Switched, Bothered and Bewildered (24 page)

He held her away from him for a moment, which made her gasp for air—or sanity. She watched as he moved his hands toward her under

the water, flickering with phosphorous every move he made. He started with her belly, smoothing the loose fabric of the swimsuit. He used his two thumbs to stroke across her hipbones and make tiny circles.

Between her legs she felt the most monstrous ache; it made her moan out loud. Then his circles moved slowly up her waist and reached her breasts. When he slid his thumbs faintly over her nipples, she wound her arms around his neck. He kissed her, all wet and dripping hot, his tongue dancing across her lips lightly. She let her aching body tell him everything.

Tell him
everything.
Oh, God.

"Dean."

"You are the most beautiful mermaid I have ever found." His voice was husky with desire. He kissed her again and ran his mouth down her neck. She felt heat like underwater lava against her, his cutoffs straining with what must surely be the most amazing underwater erection ever, as far as she could think. Tarzan had a hard-on.

It took every ounce of her self-control not to go deep-sea exploring and find that treasure, just there, under the frayed, wet opening of a pair of very old cutoffs. But she needed to tell him everything. It just wouldn't be right.

Oh
God,
why did she have to develop a conscience
now?
Maybe she was more like her sister than she thought.

"Dean, stop."

He held her back from him an inch and ran his hand across her forehead, smoothing back her wet hair. "Too fast?"

"I have to tell you something. I'm not who you think I am."

Dean looked into her eyes without reaction for a moment. Then a slow, knowing smile spread over his face. "I know."

"You know? You know what?" She pushed herself away from him. Unfortunately she also lost her footing on the slick rocks and splashed backward into the water.

Dean laughed as her head disappeared and her two hands stuck out of the water like periscopes. He dove under the water and scooped her up like a fish, his arms a net.

She sputtered as they surfaced. "Let me go!" She flailed her arms and almost smacked him.

"Okay." He dropped her back in the water, then went to retrieve her again. This time she put her arms around his neck and let him bring her up without fighting. "Now will you please behave?" he said.

She was laughing this time. "Yes, yes. Don't let me go."

"I have no intention of letting you go, Miss whoever you are."

"Jillian. My name is Jillian Tompkins."

He carried her out of the water and up the deck

steps, depositing her on the handy old deck chaise still covered in blankets. It was anything but cold tonight, but he sat next to her and dried off her legs with the corner of the blanket.

The chaise collapsed. They ended up flat on the deck, and he pulled her into his arms protectively, while they both laughed again. Monty, still very wet and now rather stinky, came to join them on the chaise.

"Monty, you are something else." Dean gently removed Monty and gave him a nice towel to lie on. Monty sighed. Dean brought Jillian close to him again.

"We're a pair, aren't we?" he whispered in her ear. "You, pretending to be your sister, me pretending to be a repair guy."

"You're not a repair guy?" She felt a small shock go through her.

"I used to have my own contracting business, remember? I haven't done a regular repair job in years, except for a volunteer group, but mostly I gave it up for art."

"I guess we are a pair." She kissed him softly, and he deepened that kiss and took it to a more interesting level. When she could talk again, she blurt out more of her confession, which he'd been expecting to erupt eventually. "I was supposed to be saving you for my sister Jana Lee, to cheer her up when she came home."

He stopped kissing her after she told him this

little tidbit. "Oh, like a cat with a mouse, you just tease me and she comes in for the kill later?" He tickled her chin.

"Something like that," she answered with a breathy voice that reeked of desire. Her lips pressed against his neck, just below his ear. She was wrapped around him as tight as a starfish. He buried his face in her hair. He made a bold move and slid her underneath him. He gently moved against her until she moaned. He felt her body become extremely aroused. His was pretty far along, too.

Their wet bodies actually steamed as the air cooled around them and the heat they were creating hit the night breeze. He kissed her again and swam in the feeling of holding her in his arms, their bodies pressed together.

"Carly is gone for the night?" he whispered.

"She's my niece, by the way, and yes," she breathed heavily as he slowly moved his hands down her wet, swimsuited body.

