Sandra Hill - [Jinx] (21 page)

Wheedle my way back in? I don’t give a rat’s ass about wheedle. I need a way to plow back in, big-time, before someone else does.
He thought and thought, and then he smiled. Still smiling, he called the bartender over, handed him a twenty, then gave him his order. And the order wasn’t for a drink.

Tante Lulu smiled now, too, after giving him a high five.

Tee-John, wearing a T-shirt that proclaimed, “Your Castle or Mine?” walked up with some blonde chick, looked at him, looked at Tante Lulu, and said, “What are you two up to?”

“Nothing,” he and Tante Lulu said at the same time.

And then—
I’m keeping my fingers crossed here
—the band began to play the old Police favorite, “Every Breath You Take.”

The dance . . .

Frank might be a polka fanatic, and he might be as old as Moses, but he knew a Sting song when he heard one, and he knew how much those songs meant to Jake, and therefore to his granddaughter.

Kudos to you, Jake, my boy.

First, Frank watched Ronnie, who appeared a bit shell-shocked before she put her head on the table and muttered, “Damn, damn, damn!” After that, he watched Jake, who took a long drink from his long neck and placed the empty on the bar behind him. Then Jake pushed himself away from the bar and started to walk across the dance floor toward them. Instead of a self-satisfied look on his face, he appeared overly serious and a bit shell-shocked himself.

All the others at the table, not understanding the significance of the song, were staring at Ronnie with concern. Brenda kept saying, “Are you all right?” Adam told Flossie that he thought Ronnie might have had too many glasses of Long Island Ice Tea, on top of the excessive heat in the place. But Caleb was wiser than the rest. His eyes were narrowed at Ronnie, then Jake, who was closer now.

When Jake got to the table, all he said was, “Ronnie.”

She groaned and raised her head. “Ooooh, that song . . . that is not fair.”

Jake shrugged as if to say, “All’s fair in love and war,” and just held out a hand to her.

The usually contrary Ronnie stood, without hesitation, and walked toward him, zombielike. He took her hand and led her out onto the small dance floor.

Then the most magical thing happened, and Frank wasn’t much into magical crap. Jake pulled Ronnie into his arms. They gazed at each other for one long moment, a gaze so thick with emotion that it brought tears to his eyes. He heard Flossie and Brenda sigh loudly at the scene unfolding before them. Caleb and Adam looked like kids who’d had their candy stolen.

Ronnie buried her face into the crook of Jake’s neck, and he yanked her so close they could have been one. Then they danced. But, son of a gun, Frank had never seen anything quite like it before. He and Flossie had been together for a long time, and they anticipated each other’s moves when dancing like lots of old couples did, but this was different. Way different.

They swayed, they dipped, they twirled, never releasing their death hold on each other. Her eyes were closed. His were, too. In effect, it was like two people making love while doing nothing more than dancing. And even though their moves weren’t anything spectacular, something about their movements spelled, well, magic.

People on the dance floor slowed, then stopped, to watch them. LeDeux brought his great-aunt, who resembled a broccoli, with her green hair and green outfit, over to their table and seated her. Then LeDeux, who was supposedly quite a dancer himself, studied Jake and Ronnie, and all he said was, “Wow!”

“She doesn’t stand a chance,” Tante Lulu told the other ladies. “I gave that Jake some sex advice. Plus, he’s got St. Jude sittin’ on his shoulder.”

Brenda and Flossie stared at Tante Lulu, slack-jawed for a second. You never knew what the old bird was going to say.

Her nephew laughed out loud, accustomed to her outrageousness. But Brenda said, “How about giving me some of that advice?” And Flossie added, “Me, too.”

“Hey, you don’t need sex advice,” Frank protested.

“There’s no such thing as too much sex advice,” Flossie told him with a sweet smile. The sweet smile was a sign that this was one of Flossie’s good nights. No menopausal freak-outs . . . so far. He wasn’t about to tempt the hormone fates by disagreeing with her. “Yes, dear” seemed to suffice.

