No sex.
No Jason.
No go.
Mr. No Go catches up to us and opens the passenger door—for his grandmother—of course, it’s for her, because this is the first time there has been any door opening. It’s also the first time I felt we might have a bit of a truce between us. Martha motions me forward. “You first. I have to get out before you.”
She’s right, but the look in her eyes says she’s planning a wedding and I’m the bride. Good Lord, I’m in trouble. I don’t even think about looking at Jason, but damn it, I feel his gaze on me, watching me, looking for a reaction, and I don’t know what he expects. I just know that I’m warm and awkward; sizzling awareness rushes over me with a surge of adrenaline. I launch myself at the truck to escape whatever this is between us. An escape that lasts all of one minute.
Jason helps Martha into the truck, and by the time she’s settled, he’s sliding in beside me. Our legs aren’t touching, but we don’t have to touch for me to feel how close he is to me again. For me to remember his hands on my knees in the house.
“It was a wonderful day, Jessica,” Martha says. “I hope you thought so, too.”
“It was loads of fun and I needed this,” I tell her, still avoiding any glance in Jason’s direction.
“She doesn’t like to be alone,” Jason says, and that’s all it takes for my gaze to rocket his way.
“I’m just fine alone,” I object.
His eyes light with amusement. “That’s not what you told your mother,” he murmurs in a near whisper before he adds, “and I wasn’t talking about you, was I, Grandma?”
“He’s right,” she says as we pull up to her cute little cottage, or at least I think it is. I can’t make out much in the rainy, starless night. “I dislike being alone. That’s why Jason moved me over here, closer to him. I like my privacy, but not for long.”
I suspect there’s more to it, for instance, her safety, but I don’t think Martha is one to admit needing that extra hand. Jason pulls us around, right in front of her door, and she turns to me, giving me a big hug. “We needed you and now you’re here.”
My heart squeezes with these words that stir emotions I shove aside for further inspection later when I’m safe and alone. She releases me and leans forward. “Night, my boy.” And then she’s gone, exiting the truck right to her front door and entering, gone so quickly that I haven’t had time to move. I’m still sitting next to her grandson with only two options: stay close to him, or move away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Jason…
I’m hot and hard and burning alive for this woman.
She sits there next to me and doesn’t move. Seconds tick by and I don’t move, either. I don’t drive. I let us idle, the soft hum of the engine between us where words are lost, but there is nothing idle about what I feel right now or ever with this woman. Move, damn it, I think, before I do something we’ll both regret and ruin the escape you’re looking for and that I have nowhere. Not after the hell I inherited with both the pain of losing my parents and the mistakes they’d made here at the ranch. Move before I drag you to me and kiss you the way I’ve wanted to since you fell into that damn mud puddle.
Move now.
Don’t move.
Damn it to hell, she moves.
I fight the urge to pull her back to me, my grip on the steering wheel white-knuckled.
“Jason?”
Even the soft chords of my name on her tongue does it for me. My zipper stretches, cock thickening to a painful degree.
I don’t answer. I don’t look at her. I place the truck in drive and do just that: drive. We travel the short road away from my grandmother’s cottage toward what is, for now, Jessica’s place. It’s hers because I let her stay despite how much her need to hide and lick her wounds resembles my own, and I don’t like how that looks. At least, not on me. On her, it looks smarter. She got rid of an asshole of a different variety than myself. She does need to be here.
Hell, my grandmother really seems to need her here, too, and my one fear is that she’s trying to fill a void in her life that will leave her empty and bleeding with emotions when Jessica leaves to return to the city. And she will, sooner rather than later. Maybe I’ll fuck her goodbye. Yeah. That works. Hands off, until we’re saying goodbye. That way we have no time to do damage to each other. That way she doesn’t become a mistake for me any more than I’ll become one for her.
