Carved in Stone (19 page)

“Ten minutes, lady. You were pretty fast,” he told her, leaning on one elbow, watching her fight to breathe normally. Jessica looked at him with blank eyes, still dazed from their lovemaking. Will sighed, thinking how much he loved seeing her completely befuddled and knowing he was the reason.

There was knock on the door a minute later, and Will laughed at what a close call it had been with their timing. Rolling off the bed, he flipped one side of the bedspread up and over Jessica to cover her mostly naked body still sprawled in exhaustion.

“Evidently, the pizza didn’t take very long either. Wake up and have some with me,” Will invited.

Lured by his voice, Jessica sat up in the bed, not fully realizing her bra was still partially off. The flipped over cover pooled at her waist and she looked down at it, not completely sure how it had come to be there either. She saw Will at the door, but he seemed so far away.

Will glanced back over his shoulder as he counted out bills for the delivery boy. He shook his head at the appealing site Jessica made sitting up in bed all bemused at the world, bra straps off her shoulders, and hair looking like he’d had his hands in it for hours. He sighed, knowing that hadn’t happened yet either. She’d messed it up thrashing in her excitement.

“Here,” Will said, handing the boy several bills, and shaking his head at the kid’s mesmerized gaze. “To satisfy your obvious curiosity, that’s what a satisfied woman looks like. It’s worth figuring out what to do so you can get one to look that way for you.”

“How did you get so good?” the boy asked, sneaking another look at Jessica, who finally tugged up a bra strap and raised the cover to her chest as awareness of her mostly naked condition returned.

“Lots and lots of practice,” Will said to him, “but it only works that perfectly with the right woman. She’s the best one I’ve found so far.”

“You got me convinced,” the kid said, looking in envy at Jessica one last time. “Enjoy your pizza, dude.”

Will closed the door and walked back to the bed, setting the spicy pizza in the middle of it.

“Why do you have so much energy?” Jessica asked tiredly. “Why aren’t you exhausted?”

“I’ve been sleeping round the clock for several days,” Will said easily. “Don’t worry, I’ll pass out later and you’ll have a hard time waking me in the morning.”

Jessica picked up a slice of pizza and took a big bite. “I like pepperoni and mushroom.”

Will leaned over to lick pizza sauce from her lip. “I like you, but the pizza is good too.”

“Will,” Jessica began, but stopped because she was not sure what she intended to say to him. He wasn’t acting at all like she thought he would. He also wasn’t the type of lover Jessica thought he would be.

Will was dark and brooding at times, intelligent and thoughtful at times, and demanding as hell in bed. Well, not exactly demanding, Jessica thought—more like insistent on having his way. The man had certainly proved he could give her pleasure whether she believed it was possible or not. She’d had three orgasms to his one this evening.

She studied him as she chewed, trying to decide if Will’s sexual talent was a good thing or gave him an unfair advantage. She was also wondering how worried she ought to be about the way he made her feel.

Will raised an eyebrow as he started eating his second slice. “Did I miss the question? I don’t remember hearing one, but I can all but see the gears in your brain turning.”

“I guess I forgot what I was going to say,” Jessica said, finishing her slice. “If you have some soda, you’re my new best friend.”

Will reached to a night stand and handed her a cold soda. When she looked at it in confusion, he laughed and took it back. He untwisted the cap to open the bottle before handing it to her again.

“My hero,” Jessica finally said, laughing softly before taking a drink.

“Hero, I’m not sure about, but I like the idea of being your best friend, Jessica Daniels,” Will told her softly. “We’ll have to call ourselves best-friends-with-benefits though, since I can’t look at you without wanting to be inside you again.”

“Will, I don’t think…” Jessica began, then shushed when Will put two fingers over her mouth.

“I promise you can say when it happens,” he said softly. “I just wanted you to know that I still want you.”

“I still want you too,” Jessica said, sighing and frowning. “You’re addictive.”

“Are you getting sentimental over sex?” Will joked, looking at his pizza to keep from wondering what it was about them together that was making her frown so much.

“Sentimental? I assure you I am not sentimental. I am practical,” Jessica argued, his teasing striking an irritation cord in her. “Stand up and take off your clothes.”

“What? Now?” Will asked, laughing. “I’m eating. Besides, I thought you were too tired.”

“Take off your clothes,” Jessica ordered. “I can’t argue with someone who has on more clothes than I do.”

Will looked at her state of undress, then stood to drop his pants and underwear on the floor. He sat back down on the bed with nothing but his T-shirt still on. “Okay. We’re mostly even now. I don’t wear a bra.”

Jessica reached behind her and unsnapped her bra. “There. Happy?”

Will’s gaze went to her unbound breasts as lacy bra slid forward and off her arms. He smiled at her perky nipples. “You look damn fine for a forty-year-old woman,” he said, peeling off his shirt.

“In three years, I’m going to look damn fine for a fifty-year-old one too,” Jessica said with a laugh.

“Fifty? You’re going to be the hottest fifty-year-old ever,” Will agreed, pleased that the age difference between them wasn’t as large as he’d first thought. He liked the idea of them being equals in as many ways as possible.

He tossed the pizza box on the floor, and rolled over to hook an arm around Jessica.

“I’m going to like sleeping naked next to your incredible breasts.”

“How in the hell did you wait a year?” Jessica demanded. “Why weren’t you doing what every other divorced man does and bedding every available woman you could find?”

“And then what?” Will asked, his belief in his own logic unchanged. “What happens the next day? I made the choice to wait because I didn’t want the next day stuff. The day you came to the house and I got mad at my ex for interrupting us, I knew I had been waiting for you. And let me tell you, you sure as hell were worth it, lady.”

