Leave it to Max (Lori's Classic Love Stories Volume 1) (21 page)

“Huh?”

She worked her fingers against the length of
his hair. “About those memories of me.”

He closed his eyes, focused on the brain in
his head, and not the one farther down that seemed to have a mind
of its own right now. “This chair. I see you here with Max. It’s
the middle of the night, and you’re rocking him. Then he starts to
cry.”

He opened his eyes and found her staring at
him in wonder, so he continued. “You’ve got a gown like this, with
buttons down the front, so you open them, but only so far.”
Hesitantly, he reached forward and pressed one finger to a point
just above her belly.

The muscles of her stomach jumped, and she
made a sound deep in her throat that tugged at him much lower.

“And you open the gown, then you feed him
from your breast.” He lifted his eyes and caught hers. “It’s the
most beautiful memory that I don’t have.”

Her breath came as fast and hard as his own.
Holding his gaze, she removed her hands from his neck and pushed
aside her robe, then unfastened her gown. Silky white skin appeared
between the buttons.

“To here?”

He reached out, popped one more button. “More
like...here.”

She opened her arms, inviting him back.
Though this time it wasn’t love for her, it was for him, and he
could deny her nothing, because he’d denied her everything
before.

* * *

Livy wanted Garrett still and she was tired
of fighting it. Why should she? She was an adult. So was he. They’d
had a child together. Why put off the inevitable?

Though she’d had a quick, breathy fantasy of
tumbling him onto the carpet and having sex right there, he was
having none of it. In fact, he took his sweet time kissing her,
touching her face, murmuring her name. He was different, yet
somehow the same.

His large, gentle hands along her back
soothed, even as his lips enticed. Cool air caressed her skin
through the gap in her gown. The same air chilled her knees and the
contrast of that chill with the heat of him made her shudder.

His mouth moved away and she pulled it right
back. In the past they’d often “made out” for hours until both of
them were so enflamed with the possibilities they couldn’t think
straight. Right now, she did not want to think.

He suckled her lips, played a bit with her
tongue. His strong hands warmed her knees, then his thumbs
discovered the muscles of her inner thighs. She’d never known how
responsive those muscles could be until they leaped and quivered
beneath his touch.

He’d learned new tricks in the years he’d
been gone. She could care less where or how; she only cared that he
had. His clever fingers shimmied under the lace of her panties, ran
along the line of skin where her hip and her leg joined. His thumbs
tested the curves of her hipbones, before he somehow divested her
of her underwear while she was enjoying what his mouth did to her
ear.

Her robe hung off her arms, and she shrugged
it aside impatiently, the movement only making the gap in her gown
gape wider. The buttons tugged beneath her breasts, tight,
uncomfortable, and she raised her hand to release them, but his
were already there. The front opened and his palm skimmed over her.
Once, his hands had scraped along her skin and she’d loved the
contrast of rough upon soft.

Now those hands had healed, and while they
weren’t soft, they weren’t rough, either. Still, they made her
arch, offering more, offering all that she had. When the chair
rocked, the softness of her slid against the hardness of him.

Her gasp became a moan of arousal when he
lifted the weight of a breast and closed his mouth over the peak.
Gently he rolled her nipple with his tongue as he rocked the chair,
rocked them both.

Desperate for more, she reached for his
buckle, but there wasn’t one. His black cotton trousers opened
easily, and she touched him now the way she’d touched him then.

He raised his dark head, and their eyes met.
She saw something in his gaze she’d never seen there before, and
she hesitated. His lips tilted and he stilled her hand.

“Wait,” he said, then fumbled about.

Her body aflame, she wanted to scream,
I’ve been waiting nine years.

But when he produced a condom, sheathed
himself, then leaned over and gently kissed her lips, she had to
smile, too.

“Once bitten,” she whispered.

“Twice shy.”

This time when she guided him to her, he went
with a sigh that shivered over her damp skin. He bent his head,
nuzzling her breast, and his hair drifted and tickled along her
neck, adding sensation upon sensation.

