Apple found herself smiling back. “Did you ever find any?”
Jake shook his head and laughed. “Not even close. But damn it was fun.” His smile grew tender. “Those were some good times.” Then, shaking his head, he looked at her and raised a brow. “What about you? You ever gone panning for gold?”
Apple was sitting cross-legged on the ground, tracing patterns in the dirt with a finger. At his question she tilted her head and responded, her hand stilling, “You don’t remember?”
“Don’t I remember what?” He tipped his head, studying her.
She gave him a look like, “Duh.” “Really? You seriously don’t recall the one and only time I went gold panning even though you were there? Fine. I was sixteen, and it was during the Bensons’ annual Fourth of July picnic. You saved me from washing down current when the skirt of my dress got caught on that enormous floating log and I couldn’t get free. Ring any bells?”
“That does sound familiar,” he drawled, appearing hazy on the memory.
“I almost drowned!” Apple shot him an incredulous look. “How can you not remember that?”
“Wait, I do remember that.” Jake shook his head, his dark eyes somber. “That must have been tough.”
Finally, she thought. There’s the appropriate sympathetic response. “Thank you. Yes, it was, as a matter of fact.”
His eyes were steady on her, flat serious. “You know what I remember most from that day?”
Her fingers began doodling in the dirt again. “No, what’s that?”
Wickedness cut through the serious in a blink, and his eyes went bright as the full moon at midnight. “Your see-through, soaking-wet panties.”
Apple gaped at him. She tried to speak, but it came out only as a pathetic little squeak. And then there was the giant lump that was suddenly blocking her throat, making swallowing nearly impossible. Yeah, speech wasn’t going to happen.
“They were this peach fabric with a small bow on the front and a rose in the middle.”
“Y-you remember that?” she croaked, completely flummoxed.
“Of course I do,” he replied, simply and matter-of-factly.
“W-why?” Of all the panties he’d seen in his lifetime, why did Jake remember hers?
He looked her dead in the eye. “Because they were yours.”
Apple’s heart seized for a beat. Then two.
Until he added with an unrepentant grin, “And because a hormone-ravaged teen boy doesn’t forget his first pair of wet underpants. It was like a wet T-shirt contest, only a million times better.”
Then she was laughing. “Pervert.”
“Aren’t we all, baby? Aren’t we all?” He chuckled, turning his attention back to the work at hand.
But she stopped him. “Hey, thanks, by the way.”
“For what?” His hands were busy securing a complicated-looking knot.
“For saving my life that day.”
“Anytime,” he said quietly after a few moments, glancing at her with an unreadable expression.
Though she couldn’t read it, Apple could feel it. Wow, how she could feel it. She let out a breath to steady herself. Incredible, that man’s energy was. Simply incredible sometimes.
When the site was fully set up, Jake went about starting a fire. Using a piece of flint and a practiced flick of his wrists, he had flames bursting to life and lapping hungrily at the scraps of wood in no time. Then he simply rocked back on the heels of his hiking boots and grinned at her over the fire, looking thoroughly satisfied with himself.
“What is it with men and fire?” Apple said, laughing.
“We like the flames. Makes us feel alive and manly.” He ran a hand inches over the top of the red-hot logs. “Kinda like a woman.”
She snorted at that and looked into the thick stand of pines that surrounded them, enjoying the rich, pungent scent. “You would know.”
Whoa, where had that sudden snark come from?
Jake slid her a look through his spiky black lashes, still crouched before the fire pit. “Funny, Apple, you’ve mentioned the women I’ve been with a lot lately. Sounds like you’re jealous. But that can’t be right because you couldn’t be, could you? Not over me.”
As if. Apple rejected that idea immediately. But then she felt a tug of something—a lot of somethings that forced her to reconsider. Okay well, shit. Maybe.
“I’m not jealous,” she muttered, not knowing what else to say.
