Walk Away Joe (13 page)

All eyes snapped toward him.

“You okay, bro?” Tag asked, poised to jump to his feet and slam a broad palm between Tucker’s shoulder blades.

Tucker stalled Tag with an open-palm motion that told him to stay put, then gulped down half a glass of milk.

“You’d best slow down, cowboy. It wouldn’t do to have two medical emergencies in one day.”

This from the sweetly smiling outlaw with the innocent brown eyes and the busy foot.

“No need to hurry,” she added with an indulgent smile. “You can take all night if you want to—there’s enough to satisfy even you.”

If he could have talked, he’d have sworn at her. If he could have moved, he’d have strangled her. As it was, he could only cut her a warning glare—which she responded to by batting her eyes and pressing her inquisitive little foot more snugly against his fly. He did some responding of his own by growing harder and fuller as the little hellion’s curling toes and the double meaning of her seemingly innocent words hummed on the air between them.

“I’m glad to hear that,” he countered, finally finding his voice and deciding two could play this game. “Because I find I’ve worked up one heck of an appetite. And as hungry as I am right now, satisfying it just might take all night.”

He had the pleasure of seeing her redden beneath that cheeky little smile as she picked up on his thinly veiled meaning. His pleasure intensified, then turned to triumph when she started drawing her adventurous foot away.

He stopped her retreat with a hand on her ankle and a smile as innocuous as the ones she’d been flashing him. Then he tugged her foot back against him.

“This is really good, Sara,” Lana said, oblivious of the game-playing going on under the table.

“Yeah,” Tucker added, pressing her foot deeper into his heat, then stroking her bare arch with his thumb until she squirmed.
“Real
good.”

“G-glad you like it.” She shot him a look that pleaded with him to cut her some slack. “It... it really wasn’t any trouble. I was happy to do it.”

He wasn’t about to let up on her. His eyes danced to hers, his brow arched, challenging, mocking and superior. “Amazing. An accommodating woman. The world could use a few more, right, Tag?” he asked with a male- to-male grin, taking a page from her book and reading it to her.

He knew he was pushing it when the heat in her cheeks radiated to the tips of her pretty ears. The dangerous glint in her eyes was a warning of worse to come. When the soft pressure of her foot turned abruptly into a hard, twisting grind that seemed to say,
Accommodate this, cowboy!
he opted for the wisdom of letting go.

He carefully lifted her foot from his lap and released it when she jerked it back under her chair.

“So what do you think, babe?” Tag asked Lana as he pushed back from the table. “Time to get you back to bed?”

“I’m not an invalid,” Lana protested with a patient smile.

“But you are fighting an infection,” Sara reminded her. “At the risk of sounding patronizing, even though you’re feeling better, you really do need to rest. I can handle the dishes. Cody, too, if you want me to watch him tonight.”

“You’ve done enough,” Tag said. “The little guy’s about to fall asleep in his mashed potatoes, anyway. Besides ...” He leaned down, reached under the table and, with a knowing grin, handed Sara her discarded sandal, “I think you’ve got enough to keep you busy tonight.”

When her cheeks reddened and her eyes flashed guiltily to his, Tucker simply cocked his head and gave her a look that said,
Hey—you started this. You finish it.

Her way of finishing it was to snatch the sandal from Tag’s hand and ignore it.

“Lana,” she said, busying herself cleaning up Cody and lifting him out of the high chair, “don’t forget to take your meds tonight. And sleep late in the morning. I can fix breakfast and still get you to your doctor’s appointment. No fuss, now, and that’s final,” she added when Lana began to protest. “Tag, you see to it that she does as she’s told.”

“You heard her, woman,” Tag said, helping Lana to her feet, then taking Cody from Sara. “Like it or not, those feet are going up tonight, and they’re staying there.”

“You’d think I was a baby,” Lana grumbled good-naturedly as Tag ushered her out the door and they walked together to their little casa.

“Or that somebody cares about you a whole lot,” Sara added in a hushed tone.

Only Tucker heard her. Only Tucker saw the poignant blend of longing and affection touch her face as she watched them go. There was yearning in that look, a wistful sadness that touched him far deeper than it should have.

