by Kadie Scott
He wanted to shake her.
Under the cover of wedding talk between Taylor and Linda, he pressed the matter. “What would you do if I said I meant it?” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “What if I told you I haven’t been able to stop thinking about last night?”
Now an odd emotion flashed through her eyes, one he couldn’t quite identify before she turned her face away from him, then sat forward to push her food around on her plate.
“Don’t tease,” she mumbled out of the side of her mouth. “It’s not funny.”
Was this about her trust in him? Or herself? Or them? “I’m serious as a parson in church.”
She glanced his way without turning her head. “You would use a saying about church to convince me you’re serious about sex.”
Even if he wanted to correct her impression that he’d only been talking about sex, Jennings grinned. Before he could say anything, Eric caught his eye. “What are you up to tomorrow, Jennings?”
He shrugged and held onto his irritation with effort. “Same as you. Fence mending.”
Eric was good at getting between him and Ashley. And Jennings would know, because the guy had been blocking his moves for years.
*
Ashley snuck a glance at Jennings as he fed the horse in the next stall. Had he meant it? Because she’d thought of little else.
So hard to tell with him, because Jennings could do the joking, not serious thing so well, keeping a safe, invisible buffer of casualness between them. Before their falling out, she’d been able to tell when he really meant something he was saying, but not since. Not now, that was for sure.
The rest of breakfast had settled down, talk meandering through work, the wedding, and questions about Jennings’s family. He had managed to keep his hands to himself and, contrarily, she’d found that fact frustrating. Her body had not settled down one iota, being in a constant state of DEFCON One since he’d shown up at the house.
That little game of massaging her neck had been a form of torture because her body had lit with the same fire he’d stoked inside her with every kiss, while her brain had questioned everything—her, him, them. Mostly herself. He’s said no more games, but…
Ashley bit her lip and concentrated on filling Snowman’s bucket with oats and adding fresh hay and water.
“I can hear you thinking from way over there.” Jennings’s low voice teased her ear, and she jumped as she suddenly found herself surrounded by his heat.
“You must be hearing things,” she murmured, finishing up her chore without turning around. No way was she admitting to fantasizing about dragging him into a vacant stall and having her wicked way with his body. She did not turn around, keeping her back to him. “That’s a bad sign, from what I understand.”
Jennings reached around her and turned off the water. “The bucket is full, I think.”
Ashley glared at the bucket, which was on the verge of overflowing. “Yup.”
“Ash—”
“We shouldn’t complicate this.” She grimaced at the rushed speech, but she wasn’t wrong. Late, yes. Wrong, no.
“It’s already complicated.” His breath feathered over her neck, and a shiver shimmied over her skin.
True. They’d passed complicated a long time ago.
With gentle hands on her shoulders, he turned her around. Why’d he have to be so damn flagrantly male with his broad shoulders, the hard dimpled jaw, and the laughter in those blue, blue eyes that drew her in, made her want to share in the fun?
“Tell me you didn’t enjoy what happened between us last night, Hughes, and I’ll back off.”
She swallowed around a throat suddenly parched. Ashley opened her mouth to tell him last night was an aberration. But the lie just wouldn’t come out, so she closed her mouth.
Jennings’s lips tipped up with wicked intent as he lowered his head. He moved so slowly, she had plenty of time to pull away, push him away, walk away. Just like earlier in her room.
She couldn’t.
Bone-deep need surged through her as he claimed her lips in the sweetest kiss. She sighed as she melted into him and couldn’t help but open to him, her body overruling her mind. He kissed her with long, slow slides of their tongues, that had her picturing them tangled in sheets as he slid in and out of her body the same erotically controlled way. He paused to suck her bottom lip into his mouth, pulling a low, needy cry from her.
With a deeply rumbling groan in answer, Jennings spun them and pinned her body against the rough wood of the stall door, taking the kiss from slow and steamy to explosive, that devastating mouth doing things to her no other man had managed. The evidence of his arousal pressed against her stomach, and darned if that didn’t up her own yearning.
