What Janie Wants (16 page)

Every muscle wrenched tight and pleasure speared from his groin to the ends of hair. His cock jerked and flexed inside her, filling her. Marking her. Claiming her.

His.

He covered her back with his chest, hips rocking against hers as they leveled off. Their skin was slippery with sweat and her heartbeat reverberated in a rhythm similar to his. He cupped her mound and reveled in the slick glide of his release against her swollen lips. She couldn’t change her mind. He wouldn’t let her. No way was he letting her run.

Janie wiggled her toes, and the dried sand from her walk along the beach with Zade crumbled to the lounger cushion. The only place bearable in the three o’clock heat was napping in an air-conditioned room, in the water, or beachside and in the shade, like she was right now.

Only one more full day before time to head home, and most of it without Zade since his flight left at some insane hour the next morning.

Funny. She’d imagined coming here, isolating herself from humanity, and making peace with the prospect of a lonely future. Now she couldn’t imagine being here without Zade, didn’t want the quiet, and was entertaining the exact opposite of an anticlimactic life. Destiny just kept doling out surprises.

Zade stretched in the lounger beside her and let out an indelicate man-yawn. He took advantage of the nearly non-existent space between their chairs and slid his leg closer to hers, knocking more sand to the cushion with his none-to-subtle game of footsie. “Thought you were going to take a nap.”

Oh, that voice. The just woken, sleep-sexy voice. Deep and a little gravelly. Intimate because the only time she heard it was first thing in the morning after snuggling with him all night. She could have more of that. Assuming she’d pull her big girl panties up long enough to glom onto it. “My mind was too busy.”

“
Mmmm.” He rolled to his side and lifted her chair back enough to unhinge the lever propping her up.

“
What are you doing?”

“
Helping.” He eased the top half down to match his lounger’s supine position. Reaching across her, he grabbed the side of her chair and tugged so the two were flush, then wrapped her up, their legs tangled and his torso perpendicular with hers. “Figured a little anchor for those thoughts of yours might be in order.”

“
But what if I don’t want to lie down?”

One of his arms rested across her chest, his hand idly stroking her shoulder. He slid it up toward her neck and traced her jawline with his thumb. “Then I’d find another way to anchor you. Whatever it takes.”

This was what she wanted for her kids. Partners who looked out for them and weren’t so strung up in their own heads, they never bothered to care for anyone else. How ironic that Zade was offering her that very thing and she couldn’t seem to find the courage to dive in headfirst.

He nuzzled the side of her neck, comforting more than seductive. “You want to talk about it?”

There it was again. Thoughtful and pragmatic, not to mention off the charts sexy. If she was seriously going to consider a relationship with this man, she’d be smart to talk to him and see how well they worked through issues.

A laugh huffed out of her strong enough to jostle his arm on her chest. “Just wrapping my head around the word relationship after ending a twenty-two year marriage is challenging enough. Imagining how we’d face one as unconventional as ours has me in a mind freeze.”

“
So, we try it on. Talk through some scenarios.” He propped himself up on an elbow and smoothed a stray lock of hair off her neck. “Shoot. Give me one.”

“
Okay.” Didn’t it figure? She’d had one thought after another ping around her head for the last hour. Now when she needed one, not a damned one poked its head up. “How about if we start on your side?”

“
Like?”

“
I don’t know. I guess I’d like an idea of what your life is like away from here. Do you work a lot? Volunteer? Go to a lot of parties?”

“
Parties?”

“
Yeah.” She shrugged. It seemed a silly question, now that she’d said it out loud. “Every time Thomas comes home from college he heads out to one party or another. You might have five years on him, but you’re still in the same age bracket.”

“
I guess I get together with friends now and then, yeah.”

“
So what are they like?” she said. “Is it like the pool party yesterday?”

“
Did it seem like my kind of scene?”

Attire and demeanor wise, no. He’d been more of a casual professional, where they’d been carefree tank tops and bikinis. He’d kept to the less boisterous tables and quite literally carted her out of the chaos as fast as he could. “No, but you were friends with them before I showed up. I assumed that might be how your life is at home.”

He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes.

Seriously? How could he not get it? “You were playing football, remember? My knee, your nuts?”

He smiled wide and fast, almost as blinding as the sun flashing off the rippling water in the cove. “Babe, that was more man code, boredom, and sucking up for Arlo than my idea of a good time. Never thought I’d say I was glad a woman busted my balls, but in this case, best accident ever.” He leaned in and brushed his lips against hers.

After another considering smile, he rolled to his back beside her and laced his hands behind his head. “What else you got?”

Okay. So, no crazy
Animal House
type parties on the agenda for the near future. That was promising. And while Devin and the rest of his pals hadn’t been her cup of tea, they’d been pretty accepting of her. Somehow she didn’t see the people in her circles being quite so understanding. Did she really want people in her life who judged her on such a shallow basis?

“
Scares me when you pucker your mouth up like that.” He went back to playing footsie with her.

“
I have no idea how the people in my life are going to respond to the concept of me dating a younger man.” She rolled to her side. “Do you still call it dating? Is that what we’d be doing?”

His lips lifted in a lazy, almost devious grin and his eyelids grew heavy. “We’d be in a relationship. A monogamous one. We’d get to know each other. Do what couples do.”

