“What?” Humiliated, she jumped to her feet.
“There’s nothing I want more,” he said fiercely. “But there are rules.”
“What are you talking about? What rules?” She tried to tug her hand away, but he held on effortlessly.
“On top of everything else, you don’t take advantage of a woman when she’s fragile.”
“You think I’m fragile? That I don’t know what I want?” She yanked again, and he let her go.
“You’re upset. You need to be comforted. And as much as I want you, Jen, I want it to be for the right reasons when we make love.”
“You want some reasons? I lie in bed at night and think about you, Walker. About how I want to touch you. How I want you to touch me.”
She stared at him, not caring that she’d made herself vulnerable. “I try to think of excuses to go to that motel you’re staying in.”
“You’re making it hard to do the right thing, Jen.” He held her gaze. “Almost impossible.”
“
Almost
impossible?” She leaned in, lost in the need in his eyes, the heat pouring off his body and warming hers. “I’ll have to work harder, then.”
She’d never begged anyone to make love with her. What had happened to the woman who used to live in her body?
She’d fallen in love with Walker Barnes.
Eventually, she’d grasp the irony of that fact.
Right now, nothing mattered besides Walker.
She tugged at his hand. “Come with me,” she murmured.
“Jen,” he groaned, his mouth over hers. “Are you sure?”
“I’ve never been more sure of anything.” She swayed toward him, inhaled his scent, memorized the shape of his back, the curve of his hip, the way he gasped when she touched him.
He opened the buttons on her shirt before she realized what he was doing.
His hands were warm as he brushed the edges of the shirt away, revealing her bright pink bra. “I think I have a new favorite color.” He nuzzled the cleft between her breasts as he trailed his fingers over her.
“Take off your shirt,” he said.
She let it slide to the floor, and he ran his hand over her stomach, her sides, her arms, her back, loosening her bra and sliding the straps down her shoulders.
He stared at her, before gently pulling the bra off and tossing it on the couch. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered. “More beautiful than I remembered.” He cupped her, then rubbed her nipples with his thumbs. She couldn’t hold back her cry as she arched into him.
He picked up her discarded clothing and took her hand. “Where’s your bedroom?”
“Upstairs.” Her voice shook as she led him up there. She’d never bothered to get new furniture, and her dresser was scuffed and scratched. The mattress on the bed sagged in the middle, and the posters of Mel Gibson in
Braveheart
and Garth Brooks on stage were old and faded. It looked like a shrine to her high school days.
As if she’d been frozen in time since her senior year.
She turned into his arms and kissed him. “I’m not fragile or upset, Walker,” she said, nuzzling his ear. “I want you.” She took his hand and placed it on her bare breast, so he could feel her heart racing.
Then she locked the door and tugged his shirt out of his slacks. His muscles tensed and quivered when she touched him. When she opened his shirt and pressed her mouth to his muscled abdomen, he drew her against him.
“Mmm, good idea,” he said, lowering his head to her stomach. As he teased her with his mouth, he unbuttoned her jeans and slid them down. She collapsed onto the bed.
His eyes darkened as he looked at her, wearing only sheer pink panties that matched her bra. “Turn over,” he said, his voice hoarse.
She rolled onto her stomach, and he drew the elastic down and traced the tattoo on her hip. Then he pulled off the underwear and kissed that tattoo. “Sun and moon. Light and dark. I dreamed about this.”
She looked over her shoulder, and he leaned up and kissed her. “I’m sorry about the game. I’ll change the graphic before we release it.”
“It’s okay,” she managed to say. “I’m not thinking about the game anymore.” She rolled onto her back and reached for him.
Instead of following her onto the bed, he knelt between her legs and put his mouth on her. “Walker,” she cried as desire swamped her. In a few moments she was writhing against him, mindless with need, making sounds she barely recognized as her own.
She cried his name as a climax exploded through her, and he held her as the pleasure went on and on. Finally, when she was limp in his arms, he shoved off his clothes, rolled on a condom and slid into her.
They fit together perfectly, as she’d known they would. As they had in all her dreams. “Walker,” she murmured as she held him tightly and wrapped her legs around him. “Love me.”
