In fact, he found the idea of her departure to be extremely unpleasant.
She’d always impressed him with her intelligence, poise, taste, and mystery. Now she impressed him with her round, sweet ass. What would it be like to unbutton her jeans, slide his hands over her bottom, and lift her into his lap, where he would—
Jesus. Dry-mouthed, he shook his head and looked into the bedrooms.
Was she really only staying the night? Hell of a long trip through a potential blizzard, just to turn around and leave in the morning. He peeked into the last bedroom and saw her large backpack slumped against the bed.
He looked behind him. Heard footsteps on the floor above. And then strode over, unzipped her bag, and looked inside at the stack of folded shirts and jeans.
So she’d planned on staying longer but had lied about it.
His heart thudded.
Had Jody been right? All these years…
Over the past year, he’d wondered if he should’ve married one of his ex-girlfriends because he’d never find anyone better.
Perhaps, in some ways, he’d been right.
Taking a deep breath, he zipped up the backpack, put his own things in the bedroom next door, and went upstairs to find her.
Chapter 7
“HEY,” JAKE SAID BEHIND HER.
Sasha was taking the lasagna out of the oven, imagining sticking her own head in there. It was electric, but still; she’d do with a burn. Might knock some sense into her.
Her solitary get-over-Jake weekend was ruined. He’d had snowflakes in his hair, for God’s sake. She’d be reliving the sight for weeks. Staring off into space, imagining herself brushing each snowy morsel off with her tongue as she curled up in his lap, moaning while he nuzzled her breasts.
Kill me now.
“Hungry?” She dumped the pan on the stove, not looking at him. She’d try to avoid making any more visual memories.
“Wow, that looks great.” He came around and stood just to her right, slumping against the counter, facing her. “But I wouldn’t want to steal your dinner.”
She pivoted away, shoving the oven mitts in a drawer. The thought of eating made her queasy, but she didn’t want to show that his arrival had upset her. “We’ll share. What did you bring?”
“To eat?”
Something in his tone made her look at him. He was grinning. At her.
Oh, crap. Now her nipples were puckering.
“Well, yes,” she said, careful to keep her voice calm, pleasant, ordinary. “That’s what I meant. But it’s fine if you didn’t bring any groceries. I brought more than I need.”
He pushed away from the counter and opened the fridge and then the freezer, where she’d put her weekend’s worth of groceries and precooked meals. “Wow, I’ll say. You’d never guess you only planned on staying the night.”
Her cheeks warmed. A rational explanation she could offer failed her.
“If you don’t want me around, I’ll go.” he said, closing up the refrigerator and turning to her. He took a step closer and raised his eyebrows. “Do you want me around?”
I want you around my naked, writhing body every morning, day, and night of my life.
“I don’t mind,” she said.
“But you had planned on staying all weekend until I arrived.”
Now her face was burning. She felt heat spreading down her neck, her arms, her chest.
Don’t panic. She could work this. Wanting to be alone didn’t expose her love for him; quite the opposite. “Sorry, Jake,” she said with a rueful smile. “I guess I was looking forward to having the place to myself.”
His grin faded. “Oh. Right.” He moved away, running long fingers through his hair. “Of course you did. I’m sorry.”
“We’ll just have to make the best of it.” She found two plates in the cabinet and divided the meal into uneven portions. Her stomach was clenched like a fist. “Help yourself to the wine.”
“Thanks, I will. Mind if I put on some music?” Phone in hand, he motioned to a new-looking speaker on a shelf.
No, please don’t. Music unraveled her even more than wine. A sentimental pop song or brilliant classical piece could turn her into an emotional bowl of quivering dessert gelatin.
“Be my guest,” she said, gritting her teeth.
In a few minutes they were sitting at the large oak dining table under a snowshoe-shaped chandelier, food and wine on the table, cello music in the air. He’d gone with Bach. He might as well have stripped to the waist and rubbed olive oil over his pecs while gazing into her eyes and whispering her name.
