by Zoe York
As the servers brought in their first course, the table sparked up with quieter pockets of conversation. Before the main course, Rafe’s parents spoke. Before dessert, Olivia’s mother and sister stood and shared some stories about a young Olivia, before everyone else knew her.
After all the plates were cleared, Rafe rose and lifted his glass. “I’d like to thank you all for coming tonight, and celebrating the end of what we’re going to call my dumbass period.”
Olivia laughed and shook her head, her eyes crinkled shut. Rafe gazed down at his wife with a fondness that Jake recognized from inside himself, then he set his glass down without doing a toast and moved behind her chair. Ducking his head, he whispered in her ear and she nodded, squeezing her eyes shut even more. Rafe guided her out of her chair to stand in front of him, and he wrapped one arm around her waist and snagged his glass again with the other.
“To our family.” His eyes settled on his parents as he finished the toast. “And sticking things out, no matter what.”
Everyone offered their cheers, then Rafe handed off his drink to Tom. “I just told Liv that my New Year’s resolution is to learn how to dance. That’s not going to help me tonight…” he nodded at Zander, who tapped the screen on his iPhone, which he’d hooked up to portable speakers at some point. At the first crooning lines of Unchained Melody, Olivia finally started crying. “But we’re among family. And I do love dancing with my wife. So…” He pulled her away from the table, and they swayed to the music as if they were the only two people in the room.
It turned out that Zander had a whole playlist programmed, so next Olivia danced with Alessandro Senior while Rafe danced with Anne. When the third song started, and the groom looked like he wanted his bride back, Jake stood up. He could dance with Dani’s mom.
“It’s nice to see you here tonight,” Anne said as they turned around the room to an older country song.
“When Rafe gave me the opening, I took it.”
“You’re practically like family.” She smiled up at him. “When are you going to start one of your own, hmmm?”
Just as soon as your daughter lets me, he thought with a wince. She wouldn’t look at him so happily then. “I’m still young.”
“Oh, Jake.” She shook her head. “One thing you’ve never been is young. Not even when you were a hooligan getting in trouble.”
“I never got in trouble!”
“College drop-out?”
Oh. That kind of mom-disapproved type of trouble. “Respected business owner?”
She laughed and patted his arm. “You do have that going for you. If you weren’t in the army, I’d suggest you maybe think about dating Dani.”
Stumbling over his feet, and then hers, Jake had barely right himself before Anne laughed again. “Not really, of course. But I’ve always wanted her to settle down with someone like you. Not you, of course.”
“No,” he muttered, his heart pounding. “Of course not.”
— NINE —
DANI watched Jake dance with her mother, then Olivia’s mother and her sister Mina.
The twinge of irrational jealousy that she felt at the last dance pairing made her grumpy. Mina had a boyfriend, and Jake only had eyes for Dani. She knew this. Could feel it in the way he unerringly found her even as she moved around the room. But she wanted to be in his arms. And when Kip Moore’s Hey Pretty Girl started playing, she grabbed her wrap. She couldn’t listen to that song and be in the same room as Jake right now. It was cold and dark outside, but some fresh air on the terrace would be better than longing for something that only she was holding herself back from.
“Hey Dani, want to dance?” Tom snagged her elbow and spun her around.
“Uhhh…”
Before she could answer, Mina bumped hips with her and slid next to Dani’s brother. “Dani should dance with Jake, not one of her brothers. I’ll take you for a spin.”
And then he was right there, holding out his hand as if to say, I didn’t ask, and you didn’t ask, so hey, why not? And damnit, she couldn’t think of a reason why not until her hand slid into his and her body responded with a delicious head-to-toe sizzle.
He settled one hand in the small of her back and wrapped the other around her clenched fist. “Nice speech.”
Dani thought of that piece of paper folded in her purse. “Thank you.” Her voice caught on the words and when he rubbed his fingers up and down at the base of her spine, she wanted to lean into him. Take some of the warm strength radiating off his broad shoulders and wrap herself in his Jake-ness.
