Too Much: A Loveswept Contemporary Erotic Romance (All or Nothing) (26 page)

“I wondered when you’d come see me,” Ruthie said from her spot on an enormous leather sofa.

“Where’d they go?” Daly asked, dreading the answer.

“Don’t know. Don’t care,” Ruthie responded. She flipped off the television and patted the seat beside her. If Ruthie was home, a TV was on somewhere in the house. Though she couldn’t watch it she could listen and she always said that was enough for her.

Daly curled into the couch beside her. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming when I talked with you last?”

Ruthie raised an eyebrow. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d
reconnected
with my brother?”

“I hadn’t necessarily … okay, look, I just didn’t,” Daly said miserably. “I didn’t know what was going on. I tried to call him to tell him I had David’s ring and the asshole wouldn’t respond to my calls.”

Ruthie grunted. “So you got dolled up in your clubbing finest and drove your happy little ass down here, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

Ruthie laughed. “I knew it was only a matter of time, Daly. Two hearts connected that deeply had no choice but to find a way back together.”

“Something is going on though, and I’m wondering if David is in the middle of it again, Ruthie.” Daly sighed when Ruthie grabbed her hand.

“What was it like?”

Daly cocked her head, but Ruthie’s sightless gaze was trained on the windows. “What was what like?”

“Coming back home.”

Daly’s soul felt squeezed by the pain in the other woman’s voice. She didn’t even pretend to misinterpret what Ruthie was asking. “It was—” She took a deep breath. “It was beautiful.”

Ruthie nodded, and a tear slipped down her cheek. “I had hoped you two would find your way back. Now what’s this I hear about David being in trouble?”

Daly recounted the little she knew to Ruthie, who sat quietly during the retelling. Daly left out the part about the pictures she’d mysteriously received.

“You think someone else is pulling the strings?” Ruthie asked.

“Yeah. But I don’t know who or why. And your brother won’t tell me anything.” Daly had been running every conceivable situation through her mind but come up with nothing. She didn’t have any enemies she knew of, but Jeremiah probably did.

“Jeremiah will find out. Don’t worry.”

Daly patted Ruthie’s hand. “I can’t help but worry about him.”

“He’s a strong man, Day. He made a choice when he fell in love with you not to ever engage in that life again. When I think about the things he gave up to care for me and David when he was so damn young—I can’t fathom the type of mental toughness it takes for a twelve-year-old to raise two younger kids. He kept us out of the system and in school, Daly. He’s a good man. Trust in him,” she said.

“Maybe that’s what worries me, Ruthie.”

“What?”

“I do trust him. I’ve given him everything this time. It took me a while to realize what I’d done to him. How could I not have known? Why didn’t he tell me what he’d done for David? Why would he keep that from me—allow me to think the worst of him?”

Ruthie turned to her at that, her storm-tossed gray eyes seeing more than any blind person should. “Your love for him should have told you everything.”

“Toby said I didn’t love Jeremiah enough.”

“Toby said that? Wow. Funny that a man who can’t see his hand in front of his face when it comes to his own relationships could be so startlingly insightful about someone else’s.” Ruthie sighed and squeezed Daly’s hand. “Jeremiah is a hard man. He’s done things he isn’t proud of. But when you two got together, he changed. He let go of all the bad and turned his life into something you would be proud of. He did that because he loved you.”

Daly saw it all now and mourned that she hadn’t seen it then.

“And I disagree with your brother. I don’t think it’s that you didn’t love him enough. I think you loved him too much,” Ruthie said. “You loved him so deeply, so completely, that the thought of him doing anything to betray your trust shut you down and you ran. After all, the easiest way to prevent pain to yourself is to inflict it on the other person first.”

Shock ghosted through Daly. “Are you talking about me now or Toby?”

“Both,” Ruthie said in a dull voice. “Heyward Edwards did a number on you two. Trust is a two-way street. Neither you nor Toby ever seemed inclined to keep the path clear for others. Jeremiah, David, and me—we grew up tough. You two grew up in hell.”

“I love your brother, Ruthie. I’m not letting him go this time. I have no idea what he
wants from me, but this is not a game. If he lets me go this time, it will destroy me.”

