Jared followed, not bothering to hide the fact that he was staring at her ass.
Once they were in the loft, Hope took his hand and led him over to one corner, which offered quite a bit of privacy due to all the hay bales stacked there. That was when he noticed there was a blanket laid out on the floor. Ahh. The sweet woman obviously had something in mind.
He glanced at the blanket, then up to her. “You didn’t know I was comin’,” he told her.
She grinned. “No, but I figured sooner or later you’d show up. I put this here over the weekend.”
“Pretty sure of yourself, huh?” he teased.
“I know you’re a sure thing,” she said, giggling.
Yes, when it came to her, he most definitely was.
“However,” she said, still holding his hand as she went to her knees on the blanket. “Tonight I want to do things differently.”
That got his attention, and perhaps made him a little weary of what she had in mind. This was a barn, after all.
“Get your mind out of the gutter, Walker,” she choked out on a laugh.
Before he would let her lead them through whatever she had in mind, Jared went to his knees in front of her, then quickly took her down to the blanket, his body coming over hers.
Hope chuckled, the raspy sound going straight to his dick.
“You’re always in such a hurry,” he told her softly, pressing a kiss to her nose, then to her lips.
“If you came around more often, maybe I wouldn’t be quite this horny.”
Damn, she made him hot. He loved the way Hope said what was on her mind. She seemed to be as into this as he was. Sex with her was … off the fucking charts. However, Jared also got the impression that she was keeping this as impersonal as possible considering they were having sex.
Jared wanted something a little more intimate. Sue him.
But he wasn’t going to worry about that tonight. They still had time for him to get everything he wanted from this woman.
He took his time kissing her, starting slow as he eased himself down beside her. While their tongues swirled, Hope began wrapping herself around him, rubbing against his thigh. Jared gave her what she needed, pressing against her, providing her clit with the friction she was seeking.
“How do you do that?” she asked, pulling back from him.
He stared down at her. Was that a trick question?
She must’ve read his mind because she chuckled. “You can rev me from zero to sixty in seconds. And I promised myself that the next time I had you, I would be the one making you wild.”
“Honey, just kissing you makes me wild.” It was the truth, and he watched her expression as those words registered.
Sure, he was more than willing to make this about sex. It had been a long time since he’d had it on a regular basis. However, since the day he’d met Hope, he’d known this was something unexpected. She could tell him all day that this was strictly physical, but for him, it wasn’t. Not entirely anyway.
He enjoyed spending time with her, and they didn’t have to be naked for that to be the case, either.
Then again…
“Holy shit,” he groaned when her hand slid into his jeans, her fingers curling around his dick.
When she did that, Hope Lambert pretty much made it impossible for him to think about anything. Except for the fastest way to get her naked.
HOT DAMN, THE man smelled good.
The kind of scent that had every molecule in her body lusting after him. She wasn’t sure what it was—cologne, body wash, or maybe even deodorant—but whatever it was, it worked on him.
It worked on her, too. Perhaps a little too well.
From the moment she’d received his text, letting her know that he had surprised her, an army of indignant butterflies had taken flight in her belly. And from the moment she’d seen him in the main house, her hormones had short-circuited. He was so tall, so broad he practically filled up an entire room. And when his eyes met hers, Hope had seen the lust sparking there. The same lust she couldn’t seem to fight off when it came to him. So, instead of insisting that they have dinner—which truly had been where she’d been headed when he arrived—Hope had decided she wanted to have him for dinner.
Only now he was taking charge, and he was supposed to be the one receiving all the pleasure.
She would definitely have to do something about that.
It took some effort, but Hope managed to reverse their positions so that Jared was lying on his back on the blanket while she was straddling his thighs. She had worked open his jeans enough to free his cock, which she was still stroking, slowly, gently, while he watched her.
Since the night in his truck when he told her he wanted her mouth on him, she’d thought about little else. Well, when it came to him anyway. Admittedly, the man had taken up a lot of her head space lately. She wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or not, so she tried to ignore it.
For the record, ignoring Jared Walker was damn near impossible.
And now here he was, completely at her mercy.
Leaning forward, Hope slid her tongue over the head of his cock, watching his eyes widen as she did. His hands instantly threaded into her hair, holding it back from her face so he could watch what she was doing.
She liked that he wanted to watch, because that was hot in its own right.
“Oh, yes,” he hissed, his voice barely above a whisper.
Clearly he knew that someone could come into the barn at any time. She doubted they would, but it was possible.
“Suck me, Hope. Put your mouth on my dick.”
Oh, jeezus. She loved the way he instructed her to do what would please him.
Opening her mouth, she slowly slid her lips over the wide crest, down farther. He was so big he stretched her mouth, but she didn’t mind. She liked the smoothness of him against her tongue, the way his cock jerked when she wiggled her tongue over the sensitive spot.
“Don’t stop,” he encouraged. “Slow, Hope. Keep going slow. That feels so damn good.”
