Chapter Twenty-Seven
“I still can’t believe you asked him that, and with a straight face!”
Jamie looked at Zee, just to make sure the outrage was mock. She was grinning, so he thought it safe to assume it was. And he grinned back at her.
“Well, we did discuss it.”
He wasn’t quite sure himself why the question about condoms had popped out in the middle of the furniture store, but something about the older man’s expression as he looked at them had done it.
“It was worth it to see the look on his face. And to see him laugh.”
“‘I have six children,’” Jamie quoted. “‘If the store where we bought our bed had offered them, that number might be lower.’”
She laughed, that lovely sound he’d so missed. “Lucky kids.”
“Yes.” He didn’t have to look at her to know they were both thinking the same thing; the parents they had lost. But she had had True, and he Aunt Millie, and they’d both ended up with good lives despite the loss.
“Too bad it won’t be delivered until tomorrow,” she said.
He glanced at her as he drove. What he saw in her face made his blood heat and surge at the same time, and it was all he could do not to shift uncomfortably in the driver’s seat. Damn, she brought him to the boil like no one ever had.
Or ever would.
“Yeah,” he muttered, turning back to the road.
He was convinced of that now. Nothing had ever matched what he’d had with Zee. And he wondered, not for the first time, if it had really been worth it. If the success and unexpected recognition the band—and he himself—had gotten was indeed worth what he’d given up. Once he would have said it was worth anything. Now he knew better.
They’d ended up on the outskirts of Austin to make the purchase—both purchases—hoping it was both far enough from Whiskey River to keep the gossip at bay and big enough he wouldn’t be recognized. In the end, finding the small, craftsman-run store had solved all the problems plus given him the added pleasure of selecting from some beautiful, handmade pieces. He’d ended up buying not just the big four-poster, but the collection, and a solid, beautifully grained table and chairs for the dining room and a hand-carved, glass-doored cabinet for no other reason than the fanciful dragons on it appealed.
“I’ve got some cleaning still to do before it gets here,” he said when he could trust his voice again.
“I’ll help,” she said.
“You hate cleaning.”
“I expect payment.”
“Do you now?” he drawled.
“Indeed, I do,” she said, and proceeded to outline exactly what kind of payment she expected.
He stood it for a mile and a half. “If you don’t stop,” he growled, “I’m going to pull off the road and we’ll hit the backseat like the teenagers we were.”
“Not necessarily a bad idea,” she said blithely, “except the top’s down and I think there are laws.”
The laugh that burst from him then was like a pressure valve letting go, and he felt better than he had in nearly a year.
*
Zee smoothed the comforter down at the last corner. Abruptly her eyes shifted focus, from the cheerful blue fabric—bluebonnet-blue—to her hand. Her imagination flashed, picturing her hand sliding over his skin. Suddenly she was as overheated as if it were midday midsummer instead of spring. Yet she couldn’t seem to stop.
“Never thought I’d envy a piece of material.”
His voice came from the doorway behind her and she froze. “Careful,” she said, “I might interpret that as an immediate invitation.”
She heard a rustling behind her, then footsteps. “Oh, it was,” he said huskily.
She turned then, saw that the rustling had been him pulling his shirt over his head and shedding his boots. For a moment she couldn’t breathe. He was even more beautiful than he’d been at eighteen. He’d filled out, his shoulders broadened, his chest deeper. But his hips were as narrow, his belly as flat as ever, and he still moved like that barely leashed wild thing. If she’d been any kind of artist, this was what she would pick as her male ideal.
And he looked much, much better than he had when he’d gotten off that plane. Being back in Whiskey River, even for only a short time—God, had it really only been seventeen days?—obviously agreed with him. She hoped she had something to do with that. And marveled at how far they’d come.
Once you quit being a hypocrite.
She shoved the thought aside. They were past that now, and she wasn’t going to let it interfere. Not when this man who had always fired her blood was standing here, half-naked and obviously already aroused, in front of her. Not when she was fairly aching to touch him in the old ways, and maybe discover some new ones.
It didn’t matter that it was the middle of the day, or that she had just made the bed for the first time. Nothing mattered except that he was here, and he wanted her. Maybe even as much as she wanted him.
It was familiar, and yet it was brand new.
He hadn’t even touched her yet, and she was trembling. And then he did, reaching out to stroke the backs of his fingers over her cheek.
“You’re sure, Zee? I don’t ever want to hurt you again.”
He would stop. She knew that down to her soul, that if she said she was the least bit uncertain, he would stop. For she was suddenly certain that deep down he was still the Jamie Templeton she had loved with all her youthful heart. He might have stumbled along the way, fallen prey to temptations few could resist, but he’d pulled himself out of it.
