“Mine aren’t so bad, I guess. They don’t run my personal business, they only like to keep their noses in it. I mean, Dad’s my boss, of course, but other than that, they don’t interfere much except where the girls are concerned. You know how when you’re a kid, sometimes getting the hour-long ‘I’m so disappointed in you’ talk was usually worse than whatever punishment they were going to give you? My dad is an expert at that talk. And I’ve vowed to never give that talk to my kids. I don’t see how they could ever be a disappointment to me, not ever.”
“They’re lucky to have you, then.”
Jared toyed with the straw in his tea. “It’s such a fine line, though. You want to correct them, you want to do right by them, but you want them to know that unconditional love is always there even if they do mess up.”
“You don’t want them to think they’re ever a disappointment, but then again you don’t want them to be spoiled brats who think they can always do whatever the fuck they want to anyone and get away with it.”
“Exactly.” He chuckled. “Mia, she’s the more headstrong one. She likes to run the show and she hates to lose, as you just saw. I’m glad of that, but at the same time, I worry more about her than Ash, who’s more go-with-the-flow.”
“I can see that.” Starla’s gaze drifted to the bathroom, where the door was opening and the two girls were tumbling out in their neon-green uniforms. They looked so much alike that she was glad of the different-colored hair. They would’ve been nearly identical otherwise. “They’ll be fine. They have two parents who love them very much.” And if I could be in their lives, I would love them very much too. I would make sure they knew they could be anything they want to be in this life, and if their dad ever did forget the words he just said, I’d make damn sure he remembered them.
Would it be her place, though? If she and Jared gave this thing a shot long-term, how would he react to her being any sort of influence on his kids? Uncouth, disgraceful, vulgar, tasteless… All words she’d heard from her own parents more than once, describing everything from her mouth to her music to her body art to her sense of style. Nothing about her had escaped their pious, self-righteous criticism, their where-did-we-go-wrong hand-wringing. It made her sick to think anyone on this earth would want to fuck up their kids’ sense of self-worth by treating them that way, and then call themselves Christians in the same breath.
She wanted a chance to fix it. She wanted a chance to get it right. If not through her own kids—perish the thought—then maybe through someone else’s. Maybe in doing that, she could find healing for herself.
As Ashley slid into the booth beside her, she leaned over and wrapped her slender little arms around Starla, squeezing her tight. “I love you,” she said.
Just like that. Oh, to have that innocence again, to be able to easily say words adults sometimes had to wrench from their throats with all their might.
Starla leaned her cheek on the top of Ashley’s head; she couldn’t move her arms for the little girl’s fierce embrace. “Aw, you’re so sweet. I love you too.”
Mia, of course, was not to be outdone. “I love you too, Starla!”
“And I love you!”
“What the heck, where did these nice kids come from?” Jared asked, tickling Mia under her chin as she giggled and fought him. “Who are you?”
The waitress showed up to take their pizza order, so suddenly everyone was on their best behavior, but Starla knew the damage had been done in her heart. She couldn’t fall for this guy or his kids, she knew it. She’d told herself repeatedly. But she already had. She loved everything about them.
She was fucked.
Chapter Twenty-two
“Do you want to have more kids?”
She asked it casually, but Jared suspected there was an element of apprehension behind that question—if not outright dread. They lay facing each other in his bed, Starla’s face half in shadow and half softly illuminated by his bedside lamp, her nude body lithe and enticing with all its dips and curves. So beautiful he could hardly stop looking at her long enough to kiss her, and could hardly stop kissing her long enough to answer her.
“I’ve never given it much thought.”
“Even when you were married?”
“When they were babies, the girls were so much work Shelly and I really never gave any thought to having more—or if we did, it leaned more toward hell no. Once they were older, everything started falling apart, and it was out of the question.” He trailed off, running his fingertips down the slender length of her arm. “I’m not sure anymore. What about you?”
“No. I like kids. I’m crazy about yours. But no, I don’t think I want any of my own.” Her dark gaze searched his, and he figured he knew what she was looking for there. He had no problem giving it to her.
“I understand that.”
“Really?” She chuckled. “People are usually so fond of telling me what I should be doing with my life and my body.”
“I have an idea or two about your body.”
Giggling, she came in for a kiss, her breath warm and minty from her toothpaste, and he lost himself in the taste and feel of her. By the time she pulled away and continued the conversation, his mind was on other things. Hot, wet, dirty things. He struggled to pull it back on track. “Would that be a deal breaker for you, though? If you decided you wanted more kids and…the person you were with didn’t?”
He wished she would speak openly of the possibility that they might work out. “If I wanted them, and you didn’t?”
It scared her. He saw as the uncertainty bloomed in her expression. Was the future such a frightening concept to her, especially a future with him? Hell if he knew how it would work out either, and he damn well knew what the people closest to him thought, but he couldn’t shake this feeling, this rightness.
“If that happened,” he said, leaning over to nip little kisses over the curve of her shoulder, “I would respect your position. Like you said, it’s your body.”
“You’re too good to be true,” she murmured, not sounding at all happy about it.
He knew at least two women who would disagree with her, and the thought of them was like a dash of cold water on his arousal. Hell. Raising his head, he made her look at him. “I don’t know what you want me to say to that.”
“Surprising. You seem to always know what I want you to say.”
“What?”
“You always have the right answers. Always. You always say exactly what I want to hear, what I need to hear. It’s very, very hard for me to trust that. You have to understand.”
“Except I haven’t said one damn thing to you that isn’t the truth, Starla. One thing about us is that we’ve always come from a place of truth, right? Your thing for Brian, my issues with marriage and kids and Macy—I mean, what the hell, I have all that going on, and you think I’m too good to be true? I may not be a psychotic asshole like your ex, but I probably bring more baggage and failures to the table than any of the men you’ve ever been with.”
“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 wan
t.”
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 mor
e 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.
And just as she was thinking he might grant it, he rose up, and suddenly she found herself flipped over on her belly with her ass being hauled into the air. “Fuck, oh fuck,” she breathed, making it a chant as he left her there tormented and open and empty while he donned a condom. Her fists twisted in the sheets. She backed her ass up to him like a cat in heat.
“Yeah, I like that,” he murmured, stroking a hand over her hip, his normally amicable voice dripping with lecherous cruelty. “Maybe I’ll just look for a while.”
Beyond words, Starla could only turn her face into the mattress in frustration, but in her head, she called him every scathing epithet she knew. When hard teeth bit into her left ass cheek, though, she tossed her head back and yelped. “Jesus Christ!” He licked the sting away and gently sent a teasing fingertip through her wetness, pausing to circle her clit until she could hardly hold still for him anymore. With the lingering ache of his bite, the hollow yearning in her pussy, and the pleasurable caress of his fingers, she was drowning in conflicting sensations, held at the precipice of something huge just beyond her perception, waiting for his next move to take her there. A moment later, his fingers disappeared only to be replaced with something thicker, hotter, longer. The need that tore through her was almost a cramp. “Please.”
He pushed his cock between her legs. Not inside where she craved him, but sliding along her lips, back and forth, back and forth. The mattress caved where his hands came down on either side of hers, supporting his weight over her, and the harsh rasp of his breath brushed her left ear. Surrounded by his looming presence on all sides, she felt at once shielded from the world and unbearably vulnerable.