She crossed her legs, pretending her body wasn’t hot and moist for him. The lasagna was like a warm, savory slug in her mouth; she had to force herself to swallow.
“This is really good,” he said.
“Thanks.”
Yo-Yo’s cello rose and fell like the snowflakes outside: up and down, sideways, soft and drifting in the wind.
“So, you were engaged for a while, weren’t you?” he asked.
Oh, God. He was going to get personal. She took another bite and took a moment to answer so he would get the hint that she didn’t want to talk about it. “Yeah.”
“What was it like?”
Nobody had ever asked her that before. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t mean breaking it off,” he continued. “I’ve had a lot of experience with that. I mean, saying yes. Being willing to take the leap, at least for a while.”
“You can’t imagine making that much of a commitment?”
“I can totally imagine commitment,” he said. “I imagine it all the time. Just can’t figure out how to get there.”
Suddenly annoyed, she drained her wine glass and poured another. “Maybe it’s because you date women who are all wrong for you.”
He took the bottle from her, his fingers brushing hers. “Is that so?”
“Mm.”
“You don’t think I’m the problem then, just the women I’ve dated?”
“Oh, you’re the problem, all right. Your taste is the problem.”
He scooted his chair closer, and their knees bumped. The table was round, without any corner to separate them. “I really want to hear this,” he said, studying her. “I appreciate hearing your perspective.”
The scent of his snowflake-kissed hair was distracting. “You’re not offended?” She heard the disappointment in her own voice.
“Do you know how old I am, Sasha?”
Thirty-two years, six months, thirteen days. “Older than me,” she said. “Thirty-seven?”
He flinched and withdrew, drawing his wine glass up to his mouth. “Not quite,” he muttered.
Her victory in driving him away didn’t warm her as much as it should have. “I know. I was just kidding.”
“I never know with you. You’re such a mystery.”
She snorted. “Hardly.”
“You are. I never know what you’re thinking.” He met her gaze. “And I wish I did.”
The back of her neck tingled, then sent tendrils of dancing excitement down her arms.
This was all wrong. This was dangerous.
She jumped to her feet, bumping the table with her hip. “I think I’ll go to bed.”
Holding her gaze, he stood up and took a step closer. “Was it something I said?”
“I’m just really tired.” Her lungs weren’t working. She was suffocating.
He loomed over her. “I’m going to do something now, Sasha, is that all right?”
Her fingers curled around the edge of the table behind her for support. “I don’t know.”
“Let me know afterwards, then,” he said, then hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her against his chest.
❄
The first time she’d imagined kissing Jake Lapinski, they were in the backseat of his parents’ Cherokee, pressed up against one another while heading to the beach for the day. Although his sister had been enthusiastic enough to invite all her friends, he’d been annoyed about the trip,
telling everyone he wasn’t a surfer, hated surfers, and just wanted to stay home. Many of the other boys at their high school in Huntington Beach fit the California stereotype, but he was an artist and a black-clothes-wearing rebel and he hated everything about surfer culture—the clothes, the language, the attitude.
At that moment, enchanted by his adolescent discontent, Sasha had decided she loved everything about him—his clothes, his language, his attitude.
But the kiss she’d imagined at thirteen in the backseat of a crowded family SUV wasn’t anything like the real thing.
For one, his body was much stronger. Much harder. She hadn’t expected him to slide his palm into the small of her back and press his pelvis into hers. She hadn’t expected his kiss to be slow and tender, then hurried and demanding as his tongue slipped past her teeth and stroked the inside of her mouth as if it belonged there.
Her moan of pleasure and immediate surrender—that she’d imagined perfectly.
“Sasha,” he breathed against her lips. “Oh my God.”
Her heart thumped against her ribs, straining to get closer to him. Was it really happening? Was he really kissing her?