She watched his face contort with pleasure, and she felt the warmth between her legs. Her nipples were hard, her breasts sensitive, desperate for him to touch her. Only tonight wasn’t about her. Well, in a way it was. Sucking him gave her this sense of empowerment. The way he looked at her, the soft growls that erupted from him, the way his legs tensed. All of those things made her hotter, made her burn brighter for him.
Jared’s hands tightened in her hair. Not enough to hurt but enough for her to know that he was slowly taking control. And she let him. Hope continued to use her mouth on him while his hips thrust up, forcing him deeper until he was doing all the work, using her mouth, fucking past her lips. His groans were slightly louder, but she knew he was close.
“Can I come in your mouth?” he growled. “Please, Hope. Need to come in your mouth.”
She nodded slightly, meeting his eyes, letting him know that was exactly what she wanted.
“Oh, fuck… Don’t look at me like that, Hope. It drives me fucking crazy.” Jared’s hips were pumping faster, his hands holding her head tightly. “Hell, yeah… Fuck… Gonna come, darlin’.”
His head fell back as his cock pulsed, filling her mouth. She wrapped her hand around his shaft while she swallowed everything he gave her.
If she thought that the night was over, that he was the only one who would receive pleasure, she was sadly mistaken.
However, Hope knew that sadly played absolutely no part in what Jared did to her over the next half hour. Right there in the hayloft.
Chapter Eighteen
“SHE WAS IN town today,” Travis told Gage as they sat on the front porch, staring out at the night. It was one of those things they tried to do every Saturday evening. Hanging out at home, spending time with each other and the kids. Kylie had made a fantastic dinner, a
nd after Travis and Gage had cleaned the kitchen, Travis had grabbed a beer and headed outside.
“Who?” Gage asked.
“Sable.” Fucking Sable. It pissed him off to no end that the woman was resurfacing now. He’d received a phone call from Sid at the gas station, letting him know that there was a woman who’d come in asking about Jared. Apparently the woman didn’t know where Jared lived. Luckily, Sid didn’t, either. Not that Travis thought he would’ve said something, but with Sable, Travis simply didn’t know how she might’ve tried to coerce the details out of him. The woman was known to do whatever necessary to get a man to see things her way.
It didn’t take a rocket scientist for Travis to figure out she’d finally made it to Coyote Ridge because she was getting nowhere via email. He’d been expecting her.
“Please tell me you’re not gonna get in the middle of this,” Gage said, peering over at him.
“Not if I don’t have to.” So far, he’d simply looked into a few things, trying to find out what he could about the woman. He knew Jared didn’t have the sort of resources Travis had.
Gage sighed. “Jared’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.”
True. Jared was a big boy. And yes, Travis knew his cousin could take care of himself. However, Jared was also family, and Travis wasn’t going to sit back and let that woman take advantage of him again. It was bad enough that she’d taken his son away from him in the beginning. Although Derrick wasn’t his biological son—Travis was having doubts about that since Jared had never had a paternity test done him but rather had trusted Sable’s word and the papers she had provided him—the man loved him like one.
Travis had a hard time not interfering when it came to family. And yes, he’d been known to be a bulldozer at times. But that was who he was. He wasn’t about to change now. Jared and Derrick had made their home here, and Sable was nothing but trouble.
“You should tell him,” Gage said. “See if he wants to talk to her.”
“He doesn’t.”
“Do you know that for a fact? Or is that what you want to believe?”
“I know for a fact. And she doesn’t have good intentions.”
“You know this how?”
Travis cocked an eyebrow at his husband. He couldn’t believe Gage would ask him that.
Gage sighed again, this time deeper than last time. “You had her checked out?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Let me guess, she’s flat-ass broke and looking for more money? Since Jared gave her twenty-five g’s, she figures he probably has a little extra lying around.”
“You should be a detective,” Travis teased. It was meant to be funny since Gage had been an undercover police officer at one time. Travis had been the one to find that out about the man, accidentally. He’d also been the one to out Gage, something that had ultimately put them at odds and forced out the extreme emotions they’d had for one another.
He wasn’t sorry about that.
“You can’t keep her away forever.”
Sure he could.
If he really wanted to.
“I CANNOT BELIEVE I let him talk me into this,” Hope muttered to herself as she pulled her truck down the long drive that led to Jared’s place.
He’d given her very clear directions because the house he lived in wasn’t picked up on Google maps since he didn’t even have an address. From what he’d told her, he was staying in one of the small cabins on his aunt and uncle’s land.
Not only had the sweet-talking man talked her into visiting Alluring Indulgence resort with him tonight, he had also talked her into coming to his house first. He’d told her that his son would be staying with one of his cousins while they were at the resort and he’d be picking him up when they returned. They weren’t staying at the resort, she’d been informed, because Jared hadn’t found an all-night sitter despite his attempt. Apparently, the people who usually kept him overnight couldn’t since they’d had things to take care of the following morning.
