Читать книгу Beg To Die - BEVERLY BARTON, Beverly Barton - Страница 9

Jamie felt damn good. He’d scored a direct hit on the old man. Even if Big Daddy knew he hadn’t fucked Erin, some little fragment of doubt would remain in his mind about whether or not his mistress found his grandson a more interesting prospect. The more his grandfather worried about his own love life, the less time he’d have to interfere in Jamie’s.

Of course, he’d have to cool things with other women for the next couple of months. Last night had been his final fling before walking down the aisle. After the honeymoon, he’d gradually ease back into Jazzy’s life and into any other woman’s bed he chose to pleasure him.

Jazzy might have convinced herself that they were through, but she was just kidding herself. The two of them were bound together forever, and nothing or nobody could ever permanently split them apart. Big Mama might be forcing him into a marriage he didn’t want, but she couldn’t make him love Laura. And neither she nor Big Daddy could make him give up Jazzy.

Whistling with an uneasy bravado—he wasn’t sure he could soothe Mr. and Mrs. Willis’s ruffled feathers even if he squared things with Laura—Jamie headed up the stairs. By taking the back stairs, he ran less risk of running into his future in-laws before he spoke privately to Laura. Oh, she’d be spitting mad and all weepy. But a few kisses, a few well-chosen words, a promise to never stray again, and she’d be putty in his hands.

As he approached Laura’s bedroom—the one she now shared with her younger sister—the door swung open, surprising him when Sheridan sashayed out of the room, wearing a bright pink springtime dress, looking much too sexy for a girl of not quite twenty. And that sexiness was more than just show. He knew, firsthand, that his fiancée’s little sister was a hot and wild piece of ass. She had taken great delight in thinking she seduced him the very night he’d asked Laura to marry him, back at their home in Kentucky.

“Well, well, well. Look what the pussycat’s dragged in,” Sheridan said, a mischievous twinkle in her big brown eyes as she paused directly in front of Jamie and gave him a come-hither smile.

“Good morning to you, too, sister-in-law.” Jamie leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

Sheridan reached up and curled her hand around his neck, then stood on tiptoe and brought her mouth in alignment with his. She whispered against his lips, “You can do better than that, can’t you?”

He removed her hand from his neck, swatted her behind, and chuckled. “Behave yourself, child. I’ve got enough trouble on my hands this morning without being caught with my tongue down your throat.”

Sheridan offered him a seductive pout. “Mother and Daddy are very upset with you. And poor Laura cried her eyes out all night. I’m afraid she may call off the wedding.”

“Not on your life. Your sister is going to become Mrs. James Upton III in three weeks. Big Mama has decreed it to be so, and what Reba Upton wants, she gets.”

“Then you’d better start making lovey-dovey noises to Laura. And don’t bother lying to her about where you were. She knows you went straight to Jasmine Talbot.”

“I have no intention of denying where I went,” Jamie said. “Once I explain to Laura why I was with Jazzy, she’ll understand.”

Sheridan’s eyes widened in astonishment. “This I have to hear.”

“Later,” Jamie told her. “Meet me at the stables in an hour.” He winked at her, then walked past her and knocked on Laura’s bedroom door.

“Who is it?” Laura asked.

Jamie glanced over his shoulder and gave Sheridan another quick wink, then blew her a kiss. She smiled triumphantly before rushing off down the hall.

“Laura, darling, it’s Jamie.”

“Go away! I never want to see you again.”

“Now, pet, don’t be that way. I have to talk to you. I have to make you understand why I did what I did last night.”

“I don’t want to hear your explanations. I’ve forgiven you too many times already. If you want Jazzy Talbot, then you can have her. I’m calling off the wedding and—”

“You can’t do that.” Jamie turned the doorknob and flung open the door. Still wearing her nightgown, Laura sat on the edge of her bed. “You don’t want to break my heart, do you?”

“Don’t you dare come in here.” Laura jumped up off the bed and pointed to the door. “Get out right this minute.”

Jamie slammed the door shut, then locked it. “I’m not going anywhere. Not until you let me explain. Not until you forgive me for being a stupid jackass.”

Laura lifted her pretty little head and hazarded a glance in his direction, but looked away quickly. That one swift glance told him that he had said just the right thing, given her just enough hope to make her listen to him. He would lie to her, tell her what she most wanted to hear. That was always the best policy with women. Tell a woman the truth and you’re doomed. Lie to her, flatter her, tell her whatever her heart desires, and you’ll have her eating out of your hand.

He took several tentative steps in her direction, then paused as if uncertain he had a right to approach her. Act humble, he told himself. Pretend to be torn apart inside with the fear you might lose her.

