Chapter Five
Tyler
He lifted his head, blue eyes dark with desire and emotion. Holding my gaze, he stroked a finger from my collarbone, down between my breasts to rest at my bra’s front clasp.
I couldn’t maintain that visual contact and turned my eyes aside. Concentrating on the veins in his forearm, I traced them with my gaze, from his wrist to his elbow and on up to his biceps.
He moved, brushing another one of those whispery kisses on my shoulder. The warmth of him, that simple touch, curled through me, so desire unfurled a tiny little pang in my belly. And panic, racing along my nerves.
“If it’s too much, tell me to stop.” He rasped the words over my skin.
This was already too much. He was steady, easy, and I was the problem, wrestling with the fear of trusting too much.
Of having that trust turned on me.
“Stop,” he whispered over my ear. “It’s just me. I’ll stop whenever you say.”
I shuddered, then swallowed, throat dry and achy. “It’s easier when it’s not slow.”
“The gentle scares you.”
I turned my head, catching that steady gaze, deep enough to lose – and maybe find – myself in. “I don’t know how to do that.”
One dark brow quirked, a sharp angle of surprised inquiry. “At all.”
“Not like this.” I swallowed again, desperate for moisture in my mouth. “With my friends. And Mama Nancy. Not with a man.”
He nodded, a slow movement like he was trying to understand. His brows dipped together into a considering frown. He glanced at the bed, then back at me. “Not sure I know how to shift gears now.”
My cheekbones burned. “Like I said, I’m not easy.”
“We’ll figure it out.” He shrugged, a loose roll of his shoulders.
What? Oh, I didn’t like this.
Lips quirked in a slight grin, he slid his arms about me. “Hey, I’m about to throw you on the bed.”
“Wait. What–”
But he was already lifting me. I squealed, and sure enough, he tossed me in the center of the mattress and came down to cage me, good humor twinkling in his blue eyes. “Okay, so nothing too slow or gentle. Wanna wrestle?”
“No.” I pushed at his chest. He was ridiculous – and solid as a rock. “I do not want to wrestle.”
“Spoilsport.” Rearing back, he unzipped his jeans. Anticipation fired off in my veins like fireworks, along with pleased gratitude that he’d found a way to get us back on an even keel.
He shoved down the denim and his boxer briefs, revealing muscled thighs. His erection strained toward his belly. I shimmied out of my own jeans and reached for him, pulling him down to the mattress.
Pushing at his shoulder until he stretched out on the bed, I straddled him and leaned forward for a carnal kiss, opening my mouth over his. A hand in my hair, he sat up to kiss me, taking the kiss deeper.
Planting my palm in the center of his chest, I gave a little shove, putting him on his back once more while I slid down his torso, kissing my way to his navel. His muscles jumped when I pressed my lips above the rough hair curling at his groin. Relief and desire twined in me. Lust I could do.
Lust was easy.
I closed my lips about him, and he groaned, burying both hands in my hair. Gentleness lay under the urgency of his grip.
Throat tight, I told myself the hot prickling behind my eyes had to do with stretching to take him deeper into my mouth.
And nothing to do with the gentle way he touched me.
Afterward, I lay in the circle of his arm, following the fascinating line of his abs with a fingertip. He threaded his fingers through my hair, massaging my scalp, and I closed my eyes, parsing out the warm sense of safety and security the simple caresses invoked.
Really, Colt had been the first longterm relationship I’d attempted.
Before him, there had been dates and hookups, but no commitment.
He’d looked safe and easy. It wasn’t his fault he turned out to be anything but.
Safe, maybe, because I never felt threatened with him, except by my own extreme reactions to his complexity.
He had not been a cuddler, at all, so this was new. I liked it, liked Jase, even if his low level obstinacy annoyed me to no end sometimes. But annoying wasn’t complicated. He said what he meant, meant what he said, and stuck by it. That was refreshing and absolutely what I needed.
He toyed with the ends of my hair where it brushed the top of my chest. “You call your mama Mama Nancy?”
Every piece of me tensed, and I forced the muscles to soften. “Yep. She adopted me. She’s not my real mama, but she’s my real mama.”
He was silent, body boneless in his satiated relaxation, simply stroking through my hair. But I knew he had questions. He studied me like a tractor manual. “You can ask.”
His snort puffed against my temple. “Not gonna probe your private shit. Figure you’ll tell me when you’re ready.”
I lifted my shoulders in a tiny shrug, my throat tight. “My real mama had problems. Like shouldn’t have had a baby problems.”
