She went very still beneath his stroking finger.
His hand also stilled, then dropped away. "Holy shit. You still do, don't you?"
"Don't be ridiculous," she said coldly. "That was a long time ago."
"You used to be dead-set against it," he remembered aloud. Then his dark eyes pinned her in place. "But as you said, that was a long time ago. What does Hayley Prescott, widow of the victim, think about the death penalty now? They say the staunchest conservative is a liberal who has been mugged. So what is your opinion? Does Lawrence Wilson deserve to die?"
"Read my lips, Johnny. I do not want to talk about it."
Calling him a name he had always detested for sounding juvenile did not deter him nearly as well as it used to. The sheer force of his gaze kept her eyes locked on his, and his tone became downright authoritarian. "Does Lawrence Wilson deserve to die?"
Hayley looked at him sitting beneath the faint illumination of the waning moon, his feet and chest and the hard abs that stopped women in their tracks bare, his dirty-blond hair flopping over his forehead, his eyes and facial stubble more inky than the surrounding shadows. How on earth could a gaze that appeared so sleepy look so commanding at the same time?
"When did you stop drinking?" She counter-demanded. When in doubt, attack. That had always been her philosophy when dealing with Jon-Michael, and the issue of his sobriety was the one question she deemed most likely to get him off her back. Raising her chin, she drove the point home. "When did Jon-Michael Olivet, the lush of Lincoln High, trade in his ever-present bottle of Black Velvet for a club soda?"
But he answered without hesitation or the least sign of embarrassment. "The day after I rolled around on a blanket with you," he retorted readily, "then woke up to discover I could not remember a single thing about what must have been the best damn night of my life if I am to believe even half of what the soccer team told me."
Jon-Michael could see the possibility had not occurred to her. He watched with interest as it stole her composure. She blushed, she opened and closed her mouth several times and could not quite hold his gaze. He had witnessed a lot of uncharacteristic behavior from her tonight and wished in a way he could pursue this particular response, but that wasn’t his primary objective at the moment. He didn't want to give her time to recover her equanimity before he moved in for the kill. "Does Lawrence Wilson deserve to die?" he demanded for the third time.
"Yes. Okay? What do you want from me, Jon-Michael? Lawrence Wilson is an animal." She didn’t have the least problem meeting his gaze now and what he saw in it made him ache in ways he did not care to acknowledge.
"He made himself a sandwich in my kitchen and sat down to eat it while Dennis damn near bled to death on the floor!" Rising to her knees to face him, her posture unnaturally rigid, she demanded, "They put down mad dogs, don't they?"
He was pretty sure she intended the remark to be offhand, perhaps even a little flip. But her tone was too defensive and her hands were fisted at her sides. "That’s what Wilson is," she continued. "A rabid dog.” She shook her head. “No, he is worse. He gives whole new meaning to violent. It’s only fitting that he, too, should be put down."
Jon-Michael pushed up from his sprawl and knee-walked the old planks until the distance separating them dwindled to mere inches. Reaching out, he ran his hands up and down the arms she held so stiffly at her sides. She flinched at his touch but he did not let go. Instead, he rubbed more firmly. "But?" he prompted gently.
"But nothing. There is no but." Trembling, she avoided his gaze.
"Yes there is," he whispered and eased her into his arms. "You never could lie worth a damn. Not to mention if you were any stiffer we could paddle you across the lake."
She grew even more rigid in his embrace and Jon-Michael smiled into her hair. But he knew she had about reached her limit for the evening, and ignoring the number of questions he still harbored he said lightly, "But not to worry, baby; you don't have to tell me if you don't want to." He held her a little tighter. One hand slid up between her shoulder blades while the other stroked down over her hip, and he buried his nose behind her ear in flyaway hair just beginning to dry. "At least not tonight," he amended, closing his eyes and inhaling. "You don’t have to tell me anything else tonight."
"I do not have to tell you anything, ever, if I don't want to," she said firmly.
"Ah, now that is where you’re wrong," he disagreed. "We will be talking about it again, all right, and probably a lot sooner than you think. It's obvious you have a serious conflict going on with yourself. Clearly, I need to take you in hand and get you straightened out."
"Why, you fat-headed, arrogant, son of a—" Straining away from him, Hayley saw the self-satisfied smile curling up one side of his mouth and swallowed the rest of the words clogging her throat. Oh, the bastard. He had pissed her off on purpose.
"That's more like it," he said. "I hardly recognize you when you go all sweet and pliable on me." His grin grew. "I could get used to it, though."
"In your dreams, bud."
"You want to hear about my dreams, Hayley?" Leaning his upper body away to gaze with heavy-lidded eyes down into hers, he rubbed his hands up and down the curve of her ass, nudged his pelvis a little more firmly into the notch between her thighs, letting her feel his erection. "You want to hear how I wake up all in a lather from dreams of the night when you opened your sweet thighs…"
"My God, you never let an opportunity pass you by, do you?" Reaching behind her she peeled his long hands off her butt, then climbed to her feet. "Have you actually ever gotten anywhere with a line like that?"
"Not too often."
"Well, there’s a huge surprise, being it’s so smooth and all." Yawning, she looked down at him and realized she was actually pretty relaxed again. And tired enough to sleep. "Jon-Michael?"
"Yeah?" He, too, had risen to his feet and stood with his hands in his front pockets, staring down at her.
"I am sorry about the crack I made earlier."
"Which one, petunia? You always poke so many holes in my ego it's hard to keep up."
"About you picking a fight just to make your father angry."
"Forget it. You were right. The old man hauled me up in front of him this afternoon to ream me out for being an embarrassment to the family name. I hadn't actually thought as far ahead as getting my name in the Chronicle to rub his nose in it, but I was looking to take it out on someone. So, when Brian was too stoned to play, I picked you."
Hayley ignored the apology that was implicit in his words and went straight to the heart of what she found really interesting. "What is the story with you and your dad? It sure surprised the hell outta me when Kurstin told me you had gone to work in the family biz."
Jon-Michael laughed. "It is an unlikely fit, all right. And as you can see, it was an experiment that didn't work for shit. Some day you and I just might have to sit down and swap stories." He cocked an insinuating eyebrow at her. "You show me yours, honey, and I'll show you mine."