Jake waited to see what Becca’s reaction was before he responded. More watching and waiting, yes—but this time with the best of intentions. A long, semi-enforced stay at Montgomery Manor was exactly what he’d been escaping from in the first place. All that fresh, countryside air and wholesome food cooked at the hands of Serena’s grain-obsessed personal chef. The constant reminder that everyone else was busy working the hive while he alone balked at the taste of honey.
But it would get Becca out of the city—and that idea appealed to him so strongly it was almost a physical force. Out in Ransom Creek, there would be no photographers chasing her on her morning run. There would be no opportunities for the Trish Callahans of the world to pop up with snide remarks and judgy faces. There was little chance that her mom’s threats of rehab would reach that far.
And of course, a confrontation with Dana would cease to be an issue. Now that he’d committed himself to the task, Jake was willing to do almost anything to help Becca find closure over Sara’s death—but he was pretty sure a few more scratches down that man’s face weren’t the way to accomplish it. Until Becca was able to find a more appropriate solution, he was willing to look on this family intervention as a positive thing.
It could be good for her. Hell, it might even be good for him.
Becca turned an enquiring look his way, her lower lip captured in her teeth as if she was hesitant to speak up. “I would love a chance to spend some time with my niece and nephew. And I haven’t seen Serena since before...you know. The Ranch.”
That settled it. Jake nodded once. “Okay, Monty. You can tell Dad we’re in.”
“That’s it?” Monty’s brows rose in suspicion, and he examined Becca as if she held some kind of mystical power. “You’ll actually come?”
Yes, brother dear, Jake wanted to say, sometimes I do think about people other than myself. It was rare—he’d admit that much—but not altogether unheard of.
“No arguments? No sarcasm? You’ll pack your bags and be ready when the chauffeur comes to get you at eight?”
“Well, not at eight,” Jake said. “Now you’re just being absurd.”
“Does ten suit you better?”
“We could probably use a few days to settle things here in town first. How about you let Ryan decide when he can spare the time to make a drive to New York and have him call me?”
As he’d hoped, his response flustered Monty to the point of speechlessness. Monty liked to pretend that of all the family, he was the liberal-minded one, the one who cared most about the everyday man. Because he oversaw the family foundation and charitable interests, he somehow felt exempt from having to make an effort with people.
Not that Jake went out of his way to make an effort with people. But at least he didn’t have any delusions about his motivations.
“I’ll pass your message along,” Monty said tightly.
“I’d appreciate it, thanks.” Jake kicked back the rest of his drink and stood, lifting Becca with him. He made sure to grab her hand as he set her back on her feet, giving her a delicate twirl. “Now. If you’ll excuse me, I believe I owe my fiancée a dance.”
* * *
As Jake expected, Monty and his cloud of gloom were out the door before he and Becca hit the dance floor. To his brother, dancing was nothing but a shameless display of excess. Energy was expended on something that wasn’t work. Body parts touched in unseemly ways. And—horror of all horrors—people actually enjoyed themselves.
In fact, that was exactly what Jake intended to do. If he was going to spend the next few weeks of his life eating family dinners and basking in the glories of nature, he was going to indulge in a little excess first.
“I’ve been trying to get you out here all night, Muffin Cakes,” Becca cooed. His hands dropped to the curve of her hips, and he let her movements guide his own. It was an easy thing to do, so natural was the sway of her body. “I wish you’d told me earlier that all it would take is your brother’s disapproval. I spent an hour attempting to make you jealous with some guy who says he snuck in with the delivery truck. He smelled like beets.”
“Good try, Kitten Claws, but you’re forgetting one thing.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”
“In order to make me jealous, our engagement would have to be real.”
It was difficult to speak with the noise level, so he had to bring his lips close to her ear to be heard. From there, it was a short step to wrapping one of his hands around her waist, the other holding the back of her neck so that she had no choice but to move against him, her pelvis rocking against his. Each step closer lowered his inhibitions and made him question why, exactly, he was punishing himself so much by keeping her at a distance.
Because I’m taking care of her. Because I’m leading her village. Because it’s the right thing to do.
She wasn’t helping him stick to his resolve any. Arching to give him better access to her neck, she never once stopped the rhythmic movements of her body to the music. She tasted of sweat and skin, all the artifice of attraction wiped away and leaving nothing but the essence behind. He bit softly at her pulse, unable to stop himself.
“You’re right. I guess I’m technically a free woman, aren’t I?” She spun around so that her backside was pressed against his groin, his face still buried in her neck. The soft, sensual movements of her ass against him only made him bite harder.
She purred in response. Actually fucking purred.
“Far too free, if you ask me,” he muttered.
“Does that mean I get to sleep with the pool boy once we get to your dad’s house?”
Arms lifted above her head, encouraging Jake to wrap his own around her midriff. He did, stopping carefully below the swell of her breasts. Not that it made any difference to his rapidly stiffening cock. Her body was so tightly encased in the snakeskin dress she couldn’t so much as twitch without making him aware of every dip and swell.
