by Ali Olson
Renee was amused. “And I was betting the towels would be green to match my room. I guess I was wrong on that one.”
Jessica looked appalled. “You put your things in the green room? You’re supposed to be in the yellow room across the hall.”
Renee tried not to laugh. The towels were color-coordinated with each room. The woman was insane. Aloud, she just said, “It’s fine, I can move. I’m sure you went to a lot of trouble to get towels that matched the rooms exactly. I can’t go ruining that.”
Jessica seemed relieved. “Thanks. I didn’t buy towels that matched each room, though. Aaron’s mom did that.”
Before Renee could comment on how neurotic that was, Jessica sighed and looked down at the towels. “Such a good organizer. I wish I could have met her. We would have gotten along so well.”
Renee shut her mouth and said nothing. Jessica turned and began leading her to the stairs. Over her shoulder, she said, “I don’t know why I didn’t think to tell Jeremiah to put you in the yellow room. Since that’s usually his room, he would never have known that you needed to take it over for this week, but we just don’t have space to spare with everyone coming in for the wedding.”
Renee stumbled, but managed to get her feet back under her. She was going to be staying in the guest room Jeremiah had slept in. With the sheets he slept in and the towels he used if he ever took a shower here.
She pictured him, slick with water, wearing only one of the canary yellow towels, somehow managing to make the color incredibly sensual.
Oh Lordy. She needed help.
Be casual, she reminded herself. “Jeremiah has his own room here?”
Jessica nodded without turning around. “We have more room than we need, and it means he can spend the evening over here drinking and hanging out without worrying about how to get home. We like having him around. He’s a great guy.”
Renee didn’t need to be told that. He was a lot of adjectives. Sexy, fun, incredibly attractive. Great was certainly on the list.
After Jessica helped Renee move her luggage into the correct room, Jessica turned to her sister and threw her arms around her in a tight hug. “I’m really glad you’re here, Renee. I know that you don’t like to take time off work. I just want my wedding to go smoothly, with no surprises, and I don’t think I could do it without your help.”
Renee thought of Jeremiah and felt guilty. If she was going to keep Jessica from finding out, they would need to be more discreet than they had been so far. She didn’t want to be the reason Jessica was unhappy so close to the wedding.
Really, it would be better if she just broke off the thing with him entirely. It’s not like she had time in her life for a guy anyway, and a one-week fling wasn’t like her. Maybe it would be best to stop now before things became even more complicated than they already were.
Even as she considered backing out, she dismissed it. There was something there with Jeremiah that she couldn’t let pass by. Even if it was only for a week.
She hugged her sister back, keeping all her thoughts to herself, and silently promised to be a good sister and help her have exactly the wedding she wanted.
No surprises.
5
JEREMIAH TOSSED AND turned all night, thinking of Renee. The way her hair fell in her face when she leaned forward, the way the corner of her lips turned up when she said something clever, the way she squeezed her eyes shut as she came.
Especially that last one.
Why couldn’t she be a girl he’d just met at random? Why did it have to be Jessica’s little sister? If she’d been anybody else, he would have asked her out to dinner. And breakfast. Lots of them.
Not that he was entirely sure she would even agree to dinner. From the little she’d told him about her life, it seemed likely she would have told him she was too busy with work to date.
And that bothered him even more than needing to keep the whole thing a secret. After all, it was only a secret because she wanted nothing but a week of sex. If this was more, wouldn’t she be okay with telling Jessica?
She didn’t want more, though.
But what did he want? He wasn’t sure, but it didn’t seem like eight days of Renee would be enough.
He stretched out in his very empty bed, reminding himself that he would just need to go with it. Anything to get to see her eyes squeezed shut like that again.
The next morning, Jeremiah watched the clock, forcing himself to wait. After what seemed like an eternity, it was past nine and he could text without making Aaron suspicious.
He double-checked the message he’d written to be sure it gave nothing away before sending it. His phone made a woosh sound as the text rushed off to Aaron’s phone.
He responded two long minutes later: We could definitely use some help. Jessica wants to organize the stuff for the ceremony today. Come over whenever.
Jeremiah grinned at his phone. He was sure he could find a way to pull Renee aside for a few minutes without anyone noticing, and he was going to take advantage of any possible chance they had.
* * *
RENEE DUG INTO her plate of eggs, bacon and hash browns, savoring the taste of another meal not purchased from a stand or heated up in the microwave. She hadn’t felt this good in a long time. Fresh food and a great night’s sleep did wonders. Even though she was still feeling antsy, wondering when she would see Jeremiah next, the orgasm he’d given her the evening before was still working its magic, and she had slept hard and deep almost as soon as her head had hit the pillow.
Not before she had inhaled the faint scent of Jeremiah, though. It seemed to be embedded in the pillows in her room. The smell had engulfed her as she drifted off, and greeted her this morning when she awoke. If only she could get his scent wrapped around her while still attached to his body.
