Round-the-Clock Temptation (12 page)

She hoped the Devlins were happy. They'd been trying for years to get their hands on the land and this time they just might have succeeded. A few more months of this and she and her daddy might have to sell.

The phone rang, but when she looked at the caller ID she didn't recognize the number. “Windcroft's, Nita speaking.”

“Nita, honey, it's Jane.”

“Jane!” Nita felt a gush of relief. “It's so good to hear your voice. Please tell me you've decided to come back.”

There was a pause, then Jane said, “I'm sorry, but I'm
not coming back. I heard what happened with the truck and I was calling to see that you're all right.”

Nita's disappointment felt like a swift jab to her chest. She wished her father would stop being such a pain and just ask Jane to come home.
Beg
her, if that's what it took. “I'm okay,” Nita said. “Just had a bit of a scare.”

“Is Connor still there with you?”

She glanced through the open office door to the bench where Connor sat, his nose buried in Jane's book. “Yep. My own personal G.I. Joe. He's sitting out in the foyer as we speak, guarding the office door.”

“I'm glad. I don't know what I'd do if anything happened to you or…” She trailed off, her voice sad.

“Jane, please come home. We miss you. Daddy has been downright miserable with you gone. Not to mention the house is falling apart and he refuses to hire a new housekeeper. He's convinced you're coming back.”

“That's exactly why I can't.”

“I know he loves you. He's just so darned stubborn. I was on my way to come talk to you when the brakes went out.”

“Well, I could have saved you the trip. I couldn't live with myself if I went crawling back to him. I have to salvage what little dignity I have left and move on.”

Nita could hear that she was close to tears. She hadn't realized until that moment just how deeply Jane had been hurt.

“Nita, I have to go.”

“Jane, he'll come around.”

She went on like Nita hadn't spoken. “Next time I'm in Royal maybe we can meet for lunch. Keep in touch.”

“Jane—” The line went dead. Nita sighed and hung up.

“She's not coming back?”

Nita looked up, saw Connor standing in the office doorway.

“Nope. Not till my daddy asks her, and he won't talk to her till she comes back.”

“That could be a problem.”

“I swear, they're the two most stubborn people in the world. But I'll figure something out. A way to get them together.” She closed her laptop, got up and met him at the door. She slid her hands up his chest and he looped his arms around her waist. His body was so big and sturdy and strong. She loved that she could touch him this way whenever the mood struck her. Which was happening an awful lot the past couple of days. “I was thinking I'd better go get cleaned up for dinner.”

Connor looked at his watch. “It's only four.”

“I'm going to need a shower. You being my bodyguard and all, you'll have to be there to keep me safe.”

A grin curled his mouth. “I will, huh?”

“And you know what happens when I get you naked.” She pressed a kiss to his rough chin. “I just can't keep my hands to myself. So we may need a couple of hours.”

“What if your father catches us? I feel like I'm disrespecting him.”

She rubbed herself against him, felt his body responding to her. “He won't climb the stairs in his cast. He'll never know. And I'm just dying to know what you look like soapy and wet.”

The grin widened and she knew she had him. “Meet me in the bathroom in five minutes.”

“H
ow's your dinner, Daddy?”

“It's fine,” her daddy said, because he would never say anything to hurt her feelings. But
fine,
came nowhere near to describing what she'd set in front of him.

Rather than do her best to make dinner edible tonight, and since it was Friday and the men had gone out for the evening, she'd done all she could to make it as unpalatable as humanly possibly—which for her was second nature. She'd found an old loaf of bread shoved to the very back of the bread box under some old hot dog buns. It was dry, mashed flat in places and moldy on the edges. The stew was from a can, which in itself was bad enough, but she hadn't heated it all the way through and it looked like chunky, congealed gravy sitting in the bowl.

It was all part of her new plan to get her daddy and Jane back together.

“Speaking of cooking, Jane called today.”

Her daddy didn't even look up from his bowl. If nothing else, he huddled even lower over it. “Oh yeah.”

“She wants me to bring her the book with all the family recipes in it.”

He didn't respond.

“She needs it for her new job.”

He was trying his best to look disinterested, but she saw some unidentifiable emotion flicker in his eyes. “Got a new job, huh?”

“That's what she said.”

“Guess that's good. Gotta make a living.”

“That's what I thought, too, until she told me the details. She went to see Lucas Devlin about a job. He hired her on the spot, no references or anything.”

Her daddy's knuckles turned white as he gripped his spoon tighter and Connor flashed her a questioning look. He knew darn well Jane had said no such thing.

“She seemed pretty taken with him,” Nita continued, pouring gasoline on the fire. “She kept going on about what a nice man he is, and how we've been wrong about him all these years. She can't wait to start working for him next week.”

Her daddy's face turned so red she thought his head might explode, but he didn't say a word. Now for the really good stuff.

