A Love to Call Her Own (25 page)

“I always swore the first thing I'd do when I bought the place was yank out that tub and put in a whirlpool.” Dalton's voice came from right behind her, breath fanning her neck. How had such a big man moved so quietly?

She glanced over her shoulder and smiled her sultriest smile. “If you don't love that tub, sweetheart, you haven't been using it right.”

“Maybe you can show me.”

Images of the two of them in the tub made her shiver. Shower/bath sex didn't rate high on her favorites, but warm, wet, and soapy was a great way to start.

Of the remaining two doors, only one was open. She turned into it: a large rectangular room, two sets of double windows looking over the backyard, two more facing the cows' pasture. The bed was queen-sized, the covers on one side tossed back, a stack of jeans and shirts that smelled faintly of fabric softener taking up the entire rocker in the corner.

“If I'd known we'd end up here, I would have made the bed this morning.”

She picked up a ball cap from the dresser, bearing the logo of a local feed store, before slanting him a look. “So you weren't planning on seducing me?”

“It was the shoes that did it.”

“Ah. If I'd known that, I would have left them on and taken the dress off. Let me run downstairs and get them.” Of course she didn't move toward the door. Of course he knew she wouldn't. “However, it's good to know. I'll remember next time I debate wearing them.”

He took the hat from her hands, tossing it back onto the dresser, then slid his arms around her waist and drew her close. “Maybe I'll just keep them here.”

“You don't like to share?”

A muscle twitched in his jaw, and his gaze narrowed before he blew out a breath. “Hell, no.”

That hit a nerve, she acknowledged, filing the information away as she wound her arms around his neck. “Neither do I.” With those words—that promise—she kissed him, stretching onto her toes, pulling his head to meet hers.

It was the first time they'd kissed since…well, the first time. She'd always been grateful that she remembered very little of those encounters once she sobered up, and now was no different. In a way, not remembering allowed
this
to be their first time. Though she did wonder if she'd had the faintest clue that he was different from the other men. That he was going to change her life, that he was going to
be
a large part of her life.

If she'd known that back then, she probably would have run far away.

His tongue stroked hers, and his muscles clenched beneath her hands. Hard muscles built by hard work, tempting her to slide her hands beneath his shirt and stroke them on bare skin. She was about to do a hell of a lot more than touch him, so it was okay to tug at his tie, the silk cool and sliding easily between her fingers, to toss it aside and move to the buttons of his shirt. They opened easily, too, the backs of her fingers brushing the soft, heated skin of his chest as each button gave way. About halfway down, she lost interest in actually removing his shirt, and instead her fingers explored that skin, dark, though not as dark as his face and arms, darker than his flat stomach and long muscular legs.

So she did remember something from the first time.

Heavy breathing sounded nearby, and she realized it was coming from her. Her chest was tight, and what little air her lungs could get was superheated, making her blood pump hot and her skin turn slick. In need of air, she ended the kiss, took another quick taste, then sucked in oxygen as she tilted her head to look at him.

“You're damn gorgeous, you know.” Her voice was out-of-breath raspy…or was that turned-on-all-the-way-to-her-toes husky?

Slowly the intensity of his gaze lightened, and an incredible smile spread across his face. “Aw, you're just saying that because you want to get lucky.”

She raised her hand to his face, fingers trembling against his jaw. “I got lucky the day I met you.”

Dalton's smile didn't dim at the reference to that day. Had they both made peace with the embarrassing start of this relationship?

She undid a couple more buttons on his shirt before he caught her hand, lifted it to his mouth, and pressed a kiss to the palm, his tongue touching it delicately. Half surprised that steam didn't rise from the contact, Jessy jerked his shirt from his pants and finished the unbuttoning one-handed, twisted her fingers around to catch his, and pulled him toward the bed. “Do you have condoms?”

“Yes, ma'am. A new box just for you.”

“Only one box?” She arched her brow as she raised her arms to the zipper running down the back of her dress. She'd always had a talent for getting stripped down fast, not generally useful, though it served her well now. Within seconds, she was pulling the dress over her head, dropping it in the direction of the rocker, neither noticing nor caring where it landed.

For a long moment he just looked at her, his gaze searching as if he might be asked later to give an intimate description. Contrary to her earlier teasing, she
was
wearing underwear, and it was her sexiest: tiny bits of crimson silk decorated with tiny bits of matching lace, ridiculously expensive but ridiculously flattering. A line from a favorite song drifted through her head as Dalton finally drew a long breath.
Man, I feel like a woman.

