Treasure on Lilac Lane: A Jewell Cove Novel (17 page)

He raised an eyebrow. “Let me check my social calendar,” he joked. His eyes narrowed a little. “Are you sure this is a good idea, Jess?”

“Why not? We’re friends, aren’t we?”

Right. Just friends. So why didn’t it feel that way?

“Friends,” he said, and shrugged. “I guess I could. You’re probably a better cook than I am.”

She grinned. “Let me close up, then. I’ll be right back.”

It only took a moment to lock the door and turn over the sign. Jess hit the switches and the store went dark, lit only by the shadowy light from the windows. This was dinner with a friend. It was not a date. So why did it feel like one?

Because of that stupid kiss. Because while neither of them wanted to admit it, there was something simmering between them. She’d backed off so many times where Rick was concerned. She’d been downright rude to hide how she really felt. So how far was she willing to let things go?

It was just pasta. It would be fine.

Rick was puzzling over a box of items when she went back to the workroom. “This looks interesting,” he commented, sorting through the supplies. “Wood circles, cloth, ribbon, clothespins. What are you making with this?”

Jess smiled, happy to be diverted from her train of thought. “On the Saturday of the festival, I’m holding a kid’s craft class in the afternoon.” She opened the drawer underneath the box and took out a completed item. “It’s a wish list ribbon. You decorate the disk, then glue the ribbon to the back and put on a magnet. Each child will get six clothespins to decorate. Then they cut out a picture of what they want for Christmas, or write it down, and clip it on the ribbon. Cute, right?”

“Definitely cute.”

“I’ll run the class while Tessa and my mom man the store. It’ll be a bananas day, but worth it.” She held out a hand. “You want to come through? If you don’t mind waiting for me to cook, that is.”

“I get to see the inner sanctum?”

His words made her even more nervous. It had been a long time since she’d brought a date through to her apartment. The past few years she’d gone out with a few nice men, but things had only progressed so far when she’d broken it off. It hadn’t been right …

As much as she told herself this wasn’t a date, it kind of was. They weren’t family. They’d kissed, for God’s sake. They were both single. And dammit all, they were both aware of something buzzing between them. She was sure of it.

“It’s just a loft. Not much to it.”

But she found herself wondering what he thought as he stepped inside her private quarters of the enormous house. It looked far cheerier in the sunlight, but today the gray weather had followed them inside, making it dull and dreary. She turned on a lamp, chasing out the dimness with a soft, inviting glow. For autumn she’d tucked away a lot of the aqua and apricot accents and replaced them with warmer tones of dark red and gold, like the soft throw draped over the back of the sofa, assorted candles, and a few throw pillows.

“Nice place,” he said, directly behind her. Close enough that she jumped a little at his nearness and goose bumps popped out over her skin—the good kind, too. She had to stop being quite so aware.

“Thanks.”

“It’s very you, Jess. Comfortable and classy. A bit of peace in a wild sea.” He walked to the windows and looked out. “God, what a view. It’s like having the ocean at your fingertips. She’s a mean mistress today, isn’t she?”

The dingy waves were tipped with whitecaps. It would be wild outside the shelter of the cove. “My father used to say that,” Jess answered softly.

He turned around. “You still miss him, don’t you?”

She nodded. “Of course I do. Not like I did. It’s more fond memories now. It’ll be that way for you, too. It takes a while.”

“The house is so quiet without my mom. I keep expecting her to walk in the door and read me the riot act for leaving my clothes on the floor. How ridiculous is that? I haven’t lived at home since I was twenty.”

“When it’s final, there’s no turning back,” she replied. “No do-overs or fixes. It can be tough to accept.”

“Did you have regrets?” Rick held her gaze and she was caught staring into the depths, wondering how they managed to get from sniping at each other to sharing intimate details in only a matter of weeks. The truth was, she’d never hated him. Been scared for him, yes. Disapproved of how he handled things? Definitely. But never hated. They went too far back for that. And she was starting to realize that she’d been so very angry because she cared about him more than she should.

