MrBigStuff-epub (13 page)

“Jefferson!” Caroline’s heels dug into his bare back and she rocked her hips against his mouth, unable to control her reaction to his tongue thrusting deep inside her.

She couldn’t come. Not even when his primal growls were making her clit vibrate and his fingers dug deliciously into her thighs.

Don’t stop. Fuck me. So good, Jefferson. Take more. Make me come.

She couldn’t come. “Please. Yes, Oh God, that feels…”

He tilted her hips up and went deeper, his groans wild, his talented tongue driving her to the brink again and again. When she couldn’t take it anymore he lifted his mouth, his lips shimmering and his breath hot against her thigh. “Now.”

His tongue filled her again and she came, her muscles tightening around him and her hips moving helplessly against him. She closed her eyes and saw stars. “Yes,” she whispered, lost in the shudders wracking her body.

He dropped his hands and she heard the sound of tearing. Then he was easing her legs to wrap them around his waist. He gripped her hips and his cock filled her with one deep thrust before her climax could subside.

“Caroline,” he growled, his hands guiding her in a hard, satisfying rhythm against him. “That’s what I needed. What I always need. God, you feel so good.”

Her head hadn’t stopped spinning from her last orgasm before she felt the new one building. She reached for it, forcing her heavy lids open so she could look at him.

He was looking down so she followed his gaze and watched his thick condom-encased erection pumping in and out of her. Stretching her.

Part of her.

They came together again and again in the quiet, their soft groans and harsh breathing the only sounds around them. Jefferson’s body was gleaming with exertion and rippling with restraint as he took her higher than she knew she could go.

Don’t stop. It’s so good, don’t stop. Love it so much. Love you.

She shouted his name as she came again, feeling as if her body were shattering into a million pieces. Jefferson’s touch was the only thing holding her together.

When he joined her with his own powerful climax, Caroline knew that nothing for the rest of her life would ever feel as good as this did. As right.

It wasn’t until she was lying in his arms in bed, still awake as the sun came up, that the truth of that thought hit her. She got out of bed, went to the bathroom and turned on the shower so he wouldn’t hear her cry.

Chapter Nine

Jefferson was pacing the kitchen of the old house, feeling like a trapped animal in a cage. He wanted to break something. Hit something. He wanted to throw Caroline over his shoulder and finally get her alone so he could find out what the hell was going on.

Five days. It had been five days since he’d been alone with her. After that first night, she’d been a hummingbird, beautiful to watch and impossible to pin down. She’d claimed she was in “wedding mode” and he could plainly see that it was true. But something inside told him it was more than that. And every time he tried to approach her, she gave him a distracted smile, a reasonable excuse, and then she was gone again.

He’d watched her take the wedding planner to task and organize his entourage with a skill he was forced to admire. Her Bluetooth was forever in her ear as she spoke to caterers and made last minute orders. When she wasn’t on the phone she was in the car. She’d driven into Austin twice to pick up several of Trudy’s California friends as they arrived, and whenever she had a moment to breathe Caroline had been at his sister’s side like a mother hen. Always ready with a tissue and a distraction for the unusually emotional bride.

Two days ago she’d sent John to stay with Jefferson, Diego and Manly here at the old place so all the women could congregate around the bride. The Bachelor House, as Diego had taken to calling it, was a gloomy and miserable place full of men who’d been denied the women they wanted and a full recycling bin of empty beer bottles.

Jefferson was a selfish bastard. His sister and his oldest friend were getting married today and all he could think about was getting Caroline back into his bed. Getting her to admit there was something wrong so he could fix it. He’d seen her every day but with the distance she’d put between them, she may as well have been in California.

“Calm down, John,” he heard Diego laughing upstairs. “If you strangle yourself before the wedding Trudy will kill us all.”

“You mean Caroline will,” Manly countered, stomping down the stairs behind the others. “That woman is…she has.... And I thought Glory was scary.”

“That means he likes what he’s seen of your wife’s maid of honor,” Diego chuckled. “And so do I.”

