Loves Me, Loves Me Knot

Knit 15

The ache in Jenna’s voice, the sadness on her face, squeezed Gage’s heart and tore it into a million tiny pieces. He would rather take a sucker punch to the ribcage than see that expression on her face.

And he’d rather get kicked in the crotch a thousand times than be the cause of it.

But here he was, the main source of her grief and despair, of the tears pouring down her face.

What could he say? How could he explain that leaving her had been the single hardest thing he’d ever done in his life? That it had ripped his guts out and in many ways left him a shell of a man. Or that he’d had to get blind, stinking drunk before he could bring himself to put his John Hancock on those divorce papers.

He couldn’t. Because if he tried, she’d wonder why he hadn’t stayed instead, hadn’t fought the way he now knew she’d hoped and expected him to, and he couldn’t explain the driving force behind that decision, either.

So he did the only thing he knew he wouldn’t screw up. He hooked a hand around the back of her neck, yanked her forward as far as their seatbelts and the miniscule automobile would allow, and kissed her. With his lips and tongue and body, he tried to tell her what he couldn’t put into words.

Jenna’s nails dug into the muscles of his upper arms and she made small, desperate mewling sounds at the back of her throat. Sounds he answered with low groans of his own.

He shifted, trying to get closer, trying to draw her farther across the seat, but the damn seatbelt dug into his chest, his elbow hit the steering wheel, and the gearshift nearly cut off the circulation in his leg.

With a muffled curse, he pulled back, releasing Jenna-and smacked his head into the roof of the car.

“Fucking damn Volkswagen,” he muttered, breathing heavily and rubbing the sore spots on his thigh and skull at the same time. “Why couldn’t you buy a decent American car instead of this tuna can on wheels? I feel like freaking Frankenstein stuffed into a jelly jar.”

Though her cheeks were still flushed with passion and damp from her tears, the tension of a moment ago seemed to have passed and Jenna’s mouth curved just before she broke out laughing.

“It’s Frankenstein’s monster,” she corrected in typical schoolmarm fashion, “but you’re right, that is sort of what you look like. Minus the bolts in your neck, of course. And this is a perfectly good car,” she added staunchly, defending her bug like a mama dolphin defending her young, “just maybe not for a man the size of a grizzly bear.”

His own lips twisted, and he had no choice but to chuckle along with her. After a minute, he unsnapped his seatbelt and pushed the driver’s-side door open. “So let’s get out of here before I start to cramp up and somebody has to chop off my limbs to get me free.”

Rounding the hood of the car, he waited for her to collect her purse and knitting tote-a dark blue one with a sunflower on the front that she’d made herself-then took her hand as they walked to the house. Gage was glad she was no longer peppering him with questions about his state of mind when they separated, but he could have stood a few more hours of heavy petting in her front seat… even if it made him feel like a horny sardine.

She fitted the key into the lock, then opened the door and preceded him inside. One by one, she flipped on the lights, laying her bags on the table as she made her way to the kitchen.

“Would you like something to drink?” she asked, pulling open the refrigerator door and studying its contents.

Gage didn’t know what he wanted. He wasn’t thirsty, but a couple good stiff shots of Johnny Walker Black might help to numb the prickles of memory stemming to life low in his belly. Memories he didn’t want to think about, and certainly didn’t want to relive.

“No, thanks,” he said, dropping into a straightback chair beside the table and resting his arm along the solid oak surface. He drummed his fingers for a second, then reached almost distractedly for her knitting tote.

A snowball-sized clump of bright purple yarn was sticking out of the top and he grasped it, slowly drawing the length of half-completed boa toward him. She’d completed two or three feet of the thing, but he knew from her burgeoning collection of homemade boas that she tended to like them quite a bit longer.

Despite the number of times he’d seen her wearing them, the number of times he’d unwound them from her neck, handed them to her while she was getting dressed, or simply moved them out of the way, he didn’t think he’d ever taken note of how soft they were. This one felt like silk, and he couldn’t seem to stop rubbing the feathery strands between his big, callous-rough fingertips.

When Jenna appeared beside the table and took a seat across from him, he jerked, then felt his face heat with embarrassment at being so distracted by the texture of a feminine purple boa that he hadn’t heard her approach. She didn’t seem to notice his discomfort, though; or if she did, she ignored it. Instead, she simply leaned back in her chair and took a sip from the small glass of orange juice in her hand.

“Remember the time you tried to teach me to knit?” he asked quietly, surprised when the question popped out of his mouth. He hadn’t intended to ask it, hadn’t even realized he was thinking along those lines.