“I made lots of mistakes,” she admitted. “Josh was oldest and the only son. Sarah was the baby of the family. It seemed everyone worried about them a lot. I just kind of held back at first, happy to be off everyone’s radar. But then I missed my dad and I’d held my grief in for so long I didn’t know how to talk about it. So I looked for attention. Not all of it was good attention, either.”

Indeed not. Her marks had started slipping. She’d changed how she dressed and hung out with different people. Her father’s death had taken what would have been normal teenage angst and amped it up a notch … or three.

The room suddenly seemed smaller, the air thinner. Where were they going with this?

“And then what happened?”

They both knew what happened.

“Mike,” he said darkly.

The wind was picking up and the rain spattered against the wide windows, sounding like little grains of sand hitting the glass.

And still Rick’s dark eyes held hers, tethering them together even though he was in front of the window and she was beside the sofa. She was tempted. So tempted.

Instead she forced herself to turn away. “It’s cold in here. I’m going to build a fire.”

She grabbed some kindling from beside the fireplace and in seconds it caught, the flames snapping and leaping behind the screen. Her heart felt like it was going to hammer its way out of her chest.
Dinner my ass,
she thought. She’d invited him up here but the last thing on her mind right now was dinner. Time with him was what she wanted. What she’d been wanting for weeks now. Time to explore what might be happening between them, away from the eyes of any of their friends or family. It scared her to death but it was exciting, too. He’d changed so much this fall, pulled himself together, and she’d waited a long, long time to have this feeling again.

He appeared beside her, took a log from the stack, and put it on top of the kindling. Then another. The licking flames caught the wood, curling the bark of the birch log with a snap.

His hand—his prosthetic—cupped her elbow and urged her to her feet, and when she stood up he turned her to face him.

“If you don’t want this, tell me now.”

Her tongue was tied in too many knots to reply.

His right hand slid to the base of her neck, beneath her hair. The move was slightly dominant but in a totally sexy way. Rick was a man who would take charge but never be about control.

As Jess’s breath caught in her throat, he pulled her closer, against his hard body, and stole all her thoughts as he kissed her.

C
HAPTER
13

This wasn’t a gentle kiss like before. There was no hesitancy, no caution, no testing the waters. It was full-on, lips and tongue, bodies pressed together and acknowledging a mutual need.

“Jess,” he murmured, sliding his lips down her jaw. “What are we doing, Jess?”

Neither of them really expected her to answer. Instead she just gloried in the liberating feeling of kissing him. Of being in his arms.

And the awesome realization that Rick—equally damaged and complicated Rick—was the one person who could finally make her feel this way. Charged. Excited. Yearning.

His left hand was against her lower back, holding her firmly against him while his right slid down over her ribs and over, just a little, so that his thumb caressed her nipple through her sweater. “Did you really ask me up here for dinner?” he whispered in her ear, making her shiver deliciously.

“Are you questioning my motives?” She might have sounded serious except the last word came out on a breathy sigh as his thumb flicked again.

“I’m absolutely questioning them,” he answered. “You say stop, I’ll stop. But Jess … God, I don’t want to.”

Brown eyes met blue. This was the moment, then. They could stop it right now and that would be the end of it. He was leaving it in her hands. She could walk away and not risk embarrassment or getting hurt or the million other things she was sure could go wrong. That was exactly what they’d agreed, wasn’t it?

Or she could put herself in the hands of the only person she’d come close to trusting. From the way his heart was beating against her palm and his zipper was pressed against her hip, she knew exactly where this was heading.

“I’m nervous,” she confessed. “There’s something different about what we have, you and me. I don’t want to mess that up…”

He lifted his left hand. “I don’t even know if I can brace myself up on this thing or not.” His lips thinned and he shook his head. “I’m nervous, too, you know.”

“You haven’t since…?”

“No,” he confirmed, “I haven’t.”

She let that thought settle. Dangerous, wild-card Rick Sullivan had been celibate for months. But he wanted to make love with her. To her. And she’d always wondered what it might have been like if they’d gone all the way on the beach that night. Now was her opportunity to find out. She meant it when she said the “what if” game was pointless. But how often did you get a second chance? What if she never got a third?