“That’s how much he loves you too, Daly.” Ruthie went preternaturally still and smiled. Chills danced up Daly’s body. “Trust him and he’ll be everything you need.”

“Yes, oh Great Swami of Love, I will do as you say,” Daly said dramatically, and then fell backward on the couch.

Ruthie cackled. “You’d better get back upstairs—I think I heard the elevator heading up,” Ruthie said.

“Let’s go eat at McGuire’s next week. Chelsea would love to see you. Oh! Have you talked to Candace lately?” Daly asked as she stood up.

“I haven’t. Figured I’d visit while I was in town this time. Give me a call. It’s not like I’ve got huge plans, just some painting when I feel the muse, and then I’m all yours.”

“Deal,” Daly said and kissed Ruthie on the cheek. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

* * *

As soon as she stepped off the elevator, Copeland enfolded her in his embrace.

“I smell you and it makes me so fucking hard, all I can think about is getting inside your body,” he ground out.

She laughed, low and husky, and every insecurity he had about this woman he’d given his heart to dissolved.

“I missed you, Jeremiah. Four hours is too long to be away from my heart,” she whispered.

“Goddamn, I love you,” he said harshly and turned her around in his arms. It shocked him that the words flew from his mouth so easily. Then it didn’t matter that he’d opened himself up so wide because Daly jumped up, wrapping her legs around his waist, and all he wanted was to be inside her. It was a pounding need. More than a desire for the physical release, it was a desperate requirement for Copeland to draw closer to her in that way. He wanted everything she was, in all the ways she could give it to him.

She’d gone still in his arms and he pulled back, searching her face and wondering why her eyes were bright with tears.

“You said the words.” Her voice was soft and shy.

“My body tells you everything you ever need to know, Daly. But if you need the words, it is my honor to give them to you,” he said at her lips.

She kissed him then, hot and deep, and everything was okay in that moment. She took the doubts she’d had over the last four hours and tossed them as far as the east was from the west.
Her tongue was shy and he suckled on it, drawing it deeper into his own and giving her permission to do what she would.

It struck him then that their dynamic had morphed. They’d had more vanilla sex in the last week than they’d ever had three years ago. And it didn’t bother Copeland—he was actually reveling in it. Slow and soft, cherishing her body, and that she gave it to him alone was poignant. It rearranged the pieces of him that scattered when she left. It didn’t mean he wasn’t still dominant. It simply meant this time around they were even more.

Her hips shifted and her legs tightened. The heat between her legs was a siren’s call and he pressed forward as she pushed down. She groaned, and he threw back his head and laughed. She growled and uncrossed her legs from his waist. He let her fall to her feet slowly, making sure all her happy parts rubbed against all of his.

“You’re wearing my sweats?”

She smiled and reached up to undo his tie. “You are so observant, Mr. Copeland.”

He tightened his hands on her hips and slowly slipped them into the waistband, reaching around to cup her bare ass. He drew in a rough breath as his dick spiked against his suit pants. “I
am
observant, Ms. Edwards. And I can tell you aren’t wearing panties.”

She laughed, and the husky notes reached into his chest and squeezed his heart. Hard. “I’m not. I didn’t bring clothes for our spend-the-night party.”

He went stock-still. “You have clothes here, Daly.”

Her mouth dropped open.

He nodded. “Yeah. You missed several things when you left me.”

Her brown eyes clouded and her lips drew down into a delightful frown.

“Let’s see,” he said as walked to his bedroom. He made a beeline for the bureau that had been hers. Yeah, he’d kept it, going so far as to move it from the old place to this one. He reached in and pulled out a scrap of lace. “You left all the red things.”

He closed his eyes against a fresh wave of pain. How he’d hurt when she’d left! As he stood there, wrapped in the pain of the past, her arms settling around his waist, he realized just how much. Her hands found purchase on his chest and she pressed against his back. He felt her pain and his, a white-hot brand in the vicinity of his heart.

“I’ve always loved you in red, Day,” he said around the lump in his throat.

“O my Luve’s like a red, red rose,”
she whispered.

Just that quickly, his sadness disappeared, followed by the ache of a love too long buried and denied. “Robert Burns.”

