Wild Irish (Book 1 of the Weldon Brothers Series) Read online

  He moved along the bank, picking up several rocks then returned, moving up behind her. “There’s an art to rock skimming. You have to hold it like this, letting the bottom of it rest on your middle finger.”

  His arms settled around her so she could see. He held the rock between his index finger and thumb. Heat skittered along her nerves at his nearness.

  “Now you try it.”

  His voice, low and deep, slid inside her and pooled. Determined to shut out her clamoring senses, she focused on the rock, mirroring his hold. “Like this?”

  “Good. Now you bring your arm back.” Taking her wrist in his hand, he positioned her arm and placed the flat of his other hand on her stomach. Uh, oh. She almost dropped the rock.

  “Now lean to your side, closer to the surface of the water. Cock your wrist and throw hard.” He helped, giving her an idea of the muscle needed behind the throw. The rock hit the surface of the creek, bounced twice then sank beneath a wave.

  “It worked,” she said, feeling pleased. “That’s easy.”

  “Right.” He handed her a few rocks, some heavier and some lighter than the one they’d thrown together. Now watch me once and you do it by yourself.” Jesse’s rock made five skips before it plunked out of sight.

  “That was all right,” she said.

  “Passable,” he agreed. “I can usually get twice as many skips. Let’s see you try, but first, how about a wager?”

  “What kind of wager.”

  “Let’s exchange favors for skips?”

  “What kind of favors?

  “Kisses would do for starters.”

  “You mean for every skip you make, I have to give you a kiss?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What do I get for skips then?”

  He opened his arms, offering his body. “Your choice. What do you want?”

  She ran her gaze over him. “A dance,” she said, suddenly finding the idea of being wrapped in strong arms with nothing but a romantic song on her mind very appealing.

  “A dance?” Jesse frowned. “I don’t think that—“

  “Great. It’s a deal.” She leaned down and concentrated on throwing the rock just like he’d shown her. The rock sunk the second it hit the water. “That one caught on my dress.”

  “Right,” he said. “I like these odds, Lexi. So far I’ve got five kisses coming and you’re zippo in the dance column.”

  “I’m just getting started.” She cocked her arm and swung for all she was worth. The rock hit the water’s surface and hopped awkwardly three times before disappearing. “There,” she said primly. “That’s three dances of my choosing. We’re almost even.”

  “If you get to choose the dance then I get to choose where my kisses go,” he said softly.

  Looking at him and not looking at where she stepped, Alexi felt gushy earth, serious mud, and the ground give way beneath her foot. “What?” she cried, falling. The extra rocks in her hand flew as she flung her arms out, trying to save herself.

  She heard Jesse yell just before the shock of cold water made a frontal assault on her body. She gasped, sucking in creek water. Scrambling to her knees, she coughed and sputtered until tears rolled from her eyes. She tried to stand but her dress, now soaked, weighed her down.

  Jesse came stomping through the water. “Lexi, oh jeez, shit. Are you all right?” He latched his hands around her waist and pulled. She had to weigh a ton. Water dripped from her hair and off her nose. She looked at Jesse, surprised to see blood trickling down from a cut on his right eyebrow. “What happened to you?” She pointed at his eye.

  “Got knocked low by the gingerbread woman. She throws a mean rock even when she isn’t aiming.”

  “I did that! Oh no. I’m sorry.” She placed her hand against his cheek, feeling the blood drain from her head.

  “Don’t pass out on me.”

  “She drew a deep breath. “I won’t. Do…you have a handkerchief?”

  He handed her one and as she dabbed at his cut, her heart squeezing tight. It was crazy, but she felt seventeen again. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, unsure if she spoke of what happened now or what he said happened in the past. After a few minutes, the bleeding stopped, but she could already see the skin beginning to bruise. “You’re going to have a black eye.”

  “I don’t think it’s that bad,” his voice was gruff and he was looking at her much like he had in her bedroom all of those years ago when he was torn between loving her or leaving her. The sudden sprinkling of a southern afternoon sun shower broke the moment. He took his handkerchief back and stuck it in his pocket. “Come on, we better get you back to the car.” Scooping her up, wet dress and all, he sloshed back to the car and set her on the trunk to keep her feet out of the dirt that was quickly turning to mud from the increasing rain.