She wanted to ask Aaron when his friend would be around, but there was no way she could think of to say it casually, so she forced herself to push that to the back of her mind and give her attention to the delicious meal in front of her.
“Aaron, this is amazing,” she called over to her almost-brother-in-law, who waved off her compliment with a smile and went back to his cooking.
He was standing next to the stove in a ridiculous apron. It was a sickly pink with frills and pictures of baking utensils and hundreds of cats, of all things. Renee turned to her sister, who was sitting next to her inhaling her own plate. “Why does Aaron have an apron like that?” she asked, needing to know the story behind the awful accessory.
Jessica laughed and shook her head. “Jeremiah got it for him when I first moved in. He thought it was hilarious. I don’t think he ever expected Aaron to actually use it, though.”
Aaron shrugged and turned to the women, showing off the apron in all its glory. “It’s useful. And I kind of like the cats.”
Jessica looked at her fiancé with the overly dreamy expression she seemed to wear every time she glanced his direction.
Then Aaron’s phone buzzed, and Renee felt anticipation build in her stomach as he fished the device out of his back pocket. It could be anyone, but...
“It’s Jeremiah,” Aaron said, confirming Renee’s hope. “He wants to know if we need help today.”
Please say yes, Renee thought at her sister.
Jessica nodded. “Yeah, that’d be great. I want us to work on getting that arch together and setting up things in the barn for the ceremony.”
Renee was so excited, she almost missed everything Jessica said after “yeah.” Once she soaked in her sister’s words, though, she couldn’t help but comment. “You’re getting married in the barn?”
Jessica smiled at her. “Don’t make fun of me. It’ll be warm and dry in case it rains, and it’s going to be really pretty. Plus, this is Texas. If we didn’t get married in the barn, people would talk.”
> Renee turned to Aaron. “Let me guess. You’re going to wear cowboy boots, right?”
Aaron nodded proudly. “Oh yeah. It’s going to be great.”
Renee put a hand to her forehead. She felt like she was living in an alternate dimension. One full of giant silver belt buckles and saloons and horses. She missed the cold streets of New York City.
“I told Jeremiah to come by whenever,” Aaron said to Jessica as he sat down with his own plate of food.
Renee’s homesickness disappeared in a blink. She imagined them sneaking away together to continue where they’d left off the night before. There were some advantages to living in this alternate dimension, for a little while, at least.
Jeremiah showed up less than a half hour later, while Jessica and Aaron were washing the dishes. Aaron looked over his shoulder at his friend. “That was quick,” he commented.
Jeremiah shrugged, but shot Renee a look that sent tendrils of fire snaking through her. “Might as well get the day started. It’s not like I have anything else I want to do today.”
Renee smiled at him, reading his message loud and clear. Jeremiah sat down beside her, making her pulse race. “Hi,” he said, in an almost-conspiratorial whisper.
“Hey,” she responded, feeling that they were saying so much more than perfunctory greetings. The space between them felt charged, like the air right before a lightning storm.
“Well,” Aaron said, oblivious to the interactions going on behind him, “you missed breakfast, but I could fry a couple of eggs for you real quick.”
“No thanks,” he responded before turning back to Renee with a grin. “Did he wear his apron?”
She chuckled. “I have no idea how you managed to find an apron that god-awful.”
His eyes lit up at the approval in her voice, and she almost melted into those dark pools of coffee. She was so close to him, she could see tiny flakes of lighter colors mixed in with the dark.
Renee was on her way to getting lost in them when Jessica came over to the table, wedding binder once more in hand. Renee forced herself to drag her attention away from the man beside her, trying to remember rule number one for the week. She hated to think about how obvious it seemed like they were being, and could only hope that either it wasn’t as noticeable as she thought or Jessica was too wrapped up in wedding details to pay attention.
Her sister didn’t seem to think anything was amiss, though, and Renee breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Jessica opened the binder to a diagram, and began explaining her vision for the ceremony. “We don’t have the chairs yet, so that’ll need to wait, but I want to get the arch put together and in place here—” she pointed to one end of the diagram “—and get the plants and strings of lights taken care of so I can be sure this layout will work.”
Renee listened to her sister, but a large part of her brain—and all of her body—was focused on the man sitting so close to her. She could hear his breathing, and a shiver slid along her spine each time he breathed out, as her body remembered that hot breath in her ear while he touched her.
By the time Jessica closed the binder and the three of them stood, Renee felt hot and flushed, and the ache in her belly was clamoring for attention.
Aaron joined the group, and together the four of them trooped out to the barn. As they rounded the side of the house and the barn came into view, Renee stopped walking and took in the scene before her. She had to admit, it was a stunning location for a wedding.
The barn was a crisp clean white with wood trim, not the bright red she had expected. It sat long and regal, contrasting beautifully with the tall trees behind it. The clear blue sky only added to the picturesque view.
To make it even more enticing, Aaron and Jeremiah had reached the large barn door and were sliding it open. At this distance, she could see the muscles rippling under Jeremiah’s shirt, and when he turned to look at her, brushing his hair out of his face, her knees nearly gave out.