As she always did, she had him thinking impossible thoughts, exploring infeasible alternatives, wishing this didn’t have to end in disappointment for both of them.

∙ ∙ ∙

Steeped in longings and blindsided by uncertainty, Sara was slow to become aware of Tucker’s silence behind her. In the moment when she turned away from the door and found him watching her, though, she sensed he was struggling with the same edgy expectancy she was.

He stood in the kitchen doorway, his shoulder propped lazily against the doorjamb, his booted feet crossed at the ankles, his arms folded over his chest. He was so beautiful she wanted to cry. So intense, she had to force herself to breathe as he studied her with a look that could have been warning or anticipation or equal measures of both.

His eyes were a cool electric blue. His smile was pleasant by design and, if she didn’t miss her guess, as close to the edge of control as she’d dare push him.

“You play dangerous games, little girl.”

She agreed. She’d pushed the edges of the envelope with that little bit of folly at the supper table. She still couldn’t believe how bold she’d been. But he’d been withdrawing again. That sullen look had resettled in his eyes. So she’d shocked him—and herself—but, by doing so, had kept the situation light.

After all, that was what he claimed he wanted. Playful sex, no heavy commitments.

It was a lie. She could feel it in her bones. He cared about her. He was just too afraid to admit it.

So she’d played. She wasn’t sure she had the strength to confront his will, anyway. After all, it wasn’t strength that had landed her here at Blue Sky. It was weakness. Maybe it was weakness that was propelling her now. Maybe she should step back and look at her motives a little more deeply.

Common sense certainly tipped the scales in favor of walking away. But common sense had little to do with need, a need for Tucker that lay heavy and immediate and in the end sent her rushing full bore toward disaster.

“So what’s life without a little danger?” she finally managed, meeting his eyes. Her words sounded brave— trouble was, her voice betrayed her. Without the sun and the summer breeze and the spontaneity of the moment rushing her into recklessness, she was forced to see the truth.

She wasn’t brave at all. She was scared half to death. She was balancing on the edge of a cliff. Hanging on to the proverbial limb. About to tumble headlong into a relationship that came with only one guarantee: This man she was falling in love with was bent on walking away.

“It’s not too late, Sara.”

His voice was soft. His eyes were gentle. His words were one hundred percent wrong. It had been too late days ago. It had been too late the first time he held her in his arms and offered himself as a target for her hate so that she could quit beating up on herself.

“I’m a big girl,” she said, falling a little deeper in love because he’d nobly offered her another chance to back out. “I don’t need you looking out for me. I need you making love to me.”

He closed his eyes and swallowed. “You know that’s where it ends.”

It hurt. She’d expected it to. Still, she wasn’t giving up on making his words a lie. She was banking on his desire outweighing his denial. Relying on the instincts that told her desire wasn’t the only factor in this equation.

So she smiled, as an offer of assurance that she wouldn’t cling, wouldn’t cry, wouldn’t fall apart when he decided it was over and done.

“What I know is that every time we seem to get started, something manages to stop us.”

With a boldness that did her heart proud, she walked around him and unplugged the phone. “That’s to make sure we see this through to the finish this time.”

He smiled then. And shook his head. And pushed himself slowly away from the door.

With a hammering pulse, she watched him come to her. With a catch in her breath, she took the hand he extended. With her heart on the line, she followed him.. .then offered a puzzled smile when he didn’t lead her to the bedroom.

“Has anyone ever suggested that your sense of direction may be a little skewed?” she asked as he tugged her back into the kitchen.

 
“If I recall, you said you’d do the dishes.” His look told her that dishes were the last thing on his mind. “Besides, we have a little unfinished business to take care of in here.”
 

 
“Business?” she repeated as her gaze followed his to the kitchen table. “Oh.
That
business.”

His smile promised things to come. “All in good time.” Then he rolled up his sleeves.

So, he wanted to play some more. That was fine. That was good. If that was all she could get from him tonight, she’d take it, no questions asked. It allowed him to think there was no threat of her getting too close. As illusions went, it was a simple one.