She shook her head in mock disgust. “The way she talked, you'd have thought she had a crush on him or something.”

Will slammed his spoon down on the table and stood, grabbing his crutches.

“You didn't finish your dinner,” Nita said.

“Lost my appetite,” he grumbled and stormed out of the kitchen—as best as a person could storm with a broken leg. A minute later she heard his bedroom door slam.

Connor was shaking his head. “You are such a liar.”

“Well, I had to do
something,
” Nita said, feeling completely justified in her actions. They couldn't survive this way much longer.

He pushed his bowl away, his stew barely touched. “Is that what this whole awful meal was about? You're trying to make him miss her cooking? Because even you can do better than this.”

“If he really truly loves her, no way in hell he'll let her hook up with a Devlin. It couldn't be any worse if I'd said she was shacking up with Satan himself.”

“And how are you going to explain it when they figure out they've been duped?”

“I won't have to. They'll be so happy to be together, they won't care.”

“You better hope you're right.” He balled his napkin and tossed it in his bowl. “Let's clean up this mess and get out of here.”

“Where are we going?”

“It's chili night at the Royal Diner,” he said.

 

When they pulled up the driveway two hours later, stuffed from a meal of chili and biscuits, the house was dark and both trucks were gone.

The men had taken one, meaning her father must have taken the other.

“He knows he's not supposed to drive,” Nita said, and for the first time that evening showed a hint of reserva
tion, as though she was beginning to wonder if lying to her father was such a hot idea after all.

“What did you expect?” Connor asked her as they climbed out of the car. “You made it sound like she and Lucas Devlin were getting ready to elope.”

“I figured he'd call her. I didn't know he'd drive all the way to Odessa.” A slow smile curled her mouth and she walked around to his side. “You know what this means, don't you?”

“I'm afraid to ask.”

“We have the entire farm to ourselves.” She slid her hands up his chest. “Where do you want to do it first?”

Earlier that afternoon it had been the shower, the night before that he'd taken her up against the wall in the stable after the hands had retired for the evening. The woman was downright insatiable.

“How about right here on your car?” she asked, stepping backward toward the hood, unfastening the buttons on her shirt.

“Outside?”

“It's dark. No one will see.”

“With all the mischief going on here, you can't be too sure of that.”

Her grin faded. “I never thought of that.”

“How about inside the house?”

She thought about that for a minute, tracing her finger along the edge of her bra. “On the kitchen table maybe?”

“And suppose your father comes home. What then?”

The grin reappeared. “It's always more fun if you think you might get caught.”

For her maybe, but she wouldn't be the one staring
down the barrel of her father's shotgun if they were discovered. “How about a good old-fashioned bed?” he asked. “That would be a nice change.”

“Oh, all right,” she conceded. “But this time we get to use my bed. Later, when I'm alone, I want to smell you on my sheets.”

She took his hand and led him inside, not bothering to turn any lights on. They were halfway up the darkened stairs when his cell phone rang. Connor checked the display and cursed. He'd hoped to put this off another week or two. He could let it go to voice mail and deal with it later, but the truth was, he'd put it off long enough.

“I have to take this,” he told Nita, who was already half-undressed and on her way down the hall.

Though he couldn't see her face clearly, there was concern in her voice. “Is everything okay?”

“It's my father.”

She didn't question him, just nodded and said, “I'll be waiting for you,” then disappeared into her bedroom. Most women would have been irritated by the interruption. Of course, Nita had never been like most women.

Connor went into his own room and shut the door, knowing this wasn't going to be pretty, and answered, “Hello, Father.”

“Lyle Edwards tells me you haven't been in the office for several weeks now. I'd like an explanation.”

No,
hello, son, how's it been, it's good to talk to you.
It was just like his father to dispense with the pleasantries and get to the point. And to use that tired old disappointed tone he was famous for. Connor wondered if he'd ever really heard himself, if he realized how he sounded. Or if it wouldn't matter to him either way.

“I've been busy,” he told his father. “Cattleman's Club business.”

His father made a noise of disgust. “You and your brother and that damned fool club.”

Like most people, his father didn't know the extent of the Cattleman's Club dealings, the people they'd helped, and Connor wasn't in any mood to explain it. He didn't feel the need to justify his life any longer.

“You have responsibilities to the firm,” his father continued. “I want you back in the office Monday morning.”

There was no easy way to say this, no way to soften the blow, so Connor decided to come right out and say it. “I'm resigning from the firm, effective today.”

“You can't do that,” his father said, as if his word was law, which for the past thirty-eight years, it had been. He was in for a terrible shock, because things had changed.

“I
can
do it, and I will,” Connor said. “I'm not happy there.”

His father didn't miss a beat. “Your happiness is not my concern. I have a business to run. I'm counting on you to take care of things for me.”