What the hell did that mean? Jefferson’s fists clenched. He’d warned them away from her the last time Caroline came to visit, and he was more than willing to remind them how off limits she was.

John came into view and strode toward Jefferson, holding his tie. “A little help, Junior? These two apparently can’t tie a shoe.”

Diego was behind him shaking his shaved head, but his dark eyes were laughing. “I thought you were the rope expert, boss. We’ve all seen your work before. A tie only has one tiny knot.”

Jefferson reached for John’s tie and slid it under the groom’s collar. “Diego has a point. What’s the problem?”

“My hands are shaking,” John muttered. “If Caroline hadn’t exiled me here, Trudy could have tied this perfectly. And I could have made her that tea she likes. I should call and remind her to take her vitamins. She keeps forgetting.”

Poor John. Finding out Trudy was pregnant had really done a number on the guy. Hell, it had thrown Jefferson for a loop as well. A baby. A niece or a nephew that he could teach to sit a horse and swim and jump off the barn when their mother wasn’t looking. Children on the land again. Old Margery would cry when she heard the news.

“If she’s feeling queasy, Caroline will take care of her,” Jefferson assured him. “She’s been taking care of everything all week. Besides, it’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding.”

“He saw her last night.” Diego leaned against the counter, watching them. “Half the town saw her. Those who weren’t staring at her kinky West Coast friends, that is.”

Caroline had convinced the owners of Frank’s diner to close down for a private party. A coed bachelor party where Caroline and the friends Jefferson had seen play her at the club, Dawn and Casey, introduced La Grange to a whole new world of sin.

It was more innocent than it could have been, he knew. The party favors had been risqué and they’d had a short rope demo in honor of the happy couple, but everyone present seemed to have a good time. Even Sandy from Just Curl Up was there, laughing and threatening to handcuff every man in sight.

Everyone except for Jefferson. He’d thought the party would give him a chance to get Caroline alone and talk to her. Or to have a little demo of his own in case she’d forgotten how explosive the chemistry between them was. The damn woman never stood still long enough, and when he’d asked to talk, she’d miraculously been called away to save Big John from Dawn’s heart-shaped paddle.

“Trudy had fun.” John smiled at Diego and distracted Jefferson from his grim musings. “I was glad so many people showed up and stuck around. They seemed to enjoy themselves. La Grange isn’t as backward as she thinks.”

“Oh yes it is.” Jefferson finished tying John’s tie. “But you keep telling yourself that, buddy. You’re all set.”

“Look at that, Manly,” Diego praised. “Jefferson is good at tying knots as well. Another rope man. Personally I’m more of a hands-on kind of guy, but women seem to like it, right? We should take lessons.”

“Shut up, asshole.” The tall, blond Manly, who’d been named for his resemblance to a character from Little House on the Prairie, sent Diego a speaking look.

Jefferson studied them suspiciously. “I’m missing something.”

John fiddled with his tie and glanced around at Manly, obviously unaware of the exchange. “Is it straight?”

Diego laughed until Manly turned beet red. “It is,” he finally responded, glaring at his shorter friend again. “What is your problem?”

“I’m sorry, that tickled me.” Diego came up to pat John on the shoulder. “Glory tells me we’re expected to help walk people to their chairs, and I wouldn’t want to give her another reason to get bent out of shape so we’d better be going. We’ll see you soon, boss.”

Manly shook his hand. “You’re a lucky man. Congratulations.”

John thanked him and watched them disappear through the kitchen door. “There’s something going on there. I think Diego is finally losing his patience.”

Jefferson could relate. “With our little beekeeper? Manly was touchier than usual too. Who can blame them? She’s teased them long enough, don’t you think?” He shrugged. “Then again, Diego has Manly to play with, so this little game could go on indefinitely. We’ll worry about them later. Right now, we’ve got to get you ready for your bride.”

John pulled a chair out from the dining table and sat down heavily. “My bride.”

“You waited for her long enough.” Jefferson reached for a bottle of whiskey and poured them each a shot. Then he held up his shot glass and waited for John to do the same. “To John and Trudy—the exceptions to the rule.”

