Make Me Lose Control (11 page)

“And you—”

“Oh, I’ve been happy, as well,” she said quickly.

Too quickly, he thought, as he began stripping the siding once again. He remembered how much she said she disliked birthdays and now he supposed he knew why—they reminded her of the unusual circumstances of her birth. Clearing his throat, he paused to watch her retrieve the tumbled shingles. “Well, your secret is safe with me.”

Wood in hand, she glanced up. “Oh, it’s no secret.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply it’s shameful or anything like that.”

“Twenty-five years ago, small town, it caused a bit of a scandal.”

He grimaced. “But that died down?”

“Well...like I said, small town.” She tossed the piece she held into the wheelbarrow and swooped up another. “But my sisters and brother don’t like it when I mention I’m their half sibling. The Walkers never try to make me feel separate from their family unit.”

“Good for them.”

“As a matter of fact, I hardly ever am referred to as a—” She lobbed the next shingle, then gasped. “Ouch.” Blood welled on her fingers.

Jace leaped down. “Are you all right?”

“Only a splinter. I forgot to put my gloves back on.” She drew out a sharp spike of wood and brought her finger to her mouth.

“Don’t do that,” he said, jerking it away, then drawing her hand toward him. In a trice, he’d wrapped the hem of his T-shirt around the wounded digit and put firm pressure on it to stop the bleeding.

They stood toe-to-toe, just as they had the day before in the woods, when he’d kissed her so greedily. As if he’d called her name, she looked up, her eyes widening as they took in his expression.

He probably looked as if he wanted to eat her up. Her scent was in his nostrils, her taste so damn available. His blood started that primitive
chug-chug-chug
through his system, his heart pounding like a drum in his chest. Call of the wild lust.

Closing his eyes, he tried ignoring the clamor. “Referred to as what?” he asked, recalling what she’d been saying before crying out. “What do you hardly ever get referred to as?”

“A bastard.”

He jerked, his eyes flying open. “Shay—”

“Kidding,” she said. Her mouth stretched into a grin, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes.

Bastard. Scandal.

The Walkers never try to make me feel separate from their family unit.

It didn’t take an emotional genius to know what Shay had just given away. A real secret, he thought. The fact that she did, indeed, often feel separate from that intimate family circle of her brother and sisters.

Uh-oh, Jace thought. Oh, damn, damn,
damn
. So much for that redirecting of his physical urges. He wanted to touch her even more now. Bring her against him, into the shelter of his body.

But not for carnal purposes. No, this was much worse. He wanted to gather her close to bestow something he was wholly unfamiliar with providing.

Comfort.

CHAPTER NINE

S
HAY
HUNG
UP
the dish towel and glanced over at Jace. After their day at the Walker property, they’d returned home and gone their separate ways for showers and downtime. Dinner had been pizza that he’d insisted on ordering. When she’d said she had a ball of whole wheat dough in the refrigerator and could whip up one herself in just a few minutes, he’d shared a look with London and said “whole wheat dough” in the same tone he might have used if she’d suggested a crust of garden snails.

His daughter had giggled.

Giggled.

Shay still couldn’t get over it, nor the playful hose fight the girl had instigated after lunch. Clearly she felt comfortable enough to blast away at the adults in her life.

At her father.

She glanced over at Jace, who was standing in the adjacent great room. Hands in his pockets, he was staring out the glass doors at the lake. The days were getting longer and there was plenty of activity on the water, but it didn’t appear as if he was taking any of it in. He looked like a man with a heavy weight on his mind.

He looked like a man too alone.

“So, today was a good day, don’t you think?” she asked, daring to interrupt the quiet. After pizza, London had wandered up to her room where she was likely reading—if the girl gave
A Tale of Two Cities
a decent chance Shay thought she’d find it hard to put down—or surfing the web.

When he didn’t answer, she said, “Jace?”

He twitched and glanced around, finding her in the kitchen. Then he glanced around again, as if seeing the place for the first time. “What have you done here? Things look different.”

Unsure of herself, she fiddled with the elastic bandage she’d wrapped around her finger. He’d retrieved it from the first-aid kit in Poppy’s former cabin. She’d done the rest of the doctoring, insisting she didn’t need his help, desperate to avoid any more of his touch. “Different, uh, how?”

Frowning, he gestured to the furniture, all of it in shades of gray. Then he pointed to the kitchen island. “Flowers. Color.”

“Well, yeah.” A dozen sunflowers popped from a vase she’d found in a closet. There had also been a stack of colorful throws there, and she’d draped them across the drab-colored backs of the couches and love seats. “You mentioned this place was butt ugly.”

“You don’t think so?” he asked, brows rising.

Her lips twitched. “I kind of did. But the view is incredible and it’s growing on me. Especially with some warmer touches here and there.”

“The master bed—the one hanging on chains...”

She shook her head. “Sorry, I can’t think of a way to warm that up.”

He stilled, sent her a pointed look, then turned his attention back to the lake. “I’ll forget you said that,” he muttered.

