Under The Covers Read online

  “Damn, sweetheart,” he groaned. “That is so good, so fucking amazing.”

  Sucking in a breath, she pushed her ass back against him harder. The tears fell faster, but a smile curved her lips. “Will you shut up and make me come already?”

  He just laughed and did exactly what she wanted him to. Cupping her hip in his free palm, he pulled her deeper into his rocking thrusts, powering into her in short, hard jabs. His other hand tightened around her wrists, holding her still. Her body burned hotter than she’d ever imagined possible because he held her down. She moaned, and it echoed in the bathroom.

  Her eyes popped wide, and she bit her lip to muffle her next whimper. Her sex closed around him, milking his cock.

  “Jesus Christ, Dayna.” Reaching around her, he moved his fingers over her hardened clit. He ground his hips against her, plunging faster and faster inside her. Their skin slapped together, the sound loud and undeniable in the closed-in shower. He froze behind her, his pelvis slamming forward in quick thrusts as he came. He groaned, “Dayna. My Dayna.”

  She sobbed, pulling at her hands weakly, but it was too late, she was already exploding in his arms. Pleasure sucked her down into a whirlpool so deep she thought she’d drown. Her pussy fisted tight, spasming as her orgasm went on longer than she thought possible. Fire and ice tingles raced over her skin, and she shuddered with the low sobs that tore from her throat. She couldn’t stop them, couldn’t stop the pleasure, couldn’t stop the pain as every emotion she’d tried to keep under wraps for so long was dragged out of her.

  “Shhh. Shhh. It’s all right, sweetheart. I have you. It’s all right. Shhh.” He’d released her wrists, holding her tight in his embrace. The tears coursing down her cheeks slowed until only hiccupping little breaths shook her body. He rocked her gently, stroking her wet hair away from her face. She finally relaxed against him, spent and exhausted.

  Snagging the soap from the ledge of the tub, he smoothed his palms over her in slow circles. If he lingered over her breasts or between her legs, she wasn’t about to complain. She loved having his hands on her and leaned into his touch. When he was finished, he lifted her out of the tub, set her on the counter, and dried her off with her discarded towel. She didn’t protest, didn’t try to take the towel away to do it herself—she just let herself be pampered. It felt like the most natural thing in the world, and she was too drained to care that it was wrong to think that way.

  He pulled away to let her blow-dry her hair, grabbing a towel to dry himself off before he picked up his clothes and redressed. In the mirror, she saw him slide a glance in her direction. “Hey, sweetheart?”

  “Yeah?” She shut down the drier, running a brush through her hair.

  “Are you working on a book deadline right now?” He laid her clothes on the counter, sitting on the toilet seat to pull on his socks and boots.

  She shrugged, pulling on her clean clothes. “Aren’t I always? They come one right after the other, usually.”

  “That’s what I thought.” He stood up, reaching for his discarded shirt. “I was thinking you might want to come over to my place, get away from the family for a bit, and do some work. I know I get a little antsy if I’m not letting the creative juices flow for more than a few days.”

  “Yeah. I love my work.” It was odd that they had that in common. She’d never really thought of tattooing as a creative art, but he did draw most of the designs himself—he just used human flesh as his canvas. Which sounded stranger than it really was. She shot him a look and smiled, getting back to his original suggestion. “But I wouldn’t get any work done at your house with you there. Nice try.”

  He stole her brush from her and made quick work of slicking back his hair. “Then it’s a good thing I’m going to be working part time at the shop for the rest of the week. Five to nine in the evenings.”

  “That’s a little late, isn’t it?” But her heart leaped at the thought of losing herself in her writing. As frustrating as it could be to find the right words to describe her characters’ emotions and actions, it was also comforting, familiar. She could use the familiar right now just as much as she would love to bury herself in something she loved so much.

  Love. Everything seemed to be circling back to that today.

  Jake shrugged and then scooped up both their towels and hung them to dry. “It’s not really that late for me. I usually work until midnight. Think about when people get tattoos.”