He wanted to give her a taste of the pleasure to come. He looked around them at the secluded, lush yard that created a private screen from her neighbors. The maple tree was full and green and shadowed them where they lay on the deck, on the broken chaise, which had so conveniently collapsed into a bed for them. It was enough for a few minutes of wildness.

He ran his fingers down the strap of her swim-

suit and pulled it away from her breast. His mouth followed. She tasted of salt water and something so sweet it left him aching for her. He let his tongue tease her and circle to her nipple. It was hard and hot, and he took it into his mouth. She had ceased to talk, and only a deep, throaty sound emerged from her as he slid the strap of her suit all the way down and cupped her breast into his mouth.

Dean moved and kept his mouth on her so he could brush his hand between her legs and feel the flash-heat mounting in her. He had to touch her. He ran his thumb under the loose fabric of the suit and found the hottest spot.

She bent her knee up slightly and let him in, arching against his touch. He was a very good lo-cater of things that drove her insane, and not in the bad way—in the good way. He had her panting and clutching him in seconds. He tried to slow it down, but he couldn't help it, he wanted to watch her have an orgasm on the deck. She obliged him, digging her fingers into his shoulder as he pulled at her nipple with his mouth, making her come harder beneath his gentle fingers.

She tried to be quiet, but she finally had to press her mouth into his other shoulder and whimper with pleasure. This wasn't working, because he just wanted to make her do that again and again, with his mouth, with his hands, with . . . him. He

felt his own erection throbbing between them. If she touched him he wouldn't be able to think.

She touched him.

"We've got to get somewhere... more sheltered." That was all he could say as her fingers smoothed over the sensitive skin of the head of his erection, which had escaped the bounds of his wet cutoffs.

He moved off of her and gently removed her hand, which returned immediately and very disobediently and followed him up, that devil woman. She had a look in her eye that made him almost forget they had to get out of there. He pulled her up to her feet and wrapped the blanket around her.

"Yum," she said.

He brought her close to him. "Yeah, me too." He kissed her, then he thought about more practical matters. "Don't move, I have to go to my truck for a minute." He ran barefoot, which probably wasn't the best idea in this construction zone, back behind the house to his truck. He had condoms in the glove box, like every self-respecting guy who had the hots for a woman he was working for.

He moved back to her like a man pursued by lions. He pulled her against him and kissed her again, hard.

She came up for air. "Get me to a bedroom,

Dean. Right now." Not behaving again, she stroked up his leg toward his really ready-to-go little Dean. Well, more like
big
Dean now.

He grabbed her and her blanket and carried her inside. She was like a hot tamale in that blanket. He pounded up the stairs to the bedroom. She nibbled on his neck.

"Stop that, I'll drop you."

"You would not."

He dropped her on the bed. She looked slightly shocked, then grinned at him. "You next."

"We should have that talk responsible people have," he said.

"Screw it," she said. "We're in our thirties."

"I'm clean, I assume you are, whoever the hell you are, and I know how to use a condom. Does that about cover it?"

"Works for me. Now shut up and kiss me." He was standing next to the bed trying to get off his wet cutoffs. She crawled over to him and sat where she could reach him. Her hands explored his bare chest and anything that wasn't covered by the cutoffs, and a few things that were barely covered.

Then she removed the cutoffs herself. Then she put her mouth on him. Just a flicker, a quick, teasing tongue. He could handle this. Then she took him... deeper. He thought he would have to maybe stop her. He grabbed for the bedpost to balance himself. He thought how he didn't want to stop her, but he did. Then he stopped thinking.

"Augh,
you are so .. . naughty!"

"I see how much that's bothering you," she whispered against him, taking pause.

He needed to take control here, or he wouldn't last ten minutes. He pushed her backward onto the bed, leaving her legs dangling over the side, then just dove between her legs, burying his mouth against the fabric of her suit. He breathed his hot breath on her and she moaned his name. He pushed the fabric aside and slid his thumb into her, then covered her with his mouth. She moaned again, and he felt her hard, throbbing reaction against his tongue. Her body convulsed against his thumb repeatedly.

