by Soraya Lane
Only his old room clearly wasn’t his any longer.
“Not mine,” he said, smile wicked as he stopped a few feet from her. Jack’s eyes were bright, alive, like a predator waiting to take down prey he’d stalked for hours.
“Lead the way then,” she told him, her voice a low murmur.
Jack stayed still, like he was expecting her to bolt again, before stepping back and pointing to a room further down the hall. His parents’ old room. She was guessing he’d upgraded to the master bedroom now the house was his. She should have guessed.
Maddison walked slowly, sedately to the correct room, conscious of Jack following close behind her. She was certain that if she stopped, his big body would crash straight into her. Which meant she was toying with the idea of doing exactly that.
She stayed silent, walking into the room, standing still for a heartbeat before turning to face the man she was about to spend the night with.
Jack had followed her, was standing close but not so near that she could touch him, which meant he was leaving it up to her to make the next move.
“You’re a tease, you know that?” Jack growled.
Suddenly Maddison didn’t want to spare any more time for words. Didn’t want to talk to him, to undress slowly – nothing. She wanted nothing but to rip all their clothing off and throw Jack down on the bed.
She licked her lips, moistening them, smiling at the look on Jack’s face as he watched her.
He started walking, placing one foot slowly in front of the other. Maddison inched back, before changing her mind completely. She wanted Jack now. She didn’t want to play games and she didn’t want to wait for him to make the move.
Jack took her into his arms and walked her backwards until the back of her knees hit the bed, pushing her down and landing on top of her, his weight heavy over her body. Maddison pushed him up, forced him back, so she could undress him. Her fingers fumbled on his buttons but she was insistent, keeping hold of him even as he unzipped his jeans.
His shirt was open, jeans half way down, and Maddison wasn’t wasting any time. She wriggled from her own jeans, laughing as Jack grabbed hold of them and tried to tug them off for her.
“Fuck,” he cursed, yanking harder, the skintight denim harder to remove than his jeans had been.
He finally got them off, leaving her in her bra and panties. Thank god she’d worn something pretty.
“Damn,” he muttered, looking down, admiring her if the smile on his face was anything to go by.
It gave her the confidence she needed. The confidence she’d always wanted to have but been too scared to embrace.
Jack gave her a slow smile, teasing her, looking up and down her body slowly before his eyes stopped down low. He slid his fingers into the lace of her panties, slid them off so slowly it was nearly unbearable.
Maddison waited, tried not to move, let him take his time, but then she was taking charge. Jack flicked her g-string across the room before turning his attention back to her.
She boldly reached for him, slid his boxers down, eyes on his until she got them low enough for Jack to kick off. There was an intimacy between them that delighted her, a closeness drawing them together, but there was also something raw, something explosive that compelled her to give herself to him completely. There was no time to go slow, to take time in pleasuring one another, not this time, because she wanted Jack and she wanted him now.
“Maddison?” His whisper was gravelly, his eyes on her body, but he was holding himself back. Was giving her one last chance to back out before things changed forever between them.
Maddison reached for Jack, stroked his back, grabbed the back of his head and jerked him forward so she could kiss him. His lips were hard, insistent, desperate. She was in control one minute and not the next, as he pinned her hands above her head again, lips still against hers, tongue teasing her, body heavy over hers.
She refused to let him hold her down, fought him until he let her go, flipped him so she was in charge, legs pinning his thighs down as she sat astride him.
Jack reached for her bra, unclasping it, throwing it out of the way and reaching for her breasts. She tilted her head back and shut her eyes, lost in the moment, loving his hands on her, his body fitting perfectly to hers.
“Look at me, Maddison,” he murmured, fingers so attentive, pleasuring her as she started to rock back and forth above him.
She did as she was told and looked into Jack’s eyes, but she only had a moment to watch him, before he flipped her, his movements fast, furious, as he took control again.
She let her eyes slide shut again and lost herself to the pleasure of the moment. Because this was what she’d been waiting for. This was what she’d been wanting from a man.
Only Jack was the first man to make her feel this way.
And she didn’t ever want him to stop.
CHAPTER EIGHT
MADDISON stretched before opening her eyes. Oh my God. She shut her eyes again.
She’d been in such a deep sleep she’d woken up expecting to be in her apartment back in L.A. Only she was at Jack’s house, lying in Jack’s bed and with his leg firmly pressed against her. Not to mention the fact that she wasn’t in her usual pajamas… she was naked.
Maddison opened her eyes again, peeking at the man beside her.
“Hey.”
So Jack was awake. Maddison swallowed, wished for a toothbrush, anything to make her feel less like she’d just woken up.
“How long have you been watching me?” she asked, turning to lie on her side so she could look at him.
Maddison kept the sheets pulled up high to cover her breasts, a lot less sure of herself than she’d been the night before. The way she’d brazenly told Jack what she wanted, the way she’d responded to him… just the thought of the night before sent a shiver down her spine. But it was a shiver that told her she’d willingly go back for more.
“Long enough to listen to you snore.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I do not snore.”
