Page 37 of Take Me Tender

For a woman who was scared spitless of hospitals since her mother’s death and who was without the human support system to make it through a lengthy convalescence…well, she was living with her bum knee.

As well as with the ridiculous attraction she still felt for the man beside her, apparently. He’d eased closer, his upper arm against hers and the fabric of his jeans soft against the naked flesh of her good leg.

She shivered.

He glanced over. “Cold?”

“Um, yeah. You know, the ice…” She was getting good at this fibbing stuff. Because he bought it again, going so far as to drag that crocheted throw folded over the sofa arm across the two of them.

Her needles stuck in the blanket and he obligingly reached under it to help her untangle them.

She gasped, and pulled her knitting free. “Do you mind?”

“What?”

Oh, he was so bad at the innocent look. Or just so bad, period. “That’s, um, my thigh you’re playing Pat the Bunny with.”

He grinned. “Darn. Bunny wasn’t the animal I was going after.”

Squirming, she adjusted her needles and ball of yarn to avoid his laughing, charming, knowing eyes. Damn man. Did he enjoy flustering her? Did he know she was definitely not interested in him any longer—despite whatever her pounding pulse and clenching…bunny were saying? What an ego rush he’d get from that!

But Jay was not going to know he still held residual power over her. It was supposed to be a one-night-only thing, and she was going to stick to the rules they’d tacitly agreed upon.

Maybe he was of the same frame of mind, because he suddenly switched subjects. “What are you making there?” he asked.

A fool of herself, she worried, despite the neutral turn to the conversation. Between the stupid blanket and his maddening closeness, she was hot and her skin so sensitive. When he breathed, it caused the sleeve of his T-shirt to brush against her bare arm, making sure her goose bumps got goose bumps.

And her breath, she didn’t have enough of that. She was supposed to be putting last night behind her, but memories of the way he’d felt against her, the way he’d kissed and touched her, kept stealing into her head and under her skin and then robbing all the oxygen from her lungs.

He had to know.

He couldn’t know. She couldn’t let him know.

She just had to find her famous detachment.

Jay grabbed the dangling end of her piece of knitting and wiggled it to get her attention. “So what is this?” he asked again. “Are you knitting something special?”

“Well…” She looked down at the rectangular swatch. There was still that kerchief to complete, but she was playing with this yarn instead, its color the exact down-to-business blue of Jay’s eyes.

“Because I could use a sweater,” he said.

“No!” The word rushed out of her mouth, too loud and too fast, and she cleared her throat and tried again. “No, I’m not up to sweaters yet.”

Not to mention that little piece of conventional wisdom she’d learned at the Tuesday Night Knitters’ Club. The Curse of the Boyfriend Sweater, she remembered the women calling it. No guy lasted for the length of time it took to start and finish such a labor of love.

Though, hey, she was used to that, she mused. No one stuck by her. Certainly pro-bachelor Jay wasn’t interested in that, anyway.

“All right,” he said. “I give up.” In another sudden mood change, he grabbed the needles and yarn from her hands and tossed them on the table. “I’m done trying to warm you up the slow way, cookie.”

Startled, she looked over at him. “What?”

But his only answer was to capture her chin in his long fingers and hold her like that as he closed in for a kiss. His mouth was hot and impatient, but she found she was impatient, too, and she opened her lips so he could sweep his tongue inside.

He groaned, as if she’d offered food and he hadn’t eaten all day. Her body trembled and he drew her closer, the frozen peas sliding off her knee as he turned her into him.

It was last night all over again. Jay surrounding her with his touch, his taste, his relentless maleness that overpowered her senses. She closed her eyes and let herself be taken up and taken over.

Then he tore his mouth from hers. “Damn.”

She jerked back. Damn was right. She knew better than this. She’d made a plan this morning. Calm and professional. Her face burned and she started to babble. “Sorry, sorry. We had rules, didn’t we? An agreement it was just the one night?” Her hand went to her mouth.

He snatched it away and swooped in for another hard kiss. “Damn, cookie, Fern just came in the front door.”

