Ivory Tower Read online

  Jenna shrugged. That was a question she’d love to have an answer for, but she didn’t have a clue. She’d moved back home from college to help her mother after the death of her father and now felt swallowed up in a life that looked nothing like what she wanted.

  “It's way past time for you to cut the cord.”

  “You know damn well that’s pretty much impossible.” Her mother governed almost every aspect of Jenna’s life with an iron rule.

  “Maybe you should tell her how you earn your living?”

  Jenna snorted. “Good Lord, no. It’s my one defiance and I will not jeopardize it. She thinks I’m living off my meager inheritance and it’s going to stay that way.”

  “Oh, but it would be so much fun to tell her.” Mags grabbed Jenna’s arm. “Let me.”

  “No.” Jenna spun her friend around and pointed her toward their cars. “Absolutely not.”

  “Okay,” Mags said. “But promise me, if you ever do tell her, I can be there.”

  “I’m not going to tell her.”

  Mags eyed her with that uncanny, all-knowing gaze she sometimes had. “Just promise me I can be there if you do.”

  “All right, all right. I promise.”

  That seemed to appease her maid of honor. Soon, Maggie was on her way, driving away in a rattletrap car that smoked and coughed its way along. One of these days, Jenna hoped to help her friend buy a replacement. Mags didn’t make much in her job with a local food bank.

  Jenna smiled. She had no idea how she’d have survived without Mags. Their friendship had been proven through more thick than thin.

  Climbing into her own car, the day’s events settled like bags of wet sand on Jenna’s shoulders. She sank deeper into the seat, suffocated by a way of life she couldn’t break free of. Due to marry in a few short weeks, Jenna felt like she’d be trading one autocratic lifestyle for another. That wasn’t fair to Josh, who’d been nothing but supportive. He wanted her to be happy, to make her own decisions. She knew it and loved him for it.

  Although lately, he’d seemed preoccupied. Jenna frowned. It was as if something weighed on him and he couldn’t tell her. Or wouldn’t. Yet. Could he be losing patience with her?

  Jenna felt her heart thump. Josh had always had the patience of Job. He’d also been the perfect gentleman throughout their time together. With chiseled good looks and a body beveled by a sculptor, he could have anyone he wanted. Jenna knew for a fact that women had propositioned him. He’d proven again and again that he only had eyes for her.

  Sometimes, she thought he deserved someone better. Someone more independent, more interesting. So far, she hadn’t managed to cut her mother’s apron strings, no matter how cloying or restricting they had gotten.

  Josh was the man she wanted to spend her life with and Jenna loved him with all her heart. But forcing dear old mom to abdicate was another matter entirely. Jenna couldn’t bear to be yet another disappointment in her mother’s life.

  Then, there were her father’s wishes to consider.

  Jenna shook her head. Soon destined to move from her parent’s home to Josh’s apartment, Jenna felt stuck in a corner she’d never be able to dig herself out of. Would she never make a decision that was wholly and completely her own?

  She closed her eyes, thinking of the dress and how, as the silk had settled around her, she’d felt the perfectness of the moment.

  The dress she would not be wearing if her mother got her way, which she usually did. Ruled by a stock portfolio and an inherited place in society, her mother’s life was the antithesis of Jenna’s dreams.

  Jenna would be happy at a little country church, with Josh standing at the front in a simple suit as she walked down the aisle in her perfect ivory dress, his eyes focused only on her ... and hers on him. No one else mattered. Their life together would start on that day. That was the important part. Not table linens or the A-listers she and her mother fought about not inviting. She needed to remember that.

  Her cell phone rang, jarring her from her ivory daydream. Glancing at it, she almost didn’t answer. “Hello, Mother.”

  “You’re still at the mall?”

  “I’m just leaving now.”

  “You do remember we’ve got the minister and his wife coming for dinner?”

  “Yes, mother. And I’m to stop and pick up the dessert you ordered on my way home.” The dessert you didn’t trust me to pick out on my own.