“I am. I will.” He buried his face in her neck. This time when she came, he was with her.
He glanced at the clock. At midnight.
A door slammed in the distance, and she stirred. She smoothed her hand over his hip, then smiled at him. “I guess it wasn’t a dream,” she murmured as she kissed him.
He touched his fingers to her lips. “Shh. Your parents and the boys are home,” he breathed into her ear.
The boys. Nick.
How could he have made love with her without telling her what he’d done? Without telling her he’d sent in that sample?
Her eyes widened and she grabbed his wrist. “Oh, God. We fell asleep. Did I lock the bedroom door? Oh, my God. I didn’t.”
“You did. I remember. Shh.” His arms tightened around her. What if her parents found him here?
What if Nick did? What would he think?
Walker and Jen were adults. He didn’t care what her parents thought.
Nick was a different story.
“Mom?” That was Tommy, calling up the stairs from the first floor.
“Hush, Tommy. She’s asleep. You can talk to her in the morning,” Jen’s mother said.
“Go to bed, boys,” Al added. “It’s late and you have school tomorrow.”
The kids’ answers were indistinct. Finally, Walker heard them clattering down to their room in the basement.
He reached over Jen and switched off the lamp on the nightstand, then kissed her neck as they listened to her parents moving around on the first floor. When they started up the stairs, she tensed in his arms.
They lay still as the shadows of two sets of feet passed Jen’s bedroom. Moments later, the hall light went out and a door closed.
He let out his breath, and Jen shifted so she could murmur into his ear, “They read for a while before they go to sleep. You need to stay for another hour or so.”
“That’s going to be a real hardship,” he said, stroking his palm down her back and over her hip. “I’m not sure how I’ll hold up. I may have to distract myself.”
She batted his hand away, but she was smiling. “I thought the game was bad, but this is
real
humiliation. To be thirty-two years old and caught in bed by my parents.”
“We’re not caught yet, but keep talking and we will be. I’ll have to figure out a way to keep you quiet.”
He kissed her again, drawing her lower lip into his mouth and sucking on it. She smiled, then giggled against his lips.
“What?”
“You don’t think this is funny?” She buried her face in her pillow as her shoulders shook with laughter. “I should be worrying about Nick doing this. Not worrying about being caught doing it myself.”
Nick.
When Walker had begun pursuing Jen, it had been about Nick. He’d barely given the kid a thought tonight. Lying here, holding her, he couldn’t think of anything but Jen. About how much he’d wanted her. How much he wanted her again. How he was afraid he’d never get enough of her.
To hide his uneasiness, he slid his leg between hers and touched her tattoo. “We have some time to kill,” he whispered. “Any ideas?”
There were consequences to sending that sample in, consequences he hadn’t cared about when he’d dropped it in the mail.
What he’d done, sending in that DNA test without her permission, was wrong. So wrong. He’d broken her trust. Even worse, he’d made love with her, without making it right.
He had to resolve this. He didn’t think Jen had been playing games tonight. And he was afraid he hadn’t been, either.
“Jen,” he began in a low voice.
“My parents’ bedroom is right above us. Do you want to get caught?” She leaned into him. “Are you some kind of exhibitionist?”
He kissed her again, then let her go. Reluctantly. He wanted to hold on to her. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He would tell her what he’d done.
It was time to stop playing games.
“Beautiful,” she murmured. She reached for his hand. “Romantic.”
“It seemed like a good place to talk.”
She slipped off one of her heels and lifted her leg over the gearshift to skim her toes down his shin. “I like talking.”
The caress of her foot on his leg drained all the blood from his head. Without conscious thought, he put his hand on her knee, and her silky skin was warm beneath his fingers.
“What did you want to talk about, Walker?” Her toes moved up and down. Up and down. Then she caught the hem of his slacks and her foot pressed against his bare leg.
“Ah, what were we discussing at dinner?”
Focus
. He had to do this. Tell her what he’d done. But he was hard as steel, and all he could think about was how Jen would feel beneath him. Over him. Around him.
“My restaurant.” She lifted her hand to the top button of her blue blouse.
