by Sarah Morgan
Failing that, he had to get himself out of his apartment.
Being in the same space wasn’t a good thing.
Especially when she was all fired up and hot. And one glance at the tilt of her chin and the stormy blue eyes told him she was steaming mad.
In this mood, she was dangerous and quite capable of doing things she’d regret later.
She was still wearing heels and the Urban Genie shirt, which told him she’d come straight from the venue.
He should have triple-bolted the door and set a thousand alarms. “How did you get past the doorman?”
“I smiled at him.”
He could have fired the guy, except that he had some appreciation of the power of Paige’s smile.
He noticed she wasn’t smiling now.
“It’s a filthy night. You should be at home.”
“There are things I need to say.”
He was pretty sure it was going to be nothing he wanted to hear. “Paige, it’s late and—”
“Since when did that bother you? You’re not a sleeper. Neither am I.”
Right now he was willing to be anything to get her out of his apartment. “You’re wet.”
“Then I’m better off in your apartment out of the rain.” She flung her handbag down on the nearest chair and slid off her heels. “Do you know what drives me crazy?”
He opened his mouth to answer, and then realized she wasn’t expecting a response.
This was a monologue and he was expected to listen so he closed his mouth and decided to wait out the storm. The one inside his apartment, not outside. He watched warily as she paced over to the wall of glass that gave him a view over Downtown Manhattan.
“Being protected.” She turned. “Being protected drives me crazy. I thought you knew that.”
Her wet clothes clung to every taut line of her body and he wondered how her bare feet could be so much sexier than those thin spiky heels.
Behind her, through the glass, he could see lightning shoot across the sky, bathing the city in a strange luminous glow.
It mirrored Paige’s temper and the electric atmosphere in the apartment.
“I’ve spent my whole life being protected. At school during sports the teachers were always asking me how I was feeling, if I was breathless, if I was doing okay—” She paced again, her feet soundless on his wooden floor. “They had meetings about me, and if there was a new teacher, they were briefed. This is Paige—she has a heart condition. You have to watch her. Be careful. Don’t let her overdo it. If there’s a problem, call this number. It was all rules and protocols and watching, always watching, when all I wanted was to be normal. I wanted to do all the things the other kids did. I wanted to get into trouble and mess up, but I couldn’t. My parents were worried about me all the time, and I spent so much time protecting them, pretending I was fine. And then there were the weeks in hospital, when everyone else was getting a prom dress and I was getting a scar on my chest. I didn’t feel like a person. I was a medical condition. And the worst thing was having no control over any of it.”
Jake watched her in silence.
It twisted him up inside to think of her scared. He wanted to smother her in bubble wrap, as her family did.
“Now I’m an adult, and my parents still worry about me.” She eyed him. “I choose to protect them as much as I can because I know that no matter how old I am I’ll always be their little girl. I call and I tell them I’m fine. I hide things that would worry them because they’ve had enough worry for a lifetime and now they deserve to enjoy time together without me being the dampener on their happiness. I don’t need them to protect me. I want to live my life.” The way she was looking at him told him that last statement was aimed at him.
“Paige—”
“You were the one who told me to embrace risk. You don’t get to decide what risks I embrace, Jake. I do. I decide.”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“Why not? Because I might get hurt? Being hurt is part of being alive. It isn’t possible to live a full life and not be hurt at some point. You have to live bravely. You taught me that. It was that night you walked into my room pretending to be a doctor, carrying that gift for me. Or maybe you’ve forgotten.”
“I haven’t forgotten.” He hadn’t forgotten a single thing.
“You made me feel normal. You were the first person who didn’t treat me like I might break at any moment. You made me laugh. You made me feel good. You were all I could think about, which was a refreshing change after a lifetime of thinking only about hospitals, doctors and my stupid heart. You made me feel like a person again.” She made a sound between a laugh and a sob. “You made me see the importance of living life today, not keeping myself safe for tomorrow. I decided I didn’t want to protect myself like china that is brought out once a year on special occasions.”
Jake kept silent and watched while she paced and spilled it all out, her emotions flowing like floodwater.
“I decided right then to live life bravely. I knew I loved you, and I was sure you loved me, too. Why else would you have spent all that time in my hospital room talking, listening, bringing me gifts and making me laugh? After I was discharged I spent a few nights in Matt’s apartment because the hospital wanted me close for a while in case there were problems. You visited me there—do you remember?”
“Yes.” There were a thousand things he could have said, but that was the only word that came.
“My first act of courage, my first leap into my new life, was to tell you how I felt. I told you I loved you and I was so sure of myself I was naked when I did it. I offered myself and you rejected me—” Her voice cracked and he ran his hand over his forehead, torn between going to her and keeping his distance.
“Paige, please—”
“You weren’t cruel—you were kind, but somehow that made it a thousand times worse. If humiliation could kill, I would have died that day. I couldn’t believe I’d got it so wrong. I couldn’t believe I could have made such a mistake and embarrassed both of us. And after that our relationship changed, of course. We lost something. Something special. And I wished so many times that I hadn’t taken that risk because I lost more than my dignity and my dreams, I lost my friend.” Her gaze locked on his and the sheen in her eyes tortured him as much as her words.
