Chance of a Lifetime (11 page)

They’d actually had the brass balls to test her, but the next morning she’d shown up on the sidewalk in front of their snazzy office with a brown bag lunch and a large printed placard in hand. Just like that, the fight was won. They even repaid her the funds she’d pulled from her own meager savings to pay the nurse who’d covered the dayshift for her while she was in New York. Jake had handled the night shift and had learned firsthand in three days what she’d been dealing with for over two years.

Enough to make him want to zap their testicles with the hot stick on its highest setting.

He’d been so proud of her though. He’d wanted to go with her, but she’d taken his hands, her eyes shining, chin firm, and said, “You’ve given me the strength to do this. If you’ll take care of my parents while I’m gone…I want you to know them. And them to know you.”

Her mother took to him right off. It tore out his heart, how fragile and light her body was when he moved her in and out of the bed, even as she was able to make him laugh with the sassy sense of humor she’d given her daughter. Her dad played a vicious game of checkers, though he and Jake had to start and stop it over a day’s time to finish it. By the time Jake helped move some of their things into the long-term care facility, he cared enough that he ached for them, particularly when he saw they wouldn’t share a room together. But Stacie had worked out having them on the same hall, despite their differing conditions. Her mom didn’t have much time, and her father’s lucid moments were decreasing at almost the same rate. But already, when Jake came to the hospital to join Stacie for dinner, he saw a peace in her mother’s eyes, the worry she’d been carrying for her daughter and husband now not as sharp.

77

Joey W. Hill

There was sadness and pain. A lot of tears. But there was also happiness and the discovery of what being in love was all about, in the shadow of two people who had truly lived it, were living it to the very end.

Things had changed so much for both him and Stacie. Love was like that. Magic.

Just like all the books said.

He slipped into the kitchen. The shadows had disappeared from beneath her eyes and she’d put on some weight, in all the right places. One of those places was very pleasingly displayed as she bent over, loading the dishwasher. Thank God, she was wearing the white nurse’s uniform he liked so much, the one with an above-the-knee skirt. It wasn’t immodest, but it hugged her trim figure like an hourglass and had a zipper down the front that gave him no end of fantasies, to her amusement. She hadn’t yet donned her ankle socks and comfortable orthopedic shoes, which while good for work, tended to minimize her sexy legs. Of course, he didn’t mind that. There were too many male orderlies and doctors at that place she worked as it was. He’d be glad when that diamond on her finger had a second gold ring keeping it company.

She was rearranging the plates he’d tossed in haphazardly yesterday morning. He needed to do better about that. He’d rather conserve her energy for other things.

He eased up behind her and as she straightened, he caught hold of her waist, making her jump, but when she tried to turn, he held her fast, sliding one hand up to claim one breast, easing down the zipper to find curves cradled in a thin lace bra. As a sexy little tremble ran through her, he pressed his attentive cock up against her soft ass.

“You didn’t lock your door, little girl. Look what kind of trouble you let into the house.”

“Mmm…” A shudder rippled through Stacie as his fingers teased a nipple while his arm held her fast. God, she loved his strength. The way he smelled, the heat of him. The way he made her want to devour him alive one moment and then the next, she wanted just to curl together on the couch, feeling him doze off from a long day, his arm still holding her close. Or the way her knees went weak, every time, when he arrived at 78

Chance of a Lifetime

Rivershores to have dinner with her and her mother or play checkers with her father.

He always cleaned up first, made sure he shaved for her parents. Wore a clean shirt and brought her mother flowers.

She’d found far more than a lover the day she’d been stopped by Jake Chance.

She’d found something she’d never realized a man could be. A best friend.

Though friendship wasn’t at all what she was thinking about now as he ran his hand down her thigh and started to gather up her skirt in front, reaching under the uniform to find her panties. She smiled as his clever fingers found the lace thong she’d had time to slip on before he arrived.

“You’ll have to make it fast,” she whispered, laying her head back on his shoulder as he bent his head to her throat, bit. “My fiancé is due home any minute and he’s very jealous. He’s a cop,” she added. “He has a gun.” As he pressed harder against her, she smothered a giggle. “A great…big…gun.”