Jack laughed, running a hand through his hair and turning to mirror the way she was lying, propped on one elbow. “It’s cute. Kind of how I’d imagine a small dog would snore. All snorts and heavy breathing.”
Maddison went to tug the covers higher as she stared at Jack’s bare chest, but they wouldn’t budge. “What the…”
“Speaking of dogs,” Jack said, nodding his head.
Maddison clutched the sheet tight and pushed up to look where he was indicating. “You let your dog sleep on your bed?” No wonder she couldn’t pull the covers up.
“I haven’t exactly had company for awhile,” he told her, sitting up so he could lean down and give his dog a scratch on the head. “Off the bed, girl. Off you get.”
Rosa obeyed and jumped off, so Maddison took her chance to regain the fallen covers. She looked away, not wanting to stare at Jack’s naked form, or what she could see of it. She wasn’t entirely sure she could keep herself from attacking him again.
“What are you thinking about?”
His question was innocent enough but the look on his face was anything but pure.
Maddison nestled back down again, head on the pillow. Being seduced in the bright morning light was nothing like getting carried away in the heat of the moment at night.
“I was just…” she had no idea what to say, what to pretend she’d been thinking about.
“Marrying me?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows. “You were thinking about marrying me, right?”
Maddison laughed. She couldn’t do anything but laugh. Jack made her smile, made her comfortable, made her feel all sorts of things that she hadn’t felt in a very long time. And she liked it. More than liked it, she was starting to love it.
“One night together and you’re already proposing?” he joked.
She tried to do the eyebrow waggle but failed dismally, making Jack smile even wider.
“Seriously,” he asked, reaching out to her, stroking the back of his fingers down
her cheek. “Have you given it any more thought?”
She shut her eyes, loving the way his touch tickled. “You mean in between talking at dinner and you seducing me?”
Jack stopped stroking and gave her a play punch on the arm instead. “If I remember correctly, it was you seducing me, you little hussy.”
His low voice sent shivers through her again, made her tug the sheets closer to her body. “You’re a bad influence,” she told him.
“And you’re a good one.”
Maddison stared into his almost-black eyes. She trusted him. Hand on her heart, she trusted the man, even though she’d sworn it could never happen again.
“So if we do get married…” she started.
“We’d need to renegotiate the benefits part,” he teased, leaning closer, stealing a quick kiss that left her wanting more.
“Let’s say we both agree on those type of mutual benefits, then,” Maddison said. There, she’d said it.
“Agreed.” He lay back, hands folded beneath his head on the pillow. “Especially if we keep up with last night’s performance.”
Maddison snuggled back down herself, pulling the covers over her head. Being with Jack was one thing, but talking like this wasn’t something she’d ever be comfortable with, no matter how much she tried to play the game.
Jack stayed in bed and watched as Maddison stretched then walked across the room. She’d reached for her underwear and slipped it on before getting out of bed, so he wasn’t getting quite the view he wanted, but it was good enough. Long slim legs, pert, rounded backside, long hair falling down her back… he gulped. There was a reason why they’d let things go so far last night, why the tension between them had been unbearable, and he was looking at it. He wouldn’t be a man if he didn’t find Maddison Jones attractive.
“Jack, joking aside, we are actually going to do this? Get married I mean?”
She was looking back at him as she pulled on her jeans, wriggling to get them up.
He tried to switch off the visual part of his brain and focus on her question.
“Do you still want to?”
“I know it would make my dad happy, and I know it would help you out.”
He shook his head. “That’s not what I asked.” It should have been enough to hear those things, to know that they were doing it for the right reasons, but he wanted more. Needed to know that it wasn’t purely convenient.
“Do I have to spell it out to you?” she asked.
Jack continued to stare at her, wanting her to say it. “What?”
“I think after last night it’s fairly obvious that we’re more than just friends,” she said, voice low like it wasn’t something easy for her to say.
Jack smiled. “I guess we’re actually doing this, huh?”
“Well, yeah. I guess we are,” she said, a shy expression on her face even though she was grinning. “Not as romantic as I’d hoped for, but I guess I can go without the proposal story.”
He chuckled. “I’ll propose, sweetheart. We said we’d make this look real, didn’t we?”
She was still in her bra because he’d gotten rid of her top downstairs. Maddison came slowly back toward the bed. “So we’ll discuss the other details later? Like me moving some stuff here, the wedding, all those things?”
Jack wished it didn’t feel like such a business arrangement, but it was what he’d said he wanted. It was a marriage in name, and hopefully sometimes in pleasure, but without the problems. They’d agreed on not having children, agreed they were doing this to help one another out, which meant they were going into marriage as adults. Having made a decision that wasn’t based on passion or emotion. Pleasure maybe, but not emotions.
“I might swing by later on. Have a chat with your father perhaps.”
He watched a smile slowly spread across Maddison’s lips, a grin that was so infectious he ended up grinning back at her.
“You’d do that?” she asked.
“We said we’d make this genuine, didn’t we?”
Maddison crossed the room and leaned on the bed, long hair falling over her shoulder as she dropped a long, lingering kiss to his mouth. “My dad is going to love the idea of you as his son-in-law. You know that, right?”
