Somebody's Lover (2 page)

“I am not just somebody’s mother.
Or somebody’s wife. Or somebody’s daughter-in-law. And I’m not just somebody’s
sister-in-law.” She wanted to be somebody’s lover. Leaning over, she stared him
down glare for glare. “I’m a woman, Jace. A woman.”

“I know that.” He backed off.

“Do you?” To him, she was his
nephews’ mother, his brother’s wife. “Do you really?”

“Yeah, uh, sure.”

Right. She was a sexless
thirty-three-year-old. Forget the word
woman
. It didn’t even fit in his
definition of her. Later she wouldn’t be able to say what had snapped inside
her. She barely remembered diving across the space that separated them, but she
did remember fastening her lips to his.

He tasted of yeasty beer and
smelled like some cool aftershave. She pressed her breasts to his chest,
wrapped her arms around his neck, and hung on as he braced his hands against
her ribs and tried to push her away. Taylor wasn’t letting go.

She angled her head, sucked at his
mouth, then ran her tongue along the seam of his lips. Her nipples peaked
through the spandex as she rubbed against him. Then she forgot it was Jace. She
forgot he was her husband’s brother. She simply reveled in the feel of a man’s
lips beneath hers. His thumbs began to stroke the soft undersides of her
breasts.

He opened his mouth to her tongue,
tested her, tasted her, then leaned her back against the steering wheel and
kissed her as if she was somebody’s lover.

Lord, he felt good, so good. Her
body moistened against her miniscule panties. She throbbed. Her nipples ached
for the rasp of his tongue on them. She wriggled in his lap and moaned against
his mouth. His hand rose, cupped her, taking her nipple between his thumb and
forefinger. She almost came—it had been so long since she’d felt like this. He
shifted, his hips surging up to rock his erection against her.

She was actually wondering how she
could get her nylons off and not let go of him.

Then the horn honked. Long and
loud. Taylor snapped back to reality, pulling away from the steering wheel to
stop the racket.

Still cupping her breast in his
hand, Jace stared at her, a weird shell-shocked grimace on his face. Dilated
pupils, air puffing in and out of his lungs, his Adam’s apple slid as he
swallowed.

Oh Lord. She jerked from his lap,
yanked down on her skirt where it had ridden to the top of her thighs, and lunged
back to her side of the truck.

She’d been ready to straddle his
lap right there in the front seat. In a parking lot. Jace. Her husband’s
brother.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what came
over me. I’m really sorry. I...” Lord, the things she’d revealed. All her
turbulent, needy emotions. She’d told him everything.

He stared at her, and her face
heated with humiliation.

She almost stammered trying to get
her words out. “I’ve got my car. I’ll see myself home.” She grappled with the
door handle, wrestled it open, then almost fell out. “Thanks for helping me. I
don’t know what I would have done...” She was babbling.

She dug in the pocket of her skirt
where she’d stashed her car key and alarm remote, then slammed his truck door.
Where was her minivan? There! She stumbled in the high heels, caught herself on
the truck bumper, then took off like a mortified teenager.

She fumbled with the remote. His
truck door opened, and he called her name. Then she was in, thank you so very
much, God. She slammed and locked the door, cranked the engine, and pulled out
in a spray of gravel and dirt.

“I can’t believe you did that,” she
said to herself.

She couldn’t believe he’d tasted so
good, felt so good.

She saw his headlights following
her, at least she thought they were his. She hoped they were his and not
Bubba’s. The drive took forever, absolutely forever, but finally she was in her
own driveway, and the house key was under the doormat where she’d left it
because she’d intended on traveling light, only a twenty-dollar bill, her license,
and her car key in her pocket.

Jace idled at the end of the
driveway.

She bumbled her way inside and
slammed the front door.

Lord, she’d just thrown herself at
Jace. At her brother-in-law, whom she’d known for almost fifteen years. Since
she was nineteen and he was sixteen. Since the first time Lou brought her home
to meet the family.

The worst part? Taylor was hoping
Jace would get out of his truck and follow her in to finish what she’d started.

* * * * *

Jace white-knuckled the steering
wheel as if that would somehow keep him from rushing in after her. He’d
followed Taylor home to make sure she arrived safely. To make sure she actually
went home. At least that’s what he’d told himself.

