Asking for Trouble (19 page)

They finished their game, and Joe continued to fail
miserably at not noticing her, and not reacting to what he was noticing, but at
least he won.

“Ready to go?” he asked when the last ball was sunk, taking
her cue from her and setting it in the rack with his own.

“They have a jukebox,” she said. “You know what I’ve always
wanted to do?”

“No, what?” He was a fool, but
whatever she wanted, he wanted it too.

“I’ve always wanted to ask a guy for some money for the
jukebox, and have him give it to me and let me pick the music, like I was in
the 1950s. And since being out with you is like being in the 1950s anyway . . .
how about it?”

He pulled out his wallet and gave her a couple bucks,
watched her walk over to the old-fashioned machine, all colored neon and decorative
chrome. She bent down to choose her songs, and he decided he’d better join her.

“Find anything you like?” he asked, and she looked up at him
with a smile, pushed a lock of shiny hair behind one ear.

“It’s pretty much all country,” she said. “What’s your
favorite music?”

“Jazz, blues, R&B. Country’s all right too, in a place
like this where it fits.”

“Really.” She looked surprised. “Why did I never know that? I’d
have figured you for a hard-rock guy, all those rough edges.”

“Lots of things you don’t know about me,” he said.

“Oh, yeah?” she asked, running a finger caressingly over the
chrome selection buttons. “Like what?”

“Like that I like my music slow and bluesy. When I’m in a
bar, or in certain . . . other situations.” He knew it was a bad idea to say
it, and he said it anyway, and he smiled down at her and saw her breath catch,
and the fire inside flared up just a little bit hotter.

“Well,” she said, and he could see the movement of her
throat as she swallowed, “I’ll see what I can do.” She fed his money into the
machine, punched buttons, and the rocking music that had been pulsing through the
bar changed. The guitars started in, and it was bluesy, and it was slow, and
she was swaying in those fringed boots.

“Come on,” she said, looking up at him through the curtain
of her hair, because somehow that lock had come out from behind her ear to fall
over one eye. When had she taken her hair out of its ponytail? Sometime way
before pool.

“Come on,” she said again, holding a hand out to him. “Dance
with me.”

That cautionary voice in his brain was still trying to talk,
but he was done listening. Instead, he took her hand in his like he didn’t have
a choice, because he didn’t. He pulled her onto the floor and settled his own
hand over her lower back, felt the dip in her spine with his thumb, and that dip
took care of whatever resistance he had left.

There was only one kind of dancing they were doing to this
music, the kind where she was in his arms, the kind that was vertical sex, where
you knew what was coming and you were delaying it on purpose, just to make it
hotter, just to draw out the delicious anticipation for a few minutes more. The
drums were pounding out a slow, steady message right in time with his heart,
the guy was singing about somebody’s dress hitting the floor, and Joe was moving
around the little square of hardwood with Alyssa in his arms, and she was his
perfect fit.

He couldn’t have hidden a thing if he’d wanted to, because
she’d wiggled that much closer and put her cheek against his chest, and her
hand was stroking his shoulder, and she was holding him the same way he was
holding her, tight and close, like she didn’t want to let him go. He pulled her
in a little more with his hand against the small of her back, felt her soft,
warm body pressing against every aching inch of him, and that was it. He was
done.

That was the moment when, after fifteen endless years, Joe
Hartman gave it up. He knew exactly what he wanted, and he knew that no matter
how bad an idea it was, he was going to take it. And he was going to do it now.

Her body had become supercharged, every nerve ending
quivering. Joe’s hand was big and warm over hers, the muscle of his shoulder was
hard and solid under her palm, and the rest of him was just as hard and solid
against the rest of her. If she’d ever had any doubts that he wanted her, he’d
just answered them, and she closed her eyes and surrendered to the pleasure of
it. To the music washing over them, to the lyrics that said exactly what she
wanted to believe Joe was thinking, to the size and strength of his body, the
feeling of his palm against her back, pulling her in tight, giving her noplace
to go even if she’d wanted to.