"Oh oh
ohhhhhhhhhhh,"
she moaned.

He didn't stop but moved so slightly and gently that she rose back up to the top and exploded again. My God, she was quick and responsive and wildly wet beneath his hands and mouth. He moved up her body with his mouth sliding against the fabric, then just rested his insane erection next to the hot fire that burned between her legs, without entering her. This took quite a bit of maneuvering. She squirmed against him like a wildcat and pressed him into her until he knew he couldn't play this game anymore. She was too hot to handle. He'd definitely ignited a spark in Miss Jillian Tompkins, and now he had a full-blown fire on his hands.

He got up and grabbed the condom he'd managed to bring with him just on the off chance she

needed more than her cupboards painted. There was one small lamp beside the bed, and he turned it on. The light was soft, and he could look at her.

He started by unpeeling her swimsuit off her. She lay naked in the lamplight with only one thing on her mind. You just had to love a woman like that. She groaned waiting the two seconds for him, and she made strange animal noises.

He couldn't manage to get the damn thing on before she flipped the whole game again and there she was, torturing him, with her mouth traveling everywhere. She was just so, so ready.

He ran his hand over her dark, silky hair, gently, lovingly, letting his eyes close and her mouth make him lose his mind. He wasn't long for this world. He was in the outer limits already.

When she sort of figured that out, she stood up slowly, kissed him with that mouth, and felt every inch of him with her smooth hands.

"You are so, so delicious. Please have me now, please," she teased her mouth over his ear and begged him. He put his arms around her and lowered her to the bed.

He felt the warmth of her desire beneath him. He barely had time to slip on the condom before she guided him down into her deep and slippery heaven. Her legs arched against his hips, and he moved so deliberately into her that she climaxed.

He felt so primal with her—so completely in

tune. He slowed everything down and moved his gaze over her face, kissing each corner of her lips, her eyes, and her forehead. She twisted under him with tiny, little twists of movement that drove him completely wild and made the buildup of heat between them become more than he could stand.

Or could he? He tried. He moved her, flipped her, so he was leaning against the headboard, with a pillow behind him. She had positioned herself around him and straddled his lap. Oh my God, she felt so good, and he could reach his mouth to her breasts, and she could move in that crazy way, and he just couldn't take any more and she knew that too, so she got very jungle animal on him and drowned him in hard, deep movements that made her nipple hard as a rock in his mouth.

Then the juicy sweetness of her just spilled all over him like hot coffee, and he just... exploded— yelled—screamed out her name—"Oh, oh,
Jillian."

And so did she. She screamed
"Dean,"
then started laughing, and she fell against him and the throbbing between them was so amazing that he couldn't tell which one of them was throbbing.

It took him a minute to recover, and then, being a guy, he wondered why she had laughed and hoped it wasn't anything he'd done, but it made him laugh, too, because it was infectious.

"What the hell is so funny?"

"I don't know. I guess I just feel so
good,"
she giggled.

"I'm glad you feel good. Damn, woman, you are one amazing lover." He talked softly in her ear. He moved her to a more comfortable reclining position on the blanket beneath them. He pulled her close to him and lay on his side, facing her, balanced on his elbow.

"When you came, that was the first time you said my name." She teased his hair and ran her fingers over his lips. "My, my, you are good, Dean. You are ... so
damn
good."

"Thank you,
Jillian
—is it Jill sometimes?"

"It is Jillian and sometimes Jilly to people who want to remind me I was once a kid."

"Dean Wakefield, nice to have you." He shook her hand.

"Sounds like a famous artist."

"Would you like to see my sculptures?"

"Great line. Someone should do
you,
your body is a masterpiece."

"Geez, Miss Jilly, you're going to make me get a big head."

"I think that could happen in another hour or so." She skimmed over his resting man goodies, and they made a little jump of recognition. Sometimes they seem to have a mind of their own, those parts.