  “After work.” She nodded. That made sense, though it meant he always had to be on a schedule opposing everyone else’s. It didn’t surprise her—Jake didn’t feel the need to be normal like she did. Well, as normal as any writer could be, but she did keep herself on a regular schedule. She liked the structure and order it gave her life.

  “Yeah. So, I thought you could use a few hours of peace and quiet to work. When I get off, I can come home, and we can both get off.” He made a little growling noise and bent forward to nip the lower slope of her ass cheek.

  “Jake!” She squeaked and giggled, spinning to face him.

  He grinned at her, his green eyes dancing. “I love it when you laugh.”

  “You bit my butt!”

  “He bit your butt?” Toby and Sam’s voices both echoed outside the door. The knob rattled as one of them tried to come in.

  Dayna reached out and opened the door, glancing back at Jake. His face had gone completely blank.

  The look on Sam’s face clearly told them they better know what they were doing.

  Did she? She shot the silent Jake another look. Still a stone wall. He obviously hadn’t wanted her brother to find out he was shagging her, and that said just about everything she needed to know, didn’t it? Jake was never shy about his sex life. He didn’t brag, but he didn’t hide it either.

  Rainbow was wrong. He didn’t love her. And she didn’t want him to…did she?

  6

  Three days later, Jake was still grinning. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as a rock rendition of “Auld Lang Syne” came on the radio in his truck. He didn’t even like the song, but his good mood wouldn’t quit. Then again, any man who’d had days on end of, hands down, the best sex of his life would be grinning nonstop, too.

  He’d been right. When Dayna let herself go, she was phenomenal. Watching her loosen up the last few days had been beyond amazing. He’d loved every minute of it. Three nights of her in his bed, and the longer she was there, the wilder she became.

  A little encouragement was all she’d needed, and she was ready, willing, and able to do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. She’d really given herself over to this affair.

  Then again, Dayna wasn’t a woman for half measures. When she was uptight, she was really uptight. Now that she’d given herself permission to relax—if only for the week—she was really throwing herself into it.

  He hoped she would take some of that with her when she went back down to the corporate ladder climbers in LA.

  His smile faded a bit.

  The thought of someone else touching her made his hands clench on the wheel, and he fought back the reaction. He wasn’t possessive of her, he was just concerned for her well-being. He wanted her to be happy, and she needed to see that some uptight asshole who encouraged her to be uptight was not going to do that for her. She needed a guy who’d remind her to live a little. Not that he was applying for the job, but he could push her in the right direction.

  And if he got to have some of the most intense sex of his life in the process, he wasn’t about to complain. His grin returned. It was going to be a damn good day. He’d pick Dayna up, take her back to his house so she could write, drive to work, tattoo for a few hours, and then head home to Dayna.

  Home. Dayna. It felt a little too domestic, too comfortable. He swallowed hard and reminded himself for the hundredth time since this had started that she was leaving. It was temporary. Then they’d go back to the way things were before.

  He’d known Dayna long enough to know she wasn’t the
kind of woman to indulge in a little no-strings sex on a longstanding basis. He might have her this week, but he knew it was over as soon as she left town. Then he’d just be her younger brother’s best friend again.

  The emotion that had fisted in his chest so often lately began a painful burn. He swallowed and shoved it aside. He wasn’t his father; he wasn’t going to get too attached. He’d had women go from friend to lover to friend again. This was no different, especially considering the whole affair would last only a week.

  Forewarned was forearmed. He’d be fine. They’d be fine. His lips twisted. At what point he’d gone from thinking of this as a little fun to something he had to worry about later, he didn’t know.

  He snorted. Something else to worry about later. Right now, he was going to enjoy his time with Dayna. Enjoy this moment. He couldn’t deal with the future now, he could just get his fill of her body, her laugh, her smile, her face. A lifetime’s worth of enjoyment in one week.

