“Please. I doubt it. Compared to the men I’ve been with, you’re a saint.”
Maybe it was crazy of him, but oh, how he resented that. Who the hell wanted to be a saint? “Is that supposed to put me off?”
“I don’t mean to put you off, Jared, but you really don’t know shit about me. And you swoop in and you save me and you talk about the future and us and…I just don’t think you know what the fuck you’re talking about.” She flung herself over to the side of the bed and stood, pacing naked with her thumbnail between her teeth. Resentfully, he tried not to look at the work of art her body was. How the hell was any red-blooded male supposed to carry on a serious conversation with a naked woman with pierced nipples ten feet away from him? Not to mention what lay hidden between her legs…
He leaned on one elbow and drew a deep breath, trying to cleanse the images from his mind. “If I don’t know you, introduce me. Try me. Tell me something that you think will make me turn from you, if that’s what you want.”
She stopped and stared defiantly at him, placing her hands on her hips. “I’ve had threesomes. I’ve been with two men at once. I’ve been with a man and a woman at once—more than once, actually. I’m a voyeur. I like to watch more than I like to be watched. He doesn’t know it, but I watched Brian fuck some random chick at a pre-Candace party a few years back, and by God, if it wasn’t one of the hottest moments of my life, and they didn’t even know I was there. I’ve never told another human being on the face of the earth about that, and I never will again.”
“Do you want me to be appalled or judge you or shame you? Is that what you’ve come to expect?”
She didn’t have to answer; he saw the yes all over her face. “You’ve been living under a rock if you aren’t aware of the double standard we live under. How men can nail every woman they meet and be a hero, but if a woman does the same thing, she’s a slut.”
“I haven’t nailed a hundred women, Star, and I never once judged you, so don’t take it out on me.”
“See, I know that. You should be even worse because you obviously put a lot of meaning into sex, and I don’t.”
“Yes, you do. I felt the meaning you put into it. I know it’s not all fun for you. I know you’re looking for something more. I can feel it. What I don’t know is why you feel the need to throw your list of conquests in my face like you want it to hurt me. It doesn’t, at least not in the way you think. And, yeah, I challenged you to do it, but I get the feeling you’ve been waiting for the chance. Why?”
To his astonishment, her eyes filled with tears. “Because you can’t fall for me.” She watched him as he climbed from the bed, watched in some kind of wretched, yearning despair as he moved closer to her, even fought him for half a second when he reached her. “I won’t let you.”
But she melted into his arms all the same, warm and soft and damp where her tearstained cheek met his naked chest. Breaking down after having tried to stay strong for too long; Jesus, he knew the feeling. And he had only two words for her. “Watch me.”
***
She wanted to die, or drop through the floor, or somehow disappear forever, but it wasn’t to be. The shame didn’t originate from her past, but from how she’d aimed every word at him like a dagger when he’d done absolutely nothing since she’d met him but be kind to her. If he had any sense at all behind those killer blue eyes, he would kick her out on her ass, and she would deserve it. She should throw herself down on her knees in front of him and beg him to love her forever, but it was because he meant so much to her that she didn’t. She was no good for him or his kids, despite everything she’d thought earlier tonight at the pizza place. A role model to young girls? What a fucking laugh. She was rotten.
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed, clutching him tight so he wouldn’t try to make her look at him right now, as he was fond of doing. “I’m so sorry.”
Jared’s big hand stroked soothingly down her hair. “Shh. It’s all right, baby.”
“That was all a long time ago. Believe it or not, I used to be more fucked-up than I am now.”
“Then I only wish we could have found each other sooner.”
She chuckled sadly. “You would have been married.”
“Hmm.” His lips pressed into the top of her head, and finally she was able to relax her grip on him a bit. Her fingernails must have been biting half-moons into his back, but he hadn’t complained. “Our timing sucks all around, doesn’t it?”
“Honestly? I don’t know how I could get through this without you. So our timing couldn’t be more perfect, as far as I’m concerned.”
“When you put it that way, yeah, you’re absolutely right. I’m glad I could be around to help.”