“Will,” Jessica said tightly, closing her eyes to his earnestness. “I’m not the kind of woman men wait on. I’m fickle and unsure. I’m carrying around enough emotional damage for two or three normal women.”

“Maybe,” Will said quietly. “Maybe you are those things. But you are also a courageous woman and a true artist who puts the conviction of her vision into what she creates. You’re the kind of woman who is so painfully honest with the men in her life that she scares most of them off. The math teacher was intimidated that he didn’t even respond to your climax comment.”

Will rolled onto her, and used his legs to press between hers. “You’re also the type of woman that a man could spend his life exploring and never get to the bottom of no matter how well endowed he is.”

Jessica swallowed the tears that threatened and laughed instead, realizing how often she tended to be in that conflicted condition around Will.

“I’m pretty sure I felt you hit the end of the tunnel earlier,” she joked.

Will let her make the physical joke because he could see that Jessica was way too far outside her emotional comfort zone.

“Strange, I don’t remember being that far inside you,” he lied, staring hard into her eyes even as he was smiling. “I’m pretty sure I would have remembered that. Why don’t you prove it to me?”

Jessica snorted. “Do you honestly think that line is going to work? You know damn well you wore me out.”

“It was worth a shot,” Will said. “How about if I beg?”

“You could try, but I’m a hard-hearted woman—just ask my sex slave,” Jessica said, fighting not to laugh now.

“How about I tell you you’re beautiful? That I love your incredible body,” Will told her. He leaned to the side, lifted one of her breasts, and thumbed the end to attention. “Your breasts are more responsive than a woman half your age. Is that just you or is it something I’m doing right?”

“Good question,” Jessica admitted. “The girls seemed to really like the way you talked to them earlier. I don’t remember that being the case before.”

Will laughed. “Well, the feeling is mutual. I like them too,” he said, rolling off her and cradling her against him. “I think I’m okay being the current favorite.”

“Will,” Jessica said his name, her throat tight with anxiety. She was not going to regret her life, not going to regret surviving, not going to feel ashamed for bedding good men before this exceptional one.

“Ssssh…let’s sleep now. How can you still be talking about sex? You wore me out,” Will said sleepily.

“It wasn’t the sex that wore you out. It was all the carbs in the pizza,” Jessica said briskly. “Didn’t you pay attention in science class?”

“Not even all the time I taught them,” Will said, laughing and drifting off to sleep. “Of course, nobody ever thinks social sciences are real science anyway.”

Jessica looked at Will, puzzled at his last comment. The man got really silly when he was tired. She laughed and pulled the covers from under both of them and climbed in next to him on the sheets.

Chapter 12

Will let himself into Michael’s house late Sunday evening. He was scruffy and needed a shave but totally happy with the way the weekend had gone. They had spent Saturday getting to know each other, and it had been almost three Sunday afternoon before he and Jessica had even left the hotel.

It had cut their time at the museum to a couple of hours, but they had only walked around holding hands instead of looking at art anyway. He hadn’t been able to stop touching her, and judging by how often she’d leaned her breast against his arm, Jessica hadn’t been much better off.

He missed her even now.

“Dad, that’s the very best I’ve seen you look in a long time,” Michael said with a laugh. He stood in the kitchen doorway drinking a beer and grinning. “I won the bid on
Blue Blaze
.”

Will grinned at his son. “Yes, I know. I spent a lot of time this weekend getting to know the artist. ”

Michael laughed, feeling only mildly envious. He just wanted someone like her, or more to the point, he wanted the woman he wanted to be like Jessica. He’d be way okay having Jessica as a stepmother. It was a step in the right direction for the men in his family.

“So when’s the wedding?” Michael asked, figuring he’d just plant a seed.

“It was just a weekend, Michael,” Will said tersely, running a hand over his head as he walked past his son to retrieve a beer from the refrigerator. It was the first time he had missed his hair in several days.

“Was it?” Michael asked. “You look awfully content for it to have been just sex. You look almost happy, Dad.”

Will sat at the table, took a long drink, and rubbed the cold, sweaty bottle across his forehead. “No. I guess it wasn’t just a weekend for me, but it was for Jessica. I seduced her and made her want me, but that’s not the same thing as her wanting what happened between us.”

Will took another long pull on his cold beer. “Jessica doesn’t want to be in love with me and is going to fight like hell not to be,” he said, his voice rough with the edges of panic he couldn’t let himself focus on. “I remind her of her husband. She’s not over him yet.”

“Her husband? She was married at seventeen for not even a year before he died. How can she still be in love with him after all this time?” Michael asked, sitting across from his father and frowning.

“I don’t know, but I know that’s the problem. She openly compared me to him several times, and has probably mentally compared me to Nathan Daniels dozens of others. It’s what’s scaring her away from me—that, and because she suspects I’m in love with her,” Will said.

“Is she right?” Michael asked, mentally crossing his fingers.

“Where did you decide to put her art?” Will asked instead, trying to change the subject. He wasn’t ready to talk about how committed he already felt to Jessica Daniels.

Michael merely grinned at his father’s avoidance of his question, which was its own answer. “I put her art where it will be most appreciated,” he said.

Affection between them had always been openly shown, so Michael walked over to the chair, leaned down to hug his father, and kissed his scruffy cheek. “I love you, Dad.”

His father automatically reached up to hug back, a reflex action of a lifetime of sincere affection. Love, strong and true, washed over Michael as it always did. He knew not many men felt loved and accepted the way he did by a parent. He never took it for granted, no matter how many other things in his life he didn’t handle right.

“Look—whatever you do—don’t knock it off the nightstand,” Michael said, laughing. “It cost me three thousand dollars.”

Will ran a hand over his face, remembering how he used that piece of art to seduce Jessica. He wouldn’t be able to look at it without remembering her reaction and her sending Adam away.