Falling for Her (11 page)

Gathering her courage, she twisted to face him, resting on her knees. Tentatively, she put her hand on him, and he grew even larger
under her touch. Suddenly, she was glad he still had his pants on so she couldn’t see him. Her stomach made a sickening churn. His gaze bored
into hers as if he saw deep into her mind and understood her distress.

“Come here.”

Next thing she knew, he’d arranged them so he was behind her, spooning her. As she lay in front of him with his arm resting on her hip and his fingers spread over her stomach, she realized the last time she’d felt this protected was when her mother was still alive—when she’d had the love of both her parents.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

He nestled tighter against her. “Hush. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

Oh, but she did. “Thank you for tonight, Jamie. I never knew. I want . . . I want to do the same for you.” If she said it enough, maybe she’d start to believe it.

His chuckle tickled her neck. “And I want you to, believe me.” Pushing up on his elbow, he peered down at her. “I’ll never lie to you, Sugar. Right now, I’m as hard as an ironing board and suffering a severe case of blue balls. The thing is, I’ve got a problem with putting my most private part inside a woman who turns green at the sight of me. But now, you’ve become a challenge.”

With that announcement, he lowered himself down. What was she to make of that?

“I’m going to teach you to want me, and I’m going to love every minute of it. Consider yourself warned, sweetheart.”

“I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed.”
Afraid
wasn’t even the right word.
Petrified
, more like. Why did a man like him even want to waste his time on her?

“I don’t think so.” He brushed her hair back and then kissed her eyes closed. “Go to sleep, baby, and I’ll watch over you for a little while.”

If he knew she’d just fallen in love with him, he’d run straight through the bedroom door, leaving an outline of his fleeing body. It didn’t matter though, she thought as she slipped into sleep to the feel of his hand caressing her. She was going to be selfish and cherish her time with him for however long it lasted.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

J
amie listened to Sugar’s even breathing and considered what he was doing. Didn’t have a clue, truth be told. What had possessed him to issue a challenge? He slid his hand up to the underside of her breast, warm and soft. She was like a wounded bird, hurt and wary.

Whoever the man she’d been with; he’d done a number on her. Jamie would like to have a few minutes alone with him, see how he liked being hurt. What made a man want to abuse a woman, a person without the physical strength to fight back?

Did he even want to know the details? She’d fooled them all though, with her happy-go-lucky disguise. His initial impression of her couldn’t have been more wrong, and it shamed him.

And then he’d gone and given Miss Sugar Darling her first orgasm ever, promising to teach her to want him. Either he was about to embark on a fascinating journey, or he was the biggest fool in the world.

Slipping out of the bed, he pulled the covers over her. She sighed and rolled onto her stomach, and he was caught for a moment by the way her lips parted on another soft sigh. He’d tasted that mouth and found it to be as sweet as her name.

He collected his clothes, turned out the lamp, and opened the bedroom door. Her cat shot up from where he’d curled himself on the other side and took a flying leap onto the bed. Junior plastered himself on her back and because of the light provided by all the night-lights, Jamie could see the creature glaring at him.

“I don’t like you either,” he murmured, then left.

Once he’d made sure all her windows and doors were locked, he tossed his shirt, briefs, and shoes onto the passenger seat of his car. Driving home, he analyzed the events of the night.

The one thing he kept coming back to was the way she’d turned green at the sight of him. What kind of cruelty did it take to cause such a reaction? What kind of hurting had she been put through that she could only sleep if every outlet in her room had a night-light plugged into it?

Even so, she’d been responsive to him, more receptive than any woman he’d been with since the accident. Although he would be wise to end whatever it was growing between them, he knew he wouldn’t. If nothing else, maybe for the time they were together, he could help her put her fears to rest.

Once home, he tossed his keys into the bowl on his kitchen counter and headed straight for the shower. As hot water pulsated over his head, all he could think about was the expression of wonder on her face when she’d climaxed. And all he wanted was to see that again.

