He pressed his hand a little firmer to her back. “Come on. Let’s go downstairs.”
He sounded so relaxed that she wondered if she’d imagined the sexual vibrations between them. Oh my God, that would be just perfect, wouldn’t it? He walked behind her down the stairs, making her self-conscious. Jake used to love to tease her about how cute her butt was, and it was all she could think about now. She hadn’t spent much time worrying about how her body had changed since she was eighteen, and she wasn’t really worried about it now, but thanks to the heat of his gaze—which she didn’t have to see in order to sense—she was aware of her shape now more than ever and was glad she’d continued running all these years. Could Jake send any stronger conflicting messages? A minute ago she thought she’d imagined their connection, and now she could practically feel his eyes blazing against her back and her legs were turning to spaghetti again.
As they stepped into the living room, Fiona noticed that the whole house felt very masculine, and although Jake was masculine to his core, she wondered if he’d even had a hand in the decorating. She didn’t feel him anywhere in the house, except maybe in the bedroom.
She followed him into the spacious kitchen, where he opened one of the darkest wood cabinets she’d ever seen and handed her two wineglasses.
“Sorry I don’t have smaller clothes for you to wear.”
“No, you’re not.” She smiled with the tease.
He grabbed a bottle of wine and invaded her personal space, sending her heart into a frenzy.
“No, I’m really not.” His eyes darkened and locked on hers. “In fact, I kind of wish I was out of clothes altogether.”
This was the teasing, flirty Jake she knew and loved, but she didn’t trust that the angry Jake had left the scene that quickly. She followed him into a cozy, dimly lit alcove off of the living room, where he’d set a table for two. Even in the driving rain, the view of the city was amazing, all sparking lights blurred against the dark sky.
He pulled out a chair for her and scooted it in beneath her. She was surprised by how intimate his gestures were becoming and a little skeptical about what it all meant.
“So, you’re done being mad at me?” she asked while he filled their glasses. Dinner smelled delicious, and it looked even better. She hadn’t even known he could cook, but the meal before her was a visionary delight of different-shaped pastas, colorful vegetables, and a creamy sauce that made her salivate almost as much as Jake in his tight T-shirt did.
“I wouldn’t jump to that conclusion.” He sipped his wine and narrowed his eyes into a seductive gaze. “But you’re here, and we have history.”
“So…what? You feel obligated to be nice to me?” Why did I have to ask that?
He leaned back and picked up his fork. “I don’t know what I feel, but it’s dinner and conversation. We’re not jumping in the sack together.”
Okay, then. Cleared that right up.
She lowered her eyes and speared a piece of pasta, alarmingly annoyed. Why would she think they were going to jump in the sack? And with his reputation, why didn’t he want to? That should probably tell her more than his acts of generosity ever could. The problem was, she had no idea if it was a good or a bad message.
She stole another look at him, and his smirk told her he was trying to get to her. Well, two could play at that game.
“This is really good. Thanks for making it. I didn’t even know you could cook.”
His lips quirked up in a cocky grin. “I’m a man of many talents.”
Wow. “A man who can cook—that is a talent. But a man who cooks wearing nothing but an apron, now, that’s a sight worth seeing.”
Jake held his fork up with a piece of pasta on a tong and looked at it as he twirled it slowly. “Aprons don’t hang low enough in the front to cover my junk, so I choose to go without.”
Fiona’s fork stilled halfway to her mouth, which went dry. She set her fork down and drank her wine in one gulp. Jake was quick to refill her glass.
“You were great on the set today.” She had to change the subject because Jake could outplay her in the sexual innuendo game. She didn’t even know why she’d thought she could compete.
His brows drew together. “All in a day’s work. You and Patch got pretty close, huh?”
“He was really helpful. Everyone was, actually. Even Zane was easy to talk to and super helpful.”
“Zane’s a good guy. He’s a close friend, actually.” Jake clenched his jaw, and Fiona knew she’d struck a nerve. She decided to play it up.
“You know, he’s even more handsome in person than on the big screen. He asked me if I was going to the cast dinner next Friday night.”
“Next Friday night?” He finished his wine and refilled both of their glasses.
“Yeah, Trish and I are going.” She sipped her wine, feeling more relaxed and bolder than she had before. Wine was her new best friend.
“Are you going to be there?”
“Yeah, I’ll be there,” he grumbled.
“Great. Then we’ll probably see each other.” She was glad he couldn’t see under the table, where her feet were bouncing with nervous energy.
They finished eating and finished the bottle of wine. At some point Jake got up and fetched another bottle. When he returned, he sat beside her instead of across the table. They talked about Luke and Daisy’s wedding and how strange it was for Fiona to see Trish and Jake making a film together, which reminded Fiona that she knew someone else in the business.
“Well, you remember Kaira Pepper, don’t you?” she asked. Kaira’s family had moved to Trusty for her last two years of high school, when her father had tried to make a go of farming. After a heart attack took his life, Kaira and her mother moved back to Illinois, to be closer to her mother’s family.
“Everyone remembers Kaira. Hot little blond number, now a porn star.” He guzzled his wine.
