Gypsy Love: A Gypsy Beach Novel (18 page)

Arley was still laughing as John’s brow furrowed. He stepped back and took in the outfit she was wearing.

“I can honestly say that is the first time I have ever slapped my own basketball shorts.”

“Long story.” Arley wrinkled her nose.

“I take it that’s not what you were wearing when she let herself in.”

“Nope, I was wearing nothing but one of your undershirts.” She buried her face against his chest as he began laughing as well. “Sorry I missed that, baby doll, but how long have you been cooking?”

“I love to cook. It helps me plot, and your mom brought all of these groceries.” She shrugged and felt mildly guilty, but Mary Ann had worked it so that Arley was the chef and she was just the instructor.

“Well, let’s eat. It smells incredible. I’m starved.”

John’s groans of satisfactions over the meal delighted both of the women he was dining with. He had three helpings of dinner and then two pieces of the pie Arley had concocted all on her own. “This is better than the Montgomery’s.”

“I think so, too!” Her eyes flashed in delight. The pie was delicious.

“She’s quite a cook, and I’m pretty sure my professor is going to know I had professional help on those papers. You definitely have a way with words, Arley.” Ms. Rowan beamed.

“She has a way with most everything, Mama.” John winked at Arley, completing the perfection of their evening.

“Well, you best not let her get away then, dear. But I’m off. Arley, thank you so much for this dinner and for all of your help on those papers. I’m going to make your changes. If you need anything while you’re in town, sweetheart, give me a call.”

John stood and saw his mother out, then returned to the kitchen where Arley was running soapy water to do the dishes. “You, Ms. Copeland, go sit down. You cooked. I’ll clean up.”

“I’m sorry I had to borrow your clothes. I still haven’t put mine in the dryer.”

“I’m loving you in the t-shirt. The shorts are a little big for you, but you can wear anything of mine you want.”

“I was worried you wouldn’t have shorts that would fit over my fat ass,” she huffed.

“Hey, what the hell is all that about? You, my beautiful baby doll, are curved in all the places a woman is supposed to be curved. Your body drives me wild!” The hungry look in his eye gave credence to his words. Though she’d just consumed enough food to last her a week, she suddenly felt lighter than air.

“So, what’d you and my mama talk about all afternoon?”

“She’s so sweet, John. I love her.”
I love you, too, but I won’t be saying that out loud for a while.

He beamed. “She is pretty great. I’m glad you got to meet her, as long as she didn’t go into my more knuckle-headed stunts when I was a kid.”

“I did hear about you knocking the mirror off of her car when you clipped a mailbox and then trying to deny it when you weren’t supposed to be driving without her in the car.”

John laughed. “Thankfully, my lawyering skills have improved in the last fifteen years or so. If it happened today, I’m pretty sure I could place blame on the positioning of the mailbox along the road or on the fact that our neighbor’s teenage daughter was dancing topless in her bedroom. I could see her through her window, and naturally, I was distracted by her flagrant disregard for public decency laws.”

Arley laughed at him outright. The melody of their joint laughter filled her. “I’m betting Mary Ann doesn’t know about the topless dancer.”

“Oh, Mama probably knows. She knows most everything. I couldn’t ever get much by her.”

Tuesday morning, John was thrilled that he didn’t have to return to his office for another week. He was rather looking forward to seeing Arley’s apartment and learning more about her. The way she fit into his life was astounding. He’d left the office at the stroke of five o’clock all week, desperate to get back home to her. They texted throughout the day. She’d gotten little writing done after she’d confessed that his condo was so noisy she was having trouble concentrating. He’d immediately taken her to Lenox mall to purchase a rather nice pair of noise-cancelling headphones. She walked around holding them like they were the most precious gift she’d ever received. He’d tried to tempt her into letting him buy her a new Mac laptop, but she’d refused.

