Found: A Mother for His Son (16 page)

“Look, Jenna, you accused me of lying to Max, and you were right. I did. Right or wrong, it’s always about protecting him and I’ll admit I make mistakes. That was one, and when the time is right I’ll set it straight. But what about you? What about the lies you tell yourself. When are you going to set them straight?”

“The one thing I don’t do is lie to myself. I’ve always had a clear picture of who I am and what I can have.” She should have been angry, but all the anger had seeped away. Now she was sad—sad for the things in her that Dermott recognized, sad for the thing inside herself that she’d always known. Swiping back a tear, Jenna turned back to the exam-room door, hesitated for a moment, then stepped into the hall, leaving Dermott in there alone. There was nothing else to say. No arguments. No excuses. They were both right and there was no point in prolonging the painful moments between them. As Jenna wandered down the front steps and stopped on the curb outside, though, she wondered if there really was any point in prolonging her stay here. It was always going to be this way—she and Dermott locked in a tug of war where both were always so close to stepping over the line, yet neither of them would win.

Well, he hadn’t intended what he’d just done to Jenna. But this wall between them…it was so impenetrable. He wanted to get through it and, if he wasn’t mistaken, so did she. Yet he was preoccupied, she was scared. That was a bad combination to get past anything. “Damn,” he muttered, shutting off the light and heading for the door. This wasn’t the time to fall in love, but he had. He loved Jenna and, in so many ways, he always had. Did she love him back? Well, what he hoped was that she wouldn’t be struggling so hard against him if she didn’t. Yet she was ready to run again. He could see it, feel it. And if she did…he wasn’t a free man. He couldn’t go after her.

So what would keep her here? If he came right out and told her he loved her, she’d be gone in the blink of an eye. He was sure of that. If he played it out slowly, then Max stood to get hurt because he was growing attached to Jenna in ways Dermott had never expected. And, yes, he stood to get hurt too, because having her here was just better. Problems and all, he wanted her in every way, and to prolong the agony of her leaving just put off the pain. But what would keep her here? Or, maybe the better question was, could anything keep her here? “Damn,” he muttered again, stepping into the hall. How could something that should have been so wonderful go so wrong?

“Dermott?” she whispered from the shadows. “What are we going to do?” She reached out, ran her fingers lightly over his arm.

“Would it make any difference if I had an answer?” He liked her touch, but it frightened him, because he liked it too much. Craved it. Wanted more of it. And everything else that came with it. “Aren’t you set on doing what you’re going to do, no matter what?” Bitter words maybe, but they were the ones he needed to cling to. And this time it wasn’t to protect Max. Right here, right now, he was the one who needed the protection.

“Honestly, I don’t know. Because you were right. I do have an escape plan.”

The muscle in his jaw clenched. “So what things do I need to say to you, Jenna? What will convince you that you’re safe here, that you don’t have to run away? Because I sure as hell don’t know what to say except that I don’t want you to leave, and I’m not sure that’s good enough.” He turned and went back into the dark exam room, not sure if he wanted to get away from her, or if he wanted her to follow him in. Then he sat on the exam table, and watched her silhouette in the hall. It wasn’t moving. Not coming in, not leaving.

Not sure which he wanted her to do.

“Why would you even bother with me, Dermott?” she finally asked, taking a few steps in the door.

“Why wouldn’t I, Jenna?” When she finally reached the exam table, she stepped boldly between his knees and looked up at him. Even in the near-dark, the only light that of the streetlamps streaming in through the slats in the blinds, she was so breathtakingly beautiful. She had been years ago, and the years had only improved her.

“Because you’re a smart man, and you can see who I am.”

“Yes, I can see.” He brushed the back of his hand across her cheek and over her lips. “And what I see is everything I’ve ever wanted.”

Jenna stepped back. Pure instinct. She wanted to run. He knew that. He also knew that she was struggling with herself.

“Dermott, I…” She didn’t finish. But she didn’t leave, either.

“Make it simple, Jenna.”

“How?”

“Why don’t you come over here and tell me what it is you are? Tell me all the things you think you are, and I’ll show you how you’re wrong.” He patted the edge of the exam table.

