by Ali Olson
“I’m so sorry—” he began.
“That was so bad,” she moaned, cutting him off.
He grimaced. “The kiss was bad?” he asked, unable to help himself.
She shook her head even more furiously. “The kiss was too good. That’s what makes it so bad.”
Jeremiah knew he should feel awful, but he was happier than he’d been in a very long time. Just to be sure, he asked, “So you liked the kiss?”
She looked at him through her fingers. “That’s not helping. There’s no way we can do that again. Jessica will flip if she finds out. She doesn’t take unexpected new information well, and this is her wedding week. A curveball like that might send her into seizures.”
Jeremiah wasn’t sure if Renee was talking to him or herself, but her arguments seemed much less convincing than they might have been a few minutes before. There seemed to be one pretty glaring way around the issue, after all. “I’m not going to tell her about it. Are you?”
“No way,” Renee responded immediately.
“So...” he said slowly, picking his words with care, “if neither of us tells her, and she doesn’t see us, is there any reason why we can’t do it again?”
3
RENEE WAS ABOUT to roll her eyes at Jeremiah and explain exactly why they could never do anything like that again, but something stopped her before she could. Her libido spoke up with full force, demanding why exactly that was such a terrible idea.
She’d been thinking about this guy for weeks, and here he was offering her a chance to live out a few of those fantasies that had been running through her mind. It wasn’t like she’d have another chance this good again.
And the look on his face wasn’t helping her make any prudent decisions, either. The hope in his eyes combined with a smile that promised so much more. How could she let this opportunity go by?
Renee took a deep breath and looked out the front windshield in order to keep herself from leaning toward Jeremiah again. She tried to focus some of her attention on the view, but the trees and mountains spread before her were overshadowed by the sexy cowboy sitting inches away. “Okay,” she answered, and out of the corner of her eye she saw his smile widen into a full grin. She had to force herself not to smile back. “But,” she continued, “there have to be ground rules. Number one—Jessica and Aaron absolutely cannot find out about this. Jessica would turn it into such a big deal, and even though Aaron’s your best friend, he might tell Jessica. And number two—once I go home, we’re done. This is just a casual thing. Just sex.”
She continued looking out the windshield, waiting for a response, but was met with silence. It was only then that she realized he’d never said anything about them having sex. They’d had one two-second kiss and she had already good as told him that she was ready to jump into bed with him at a moment’s notice. What kind of woman did that make her?
The kind of woman that hadn’t gotten laid in a long time and had spent way too much time thinking about getting laid by this particular guy. But had she gone too far too quickly?
She looked over at him, hoping for some kind of positive response. Jeremiah was looking at her, that half smile still on his face.
* * *
JEREMIAH STARED AT RENEE, surprised. She couldn’t get much more straightforward than that. Just sex? He had given up the casual-sex thing months ago, and was serious about finding something more than that. Did he really want a secret one-week fling? To risk hurting his best friend’s fiancée for something that would be over in just a few days?
Then she looked at him, her green eyes silently questioning, and reminded himself that Jessica wouldn’t find out, and therefore couldn’t be hurt. He knew it was a weak argument, but really, there was only one answer he could possibly give this beautiful woman beside him.
He leaned forward again, pulling her into another kiss, this one slow and deep, full of the promise of more to come.
She responded immediately, falling into the kiss, but he pulled away after just a few moments. The indignant expression on her face made him want to laugh. The way her erect nipples showed through her shirt made him want to tear her clothes off. He took a breath. “Rule number one, remember? It’ll probably be pretty hard to keep this thing a secret if Jessica finds us making out in front of her house.”
Renee’s eyes grew wide and she turned to look out the back window, searching for her sister, worry evident on her face. This time he couldn’t stop the laughter.
Once she had carefully scanned for any sign of Jessica, she looked back at him and smiled. “Right, so maybe this isn’t the most discreet location.”
He knew they only had a few more seconds of privacy together, and he didn’t want to separate without planning something. He needed to have another opportunity to kiss her in the near future, or it would drive him crazy. “When can we meet?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know what Jessica has planned for me. I might be able to get away at some point tonight, but won’t you need to go home?”
Jeremiah smiled. “I think I can manage to stick around here for the evening.”
She looked like she was about to say something else, but before she could, a door somewhere nearby closed loudly and two voices started moving toward them. Jeremiah tried not to look too disappointed. “That’ll be Jessica and Aaron,” he said, opening his door and tearing his eyes away from the beauty next to him.
He climbed out of the truck cab just as Aaron and his tall, leggy fiancée walked around the corner of the house. Before Jeremiah could walk around the truck to help Renee down, she was clambering out herself and moving with quick footsteps to hug her sister.
Jeremiah watched, comparing the two women. At first glance, they looked very different: Jessica was tall, with long auburn hair and lightly tanned skin. Renee looked almost petite next to her, though she couldn’t be under five foot six, with strawberry blonde locks barely grazing her shoulders and freckles dotting her pale cheeks and nose.