She chuckled, and the action did amazing things to her breasts.

“Talk about a disaster,” she said with amusement. “I think it took me a full week to untangle all the knots out so I could use the yarn again.”

Rather than being offended or embarrassed by her recollection of his shortcomings, he took it in stride and found himself enjoying the teasing note in her voice. It was reminiscent of the days when they’d been dating or were newly married. The fun times. The happy times. The times before reality had sunk in and tainted every part of their relationship.

“Hey, I warned you I wouldn’t be any good at it.” He lifted his hands in the air, turning them one way and then the other. “These massive paws are meant for manly stuff like chopping wood and working on car engines.”

Still grinning, Jenna shook her head, sending the short strands of her ebony hair bouncing. “Likely excuse. That’s as bad as claiming cooking and cleaning are woman’s work, when we both know men are as capable of boiling water and pushing a vacuum as anyone else.” Her brow rose as though daring him to argue.

He might have been a fool about many things, but even he wasn’t stupid enough to step on that particular land mine.

And then she upped the ante-practically called his manhood into question-by slanting him a sly glance and adding, “Dylan learned to knit.”

The tone of her voice alone suggested she considered Dylan the more masculine of the two just because he’d managed to click two sticks together and somehow come up with a length of twisted yarn that loosely resembled a scarf.

So of course he responded in the only acceptable manner for someone of the Y-chromosome persuasion. “Dylan is a pansy.”

Her eyes widened at that a second before she burst out laughing. “Oh!” she barked. “So Dylan is man enough to hang out with you and be one of your closest friends, but the minute he picks up a pair of knitting needles, he suddenly becomes a fairy, huh? I’ll have to be sure to share your point of view with Ronnie the next time we talk.”

Gage scowled, because he knew that’s exactly what she would do. Even if he took it back and proclaimed Dylan the manliest of men because he’d learned to knit, this exchange was still destined to become conversational fodder for their next Girls’ Night Out or Wednesday-night knitting group-if not a good deal sooner.

After that, Ronnie would relate the tale to Dylan, and though he doubted Dylan would be upset by his remark, Gage suspected his friend would ride his ass about it from now until the next millennium.

“So teach me,” he said, blurting out the first thing that popped into his head that he thought had a shot in hell of getting him out of the doghouse.

Her mouth went slack and she blinked like he’d just announced he enjoyed wearing ladies’ underwear.

“Excuse me?” she asked, the words garbled with shock.

He shrugged a shoulder and kicked back in his chair even more, assuming a relaxed position. “I know you tried once, but I’m not sure my heart was in it. I was humoring my new bride. Try again, and I promise to take it more seriously. If you think you’re a good enough teacher to pull it off, that is.”

He added the last because he knew it would get her dander up. And sure enough, her spine straightened and she raised a brow, this time in acceptance of his challenge.

“Fine; let’s go.”

She stood up, grabbed her knitting bag and the half-finished purple boa he’d been toying with the entire time, and stalked past him toward the sitting room. He followed at a slower pace, wondering exactly what he’d gotten himself into… and what the hell had possessed him to bring up the ill-fated topic of knitting in the first place… before dropping onto Charlotte’s old-fashioned settee beside her.

Jenna pulled the started boa, loose yarn, and two large white plastic needles out of the sunflower tote, then tossed the bag aside. “Are these big enough for your ‘massive paws,’ Sasquatch, or should I go out and chop down a couple of pine trees for you to use instead?”

He pulled a face and shot her a warning glance before palming the needles. “I think I can handle them.”

But inside his head, of course, a small voice was warning him that he might have bitten off more than he could chew. He gave the yarn connected to the needles a sharp tug, testing its tensile strength and wondering if it would hold his weight if he decided to hang himself with it after he royally fucked up this little impromptu knitting lesson.

Idiot, idiot, idiot, his mind screamed. He should have kept his mouth shut. Or better yet, grabbed Jenna and pinned her to the wall, using his tongue for better things than talking himself into a corner.

A corner filled with knitting needles, frilly purple yarn, and an ex-wife who would never let him live this down.

Taking a deep breath, he tried to remind himself that he was a cop, for God’s sake. Six-feet-three-inches, two-hundred-plus-pounds of solid muscle, capable of intimidating and smacking down some of the biggest, baddest bad-asses out there.

Five-foot-three-inch, hundred-and-twenty-pound Jenna was not going to intimidate or get the best of him, no matter how sharp her needles were.

“Okay,” he said after a long, Zenlike moment, “I’m ready.”

