“Every two hours, give or take,” Jake said. “You will need to walk it off, and hell, I will too. It’s a good bike, but it ain’t mine. It’ll take a little getting used to, even though the ride is pretty smooth.”
“Well, then every two hours. That will get us into town by early evening, right?”
Jake shrugged. “Give or take.”
She lifted her brows. “I’ve never been to Richmond. I don’t know anyone there. Are there any fun places to go at night? Some place where we can have a good time?”
“Well …” He rolled his glass in his hands, not really sure how to play this. “What’s your definition of a good time?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Anna said. She settled back in her own seat, taking another long drink of water. “Seems to me like I’ve been kidnapped by some dude on a motorcycle, I should go all in on the experience.”
That made him stop. “All in?”
“Well, sure. I should go ahead and embrace the journey, or at least this stretch of I-95. Take advantage of the sexy guy who kidnapped me.” She gave him a smile. “At the very least, he should pay for dinner.”
Jake sat back in his seat, feeling his own tension flow out of him as something else flowed in. Something that made his heart beat sideways, but also skated along his bloodstream straight to his groin, ratcheting up an entirely different kind of tension. “You want me to show you a good time?”
“I think it’s only fair. You were riding my ass about being a workaholic, toeing the corporate line. Well, how can I make a decision about what to do and how to do it if I never get a taste of the other side?” She tilted her head, eyeing him. “Of course, that’s saying that you’ve got what it takes to show me that other side. I realize that may be kind of rude of me, to think that might be something you either want or can—”
“Oh, I can do it, darling,” Jake said. He didn’t bother trying to hide the raw interest in his voice. Now she was speaking his language, and he had been to Richmond a few times. For a sweet Southern city, it still carried a level of spice. “You looking for a nightclub, strip club, or just a bar?” he watched as her eyes widened. “For myself, I don’t need to see other women take their clothes off, unless you’re willing to go up on that stage. But there are plenty of places for you to strut it out if that’s your interest. Whatever you want to do, we can make it happen.”
Did he seriously just suggest that they could go to a strip club? Anna took another drink of water to give herself something to do, but was surprised to realize that yes, in fact, she did have limits. Watching some college girl take off her clothes so she could put herself through school wasn’t her idea of a good time. But Jake’s other suggestion …
“I don’t have any good clothes for a nightclub, so that’s a problem.”
“What, they don’t have stores in Richmond?” Jake flashed her a grin. “I can get you there more quickly, if you’re in the mood to shop. There’s got to be an outlet store somewhere between here and there. The South is full of them.”
“There you go.” Anna took in the subtext of Jake’s comments, which he probably wasn’t even aware of. Here was a man who was willing to go shopping with her. Admittedly, for the sole purpose of buying sexy clothes, but still. “I tell you what. I’ve got only one hard stop, my call to Japan. I have to make that, and I don’t care where we are. Otherwise, your job is to show me a good time, and I’ll go along with everything you suggest.”
Jake’s eyes went a little dark, and the smile on his lips was calculating. “Those are pretty broad parameters,” he said.
Anna shrugged, but she couldn’t deny the excitement pulsing through her. “What, you thinking of doing something that pushes my boundaries?”
“Darling, I’m thinking of doing everything that pushes your boundaries.” Their food arrived, and Jake grinned at her. “Go ahead and dig in. You’re going to need your strength.”
The rest of the trip passed almost in a blur for Anna. The closer they got to Richmond, the more keyed up she became. They did find an outlet mall off of I-95, and while she went to Off 5th, Jake disappeared down another section of stores, coming back with a package tucked inside his jacket, which he then transferred to his saddlebag without letting her see what it was. Otherwise, the trip passed in a whirl of traffic, drink breaks, and rest areas, with Jake making calls at every stop after ordering her to walk the road out of her legs, anywhere but near him.