We turn down the road leading to her cottage, rain pitter-pattering on the window, the scent of her perfume, something vanilla and floral, womanly and sweet, teasing my nostrils the way she teases my body. Holy hell, I want her. How do I even want a woman to the point of making a fuck plan for her, when said woman makes me completely freaking insane? When said woman represents every damn thing that burned me times ten?
I pull us to a halt in front of the cottage, but not close to her door. The river of mud around the place won’t allow such an option, and I mentally commit to fixing that problem, which I used to get my grandmother out of this secluded place, nearer to me and safer for it. “It’s a mess,” I say, killing the engine. “I’ll walk you to the door.”
“That’s okay. I can handle it.” She reaches for the door and I grab her wrist. It’s a mistake. The shock of the touch rockets through me, and when she whirls to face me, when our eyes meet, cutting through the darkness of the truck cab, the connection is combustible. We’re combustible and we have been from the moment we met, and if I don’t get out of the truck right now, she’s going to be beneath me in about thirty seconds.
“Don’t move. It won’t end well if you do.”
I’m not sure if I’m talking about her landing in the mud again, or us landing on the seat and fucking. Neither would end well. I release her, the need to touch her again absolute torture.
“Jason—”
“I’m helping you get inside,” I say, pulling up the hood to the jacket I put on as we were exiting the house. I open the door and step outside, rain pounding on us again. What the hell is this non-stop pounding we’re getting? I round the vehicle and know the terrain well enough that I easily avoid the danger zones, at least the ones on the ground. The one inside the vehicle, about to be outside with me, that’s another story.
By the time I’m at her door, it’s open and the stubborn woman is about to exit the truck, right into a river. “Wait, woman,” I shout, but she doesn’t wait. I’m already in motion, there just as her feet would sink, my arm wrapping her waist, lifting her, her body flush with mine, my cock instantly standing at attention. There’s no way she doesn’t notice. Fuck. I whirl her around to solid ground and then we’re just there, in the middle of the damn rain, pressed against each other. Droplets of water cling to her face and lips, transfixing me for what might be only seconds, but every one of them feels like a year as I will myself not to kiss her.
Don’t do it.
Don’t fucking do it.
“Jason,” she whispers, the way she had in the truck, and in a word, she has my zipper all but breaking and my mind exploding with about ten ways I could make that smart mouth of hers moan my name. And about five ways I want the mouth doing the moaning on my body.
The sky seems to moan with those thoughts, thunder erupting, lightning shooting through the darkness, while Jessica twists her fingers in my shirt and looks around in urgent inspection. “What about a tornado? Is there going to be a tornado?”
“It’s calm before they hit,” I assure her, while me with her is another story. There is nothing calm about what she makes me feel.
Another crash overhead is followed by wicked lightning that has her jumping and me scooping her up and carrying her toward the house before we both end up a target. She curls into me, holding on tight, covering her face against the rain with my chest. It’s like something out of a damn romance novel, but the only hero I plan to be for any woman is nak
ed and then gone the next day. I can’t be what she deserves.
I manage to arrive at the porch without trouble and stomp my way up the stairs, resisting that moment when I set her down, but I do it. I set her the hell down and tell myself to step away, walk away. Go home and take a cold damn shower. Instead, she settles on her feet and lightning blasts a blazing line across the sky again. “You need to get inside,” I say, opening her door and reaching to flip on a light, one that doesn’t come on.
“It’s burned out,” she offers. “I just need to go to the living room and turn on a lamp.”
Go to the living room of the dark cottage alone. We might be in Sweetwater, where it’s generally safe, but she’s the new fresh meat in a town filled with ranchers. I’m not letting that happen. “I’ll get the light, but I want you inside away from the lightning.” I enter and take her with me, and that is where the trouble becomes real trouble. I pause and mess with the light switch several times and the burned out light isn’t burned out. Obviously, there’s a short because now it comes on and we’re inside the cottage, standing at the door, facing each other.
