Misadventures With The Mistaken Twin (Big Sky Boyfriends #2)

Chapter 16

16

“Marcus knew knots. As a sea captain, he wrapped her wrists in a way he knew she couldn't escape. Arms forced above her head, she was his for the taking. He looked over her luscious body. She had melons for breasts, ripe, sweet and juicy. Lower, too. Beneath the velvet skirts, he knew she was pink and wet. Ripe and juicy there as well.”

I read the next installment in Goldie's book. “There's a lot of ripe fruit in here,” I told her from my spot behind the counter at Goldilocks. It was dinner time, all was quiet in the store, no customers. Goldie ate from a Styrofoam to-go container. Chinese.

Delivery wasn't a service the restaurant offered, but they made an exception to the rule for Goldie. Whatever Goldie wanted was brought within thirty minutes of ordering. Every time. It may have been because she was such a sweet person that the owner did this just for her, but I thought it had more to do with his proclivity for ladies’ lingerie and a very specific genre of porn flicks. Confidentiality was Goldie's stock in trade, but it was evident the man figured it probably couldn't hurt to grease the wheels with Moo Shoo Pork, just in case.

“I want her to be desirable, to let the reader know how she's ripe and ready for him,” Goldie informed me about her unusual writing imagery.

“She's ripe all right,” I commented dryly. I wasn't sure how to tell Goldie her writing sucked. So I didn't. “I like the wontons,” I told her instead, picking up a fried crab one from a container, dipping it in some spicy sauce. I didn't get the opportunity to pick on Goldie very often, but by getting Chinese food, she'd provided me with the fodder I needed.

Goldie pursed her lips, looked at me over her fancy, spangled reading glasses as noodles dangled from her wooden chopsticks. “Very funny.”

Beep. I reached in my bag behind the counter for my cell and read the new text. You're good to go. The house is all yours.

“Yes!” I said, giving Goldie a quick hug. “My house is done. I can move back home.”

“Finally,” Goldie added. “What about your story?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I haven't written anything else.”

Goldie's shoulders slumped, clearly disappointed. “Oh, I thought surely you and Jack would move things along.” She liked happy endings in real life as much as in her romance novels. Or she was fishing for me to kiss and tell.

“He's leaving tomorrow sometime.” I tried to hide the sadness from my voice. Goldie could pick up on that better than a bomb-sniffing dog and explosives.

“Tell him to stay,” Goldie said.

“It's not that simple.” I idly stirred the fried rice around in the white container. “He has things to take care of. To work out. Goldie, he's got ten years of issues to deal with. I can't solve his problems for him, no matter how much I want to help. No matter how much sex we might have.” Besides, I’d already told him I wanted to be a reason he’d stay, and he obviously hadn’t listened.

Saying the words made me sad. My life was here. His was two thousand miles away. To top it off, we hadn't even had sex. If Goldie knew, I'm sure she'd make him stay long enough for me to at least have one male-induced orgasm.

“Where are you?” Jack asked when he called me several hours later.

I was happily settled back in my own house. After leaving Goldilocks, I'd quickly picked up my things from Violet's and headed home. Home. Thrilled didn't come close to how I felt to be back. My own bed, my own everything. I cranked the heat so it was warm and toasty then climbed into my bathtub filled with tons and tons of hot, scalding water. Oh, how I loved my hot water heater.

“At my house.”

“Your house? It's all fixed?” He sounded surprised.

I smiled to myself as I played with the bubbles floating like islands in the tub. “Yup.”

“What's that sound? It sounds like you're doing dishes.”

“I'm in the bath.” I heard a strange noise over the phone. “Jack?”

“Sorry, I think I just swallowed my tongue. What's your address?”

Excitement raced up my spine. I told him. The line went dead.

“You're supposed to be in the tub. My fantasy driving over here was of you in the tub, ” Jack said when I'd unlocked the door for him. He stood there with thick snowflakes in his hair and on the shoulders of his coat, his eyes raking over me, taking in my painted toenails, my just-shaven legs, my ratty robe, my wet hair.

Smiling, I stepped back and let him in. “How were you planning on getting in then?” I asked, my hands pulling at the lapels on my robe, shivering. The floor was chilly beneath my bare feet.

“I was going to break in. It didn't really matter as long as you were still in the tub.” His eyes moved once again over my body as if searching for contraband.

With one foot, he kicked the front door shut behind him. With both hands, he grabbed hold of the ends of the tie about my waist and pulled me into him. The weak knot I had holding the front together came loose, the robe parting down the middle. Goose bumps rose across my body as my exposed skin was pressed against his cold jacket. And lower. His lips descended to mine in a quick, searing kiss. There was nothing gentle about the man who stood in front of me. He appeared to be on a mission and did not intend to fail.

His tongue circled with mine, delved deep before his lips moved to kiss my eyes shut, my jaw, my neck, all the time his hands holding tightly to my sash, keeping me from moving away. Not that I wanted to.

“You're wet,” he said, his voice a rough whisper by my ear. “I know it.”

I tilted my head back for his mouth, which had found a delicious spot halfway down my neck.