  “My shoes—”

  “I’ll get them in a minute.” He dropped his gaze to her lips and slowly leaned toward her. This time she had plenty of warning but she didn't turn away. She parted her lips and waited, anticipation oozing into places she didn't know she had. He looked so sexy with raindrops darkening his lashes and sliding along the rough edge of his jaw. He leaned closer and didn't disappoint her. His warm, sensual mouth met hers, soft and tentative, as if he were savoring every nuance of her lips before he explored further. She closed her eyes and leaned into him, welcoming the unique euphoria he induced in her.

  What in the hell am I doing? Jesse slid his tongue into the warm inviting recess of Alexi's soft, full mouth. He stood in the rain in his best boots—now wet and likely ruined from creek water—with a bleeding cut over his eye, and all he could think about was kissing her, getting inside her, satisfying that hunger that gnawed despite almost twelve years. Though her lavender scent had been diluted, she still smelled like a twenty-four carat slice of heavenly pie dropped right into his hands for him to feast on.

  What started out as a light tease in a very public arena less than an hour ago was quickly turning into a very interesting, very private game that he was a breath away from taking it as far as he could. That was why his heart was racing wildly, he thought. It was the game they were playing. It was sensual, and just fast-paced enough past the bounds of propriety to give him an adrenalin rush. When she'd been a virginal seventeen to his nineteen, he hadn't taken what she'd offered, though he'd wanted her more than anything else in life. He'd gone against his better judgment and had paid for it then.

  This time, he thought, as he pressed her back against the car and planted his hands on the trunk, deepening the kiss. This time, he was the one writing the script, and he had a different scenario in mind.

  Her back arched, pressing her breasts closer to him, inviting him to feel more of her. Nudging her knees with his, he slipped between her legs until he felt the softness of her thighs cup his hips. But it wasn't enough. His growing erection demanded the feel of her, too. She moaned deep in her throat and Jesse's control slipped.

  "Damn, Lexi. I need to feel you." Reaching down, he pulled her closer, shoving her wet dress out of the way, until her bare legs hugged his hips and the soft contours of her panty covered sex met the ridge of his erection. She had no choice but to wrap her arms about his neck and her legs around the backs of his thighs. He couldn't remember the last time a kiss rocked like this one. He was less than an inch away from moving this foreplay into the full sex arena.

  Cupping her wet, satin covered breasts, he left her lips to kiss his way down her neck, tasting her, and tasting the elemental musk of the creek mixed with sweet lavender. Her panting breath, flushed skin, and eager kisses let him know she was just as hungry and he was. His thumbs found the peaks of her nipples and rolled them.

  “Jesse!”

  “More, Lexi, I need more.” He pulled the straps of her dress off her shoulders, and, heedless of the sound of tearing material, he yanked the satin down until he freed her breasts. Cupping each peach-capped creamy breast, he lowered his mouth to her nipples, licking off the droplets of rain, tasting her, a
nd then sucking her until she writhed her hips against his erection.

  “Jesse, please. I have to—”

  “I know, Lex." I’ve got it covered. Just one more taste.”

  Alexi, about to tell Jesse that she had to stop because this was too fast and she couldn’t take any more, grabbed him and pulled him up closer to her. She kissed him like the world was on fire, which she was. Not even a full blown thunderstorm could have dampened her need to have him at that minute. When they both came up for air, Jesse groaned deep.

  “I’ve gotta have more,” he rasped, sounding like a man on the edge of reason.

  “More,” she gasped as his raw sexuality triggered an equally red-hot need in her. He nudged her back against the car, shoved her dress higher and placed his mouth over her sex.

