“Sure.”
She smiled—right answer—and turned away again, reaching into the mini fridge. When she bent over, her skirt and top separated again, revealing the vulnerable bumps of her vertebrae and that lick of ink against her skin. He crossed his arms over his chest and settled back, determined to take this at her pace.
She straightened, a bottle of wine in her hands. “White okay? Or would you like a beer?”
“Wine’s fine.”
He wasn’t planning on drinking anyway. He didn’t drink in the afternoon. Not anymore.
She turned back to the counter to open the bottle.
With another woman, he’d figure she’d pulled out the alcohol to relieve her nerves, to ease the awkwardness of sex with a near stranger. But Lauren didn’t look nervous. Maybe the wine put a gloss of civility over the whole thing. Maybe she was making a point to him or to herself that he wasn’t just here for the sex.
He felt a twinge of... something. Conscience? Which was stupid. He’d been honest. They both had.
I’m just telling you how it is.
You’re probably ready for a rebound relationship.
They were both going into this with their eyes open. But her hands on the corkscrew weren’t quite steady. So maybe she was a little nervous after all.
Tenderness uncurled inside him.
He came up behind her as she poured the wine and rested his hands at her waist, his thumbs riding that half inch of warm, exposed skin. She jolted, gripping the bottle, and then released it to relax against him, her muscles loosening, yielding. He loved that, that she yielded. To reward her, to indulge himself, he bent his head to her throat. Her hair brushed the side of his face. Her scent was warm and musky like sex. Opening his lips, he pressed his mouth to the soft hollow of her neck. Her shudder rocked them both.
His fingers tightened on her waist. He had enough control to do that, to keep his hands from sliding to her breasts. His erection lodged against her bottom. She made a soft, assenting sound. Turning in his hold, she twined her arms around his neck and pulled his head down for her kiss.
And hello, yeah, she could kiss.
Her mouth was hot and slick and sweet. Her kiss cut into him like a knife into butter, melting him with her response. Well, except for the part of him that definitely wasn’t melting, that jutted, hard and eager, against her stomach.
“Jack.” The interruption dashed over him like a bucket of cold water. “Luke didn’t tell me you were coming by today.”
Tess Fletcher. Luke’s mother.
Reluctantly, Jack raised his head. Lauren stared back up at him, her eyes wide and dark, her lips pink and wet.
His mind blanked. Stumbled.
Lauren was a guest of Tess’s inn. Okay, so the Pirates’ Rest wasn’t the no-tell motel next to the trailer park on the other side of the bridge. But the inn had a goddamn honeymoon suite. Guests probably had sex there all the time. Just because Tess Fletcher found him kissing the shit out of a guest in the pantry was no reason he couldn’t... They shouldn’t...
Fuck.
Or not.
He turned, sliding his hand to the small of Lauren’s back, shifting her in front of him like a shield to hide his obvious erection.
“Tess.” Even to his own ears, his voice sounded husky.
Luke’s mother, Teresa Saltoni Fletcher, was a slim, attractive woman in her fifties with a smile-lined face and dark Italian eyes. Her gaze met Jack’s. Her eyebrows rose, very slightly. A mother’s look. Ah, hell. This woman knew him, had invited him to Christmas dinner at her house. He felt fifteen again, sneaking Amy Wolacek down to the basement rec room to have sex on the gnarly brown couch.
Lauren grinned, unabashed. “It was kind of an impulse thing.”
“I see.” Tess regarded them thoughtfully.
Jack bet she did. The woman was married forty years with two sons. He was pretty sure she didn’t miss a trick.
She smiled. “I didn’t realize you two knew each other.”
