Men Times Three (4 page)

She shifted to give him more room while he tore at her hose again. If she was lucky, he'd drop to his knees and eat her raw. But she refused to ask. He'd like hearing it too much.

“Done enough talking, Holly,” he said into her ear. His chin rasped the delicate skin of her neck. “Right now I want you and you want this. You're so hot, so needy every time. I'll never get enough of you.” He kissed her again, hard, testing, tempting. “There'll never be another you.”

He was right about her need for sex. She was easily aroused and he'd taken advantage all through their marriage. Knowing he was doing it again didn't stop the sensations, though. She was a sucker and let him play her like one.

But one more time couldn't hurt. She moaned as he bared her breasts and suckled each one. Tension rose and orgasm beckoned.

She bit back the next moan as desire heated deep in her belly. A flare of anger burned along the passion as he kissed her neck with a stream of nips and nibbles that drove her toward release. Her hips pumped in response to the steady plunge of his fingers. “Jack.” He made her so wet.

“Hear that, baby?” He moved his finger faster, sliding into her slickness. “You're wet for me. Just for me. Tell me, Holly, tell me.”

“Just for you, Jack,” she lied and panted for breath, and heard the wet slide as he worked her toward a fast first come. Her plumped clit distended toward his thumb and he laughed in his throat when she rolled her hips for more. He burrowed his thumb and rubbed harder. She groaned and opened wider, giving him the invitation he craved.

She rolled her head again and touched the frame of her hall mirror, but Jack didn't stop. He knew all her signs and kept up a steady assault on her senses.

“Unh,” she groaned the way he liked and stopped pretending she could put the brakes on this with him. He took her over the edge into weak release.

“That's it, baby,” he crooned as her pulsing orgasm faded. It had been a couple of years since she'd had a really great orgasm, but Jack never bothered to notice.

There was a lot he didn't want to see, and Holly had unconsciously entered into a conspiracy of silence with Jack. Their marriage had slipped away while neither of them noticed. Conversation had deteriorated, shared time had disappeared. The only thing they still had was
this
.

Three months after the divorce even the sex had faded to a shadow of what it had been.

Yes, a conspiracy of silence cocooned them.

A silence that had to be broken.

Later.

Right now, she didn't have the heart to throw salt into his wounds, so she took him into her bedroom and into her body, one last time.

She tugged off her shredded panty hose and panties and settled back on the bed while Jack shucked out of his jeans. She passed him a condom and smiled when he whined about it. She cocked an eyebrow. “We're not together, Jack. I don't know where you've been.”

He used it, but he was pissed off enough to drag her by the ankles to the foot of the bed. Then he bent her knees to her chest, opened her legs wide and rammed into her. He grunted with the force of his powerful thrust while Holly clutched the bedspread and counted plunges.

Should take four, but, hey, Jack was in fine form today with six. He spurted into her and rode out his orgasm in a burst of enthusiasm she didn't feel. Two weeks ago she'd at least managed to feign interest.

Booty calls with her ex. How pathetic. But this was the first time he'd come to this new apartment. Other times she'd gone to him and it shamed her that she had. But sex with strangers wasn't a sure thing and Jack came with a guarantee. Marnie often said a vibrator did, too.

Jack tried to shift to his usual side of the bed but she scooted over and moved into place to block him. “You, ah, have to go now, Jack. I'm busy tonight.” She held her breath while he took in the comment.

He frowned. He liked everything in its place and she was on the wrong side of the bed. Her bed. Her new bed, that up until now, had had no trace of Jack in it.

“I want to have dinner, watch a movie,” he said. “Do what we always do.”

“Which is the problem, isn't it?” She should have been more careful with her keys. She set her forearm across her forehead and stared at the ceiling. Plastic stars and moons glowed at her from the ceiling.

He saw them, too. She knew because he made a clicking sound with his tongue. He disapproved of whimsy, and the glow-in-the-dark celestial bodies smacked of lightheartedness.

Thing was, she loved feeling light and happy and it was time she said so. “I like my stars,” she said. “They're mine and I like them.”

He smoothed his cock and left sticky tracks on her brand-new sheets. He'd always been lazy post coitus. He wouldn't leave unless she pushed harder.

“What are you busy with?”

“Packing. I'm going to the Peninsula to meet up with Marnie.”

“Why? You never go there.”

“Family meeting. Everyone's going.” The lie came more easily than she expected, but she'd say anything to ease this moment. She didn't want to end things with the bald truth. She didn't have any feelings for Jack anymore: not love, not anger, not even dislike or disappointment. There was just a big void where her feelings for him used to live. And sorry, sad sex couldn't fill that void any longer.