  “Ahhh,” she breathed. His steamy breath made her sensitive flesh sizzle with pleasure. Light droplets of rain teased at her face and her breasts. It was the most primal, most elemental, most wildly erotic moment she’d ever experience. She was helpless to stop it. “Jesse, oh, my, I—”

  He pulled her panties to the side and his tongue took over. Any thought that this was moving too fast flew. Pleasure and heat from her yearning sex took control. All she wanted was to keep climbing higher, to hurdle headlong into the sensations driving her into a wild world she’d never even realized existed. Her muscles tensed, her breath caught, and she saw stars burst before her eyes as molten pleasure burned though her in a shuddering climax of pure ecstasy.

  In a haze, she saw the sun dapple through the wet leaves of the oak tree above her as the rain disappeared and a perfect blue sky smiled down at her. The breeze brushed her nipples and spasms of pleasure continued to shoot through her. Jesse moved against her then, making her want more. “Jesse?”

  “Right here.” He grabbed her hips and slid her towards him. She gasped with surprise as he drove his erection into her and the pleasure shot all the way to her toes. The heat began to build again, but stronger because Jesse’s gaze was locked with hers and stayed locked as he went deep and slow then moved fast and quick until her hips pulsed to his every thrust.

  “I want to see you come,” he said, his voice ragged and strained and as desperate as the intense expression on his face. He was raw and so sexually seductive that she couldn’t look away, couldn’t do anything but respond, matching him thrust for thrust as she spiraled higher and higher until she thought she would die from the edge of madness gripping her.

  “Jesse!” she cried.

  “That’s it, Lexi. Go wild! Let yourself loose.” One of his hands cupped her breast, grasping her nipple between his fingers, and his other hand moved to the throbbing nub of her sex. Then he plucked both in rhythm to his movements until she screamed, her hips bucking uncontrollably.

  Jesse drove into Alexi with a need that had never racked his body before. Her mouth lay softly open, just waiting for him. It was the devil’s own candy and he was determined to claim it. Watching her shudder with sexual need had him so freaking hard, so damn hot, that he’d never been this out of control. Her eyes, smoky with desire, had turned the deep green of a wild Irish glen.

  “Give me more, Lexi,” he shouted, shoving deep one last time.

  She cried out as another shudder of pleasure claimed her and triggered his release. He felt the shock of their mutual orgasm all the way to his soggy boots, but it wasn’t enough, he needed to be closer to her. As if feeling the same, she reached for him and he leaned forward, matching his palms to hers, threading his fingers through hers as he pressed her back against the car. He felt the huge diamond on her finger then, but didn’t care about anything other than being deeper inside her. He thrust again, heightening the aftershocks of pleasure and still needed more. Planting his mouth on hers, he kissed her hard. It was as if the sexual energy thrumming between them needed this many points of contact to flow through or he’d explode. His knees were weak and a dizzy sensation spun around inside his head. He didn’t know exactly what in the hell had just happened to him, but he knew he felt mighty damn fine. More than fine and that wasn’t necessarily good.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Alexi stared into Jesse’s fiery blue gaze, matching the fervor of his kiss. An Oh-My-God-What-Have-I-Done shock trampled into the lingering mists of exquisite pleasure, but she couldn’t move from the heat and fullness of him inside of her, from the pressure of his body pinning her, or from the passionate demand of his kiss. She reveled in the feel of his strong hands holding hers captive against the car.

  Clamping her legs around his hips, she pulled him closer to her. His eyes widened and he pressed himself deeper again, groaning. The kiss ended and still she stared at him, speechless. He stared back. The moment hung, seemingly endless as hundreds of thoughts raced through her head.

  What came after mind-blowing sex with a man from her past after less than an hour together? She missed twelve years of this! Thank goodness she was on the pill. What in the world must he think of her?

  Jesse suddenly tensed and raised his head. Only then did she hear the sound of a truck rambling on the dirt road.

  “Sounds like company. Maybe we better finish this at my place.” He lifted his chest from hers, releasing her hands.

  “Company! How can you be so calm! What if they’d come five minutes ago? I can’t believe this.” Heat blistering her cheeks, she pushed on him, scrambling to cover herself.

  He laughed. “Relax. If they had come five minutes ago then we wouldn’t have come and that would have been the real shame.” In no time, he slid out, shed a condom she’d been too far-gone to think about, zipped up, and scooped her up.