Anna found the whole thing more bemusing than intriguing. She was used to calling the shots—preferred it, she told herself. But here he was, taking charge, ordering her around, making sure she was comfortable, safe, happy. It was kind of sweet, really. And kind of weird. But mostly, it was intensely hot. Which made no sense at all.
Now she bit her lip as the next Richmond, Virginia road sign whipped by. It was barely seven P.M. and they were almost to their first destination, which she hoped to hell was their hotel. She needed a shower in the worst way, if only to untangle the parts of her hair that had worked their way out of her helmet and wrap. They took the exit into the downtown area, and at the first light, Jake planted his legs on the ground, turning around to look at her. “Hotel just up the way. You good with that?”
She gave him the thumbs up, and he turned back around. The long ride on the back of a bike with nothing but her thoughts to keep her company had given her time to reflect on everything that had happened in the few short days of the wedding trip. And the truth was, Jake paid attention. He watched her every move, every gesture, every smile and frown. He seemed to tense up when he thought she would be upset, and he grinned when he had a surprise for her. Some of that, she was sure, was just the excitement of her being new in his life. She wondered how he would be, say, three years into a relationship. Would he still be so intent? She wouldn’t let herself believe it.
And yet she had a lot of miles to think of nothing but.
Now they were angling onto a street with a gorgeous hotel looming above them, and Anna couldn’t quite blink the grit out of her eyes to make out where they were. Jake rode straight up to the valet and pulled off his helmet. “I’ll park it if you just show me where,” he said, and the valet shrugged.
“I have a bike myself, sir,” he said with a smile. “I’m happy to take it off your hands.”
“Fair enough, but be careful. It’s not my bike.” Jake tossed him the keys, then reached down to lift the saddlebags away.
“Jake, you’re kidding right?” She’d pulled off her helmet as well, but could only stare at him as he took it from her, then clipped her helmet to the bike and handed his to the valet guy. “This is not where we’re spending the night.”
“Yup.” He chuckled as they entered the extravagant lobby.
“But this had to have cost a fortune!” Anna protested, trying to keep her voice low. “There is no way you—”
Jake stopped short on the marble floor and turned to her. “Anna. Just go with it. For once. I don’t care if tonight costs me three thousand dollars. Which it won’t, for the record. No matter how rough I travel, every once in a while, I need to take advantage of civilization. Today I’ve got a beautiful woman in a strange city and I want a decent shower. Hold this.”
He handed the saddlebags to her, and she held the unwieldy leather case close to her body as he strode up to the main desk. The woman behind the desk smiled at him as if she’d been expecting him, and within a few minutes, Jake was back, exchanging Anna’s armful of leather for a small paper envelope with two plastic key cards.
“You’re serious.”
“I’m serious,” he said. A smile cracked his now faintly sunburned face. “And I’m in serious need of that shower now. So hop to it.”
Chapter 22
Jake let Anna take the lead down the hallway, and not just because of the view. He really was looking forward to a shower, and to having the woman who’d been driving him crazy all day off the back of his bike and in his bed. At this point, he didn’t give a shit about whether or
not they went out tonight. As long as he was with Anna, he was good.
“Jake!” Anna’s exclamation drew his attention sharply ahead. She’d opened the door with the card and burst into the room, and the heavy door was already beginning to swing back toward him. He stopped it with his booted foot, but by the time he cleared the foyer of the suite Anna was back in front of him, reaching for the bag. “It’s so nice! It’s all so nice!” she said, peeling the saddlebag away from him to throw on a chair. She grabbed his hand. “And you’re not going to believe the—”
“Hey, hey, hey,” Jake said, catching Anna’s wrist and bringing her back around to face him. “We’ve got all the time in the world, babe. Seems like there’s a lot of things we can do right here without moving an inch.” He leaned down and kissed her, and she held still for all of three seconds.