  When he turned on to Rainbow’s street, he saw the older woman driving in from the opposite direction. She pulled into the driveway, and he parked his truck behind her car. Popping open his door, he stepped out into the slushy powder on the driveway and reminded himself to shovel it and the walkway before Rainbow did it herself. The stubborn woman didn’t want to admit that she was getting a little too old to do it all herself. He grinned at her as he shut his door, meeting her at her passenger-side door where she lifted a sleeping Toby out of the car.

  Rainbow gave him a narrow-eyed glance. “I’m glad I have you alone for a minute. I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

  “Oh, really?” He fought a wince and let his smile widen into his most charming. There were so many things she might want to have a little chat about, and he couldn’t think of one of them he’d enjoy. He had a feeling this one might be about his affair with Dayna, but he wasn’t incriminating himself by asking, just in case he was about to get chewed out for something else.

  She waved her free hand at him, cuddling Toby’s limp body against her chest. “Don’t give me that pretty smile, Jacob Taylor. I’m too old to fall for that crap.”

  “No one is too old, honey.” He winked at her.

  Then she swatted his shoulder with that same hand. “Be serious, Jake. I want to talk to you about Dayna.”

  Well, shit. He braced himself for a discussion on anything from dismemberment for messing with her niece to safe sex to Kama Sutra position suggestions. You just never knew with Rainbow. “What about Dayna?”

  “You’ve been working on getting her to decompress this week. I don’t want details on your methodology for that”—she paused to offer a wicked, knowing little smile that faded as quickly as it had come—“but I do what to know what your endgame is.”

  He lifted an eyebrow, uncertain what she was getting at. “There has to be an endgame?”

  “Don’t be cute. You’ve known Dayna a long time. You know she doesn’t take sex lightly. If she just wanted an orgasm, she would have used a vibrator.” She talked over the little choking laugh Jake gave. “I want to know what you think you’re doing. Is this just a quick lay or…what? I can’t believe you would ever hurt Dayna on purpose. Knowing how she is, and knowing how long you’ve had a yen for her, I’m just not sure how you expect all this to work out.”

  “I would never hurt her.” The words jerked out of him, a reflex of pure honesty. He rubbed a hand over his mouth and down his goatee. Confronted with Rainbow’s words, with the truth of what he knew about Dayna, he had a gut-wrenching moment of pain. She was going to get hurt by this. He’d never wanted that. Shaking his head, he met Rainbow’s hazel eyes—eyes so like Dayna’s. “I did want her to unwind and not worry so damn much about having everything be perfect. I just…wanted to show her what she was missing.”

  The older woman snorted, patting Toby’s back when he stirred a little. “You showed her, all right. Showed her she was missing you.”

  “Don’t say that,” he snapped. He closed his eyes, that band of emotion tightening around his chest until he couldn’t breathe through it. “She’s leaving in a few days. Then we’ll go back to how it always was.”

  “Ha. Things with Dayna have always been like a pot waiting to boil over. And now it has. It’s not going to go back to how it was, especially considering how deep in denial the two of you have always been about how you really feel about each other.” Her sharp look cut off his protest, and he snapped his mouth shut when she spoke again. “Let me put it to you this way: When was the last time you felt jealous when you were with a woman? When was the last time you weren’t jealous when Dayna was with another man?”

  Swallowing, Jake clenched his fists, anger and too many other dark feelings twisting through him to handle at once. “It doesn’t matter how long I’ve wanted her. It doesn’t matter if I was jealous. She’ll be gone after New Year’s.”

  And that was the real problem, wasn’t it? He was in deeper with her than he’d ever been before, and he knew she was going to be the one leaving, not him. She’d end it, not him. He could end it now, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t even think he could force himself. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  Rainbow sighed. “Honey, I know you think you have to be the one to walk away. I knew your father and your mother, so I understand why you feel that way. But what happens when you find a woman you want to keep?”

  “I—” Rainbow’s words echoed his thought so clearly, for the first time in his life he actually wondered if she was telling the truth when she said she was psychic. He shook away the asinine thought.

