Wild Irish (Book 1 of the Weldon Series) (4 page)

He smelled faintly of aftershave and some indefinable, but intriguing scent. His body, strong and sure, eased around hers, a balm to her chaffed emotions. Yet before she could lose herself in him completely, he eased back and stared hard at her. Emotion and desire collided in her heart, springing tears to her eyes. "Get me out of here, please," she whispered.

Cool cynicism descended into the heat of his gaze. "So that's your angle. You need a hero, even if it's a Weldon." Glancing up at the reporters around them, he cursed. "Well, your highness, these days I charge for services rendered, and I expect to get paid." He scooped her into his arms and rammed through the reporters. “I’ll be your hero for a price.”

"What do you mean by that?" she asked, struggling in his arms as he headed to the parking lot. Reporters followed.

Jesse stopped a moment to meet her gaze. A sensual promise curved his lips. “We’ll take care of the details later. The choice is yours, Lexi. Me or the sharks following us?"

"You," she said, wondering if she'd just made a deal with the devil in Georgia.

I made the wrong choice,
Alexi thought, surprised she was still alive to regret her decision as Jesse whipped around two curves and flew down a dirt road, losing sight of the last reporter on their tail. If she could get her eyes back into their sockets, she'd probably be more relieved than she thought possible, considering the morning's events and her current circumstances. Thirty hair-raising minutes had just passed during which Jesse had pulled every evasive maneuver known to man as he lost the reporters in a
maze
of country roads so remote, it’d take the gossip hounds a week to get back.

And it would take a week for her to regain her senses.

“
Do you do this often?” Her voice barely squeaked past her heart lodged in her throat.

"Steal almost virgins from weddings?" He lifted a suggestive brow. “As often as I can.”

Heat flushed her cheeks. “I’m talking about the James Bond routine.”

“
Which one? Bond was noted for his smooth moves.”

“
What?”

“
Which of Bond’s routines are
you
referring to? He was quite the lady’s man.”

She found the wits to shake her head. “His evasive abilities. Not his copulative.”

“
Then that’s what I was talking about, too," he said.

The look in his eyes said otherwise, but she let the subject of James Bond's sex life drop and opened her door, hoping for a breath of cooler air. It was humiliating how she suddenly felt seventeen again and nervous.

“
Already bailing out on our deal?”

She looked up, surprised to hear a thread of disdain in his voice. “What do you mean?”

Jesse opened his door and a breeze swept though the car, carrying the scents of warm, wet grass and sweet wildflowers from the field beside them. It was then that she realized it had stopped raining at some point during their escape.

She thought he wasn’t going to answer her, but then he turned her way, and cupped her chin. “Afraid the price tag for your rescue might be too high?” He brushed his thumb along her bottom lip, making her insides clench and her breath catch. Her lips parted for the kiss that felt but a whisper away as he leaned towards her.

What in the hell are you doing?
Jesse asked himself.
Playing the fool. Again.
He stared into her eyes and slid his finger to the pearls at her throat. “I see your father got these fixed."

She stiffened. The desire darkening her green eyes dimmed, but she didn’t pull away from him, which forced him to wrestle harder with his need. "Aren't you afraid I'm going to try to rip them off again?"

Jesse thought he saw a flash of pain in her eyes before she looked away. She visibly swallowed, making him feel guilty. Hell, you’d have thought she was the one who had suffered.

"You made a mistake. I won’t hold it against you."

He’d made the mistake? Jesse sat back in his seat. "That’s mighty fine of you not to hold a grudge. What part did you play in framing me?"

She jerked her gaze his way, her shock evident. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about getting invited by you to your bedroom. I'm talking about getting knocked out when I left your bedroom. I'm talking about waking up with those pearls scattered under me and the police standing over me. I’m talking about you not coming out of your room to explain why I was in your house. I'm talking about jail for grand larceny or ship out to the marines by daybreak. That's what I'm talking about."

Her jaw dropped. “You’re serious aren’t you? My God. I had no idea.” She reached to touch him, but he leaned back, distancing himself from her innocent eyes and temptress mouth. Innocent? Then why didn’t she come forward and confess to inviting him to her bedroom? “Jesse?” she said softly.

Could she be telling the truth? Did he really want to know? If she were guiltless then he’d have more to deal with. Resisting her now was hard enough. Hell. “Nothing, I’m sorry I brought it up.” He turned to slide out of the car, but she grabbed his arm, forcing him to look at her. That was when he saw the diamond ring on her finger. The damn rock seemed to be as big as brick and crashed right between them, its size and significance widening the gap between them.

She sat there in all her expensive, creamy finery like a Cinderella knocked out of Disneyland, her green eyes wide and tragic, her brow creased, and her mouth parted in surprise. “You’re saying my family committed a crime to run you off?”

He shrugged off her hand. “Maybe. Hell, I don’t know what I’m saying. It’s twelve years too late for anything to be done. And as you claim, you don’t know anything.”

She glared at him, eyes sparking. “I know that one minute I thought you were sleeping beside me and the next minute, my grandmother and the police were standing by my bed. Since my clothes were scattered on the floor and I was naked under the covers, I didn’t jump out of bed. I was told to stay put until my father arrived. I know how humiliating it was to lay there and wait. I know now humiliating it was for my father to come into the room and tell me that you had used me. I know the shame and the pain of that.”

He didn’t want to hear this, to know she’d been as much a victim as he. “You believed me to be guilty readily enough.”

“What was I supposed to do? I was seventeen years old. You never tried to contact me and let me know differently.”