His hand came up, collared her throat. “You are going to start locking that door, or I’m going to start spanking you.”

She braced her hands on the sink, wiggled her ass against him, at first to tease and then with more serious intent, a rhythmic stroking up and down his length. “That’s supposed to discourage me from doing it?”

He groaned. “It will if I really tan your hide.” But a moment later he had the zipper to her waist and his hands full of her breasts. Stacie gasped as he fondled her with those far too knowledgeable fingers, making her pussy’s reaction trickle down her legs. “How long before that fiancé of yours gets here?”

“Any minute. I think I hear him parking now. You better hurry.”

He opened his jeans, pressed her against the kitchen counter with his thighs and bent his knees just enough. “Pull up your skirt for me, baby. Show me that pretty ass of yours that needs a spanking.”

As she reached back, Jake growled appreciatively at the way it thrust her breasts out. He felt hard as iron, ready to explode. As soon as she pulled the hem up, revealing 79

Joey W. Hill

her round buttocks provocatively accented by that bit of lace between the cheeks, he caught the crotch of the thong, pulled it aside and thrust home.

She was ready too. She cried out, began to spasm around him almost immediately.

She loved it when he played rough with her, his kitten with her own sharp claws. He caught her throat again, held her back up against his chest, her cheek alongside his jaw so her cries caressed his face with her breath even as he pounded into her wet cunt, imagining her wearing this tiny scrap of lace all day long at work, the uniform cloth rubbing against the bare cheeks of her ass.

The image sent him over, as he suspected she knew it would. Whether she’d planned to wear it today or snuck it on just before he pulled in and—damn, which probably meant she’d unlocked the door just to give him a reason to get tough with her—she knew what got him going. She also knew what kept him together. As good as she was at driving him insane and keeping his cock in the begging position, she was just as good at listening. At knowing when he didn’t want to talk, needed the feel of her arms around him, snuggling up to him while he nursed his beer and unwound after a tough day. He just liked hearing her move around the house, watching the curve of her delicate cheek in the lamplight, the flicker of her beautiful eyes. The way she got ready for bed. Her cotton sleep shirts, the way she stuffed her feet in bunny slippers and raked her fingers through her hair when she first got up in the morning. Damn if Nichols hadn’t been right all along.

He worked her hard against the sink and she gave him just as good back, squeezing him, rubbing her bottom against him so he couldn’t resist. Still hard, slick from her juices, he pulled out and put it back inside that tiny rosebud opening, taking her down deep and propelling her finished climax into a whirlpool of aftershocks that had her thrusting back against him again, her breasts quivering. As their breathing slowed, began to synchronize, he ran a hand down her front, a soft caress of her breast, fingers dipping into the dent of her navel, then down to cover her mound, pressing his fingers 80

Chance of a Lifetime

on her clit so she arched up hard, breath leaving her fast, her ass squeezing his cock like a vise.

“Ah God.” He buried his face in her hair. “Missed you.” She always made the ugliness go away. He didn’t need to tell her about it. She cleaned him with just a touch.

“I can tell.” She pressed her lips to his throat, her body still trembling where he was caressing her, up and down. He could have her hot again in no time, wanted to, but damn if breakfast didn’t smell good. He grinned at himself then lifted her hand that had the engagement ring on it to his lips.

“I’m going to keep riding you about that door. Did you unlock it right before I came in?”

Her eyes sparkled at the double entendre. “I’ll never tell.”

“Stacie Marie—”

She put a finger up to his mouth, her eyes soft, lips wet with his kisses. “Some chances are worth taking.” Then, at the lingering worry in his eyes, she relented. “Yes. I unlocked it when I heard you pull into the driveway.”

He gave her rump a little slap and pulled out reluctantly. He went for the wash cloth, but she beat him to it, wetting it with warm soapy water and then caressing him with it, giving him that shy look below her lashes as she cleaned his cock for him.

Breakfast maybe could wait. God, she was going to kill him.

“What you were just talking about…that’s what I intend to do.”

