One Night with a Star (Second Chances Book 2) (10 page)

“None of your business, none of your business, and Daniel,” Simon answered. “Go ahead and print the pictures and break the story, but if anyone so much as comes near my son or his mother, I will sue you for every dime you have.”

“Are you sure you won’t let me—”

“No.”

Simon turned and put a hand on Jenny’s back, ushering her away from the photographer. They were lucky that the man didn’t come after him.

“How dare you tell the press about Daniel?” Jenny seethed when they were around the corner and back on Main Street. “I don’t want my son splashed all over the tabloids.”

“Love, it would have happened eventually anyhow,” Simon told her with a sigh, glancing ahead to the lot where they’d left his car. It looked like their pleasant family outing was over. “At least this way we can control the story.”

“You call that controlling the story?” Jenny spat. Daniel sensed her mood and began to cry.

If he could have done anything to stop it, he would have. “I’ll call Yvonne as soon as we get home and she’ll issue a press release. If anyone can control how word gets out, she can.”

“But I don’t want word to get out,” Jenny said, panic threading through her voice. “Things are bad enough already, and Neil—”

The hair on the back of Simon’s neck stood up. No one stopped a sentence that abruptly unless there was something serious behind it.

“Is Neil giving you trouble?” he asked, ready to pound the little twerp into the ground if he had to.

Jenny was slow to answer. She bounced and shushed Daniel instead, doing her best to calm him. It wasn’t until they’d made it back to the car and she was strapping Daniel into his car seat that she answered, “Neil was a jerk the other day, that’s all.”

“Neil? A jerk?
No
,” he said, dripping sarcasm.

She didn’t scold him and she didn’t laugh along. She finished fastening a now very fussy Daniel into his seat, then came around to plop into the passenger seat.

“All right,” Simon said, more seriously. “How big of a jerk? Because I don’t like that look on your face.”

“I just,” she began, then pressed her lips together. “It might not be anything. I don’t want to get upset if I don’t have to.”

That was it. Spears of rage poked at Simon’s gut, making him want to drop everything to go find Neil and pummel him right there. He would take care of Jenny and Daniel and make sure they were safe first, though.

“What would you have to get upset about?” he asked, low and dangerous, as he turned onto the road that would lead out of town and along to Beach Avenue.

“Nothing,” Jenny answered, too quickly.

“Jenny, if you’re in any sort of danger, if he’s threatened you in any way….”

“What? No! No.” She shook her head and huffed a humorless laugh. “Neil isn’t that kind of dangerous. I could take him in a fight.”

Simon arched a brow, not even a little reassured. “What, then?”

“It’s nothing.” She blew out a breath, more frustrated than panicked this time. It was possibly a step in the right direction.

Sand Dollar Point was only a few minutes outside of Summerbury proper, but by the time they reached the house, Daniel had already fussed himself into sleep, or something close to it. As soon as they parked, Jenny got out and took him out of his car seat. He groaned and cried for a few seconds, then flopped his head against Jenny’s shoulder. Simon came behind her to get the diaper bag and the rest of Daniel’s stuff out of the back of the car, then followed them into the house. Within minutes, Daniel was sleeping peacefully.

“What I wouldn’t give to be able to fall asleep anywhere at any time that fast,” Simon said, keeping his voice down.

“Sometimes I think I could, after taking care of him,” Jenny agreed. She’d brought a portable crib with her that had been set up in a corner of the living room, and she took Daniel straight to it to get him settled.

Simon settled himself on the couch facing the line of windows. The October breeze was too cold to keep the windows open, but the faint sound of the ocean could still be heard through the glass, and the sun was bright outside.

“So are you going to tell me why Neil has you so upset?” he asked as soon as Jenny turned around.

“No,” she said, rubbing one arm in a gesture that was beautifully vulnerable.

“I see,” Simon said. “Very informative.”

Her anxious expression flashed to sarcasm. She crossed around the coffee table and sank into the sofa beside him with a groan. Simon fought the temptation to reach out for her and pull her into his arms, especially when she rubbed her face and huffed out a breath.

“I don’t know how I got myself into this situation,” she said.

There was no way he couldn’t take that bait. He stretched his arm across the back of the sofa, twisting to face her, and said, “What situation?”

She dropped her hands to her sides and looked at him. Looked at him with guilt, if he wasn’t mistaken.

“Why have I spent the last eight or nine months thinking Neil was the best thing that could have happened to me or that he came along at just the right time?”

Simon chuckled. “You want me to answer that?”

“No,” she said, a weak grin tweaking the corners of her mouth. The grin died too soon. “I’m going to have to break up with him and it’s not going to be pretty.”

Never had words spoken with such gravity made Simon want to cheer and fist-pump so hard. So much for resisting temptation. He extended his hand toward her. “Come here.”

By some small miracle, Jenny scooted across the sofa toward him, resting against his side where he could put an arm around her. His body zinged with excitement at the soft press of her against him, at the flowery scent of her hair and the warmth that radiated from her. He had never wanted a woman so much in his life, not just physically, but with his whole heart.

Her moment of relaxation vanished, and she stiffened. “You’re going to hate me.”

Simon blinked, not sure he’d heard right. “What? Not possible.”

She hummed in contradiction. “I might have messed a lot of things up the other day.”

“Because of Neil?”

She nodded against his shoulder.

Simon shifted so that she was forced to look him in the eye, her face mere inches from his. “Forget about him. The sooner the better. He’s just a frustrated, small-minded man.”

“Maybe,” she answered.

Her lashes fluttered as she glanced down. Simon wasn’t sure if he should be angry about whatever was eating Jenny or whether he should comfort her and make things better. He knew what he wanted to do, but the chances of Jenny letting him kiss her and hold her and make her forget about everything else seemed pretty—

“Simon. Kiss me.”

