Simply Irresistible (29 page)

And there was nothing funny about that. Nothing at all, she thought as she walked out onto the deck. She could barely see the ocean waves, but she could hear them. The temperature had dropped and she was glad she’d changed into a blue waffle-knit sweater and a denim skirt. Her toes were a little cold, and she wished she’d remembered her shoes. She wrapped her arms around her and looked up at the night sky. She’d never been good at astronomy, but she loved to look at the stars.

She heard the door behind her open and close, then she felt a blanket drape across her shoulders. “Thank you,” she uttered, and wrapped the hand-woven blanket more securely.

“You’re welcome. I think Lexie was out before she hit the sheets,” John said as he came to stand beside her at the rail.

“She usually is. I’ve always considered it a blessing. I love Lexie, but I love it when she’s asleep.” She shook her head. “That sounds bad.”

He chuckled softly. “No, it doesn’t. I can see how she can wear a person out. I have a new respect for parents.”

She glanced up at his profile as he stared out at the ocean. Light from the house illuminated oblong patches of the wooden deck and threw shadows across his face. He wore a navy blue Gore-Tex jacket, and the salty breeze played with the contrasting green stand-up collar.

“What were you like as a child?” she asked, curious. Lexie and she were not as much alike as everyone believed.

“Fairly hyper. I think I must have subtracted ten or so years from my grandfather’s life.”

She turned toward him. “Last night you mentioned Ernie and your mother. What about your father?”

John shrugged. “I don’t remember him. He died in a car accident when I was five. My mother worked two jobs, so mostly I was raised by my grandmother and grandfather. My grandma Dorothy died when I was about twenty-three.”

“Then I guess we have something in common. Both of us were brought up by grandmothers.”

He looked across his shoulder at her; the light from the house illuminated his profile. “What about your mother?”

Years ago she’d lied about her past, built it up, made it seem pretty. He obviously didn’t remember. Now she was comfortable with who she was and didn’t feel she needed to lie. “My mother didn’t want me.”

“Not want you?” His brows lowered. “Why?”

She shrugged and turned to look out at the black night and the even blacker silhouette of Haystack Rock. “She wasn’t married and I guess...” She paused, then said, “The truth is, I don’t really know. I found out only last year from my aunt that she tried to have an abortion, but my grandmother stopped her. When I was born, my grandmother took me home from the hospital. I don’t think my mother even looked at me before she left town.”

“Are you serious?” He sounded incredulous.

“Of course.” Georgeanne hugged herself tighter. “I was always so sure she’d come back, and I used to try to be such a good little girl so she would want me. But she never came back. She never even called.” She shrugged again and rubbed her arms. “My grandmother tried to make up for it, though. Clarissa June loved me and took as good a care of me as she could. That meant getting me properly prepared to become someone’s wife. She wanted to see me married before she died, and toward the end of her life, she became very diligent about finding me a husband. It got so bad that I wouldn’t even go to the Piggly Wiggly with her.” Georgeanne smiled at the memory. “She used to try to set me up with everyone from the checkers to the produce manager. But she secretly had her heart set on the butcher, Cletus J. Krebs. Clarissa had been raised on a pig farm and was naturally partial to a good cut of pork. When she found out he was married, she was understandably crushed.” She expected a laugh out of him but didn’t even get a chuckle.

“What about your father?”

“I don’t know who he is.”

“No one ever told you?”

“No one besides my mother ever knew, and she wouldn’t say. When I was a little girl, sometimes I thought...” She stopped and shook her head, embarrassed. “Never mind,” she said, and buried her nose in the blanket.

“What did you think?” he asked.

She looked up at him and responded to the gentle tone in his voice. “It’s silly, but I always thought that if he’d known, he would have loved me because I always tried to be so good.”

“That’s not silly. I’m sure if he’d known about you, he would have loved you very much.”

“I don’t think so.” In her experience, the men she wanted most to love her couldn’t. John was an excellent example of that. She turned her head and gazed out at the ocean. “He wouldn’t have cared, but it’s very nice of you to say so.”

“No, it’s not. I’m sure it’s the truth.”

She was just as sure it wasn’t, but it didn’t matter. She’d given up on fantasies years ago.

