by Stacey Keith
“Stop thinking,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “I can hear the gears turning.”
She took a deep breath to ground herself, a breath full of his woodsy, smoky, expensive scent. It floated through her, spiraling around and around in her belly, yet comforting somehow. With his face so close to hers, she could see the prisms of his eyes, blue upon blue, like the sky seen through layers of glass.
“It’s amazing,” she murmured against him as he squeezed her close. “All of it.”
“Better than any date ever, right?” Together they strolled toward the table, which was set formally with the assorted forks and cloth napkins and elegant stemware. “I don’t believe in doing things by half measures. Go hard or go home.”
Politely, she refrained from telling him that the word hard made everything inside her go red-hot.
Maggie couldn’t get over the feeling of freedom that came from dining with the stars as their ceiling. She reached the table and a waiter pulled out her chair. This morning, she was knee-deep in demanding customers. Now she was being pampered and waited on.
Please let this never end, she thought.
Jake shook out the napkin and draped it across his lap. “You look like the cat that ate the canary. I’ve never seen you purr before.”
“I am purring,” she confessed. “It’s like I’m dreaming.”
“Well, I had to sift through a lot of other ideas first before I came up with this.”
“Such as?”
“Bungee jumping.” His eyes twinkled. “I didn’t think you’d go for it. Not in that dress.”
“Undignified,” she agreed. “Listening to me scream? Definitely not sexy.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.”
She gulped and tried not to fidget in her seat, but good Lord, it was hard. No, it was difficult. Why on earth did every word that popped into her head lead back to sex with Jake?
“I considered taking you horseback riding,” he said.
“I love horseback riding.”
“But there was also the dress issue.”
Jake leaned back while the waiter served the first course—grilled shrimp cocktail in what appeared to be a lemon aioli sauce. Maggie sniffed at it appreciatively, pleased to see that the shrimp were peeled and the sauce was served in separate bowls. She had always been a staunch believer in non-communal dipping.
Was this really happening? Was she having dinner with Jake under a black velvet sky?
“We also have another reason to celebrate,” Jake said. “I got the Regal.”
Maggie stopped eating. “The Regal is yours? Does that mean you’ll be in town awhile?”
The corners of his mouth twitched. “Do you think you can make time for me?”
She tried not to stare at him in the candlelight because staring at Jake felt as though she were plunging off a fifty-story building. Yet every time her eyes passed over him, they lingered in fascination. This thick, corrosive heat would build in the middle of her stomach and then start blistering her from the inside like a bad sunburn.
She loved the way his eyes crinkled slightly at the corners and the lazy Texas drawl that spread a thick coat of honey over the things he said. She loved the way he looked at her over the rim of his glass, the easy grace of his lean, powerful body, the cowlick that parted his hair on one side so that a few spikes stuck up, soft irresistible spikes that she longed to touch.
As they talked over the lobster bisque, she enjoyed discussing his vision for the Regal, even stuff she knew nothing about like air-conditioning schematics or the difference between preservation and restoration. By the time they’d made it through the hearts-of-romaine salad and the grilled rib eye with fingerling potatoes, shiitake mushrooms and rosemary jus, she felt as though she’d eaten more than just dinner. She’d actually learned things, and learning things was new territory for her—unless she took into account what Todd had taught her about bronc busting.
During the pistachio sorbet, with the warm breeze fluttering the hem of her dress and the stars glittering overhead, she sucked up her courage and decided to tell him who Todd actually was. To keep it a secret after everything Jake had done for her just seemed dishonest.
“I need to tell you something,” she said.
“Uh-oh. Nothing good ever comes after an opener like that.”
“It’s nothing too awful, I hope.” She crushed her napkin in her lap. “That man you saw me with the other day. Todd. He used to be my husband.”
It felt as though someone had put a three-day-old catfish on the table. She glanced up at him, waiting for what she imagined would be a subtle distancing. No matter how modern she thought she was, deep down she couldn’t help but think she was less of a person because her marriage had failed.
Her divorce was the first on either side of her family, she explained. She had a great aunt and a second cousin who’d told her, for that very reason, why divorcing Todd was a mistake. “So he cheated,” Great Aunt Mary had said, shrugging. “Most of ’em do. And let’s not forget that Todd’s rodeo. Cowboys are hard dogs to keep on the porch.”
Jake listened with the kind of attention she should have found flattering if she weren’t afraid he’d use the gory details against her later. Still, it was good to have it off her chest.
There was never a right time to tell somebody your ex couldn’t keep his pants zipped, but sooner was better than later. She didn’t tell him about her attempts to get pregnant though. And she didn’t tell him about Todd knocking up her best friend. There was still too much shame.
“I knew there was a reason I hated that guy,” Jake said. “What a fool he was to throw away a woman like you. But his loss, my gain.”
It struck her that he was serious—Jake Sutton, who sampled women like sweets in a chocolate box. She had to remind herself not to read things into his behavior that weren’t there. Just because she wanted to think he cared didn’t mean he did. Jake was gorgeous, charming, romantic, a multibillionaire…and he badly wanted to get in her pants. Men said a lot of things they didn’t actually believe when their penises were involved.