  Before the truck appeared, sporting a load of boisterous teenage boys, he’d dropped her inside the car and left to get her shoes and stockings. He waved at the boys in the passing truck like he didn’t have a care in the world. Like he hadn’t just had mind-blowing sex up against his car. She took one look in the rearview mirror and saw HOT SEX written in the scarlet flush of her face. He was as calm as the eye of a storm and she felt like the gale force winds whirling around him.

  He’d even uprooted the past, sending many of the perceptions that had shaped her life into a tailspin. She’d always thought of her distant, stern father as a law abiding, just man. Yet, Jesse’s story cast a dark shadow of doubt on that belief. Had her father really gone as far as to frame Jesse for grand theft to erase him from her life? Up until today she would have sworn not. But then, up until today she would have also sworn her grandmother wouldn’t have made her granddaughter a sacrifice upon duty’s altar.

  The thought that Jesse might be lying about being framed popped into her mind, fizzing questions like a shaken can of Coke. Would he have? And why would he? Why even bring up the past unless he had a reason to be resentful? She frowned at Jesse’s back through the fogging glass of the car window and watched the regal bearing in the breadth of his shoulders. She noted the confident cadence of his military stride, and remembered the searing blueness of the gaze he’d leveled on her when he’d told her about the past. No, she thought. There’d been many things in Jesse’s eyes, but deceit hadn’t been one.

  His disgust that she’d so easily believed the worst about him stung. Was there any truth in his accusation? He’d done little to dispel his bad boy image years ago, and despite the haircut and the sports car he drove, he wasn’t doing much now.

  Don’t make that mistake, Lexi. I’m no gentleman.

  The still deliciously tingling nerves inside her popped goose bumps on her skin. No, he wasn’t a gentleman. What they’d done up against his car didn’t fit into a gentlemanly role. But then, maybe she needed to change her definition of a gentleman. Roger considered himself a gentleman. He sent flowers, opened doors, and was solicitous. He’d never seduced her on his car, yet look what he’d turned out to be.

  She shuddered at how close she’d come to marrying Roger.

  Jesse had whisked her away like a modern day Sir Lancelot. No, scratch that, like a crazed stunt driver.
Savannah's society would be speechless—for about five seconds—then the tongues would wag like puppy tails at a breeding kennel.

  She looked up as he slid into the driver’s seat and handed over her shoes and stockings. The cut by his brow had stopped bleeding, but he’d definitely have a black eye. She winced as something inside her cringed because she’d caused him pain. It was almost the same thing she felt for the ill children that she cared for at the hospital. It was a part of her, some inner need she had to make everything better. But Jesse was no child needing hurts kissed away. The look he zeroed in on her was all grown up male, and what he wanted made her shiver with desire. His walk to the creek hadn’t dimmed the I’m-going-to-devour-you gaze, a gaze that made her ask herself again. What did a woman do after having mind-blowing sex with a man from her past?

  Have more sex; her senses clamored as she remembered the feel of him and the deep rumble of his voice. Maybe we better finish this up at my place.

  No, go home, her commonsense peeped. She barely heard it.

  She had no desire to go back home and face the music of her aborted wedding march yet. The Jesse factor was still so strong that she couldn’t drum up the smallest tear over what Roger had done, and that felt really good. It seemed as if Jesse had carted her off to Oz, but unlike Dorothy, Alexi wasn’t searching for a way home. There was no Wicked Witch of the West to run from. Nope, there was only this Bad Boy from the South and she wasn’t running yet. One day, she thought. She’d give herself one day to go down Jesse’s yellow brick road of desire. She could play in Oz for a day. Everything else could wait.

  Jesse started the car and headed down the dirt road. He didn’t say anything, only fiddled with the radio, jumping from station to station like a bee looking for nectar and nothing seemed to satisfy. It was as if he mirrored her state of mind—nothing but sex again would do.

  No, no, no, no! Her mind shouted loud enough to grab her attention. Are you crazy? What kind of woman even contemplated going with a man for no other reason than great sex? Was it just that, or was there more to it? Maybe suppressed feelings from the past?