He wasn't smiling anymore. His eyes were dark, his features stark, the skin of his face somehow tighter, more strained. It had been a long time since she'd seen that look—so hungry, so tautly controlled, so fiercely possessive. In fact, she wasn't sure she'd ever seen that look before.

She would never forget it.

“My turn for a thrill.” Not even trying to strengthen her breathy voice, she looked at him, head to toe, then gestured. Giddily, she anticipated seeing more, like the erection that impressively tented his trousers.

A low growl escaped his throat. His movements economical, he shucked his shirt, unfastened his belt, and shoved his trousers over his hips, kicked off his shoes, yanked away trousers, boxers, and socks all in a jumble, and lifted her around the middle, taking her down onto the bed with him, and kissing her.

Oh, yeah, she loved his kisses. It was a good thing they hadn't agreed to make out while they were waiting for the right time. She could have spent forever just kissing him.

Okay, not
forever
. She did have that flair for exaggeration.

Dalton balanced her on top of him with one hand splayed across her ass, stretched to the right, and found the box of condoms in the top nightstand drawer. Turning his gaze from her, catching a breath, he squinted at the box. “Contains twenty-four. You're right. Not enough.”

With a laugh, she grabbed the box, ripped open the top, and pulled out a condom. He didn't protest, didn't insist they had more to explore, didn't suggest she was rushing it. No, he helped her out of her sexy lingerie, and he touched her with impossibly talented fingers as she maneuvered the condom into place, and he claimed her mouth again as she slid along the length of his erection.

As they began moving, matching each other's rhythms, Jessy was absolutely certain of one fact: It hadn't been too soon or too late.

Their being together at this time, in this way, on this special day, made everything damn perfect.

L
uca's was everyone's favorite date restaurant in Tallgrass, according to Patricia, so Ben had made reservations—
ask for a table on the porch
—at her direction. After changing into trousers and a deep green button-down, he went onto the patio, where his mother was sharing a glass of wine with Brianne while something flavorful cooked on the grill.

“Don't you look handsome,” Patricia said, saluting him with her glass. “You should roll your sleeves up, though, so you don't look too hot.”

“Hot's a good thing,” Brianne said. “At least when it comes to dating.” She hadn't been scheduled to arrive until the next morning, but she'd been too impatient to wait. Sara was still coming Sunday, too stubborn to change her plans because of Bree's impulses.

Taking Patricia's advice, Ben started rolling his sleeves. He'd just finished one when a bark came from across the yard. When he looked that way, he saw Lucy standing on her patio, handing Norton's leash to Cadore, then the three of them started across the yard.

Brianne fluffed her hair. “Joe is awfully cute. Is he available?”

“For what?” Patricia asked absently, then made an exaggerated face. “Pretend I didn't ask that. As far as I know, the only things Joe's seriously involved with are his football team and…Hm. I guess it's just the team.”

“What about your hockey player?” Ben asked. Jeez, the last man he wanted to see his sister with was Joe Cadore. The guy was a Neanderthal…with blond hair, way-too-blue eyes, and a lot of muscles. Just like the hockey player and every other guy Brianne had dated in the past five years.

“Nigel's around.” Brianne smiled wickedly. “But he's not here.”

Ben shifted his attention to Lucy. She wore a dress, light pink flowers on a background of curacao blue with sandals that gave her a couple inches' height, and her hair was pulled back. She looked fresh and pretty and sweet, and it hit him in the gut that he really was going to miss seeing her every day. He liked her, and she'd made what could have been an impossible visit a hell of a lot more bearable, and there could be an awful lot more if luck was with them.

Cadore hugged Patricia—habit or for Ben's benefit?—then dropped into the chair closest to Brianne's. “Hey, Bree, you gonna do the Green Corn Run in Bixby?”

Nobody called Brianne by her nickname except family, but judging by her ear-to-ear grin, she didn't mind. Ben tuned out her answer, said good-bye to Patricia, then he and Lucy walked around the house to his car.

“Your sister is single, isn't she?” Lucy asked as he opened the door for her.

He groaned. “Please don't try to set her up with him.” Though a rational voice inside him pointed out that Lucy wanting to find her neighbor a girlfriend was a good thing. It meant she wasn't interested in him herself.

“I don't know that I need to try. She seems to like him. They have a lot in common.”

He admired her legs as she settled in the seat. He was definitely a leg man, and Lucy's had nice curves. After closing her door, he went around and slid into the driver's seat. “What? They both like to jog?”

“Relationships have been built on less.” She gave him a sly look. “You're such a big brother.”

“I don't care if my sister dates. I don't even care if she has sex.”

