The Way Home (15 page)

She’d wanted to laugh but contained herself. Brad clearly hadn’t been in a joking mood. In fact, when he was like that, he reminded her very much of J.R. Brad was taller and heavier than J.R., and his complexion and hair were lighter, but there was an intensity about him that was J.R. through and through.

“Brad,” she’d said reasonably, making herself settle down, “I barely make ends meet here, you know that. I think we can safely rule out the possibility of some golddigger targeting me for my money.”

“Any man who takes advantage of another man’s wife isn’t much of a man in my book. And any woman who forgets where she came from . . . well, just don’t forget where you came from.”

She’d been so stunned by his vitriol she could only watch him stalk out the door.

Any man who takes advantage of another man’s wife.

She was no longer anyone’s wife. She was a widow, and she was entitled to a life. Brad would never see it that way. Maybe if he met Ty, he’d see what a good man he was.

And maybe fish would fly.

The bell above the door rang and drew her out of her worrisome thoughts. She recognized the ball cap first. Then she recognized the smile and the hitch in her breath that she should be used to by now but always caught her off-guard.

He looked good. He looked so very, very good.

“Well, well.” Kayla’s grin stretched a mile wide. “Look who found his way back north.”

“Hey, Kayla.” Ty’s gaze never left Jess’s face. “How’s it going?”

“Why, it’s going just fine, thanks for asking.” She darted an amused look from Ty to Jess. “Go ahead and take Bear for that walk, boss. I’ll close up.”

At the word
walk
, Bear bolted out from behind the counter with a happy yelp and barreled past Ty to get to the door.

“Whoa, big fella.” Ty laughed and grabbed the excited pup’s collar as Jess rushed out and clipped on the leash.

“He’s starting to grow into his feet.” Ty squatted down and scratched the dog’s ears, then looked up at Jess. “Mind if I tag along? I could use a stretch after my flight.”

Jess didn’t understand how he could look so cool and collected and in control when she was melting by slow, hot degrees.

“We’ll be right back,” she told Kayla, and headed out the door, feeling happier and more vital than she had since the night Ty had kissed her and left her wanting more.

“Take your time.” Kayla’s voice floated out after them, sounding annoyingly pleased and far too amused.

“I
TAKE IT
no one knew I was coming back today?”

The dog sniffed happily at the grass along the shoulder as they walked down the blacktop road.

“I didn’t figure it was anyone’s business but mine.”

Ty liked being her private business. He liked the way her eyes had lit up when she’d seen him walk in the door. He’d had hopes. When they’d talked or texted or exchanged e-mails, there’d been a quality in her voice or her tone that suggested she was ready to open herself up to this. That she was ready for them. But until he’d seen her face, he hadn’t been counting on anything. Now he was counting on a lot.

She looked good. While he loved the wholesome look of her without makeup, he liked it that she’d made a special effort to look nice for him.

“I thought this day would never come,” he confessed, and reached for her hand.

Warmth spread through his chest when she eagerly entwined her fingers with his. “I’d started to think it wouldn’t.”

Better and better. “I’m sorry it took me so long. Everywhere I turned, I ran into red lights that slowed me down. But it’s all good now. My deck’s cleared.”

“For how long?”

“Two weeks, at least. Longer if you want it to be.”

He’d hoped he’d see that pleased look in her eyes, but until it was a certainty, he’d been holding his breath. It made his next move so easy.

He stopped and pulled her toward him. “No cars ahead of us. No cars behind.”

“My powers of deductive reasoning lead me to conclude that we must be alone, then.”

He loved this carefree, playful side, too. Apparently, absence not only made the heart grow fonder, it also made it grow braver. “Reason to celebrate.”

She looped her arms around his neck. “What’d you have in mind?”

“The same thing that’s been on my mind since the last time I saw you.”

“Then why are you wasting so much time talking about it?”

He laughed and pulled her snugly against him, letting her feel exactly what she did to him. “Oh, what a difference three weeks and a handful of suggestive text messages can make.”

She laughed, too. “There you go. Talking again.”

“There you go. Reminding me.”

“Ty. Shut up and kiss me.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

M
idnight had been lonely for
so long. Midnight had become an hour Jess dreaded and that she spent awake and alone too many nights.

That she wasn’t alone tonight felt like a small miracle. She didn’t want to remember how lost she had been. She wanted only to think about the touch of this man’s hands, alternately rough and gentle and oh so skilled. She wanted to be swallowed up in the solid, hot bulk of his body. The feel of him deep inside her. The suction of his mouth on her breast as she came with an involuntary convulsion of muscle and a gasp of wonder.

When she could take a breath that wasn’t a shudder, she lightly bit his shoulder, steeping herself in the maleness of him, his strength, the way his mouth cruised over her body and brought life where life had been gone for so, so long.

“You OK?”

She stretched in contentment and framed his face in her hands. “You really have to ask?”

