God, she’d missed this so much.
Lars cupped her breasts, then leaned down to lave the nipples through her sleep shirt. She felt as if an electric current raced from her breasts to her core, lighting her up like a candle.
His teeth grazed her nipple as he pinched the other tight, drawing it to a hard point.
“God,” Jess whispered, “oh god.”
His other hand stroked across her belly and down, his fingers sliding between her folds. He circled her clit, rubbing his thumb across it.
The pressure built inside her, making her move, jam herself against his fingers. “Please, oh please.”
One finger slid inside her, then another, then he was moving, his mouth against her throat.
Jess bit down on a cry, fighting to keep silent, until he covered her mouth with his own, swallowing her moans.
She reached for him, pushing her fingers inside the front of his sweatpants until she found his cock jutting into her hands.
And then she stopped.
Right. The man was six foot five or so. The rest of his body was going to be in proportion. Well, so what?
Guts up, Jess. Time to climb that mountain.
She ran her fingers along his length, scratching her nails light across the tip.
Lars groaned.
Jess started to slide down his shaft again, but he caught her hand.
“Jess,” he panted, “sweetheart, slow down. Like I said—control isn’t my specialty right now.”
“Control is over-rated,” she muttered. She wrapped both hands around him, sliding up and down along his length.
“Jess.” His voice sounded strangled. “Christ!”
He was velvet on iron. Jess leaned forward further, standing on tiptoe, so that she could drape one leg around his waist. She rubbed the head of his cock up and down against her own burning wetness.
Lars gave a great sigh, then wrapped his hands around her hips. He lifted her to the edge of the counter, spreading her legs wide. For a moment she balanced, resting her hands on his shoulders. And then he plunged inside.
He moved without rhythm or restraint, plunging deep, erratically. Jess tried to stifle the sounds that kept jolting from her, biting down hard on her lip. Lars buried his head against her shoulder, rumbling with the strain.
Jess tucked her heels in the small of his back, riding him, letting him take her with him. Whatever was happening to her now was new. She’d never felt anything like this before.
And then Lars reached something deep inside her that almost made her scream. She sank her nails into his shoulders, moaning as her body came undone.
A moment later, she felt him stiffen, and then he was pulling back abruptly as the warm stickiness of his seed flowed across her thigh. She wrapped her legs around him again, pulling him close, her arms around his waist, her head against his bare chest.
It took her a few moments to catch her breath. And a few more to regain her sanity.
Oh my god, what did we just do?
Lars seemed to come to his senses at the same time, drawing back from her as he struggled for breath.
“That was…crazy,” she stammered, suddenly aware of all the awful things that could have happened, particularly if Daisy had woken up.
Lars nodded. “Right. It was.”
“What were we thinking?”
“I don’t know about you,” Lars murmured, “but thinking was not high on my list just now.” He turned toward the sink, tearing a paper towel off the rack and dampening it beneath the tap. “Stay still.”
Jess watched him. He took a deep breath, and then he rubbed the towel gently along her thigh, cleaning her skin. “Sorry. I wasn’t exactly prepared tonight.”
Did that mean he’d be prepared some other night? Jess shook her head to clear it. That was
so
not what she should be thinking about right now. She pushed herself to the edge of the counter again.
“Let me help you.” Lars put his hands at her waist again, lifting her down to the floor. The warmth of his palms sank through the thin knit of her sleep shirt, making her realize she was cold. Particularly now that she no longer had Lars’s body to warm her.
Jess licked her lips, suddenly unable to meet his gaze. “I guess… Maybe I’ll go back to bed.”
“Sounds like a good plan.” He pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, his face solemn. “Are you okay?”
Jess nodded. “Sure. Just…a little stunned or something.”
“Right, well, that’s understandable.” He looked away from her, studying the floor. “Get some sleep then.”
“I will.” Jess picked up her robe and threw it over her shoulders, moving toward the dining room.
“Jess?”
She turned back to look at him. His dark hair was tousled over his forehead, his chest hair matted in whorls. Jess bit her lip. She could see the marks of her nails on his shoulders.
“It was crazy,” he said softly. “But it was also pretty amazing.”
Jess’s lips edged up into a grin, almost against her will. “That it was,” she murmured. “That it definitely was.” She turned then and headed quickly for her bed.
