Authors: Teresa Noelle Roberts
And, God help her, in love with him.
If only because he had possession of the smoked turkey and her body was telling her she needed more.
“Would you make me another sandwich? I have bread.” Some kind of bread, stale and probably deformed but perfectly edible, and right now that was all that mattered.
“Agree that I’ll take you to the walk-in clinic tomorrow and the answer’s yes. Otherwise, you’ll have to get up and make it yourself. And no turkey, just whatever you have in your kitchen, which looked like carrot sticks and some sad salad.”
She snarled. It was his turkey and he wasn’t obliged to share it with her—but blackmailing her with it was something else. “Planned Parenthood, and I can get myself there. But I promise I’ll see a doctor. Well, nurse practitioner, but someone who can order blood work and stuff.”
“Dear God, are you pregnant?” he blurted.
That broke any resolve she had to stay serious in the face of obdurate male idiocy. Sometimes you just had to laugh, no matter how mad you were, no matter how weird and intense the situation was. “Aren’t mathematicians supposed to know how to count? My period just ended. I go to Planned Parenthood for most things. They have a sliding-fee scale, and my insurance is only useful if I’m actually on my deathbed.”
“I’m taking you to the walk-in clinic. They have a lab onsite so you can get blood work done there. I’ll take care of the fees.” He had the grace to look embarrassed. “As for the other… Yeah, I knew that. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Like you weren’t when you called the ambulance? Or when you called in sick for me? Or when you just decided to override my wishes about where I want medical treatment?”
Drake clenched his fists, as if Jen, not he, was the one who’d been high-handed and wrong. “If I left it up to you, you’d have picked yourself off the floor, maybe gotten around to eating something if you didn’t get distracted by sketching out the idea for your next piece or color-coordinating the contents of your fridge. At least that wouldn’t take long, since it’s pretty much empty. Then you’d go to the bakery, even though you just passed out. And you probably wouldn’t get to the doctor at all, because it would interfere with your precious work.”
Jen sprang to her feet, making sure Drake wouldn’t see how dizzy the sudden motion made her. “That’s what grown-ups do. They work, and they earn the money to pay their bills, and they don’t rely on anyone else to take care of them. Why is this so hard for you to understand?”
She pushed past him so he wouldn’t see the sudden, horrifying weakness of tears. “And keep your goddamn overpriced turkey!” she yelled as she headed for the kitchen.
Drake had exaggerated how bare her cupboard was, but not by much. Someone else had scooped most of the reduced-for-quick-sale produce at the co-op before she got there this week. The freezer was empty except for the mushrooms she’d frozen last week and some chopped onions. She hadn’t taken the time to make one of her usual pots of bean-and-whatever soup because she’d been wrapped up in Drake and the new turn their relationship had taken.
She hadn’t really bought groceries this week. She’d needed supplies for the show and the budget only stretched so far. And she’d resolved not to break into the money she was saving for a car.
But she had tuna. One last, lonely single-serving can of tuna. And since it had a pull top, she didn’t even need a can opener. She was sitting on the floor, eating it straight from the can because mixing it with mayo seemed too much like work, and gnawing on some sourdough that had gone from chewy to challenging, when Drake entered. “Can we talk?”
“No. Get out of my kitchen.”
He ignored her and sat down on the floor. “Let me rephrase that. I’m going to talk, and you’re going to listen.”
Oh, the nerve of the man! She had many things she wanted to say to him, and none of them were polite. He should be thankful her mouth was full of slightly stale bread. Otherwise she might say, “Turnip,” and safeword the conversation just to spite him.
“When we got together, I warned you I need to make the rules. You’ve been fine with that as long as it was sexy, but when you are actually having some problems and need guidance, you act like a toddler who’s just learned the word no.” He reached toward her, then had the sense to withdraw his hand. “Maybe I’m going about this wrong.”
Surprised, she nodded and let him keep talking.
“We seem to have found each other’s hot buttons. My instinct is to push through it. I want to figure out why you need to defy me when I’m just trying to make sure you’re all right—and, for that matter, why taking care of you comes off as being an asshole to you. At this point I can’t tell if you’re overreacting or I am. But I think pushing things isn’t the best idea right now.”