He’d brought her there twice tonight. Eased her up the first time and taken her over. Then he’d turned on the lights and taken her fast and hard and desperately.

Now, in the aftermath, his heart slammed hard and true against her breasts. She loved the vital maleness of him. The heat and the scent of his skin, the bulk of muscle pressing her into the mattress as he rose up on his elbows and scattered kisses along her throat.

“You’re so beautiful.”

She needed that. He must know she needed that. She’d been shy when the first moment came. She’d led him to her bedroom and turned off the lights. Undressed in the dark. Met him on the bed where she’d never lain with a man, trembling, vulnerable, and more alive than she ever remembered feeling.

It had been so long. So long since the press of flesh on flesh had electrified her. So long since she’d lain beside a man whose caresses and low groans told her that yes, she was enough, and yes, she excited him, and yes, this was what magic felt like.

There had never been any question where this night would end. She’d wanted him in her bed since the moment he’d left her—probably even before that, if she were being honest. She’d wanted him so badly that it should have frightened her. It might have, if the deep, aching need hadn’t outdistanced any thought of caution and consequences.

There’d be time enough to sort it all out. Tonight . . . tonight she wanted to indulge.

She caressed his shoulders, explored the play of muscle over bone, and wondered how she had lived without this.

“Too heavy?” he murmured against her jaw.

“Too confined. I want to touch you. All of you.”

He groaned low and deep and with effort rolled off her and onto his back. Spread-eagle. Totally male. Utterly remarkable.

“Be gentle with me.”

She pressed up on an elbow and grinned down at him. “I’ll try to restrain myself.”

“So you know . . . I need a little recovery time.”

She kissed the center of his chest. “Not a problem. All you have to do is lie there.”

“I can do that.”

She didn’t want thoughts of J.R. in this bed. Not fair to him. Not fair to Ty. But the differences were too huge to ignore. With J.R., it had been all about the intensity. With Ty, it was that and more. It was fun. There was laughter. She liked the laughter. She liked the heat. So she ignored the scars—the ones on his back and the one she’d discovered on his shoulder—because she didn’t want more reminders of war in this bed tonight, either.

She took her time, then, took her pleasure exploring and engaging her power over him with each light finger stroke, with the press of her lips against flesh that was tender and sensitive and so responsive.

“You’re killing me.” His hands knotted in her hair, gently tugged.

She smiled against that sensitive spot where groin met thigh, fascinated by the thrum of his pulse beneath her lips, the depth of his ragged breaths, the fact that her brazen exploration delivered the sweetest kind of torment.

“And oh, what’s this?” He swelled in her hand as she surrounded him. “Not so much recovery time, after all?”

He laughed. “Remember . . . you started this.”

She rose to her knees and straddled him, slowly guided him home. “I did. Now I’m going to finish it.”

And then she moved. Taking him in. Taking him deep, until his hips rose to meet hers, and his hands covered her breasts, finessing her nipples into aching, hard peaks, and she became as caught up as he was.

“Jess.” Her name eased out on a whisper, a curse, and finally a plea as he gripped her hips and slammed her down over him one final time, coming on a low, throaty groan and tipping her over the edge with him.

I
T WAS BARELY
daylight when Ty eased out from under the sheet so as not to wake Jess. On the floor by the bed, the pup raised his head, his tail thumping softly on the rug.

“Shh.” He scratched the dog’s ears and lightly tapped his thigh so Bear would follow him.

“You’re a good dog, aren’t you?” he murmured.

The Lab padded out of the bedroom with him, toenails clicking softly on polished hardwood as he followed Ty down the hall to the kitchen.

He hadn’t seen much of her apartment last night. The minute they’d returned to the store and double-checked the locks, she’d led him upstairs. She’d flicked on an end-table lamp that had bathed the living room in a soft glow. He’d gotten quick impressions of lived-in leather, old wood, and splashes of vibrant color. But he’d had eyes for nothing but Jess as she’d led him to her bedroom and, in the shadows, welcomed him to her bed.

“Do you know where she keeps the coffee?” he asked the pup, who sat in the middle of the kitchen with an expectant look on his doggie face. “No? Bet you know where she keeps the dog biscuits.”

Bear’s tail swished softly across the floor.

With the first cupboard door he opened, he hit pay dirt—for him and the dog.

He opened a box of dog biscuits and tossed one to the pup. Bear caught it like a pro.

“Somebody’s been practicing.”

He’d figured out how to load the coffee pot and had turned it on when he heard Jess behind him.

He turned around and thought,
wow
. She looked exactly the way a woman should after a night of amazing sex. Her lips looked bee-stung, her hair was beautifully tousled, and her eyes were sooty and sleepy. The only thing out of place was the tentative smile.

“We woke you.”

She shook her head. “No. It was time to get up.”

Wearing only the jeans he’d found on the floor by her bed, he walked barefoot over to where she stood wearing a short, silky blue robe and, he hoped, nothing else.