Chapter Sixteen
Lars dreamed of having sex on a kitchen counter, driving himself deep into a woman’s warmth, gazing down at the face beneath him.
And seeing Sherice’s mocking smile as she looked up at him.
He woke up sweating. Also hard. He didn’t have to wonder what message his subconscious was sending him. The last time he’d done something as impulsive as his kitchen encounter with Jess, he’d made the worst mistake of his life, a mistake he’d be paying off for years to come. Had he just done the same thing with Jess Carroll? Was he really being led around by his dick again?
He lay staring into the darkness, picturing Jess’s face as it had looked last night, dazed with passion. He didn’t think she was another Sherice. Not by any measure that made sense. But his judgment with women wasn’t exactly infallible. He drifted back to sleep, wondering if there was any way to be objective about a woman he’d made crazy monkey love to on a kitchen counter.
When he woke up again, he realized he had a more immediate concern. What exactly would he say to Jess when he saw her at breakfast? Not that he could say much beyond “Good morning, how are you” since Daisy would be hanging around.
Thinking about Daisy almost made him break out in a cold sweat. Jess was right—they’d been absolutely nuts. What if Daisy had woken up? What if she’d walked out into the dining room? What if she’d seen her father…boinking the babysitter on the kitchen counter?
Lars blew out a breath and told himself to cool it. Daisy hadn’t woken up. And boinking Jess Carroll could well prove to be the highlight of his month, hell, his past six months given the way his months had been going lately.
In fact, all things being equal, and in spite of his doubts about his own judgment, he’d really like to do it again. The boinking part, that is, not the guilt and confusion that had hit him afterward. He wondered if he could have one without the other.
He wasn’t sure how Jess would feel about the whole thing, though. She’d been enthusiastic enough while they’d been doing the boinking, judging from the nail marks on his shoulders, but afterward she’d seemed to be wallowing in an even bigger wave of angst than he had.
Which probably made her a better person, but might also rule out any future encounters. Which might be better for all concerned, given the tangled state of his own psyche. Lars took a deep breath. Maybe he should just cool it.
He started for the bathroom, then heard Daisy’s piping voice from the dining room. He turned back to pull on a shirt and jeans instead of his sweatpants. He
really
didn’t want to explain those nail marks to his daughter. Not until he’d had a cup of coffee, at least.
In the dining room, Jack sat in his high chair next to Daisy in her booster seat. Both of them were having something that looked like gruel but was probably oatmeal.
“Daddy,” Daisy shrieked, wriggling off her chair.
Lars caught her before she upended the booster chair and put her back in place again. “Morning, sweetheart. Eating your oatmeal like a good future CEO?”
Jess walked in from the kitchen, carrying a plate of toast. “Future CEO?”
“Janie and Docia got her started.” Lars shrugged. “Sounds okay to me. She’ll need to support me in my old age.”
“I’ll sport you, Daddy.” Daisy nodded vigorously. “I’ll sport you good.”
Jess pressed her lips together. Lars had a feeling she was fighting a grin. She was also fighting any need to look at him directly.
“There’s coffee in the kitchen,” she said to Jack.
Lars assumed she was actually talking to him since Jack seemed largely uninterested in coffee possibilities. He wandered into the kitchen and found a cup, then wandered back.
“Can I show Jack my teddies?” Daisy asked.
Jess gave her a stunned look. Okay, so she hadn’t entirely forgotten last night.
“Her bears,” Lars explained. “Also some rabbits and a couple of tigers.”
Jess looked directly at him for the first time. She had shadows beneath her eyes and a beard burn beneath her chin.
Terrific
. He only hoped Docia and Janie stayed home today. He really didn’t need his sisters-in-law adding two and two.
She turned back to Daisy again. “Maybe you can show him this afternoon. This morning we have to clean the cabin. We’ve got guests coming in for the long weekend.”
Lars blinked at her. “Long weekend?”
“Thanksgiving. Day after tomorrow.” Jess glanced at him directly again. Progress.
“Geez, I forgot about Thanksgiving. You and Jack are coming to Docia’s, right? She said she’d invited you.”
Jess ran a hand through her hair, leaving it standing in spikes. “I don’t know…”
“Jack has to come,” Daisy cried. “He
has
to. I told Aunt Docia and Aunt Janie he would.”