  “Well,” her mother huffed, “you’re running out of time if you want to be dressed and ready in time for their arrival.”

  Jenna wanted to scream, but she didn’t. Instead, she agreed to get home in an expedient and safe manner and tossed her phone on the passenger seat. Jenna gripped the steering wheel, willing herself to do something, anything that was her own choice.

  She tried to picture herself five, ten, even twenty years from now. Happily married, but always nagged by the same question.

  What if?

  Just once, she wanted to do something for herself. Before she stopped being Mrs. Wilton’s daughter and started being Mrs. Josh Latham.

  She glanced at her watch and knew she was very close to not keeping to her mother’s schedule. With a frustrated sigh, Jenna backed out of the mall parking spot and headed for the bakery.

  Today, apparently, was not the day she would find her backbone.

  Chapter Two

  A successful dessert completed a dinner held in the formal dining room, with the good china, that Jenna chafed her way through. Back just this afternoon from a business trip of several days, Josh was the only person she wanted to be with at the moment. And touching toes under the table wasn’t enough by a long shot.

  There was no reason for her or Josh to be at this dinner since they’d met with the minister several times already and all the wedding arrangements were set. Her mother, as usual, thought differently. So they dutifully sat through three courses of mundane conversation about the upcoming church bazaar, the wet summer so far, and a myriad of other equally dull topics as her mother reigned supreme, basking in the minister and his wife's undivided attention.

  Jenna glanced at Josh several times throughout the course of the evening. He’d been stoic during dinner, but she sensed some serious distraction plagued him. His smile when he looked at her seemed genuine, but conversation with him had to be prompted and his brow was furrowed more often than not. Her fiancé was clearly preoccupied and Jenna needed to find out why.

  After clearing the dessert dishes and ushering their guests out the door, Josh nodded his head in the same direction. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  “Oh no, you two. We’ve got invitations to address.” Jenna’s mother called out from the kitchen, her ears apparently on high alert.

  “Come on, before it’s too late.” Josh grabbed Jenna’s hand and they flew out the door.

  They were two blocks away before they stopped, out of breath and laughing so hard, Jenna’s side hurt. “Oh, my God,” she said, gasping. “I am so going to pay for that later.”

  Josh pulled her into his arms and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “It’s worth it to hear you laugh, sweetheart.”

  “How can I not when I’m around you?” She cupped his face. “God, I’ve missed you.” On tiptoes, she touched her lips to his, offering, finally, a real welcome. When he held her and deepened the kiss, it melted her insides like spring snow into a river of seductive energy. There were no worries, only Josh and the here and now.

  He ran his tongue across her lower lip and it felt like he’d stroked her intimately. It was always this way with Josh. Jenna vibrated with longing as she dug her hands into his hair, needing to be closer, to feel every part of him. He tasted like her coffee-flavored future, and it was a heady mixture.

  “I love you,” she said, when he broke the kiss.

  Josh rested his forehead against hers. “You are my world. You know that, right?”

  Jenna remembered his preoccupation. “What’s wrong?”

  �
��Nothing.”

  His quick reassurance did nothing to ease her worry. “It’s not nothing. You seemed distracted at dinner.”

  Josh sighed. “I’m just...tired from the trip.”

  “Didn’t the negotiations for the merger go well?”

  Josh hugged her tightly. “The negotiations were difficult, but not insurmountable.” He pulled away momentarily and Jenna saw his lips turn up. “I haven’t seen you for days, so how about we save the shop talk for some other time. Right now, I want to make sure you know just how badly I missed you.” Josh lowered his head to hers, their breath mingling. At the touch of his lips, Jenna forgot everything except how wonderful it felt to be in Josh’s arms and how much she wanted to spend the rest of her life in that exact spot. She felt treasured, loved, and lusted after. His tongue stroked her teeth, tasted her. His stubble tickled her cheek as his hands tangled in her hair. And all of these sensations wrapped her in arousal. She tingled from hair-tips to toes and it felt great. Really great.