“Laura, I made a mistake in leaving our engagement party before it ended. I didn’t realize at the time how it would look to you, your parents, and our guests.” Jamie took another couple of steps toward her. “Chalk it up to my eagerness to do something I should have done a long time ago.”

She looked at him again, this time for several seconds, before glancing down at the floor. “What—what are you talking about? What should you have done a long time ago?”

“Ended things with Jazzy.”

Laura’s head snapped up, her gaze focused directly on his face. He’d known that statement about Jazzy would gain him her full attention.

“I don’t understand,” Laura said.

He moved closer, bringing himself within touching distance of his eager-to-believe-him fiancée. “Last night at our engagement party, with our family and friends here to celebrate with us, I realized just how important this marriage is to me…how important you are to me. I want our marriage to work. I—I love you, Laura.”

Tears gathered in her eyes as she stared at him, disbelief battling with hope in her expression. “You went to Jazzy and you spent the night with her.”

“Yes, I went to Jazzy.” He reached out for Laura. She pulled back, retreating from his touch. “I went to her to tell her that it’s over between us. Now and forever. I told her that I love you. She understood. We talked for a couple of hours—just talked—then I left.”

“If that’s true, then where were you all night?”

“I drove around for a while, thinking, pondering my many mistakes, making plans for my—our future. Before I knew it, I found myself over in Knox County, nearly in downtown Knoxville. I thought about calling you, but hell, sugar, it was the wee hours of the morning. So I pulled off at a rest stop and got a few hours sleep before I headed back home.”

“I want to believe you.”

Jamie zeroed in on her, leaving her no room for escape. Knowing she wouldn’t put up much of a fight, he pulled her into his arms and said, “Believe this, Laura. I love you. Only you.” When he lowered his head to kiss her, she turned away from him. He grasped her chin and maneuvered her face around so that he could take her lips. Once he kissed her, she succumbed without even so much as a whimper. God, she was so easy. Dumb little cunt.

When he finally ended the kiss, she looked up at him with love and trust in her eyes. “Oh, Jamie, I love you so much.”

“I know you do. And I love you even more. We’re going to be the happiest young couple in the state of Tennessee come three weeks from Saturday.” He lifted her into his arms and swung her around the room. “Hell, make that the happiest couple in the whole United States of America.”

Reve wanted nothing more than to escape Cherokee Pointe as fast as she could. She’d been a fool for coming here, for seeking out Jasmine Talbot in the hopes the woman might prove to be her biological sister. Even though she didn’t quite believe Sally Talbot’s staunch denial that Sally’s younger sister had given birth to more than one child, Reve couldn’t accept the fact that she and a woman such as Jazzy Talbot might be blood related. The woman was trash. And from what she’d gathered on very brief acquaintance, Jazzy was a whore. Even if by some weird trick of fate she and Jazzy were related, Reve didn’t want to pursue the truth. She didn’t want to be the woman’s sister. Hell, she didn’t want them even to be cousins. And she certainly didn’t want the likes of Sally Talbot to be her aunt!

As she zoomed her Jag along the highway leading out of town, she considered the can of worms she might have opened with her visit. Why had she told them her name? If any of them wanted to find her, it would be very easy. Everyone who was anyone in Chattanooga, in all of Hamilton County, knew who Reve Sorrell was. She was the heir to Sorrell fortune! People like Jazzy Talbot and her aunt Sally were the type to want money from a long-lost relative.

And what about Caleb McCord? She’d taken an instant liking to him, but she didn’t kid herself about what sort of man he was. From the looks of him, he was a diamond in the rough, a poor boy from the wrong side of the tracks. A woman like Jazzy would know how to handle that kind of man, but Reve figured she would be out of her depth. She liked her gentlemen friends to be her social, intellectual, and financial equal. It didn’t take a genius to figure out Caleb McCord didn’t fit that bill, at least on two counts.

Would Caleb’s curiosity about why Reve Sorrell and Jazzy Talbot looked enough alike to be twins translate into action? Would she have to pay him off so he would let the matter drop? And once they discovered how rich she was, what would it cost her to make Jazzy and Sally Talbot disappear from her life?

Cursing herself for allowing her desire to know the truth about her “double” to create a potentially embarrassing situation for her, Reve didn’t realize how fast she was driving until she whizzed past a big black pickup truck going in the opposite direction. Suddenly she heard a siren. Damn! Glancing in her rearview mirror she saw the blue flashing light atop the truck, which had turned around in the middle of the road. Oh, great. Just great. Who was this guy? A policeman? A sheriff’s deputy?

Slow down and pull off to the side of the road, she told herself. Pay off this overeager lawman and be on your way.