His smile cranked up a few degrees, and she had a hot flash. Wow. “It’s not a mark against your moral character if you are, you know. It’s allowed.”
Suddenly agitated, Apple stood up and paced, before plopping into a red camp chair. She picked up Waffles and began to pet her rather enthusiastically. Narrowing her eyes on Jake, she had a sudden suspicion. “Do you want me to be jealous?”
If she’d been expecting him to be demure and modest, then she was clearly delusional because he laughed outright and winked at her. “Maybe.”
Really?
Unsure what to make of that new bit of information—was he joking?—Apple studied Jake over the flames. He was so darn good-looking that she was sure he’d had his fair share of jealous women fawning over him. It was his bedroom eyes, his potent smile—his big, virile body. And it was that simple, grounded, competent energy of his that promised safety and security would be found in his arms for the right woman.
Problem with that was that he was too busy sifting through women like flour through a strainer to notice if she’d arrived.
And for some reason, knowing that did make her a little damn jealous. What the heck? Had receiving a few kisses from him made her lose objectivity?
Her heart whispered that it was more than that. That it was exactly what she’d been warned about.
Apple sighed. Great.
“Why did you bring me out here?” she blurted, having meant to ask that for hours now. “What’s the purpose of all of this?”
Jake brushed his hands on his pant legs and moved to the blue cooler near the low-slung tent. “I thought you’d enjoy it. You were always bugging me and Aidan to take you on our backpacking trips when we were kids, remember?”
That’s right, she had been. They’d always seemed to have so much fun. “I remember.”
“Honestly though, I’ve been coming here for the past few years to recharge my batteries after all of the chaos of Theme Night. Usually I spend about a week, but I’ve decided to cut the trip from my usual five-day trek to an overnight in-and-out. Figured I’d go easy on you. I remember what happened the last time Aidan caved and tried to take you camping.”
“Hey, that wasn’t my fault! I didn’t ask him to bring enough gear to throw out his back and make him miss senior-year football tryouts.”
“He said you carried him piggyback-style out of camp and back to the car like a real champ. Like a wild Amazonian warrior, I believe were his words.” His lips were twitching hard by the time he’d ended the sentence.
“Gee, thanks.”
“I do what I can, juicy fruit.”
Apple eyed him skeptically. “Is that really the reason you brought me out here? You wanted me to enjoy it? Or did you actually bring me out here as a stalling tactic? Need I remind you that you specifically said you’d answer my questions?” Speaking of, she reached for the notebook and pen she’d set on the ground next to her earlier and placed them in her lap.
He raised one of those brows at her. “I’m not stopping you from asking anything, Apple, so long as you remember the rules.” He grabbed a beer from the cooler and waved it in front of him, gesturing to the fire and the forest around them. “The night is your oyster. Ask away.”
When put that way . . . She opened her notebook to a blank page. Why not jump right in? “How did they all die, those first settlers?”
Jake gave a laugh, flicking her a glance. “Wow, right to the point, aren’t you?”
“You’d prefer me not to be?” She reached for her shoes with a hand and pulled them
off. “Shoes off, Stone.” One article of dress down. She did a mental tally of her outfit. That made six questions to go before she was naked.
Jake toed off his shoes and strode over to the tent in his bright white socks. He unzipped the flap, and his head disappeared inside for a minute. When he reemerged, he had a camping mat and dark green sleeping bag in his hand. Bringing it right in front of her, he quickly laid the mat down and spread the sleeping bag over it, creating a cozy place in front of the fire. “Here, since you took your shoes off and the soil is rocky.” He tossed her a flirty grin. “You could have just taken off your bra again, you know. Saved me the hassle of getting this.”
Apple’s mouth dropped open a little at his unexpected thoughtfulness. Her parents had taught her that people’s characters were made up of the little things they did, the small gestures. “Thank you,” she whispered around the tightness in her throat. He’d even made it close enough for her to step directly onto without having to risk walking on a single stone to get to it.