Right now he was more interested in getting to know her lips better. “If you plan on rewarding me like this all the time, I’d have proposed the minute you arrived home.”
Maddison sat up and reached for his hand, fingers playing across his palm. “I mean it, Jack. It’s going to make him so happy. You’re already part of the family, but this will mean a lot to him.”
“He means a lot to me, Maddison. Your whole family does.”
Jack reached for her, stroked the side of her face, watching as she shut her eyes and sighed.
“I can’t believe I was supposed to be marrying someone else this spring, and instead I’m marrying the boy who was my best friend.”
He laughed. “Maybe we’ve stayed best friends all these years, Maddie. Even if we haven’t seen each other.”
“Maybe,” she said, opening her eyes and smiling before standing again. “In a way it’s like picking up straight from where we left off.”
“Marrying your friend makes sense, don’t you think?” he asked. “I mean, we don’t have to worry about all the other stuff that makes marriage so complicated sometimes. No passionate love affair that could turn volatile, no children complicating things, no secret past that we’re trying to keep hidden.”
It was like a cloud passed over her face, but the change was so sudden, so brief, that he wondered if he’d imagined it. It wasn’t that he didn’t love her, but what he’d meant was the kind of love that made people do stupid things.
“I’d better go, Jack. Get back to the house, let everyone know I’m okay.”
“How about you put some coffee on and I’ll have a quick shower. Then I’ll drive you home.”
She laughed, hands on her hips. “Don’t think that because I’m your wife I’ll be pouring your coffee and making you breakfast.”
He slapped her backside, knowing she was embarrassed at his nudity by the way she kept averting her eyes, but not caring anyway. He liked that she was flustered, especially when she had her hands on her hips trying to look all bossy.
“I’ll be expecting a lot more than breakfast in exchange for marriage,” he teased.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” he murmured, leaning in for another kiss, grabbing hold of her arms to stop her from running away.
“You’re bad, Jack,’ she whispered, escaping him and pointing to the bathroom. “Now go have a shower before we both end up in trouble again.”
Right now he liked the sound of trouble. Because it was keeping him from thinking about the ranch, how close he’d come to losing it, and how the hell he was going to stop himself from falling head over heels in love for the woman who was about to become his wife. Because no matter what he said about just loving her like a friend, it was bullshit. Maddison meant a lot to him, and it was about time he at least admitted it to himself.
Maddison sat in the kitchen and watched her dad. He was being bossed around by her mom in the garden, and the look on his face told her that he wasn’t impressed. She was guessing it was her mom’s way of keeping him busy, but away from anything too strenuous, and it wasn’t exactly going down well.
She stared at her phone and wished it would go away – wished everything from her normal life would just disappear for a while so she could get her head around everything that was happening. Her dad, her apartment, her job. Jack.
At least the last thing on her list was putting a smile on her face. Everything else was more likely to give her permanent frown lines.
But she was doing the right thing. Marrying Jack would mean her dad would have the chance to walk her down the aisle, it would mean he could feel assured about the future of the ranch he loved. Charley was doing a great job, but she was still so young, and their dad wanted her to take time before deciding to sp
end the rest of her life at the helm. And her brother was making them all proud working another ranch, a project that their father was equally as passionate about.
This land was about more than business, it was about love and memories. Family. And with Jack as part of their family? Her dad would know there was someone there to help them, someone who loved this land the same way they did as a family.
She stood and walked outside, leaving her phone on the counter. She should have followed her instincts and kept it turned off, ignored it, but she hadn’t and now she had to deal with the consequences.
“I have some bad news.”
Her dad leaned on his pitchfork while her mom just looked up, on her knees in front of her flowerbed.
“What’s happened?” her mom asked.
Maddison sighed and sat down on the lawn, stretching her sore ankle out in front of her. She’d managed to almost forget all about it the night before with Jack, but now it was starting to ache again. Maybe it was more of a reaction to what she had to leave behind than the pain of her fall.
“My boss has booked the next flight out of Billings to L.A. It leaves tomorrow afternoon. I’m so sorry.”
She took a shaky breath as she looked at her dad. He didn’t look particularly worried, but she’d come back here to see him and now she was leaving without even spending a whole week in his company. Without anywhere near to a week back at home.
“Maddison, can I ask you something?” Her mom put down her tools and plucked off her gloves, turning to face her.
Maddison nodded.
“Is this job really worth it? Maddison, I can see how tired you are, what a strain this job puts on you.”
Trust her mom to say exactly what was playing through her mind. Yes, she was tired of it all, but she wasn’t the kind of girl to give up. When she made a commitment she didn’t back down, no matter what.
“I’ve been working on this project a long time, Mom. But you’re right, I need to make some tough decisions.” She smiled, bottom lip tucked between her teeth in an effort to force the tears away. “Whatever happens, I’m coming back next week. So don’t let me come up with any excuses, okay? If I have to make some tough calls about work, then I’ll just have to deal with it. But right now, I don’t want to let anyone down. I’m exhausted and I need a break, but I’ve always liked what I do.”