Pulling back with a devilish smile dancing over his features, Jennings groaned. “Don’t say no, Hughes.”
No? How could she say no when he made her shiver with delicious need? When everything inside her screamed yes after only a handful of kisses.
“Ashley? You in here?”
Both of them jolted at the sound of Eric’s voice from the other end of the barn, his presence better than a bucket of ice water in a snowstorm in terms of cooling them off in a hurry.
Jennings swore, the low word muttered into her neck as he buried his face there, his breath puffing against her skin as he struggled for control. Ashley was too busy fighting her own demons.
“Blocked again,” he muttered.
“What?” Ashley asked for clarification.
“Nothing.” Jennings lifted his head and ran an agitated hand through his hair, leaving it standing in dark spikes, before he levered off her. “We’ll be right there, Eric,” he called. “Just wrapping things up with the horses.”
How could he be so calm? Ashley still wasn’t thinking straight and probably couldn’t pass a sobriety test if asked to walk in a straight line. Heat still seared her blood, which pounded in her ears, and in every erogenous zone, making her twitchy. Meanwhile, other than the sexily mussed hair, Jennings looked as though nothing had happened.
“Okay,” Eric called back.
Jennings let out a long breath. “He’s gone.” He turned to face her and frowned as he caught her expression. “Don’t—”
She held up a hand, stalling whatever he’d been about to say. “I can’t start something with you, Jennings. Our history aside, I’m leaving for Dallas after the holiday.” Plus, she didn’t want to risk hurting him. What if she was just jumping from one obsessive relationship to another?
So…she was being logical and responsible. Or trying to when he wasn’t touching her. Except, why did her stomach hollow out leaving a gaping hole she was starting to worry only one man might fill?
Something flashed in his gaze she couldn’t quite identify. Irritation? Hurt? See. She was right to be putting the brakes on. She was already hurting him. She shifted under his gaze as he considered her for a handful of heartbeats.
“You don’t want to get too serious is what you’re telling me?”
No. Yes. God, she was a mental hot mess. Instead of answering, she shrugged. “It’s probably best if we keep all this”—she waved a hand between them—“for the show we’re putting on.”
Instead of whatever possible reaction she would’ve guessed at, Jennings suddenly leaned closer, one hand up on the stall behind her head. “I don’t want to kiss you only for an audience, Hughes. I want to kiss you all the time. Tell me you don’t want the same.”
Ashley’s heart was doing its best to break out of her chest. “It’s a bad idea,” she managed to get out.
His lips hitched. “Who says?”
“You.”
Jennings stiffened and frowned, cocking his head. “I definitely would not have said something like that.”
She swallowed. “What if you’re my next Eric?” There. Now he knew why he should keep away from her.
The smile faded from his lips, but, if anything, those amazing blue eyes turned darker. He trailed a finger down her
cheek. “You’re telling me you’re scared to try to start something?”
Terrified. She didn’t say it though. “I’m saying let’s keep this at just friends.”
He considered her thoughtfully, then that devilish smile returned. “And I’m saying that’s just not good enough.”
Ashley opened her mouth only to be silenced by a quick kiss.
“I can see that you’re on the verge of freaking out, so I won’t push it,” he said quietly. “But I want you too much to do friends. I need you to know that.”
A trembling started deep inside her—terror that she was going to lose herself again, or get this all wrong, or really hurt him, combined with a longing that whispered how she should throw caution out the window and jump into this thing with him.
When she didn’t answer, he kissed her again. “I have to get home. Will and Autry will be wondering where I am.”
“Okay.” She was proud that one word came out mostly normal.
One more swift kiss and he gave her a cocky grin. “Bye, honey.”
Without giving her a chance to respond, he strode out of the barn. Ashley wilted against the stall door and didn’t follow, needing a moment to collect her chaotic thoughts before facing her family.