Jen sat stunned, the bread halfway to her mouth, staring at Drake as if he’d grown a second head. A head that actually contained sense, as opposed to the one he’d been using ever since she’d fainted. She opted against saying something about him being the overreacting asshole, not her, because she couldn’t swear it was the truth.
Oh, he’d been overreacting like crazy, but from the best of intentions. Of course, those were the kind that paved the way to hell. But maybe she was overreacting herself. Her head wasn’t clear enough to tell. She was still right, and he was still meddling, but maybe there was more to it. She did have a few hot buttons of her own and he’d managed to push all of them.
“Truce?” Drake asked, extending his hand.
Jen thought about it for a second. She still wanted to storm off into the night, away from his well-intentioned interference, at least long enough for them to get some perspective and figure out what the hell had brought on the perfect storm of asshattery—but she was pretty sure that was a bad idea. If only because she couldn’t storm very far in her current condition on a bicycle.
This way, at least, she could get to bed and wake up in her stained glass paradise before deciding if she really had to leave it—and Drake—forever. Maybe they could just agree to ignore each other. Or, more optimistically, in the light of day, they’d both see where they were being unreasonable and be able to work through this.
“Truce,” she said reluctantly.
“About the walk-in clinic…” Drake said tentatively.
“I’ll go.” It was a good idea, probably better than going to Planned Parenthood, where they might or might not be able to help. “I’ll even take a ride. But I’m paying.” Which meant she wouldn’t be getting her father’s truck as soon and might even have to put charges onto the credit card she hadn’t used in three years, but it was worth it.
Drake shrugged. “Anything involving you, me and money is covered in the truce. Touchy subject at the moment.”
Rather than responding, since she was pretty sure any answer would come out wrong, Jen ate her last few bites of tuna. When she was done chewing, she dared one word: “Bed.”
She was tired. That was definite. Woozy and tired and badly in need of pulling the sheets over her head and forgetting the horrendous end to what had started out as a great day.
And she wouldn’t be tempted to argue more with Drake—or worse yet, to yield to him without thinking it through—if she was safely tucked into bed alone.
“Bed,” he agreed. He took the tuna can and scrap of bread from her hands before she could protest, throwing the bread out, setting the can in the sink. Jen had a feeling she’d find it clean, label-less and in the recycling bin by morning, and she didn’t have the strength to tell him to leave it for her to handle.
Not to mention that she’d probably end up leaving it there for a day and a half until she was actually home long enough to cope, and by that time, it would stink.
She started to rise but discovered her usual grace had deserted her and just rocking forward and standing was not going to work. Instead, she shifted onto her hands and knees, got one foot under her, then the other. She attempted to push up using the strength of her legs, which had always worked before, but wobbled and had to sit again. Drake took her hands on her second attempt and half pulled her to her feet.
To her feet and into his arms.
She wasn’t sure if that was the intention or just momentum, but she staggered forward and found herself pressed against Drake’s body. He changed his grip to hold one wrist in that sexy-imprisoning way that was such a trigger for her, slipped the other arm around her back. With that move, the possibly accidental became deliberate.
“Don’t shut me out,” Drake said in a throaty whisper. It was half a plea, half an order, and she couldn’t tell which would be worse, which would crack her already fragile grasp on why she had to pull away from him. “Don’t let me push you too hard in ways that are bad for you, but don’t let me push you away either. Just let me take care of you. I love you. Love means taking care.”
She turned her face away as his lips started to close over hers.
I can’t cope with this. I just can’t
,
she thought as her body tingled to reluctant life.
But I can’t not kiss him. Can’t not forgive him. Not ready to give up. Not ready to lose this. And I swear he just said he loved me, though I’m not clear-headed enough to react.
Then she touched Drake’s face to convey she’d changed her mind, turned her face back toward him, opened her lips softly.
It wasn’t one of his usual devouring kisses. This one was gentle, tentative, almost sweet, like a young boy kissing the girl of his dreams and afraid he’d be rejected. Which he almost had been, of course. But his hand kept a firm, possessive clasp on her wrist, and the other cupped her ass, and he canted his hips forward so his cock pressed into her body, hard but not urgent, not demanding.