“You had a different number five, didn’t you?” She so wasn’t ready to answer that question. As her parents danced past, she took the excuse and changed the subject to work but he didn’t let her talk about work for long. “What didn’t you want me to hear?”
His question burned her from the inside out, stealing all her breath. It was way too soon for that. But she couldn’t deny the direct question, and she didn’t really want to. She just didn’t want to overstep the fragile bounds of a new relationship. “It was…about taking a leap of faith.” She swallowed hard. “With someone…special.”
Nodding slowly, he found her ear and made his next words for her alone. “Am I someone special to you?”
She tugged back, needing to see his face—even though she feared everyone around them could read the chemistry between them that arced every time they made eye contact. Eye-fucking, Olivia had called it. Dani jerked her gaze away before she got sucked in by the hard planes and cut lines of his face. She looked around the room, but no one was paying them any attention.
“I’m terrified to tell you how special you are to me.” His words brushed back and forth over her skin, a rough awakening of all her nerve endings. “Worried I’m going to scare you away. That this isn’t real.”
“We can’t have this conversation here,” she whispered, pressing her hand to his shoulder in regret.
He eased away from her as the song ended, but kept a firm hold on her hand. The hungry question in his eyes made her shiver. “Dani?”
She shook her head. “I’m not scared.”
A small smile played across his firm lips. “Me neither.”
The party continued for another hour, with silly selfie pictures and more dancing, but Dani and Jake didn’t touch again, didn’t talk either, and it didn’t occur to her until Rafe and Olivia hugged everyone and announced they’d see everyone at brunch in the morning that she didn’t know how to slyly sneak Jake into her room.
It turned out, he had that covered.
He left before everyone else, and when Dani collected her purse and wrap, her room key was missing. She headed for the front desk, where the clerk happily coded her a new one.
Her heart thumped in her chest as she waited for the elevator. Anticipation heated her veins as she walked down the quiet hotel corridor toward her room. And when she slid the key card into the slot and watched the green light blink an erotic welcome, she couldn’t hold back her excited grin any longer.
“What are you smiling about, sis?” She froze half a step into her darkened room and turned to see Tom—who must have just stepped out of his own room—giving her a confused once over. “You’re lost in your own little world there.”
“Long day,” she said quickly. Her cheeks were red with guilt, but Tom wasn’t really looking at her.
“Zander and I are heading down to the bar to meet that bartender and a couple of her friends for drinks. Do you want to come?”
She shook her head. “Not tonight.”
“Come on, it’s New Year’s Eve. You going to ring in the new year in your PJs?”
She made a noncommittal noise and he waved at her over his shoulder as he headed up the hall to Zander’s room. “Come find us if you decide to be fun, baby girl.”
She waited a beat, making sure he wasn’t going to turn back before she pushed the door open all the way and stepped into the dark—only to be swept into Jake’s arms. As the door swung shut, he took
her mouth in a slow, decadent kiss.
“I’ve missed you so much,” she whispered against his mouth as his hands caressed her hips and back. He found the zipper on her dress and peeled it off her as she worked at the buttons on his dress shirt. He’d already ditched his jacket and tie, and it didn’t take long for them to stumble across the room and roll onto the bed into a half-naked, turned-on twist of body parts. “Tom’s gone out for a while.”
“I heard.” He sucked on the skin at the base of her neck and she arched into him, wanting him to tug her breasts out of her bra and move that mouth a few inches south. “But you still need to be quiet.”
“Why?” she gasped as he teased her nipples through the thin mesh cups.
“Because it makes me hard to know you’re trying your best to be a good girl.”
Moisture flooded her sex as she reacted to all the different layers of that revelation. They all worked for her. Damnit. Tonight wasn’t the night for those doubts to creep between them. Their first day together had been amazing. Two equally wanting adults coming together. Literally. Their first night was going to be the same.