Curses, Shay thought. Those words shouldn’t have popped out of her mouth, not when she was determined to ignore the sexual undercurrent that seemed to continuously flow beneath their feet. Even when it bubbled and spit on occasion—as it had today, and yesterday and every day since they’d met—she was determined to avoid the burn.

Clearing her throat, she ventured back into conversation. “Like I mentioned, I think today went well with London.”

He kept staring out the glass. “You really think so?”

“Yes.” She strolled toward him. “The two of you seem to be getting comfortable together. I think she might be starting to like you.”

He turned when she paused beside him. “More evidence of her bad judgment,” he said, grimacing.

“Oh, come on.” She nudged his ribs with her elbow. “You’re not such a terrible guy.”

“Evidence of
your
bad judgment.”

“Stop—”

“I can see where you’re going with this, Shay. I see that little dream you’re concocting in your head.”

She frowned. “I’m actually one of the cynical Walkers. A realist. Poppy is our romantic.”

“You keep telling yourself that.”

His dismissive tone annoyed her. “I’m looking at the facts, Jace.”

“Which are what?”

“How about we start with this one—you’ve yet to tell your daughter that her summer with her father has been curtailed.” It had made her hope he might be having second thoughts.

“I—”

“That you’ve yet to tell your daughter that you’re sending her off to boarding school before you even get a chance to learn her favorite kind of animal, her favorite flavor of ice cream, what she wants to be when she grows up.”

“Vampira?”

She gave him a disappointed look. “Maybe you’d like to stick around long enough to find out her real hair color, too.”

“It’s enough to know that the shade it is now isn’t authentic. Thank you.” Rubbing his knuckles against the short stubble on his chin, he glanced upward. “Thank you, God.”

Stubborn man. Shay saw that she wasn’t getting anywhere with him, but she couldn’t let it go. “Please reconsider, Jace.”

He rounded on her, his voice low, but with frustration bleeding through. “Reconsider what? I can’t ‘reconsider’ the past, Shay,” he said. “I don’t know her. I haven’t seen her for ten years.”

“That will just take time—”

“Don’t you get it?” His hands shot out to grasp her shoulders. “I can’t ‘reconsider’
my
past. What do I know about being a father? The one that made my life miserable is not a good example and history bears out I’m just as cold as he was.”

She refused to be cowed, even though his frustration was clearly morphing into anger. “Listen to your gut, your instincts—”

“Fine,” he ground out. “I’ll listen to your advice. I’ll do exactly what my gut is telling me I should.” With a quick jerk, he brought her up against him.

His mouth crushed hers. Shocked, she was like wood in his arms, until she felt the rough-soft brush of his tongue over the seam of her lips. Her body had no resistance to him—never had—and she opened for him immediately. At her instant acquiescence, the pressure of the kiss changed from punishing to tender, and he ate at her mouth softly.

Shivering in reaction, she moaned, and then he changed the angle of his head to kiss her even more deeply. Her heart pounded in her ears, every beat working against her, drowning out the natural warnings any woman might feel upon being the sexual focal point of such a virile male.

His mouth roamed over her face, and she felt the prick of his evening whiskers along her cheek, edging her jaw, at the soft skin beneath her chin.

Shay felt as if she were coming undone one stitch at a time, a lifetime of hems and seams being picked apart by a master. His arm was iron against her back and she leaned against it, giving him all her weight, trusting that he would hold her up.

Her knees were too soft to perform their usual function.

He swung them both around and now her back was to the sliding door. His body held her to it, and the disparate sensation of cold against her back and heated man against her front confused her senses.

One of his hands was planted on the door beside her head, the other found its way beneath her T-shirt. Her belly muscles twitched and her nerve endings jittered as he found her bare midriff. His mouth sought out a sensitive spot on her neck and she whimpered as he kissed her there, hotly, and his hand insinuated itself beneath the stretchy material of her bra. He cupped the weight of her breast and his thumb stroked over the tip that tightened at his ministrations.

Shay closed her eyes, intent on the feel of his hot lips exploring her neck and his rough hand playing at her breast. Her fingers clutched the sides of his shirt and she whimpered again.

Making a much deeper sound of need, Jace shoved up her shirt and pulled the cup of her bra below the hard and rosy point. He bent his head and touched it with his hot, wet tongue. Shay gasped.

With a muffled curse, Jace jolted backward, yanking her clothes back into place. Shay’s hands fell to her sides and she reached for purchase on the cold, slick glass.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her head still muzzy from the drugging effect of his kisses and caresses.

“Proving my point.” He was striding away from her, toward the front door. “Good father material wouldn’t be making out with his daughter’s teacher.”

* * *

J
ACE
WAS
STILL
breathing hard when he vaulted into his car and took himself away from the house. Without any purpose other than to calm himself, he gripped the steering wheel and drove aimlessly, working hard not to lead-foot the gas pedal. Why the fuck couldn’t he keep his hands off of her?

What was it about the woman that made him burn for her mouth and her body?