The question, still, was why he was so resistant? Would he ever admit the truth? She knew it was possible that he would win the battle of wills. That bothered her more than anything else. What if his penchant for self-denial was stronger than her determination to convince him he deserved more?

Shaking off the fear, she pasted on a plucky smile and made herself live for the moment.

“There’s something about the look of a man elbow-deep in soapsuds that does my heart good,” she said a few minutes later as she stood beside him at the sink, a dish towel in her hand.

With a swift shift of his hand, he snagged her wrist and pulled her between him and the sink.

“And there’s something about an ornery woman that brings out a vindictive streak in me.” Crowding tight against her, he wedged her hips to his, making certain she felt his arousal against her tummy.

“Ornery?” She squeezed out the one word, gasping at the strength and size of him pressed against her. “Me?”

“Ornery. You,” he assured her as he tugged her shirt from her jeans and lifted it over her head. “We won’t be needing this.”

She shivered and, feeling the delicious tug of decadence and danger, braced her elbows behind her on the lip of the sink. “Is this the part where the unfinished business comes in?”

“Umm-hmm...” With slow, deliberate movements, he unsnapped her bra.

“Tucker... it’s broad daylight. What if...”

“What if what?” he asked in a low, husky murmur as he peeled the lace straps down her arms.

“What if T-Tag comes... back?”

“Then he can finish the dishes.”

His smile was wicked and full of sin. “In the meantime, I can think of a hundred things I’d rather do with these bubbles.”

She caught her bottom lip between her teeth when he dipped his hands in the water, then brought them to her breasts, his cupped palms full of warm water and bubbles.

Warm, callused hands covered her breasts with hot, soapy water and a gentle trail of bubbles that trickled down her midriff.

She sucked in a shuddering breath as wet heat slithered under the waistband of her jeans to arrow and pool low on her belly, where her body reacted to his erotic stimulation.

“Do... you think...” she whispered, getting lost in the sensual swirl of air-cooled wet skin and Tucker’s massaging hands. “Do you think there’s a chance we should be worrying about this... this fixation we seem to have developed for w-water?” she finally managed on a breathy gasp.

He skimmed damp, spread palms down her hips, then under her thighs, and lifted her, urging her legs around his waist.

“No more than you should be worried about the consequences of playing your inventive game of footsie under the table.”

With her arms twined around his neck and her ankles locked behind his back, he walked across the kitchen.

 
Hooking a chair leg with his foot, he dragged it out from under the table and, with her straddling his lap, sat down.

“All right, little cowboy,” he purred as his broad hands skated up and down the length of her bare back, “you started something here a little earlier—What I want to know is, how do you plan to finish it?”

“Plan?” She widened her eyes in innocence, loving his adventurous aggression, loving the feel of him beneath her and the promise that loving Tucker could be as playful as it was exciting. “I didn’t have a plan.”

A dare both menacing and suggestive darkened his eyes. “So make one.”

She swallowed, then drew a deep breath. “Maybe... maybe you could give me some ideas.”

He smiled, soft and sexy, and her heart turned to mush. He lifted a hand to her hair and smoothed it back from her eyes. “Here’s an idea. One of us—” his gaze dropped heatedly to her bare breasts “—is overdressed. Now work with it.”

She held his bold blue gaze as her fingers found their way to the snaps running down the length of his chest. “I see what you mean.”

With more speed than finesse, she rectified the situation, popping open the snaps to reveal inch after glorious inch of tanned skin and toned muscle and a tantalizing trail of coarse chamois-colored curls arrowing downward toward his belt buckle.

He chuckled at her aggressive approach.

“You have a gorgeous chest, Tucker Lambert,” she whispered after she’d peeled the shirt from his broad shoulders and helped him free his arms.

“I like yours better,” he said with a lazy caress of his eyes. His hands rose to her breasts and cupped them. “It’s prettier. And softer. Like velvet,” he murmured, watching the play of his fingers across her skin.

 
He lifted slumberous eyes to hers when her nipples hardened. “You like that? What else do you like, Sara? Tell me.”