“Oh.” Oh. Thank goodness his hearing was better than hers. She leaned over to retrieve the fallen peas, taking the wool throw with her.

Jay snatched it back, arranging it over his lap and then hers. “Need a little, uh, camouflage.”

When Fern wandered into the living room a few moments later, they were two grown-ups, feet propped on the coffee table, watching television together.

The teenager glanced at the screen, then gave them a sharp look. “Cartoons?”

Nikki stared at the TV, finally focused on it, and then froze. Animated characters were dancing around the screen, ponies and stars and unicorns. She’d never seen them before in her life. “Urp.”

The bleat seemed to galvanize Jay, who looked as if he was trying not to laugh. He made a hasty pat of the cushions, then lifted up to produce the remote from beneath him. “Nikki’s favorite show,” he said, as he flipped his thumb and a news channel took over. “But, cookie, I’m sorry. I require something more stimulating.”

Fern regarded them for another moment. “You guys are so weird.” Then she turned toward the stairs and disappeared.

Nikki managed to glare at the man. “Remember, those pastel ponies are my favorite.” She whacked his arm. “Thanks a lot.”

Laughing, he captured her loose fist. Then he slid lower on the sofa cushions, her hand still in his. “Hey, I’m rehabilitating my rep, here. Wouldn’t do to be Peter Pan in the morning and a watcher of syrupy cartoons in the afternoon.” He kissed the top of her knuckles. “Now settle down and put your head right here.”

“Right here” was his shoulder. He patted it again, his expectant gaze trained on her face.

She wanted her hand back. Her sanity. The way things had been before she’d ever met him.

Like when sex had left her as cold as the peas on her knee?

“Jay…” Surrendering, Nikki flopped back on the couch and didn’t protest as he pulled her into place against him.

“Nikki…” he mimicked in a gentle voice. “Just shut up.”

And she did. She didn’t know why—well, she knew why, and she also knew it wasn’t her best idea—but she let herself lean against his body. When was the last time she’d had someone else to hold her up?

The newscaster droned on about gasoline prices and other economic indicators. Outside the blanket covering their laps, Jay held her one hand in the loose grasp of his. And though Nikki was a bit too warm and a bit too aware of him, she found herself relaxing against his body.

But this was Hef Junior, and so she should have known the restfulness wouldn’t last. Under the daffodil-yellow throw, his free hand brushed her bare leg.

She automatically moved away.

He, naturally, moved in again.

Her gaze cut sideways. His was glued to the TV. A finger wandered higher.

Nikki gulped. “Jay—”

“Shh,” he said, still looking at the screen. “I’m interested in this.”

But a few seconds later, she had to wonder what “this” was that interested him so. The man, the naughty man, was drawing designs on her upper thigh with his forefinger. Tic tac toe, dirty words, maybe even calculus equations, she didn’t know. She couldn’t think. The plan she’d come up with that morning evaporated in the heat of renewed lust.

Her heart was slamming against her chest, and surely he could hear its thundering beat, but he stared straight ahead as he caught at her inner thigh and drew her good knee up and over his hard leg. The hem of her skirt went along for the ride, hitching high, nearly to her hips.

She made another urp sound again, but the newscaster was onto baseball scores now and Jay was watching the highlights with half-closed eyes as he approached third base. The pad of his forefinger played with the elastic edge of her panties.

Nikki flashed hot and chills rushed down the inside of her legs. If he moved an inch, he’d know everything his touch did to her. “I don’t think, um…”

“Oh, lighten up and let’s play, cookie.”

Play. Of course that’s what he wanted, nothing more scary or permanent than a game. She shouldn’t be afraid of something like play. And she wasn’t afraid of…anything. With his hand so close to her throbbing center, all she could think was what was wrong with recreation and why was she fighting it so hard?

Except…“Fern.”

“That’s all up to you, cookie. If she comes downstairs, I’ll look like I’m just sitting here watching TV, while you—” She gasped as his finger took a quick foray beneath the elastic and he smiled, smug and male. “While you can either look innocent or wicked. Your choice.”

---