by Nicole Helm
She pulled away from Jacob’s tight grasp. It had lost its comforting vibe. Now it was worry. Concern.
Yuck, blech, nope. She had to get herself and this situation under control.
“It’s...complicated medical jargon.” Which was a lie, but close enough to the truth. “I had surgery to fix it when I was thirteen. So, I’m good. I’m fine.”
Some of the tension on his face loosened, smoothing out the deep groove across his forehead.
“If you’re fine, why does your mom want to see you married off?”
“After my surgery, and I was better, Mom still hovered and wanted to keep me home from school. She suffocated me, but I was better and a teenager, so I...I did a lot of things I shouldn’t and put my health in danger again, and I put my family through a lot of crap, emotionally and financially. So, whatever my mom does to me now, however I feel when she does stuff like that, I just...deserve it. And I need to learn to live with it. Some way.”
He didn’t speak right away, and the usually easily readable Jacob had a supreme poker face on.
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do.”
The laugh escaped her easily. “Blueprinting already.”
He grinned. “You love it. Now, when whatever your mom’s saying starts bordering on too much, we’ll come up with a signal. Then I’ll change the subject. We’ll be more careful about alone time and just try to minimize the times when she, you know, brings you to scary, scary girlie tears.”
“Scary? I think you did pretty well.”
“I’m exceptionally brave.”
Now she was smiling. Tears barely dry on her cheeks and she was laughing. Oh, he was going to ruin her, wasn’t he? “That really is above and beyond.”
“I’m pretending to be your live-in boyfriend. We’ve already exceeded above and beyond. Let me help you make this what you wanted it to be. A reunion that will help right some wrongs, and if the only way to do that is for me to step in and change the subject from time to time, easy enough.”
Gah, that got her right in the heart. “Why are you doing this for me?”
“Because you’re my friend and I care about you.”
Leah swallowed. She knew that. Of course she did, but when he said it so earnestly it really did crawl under her every last defense.
“All right, so let’s talk signal. Your mom starts hinting marriage and you pat me on the ass and I’ll swoop in and change the topic to baseball.”
Leah choked out a laugh. “You want me to pat you on the ass?”
He took a step toward her, and she tried not to notice there was a wicked intent in his expression.
“I would very much not mind your hands on my ass.” Another step and Leah had to step back. She didn’t believe in retreat, but holding her ground wasn’t going to do her any good with him...getting so close.
“Or vice versa.”
“J-Jacob.” Was that her? Stuttering and backing away and—bump—there was the wall. Then there was his hand, pressing against the wall right next to her face. She was trapped, only she didn’t want to escape this trap. She wanted to rub against it.
Bad. No.
Hot. Awesome.
“Ask me to kiss you,” he said, his mouth so close to hers it felt as if he was kissing her.
“I already... I kissed you. And it was a bad idea, and I’m not doing that again.”
“Well, this time I’ll do the kissing. But I said I wouldn’t kiss you unless you asked.” His body moved against hers, but she was at the wall now, so she was just pressed against him more firmly. “So ask.”
But she wasn’t going to ask. That kiss had been an unrepeatable mistake. Bad choices to deal with disappointment, her pattern. So she would not ask him to kiss her. She would not kiss him. She would just...
Die of longing and lust.
His fingertips brushed along her cheekbone, those dark brown eyes never leaving hers, intense and determined and, oh, shit, hot. “Ask, Leah.”
She did not take orders. And she most certainly didn’t like bossy people. But something south of the border was not listening to her brain’s admonitions. “Oh, just do it.”
“Do what?”
“Kiss me, jackass.”
“Say ‘please.’”
“Oh, fu—” But before she could finish, his mouth was on hers. Not tentative like her initial kiss. Not brief like his. This was...hungry, damn it, and so, so, so good.
The hand that had been leaning against the wall and the gentle fingertips across her face all moved and morphed into possessive grabbing. And she liked it. The way he gripped her neck before releasing, then slid his palms down her back. His tongue in her mouth, his erection very noticeably pressed against her stomach.
Jacob was kissing the hell out of her and hard because of it and, oh, screw bad. She would take this. This was, perhaps pathetically, the best damn kiss of her life. Might as well take what she could get.
She trailed her hands down his chest. He wore a sweater with one of those preppy button-up shirts underneath, but she’d caught a glimpse the other night and had spent enough summers around him to know what was underneath.
Muscles. Rangy, work-hewn, completely lickable muscles. Which usually she tried to ignore, pretend she’d never seen.
Well, to hell with that, too. She ran her palms down sweater-clad abs and only stopped at the waist of his jeans because his hands had slipped under her shirt.
Rough palms edged across her sides, to her belly, and upward. She arched against him because the heat, the ache was all too much. She wanted more. More with Jacob McKnight, and the fact it was actually within her reach wasn’t nearly as scary as it should have been.
* * *
JACOB HEARD THE knock a few seconds before his mind engaged enough to withdraw his hands from Leah’s shirt, just centimeters from breast territory. Damn it all to hell.
