Emma had no idea why she was still sitting there. As hot as he was, as much as she was turned on by him...she just wasn’t feeling the sex this night.
She was too sick inside to feel wanton. And Jayden was part of the cause. She knew he’d done his job well. That he’d risked his life to get Luke in custody. She couldn’t say that she’d have thought to report evidence of someone napping on the couch in relation to an illegal gun possession. But there it was...
Luke was loose. She’d somehow lost control of something she’d thought a sure win. Not somehow. She knew how. Jayden hadn’t given her the full information and Luke’s judge had found his sister credible.
There was still the parole hearing. At least a preliminary to determine if Luke was going to have his parole revoked for being in the home with a gun.
“I take it, since you aren’t answering my question, that I’m right. The Suzie Heber thing is personal...”
He’d admitted to her that giving Bill a second chance was personal to him. That second chances were personal. He’d given her as much knowledge as he’d thought she needed.
If she was going to do that job, partnering with him as she’d chosen to do, she had to acknowledge her own weakness, didn’t she?
She stared at him, seeing the counselor more than the officer. Maybe because he wasn’t wearing his gun.
Maybe her shadow side was choosing this most inopportune moment to surface. Maybe she didn’t need to tell him any more about herself.
She sipped her tea. What would it hurt?
“I got pregnant my senior year in high school.” The words flew out while she was still debating whether or not her desire to tell him something that no one in her professional life knew of was valid, or the result of her shadow side rearing her head.
His head tilted to the side a little, his gaze a new kind of warm as he looked at her. But he didn’t push. Or probe.
“The father...he didn’t seem all that fazed by it. Said I could do what I wanted with the pregnancy. That things would work out either way. He also didn’t offer any real support. But he didn’t dump me. My parents were devastated, of course. And me...my whole world changed...every breath I took felt different. My future looked different. And yet... I wanted that baby. Hard to believe you could love something that you wouldn’t even know was there if not for a test you’d taken...”
Here was the time when she shut up. Walked away.
She couldn’t even look away.
“Did your parents pressure you to abort? You can’t blame yourself if you did as they asked...”
She almost went with that story. It fit closely enough for her current purposes in telling him anything at all. Though, what exactly that purpose was, she wasn’t altogether sure.
“They talked over all of the options with me and then asked me what I thought I should do.” She remembered, smiling a little through the profound sadness. She’d thought she was over the critical intensity of that feeling. Hadn’t experienced it quite this badly in years.
Ms. Shadow and her drama.
“I wanted to keep the baby,” she said, looking Jayden straight in the eye. She was doing this—telling him—and she was going to do it right. “I’d created a life, and it wasn’t about me anymore. It was about that baby.”
Until the night...
“How did they react to that?” His words came softly into the soft light of the moon as he reached up and turned off the light in his pagoda. She hadn’t even noticed darkness had fallen.
“They were worried, of course, but also excited about the baby coming. At least, my mom was. She was making plans, volunteering that she’d babysit so that I could still go to college, that she’d turn the spare room in our home into a nursery, but wanting me to make all of the decorative choices because it was my baby...”
Tears pushed up from inside her, far more dangerously close than they ever got these days. Her mom had been so great. And Emma had taken it all for granted. A kid who’d been so hooked to the wild man who’d impregnated her that when he’d begged her to get on the back of his motorcycle and ride the drag race with him, she’d hopped on.
“A group of guys had been racing bikes for about six months. Spectators would all chip in money. Each time there was some new challenge that they’d get right before the race began. That night the requirement was to have three people on your bike. And the prize money was a thousand dollars. The baby counted as his third person...”
Jayden’s brow furrowed, but otherwise his expression didn’t change.
Finding her throat inordinately dry, Emma took a gulp of tea.
“The stretch of road was fairly simple and everyone knew Keith was the best biker around. He’d never had a wreck...”
But he had that night. He’d slid out at the turn, had to lay down his bike...
“I was thrown from the bike,” she said, swallowing. Taking another sip from her glass.
Whatever the hell was happening, she was in way over her head.
“You lost the baby,” Jayden said when she was pretty sure she’d finished talking about it.
She nodded. And now he knew. She’d basically killed her own child. Not really. Not in any legal or maybe even moral sense. But under her own accountability test...
There was no way she could fail to save Suzie a second time.
“I’ve prosecuted and lost a couple of other cases involving fetal deaths,” she said, finding half a brain somewhere in the midst of the emotion and waywardness attacking her. “One a domestic violence case. The other a landlord who refused to fix faulty wiring and a fire broke out. The mother suffered severe enough smoke inhalation that she lost her baby.”
As difficult as the conversation was, it wasn’t overpowering her now. She was back in her element. In control. Jayden was a good listener.
“My point here is that I know Suzie Heber told the complete truth four years before. I know what her husband does to her. I know this based on the evidence before me, the interviews Suzie gave, the compelling reports that were offered live in court. Not based on what I might want to believe. And this time? Yeah, maybe I feel some personal emotion to it all, but I’m out to see justice served for Suzie. For the baby she lost through no choice of her own. Not for myself.”
