Instinct curled, tight in his throat. No…any macho crap like that would panic her. Keep it light, Stone. Hell, it felt like talking a jumper off a ledge.
“You’re the one who showed up on my doorstep, as I remember.”
Deirdre grimaced. “You would bring that up now. You’re such a jerk.”
“Yeah. I am. But I’m a jerk who…” Who’s crazy in love with you. Yeah, right. Say that, you jackass. “Who wants to…” Screw your brains out. Show you just how damn good it can be between us. Arrogant ass. Was there any man who had the guts to tell the truth, to say, Let’s just give it a try, maybe we can work this sex thing out. Even if we don’t get it right the first time….
“What is it you want to do, Stone? Rock my world? Show me the greatest sex in the free world? Show me how it will be different with you because you’re such a kick-ass lover you’ll blow my mind?” She glared at him, daring him to deny it, making him ache to kiss her, show her he was different. Bet she’d never heard a man spout that line before.
“Ouch,” Stone said.
“Do you know how desperately I wish that stuff were true? That you really could make me feel…what was it Emma said about Drew? Make me feel safe…alive.” Tears welled up in her eyes. What the hell had Emma’s father done to her? Stone needed the guy’s name so he could kill the bastard.
But as satisfying as cold-blooded murder would feel, it wouldn’t help Deirdre right now. Stone swallowed hard, torn by indecision. They were so much alike, he and Deirdre: never let them see you sweat; never blink in a stare-down; never be the first one to swerve out of the path of the other car when you’re playing chicken; never let anyone see past the wall where you kept all your insecurities hidden away.
Hang on to all that pride, you bloody idiot, Stone warned himself. And you’ll never, ever reach her.
Why not just do it? Stone asked himself. Risk the humiliation of failing her. Give it to her straight. He flexed his fingers, wishing he could shake the trapped sensation that was making him want to beat feet to the door. Didn’t Deirdre McDaniel deserve better? Look how brave she’d been. How honest. She’d stripped her soul naked for him, every flaw, every mistake, every regret. Even admitted she didn’t feel like a woman….
Passionate, brave, beautiful Deirdre, the most desirable woman Jake had ever known. How the hell had she lost all faith in herself? What in the name of God had happened to her?
Stone drew himself up, being ruthlessly honest, even to himself. “I don’t know if things would be different with us,” he admitted slowly. “But, hell, Deirdre…don’t you owe it to yourself to try?”
She stood so silent, so pale. Watching him with those big blue eyes. He tried to remember how to breathe, so much hung in the balance.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “You’re thinking that I’m just another guy who wants to get in your pants. If that was true, I’d find a woman with a lot less baggage. I’m not the ‘tell me about your dark night of the soul’ type. And when it comes to sex, my first instinct is to say I’m damn good at it.”
“Don’t be so modest, Sugar Bear.”
Good sign. At least she was fighting back—a little.
“I can’t promise you we can get past…well, whatever you’re holding back. But I can tell you this. I care about you. And I want you more than I’ve ever wanted any woman.I want you enough to stop whenever you tell me to. I want you enough to give this a try, you and me together, knowing I might fall flat on my face. Not a fun prospect for any guy’s ego, let me tell you.”
Jake almost turned hero, almost walked out the door and turned his back on the need clamoring in his veins. Almost.
But she moistened her lips, peered up at him from under those incredible thick lashes, her breasts swelling, so soft, so tempting against the white of her shirt. She grabbed his hand, and he wondered where she was leading him.
“Emma’s upstairs,” she said softly as they slipped out the back door.
One thing was sure. Deirdre wasn’t seeing him safely into his truck. The garden was dimly lit, smelled sweet, whatever flowers were growing there filling the air with something exotic. The soft sound of waves lapping the shore whispered from the river beyond. He stumbled over a root. Deirdre tightened her hold on his hand.
That gazebo thing—that must be where she was headed.