She didn’t want to think. Closing her eyes, she stretched her hands up around his neck and held on. He embraced her, pulling her body fully against his, exploring her back and hips and ass with strong, confident hands, making her knees buckle.
He slanted his mouth over hers, diving his tongue deeper as his hands found both breasts and kneaded, squeezed, teased. She pulled away from him, chest heaving with the struggle to breathe, hooked her fingers under her sweater and T-shirt, then dragged both over her head.
Now wearing only the white comfort bra she never would’ve chosen that morning had she anticipated this moment, she put her hands on her hips and stared at him. “Hi.”
He rubbed his mouth. “Hi.”
“Ready for this?”
“Oh, yeah.” His breath was unsteady. “You?”
She nodded. “Let’s go downstairs.”
“Excellent idea.” He tilted his head toward the top of the staircase, gesturing for her to go first.
Before she could think too hard about anything, she strode almost-topless to the stairs. The winter cabin air was cold against her bare belly and shoulders, but his gaze on her backside felt searing, burning hot.
She was just turning the bend in the staircase when she heard a rattle at the front door. At first she thought it was the wind, but when she heard the turn of the doorknob—and voices—she froze in a panic two steps from the bottom floor.
Jake’s hands slid up her back, cupped her shoulders. “What’s the matter?”
“People,” she gasped. Pulling out of his grasp, she pushed past him to return upstairs, where she’d so tastefully left her shirt and sweater strewn over a tabletop bear sculpture.
At least he’d sworn under his breath before she’d left him, not wanting to be interrupted any more than she did.
She untangled her T-shirt from the sweater.
Should she be grateful they’d been interrupted?
Shaking, she shoved her arms into the sleeves one by one and pulled it over her head. When the tag scratched her chin, she realized she’d put it on backwards. To hell with it. She dragged the sweater over the T-shirt and ran her fingers through her hair, trying to remember if she’d been wearing any colored lipgloss that might be smeared across her face.
Who could that be downstairs? She was going to have a long, serious talk with Jody about this “empty” cabin at Tahoe. She’d been in department stores the Saturday before Christmas that were more empty than this.
Jake’s voice drifted up from the stairs. “It’s Jody and Simon.”
Oh, God. She wasn’t ready to talk to Jody about kissing her brother after all these years of talking about not kissing her brother. She wasn’t even ready to be doing it.
Sasha double-checked her clothes, rearranging her breasts in the comfort bra, and scanned the dining table for evidence of hanky-panky. Would unfinished lasagna give them away?
And why the hell were Jody and Simon here, anyway?
She sat down and began poking her meal with her fork, hoping she didn’t look as dreamy and weightless as she felt.
He’d kissed her like he really, really wanted her.
She put her hand over her chest, felt the still-rapid beat of her heart.
“Sasha?” Jody appeared at the top of the stairs with a bottle of wine and a worried smile. She looked behind her before walking over and asking in a quiet voice, “Was it wrong for us to come?”
Sasha smiled down at her dinner, avoiding her friend’s eyes. “Of course not. Got out of work after all?”
“Well, in a way…”
Simon and Jake appeared at the top of the stairs now, carrying more groceries and a case of beer. Simon asked him about some game. Jake, bless him, apologized for not being into sports, which only set Sasha off into a feverish daydream of the infinite weekends ahead of them in which she and Jake would be entwined in each other’s arms, not watching sports together.
Forever.
Forever was what she wanted, but this was not what Jake wanted. It was an old joke that Jake said he wanted to settle down, then dated dozens of women without getting very close to any of them.
Settle down. Yeah, right. He was full of it. Lying to himself, perhaps, but lying nonetheless. He liked being single.
While the men talked in the kitchen as they put away the beer, Jody sat in an empty chair next to Sasha and lowered her voice to a whisper. “I found out Trixie had sent Jake up here. I thought you might need rescuing.”
Sasha scooped cold lasagna into her mouth and wondered if the heat flooding her face was enough to warm it up, like nuking it in the microwave.
