Hold on to Me (36 page)

Del Calvert has spent his life in quiet desperation, trying to meet everyone’s expectations and feeling like he never quite measured up. From his teens, Barb was everything he wanted and needed, but knowing he wasn’t enough for her drove him out of the marriage.

Barbara Calvert is afraid to need anyone—especially the soon-to-be ex-husband she still loves. She’s reluctant to fall under his seductive spell of love and security once more.

But when their son’s secrets threaten his life, everything changes. Del must help his son as unseen and threatening forces move ever closer, putting the entire family at risk. And along the way, he hopes to convince Barbara to give him one more chance to win back the wonderful, ordinary life he didn’t appreciate until it was gone.

She cradled his face, her lips teasing the corner of his. The clean essence of her surrounded him, a mingling of citrus, soap and woman. When she eased her tongue over his bottom lip, he hardened. A groan rumbled from deep in his throat.

“Barb,” he whispered, and as his mouth parted, she darted her tongue inside. At the taste of her, his knees threatened to give. He reached for her, gripping her waist and pulling her closer. Her body aligned with his, fit him with the same perfection as always. “God, I’ve missed you.”

He muttered the words into her mouth, sliding his hands lower to cup her bottom and lift her against him. She moaned and wound her legs around his thighs, the counter supporting her weight. Holding his shoulders, she urged him even closer and sucked his lower lip into her mouth, nipping him lightly. The sensation of pleasure-pain shot to his groin and he rocked into her.

With a rough laugh, he rested his palms on the counter on either side of her. Her head tilted back under his kisses, she tugged his shirt from his jeans. “Take it off.”

“Baby, you know where this is headed,” he murmured between kisses, her fingers leaving trails of fire on his skin. “Are you sure?”

“Take it
off
, Del.” She shoved the shirt up, helping him shrug out of it. Once it hit the floor, she fanned her hands over his chest, shaping the muscles, tracing the line of his ribcage. She ran a single finger along the scar bisecting his left pec, and he closed his eyes. Over the years, she’d done the same thing countless times, but this once, the simple caress brought tears to his eyes. She pressed a kiss there and he moaned, swaying closer. This wasn’t really happening. In a second, he’d wake up and find it was simply another dream.

He bent his head, seeking the curve of her neck with his mouth, tangling his fingers in the plush robe, pushing the edges aside so he could find her curves. A breathy sigh escaping her, she arched into his touch. The pulsing fire in him burned hotter. He trailed his lips to the hollow of her throat, her pulse beating against his mouth.

He cupped her breasts, her skin still damp from the shower, and nuzzled her shoulder while he brushed his thumbs across her tightening nipples. Her head fell back, a little moan purring in her throat. God, everything she did was the hottest thing he’d ever experienced.

“You’re so beautiful.” He muttered the words against her skin. “Sexy.” His mouth caressed the slope of her cleavage. “Perfect.”

“Hardly.” The word escaped her on a husky laugh. She clutched his hair and massaged his scalp. He swallowed, a groan building in him. “Childbirth and nursing three babies don’t add up to perfect.”

“My babies.” He circled a hardened nipple with his tongue, drowning in her gasp of pleasure. “
Our
babies.” He flicked his thumbnail over her dampened skin. “You’ve always been perfect to me.”

Using her hold on his hair, she pulled his head up and took his mouth again in the slowest, sexiest kiss of his life. With his palms, he worshipped the line of her body—her breasts, the indentation of her waist, the flare of her hips. The muscles of her stomach jumped against his hand when he stroked his knuckles across her smooth skin. The blonde curls below were soft and damp, and when his fingers found her, she moaned into his mouth. Already hot and slick, she pushed into his touch.

She gripped his shoulders and slid her mouth from his. “Oh, you feel so good.”

He buried his face against her neck, kissing her there, loving the feel of her rubbing his shoulders and back. She knew what he liked—strong, firm caresses, long sweeping strokes of her fingers, the occasional sting of her teeth and nails on him—and he was burning up with what she did to him.

She skimmed his sides with her short nails and ventured beneath the waistband of his jeans, almost but not quite touching him where he needed it most. She brushed him with one finger and he bucked, groaning.

“Del,” she whispered, and he lifted his head. Gripping the counter’s edge with white-knuckled hands, he stared at the wanton picture of her, damp hair tousled, eyes dilated with passion, robe open exposing rounded breasts with rosy, hard nipples, his tan dark against her paler skin. She didn’t smile and a hard knot settled in his chest. Lord, she was going to tell him to stop. The dream was over.

She touched him, curving her hands to his rib cage, thumbs rubbing down the spasming muscles of his stomach, stopping at his jeans. With a slow motion and a teasing smile, she popped the button loose on his fly. He was going to explode, then and there from nothing more than that minx-like smirk and the anticipation of her touching him. Even slower, she slid down his zipper. The jeans slipped on his hips, and one fingertip crept into the band of his briefs.

Explode, hell. He was going to die from the expectancy, but, Lord, what a way to spend his last moments. She pushed the briefs down, stroking him, and he gasped, knees ready to buckle. “Baby, you’re killing me.”

Still caressing him, she wrapped her legs around his hips once more. She kissed him, dancing her tongue along his lips.

“I want you,” she moaned into his mouth. “Inside me.”

Sliding his hands under her thighs, he lifted her against him, ready to carry her off to bed. “No.” She tightened her legs around him, positioning him at the entrance to her hot, wet core. “Here. Right now.”