“Leah? Jacob? Are you in here? I can’t—”
Kyle’s voice cut off abruptly, presumably when he saw what they were doing. Even though Jacob’s hands were free, he hadn’t quite disengaged his mouth until Leah hopped away.
Disheveled, beet-red and so damn beautiful he wanted to growl at Kyle to get the hell out in some ridiculous hope there was anything left to finish.
But this was something of a situation one didn’t just wave away. Kyle’s expression remained neutral but he stared at the ceiling. “Grace can’t find the present for your mother. She asked me to come find you since you weren’t answering your phone.”
Right. His phone. Had that been the buzzing he’d heard? He was so sure that had been his brain disintegrating into lust.
“Bottom right drawer of my desk,” he managed roughly.
“All right.” Kyle turned as if to leave, then paused. “Leah, your parents are waiting for you.”
“Yeah, yeah. We were...we were done.” She glanced at him briefly, flicking her gaze away the minute he made eye contact. She took a step toward Kyle’s already retreating back. “Kyle, please don’t tell Grace.”
Kyle pressed his lips together, giving Leah a disapproving look over his shoulder. Her cheeks were red again and she didn’t meet Kyle’s gaze any more than he met hers.
“I’m sorry. I can’t promise you that.” He gave a curt nod, then exited the work shed.
She looked at her shoes. “We should get back,” she mumbled, her cheeks still bright red, everything about her demeanor screaming regret and embarrassment.
Which made him feel like crap, for a lot of reasons. Partially because he’d been pushy. Partially because...well, did she really have to act as if it was the worst thing in the world? “You don’t have to be quite so embarrassed.”
She stopped at the door. “I’m not embarrassed. I’m...”
“The color of Santa’s suit
, honey. It’s okay. I get it.” He brushed past her and into the frigid cold of the December afternoon. He should have brought a coat. He should have brought his brain.
“I don’t think you get it at all,” Leah returned, following after him.
“I pushed you. Kyle caught us. Horror. Embarrassment. Et cetera.” Maybe it was the still-not-quite-killed erection, but those were not the feelings he had. Who cared if Kyle saw them? Who cared if they did whatever? It was only his and Leah’s business and he was tired of anyone acting as if they had a say besides him and her. So, no, he wasn’t embarrassed and he didn’t regret a damn thing except that they’d been cut short.
“You’re a fantasy, Jacob. So, no, I’m not embarrassed, but I’m not exactly picking out my wedding dress, either. There’s a reason we spent five years not doing...that.”
“And it is?”
“We’re oil and water. Put business or friendship soap between us and we do okay. Take that out, we’re back to repelling each other.”
He turned to face her, halting her progress. “Or we’re people who have found each other attractive for a very long time but were too afraid to act on it for a wide variety of reasons. And while we might not have killed off that fear or those reasons, we certainly find ourselves in the circumstances to look beyond it.”
She blinked up at him, mouth hanging open. “That’s...”
“A lot more realistic than your idiotic oil-and-water analogy?” He couldn’t place the source of his anger or what exactly he was angry about. Maybe it wasn’t even anger. Maybe it was disappointment and...something a little too close to hurt for him to want to examine closely.
“No, because you forget to mention we annoy the hell out of each other.”
He shrugged, shoving his frozen hands under his armpits for warmth. “Maybe that’s our thing.”
“Our thing?”
“Maybe we annoy the hell out of each other to show interest.”
She shook her head, and because he’d had his hands in her hair not all that long ago, the strands that had escaped framed her face. “That’s ridiculous. And warped. And ridiculous.”
“Do you ever watch TV?”
“We’re not a TV show, Jacob.” She started stomping her way back to the main house. “We’re two people with a lot of baggage.”
“I’m pretty baggageless, sweetheart.”
“My ass.” She whirled on him right in front of the back entrance. “See? We’re fighting. We always resort to disagreement. That is us. You want to kiss me now?”
He crowded her, because apparently that was a thing he did now. “Yeah, I do. And the more I do it the more I want to do it and a whole hell of a lot more than just an amazing-as-all-get-out kiss or two.”
“I... You... Oh, you’re just saying that.”
“You want me to be plainspoken, Leah? I want to kiss you. I want my hands on you, all over every last inch of you. I want to have sex with you, even when you’re being so clueless and stubborn. Because I think you’re hot, because I like you. And I get there are some practical issues that may be...complicated, but I kind of don’t give a shit knowing you feel the same. Because I’m not afraid of hard work.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, her nose getting red from the cold. He wanted to push her inside and finish the argument, or finish something else, but her family was in there and that was probably not okay.
“I’ll give you that, Jacob. You may even love hard work. But are you not afraid of ruining our friendship or our partnership?”
It softened him a little because, well, both those things were important and he didn’t like that he might be giving the impression he thought they weren’t. “How about this? You break my heart, I won’t hold it against you.”
Her throat moved and her direct gaze shifted to beyond his shoulder. “How about vice versa?”
