So many times she'd stood in the doorway leading to the garage and watched him lift weights, his muscles straining and shifting under sweat-sheened skin. Determination and focus. Strength.
She drew in a shaky breath and found the scent of him, fuller, stronger. How could she have forgotten the familiar potency of his smell—pine soap and musky man? Clean. Arousing.
Pure J.T.
What the hell was with the immutable, near-insane physical attraction she felt for this man? Would she spend the rest of her life starving for his touch?
A daunting thought.
His gym shoes thudded along the flagstone path and up the wooden porch steps. Already voices drifted through the door along with someone playing show tunes on the piano. The lace curtains rippled with the movement of bodies inside.
Only a few seconds more in J.T.'s arms. A few seconds more for the memories to tempt her. Unstoppable images so she didn't have to waste energy trying to tamp them down.
Yes, she and J.T. had hurt each other, done so many things wrong, but some things right. And at the moment, all those beautiful, special, right things about her marriage blossomed through her mind. Did he remember them, too? She couldn't change the past, but she had control over the present, and she intended to make sure J.T. carried something positive with him from their years together.
Her hand fell to stop his on the doorknob. "J.T.?"
He peered down at her. "Problem?"
She squeezed his hand, let her fingers linger in spite of his stunned eyes widening. "No doubt we're wrong for each other in a hundred different ways. But never, never have I found your touch distasteful. Far from it."
His fingers twitched against her, tightened, the only sign he'd heard her as his face stayed stoic. Unemotional. Handsome ruggedness carved in granite.
Still, he'd heard her, and her words meant something to him. Her defenses slipped, and she didn't have the heart to recall them, instead allowed the need building during their ride home to bloom.
She brought her hand up to rest on his neck again. "I thought you already knew that, except now I'm realizing maybe with everything else going on, you somehow forgot. Or wondered. And even though we both realize it's not enough, I just wanted you to know that we did share something mutual."
A smile dented a dimple in his face, so incongruous, and therefore all the more enticing. "Thanks, babe."
Her eyes fell to his mouth, lingered on the sensual fullness of his lower lip. She waited, wanted, even as pride wouldn't let her make the move forward. But if he leaned? She definitely wouldn't move away.
J.T. struggled to control the heat surging through him over something as simple as holding his wife. Damn it, he was not going to kiss her, no matter how good her soft hands and softer body felt against him.
He steeled his resolve. Steel? More like tinfoil, which meant he'd better haul ass inside. Pronto.
He twisted the doorknob. Disappointment flickered through her Godiva-rich eyes. Resolve shredded into foil confetti.
The door jerked open beneath his hand, snapping the mood. Thank you, Lord.
Chris lounged in the open portal with a bag of Cheetos clutched in his hand, fingertips deep orange from munching. "What took you so long? I'm starving and folks brought food that I can't eat until you get here."
J.T. looked away, up. "In a minute, son. How about unload your mother's things from the truck first."
"Sure," he answered through a fresh mouthful of cheese curls.
J.T. angled sideways, guiding Rena's trim legs over the threshold first. Over the threshold. Just as he'd done when they were young, nervous, full of plans.
Ready to break in the new mattress in their efficiency apartment.
Her fingers twisted in his cotton shirt, her touch as hot now as it had been then. Except today, she could hardly stand to look at him. She focused on the hanging ivy that, damn it all, he'd forgotten to water.
He stopped in the middle of their overflowing living room. Bo shared the piano bench with Nikki, playing the right hand from the open score sheet while Nikki plucked out the left. Well, if Nikki's plunkings could be called playing, his tomboy daughter always preferring running track to running scales.
And if Bo didn't move his ass a little farther down that bench—
"Mom!" Nikki bolted up with an athletic grace gained from hours on the university soccer field. Thank God for soccer scholarships, even partials. "Ohmigod, are you okay? Dad didn't call me until this morning or I would have come sooner. Probably why he didn't call me. Geez, like I couldn't drive after dark."
"I'm fine, hon," Rena rushed to interrupt. "The crutches are just awkward right now."