She slid her hand between their thrusting hips and squeezed his raging erection through his dress pants. “Don’t you like it when I’m loud?” She stroked her fingers lower, lighter, reaching between his legs. She cupped his balls, firmly, and he groaned and tipped his face into her neck.
“Fuck, Dani, I’ll take you however you want to be taken. But I want to make love to you, repeatedly, and then fall asleep with you, and your family hearing you loudly tell me to lick you right there would put a crimp in those plans.”
She laughed quietly and rewarded his misery by unzipping his fly. “I do like to tell you where to lick me.”
“I’ve noticed.” He nipped at her jaw, then braced his arms on either side of her head. The room was mostly dark, the only light—from the lanterns outside the inn—sliding in between the parted curtains. But she could make out his face, and he looked deadly serious. “You can be completely in charge if you want.”
She frowned. No, that wasn’t…
If this was going to work, she needed to trust that Jake wanted her, the Dani of here and now. He hadn’t given her any reason to doubt that—in fact, as she rewound all their heated exchanges of the last week and the month before that, there was plenty of evidence that she was the only one stuck in the past.
“I don’t want to be in charge,” she whispered, turning slightly beneath him. “I want to be good.”
As she rolled, her hip rubbed against his heavy length and for a minute she was tempted to roll back and just rock him into her body. They didn’t need any games to get off.
But she didn’t want to be in charge tonight. She wanted to be taken care of after a long, unexpectedly emotional day. She couldn’t quite convince herself that Jake had come for her—the hunger in his eyes made it pretty clear he couldn’t stay away for his own reasons—but he’d still been there with a hug, and a wink, and a dance, just when she’d needed him.
And now she needed to be a little dirty, and before she’d gotten twisted up in her head, he’d already offered that, too.
He palmed her ass, his fingers curling in toward her heat as he settled beside her. “You drive me crazy, woman.”
Dani buried her face in the pillow as he slid though her wet folds. The feeling was definitely mutual.
“Have you been this wet all night? This swollen and ready for me?” He hissed in her ear when she nodded. “I can’t wait to be buried deep inside you, gorgeous. I’ve missed your sweet pussy so much. Missed fucking you. Missed licking you.”
With each inflaming sentence, she notched her hips higher, shamelessly presenting herself for him as he stroked her inside and out, sliding his fingers deep before pulling out—making her moan in longing—to squeeze her ass again.
“All the ways I’ve dreamed of you, Dani…this is so much better.” His voice was rougher now, more urgent, and he yanked off her panties, no longer content to have them shoved to the side. They tangled at her knees and he rolled her onto her back, covering her body with his. He was hot and hard and ready between her legs, but after kissing her with a bruising intensity that left her breathless, he moved down her body. Dragging wet, hungry kisses across her skin, the slight scratch of his five o’clock shadow a new and different sensation from the softness of his beard a few days ago, he wound such a magic around and through her that by the time he sucked first one nipple, then the other, into his mouth, she was close to coming for him.
And very, very close to making a lot of noise. He smoothed his hand down her trembling midsection and pressed firmly against her lower belly. “If you want me to keep going, you gotta be quiet.”
She swallowed her moan and nodded.
“Breathe,” he said, low and thick, just above a whisper. She wanted to do the exact opposite, hold her breath and strain for the peak of ecstasy that felt so close. But he repeated the command, over and over again, as he kissed his way between her legs, and then he licked her slow and sweet, and she knew there was no point racing for her orgasm. He wasn’t in any hurry, and he wanted to keep her on the edge of pleasure.
And she wasn’t in charge. Letting go felt so glorious. She exhaled slowly, her tension fluttering away as Jake’s tongue tripped across her clit and back down into her wetness, a lazy figure eight pattern. He dove deep on the next pass, his nose and chin pressing into her as his tongue slid inside her, and she shuddered against his face, coming apart on her next breath.
“Wow,” she whispered. “That’s a neat trick. The breathing thing.”