She pulls down her hood. I pull down my hood. I have a flash of her holding onto that towel when it fell, her creamy white skin and puckered nipples displayed for my view.
“What are you thinking?” she asks softly. Her teeth scrape her bottom lip and I’m done.
“Oh hell,” I murmur, and just that easily, my fingers are tangled in her hair as I say, “About kissing you. That’s what I’m thinking.” My mouth crashes down on hers, tongue licking into her mouth, and sweet baby Jesus, she is sweet on the tongue, honey on a bitter man’s lips. She moans softly, her fingers grappling at my T-shirt, hanging there, twisting there.
I back her up, press her against the door, tearing my mouth from hers. “I’m not the guy you date. I’m the guy you fuck. This is a mistake. I can’t kiss you again.”
“I don’t want a date. It’s been too long since I’ve been properly fucked. So if you can’t do that, then you’re right. This is a mistake and you should most definitely not kiss me again.”
I curse and kiss her again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Jason…
She hasn’t been properly fucked. She says that so damn flippantly, but I know where that comes from. I know what happened to her. I know she got fucked over just like I did. I know that attitude is a wall, a way to protect herself—and more power to her. She needs to protect herself, but not from me. I’m not going to hurt her, but fuck her? Damn straight I am.
My tongue licks past her lips and I taste the pain there, I taste her need to forget, to get lost in someone other than the man who hurt her. I get that. I understand it, and holy hell. I want to forget just as much as she does. I want to forget more than a woman. I deepen the kiss, and she moans this soft sweet sound that thickens my cock and prickles my skin with heat.
And holy hell, there it is, beneath that bitterness, the honey-sweet woman, the one that exists outside of her pain. Suddenly, she’s not just talking big, she’s holding nothing back, her fingers shoving at my raincoat that I shrug out of and toss aside. “You need to know that I don’t do proper,” I say, turning her around, her back to my front, long enough to drag the raincoat off her shoulders, tossing it aside, my lips by her ear as I add, “I fuck hard and dirty, and you’re a proper city girl.” I turn her, my hand sliding under her hair, cupping her neck. “I can’t give you proper, Jessica. If that’s what you want—”
“Smart-ass,” she hisses. “Shut up and kiss me again already.”
I laugh and lean in to kiss her, but she catches my mouth with her hand. “I thought you didn’t laugh?”
She won’t let that go. She’s inside my world, seeing too much, a woman I can’t just walk away from, a woman I shouldn’t be fucking, but it doesn’t seem to matter. I press her against the wall, grab her boot, and yank it off and then do the other. “Fucking isn’t a laughing matter,” I say, unbuttoning her pants.
She looks away and I’m not sure what the hell I said wrong. I cup her face and force her to look at me. “What just happened?”
There’s a flicker of something in her eyes, an emotion that stabs through her stare. Pain, I think. “Can you please just kiss me already?”
Yes. Pain. Pain I understand. The pain of betrayal. My mouth slants over hers, kissing her the way she’s demanded I kiss her, the way she needs to be kissed—intensely, completely, wickedly. The hell of it is, it’s also what I need, what I want. She’s driving me out of my mind, and I need to fuck her out of my head.
She moans again and I’m out of patience for us standing here with too many of our clothes on. I tear my mouth from hers, pull off my boots, and she does the unexpected. She shoves her pants down her hips and tosses them, any panties to mention also gone before I ever admire them. Her sex is naked. Her body pale. Her legs long. My cock so damn hard it hurts. It’s been a while. Too damn long.
I catch her hand, pull her to me, and cup one of her cute little butt cheeks, giving it a squeeze. “Always taking your clothes off for me.”
“Is that a complaint?”
I answer by kissing her, cupping both of those cute butt checks now and lifting her, and for once, she gets the message without a fight, obediently wrapping her legs around my waist. Pleasure has a way of doing that—making a girl obedient. The problem is it’s not one-sided. Pleasure with the right woman can bring a man to his knees, even when the right woman is all wrong. A lesson I learned and learned well.