Dregs and Waffles must’ve thought it looked comfy too because they made a beeline for it, but Jake shooed them away. “Nice try, dogs. Off.” With tails hung low, they gave him sad, mopey eyes and slunk off to find a spot to lie in the grass nearby.
“Don’t you just feel like the meanest person in the world when they look at you like that?” she said. She always felt like a big fat meanie. But that was straying off topic. “Seriously though, Jake, how did they die, the settlers?”
What she really wanted to ask was why he was being so nice to her. But she didn’t have the courage. Not yet.
He scratched his stubbly chin like he was actually thinking about how to answer. “Some of them died of natural causes, and some didn’t.”
Sigh. “Why are you tormenting me?” Sliding onto the cushioned sleeping bag, Apple listened to the familiar sound of the slick fabric rustling underneath her as she settled in more comfortably. God, she’d loved having campouts in her backyard as a kid and had done it all the time in the summer months. Being with Jake in the forest at dusk now reminded her so much of that—of how much fun it had been to sleep under a blanket of stars, listening to the earth breathe.
Jake, on the other hand, wasn’t playing a game of fun. It was more like a perpetual game of frustration, and she was pretty over it. “If this is how it’s going to go all night, I’d have rather stayed home and freaked myself out with a few episodes of House and a glass of wine. At least then I’d have accomplished something,” she ended, grumbling. And then she took off her socks before he could remind her, not even bothering to voice a complaint about the suspect legitimacy of his answers. “Off with your socks too, though I don’t know why I took mine off. It’s not like you gave me a real answer or anything, and you know it.”
The fire popped suddenly, spitting flame high into the air, and Apple reeled back, gesturing at it and saying, “See? The universe agrees with me.”
Jake was silent for a moment as his eyes grew dark and intense, making her insides flutter. Just when she thought he wasn’t going to respond, he said in a voice that was barely audible, “Maybe it’s not agreeing. Maybe it’s a warning that we’re playing with fire and should stop.”
She tipped her head to the side and considered that, feeling something inside her shift and grow restless at his words. “Maybe I like the heat.”
Why had she just said that?
Because she was ready, she realized. Heart, body, and soul.
Ready for this.
Jake had the beer bottle at his lips, about to take a sip. But at her words he lowered it slowly and leveled his intense gaze on her. He looked her over from her head to her bare toes, and leisurely back up.
“If you mean that, then you better be ready to go up in flames, Apple.”
Chapter Fourteen
APPLE WAS KILLING him.
Slowly and with so much ease on her part. In fact, the woman didn’t know what the hell she was doing at all, which made it all that much more torturous to him.
Why had he brought her out to the wilderness, alone and secluded? Jake still didn’t know. All he knew was that he’d needed to be with her where there could be no distractions. No interference.
Where he had her exactly where he wanted her.
Because the truth of the fucking matter was that Apple had been under his skin and in his head for the better part of his life—and he’d had it. Playing with her and stalling had been necessary and also a bit fun, until he’d woken up late last Friday night in cold sweats because of a dream he’d been having about Apple being with another man. The damn thing had had him so upset he’d gotten up and showered at 3:00 a.m., hoping that would settle his wayward emotions.
But it hadn’t, and he’d been left waiting on dawn to come with an ass-ton of heavy questions weighing him down.
“I’m willing to risk it if you are,” Apple said, shifting to sit cross-legged on his sleeping bag. Though she was wearing khaki hiking pants and a T-shirt, it wouldn’t have surprised him in the least if she’d decided to wear one of her dresses. The woman lived in those things.
Which he liked, way more than he should admit. They were feminine and sexy as shit. And they’d fueled his teenage imagination to no end. Christ, even now he was starting to react.
Tearing his gaze away from her, he sucked in air and thought about how to proceed. But then she reached for her hairband thing and shot him a coy smile as she pulled it and let her hair tumble loose. Lush blonde waves cascaded down her back and over her shoulders. “Sometimes I get headaches from all that weight on my head.” She leaned back, exposing the delicate line of her throat, and shook her head gently. “I’ve been wondering if I should just cut it off.”