Hell, he didn’t want to think that maybe he’d had more responsibility in the situation than he thought. “As you said, it’s water under the bridge. Let’s walk.” He got out and shut his door, feeling the need to move from the close confines of the car and put distance between him and her seductive mouth.

Alexi swung her legs out of the car, trying to gather up the hindering layers of silk and lace. “You can’t do that,” she yelled at Jesse, balancing on her heels. He ignored her; his long stride eating up the distance to the creek.

“
You can’t drop a bomb and march away.” She hurried after him over the uneven, rocky ground, wishing she had something to throw at him. Stumbling, she managed to get a rock inside her shoe and tried to fish it out. “Ouch, Darn it, Jesse. This strong silent stuff is—” She swallowed her words as he swept her off her feet and she found herself staring into his eyes.

“
Is what?” He carried her as if she were a feather.

She forgot what she had been about to say as the sensual pull of his nearness sucked her mind blank. “Is not acceptable,” she managed to say primly when she’d gathered her wits.

“
Have you ever cursed?” he asked dryly.

“
Well, yes.”

“
What’s the worst you’ve ever said?”

For the life of her she couldn’t think of a thing.

“
Try bullshit for starters. Listen, Lexi, what in the hell can either of us do about what happened? I’m not about to file criminal charges against your father, Savannah’s most prosperous shipping tycoon. I’m back in Savannah to make the Weldon name a name to be respected not laughed at. And as for what you went though, all I can say is that what you thought happened didn’t. I was with you that night because, like a fool, I couldn’t stay away from you and your sinner’s mouth and for no other reason.”

Alexi blinked as her blood rushed, her breath caught, and her erogenous zones went into meltdown. “Sinner’s mouth?”

Jesse focused on her mouth. “Let me reword that. A mouth made for sin.”

A wave of his spicy aftershave washed over her like a heady aphrodisiac. He set her on a large boulder by the creek and she teetered, feeling like a paper towel adrift in the ocean, unable to absorb all of the emotions tossing around inside.

He grabbed her arm to steady her. “Are you all right?”

Somehow she straightened her shoulders and put her mouth into motion, her mouth that was made for sin…she didn’t need to go there. Not now. “Yes, I’m, uh, fine.” She focused on the rock digging into her foot, anything to bring her back to reality. “Except for my foot. What are we doing here?”

“
Creek sitting. Sit down and I’ll fish the rock out.”

Sit by a creek? She'd never done it. She’d sat by fountains at garden parties, but a creek? Given the way she was dressed, creek sitting seemed beyond the scope of her ability. She frowned at the boulder beneath her. “How?”

“
Bend your knees, plant your butt, and give me your foot.”

“
It’s dirty.”

“
So?”

“
So Einstein, my dress will get dirty.”

“
Far be it for me to point out that it’s already ripped and stained. You plan on using it again? Or perhaps, going back and marrying the right-side-of-the-tracks golden boy?”

“
No. Never.” Alexi kneeled and tried to sit as lady-like as she could. Jesse motioned for her foot, forcing her to wrestle with yards of material to put her foot in his hand. The warmth of his palm upon her heel sent a pulsing tingle up her leg. He didn’t seem to be in any hurry to fish the rock from her shoe. But stood there, holding her leg, making her want things she didn’t dare explore, like his hand moving higher…

“
So who called off the wedding? You or him?”

“
Me. Roger’s family jewels liked the attention of several women at the same time.”

“
He’s a fool.”

“
Really? Isn’t multiple women every man’s fantasy?”

“
Not this man, I’m a one woman on one man kind of guy. Literally,” he added grinning.

She rolled her eyes. “Like I believe that.”

“
Honestly. There’s plenty of excitement to be found in one woman’s arms at a time. A real man knows how to generate it. Roger’s deeds don’t seem to have you broken hearted.”

Alexi blinked and frowned. Where was all her angst and tears that had her running through the park? She couldn’t quite seem to grasp them at the moment and wondered if it weren’t the “Jesse Effect” that hindered her. “I’m shell shocked.”

“
More like shoe shocked—Damn, lady, don’t you have sense?”

Alexi frowned at her foot. “What’s wrong with my shoes?”

“
Wrong? They’re like skyscrapers. Hell, it's a wonder you didn't break your neck marching through the park.” Shaking his head, he unbuckled the ankle strap and slid her shoe off. A good size rock plopped to the ground and she sighed.

“
You’re making three inches sound like Mt. Everest.”

Jesse kept her foot captive and kneaded her bruised sole with his knuckles. “They’re completely impractical.”

Heavens, his touch did blissful things to her body. “But—”

“
Don’t get me wrong they’re great looking come-ons, I’ll take them in the bedroom anytime.” He slid a finger up her silk-stocking covered calf to the back of her knee, making a hot nerve in her stomach jump and tighten.

“
Come-ons,” she gasped and his gaze lifted from her leg to hers. Something elemental and sexual connected.

“
Come-ons. My bedroom anytime, Lexi. That’s a promise,” he said, scrambling her thoughts. She barely knew that he captured her other foot and stripped off that shoe, too.

His bedroom anytime. That’s a promise
. Her mind smoldered.

“
These doodads come off?”

“
What?”

“
The stockings. They’ll ruin if you don’t take them off.”

Take them off?
She fanned her face. The sun was much hotter all of a sudden. “Uh, yes. Would you turn around?”

“
Nope. As your rescuer, I get to watch.” He set her foot down and lightly traced her bottom lip with his finger. “Is that open mouth an invitation?”