It took several seconds for his mind to process her words. “What?”

She inched closer to him. “Everything is so miserable right now. My life is falling apart. The whole time Neil and I were at lunch the other day, all I could think about was that I would rather be with you. I couldn’t stop thinking about the way I kissed you the other day.”

“That was some kiss,” he answered, already hoarse with desire for her.

“It was,” she said with a sly smile that pumped blood straight to his groin. All she had to do was look down to see how powerfully she affected  him. “Neil kept going on and on, but all I could think about was how much better kissing you was than everything else in my life right now.”

His lips itched to touch hers. His erection strained against his jeans. But his heart squeezed for entirely different reasons. “It’s not as bad as all that, is it?”

She shrugged. The motion caused friction between them that chipped away at his slipping control. “I don’t feel like myself anymore,” she said. “I used to be fun and spontaneous, full of life and excitement. I used to do things, want things.”

She stretched her hand across his chest to rest over his frantically beating heart. Her sad eyes raised to meet his and filled with longing. He was smart enough to get that that longing was for so much more than him, but the spark in her look was a heady aphrodisiac.

“Kiss me, Simon,” she said, lips soft and open. “Kiss me hard.”

He couldn’t say no. With his whole heart, he pulled her further into his arms, shifting her across his lap, and brought his mouth down over hers with a hunger that had only been hovering at the back of his mind until then. It exploded like fireworks as she met his kiss with a moan of pleasure and longing. Her arms wrapped around him and she writhed as close to him as she could get in their awkward position on the couch.

“Jenny,” he whispered her name, nipping at her lower lip. He should have stopped right there, let them have one brief, awesome kiss, then go back to talking about what was wrong, but that seemed like a pale alternative to what he really wanted. His mouth covered hers again in no time, tongue sliding along hers, drinking the magic that was Jenny.

She knew exactly what she wanted. Her one arm may have been trapped under her by the way he held her, but her free hand reached for the hem of his shirt, sliding under to caress his heated skin. It felt so good that he sighed and kissed her harder, devouring her with single-minded passion. He needed her, wanted her. She was what he had been missing all this time, not just in the last year. She’d been missing from his heart all his life.

He followed her lead and slid a hand under her shirt and up her side to her breast. She hummed and arched into his touch, giving him the full green-light. That little show of acceptance, no more than a stretch and arch of her back, kicked him into a deeper level of desire. He twisted around her, pinning her to the sofa beneath him. As much as he wanted to keep kissing her, he needed other things too.

He broke away long enough to kneel above her and yank his t-shirt up over his head. He tossed it aside, then slid his hands along Jenny’s torso as she lifted toward him to pull away her shirt too. She not only let him, with a sigh packed so full of need and lust that it left him aching, she reached for the fly of his jeans. His brain momentarily short-circuited as she undid them and pushed both jeans and underwear down over his hips, freeing his throbbing erection.

“Simon, I missed you,” she said, breathless and wanton.

The fact that she addressed her comment to his cock didn’t even bother him for a second. She reached for him, closing one hand around his balls and the other around his shaft. An uncontrolled groan escaped from him as he pressed himself into her hands. Her touch was merciless as she fisted him. Jagged waves of pleasure shot from his groin through the rest of his body. He entertained the idea of letting her work him until he came and spilled across her gorgeous, bare stomach, but as sexy as that thought was, he wanted more.

As gently as he could, he pushed her hands away from him and reached behind her to undo her bra. It came loose with a snap, and she wriggled as she helped him draw it down her arms and toss it aside. Her breast were perfect, full and flushed, her nipples already pert. He shifted so that he could lower himself to taste them, caressing one with the palm of his hand while closing his mouth over the other. Both Jenny and Simon groaned in pleasure at the sensation. He flickered his tongue over her nipple and she gasped, her body taut with expectation under him. He remembered the scent of her skin, the eagerness of her body, and those soft, sexy moans that she couldn’t control. He wanted that all again, wanted to be inside her again.

She wriggled her hips against him with such passionate excitement that he gave up kissing and fondling her breasts to work loose the front of her jeans. At some point, she’d kicked her shoes off, and when he tugged her jeans and panties down over her hips, scooting back so he could peel them down her legs and toss them aside, she sighed in triumph. She wanted this, so badly it made him shake. She even let her legs fall open to show him just how wet she was for him.

He couldn’t have said no or stopped himself if he’d wanted to. He slid his hands up her legs as he inched closer to her, pushing her thighs far apart in spite of the awkwardness of the sofa as he went. She was hot and wet and smelled so good by the time he reached the juncture of her thighs that his cock hardened to nearly painful levels in response. With single-minded focus, he parted her slick folds with his fingers, then brought his mouth down over her clit.

Jenny gasped and jerked in response, gripping the back of the sofa with one arm and—God love her—her breast with the other. He kissed her, licked her, tasted her sweetness as she panted. The more he swirled his tongue around her clit, keeping a steady rhythm as he went, the more her body tensed and the louder her cries were. He kept going, cheating his fingers around to play with her wet opening. At last, with a sharp, shuddering cry, she came, pulsing under his touch.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he groaned. He waited until her tremors had spent themselves, then snaked his way up her body, planting kisses as he went, to suckle her breast. He kept going until he reached her mouth, rubbing his cock against the hot wetness that he’d just brought to life.

“Condom,” she panted between his searing kisses. “Condom. I’m not doing this without one this time.”

He had no idea how she was capable of such a sharp and insightful thought post-orgasm, her arms and legs spread at dead-sexy angles over the sofa. He had equally as little idea how he managed to stop himself and to rock back and away from her.