Currently, she was sound asleep, completely naked and tangled in his sheets. He grinned. She was beautiful, and he knew precisely how he wanted to awaken her. Easing away from her momentarily, he repositioned himself so his shoulders were between her thighs that he’d gently separated. Her eyes flashed open with the first stroke of his tongue. “Morning, baby doll.”

A few hours later, they were heading to Birmingham. She was a nervous wreck. “Arley, baby, this hearing is going to last less than ten minutes. I submitted the emails you had. We’ll take the letters you have at home with us tomorrow. The judge will immediately make whomever is the executor of your dad’s estate pay you for all the months you weren’t paid, and each month the next payment will be sent to your bank account. You’re gonna draw blood if you gnaw on that lip anymore.”

“Sorry.” Arley wasn’t nervous about the hearing, per se. She was nervous about seeing her family and about John meeting them, but she was absolutely terrified about what might happen after the trial. Was he really going to stay in Birmingham with her all week? Would she be invited back to Atlanta with him? Where did this wild rollercoaster end … and when?

When they crossed the state line into Alabama, John grimaced.

“Do you hate Alabama that much?”

He forced a chuckle. “Just too far from Sanford Stadium and too damn close to Bryant Denny.”

Her temper flared suddenly. She’d been walking on ragged edge for too long. Every day she spent with him was more perfect than the one before, and the knowledge that it might all be over soon had worn her thin. “You promised you’d never lie to me.” She narrowed her eyes.

He took his eyes off the road and stared at her in stunned disbelief. “I’m not lying.”

“Well, not entirely, but you are some.” She always knew. She could read people better than she’d ever been able to speak to them.

He sighed. “My dad lives in Mobile. He kind of ruined the whole damn state for me, I guess.”

“Oh, sorry.” Arley felt terrible she’d asked. She should have remembered that.

“S’ok. Just wish you’d relax.”

“I’m trying. It’s just a lot to try to comprehend. I can’t believe I’m taking my family to court over my father’s money. It’s a little too ‘Maury meets Geraldo’ for me. If I got a surprise makeover, we’d win a Daytime Emmy.”

John’s chuckle and kind grin soothed her almost as much as the fact that he brought her hand to his mouth and brushed a tender kiss along her knuckles. “I’ll be right beside you the entire time, and I swear there will be no DNA reveals or discussion of whose baby daddy is whose. And if anybody tries to make you over, they have to go through me because I think you’re beautiful just the way you are.”

Arley rolled her eyes and tried to settle in. He had packed for several days. She tried to solace in that, but the feeling of needing him so desperately and not knowing if he felt the same way was getting old quickly. She wasn’t certain she recognized this side of herself, and more importantly, she knew she didn’t like it.

An hour later, she unlocked her apartment door and smiled. It was tiny, but it was hers. She sighed and headed to the kitchen, anxious for coffee. “Make yourself at home. You can put your stuff in the bedroom. It’s at the end of the hall.” The sights and sounds of home soothed her. She’d turned her apartment into a cozy nest of books, words, coffee, and things that made her smile. She ran her hands along the laminate counter top as she waited on her Keurig to warm up. She moved to her father’s old desk in the living room. It was much too large for the room, but she loved it. She set her laptop down on its inlaid leather top and went back to the kitchen.

“Want some coffee, John?” she called.

“Always, baby doll. You know that.” When he answered he was right behind her. He soothed her momentary startle by wrapping his arms around her waist and guiding her back against his chest. “So, what do I have to do to get you to give me copies of your other six books that you have on the bookshelf in your bedroom, Ms. Copeland?”

She grinned as he ran his stubble along her cheek and then soothed the burn with tender kisses. “I thought you wanted to read Daddy’s manuscript.”

“I do, but I’ll be here for several days, and I want to read your books more.”

She smirked. “You can have them, but it will cost you.”

A low growl sounded in her ear as she managed to switch the mugs under the Keurig spout and start it again while he kept her body locked tightly to his. “I’m listening.” His right hand trailed upwards to cup her breast. Her nipples rose obediently to his beckoning touch.