“
More than just sex?”

He unwound one arm and ran his knuckles up and down her bicep. “How much of our time this week was sex?”

“
Nights mostly.”

“
Right. I spent my days with you too. Not just to get to the nights, but to get to you.” The steady up and down of his hand hesitated. “The first time I picked up a camera and took a shot, a whole new dimension opened up in my life. It was there all the time, I just didn’t know it. Once I felt it, I wanted more.” He touched her cheek. “Meeting you? Same thing.”

Her stomach did a triple flip and at least half of her brain short-circuited.

“
Not gonna lie, though.” His knuckles grazed the side of her breast, a tiny gesture no one else would notice, but that sparked all kinds of attention from the nerve endings beneath his touch. “I’m equally fond of the time when there’s little to no clothing involved and I’m buried balls deep in your hot pussy.”

And there went the rest of her brain, the bulk of her blood rushing to aid and abet the growing ache between her legs. “You’re naughty,” she whispered.

He winked and put his hand back behind his head in a pleased-with-himself posture. “Just being honest.”

Her stomach grumbled embarrassingly loud.

Zade’s sharp laughter rang out behind it, echoing through the cove. “Apparently, I’m giving you a workout too. We just ate three hours ago.”

“
Yes, but you ate enough for three of us. I ate enough for half of me and I’m still burning calories from last night.”

Still laughing, but far more delicately than before, he stood and shook out his towel. “Pack up your stuff.”

“
What? Why?”

“
Because I gotta feed my woman if she’s gonna keep up until my flight leaves.” He looped the towel around his neck and stepped into his flip-flops. “Besides, I wanna get those pics off my memory card and onto a flash drive before tonight. Arlo’s got a computer I can use in the office. We’ll stop, transfer the pictures, and grab a quick snack to bring back here.”

She couldn’t move. Just spun the phrase round and round in her head. She was forty-years old, for crying out loud. Not sixteen.

He took two steps toward the bungalow, stopped and backtracked. “Something wrong?”

Not wrong. Not unless she considered the fluttering fanfare in her stomach to be a bad thing. She waved him toward the room. “No, I’m great.”
Liar.
“Grab your stuff and we’ll head up.”

The buzz from his possessive statement was still zipping through her bloodstream ten minutes later. Thank God, Arlo had fitted out the lobby with ceiling fans. No way could she fight the heat and the growing prospect of her future with Zade at the same time.

As they reached the front desk, he kissed her on the temple and unwound his fingers from hers. “Won’t take five minutes. You wanna hang up here with Arlo or come with me in the office?”

Two taxis pulled into the small circular drive. Arlo dodged back and forth behind the registration desk with a healthy flush on his face, checking in a decent size party.

“
I think I’m gonna need a few glasses of wine before I’m ready to see my big boudoir debut.” She smoothed her hand across his chest and kissed his cheek. So normal. Like an ordinary couple. “I’ll stay up here and see if I can’t find a way to help your uncle. He looks a little flustered, and more just pulled up.”

“
He’s got a secret stash of those mini-sized cokes in the fridge. You want one?” he said over his shoulder as he ambled away.

“
Do you know how many calories are in those?”

He grinned and winked before he disappeared into the office.

Of course, he didn’t know how many calories were in them. He was twenty-six and had a metabolism to rival a dinosaur. Though if things kept up between them, her metabolism might pick up too.

The two new sets of guests had their suitcases out in front of the taxis and were paying their drivers. Yet again, the bellboy was nonexistent.

She couldn’t help Arlo much on the computer, but she could probably swing claim checks for the arriving guests’ bags and see if they wanted something to drink. She strode to the bell stand and rifled through the top drawer. Claim checks and pens. Voila.

She filled in the blanks for the couples, lugged their bags off to one side, and did the loopty-loop thing with the stretch tag around the handles. “If you’d like to have a seat in the lobby, your host will be with you as soon as he’s finished checking in the other guests.”

Zade’s voice cut across the room from behind her. “I’m almost done. I found some Gatorade, too. You want one of those?”

“
No thanks, sweetie. You finish up.” She refocused on the two couples and walked them to the cozy rattan seating arrangement with its teal and mango cushions. “Have you all been to Gypsy Cove before?”

“
No, it’s our first time,” one of the women said. She was about Janie’s age, maybe five years older, but had a hairstyle that made the age difference seem closer to ten or fifteen years apart. “I hear it’s a little different than the other resorts.”

A chuckle slipped out before she could check it. “Oh, it’s different for sure. But it’s lovely and the people who run it are wonderful.”

The woman laid a hand over her heart and lowered her voice. “I have to tell you. Your son is very attractive. You must be proud.”

“
My son?”

The lady straightened from her conspiratorial posture and beamed a brilliant smile, eyes locked over Janie’s shoulder.

Footsteps shuffled behind her.

Zade.

He cupped the back of her neck and pulled her around to face him. “Babe, wait ’til you see those pictures. They’re amazing.” He kissed her. A slow, perfect mesh of their lips, warm and intimate. Wiping away the world in one lingering touch. He eased away, his eyes heated, lifted his head and locked gazes with the people behind her. “Something wrong?”