They swayed through another song, and then Joe was talking,
his deep voice audible over the music, because his mouth was so deliciously
close to her ear.

“If we do this,” he said, his hand splayed over her back,
lower now, stroking below the waistband of her ski pants, tantalizingly near
the curve of her cheek, making her feel how much it wanted to keep moving,
where he wanted to hold her, “it’s not like Dr. Ski picking you up. I’m not
some guy you’re dating for a while. If we do it, it’s for real.”

“You mean,” she said into the wall of hard, warm chest,
trying for casual and failing utterly, “that if I want you, I have to promise
to make an honest man of you?”

“I’m not joking. I mean that if we do this, you’re mine, and
you need to know it.”

He hadn’t even kissed her, and she was
gone.

“Joe,” she said, her hand on the nape of his neck, rubbing up
and over the hair he’d grown for her, just because she wanted it. She knew that
he was going to spend tonight giving her everything else she wanted, making her
feel everything she needed to feel, and she needed him to start doing it. “If
you don’t get me out of here right now, I’m going to give those guys playing
pool over there a show they won’t forget. Because I need you inside me. I need
it so bad.”

“You didn’t answer,” he said, barely dancing now. “That’s a
good answer, but it’s not the answer I need.”

“What do you want me to say? Tell me, and I’ll say it.”

“You know what I want you to say.” His hand was stroking,
almost there now, and he had her pressed up tight against him, letting her know
exactly what she had to look forward to. His face was hard and set, and she was
melting.

“That I’m yours.” She swallowed. It should have been cheesy,
but it wasn’t. It was the hottest thing she’d ever heard, because he meant it.
She could feel it in the way he held her, see it in the look on his face, that predator’s
stare that had captivated her from the beginning. The difference was, now she
knew for sure that she was its target.

“Don’t you know,” she asked him, barely able to get the
words out, “that I’ve always been yours? It’s all yours, Joe. It always has
been. Go ahead and take it.”

He bent his head and kissed her, his mouth brushing over
hers, and they weren’t swaying to the music anymore, because the moment his
lips touched hers, the current leaped straight through her, a shot
of pure electricity that jolted
straight to her core. The slow, steady pulse of arousal had been throbbing ever
since she’d started playing pool with him, ever since she’d bent over the table
and offered herself to him, her body begging him to take what she was so ready
to give. She was thrumming to its beat now, to the insistent rhythm of the
slow, steamy music, to his hand coming down for just a moment to grip her by
one cheek, pull her up tight against him, right there on the dance floor. He
was kissing her harder, his mouth demanding, and she was giving it right back,
and she wanted more.

Much too quickly, it was over, and he was stepping back from
her. “Time to go,” he said.

She thought about saying
something, but there wasn’t anything to say. She let him lead her out to the doorway,
let him hold her coat for her and take her outside.
                                        

 
The blast of cold air as they stepped
outside the bar, the whipping of the hard wind-blown flakes against her exposed
cheeks and hands was like a shower of cold water, making her gasp. Joe had her
arm, was leading her across the street, putting her into the car, running
around to his side.

She expected him to kiss her
again when he got in, but he started the car, turned the defroster to high,
flipped the switches for the seat warmers.

And then he kissed her. He reached for her, pulled her to
him with one hand at her waist, the other around her head, his thumb stroking
her cheek, and kissed her, his palm on the back of her head, holding her to
him, his mouth eating her up like he was starving and she was his only food.
She got her own hands around him so she could explore the outline of his
shoulders, his back through the heavy coat, reveled in the sheer size of him,
in the feeling of him holding her so tightly, wanting her so much.

“We could get in the back,” she said into his mouth. “I need
you to touch me. I need your hands on me. I need it so bad.”