He was royally screwed.

The next morning, Jamie rummaged through his kitchen cabinets, finally locating an empty jar, and stuffed seven one-dollar bills into it. One for each curse word he could remember thinking or saying. At the end of his time with Sugar, he would take the jar crammed with money—he didn’t doubt it would be—to the Humane Society and insist it be put toward the adoption of a cat.

That he’d even conceived of such a plan was proof his cock had taken control of his brain. Heaving a big sigh, he dug another dollar out of his wallet and added it to the others. It would probably be a good idea to stock up on singles.

After slipping a chain holding his house key around his neck, he locked his door and doubled his normal five-mile run. Even though he’d taken the edge off in the shower a few hours ago, he was still hot and bothered. The erotic dreams he’d had of a certain violet-eyed woman hadn’t helped.

By the time he returned home, the late-October day had warmed up enough that he was drenched in sweat. A quick shower cooled him down, and he followed it with a breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast, two cups of coffee, and a banana. Another hour was taken up with some housekeeping while he half paid attention to CBS’s
Sunday Morning
show.

One of the segments featured a bestselling erotic romance author and he paused to listen, amazed at the number of books she sold. When the interviewer read aloud a heavily bleeped passage, Jamie realized he’d been right there in that scene, back in the days before he was Saint—before the Great Jamie Makeover. Many times.

As he remade the bed with clean sheets, he contemplated the necessity of maintaining the stringent rules he’d put in place. They had been necessary at the time, the things he needed to do to change the destructive direction in which he was headed. His motivation to be a man his parents would have been proud of had kept him from slipping at a time when he was metaphorically walking on ice. Those days were long past, and maybe it was time to ease up.

He stuffed the pillows into their cases, then sat on the bed. “You’re messing with my head, Sugar,” he muttered. Thinking back on it, he considered it amazing no woman had crossed his path in the last ten years who called to the man he’d once been in the way Sugar did.

And when it did happen, what did he get? A wounded bird who turned green at the sight of his erection. Chuckling, he shook his head. Life was full of surprises, and whether this one was a good one or not remained to be seen.

A promise had been made though. Before he was done with her, she would want him. And he always kept his promises. He glanced at the clock to see it was eleven. She should be up. He pulled a lemon drop from his cargo shorts pocket, unwrapped it, and popped it into his mouth. Grabbing his cell out of the charger, he clicked off the TV and dialed Sugar’s number. That he’d got it from Maria and programmed it into his phone a week ago should have been a warning.

Sugar squinted at the alarm clock, blinked, and looked again. She never slept until eleven. Junior had awakened her at seven and she’d fed him, then crawled back into bed, intending to grab another hour of sleep. But it had been the most restful night she’d had in years. No nightmares, no tossing and turning, no staring at the ceiling fan circling above her while listening for noises that didn’t belong.

“Thank you, Jamie,” she whispered, wishing he hadn’t left. When she’d come back to bed after feeding Junior, she’d pulled the pillow that still held his scent to her face and fallen back to sleep inhaling his smell.

Her phone buzzed, no identity on the caller. She almost answered, but remembered the stranger asking questions and let it go to voicemail. When the beep sounded, signaling a message, she listened, her heart taking a happy bounce when she heard Jamie’s voice.

“It’s Sugar,” she said as he answered her return call.

“You up?”

“Yes,” she lied.

“You have plans for today?”

“No.” She never had plans other than to go to work, come home, feed Junior, surf the Internet for the latest news on bad cop and bad cop, sleep, then go to work again. Saturdays and Sundays were spent doing . . . absolutely nothing. What was there to do when she didn’t have friends, much less a boyfriend?

“Good. I’ll pick you up at two. Wear a bathing suit. A bikini would please me,” he said, using that sexy voice of his.

“Okay.” Holy moly wow! He was actually asking her out. The line went dead. She threw off the covers and shot out of bed. There was just enough time to go to the mall and buy a bikini.