He flexed his arm to pull me tighter against him. I allowed myself to accept the closeness, his hard form along my side. The simple hug offered just enough without asking more than I could give.
“But she didn’t want anyone else to have me. I didn’t know my daddy, ever. He had issues from the military. I don’t know where he is.” The gaping hole of that yawned in my chest. Maybe it wasn’t his fault, maybe those things were bigger than he was, but he’d left me.
Abandoned me.
Jase brushed his lips over my forehead, and I pushed him back. “I don’t need your pity.”
He squeezed my hip, firm enough to be a slight warning. “That’s empathy, sugar dumpling.”
“What did you just call me?” I levered up on an elbow and glared.
Hair mussed because of my hands earlier, a hint of stubble darkening his rough-cut jaw, he grinned.
Shaking my head, I subsided into him. Sugar dumpling. He was lame as fuck.
“How long were you with her?”
“Until I was four. Then foster care, home to home to home.” I paused, pulling in a deep breath, holding it, releasing it, grounding myself in the popcorn swirls in the ceiling.
Right there was the hairline crack in the plaster.
I could look at that instead of the memories.
I’d gotten something out of the counseling Mama Nancy had insisted on.
I appreciated now that she hadn’t let me quit then.
“A group home when I was fifteen. That didn’t last long. ”
Silence blanketed us, broken by the clunking hum of the refrigerator from the kitchen, the hiss of air from the HVAC vents, his easy breathing. The weight of his hand at my hip was a comfort.
“Then I ended up with Mama Nancy. She’d gotten a divorce and was about to retire, and I guess she needed something to do.”
His surprised chuckle vibrated above my ear. I smiled into his chest.
“I thought maybe I’d just age out with her, but she wanted to adopt me. I met Maggie then, too, and Marilyn, so I kinda had sisters.”
“I’m glad you have them.” He traced a pattern at my waist. “Is she gonna like me?”
Rolling my eyes, I lifted to an elbow to pin him with a stern look. “I’m not stroking your ego.”
“It’s a valid question. What she thinks of me matters because you care what she thinks.”
I compressed my lips, imagining Mama Nancy’s reaction to him. She’d tried to tell me Colt wasn’t it, like maybe she’d seen something in him before I did. Now, I looked at Jase through her eyes. “She’ll probably love you.”
That slow grin stretched his mouth once more. I smacked his belly, hard enough to evoke a grimace in the place of that grin.
“Don’t be smug.”
“I can’t help my mama and daddy raised me right.” The teasing words emerged seconds before his eyes widened with horror, and his mouth went slack. “I’m–”
“Don’t.” I shook my head. “If I was mad because someone else had a good childhood, I’d be mad all the time. I’m glad you had great parents, glad whenever I meet someone with good parents, because no one deserves what I had.”
His jaw clenched under that tempting stubble. “Pisses me off you had a shitty childhood.”
Me, too, but I tried to move beyond the anger. “I got Mama Nancy out of the deal. She’s worth it.”
His features settled into that determined look I was beginning to know well. “I’m gonna be so good to you, sugar dumpling.”
I ignored the thrill of his vow and narrowed my eyes at the awful endearment. “That’s the worst pet name ever.”
With that wonderful grin, he rolled to loom over me, all broad shoulders and muscled arms. His hard thigh pressed between mine. My belly fluttered in response.
“I like sugar dumpling.” He dipped his head to bump his nose against mine. “Because you’re sweet and a little soft and–”
“Sweet?” I choked on a laugh, snaking my hands around his waist. He had these dimples above his ass, and I loved charting them. “And soft. You think I’m sweet and soft.”
He sobered, a serious expression that made me squirm because he saw too much – and liked what he saw. That look left me feeling naked. “I do.”
That held the sincerity of a vow, too, and I couldn’t hold that. Instead, I linked my hands at his nape and pulled his mouth down to mine, pulled us into the physical lust that I could hold.
“Thank you for calling Coney Ford.” I doodled a stylized heart on my desk pad. The day was slow, and I was bored out of my mind. “How can I direct your call?”
“Hey, sugar.” Jase’s deep voice filled my ear, and I smiled.
We didn’t talk much during the day – he worked hard and he knew I wasn’t supposed to be on my cell at work.
I leaned on my elbows, examining my nails.
I’d gone with a new enamel, a pale lavender-blue, and I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not.
I lowered my voice so the idle salespeople in their cubicles wouldn’t hear me. “What do you want?”
“Well, you, but we’re both at work.”
An irresistible smile curved my lips. He thought he was funny, but he wasn’t. He was so damn . . . oh, I didn’t know the word for what he was.
