Melt With You (Fire and Icing)

by Evans, Jessie

  They were some of his best memories, he realized, and some of the most wonderful moments in his life. For the first time in years, it felt okay to admit that and—when he reached the top of the ladder, meeting Naomi’s gaze across the refuge from the world they had made when they were kids—he knew she felt the same way.

  Years had passed, and they had both suffered and celebrated and changed from the people they’d once been, but in each other’s arms they would always be home.

  They crossed the room and came together without a word, mouths meeting with enough heat to melt something inside of Jake. As their tongues danced and Naomi’s hands gripped his shoulders as he eased her to the leaf-strewn floorboards, Jake felt all his good intentions fading away.

  It might be smarter to wait to be with Naomi, but right now he didn’t care about smart, he only cared that the woman he was falling in love with all over again was in his arms, hooking her leg around his waist as he fisted her skirt in his hand, slowly drawing the silky fabric up to bare her even softer thigh.

  Chapter Ten

  This is right. So right. Naomi sighed at the thought and pulled Jake closer.

  This was right—Jake’s mouth devouring hers, Jake’s heat surrounding her, Jake’s hands pulling up her dress to hook his fingers around the top of her white cotton panties.

  This man was the reason she’d come home. He was the answer to every question, the balm to every hurt, and being with Jake, by his side, in his life, able to share every innocent and not-so-innocent pleasure with him, to love him every moment of every day was all she wanted. It was all that mattered—the rest was just background noise.

  As Jake stripped her panties down her legs and tossed them onto the tree house floor before settling on top of her, his mouth finding hers and his hand cupping her breast through the thin fabric of her dress, Naomi felt the certainty settle inside of her like an oak tree putting down roots.

  This new love growing between her and Jake—building on all the sweet, shared moments of their past, and reaching into their future—was all that mattered. It was something to be treasured and protected, not poked and prodded until it was full of holes.

  Telling Jake about what had happened between her and Jamison fifteen years ago might ease her guilty feelings, but it would serve no purpose other than to hurt him and put their budding relationship in jeopardy. It was eons in the past. It had been a dumb mistake made by two dumb, confused kids, and it would never ever happen again. When Naomi looked at Jamison, she felt nothing but anxiety and the urge to mend an old friendship gone awry, and she sensed Jamison felt the same way. It was best to let the past stay in the past, and embrace the future with all her heart.

  And so she did, threading her fingers through Jake’s hair, cradling his head in her hands as he pulled the top of her dress down, baring her breasts to the warm air. A moment later his mouth closed around her nipple, pulling her inside his mouth to tease her pebbled flesh against the roof of his mouth and Naomi let go of every thought, every worry. There was nothing but Jake’s mouth, Jake’s hands, Jake’s arousal hard against her thigh.

  “Your turn,” she said, her breath coming faster as she fisted the bottom of his shirt in her hand. “I want you naked.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, voice husky as he pulled away to strip off his white undershirt, revealing the magnificence of his chest.

  Naomi’s breath caught in appreciation. Jake was even sexier up close than he had been at the auction—all muscle and golden skin and a dusting of light brown hair that led her gaze from his gently rounded pecs and down his flat stomach before disappearing into his jeans.

  His jeans, which needed to join his shirt on the floor. Right. Now.

  Taking matters into her own hands, Naomi sat up, reaching for the button on his jeans, pulling it open before drawing his zipper down. His erection pressed through the opening she’d made, straining the fabric of his black boxer briefs, obviously as ready to be free as Naomi was to free it.

  “Off. All off,” she said, curling her fingers around the top of Jake’s jeans and boxers and tugging them down over his hips, freeing the long, lovely length of him.

  “I love the way you talk like a cavewoman when you want me,” Jake said.

  “Less talk. More naked,” Naomi said, making Jake laugh even as he shifted, pulling his jeans and boxers down his legs and adding them to the pile of clothing on the tree house floor.