“What’s he got that I don’t?” Adam griped as he threw back a shot, followed by a beer.

Frank, John, Brenda, Flossie, Tante Lulu, and even Caleb said as one, “Ronnie.”

Chapter
22

Sweet temptation . . .

Ronnie drifted on a cloud of sensuality.

The sight of Jake as he looked at her before pulling her into his arms . . . oh, God, it was a sight that had been repeated thousands of times over the years but was no less precious for its repetition. There was yearning in his eyes and hope and love—definitely love. As dangerous as it was, she would never tire of seeing him like this.

She made a small whimpering sound, the sound of surrender.

He blinked, the only sign that he’d heard her.

Her left hand wrapped around his nape; his right hand circled her waist. He held her right hand in his, against his chest. All this, while their gazes remained locked.

The music was just a backdrop. First, The Police’s “Every Breath You Take.” The song was a poignant reminder of all the good things about her and Jake. He had undoubtedly prompted the band to play their song.

As loud as the band was, the peripheral noises were muted by the thunder of her heartbeat, by Jake’s sigh as he drew her nearer, by a dulling of the sense of sound while all other senses took over.

Forget Caleb’s spicy smell. The scent of Jake’s skin, unadorned by aftershave, was pure ambrosia to her. Even though she couldn’t put a name to his unique scent, she could recognize it anywhere.

And the feel of his arms around her, the feel of his heart beating in counterpoint to hers, the feel of the music’s rhythm, which caused them to dance so well together—she would never tire of these feelings. Never. “In spite of logic, in spite of all the reasons why this is a foolish, foolish thing to do, it feels so right to be in your arms, at this moment,” she told him.

He put his cheek against hers. Sometimes Jake’s silence meant he was in his poker “no tell” mode, but sometimes, like now, he was too filled with emotion to speak; that’s how well she knew this man, who was a master at “no tells.”

The only sense missing was taste, and Veronica knew she would be lost if she got that taste now. Already her defenses were crumbling bit by bit.
If I put my tongue to his neck, if I lean back and dare to kiss him, if I take the hand holding mine over his chest and sweep his palm with a soft butterfly kiss . . . if, if, if. Am I crazy to be thinking like this?

Crazy in love,
that blasted voice in her head said.

“I love you,” Jake said against her hair.

She groaned and said nothing, which said everything. With the greatest of discipline, she tried to pull away.

He held on tight. “Shhh. Don’t, baby. We don’t have to think about tomorrow or forever . . . just now. One step at a time. No harm in that.”

No harm in that? Hah! One step is all it ever takes for us.
However, idiot that she was, Veronica listened to Jake and relaxed. She was so tired of fighting her love for him. While the band segued into Aerosmith’s “Dream On,” another Jake request, guaranteed, she asked, “Do you remember the Aerosmith concert we went to?”

“Which one? The one during the Sappy Marriage? Or the Tequila Marriage?”

She laughed against his neck and luxuriated in the feel of her lips against his skin. She also relished the shiver that ran through him. “The first one. Definitely Sappy. It was outdoors. And we brought a blanket and wine and French bread and cheese.”

“And we stayed long after the crowds left.”

She nodded. Both of them were remembering what happened.
Sweet memories.
After a second, she chuckled. “We were covered with mosquito bites in some unmentionable places.”

“Yeah, but the fun we had slathering calamine lotion on those places! One of my top ten favorite memories!”

Leave it to Jake to mention
that!

They danced in silence for a moment, but Jake interrupted the silence with a change of mood. No more teasing. “I’ve made so many mistakes, but marrying you, even four times, was not a mistake. I can’t think of it that way. I . . . I just wanted you to know that.”

“I know.”
And I feel the same way, no matter what I say to everyone, no matter what I say to you.

