He was making her smile again. Really, she should have listened sooner to Stevie about this sex thing.
“I just want you to know,” he went on, “that I don’t mind about the crying. It’s a cute girl thing. Like . . . I don’t know. Hair bands. Thong panties. Choke chains.”
What could have been postcoital uneasiness was now turning into postcoital entertainment. “Chokers, John Henry. At least that’s what I hope you mean. Choke chains are for dogs.”
“Maybe that’s what I need,” he mused, leaning back against the pillows. “I’m supposed to be looking for balance, and a dog might just do the trick. You ever had one?”
“I did.” She smiled, remembering McMichael, the ebony-and-ivory terrier her dad had found somewhere and brought back to the trailer. Her parents had allowed him to sleep in her bed with her, and he’d been better than any teddy bear. “He lived a long, happy life.” And given her plenty of happy times, too, now that she thought about it.
“Are you crying again?”
“No!” She frowned at him. “Honest, John Henry, I am not a crier.”
His beer bottle tilted, and she watched him take a healthy swallow. For some reason she didn’t think he believed her, and it rankled. Maybe every woman he had bedded had cried in ecstasy afterward. It sort of soured her mood to think of them, and it made her certain she didn’t want to be just another in their ranks.
“I haven’t cried since second grade.”
“No way,” he said, putting the beer bottle on the bedside table.
“Yes.” She sipped at her wine, because she was feeling a little mad and wanted it to cool her down.
“Not even when that one guy wasn’t the
American Idol
winner? Because the Woo Hoos cried their little hearts out over that and then circulated a petition on the Internet.”
“John Henry, you need to stop hanging around sorority girls and start getting to know some grown-up women.”
His smile expanded slowly as he took her wineglass out of her hand and set it beside the beer bottle. Then he drew her close to him so that they were snuggled together. “You read my mind, Zinnia.”
Without her permission, her leg crept over his thigh. Amazing how natural that felt. Also amazing how her cheek found the comfortable resting place on his chest. His heart beat beneath her ear, and his hand sifted through her hair. It was as if they’d been lovers for a long time.
“So what made you cry in second grade, sweetheart?”
Zin breathed in the scent of him; it was warm and male and edged with an expensive cologne. Delicious. Distracting. “What?”
“Second grade. Tears.”
It must have been the uncommon closeness that motivated her to confess. Or perhaps it was because the story didn’t seem so dreadful within the haven of his arms. “It was because of the school field trip.”
His fingers continued combing through her hair. “Pumpkin patch? Petting zoo?”
“We’re country kids, for all intents and purposes, here in Edenville, John Henry. Plenty of experience with four-legged creatures and things growing in fields. In May, the second grade gets on buses and goes to the big city. Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. Ghirardelli Square.”
“I didn’t think children cried about chocolate.”
“I cried because I didn’t get to go.”
“Ah, sweetheart—”
“But that’s not really true,” Zin said, correcting herself. “I wouldn’t have minded so much missing the event, if the why of it hadn’t been so humiliating.” Poor little Zinnia, she thought, thinking back to the skinny-legged, fuzzy-headed girl she’d been.
“Why didn’t you go, Zin?”
“I tried saying it was because I’d burned my hand. I told my friends that’s why I couldn’t get on the bus.” She couldn’t see the scar in the dark, but the memory was indelible.
“The truth was, my parents didn’t sign the permission slip and pay the trip fee. I don’t know if they didn’t have the money or if they forgot or . . .” It had been the first of many such incidents.
John Henry stroked her bare shoulder, and she closed her eyes, relishing the tender touch. “Poor Zin.”
“Poor Flaky Friday, more like. One of the parent chaperones coined the phrase as the rest of the class tromped out toward the bus. It stuck. Transferred to Mari and Kohl, too, sorry to say. We’ve been the Flaky Fridays going on twenty years.”
And that name had been motivating her for that long too. To do better, to overcome more missed field trips and other times when her parents’ oddities made everyone in town look at
her
oddly.
John Henry lifted her over his body. She looked up, their gazes meeting. “No tears now,” he murmured.
He hardened against her belly, and she made a little circle with her pelvis, thoughts of the past flying away. “John Henry,
you
are nothing to cry about.”
The
following night the clock read eleven twenty-two when John Henry heard a knock on the door of his suite. As he strolled toward it, he called out, “Who is it?”
“Room service.”
With a half frown, he turned the knob. “I didn’t . . .” His voice trailed off as he took in Zinnia, swathed in a white terry spa robe and carrying a bucket of icy Mexican beers with lime wedges poking from two that were uncapped.
“Well, well, well . . .” he said. “I didn’t realize the resort had a service that knew my every wish.”
“Is that right?” She smiled.
It did something to him, that smile, and he rubbed at the little crimp it put in his chest. “That’s right.”
Zinnia strolled past him into the room and set the beer bucket on the minibar. Taking her sweet fragrance into his lungs, he shut the door and followed in her wake. What had she done to him? Since the day they’d met, he’d been sleeping more, breathing deeper, thinking of ways to please Zin instead of ways to up the bottom line of River Pharmaceuticals.
“I took a shower in the staff lounge after my shift pouring wine. And right before I had a quick conference with the bartender in the lobby.”
“That’s what I mean,” John Henry said. “Because here I was, just wishing I had a beer and a babe.”
“A beer and a
willing
babe,” she amended, turning to face him. Her hands went to the belt of the robe and loosened the knot. “And, John Henry, I’m very willing.” With a shrug, the terrycloth fell, leaving her bare.