“You sure?” she baited, even as she snuggled closer, leaning right up against him and creating the start of a third long, hard stick for him to deal with. “There’s still time to back out if you’re afraid your big He-Man ego won’t be able to handle the crushing defeat of knowing your ‘pansy’ friend can master a hobby you can’t.”

Eyes narrowed, brows lowered, and lips turned down in a frown, he met her gaze and drawled, “Bring it on, babe.”

She gave him a look that clearly stated she didn’t think this was going to go well, but she’d humor him for a while.

With a sigh, she said, “All right, this one is already started, so we’ll just pick up where I left off and teach you the basic stitches.”

From there, she proceeded to show him how one needle went through the first stitch on the other needle… how fresh yarn wrapped around that needle… how to draw the yarn through to create a new stitch… and repeat… and repeat… and repeat. It was definitely more complicated than it looked or sounded.

Some of his stitches might have been bigger than others, and his rows might not have been as neat and practiced as hers, but he didn’t think he was doing half-bad. He was actually, amazingly, sort of even enjoying himself.

Of course, it didn’t hurt that Jenna was warming him from shoulder to thigh. Or that the flowery scent of her perfume and strawberry fragrance of her shampoo were blending together to numb his brain and send his pulse pounding.

He’d been at the insert needle, loop yarn, draw yarn through thing for about an hour before he murmured, “You know, this is kind of sexy.”

She lifted her head from where it had fallen to his shoulder, studying him through lazy, heavy-lidded eyes. “Sexy?”

“Yeah. You’ve got the whole thrust-and-retreat, trust-and-retreat thing going on. The soft yarn. The beautiful woman pressed against me. I like it,” he said, slowing his stitches and letting his words sink in. “It’s turning me on.”

“Gage?” she replied in a low voice.

“Hmm?”

“Watching paint dry turns you on.”

So much for lulling her into a sensual haze with his gentle, yarn-is-sexy speech.

“Only if it happens to be drying on your naked body.”

To his surprise, she sat up straighter and leaned away from him, only to turn her body at such an angle that she was facing him. She lifted a leg and settled her knee between his spread thighs, leaning close enough that he had to release one of the knitting needles mid-stitch and use his free arm to circle her waist.

“Now that is sexy,” she said.

Her hands went to his neck, then around to his nape where her fingers scraped over his short hair. He let his eyes flutter closed for a moment as a shiver of longing snaked down his spine and heat pooled in all the right places.

“Know what else is sexy?” she whispered just above his ear.

His mouth opened and sound came out, but it was nothing more than a strangled gurgle. Later, he might be embarrassed about that. Now, he couldn’t find it in him to give a shit. Not when Jenna was slinking around on his lap like a world-class stripper-something most men had to sacrifice a month’s salary to get.

Translating the guttural noises he was making to mean, “No, darling, please tell me,” she tipped his head back, waited for him to open his eyes and meet her gaze, then breathed, “This.”

And before he knew it, the slick tip of her hot tongue was running from the base of his throat, over the hard ridge of his straining Adam’s apple, up along his chin, and she was taking his mouth in a kiss that sizzled his skin, boiled his blood, scorched him down to the bone. It left him little more than a pile of ashes, at her complete and total mercy.

To hell with knitting lessons; he’d just gotten a better offer.

Tossing the needles and yarn aside like they’d suddenly morphed into a Japanese puffer fish in his hand, he grabbed her up, twisted them both around, and laid her beneath him on her aunt’s red brocade sofa.

Jenna’s arms and legs immediately encircled him, hugging him tight. He didn’t think a breath of air could get between them as it was, but still he pressed closer, until her breasts were flattened against his chest and his growing arousal nudged the apex of her thighs.

Their kiss deepened, sending the air in the room from simply smoldering to darn near vaporizing. Every cell of his body was tight and ready, and he knew the same was true for her.

Sliding his hands to her waist, he moved them under her loose, flowing blouse and skimmed it up her midriff. When the material caught on her arms, he reluctantly pulled his mouth away to order, “Lift,” and waited for her to follow his instructions so he could yank the top off over her head and toss it aside.

That done, he returned to her lips. Licking, suckling, absorbing the taste and feel of her until it seeped into his bones and became a part of him.

Flicking open the snap of her bright green Capri slacks, he tugged and shifted until he could skim them from her legs completely, leaving her in only a simple white bra and panty set… and the strappy sandals tied to her delicate feet. Frankly, he just didn’t want to take the time to deal with them, fumbling around with knots and strings and buckles.