“For years I’ve been hearing lovers tell me how magical the gazebo is,” Deirdre said, obviously talking to calm her nervousness. “Maybe because my brother was falling crazy in love the whole time he was building it. I believed the magic was true, but fairy-tale endings were for women like Finn, so good even fate couldn’t deny them happiness. I knew I could never be a Cinderella—I would have dumped a bucket of ashes over somebody’s head long before I got the glass slipper.”
Jake squeezed her hand. “I always did think Cinderella should have fought back. Like you’re doing, Dee. Right now.”
“Finn said the gazebo was her and Cade’s lucky place.” Deirdre seemed so shy, so uncertain as she drew him up the wooden stairs. “She’s dead sure that’s where they conceived the twins. Maybe some of that luck will rub off.”
Whoa, Stone thought, picturing two squalling, red-faced babies. Way to take the edge off a guy’s hard-on.
He’d never wanted kids of his own. At least, that’s what he’d told himself, satisfying any bouts of insanity by playing uncle to his old partner Tank Rizzo’s brood. And yet, part of him couldn’t help wondering what it would be like, hovering at the nursery door, unseen, watching the woman he loved nursing the child they’d made together.
The image had always been hazy when he’d been fool enough to think about it. A woman’s body silhouetted against the cushions of a rocking chair, moonlight streaming in from the window as she cuddled the baby against her white breast.
His own mother must have done the same with him. If he could just remember…
But those memories were gone along with his parents’ faces, lost to time and a bewildered two-year-old boy’s need to move on. When he’d hooked up with Trula, well, she hadn’t exactly been the peaceful, rocking-chair type. She’d been all sequins and games and laughter. He hadn’t thought he missed anything else.
Until he pictured Deirdre, her beautiful face suffused with a sweet, rare peace, secure in his love, in the home he’d made for her.
Fool, he warned himself. You can’t have her. You can never have a wife and a baby and the kind of future Cade McDaniel found for himself. That kind of love took complete honesty. And the last time he’d trusted a woman with the truth, she’d nearly destroyed the lives of people he loved.
Spousal privilege had been the only thing that saved him. That and the steely danger Jessica had seen in his eyes.
What was he? Crazy? He was about to make love to Deirdre McDaniel out here in the garden while the sun started to rise. He was finally going to get his hands under her blouse, into her hair, feel the excruciating pleasure of sinking himself deep inside her. And he was thinking about his blasted ex-wife?
He blocked the past from his mind, glad his mess of a marriage was gone, glad he was free to hold Deirdre in his arms. At least for a little while.
The garden structure’s gingerbread-decked walls shone white against the mauve tinted sky, like lace, unearthly, as if part of another world. A world in which Jake Stone could love the passionate woman in Deirdre McDaniel back to life. Or screw things up so badly she’d never let a man touch her again.
The thought of any man besides him touching Deirdre made him crazy. He wanted all of her for himself. More than he could ever hope to have.
The enormity of what they were about to try made Stone’s stomach cold. Fortunately, Deirdre chose that moment to curl her fingers into the hem of her T-shirt and sweep the soft cotton garment up over her head. The moment all that creamy, pale skin filled his vision, his stomach was the last part of his anatomy he was thinking with.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he rasped.
She was. Sweet, lush curves made all the more sexy by her sudden shyness. He must be staring at her. She gathered the T-shirt up tight against her, hiding the shadowy cleft of cleavage so velvety rich it made Stone’s mouth water.
“It’s okay if you change your mind,” Stone said. I’ll go completely crazy if you do, but it’s okay.
Her eyes glowed, huge in the first kiss of dawn. “Jake…help me?”
Gently, he took hold of a fold of her shirt and tugged it out of her hands. His fingers clenched in the fabric, still warm from Deirdre’s body, still smelling like her, oranges and spice.
The sight of her breasts made his mouth go dry. They were perfect, like cream, and in the filtered light the tips looked the color of milk chocolate. He wanted to take them in his mouth, wanted to drown in her, quench the fire in him even six long years hadn’t put out. But he couldn’t move too fast. Couldn’t startle her. Scare her off.