I cross to the living room, the nearest place that earns me what I want: her. Me all over her. I step between the ottoman and my favorite oversized chair, the one I’m about to love a whole hell of a lot more. The cushion sinks in with our weight, absorbing me while I absorb her, dragging her to me, kissing the hell out of her all over again. She moans and the soft sound is as sweet as the honey on her lips, but there is nothing sweet about how she tugs at my shirt, her actions confirming she’s all in, no hesitation. I reach behind me and drag it over my head, but when it’s gone, I seek that confirmation.
I drag her shirt over her head, and when I would pull it away, I tangle it behind her, around her wrists. My gaze rakes over her high full breasts, her black lacy bra all that’s between her and my mouth before I lift my stare and let her see the lust there. “You can still back out.”
Her chin lifts defiantly, no hesitation in her eyes. “So can you,” she says. “If you think you can’t get the job done, then—”
I lean in and kiss her, my teeth nipping roughly at her bottom lip. She yelps and I lick the offended skin. “You can still back out,” I repeat, because I know what she’s doing. She’s hiding behind her bravado, and that I won’t accept. She’s here all the way or she’s not here at all, at least not with me.
“Why do you want to scare me away?” she presses. “Because you’re scared?”
My lips twitch. This is what gets me with her. The challenges. The jabs. The certainty that she really doesn’t give a shit about my ego or my career. That’s not why she wants this or me. This is about forgetting. This is about replacing a bad memory with something so damn good that the past doesn’t exist. I’ve tried that. I failed, but maybe tonight, both of us wanting the same thing, is exactly how we both get what we’re after.
I reach up and unclip her bra, shoving it away from her breasts, my gaze lowering again, lingering on her plump rosy nipples. “You’re beautiful,” I murmur, my finger teasing her nipple.
She sucks in a breath and arches into my touch. I cup her breast, kneading, teasing her nipple again. “You know that, right?”
She swallows hard and laughs, but this is not a laugh of humor. It’s of embarrassment, it’s of pain, the kind of pain that comes from needing and not having.
“Let me touch you. Release my hands.”
I lean in and kiss her. “You’re beautiful,” I repeat. “Don
’t let that asshole of an ex of yours get into your head and make you think otherwise. If you can’t do that on your own, I’ll do it for you.”
“Please let me touch you.”
“Please? Hmmm. I like how that sounds when you say it, but not yet. Not until I know that when I fuck you, you aren’t thinking of anyone but me.”
“I’m not.”
“You are,” I accuse, nipping her lips again, and this time I don’t lick it better. I want her to feel that sting. I want to shock her out of her own head. “You’re thinking about him.”
“I am most definitely not thinking about him.”
I tighten my grip on her hands and pull her against me, my hand on her breast punishing her with a rough squeeze and a nipple pinch. She bites her lip, holds back a moan. “Stop holding back. You were all soft and proper with him. You don’t get to be that with me. I won’t let you. That’s a promise.”
I stand her up and tear away her T-shirt and bra, but I don’t intend to free her. I have plans for her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Jessica…
My hands are free.
I have time to think that one thought before Jason is on his knees in front of me, his big firm hand on my backside again, his mouth pressing to my belly. His eyes lift to mine, dark, intense eyes as he says, “Beautiful. I’ll say that as many times as you need to hear it until you believe it. You are fucking gorgeous.”
I didn’t plan to stand naked in front of him. That’s why I rushed to undress. I just wanted us both naked, and I want him inside me. I wanted to forget so many things, but this, this is not what I expected. I’m naked, alone and exposed. Emotions well in my chest. I know that’s not what he’s trying to create. That’s not what I want to feel, but somehow, some way, he understands the unfamiliar but oh so dominant self-doubt finding my ex with another woman created in me. Somehow he knows I feel ugly. I feel unworthy. I feel—
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