Lucy snorted. “That's awfully generous of you.”

“It is, isn't it?” He couldn't help but laugh with her. “I'd just rather see her with someone more suitable. She's already got Nigel for the jock stuff—”

“And the sex,” Lucy helpfully added.

Ben grimaced. He really didn't want to think about his sisters' sex lives. He knew they had them—after all, he did have a niece and two nephews—but he didn't need details.

“Nigel. I'm guessing he took up hockey so the other kids wouldn't have the nerve to laugh at his name.” Then she reached across the console, patted his knee. It was a natural gesture, comforting, familiar. “If Brianne is destined to be with Joe—”

“Doomed.”

“All you can do is accept it.”

Yeah. Here lately Ben was learning a lot about accepting things he couldn't change. So far, he wasn't very good at it, and he couldn't imagine his slender tolerance extending to Joe Cadore.

He found Luca's with no problem, though parking close by on a Saturday night was another matter. Lucy assured him she didn't mind walking, so he took the next space he found, and they strolled the couple blocks back to the restaurant. Halfway there, he took her hand, small and soft, in his, and something inside him loosened, relaxed.

Luca's occupied an old house with a wraparound porch. Tables filled the back side of the porch, along with a few in the garden. “Oh, these are new,” Lucy said delightedly, and the hostess immediately offered them one near the central fountain.

He liked a woman who appreciated the simple pleasures in life. Who helped him appreciate them.

After they ordered, Lucy sipped her tea. “I bet your patients will be happy to see you again.”

He was surprised he'd lasted this long in Tallgrass, but at the same time, he felt a little ambivalent about leaving. The break had been good for him; so had seeing Patricia and meeting Lucy. But returning to Tulsa didn't mean he wouldn't be back.

“I'd like to think so,” he said, “but we're a group practice, literally. We share physician's assistants, nurses, techs, and, more or less, patients. I may do the surgery on a patient while a PA or another doctor does the post-op follow-ups. It just depends on how busy I am or if I'm in the clinic that day. My surgery days have overtaken my clinic days.” He watched the water splash in the fountain, drops catching the rays of the setting sun, glistening silver for an instant before they fell again.

“Is that good or bad?”

“It's not quite the way I imagined things back when I was in medical school,” he said after a moment. “I always wanted to be a doctor and decided to go into surgery in school, but I don't think I grasped that I'd be doing so many procedures, I wouldn't have much time left for actual patient care. I never see a post-op patient in the hospital unless there's a complication, and in the clinic, time is limited. I try to take the time
I
think I need with each one, but that puts us way behind schedule.”

“Time is money,” Lucy said, sympathy softening her voice.

Ben nodded, wondering where those complaints had come from, because he
wasn't
dissatisfied with his job. He did a lot of good, and if he was sometimes—usually—busier than he'd like, that was a good thing, too. Better to have too many patients than not enough.

He shook his head to clear it. “If you'd asked me a couple weeks ago, I would have said that I love my job and wouldn't change a thing. I think all this time off has gotten to me.” Pausing while the waiter delivered bread and salads, he unrolled his silverware from the napkin, then when they were alone again, he said the words that guaranteed a subject change. “Tell me about your friend's wedding.”

Dalton rolled onto his back, drenched with sweat, short of breath, and his limbs so tired he wasn't sure he could move them. His heart pounding in his ears, he figured this was a hell of a way to end all those years of celibacy…if Jessy didn't kill him.

She snuggled close to his side, and his arm automatically pulled her closer, disproving that he was too tired to move. Her skin was damp, too, her face flushed a shade of red that just looked wrong with her, but while he felt like he'd been rode hard—
and damned good
—and put away wet, she just looked gorgeous. Satisfied.

“Now
this
is the kind of exercise I like,” she murmured, tilting her head back to grin at him.

He glanced at the bedside clock. “Three hours of this every day might be the death of me.”

“But what a way to go.”

Amen to that.
Stroking the soft skin on her side, right where the swell of her breast started, he gazed at the ceiling and the fan that lazily swirled there. He'd never brought any woman but Sandra into this room, this bed. For years, he'd thought he would never quit hurting enough to trust another woman.

He was trusting Jessy with more than his life. With his heart.

Outside the room, Oz stirred, then ran downstairs to give a low bark. About the same time, the creak he'd been meaning to fix announced the opening of the front door. “Shit,” he muttered. “Noah said he wasn't coming home this weekend.”

“Is that the brother you warned me to stay away from?”

Though his body had finally started to cool, heat collected in his face again, a healthy dose of guilt and shame. “I was out of line…but I told you I don't share.” Wasn't it damn well enough that he shared his birthday—hell, even his face—with Dillon?

