All Shook Up Page 22

  It didn’t occur to Dru to find anything odd in that. This was what Lawrences did when a disaster happened to one of them. They rallied around and tried to make things better. And as far as Dru was concerned, J.D. had behaved in a truly heroic fashion.

  But she could see that he didn’t view his actions in the same light, and she finally distanced herself a bit to give him a little room to breathe. She watched uneasily as the wild, hunted look in his eyes grew more pronounced and tension made his posture more and more ramrod-still.

  She couldn’t tell exactly what ultimately spooked him. Uncle Ben had finished patching him up, Aunt Soph had supplied coffee, and all of them were actually giving him a little more room. Perhaps it was Tate, deep into his hero-worship mode, who pushed him over the edge. Or it might have been the admiring comment Sophie made.

  Whatever the reason, J.D. abruptly shoved to his feet. “I’ve got to go,” he said, his eyes feral. “Um, I have to get out of these wet jeans.” His gaze darted left, then right, settling briefly on each of them. “I’m sorry, okay? I just…have to go.”

  And with her heart down around her knees, Dru remained mute as he turned and strode from Ben and Sophie’s house.

  J.D. slammed into his cabin, then simply stood in the middle of the living room, his chest heaving as he struggled to draw a decent breath.

  He rammed all ten fingers through his hair and scraped it back from his forehead, elbows jutting forward as he stared blindly at the wall across the room. Christ. What were they doing to him?

  He’d learned a long time ago neither to expect nor to want what he couldn’t have. A Lawrence had taught him that, and it was a lesson he’d taken to heart.

  Now here was a whole new batch of Lawrences, tripping all over themselves to treat him as if he were some freaking prince—and he could see they weren’t mocking him, even though they must know damn well the sort of background that had spawned him.

  Damn them. They were making him think he could have some of those things. Making him want what he’d been denied his entire life—and want it bad.

  Fuck.

  Well, he wasn’t about to fall for that chump’s game—not this time. It hurt too much when it all fell apart, which—sooner or later—it inevitably did; that was simply the nature of the beast. So the Lawrences could just forget about getting him to lower his guard. He wasn’t going to expose a soft underbelly so they could stick it full of knives. He hadn’t survived this long by being stupid.

  “J.D.?”

  He jerked around. Dru stood on the other side of the screen door, staring back at him. If she’d worn any makeup today, it was no longer evident. She still had on her damp bathing suit and her hair hadn’t yet fully dried. The portion that had was flyaway, sticking up here, clumping there, and straggled over one eye.

  And, damn her, he’d never seen a prettier, more welcome sight in his life. It scared the hell out of him.

  “Go away, Drucilla.”

  “No.” The screen door creaked as she opened it and stepped inside. “You’ve had a lousy day and are clearly upset, and I’m not leaving you like this.”

  Anger coursed through him and he embraced it with his whole being. Was it asking so damn much to have one lousy afternoon to pull himself together? He stalked over to her and bent to thrust his face aggressively close. “Go home, dammit!”

  She touched a soft hand to his jaw. “No.”

  All his emotions pushed to the surface. Ignoring the discomfort in his back at the sudden move, he crowded her up against the arched support that divided the living room from the dining area and penned her in by slapping his hands flat on the wall on either side of her head. He lowered his face until they stood nose to nose. “What is it with you?” he demanded, furious with her for the way she kept pushing—and with himself for giving a damn. “You think just because I bounced you around my bed for one lousy night it gives you the right to come barging in where you’re not wanted?”

  She stared up at him, all soft determination and gas-flame blue eyes. “Yes.”

  Alarmed, he stiff-armed himself away. “Go home. I don’t have a goddam thing to offer you.”

  “Oh, boy,” she breathed. “That’s the biggest lie I’ve ever heard. You have so much to offer.”

  “I’ve got this.” He lowered his head once again to kiss her roughly, and it was all probing tongue and hard dominance. Then he jerked back and glared down into her flushed face, his heart pounding, pounding, pounding against the wall of his chest. “I’ve got the Natural Wonder and a few moves guaranteed to make you scream,” he said harshly and ground his pelvis against her to demonstrate. “And that’s all I’ve got.”