The second song ended and another started—“Summer Nights,” a little faster this time, but they continued to slow dance, oblivious to the beat. They were setting their own delicious rhythm.

When he drew his head back finally, she knew that he was going to kiss her. She saw it in the slumberous haze in his eyes and the droop of his lower lip. She saw it and could do nothing to stop the inevitable.

At the first press of his lips against hers, pleasure passed through her in waves so intense that her knees buckled. He caught her with both hands at her waist. It was a fleeting kiss, no tongue, no deep hungry pressing, but it was potent just the same. So potent that they both knew a line had been crossed.

Wrapped in the cocoon of that kiss, they didn’t realize till after the fact that people throughout the tavern were staring at them and smiling. Her grandfather most of all. You’d think he had just found King Tut’s tomb.

But she couldn’t think about that right now. Jake had his arm around her shoulders and her tucked at his side.

“I want to make love to you so bad my teeth hurt,” he said, pressing a soft kiss to the top of her head.

Okay, this is the moment. I can walk away, or . . . or I can stay. No question what I should do, but what do I want to do? Hah!
She tried to make light of her momentous decision. “Poor baby! I wouldn’t want you to get a toothache.”

He tilted his head in question. Sometimes men were so dense. When understanding seeped into his thick skull, he asked in a husky voice, trying for light, “Do you have any idea how good your chances are with me?”

She raised her eyebrows with amusement. “Uh, yeah. I felt it against my belly when we were dancing.”

He laughed. “Hey, don’t rub the bottle if you don’t want the genie to come out.” It was an old joke between them.

“So? Are you expecting me to make the first move?”

He squeezed her tighter against his side with a smile. And Jake had a killer smile.

“Knock yourself out, big boy.”

And did he ever!

And neither of them listened to the laughter in their heads, accompanied by the words, “Here we go again.”

I forgot to remember to forget you. . . .

They were back in his hotel room, and Jake was as nervous as a boy about to get laid for the first time.

Plopping down into an upholstered chair, he tented and untented his hands several times. Ronnie looked so damn hot with no bra in a red sequined tank top she must have borrowed from Flossie, over glove-tight black jeans. This was so
not
her style. To him, Ronnie would be sexy in a burlap sack.

How did he know she was braless?

Because he knew Ronnie’s body better than his own.

Jake kept inhaling and exhaling to settle down, but his nerves had him jittery as a kitten in a room full of pit bulls. It was so important that he not screw things up. As a result, he felt as if he was walking on eggshells. He, who prided himself on his emotional control, was fragile as glass inside.

Ronnie wasn’t too calm, either, as she fiddled with her purse, trying to find a hairbrush.

“You know, honey, life is like a poker game . . . ,” he began.

She groaned. She’d never been a big fan of his poker metaphors, but at the least they could usually get her to crack a grin. Yep, her mouth was twitching in her effort to suppress her amusement.

“No, listen. Life is like a poker game for us. We’ve just forgotten the first rule of holes, a rule all gamblers know. When in a hole, stop digging.”

“Your point?”

“We’ve been in this damn hole way too long, and we keep trying to solve our problems by digging and digging. Maybe we need to crawl out into the light and look for other solutions.”

“Jake,” she said then, walking over to him and lifting one denim-clad leg over his thighs so that she straddled him.

Huh?
His eyes practically went cross-eyed as she adjusted her ass on his lap, thus aligning his cock right where it wanted to be. “Works for me,” he choked out.

He put one arm around her waist and cupped her nape with the other hand, pulling her head down for a kiss . . . the first of many, he hoped. “I promise—” he whispered against her open mouth.

She put her fingertips over his lips and shook her head. “No promises,” she murmured, and lay her lips on his. She didn’t have to say she loved him; her kiss told him. “And absolutely no talk about marriage.”

I can live with that.
“You’re calling the shots, baby.”

“Hah! That’ll be a first.” She studied his face for a minute, then told him, “Do you know what Caleb said to me?”

