Imperfect Rebel (26 page)

It was going to be a long night.

* * *

"Spaghetti from a kerosene stove never tasted so good." Jared lazily threw a stick of kindling onto the fire and leaned back against the cushion Cleo had thrown on the floor for him. Although anticipation hummed somewhere just below his skin, he liked the restful hominess of the warm fire, a full stomach, and a woman at his side.

Not exactly at his side. She'd relegated him to the floor. But she was within reach, and that was all that mattered. This was a far cry better than the lonely house on the beach, even with the howl of wind and crash of surf to keep him company.

"And you're a connoisseur of kerosene cooking," she said with sarcasm, dropping onto the sagging couch after checking on the kids.

"Learn to take compliments. It was delicious. Are they sleeping?"

"Like babes. Living in terror is exhausting."

Jared leaned back against the pillow and let the fire warm his socks. The old house creaked and swayed beneath the tumult of wind and rain, but other than the two tall palms, Cleo had no trees threatening the roof over their heads. He tried not to think too hard about his newly restored beach house at the mercy of the tide. He could hear the roar from here.

The chaos outside seemed somehow diminished by the disturbing vibrations bouncing around inside this small room. If he had any smarts at all, he'd bury his head in a book and pretend he didn't notice. That had always worked in high school. College and career had taught him to let problems slither off his invincible shield of laughter. He could apply that now, but he no longer wanted to.

He wanted—needed—to pierce Cleo's equally indestructible shield. He had the gut feeling if he let this opportunity slide by, he'd spend the rest of his life slip-sliding away.

"You know all about the exhaustion of fear?" he asked, not looking at her. Just listening was painful enough. He'd spent a lifetime complaining about his dysfunctional childhood. He knew enough already to understand Cleo's pain outdistanced his whining by miles.

"Shut up, McCloud."

He didn't have to look to know she had curled up defensively in the far corner of the couch, beside the kerosene lamp. She would fight him tooth and nail every step of the way, but he thought she was worth the battle. "Are you going to call Social Services when this is over?"

"I told you before—"

"I know, I know, but isn't fear of violence a little more destructive than the coldness of a damned group home?" This time, he turned sufficiently to watch her face.

In the flicker of the lamp, she looked pale and weary, and he thought he ought to be ashamed for driving her harder. But he wanted this battle settled and out of the way so they could move on to the good parts. If he was wrong and there were no good parts, he wouldn't die of it. Not immediately.

"They put Maya and me in group homes a couple of times." Defenses down, she responded with irritation. "Maya was always doing something weird that freaked people out, like painting walls with roses and dragons, so we got thrown out a lot. Most foster homes don't like teenagers and don't want two at a time if it can be avoided."

She sank into silence as if this much confession exhausted her. Jared waited patiently. She had reserves she didn't know she possessed, and he counted on them. His patience was rewarded.

She tilted her head back against the couch and stared at the darkness of the ceiling. "Group homes aren't just about the counselors. They have security guards and sometimes a few jerks who don't know any other way of making a living, along with the do-gooders."

He wasn't going to like this, he could tell already. "They hurt you?" he asked harshly, hoping to get it over with all at once.

She shrugged. "Most of the time, I'm my own worst enemy. I know that now. I didn't then. One creep offered me cigarettes if he could cop a feel. I figured, sure, why not?"

Jared shuddered and started to rise, but her body language blatantly warned him to back off. "We can warn Kismet," he said.

She ignored him. "I liked it," she said defensively. "Nobody had touched me since I was a kid. I mixed up touching with feeling. I had no self-respect anyway. What did I know?"

He was sorry he'd started this. He had the gut awful feeling he knew what came next. Pushing his pillow back from the fire, he reached over the cushion to capture her foot. She swung it restlessly, but he wouldn't let her go. He pressed the curved underside reassuringly with this thumb. "What you did then isn't who you are now."

"Don't be a dolt, McCloud. We're made up of all these bits of our past. Block on block, we build ourselves. Cop a feel for cigarettes one time, neck a little for a car ride and a movie, what's one step more? By the time I graduated from group homes, I could get drugs or alcohol or cash anytime I wanted. That's how I learned to deal with life."

He leaned his back against the couch and circled her foot with both hands, massaging, letting her become used to his touch. He knew what she was saying. He hadn't figured her for the type who went into marriage as a virgin. "So group homes taught you a trade. Are you still practicing?"

"Screw you, McCloud," she said wearily. "And this is about Kismet, not me. I'm telling you I know what it's like. Trying to determine if she's better off with one pervert within the familiar boundaries of home or exposed to different ones on unfamiliar grounds is not a decision I want to make."

He idly rubbed the slender tendon above her heel. "All right, that's a tough call, and you don't feel qualified to make it. I buy that. What if I make the call? I'm telling you frankly, I'm not letting them go back there." Lay it all out on the table. If she was going to cream him, he might as well have it over now.

"Fine. You make that call. Give me time to list the house and store and move out because Linda will make my life a living hell after you do."

"Maybe I can prevent that." He was playing with fire here. This woman could turn him on with just her voice, but he knew he was dealing with problems well beyond his ken. Sliding his palm up her firm calf under her khakis, he couldn't fight the pressure building beneath the unforgiving denim of his jeans. But wanting Cleo and having her were two entirely different equations, and he didn't know how to solve either.

"Too many super-hero comics, boy genius," she taunted.