They rocked together fast and frantic, then
slower, easier, until they both struggled for control—it was too
good to end too soon. But at last he suckled once, pushed against
her, tight and hard, then went still. The pulse and release, so
deep, so strong, caused answering waves in her that seemed to reach
all the way back in time.

Before she’d caught her breath, he rearranged
their clothes, lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed,
where he laid her gently on top, then followed her down. When the
bed creaked, he laughed.

“What?”

“I have fond memories of that creak.”

She was amazed to find herself smiling, when
before those memories had only made her want to cry. “Me, too.”

“Why don’t we make some more?”

He parted her gown, lowered his head to her
quivering belly, placing an openmouthed kiss just below her navel.
When he looked up the length of her body, the sight of that
familiar face brought a rush of memories and the echo of fierce
emotions.

Perhaps replacing old painful thoughts with
new and ardent ones would heal her lingering pain. Maybe to
exorcise J.J., she merely needed to work Garrett out of her system.
What could it hurt?

“Why don’t we?” she asked, and tossed her
gown to the floor with the rest of her clothes.

Then she made short work of the rest of
his.

Livy awoke alone, and for a moment it was a
long-ago summer night and J.J. had just snuck out the back way,
then across the yard to his own room. He’d call her soon and they’d
talk before they fell asleep.

Then a cool, autumn-scented breeze through
the window brought her back to the present only seconds before
Max’s sleepy murmur made her remember what she had just done.

In the past nine years she’d rarely had sex,
and she’d never much liked it. Livy had come to believe the lack
was in her, but in the space of a single instant in Garrett’s arms,
she’d understood that the lack had merely been of him.

The knowledge frightened her, because not
only were the sexual feelings the same, but he was the same,
despite a change in name. Be he J. J. Garrett or Garrett Stark, he
wouldn’t stay. He wasn’t capable of it.

This time he’d been careful. She would be
careful, too. She’d guard her heart, which shouldn’t be that hard.
She wanted him still because they’d never finished what they’d
started. What they’d had was left undone. They'd finish it on her
terms this time.

A shuffle in the hallway made her scramble
for her robe. If Max came in with a nightmare he’d wonder why her
clothes were all over the floor. But when she found her robe, it
was tangled in Garrett’s shirt. He must not have left as she’d
thought.

She stepped through the door and saw him
standing, barefoot and bare chested, in the doorway to Max’s room.
Concerned that Max had needed her and she’d slept through his call,
Livy hurried to join Garrett. But he merely stared, transfixed at
the sight of his son fast asleep.

The love on his face was so plain and so true
a little part of Livy’s heart broke off at the sight. She had never
considered that a father might love his child with the same
unconscious devotion a mother would.

Just because Livy had carried him and borne
him did not make Max any less his father’s child. Genetics stated
half and half. Still, she’d been unwilling to give up any part of
Max at all. But that expression on Garrett’s face made sharing Max
a little less hard than it had been yesterday.

Garrett glanced her way, then back at Max, as
if he couldn’t keep his eyes from the sight. When she leaned in the
doorway, he took her hand, and she let him.

The night hovered around them, blue-black and
cool, the sound of their son’s gentle snore a music that connected
them by more than their hands, more than a past, more than any
future they might imagine. Embarrassment over what had happened
between them seemed silly when they shared a son.

The moment was peaceful, pure and lovely.
Livy found herself wishing for more of them.

“He’s magic,” Garrett whispered. “A miracle I
don’t deserve.”

Once, she would have agreed, but now she knew
the truth. “Nobody deserves a gift like Max.”

“Is that why you protect him so hard?”

Her peace fled on the silent night. She might
have had a few warm feelings about Garrett after spending some
quality time in bed with him, but that didn’t mean he could tell
her how to raise her son, even if Max was his son, too.