“Your Grandad sick? He's got that inn, right?” Jack always liked the idea of her coming into her share some day. It was a mistake to mention the Peninsula. He could be dogged when he got wind of something.

“No, he's not sick.” A technicality because Jon Dawson had died months ago, in the early days of their separation. “But we thought it was a good time to get together.” She scrambled to think of a reason that would work to put him off the scent. “It seems we have a cousin we've never met. My Aunt Trudy's daughter. No one's met her.”

He snorted and rolled to sit up. His back showed his recent weight gain. Love handles bulged at his waist. Not that she cared, but it proved he was still stressed over their divorce. He liked to blame her for his fast-food diet, but when they were together he'd done a lot of the cooking. According to Jack, her skills were never quite up to snuff in the kitchen.

“You need to move on, Jack. This has to be the last time we're together.”

His back stiffened. “Why? We're talking now. Isn't that what you want? To communicate?”

“Fucking when the mood strikes isn't communication. It's been months since the divorce. I've got a new place I like. A job I enjoy,” she lied again. “You need to find the same kind of positive things.” She wanted to pat him on the back, but he'd see it as an invitation for more sex. “Take this time while I'm away to focus on what you want out of life. You may find someone you connect with.”

He turned to face her. “When are you coming back?” His voice was quiet, soft. His eyes shimmered in the twilight that filled the room.

She hesitated, because she wasn't sure how much time he might need. She shrugged. “I took a couple of vacation weeks, so I'll be gone a while. I'm not exactly sure how long,” she fudged. “Marnie talked about hanging out a while and getting to know our new cousin.”

“A couple of weeks, just long enough for you to beg for it again.”

She couldn't let it pass, she should have, but she couldn't. “You're the one who came to me. I don't want this with you anymore.”

He stood and walked out without speaking or looking at her again. But he made sure to use her shower and leave his wet towels on the floor of her bathroom.

Jack, staking a claim, trying to let her know he was still part of her life. Still her husband.

He wasn't.

He wasn't.

He wasn't.

M
arnie took a moment to appreciate TJ's fine body when he unloaded her car and motioned her into his home ahead of him. She opened the unlocked front door, prepared for full-on bachelor decor. She was wrong. “Your home is beautiful.” Rustic but with a contemporary flair.

He set a suitcase and her laptop on his leather sofa. Brown top-grain, not black, softly worn-in, like a favorite jacket.

“It's a mess,” he confessed. “Deke's not the easiest man to live with, but I should have picked up before I left this morning.” Two extra-large pizza boxes littered his coffee table, but other than the accompanying pair of empty beer bottles, the living area was tidy. Roomy and filled with furniture large enough for sprawling. A good man's home.

He cared about how he lived, wanted comfort and quality in his life. “Looks great to me.”

“Thanks, but I admit to using a service every week to keep things straightened up around here.” He put his hands on his hips and surveyed the room.

“It's a lot more welcoming than the Friendly Inn.” She shook her head at the name. “I don't know that I've ever seen a business with such a misnomer.”

He laughed. “Jon just didn't like people.”

“I can't imagine him as a father with young children. My dad's never said much about growing up with him.”

“Jon's heart was torn out when he lost his wife. He didn't recover. He said she made him a better man, and with her death, that part of him died, too.”

“Now you've made me feel sorry for a crotchety old man who never said a kind word to anyone.” She hung her purse strap over the newel post of his impressive staircase and reached to take her bag from him. “The guest room?”

“Upstairs on the left. Make yourself at home.” She put her hand on the staircase but TJ covered it with his. She looked at him for a measuring moment.

“Thank you for taking me in,” she said. “I'll try not to disturb you.”

His gaze heated. “You've disturbed me since you stepped out of your car. I don't see that changing any time soon.”

“Likewise, Thomas John.”

She trotted upstairs and found her room right away. Functional and tidy, but the bed was stripped of linen. “Tell me where the sheets are and I'll make the bed,” she called downstairs.

His expression when she asked was crestfallen. “That door right behind you.”

“You didn't think it would be that easy, did you?”

“A man can dream, can't he?”

She chuckled under her breath as she dug out a set of pretty, feminine sheets. Obviously, the man wasn't always here alone. She held the sheets to her chest and looked downstairs. She found him staring back up at her, his black hair falling over his left eye and his chest so wide they'd never walk side by side on the stairs. He took her breath as his gaze traveled up her legs to her sheet-covered chest and down again.

“Leave the sheets; you must be hungry. We can raid the fridge together.”

She needed no further encouragement and tossed the sheets on the bare mattress before joining him downstairs.