Fiona leaned forward, absentmindedly placing her hand on his thigh. “She’s not a porn star. She’s a model.”
“Whatever. Same, same.”
“Totally not the same.” She finished her wine and suddenly became very aware of the feel of his muscles, hot and hard, beneath her hand.
“You’re right. I don’t even know why I said it. They’re not the same thing, but she really did do porn.” He took her hand in his and rose to his feet, pulling her up with him. She swayed, grabbing hold of his shirt for balance. His eyes went dark and sexy again, and it was all Fiona could do to keep from going up on her toes and kissing him. She fisted her hand in his shirt, telling herself not to do it, but her brain must have had a bad connection to her body, because she was lifting up on her toes with a bead on tasting those delicious lips of his.
No. No. No. Yes, please, yes.
Jake slipped an arm around her waist and shifted his eyes away. She felt his body go rigid right before he took a step to the side, bringing her with him.
“Come on. I’ll show you a little of Kaira’s work.” His tone was gruffer than it had been a moment ago.
She felt her chest and neck flush as he guided her down a staircase and through a large room with a pool table and bar and into another, darker room with theater-style seating. Wow. The old Jake would have scoffed at theater-style seating, seen it as pretentious.
As he dug around in a cabinet, she realized what he’d said. Was he really going to put on porn? Oh crap. She wasn’t ready to watch porn with Jake. With a remote control in one hand, he sat on the floor in front of the seats and patted the spot beside him. Her heart melted a little. There was definitely still some of the old Jake in him.
He pushed a button, and every nerve in Fiona’s body strung tight as she waited to see what he was putting on. Kaira appeared front and center, wearing barely there lingerie and looking sexy enough for Fiona to consider changing teams.
“Wow. She’s totally hot,” she whispered. She heard Jake laugh under his breath. It was a welcome sound, which eased her embarrassment after almost kissing him—
again.
“You’re right. It’s not porn, but she is nearly naked.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask why you have this.” She couldn’t take her eyes off of Kaira, strutting her curvaceous figure down a runway in front of a roomful of people, along with six other incredibly hot models who looked ten feet tall.
“Because she gave it to me.” He turned to face her, and she wondered if he was trying to get her jealous.
It was working.
“So…you dated her?” She hated the pitiful weakness in her voice.
“I don’t date, Fiona.” Angry Jake was back. Tension rolled off of him. “She wanted to get into acting and thought if I passed this along to my agent, he could help.”
“Oh.” You don’t date? She hadn’t really heard the rest.
“He couldn’t help her, but it was worth a try.” He turned off the video and faced her in the dark, leaning one arm on the couch behind her. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?” Gulp. Her stomach had tanked when she’d thought of Jake dating Kaira, and she knew that despite his clearing up that he didn’t date, her eyes probably still relayed disappointment. Not only that, but if he didn’t date, then why did she think she could win him over? Maybe he could see the hope in her deflating, too.
His tone softened. “The way you looked at me that time we went to the 4H festival and I accidentally let go of the helium balloon I’d won for you.”
She smiled, having forgotten about that. She probably was looking at him in the same way. “I wanted it for that little girl we’d seen in the wheelchair, remember?”
His hand dropped to her back, and she felt him fiddling with the ends of her hair like he used to, swamping her with warm and wonderful memories and filling her with hope.
“Yeah, I remember.” His voice was low and husky. She didn’t need to see him clearly to know he was feeling the same spark of heat she was. “You always had the biggest heart.” His hand stilled between her shoulder blades, then moved away.
She wanted it back. He turned away, and the air in the room shifted, became cooler.
“Well, you had the biggest heart except where I was concerned.”
Oh no. She’d worried over having this discussion for years, and now that it was upon her, she could barely think. Everything she’d planned on saying was lost in the hurt that lingered in his tone.
“Jake.”
“It’s okay, Fiona. It was probably a good thing that we broke up.”
“A good thing?” She couldn’t tell if he was deflecting or serious.
“Sure. I mean, how many people who were together in high school stay together forever? I would have just hurt you, and it would’ve ended badly.”
“That’s not true, and you know it.”
“Do I?”
He faced her again, and now that her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she saw the anger lingering in his eyes, no matter how he’d softened his tone.
“You loved me, Jake. You could have cheated on me anytime in those two years. There were plenty of opportunities for both of us to stray.”
“And you’re sure I never did?” He arched a brow, and for a split second she doubted what she knew to be true.
She nodded, unable to find her voice.
His hand landed on her back again, and she stiffened against it to keep from relaxing into his touch.
“You’re right. I never would have back then. But now...” He shrugged.
“I was messed up back then, Jake. When my dad left, it totally messed with my head.”
His hand caressed her back. “That was a rough time for your whole family. I remember Reggie storming back into town with an ax to grind.”
Reggie had been interning in New York the summer their father had left. He had become superprotective of her and Shea after their father left.
“None of my brothers have forgiven our father. I think that’s the reason Reggie became a private investigator. He was never going to be duped again—at least that’s how it seemed.” Brent and Jesse lived in Harborside, Massachusetts, and avoided their father at all costs. And then there was Finn, who was a smoke jumper and thrived on risk as much as Jake did. He had a heart of gold—except where their father was concerned.