He pulled away, breathing as hard as she was. “No. I need
you to be in my bed.” He started the windshield wipers going, pulled out of the
parking spot and into a cautious U-turn, and drove the few minutes to the cabin
in silence. She was quiet, too, because she was so turned on she wasn’t sure
she could talk anyway, and because she could see that the condition of the road
demanded his full attention.

“Damn,” he breathed, pulling to a
stop in front of the cabin, the headlights picking out the wooden steps. “I
left lights on. Got to be a power failure.” He reached across her, all business,
opened the glove compartment and pulled out a flashlight. He handed it to her,
reached under his seat, and pulled out an even bigger one.

“You have two flashlights where
you can reach them,” she said, wanting to giggle, some of the heady anticipation
replaced by amusement, or just pure giddiness.

“Got a lantern in the back, too,”
he said with a grin, and opened his door. “Wait for me,” he commanded,
switching on his light. “Slippery out here, especially in those boots of
yours.”

She waited, held onto his arm as
she got out, and kept holding on as they stomped through the deepening, powdery
snow on the steps to the front door, and Joe used his key to get inside.

It felt barely warmer than the
outside in there, and the blackness, outside of the beam of their flashlights,
was total. Joe shut the front door, sat on the bench, and began to unlace his
boots, and Alyssa did the same, the sense of anticlimax bubbling up inside her.

“Way to let a girl down,” she complained,
not even taking off her coat, because it was freezing in here, contenting
herself with pulling off her boots and socks as he did the same. “I kind of
pictured you carrying me upstairs. I don’t even get to see you when I take your
clothes off? You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting to see that.”

Joe looked at her, and she could
make out another smile. “You want me to carry you upstairs? I could do that.
And you get to see me. I get to see you, too. I’ve waited long enough to do it
myself, and I’m not planning to miss out. That’s what candles are for.”

“You have candles?” She shivered
a little, and not just with cold. “And I was just joking about the carrying.
Alec’s right. Nobody wants to pick me up.”

“I do.” He stood, and the next
thing she knew, he had one arm under her shoulders, the other one beneath her
thighs, and had hoisted her into his arms. “You light the way,” he said. “I’ll
do the carrying.”

Nobody had ever carried her,
because she was tall, and she was curvy, and whatever she’d told Alec, she knew
she was too heavy. But Joe did it, and he did it without any apparent effort.
He didn’t even bump her head around the corners. She wrapped one arm around his
neck, held the flashlight in her other hand, and enjoyed every step of the way,
until he kicked open the door to his room and set her down on the big, solid wooden
bed she’d tried not to notice when she’d been in his tub the night before.

He was right, he had candles on
the nightstands, thick ivory pillars that she picked out with her flashlight
while he found the matches in a drawer and lit first one, then the other. He
took the flashlight from her hand, switched it off and set it on the nightstand,
and the single harsh spot was replaced by the flickering gleam of candlelight,
casting mysterious shadows over his face, lighting the bed with its glow.

He pulled her to stand, drew the
covers back on the bed, and then, and only then, he reached for her coat, put a
finger and thumb on the zipper, and slowly pulled it down.

“Do you know how much I’ve always
wanted to unzip you?” he asked, his hands brushing her shoulders as he drew the
coat off, tossed it onto a chair beside the bed.

“Probably about as much as I’ve
wanted to do it to you.” She did, though she needed his help to get his arms
out of the sleeves, because his arms were big.

“That’s all you’re doing,” he
said, and he’d pushed her down onto the bed, and he was over her, pulling the
covers up so they were cocooned in warmth. “The rest of this is mine.”

He was kissing her, his mouth
hard on her, his weight resting on one elbow, and she was pulling the shirt out
of his waistband, and at last, she had her hand where she’d always wanted it,
sliding over the hard muscles of his back. He flinched like she’d slapped him
there, and then she was flinching the same way, because his hand was under her
sweater. It was cold, and it was big, and it was moving up, taking its time,
and she shivered under it and kissed him more desperately, her own hand sliding
over the shifting muscle of his upper back, then holding on.