By the time she reached the main floor, he'd turned his mind back to the Friendly Inn. “When the sign fell over at the end of the drive, I told Jon he shouldn't bother putting it back up. He never did.”

“Think it's still in the ditch? We might salvage it.” She followed him through the dining area.

He shrugged and she admired his shoulders from the back. Broad and straight, they tapered to a trim waist. “I'll make you a new one,” he offered.

“For free?”

“I'll include it with the cabins. A welcome gift.” The kitchen was bright and airy with no curtains at the windows. She glanced out to the view. Trees. Nothing but trees starting at about ten feet back of the house. From the wall to the tree line was a well-used, but clean dog run. “No dog?”

“Beau's gone. Been three months and, well, I haven't had the heart to look.”

Tears stung her eyes. “I'm sorry. They do mean a lot to us, don't they?” Her apartment was too small and her life too busy for a dog. She had a couple cacti because they didn't need much care. “Thanks for the offer on the sign; I'll take you up on it but it's a shame Grandad's handcarved sign will rot away.” She leaned over the kitchen sink to take a closer look at the area outside. “You must see a lot of wildlife here.”

“Deer and raccoons mostly. Birds. We see more bald eagles than we used to.” The fridge door opened behind her. “The raccoons have been bolder now that Beau's gone.”

This had to be a dangerous game for her. To see the way he lived, missing his dog, keeping a nice home, caring about a grumpy old man, all things that pointed to TJ O'Banion having a good heart. She wasn't sure when the last time was she'd met a man like TJ. Certainly not at the club.

“It'll be good to see the inn taking guests,” he said as he checked the contents of the fridge. “Since construction costs on the cabins are already covered, you won't have loans to pay off. Between the cabins and the rooms, you should be able to at least break even the first year.”

“Someone will,” she said as she turned to face him. “I'm going back to Seattle as fast as I can. I've got a club to run and a partner I need to deal with.”

He stilled with his hand on the open fridge door. “Partner?”

Her lips split into a grin at the concern on his face. “Business partner. I don't sleep with him.” She shuddered so convincingly he gave her a ready smile. “Just like I'm not going to sleep with you.” She wasn't sure if she meant it or not.

TJ cupped his ear at her obvious lie. “I couldn't quite catch that. Your eyes speak a different language.” As did her smile, her sway and the way she'd unbuttoned an extra button on her blouse.

Her cell phone rang and she dashed to her purse to answer it. “Holly? Where are you?”

The cousin and a partner in the inn. Holly's feelings about the inn could be different from Marnie's. She may want to keep the place. He leaned into the room.

Marnie walked outside to the veranda, looking for privacy. Damn. She paced in front of his living room window while she talked, looking grim. An argument? It wouldn't be the first time heirs disagreed on an inheritance.

She used her hands when she talked. He remembered that trait now that he thought about it. In fact, he recalled a lot more about that summer and her than he'd realized at first. Memories flooded back in a rapid wash of images. He'd liked her, enjoyed her company.

He'd even thought she was smart and had harbored a fear that maybe, just maybe, he'd stumbled on a girl who was smarter than him. At fifteen, that had been a major cut to his ego.

Now, he was impressed. She had a good head on her shoulders, didn't wail and ring her hands at setbacks.

Marnie Dawson also had a body worth waiting for.

He pulled a beer out of the fridge, thought again and dug into the back for a bottle of wine. He walked to the front window and held them up for her to see. She smiled and pointed at the wine. She held up three fingers to indicate the call would soon wind down.

He took the next couple of minutes to set out some cheese, crackers and grapes on a platter. She must be hungry; early evening and dinner was still an hour away.

He wasn't sure how fast she wanted to get back to the inn, but she didn't seem like a woman to put off work.

She walked in on a breeze of fresh air and a vitality all her own. “Thanks, this looks great. I need the wine after that phone call. Turns out Holly was planning on staying for a couple of weeks at least.”

“Great, so you will, too?” He pictured her in his bed for fourteen long nights.

“You look like the cat that ate the canary.”

“Not yet, but it's definitely on the agenda.”

She plucked a grape from the stem and popped it into her mouth. The moment the juice sprayed inside her mouth, her eyelashes fluttered. She moved her tongue around the grape inside her mouth. Sensual in every way. Her eyelids drooped as she licked her lips to extend her enjoyment of the juiciness, and his libido cranked higher.

Lifting her glass in a silent toast, she took a sip of wine. “Very good.” Then she topped a cracker with cheese and munched the snack daintily. “Perfect.”

She caught him looking, then she took a seat at his sandwich bar, which only gave him a better view of her cleavage. “Where can I get cleaning supplies?”