The breeze ruffled their hair and silence stretched between them as they looked out at black and silver waves. Then John spoke, barely above the wind. “You break my heart, you know.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket and turned to face her. “We need to talk about what happened in the kitchen earlier.”

Georgeanne was stunned by his admission, and she didn’t particularly want to talk about their kiss. She didn’t know why he’d kissed her, or why she’d responded as if he’d sucked out her will to say no. Her feet were cold now, and she thought it was a good time to retreat and get her thoughts together.

“I’m obviously very attracted to you.”

She decided she could stay a bit longer and hear him out.

“I know I’ve told you that I was immune to you, and that I find you completely resistible. Well, I lied about that. You’re beautiful and soft and if things between us were different, I’d give up a lung to make love to you. But they’re not, so if you catch me looking at you like I’m about to pounce, I want you to know that I won’t. I’m thirty-five and I can control myself. I don’t want you to worry that I’ll try anything again.”

No one had ever offered to give up a body organ to be with her.

“I want to assure you that I won’t kiss you or touch you or try to jump your bones. I think we can both agree that sex between us would be a mistake.”

Even though she agreed, she felt a little disappointed that he could control himself. “You’re right, of course.”

“It would ruin what progress we’ve made toward a workable relationship.”

“True.”

He turned and looked at her. “If we ignore it, it will go away.” His gaze traveled to her hair, then across her face.

“Do you think so?”

A frown settled between his brows and he slowly shook his head. “No, I’m totally full of shit,” he said as he pulled his hands from his pockets and cupped her cheeks in his warm palms. His thumb brushed her chilled skin and he lowered his forehead to rest against hers. “I’m a fairly selfish guy and I want you,” he said, his voice lowered. “I want to kiss you and touch you and”—he paused and she saw the smile in his eyes— “jump your gorgeous bones. Even though I’m thirty-five, I find it impossible to control myself with you. Wanting you has taken over, and I think about making love to you all the time. Did you know that?”

He surrounded her, took all of her air, and sucked out her depleted resistance. Unable to speak, she shook her head.

“I had a real smutty dream about you last night. It was wild. I did things to you that we won’t even talk about, because if I told you, it would get me in trouble.”

He dreamed about me
? She tried to think of something clever and provocative but couldn’t. Her remaining capacity for rational thought deserted her about the time he mentioned jumping her gorgeous bones. She’d always thought her bones were clumsy and unattractive.

“So I’m counting on you to be sensible. I’m counting on you to tell me no.” He brushed his mouth against hers and said, “Tell me no and I’ll leave you alone.”

He was too close, and too handsome, and she wanted him too much to be sensible. She wanted to crawl inside his skin, and she didn’t even consider saying no. Her hands released the blanket and it fell from her shoulders to pool at her feet. She grasped the open lapels of his jacket and held on. The tip of her tongue lightly touched the seam of his lips and he opened his mouth to her. The kiss they’d shared earlier had started out slow but had reached the flash point within seconds. This kiss lingered on their lips. Their mouths opened and their tongues lightly touched. They had all night and neither was in a hurry.

Years ago, she’d known how to please a man. The skills she’d perfected to an art form lay buried somewhere deep within her. She didn’t know if she still knew how to tease, how to drive a man crazy. She moved her hands to the waistband of his pants and slowly slid her palms beneath his jacket and up his warm abdomen to his chest. Beneath her touch, his hard muscles tightened, and his mouth pressed deeper into hers, creating a soft suction. Her tongue teased him, and she felt the heavy beating of his heart. He moved one of his hands to her hips and pulled her closer against him.

Against her lower stomach, she felt him swell. He was long and hard. Passion and feminine satisfaction mingled and shot threw her, settling in the apex of her thighs. She lightly brushed against him and her passion twisted into a hot coil. His grasp on her hip tightened, then he pulled away from her lips.

“You were good seven years ago,” he said as the night breeze stirred the short hair on the side of his head. “I have a feeling you’ve gotten better.”

Georgeanne could have told him that it wasn’t because of practice. In fact, she was so out of practice that she didn’t have a proper sultry response. Without the distraction of his sensual mouth, and the sound of his shameless words filling her head, she felt the crisp wind slicing through her sweater and she shivered.