Before she could follow through with her plans to be a cooperative citizen, an enormous animal dashed across the road in front of her. Good God! A full-grown buck with an impressive rack that would gain the deer the admiration of any hunter. She swerved, trying to keep from hitting the magnificent animal, and in the process wound up running her Jag into the ditch. And not just a shallow ditch on the side of the road. No, it was a deep ditch, on the side of the mountain. Luckily she managed to bring the car to a full stop only seconds before it would have hit head-on into a massive oak tree. When she skidded to a halt, even her seat belt didn’t prevent her from bouncing. Thankfully, the air bag didn’t deploy.

With her heart beating wildly, her nerves screaming, and a sudden headache pounding in her temples, Reve tried to undo her seat belt. Her nervous fingers couldn’t manage the simple task. What was the matter with her? She wasn’t hurt. Didn’t have a scratch on her. Whatever damage had been done to the Jag could be repaired, and if not, she’d simply buy herself a new car and use one of the five others she owned in the meantime.

Why was she shaking like a leaf?

Shock. She was in shock. That had to be it.

A loud rapping on the driver’s side window gained her immediate attention. When she looked through the window, she gasped when she saw the face of a darkskinned savage, with black hair down to his shoulders, and a set of slanted green eyes peering at her. Maybe she’d hit her head and didn’t remember. Surely she was hallucinating. This man couldn’t be real.

Suddenly the driver’s side door opened and the hallucination spoke to her. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”

Reve gulped as she came face-to-face with the most brutally masculine man she’d ever seen in her entire life. A big, fierce warrior, with an angry look in his moss green eyes, reached out and began running his huge hands over her head, neck, shoulders, and arms.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she cried. “Get your hands off me.”

He ceased his inspection and withdrew his hands. “I was trying to check you for injuries, since you didn’t respond. If you’re all right, let me help you get out and up the hill to my truck. I’ll call a wrecker and—”

“Who are you?” She stared at the guy, noting that although he spoke with authority, he wasn’t wearing any type of uniform. For all she knew he was a serial rapist who just happened to be in possession of a flashing blue police light.

“Sheriff Butler,” he told her.

“You’re the sheriff?” Inspecting him further, she realized he was Native American, at least part Native American. Of course half-breeds and quarter breeds probably weren’t all that uncommon in this area, which wasn’t that far from the Cherokee reservation just over the state line.

“I noticed you have a Hamilton County tag,” he said. “You visiting somebody here or you just passing through?”

“Just passing through,” she replied.

He reached over and undid her seat belt. “Think you can manage to get out, or should I help—”

“I can get out without any help, thank you very much.”

After grabbing her purse off the other bucket seat, she shoved the sheriff aside and managed to exit the Jag, but the minute her high heels hit the soft, uneven ground, she lost her balance. He grabbed her around the waist, the action unintentionally bringing her body up against his rock-hard chest. She gasped, then looked up at him as her heartbeat drummed loudly in her ears. Their gazes locked instantly.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said as he stared at her, his mouth slightly parted.

“Take a picture, Sheriff, it’ll last longer.”

“Sorry.” He apologized, but continued staring at her. “You remind me of a friend of mine. The two of you could be—”

“Twins,” Reve finished his sentence for him.

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

“Just a wild guess.” She pulled away from him and tried to walk up the steep embankment, but three-inch heels weren’t made for mountain climbing.

Sheriff Butler came up beside her, put his arm around her waist, and all but hauled her up the hill. How totally demoralizing, she thought. Up until this moment in time, she’d never had so much as a parking ticket. And here she was being dragged away from the scene of an auto accident she had caused by her reckless driving. Well, not reckless, just speedy.

When they reached the side of the road, the sheriff released her instantly, as if he had no more desire to touch her than she had for him to have his hands on her. There was something unnerving about the man, something about him that sent off warning signals in her brain. And what disturbed her the most was that her reaction to him—to his touch—wasn’t revulsion. No, it was something else. Something she couldn’t name.

“We’ll get a wrecker out here to bring your car up and take it to the garage,” he told her. “You’re lucky. It would have been a damn shame if your bad driving had totaled your little XKR. I guess that fancy sports car must have set you back at least eighty grand.”

She didn’t like his tone, didn’t like his condescending attitude. Hell, she didn’t like him! He was too bossy, too big, too masculine. “No big deal,” she replied. “The only thing that matters is that no one was injured, not even the deer.”

“Yeah, you’re lucky, all right.” He surveyed every inch of her, studying her closely as if he was memorizing her face and body. “Speeding the way you were doing often leads to serious accidents. Sometimes fatal.”

“I wasn’t driving that fast.”

“My guess is you were doing over seventy-five in a fifty-five speed zone.”

“You guess my car cost eighty grand. You guess I was doing over seventy-five.” Reve crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the sheriff, giving him her best I’m-important-and-you’re-not expression. “Do you know anything for certain, Sheriff, or do you just go through life making uneducated guesses?”

