass and glared. "For a man who didn't want to talk, you're doing a lot of it."
He was taller, his arms longer, his reach much deeper than hers. His fingers found their way beneath t
he curve of her cheeks to all those places she wanted to give him. She pushed up to her tiptoes so he wouldn't have to work quite so hard.
"Have I mentioned how much I like it when you wet your pants?"
"Shh!" she hissed and spanked him. "If you want to talk, do it with your hands. If you must use your mouth, do it from your knees."
Laughing, he rubbed a finger around her back entrance before finding his way to the front. He circled her there, making her weep and shudder and clench long-unused muscles, then pushed inside. Oh . .. dear . . . Lord, but his finger was thick and long. She moaned, the sound starting in the pit of her belly and rolling out of her throat.
"You like?"
Why was he still talking? "You have to ask?"
He pushed in farther, pulled all the way out, found her clitoris and rubbed. "Only because you're not doing a very good job of keeping up."
"I'm selfish that way," she admitted, shivering anew. "Besides, my arms aren't as long."
He lowered his head, returned to nuzzle her ear. "Feel free to go in from the front."
The thought of touching him, fondling him, feeling all his different textures, his thickness and weight. . . Her imagination held no candle to the reality. He was so hot, felt so good. She breathed him in and slid her hands from his buttocks to his thighs, sensing his muscles seize beneath her hands, feeling the indentation at his hip where he flexed.
She also felt the edges of a bandage on his thigh. "I'm afraid I'm going to hurt you."
"If you don't hurt me, then we're not doing this right," he said, his voice a low growl, his fingers kneading the lower curves of her ass. "Please, Neva. Hurry up and hurt me."
She smiled to herself, her lashes fluttering as she looked down at the contrast between skin and bandages and cotton jersey, at that between his body, which was so very big, and hers, which suddenly seemed small. And then she brought both hands around to his front. Right where he wanted them.