  “Then I guess that’s what I’ll take.”

  Blood roared in his ears. “Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said, Drucilla? I’ve got nothing for you that hasn’t been offered to a dozen other women before you.”

  She winced slightly but met his gaze steadily. “You’re not going to drive me away, John David.”

  “Damn you,” he said hoarsely, and slammed his mouth down on hers. If she wouldn’t listen to reason, he’d just have to demonstrate once and for all that he wasn’t the man she thought he was.

  He kissed her with a hot, rough lack of control that was long on frustrated passion and short on finesse.

  But rather than be repulsed, she went up in flames. Her hands fisted in his hair to hold him to her, and she kissed him back every bit as roughly as he kissed her. The last of J.D.’s control hit the skids.

  He couldn’t keep his mouth or his hands off her then, and between one moment and the next, without a clue to how he’d accomplished it, he had the top of her suit scrunched up beneath her armpits and the bottom stripped off and discarded. Without once removing his mouth from hers, J.D. reached between them to fumble with the button and zipper of his cutoff jeans. Once they were undone, the garment needed only the smallest push before its damp weight and gravity dragged it down around his ankles. He hadn’t bothered with underwear and he sucked in a sharp breath when he felt Dru’s hands slide around his hips to grip the bare flesh of his buttocks. He lifted her against the wall and sheathed himself inside of her with one strong, smooth thrust.

  She wrapped her legs around his hips, and her breath began to hitch in her throat almost immediately. J.D. ripped his mouth away and leaned backward from the waist as he felt her orgasm approach. Pumping his hips with steady, emphatic thrusts, he greedily observed every expression that crossed her face.

  She opened her eyes and saw him watching. Color burned with feverish heat high on her cheekbones. “Oh, God, J.D.,” she whispered. “Oh, God, I’m going to, I want to…”

  “Come.” Hands against the backs of her thighs, he pressed her legs high and wide while he bent his knees and pushed up into her from a slightly different angle. Deeper and harder, until her head dropped back and she stared blindly into space. Frantic sounds climbed her throat and the wet satin tightness that clasped his sex like a Chinese finger puzzle tugged and contracted around it as she climaxed.

  He felt his own orgasm gathering momentum in his testicles and pulled back for one final thrust…

  Only to remember a small but pertinent fact, and yank himself out of her entirely.

  “No!” she protested. “Not yet; you haven’t—” Her hips moved against his in a bid to get him back inside her, and when he instead pressed himself between silky, down-covered folds of feminine flesh outside the danger zone, she wailed, “Why?”

  “No condom,” he panted and saw her eyes go wide in horrified comprehension. He stroked his erection along the slippery length of her cleft once, twice, three times.

  Then, with a groan, he spilled his seed against her lower stomach.

  When the last pulsation had faded, he took a deep, shuddery breath and let his forehead thump down on the tongue-and-groove wall next to her head. He sagged heavily against her, compressing her between his torso and the wall’s solid surface. He felt logy and boneless and full of a perfect
contentment such as he’d rarely experienced—as though he’d just been welcomed in front of a roaring fire on a bitterly cold day.

  “Jesus Jake,” he whispered and carefully scooped his hands beneath her butt to both protect it from the roughness of the wood and support her weight. “It’s a wonder you don’t have a backside full of slivers.”

  She kissed his throat. “You know what, J.D.?” she whispered. “You’re a great big fraud.”

  His heart seemed to stop for an instant, then kicked like an enraged mule against the wall of his chest. Warily he pulled back far enough to look into her face. “You wanna give me a clue to what the hell you’re talking about?”

  “This,” she said, tightening her legs around his hips. “I’m talking about this. There is no way in hell that what you and I just shared is the same thing you’ve offered to a dozen women before me.”