She needed to say something. Like, you ruined everything. Or, you were just in time.
Instead she asked, “Have you eaten? I’ve got more lasagna in the freezer. Doesn’t take long to heat it up.”
“No, no, we grabbed a burger in Truckee.”
“Did you need to put on chains?” The snow was still piling up outside, forming skinny white mountain ranges on the deck railing.
“No, we borrowed Simon’s friend’s truck. It’s got four-wheel drive.”
“That’s lucky.” Sasha wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep up the small talk. Her wine glass was empty and all the blood that normally fueled her brain cells hadn’t returned yet from her reproductive organs. It pooled there—waiting, hopeful, confused.
Mostly hopeful.
She stood up, faking a yawn. “I think I’m going to make an early night of it. The drive wiped me out.”
Frowning, Jody looked over at the men, then at her. “I thought you might like the buffer, you know?” she whispered. “We found out this afternoon that Trixie had sent Jake up here. I thought we’d better come too.”
“I’m fine, but it was nice of you to worry about me.”
“Trixie loves to play matchmaker. She—” Jody cut herself off because Jake was walking toward them.
“I’ll clean up,” he said, shooting Sasha a quick, unreadable look.
Sasha decided that neither one of them knew what they were doing or what they wanted. She watched him gather the plates, imagining him lifting her instead. Hauling her away, sudsing her up, making her hot and slippery…
Jody cleared her throat.
Embarrassed, Sasha dragged herself back together and turned away. “Boy, am I tired. Can’t wait to get some sleep.”
Putting a hand on her arm and squeezing, Jody spoke softly in her ear. “It’s good we came. Don’t worry. We’ll keep Jake busy so you don’t have to spend any time together.”
“Thanks,” Sasha said faintly.
Chapter 8
JAKE WASHED THE DISHES, AVOIDING his sister’s dirty looks.
Had she guessed what he’d done, and had been about to do, to her best friend?
The erotic charge of kissing the girl he’d known so well for
so long still lingered in his body, making him clumsy with the dishes. He accidentally splashed soapy water over the edge of the sink onto his feet, wetting his socks.
Was it just the thrill of the forbidden? Because now that Jody was here, raking him with her narrow-eyed, suspicious glances, he wanted Sasha more than ever. Lovely, quiet Sasha. Hot, hungry, sexy Sasha. His baby sister’s friend, always over at their house because her own wasn’t so great, too young then for him to think of the way he was thinking of her now.
When she’d pulled her shirt off…damn. He’d almost taken her right there on the kitchen table. His legs shook as he remembered the sight of her soft curves, her hard nipples under her bra.
He dropped the plate he was washing. It fell at an angle against the marble countertop and shattered into several pieces.
“Whoops,” he said.
“I can’t believe you,” Jody said, reaching under the sink for the garbage can.
“Relax. I’ll pay for it.”
“It’s part of a set. You can’t just pay for it.”
“It’s a vacation house. I’m sure it’s not their finest china or something,” he said.
“You’re too casual about the damage you can do.”
He knew she wasn’t talking about the dishes. He swept the ceramic shards into the trash with a paper towel. “What are you doing here, Jody?”
“Simon and I had planned on coming up here for weeks. We canceled when we both got swamped at work, but then we decided we could telecommute from up here.”
“Even though Sasha was already here? And me?”
“Especially because Sasha was already here. With you.” She peppered those last words with an evil eye.
He looked over his shoulder to make sure they were alone. “Sasha can take care of herself. She’s all grown up.”
“Oh, you’ve noticed that, have you?”
He shoved the garbage can under the sink and turned on her. “What’s your problem? Are you jealous?”
His sister’s mouth popped open.
“You never did like to be excluded,” he continued, twisting the metaphorical knife.
“You’re going to hurt her.”
“Excuse me?”
Can You Love Me Now?: (Oakland Hills Short Story 3) Page 3
