SEALed With a Kiss: Even a Hero Needs Help Sometimes... (19 page)

Jax heard a drawer slide open in the bathroom. She must have come in through the hall. He didn't hear her go out again. A drawer slide again. Faint clinking sounds. But she hadn't closed the bedroom door.

His mouth stretched in a grin. She had the funniest little habit of talking to all kinds of things, animate and inanimate. Right now, she was talking to ... her legs? He moved so that he could see past the partly open door.

Taking advantage of concealment was second nature. If he remained in the shadow of the door she wouldn't see him, but he could see her in the mirror. She had one leg up on the lavatory counter, stroking the smooth curve of the calf. The movements were slow, sensuous. His palms tingled at the thought of touching silky skin, of letting his hand slide up. Then she pulled the gown to the top of her leg. Now she was stroking her thigh. His eyes followed the path of the hand. Oh yes. In the mirror he could see the shadow of curls, darker than her hair, where her womanly secrets hid.

His groin tightened with a speed unmatched since he was seventeen.

"Still too soft," she said, smoothing the lotion across the gleaming skin, "but you can't fight genetics."

He shouldn't be spying on her. He should let her have her privacy.

She thought she was alone; he should leave her alone.

He wasn't going to.

He stepped soundlessly into the bathroom. "I like your thighs."

"I like your thighs." The warm, dark voice rumbled quietly from the open doorway.

Pickett jerked the gown down, hastily standing up. My God! How long had he been standing there? Had she spoken aloud? With only the dogs for company, it was a habit she had gotten into.

"Urn. They jiggle. A little."

"A little jiggle is nice on a woman." He took a lazy step into the bathroom.

Pickett snapped the cap onto the tube of lotion. "I'll get out of your way. I just ran in here to grab—"

He took the tube from her nerveless fingers. "I like how this smells." He snapped it open, squeezed a little unto his fingertips, and lifted it to his nose.

"You missed a spot here," he touched the lotion to her neck, "and here," he smoothed his hand across her shoulder. The feel of his slightly rough, warm fingers under the cool silk of the lotion was unbearably erotic.

Unable to move through the sudden wave of pleasure, Pickett watched with almost detached fascination as he put more lotion on his fingers and smoothed it onto the other side of her neck and shoulder.

A heavy feeling of heat began to gather at the juncture of her thighs as his hand slid across her chest and dipped beneath the neckline of the gown to brush the tops of her breasts.

He felt the hitch in her breath, and his eyes grew even more lazy-lidded. "You like this, don't you?" He stepped a little closer, angling his head to bring his lips to her neck. "I like it too. I've wanted to touch you all day. Like this."

Tyler cried out in his sleep, babbling something indistinguishable, then was quiet again. The sound broke Pickett's sensual trance.

"I shouldn't be in here. We shouldn't be doing this."

Jax capped the lotion with slow deliberation and handed it to Pickett. "You're right, this isn't the time or place to make love, but we should be doing
this."
His lips barely brushed hers before she backed away.

He'd spooked her. But he hadn't imagined it—how her lips had clung to his for a second. He smiled almost grimly as she backed through the door into the hall, lotion clutched between her breasts.

He'd let her run away, for now. But he wanted her, and he would get what he wanted.

The next morning Pickett eyed her face in the guest bathroom mirror with disfavor. Too tired to stay awake last night and then too revved up to sleep.

She was an idiot. Hopeless. There she was with absolutely the sexiest, most virile, not the handsomest but still to her eyes the best-looking man she had ever been within six feet of, and he was coming on to her—it wasn't her imagination, he definitely was—and she had run away.

Was this what she always did? Run away? Freeze up?

And not only was he sexy, he was likable. He kept surprising her with his decency. She was impressed with his brains, and she respected his willingness to learn from her but then to work to master the information for himself. Not once had he acted as if, since she was available and female, he'd expected her to take over Tyler's care.

She whipped the nightgown over her head and reached for yesterday's clothes. She hadn't remembered to get out clean clothes last night and no way was she going back into the bedroom until she was sure he was out of it.