But sitting there, his cock hard,
his balls blue, her taste on his tongue, and remembering the sensation of her
nipple between his fingers, he knew far more had driven him.

God help him, he knew she was a
woman. He’d always known.

She’d been the woman in his wet
dreams from the first time he met her. In youthful arrogance, he’d hoped she’d
leave his brother. He’d been young enough and stupid enough to pray for it.
She’d married Lou when she graduated from college, and Jace put away his
fantasies about his brother’s wife.

He’d stuffed them into the back of
his mind for so many years, he’d almost forgotten the need that had practically
crippled him. Even after Lou’s death, those fantasies hadn’t surfaced. Far from
it. The responsibility he bore for his brother’s death kept them where they
belonged, in the darkness of his soul.

He’d tried his damndest to make it
up to Taylor for what he’d done. Anything she needed around the house, he took
care of it. He fathered the boys the best he could. He never partied, never
more than one beer on a Saturday night with a couple of friends. He stopped
dating entirely. He acted the part of role model for her kids. He tried to give
them back what he’d stolen, their father’s closeness. He tried to give Taylor
everything.

Except the thing sometimes a woman
wanted most. A touch. A caress. A rustle under the covers and a warm body to
fill her up. To make her laugh again.

Her laughter had always tied him in
knots. But she hadn’t laughed like that in a long time, and he’d been safe.

Until tonight. Until she’d laughed
with another man.

Until she’d thrown herself at him
in the truck and kissed him like there was no tomorrow. Like there was no Lou.
Like Jace was the only man on earth she needed.

He rammed the truck in gear and
laid rubber before he succumbed to the memory of that kiss. His first, only,
and last taste of her.

The night before Taylor had been
embarrassed. Today she was mortified. Evelyn, her mother-in-law, had brought
the kids home at about ten-thirty this morning, then stayed to help Taylor get
ready for the family barbecue. Every Sunday, rain or shine, the family got
together. Taylor, Evelyn, and Connie, Evelyn’s second daughter-in-law, took
turns playing hostess. This week was Taylor’s turn.

She’d put the high-heeled shoes in
their box on the top shelf of the closet and hidden the leather skirt and
spandex shirt at the back of her underwear drawer in case Connie wanted to
borrow some clothes. They often swapped outfits instead of buying something
new, especially when Connie claimed Mitch was being tight, as he was recently.

Jace arrived at noon, hair still
wet from his shower, and got the barbecue going, because that was man’s work.
Taylor hadn’t been able to meet his eye, so she didn’t know if he’d even looked
at her. She crossed her fingers, hoped and prayed he wouldn’t say anything to
anyone about having seen her last night.

It would have been a lot easier to
forget if he didn’t look so good in jeans. His chestnut hair was starting to
wave as it dried in the sun. He looked so hot, her heart did a little
rat-a-tat-tat against her breast.

She’d always thought he was
good-looking. She’d never felt guilty about admiring his butt in jeans before,
because she’d always stopped herself right there. Well, almost right there.

Evelyn wouldn’t understand about
last night. As much as Taylor told herself she wouldn’t be tossed out of the
family if she one day invited a boyfriend to the Sunday barbecue, her heart
told her otherwise. She was Lou’s wife, and widowed or not, she always would
be.

The family never talked about Lou’s
death. They never even said the word
dead
. Sometimes it was as if Evelyn
and Arthur pretended their eldest son was away on a trip. She couldn’t hurt
them by dating a new man. She didn’t want to. She got all she needed from being
a part of the Jackson family.

Almost all she needed. Now Jace
knew her dark secret. She prayed he’d keep it to himself.

“Since our men and the kids are all
busy,” Evelyn said with a nod at the horseshoe game well under way, “I’ll
finish up this potato salad.” She scooped the last glob of potato goo onto her
plate. “Connie, you eat the rest of the coleslaw.” She skipped Taylor because
her plate was still half full.

Connie plopped two spoons of slaw
onto her plate before waving fondly at her kids. She and Mitch had been married
nine years, with Pete coming along just shy of the first year and Rina a couple
of years later.