Her design-trained eye reveled in the lines and colors of the scene before her, and her libido roared at the impossibly handsome man that dominated it. She wasn’t sure which urge was stronger: the one telling her to throw herself at him or the one telling her to grab her computer and create the perfect spread for the image to adorn.
She wished she had a camera and her computer in her hands so she could give life to the image in her mind. And she wished she had nothing but Jeremiah, up close and completely to herself.
But now wasn’t a time for any of that. She needed to help her sister and put aside all the distractions warring inside her.
As if to remind her of that, Jessica put her arm around Renee, pulling her close to her side. “See? It’s better than you thought.”
Renee nodded, leaned her weight on her sister and answered, “You win. It’s beautiful. I won’t make fun of you for getting married in this barn. Just don’t wear a cowboy hat, okay? It won’t match your dress.”
Jessica kissed her on the cheek and started pulling her toward the building. “I’m not making any promises,” she answered.
Renee rolled her eyes and laughed, following her sister into the barn.
* * *
JEREMIAH WATCHED RENEE laughing with her sister. His muscles tensed just looking at her and he ached to touch her. He didn’t know how, but he was going to find some way to get her alone.
Jessica’s voice broke through the fog in his brain that Renee was so good at creating, and he wrenched his attention to her. “The arch goes over there,” she explained, pointing to the far end of the building. “That’s where the officiant will stand. We’ll need to hang lights through the rafters and clean up the ground today. I may be getting married in a barn, but that doesn’t mean I want hay stuck to me as I say my vows.”
Aaron leaned in to his fiancée, speaking in a low voice that Jeremiah could nonetheless hear. “Having hay stuck to you isn’t so bad. I like finding it in your hair after.”
The way Jessica’s cheeks flushed, Jeremiah was sure she was picturing a very specific incident. He hadn’t thought of it, but of course they’d had sex in the barn. The way they couldn’t keep their hands off each other, he imagined it would be difficult to find a place where they hadn’t done it.
Their relationship had been one of the key causes of his change of heart regarding casual sex in the first place. If it was possible to find someone irresistible who you also loved being around outside of the bedroom day after day, shouldn’t you try to find it?
He sneaked a glance at Renee. Not her, he told himself.
She was irresistible, sure. And they did seem to have a spark between them that went beyond just the physical, but there were some necessary ingredients missing to make this a forever thing.
The biggest one, of course, was that she clearly didn’t want anything serious.
He pushed the thoughts aside, not liking where they were going.
Better to think about other things, like how to get Jessica and Aaron working on something somewhere else. Preferably not within hearing distance of the barn, because once he had Renee alone, he wanted to be able to hear her, and if she screamed out like he pictured, they were sure to break the first rule.
He smiled to himself at that.
* * *
RENEE KEPT HER eyes off Jeremiah despite the fire inside her and started moving one of the potted plants the two men had taken out of Jeremiah’s truck the night before. She dragged it along the ground as Jessica directed her where to go and moved her own identical plant.
Renee had no idea what kind of plants they were, but the bright green leaves and little white flowers gave off an intoxicating scent that seemed almost erotic to her, in her current state.
She had to find a way to get him alone.
For two hours, though, she couldn’t think of any way to get Jessica and Aaron out of the barn. She moved
plants, shifting them a couple of inches here and there until Jessica declared them perfect. Meanwhile, Jeremiah and Aaron were putting together the arch and bringing stacks of chairs into the building, leaning them against one side.
With each surreptitious glance at Jeremiah, more often than not catching him looking back at her, her body ached for him more. The air around her seemed too warm, and she began to feel desperate. She tied gauzy white fabric to each plant and silently begged Jessica to give her just a few minutes alone with him.
As if Renee had telepathically sent a message to her sister, Jessica stretched and said, “It’s about time for a break, I think. Aaron and I will get some lunch together.”
Renee didn’t know if her sister expected her to follow them, but there was absolutely no way she was going to be leaving that barn.
She forced herself to nod as casually as she could and didn’t look at Jeremiah. She wanted to know if he was as close to the breaking point as she was, but either it would be written all over his face, which would be bad, or it wouldn’t. And she didn’t want to see that. Better to wait.
Aaron walked over to Jessica and wrapped his arm around her waist. They were so easy and confident in their love for one another that it made something in Renee twinge. Not with jealousy, of course.
She didn’t have time for a relationship like that, and besides, who could be as perfect for her as Aaron was for Jessica? Her eyes flitted over to Jeremiah. The only man she’d been at all attracted to in years couldn’t possibly be anything other than a one-week romance, no matter how hard he made her heart pound.
No, that was definitely not something she wanted right now. She was happy for Jessica, but that was it.
Her inner monologue came to an abrupt end when two muscular arms slid around her the second Jessica and Aaron had walked out the door. His breath was hot against her ear, his voice low and deep, vibrating through her as he pressed his chest against her back. “I’ve been trying for two hours to come up with some way to get you alone. Are we still on?”
