When Jackson had stopped by Friday morning to tell her that his mother had derailed their plans, she hadn’t been able to help but laugh. He had looked so contrite as he’d told her that his mother had planned an impromptu family dinner, which included his sister and her two kids.
Cait had tried to worm out of it, assuring him it wouldn’t be a problem since she had a class until seven anyway. They could reschedule.
“Oh no,” he had said, pulling her to him. “You are not getting away that easy. You get to come with me.”
“She didn’t invite me to dinner.” She had pushed lightly at his chest but couldn’t budge him. “You are on the hook for this.”
“Unfortunately.” He had nipped at her ear. “When you take me you get them too. And yes, Mom did extend the invitation.”
“Damn, I hadn’t realized that. I think I need to rethink this whole dating you thing,” she joked. In truth she wasn’t that freaked about dinner at his parents’. She had always liked Jack Senior, and his mom, well, she thought they had established some sort of accord. Dinner might actually be fun.
What she now realized, as she leaned against the doorframe and listened to Jack argue with his sister, was how wrong she was. Suzanne had been staring daggers at her over the dinner table. And while not openly hostile, it was evident that the woman was seething just below the surface.
Right after dinner, Cait had watched as Jack steered his sister out into the garden and had begun demanding to know what the problem was.
“I can’t believe you would bring her here,” Suzie hissed, her blunt bob cut swinging around her chin as she turned and pointed to the house.
“Keep your voice down,” Jack growled. “What is wrong with you tonight?”
“With me? You bring that tramp into our parents’ home and you ask what is wrong with me.”
Cait peered around the corner of the door in time to see Jack’s posture change. His spine stiffened and he pulled his shoulders back. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“Really. I haven’t forgotten how she ran out on you. Fucked your best friend and who knows how many others.”
“Stop it now,” he warned. “You are showing your ignorance.”
He looked equal parts angry and perplexed. He had no idea why his sister hated her, Cait realized. “No, Jack.” Cait stepped from behind the door, shaking her head. “Let her get it out. Let’s hear why I offend her so.”
Jack pulled Cait to him and wrapped his arm protectively around her. “No, I can take care of this.”
Cait laid a hand on his chest, looking up at him. “I’m a big girl, Jack. If she has something to say she can say it to me.”
“You are all Miss Thing now, aren’t you?” Suzie glared. “I remember you in high school. You weren’t so proud then, were you?”
Cait cocked her head to the side and stared down the prom queen. She was right. Moving here right before senior year had been rough. She was the outsider, especially where the mean girl clique led by Suzanne Steele were concerned.
“Really? This is about a grudge from high school?” Cait asked.
“I don’t need a grudge to hate you. You broke my brother’s heart. You left with his best friend. I bet you were already fucking him, weren’t you? And who knows what you did to Logan.”
Cait felt Jack’s hand close more tightly on her shoulder. His sister could cut to the quick, that was for sure. Part of her wanted to wallow in what Suzanne said. They had all hurt each other, but that was their issues, not Suzie’s.
“Jack was a big boy then and he’s a big boy now. If he’s willing to take another chance on us, then I don’t see how that concerns you.”
“It’s you who was never concerned about anyone.” Susan’s lips drew tighter. “He never got over you, but you never had that problem did you? You were every bit the whore your mother was, and I won’t let you do that again.”
The breath caught in Cait’s throat. “Wow.” She shook her head. “Nice language there, Suzie, but I don’t think you have any idea what was going on.”
“I don’t have to think, I know.” Suzanne stamped her foot. “You were never good enough for either of them.”
It was a sentiment that Cait had thought herself over the years. “You are right. I wasn’t.”
Jack turned her toward him, one hand tilting up her chin so that she looked at him. His eyes were hard, and she could tell he was pissed at his sister, but just because he was distracted with that situation, he wasn’t going to let Cait get away with self-doubt. “Never think that.” He turned on the Dom voice. “That will be punishment number one.”
“It’s true, Jack.” Cait nodded, willing to accept the punishment if he felt she deserved it. “I wasn’t good enough because I didn’t trust either of you the way I should have. That was my mistake. You deserved better than that.”
Jack bent his head and pressed his lips against her forehead. She softened into him for a moment then turned back to her nemesis.