Jenna took a step forward, then hesitated. The outcome couldn’t be good, no matter how she framed the fantasy. That she would have no future with Dermott was already etched in stone but, then, so were her growing feelings. How could she have been so careful about resisting, then find herself here, like this?

Because this was Dermott, that’s why. But she wanted this, wanted all the feelings flooding through her, wanted to forget every possible angle of common sense and simply have this moment. “Dermott, I shouldn’t, but I want to,” she said, falling into his open arms.

Dermott received Jenna, and she was a perfect fit in his embrace.

“It’s still one day at a time,” she whispered, almost shyly. “No promises.” But so full of expectations now.

In answer, his arms encircled her, his unbandaged hand taking hold of the stretchy fabric of her shirt. “One day, one night…right now. It is what it is, and for now, that’s enough.” He teased the garment slowly up, kissing every morsel of the skin he exposed, and the feel of him was so good, Jenna merely sighed, contented to savor his touch for a moment, before she arched herself into him, begging more.

“Let me know if I hurt your hand,” she whispered.

“What hand?” he growled, taking a painfully, deliciously long time removing her bra. He tantalized her nipples through the fabric with a light touch, then planted demanding kisses above the line of the lace. His patience was surprising, his ardor restrained, and Jenna gasped over the delight of sensations he caused.

Sensations she wanted, always and forever, only from Dermott.

Dermott took his time with every one of Jenna’s sensitive spots, some she knew, some she didn’t. His search for even more sent untried jolts of need and desire gushing through her every time he paused to explore something yet untouched. Fingers burning into her quivering flesh as they slid across her belly and pressed beneath her running shorts thrilled her in ways she’d never been thrilled, moving methodically to pleasure points with only one purpose—to give up even more thrills.

Wanting nothing to hamper that which aroused her, Jenna backed away from the exam table and beckoned Dermott down the hall to his office, where he found her only seconds later, without her running shorts. She was standing there at the edge of his sofa, clad only in her panties, waiting for him to come closer. When he did, she pulled him onto the sofa, then shut her eyes as he continued his exploration, stopping at her navel and caressing it with a light kiss. “You’re wearing my favorites,” he growled into her belly as his thumb began to inch down her panties.

“You have favorites?”

“Anything silky and brief on you are my favorites. What color are they?”

“Blue.”

“Got anything in red?” he asked. “You’d look sensational wrapped in red.” He pressed a hard kiss below her navel, just above her panty line. “You’d look sensational out of red.”

“You look sensational out of anything,” she said, reaching up to unbutton his shirt. Once it was off, she went for his jeans, unzipping them, then inching them down slowly until they were stopped by the bulge of his erection. That’s when she knew that she either had to run right now, or there would be no turning back. “Dermott, all this…” she whispered.

“Do you want it, Jenna?”

She didn’t hesitate for a moment. “Yes, I want it.” But she didn’t just mean the moment, which was what she was sure Dermott meant. She wanted it all. And it was too late to hide her heart. “I want it,” she whispered again, her voice hoarse with desire and love and so many other emotions she was afraid to understand, or admit.

“When you came back, did you lock the front door,” he asked, “or should we be prepared for night visitors?”

“I locked it.” Because she’d hoped for this. Every last speck and sensation of it.

He dropped to one knee over her, but Jenna rose up and pushed him down on his back, then took her place on top of him.

Dermott shuddered as she raked her fingers over his chest, which made her shudder, too. She loved the feel of the hard lines she stroked along his ribs, loved the way he shuddered when her thumbs taunted his nipples. He sucked in a more explosive shudder when she bent to taunt his nipples with her lips, her tongue, her teeth. He held his breath for a moment before letting it escape, rough and ragged. “It sure would be easier on us if we weren’t so good together,” he said.

Jenna pushed herself up off his chest for a moment, then said, “But we are good. So tell me how you want me to be good to you, Doctor. For one night, and one night only, following your orders is my fondest wish.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning tell me, Doctor. Tell me now, because tomorrow starts in just a few hours, and I don’t know what will happen tomorrow.” Meaning, no escape plans in place.

“Then make it coffee,” he growled. “I’ll take mine black.”

“Don’t do coffee, Doc.”

