He didn’t time it, but he got it right after what seemed like the flash of a few seconds. Much too short, considering that he was enjoying the feel of her, the look on her face. Still, he knew it couldn’t last. And it didn’t. He touched her, watched her and then kissed her as he took her right over the edge of the orgasm cliff.
Eve stopped struggling, stopped the body grinding and went limp. It gave Lawson some much-needed time to catch his breath and adjust himself. A needed adjustment since his hard-on was still on a mission to dive in and make this a double climaxing situation. That couldn’t happen. Though Eve seemed to have a different notion about that.
After a few gulping postorgasmic breaths, she pushed aside his hand that was still making an adjustment and latched on to his jeans. Lawson hated to do this, but he stopped her.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said. “And I don’t have a condom on me. I seriously doubt you want me to knock you up twice.”
She stared at him, as if weighing options that didn’t really exist. Or so he thought.
“There are other ways,” she insisted, and she batted away his hand to go after his jeans again.
He batted back. She persisted. Until they were playing a very adult version of whack-a-mole. It probably would have gotten him off, too, but he heard something over the shuffling of their hands.
The doorbell.
Shit.
His first thought was that this was Sophie, coming there to check on them. He didn’t want to face her, not with his erection about to bust out of his jeans, but he also knew if it was his cousin, then she could just use her key to get in.
But it wasn’t Sophie.
“Mom?” someone called out from the other side of the door. “Are you in there? It’s me—Tessie.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
TESSIE WASN’T SURE what she dreaded more—that her mother would come to the door or that she wouldn’t. Her mom had to be just as angry as she was worried.
And Tessie couldn’t blame her.
She was feeling that, too, but she thought her mom might believe that she was the winner of this round of worry and anger. She’d left her mom high and dry with no explanation as to the craziness going on in her heart, and now Tessie owed her some answers.
Too bad Tessie wasn’t sure she had answers just yet.
Thankfully, she didn’t have to wait long to find out whether or not her mom would come to the door. Within seconds after Tessie had called out to her, Eve did her own calling out.
“Tessie?” Her mother followed that with what sounded to be a string of Oh, Gods. That was mixed with other sounds of footsteps and someone scrambling around in the apartment.
Tessie put her ear to the door to try to figure out what was going on, but just as she did that, the door flew open, and she came face-to-face with two very disheveled people. Her mom’s dress was hiked up on one side because it was tucked into the waist of her red panties, and the cowboy had missed several buttons on his shirt. Adding in some seriously messed-up hair and her mom’s flushed face, and Tessie was pretty sure she’d interrupted them having sex.
Great. Nothing like a side order of embarrassment to go with all the other emotions that were sloshing around.
Just as she’d done outside the bar in Wrangler’s Creek, her mom hugged her, and she held on a lot longer than last time even though Tessie went stiff again. The cowboy just stayed back and watched. Tessie watched him, too.
And she saw the same resemblance she had before.
So, was he her father?
He’d been her mom’s boyfriend back in high school, so the timing also fit. Tessie had done the math, and he could have gotten her mother pregnant shortly before she moved to LA. But Lawson wasn’t the only guy she’d heard her mom talk about. There was Brett, who’d died, and whenever her mother had mentioned him, she’d gotten all teary. Maybe it had been some kind of love triangle that had ended in a bad way.
Her mom finally pulled back from the hug, and after a really short pause, the questions started. “Where were you? Why did you run away? And when and why did you start drinking? Have you lost your mind?”
They were all questions Tessie had expected, but before she could even try to answer them, her mother continued. “You scared me,” she said, her voice quivering and tears threatening in her eyes. “I was terrified that you were hurt, or worse. Why would you do that?”
Tessie sighed, and since this conversation could go on for a while, she stepped inside. And also because she couldn’t talk with her mom’s panties showing, Tessie glanced at the messed-up clothes again.
“I see London, I see France...” Tessie muttered just loud enough for her mother to hear.
Her mom huffed when she saw that her “red flag” panties had been exposed. She fixed her dress and blushed again. However, even the embarrassment didn’t stop the anger from creeping into her mom’s eyes.
Tessie braced herself for yet another round of questions, but her mother only asked one.
“Why?” Her mom’s voice wasn’t exactly a friendly invitation, more like a demand. The cowboy was demanding, too, with his body language though he didn’t say a word.
So, Tessie gave them an answer though it was one she doubted they’d like much. “I screwed up.”
No, they didn’t like it. Their frowns confirmed it.
They probably wanted her to start gushing out her feelings and swear to them that she’d changed and that none of this would ever happen again. They wanted everything wrapped up so they could feel happy. And part of Tessie wanted to give them that. Mainly so they would back off and quit worrying. But this wasn’t something that could be fixed with an “I’m okay now.”
“Why don’t we sit down and talk,” Tessie suggested. She looked at Lawson. “Maybe you can fix me a rum and Coke?” she joked.
Tessie had thought her mom could have angry eyes, but Lawson was clearly the champion of that particular skill.
“Obviously, I was just kidding,” Tessie added when neither of them smiled. Also obviously, it was too soon for her to try to make light of this. Maybe four decades from now would still be too soon.
“How’d you know Eve and I were here?” Lawson asked her.
“Mom texted me the address. I didn’t know you’d be here, too.” Best not to mention that she’d expected to find her mom crying and worrying instead of looking as if she’d just had a couple of rounds of hot sex.
They went into the living room, where there were no signs of sex, thank goodness, and Tessie sat on the sofa. Her mom sat, too, next to her, but Lawson stayed standing with his arms folded over his chest. Evidently, he thought he had a right to be part of this. And maybe he did.
“Why?” Tessie repeated to give herself a moment to try to calm down her nerves. Clearly though, that wasn’t going to happen. “Look, let me just say that I know I’m grounded. Maybe for life. Maybe even longer.”