The twinkle of humor in her eye sent his temperature to boil. The witch knew damn well she'd stalled him.

“I've got mops and buckets. I'd be happy to call in a cleaning crew. Some of the housekeeping staff at local hotels might want to pick up extra work.”

“Tempting as it is not to wear myself out cleaning up that mess, I'll wait for Holly to get here before I spend money for help. We may have inherited the inn, but all of the money and everything else went to the men in the family.”

“They could come help.” He'd never met her brother. Might be wiser not to. He'd pick up on the scent of lust right away. Not his sweet little sister's, of course, but TJ's.

“Not allowed. Grandad insisted on the three of us working together on the place.” She bit her lip as if she'd said more than she wanted.

At least he'd avoid a showdown with her brother. “I thought it was just you and Holly.”

She bit her lip and looked resigned. “You'll learn about this soon enough I suppose. Our Aunt Trudy had a daughter out of wedlock so Grandad included her in his will.”

“Kylie Keegan,” he said. He knew about the stormy meeting between Jon and his newfound granddaughter, but he couldn't bring himself to betray his friend's confidence. Jon had found his own way to make amends. It wasn't TJ's place to judge. Still, he had to say something. “Your Grandad had his own ideas about things and never thought twice about expressing them, no matter how wrong he was.”

“None of us have ever known her and suddenly Holly and I have to sort out what to do with the inn with a stranger.” She shrugged. “But neither of us are ogres, so if she's halfway reasonable, it should all work out.” She brightened. “And another pair of hands to work with us will come in handy.”

“Not my business to tell you this, but you should know that the night she stormed away and Jon pulled out the bottle he told me he said some ugly things to her. She may come into the family with a chip on her shoulder.” He hesitated to say any more. “But, for whatever it's worth, Jon regretted every word after she left, but she refused to talk to him again.”

“Great, another stubborn Dawson female.” Blowing out a breath, she said, “Thanks, I appreciate the heads up. Tell me what he said to her.”

“No. Jon had his regrets about how he treated her, about a lot of things. But if anyone's to repeat what was said, it should be her.”

“You're sure this is how you want to play it?”

What she was really saying was that it was early in the game between them to tick her off. As much as he wanted her, he had a loyalty to Jon he couldn't ignore. “You'll get over it.”

She took a long, very slow scan of his body, from his boots to the top of his head, that had his cock ready, willing and able. “Maybe I will. Maybe I won't.”

“Hey, you're right. You'll have another pair of helping hands with the inn and time to get to know your cousin. It's up to you and Holly to work things out with her.” He scrubbed his hair and decided to add, “Anyone would have lit out of here the way she did that night. She had every right to be furious and hurt. Don't let her reaction to the old man get in the way of family.”

His own family was almost sorted out after a rough patch. Deke was off the booze and on the hunt for pussy, while Eli still hadn't said when he planned to return, but he would.

 

TJ humped the dusty wing chair to join the other furniture in the right corner of the inn's large living room. Marnie was behind him tackling the cobwebs all over the lobby desk. She tsked and huffed and stood high enough on a step stool to allow peekaboo glimpses of her fine butt as she stretched to reach the very top of the shelves behind the counter. When she stretched to reach the top shelves, her butt muscles clenched hard as firm melons.

If he didn't look away soon, he might approach and slip a hand up her shorts. As it was, his hands were clenched.

Women in full cleaning mode rarely wanted to stop for a quickie. At least none of the women he knew did. When they got help with cleaning, they showed their appreciation later. He looked forward to it. He slapped on an easy grin.

“I've got everything stacked here,” he said while he admired her trim waist and the flare of her hips. She turned to look over her shoulder. Bright and inquisitive, she smiled when she saw the furniture stacked in one corner. “Will this work for you?”

“Absolutely. Thanks.” She stepped down to the floor and walked around the counter. Hands on her hips, she blew at a cobweb that hung off her bangs. It fell back into place and he wanted to sweep it away, but she got to it first. “I'll vacuum the dust off the furniture before we move it back.”

“We?”

“You.” She had the grace to flush. “That is, if you can spare some time tomorrow?”

He considered saying no, but butthead Deke might be tempted to take his place here and they'd have to come to blows. While it might be fun to kick Deke's ass, it would make working with him all summer a pain. Deke could hold a grudge like nobody else.

“I'll be here.”

“Great. I can get the whole room cleaned before you even have to show up.” She slipped her hands to her lower back and pushed her pelvis toward him as she stretched out her back. “Oh, it's good to stretch after the drive today and now this.”

He picked up the coffee table and carried it to the door into the kitchen. “I'll take this out to Jon's workshop for a sanding. After it's refinished, you'll never see this damage again.”