She looked at her thighs. Thighs that jiggled a little, no matter how much she exercised. Thighs he liked.

She looked at herself, naked, in the mirror. For once she wasn't trying to decide if her stomach looked a lot fat, or only a little fat, or if her butt looked too wide, or her breasts too droopy. She wasn't even looking with satisfaction at evidence of improvement. She was looking at thighs that he liked. At a body that was desirable the way it was.

He didn't have an ulterior motive.

The generator on the porch outside chugged. Lucy gave her an enquiring look from the doorway. Her heart lurched into another gear.

She could almost laugh. Generations of women had been taught men only wanted one thing. And yet, even with a degree in counseling, she had decided any attractive man coming on to her had an ulterior motive. She'd convinced herself that sex wasn't very important, and that she had far more significant qualities to offer a man. The thought that she had been limiting her acquaintance to men who didn't attract her very much—and, okay, thereby protecting herself from her own fears of inadequacy—staggered her.

She forced a breath through the tightness in her diaphragm. Jax had said something the night of the storm, that she knew was important even then, but she hadn't realized why.

Now she did.
You had sex with a jerk. Doug was a jerk. Doug was a jerk!
At the age of twenty-one she had been crushed by Doug's real opinion of her, crushed also by the knowledge that he had manipulated her sexually without finding her desirable, humiliated that others in the fraternity knew and figured they could manipulate her too. She never stopped to consider that Doug was not a representative of a class of beings. Instead, he was a jerk.

She had believed the opinion of a jerk.

The room suddenly seemed to be revolving, as every area of her internal life shifted and reordered itself. Pickett clutched the counter to steady herself, then slowly pulled on yesterday's shorts and T-shirt. She couldn't bring herself to put on yesterday's panties, so she dragged the shorts over her bare bottom, sucking in her breath when the cold zipper touched her belly.

For a moment she considered going braless, but knew she didn't have what it took.
Not yet,
said a little voice in her head. But she would go into the bedroom to get some clean clothes whether Jax was in there or not. And if he thought, well, whatever he thought, well ... Pickett tossed her under things into the hamper next to the washer and dryer in the mudroom, smiling at the sun streaming in the windows, and headed through the kitchen to the bedroom before she could change her mind.

So focused was she on seeing Jax in the bedroom that she didn't know whether to be disappointed or relieved when she entered the kitchen and found him pouring a cup of coffee.

Jax looked up from the cup of coffee he was pouring. It was so early he hadn't expected to see her yet. He hadn't planned to have this talk with her while sweaty from running and unshaven. He rubbed his hand across the morning stubble that darkened his jaw.

She was wearing yesterday's clothes but she looked clean and wholesome, without makeup, her golden curls tumbling as if they hadn't been brushed yet. She halted in mid-stride when she saw him. He took another cup from the cabinet. "I made coffee before I went out to run. Want some?"

Pickett nodded. "You've already been out? How do things look? Is there much damage?"

"Limbs are down. I stopped to help one of your neighbors move a tree that had come down in the road." He poured coffee and held it out to her. "Water is standing in low spots and the ditches are full, but I didn't see much real damage."

When she came forward to take the dark brew from his hand, he could smell the lotion that she used, mingling softly with the aroma of coffee. It brought back memories of the night before, of the feel of her soft shoulder under his hand.

He clamped down on his lower body's instant response. That was the problem. He kept reacting to this woman without thought. Which made the mess he had to clean up now.

"I am glad you're up early. I needed to talk to you without Tyler underfoot."

Her ocean eyes questioned but she didn't step away from him immediately as she usually did.

"I," he pushed one hand through his sweat-damp hair and wished again he had cleaned up. "I need to apologize for last night—" Stop.

"Why? I was wrong. I shouldn't have—"

"Stop!" she interrupted again. "I don't want an apology."

"I realize my behavior was unacceptable—I'm a guest in your house for chrissake—but I do think you should let me—"