The waiter brought coffee. Jake shook his head, but she didn’t. She wanted to be as alert as possible for the “Buyer Beware” clauses she feared were coming—the “I’m not looking for anything serious” or the “Don’t get too attached because I’m not sticking around that long.” There were always clauses, especially after you’d told a man you were divorced.
“Are you ready for the movie, sir?” the waiter asked.
Jake lifted an eyebrow at her. He had the look of a man who saw something he wanted and despite the mouthwatering meal they’d had, he still looked hungry.
Her body tingled in response. That purely carnal intensity in his blue gaze, that crook to his lips. Was she ready for a movie or was she ready for him to pin her naked to the bed?
“What are we watching?” she asked, surprised to hear herself speak.
“Casablanca,” he replied, and she knew he’d chosen it for her. Chosen it because Casablanca was a beautiful old movie about a doomed romance, the way theirs would be when Jake proved what she already knew: men couldn’t be trusted to consistently water a house plant, let alone save you from heartbreak. And she was walking straight into it because he’d bought her beautiful dresses and created this fairytale and didn’t seem to mind that she was divorced.
She was about to watch Casablanca under the stars with a man who made her toes curl. Even though nothing in her life would ever compare to this again, she really ought to just relax and enjoy it.
The waiter got the film rolling while Jake escorted her to an overstuffed couch. Maggie melted into it and gazed up misty-eyed at the stars.
Stop thinking, Jake had told her. I can hear the gears grinding.
Well, she could hear her life grinding—right down to the bitter cud gnawed on by old maids and divo
rcees. Did she want that for herself? To go around telling herself everything was great when it wasn’t?
“You make it hard to watch the movie,” Jake said, sitting next to her. “If I’d remembered, I would have picked a movie with more explosions. Apocalypse Now, maybe. Always tough to kiss a girl when body parts start flying—”
Maggie grabbed him and crushed her mouth against his. She felt as though she’d lost a long battle with her self-control. Now that the flood gates were open and she’d invited the bad decisions to just start pouring over her, she didn’t care about the future anymore. She didn’t care about anything but this.
He was chocolate.
Every cell of her body trembled, wanting chocolate.
Jake sank his fingers into her hair. She felt the heat of him against her lips and then lower, lower, pooling between her legs. She wanted him. She wanted. And even knowing the waitstaff guessed what was going on behind the couch wasn’t shameful enough to stop her.
She’d played with the matches. Now she was on fire.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Jake wasn’t all that clear on the details of what brought Maggie’s lips to his, but he’d never been a man to pass up an opportunity. Maggie was so pent up, she was shaking like a leaf.
Yet as soon as he slid his tongue along the length of hers, he found himself rejecting the idea that Maggie was an opportunity. She wasn’t.
She was Maggie.
In an instant he was rock hard and wanting her in a way that made him wish they were somewhere with a big bed and the whole week ahead of them. He slowly slid his hands to her hips and pulled her closer, but then he couldn’t peel his hands off her backside. All that hot delicious female flesh right there in his palms. Now that he had it, he never wanted to give it up. It made him hard to the point of aching.
She made a sound deep in her throat, something between a growl and a purr. He was being given a taste of something he’d been longing for but hadn’t known. Not just a woman. This woman.
That should have been reason enough to push Maggie away and run back to Dallas. It forced him to consider something he’d never thought about before, ever. Not when it came to women.
Was he taking advantage of her?
The idea struck him like a blow to the face. Why couldn’t he fucking un-think it and go back to the fun and games of driving Maggie back to the ranch and dragging her out of her clothes? What was wrong with him?
But even as he raked that voluptuous lower lip between his teeth and buried his hands in her soft warm hair, he knew he wasn’t going to do that. Treating her like something disposable was a dick move—the kind of thing her shithead ex-husband would have done. Jake refused to do that.
But he’d still lost his fucking mind. A hot spur of anger dug into his sides. Here was this gorgeous, insatiable woman, a woman he’d worked his ass off to get, and now he had an attack of conscience? Since when did he even have a conscience? Since when did he, Jake Sutton, say no to sex?
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered.
Despite her lush, disheveled sexiness, Maggie looked stricken. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” Except me.
What did that say about him—that he needed to make sure she came to him because she wanted to, not because he’d put stars in her eyes with his dog-and-pony show.
Was that what it was then? A show? It didn’t feel like a show. It felt like a gesture he’d made to a woman he was wildly attracted to, yes, but who needed a little magic in her life. So why would that keep him from doing the one thing he’d come here to do, which was to take her, face-to-face, from behind, sideways, upside down, in every possible position until he died of happiness?
“Is it because we’re here?” she whispered, that tempting carnal mouth just inches away. “Because they’ll see?”
Jake pushed one hand through his hair. His dick twitched and throbbed, as angry with him as he was with himself. “It is peculiar how we always find ourselves outside during these little encounters,” he muttered.