What just happened?
Chapter Twelve
Jennings sat at his parents’ kitchen table staring at a sandwich of cold cuts as he tried to get back into the routine of his day, only his mind was on the grey-eyed brunette who’d hijacked his Christmas holiday.
His assault on Ashley’s heart was… He honestly had no idea how it was going. Except he was pretty damn sure he’d succeeded in scaring the hell out of her in the barn, coming on all “friends isn’t good enough”. What happened to slowly easing her into how good it could be? If she hadn’t run back to Dallas already, he’d be shocked.
Jennings shoved a hand through his hair. Holy hell, that kiss in the barn.
Not even the morning mending fences with Autry, the combination of cold, brisk winds, and humidity seeping into his bones, helped to relieve an ache that went deeper than pure physical need.
She didn’t trust him, and that was on him.
“Something on your mind, hon?” His mother’s sweet voice managed to penetrate the wall of Ashley-focused concentration going on.
Jennings glanced over to find her watching him over her own lunch, hazel eyes vaguely concerned, and gave his head a shake.
She tipped her chin at his barely touched sandwich. “You sure?”
Trust his mom to notice his usually healthy appetite was not functioning today.
Autry grinned at him across the table. “Just good, old-fashioned woman trouble, Mom.” He waggled his eyebrows.
To give Evelyn Hill credit, she managed to contain herself to a small satisfied smile. No doubt she’d already heard the rumors about him and Ashley. If child betrothals had been a thing, there was no doubt in Jennings’s mind she would’ve had him and Ashley hitched at the age of five.
His father, on the other hand, speared him with a direct look. “Ashley Hughes, I hear.”
Jennings sighed. No getting around it now. “Yes, sir.”
“You know what you’re doing?” John Hill didn’t have to say more than that.
In those few words, Jennings understood that his father had guessed what Will had too: that Jennings had had a thing for Ashley for a long time.
“I’ll figure it out,” he said.
His dad gave a sharp nod. End of the conversation as far as he was concerned. If his son said he’d handle it, he’d handle it.
But now his mother’s greying brows were pulled down in a small, concerned frown. “Is there a problem?”
“Nope.” Jennings took a huge honking bite of sandwich to stave off the need for more response than that, a bite that proceeded to lodge in his mouth.
Autry’s eyebrows winged up and Jennings shot him what he hoped was a covert glare across the cold cuts. A grin and a shrug was his answer, but at least Autry kept his mouth shut.
“You deserve a woman who loves you, honey.” His mother leaned over to pat his hand. “Don’t you accept any less.”
He didn’t mean to, but wooing Ashley was like trying to lasso a big mouth bass with dental floss. What they needed was an honest-to-God date, some time spent together. Tonight. Hadn’t her mom mentioned Ashley didn’t have plans tonight?
Jennings figured he’d take her on a date, using their faux relationship as an excuse. That would give him a chance to show her the romantic side of things—the auction date didn’t count, since he didn’t plan that—get her laughing like he used to be able to do, touching her more. Hopefully a lot more.
Impatience had the day looming long ahead of him.
Why wait?
Finally swallowing, and appetite returning along with purpose, he bit off another hunk of sandwich, then whipped out his cell phone while he chewed and rattled off a quick text.
“Hey there, gorgeous. I’ve been thinking about you all day.”
Completely true. He chuckled as he imagined Ashley’s face when she read that one.
A short pause preceded her answer. “This is Ashley, you doofus. And you only left a few hours ago.”
Jennings snorted out his coffee as he read her reply.
“Jennings Hill, what on earth?” his mother demanded.
“Sorry,” he muttered, fingers flying over the phone screen.
“I know who I texted, angel. What if your sister reads your texts? Shouldn’t we have some?”
He grabbed a napkin to mop up the coffee, which his mother had already mostly taken care of, while he waited for her reply.
“So, you’re going to send me fake texts on the off-chance Taylor checks my phone?”