  As he stripped down, Naomi let herself stare, drinking in the sight of him. His cock was still the loveliest one she’d ever seen—long and thick, with an even thicker base like the root of the manliest tree ever grown, and a plump tip as round and flushed and delicious-looking as exotic fruit. If the forbidden fruit had looked like Jake’s cock, Naomi would have fallen even faster than Eve. She couldn’t resist the urge to bring her mouth to the tip of him, and run her tongue around that burning hot, velvet-soft skin.

  Jake groaned her name as Naomi let her tongue swirl and taste and tease, her head spinning from the earthy Jake smell of him, the perfect Jake taste of him. A drop of fluid appeared at his tip and she licked it away, moaning as she closed her lips around his shaft and suckled him inside her mouth.

  As a rule, Naomi didn’t enjoy giving blowjobs, but it had always been different with Jake. When she was between his legs with her mouth on him, she had always felt adored. She knew that he appreciated everything she did for him, and that it wouldn’t be long before he returned the favor…

  This time, he barely let her set a rhythm before he was pulling her mouth gently away and easing her back onto the boards.

  “I didn’t finish,” she protested, wanting more time to smell the intimate smell of him, to feel his hands shaking as he pushed her hair from her face so he could watch.

  “I can’t wait,” Jake said, urging her thighs apart as he lowered himself between them. “I have to taste you.”

  Naomi shivered, the need in Jake’s voice sending a current of desire pulsing through her body even before his palms spread her legs wide and his mouth found what he was looking for. Her head fell back with a ragged cry as Jake’s tongue swirled around the top of her, teasing with a perfect, light, torturous pressure before he dipped lower, driving his tongue inside where she ached.

  “You taste even better than you used to,” Jake murmured against her thigh, interspersing the words with kisses. “God, Naomi, I’ve missed you so much.”

  “I’ve missed you, too,” she said, her words ending in a gasp as Jake returned to the task at hand.

  Within moments, she was near the edge of release, her body trembling all over as Jake’s tongue teased and stroked her swollen flesh, building the tension inside her to the breaking point. But instead of letting herself cross over, Naomi held back, fighting the orgasm building within her.

  “Please,” she begged, tugging at Jake’s arm. “Inside me. Please.”

  Without a word, Jake surged up over her, claiming her mouth, giving Naomi a taste of her own salty heat as he positioned himself and drove inside where she needed him so desperately.

  Naomi cried out, fingers digging into Jake’s bare shoulders as her body stretched to accommodate his thickness. It had been months since she’d made love to anyone, and years since she’d made love to Jake, but it was as if the memory of how to adjust to this man was programmed into her DNA. She shifted her hips and lifted her knees and instantly there was no discomfort, only pleasure, blinding pleasure that swelled inside of her, taking her higher, higher, until there was no air to breathe and no more ground to hold onto and she had no choice but to fall.

  She cried his name as she came, her body locking down around his as fierce, stinging waves of bliss scalded through her. She clung to him as his rhythm grew faster and then erratic, and he finally stilled with a groan, jerking within her. Naomi road the waves of pleasure, echoes of Jake’s orgasm drifting through her, making her relish his release every bit as much as her own.

  When he relaxed on top of her, Naomi sighed wi
th contentment so profound she couldn’t hold a thought in her head. She could only smile and let her fingers play up and down Jake’s bare back as her body hummed with satisfaction.

  Moments later, when he tried to pull away, she wrapped her arms around his thick chest and held him tight. “Here. Stay,” she said, pressing a kiss to his neck.

  Jake propped himself up on his forearms and smiled down at her. “You still don’t have your words back. I must have done a good job.”

  “Best job.” Naomi returned his smile, so happy she was sure she couldn’t get any happier until Jake said in a soft, heart-melting voice—

  “I still love you, Naomi.”

  —and proved her wrong.

  “I still love you, too,” she said, eyes stinging with a sudden surge of emotion. “I never stopped loving you. Even when I was in love with someone else.”

  Jake nodded in understanding. “I felt the same way, even when I was over you and starting a new life, I never stopped caring about you. I guess some things you can’t stop doing, even when you want to.”