“I may tie you up, and make you do my bidding, and never let you leave.” She challenged.

“Do you want to get the rope or shall I? That might make going to your hearing tomorrow difficult, but I’ll figure it out.”

She spun in his arms. He captured her lips with a deep, drawing kiss that left her breathless. When he begrudgingly released her, John moved to her refrigerator and located a new carton of half and half that miraculously hadn’t expired while she’d been travelling. He fixed her coffee just the way she preferred and provided her with the mug she’d placed under the Keurig.

“Oh, I meant to ask you, should I wear something conservative tomorrow? You know, so I look like a completely respectable woman that doesn’t write erotic romance?”

Concern creased John’s brow. “A lot of completely respectable women write erotic romance, Arley, and do you even own anything that doesn’t look like your grandmother and her best friend Sister Mary dressed you?”

She huffed her offense. “What exactly are you saying?”

“I’m saying you’ve got a stunning body, and I’d like to see you show it off a little more.”

“I do own other things. I just … don’t wear them … all that often.”

John drew a long sip of coffee and set his mug on the counter. “Well, then, my sexy seductress, how about tonight you put on something that makes me salivate, let me wine and dine you wherever you want to go, make every other man within a fifty mile radius jealous as fuck that I get to bring you home, get you out of the dress, and spend the rest of the evening wrapping your stunning little body around my cock. That sound okay to you?”

Arley tried to come up with a way to argue, but truthfully, she was quite flattered.

“But right now, show me this illustrious publishing contract and the letters of the bankruptcy filing.”

“Say please to both requests.”

With a smug smirk, he drew her back to his body, removed her coffee mug from her hands, and laved her lips with his own. He primed her entire body, making her hungry for more. “Please, baby.” He breathed the words across her lips before he turned his head and extended the kiss.

John heard the shower in the only bathroom in her tiny apartment come on as he flipped through her publishing contract. He shook his head. She would’ve needed a legal degree from Harvard to have navigated all of the bullshit they’d thrown in. They’d made it sound great and had fucked her over thoroughly.

He tossed the contract across the desk and moved onto the bankruptcy letters. Both the pub house and their creditors were in Nashville. He had half a mind to drive up there after her hearing tomorrow and give several of them a piece of his thoroughly pissed off mind.

A half hour later, John shrugged on one of the two suit coats he’d packed. He’d hoped she’d let him take her out somewhere nice to get her mind off of the hearing. Arley swallowed down a raw case of nerves as she appeared in her bedroom dressed in a tight, black, gauzy dress that dipped down in the front between her large breasts, curved in at her slender waist, and then flared out over her sexy ass. She’d strapped on a pair of six inch,
fuck-me
stiletto heels.

“Damn, woman! You look gorgeous.” John gasped for breath. “I want to eat dinner off of you.”

She beamed over his admiration. “You made me get all dressed up. Now, you’re taking me out for dinner and dancing.”

“Dancing, huh.” He took her hand and spun her into his arms.

“Yes, dancing.”

“I can probably handle that.” With a great deal of show, he dipped her back in his arms and then brought her back up and turned her in front of the mirror. “What do you see?”

She frowned. “I see me.”

“No. When you look in that mirror, what do you see?”

“John,” she huffed.

“Tell me, Arley, then we’ll go.”

“I see me in a pretty dress.”

“Try again. Really look this time.”

Shooting him an annoyed glance, she studied herself in the mirror. She’d pulled her hair up off of her shoulders but had let a few tendrils spill down her cheeks and neck. Her eyes were clear and excited. He was standing behind her, so she felt safe and content. She smiled. “I see me and I look really pretty, and I love standing here with you.”

“I’ll take that for now, but I see the most stunning woman on this planet, and she looks vivacious, and brilliant, and full of ideas, with lips I can’t wait to kiss and a killer rack that I’ll be fighting to keep my hands off of all damn night. It doesn’t matter where I’m standing, I’m looking at her.”