“I’ve always wanted to seduce the pool boy,” she continued, oblivious. Or possibly not the least bit oblivious at all. “It’s on my list of clichés to live up to. Bad homemade porn with a politician, check. Stint in rehab, check. Twat shots for the cameras, check. All I need to do is bang the pool boy, get caught shoplifting, and, when I’m old enough, become a cougar with killer biceps. I’m halfway there.”
“I hate to disappoint you, but my dad doesn’t have a pool boy.” Jake turned her back around, bringing the ass grinding to a halt. There was only so much of that a man could take in public—and he knew for a fact the bathrooms here weren’t ideal for sex. They were so cavernous that even the sound of a condom opening reverberated off the walls with an echo.
“Pool girl?”
“Now you’re just being cruel.”
She laughed, a soft rush of breath that warmed him from the inside out. “Maybe a little. But it sounds as if your dad intends to keep us for a while—a month, at least. That’s a lot of cold fall nights for me to get through alone. And somehow, I don’t think Monty would be open to a fling with his little brother’s fiancée.”
“Don’t you fucking dare, Tiger. If you need sex that badly, I’m sure we can figure something out.”
She came in for a kiss, twining her arms around his neck and pulling his mouth to hers. Hot and ready, her lips parted to make way for him, and he took full advantage. She made it all too easy—the kissing, the dancing, the near-constant promise of sex. And she did it all with such an honest joie de vivre that he hardly knew how to handle himself. Jake wasn’t used to honest anything, let alone this blithe approach to affection.
She pulled away, her mouth lifting in a tempting half-smile. “Well, if that’s the case, can we start right now?”
Jake could have howled. In frustration. In desire. In rage at finding himself trapped between a rock and a very hard, very unsated place. With all the decenc
y of a man who was fully erect and didn’t have any immediate means of alleviating that problem, he gave in and made himself a promise. Until the day their fake engagement ended, all of Becca’s needs were his problem.
And his pleasure. They were also his pleasure.
“Right now?” he echoed, his voice low. There was no need to be quiet—the fifty or so half-orgasmic couples on the dance floor provided all the privacy they needed—but his throat was tight, his blood hot. “You may want to be careful what you wish for.”
“You. I wish for you.”
Consider it done. He slipped a hand between their bodies, not stopping until he reached the hem of her dress. Tight and elastic, the fabric had ridden up as they danced, making it easy to nudge his fingers past fabric to hit the hot, sleek thigh beneath. He enjoyed the silken feel of her skin moving under his fingertips, the way she grew hotter and sleeker with each passing moment.
“Jake.” His name came out in a whoosh of air as he nuzzled the back of his fingers against the material of her panties. He felt a surge of laughter rise that tonight, of all nights, she’d actually bothered with undergarments, but as he continued his upward exploration, rubbing the damp, indented fold of her pussy through the fabric, his amusement fled.
So did hers. Her arms wrapped tighter around his neck, making it impossible for anything to wedge its way between them. They were manacled, intertwined, bound so tightly that the movement of his forefinger under the lip of her underwear reverberated in his own cock.
“I should have guessed you’d be a good dancer,” she said, gyrating against his hand. “Tall, elegant men always have the best moves. You just have to give a confident twitch, and woman swoon.”
“You mean like this?” He gave his finger a very confident twitch as she parted her thighs. Her movement was subtle, offering just enough space to let him slide his finger all the way along the unmistakably swollen, slick line of her cunt, but it was enough. He was welcomed in, drawn deeper, and as she grabbed his lower lip in her teeth and tugged her appreciation, he rewarded her with a sharp flick of his nail on her clit.
The noise she emitted was in no way appropriate for a public venue, but the music and dance floor swallowed them both. There was an anonymity about the raw, almost base way she let him take possession of her body right there. They could be anyone and everyone. They could be no one at all.
“That works,” she gasped. “Though you should probably do it again so I can decide for sure.”
He laughed against her throat and complied. It would be incredibly easy to spend hours like this—his hand up her skirt, exploring the soft, inviting folds of her body—only seconds and a scream away from making this a front-row spectacle. Something about the idea that they could be caught, that someone paying attention over by the bar might be watching closely and straining as hard as he was for the main event, made Jake’s blood boil and his cock pound. A man didn’t let as many sex tapes slip through his fingers as he had without a strong river of exhibitionism running through him. And he suspected that Becca, with her own media trail of sexual antics, wasn’t immune to the current.
It could always be like this, he realized. Sex on the edge, performances half for the crowds, all for themselves.
Her breath came shorter and faster, her movements almost jerky as he circled her clit over and over again. She tried to keep her mewling to a minimum, but as her chest arched against his and her thighs tensed, he could tell she was close. He waited until the music moved into a heavily thumping refrain before pressing his thumb firmly against her body.
The clenching apex of her orgasm rocked his hand, and he stayed in place for a moment, enjoying her pleasure as it ebbed away against his touch. With a tiny tug to ensure that her underwear slid back into place, he withdrew his hand from between her legs.