“But a lot has changed in ten years,” she told Suzanne. “You and I, Suzie, we were neverfriends. And I don’t care if we are friends now. You can hate me for loving and marrying the boy you had a crush on or for breaking your brother’s heart in the process. It won’t change anything.” She swallowed. “But I never stopped loving Jack. And given the chance, I will make that time up to him.”
Jack squeezed her shoulders.
Suzie looked away, petulantly crossing her arms over her chest and stamping her foot.
Cait smiled up at Jack. “Now I’m going to have a nice chat with your dad before your mom serves dessert.”
Cait walked back into the house, but didn’t leave earshot. She wondered just how much Suzie was willing to tell her brother.
“She just has to be the better person, doesn’t she?”
“What was that about you having a crush on Logan?”
“Nothing.” She dismissed him and continued. “Why is it fine for others to be angry little shits, but I have to be forgiving.”
“You don’t. And bullshit.” Jack’s voice lowered in concern. “Did Logan put the moves on you?”
Cait peeked out the curtain.
“Of course not.” She shook her head. “I was your little sister. But that didn’t stop him from moving in on your girlfriend who was even younger than me.”
“What went down with her and me and Logan, that was between us. We all made a lot of mistakes back then and we suffered for them. But I love her and that hasn’t changed.”
“She ran off with your best friend.”
“And I let her go.” Jack smiled. “I don’t think our small town was ready for the alternative.”
Suzie squeezed her brows together in question, but Jack wasn’t about to explain. “Look. I love that you want to protect your big brother. And if you really want to know what went down back then we can have that discussion, but not here at Mom and Dad’s. They’ve welcomed her back, and that means a lot to me.”
“You’ve never brought anyone else home for dinner with the parents,” she said pointedly. “Ever.”
“No.” He nodded. “And that should give you some idea what she means to me.”
Just then the baby started crying inside, giving them another focus. Cait needed to move as they headed toward the door.
“She put you through hell,” Suzie grumbled.
“It was hell, but she didn’t put me through it. I did that,” he confirmed. “And this taste of heaven may well be my reward.”
Cait stepped hurriedly down the hall. She hated hearing how much she had hurt Jack, even if she had long ago accepted it as inevitable. That he thought this second chance was heaven… She smiled. It may well be a sample of it. She loved that he was trying to be careful of her. Romance her. Even if he should have known by now, she was a sure thing.
Cait joined Johnathon Steele in his den. He was reading a construction journal. She smiled at the way he squinted at the pages, even though his glasses were perched on top of his head.
She came over and flipped his glasses down on his nose. “Thank you, Caitie. I thought I lost those damn things,” he grumbled affectionately.
“I know you did.” She laughed. “You haven’t changed Mr. Steele.”
“You don’t work for me anymore, Caitie. It’s John.”
“Okay,” she said softly. “John.” She looked at the cover of the journal. “I thought you were retired? Shouldn’t you be reading Golfer’s Digest?”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m as likely to enjoy standing in the middle of a field whacking a little ball as I am to enjoy a colonoscopy.”
Cait choked. “Good times indeed.”
“I’m glad you’re back.” He put down his journal. “I knew you would be, once you finished growing up. If Logan hadn’t been so stubborn, you could have been back a lot sooner.”
“We were all stubborn.” She flopped into the chair next to his. “Why Logan in particular?”
“That boy didn’t have a lick of sense.” He looked at her and she got the feeling he was waiting for her to say something.
“No,” she agreed. “But you know boys never do.”
“You weren’t much better.” He shook his head. “The two of you should have been here with Jackson, the three of you building and running the business together.”
“That would have been interesting.” She tried to picture how that would have worked at Sunday dinner.
“I know it wouldn’t have been easy. You were all so bullheaded, but it would have made sense.”
“Did Logan know that was what you wanted?”
“At the time he was more wrapped up in what he thought he wanted.” Jack Senior rubbed the bridge of his nose where the glasses pinched then pushed them back up on his head. “I thought Jackson may have finally convinced him, but well, it doesn’t matter now.”
“I still would have been married to Logan, not Jack,” she reminded him.
John gave her a hard look and she read understanding in his eyes. “Damn it, girl, that’s just semantics. I had had a stroke that summer but I wasn’t blind. It don’t matter what goes on behind closed doors, so long as you’re happy together.”
Cait was at a loss for words. She looked at her hands, folded now in her lap, and at her wedding ring, which she wore on her right handnow.