That seemed absurd, knowing Deirdre’s courage. But then, if she’d had bad sex and ended up pregnant at sixteen, that would be enough to scare plenty of women he’d known. And yet Deirdre wasn’t like anyone he’d ever dated. She was braver. Indomitable. At least, he’d thought so before…before tonight when she’d let him see beyond the face she showed to the world, into the shadowy places inside her where the monsters lived.
Fighting for control, Stone dropped the shirt, reached out, curving his fingers against the bare skin of her arms. It had been too damn long since he’d felt a woman’s softness. He gritted his teeth. He couldn’t let her know she was making him crazy, making him want to push her down onto one of those wooden benches and take her, hard, fast, all passion and wildness and heat, the way he’d fantasized taking her for so long….
So he could get Deirdre McDaniel out of his system, stop dreaming about her and get on with his life.
But this moment was so damned different from the one he’d imagined. He hadn’t expected how fragile she’d be, how much his chest would ache because she trusted him. How damned scared he’d be that he might blow it.
That’s a first, he could almost hear Trula say. But then, Deirdre had never been like any other woman he’d known.
She shivered under his touch. And he wanted his clothes gone. Wanted to feel her, skin to skin. For once, not just because of his own sex drive—but because in some crazy way, it would make him as vulnerable as she was. And he wanted to lay himself bare to Deirdre. Insane as it was. Knowing he never really could.
What would it feel like to lay the whole truth in her lap? Take a chance—
Don’t think, Stone, he warned himself. Do not think. This is going to be risky enough without you getting distracted.
Still, he pulled his own shirt over his head, the breeze from the river teasing coolness over skin fire hot with wanting the woman so still, so quiet before him.
He drew her into his arms, her breasts flattening against him, exquisite, as he found her lips with his. He wooed them, cajoled them, tempted them with every skill he possessed. He ran his tongue lightly along the crease, a soft groan rumbling in his chest.
Damn. He’d never been this hard. He felt himself growing, thickening. He wasn’t a small man. Anywhere. And he didn’t want to scare her. Though he longed to grind himself against all that womanly softness, he eased his hips away from her, concentrating on Deirdre’s luscious mouth.
That was something he could take his sweet time with, memorize every curve and nuance and taste in her delectable mouth…. But damned if Deirdre would cooperate.
For a woman on the edge, she wasn’t holding back, making him do all the seducing while she held her breath, waiting for him to take charge. No. She made her own foray into the sensual web weaving around them, running her fingertips lightly over his bare chest, skimming over the light dusting of hair, sensitizing him beyond bearing until he thought he’d go crazy if she didn’t open her mouth and let him kiss her inside.
The edge of her little finger brushed over his nipple, jolting sensation through him so he growled with pleasure.
He should have done it sooner. Deirdre opened her mouth. Stone nearly lost it as her tongue oh-sotentatively touched his. He let her take the lead, exploring him with her mouth, her tongue, her hands as long as he could hold himself still. Letting her immerse herself in sensation.
“I want to feel you,” he whispered against her cheek as he drew her down onto the makeshift nest of their cast-off shirts. “All of you.” He slid his hands up to cup her breasts. Her nipples pearled, hard against his palms.
A frisson of excitement seared through him, knowing her body was responding, wanting him as badly as he wanted her. He trailed his lips down the curve of her throat, lingering on the pulse point, drinking in the scent of her, the impossibly erotic contrast between silky skin, satiny hair, the damp searching of his mouth tasting her at last.
She gave a faint cry of pleasure, and he dared to trace his way down to the soft slope where her breast began, kissing and gently nipping until his mouth reached the dusky crest.
Opening his lips he took her nipple in, to the dark and wet and heat of him, suckling until she arched up against him, her fingers threading through his hair, holding him there, too shy to tell him what she wanted. Too fiercely full of need to let him go.
He made a hungry sound, low in his throat, building the connection between them, daring her to be reckless enough to trust him. Trust them. Together. Here. Now.