Since waking up in a hospital at age eighteen, accused of driving the car that killed his best friend, Jazz McNeil has lived with a guilty heart. Now, more than a decade later, he has returned to his hometown to raise his daughter and to uncover the truth about what happened that fateful summer. And gaze into the eyes of the girl whose life he shattered.

Though Anne-Marie Kincaid was told that Jazz was responsible for her brother’s death all those years ago, she has never quite believed it. The facts don’t quite fit; they never did. All she knows is, she still feels loved and safe when she’s with Jazz, and that he misses her brother just as much as she.

And since he returned home, people have started dying.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
For the Love of Jazz
:

“We were never friends, angel. I was friends with your rich brother and you were the nosy, little brat who had a crush on me,” he snapped. “Go home to Daddy, Annie. You want to talk to somebody, go talk to him.”

In the fading light, he saw the delicate color wash out of her cheeks and hurt bloom in those green eyes. And then she blinked, and as easily as that, a mask fell. She shrugged, carelessly. “Your loss, Jasper,” she told him, turning on her heel and heading for her car. The denim drew tight across her hips as she dug into the hip pocket for her keys.

Before Anne-Marie could reach for the handle, hard hands closed over her elbows, twirled her, pinned her against a heavy, male body. Against her back, she felt the cool, smooth glass of the window and the heat of the metal door against her legs. She raised her head, looked into those deep brown eyes that had haunted her dreams for years on end.

“I don’t wanna talk to you,” he whispered as he lowered his head to hers.

Oh.

Oh, my.

There really could be thunder and lightning bolts…

The ground seemed to open up beneath her feet, leaving her clinging to Jazz for balance. He nipped her lip and when her mouth opened, his tongue swept inside, tasting her, savoring, diving deep for more. His hands slid down the length of her body, plastering her against him. Against her belly, she could feel the thick, hard length of his erection. The feel of it did something to her insides, turning her all molten and soft—empty. Too damned empty.

Anne-Marie rose on her toes, pressed against him, and wrapped her arms around his neck. Desperate to get closer, she arched up against him, feeling the heat and power of his body against the softness of her own.

“Damn it, Annie. We shouldn’t do this.” Dragging his mouth away, Jazz stared down at her.
What in the hell am I doing?
he thought, dazed. He jerked his arms away from her, staring down at her. She raised one hand to her lips, touched them lightly. When her tongue darted out, slid over first her lower lip and then her upper, Jazz groaned.

What in the hell was he doing?

Alex would have killed him for even thinking what he was thinking, much less putting his thoughts into action. Desmond would have laid into him with a dull scalpel. By touching her, he betrayed both of them more than he already had.

Awkwardly, he opened his mouth to apologize but then the words froze when she took a single step toward him. And then another, and one more until she was close enough for him to see the wild pulse beating a tattoo under the thin skin of her neck. She pressed one finger to his lips, wrapped the arm around his neck, and leaned forward, pressing her mouth to the vee of skin bared by his simple, cotton button-down.

His eyes closed and his hands came up to cup the back of her neck, holding her against him.
Sweet Anne-Marie. God, I love you.
He had dreamed of her over the years, dreamed of a woman who had been just a child when he had left. Dreams that had kept him company at night, even after he’d married Sheri. Guilty dreams that he had denied having, dreams that felt so real, waking from them was almost painful.

Some people didn’t believe in love at first sight, but Jazz always had. He’d fallen for her as a boy and those feelings had only strengthened in their years apart. Now, she stood in his arms, pressing herself against him. Totally and completely willing—and eager. He could see an answering hunger in her eyes, feel it in the way she leaned into him when he touched her. It was every dream he had ever had, and every nightmare. Because finally he could have her, but only for a while.

Jazz would never be able to hold her. He would never deserve her. But damned if he wouldn’t take whatever he could get before she walked away. He held her pressed tightly against him as she trailed a line of butterfly kisses up his neck.

“Why shouldn’t we do this, Jazz?” she asked, reveling in his taste. He tasted hot, erotic, forbidden. Like whiskey and chocolate. Her hands itched to touch him until with a sigh, she gave in, running her hands down his arms, up his sides, learning the long, lean body by touch.

She hadn’t come out here for this. Not intentionally.

But Anne-Marie had fallen in love with Jazz McNeil the first time she laid eyes on him at the tender age of ten. And she had always known there would be no other for her. The one time she had tried to use another man to forget about Jazz had ended in miserable failure and she never once again tried.

Nothing had changed that, not the sixteen years of separation, not the knowledge that he had been driving the night Alex had died. Jazz was it for her and he always had been.

Rigidly, Jazz stood in her arms and tried to think of the reasons they shouldn’t do this. There were reasons. He just couldn’t, for the life of him, think of them as she pressed another kiss to his collarbone, going up on her toes and pressing another whisper-soft kiss to his jawbone. It was torture, the satin soft feel of her mouth on his skin. He wanted to cradle her head between his hands and kiss her again, taste her, hold her open while he gorged on her.

Then he wanted to lean back and watch as she used that pretty rosebud mouth in other ways. Even the thought was enough to make him go cross-eyed with lust and when he lifted his hands to her waist, they were shaking.

She’s so tiny
, Jazz thought. Her waist was slender, so narrow he could nearly span it with his hands. Slender, almost delicate, like some kind of fairy princess and yet so strong. He could feel the strength in her hands as she clasped his shoulders, reaching up against him.

“Take me inside,” she whispered, lifting her head so she could stare at him.

“Anne-Marie…”

“Don’t tell me we shouldn’t do this. Don’t tell me anything. Just take me inside, Jazz. This is what I want.”