“And how about you, Fi? Did you ever make peace with your old man?”
She nodded. “As best as I could, sure.”
Jake looked away. “Good. I’m glad for that. I know you were close.”
“Jake, I’m sorry you got ripped off in the father department.”
He swung his chin back in her direction with a slight smile on his lips. “Yeah, such is life. People get ripped off in lots of departments.”
Ouch.
He rubbed his neck and stretched it to the right, then the left, then rubbed it again.
“Here, let me rub it for you.” She shifted so her body faced his.
“I’m fine.”
“Oh, come on, Jake. I remember how your neck tenses up, and you took a hard fall today. It’s the least I can do after you rescued me.” She gently turned his body so she could reach his neck from behind. She used both hands to massage the sides of his neck, then pressed her thumbs into the tight muscles and stroked down under his shirt and away from his spine, trying not to think about the desire pooling low in her belly.
With one hand, Jake reached behind him and pulled his shirt over his head. Fiona’s breath left her lungs in a rush. This might be too much. Her chest prickled with heat as her hands settled back onto his neck. He placed his hand over hers, pressing it firmly to his skin.
“I’d forgotten how good you were with your hands.”
She closed her eyes, trying not to hold on to the innuendo in his voice. She was so filled with desire for him that she feared she was turning everything he did into what she wanted to see.
He squeezed her hand, then released it, and she felt him relax into her touch. She swallowed to keep from making any sounds of pleasure, because touching Jake again brought pleasure to every one of her senses, except taste, and, boy, did she ever want to taste him. She slid her hands over the crest of his shoulders, kneading the muscles that were corded tight.
“I never meant to hurt you,” she said just above a whisper, a little surprised at the words. She hadn’t been thinking about saying them; they’d just come out on their own.
He nodded silently.
She slid her hands down his biceps and scooted closer, pressing her thighs against his hips to stabilize herself so she could press harder as she kneaded the tension from his arms.
Jake sighed and leaned his head back against her chest. She blinked rapidly against the threat of tears. She felt his barriers coming down and knew she wasn’t imagining it, and she reveled in everything about him, the smell of soap on his skin, the feel of him unwinding, accepting their friendship. After how he’d reacted at the bar, it was more than she’d thought possible.
“We always were hanging by a moment,” he said. “But I never realized it back then. I always thought we were solid.” He reached behind her and wrapped his arm around her waist, hugging her to his back. “But I guess you were like ‘Drops of Jupiter.’”
“Train sings that,” she whispered. She knew the song well. It was all about a girl who leaves her boyfriend to find herself, but only finds herself lonely in the end. They could have written that song about her.
“Did you find everything that you were looking for, Fi?” He turned his upper body and gazed into her eyes. “Is heaven overrated?”
“Anything without you is overrated. That’s what I found out.”
He touched his forehead to hers and her hand slid down his chest. She felt his heart thumping to the same frantic beat as hers. Felt him press his hand more firmly on her back.
“Fi, I’ll disappoint you,” he whispered.
She shook her head, whispered, “I don’t believe it.”
His hand moved up her back to her neck, stealing her thoughts completely. His lips were
so close, but even more overwhelming was knowing his heart was opening, even if cautiously. She felt it in his touch, saw it in the depths of emotion in his eyes.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said with a serious tone.
“I never meant to hurt you, and I’ll spend my life being sorry. I’ll never do it again, Jake. I’ve missed you too much.”
“Did you hear me, Fi?” His brows drew together. “I’m not the same guy I was.”
She ran her hand through his hair, and he made a noise in his throat that rattled through her. “You’re not the guy you are now, either. You’re somewhere in between, and I want to find out who that person is.”
“You’re my kryptonite,” he said just above a whisper as he tugged her in closer, their lips brushing. “I never could resist you.”
“Then don’t.”
He searched her eyes, and she hoped he saw how much she wanted this, how much she wanted him. In the next second, their lips met, and her body felt as though it had burst into flames. The kiss was soft and rough at once, tentative for only a second, maybe two, then aggressive and greedy. His tongue swept over hers. He tightened his grip on her and tugged her down to the floor with him, sweeping her beneath him, folding her into his embrace as he deepened the kiss. His lips were as soft as she remembered, but his scruff scratching her cheeks was new and tantalizing. The kiss was more intense, better, needier and more possessive. She never wanted the kiss to end, and when his hand slid beneath her T-shirt and he brushed the underside of her breast with his thumb, she moaned with pleasure.
Yes, please. Touch me. Make me yours. Become mine.
Jake pulled back, brows drawn together again. “Hear that?”
She couldn’t hear past the rush of blood racing through her veins and her heavy breathing. She shook her head.
“Damn.” He sat up, taking her with him, and gazed up at the ceiling.
“What is it?” She heard something faint but couldn’t make it out.
“Sorry, Fi.” He rose to his feet and helped her to hers. He dragged his eyes down her body. She felt exposed. Her nipples were hard, she was damp between her legs, and her insides quivered with need. “Christ, look at you.”
Crashing Into Love Page 9