  Darkness cloaked their kisses, but not well enough. When a porch light came on behind them, they jumped apart like guilty teenagers, laughing. “Oh, my gawd,” Jenna said, mimicking an adolescent voice. “We’re twenty-five years old. It’s been a long time since we got caught doing something we probably shouldn’t be doing in public.”

  “We need more privacy,” Josh said. “Come to my place.”

  Jenna pulled him down for a long, lingering, regretful kiss that she didn’t want to break off. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  Josh spent the next few minutes trying very hard to convince her it was the perfect idea, but Jenna held her ground.

  “You know why. If we go to your place, we’ll be tempted to take it much further.”

  He backed away from her, adjusting his pants to make more room for what had to be an uncomfortable hard-on. Jenna knew the feeling. She could feel her body’s response. The nipples tightening, the dampness between her legs. She wanted nothing more than to rip Josh’s clothes off, to feel him plunge into her, divesting her of the one thing that was hers alone to give.

  “It’s not like we haven’t done just about everything else,” he said with a deep sigh, throwing his arm around her shoulders as they started back to her mother’s house.

  “We have certainly had some fun.” She flipped around to walk backward in front of Josh. “It’s only a few weeks until the wedding. Let’s leave this final act for that night. It’ll make it even more special.”

  Josh looked to the heavens and groaned. “Virgins are nothing but trouble.”

  She stopped him with the palm of her hand, running it along his zipper. “But we are oh, so worth it.”

  His groan morphed into a growl as he pulled her hand to a safer part of his body—his chest. “I’d feel better if I knew your reasoning was your own, not your mother’s.”

  Irritation pulled Jenna away from him. “I don’t think it’s a bad idea to wait until we’re married. Do you?”

  “Right now, yes.” He pulled her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers, spending the longest time on the one that wore his ring. Even that simple act could make Jenna wet. It would be a hell of a lot easier to just give in. She was so ready for this final act of lovemaking and had been for such a long time. Josh made her that way. How many nights had she imagined him above her, muscles barely holding him back, his eyes fierce with the need to be inside her?

  Too many.

  “Speaking of weddings, how’s the fiasco going?”

  Josh’s question yanked Jenna out of her hot-and-bothered reverie. She blew out a deep breath and laid her head on his shoulder as they resumed walking. “You mean Mom’s wedding?”

  “You do remember it’s our wedding, right?”

  “It’s supposed to be. I feel like it’s getting so out of control. I just don’t know what to do about it.”

  “Yes, you do. It’s pretty simple.”

  Josh stopped and Jenna knew he waited for her answer. The problem was, she couldn’t do what he wanted.

  He ran a hand through his hair. “This is our wedding, Jenna. I’d be happy on a beach somewhere, just the two of us. I’m going along with all this hoopla because I want you to have the wedding you want.”

  And he did, too. Jenna knew it in her heart. “It’s tough with Mom. She never—”

  “I know. She never got the wedding she deserved. Or thinks she deserved.” He turned Jenna back toward him again, his frown clearly visible in the moonlight.

  “You know I’ve tried to stay out of this relationship between you and your mother.”

  Jenna nodded.

  “I tolerate your mother because of you, but I will not do that for long. You need to design your own life, Jenna. Apart from her and of your own making.”

  “I know. And I will. I promise. I just have to wait for the right time.”

  By now, they were only a couple houses away from Jenna’s. She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I love you. I hope you know you’re the most important person in my life.” She kissed him, making sure he knew with each stroke of her lips, each caress of her hands along his back, how much he meant to her.

  ****

  When she let him up for air, Josh gulped. “You know how nuts you’re driving me, right?”

  “Um hmm,” she mumbled, nuzzling his neck like a kitten searching for warmth.

  “Really? We’re going to get hot and heavy again here on the sidewalk?”

  Jenna looked around as if dazed and Josh, fully aware he was taking advantage of the situation, but unable to stop the raging hard-on that was making his decisions at the moment, said “my place?”