Besides, he liked them. Liked the idea of having her naked beneath him, save for a pair of sexy heels at his back or up over his shoulders.

Trailing his lips across her cheek and down the column of her throat, he felt the rapid thud that mimicked the erratic beat of her heart. His own heartbeat was none too steady as he cupped her left breast in one large palm and ran his thumb over the hard ridge of her nipple beneath a layer of lace.

Her taste in underwear had always been simple. No leopard-print thongs or diamond-studded demi-bras for his Jenna. But her demure choices still managed to turn him on… probably more than any Frederick ’s of Hollywood get-up would have.

Something about Jenna’s own inherent innocence wrapped up in the trappings of an angel, knowing what she was about to do with him-and allow him to do to her-was hotter than all the decked-out Playboy bunnies in Hef’s Playboy Mansion put together.

Slipping his arms around her back, he unhooked the clasp of her bra, letting it fall away to reveal the pristine perfection of her breasts. The small, round globes wouldn’t be winning her any wet T-shirt contests, which was fine and dandy with him, since he didn’t want her entering any to begin with. But he’d always been plenty happy with her chest… and every other inch of her, for that matter.

Pitching the flimsy garment across the room to join the rest of her clothes, he buried his lips against one small raspberry nipple, then rolled it under his tongue. Jenna mewled in pleasure, her body arching beneath him.

Her every movement, every purr and whisper, sparked along his skin and coiled deep in his gut. Chest heaving, he jackknifed into a sitting position and jerked his T-shirt off over his head. He made equally short work of his boots and jeans, pausing only long enough to retrieve a condom packet from his rear pocket, before returning to hover above her.

While he was at it, he relieved her of her panties so that they were both blessedly naked, not a stitch between them-at least from the ankles up-except a thin layer of latex. Even that was more than he would have wished, and they both knew it might already be too late, but damned if he was willing to take the chance.

So he’d stick with the condom, play it safe, and thank his lucky stars that was the only barrier-the only physical barrier, anyway-keeping them apart.

He stroked her soft, supple skin, the textures of her body coming alive beneath his fingertips. Her arms, her throat, the narrow line of her back and curve of her abdomen. All came together to form a perfection of womanhood.

Jenna might not think so; like most women, he knew she had a few hang-ups about her appearance. But there was nothing wrong with his eyesight. He knew sexy when he saw it, and his wife… or ex-wife, rather… happened to be smokin’.

His gaze zeroed in on the neat triangle of dark curls below her navel, and even as she sighed his name, trying to draw him up for another kiss, he was sliding down. Charlotte ’s old-fashioned sofa wasn’t exactly the most comfortable place to make out, but finding a better spot would take too long, and he didn’t want to do anything that pulled his attention from her, not even for a minute.

Hitching her legs over his shoulders, shoes and all, he inhaled the warm, spicy scent of her arousal before nuzzling her folds and beginning a long, slow barrage of licks and kisses that had her wiggling and whimpering beneath him. He drove her up, up, up, taking no prisoners and giving her not even a second of respite before going straight for her hot button and sending her careening over the edge.

She screamed-his name, thank you very much, he thought with no small amount of smug male satisfaction-and her fingers clutched at what little there was of his short hair.

Shifting back up and over her, Gage pushed his aching cock into her warm, welcoming center while the thick, engorged tissue surrounding him still pulsed with her orgasm. That sensation alone nearly did him in.

For a minute, he remained perfectly still, afraid that if he moved, if she moved, if anything in the house or surrounding county moved, he’d lose it and not only embarrass himself, but miss the chance to finish what they’d started in a way that wouldn’t have him banging his head against the wall the rest of the night.

Breath slowing, Jenna’s eyes fluttered open and she met his gaze, lifting her arms to drape them almost negligently about his neck. The legs she wrapped around his hips, however, weren’t nearly as slack. They hugged him tight and drew him in to the hilt.

“That was nice,” she murmured, still looking sleepy and content, though he could feel her renewed interest in the tiny ripples stirring where he was buried deep.

One corner of his mouth quirked up in a cocky half-smile. “We aim to please.”

She canted her hips, pulled his head down until his lips hovered mere centimeters above her own, and whispered, “Then aim higher.”

He barely had time to release a strangled chuckle before their mouths locked and their lower bodies began an X-rated imitation of what they were doing with their lips and tongues.

With his fingers digging into the flesh of her hips, he pumped. In and out. Harder and faster. A little side to side that nearly made his head explode. It was too much and not enough all at once, sending the blood coursing through his veins.