“You didn't have to worry. I don't do brothers. That's just icky. Besides, he's a boy.”

“Yeah, you tell him—”

“Dalton?” The voice came from downstairs, making all his muscles go tight again.

“Holy shit.” Letting go of Jessy, he rolled to his feet.

She pulled the sheet over her, crossed arms holding it in close over her breasts. “That doesn't sound like Noah.”

“It's my parents. Damn it, that's it. I'm taking away everyone's keys. This is
my
house now.” He yanked on his boxers, then grabbed a pair of jeans from the clean laundry pile and struggled into them before jerking up a shirt, too. “I'll be down in a minute,” he called.

“Should I hide in the closet?”

The quick look he'd intended to give her caught and held. She was sitting now, knees drawn up, and she looked vulnerable, taking cover behind the sheet. He fastened his jeans, pulled on the T-shirt, then sat beside her, combing his fingers through her hair. “I knew the chances of ever meeting your parents were somewhere between slim and none, but I figured you'd meet Mom and Dad on their next visit. With advance notice. And clothes on. And not looking all wanton and sexual and shameless.”

The words made her smile, the way he'd wanted, then she immediately turned serious again. “What do you want me to do?”

It was a simple decision. “Get dressed. Come down.”

Her expression took on a sickly tinge. “They'll know what we were doing.”

He looked at her—she was damn near glowing—and grinned. “They have three sons. They'll figure it out.” Pushing to his feet, he kissed the top of her head. “Come on down. Make my folks delirious with relief.”

As he left the room and headed down the stairs, he heard noises—pans rattling, cabinet doors opening. His parents were in the kitchen, of course, his dad probably settling at the table, his mother starting to cook. She always thought Dalton was going to starve if she didn't feed him well when she was here.

Instead of hanging around the kitchen the way he usually did when there was food around, Oz hunkered in the recliner, with one eye on the guests. “Mom try to throw you out again?” Dalton asked when he reached the broad hallway.

He turned left and saw his parents standing in the middle of the kitchen. David had his glasses in hand, along with a towel to clean them, and Ramona was holding a skillet and a bottle of olive oil, but they were both motionless, staring his way. Stopping short, he looked at them, glanced at Oz, and wondered what the hell…

“Is there something you want to tell us, sweetie?” Ramona asked. Her eyes seemed brighter than usual, like she was about to cry, and suddenly his dad was grinning like a Halloween pumpkin.

“I, uh…” He couldn't think of a damn thing.

His father gestured with the towel, and Dalton looked down. Jessy's sexy-as-hell shoes were where she'd left them at the foot of the stairs, a few inches from his bare feet, as obvious as a trail of cast-off clothes through the house.

Ramona came a few steps closer and whispered, “Is she going to come downstairs so we can meet her, or is she feeling a little awkward? It
is
a little awkward. We should have called to let you know we were coming.”

“We didn't know ourselves until we hit Tulsa, and I doubt he would have answered the phone an hour ago,” David said dryly.

Ramona elbowed him. “Of course, we won't stay. We don't want to overwhelm her. We would like to meet her, but if she's not comfortable…”

Jessy was nervous, but she had to meet them sooner or later. Besides, his parents were nothing like hers. The fact that he loved her was enough to make them welcome her like the daughter they'd never had.

Nudging the shoes closer to the hall table, he called, “Jessy?”

After a long silence, she appeared at the top of the stairs, dressed again, hair combed with her fingers. Where she'd looked sophisticated at the wedding, now, bare-footed and mostly bare-faced, she looked…perfect. Except her green eyes were big enough to pop, and considering the last few hours' exertion, she was awfully pale. As she began a slow, hesitant descent, he realized her question about hiding in the closet hadn't been a joke. She really would have preferred to hide, to meet his parents under better circumstances.

“Jessy Lawrence,” he said when she finally stopped beside him, “my parents, Ramona and David Smith.”

Her gaze darting his way, she stepped forward to accept the hand David offered. “Mr. Smith.”

“Oh, call me David. Everyone does. Ramona—”

Ramona hadn't met Jessy halfway, like David. He caught her wrist and pulled her to his side, then eased the cast-iron skillet and oil bottle from her hands.

“Mrs. Smith.” Jessy held out her hand, and for a long moment, Mom just looked at it. Looked at her. Her gaze swept over Jessy all the way from the top of her head to her dark red painted toenails, then back up again. She gave a little start—a poke from Dad on his way back from putting the skillet and oil on the counter—and abruptly took Jessy's hand.