  Jenna’s silence was all the encouragement Josh needed and he nudged them toward his car, until Jenna stopped and stared at the car, which sat in front of her house. The same house they’d run out of moments ago, leaving one pissed off mother, for certain.

  Jenna groaned. “We’ll never slip out of here. I guess there’s nothing to be done but go back and face the music.”

  He pulled her against him, letting her feel how hard he was for her. They both saw the living room curtains twitch in the house and Jenna jumped back.

  With a grunt that could not ease the pain in his cock, Josh tried to comprehend the hold Jenna’s mother had over her. He really did. But it was fucking hard. And as painful as his dick was at the moment, his mood didn't lend well to patience. “Why do you let her run your life like this?”

  “You know why.”

  “Because of that promise to your father, right?” He pulled around, turning her away from the home she’d grown up in and forcing her to look at him. “Your father would not want you to be unhappy.”

  “I know. I just...well, she’s going to be all alone after we’re married. I feel like I’ve put up with her crap for this long, so what’s a little while longer?”

  She scanned the house and yard, then turned to him with an evil leer. “I have an idea.” Jenna grinned and grabbed his hand. “Come on. But you have to be quiet.”

  Chapter Three

  With as much stealth as possible, Jenna and Josh edged onto the property, following the perimeter fence. Once behind the house, they slipped across open yard to the cottage that some would call a mother-in-law house. Jenna’s mother had, in fact, dropped several pointed hints in Josh’s presence that she would enjoy calling it the new home of her daughter and son-in-law.

  No fucking way.

  He stood guard as Jenna dug beneath the fake plant for the key to the little two-room, one-bathroom house. “I cannot believe we’re doing this. We’re adults, not teenagers,” he said. “Consenting adults. We don’t need to sneak around like this.”

  When the kitchen lights came on in the big house, his warning came in the form of a verbalized “ah, shit.”

  Jenna stood triumphant, key dangling in her hand, and he urged her to hurry. It took her two interminable tries to get the door unlocked. The main house’s back porch light came on just as they slipped inside.
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  Josh stilled the swinging window curtains with his hand as he crushed Jenna against the door, his free hand smothering her laughter. “Shhh. You’ll out us.”

  With both his hands busy, he couldn’t stop Jenna as she slid down the doorframe and unbuckled, as well as unzipped his pants. Not that he wanted her to stop. It was sweet relief to have his cock freed. He just wanted to be certain they wouldn’t be interrupted.

  He poked his head around the curtain and saw Jenna’s mother standing on the back porch, then almost yelped as Jenna slid his slacks and boxers to the floor and took him deep in her mouth.

  “Holy fuck.” He bit the harsh whisper off and stood there sweating, trying hard to protect their secrecy while Jenna sucked and licked his dick. The old-fashioned wall clock ticked the seconds away as she wrapped her tongue around him like soft silk, then Josh stifled a groan as she pulled him in deep again. When she licked him from balls to head, his hands clutched the curtains in a death grip. Jenna's tongue played him for a full two minutes as he waited for her mother to stop scanning the yard. He knew exactly how much time had passed because the sweat dripped off him in perfect second-time to that damn ticking clock.

  The main-house door shut at the same moment Jenna cupped his balls and took him even deeper, sucking hard.

  “Oh, God, baby. You need to stop or I'm going to explode.”

  “Go right ahead,” she mumbled without stopping. The hum of her voice on his cock drained any reserve staying power he had left and Josh, wracked with tremors, came in an explosion of semen and relief. He stood there, arms against the door, panting. Holy shit, his woman had some mouth on her. As he turned and sagged against the wall, Jenna went to the small sink to wet a towel.

  “Jesus. Where the hell did you learn that?”

  She grinned at him, arching an eyebrow. “I may be a virgin, but that doesn’t make me naïve. I read. A lot. And you know very well what I write. It’s research.” Her grin widened. “At least, that’s what I’m calling it. Been wanting to try that last trick for a while.”

  Josh pulled his slacks up and put an arm around her shoulder. “I am officially a believer. Anytime you want to test your research, I’m your man.”