Jess slid her hand down the center of his chest, stood on her tiptoes just a little, and kissed him, a sweet, slow kiss that she hoped left him in no doubt of her answer. Then she took him by the hand and led him through to her bedroom, closing them in a cocoon of privacy where they could shut out the world.

Rick grabbed the hem of her sweater and pulled it over her head, leaving her standing in the semidarkness wearing nothing but her lace bra. More kisses followed after that; hot ones that he trailed over her cheeks, down her neck, along the tender skin of her collarbone, his tongue dipping to trace the line of lace as her breath accelerated.

“Tell me if it’s too fast,” he said, his voice a husky rasp as he reached for the button of her jeans. “God, you are so beautiful, Jess. So beautiful.”

That he thought so sent a wave of pleasure over her. He pushed her jeans over her hips and she stepped out of them, stunningly aware that she was in front of Rick in her underwear. Maybe it was because she’d known him for years. Maybe it was the gentle heart she saw in his art that he kept hidden behind his tough-guy façade. Either way, Jess was beyond ready. It was time.

His fingers touched the scar on her belly and he pulled away, surprised.

“It’s a long story,” she whispered, chagrined that she’d forgotten about it. “Just ignore it, okay?” She reached out for the buttons on his shirt and undid them, one by one, hoping it was sufficient distraction.

“Jess,” he said quietly, putting his hand on her wrist before she could push the fabric off his shoulders. “There are scars.”

She kissed the side of his mouth. “We all have scars.”

But she wasn’t prepared for what she saw when she spread his shirt wide and slid it over his shoulders. It was far worse than the four-inch pink line on her abdomen. At least half a dozen jagged scars marked his torso from navel to shoulder, healed but uneven and seemingly random.

Her throat swelled. “What happened?”

“Shrapnel,” he answered briefly.

He’d told her once that he’d been in the hospital for more than his hand. Dear God, how much had he suffered?

She traced each mark with her finger, then leaned forward and kissed one gently. When she looked back up at him, his jaw was tense and his eyes were closed.

“You okay?”

His lashes fluttered. “I’m okay. Your fingers feel good.”

So she ran her fingertips over the skin of his chest, his shoulders, his strong back. It was so warm, so firm and their bodies brushed together, making all her nerve endings come alive. His lips grazed the curve of her neck and she gasped. She wasn’t just ready emotionally to take this step. Her body was speaking loud and clear.

She unbuttoned his jeans and within seconds they were both standing beside her bed dressed in nothing more than their underwear, breathing hard.

Jess reached behind her back and undid the clasp of her bra, letting it slip down her arms and to the floor. Rick’s eyes darkened to almost black, and she held his gaze, the connection between them so strong it seemed as though they must already be touching.

“I don’t have protection,” he said hoarsely.

She hesitated for a minute and counted days in her head. “It’s the wrong time in my cycle,” she said, her voice shaking. “We’ll be okay.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. I don’t want to wait.” She reached for his hand and placed it on her breast. “Don’t make me wait.”

He didn’t. They slid onto the bed and Rick wasted no time slipping her panties over her hips. The duvet was soft beneath her and she closed her eyes, luxuriating in the feel of his lips on her skin, touching her in sensitive spots until she thought she could barely stand it. She was on fire by the time he slipped off his underwear and settled himself above her.

“Open your eyes,” he commanded, and she did, to find his face close to hers. A shadow of stubble roughened his jaw and she thrilled all over again to see how his pupils widened as she gave her hips an experimental grind against him. He braced himself on his right hand and left elbow, and she reached down between them and guided him home.

“Mmmmm,” she hummed. Rick began moving slowly inside her before he groaned quietly into her neck, his control snapping as he began to push harder, faster. Oh God, she’d missed this. Missed the rush, missed the intimacy, missed the connection with another human being. This was better than she ever remembered—pure, uncomplicated. She closed her eyes and let herself feel, get swept away by the sensations washing over her. The feel of his body against hers, the sound of his breathing, the taste of salt on her tongue when she kissed his shoulder.