  21

  J.D. carefully straightened and, with Dru’s arms still looped around his neck and her legs gripping his hips, walked into the bathroom. He eased her onto her feet, ran hot water to wet a washcloth, and cleaned them both up.

  “No comment?” she inquired.

  He shrugged. “What do you want me to say?” That he had a sinking feeling she might be right? He’d learned young never to hand over the kind of power such an admission would endow.

  Dru stared at him in frustration. “I don’t get you at all,” she said and reached for a towel to wrap around herself. Even though she’d known he wouldn’t welcome her with open arms, the stony expression she faced now made her long to shake him until he opened up to her once and for all.

  She stared up at him in mute frustration, and he simply returned her look in that cool, contained manner he seemed to adopt so easily.

  “What’s not to get?” he said with a shrug. “I’m a fairly simple man.”

  “Oh, yeah, simple.” She nearly choked. “That must be why you ran from Sophie and Ben’s house like all the demons from hell were nipping at your heels.”

  “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” he said stiffly and reached for the other towel. Maintaining aloof eye contact, he wrapped it around his hips.

  “Oh, yes, you do, and don’t you dare pretend otherwise! Uncle Ben patched you up, and Aunt Soph and Tate and I fussed around you a little bit, and you couldn’t take it. Why is it so damn difficult for you to admit that we might actually have something worthwhile to offer you? Or that you and I could possibly have something special growing between us? I know you feel something for me, J.D.”

  “Yeah? And what makes you think that, Drucilla? The fact that I pulled out to keep you from becoming an unwed mother—again?”

  For just an instant she froze. Even suspecting it was a calculated ploy to keep her at arm’s length, it hurt to have him throw that in her face.

  She thought she might understand his reasoning—but it filled her with impatience.

  She stepped close and thrust her chin up at him. “You want to know the details of that, John David?” she demanded. “All you have to do is ask.”

  “I don’t give a rip one way or the other.”

  “Oh, like hell. I bet you’re just dying for every nasty little detail.” Watching with satisfaction as a dull, angry red climbed his throat and onto his face, she said, “I was eighteen years old when I met Tate’s father. I was in college, away from home for the first time, and I thought he was my one true love. It turned out to be nothing but a fantasy, though, because the minute I told him I was pregnant, he disappeared.”

  “Aw, hell.” J.D.’s face registered contrition. “Listen, you don’t have to—”

  “It wasn’t my first rejection,” she interrupted without compunction. He’d started this; he could damn well hear her out. “My folks were a lot more interested in chasing adventure than in parenting, and they dumped me on Aunt Sophie and Uncle Ben every chance they got. Which in the end was undoubtedly a huge favor, but I sure didn’t see it that way when I was a little girl.” She ran a hand through her hair and realized for the first time what a mess she must be, then shrugged. “Obviously I decided to keep my baby. And having gotten to know Tate, you can appreciate that I’ve never once regretted that decision. What might not be quite so evident is that I also decided to forgo love from that point on, because love hurts and I had no desire to be hurt again. I managed to keep my heart inviolate for years. Then you came along.”

  He went very still. “And—what?—you suddenly find yourself in love with me?”

  The sneering tone shot straight to her heart. Did he think it was easy to open herself up like this? But when she looked at him closely, she saw his tense jaw and watchful eyes. They didn’t quite pull off the cynical amusement that Dru suspected had been his aim.

  If she were the least bit smart, she’d listen to that tone of voice and protect herself by flat-out denying her feelings. But his expression gave her the courage to say truthfully, “Yes. Exactly.”

  A myriad of emotions flashed across his face but were stifled so rapidly, so completely, that she was left wondering what she’d seen. All he showed now was a faint impatience.

  “You don’t even know me,” he said flatly. “Hell, we’ve only known each other a few weeks.”

  “That’s perfectly true,” she readily agreed. “And I’ll tell you truthfully—if Tate ever comes to me when he’s eighteen and tells me he’s crazy in love with some girl he’s known for as short a time as I’ve known you, I’ll do everything in my power to talk him out of rushing into anything foolish.”