“But you have to see this!” Obligingly, he let her drag him toward the bathroom, though he already knew what was waiting for them. He’d asked for a basic room, but after one look at Anna standing there looking windblown and road weary, the desk clerk had given him a conspiratorial smile. He’d gotten an upgrade to this room for no extra charge, and the benefits of it were mainly—
“Just look at that!” Anna called out. The centerpiece of the luxury bathroom was an oversized jetted tub, separate from the shower. Thick, rich-looking towels were piled up along one side of it, and Anna was already peering down at the faucets and dials. She glanced up and fixed on the shower, then back at the bathtub. “I don’t know which to choose.”
“Who says we need to choose?” Jake asked. “You get that thing started, then meet me in the shower.”
She grinned at him even as he was pulling off his shirt. “Deal,” she said. She ran back out of the room and he shook his head, turning toward the glass-walled shower. He wasn’t sore—the day’s ride had been easy—but he wasn’t kidding about wanting the shower. Riding with his leather jacket wasn’t always comfortable, and the helmet had damn near suffocated him. He stuck his head under the stream of water and groaned in appreciation as the hot water pounded down on him. Anna shouted a warning when she switched on the Jacuzzi’s water, but it didn’t make a dent in the heat or intensity of the shower, or his enjoyment of it. He was well past finished when Anna finally opened up the shower door to slip in behind him, but he wasn’t moving from the shower anytime soon. He wasn’t going to miss this.
“My turn,” she said, and he turned around, angling backward to get her fully under the spray. “You want to check on the—”
“Nope, I’m good right here,” he said. “Let me.”
He took the little bottle of shampoo she was holding and emptied almost all of it out over her head, working her tangled curls under the pounding water. Anna seemed to freeze beneath his hands for a moment, a rabbit not sure about her captor, then she sagged against him, letting out an earthy groan. “You have … no idea … how amazing that feels.”
Jake smiled, more than aware of how a woman’s body needed to unwind after a long day on the road. Anna wasn’t the first woman to ride with him, but this was not the time to point that out. As she reached up to help him unravel her hair, he moved his hands down, gently massaging her shoulders, marveling at how soft her skin was, how smooth and supple. When his hands began tracing a hard, kneading trail down her spine, her moans intensified. When they splayed out over her lower back, he thought her knees were going to buckle.
“I thought you were going to tell me if you were getting sore,” he said, his words coming out a little more sharply than he intended as she braced herself against the wall. “I didn’t mean to cripple you.”
“I’m not sore. That just feels really good.”
“Yeah, well, I’m doubly glad we got the tub, then,” he said. “You’re going to need it.”
“Looking out for me?” She half-turned and looked up at him, her hair slicked back off her face. She wore no makeup and her cheeks were slightly pink from both the wind and the sun, her eyes crinkling under the splash of water. Beautiful.
Something of what he was thinking must have shown in his eyes, because Anna’s cheeks grew a little more flushed, her hands coming up to unconsciously shield herself.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Jake whispered. “I want to see all of you.” He turned her all the way around to face him, and stood her slightly away, his eyes raking over her body as if to sear her image into his brain. She was pure woman—full breasts, hourglass waist, round ass, and long legs, her wet mass of curls swept back from her face so that not even her hair veiled her beauty. She tried to shift away and he reached out—not to draw her close, but to secure her hands at her sides while he drank in the sight of her naked. “So goddamned beautiful,” he murmured.
If anything, Anna’s flush deepened. She stretched up to Jake, and as her lips reached his her breasts grazed his chest. His already erect cock twitched hard just as Anna’s body molded itself to his. A strange hissing noise caught his attention and he glanced to the right, then stopped. “Holy Christ, Anna, what did you put in the tub?”
Anna’s eyes fluttered open, then reality hit her with a slap and she scrambled out of Jake’s arms, managing to get the door to the shower open on the second try. She skittered across the tile floor and slammed off the faucets on the tub, fighting her way through mounds of fluffy, white bubbles to do so.
“It was a gift! Spa stuff. A bridesmaid’s gift, from Kristen!” she managed to say, while trying to beat down the suds with blanket-size towels. “I only put in a little!”