“I always knew the friendship they had was special. I’ll admit, at times I was worried they would settle down with each other, and that would have been hard for them here.”
“John…” Cait was about to put that fear to rest.
He held up a hand. “Oh I know that wasn’t the way the crow flew. Knew that the first time I saw them look at you. Saw the conspiratorial glance they gave each other.”
Cait blushed, the heat spreading up her chest and across her face.
“Like I said, I wasn’t blind, but that also wasn’t none of my business.”
“You are a wise, wise, man,” she teased.
“People forget that.” John opened his journal back to the article he was reading and returned his glasses to his face. “What’s done is done. It only matters now that you’re home.”
“That’s right. I’m home.”
* * * * *
Jack pulled into Cait’s driveway and shut off the engine. “Thank you for coming with me tonight.” He held her hand, his thumb stroking her knuckles.
“I’ve missed your dad, and your mom was really nice.”
“Suzie, on the other hand…” he started.
“Part of me wants to be nice and say it’s not her fault but it kind of is.” Cait shook her head. “We were never going to be bosom buddies.”
“And she was what, in love with Logan and I never knew it?”‘
“Well, to be fair, I had just broken your heart and you were trying to take over the family business. You probably didn’t know what she was up to.”
“What was she up to?”
Cait sighed. “All Logan ever told me was that she had a crush on him, but she wasn’t the type of girl who liked to be ignored.”
Cait remembered Suzanne in high school. The girl was used to having the boys, and some of the men in town too, grovel at her feet. Logan said he’d never rebuffed her, but he had pretended not to know what she was angling for.
“When Logan and I left, she followed us. She confronted us at a club, you know the kind of club, but she was totally innocent and freaked. She said pretty much what she did tonight. That she was the marrying kind and I was a whore.”
Cait had put the event, and for that matter Suzie too, out of her mind. It didn’t seem like Suziewas part of the same family as Jack.
“I’m sorry.”
“You asked why Logan and I married so quickly.” She reminded him. “That was part of it. He wanted me to have the protection of his name. He didn’t want anyone to think I was just the tramp he stole from his best friend. He thought it would stop a lot of talk.”
“I never realized she was such a bully to you.”
Cait shrugged. “Doesn’t sound like she had it easy either. I noticed everyone pussy-footed around the discussion of her husband.”
“Suzie left him a few months ago. We helped her and the kids move out.”
“Sometimes things don’t work out.”
Jack sighed. “She insinuated that she was scared for their safety.”
“And you don’t buy it?”
“I thought I knew David, and it’s hard to picture. You and I know better than most that you can’t know what goes on behind closed doors, but it seems odd. And as you know, she’s always been a little high strung.”
There’s one description for the drama queen, she thought. “Did he fight her leaving?”
“Actually, not at all. There were obviously issues between them, but he was clear he wanted to see the kids, and my mom facilitates that for him.”
“That’s tough.”
He stroked her hair. “I will talk to Suzie. You won’t have to worry about future scenes.”
“Are you going to come in?” she asked hopefully.
“I want to, but it’s a hell of a lot later than I thought it would be. I didn’t expect you to stay and bake with Mom,” he complained.
“She kinda twisted my arm on that. And now I have cinnamon rolls for breakfast with you,” she teased.
He kissed her gently, sliding his hand around the nape of her neck and pulling her closer to him across the truck’s bench seat. His kiss deepened, his tongue plundering her mouth.
He nipped and chewed at her bottom lip until she whimpered. This was so totally old-school Jack. How many times had they done it in his pickup truck, she wondered. She didn’t stop him when he slid his hands beneath her skirt and lifted her over him so so that she straddled his lap.
Cait pulled away, leaning back against the steering wheel. “Condom?”
He grinned at her and reached past her to the glovebox as she unzipped his pants and released his throbbing erection.
“I need you inside me.”
He ripped the condom package open with his teeth and rolled it over his cock. Then he wrapped one hand around her hip and with the other he pulled aside her thong. He thrust his hips upward, impaling her on the first thrust.
“Fuck,” they both groaned. It was tight, and it hurt just a bit, until her body caught up with her brain, and realized how much she needed this.
He kept his hands wrapped around herhips. She would have his fingerprints bruised into her skin tomorrow. He lifted her again and again so that his cock nearly released her, then he plunged home again.