“Better?” he asked, his voice low. Heedless of the scent and moisture of her that lingered on his hand, he cupped the back of her neck, his fingers tangled in her hair. Let the world smell her sex. Let them know that this vivid, reckless, damaged young woman was being taken care of for a change.
“Much better.” She ran her own hand slowly between them, her fingers walking a trail down to his groin. “The question is, how are you feeling right about now?”
“Not so fast.” He pulled away before she got much past his belt. With a shake of his head, he released a soft tsking sound. “I told you—I choose when and where and how.”
She stuck her lower lip out in an attractive and patently false moue that had him gripping her neck tighter and pressing her forehead against his. “And no more Monty jokes, okay? If you need something, all you have to do is ask. For the duration of our time together, I’ll be the one to take care of you.”
“You mean sexually?”
He paused. That was what he meant when he’d spoken the words out loud, but it was impossible to ignore the subtext pulsating between them. He’d spent the majority of adulthood shirking responsibility, doing everything he could to convince people not to rely on him for anything. And he’d been really good at it. His whole life, he’d managed to avoid situations that required staying power. He could walk away, clear of conscience and unattached, from every relationship and every residence he’d ever had.
Until now.
“No, Tiger.” He tipped her head up and forced her gaze to meet his. “I mean for everything. You come to me first, understand?”
He thought for a moment that she might get angry at him or taunt him for his overbearing Virgo ways. But all she did was look at him curiously and nod once, accepting his decree with “You’re kind of a tyrant when you’re engaged, you know that? I pity the woman who does end up marrying you.”
She picked up the pace of her dancing and twirled him around, jostling at least half a dozen dancers and causing one man to threaten to punch Jake if they did it again. As the man was a good foot taller and several feet wider than him, it seemed wise to concede him the floor.
“Believe me, Becca,” he said, pushing her toward a safer, less-likely-to-murder-him circle of dancers, “the feeling is entirely mutual.”
Chapter Thirteen
“You’re looking lovely this morning.” Jake nodded as Livvie stepped through Becca’s front door, oversized sunglasses covering her eyes and a recognizable slump to her shoulders. It was the slump of defeat, of capitulation, of the impending doom of exercise. “Lulu—you as well. So glad you could make it today.”
“Why is he acting like the host of a cocktail party?” Livvie groaned, directing her conversation over his head to where Becca bounced in the background. She’d been up an hour ago, giddy at the prospect of dragging out more unwilling victims on her training session. “And why is he talking so loud?”
“He’s gloating.” Becca embraced Lulu in a fierce hug, taking a moment to whisper something in the taller woman’s ear. He had no idea what she said, but it must have been exactly what Lulu needed, because she lost some of her wide-eyed stare and fell into a smile. “Since you guys agreed to come out with Max and me, he’s off the hook for today. From the way he’s acting, you’d think I offered him a presidential pardon.”
Oh, he wasn’t just gloating. He was close to breaking out in song. “Anything you ladies need, you just ask.” He took Livvie’s jacket and waited patiently while Lulu slipped out of the knee-length wool coat that looked as though it had been recently extracted from her grandmother’s trunk. “Coffee, aspirin, Gatorade, a blood transfusion...I’m at your disposal. As long as you remember never to look him directly in the eyes, you should be fine. And if you need a quick getaway, find a mirror. If you say Mean Max three times, you’ll turn him into the Candyman and have a much better chance of getting out alive.”
“He’s kidding. Don’t listen to a word he says. Max promised to take it easy on you since it’s your first time. He’s really quite gentle.”
To punctuate her words, Becca reached over and pinched him, a laugh on her lips. Jake felt more excitement at seeing that laugh this early in the morning than he ever thought possible. Last night marked the first time she’d slept an entire eight hours without thrashing or waking up halfway through, and it showed. She was radiant. He wasn’t sure if was his presence in the bed or the dancing last night or the fingerbang that had done it, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this proud of himself.
I did that. I took some of the shadows out of her eyes.
“Always know your escape route, that’s all I’m saying.” Jake turned to hang the coats in the foyer closet, now neatly arranged and accessible without climbing on top of a pile of boxes first. “And show no fear.”
He intended to make himself scarce long before the personal trainer arrived, but Livvie stopped him as he turned to make a discreet exit. The tall model had slipped the sunglasses onto the top of her head to showcase a pair of dark circles around her eyes.
“Did you decide you wanted that coffee after all?” Jake asked politely. By his count, he had about five minutes of chitchat time or he risked being dragged along.
“This is your fault, you know.”
“Probably.” He watched out of the corner of his eye as Becca led Lulu to the kitchen, presumably to pump her with fluids and provide a pep talk ahead of time. “But I won’t apologize. I’ve taken my turn twice this week already. I’m not going to be any good to Becca if I can’t walk.”
“I could have gone the rest of my life, happy and carefree, without ever breaking a sweat.”
“It’s a good day to set new goals.”
“I could have continued turning her down for as long as necessary.”
“I doubt that. She’s very persuasive.”
When I Fall Page 15