“Please come,” Lars said quietly. “They’d really like you to be there. So would we.”
Jess sighed, rubbing her nose. “We’ll have guests in the cabin all weekend.”
“Leave your cell number. Nobody would expect you to give up your own holiday just so you could be on call.”
Jess grimaced. “You’d be surprised what people expect. Okay. We’ll be there. Jack deserves a Thanksgiving.”
So do you.
But Lars didn’t say it out loud. He figured he’d pushed his luck about as far as he could for one morning.
The day was full of people trying to get all their work done in advance so that they could take the weekend off. The longer he spent trying to get their problems taken care of, the more Lars began to think that would be a good idea for him, too. At least the taking-the-weekend-off part.
He worked late, until six-thirty or so, then took his laptop home with him. Somehow he was fairly certain Jess wouldn’t be interested in any recreational sex. Once he managed to dig himself out from under all the requests that had been dumped on his head during the day, he’d see what he could do about changing her opinion.
“Your sister-in-law called,” Jess told him when he finally got back to the cabin. “They want to take Daisy tomorrow, so she can help them get ready for Thanksgiving, if that’s okay with you.”
“Which sister-in-law?”
“Janie.”
Lars blew out a breath. “Okay by me. You want to go stay with Aunt Janie and Uncle Pete, pumpkin?”
Daisy looked up from her bowl of ice cream, most of which was distributed around the lower half of her face. “Can Jack come?”
“Not this time, sweetheart. Mrs. Carroll needs Jack here.”
Jess raised an eyebrow, but let him get by with it.
Daisy’s lower lip stuck out ominously. “I don’t wanna go.”
“Jack will be there on Thursday,” Lars explained. “And this way you get to spend the afternoon helping Aunt Docia and Aunt Janie decorate the barn and get the food ready. Jack’s too young to do that. He’d just be in your way.”
Daisy turned to Jess, her lips trembling.
“It’s okay,” Jess murmured. “We’ll be there later. You’ll have a good time with your aunts.”
“Okay.” Daisy looked more like she’d just agreed to a six-month jail sentence rather than an afternoon of being pampered and probably stuffed full of things that weren’t good for her. Lars only hoped Janie had a sufficient supply of stomach upset remedies.
He wandered into the kitchen after Jess, hoping there might be something left to eat, even if it was only a peanut butter sandwich.
“Your dinner’s in the refrigerator,” she said. “You can warm it up in the microwave.”
She was back to not looking at him again. Lars managed to plant himself in her path.
“Thanks for feeding Daisy. I didn’t think I’d be this late.”
She blinked at him, the corners of her mouth edging up in a dry smile. “She’s a guest. I don’t let my guests go hungry.”
“So I see.” He lifted the plate of meatloaf and mashed potatoes out of the refrigerator, removing the neat plastic wrap from the top. Then he turned to slide the dish into the microwave.
“Daddy,” Daisy called. “You said you’d read Babar.”
Lars glanced down at his dinner, then picked up the plastic wrap again, stifling a sigh. “Sure, Dais, I’ll be right there.”
Jess knew she was being a coward, but she couldn’t seem to stop it. Every time she was in the same room with Lars she found herself remembering several very explicit (and hot) details about his anatomy.
She’d never be able to look at kitchen counters the same way again.
She took a deep breath and blew it out.
Steady.
Everybody deserved the occasional moment of lunacy. But only a real psychopath would try something that risky again.
Particularly with two children in the house, both rambunctious.
She put Jack down while Lars was still reading about Babar’s adventures in Paris, then fled to the study and her computer where she stayed for the rest of the evening. If she didn’t see him, she told herself she wouldn’t be tempted.
She vowed she’d stay in her bed that night, no matter how much noise she heard. And she really did not—did
not
—want Lars to come to her room after he’d finished his own work.
He didn’t, of course. She’d been snarling at him all day, and he wasn’t a stupid man. Jess told herself she was glad and pulled a pillow over her head.
Nobody tried to break in that night and nobody got lucky. She felt predictably grumpy when she got up, but she knew she had no one to blame but herself.
Not that that made her feel much better.
Janie arrived at noon to take Daisy away. “You’re coming to dinner tomorrow, right? Docia told me to remind you.”