You know what I used to think when it got really crazy, when I nearly stepped off the edge? I used to think, ‘Man, Zee would chew me out for that.’ And I stepped back.
So yes, he would stop. And she’d likely slide to the floor right here, an aching puddle of want and need.
“You didn’t hurt me,” she said, needing to make sure he understood. “I did. By not being honest with myself, or you. You only did what you always said you would do. What I told you to do.”
“Tell me what to do now, Zee.” His voice was rough, rumbling in that way she remembered so well; it sent chills and heat through her at the same time.
“I think you remember what to do,” she said, in a whisper that was all she could manage her throat was so tight with wanting him.
He reached out and tugged at the buttons of her blouse. She saw the barest tremor in his hands, and this proof he was as hungry as she was only kicked up the heat. The blouse fell open and Jamie swallowed visibly.
She couldn’t speak at all anymore. But she could touch, and so she reached out and laid her palms flat on his chest. The heat of him seared her, and the low sound he made as skin met skin was the fuel to the fire that had apparently only been banked all this time.
He closed his eyes as she ran her fingers over his chest, then slid down to the ridges of his abdomen. He kept them closed as he went the other direction, slipping his hands up to cup her breasts. The thin, lacy bra was no barrier, and she moaned at the long-missed feel of his hands on her.
His eyes were still closed. That made her the tiniest bit nervous. She reached up and brushed a fingertip over the thick sweep of his eyelashes. “Jamie?”
Something must have been in her voice, because he answered her unspoken question.
“I’m not sure I can handle touching you and looking at you at the same time.” But then he did look at her. And when he spoke again, there was such fierceness in his voice it fairly screamed the truth of what he was saying. “I never stopped wanting you, Zee. Never.”
The words were like a caress in themselves. And then his thumbs brushed over her nipples and a moan escaped her as the darting fire woke up every nerve. The silky blouse slid off her shoulders, and he reached behind her. He fumbled with the clasp of her bra, but after a moment dropped his forehead to rest on hers.
“I can’t. My hands are shaking.”
The admission tipped her over the edge. She reached back and undid the clasp herself. Jamie tugged the fabric away, and she saw that indeed his hands were shaking when he reached to again cup her breasts, skin to skin again, and her body cramped with need. Only him, only this man had ever been able to spark this conflagration in her so high, so fast.
He lifted her breasts at the same moment he lowered his head. He caught one already tight nipple in his mouth, teased it with his tongue. She arched to him, a sharp cry breaking from her. He repeated the action on the other, then suckled her deeply. She clutched at him, felt the power in his arms, his shoulders, which only made her treasure more that moment of admission that his hands were shaking. Because he wanted her that much.
She reached for the snap of his jeans, wanting him naked against her more than she wanted her next breath. She was barely aware of him pulling at her own clothes, didn’t care as long as she got his off.
He was more beautiful than she remembered. Or it was the change in him, from youth to full manhood. But it didn’t matter, because everything came flooding back to her, all the things she’d tried not to think of for so long, the way he liked to be touched, the spots that had made him gasp, groan, or let her name out in reverence. And she wanted to hit them all, but he was touching her, caressing her, and it was clear he remembered just as well as she did.
They went down to the bed in a tangle. Wrestled with the condom. And then she was kissing, licking, tasting every bit of him she could reach, and he was doing the same. The flames burned hotter, until she was clawing at him, begging him to hurry. She wrapped her legs around his lean hips, reaching between them to stroke the rigid length of him. She simply could not wait to feel him, every inch of him, inside her again.
The first blunt probing told her how ready she was, for he slid easily over slick flesh. Then he stopped, and she nearly cried out.
“Don’t stop,” she pleaded.
“Not stopping. Savoring. Every. Damned. Bit. Of. You.”
It came out in gasping chunks of sound, and with every word he slid in a little deeper. And then, with a final fierce thrust, he drove home the rest of the way and she cried out with the sheer, exquisite pleasure of it.
“Zee.” He let it out on a harsh breath. “I can’t…”
He didn’t finish. He tightened his hold on her and began to move. She wanted it to go on forever, but her long-deprived body had other ideas and was gathering itself by his third stroke. Her fingers dug into his back as she clung to him, arching to his thrusts. She felt the moment when he grew even harder, stretching her further, heard him groan low and deep, knew she could let go. And then it was upon her, that flooding wash of pure sensation, and she cried out his name on wave after wave of it. Her name ripped from him and she felt the hot pulse of him inside her, in the moment before he collapsed atop her, panting, but still holding on to her as if for his life.
And for the first time since he’d gone, her life felt whole again.