She’d been listening to everyone’s opinion on
her overprotectiveness since Max had made his appearance in this
world. Rosie, Kim, doctors, nurses, even Klein thought she hovered.
Too bad. If hovering kept Max safe, she’d hover until she crashed.
Unfortunately, hovering hadn’t seemed to do much good, as the size
of Max’s medical file could attest.

Livy tugged free of Garrett’s hand and went
back to her room. After a last, lingering glance at Max, he
followed. She shut the door behind him and placed her back against
the wood.

“I protect Max because I know how easily life
can be snatched away.”

Garrett picked up his shirt from the floor.
“You can’t control fate.”

“Watch me.”

As he shrugged into the garment, Livy found
herself distracted by the play of muscles across his lean chest.
She’d always been partial to a tall, runner’s physique—a bias
courtesy of this very man—so she moved across the room and sat on
the bed in an attempt to put a distance between herself and
temptation.

Socks in hand, he sat at her side. When her
hip rolled into his, she gritted her teeth against the lust such a
simple movement caused. Getting Garrett out of her system was one
thing. Becoming a nymphomaniac was another. How could she be
annoyed with him and aroused by him at the same time?

Livy went to stand in front of the window,
pointedly ignoring the rocking chair. Garrett draped his socks over
one knee and contemplated her face, reminding her of one of the
reasons she had loved him. When he listened, he listened with all
that he had. For a young girl who had gone from being the apple of
her father’s eye to the ignored child of the town eccentric, such
attention had made her feel important, special and cared for. But
Livy knew better than to fall for the same trick twice.

“And I have no business prying. You’re
right.” He shrugged and returned his attention to his socks. “It’s
just...I was the same way as a kid. Tripped up every step, fell
down every hill, broken this, sprained that.”

“And what did
your
parents do?”

“My mother left when I was two.”

Livy had never heard a word about his mother,
but she hadn’t expected to hear this. “I’m sorry.”

“She chose to leave, so I can understand some
of your anger at me. I’ve felt a certain anger toward her myself on
occasion. But for the most part, when I think of my mother I have
little recollection of her.”

A wave of sympathy washed over Livy at the
thought of a little boy all alone. “And your father, what did he
do?”

Garrett continued to stare at his socks, as
if seeing into the past. “Told me what a klutz I was. Tried to make
me a man.”

“He what?”

He glanced up, and though his eyes were still
cloudy with the memories, his face had gone hard. “My father was a
high-powered, corporate attorney.”

That explains his distaste for my
profession.

“I was an embarrassment to him. Never good
enough, never right enough, never smart enough, never athletic
enough.”

“You were a child. You were exactly the way
you were supposed to be.”

“Tell James, Sr. He wasn’t impressed.”

“Let me get this straight—your father told
you that you didn’t measure up?”

“Every day of my life. Until I left.”

“What does he say now?”

“I have no idea.”

“You don’t talk to him?”

“I gave up trying to please Daddy the day I
caught a bus out of town. I’m not saying I don’t hear his voice now
and again.” His mouth twisted in selfmockery. “ ‘J.J., everything
you touch, you break. Everything you care about, you crush. When
things matter the most, you fail.’”

Horrified, Livy could only stare at him. No
wonder he had always seemed haunted. Even when he’d laughed,
there’d been shadows in his eyes. He had drawn her in that way. His
loneliness had called to her own. Maybe it was better that she had
not known the reasons for Garrett’s inner turmoil, because she only
would have loved him more.

Livy had lived a golden childhood. Though
Rosie didn’t approve of her job, her demeanor or her mothering
skills, Livy had always known her mother loved her. Still, she
could understand Garrett’s fear of never being enough for
anyone.

“In my work I’ve discovered a lot of men who
don’t deserve to be fathers. Yours is one of them.”

Garrett shrugged. “He was right about some
things. I do have a habit of running when things get tough and
failing under pressure.”

“When have you failed?”

“I failed you. I failed my son. Right now,
I’m supposed to be done with the book of a lifetime and I haven’t
even started. Looks like my father wasn’t so dumb after all.”