And him barely breathing.
He dropped to the floor, flat on his back.
Zin gasped, rushing to his side. She fell to her knees and leaned over him. “John—”
His name choked off as he caught her tempting nipple in his mouth. Sucking on the stiffening jut of it, he ran his hand along her naked flank. She moaned, and his cock hardened in an instant rush. It went even harder when he slid his hand down her belly and curled his fingers between her thighs, discovering she was already soft and wet.
“Hot,” he said against her breast. “You are so damn hot.”
He needed to taste the heat. She made little squeaks of protest as he positioned her over his mouth, but he was a man driven by lust. “Zin,” he said, urging her hips lower. “This is the kind of service I’m needing right now.”
His tongue swiped over her, and her taste was as intoxicating as the moan she made. His hands tightened on the hot skin of her pretty rear end as he took her flavor into his mouth. She wiggled, drawing out his name in the sweetest little wail of need, and again John Henry felt that cramp in his chest. It made him want to work harder—but more subtly than in his usual manner.
He eased up, teasing her with flicks of his tongue followed by long licks that had her trembling, and then he turned his head and nipped the inside of her thigh. She jerked, bringing that little kernel at the top of her sex to just the right spot for him to gently latch on and so take her tenderly but ruthlessly into ecstasy.
When her tremors had tapered off, he pulled her to the bed, gentle gone and urgent in its place. He threw off his clothes and then climbed up her body, sliding deep inside her with one single stroke. They groaned in unison.
It wasn’t long until the explosive finish.
But the aftermath was just as explosive, John Henry thought, because it was like a bombshell going off for him to realize that holding her in his arms was becoming as addictive as the sex.
He nuzzled the top of her curly blond head, gratified when she snuggled closer against him. He’d never been a hugger, but this was so satisfying that it couldn’t compare to any embrace before. “Talk to me, Zin,” he whispered.
“Hmm?”
“I just want to hear your voice.” He couldn’t figure out why, but it was the truth. “Tell me about your day. Which of your fourteen jobs didn’t—thank God—wear you out?”
He felt her smile against his chest. He smiled, too, as she told him about her shift at the bakery and her two hours driving an anniversary couple around the local wineries. “I like this place,” he told her. Napa Valley, and particularly Edenville, made just the right combination of small town and sophistication. You’d know your neighbors here, relax with them, whether they were the high school sweethearts who ran the local deli or the film-producer turned-wine maker next door.
More warmth curled through him as he congratulated himself for relocating the pharmaceutical company away from the city to this semirural enclave.
The best of both worlds,
he thought again. Balance.
His mood faltered when Zin went on to tell him about the mature man who had hit on her during the nightcap wine tasting.
John Henry frowned. “You told him you were taken, I hope.” The idea that it was he who was claiming rights to her didn’t even make him blink.
“Of course not.”
He startled to bristle at that. “Zin—”
“I told him it was against the rules to fraternize with the guests.”
It made him relax again to realize that she’d broken the rules— and he knew Zinnia was no rulebreaker—for him. The girl who was trying to live past being a “Flaky Friday” wouldn’t allow herself more than a very few infractions.
She yawned, and rubbed her cheek against his heart.
“You’re tired,” he said.
“Mmm.”
“You work too hard, Zinnia. Can you cut the job count down to thirteen?”
“I have to help out my folks when I can, and I have grad school loans to pay off,” she said sleepily. “I just earned my MBA degree in June, and I’m hoping to find the perfect job soon.”
Wow. He blinked, not surprised that she held an advanced degree, but taken aback to realize that he was so out of the all-about-business loop that he hadn’t been wondering about her career goals or long-term plans.
“Still, Zin, you shouldn’t burn yourself out in the meantime.” The words sounded weird coming out of his mouth. Maybe because they were the same ones people had been saying to him for months. But he thought it was probably because he had never let himself get close enough to be concerned for someone the way he was for Zin. He’d never found the time.
Or the inclination, really.
“That perfect job might be right around the corner. There’s a new company in town, and I’d sell my soul to work there,” Zin said.
He barely heard her, because he was grappling with the truth that he was changed. This time—no, this
thing—
with Zin had changed him. And it felt like a permanent shake-up of his priorities.
There was another odd sensation in his chest, and he realized it came from his heart. Opening up? Closing its door to keep Zin safely inside? He couldn’t say which. He knew only that he was a different—better—man.
He took a breath in preparation to tell her—Type A’s didn’t like wasting time—
Zin, you’re the balance I’ve been needing all my life.
Instead, she spoke first. “It’s called River Pharmaceuticals, and I have an interview there tomorrow.”
And John Henry discovered he couldn’t speak at all.
Six
Double Cross
Zin would have danced out the front door of River Pharmaceuticals if she hadn’t thought her new boss might spy her out one of the windows and rescind the offer because of her excess exhilaration. Risking this job, this perfect job for her, wasn’t going to happen.
Located in a new industrial park on the outskirts of Edenville, the company’s parking lot was only one quarter full. The business was relocating from its East Bay site to Napa, and the transition team had shown up only that day. Zin was going to join their ranks ASAP. She’d even told the woman in HR that she could be there for new employee orientation the very next day. Nobody would consider this Friday flaky any longer.
With effort, she restrained herself from skipping, but ducked behind a behemoth of a truck in order to beam a great giant grin at the sky. When she lowered her head and emerged from behind the extended cab, she saw John Henry climbing out of a dark sedan just a few spaces away.