“Let’s go,” he said, and reached for her hand. He pulled her against his side, and together they walked into the house, shutting the door behind them. John kissed her softly on the lips, then he shrugged out of his jacket. “Are you still cold?” he asked as he threw the jacket on the couch.

The hairs on Georgeanne’s arms tingled, but not from the cold. “I’m okay,” she said as she rubbed her arms through her sweater.

“How about a fire anyway?”

She didn’t want to wait that long to feel his lips against hers, but she didn’t want to appear love-starved either. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

He gave her a lazy grin. “Oh, I think I can manage,” he said, walked over to the blue and white tile mantel, and flipped a switch. Orange flame shot from the gas jets and lapped at the fake logs.

Georgeanne’s smile matched his. “I think that’s cheating.”

“Only if I’d been a Boy Scout, and I wasn’t.”

“I should have guessed.” She turned to look out the wall of windows but couldn’t see past her own reflection. She felt a moment of panic as she hurriedly tried to remember if she wore satin underwear or if she’d changed into ordinary white cotton.

“What?” he asked as he came to stand behind her. “That I wasn’t a Boy Scout?” He reached for her and pulled her back against his chest. “Or that I have a fake fire?”

Georgeanne looked at his wavy reflection. She stared into his gorgeous face, and she no longer cared if her panties were Hanes or Victoria’s Secret. She arched her back a little and pressed her bottom into his groin. “Is your fire fake, John?”

He sucked in his breath and his chuckle was a little strained when he said, “If you’re a good girl, I’ll show it to you later.” He kissed the crown of her head, then grasped the bottom of her sweater. “But for now, you show me.” He pulled the sweater over her head and tossed it aside. Her first instinct was to raise her hands to shield her breasts from his view. Instead, she kept them at her sides and stood before him in her denim skirt and her blue stretch satin bra. His fingers skimmed across her stomach, then he cupped both heavy breasts in his strong hands.

“You’re beautiful,” he said as his thumbs brushed across the satin covering her nipples. “So beautiful I can hardly breathe.”

Georgeanne knew the feeling. She felt as if the breath were pulled from her lungs as she watched his hands lift her breasts. She was unable to look away as he unhooked her bra and slowly pushed the straps from her shoulders. The blue satin slid down the slopes of her breasts, shimmered across her nipples, then fell down her arms to the floor. Suddenly embarrassed, Georgeanne tried to turn to face him, to press herself into his chest and shield herself from his hot gaze. But he moved his hands to her waist and held her‘ where she was.

“Someone might see us,” she said.

“No one is out there.” He lightly brushed the tips of his fingers across the tips of her breasts.

Her breathing became shallow. “There might be.”

“We’re not beach level. We’re up too high.” She watched as he softly pinched her puckered nipples between his thumbs and forefingers, and suddenly she didn’t care anymore. A busload of Shriners could have paraded across the deck, and she wouldn’t have cared. She arched her back and raised her arms. Her hands cupped the back of his head and she brought his lips down to hers. She thrust her tongue into his mouth and gave him a hot, greedy kiss. He groaned deep within his chest as he played with her breasts. He lifted and squeezed, then moved his hands to the button at her waist. Her skirt and blue satiny underwear were pushed down her hips and thighs and fell to her feet. She stepped out of them and kicked them aside, then she was naked, her bare bottom pressed against the zipper of his jeans. He was completely dressed while she was completely naked, and the feel of worn denim against her skin was extremely erotic. He tilted his hips and pressed his erection into her behind as his mouth trailed hot little kisses down the side of her throat. He lightly bit her shoulder, then sucked her skin into his mouth.

Georgeanne turned her gaze to the window, and through the blurred glass she watched his big hands slip across her body. He caressed her breasts, her stomach, and her hips. He placed one of his feet between hers and pushed them farther apart. Then he slid his hand to her parted thighs, and he fondled her gently. She was slick where his fingers stroked, and a sharp ache radiated from his touch. Her insides melted, pooling deep and low in her pelvis. His hands, his mouth, his hot gaze. She looked into the reflection of her own face and did not recognize the woman staring back at her. The woman in the window looked drugged. She heard herself moan, and she feared that if she didn’t stop him, she’d reach her peak alone. She didn’t want that. She wanted him with her.