“Hmm?” She glanced up at him as he put a finger under her chin, tilted her face up.

Her hands continued to cosset him, but her fingers were firm, stroking, the light in her eye telling him she was on his wavelength about breakfast.

“Once I marry you. There’s one particular chance I intend to take. Over and over and over again. Mrs. Chance.”

She rolled her eyes but moved in for the kiss, let him wrap his arms around her and take her under again.

81

Joey W. Hill

While she’d agreed to marry him, she’d wanted to wait to get married at Christmas, in a candlelight service like her mother had done with her father.

When she told him that, she’d cried. That wasn’t the first time she’d cried. Now that she had a shoulder offered, she let the tears wash through her more often, to help her get up and face it every day. He stood at her back every way he could, physically and mentally, and wondered what he’d done to deserve such an angel in his life. His wild angel.

“I don’t care what they say,” he’d told her once when it had overwhelmed her.

“When you love a woman like your dad loves your mom, the way I love you, even if some son of a bitch disease takes your mind, you always remember her in your soul.

Deep inside him, he knows. He’ll remember her, how she was a part of his life.”

“But he won’t remember her dying,” she said softly. “That’s the blessing Mom wants to give him. That’s why she’ll make it until Christmas. She knows by then he won’t be able to remember.”

His tender-hearted angel. He’d proposed to her a month after they’d met, and it was her dad who had made it happen.

During one of their checker games, he’d been alerted by a prolonged silence. He glanced up from the board to find her dad had a hundred percent checked in, suddenly a very lucid father, eyeing him closely in that way that would have any man straightening up, feeling a little nervous.

“What do you intend to do about my daughter?”

He had Stacie’s eyes, midnight blue. His body still had the hint of the rangy, tall man he’d been. Jake not only saw in his eyes that soul-deep memory he’d talked about but the man who’d taken her to the track, loved her joyous recklessness even as he helped her find her path to adulthood.

“I intend to marry her, sir. Love her with all I’ve got and take care of her for the rest of her life.”

82

Chance of a Lifetime

Fate had Stacie walking in at just that moment, so there it was, his proposal out on the table. But Jake had looked at her and known it was how he felt, what he wanted.

The soft expression in her eyes gave him the terrifying and exhilarating realization she was going to say yes, agree to be his forever.

“Good. Isn’t any good to finish a race alone.” Her father jumped two of his reds.

“Competition keeps you alive. Letting someone keep you sharp. It’s all about taking chances.”

Her lips curved in a soft, poignant smile and Jake was lost in the vision of her.

“Yes, sir. You’re sure right about that.”

83

About the Author

I’ve always had an aversion to reading, watching or hearing interviews of favorite actors, authors, or musicians because so often you find that the real person does not measure up to the beauty of the art they produce. You find their politics or religion distasteful, or you find they’re shallow and self-absorbed, or a vacuous mophead without a lick of sense. And from then on, though you still may appreciate their craft or art, it has somehow been tarnished. Therefore, whenever I’m asked to provide personal information about myself for readers, a ball of anxiety forms in my stomach as I think,

“Okay, the next couple of paragraphs can change forever the way someone views my stories.” Why on earth does a reader want to know about me? It’s the story that’s important.

So here it is. I’ve been given more blessings in my life than any one person has a right to have. Despite that, I’m a Type A, borderline obsessive-compulsive paranoiac who worries that I will never live up to expectations. I’ve got more phobias than anyone (including myself) has patience to read about. I can’t stand talking on the phone, I dread social commitments, and the idea of living in monastic solitude with my husband, a few animals, books and writing is as close an idea to paradise as I can imagine. I love chocolate, but with that deeply ingrained, irrational female belief that weight equals worth, I manage to keep it down to a minor addiction. I adore good movies. I’m told I work too much. Every day is spent trying to get through the never ending “to do” list to snatch a few minutes to write.

This is because, despite all these mediocre and typical qualities, for some miraculous reason, these wonderful characters well up out of my soul with stories to tell. When I manage to find enough time to write, sufficient enough that the precious