“Then take me back to the apartment,” she said huskily.
And holy mother, how he wanted to. For a second, he almost did. He almost said fuck it, and shoved her into the car. Maggie understood the rules. She knew how this would eventually play out—he’d give her a wonderful sexy adventure and then he’d be on his merry way. Because that was how shit worked in the real world.
The fact that he didn’t want to do that to her bothered him profoundly. It went against who he was and everything he stood for. And it was insane.
“We’re in no rush, are we?” He put his arm around her and slid her next to him. It wasn’t cuddling. He refused to call it cuddling. Jesus, he had some self-respect left, didn’t he? “Let’s watch Casablanca.”
At first he thought she was offended. Maggie’s cheeks were flushed. She was breathing heavily. She looked a little wild. But she settled into his chest where he could smell the fragrance of her shampoo and her light floral perfume and the musky scent of desire. Something like agony and lust crashed over him.
While the waiter brought them non-alcoholic spritzers and mineral waters, he and Maggie watched Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman deliver their classic lines, all under an enormous Texas canopy of stars.
Of course he needed someone to yell at him, someone who knew him like Mason, who could tell him what the fuck was wrong and how to fix it. But if he had to admit the truth, sitting here with Maggie snuggled up next to him was the most enjoyable thing he’d done in a long time. Except for the part where he really wanted to get her naked.
What he needed was a cigarette.
He dug into his pocket for his pack of Dunhills.
“I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how bad those are for you,” Maggie said.
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” He moved her so he could cup his hand around the flame. Then he settled back and rearranged her next to him.
“You’re full of surprises,” she said.
“How’s that?”
“Every time I think I’ve got you figured out…”
“You realize I’m a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma?”
She smiled up at him. It was the kind of smile that curled up around his heart and did things to it. Bad things.
“I was going to say you are more of a gentleman than I gave you credit for,” she murmured.
Jake tapped the ash off his cigarette and took a long thoughtful drag. “I’m not, actually. Or at least I didn’t think I was.”
“I know.” And it was all there—the sultry bedroom eyes, the bitable lower lip. Christ, he was going to hate himself in the morning.
“That’s why you surprise me,” she said. “It’s the best surprise so far.”
* * * *
The first thing Jake saw when he woke up the morning after his date with Maggie was the hard, unlovely face of Mason’s housekeeper, Mrs. Birch.
She was barking at him to get up.
“What time is it?” he gasped, groping for his smartphone. “Don’t you ever sleep?”
“It’s late.” She snatched his shirt off the chair, dropped his shoes with a thud in the closet, and then she jerked open the bedroom curtains.
Daylight hit Jake smack in the eye and he practically catapulted out of bed. “Jesus Christ!”
“You said to wake you at seven-thirty,” she muttered. “I woke you at seven-thirty.”
“Please never listen to me again if I say that.” Unless you’re prepared to pay for my therapy.
“Breakfast’s waiting.”
She left with his shirt and Jake fell back in bed, scrubbing his face with his hands. He hadn’t gotten much sleep after dropping Maggie off at her apartment. It was hard to sleep when you were busy asking yourself what happened to the man you used to be. Or how to deal with the fact that you had turned into an enormous
pussy.
Plus all those crickets and frogs and shit drove him crazy.
He got into the shower with his usual morning hard-on but didn’t have enough time to do anything about it. Pete Manford and two other foremen were meeting him at the Regal in less than an hour. But he knew what he would have thought about if he’d had a few quality moments alone with his dick. Maggie on the couch last night with her dress pulled up.
Jake hurried through his shower and shave. He pulled on jeans and boots instead of his usual business attire. He’d have to shed his city stink if he wanted to make any headway with the locals.
Fortunately, he knew how to do that.
A plate of eggs and bacon waited for him in the breakfast room. Damn if they weren’t the best eggs and bacon he’d ever had. Mrs. Birch may have been meaner than a bag of snakes, but she sure knew how to cook. Jake made short work of breakfast, jumped into his car and then drove to the Regal.
He parked around the corner from Sweet Dreams, still a little early for his meeting with the foremen, but not early enough to go in and say hi to Maggie. He wanted to. He wanted to see her covered in cake batter and smelling of sugar and vanilla. He wanted to kiss her until she melted into him, soft and warm and delicious.
But the air didn’t exactly smell like cake batter—it smelled burnt. He sniffed again to be sure. His Maggie had scorched a batch of something this morning, and for some reason the thought made him chuckle.
He got out of the car, flicked his lighter and leaned against a tree to smoke. The urge to see her kept needling him. After last night, it would be amusing to see how she behaved. Would she play it cool and pretend that date hadn’t rocked her world?
Maybe he could go in and see her for just a minute. He looked around for a place to put out his cigarette. Jesus, was he really doing this? Putting romance over business?
Jake heard voices and looked up. That dickhead Todd was heading toward the bakery with his two little ankle biters. Todd was all duded up in his cowboy gear. He’d put some extra shine on that oversized belt buckle of his.