It was only then that Hope had given more thought to the fact that Jared had a son. A son Jared had been leaving with family members on the few occasions he’d come out to the ranch to see her. She figured it was only fair that she come to him this one time. And since his little boy was at someone else’s house, she didn’t run the risk of seeing him, falling head over heels for him, and then realizing Jared Walker had turned her world upside down again.
Truth was, Hope was probably a little bit in love with Jared already, and that was a big, big problem in her book.
Finding the cabin wasn’t that difficult at all. She pulled in beside his truck and sat there for a moment. It took a few minutes to shore up her nerve. It was a little on the crumbly side—her nerve—but it was the best she was going to get, so she finally exited her truck and made her way up to the porch.
She knocked on the door and the next thing she knew…
“Hi! Who are you?”
Hope’s heart chose that moment to jump into her throat. Her knees locked, and she probably looked shocked to the roots of her hair, which was exactly how she felt.
“Derrick…” Hope barely registered the chastising tone of Jared’s voice. “I told you not to open the door, son.”
Derrick. Derrick Walker.
The little boy was quite possibly the cutest thing she’d ever seen.
“I’m four,” Derrick announced to Hope, holding up four little fingers.
She couldn’t help but smile.
Jared pulled Derrick back and held his hand out, signaling for her to come inside. Forcing her feet to move, Hope woodenly walked forward, far enough for Jared to close the door.
“I’m goin’ to Mason’s house to pway,” Derrick told her. “What are you gonna do?”
Hope’s tongue was twisted; she couldn’t seem to form words. She simply stared into the deep brown eyes of this cute little boy and prayed that Jared would save her. This was the very reason she hadn’t wanted to come to him. It wasn’t that she didn’t like kids. She loved them. Hell, she’d be more content to sit on the couch and watch a Disney movie with Derrick than she would be going to the resort with Jared.
But that couldn’t happen, because she wasn’t supposed to meet Derrick. This was supposed to be a casual thing between her and Jared.
“We’re gonna go out for a bit, big man,” Jared told his son. “While you hang out with Mason, I’m gonna take Hope on a date.”
“A date?” Derrick’s eyes widened. “What’s a date?”
“When two people who like each other go somewhere so they can spend time together.”
“Oh.” Derrick grinned. “Wike when we go to the movies? Or to McDonawd’s?”
Jared chuckled. “Yep. Just like that.”
“Okay.” That seemed to satisfy Derrick’s curiosity. “Can we go now?”
Hope realized Jared was looking at her while she’d been staring at Derrick, a ridiculous smile on her face. Was that question meant for her? She didn’t know.
“You ready?”
She nodded, feeling like a bobblehead.
While Jared went to get whatever it was he went to get, Hope sent up a silent prayer that she would make it through this evening with the reminder that this was casual. She was not going to get seriously involved with Jared.
And more importantly, she was not going to fall—more—in love with the man.
Because that…
That would be really, really stupid.
JARED HAD INTENDED to have Derrick at Kaleb and Zoey’s before Hope showed up. That had been the plan, only every parent in the world knew that plans changed all the time. It started when he and Derrick had gone to the grocery store to pick up a few things for the week. Derrick had had a complete meltdown in the toy aisle, of all places, because Jared wouldn’t let him buy the toy he wanted. It had been a simple misunderstanding, but try telling that
to a four-year-old.
“Dad, I think I need this truck,” Derrick informed him, his tone sweet.
“Yeah? Lemme see.”
Derrick shoved the bright yellow dump truck that he’d grabbed from the shelf toward him. Jared quickly peeked at the price tag.
“I think I can find a better one online,” he told the boy.
“No!” Derrick spun around to face him, glaring in a way that only the cutest kid in the world could do. Jared fought the urge to smile. “I want this one. Right now.”
Jared knew when Derrick started that way, he wasn’t going to get far with him, so he shook his head. “No.”
“Yes!” Derrick insisted, throwing the truck into the basket.
Jared calmly pulled it back out and set it on the shelf. Derrick reached for it again.
“Don’t,” Jared warned, keeping his voice low. “We’re leaving.”
Derrick shook his head before throwing himself to the floor.
Rather than pay the ridiculously high price, Jared had intended to seek the toy out on the Internet, find it cheaper, and give it to Derrick on a day he did exceptionally well. Those days weren’t as infrequent anymore, so he didn’t doubt that his son would have his toy in the very near future.
However…
The instant Derrick started screaming and kicking, insisting that he get the toy right now, Jared told him it wasn’t going to happen. And it wouldn’t. Derrick needed to learn his lesson. It would’ve been so easy for Jared to give in to his son, to give him the moon if he could, but he knew better. Oh, sure, there were times when he did just that, but in cases like this, it never worked out in his favor. As a parent, he had learned from his mistakes.
From there, the day simply had gone downhill. Luckily, Derrick had taken a two-hour nap and had woken up a completely different kid. At that point, Jared had offered to take Derrick to Mama’s Diner for a late lunch. The place had been unusually busy for the middle of the afternoon, and the few errands Jared needed to get done had been pushed back by a full hour while they waited for their food.
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