Emma had no doubts. No wavering. Nothing but a sense that she was doing what she had to do. What was right to do. No matter what Jayden thought.
Jayden leaned in then and kissed her. Probably the absolute wrong thing to do. He did it anyway. Just leaned over, ignoring the slight twinge in his side, and planted his lips squarely on hers. She’d bared her soul to him, and he’d just needed to connect with her in a tender, personal moment. A sign of caring. Of support. Not of desire.
It was possible he’d have straightened right afterward. Apologized. But when her lips moved against his, opening slightly, he pressed harder, opening his mouth to taste her more completely. To let his tongue talk to hers and come to an agreement the two of them couldn’t seem to reach any other way.
Their jobs took everything. And somedays, it raised emotions that needed an outlet. Something that would dispel built-up tension when winning the case wasn’t an immediate option.
Without breaking from the kiss, he put his hands at her waist, and stood, helping her up with him. She took a step, he leaned, and their bodies came together, moving side to side, just enough to create friction where he was hurting most. Reaching a hand down, Emma cupped him there. He swelled even more, eager to do what they must to deactivate the attraction that would inevitably detonate at some point and kept distracting them from what mattered most to both of them.
The job.
He was ready to lay her down on the lounger not two feet away. To push her skirt up her hips, get her panties out of the way and come.
Condom. The thought floated in and out. Wallet.
She was rubbing slowly, methodically, on his fly, her tongue kissing him with more fire than he’d ever felt from a woman. Her nipples were rock-hard. He could feel them against his chest. Arms around her, he pulled her closer, meaning that they touched with more pressure, not more completely. The only way to be more complete was to get unnecessary clothing out of the way and be inside her.
Moving against her hand, Jayden had to remind himself to slow down. No matter how urgent the business matter at hand, she deserved a man who respected her womanhood, not an animal about to devour her.
“You want to move this inside?” he asked, thinking that the bed would be more comfortable to her. And his wallet...was it in his back pocket?
“Something wrong with that lounger?” She moaned against his lips, sending more shuddering need through him.
“Hell no,” he muttered back. Having sex outside...hell yeah.
She was reaching for his fly. He went for her breasts. Cupping them simultaneously, no padding there, moving his palms against the tips while she worked the button on his jeans. The closure gave and the relief of pressure was both a blessing and a curse. He slid his hands inside her blouse, liking the thin silk separating his skin from hers. So thin, he slipped beneath it easily and then around to undo the clasp. Almost as easily as she yanked down his zipper.
He sprang free. He had to have her. The pain was almost excruciating.
Her breasts were partially bared now, the nipples exposed to the warm night air. Had he undone those buttons? Hoped to God he hadn’t ripped them.
Pushing her backward, holding her tight as he guided them toward the lounger, Jayden sank his tongue deeply into her mouth, mimicking other things he’d like to do with it. Thinking about them. And still somehow managing to get her on her back without falling on top of her.
Or dropping her.
He dropped his jeans instead, stepped out of one leg, and then, with a knee between hers, he lowered himself down, sliding her skirt up as he went. The material was tight, as though teasing him, and he pushed harder, exposing silk-laced cotton underwear.
The thin silk he’d been expecting would have seduced him. This...this conservative piece of fabric, that screamed “good girl” to him enticed him on a whole new level. He had to stop a second, hold on to his release with every ounce of willpower so that he could give her the pleasure he’d promised this coupling would be for her.
“I need to get a condom,” he said, shocked at the tension in his voice. Like he was being strangled.
“I’ve got one.” She pulled it from the waistband of her skirt. A little pocket there? Or had she been wearing it there, between her waistband and that delectable skin all night?
If he’d known, he’d have been hard all through dinner.
He almost exploded when she ripped the packet open with her teeth, and yanked at her panties as she sheathed him with her delicate hand. It should have been awkward. His big body on that lounger for one, but she moved in tandem with him, doing her jobs while he did his, rubbing her crotch against his hand as he bared her to the openness of his backyard.
He entered her effortlessly. Gloriously. As smooth and tight and right as it had ever been. Expecting it to be quick. Hard. Instead he slowed as he moved. Looking at her. Finding her staring right at him. Into him.
And he didn’t want it to end. Didn’t want to finish. Stilling himself inside her, he kissed her. Softly. Mating their tongues in a quiet conversation that was no less passionate. He touched her breasts, exploring their fullness in a hello that would stay with him. While she held him.
When his lips left hers, she was watching him. Smiling at him.
He smiled back and started to move. Slowly. Drawing out the seconds into minutes until they both moved, coming together so hard he could hear the touch of their bodies.
Her gaze narrowed and her breathing changed. She was close. They were both so close. And...
As soon as she started to pulse around him, he let go. And kept letting go. So much, it was almost embarrassing.
What an experience.
The most incredible sex ever.
He wanted to tell her how special she was. How glad that she’d come into his life. To ask her to spend the night.
Their agreement didn’t leave room for those kinds of words. They weren’t in love. Or starting a relationship.
Scooting to his side on the lounger, he helped her turn to hers, spooning her just while they caught their breath.
Holding on.