“Right. Yes.” He stared at her fingers, pale against the dark fabric, as she fiddled with the button.
It slipped out of its hole.
“Stoves,” she said, her voice dreamy as she unbuttoned the second button. Her fingers slid down her chest to the next one. “What size I want.”
“What’s a good size?” he asked hoarsely as she trailed a finger over her bra.
“Big.” The third button slid free. “Definitely big.”
He swallowed.
Her blouse gaped wide as she undid the fourth button, and he saw black lace. His mouth dry, he said, “I said pink was my favorite color. I was wrong.”
Her shadowed breasts were creamy in the moonlight. When she undid the last button, the silk blouse fluttered open to reveal the white skin of her abdomen.
He reached across the gearshift and dragged her against him. The heat of her skin burned him and he knelt on the seat, trying to get closer. “Let’s not talk about restaurants anymore,” he said into her mouth. “You’re making me hungry.”
“Did I distract you?” Her hands trailed through his hair and roamed over his back. “I’m sorry. I’ll stop.”
Her laugh reached deep inside him, grabbing his heart and holding tight. “I don’t want you to stop.”
Ever
.
She let her blouse flow down her arms as she reached for him. “Tiny car, Walker.” Her eyes gleamed with laughter. With desire. “It’s a challenge. Are you up to it?” He closed his eyes as she skimmed her fingers over his hard length. “Think we can make this work?”
“Jen…”
She pulled at his sleeves, making the envelope in his pocket crinkle.
“Stop, Jen. We need to talk.”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing?” She opened one of the buttons on his shirt, then another.
He put his hands over hers, pressing them against his chest. Holding them still.
Some of the laughter faded from her eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“Nick. The DNA test.”
She sat back in the leather seat and pulled her blouse back on. Began to button it. The valley between her breasts was shadowed and mysterious. He knew her scent now, knew he’d smell jasmine if he kissed her there.
She watched him quietly. Her smile had disappeared, but her expression was still soft. Loving.
“You can do the test,” she said. “I thought you were crazy until you showed me the baby picture of your father.” She did up another button. “You were right. It looked just like Nick.”
“Jen…”
She put her hand on his arm. “I was scared of what would happen if you were right. I still am. What am I going to tell Nick? And Tony? If you’re Nick’s father, everything will change. My relationship with my son will never be the same. Neither will his relationship with his father.
“No matter what that test shows, Tony is Nick’s dad. He’s the one who held Nick after he was born. He’s the one who read to him. The one who taught him to throw a baseball.” She smiled. “Even though Nick didn’t want to learn.”
“I don’t want to take Nick away from Tony. I just want to be part of his life, too.”
“You already are,” she said. “He thinks you walk on water. Every other sentence out of him begins with ‘Walker says.’ That won’t change if the test is negative.”
“Having Nick think I’m a cool guy is a lot different from having him know I’m his father.”
“Yes. It is. So do the test. Let’s find out.”
The cowardly part of him wanted to forget about the envelope nestled in his pocket. It wanted to thank Jen, have her give him some hairs from Nick’s brush and run the test all over again. She’d never have to know.
But he didn’t want lies between them. Secrets. If he was to have anything more with her, it had to be built on the truth. And it had to start now.
“I hope you can forgive me, Jen.”
“I already have. You were right to push me to test him. I’m sorry it’s taken so long.”
He closed his eyes. Pulling the envelope out of his coat pocket, he laid it on her lap. “I’m sorry.”
She frowned as she picked it up. “What’s this? ‘Who’s Your Daddy?’ What’s that?”
“A firm that does paternity tests. You send the samples in and they send you the results.”
“Is this an application?”
“No. It’s the results.”
“Results? What…? How…?” She gazed at the white envelope, then slowly raised her eyes.
“The day Nick had that fight over Stevie, he got a bloody nose,” Walker said, his voice flat. “I ended up with a wad of bloody tissues in my pocket, and I sent them off. I didn’t think you would ever agree, and I wanted to know.”
“You had no right,” she whispered. Her fingers on the envelope tightened.
“I know that.”
She threw the envelope at him. “He’s my son.
My son.
”