  “Well, thank God for that.”

  “I wouldn’t thank Him quite so quickly if I were you.” She smiled at the immediate wariness that flashed across his face. “Because I do know you. And I’m a long way from that naive eighteen-year-old who fell for Tate’s daddy. So while I plan not to rush blindly into anything, neither do I find my feelings the least bit foolish.”

  J.D. snorted. “Hell, no. You just fancy yourself suddenly in love with me. Nothing foolish about that.”

  She smiled reasonably. “What exactly do you find so outlandish about it?”

  He had that hunted look in his eyes again. “Like I said, sweetheart, you don’t know me.”

  “I know the important stuff—that you’re a hard worker, sweet as can be to Tate, and so honorable it moves me to tears. God knows you take the word ‘responsible’ to a whole new level. Give me some credit, John David. I’ve worked with the public my entire adult life—I do recognize a good man when I see one.”

  “Yeah, right,” he scoffed. “Didn’t you learn anything from this afternoon, Drucilla? I’m not a man you want to put your faith in.”

  “Oh, what rot! We’ve been over this and over this.” She reached out to touch his bare stomach, her fingers tracing lightly down the hard, warm muscles above the low-slung, knotted towel. “I don’t get it, J.D. Why do you persist in pushing away every single person who wants to get close to you?”

  “Because it saves time!” Staring at her in frustration, he thrust an impatient hand through his hair. “You think I haven’t wanted to get close to anyone before? You think I haven’t tried? Well, think again, because I’ve not only wanted it, I’ve given it my best shot in the hope that I’d somehow find what a few lucky others seem to have found. But it’s been my experience that while things may start out promising enough, it goes downhill from there.”

  “Where is it written that it has to, though?” she demanded.

  “For chrissake, Drucilla—grow up!” Then he shook his head and looked at her with regret, reaching out to smooth her hair away from her face. He buried his fingers in the thick fall behind her ears and traced the slopes of her cheekbones with his thumbs. “No, forget I said that; you deserve to keep that wide-eyed optimism as long as you can. But I’m warning you right now: if you hang around me long enough, you’ll lose it. And you’ll sure as hell change your mind about me. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that folks always do.”

  “Well, I’m
not ‘folks,’ and I don’t plan on changing my mind.”

  Hating the cynical disbelief in his eyes, she raised up on her toes to press a tender kiss against the muscle that bunched in his jaw. She grasped his forearms for balance, and felt them as stiff as porch posts beneath her hands. She drew back to look into his eyes. “If there’s one thing I intend to do, Carver, it’s stick around. You might as well get used to it.”

  If the look on his face was anything to go by, that was precisely what he was afraid of. She laughed ruefully—since it was either that or cry—and patted the rigid muscles beneath her hands. “You needn’t look so alarmed.”

  “Dammit, Dru, one of us had better be! I’ve done things in my life that would turn your stomach.”

  “When?” she demanded. “When you were a kid? Because I know you haven’t been arrested for anything as an adult.”

  “How the hell would you know that?”

  “When Edwina left her share of the lodge to you, we ran a background check on you just like we’d do on any applicant applying for a top position. And you don’t have an adult record, so quit trying to convince me what a badass you are.” She rubbed her knuckles against his hard abdomen. “I don’t plan to push you, J.D. And it’s not as if I’m asking you to waltz me down the aisle. I just want to spend some time with you, okay?”

  “Yeah,” he agreed cautiously. “I like spending time with you, too.”

  Warmth spread in Dru’s breast. “Okay, good. Then just consider this while we’re together: perhaps I haven’t known you for long, but I’m a pretty decent judge of character, and I’ve come to appreciate your value as a man. I’m willing to wait until you can appreciate it as well.”

  Then you’ll have a long wait, was all J.D. could think. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to believe every word that came out of her mouth. But there was something about him that ultimately drove people away. If he bought into her fairy tale now and had to watch the disillusionment in her eyes later on—and in the eyes of her family—when they all discovered whatever that something was, he didn’t think he could stand it.