"Yeah, I know. I've got this complex that makes me think I can save the world. No wonder everyone laughs at me." He didn't entirely know what he was doing here. He wasn't a man who got involved—with women or kids or politics or anything else. He scribbled his irritation with the world's foibles into his comic strip upon occasion, and he sometimes wished for a stronger platform from which to launch his opinions, but he'd never actually got off his butt to do anything. Everything had always come so easily, he'd never bothered to work hard at anything.

He dearly wanted to do something now. He craved Cleo's respect, and his own, when it came down to it. He wanted to save those kids.

He wanted Cleo, in more than just the usual way.

So he stayed where he was, massaging the tension from her muscles, letting her become used to his touch much as a horse whisperer calmed a nervous mount.
Bad choice of words, McCloud
, he corrected. His chances of mounting Cleo were pretty close to nil, he figured. Seduction wasn't his department. Women generally came on to him, not vice versa. He always slid by, never really needing to try hard.

He was trying now, but he thought his chances hopeless.

"I'm not laughing," she said tensely. "Let me go."

He glanced up with interest at her tone, his thumb pressing into the muscle of the one leg she allowed to hang over the edge of the couch. She looked pretty grim and wild-eyed with her auburn hair practically standing on end, but from the way she crossed her arms over her breasts, he judged she was holding herself back with a thin thread.

"You know we could work things out much better if you'd quit fighting me," he said thoughtfully. "Together, I think we'd be a formidable force."

"Yeah, together, we could destroy each other instead of just ourselves," she mocked. "We'd make a great pair."

"You plan on spending the rest of your life behind the closed walls of your mind, never risking anything?"

Ire flashed briefly across her expression, her nostrils flared, and she regarded him with all the intensity of her passionate soul. Here was the depth he didn't possess, and he just might drown in it.

"You figuring we've got a few days to kill and we ought to do it in bed? That the kind of risk you have in mind?" she demanded.

Well, he'd certainly never have to read Cleo's mind. That might make life more difficult, but he was ready to take her on any level she preferred.

"I had a physical not too long ago," he answered with equal bluntness. "I'm clean. I've got condoms. That the kind of safe risk you want?"

The way she flinched, he thought maybe he'd hit her too hard, but she rallied quickly enough. Pure malicious devilment lit her eyes. "I quit screwing around when I walked out on my husband. My head's messed up, but the rest of me is just fine, thank you."

Excitement hit his veins like a shot of adrenaline at the possibility that they were finally operating on the same wavelength. Caveman instinct told him to grab and claim her while the opportunity beckoned, that once he breached her indestructible walls and possessed her, she was his for a lifetime. But he liked to fool himself into believing he was a little more evolved than a Neanderthal. Not much, maybe, but enough to let her reach her own conclusions.

He was taking a chance that she would conclude he was a waste of time.

"Your head works from my viewpoint, and the rest of you is way more than fine," he agreed, not releasing her leg now that he'd made this much progress.

"You think so?" she asked with raised eyebrows that didn't indicate doubt in herself so much as doubt in his honesty. Before he could answer, she cut him off. "As long as we're distracting ourselves by discussing body parts, if you won't let it go to your head, I think you have a mighty fine ass."

"I assure you, my head is the last place that's going," he said dryly, wondering where she was heading with this and interested enough to follow.

Abruptly, without any warning signals, Cleo swung from the couch to straddle his already too-alert lap. Her trouser-clad legs clamped his knees together and her flannel-shirt pressed against his nose, but she smelled deliciously of woman and weighed almost nothing, despite all those rich curves just within reach. Jared contemplated drooling as his hands itched to reach for what she so temptingly offered, but he forced his palms flat against the floor.

"If this is a test, I'm about to fail it," he warned.

His eyes practically crossed as she slowly began unfastening her shirt. He'd seen her in a tight tank top. He knew what she hid under there. He wanted to touch so badly that he thought he'd explode with the need, but he damned well wouldn't be one of the creeps in her life wanting to cop a feel for a pack of cigarettes, or whatever else in hell she wanted now.

"Think we can do this just once and not again?" she asked with a definite taunt in her voice as her fingers continued down the front of the shirt.

"Nope. If that's what you want, you can stop that right now." He hoped his voice wasn't as strangled as it sounded. One part of his anatomy was quite willing to take up her offer.

"What about twice?" she jeered. "Just for the duration of a hurricane, maybe?"

The shirt came undone, and she shrugged it off her shoulders, letting it fall over her arms. She wore a knit top with only thin straps to hold it up, and nothing under it. He could lean over and nibble the tight points of her breasts and have her under him within seconds. All the blood in his head rushed south, but he continued obdurately clenching the floor. Not an easy object to grab, not nearly as easy as the ones he wanted, but he possessed some hidden strengths.

"That may be all you want," he warned, "but it's not what I have in mind."

"It never is. A free ride for life is what you all want, no matter how civilized your veneer." She dropped the flannel shirt completely and flung it across the room. "I want to touch you," she declared unexpectedly. There was nothing predictable about Cleo.

She unfastened his shirt buttons as easily as her own. Jared had to hold his breath as her heated hands slid beneath the fabric to stroke his skin. She might as well have heaved a stack of kindling on the fire. His body roared with flame.

"Don't do this if you don't want it all," he cautioned. "I'm not anywhere near as civilized as you're pretending. Right at this moment, I don't give a damn about once, twice, or forever."

"Good, because all I live in is the moment." She caught his nipples between her fingers and stroked, then leaned forward to press her mouth against his.

Jared twisted her knit top in both hands and ripped it over her head.

Chapter 22