The moonlight from outside came through the bedroom window and danced over their bodies. She watched him with her blue eyes that just a few minutes ago had been filled with that look—

that vacant, pleasured look that he loved seeing on her now.

They lay like that for the better part of an hour, talking, and he learned the twist of fate that had brought her to his little town in the Northwest. Very interesting. Very strange, he thought. But obviously he wasn't going to be courted and prepped for the twin sister. He had found his partner in this chess game. Now he'd just have to see how it played out.

¹⁶

Double Trouble

Gloria Kissinger was enough of a politician to know that her moment was close at hand. When her pal Virginia in human resources had given her the heads up about Jackson requesting Jillian Tompkins's personnel file first thing in the morning, she'd known this was it. Showtime. Pay dirt. Revenge was hers.

Dear Virgi was another Jackson cast-off, and she was more than willing to rattle his chains. As a matter of fact, Gloria had quite an underground alliance in the former dates and playmates of Jackson Hawks, in and out of Pitman Inc.

Just goes to show that old saying was true: Don't date where you eat. Well, her cleaned-up version anyhow. A lady doesn't talk trash talk. And she was a lady.

Gloria felt quite sure and extremely excited to know that her moment was at hand. One thing, among many, that she knew about Jackson was that he detested dishonesty and lying. He'd fired someone flat-out at a meeting for trying to lie their way out of a mistake. His motto was that a person should stand up and take the consequences of his or her mistakes like a man—or a woman, for that matter. Anything else was a fatal character flaw in his opinion. He'd said as much in meetings. He didn't care about mistakes, just owning up to them. Gloria thought that was one of Jackson's most honorable traits, among many he possessed.

She sat back in her cubicle in the accounting area, which they shared with some of the data entry girls. There were a few girls here that Jackson had toyed with and left brokenhearted. One-date girls. Girls who wouldn't mind seeing Jackson get a shock. Maybe he'd stop being so arrogant if he knew he was being fooled but good by Jillian Tompkins's twin sister, Jana Lee Stivers.

An MBA from UCLA, an undergrad degree in accounting from University of Washington and UCLA, Jillian Tompkins certainly had credentials. No wonder his father had hired her to be the comptroller for Pitman Toys. Jackson sat back in his office chair and had another gulp of coffee. Something was nagging at him.

Everything he read about Jillian said that she was a whiz with numbers. He'd known women like that; there were lots working right here. As a matter of fact, he could divide up all the women he'd ever dated or met into two categories: left-brain math whizzes and right-brain creative types. If there was one thing Jackson knew, it was women.

So how come Miss UCLA accounting degree was so good with new toy ideas and suddenly could create amazing drawings and brainstorm costume design with the design department?

He'd thought about her all weekend, and even discussed her with his brother, Marcus. They'd had a great dinner Saturday night and played soccer with the boys until they'd all dropped from exhaustion. He'd actually invited her along, but she'd declined. She was good at that.

Marcus said she sounded delightful and mentioned that she was the first woman Jackson had actually
talked
about.

Jackson knew she was special. Even their not-so-perfect dinner date had been above average. She listened to him, and they had fun, but he still couldn't break through to her heart. It was like she was holding a part of herself back from him.

And what woman shouldn't? She probably knew his reputation well. It would take some time to win her heart. It was up to him to admit his mistakes and prove to her he was sincere. Was he sin-

cere? What was it about Jillian Tompkins that had him so tied up in knots?

Jackson stuck Ms. Tompkins's personnel file in a drawer and tried to focus on other things besides the way her hair flipped up around her ear in a smooth, sexy line.

Jana Lee shut herself up in her office and told Oliver to hold all her calls. She'd only glanced at the beautiful summer bouquet of flowers Jackson had sent over this morning. She'd admire them later. This whole Jackson thing was driving her nuts, and the fact that she hadn't been able to reach Jillian on the phone all weekend had her completely freaked out.

She hurried behind the desk and auto-dialed her house in Washington. Surely whatever Jillian had been up to all weekend, she'd be back in the house today. It was early too; she'd probably be asleep. Jana Lee drummed the desk with her newly painted fingernails while the phone rang and rang. Oliver had made her sit still and have a mini-manicure before her date. She stopped drumming and gazed at the warm orange-tangerine color.