She lifted her head and looked up at him for what she had to say next. “I want you to know I’m clean. I’m not going to say I’ve been safe every time, but I’ve gotten the all-clear since all that, and I’ve been safe ever since.”
“I haven’t been with anyone since my ex. Pretty sure you already knew that, but, you know, there it is.”
“Shelly seems nice. I guess I didn’t expect that. Exes are supposed to be evil, malicious bitches.”
He chuckled. “She’s very nice. For so long I wondered what the hell was wrong with me that I couldn’t get along with someone as good as she is.”
Wow, didn’t that hit close to home at the moment. “I would think the same of you. I’m so sorry for…just now.”
“Stop apologizing. I think you have some things to work through, more things than you realize. But it’s all right, I imagine everyone does, even me.”
“Any deep, dark secrets you’d like to share so maybe I don’t feel like such an idiot?”
“You already know my deepest, darkest secret, but then so does the whole damn town.”
She supposed he meant that he allowed his marriage to derail over Macy. Maybe that should bother her more than it did, but considering their other problems, Macy seemed like a nonissue. He went on, playing with a pink strand of her hair. “Imagine walking around here knowing that. I got so sick of the gossip, I wanted to move away, but I’m stuck. I love this house, this place, I love that my girls are growing up around family and friends. Leaving here would mean leaving them since Shelly has primary custody, and I would never try to fight that or put them in a position where they had to choose between us.” Those incredible eyes strayed from his fingers’ preoccupation with her hair to return to her gaze, and the intensity there took her breath away. “I do have one confession.”
“What?” she asked, barely above a whisper.
Jared’s hands smoothed down the small of her back to cup her ass cheeks and lift her against him. Instinctively, she wound her legs around his waist, gasping as a delicious shudder went through her. “I don’t want to hear about you with anyone else. Ever. One thing you should know about me: I don’t share. If you’re mine, then you’re mine, and I’ll only be yours. Can you handle that?”
Starla couldn’t kiss him fast enough, couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t believe and had never imagined how hearing those words would affect her. Even in her more meaningful relationships—which, she had to face it, were usually based more on great sex than anything else—she’d always felt expendable. Like if she wasn’t down for something, there was always someone else who was. To belong unconditionally…
He pulled away and looked into her eyes, not letting her avoid his question. “Can you?”
“I can. I think I might cut a bitch over you.” When he moved forward to kiss her again, though, she caught his jaw with one hand, staring hard into his eyes. Such beautiful, soulful eyes. “Don’t make me regret it.” Because I don’t know if I would ever come back from it.
“Never.” He broke her grip to claim the kiss. Then another. “Never, never.” Dropping kisses all down her neck, her shoulders, oh—the room tilted dizzily and her back met the mattress, his powerful body still trapped by her thighs. Desire sang through her as she pushed her hands through his thick hair, guiding him where she wanted, where she desperately needed for him to go. But he wasn’t going. The damnable man took his precious time dropping slow, delicious kisses across her breasts, savoring every inch of her and taking special care to play with her nipple rings while Starla tossed her head and arched against him. The backs of his hands caught her behind both knees and he pushed her legs open so wide it almost hurt, and she did cry out, but that cry died in a rough gasp as he dove down to lick her clit.
Where her hands had been pushing, now they were pulling, clenching in his hair. The way he feasted on her was desperate, almost selfish, as if he were more concerned with fulfilling his hunger than giving her pleasure, but oh fuck, how he did. “God, I love that!”
“I love how you love it,” he growled against her, the vibrations sending her need into the stratosphere, pulling her body taut as a drawn bowstring. He released her legs—she obediently left them where he’d positioned them, wide open—and one of his fingers slid inside, teasing more wetness from her. A moment later, another joined it. Thick, hard…his calluses created the most perfect friction against her slick inner walls, and his tongue drew the most devastating patterns around the little beads of her piercing. Soon she couldn’t open wide enough for him, couldn’t stop the agitated undulating of her hips as her body begged his for release.