She squeezed him tighter, and the press of her breasts on his back was a shot of lust to his balls. “I always give you the easy ones,” she said.

He heard the smile in her voice.

“Nothing has ever been easy with you, Ms. Edwards.”

“I can’t imagine. I’ve always been the soul of calm, mild and easy mannered.”

He turned then and wrapped his hands in her hair, tilting her head back and watching as her brown eyes flared with a light unique to Daly. “Probably not the way I would have phrased it, but to each her own.”

“And you, Jeremiah—are you my own?”

He lowered his head and brushed his lips over hers, savoring the taste of her, berries, mint, chocolate, and sunlight. “I have never been anyone else’s.”

Her breath hissed in and she grabbed his head, holding him still for her kiss. His body was hot, demanding to be seated in the cradle of hers, and Jeremiah wanted her desperately. But there were things they needed to do. Their bodies never had a problem finding common ground. It was her heart he wanted and while she professed her love, she’d done that before and still left him.

He covered her hands and drew them down, placing them on his chest. “We should watch a movie.”

Her eyes widened, and a look of such total disbelief crossed her face that he laughed.

“A movie?”

“Yeah. Spend-the-night party, remember?”

She thunked her forehead against his breastbone. “Where’s my Valenza’s?”

“Closed.”

“Okay. Is there popcorn and ice cream?”

“There’s whatever you want, Day.”

She reached for his cock. “This is what I really want.”

He cleared his throat. “Oh, believe me, I really want you to have it. But first, a movie. Let me change real quick. Go pick something out and I’ll be out in a few.”

She stared at him hard then. Her gaze was piercing and he let her see all of him. He was a different man but still carried all of who he’d been under his shell. Everything he’d ever done had made him who he was. Just as everything he’d lost, including
her
, made the wall around his heart that much higher.

But she owned him. Nothing had changed. Daly pulled away slowly and smiled hesitantly, confusion a mask over her features. He couldn’t give her anymore right now. Tonight had been trying, to say the least, and sometime during the night he’d have to lay everything he knew out for her.

First, though, he wanted something eloquently simple. A night in front of a movie, watching her laugh as she ate popcorn and ice cream. Then he wanted to fuck her into a submission so deep she couldn’t possibly leave him. And maybe after that he’d make love to her,
remind her he could be softer if she needed it.

“Okay, I’ll pick out a movie. I’m warning you, I’m in the mood for funny,” she said.

“I love to watch you laugh, so I’m game.”

Her eyes watered. “You destroy me, Jeremiah.”

“If you’ll trust me, I’ll build you back up,” he returned softly.

“If you’ll trust me, I just might let you.”

He nodded and she turned then, leaving him with his thoughts. He showered quickly, desperate to be back in her presence. He wondered if he’d be able to survive the boner he presently sported and pushed his lust down. It was about Daly tonight. Winning her and then telling her the truth. Because as Copeland had learned, he could not hold her unless he gave her all he was.

Daly was pulling the popcorn out of the microwave when Jeremiah walked into the kitchen. She turned and almost lost her hold on the giant bag of extra-butter fluffy white manna of the gods.

Jeremiah, in nothing but worn jeans that rode
very
low on his hips, was by far the most delicious thing in the room. Her gaze was glued to the delightful V formed by his well-worked internal oblique muscles. Damn, her man was hot.

Her. Man.

She shook her head and forced her gaze upward. His head was cocked, an eyebrow raised. Daly smiled and blushed.

“You are fucking sexy as hell when you blush, Day,” he bit out.

All her lady parts stood up and applauded as he ran a hand over his black hair. “You’re fucking sexy as hell just standing there doing nothing,” she retorted.

He pointed to what she held in her hand. “Popcorn’s gonna get cold.”

“We’ll set it in my lap—that should keep it more than warm enough,” she said with a small laugh.

He smiled, and it was infinitely wicked. “Will make eating it interesting.”

“Eating—it?” Her breath deserted her. She couldn’t for the life of her continue her sentence. Hell, she couldn’t even remember what she’d been about to ask.

“The popcorn,” he said around a choked laugh.

“The pop—”

A long second of silence and Jeremiah crossed his arms over his massive chest. She wiped a finger across her mouth. Just in case some drool had seeped out.