She wanted more. Wanted the demand. Wanted to have him grab her, bend her over the counter, spank her stubborn ass until she broke down and shed the tears she’d managed to fight back earlier. Wanted his fierceness, his possession, his sensual cruelty and cruel sensuality.
She didn’t know if she wanted this gentler Drake, just as possessive and controlling, it seemed, but without the trappings of kink.
No, she didn’t know if she could afford to want this Drake, even though her body was responding, her arms clasping him, her nipples hardening, her pussy softening, opening. Kinky sex was one thing. Games with rules were fine. But she couldn’t let him control her life. Control her art. Control her finances. Those had to be hers and hers alone.
While he kissed her, though, she found it hard to care about her reasonable fears. Her head swam again, but this time it was caused by lust and confusion. She wanted him badly. Desired him, yes, but part of her also wanted him to take care of her, protect her. Part of her had been thrilled by the over-the-top reaction to her little emergency, by the way he sprang to nurture her rather than scold her for her foolishness, tell her to put on her big-girl panties and deal like her parents would.
And she couldn’t afford that weakness. She’d been dumb, not eating for so long. It wasn’t right to let her stupidity in forgetting to eat interfere with her work, any more than it would be to take time off for a hangover. Grown-ups didn’t behave that way.
The kiss was sweet and hot, and Drake’s arms made her still-shaky body feel stronger, steadier. But instead of continuing the kiss, she pulled reluctantly away. “I want you, but I think I want to be horizontal even more,” she said, “and by that, I mean horizontal and sleeping.” It wasn’t a lie. She was ready to tip over from fatigue and lingering weakness, and since she’d been forced to take the night off, she’d damn well better rest.
And Drake, protective and worried as he was, wouldn’t ask too many questions if she said something sensible like that.
Which was good, because she wouldn’t know how to answer them. Her head was swimming almost as much as it had before she fainted, only now emotional hunger, not physical, was weakening her. If she didn’t get away, break contact, get to bed—alone—she’d wind up falling in a more dramatic, dangerous way than she had when she’d fainted.
Drake released her. “Come on. Brush your teeth, and I’ll tuck you in.” He herded her toward the bathroom with a frustratingly gentle smack on the butt. Light as it was, it hinted at what might have been, conjuring the memories of play past and fantasies of play that still might be.
If Drake didn’t keep acting weird and could understand where he’d mis-stepped here. If she didn’t run screaming from the care and protection she didn’t want to want, the safety she couldn’t afford to trust.
She cocked her butt back out of habit, out of instinct, but he ignored her. “Come on, sickie. Gotta get you healthy again so we can play, and for that you need to sleep.”
Her body ached with desire, but it was desire tempered by fatigue and shakiness and a headache that had never quite receded from the afternoon. She smiled at Drake and let him toddle her off to bed.
Drake tucked her in like she was a child, smoothing the sheets around her, stroking the hair off her face, then kissing her forehead gravely. “Sleep well, beautiful,” he said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Not if I see you first,” she joked feebly.
But some panicked part of her brain thought that “joke” might be the most sensible thing she’d thought since she’d met Drake Matthews.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Morning came with the sound of rain pounding on the roof and battering against the windows. As Jen rubbed her eyes, thunder rumbled somewhere out over the lake. A hopeful sign: summer thunderstorms tended to be short, but a good Ithaca rain without thunder could last literally for days. And with mere days before the Solstice Craft Show, she wanted the rain to dance quickly over the area, refreshing farms and gardens, then move on. Still, she dreaded the thought of heading out into the downpour. Even after two carless years, she hadn’t become sanguine about biking in torrential rain, though it beat snow any day. But she had to get to the studio. She’d finished almost all the glasswork she needed for the weekend’s show, but she wanted to make more multicolored vases. They were only slightly harder to make than solid-colored ones but could sell for a lot more because they
looked
more complicated. And anything she could get inventoried, priced and packed in advance would make Friday easier.