“Well, thank God. But here.” Jake took the wet towels out of her hands and tossed them on the counter. “You’ll be just as effective inside the tub.” He reached down to test the water, which was draining out of the top of the Jacuzzi through holes apparently designed for people who left the apparatus unattended. When he grimaced and looked up at her, she tensed.
“What?” she asked nervously. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s like a million degrees,” he said. He put one leg into the tub, then the second, but his jaw was set. “You’ll definitely feel better if you do this, though.”
“Mmm.” Taking advantage of his precarious position, Anna came around to the side. Despite the interruption and the heat of the Jacuzzi, Jake was clearly still turned on, his erection jutting out as he leaned over to grip the sides of the tub, preparing to lower himself down. Steam unfurled from the roiling water, but the hissing noise was drowned out by Jake’s own gasp as she leaned forward and drew her mouth over the tip of his shaft.
“Anna,” he said, warningly, and she just smiled.
“Shhh,” she said. “You’ll definitely feel better if you do this.”
Bracing her hands on the side of the tub, she leaned into his body and took as much of his shaft into her mouth as she could in one quick rush. Then she slowly pulled back, all the way to the tip, before plunging back down, even more deeply this time. Jake’s breath choked in his throat, and she grinned. Thank you, Kristen.
Kristen, being Kristen, had not been able to resist adding a non-PC item to the girl’s spa package. The erotic peppermint-flavored mouth spray was supposed to dull the throat’s gag reflex just enough to give you the oral sex moves of a porn star, a gift that had resulted in gales of laughter among all the girls. So far, Anna had to admit, the product was living up to its billing.
Jake, for his part, peeled his hands off the sides of the tub and buried them in her hair. “Anna, this was not …”
She loved doing this to him. She loved the stress in his voice, the bitten-down control, knowing that he was trying—unsuccessfully—to resist the urge his body was demanding of him to release. As she scooted onto the edge of the Jacuzzi, her hands were freed up, and she reached out to feather her fingers against the soft skin of his balls, lifting their weight up and away from the churning water. With her other hand, she snaked her fingers around the base of his shaft, forming a tight, slick ring. She’d Googled this move during one of their road stops, and she’d read about i
ts effect on male anatomy. Jake was doomed.
“Anna!” He shuddered beneath her hands and mouth, his own grip on the sides of her head trembling now. She went in for another long plunge and felt the pressure of him against the back of her throat, the telltale tensing of her own gag reflex, and she pulled back just as Jake cursed out low and hard, and his body convulsed against hers. Wet heat filled her mouth for just an instant and then was gone—she barely realized it was happening, the peppermint spray was that strong—but even as she tried to pull away from Jake, he halted her with a tight grip on her upper arms.
“The water’s perfectly fine now,” he said, half-lifting her into the tub. Her feet hit the steaming hot water and she squealed, but he held her to him as she got used to the temperature. “And I’m afraid you’ve just aced yourself out of a night on the town, sweetheart.”
She blinked at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean you’re going to be tied up for a while right here in this room.”
Anna felt her eyes go wide at Jake’s words. Surely he couldn’t mean—but when Jake glanced back at her, understood where her mind had gone, his smile got a little more intent. “Well, well, well. You want to try everything this weekend, don’t you?”
“No! I mean, I—I didn’t mean—” Anna shook her head sharply, even as Jake eased her down into the tub.
“Shhh,” he said. “First, we need to see what we can do to get you relaxed.”
Anna let him wrap her in his arms as they both sank into the deep-sided tub. The bubbles were everywhere, spilling over the sides of the tub, piled up on the ledges, but the water was heavenly once she got used to the shock of the heat. And the jets—
“Here.” Jake adjusted her body until she was positioned directly in front of a fan of nozzles, the spray pounding on her lower spine and backside. Her eyes just about crossed, and Jake laughed. “I thought you might like that. You relax while I get this mess a little more cleaned up. If our neighbors downstairs have water running into their lights, they may take exception.”
Fake It Page 19