I liked him, though.
“Listen, I gotta meet my grandparents at Country Crossings for supper.”
I snorted. He ignored me.
“Come with me.” He cleared his throat. “I want you to meet them.”
My brows rose. I hadn’t even met his parents, who’d just left for Arkansas, and he hadn’t met Mama Nancy. But he wanted to introduce me to his grandparents?
“You want me to meet your grandparents.” I straightened, turning my back on the sales floor. “At supper. At Country Crossings.”
“Yeah.”
“Country Crossings.” The restaurant was appended to a gas station out in the middle of nowhere.
“Yeah. I get it, but the biscuits are lit.” A hint of a growly laugh lurked in his voice. “Be a good girl, and I’ll buy you a bag of strawberry licorice ropes in the store afterward.”
Good girl in that deep rasp of his had achy coils clenching in my lower belly. Oh, I needed him whispering that in my ear while he–
“Tyler?” Now that chuckle held a touch of amused exasperation. “Are you listening to me?”
“Yes, er, no.” I tapped my nails on the edge of the desk. “I got distracted.”
“I’ll pick you up at 5:30.”
“Okay.” Cringing over my breathlessness, I hung up and buried my face in my palms. He talked about us becoming something, and I was dangerously in with him.
The rest of the afternoon dragged, slower-than-slow.
At home, I swapped my chinos and dealer-logo polo for jeans and a white blouse.
Five-thirty didn’t give me much time, a good thing since I wanted to agonize over my clothes, which really meant I wanted to agonize over what his grandparents would think of me.
Dangerously in.
When I heard his truck in the drive, I hurried out, not waiting for him to come to the door. He lifted his hands, skirting the front of the truck so he could open my door. “You mean you’re not letting me come get you, don’t you?”
“Not now, Jase.” I caught a whiff of his fresh-showered smell, soap and antiperspirant and maybe a hint of aftershave. I tossed my bag in and settled in the seat, trying to catch my breath.
“Don’t get bent out of shape over this.” He leaned in for a quick kiss and stepped back, arm propped on the door. “It’s just dinner.”
Easy for him to say. Breathing through my nose, I rested a hand on my abdomen and focused on the rise and fall of each breath instead of the nerves flitting about in my stomach. As he climbed behind the wheel, he shot a speculative look over me, zeroing in on my hand.
Let him. Not like I hadn’t warned him I could be a mess.
I waited until we were out of the neighborhood and I had some of the anxiety squelched to speak. “Tell me about them?”
“My grandparents?” He flicked a glance at the rearview mirror. “Grandma is the best. Smart, kinda dramatic. Grandaddy is a codger.”
“A codger.” Where did he get these old-fashioned words? Half the time, you’d think he couldn’t conjugate a verb or use an adverb, then he dropped a string of SAT-level vocabulary into ordinary conversation.
“Yeah.” A wide grin lit his face, making him look younger. “He’s a grumpy old bastard.”
I laughed. Families – real families, with aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents – fascinated me.
They were important to him, and I wanted to ask if he thought they’d like me, like he had about Mama Nancy. But that seemed needy. I could handle being messy in front of him. Needy was another thing altogether.
The restaurant’s parking lot was kinda crowded when we arrived.
Jase found a spot on the far side of the lot and backed in.
My stomach flipped with a completely different type of awareness.
Something about his hand on my headrest, that arm behind me, and him looking over his shoulder instead of using the backup camera . . .
Somehow, he was the hottest man I’d ever been with.
I used the moments it took him to come around and open my door to get my libido under control. Seducing him in the front seat of his truck in the Country Crossings parking lot, with his grandparents somewhere out there, probably wasn’t the best idea.
A few rows up from us, closer to the restaurant, an older couple climbed out of a pale blue Lincoln, the tall elderly man holding her door.
Although she was spry and obviously didn’t need the hand he extended, she let him help her out.
They were so cute and it tickled me, what with Jase always wanting to open doors like that.
He squeezed my hand as we neared the couple. “Hey, you two.”
The old man squinted under the brim of his hat, eyeing me. His wife turned, eyes widening as she took me in.
Recognition slammed into me. Oh, no. Oh, no. Not her.
“Grandma. Grandaddy.” He dropped my hand to engulf them in quick hugs. I looked around at the potholes in the asphalt, hoping one big enough to swallow me up would open. “This is–”
“Tyler.” Surprise still bloomed on her elegant face, her polished voice rising on my name.
Jase looked between us, confused. “You know each other?”
I absolutely wanted to die.