“I didn’t—”
“We started arguing, something we’d never done. There were days when it seemed to me that you were trying to drive me crazy, and I didn’t understand it. Maybe it would have been easier if you hadn’t been my brother’s closest friend because then you would have been out of my life, but you were always there, a constant reminder of what happens when you take a risk in love and get it wrong. The only good thing was that at least you didn’t protect me. Or so I thought. You say I’m the bravest person you know, but then you insist on protecting me.” She paused, her breathing shallow. “I want to ask you a question, and I need you to be honest. Back then in the hospital when we spent night after night talking—you did feel something, didn’t you? I’ve spent years thinking it was my stupid teenage brain spinning things, but you did have feelings. I wasn’t wrong.”
“I don’t see the point of—”
“Tell me!”
He’d thought the evening couldn’t get worse but he was watching it get a whole lot worse.
“You should leave now, Paige. You shouldn’t be here. We shouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“I decide where I go and what I say, and we should have had this conversation a long time ago. We would have if you hadn’t been protecting me. Because that’s what you were doing, wasn’t it?”
“You were a teenager.”
“But I’m not a teenager now. We’ve wasted a lot of time, Jake.” She walked toward him, purpose in her eyes and her fingers on the buttons of her shirt.
Oh holy shit.
“So what is this? Fuck-a-friend day?” He was trying to shock her into backing off but she didn’t miss a stride.
“It’s not a good idea.”
“It’s a perfect idea. I stopped taking risks with my heart that day you rejected me, Jake. I didn’t even realize it until recently, but I’ve guarded myself ever since. I’ve had a few relationships, but I’ve never given my whole self. After what happened with you, I’ve protected myself.”
“That’s probably a good thing.” He licked his lips, unsettled by how badly he did not want to think of Paige with another man.
“It isn’t a good thing. I don’t want to get to the end of my life and say ‘at least I was careful.’ That’s not how I want to live. You were the one who taught me that.”
“Maybe you should stop listening to me.”
“I reached the same conclusion. Which is why I’m here now.”
“And now you’ve said what you came to say, you can leave.”
“Are you protecting me or yourself now?” She closed the distance between them. “I thought you were a risk taker?”
Not with her. Never with her.
He never made a move on a woman without assessing every single possible outcome. One former lover had observed snappily that he had the mentality of a bodyguard—he checked the exits before he went into the room. He was his own bodyguard. And all his instincts were screaming that this was a mistake.
“You don’t want this, Paige.”
“Don’t tell me what I want. I know what I want and I think I know what you want. The only question is whether you’re man enough to admit it.” She was standing close to him and she lifted her hand to his jaw, her fingers exploring. “Are you?”
“No. I’m not man enough.” He growled the words through a surge of lust. “I don’t want you.”
“No?” She smiled and covered him with the flat of her hand, slowly tracing the shape of his thickened, straining erection. “Are you sure?”
He couldn’t speak. He clenched his jaw tight as his senses and his body responded to the intimate touch of her hand.
She stood on tiptoe, her mouth a breath away from his. “You didn’t kiss me in the elevator to distract me. You kissed me because you couldn’t keep your hands off me. Because your control snapped. Finally.”
Pleasure shot through him in burning streaks of light. He was burning up with desire.
“Maybe I do want you.” The admission was dragged from somewhere deep inside him. “But I’m not doing anything about it, Paige.”
Her smile widened. “Then I’ll do it. Feel free to join in whenever you like.”
All he wanted to do was to keep her happy and safe, and he knew that if she tangled with him, that wasn’t going to happen.
He’d broken plenty of hearts in his time, but the one heart he’d never touched was hers.
A relationship with him, any sort of relationship, wasn’t compatible with a healthy lifestyle.
Falling into the sexy gleam of her eyes, he groped for reasons, excuses, anything that might make her think twice.
“Matt—”
“I love my brother, but who I have sex with is none of his business. It isn’t anyone’s business but mine. And maybe yours.” She slid her fingers between the buttons of his shirt and pulled him closer. Her lips nibbled at his, her breath warm and sweet as she teased his mouth with her tongue.
Still, he held it all back, hauled it inside, even though it strained every part of him to do so.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Maybe I’ll hurt you. But then again, there’s always the possibility that neither of us will get hurt. It’s just sex, Jake. One night. I can handle that if you can. Stop thinking.”
He felt her move closer, felt the curve of her breasts brush against his chest. “I can’t have sex with my best friend’s little sister.”
“How do you know if you’ve never tried?”
Once they crossed that line they could never go back.
He knew that whatever happened, nothing would be the same. There would be twists and turns and complications, and not just between the two of them. There was their wider friendship group to consider, but none of it seemed to matter anymore.
He could no longer remember why he was holding back.
Slowly, he lowered his head, his gaze locked on hers.
Time was suspended, the intense, fierce chemistry dancing around them like flames.