He clenched his teeth, puffing short breaths through his nose in an effort to hang on just a minute longer, just a second longer, just a nano-

But Jenna wasn’t helping matters, writhing and mewling and doing a million little things that urged him toward a speedy finish. And when she reached up to cup his buttocks and gave a squeeze, she might as well have touched a lit match to the tip of a stick of dynamite.

Fuck it, he thought, thrusting once, twice, and again, before letting out a shout of completion. Clutching at him, Jenna let out a cry of her own, spasming beneath and around him, and making him glad to be a man.

Damn, life was good. Or at least-with the exception of not being able to stay with this woman forever-it sure as hell could be.

Hours later… hours and hours later, after he’d made love to her on the sofa, halfway up the stairs, then again when they’d reached the guest room bed.

It was far better than playing around with yarn and pointy plastic sticks any day of the week.

And between bouts of going at it like meerkats, they’d rested, pressed against each other like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

She was curled around him now, head on his shoulder, arm around his chest, leg thrown over his thigh. But he didn’t think she was any more asleep than he was. Drowsy, maybe. Sated and comfortable, definitely, but not sleeping.

He was thinking about rolling over, kissing her from brow to ankle and back again, though he wasn’t quite sure where he was supposed to get the energy.

Jenna shifted slightly, her breath warming him as she sighed.

“Gage?”

“Hmm?” he responded without opening his eyes, his arm tightening automatically at her waist.

“You never answered my question.”

“What question?” he asked after a second. He tried to think back, but his brain was apparently so sex-zapped he had no recollection of a question left unanswered or a conversation left unfinished.

“From earlier, in the car,” she continued softly.

It came back to him with all the subtlety of a baby grand falling on his head from twenty stories above. The car. Her tears. Her watery voice asking why he gave up on them so easily, why he hadn’t fought to keep their marriage together.

The pain he’d felt then, seeing and hearing her pain, clutched him again, raking across the inside of his gut like razor blades, leaving him raw and bleeding.

How could it still hurt this much, for both of them, so long after the fact? The old adage that time heals all wounds was apparently a load of crap.

Time certainly hadn’t healed anything for him. He’d missed Jenna every day since the split. Wished things could have been different every day since she’d asked for a divorce. Hated and came close to strangling every other man he’d seen with or even near her since.

He suspected the same was true for Jenna, otherwise she wouldn’t have brought it up, wouldn’t be pressing for an answer that had the potential to be even more distressing than the question itself.

And suddenly, he was tired. So fucking tired of it all.

Gage would give his life to protect her, but if she needed to know… They might have silently agreed to spend the week rolling around like ferrets on Ecstasy, but they’d also made it clear to each other that there was no going back.

This wasn’t the beginning of a reconciliation. They weren’t taking a stab at patching things up, only enjoying each other’s company in and out of bed while they waited to find out whether or not she was pregnant.

So nothing he told her now was going to impact their relationship one iota. She might cut him off, get her panties in a bunch and impose a no-more-sex rule. But that only meant they would go back to the way things had been that first day-he’d still stick around until she either got her period… or didn’t… and she’d go about her business, ignoring him and making it clear he was an unwelcome addition to the house-and alpaca-sitting stint she was pulling for her aunt.

In the end, though, they would still be divorced, still go their separate ways. Well, give or take, depending on how the daily over-the-counter pregnancy test thing turned out.

With both sides of the tell her/don’t tell her arguments warring in his head, he released an audible sigh, then heard himself ask in a low voice, “What does it matter now?”

Pushing away from his chest, she propped herself up on one arm to stare down at him. Her eyes glowed emerald-green even in the dim light of the bedroom, expressive as ever and telling him exactly how serious she was about this.

“It matters,” she said barely above a whisper.

“I never meant to hurt you,” he told her, wanting to be sure she understood that first and foremost.

Rather than nodding and simply accepting his statement as fact and a partial apology, she arched a brow. “Really?” was her equally arch response. “Because you did. Long before you moved out, you shut down on me, started pulling away. You made decisions about our life together without consulting me and wouldn’t budge, simply expecting me to go along with them. When I tried to talk to you, you clammed up. You grew silent and brooding and… turned into someone I didn’t know anymore. What I want to know is why.”

The house was dark and quiet. He was drowsy and sated from hours of amazing, spine-tingling sex. For those reasons, or maybe a dozen others, his defenses were down at the moment and he found he didn’t have the energy to fight her need to know.

“Because I loved you.” Because I still love you, he thought, but kept that particular confession to himself. “And because I was trying to protect you.”