“Are you sure you feel well enough for company?” Lauren asked JC as she closed the door behind her. The house was finally quiet for the night. She didn’t want to stay away. Their time was short, but she didn’t want to hurt him.
“Honey, I missed you last night.” He’d missed out on one of the precious few nights he knew he had with Lauren because of some show off jerk. He didn’t intend to miss anymore.
“Okay.” She set her travel alarm on the bedside table. What was he still doing up and dressed? “Did I come too early?”
JC gave her a smile as he rose from the bed. With gentle hands he removed the claw clip that held her hair. “There is no ‘too early’ for us.”
“Well, usually you’re all... ready for me.”
His kiss was soft and sweet. “I thought we might talk.”
“Talk?” What could they talk about? They had little in common – In fact their lives were polar opposites. Talking about their day? That was too intimate. It sounded like a relationship. They weren’t having a relationship. He had mere days before he left and went back to his real life. His time at Blackwood be nothing but a hopefully pleasant memory. She would be the plain, easily impressed woman with whom he had shared his bed. “I hear talking is overrated when there is a perfectly good bed in the room,” she said with false bravado.
Lauren was a great one to use sex as an avoidance tactic, JC thought grimly. It was something he’d learned about her. She didn’t want him digging deeper. Did he matter at all or was he a diversion? That was rich. Wasn’t it usually guys that avoided attachments? Here he wanted to see if there was more to them and she didn’t seem to want more than sex.
She stood on tiptoe to nip his ear. “Joshua, I want you,” she whispered, her warm breath making him shiver.
Saying he loved her would probably send her running from the room. He settled for her in his arms and in his bed – She didn’t want to be in his heart.
JC drifted up from slumber slowly. His body felt relaxed and sated, rested despite the activity of the previous hours before he’d fallen asleep. Inhaling deeply, his sense of smell was awash with the scent of spent passion, the warm sugar remains of Lauren’s perfume, the remnants of what had been freshly laundered bed linens, and lemon furniture polish. Releasing his breath on a happy sigh, he realized the scents of home would forever give him a hard-on; he’d equate them with the great sex he’d known with Lauren.
Forcing his eyes open, he glanced at the clock on the bedside stand. Nearly four-thirty. In another few minutes, the alarm would go off so Lauren could slip upstairs to shower before her day began. Her days started damn early since she had to make breakfast for her guests and get the kids off to school. Most of the time she slipped away before he woke, letting him sleep. He wished he could return the favor just once. He could handle the kids and the dog, but she’d lose clientele if he were to let loose in the kitchen. He barely made passable coffee and uncharred toast. No way would mouth-watering pastries come from his kitchen expertise.
Turning his head, he smiled at the sight of the coffee-colored tangle of silken hair spread across the pillow next to his. It was about the only time she wore it down, when she was with him. Usually it was restrained in some fashion, up and away from her face. Lauren had gorgeous hair. He didn’t try to resist the urge to sift his fingers through it. Somehow that led to him moving closer, nuzzling the vulnerable sweet flesh just beneath her ear.
Lauren gave a soft little moan at the feel of her lovers touch, coming awake in more ways than one. She felt deliciously achy from their vigorous lovemaking. She should have been exhausted by late hours and physical activity, somehow she was not. She was invigorated. “Mmm... Joshua... What time is it?”
“Almost time,” JC answered quietly.
She snuggled back against him feeling his strong arms go around her. “Morning comes so soon.”
“I know.” He wanted to tell her to give up the business, he would take care of her, but that hadn’t been part of their deal. It was supposed to be all about the here and now. They weren’t supposed to talk about the future. Those were the terms she’d made him agree to before embarking on this ‘affair’. Even the word struck a discordant note with him – an affair... He cared about Lauren. He cared about her kids. He wasn’t just some single, wealthy guy looking for a fantastic tumble with a soldier’s widow...
“Why do I have the feeling you are thinking way too much this morning?” she asked as she rubbed her cheek along his bristly jaw.
“Believe it or not I actually do have thoughts once in a while,” he mused, faking a lightness he didn’t feel.
“No! And here I thought you were nothing more than a pretty boy who knows his way around a woman’s body,” she stated playfully.
The ‘pretty boy’ remark stung though he tried to ignore its bite. Instead he flipped her over on her back and came over her. “It takes some real thought to do that, ya know,” he growled jokingly.
“Really? Then you must be a real thinker!” she smiled up at him, tracing his sharp cheekbones with light fingertips. “I know you aren’t some thoughtless rich boy, Joshua. You’re a swell guy.”
“Woo-hoo. Wanna put that big compliment in writing?” he asked mirthlessly.
Before she could answer, the alarm chimed. JC reached over to slap it off, rolling away of her.
Lauren reached for her discarded flannel night gown. She pulled it on before she rose from the bed; hence she was covered throat to toe before she shoved her feet into her slippers. Tugging on her robe, she glanced back at the man who lay back in the bed, his eyes shut determinedly. “You go back to sleep.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll save you some danish. You can sleep in.”
“Thanks.”
Deciding she had somehow hurt his feelings with her teasing, she wanted to say something more. But time was short. “Later.”
“Yeah, later.” JC put his back to her. He waited until she closed the door before he snapped off the light.
Damn
“You’re packing,” Olivia stated the obvious when she saw JC putting clothes in his duffle after dinner. She stood in his doorway watching him.
“Yeah, I am, princess.” JC’s stomach felt like lead. The marvelous meal Lauren had made sat heavy. Tomorrow he would leave after the children’s school bus pulled away.
“You don’t like it here?” The girl looked confused and hurt. “I thought you liked us.”
Liked? He’d fallen in love with them – every single last one of them – well, not Max... But Lauren made it clear with her unwillingness to talk she expected him gone. “Sure, I like you, but Christmas is coming.”
“You could stay here for Christmas,” she hinted largely. “If Mom rented this room you could use the family room sofa.”
And he would be willing if Lauren would just... “Christmas is for family. My grandmother is expecting me.”
“Oh.” There was a wealth of disappointment and sadness in that one little syllable. Without another word, the little girl walked away.
A moment later, CJ appeared. “So, you really are going.”
With dark eyes like his mother, the boy’s words slammed into JC’s chest like a sledgehammer. CJ tried to be adult but he needed to be a little boy. “Christmas is family time. My family expects me.” JC was suddenly reminded of CJ’s need of money to buy Lauren a present. “Do you have enough for that gift for your mom?”
“Yeah, Grampa let me do some stuff.”
“Good. Good.”
“Well... you have a safe trip, Mister Chasez,” the boy offered before he too left.
JC half-expected to see Sam next. It was Max who came into the room fifteen minutes later.
“Got some mighty long faces downstairs,” the older man announced.
“They’ll forget me next week.” It would take JC forever to forget the Blackwood family.
“Think so? You sleep with Lauren and pal around with the kids. For what? For kicks? For a cheap thrill of some slumming?”
JC took exception to that. “I haven’t been ‘slumming’ and I care about them. I’m not going because I want to. I’m going because Lauren doesn’t want me to stay.”
“You so sure about that?”
“She won’t talk to me about it. She won’t let me talk about us. That seems pretty sure to me.”
“Could it be she thinks she doesn’t have anything to offer you?” Max asked softly.
“Nothing to offer?” Frankly JC was surprised. Lauren had a lot to offer – more than he did. All he could add to her life was complications. His life was messy and insane. He would be the one who could upset the comfortable life she had made for her family. JC didn’t see himself as worthy of that. “I’m the one with nothing.”
Max shook his head. Crazy kids.