And didn't that sum it all up? It didn't matter what Connor wanted. His father was driven only by his own selfish needs.

“I'm sorry, I really am, but I'm not going back.” He was even more sorry that he hadn't done this years ago, when his father decided it would be best for his wayward, aimless son to join the army. Connor may not have been sure what he wanted to do with his life, but it was a decision he should have made for himself.

“What is it you think you want to do then?” his father asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

He thought of Nita in the other room waiting for him. Nita, who was everything he could possibly want for a future. “Maybe horse farming,” he told his father.

“
Horse
farming? That sounds like a supreme waste of your skills.”

“Maybe, but they're mine to waste if that's what I choose.”

“This is nonsense. I know what's best for you. The firm is your legacy. You can't turn your back on it.”

“I don't want it.”

“First the military, now this? What's gotten into you?”

His father would never understand, never concede, so there was really no point trying to explain. Not when his future was waiting in the next bedroom for him. “I know I'm disappointing you, but I can't live my life according to your grand plan any longer. Say hello to Mother for me. I'll talk to you later.” He disconnected, turned his phone off and snapped it back on his belt. Then he took a long, deep breath. Instead of feeling bad for failing to please his father, he felt…free. He should have done this years ago.

If only he'd known.

He walked down the hall to Nita's room and knocked softly before opening the door. She lay naked on top of her covers with only the silver light of the moon shining over her. He'd never seen anything so beautiful, never wanted anything or anyone the way he wanted her.

And he would get her, she just didn't know it yet.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

He walked to the bed, unbuttoning his shirt. “I told him I'm resigning from the firm.”

“How did he take it?”

“He wasn't happy.” He tossed his shirt on the floor and unfastened his jeans. “He'll get over it.”

She rose up on her elbows, watching him undress. “You did the right thing.”

“I know I did.” He shed the rest of his clothes and climbed on the bed beside her. Nita wrapped her arms around his neck, pressed the entire length of her body against him and kissed him like there was no tomorrow. Just like her to always be in a rush. But tonight, he wanted to make it last. He was going to make love to her. And little did she know, now that she'd gotten him into her bed, she was going to have a hell of a time getting him back out again.

 

Nita rubbed herself against Connor, loving the way his body responded to her touch. The way his muscles flexed and his skin went from warm to hot. She loved the way he tasted when they kissed. But more than anything else, she loved to sit over him, watch his face as she took him inside of her, watch that look of complete abandon, knowing she made him feel that way. She was able to make this big, strong, quiet soldier lose his cool.

It was unbelievably arousing, and just plain fun.

“Roll over,” she said, pushing on his chest. “I want to be on top.”

He looked down at her through the dark. “Why?”

She pushed with all her strength, but the man weighed a ton. “Because I do. I like it better that way.”

“I want to make love to you, Nita. And I want to do it slow this time.”

“Sex, Connor. Not Love. And you know I like it hard and fast.” She tried again to push him away, but he
grabbed her wrists and pinned her arms above her head. Ugh! The man was impossible. “Let go of me.”

His grip tightened. “Nope.”

She hooked her legs over his hips and arched against him, knowing that drove him nuts, but he wasn't fazed.

“That isn't going to work,” he said. “This time we're doing it my way.”

“I won't enjoy it,” she insisted.

“How do you know until you've tried?”

“I
have
tried. Slow just doesn't…
do it
for me.”

“Do it?”

Jeez, did he need her to spell it out? “I mean, I can't come like that.”

He didn't look deterred. “I'll bet I can make you come.”

“No, you can't.”

A grin curled his mouth. “See, now you've gone and made it a challenge. Now I have to do it, even if it takes all night.”

She blew out a long-winded sigh. Then this was going to be one long, boring night. “If it means that much to you.”

“It does.” He kissed the side of her neck—soft, slow kisses designed to tease and tempt her. Which they didn't…at least, not too much. It didn't exactly feel awful, either. But they sure wouldn't have her screaming in ecstasy. Although she had to admit being pinned was just a little exciting, it would get old real fast.

He nibbled her earlobe, and an involuntary shiver jerked though her. That was pure luck, she decided. Her ears had always been sensitive, so it didn't really count. And as good as it felt, it would take a lot more than that to make her come. She didn't know what he was trying to prove, but this wasn't going to work.

She wiggled restlessly beneath him, so he would know this wasn't any fun. He didn't even seem to notice.

He moved to her throat next, licked her there, and her traitorous head fell back on its own accord. Okay, so that felt pretty good. The man did have a way with his mouth.

He brushed his lips lightly over hers.

All right, this was more like it. Kissing she could definitely do, but when she tried to deepen the kiss, he backed out of reach.

Oh, that was so not fair. If he was going to kiss her, he should just do it. Instead he moved to the opposite side of her throat, licked her there, nibbled her other ear. At the rate he was going, this
would
take all night.