When he felt more in control, he took stock of his surroundings. Near the town of Blue Arrow Lake, he noted. There was a tavern overlooking the water and its parking lot was only half-full. A beer sounded good.

Baseball was on the TV over the bar. He ordered a local craft brew and took his first swallow, ordering himself to further relax. Desperate for some peace, he didn’t look over when a man sat on the neighboring stool. No sense in inviting conversation.

But the newcomer didn’t take the hint. “Hey, there,” he said in an easy voice. “Good to see you again.”

Again?
Jace glanced over, taking in a tall man with a ball cap pulled low over his eyes. “Who...”

Then the stranger half turned on his seat and Jace noticed the distinctive blue eyes. Ryan Hamilton held out his hand. “Sanity break?”

“How’d you know?” Jace asked, returning a firm shake.

“Single man comes back to the States, suddenly finds himself with a daughter and a woman—”

“A daughter and her tutor,” Jace corrected.

Ryan shrugged. “In any case, big changes for you.”

“Yeah.” Jace brought his beer to his mouth. “Why are you out for a cold one alone?”

Ryan’s smile went movie-star blinding. “I hate to even tell you, man.”

“Why’s that?”

He shook his head. “My mountain girl...she’s really something.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t tell me,” Jace said, amused by the other man’s exuberant mood. “It sounds private.”

Ryan chuckled. “It’s just a little game we like to play.”

Jace’s brows shot high. “Um...”

The other man laughed again. “It’s probably not as salacious as you’re imagining. Every once in a while, I say good-night to Mason, then head out for my solo beer. Poppy reads the boy to sleep and uses my absence to take a long bath. After, she puts on something silky just about the same time as I ring the doorbell.”

“I thought Shay said she lives with you.”

“Oh, she does. But in our little role play I’m the stranger who needs shelter from the rain.” He picked up his beer to clink it against Jace’s and grinned. “A slightly modified reenactment of how we met.”

Interesting. It made Jace think of Shay, their night in the Deerpoint Inn, and then of what she might be doing now. A bath like her sister?
Shit. Do not go there.
He stared up at the TV, trying to put all thoughts of the tutor—naked, wet—from his mind.

“We’ll have to get you and Shay and London over for dinner,” Ryan said now.

Putting the three of them in a sentence like that didn’t sit well with Jace. “Not sure if there’ll be time for that,” he said.

Ryan flipped off his hat, adjusted it back on his head. “Summer’s long up at the lake.”

“I won’t be here all summer.”

“Really?” Ryan looked surprised. “I thought Shay said—”

“I’m cutting things short. Getting London to her new school early, for a summer session.”

“New school?”

“Boarding school. Then I’m heading back to work overseas.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. We really like London. She’s great with Mason.” Ryan frowned. “That means Shay will be out of work.”

“I’m paying her the full contract amount,” Jace hastened to say.

“That’s good.” Ryan stared off into space. “She can help Poppy with the wedding, if she wants. And with the cabins.”

“We were out there today,” Jace said.

Ryan shook his head. “Poppy will be thrilled, but I’ve got to say I’m surprised.”

“She’s a hard worker,” Jace defended. “London put time in, too.”

“No, no, of course Shay’s a hard worker. She’s a Walker, isn’t she?”

“I’ve not met any of the other siblings.”

Ryan gave a wry smile. “Stubborn as mules. Full of pride. Poppy’s the only open heart among them.”

Jace frowned. “Shay said she was one of the cynical Walkers. I find that hard to believe.”

“My girl is rainbows and unicorns...who for highly sentimental reasons wants to make something of that land. On the other hand, Brett, Mackenzie and Shay have been just as highly reluctant.”

“That curse doesn’t sound very cynical.”

Ryan waved it away. “A colorful excuse if you ask me.”

“What’s their real reason, then?”

He shrugged again. “You’d have to press each one of them about that. They don’t volunteer much...especially Shay, I think.”

Jace should leave it alone. She was none of his concern. “Especially Shay?” he heard himself ask.
Shit!

“Poppy says she has a place inside no one can reach.”

Jace’s hand tightened on his beer. He thought he’d found his way to it unknowingly, to the hidden, secret center of her, that night at the Deerpoint Inn when she’d told him about her aversion to birthdays. And the next night, too, when she’d allowed him into her bed. Today he’d discovered even more—when she’d made clear she felt a veil of separation between herself and her half siblings.

“Anyhow, we’ll find a way to keep her busy when you and London go,” the other man said cheerfully.

Jace couldn’t share in his good humor. “She might miss my daughter.”

“Don’t worry, Jace. It seems to me Shay doesn’t allow herself to get too attached to anybody.”

“Wonderful,” he muttered, regretting this grand idea he had for a sanity break. It hadn’t brought him even a modicum of peace. Instead, now he was bothered by the uncomfortable idea that keeping herself so apart ensured his daughter’s tutor might forever be alone.

It was the last thing, he thought he could say for sure, that Shay wanted.