And then he really softened because that was the absolute last thing he wanted to do. “I don’t hurt people. Haven’t you heard? The women do the breaking up in my experience.” He tried to grin, but figured it didn’t come out very convincing when her response was a frown.
It wasn’t her usual angry scowl when they were arguing. This had a softness to it. Pity, if he was being honest with himself, but he wasn’t interested in being that at the moment.
“I won’t be blueprinted or maneuvered. I’ve got enough of that. And if you haven’t noticed, I don’t handle it well.”
“I’ve noticed, baby.”
“Lay off the ‘baby’ or you’re going to get a boot to the ass, which, let me tell you, is not going to be like your fantasy of my hands on your ass.”
“I haven’t even begun to tell you about my fantasies.”
“Go home, Jacob. Enjoy Christmas with your family. All this...other stuff we’ll figure out some other time.”
“My stuff is at your place. Your parents think I live with you.”
“Right. Well, I’ll tell them you always spend Christmas Eve and Christmas night at your parents’. I’m sure your parents have an extra toothbrush for you. You have clothes upstairs. Problem solved.”
“Afraid to share a bed with me?”
She blew out a breath. “I’m afraid of a lot of things.”
And that little admission, so unexpected from Leah, had him stepping back. Nodding. Okay, he’d give her her space because he didn’t want to make her...that. “All right. I’ll...see you Tuesday, then, I guess.”
She nodded, a little too emphatically. “Yup. Later.” She disappeared inside, and though he was freezing, he gave her a few minutes. Gave himself a few minutes.
He needed a plan. That would solve everything.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LEAH DROVE HER family back to her house in silence. She didn’t know what to say. Not about anything. So, what option was there but silence?
She pulled into the driveway, trying to muster...something. Christmas cheer or family togetherness or...anything but the sort of numb feeling she had going on at present. A mix of Jacob and Mom and...the state of both her lives right now.
She was supposed to be repairing the old one, not in the hopes it’d mesh with the current one, but more in the hopes they could exist side by side.
But the present one was being knocked all topsy-turvy thanks to Jacob and his kissing and his words and his touching and his...everything.
“I want you boys to go to the store,” Mom said, turning in her seat to look meaningfully at Dad and Marc in the back.
“Well, I can get whatever you need, Mom. You guys hop out. It’s Christmas Eve, so only a few places will be—”
“I want the boys to go to the store.”
Translation: confrontation ahead. Well, good, maybe Leah could work out some way to feel or deal or...whatever. Get past the numb. Get past those feelings that had caused her to run away in the first place.
Dread pooled in her stomach, but this talk was probably necessary, so she gave Marc directions to the grocery store she thought might be open and Mom told Dad two unnecessary things to buy.
* * *
“LET’S FIX SOME DINNER,” Mom said brightly, marching into the house with a singular kind of purpose that made Leah almost wonder if there wasn’t going to be a confrontation.
Mom gestured to one of her kitchen table seats. “The roast is already started but you can peel the potatoes for me. Then we’ll do the cannoli.”
It was strange to do all this stuff in her little house. The routine came back to her easily as Mom set a bag of potatoes, a peeler and a bowl in front of her. Helping Mom in the kitchen with the least labor-intensive tasks. Always sitting.
But it was her kitchen now, not the brightly colored one in Minnesota. And she was an adult, still eaten up by the same old issues.
Well, at least she wouldn’t sn
eak out tonight to find a party to make bad decisions at. Which oddly make her think of Jacob. Afraid to share a bed with me?
Yup, 100 percent shaking in her boots because after those two lady-bits-scorching kisses, she didn’t trust herself to keep her hands, mouth or those lady bits 100 percent to herself.
Leah looked at the potatoes and sighed. It was really hard to remember that kissing Jacob was her adult version of the drinking and the smoking and the partying she’d indulged in as a teenager. He just...said all the right things, did all the right things. How was she supposed to remember it was all such a very bad idea? Something she’d been remembering for five years?
“Did you and Jacob have a fight?”
“No. I told you, Christmas with his family is very important to him.” And I cannot be in the same room with him without getting lusty thoughts, apparently. Leah grabbed a potato and started peeling.
“But he didn’t come back in with you.”
“His sister came and... Look, Mom, things with Jacob are fine. Really.”
“And things with us?” Mom asked without looking at her, instead fiddling with her pot roast.
Leah took a deep breath. “We’re good. Really. I just... I don’t like the marriage-talk stuff. I’m almost thirty. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this, and I know what I want. It would... I would feel so much better if you could respect what I want.” There. She’d said it. All adultlike and without crying or throwing herself at Jacob.
Although that simply might be the case of not having an opportunity to do so right this very second.
Mom slid into the chair next to her and pushed the potatoes gently out of the way before covering Leah’s hands with hers. “I can’t stand the thought of you alone and helpless.”
“And I can’t stand that you think so little of me.” It was the first time in ten years she’d spoken so honestly with her mother, and Leah couldn’t make herself look up. She stared at their hands and held her breath.