“Or reads over your shoulder. Just go along. All about the details.”
“I should’ve known you’d be a practiced liar.”
He sure hoped the winky emoji meant she was joking. Besides, Jennings was in too good a mood just talking to her to let that bother him. “I won’t ever lie to you, baby.”
Another long pause. “Okay. But no calling me things like baby, or angel, or gorgeous.”
“I’m a romantic guy. I’d call my girl a special name. Just trying some on for size.”
Was she rolling her eyes or grinding her teeth now? Probably both. He chuckled to himself.
“Fine. You get one term of endearment. Only one. Nothing that’ll make me gag, please.”
He already knew what to pick. He’d been calling her by one name for years. “Hughes it is.”
“I should’ve guessed. Yeah. A real romantic, Hill.”
Jennings grinned as he put down the phone and cleared his lunch things. Would Ashley ever figure out that when he called her Hughes, he actually meant every possible endearment? He’d started the little game when she first started dating Eric. At the time, he’d assumed she and Eric wouldn’t last that long.
Wrong.
But the time had come to forget their past. The future was a helluva lot more interesting. He’d get his work done, and in the meantime, he’d look forward to their date. He’d spring that on her later, so she wouldn’t have the entire day to think up an excuse not to go.
Just in case, he texted another number. He wasn’t above wrangling Taylor’s help with keeping Ashley’s schedule clear.
*
“Why does he call you Hughes?” Lacy asked as she inspected her figure in the dress shop mirror, smoothing down the material of her bridesmaid’s dress.
Because it drives me nuts, and he knows it.
“It started as an annoying habit in high school.” About the time she started dating Eric, actually, now that she thought about it. “Now he insists it’s his special name for me.”
“Awwwwww.”
Ashley hid her cringe at the outpouring of over-sugared sweetness going on from all the ladies in this room. God, this felt so wrong and so right and so…
“Does he call you that when you make love?” La
cy pressed. Taylor’s college roommate, an adorable blonde with the cutest dimples, had zero filters, but in an innocent, curiosity-filled way that Ashley just couldn’t get irritated about. Although she was getting nervous with all the Jennings questions. From everyone. Didn’t they have a wedding to focus on?
“No,” she answered Lacy’s question. A sudden memory of that night with Jennings struck her, and heat climbed up her neck into her cheeks. “He calls me Ashley then. Or honey.”
“Mmmmm.” Sarah, another bridesmaid, rolled her eyes suggestively. “I bet he’s good in bed. He looks like he’d know all the right buttons to press.”
Why did that comment have a kick of something not nice sliding through her? Maybe because Jennings has a partner in bed. Me.
Shoot. She was becoming proprietorial now. The chemistry that was complicating the bejeezus out of their lives was real enough. No way could she deny that. These feelings were too sharp, too raw, combined with the strangest sensation of coming home, to be able to ignore them, or sweep them aside.
Just like when she’d first started dating Eric.
Ashley swallowed down the pit that formed at that thought. Maybe she should get F-O-O-L tattooed on her forehead.
“Those eyes,” Sarah murmured with an eye roll for effect.
“All the Hills have those eyes. Except Autry,” Ashley murmured, only half paying attention.
Sarah, unaware of Ashley’s crazy mental gymnastics, kept lauding Jennings. “Plus, all those muscles for you to dig your nails into. I bet he’s strong.”
Ashley cocked her head. “What does strong have to do with it?”
Sarah and Lacy exchanged knowing glances. “Lots of positions require some good, old-fashioned muscle.”
Oh.
Oh, my. Now she was picturing Jennings doing all sorts of things to her body, using those muscles of his to make it work. Not hard since she already had experience to back up the fantasy. Was her face as red as Santa’s suit? The heat crawling up her neck into her cheeks certainly felt blazing hot. She could melt the North Pole just from her blush at this rate.
Taylor grinned at Ashley from her reflection in the mirror. “Ashley doesn’t kiss and tell.”