As she returned home with her tiny bathing suit, a gauzy, white cover-up with a giant parrot hand-painted on the back, and a new pair of glittery beach flip-flops, she wondered if she’d gone a little overboard. She glanced at the passenger seat. Oh, and a yellow straw hat with a red ribbon that trailed off the back. Yeah, she’d gone overboard, but what the heck. It wasn’t every day a hot guy called, invited her to the beach, and in a husky voice said a bikini would please him.

When she’d taken on the persona of Sugar, she’d cut and dyed her hair, lost twenty pounds, and adopted a personality completely opposite from Hannah. If she was going to hide from two very bad cops, she had to be someone they’d never think to look for.

It hadn’t helped the night before, though. At the sight of Jamie in all his glory, Hannah had popped out and freaked, big time. Sugar didn’t want to be that girl, the one who didn’t know how to enjoy life . . . or a man.

Sugar wanted to want Jamie, and after the orgasm he’d given her with just his fingers, she held out hope he would prove up to the challenge he’d issued. If tiny bikinis and sparkly sandals excited him, then it was money well spent. If it made her a little sad that whatever happened between them was a temporary thing and he’d never know the real her, she would just have to deal with it.

I’ll never lie to you.
His words echoed in her mind as she painted her toenails cherry red. She pushed Junior away from her wet toes and flopped back on the bed, covering her face with her hands.

“I have no choice but to lie to him, Junior, but if he ever finds out, he’ll hate me for it. I don’t want him to hate me, but I really, really do want him to make good on his promise.”

“Mowwl.”

“That’s easy for you to say; you’re neutered.” His face pressed against her hands and she moved them so he could smash his nose on hers. After giving her a sandpapery lick, he curled into a ball on her pillow and went to sleep.

“Big help you are,” she said. Jamie would knock on her door in thirty minutes, and to calm her nerves, she made a cup of chamomile tea and carried it into the bathroom where she’d left the bathing suit. She jumped into the shower and shaved her legs, under her arms, and for the first time in her life, gave herself a bikini trim.

“You’re just having yourself all kinds of adventures today, Sugar.” After putting on the bathing suit, she held a mirror between her legs to make sure she’d done adequately on her shave job. No hairs peeked out of the crotch, so she was good to go.

Lord, the thing was small, she thought as she turned in a circle in front of the mirror. The bathing suit hadn’t looked this tiny at the store. No way could she go out in public wearing only two strips of material. Somewhere, she had a one-piece. The doorbell rang just as she yanked open the drawer she thought the suit was in. Crap!

Okay, so she would just put the parrot cover-up on and not take it off. Not even for Jamie. Probably. She snagged the straw hat and the tote she’d filled with some bottled waters, the two new beach towels—men didn’t own beach towels, did they?—she’d also bought, then jogged to the front door, practically out of breath by the time she opened it. What was left of the air in her lungs expelled at the sight of Jamie standing there, wearing a blue T-shirt that matched his eyes and a pair of boardshorts that stopped a few inches above his knees. Good God, look at those legs.

“Hey, you,” she said, managing not to drool.

“Hey you back.”

The way his gaze roamed over her, slowly perusing the line of her body all the way down to her toes, his eyes promising more of the kind of pleasure he’d already shown her, short-circuited her brain. She gave into the urge to squeeze her thighs together. A knowing smile crossed his face as he leaned toward her. Thinking he was going to kiss her, she closed her eyes. He chuckled and she felt his breath at the side of her neck. What was he doing?

“You smell nice,” he said, then took her hand.

As she walked beside him to the car—Jamie’s large hand curled around hers—it struck her how intimate the act was. She’d been too closely watched as a teen to even consider having a boyfriend, had never held hands with a man before. Whenever she’d walked beside Rodney, his hand was always at her neck, his fingers digging into her skin, a constant reminder that she belonged to him.