  “I could never stop loving you, no matter how hard I tried,” Naomi said. “You’re a part of me.”

  “And you’re a part of me,” Jake said, sending the tears filling Naomi’s eyes spilling over the edge. “So don’t cry because it makes me sad.”

  “It’s a happy cry,” she said with a laugh followed closely by a sniff.

  Jake smoothed her hair from her face before wiping her tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. “I never understood the happy cry.”

  “That’s because you’re a guy,” Naomi said, still smiling and sniffling.

  Jake grunted. “I am a guy. I also have no self-control where you’re concerned. I hope you’ll forgive me for not waiting those two weeks we agreed on.”

  Naomi lifted a wry brow. “I think I can find it in my heart.”

  Jake grinned. “That’s awful nice of you.”

  “I’m a nice girl,” Naomi said even as she hooked her ankles behind Jake’s back and rolled her hips in a slow, wicked circle, accentuating every place where they were still joined together.

  Jake’s breath caught, and Naomi felt his cock twitch inside her.

  “You are a nice girl,” Jake said. “But your body makes me want to do bad things.”

  “Oh, yeah? Like what?” Naomi asked, blood already pumping faster from just hearing the words “bad things” escape from Jake’s kiss-swollen lips.

  “Like forget everything I have to do, and stay here the rest of the afternoon making love to you,” he said, moving to kiss her throat, sending a thrill shooting through Naomi all the way to her fingertips. “And then take you home and make you dinner,” he added, kissing her lips with the words. “And then make love to you some more, until we’re both so sore we can’t move and you’ve come so many times you’re too weak to go home and have no choice but to spend the night.”

  Naomi captured his face in her hands, urging his mouth away from hers, back far enough that she could look him in the eye when she said, “That sounds like every naughty dream I’ve had about you come true.”

  Jake’s eyes darkened. “You’ve been dreaming about me?”

  “All the time,” Naomi said, nipples tightening as she felt Jake’s length beginning to swell inside of her. “I dream about you and me in my bed, your bed, in this tree house, on the picnic table outside the firehouse, inside my dad’s old camper. I even had a dream that we were cooking in the new kitchen at Icing and you came up behind me and lifted up my skirt while I was making fondant and—”

  Jake cut her off with a kiss. Naomi’s words became a moan and then a sigh and, before too long, Jake had rolled over and she was taking her turn on top, riding him as he teased her breasts and squeezed her hips and expertly took her over the edge a second time. After, they took a break for Naomi to text Maddie and tell her to forge her signature on whatever checks she needed to write, and then they were falling back together.

  They spent the rest of the afternoon getting reacquainted, making love and swaying back and forth in the hammock—which they’d found and hung in its old spot—catching up on the events of the fifteen years they’d missed. They lingered until the sun dipped below the horizon and the air in the tree house turned cool and their growling stomachs left them no choice but to abandon their lair.

  As they descended the tree house ladder, surrounded by rosy sunset light and the rosier glow from their time together, Naomi’s past indiscretion was so far from her mind that even when Jamison called to ask Jake about booking a roofer to patch a new hole in the firehouse roof, it didn’t enter her thoughts.

  She was through wasting energy with guilt or regret. From now on she was going to focus on rebuilding her relationship with the man she loved, the man she was determined not to lose a second time. No matter what.

  Chapter Eleven

  Naomi and Jake’s third Friday together began very differently than their first.

  Jake woke up that morning with Naomi curled beside him in bed, ate breakfast with her in a patch of sunshine on his back porch—making the most of the unusually warm weather before the winter storm predicted to sweep in the next day—and shared a ride with her to work. They kissed good-bye in the parking lot behind Icing, and parted with smiles and promises to meet up for lunch.

  Jake walked across the street to the firehouse with a spring in his step and an upbeat attitude not even a clogged toilet in the last stall or his brother’s scowling face could dampen.

  “Smile, Jamison,” Jake said as he fished his phone from his pocket and started scrolling, searching for the number of the plumber who didn’t charge a gazillion dollars. “It’s Friday, and tonight you have a date with a beautiful woman.”