He was brutally aroused, so hard it was difficult to focus on anything.
“I don’t think I can wait around while you wrestle with your conscience.” She rose on her toes and kissed him. The touch of her mouth sent a shock wave of pleasure through him and exploded the final layers of his self-control. He pulled her in, his senses saturated by desire and raw lust. Her damp clothes clung to her body, molding to the dips and curves. He closed his hands over the adherent fabric of her skirt, easing it upward until it was high on her thighs, until damp fabric revealed damp skin, until he was so aroused that he was tempted to skip the part where he undressed her and take her right there against the nearest wall.
But this was Paige.
Paige.
She’d been off-limits for so long it was ingrained in him to be careful. His hands were anchored by the contradictions swirling in his head. He wanted to take her instantly, and he wanted to take his time. He wanted to feast, and he wanted to savor. To rip off her clothes, to unpeel them slowly. The only thing that was clear to him was that he wanted all of her. All of her.
He felt her hands on his shirt, dealing with each button with the same deft fluency as she stripped him to the waist. She pushed the shirt away from his shoulders and trailed her hands over his shoulder.
He closed his eyes, absorbing the brush of her hands over his skin.
“You’re strong.” She whispered the words, and he opened his mouth to contradict her because he knew that if he’d been strong he wouldn’t be doing this, but then her fingers moved lower and he caught his breath.
“Paige—”
“Unless you’re going to tell me you want me, don’t speak.”
He felt the soft, slow slide of her lips across his jaw and down his neck. She began a slow descent, each seductive brush of her lips sending lightning bolts of pleasure through his body. She was in no hurry, lingering and tasting before she moved lower. And lower.
He ached with need, so lost in the sensations she spun that it took him a moment to realize she’d opened his zipper.
He tried to speak, to tell her that she couldn’t do that, but she drew him into the delicious warmth of her mouth and the groan that emerged from his throat blocked the words. His ability to think left him next, his brain wiped by the lavish, clever strokes of her tongue. It was the most erotic, intimate experience of his life, and it was only when he realized he was so close it was all going to be over in moments that he finally managed to pull away.
He lifted Paige to her feet, taking back control in a single resolute move that made her gasp.
“You’re not going to change your mind, are you?”
“Does this feel as if I’m changing my mind?” He curved his arm around her and pulled her hard against him, leaving no room for doubt. Her eyes were huge, shining luminous blue under the soft, shadowy lights of his apartment.
“Jake—” The urgency of her tone was all he needed to hear.
With his free hand he cupped her cheek, feeling the softness of her skin against his palm and the silk of her hair teasing the tips of his fingers. “Patience.”
“I’m not patient. I don’t want to wait.”
“It will be worth waiting for. Trust me.” He felt her quiver of anticipation and lowered his head to take her mouth. All the reasons not to touch her had melted away, and he kept his mouth on hers as he slid his hands into her hair, his fingers stroking through soft silk and droplets of rain. His thoughts dimmed, the world receded, his senses steeped in texture and scent. Smooth dark chocolate and silk, tropical flowers and summer rain.
She was trembling against him, her fingers stroking int
o his hair as her kiss blended perfectly with his. There was no awkwardness. No fumbling. It was as if someone had carefully choreographed each move. He gathered her closer and felt her hands slide down to his shoulders, felt her fingers press hard as if she was afraid that if she didn’t hold on he might disappear.
Easing away slightly she took his hand and placed it on her breast, and he felt the lush fullness and the thrust of her nipple through the thin fabric of her shirt.
He held her gaze as he undressed her, stripping off the damp layers until there was nothing between them but cool air and the delicious shiver of expectation.
There was a faint streak of color on her cheeks.
Self-conscious, she lifted her hand to her chest. “Does my scar bother you? You’re staring.”
“That’s because I’ve stopped myself looking for so long I have a lot of time to make up.” He lowered his forehead to hers. “You’re beautiful, tesoro.”
“You spoke Italian. You never do that.”
“I’m doing it now.” He kissed her. Gently, on the shoulder blade, then lower to the straining peak of her breast. As he circled it with his tongue, he heard her moan and felt her fingers slide into his hair again. He drew her into his mouth, teased her with slow, lazy flicks of his tongue savoring the smooth texture of her skin. His head was spinning with a desire so intense it unbalanced him. But it wasn’t enough. None of it was enough. He wanted more. He wanted all of it. All of her.
She gave a faint moan and then there was no more holding back.
Their mouths collided, fierce, hungry with need.
He scooped her up and carried her to the bedroom, leaving their clothes littered across his apartment. He lowered her gently onto the bed and came down on top of her, feeling her arch into him.
Paige.
Her eyes darkened and she wrapped her arms around his neck, her eyes clouded with anticipation. “Now. Please.”
“Soon.” He kissed his way down her body, lingering, tasting, breathing her in until she was writhing under his hands and mouth. Pleasure slid through him, thick and throbbing, but he held it back, made himself wait as he explored every part of her. He pushed her legs apart, traced the inside of her thigh with his tongue, taking his time.