“Yes. Fuck, Jack. Take me.” Her hands clutched his shoulders as she rode him. Rotating her hips on the down stroke. She could feel his cock again and again grazing across the sensitive bundle of nerves inside.
“I can feel you squeezing my cock.” He breathed heavily. “You need to come, don’t you?”
“I’m so close,” she whispered harshly.
He didn’t stop thrusting but he pushed her back against the wheel and slid one hand between them. His thumb sought out the slick folds of her pussy and the barbell through her clit hood. He pressed against the thin skin, feeling the metal beneath.
He rubbed the piercing, pressing it against the side of her clit. It was exactly the pressure she needed, and she felt her body convulse. Her pelvic muscles bearing down, trapping his cock deep inside her as she rode out the first waves of orgasm.
She ground her pelvis against him, needing more contact. Jack returned her need, slamming into her. She felt him swell inside her, long, hard and thick. She could feel his cock pulsing and he threw his head back against the seat.
He growled as he came but Cait barely noticed the animalistic cry as her own orgasm washed through her. She buried her head into his shoulder, shuddering.
Cait had missed this feeling. Being connected to not just anyone, but to Jack. Jack who had always known her better than she knew herself. She rested against his shoulder and enjoyed the moments of quiet as they clung to each other.
When the post-orgasmic haze began to lift, Cait was wrapped around him, her head on his shoulder. “There’s something about you in my pickuptruck, Caitie.” He laughed and ruffled her hair.
She laughed too and slid from his lap. “You want to blame me.”
“All the girls I have ever fucked in a pickuptruck have one thing in common.”
“Ooh, do tell.” She grinned as she tried to smooth down her skirt.
“They are all you.”
She smiled at his admission. “So, are you coming in?”
“This night wasn’t exactly what I planned, and you have to work in the morning.” Jack could see she was disappointed.
“So stay and you can be my alarm clock.”
“You want that?” he asked, reminding her that she was calling the shots.
“Yeah, I want that.” She took a deep breath. “I want us again, Jack. I don’t want to wait for all my fears to be gone. I know I’m safe with you. This is our time.”
He gave her a feral grin and hopped out of the truck on his side. A moment later he was at her door, helping her down. He pushed her back against the side of the truck and slammed his lips down on hers.
He didn’t kiss her. He conquered her mouth as his hands slipped back under her skirt. He pulled one thigh high and wrapped it around his waist as he slid his other hand beneath her thong.
“You are so wet.” He groaned as his fingers found her slick center. “I think you like fucking out here where anyone could see us. Where anyone couldturn on their porch light or turnaround that corner with their high beams straight on us.”
She ground down on his fingers, begging him silently to slide them inside her. To stop playing with her cream and make her come again.
“Tell me that thought turns you on.”
“Fuck yes.” She bit into his shoulder, through his shirt. “Please, Jackson, pleasemake me come.”
He felt his cock start to swell again, forgetting that it had come not more than ten minutes ago.
He slid two fingers slowly inside her and she slammed her head back against the truck. He felt her clamping down. She thought she could rush this, but she couldn’t.
“I want to paddle your ass red, bent over a spanking bench at the club. Then I’d fuck you raw while everyone watched. I bet you’d lose track of how many times you came.”
He pushed in a third finger and she whimpered.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes.” She sighed, going dreamy in his arms even as the first wave of climax washed over her. “Yes, I want that.”
He began to pump into her harder with his fingers, the heel of his hand grinding against her piercing.
She screamed as she came and he slammed his mouth back over hers to smother it. He didn’t release her lips until her cunt had stopped throbbing. He slipped his fingers out and put them to her lips. She licked them greedily, cleaning them for him.
“I need to take you inside.” His voice was gruff. He felt shaken to have her back in his life, in his arms. Her surrender, when it came, was as sweet as it had always been.
She nodded and released her leg from around his waist, her skirt falling back in place.
“I’m going to give you a rule; can you live with that?” he asked as he released her arms.
“What’s the rule?” She lifted her head from his chest and massaged her wrists.
“No panties, never, beneath a skirt.”
“Not even at dinner with your parents.” She grinned.
“Not even then,” he warned her.
“Oh Mr. Steele.” She smiled coyly as she pulled him up the walk. “You are a very bad man.”
“I’m just getting started.”