“Yes,” he sighed. “I know. But you and that big coffee pot, that was the first time I was ever aroused by you.”

“Was it me, or the coffee you wanted?”

He chuckled. “That day you refused to get Dr. McNichol’s coffee set off a whole chain reaction in me that, it seems, hasn’t died down yet.”

“Well, no coffee right now, but will this do instead?” She stretched her body along his hard lines, matching contour to contour, trying to feel every inch of his body against every inch of hers. In the cocoon again, but without the blanket. This was where she wanted to be.

Dermott moaned lightly as she pressed her knee up over his hip, and she immediately pulled back. “I’m sorry,” she gasped. “Did I hurt you? Can I get some ice for your hand?”

“It’s not my hand that’s hurting right now,” he gasped.

“Oh,” she choked. “I thought…I mean…”

“You won’t hurt me, Jenna,” he said, his voice so soft it nearly melted away. “I promise, you won’t hurt me.”

This might not hurt him, but she so feared it would hurt her in ways she’d never been hurt before. Because, for the first time in her life, she truly loved someone. And, she believed, someone truly loved her.

It was crazy, the way she wanted him, and didn’t want him. She knew that. But knowing it and changing it were two different things, just like love and sex were. One didn’t necessarily have to go with the other. But as she parted her legs and felt him enter her, there were no interchangeable feelings here. This was love, and everything that went with it. And as they came together in a rapid explosion, their one need so great that there was nothing else in the world for those few moments, tears slid down Jenna’s cheeks for all the things she wanted, and was so close to having, yet was afraid to take as her own.

“Jenna?” he whispered, in the waning moments, when they were too spent to move, too satiated and contented to do anything but linger. “Are you crying?”

“Of course I’m not!” she snapped, then sniffled.

Dermott didn’t say another word. He merely pulled Jenna closer and held onto her like he’d never held onto another person in his life. And they both lay there together, quiet, and wondering what would happen to them come morning.

In the morning when the sun came up, Jenna was frazzled over getting from the office to her apartment on legs that were still wobbly. “It’s late,” she gasped, totally shocked that she’d slept so long and so well—a pleasant side effect of falling in love and making love over and over.

“What have I done?” she moaned, making a mad dash for her clothes, which seemed to be scattered everywhere.

Dermott held out her bra, dangled it off the tips of his fingers for her. “Specifically, which time?”

“All night!” she cried, yanking it away from him. He was dressed. At least, the lower half of him was.

“Do you want the medical assessment, or…?” A devilish grin crept to his lips. “A more graphic description?”

“That’s not funny, Dermott. Someone could walk in here any minute. Mrs. Ketterman! Today’s her day, isn’t it? And I don’t have her prune Danishes.”

“Tell her you had great sex and forgot.” He reached out and took hold of Jenna’s arm as she was fighting to get her bra fastened. “Just slow down, OK? You’ve got plenty of time. The prune Danish will wait. And the door’s still locked.”

All of that was well and good, but Jenna needed a nice cold stream of water to wash some sense into her. What she had done…it was crazy. She’d spent the night with him! In his arms. Making love, loving making love. “What have I done?” she murmured again, minutes later, as she looked into the mirror before she stepped into her shower. The evidence of Dermott was all over her body, the little places where he’d kissed and nibbled. The evidence of Dermott was so rooted in her heart, too.

She’d made a mess of things even more than they were already messed up. That’s what she’d done.

“I can’t believe this,” she said, tilting her head back to let the water trickle down her face. One night, when she’d intended only an hour, and look what had happened.
Fantastic
was what had happened. Fantastic, wonderful, amazing. “Stupid, Jenna. That’s what you’ve done. Something stupid.” She moaned, leaning back against the shower, wondering if she could just disappear down the drain. “OK, I can deal with it. Be adult about it.” Adult, calm, noncommittal. Brace herself against the feelings again. But could she work with him? See him every day, want him in so many ways, know what it would be like, and still maintain a professional demeanor?

No. The answer was simple. She could not. She was Jenna Lawson, true to form. “So I’ll leave,” she said, melancholy mixing with her newfound resolve. “Right now. Make it perfectly clear that this was a mistake of monumental proportions then show myself to the door.”