He tensed, reacting physically with a coiled stomach at the thought of her doing anything to alter her appearance. And he realized he didn’t like it one bit. He didn’t even have to think very hard about why.
Apple was perfect exactly as she was.
“Ask me another question.” The words were out of his mouth before he knew they’d even formed in his brain. But he didn’t want to take them back. He wanted her to ask another question. Looking at her sumptuous hair loose around her shoulders, hugging the lush curve of her breasts like he’d pictured thousands of times in his head as a kid, made his heart pound slow and heavy in his chest.
“Forget it.” She smiled sweetly, beautifully. “You haven’t even come close to answering my first one.”
Tension coiled between his shoulder blades. His conscience wanted to tell her the truth. Yet, there was the promise he’d made to his father. And Verle Stone, well, he may not be much, but he was all the family Jake had. For all his faults, nobody called him out for a lack of loyalty. It was bred deep into his very bones.
Fuck, but it was a hard spot to be in.
Hedging as close to the truth as he could, and hating the situation he was in, Jake replied, “The settlers were wiped out, pretty much in one night. They were all killed, Apple, in a very unpleasant manner, by a very, very destructive disease.”
Sitting down on the ground across the fire from her, Jake took a drink of beer to soothe his suddenly parched throat and waited for her. Impatiently. Christ it felt like he’d always been waiting for her.
Would he ever just have her like he needed her?
She gasped, “That’s awful!”
He smirked. “Like I said, people tend to think dying often is.”
She pulled a face and threw a small twig toward him. “Ha-ha.” Then she shook her gorgeous hair back and said, her tone back to serious, “I want to hear details about that, but another question first: What year did they come to Fortune?”
“What did your research uncover?”
She glanced up from her notebook and leveled a look at him. “I’m not asking my research, I’m asking you.”
The way her hair whispered around her face was slowly driving him mad. Arousal stirred inside him, pooling in his groin, and his cock began to fill, pressing
against the fly of his jeans. Knowing it was probably a bad idea, but quickly losing his ability to think coherently, he raised a brow and egged her on. “In that case, I have no idea.”
“Damn it, Jake!” Apple exclaimed and thumped the heels of her hands against the green sleeping bag. “I’ve had it.” She stood up and began unbuttoning her khakis, her movements jerky. “I’m done playing.”
“What are you doing?” he asked, even though it was obvious she was taking off her clothes. It was just that his brain had stopped functioning at the sight of Apple’s hands unzipping her fly. And every last ounce of blood had gone straight to his cock. The way it was straining almost painfully in his pants was proof of that.
“I’m sick and tired of your half-assed answers, Jake. We had an agreement. I know that this doesn’t matter in the least bit to you, but it does to me.” She seemed to be getting angrier as she talked, her movements even more erratic as she yanked off her T-shirt and threw it onto the grass several feet away.
His jaw dropped a little, but he recovered quickly. “Isn’t this the opposite of how it’s supposed to go, honey? Question first, then clothes?” Not that he was complaining. He was all for Apple’s nudity. Grabbing his shirt, he followed suit and pulled his over his head and tossed it aside.
She didn’t answer; only shot him a warning look before yanking her pants down her very shapely legs and kicking them off in the same direction as her shirt. But before he even had time to register that, she’d stripped off her bra too. Grabbing her hair and pulling it forward, she hid her breasts from view and crossed her arms over them.
“Jesus, Apple.” He breathed deeply, mesmerized by the sight of her standing in front of him in nothing but a pair of tie-dye panties. For the first time in his life her bare skin was in view before him—every exquisite dip and sumptuous curve, every satiny inch.
Christ he ached for her.
“What are you doing?” he tried again, a little helplessly, entirely forgetting to lose his own jeans.
Talking Dirty Page 15