His gaze narrowed as he focused on her. She shivered. That stern, disapproving glare rattled her nerves.

“Get in the truck,” he told her as he headed toward his vehicle. “I’m taking you to my office where I’ll get all the information I need. Then, if I decide not to arrest you—”

“Arrest me!” Reve stormed around the hood of the truck, following him until she could grab his arm. “Now, you listen here to me, you big country hick Cochise wanna be, I’m not accustomed to being treated this way. I can easily contact the governor and—”

He turned around, grabbed her by the shoulders sternly but gently, and said, “Get your butt in the truck. Now. And if you want to call the governor when we get to my office, then you call him. Hell, call the president for all I care. The way I see it, you must have a screw loose to overreact to everything that’s happened the way you have.”

“Are you implying that I’m mentally incompetent?”

“Lady, I’m not implying anything. Now, get in the truck before I pick you up and put you in it.”

Reve jerked away from him and planted her hands on her hips. “Do you have any idea who I am?”

“Nope. I don’t have the foggiest idea of who you are, except that you’re the spitting image of a lady much nicer than you are, by the name of Jazzy Talbot. And I sure hope for Jazzy’s sake that you aren’t some long-lost cousin or something.”

“Is every man in Cherokee County a friend of Jazzy Talbot’s?” The minute the question left her lips, Reve wished it back. Damn, now this infuriating man would realize she knew who Jazzy was. So much for her escaping Cherokee Pointe and any complications from her inquiries about Jazzy.

He eyed he skeptically. “I thought you said you were just passing through.”

“I was. I am. And just as soon as we clear up this mess about my speeding and about the accident, I plan to be on my way. The sooner I see the last of Cherokee Pointe, Jazzy Talbot, and you, the better.”

“Then just shut up, get in the damn truck, and I’ll do my level best to see that you get what you want!”

She loved that he was rough with her, hurting her just enough to make it exciting, to make her heart pound faster and her pussy drip with moisture. He wasn’t like any lover she’d ever had and despite being only twenty—her next birthday in a few months—she’d already screwed at least two dozen guys, including her high school history teacher and a deacon in their church.

What she loved about Jamie was his sense of adventure, his willingness to take a risk. They were kindred souls. Why the hell he wanted to marry her sister she’d never figure out. She was a far better match for him. Laura would never dream of doing what she was doing. She’d never meet her sister’s fiancé at the stables in the middle of the morning, strip buck naked, and fuck the guy’s brains out in one of the empty stalls where anybody might come up on them. No, not sweet Laura. She was far too shy and sensitive, much too much of a Goody Two-shoes to ever be able to satisfy a man like Jamie Upton, who had all sorts of dirty, wicked desires.

It was that chance of discovery here in the stables that heightened the tension and gave her a climax only seconds after he first rammed himself inside her.

“Harder,” she demanded. “And faster.”

He lifted her hips and delved deeply, then withdrew. Just before he started jackhammering into her, he bit her shoulder. Bit her hard enough that she cried out in pain. But she loved the pain. She felt it in every fiber of her being. Every muscle. Every nerve. God, she wished he was bigger, wished every thrust brought the pleasurable pain that she craved. But he was big enough, hard enough, and wild enough to give her another orgasm. It was building now, her body tightening, the sensation increasing with each millisecond that passed. She bucked up against him, encouraging him to hold back nothing. She wanted to come again before he did—or at least by the time he did. She wanted it to be so fierce and hot that the top of her head would come off. It had been that way the first time they’d hidden in her closet at her parents’ house and tore at each other like a couple of animals.

“Damn, girl, you’re wild,” Jamie told her as he increased his movements to a frenetic pace.

When he groaned deep in his throat, she knew he was fixing to spew into her. Her pubic lips swelled even more and moisture gushed out of her. And the very second he burst inside her, she unwound like crazy. Screaming with release, she clawed at his back, still covered by his white tuxedo shirt. While the aftershocks rippled through them, he collapsed on top of her, then rolled over and onto his side. She purred like the satisfied kitten she was, then rose up over him just enough to lick a wet trail from his right shoulder to his navel.

“You want to lick me clean, don’t you, you little she cat?” Jamie grabbed her head and shoved her face against his penis. “Do it, darlin’. Get a good taste of me.”

She struggled against his hold, but he was bigger and stronger and she couldn’t escape. Sheridan Willis growled, bared her teeth and opened her mouth. She could bite him. Bite him hard. That’s what he deserved. But, God, it would be such a shame to put him out of commission, even temporarily. She licked her lips, then placed her tongue on the tip of his sticky, deflated sex and licked off the mixture of their combined juices.