Free All I Want Is You by Toni Blake Page A

her senses already, when he said, “Um, sorry,” it came out all sexy and raspy, his hot breath warming her skin, and she looked up to see how close their faces, eyes, mouths, suddenly were—­and surged with wetness in her panties.
    After that, there was only just looking away, wondering if he’d seen the stark lust in her gaze, and waiting out the severe nearness that threatened to bury her.
    â€œOkay,” he said a minute later, “brackets are done.” But his voice sounded as thick as her throat felt at the moment. And then they were both stepping down, and he was lifting the curtain rod back into place, telling her, “Curtains are fixed now,” but in her mind she was still looking into his eyes, drinking in his warmth, wanting him to touch her—­everywhere.
    â€œUm, thanks.” Another heated whisper on her part. Because he was just so beautiful in that rugged, manly way. And it had stolen her breath.
    And she wished like mad that she didn’t need money so badly. But she did. And he knew it. And that would forever taint everything between them, no matter what happened now.
    So she took an additional step away, and she lowered her eyes, and then darted them up toward the curtain, where it would make more sense for them to be under normal circumstances. And she sensed him doing the same.
    It was clearly the best move.
    For both of them, it seemed.
    J ACK was glad the days were getting warmer, and the nights, too—­warm enough to sit out on his front porch and watch the world go by. Well, maybe he couldn’t see the whole world from this one little street, but he thought it was a fair representation of ­people. It was the kind of on-­the-­edge neighborhood that held both good and bad, and a lot of in between.
    There were the kids in the big, run-­down Victorian on the corner who broke bottles in the street, and flung obscenities at every person who passed by.
    There were quiet ­couples like the Marches up the street, whom he knew only because they’d seen him doing some work on the exterior of his house one sunny winter day and Mr. March had asked for his help carrying in a heavy desk they’d picked up at a yard sale.
    And there were louder ­couples like the Harringtons, whose snappish tones could be heard two doors away—­as recently as an hour ago when they’d come home around dusk.
    There was a little old man named Mr. Garver directly in the house to Jack’s left who liked to walk to the corner market a few blocks away rather than drive, and who had fallen in the habit of stopping to chat if he saw Jack outside. He liked to tell stories about the Korean War, which Jack figured put him in his eighties.
    Mr. Garver had also told him about his late wife, Margaret, who’d passed nearly ten years ago. “Miss her every day, even now,” Mr. Garver had said, and it had filled Jack with sadness. He’d found himself wondering if it was worth it—­to let your heart go that much, to invest that much love in someone—­if, in the end, there was a pretty good chance you’d end up without them. Whether because they died or because they fell out of love with you. And he’d concluded that maybe life was easier if you just kept a certain distance from attachments that ran that deep. He didn’t ever want to find himself still missing someone ten years after they’d gone.
    And then there was Christy. Who he couldn’t quite get a bead on. The money-­chasing part of her just didn’t mesh with the rest. He wasn’t even sure why he’d helped her so much lately.
    Well, wait—­that wasn’t true. He’d helped her because she’d seemed sweet, and because he genuinely liked her. And he also supposed he’d helped her because . . . hell, every time he was near her he felt a certain zing—­something he hadn’t experienced in a while, that excitement