There were plenty of similarities when looked at more closely, though. They had the same shape of face, and something about the way they stood made it clear they were related.
He watched them embrace, their wide smiles nearly identical. He kept looking at Renee, studying the way she held herself, the tilt of her head, and thinking about what he might expect when they managed to find themselves alone together. Would she be as straightforward as her talk and her kisses implied? If so, he was in for one hell of a week.
He relived the kiss in his mind, feeling the sensations again as her tongue slid across his teeth. His heart revved back up to sprinting speed just thinking about it.
“Hey man, thanks for grabbing all that stuff and picking up Renee and everything,” Aaron said, startling Jeremiah out of his reverie. While he’d been absorbed in every movement Renee made, he had completely failed to notice that his friend had come up beside him.
Jeremiah looked at Aaron and tried to sound casual, as if he hadn’t been mentally undressing his buddy’s sister-in-law. “No problem.”
“Everything okay?” Aaron asked, his forehead creasing as he lifted an eyebrow. “You seem a little distracted or something.”
Jeremiah wanted to smack himself. It hadn’t even been two minutes and Aaron could already tell something was up. How was he going to manage to keep this thing quiet? It didn’t help that he was a horrible liar. He just had to act normal, that’s all. Jeremiah shrugged and replied, “I’m fine,” then waited to see if he had pulled it off.
Aaron looked at his friend for another moment, then moved toward the bed of Jeremiah’s truck. “Let’s get this stuff unloaded,” he said.
Glad to be out of the spotlight, Jeremiah immediately went to work.
* * *
JESSICA HUGGED HER AGAIN. “It’s great to see you! How was your flight? And the drive in? I hope it w
as okay that Jeremiah picked you up.”
More than okay, thought Renee as she glanced at Jeremiah, who was standing with Aaron. Just the sight of him made her heart beat loud in her chest, and she hoped she hadn’t started blushing. She suddenly felt warm despite the cool February weather.
“Everything’s been great. I’m ready to be put to work. Should we start unloading the truck?”
Before she could even turn to make good on the offer, though, Aaron and Jeremiah were tackling the job. Jeremiah climbed into his silver monolith of a vehicle, and Aaron shook his head at the two women. “We’ll take care of this. You ladies go catch up.”
Jessica ran over to her fiancé and gave him a kiss, which seemed to Renee as if it was going to turn into much more when Aaron looped his arm around Jessica’s waist and lifted her up, pressing her body against his. Renee looked at Jeremiah again, and found him looking back at her and smiling. She wasn’t sure if it was because of his friend’s antics or because he was thinking of what he would do to her when he got the chance to get an arm around her. The latter was probably wishful thinking and she was definitely projecting some of her own thoughts on him.
But a girl could hope.
Then Jessica was back, a little breathless. She grabbed Renee’s hand and started steering her toward the front of the house.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t help?” Renee asked, partly because her New York sensibilities rankled a bit at the idea of letting the guys do all the work and partly because she wanted to watch Jeremiah using those very sexy muscles she could see straining beneath his shirt.
She didn’t let herself think about how much weight each reason held in her mind.
Jessica shrugged. “Nah. It’s a bit of a battle trying to get these Texas boys to stop doing stuff for us. They’re very gentlemanly. There are definitely worse problems to have. Anyway, I want to show you around and hear how things are going, so we can let them win this one.”
If Texas is a state where “letting the guys win” means sitting back while they unload a full truck, maybe it isn’t such a bad place after all.
She had without doubt warmed up to Texas over the past ten minutes. And if she kept thinking about Jeremiah’s lips against hers, it would soon become one of her favorite places.
Before Jessica could pull her around the corner, Renee took one look at Jeremiah. He stood in the back of his truck, his body all muscle and hard lines, which made the perpetual smile crinkling his lips and eyes that much more breathtaking.
* * *
JEREMIAH WATCHED RENEE disappear around the corner of the house. Just before she was out of sight, she turned and gave him a smile. Not the sweet smile he’d seen her use on her sister, or the tentative one he’d seen when he first picked her up from the airport. This smile held a promise that made his pulse pound in his ears. It was only for a moment, but it was enough.
He had to figure out how to get her alone as soon as possible, or he might internally combust from all the heat flowing through his veins.
He would have kept staring at the place where he’d last seen her, picturing all the things that smile hinted at, but Aaron interrupted his train of thought.
“You’re staying for dinner, right?”
You couldn’t drag me away. Aloud, though, all he said was, “Yeah, if that’s okay.”
Aaron nodded distractedly as he started pulling at the assorted bars and wires which would eventually become a wedding arch. Jeremiah moved to help him. As they pulled out each wedding-related item, Jeremiah said, “It looks like there’s still quite a bit to do before the ceremony next weekend. Will everything be done in time?”
He really wanted to ask if Renee would have any free time at all or if Jessica would keep her so busy that he would almost never see her, but he couldn’t think of a way to say it that didn’t sound too much like he was asking when he’d be able to bang Aaron’s sister-in-law.