“Feeling good?”
“So good.”
“Excellent. We’re just getting started.” He pressed his face into the soft inside of her thigh, then rolled her over again and she let herself be flipped. She was boneless and happy, and her mind was swimming with all the possible next steps. Jake kneed his way between her legs, then coasted his hands over her thighs, bottom. When he reached her hips, he squeezed and lifted, tugging her back into that presenting position. Her sex tightened in anticipation as she listened to him rip open a condom wrapper, and then he was there, filling her up. Ever so slowly, his thick length slid into her body. She pressed her hips up and back, eager to take him deep. Hungry to be stretched from the inside out in a way that satisfied a lot more than a physical ache.
“Three days was too long, gorgeous. So unfair to give me a taste of you and then be busy,” he teased, folding himself over her body.
She twisted her face to the side. “I’m sorry…”
“Not fair for you, either.” He kissed her temple, then licked along the ridge of her ear. “Let me make it up to you.”
“M’kay.” She closed her eyes and gave in to the blissed out feeling of Jake thrusting slowly in and out of her as he held her down. She wiggled one hand under her body to find her clit. She didn’t move her fingers, just held them still and let Jake rock her body over them. She could’ve gotten lost in the rolling, sweet orgasm he gave her with his tongue and something told her this one was going to be the same if she just let it come to her.
Jake sped up, moving faster toward his own release, and then he was heavier—on top of her, inside her. He braced one arm beside her head and wrapped the other around her, cupping her breast and thumbing her nipple as he surged hard. Three more thrusts and they finished together, Dani with spots in her eyes and tingles all over. Jake…if she could find her voice, she’d ask him how he was, but from the tight hold he still had on her and the whispered, hungry words she’d vaguely recognized as she tumbled off the cliff, she was pretty sure it had been good for him too.
They clung together, all out of breath and sweaty, until Jake softened inside her and he had to move to deal with the condom. But then he was back, holding on to her again, and she didn’t care if she was sticky.
The post-coital come-down felt totally right and not awkward at all with him.
Even when he brought up a conversation she
’d never expected to have. “Your mom seems to think you’ve got a thing against dating guys in uniform.”
She cursed her mother for not fully getting her. “I don’t have a thing against dating you.”
“I’m not likely to go overseas again.”
Laughing, Dani twisted into his body and ran her fingers through the hair on his lower abdomen. He was hard all over, but right there, where the muscles dipped in a sculpted vee toward his groin, he was ultra-masculine. And two back-to-back orgasms had only made her hungrier than ever for him—all of him. And only him. “That’s not why I’ve never dated a soldier before.”
Jake danced his fingertips down her spine. He didn’t ask her for more. Maybe he knew without her spelling it out. You’re the only soldier I’ve ever wanted. She’d always been careful to never date anyone like him—anyone that worked with their hands or served their country. And if she’d ever met anyone as possessive or intense as Jake was in private, she probably would have run in the opposite direction. Fast. But she recognized those feelings in herself, too.
She’d never been a jealous person with previous boyfriends, but with Jake? She would lose her mind if she ever lost him. If she only had the memory of him owning her, body and soul, while another woman got to live it. Wrapping herself tighter around his body, she pressed a line of kisses up his torso, straight to his waiting mouth.
“Happy New Year,” she whispered against his lips.
“You happy, gorgeous?”
She smiled as he nuzzled her cheek. “So happy.”
— TEN —
JANUARY came and went. Dani’s toothbrush found a permanent presence in his bathroom and at least a few times a week, she slept wrapped around him in his bed.
Jake wanted to ask her to move in with him, but given that she still hadn’t told her family they were dating, that seemed a bit presumptuous.
And he wasn’t sure they were even dating, exactly. They’d gone to Owen Sound once to see a movie, and out to dinner another night in Port Elgin. Both towns safely south of the peninsula, away from prying eyes. A grand total of two dates in more than a month.