  Jamison grunted, his scowl deepening as he emptied three packets of sugar into his coffee and slumped lower in the booth by the coffee station. “There’s nothing going on with me and Brooke. She’s not my type.”

  “She’s a gorgeous blonde,” Jake said. “What about that isn’t your type?”

  “She’s using me to make her ex-boyfriend jealous,” Jamison said. “I’m not a fan of being used.”

  Jake glanced up, his thumb hovering over the plumber’s number. “You okay?”

  Jamison dropped his eyes to his coffee. “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t sound fine.”

  Jamison let out a long-suffering sigh that wasn’t like him. At all. Jamison didn’t suffer or dwell or stress. Jake’s little brother was probably one of the least angst-ridden people he knew.

  “Seriously,” Jake said, letting his phone drift down to his side, deciding the call to the plumber could wait. “There’s no one here. Tell me what’s on your mind.”

  “I just…” Jamison bit his lip before he continued with obvious reluctance, “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “About what?”

  “With Naomi,” Jamison said, eyes still glued to his coffee, as if at any moment he expected the creamy liquid to reveal the secrets of the universe. “I’ve seen her car parked at your place a lot this week.”

  Jake frowned. “Have you been spying on me?”

  “I’ve been checking up on you,” Jamison said. “You and Naomi ended pretty badly the last time. Are you sure you’re up for more of the same?”

  “Naomi isn’t eighteen anymore, and neither am I,” Jake said, trying not to let Jamison’s question make him angry.

  Jamison was only looking out for him, and his brother hadn’t spent enough time with Naomi to know that her flighty streak had gone the way of grunge and flannel shirts and other things that had been big when they were teens.

  “Naomi and I are on the same page,” Jake continued, “and I don’t expect that to change anytime soon. You don’t have to worry about me. I’m good. Better than good.”

  Jamison finally looked up from his coffee. “Even if she isn’t being honest with you?”

  Jake sighed, regretting that he’d ever mentioned to Jamison that Naomi h
adn’t told him about the baby she’d lost. Jake had been trying to make sure Jamison didn’t put his foot in his mouth by offering condolences for something they weren’t supposed to know about, but now he could see all he’d done was make his brother worry unnecessarily.

  He was about to tell Jamison that Naomi had the right to keep some things to herself—she would tell him about her loss when she was ready, and it wasn’t either of their jobs to judge her for keeping her grief private—when Faith and Ben burst in the door, in the middle of an argument.

  “That’s bullshit,” Faith said, hanging her jacket up with more force than necessary. “I can’t believe he said that!”

  Ben held up his hands in surrender. “Don’t get mad at me. I’m just the messenger. And maybe I misheard him. I don’t know.”

  Faith snorted. “I doubt it. Neil Simpson has the depth of a birdbath. A shallow birdbath. I’m sure you heard him just fine,” she said, stomping across the room to the coffee pot. “And I’m sure that I’m not going to be wearing makeup to the hayride tonight. Hell, I might not even brush my hair. And I’ll definitely wear my shit-kicker boots, in case I need to kick his ass.”

  “Why are you kicking your date’s ass?” Jamison asked with an easy laugh, his worries about Jake and Naomi apparently dissipating now that there were other people in the room.

  “I had to leave the dinner early last Friday to go check on my mom,” Faith said, splashing coffee into her cup. “After I left, Neil Simpson found it necessary to tell our entire table how much better I looked with makeup on, and how he wouldn’t have looked twice at a ‘big girl’ like me if his mom hadn’t bought me at the auction. Oh, but now he was so glad that he’d had the chance to see me in a different light.”

  “What?” Jamison’s scowl reappeared. “Where does he get off?”

  “You’re beautiful, with makeup or without it,” Jake added, ready to rough up Neil on Faith’s behalf. “And what right does Neil Simpson have to critique your body in front of your friends, or anywhere else for that matter? You’re more than your body; you’re a person, a damned good person who deserves a man who will see that without needing to have his face rearranged.”