Now? Now she wants to discuss some other man?
“Do I want to know?”

“He told me to make a list of all the things I’d like him to do to me.”

The temperature of Jake’s already-heated blood inched up to a boil.

“After that, Caleb said we would work on his list.”

His blood was boiling now. “I’ll kill him. With my bare hands. Slowly.”

She shook her head. “Don’t you want to know what I put on that wish list, for him to do?”

Hell, no!

“Nothing.”

It took a torturous moment for understanding to seep into his thick skull. When it did, he smiled. “Just so you know, I can do lists, too.”

She smiled back at him. “I know.”

He wanted to stand with her then and carry her to the bed and make love to her till every erotic fantasy on her list was checked off.
Restraint, boy. Restraint.

Quiet now, she used her forefinger to trace the line of his jaw and then his lips. Then she repeated the path with small nibbling kisses.

He waited . . . with restraint.

The wonder in her eyes as she gazed at him was precious beyond belief to him. “Can I tell you that I love you?”

“As often as you want.” She kissed him again, this time with a devouring hunger and a tongue so hot he thought he would explode from spontaneous combustion.

Her eyes misted.

“We don’t need any friggin’ lists, sweetheart. Just tell me what you want, and it’s yours,” he told her, once she came up for a breath. He meant that in all ways, but it was enough if she thought he meant just now.

She swiped the tears from her eyes with both fists, then lifted her chin belligerently. “Fuck me.”

Whoa! Talk about blunt. But I am not about to argue. And, hey, I know exactly where she’s coming from. If she uses the word
fuck
instead of
make love,
our hooking up again won’t seem so significant, just a fly-by fuck. Boy, is she kidding herself! It’s significant, all right. And I’m not flying off this time.
“Anytime, anywhere, babe.” With that, he stood with his hands on her ass, holding her up, and walked to the king-sized bed, tossing her to the middle. He immediately followed after her, crawling over her till he lay flat on top of her with their linked hands raised above her head.

“You think you’ve won, don’t you?” she asked.

She didn’t appear peeved as she asked that question, so he replied, “I feel as if I’ve won the World Series of Poker, the brass ring on the carousel, the Masters, the Triple Crown, and the Wheel of Fortune, all together.”

“That good, huh?”

Suddenly somber, he closed his eyes and nestled his face in the curve of her neck and shoulder. Inhaling the scent of her skin and a light floral/spicy scent, he recognized her favorite perfume, Chanel No. 5.

“Are you smelling me?” she asked with a laugh.

“Yep, and you smell good enough to eat.”

“Promises, promises.” She arched her groin up against his groin and wiggled from side to side.

He was the one who laughed then. “Baby, you are tossing out a lot of raw sex talk—raw for you.”

“I feel raw,” she said, trying to pull her hands from his grasp, probably so she could take over this love play, which he was not going to allow—not this time.

“I can do raw.”
I can do hard-core, soft-core, upside down, inside out, any type of sex you want with the adrenaline pumping through my body right now. Not to mention a ton of testosterone.

It took a half hour for him to get naked and to remove her blouse and sandals and unzip her jeans. It took so long because they’d both had to stop at so many familiar places on each other’s bodies to touch and kiss. By the time she was down to just her jeans, they were both worked into a sexual frenzy.

“Can you shimmy out of those jeans?” he gasped.

She laughed. “Honey, we’re going to need a crowbar to get me out of these jeans.”

“Hah! Never underestimate the determination of a man with a mission,” he said, beginning to tug down the low waistband of the tight jeans.

“More like a man with a hard-on,” she countered, peering down at him.

“That, too,” he agreed.
And, man oh man, look at me!
It was one of those rare, hard-as-a-rock blue steelers that men knew were as special as, well, a royal flush.

Soon he had her naked, and he was embedded in her as far as he could go.

“I love you,” she said, and skimmed her palms up and down over his lower back at the curve just above his buttocks, his unique erotic zone.