“It should be pretty simple, actually, but Jessica wants to double-check everything, so that’ll take some time.”
“She’s really putting in the effort to make sure nothing unexpected happens, huh?”
Jeremiah didn’t know why he would ask that. Maybe he was trying to remind himself exactly why he had to keep his hands off Renee. In public, at least.
Aaron smiled what Jeremiah called his “Jessica smile.” It was full of love, pure and simple. “Jessica wants everything to be as planned as possible, and she’s willing to do everything she can to make that happen.”
Jeremiah had no idea why that made Aaron smile, but he was glad his friend was so happy. Ever since Aaron had met Jessica in Las Vegas two years ago, he’d been happier than Jeremiah had ever seen him.
Being in love definitely didn’t seem that bad.
* * *
RENEE SAT AT the small circular kitchen table, trying not to fidget with her cup of tea. What was taking Jeremiah and Aaron so long?
After Jessica had taken Renee on a quick tour of the large, beautiful home she shared with Aaron, complete with white lace curtains like something out of a movie, they had settled into the kitchen so Jessica could keep an eye on dinner while they went over her notebook of wedding details to complete that week.
If Renee hadn’t been so focused on finding some time to get Jeremiah to herself, she would’ve probably had trouble not rolling her eyes at her sister’s binder full of lists, receipts and diagrams. It was detailed to the point of seeming neurotic.
Finally, after Jessica was nearly through all the pages regarding flowers, the back door opened and Aaron walked in, followed by Jeremiah. Aaron went over to the stove to check on something bubbling in a pot, while Jeremiah leaned against the counter near the back door they had just entered.
Jessica stopped her monologue and joined Aaron in the inspection of the meal, and Renee took advantage of the moment free from her sister’s view to take in all the glory of the man from her fantasies as he moved toward her. She stared at his jean-clad legs and slowly moved her eyes up his body, lingering on a few choice places. God, he was gorgeous. It made her breath catch in her throat.
When she finally reached his face, he was looking right at her, a sexy smile on his lips, as if he knew exactly what she’d been doing. His eyebrows were raised in question, and she gave him her final assessment with a smile of her own and the tiniest of nods. She very much approved of what she saw.
At the end of their silent conversation, Jeremiah turned to the two talking at the stove. He said, “I’ll take Renee’s suitcase upstairs and get her set up in a guest room.”
Renee jumped up from the table, nearly knocking over her tea, in her eagerness to follow him out of the room. After he’d gotten the nod from the couple and started to make his way toward the stairs with her suitcase, though, she hesitated for a moment. Was this really such a good idea? Flirting and some quick kisses in his truck were one thing, but was she really going to go through with this idea? The whole clandestine affair thing was so not like her.
But then Jeremiah turned and crooked a half smile and her insides melted, and she knew she wouldn’t give up this opportunity for anything. She scurried after him up the stairs, nearly bowling into him on the landing, where he’d stopped to wait for her.
As soon as she was near enough, he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her in close, pressing her body against his. She gasped at the heat and strength she could feel where her breasts and stomach touched him. Her nipples budded at the contact.
The force of her reaction to him made her nervous for a moment, but then he was kissing her and her ability to think evaporated.
As soon as his mouth was against hers, every notion of stopping fell away at once, and she leaned even closer into his heat. In the truck, the first kiss had been quick and impulsive; the second short, slow and full of promise. This one, however, could only be described as pass
ionate. Very very passionate.
So passionate she was vaguely surprised her clothes didn’t disintegrate on contact.
Jeremiah’s tongue plunged into her mouth, taking everything he could, but giving so much in the process. Time slowed as every ounce of her focused on the physical sensations: the feel of his mouth against hers, the tingling of her fingers, the warm heat that had pooled low in her belly, making her push against his body even harder.
And what she felt there, hot and hard against her, only turned her on more.
* * *
JEREMIAH HATED TO pull away from Renee’s kiss yet again, but he managed to force himself to break away, though he kept his arm around her waist. When she tried to lean back in, he chuckled. She was deliciously disheveled, and he wanted both to tuck her hair behind her ear and to mess it up even more. He was able to keep himself in check, though. “We should probably move to someplace a little more...private...than here.”
Renee looked down the stairs, as if she expected to see Jessica looking up and glaring at them. “Right,” she said once she seemed sure that they were still alone. Her voice was low and she sounded out of breath, which sent even more blood pumping straight to his already-painful erection. “Which room is mine?” she asked, looking at the doors on both sides of the hallway.
Jeremiah gestured with his chin to the door on the left, keeping his eyes on her lips, only just able to keep himself from kissing her again. She broke away and turned to open the door. He reluctantly let her withdraw from his embrace. It surprised him how much he hated to have her leave his side, even if it was only for the moment it took to get inside the room.
He lifted her suitcase and followed her into the room, hoping he hadn’t ruined the moment enough that he’d just be setting down the luggage and walking back downstairs, but he didn’t have to wait long to be satisfied on that count.