“Go, Rina,” Evelyn yelled when the
little girl’s horseshoe came within two feet of the spike.

Her mother-in-law’s short cap of
gray hair bounced in her excitement, and laugh lines crinkled the corners of
her eyes. Her smile took five years off her age of fifty-seven. Terrified of
crow’s feet, Taylor’s own mother hadn’t laughed extensively. Not like Evelyn
did when a grandkid spouted something outrageous or one of her boys jokingly
gave her a hard time. Her sons would always be boys to her, though they ranged
in age from David’s thirty-four years to Mitch at thirty-two and Jace at
thirty.

Lou would have been thirty-six.
Taylor knew that Evelyn missed him every hour of every day. Truth be told,
there hadn’t been as much laughter or joking since Lou died. Most times, any
gaiety centered around the children.

Lou had left a hole none of them
had been able to fill. But Evelyn tried, insisting on the barbecues every
Sunday and sharing all the holidays together.

“Arthur, have you got your
sunscreen on?” Evelyn called, before popping the last fork of potato salad in
her mouth.

Arthur patted his bald head. “Dear,
we’re in the shade.”

“The sun’s moving round. You don’t
want to look like a pink Easter egg.” Then she lowered her voice, “Actually,
he’s cute when he has a little pink on top, don’t you think, girls?”

“He’s adorable no matter what,
Mom.” Taylor loved the way Evelyn talked about her husband. Never a snide
remark or a cutting glance. Unlike Taylor’s parents.

“He’s an old fart,” Evelyn scoffed
and smiled at the same time. “But he’s my old fart.”

This is what she’d dreamed of
having for herself someday, but she’d put those dreams aside after Lou died.
Instead, she had his family. They were everything to her. When Taylor’s parents
died in a car accident at the end of her second year in college, Evelyn had
taken her under her wing like a chick kicked out of the nest. Or like the mom
her own mother had never been. Trundled off to boarding schools or put to bed
by au pairs when her parents were traveling, Taylor had been a lonely child, an
only child. But not once she met Lou’s family. First daughter-in-law, mother of
the first grandchild, Taylor also liked to think of herself as the daughter
Evelyn never had. Evelyn was certainly the only real mother Taylor had ever
known.

She wouldn’t risk hurting either
Evelyn or Arthur.

Still, she found herself staring at
Jace. At his rear end actually, in those jeans. She remembered last night, the
taste of him in her mouth, the feel of him against her breasts. And she knew
she was in trouble.

“You know, girls, we’re
outnumbered. Look at all those males, and one teeny-tiny girl. We need to get
David married.” New daughters-in-law and new grandkids were fine for Evelyn.

A new boyfriend for her son’s widow
wouldn’t be, Taylor was almost sure.

“David’s too mopey to find a wife,”
Connie snorted.

“David does not mope, Connie.”

“What’s he doing right now, then?”

They all looked. David, the second
boy, now the eldest. He’d never been the happy-go-lucky kind, but since Lou’s
death, he’d become downright standoffish. Even now, he stood back, arms folded
over his chest, watching, not participating. He always came to the barbecues,
that was Evelyn’s rule, but he hadn’t seemed a part of them for a long time.

“He’s fine,” Evelyn said, but a
frown puckered her brow. She knew as well as anybody that David was not exactly
fine.

“What about marrying off Jace?”
Connie suggested.

Taylor wanted to kick her under the
picnic table.

“That boy is not done sowing his
wild oats.”

Taylor’s stomach did a little
heave-ho. Jace’s wild oats and wilder women had never bothered her before.
Besides, he didn’t flaunt his women anymore. He was actually pretty
circumspect, probably out of respect for being the boys’ little league coach.

So why did his wild oats bother her
now?

Because she’d tasted him, and she’d
loved the way he tasted. That kiss had changed the way she thought of him. For
a woman who professed she didn’t want change in her life, she’d brought on a
doozy last night.

He’d probably been intending to
pick up a woman at the Saddle-n-Spurs.

Instead, Taylor had picked
him
up. Sort of.

Connie twirled her fork around her
plate. “What if I were to tell you your wish might come true?”

Evelyn practically beamed like a
ray of sun. “You found a wife for David?”