  A gust of wind and snow blew a lock of her long, dark gray hair in her face. She swatted it away impatiently. “Ask yourself, when did protecting yourself by always being the one to run become self-destructive? When did it stop being protection and start keeping you from what you wanted?”

  “Shit.” He sighed. Everything that had been whirling through his head and heart for days came pouring out. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing anymore. It was just supposed to be a little fun—I’ve done it a hundred times before.”

  “Oh, Jake. You’re an idiot.” She patted his shoulder, sympathy in her gaze. Her head gave a little shake. “Dayna was never going to be like all the other girls. She’s your soul mate. You’ve been half in love with her since you were a kid. You just finally fell the rest of the way.”

  Yes. The band snapped, and all those tumultuous feelings fell into place. It fit. Dayna was different, special. She’d always been special. She’d always been his. It had just taken them both this long to reach out and take it. He closed his eyes and swallowed several times, working to make his mouth form the words. “I do love her. Fuck. I fell so fast, I didn’t even have time to run.”

  “Sugar, it’s time you stopped running away from being like your daddy. You’re nothing like him. And Dayna’s nothing like your mother. She’s nothing like her mother either.” She lifted her eyebrows, her expression and tone telling him how much he and Dayna had tried her patience by being dense. “You tell her you love her, you ask her to stay, and she’ll never leave you. My girl is a stubborn one—she’ll stick it out with you through good times and bad.”

  Don’t leave. Stick it out. Ask her to stay. The breath squeezed out of Jake’s chest in harsh puffs, clouding the cold air in front of him. Something so sweet it was almost painful dug roots deep within his soul. No running this time. Ask her to stay. He could. What was to stop him? He’d never know if Dayna wanted to see what else could happen between them if he never said anything.

  And he sure as hell wouldn’t know if he stood out here freezing his balls off.

  “Thanks, Rainbow.” He popped a quick kiss on her wrinkled cheek. Wrapping his fingers around her elbow, he helped her up the walkway so she wouldn’t slip on the new snow.

  Time to face the music.

  Nathan was the last person Dayna had expected to show up at the door, but that didn’t change the fact that he was sitting on her aunt’s couch.

  “It
looks like you’re going somewhere.” His dark eyes searched her face, taking in the bag she had slung over her shoulder. “I’ll take up only a minute of your time. I’d like to speak with you.”

  She’d been home alone and had really enjoyed having the house to herself. Rainbow and Toby had run to the store, Sam was working, and Jake was supposed to be there in a few minutes to pick her up and take her to his place to write. She’d packed up her laptop, making sure she had her backup flash drive with her. A wide smile had broken over her face when she’d heard the rumble of a big engine pulling up to the curb in front of the house. Jake.

  She was no closer to figuring out what was going on between them, but she’d stopped trying to resist the physical pull Jake had on her. It could wait until she got back to the city, until she sorted everything out with Nathan, until she had some emotional distance on the situation and could make some rational decisions. While she was home, she was doing what Jake had suggested. She was loosening up just a little and enjoying what he was offering her. He didn’t mention the future, and neither did she, existing in the unsettled—but highly pleasurable—limbo of now.

  Anticipation had bubbled within her, making a huge smile curve her lips. Jake. She couldn’t wait to see him, to touch him. Slinging her bag over her shoulder, she’d hurried to the front door to meet him on the porch and come face to face with Nathan. Heart jolting, every muscle in her body had gone rigid as she’d fought the screaming need to slam the door shut.

  The breath had seized in her lungs. Of all the people in the world she had not wanted to see right then, her ex-fiancé topped the list. Rocking back on her heels, she’d let him in, numbness spreading through her as the shock wore off. She’d glanced over his shoulder, hoping against hope that Jake would show up to save her from this. All she’d seen was a blue SUV parked on the street in front of the house. Nathan’s new rental, apparently, but no sign of Jake’s big red monster.