"Hello?" Jillian's voice was on the other end of the phone. Thank God.

"Jillian, it's Jana Lee. Where the
hell
have you been?" Like they didn't know each other's voices.

"Why, is something wrong? I FedExed those papers back to you. They should be there already."

"No, no, it's not the papers," Jana Lee sighed. "Sorry. I just. I don't know. I had something to talk to you about. And I was worried."

"Take a deep breath. I'm in good hands."

Then Jana Lee heard it—a
most
amazing sound. Her sister, Jillian Tompkins, giggled. Jillian did
not
giggle. "What's going on?" Jana Lee asked.

"Oh, nothing, Carly's helping me paint stuff, and I've sort of taken up with the handyman." There it was again, the sound of Jillian giggling. This time a groan went with it, and Jana Lee heard a slap.

"You
what?"
Jana Lee demanded. "Is he like ... in bed with you?"

"Sort of."

"Where is my impressionable fifteen-year-old daughter?"

"She spent the weekend with Ashley and Bri-anna. Apparently Ashley's folks have a boat and they're motoring around the sound having a great old time. She'll be back at noon today."

"Carly on a boat?" Jana Lee felt her mothering instincts kick in. Danger: boats, water, boys, summer, beer, sex—that sort of thing.

"She's
fine,
loosen up, sis. Carly is a great kid. I'd know if she was trying to pull the wool over your eyes. I wasn't exactly an angel in high school, you know," Jillian kidded.

"I know, I just worry. It's my job."

"Not this week, this week your job is to be me. Tell me that job is going well. Don't tell me anything else. I don't want to think about anything else today."

"I'm holding my own." Jana Lee fidgeted with a letter opener. "And I've been avoiding Jackson."

"Why?" Jillian sounded surprised.

"Well, I can't just lie to the man—it's cruel. The less I see of him the better. I've painted myself in a corner, that's for sure."

"Listen, sis, I don't know why I haven't said this before, I guess I'm just selfish. Once I'm back, maybe we could somehow get you out of this mess with him and you and he could start over. Like . . . when Barbara Stanwyck comes back and marries the guy she conned in the first place in
The Lady Eve,
you know?" Jillian said.

"I don't remember that movie, and this is real life." Jana Lee felt herself choke up as she was talking. Not until this very moment had she realized what she'd done. Any chance she might have imagined with Jackson was absolutely out of the question. She could never tell him what she'd done; he'd never understand. Ever. The whole thing was insane anyway. And she was going home in five days, and that was that. "I have to go, Jilly, tell Carly to call me."

"Okay, hon. And don't worry about Jackson, he's a hound dog anyway, he'd have dumped you before the week was out."

"Thanks," Jana Lee said.

"You
know
what I mean, he's a cad!"

"He's a cad. Okay, Jill, I've got work to do. We'll talk soon." Jana Lee said good-bye and hung up the phone. There was only one good thing about the conversation she'd just had, and that was that her sister had turned out to be better than fine, so her worry over Jillian's mental health was relieved for now. And the fact that Jilly had taken up with this guy Dean actually sounded good.

Jana Lee picked up the letter opener and stabbed the blotter a few times, making dents in the paper portion till they looked like chicken tracks. She'd been such an idiot. Why was she so foolish about love? She was just a mom from Washington, not some smart city girl who knew her way around a man like Jackson.

She'd gotten lucky with Bill, and despite the fact that he'd probably been her rebound guy from Elliot, it had worked out between them. She teared up thinking of the loss she'd suffered when Bill had died. Not just the loss of her husband but the loss of her ideas about life as well. She was completely adrift. The tidy package that had come with Bill had been destroyed.

She put her head on her arms. What would she do when she got back home—slip into the same fog she'd been living in for two years? Was Jackson going to ride up to her house on Seabridge

Bay in his limo and whisk her away? Then there was the little matter of a teenage daughter.