Deirdre felt the insistent suction of Stone’s mouth upon her breast, his tongue teasing the sensitized crest, wringing moans of pleasure from her. He was pulling her under with his hands and mouth, into swift waters of a desire so intense she’d never known it existed, into storms so wild, so consuming she couldn’t hold herself back. She knew she should let go, let it carry her away, to a place where there was only this—sensation, elation, desire. But to do that meant surrender so complete just thinking about it terrified her.
Remember…remember what it felt like to crash back down to earth. The pain of it. The humiliation. Remember trying to sweep pieces of your soul back together, knowing they were broken. Do you really think you’re strong enough to put yourself back together again?
Desperate, she clung to the part of herself she couldn’t afford to lose. The part that had been naive enough, bold enough to surrender the last sliver of herself.
I dare you…a mocking voice whispered in her head.
Dare what?
To let him use your body and then see if he walks away, laughing. To be reckless enough to believe that maybe, just maybe there is something inside you worth loving.
Don’t think! she told herself, trying to pull away from memories still too vivid, failures still fresh when they should have faded years ago.
Oh, God, I want to run…panic fluttered in her throat.
Coward.
No, she wasn’t going to chicken out. Wasn’t going to turn back. She wanted Jake. Wanted sex. Wanted to take back the part of her life she’d feared was lost to her forever.
Hastily she reached for the snap of her jeans, popped it open, slid the zipper down. Stone reached out, stopped her, his drawl lazy so sexy she shivered.
“What’s your hurry?”
“I…” She almost lied. Then she looked into Jake Stone’s eyes. “I’m scared I’ll chicken out. Figure it’ll be harder to bolt once my jeans are off.”
Stone sobered, gentled, the corners of his beautiful mouth curving down. “This isn’t a test, Deirdre. It’s just the two of us, taking pleasure in each other, going wherever that leads us.”
“Easy for you to say.” She pulled away, shoving the jeans down her legs. She should have seduced Stone closer to the river. She could have thrown her clothes off the dock so there could be no turning back. “The way you look you probably have women throwing themselves at you all the time. Mr. Alpha Male. Irresistible. I can imagine how you must turn other women on if you can even get me thinking nonstop about sex.”
She kicked her jeans off, feeling exposed i
n ways that had nothing to do with the fact that she was now wearing nothing but simple white cotton panties. “It’s a little intimidating, if you want to know the truth.”
“Okay. If we’re being honest, how about if I tell you this? My job played havoc with my sex life. Nothing like seeing marriages shattered by cheating husbands and wives, nasty divorces tearing families apart and gathering evidence for paternity suits to convince a guy to keep his pants zipped.”
“A confirmed cynic, huh?”
“I just want you to know it’s been a long time for me, too. At some point—” he looked away from her, quiet, suddenly. Dead serious. She could see secrets in his eyes “—I…decided that sex for sex’s sake wasn’t enough. That it should mean something.”
He’d surprised her. Again. But wasn’t that what Stone was best at?
Smart-alec comments flashed into her mind. Sugar Bear Stone, last of the great romantics. But the words wouldn’t come out. This was too important.
“Does it? Uh, mean something? This time?” she asked, feeling like an idiot, fishing for reassurance. Her muscles tensed, and she knew she was headed for disaster unless she could relax. When had her own body become her enemy? But Stone regarded her, so sincere her throat felt tight.
“Oh, yeah, it means something all right.” He lifted his hand to her face, skimmed his fingers across her cheek. “After all, you did bite me and stomp on my foot and get me out of bed at two in the morning and I came back for more. Some people would doubt my sanity, all things considered.” Damn the man, he actually winked at her, let tender amusement fill eyes smoky with desire.
She was doomed, Deirdre thought as his lips parted, flashing white teeth. That smile of his should be registered as a lethal weapon. Stone didn’t need a gun, at least when it came to female suspects. He could just mow them down with that bone-melting grin, and they’d be begging for him to haul them in.