“I’m going to touch you
everywhere tonight,” he told her, and his hand was making the point. “I’m going
to kiss you everywhere, too. I’m going to put myself on every inch of you, and
let you know I’ve been there.”

“Please,” she breathed, feeling
his mouth leave hers, his lips on her cheek, moving over to her ear, to the
side of her neck, and she turned her head so he could reach it better, because
it felt so good. The scrape of whiskers against her skin, the shock of his
tongue, his teeth, his mouth finding every sensitive spot and lingering there,
making her squirm. And his hand, moving up, finally covering her breast, then
diving inside her bra and cupping her. His palm moved over a nipple that hardened
under his touch into a sensitivity that was nearly painful. He was making her
moan already, and he had barely started.

He wasn’t rushing to get to the
good stuff, either. Instead, his mouth lingered at her neck, then went to the
other side, up to her mouth again so he could kiss her some more, his lips
teasing, pulling out every response she had to give. His hand was still at her
breast, and he kissed her and touched her until she was moving hard underneath
him, her hand on his back trying to pull him closer.

When he finally reached for the
bottom of her sweater and began to pull it up her body, she sat up to help him,
reached around behind her back for the fastening of her bra, only to have him
grab one wrist.

“No,” he said. “Didn’t I say this
was mine?”

“Then go faster,” she begged.
“Please, Joe. I need to be naked. And I need you to be.”

She could see his smile in the
candlelight, and if she’d ever thought his face was hard, it didn’t look hard
now. “You’re going to be naked. After a while. And I’m going to be naked too.
Eventually. We’ve got nowhere to go, and all night to get there. So lie down,
because I’m going to play with you.”

And play is what he did. He spent
what felt like an eternity on her breasts alone. Her bra came off, but that was
all that did for a long, long time. His hands and his mouth coaxed every bit of
sensation out of her, until she couldn’t ask him anymore, could only lie
beneath him and feel.

Then his hand moved lower, his
mouth followed it, and his tongue dipped into her navel. “Pierced,” he
murmured. “You’re not a good girl.” He licked around the little ring, his hand
trailing over her side, and finally, when her hips were urging him in a rhythm
that she couldn’t help any more than she could contain the sounds that were
escaping her, his fingers went to the waistband of her stretchy pants. They
dipped inside, lower, and lower still, brushing over the sensitive skin of her
lower belly, and she was trying to move him closer by wriggling towards him,
urging him on. He shifted, took her breast in his mouth, and, finally, touched
her where she needed to be touched, and that was all it took. He rubbed once, twice,
three times, hard, and she came undone.

He swore, but she could barely
hear him, because his hand was still moving, and all the tension of the past
hours was being released in delicious spasms that went on and on, leaving her
shaking and shuddering.

Finally, he had the rest of her
clothes off, and she was naked. She didn’t care what he said, she was
unbuttoning his shirt, pulling it off, yanking off the T-shirt beneath, and he
wasn’t complaining, he was helping her. She rolled over him, straddled him, and
finally, she was running her hands over the hard expanse of his shoulders. Her
mouth was at his neck, then his chest, her tongue stroking a flat nipple, and
she was feeling him shudder in his turn. Her hips were moving, and she was
rubbing against him, needing to feel what he had to give. Her hands were
stroking the smooth skin of his biceps, her mouth moving to the tattoo,
outlining it with her tongue, biting at it with her teeth.

She did her best to take her
time, the way he had with her, but she was greedy for him, for every bit of
him. She shifted her weight lower, her hands reaching for his belt buckle, popping
a button, and then unzipping him slowly.

And, finally, after fifteen long
years, she touched Joe Hartman. Her hand closed over him, and she thought,
yes.
Because if she was his, he was
hers. This was hers, and it was
good.