“No...no, I dried off in the bath?—”

Jack laughed against my neck, his hands found my waist and I gasped at how cool they were. One hand slid down past my belly button, lower still until he plunged not one, but two fingers into me.

Oh my god. I went up on my tiptoes, but the pleasure of the bold contact made me gasp.

“Here. You're wet here.”

My inner walls clamped down on his fingers, wanting them to stay deep inside me. My knees crumpled beneath me as he slid in and out. The lightning quick pulses of pleasure radiated out of my core to every part of my body. Jack's scent swirling around us, his lips on my neck made me lose all practical thought.

Jack pulled free, picked me up in his arms, my robe gaping open. I looked down at myself. One breast was exposed, just like the other time, the nipple tightening from the cool air, and Jack's gaze. He kept staring when he asked, “Where's your bedroom?”

His voice was dark and gravelly.

I pointed in the general direction, lost in a fathomless need. My body craved his touch. It had for years. I'd fought him for days—at least mentally—and knew when it was time to throw in the towel. Or, in this particular situation, maybe my old, frayed robe. Yes, he was leaving. Yes, it was going to hurt when he was gone.

But this was Jack Reid. The Jack Reid of every one of my fantasies. What woman in her right mind turned down a hot, smart, hot, kind and did I mention hot, man who carried you to the nearest bed? I'd put up a good fight against the oh, so tempting Jack Reid, but I was just a mere woman. For once I wanted to do the wrong thing. And the wrong thing felt so right.

Jack laid me down on the bed and spread the sides of the robe apart, exposing me to his gaze. For the first time. I'd dreamed of this moment and it was everything I'd imagined, and then some. He looked enthralled, lost, as if he was memorizing my every curve.

“You're so beautiful,” he murmured, running his finger gently over my stomach, moving up to circle the curving slope of one breast, then the other. I watched his finger move, hoping, longing for it to brush over my nipples. His hand was so tan, so rugged next to my Montana pale skin.

“I'm leaving tomorrow. Going back to deal with all the stuff I've done,” he said roughly as he caressed me with a tenderness that was my undoing.

Jack closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath. He fought an inner demon. “But I've got to touch you. Make you mine. You've always been everything that's right with the world.” He looked into my eyes. Pinned me in place with his storm swept, sea colored gaze. “I've been in love with you since I was seventeen. Seeing you again made me realize I hadn't stopped.”

His fingers finally brushed over my nipple. He paused and watched as it pebbled hard beneath his touch. I arched my back and my breast lifted up into his palm, wanting, craving every part of him. He said he loved me. Had always done so. Those few words were like a balm, they filled up every nook and cranny of my heart and it overflowed. Just for Jack.

“Please, Veronica, please tell me not to stop.”

Right then, whether he knew it or not, he was doing the right thing. He was stopping. Waiting. Letting me dictate what happened next. He didn't have to ask, he could've just taken what he wanted, and he knew I wasn't strong enough to stop him.

I placed a hand to his cheek, felt the rasp of his stubble, the hard bone beneath. He turned his head and kissed my palm, took hold of my arm and kissed the pulse point at the inside of my wrist.

“Jack,” I said, my voice clogged with emotion. “Look at me.”

He turned his eyes to mine, but held my wrist to his mouth still. His breath fanned hot against my skin.

“You're a good man. No matter what you did, you're a good man. Your past doesn't dictate who you are. It's what you do in the here and now. You'll go and do the right thing.”

Jack laughed silently, but it didn't show in his eyes. There, beneath the desire, was a bleakness that made me ache for him.

“Am I doing the right thing now?” he asked, his voice rough with so many emotions.

I nodded against the pillow, my wet hair wild about me. I'd fought my desire since I first laid eyes on him again, sprawled unconscious on Violet's floor. The love had never gone away for me either. The need always lingered.

Even when he went back to Florida, he'd still be in my heart. But this night, this time together, was ours. The outside world—Violet, Crazy Lady Lorraine, lawsuits—was just that. Outside. Here, in my bedroom, it was finally, once and for all, just me and Jack.

“It's right. Everything between us is right,” I whispered, taking his hand and placing it on my breast. “I love you, Jack. Don't stop.”

Jack froze in place at my words, looked at me, searching maybe to see if I told the truth. He groaned and took a deep breath as if he still struggled, doubted. Then I saw something shift in his eyes. Worry and guilt were replaced by something else. I saw love. Lust, too. That combination, knowing he wanted me, body and soul, was the most amazing feeling ever. Knowing he felt it too made it even better.

Jack yanked at the zipper of his jacket, sliding it down and ripping the coat off. His sweater, shirt, pants, boxers, everything followed. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a condom, tossed it on the bed.

I stared at him, in all his naked glory. He was everything I'd ever imagined rolled into one, and then some. Hard muscles over tanned, smooth skin. A smattering of dark hair across his chest dipped lower, to a line that ran down to his magnificent cock. It was thick and long and everything Goldie's romance books talked about. But it wasn't fiction, it was pure, hard—very hard—fact pointed straight at me. And it was all mine.

“It's big,” I commented, staring at him.

“If you keep looking at it that way it's going to get bigger.”