After they both tossed back the shots, he sat down at the table and John took the bottle from his hand. “You going to tell me about what’s going on between you and Caroline?”

“I wouldn’t be much of a best man if I did. Besides, since we got here there hasn’t been that much to tell.”

John ran a hand through his dark blond hair and sighed. “I know that look. And I know you. You’ve been different ever since you got back. Are you upset about the house? Is it just Caroline or…?”

“I’m not upset about the house.” It was a roof and four walls. And he’d had the strangest feeling since he came home that it was no longer his. Stranger still, it didn’t bother him at all.

He was different. His experience on the show, his time with Jennifer, had changed him. Shown him what he was really made of and who he wanted to be. He and John were different. He was impulsive where John was steady. John’s power was quiet and Jefferson certainly wasn’t that. But they’d both been sitting in this kitchen for years doing the same thing. Waiting. Even if it was for different reasons.

John had waited for years for Trudy—in part because Jefferson had asked him to give her space, it was true, but he’d never given up.  Jefferson had been waiting too, but not for any one thing. He’d been waiting for his mother to come back, for his father to heal, for his sister to find her way. Even with Troublemaker he’d been content to let John take the lead. He’d been content not to take the reins of his own life.

It wasn’t something he could be content with now.

And then there was Caroline. Hell, Caroline— “There’s nothing
just
about Caroline. She’s one hell of a woman.”

His woman.

Not yet. He’d done his best to make her his, to claim her in a way even she couldn’t deny, but she was just as stubborn as he was. She was trying to push him away and he wasn’t sure how to stop it from happening.

Maybe their time together hadn’t meant as much to her. The weeks of intimacy and exploration might not have been as potent as it had been for him. He couldn’t make her feel what he was feeling. If he tried, he might end up like his father, spending the rest of his life loving a woman who didn’t feel the same.

“What happened a few weeks ago, then? Can you tell me that? Trudy tried to hide it, but she was really worried about you.”

Jefferson ran a hand over his face, considering. “I suppose you should know. We haven’t told Trudy because I’m not going to spoil the wedding and now, with the baby… Anyway, it’s about Jennifer.”

Jefferson gave him the short version, downplaying his own heartbreak, and John banged his fist on the table in frustrated anger. “You don’t think she’ll show up for the wedding, do you? Would she do that to Trudy?”

“No, I don’t.” He shook his head. “She knows she can’t get what she wants from us, and I find it hard to believe she’ll ever come back to this town for anything less than a sure thing.”

John frowned. “We? Does Caroline know?”

“She found me. She already knew about Jennifer from Trudy, so yeah. She knows.”

When he’d told her everything that had happened, she’d spent the night taking care of him. She’d taken off his clothes and climbed into her bed with him, holding him for hours. When he’d reached for her in the night she’d come willingly, almost lovingly. It healed the ache in his heart more than she would ever know.

“I’m glad you told me. Trudy is stronger than anyone thinks but, yeah, there’s no reason to tell her until after the wedding. What about you? Are you really okay?”

Jefferson sighed in frustration. “Man, I love you like a brother, but let’s table the male bonding for now. We can pick it up after your honeymoon.”

He got to his feet and straightened his jacket. “There is a woman in a white dress waiting for you to take her hand. One you’ve loved since she was seventeen and you were a dirty old man. There’s also a bun in the oven, so it’s past time for you to seal the deal.”

The expression on John’s face was everything he could hope for as an older brother. He’ll never leave her, Jefferson thought. John Brown would never let his sister down or give her reason to doubt how much she was loved.

That was how love should be.

***

“Caroline, are you sure this is waterproof?”

Mascara wand in hand, Caroline grinned as she looked down at Trudy. “Pregnancy has obviously given you amnesia, Tru. Do you remember who you’re talking to? You couldn’t be in better hands.”

Caroline had been running all morning. A house full of women, most of them wanting her to help them with their hair and makeup, get a scuff mark off a heel or pin a broken strap. She didn’t mind. She needed to keep busy. As long as she kept moving she wouldn’t have time to think. Thinking was bad. Thinking always led to Jefferson and what would happen after the wedding.