“We’ll be there. What can I bring?”
Janie frowned. “Not much. I think Docia and I have it pretty much in hand.”
“How about some homemade bread?”
“Allie Maldonado is coming and she usually brings rolls from her bakery along with the desserts, but we can always use more.” Janie grinned. “Go for it.”
Jess put Jack in his jumper seat in the kitchen doorway and dug into the pantry. She actually had a couple of packages of yeast on hand and, amazingly enough, they hadn’t passed their expiration dates.
Fortunately, her bread recipe had enough steps that she could play with Jack in between.
Create the sponge. Watch Jack bounce. Add flour and milk, stir one hundred times, knead dough until shoulders ache. Build a Duplo castle and watch Jack destroy it, gleefully. Punch dough down. Read Jack the same Babar story Lars had read Daisy, waiting for the fateful eyelid drop, then put Jack down. Grease pans, shape bread into loaves. Get twenty minutes worth of work done on Web site. Place loaves in oven. Find the smell of baking bread oddly soothing, even when Jack wakes up whimpering and thoroughly wet. Take the bread out of the oven and marvel that something in her life still seemed to work just the way it always had.
Jess managed to find an unused oven shelf that could serve as a cooling rack and turned the loaves out of their pans. In the background, Jack crawled around the limited space she’d laid out in the dining room, pausing occasionally to thump Mr. Wiggles affectionately on the floor.
It was sort of refreshing to be back to just the two of them, she reflected. No worrying about what Daisy was up to currently. No thinking about what Lars looked like without his clothes. Definitely no thinking about that.
Lars himself arrived just as she was spooning the last of some pureed plums into Jack’s mouth. He wasn’t as late as he’d been the night before, but he was still later getting home than the people who treated Wednesday as part of the Thanksgiving weekend. Jess figured that was because he was one of those who made life easier for the others.
He stood frozen in the doorway, eyes closed. “Oh my god. It smells like what I always figured paradise should smell like.”
“There’s a cut loaf in the kitchen, along with some vegetable soup. Feel free.” Jess turned back to scraping excess plum off Jack’s cheeks as Lars headed toward the kitchen, almost at a trot.
When he came back to the table, he had a piece of bread the size of a manhole cover, slathered with a layer of butter around a half-inch thick. “This is the greatest bread I’ve ever tasted.”
Jess narrowed her eyes. “You haven’t tasted it yet.”
“Actually, I had another piece in the kitchen.” Lars gave her a slightly shame-faced grin. “I’m a sucker for fresh-baked bread.”
“You and every other male with a pulse. Have as much as you want. Just save the other three loaves for tomorrow.”
He was still munching happily when she carried Jack off for his bath. When she came back from putting him down, Lars was sitting in the living room with his laptop. Jess turned toward the study and escape.
“Jess?” Lars looked up. “Got a minute?”
She took a deep mental breath. “Sure.”
She sat in a chair across the room from him, reminding herself he was a guy. Guys never wanted to talk about relationships, did they? Particularly if there really wasn’t any relationship to speak of. So he couldn’t want to talk about what they’d done two night ago. “What’s up?”
He clicked his laptop closed. “You’re still upset about the other night, aren’t you?”
She blinked at him. Just her luck to get the only guy in Texas who didn’t mind talking about relationships. “It wasn’t the smartest thing we could have done.”
“Granted. But we were lucky. Neither of the kids woke up. The only ones involved were the two of us. And frankly, I don’t regret it.”
He grinned at her, molasses eyes crinkling.
She felt like kicking him. Where did he get off being so damned adorable? They weren’t supposed to do this. Not now. Maybe not ever.
“I don’t exactly regret it. But…” She licked her lips, trying to find the right words.
“But you don’t want me to think we’ll necessarily be doing it again. I understand that.”
She stole another glance at him. He leaned forward now, elbows on his knees, his expression intent. His hands dangled down—broad, strong, with long tapering fingers. Fingers that had been inside her two nights ago.
Jess licked her lips again. Apparently, she was losing her mind. “I’ve never done anything like that before,” she stammered. “I mean, well, obviously I have done it. But not like that, and not for a long time…” Heat flowed from her eyebrows to her toes. She was probably the shade of a well-done lobster.