He didn’t know if he’d ever felt this tempted.
Erin was coming back now, wearing a black wool coat that made her hair look like platinum. She was smiling, and twenty-seven or not, her expression was still sweet, still innocent, as if she still had some illusions left.
Watching her come towards him, he felt the iron weight of all his experience, the loss of innocence and every illusion he’d ever cherished.
He didn’t belong anywhere near this woman. This woman who was looking at him like he was someone worth looking up to.
She didn’t know that he wasn’t. That he was empty inside, with nothing to offer her or anybody.
And she never would know. He’d drive her home tonight, and bring her back here to get her car in the morning, just like he’d promised.
And he wouldn’t go near her again.
Chapter Three
As soon as they left the bright hotel lobby, it was as if they’d stepped into a different world. The noise of the crowd and the band faded away and he and Erin were wrapped in the silence of falling snow.
There were several inches on the ground already, and the soft flakes were coming down thickly. They didn’t talk, but the silence felt restful rather than awkward. Jake took in a deep breath and let it out, watching his breath crystallize in the cold air.
He glanced down at Erin, walking beside him. She caught a snowflake on her tongue and smiled up at him, looking a lot younger than twenty-seven.
They reached his truck, and Jake let her in on the passenger side before grabbing the snow brush to clear the windows.
“Do you still live in Willow Springs?” he asked once he was behind the wheel.
“Yes. On Maple Hill Road.”
“That’s not far from the farm,” he said, pulling carefully out of the parking lot. His truck might be great in the snow, but he wasn’t taking any chances with Erin in the car.
She nodded. “I love that part of town. When I saw the rental listing a few years ago I knew I just had to live there.”
“You’re renting?”
She nodded again. “The owner offered to sell it to me last year, but I’m not sure I’m ready for that. I’m worried about using all my savings for the down payment and I don’t know if my income is big enough. I mean, it’s big enough for me to live on, but I’m not sure it’s big enough to buy a house. Especially since the banks are making it tougher to get a mortgage. And I hate being in debt, so I only have one credit card and I never use it, which, it turns out, is bad for your credit score.” She glanced at him. “That’s probably more information than you needed, huh?”
Considering the fact that he’d never been able to get her to talk when they were younger, it was actually kind of nice. “No. I’ve never understood the whole credit score thing, myself.” He glanced at her again. “Would your parents be able to help you out? With the down payment, I mean.”
Erin stiffened. “My mother’s out of the picture, and Dad passed away a few years ago. Heart attack.”
Damn. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That must have been rough.”
She shrugged, turning her head to look out the passenger side window.
Silence fell, but this time it didn’t feel restful. Here he’d been thinking of Erin as someone with no painful history, no baggage weighing her down…but that obviously wasn’t the case. He tried to think of a way to change the subject.
“So…it’s just you, then?”
She looked back at him. “At my house? Yes, I live alone.”
“No boyfriend?” he asked before he could stop himself.
“No,” she said after a moment.
He could have kicked himself. Now she probably thought he was planning to make a move on her.
“What about you?” she asked.
“Me?”
“Yes. Do you have a girlfriend?”
Why had she asked him that? Was she just making conversation, or did she actually want him to make a move on her? If there was any chance of that, he had to make it crystal clear it was never going to happen.
“No, I don’t have a girlfriend. I’m not really interested in dating anyone right now. I haven’t made any decisions about what I’m doing next, so…”
She frowned a little. “I thought you were starting a business.”
“I’m thinking about it, yeah. But I don’t have to build motorcycles in Iowa. I could go anywhere.”
Being home was both good and bad. He loved his family, but their obvious worry and concern wasn’t anything he felt like dealing with right now.
Erin was still frowning at him. “You should stay,” she said. “Don’t you want to be near your family? After being away for so long, everything you must have gone through—”
She paused, and he felt every muscle in his body tense. He didn’t want Erin to ask him what he’d gone through. He was afraid he’d snap at her the way he snapped at anyone who asked him that question.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “It’s none of my business what you decide to do.”
Jake felt himself relax, but only slightly. It had been a mistake to let himself feel at ease around Erin, even briefly. He needed to keep his guard up—around her, around his family, around everyone. Even casual conversations could be full of unseen landmines, which is why he usually avoided them.
He exited off the highway and drove through Willow Springs. Once they were past the town center the roads weren’t well plowed, and he slowed down. After a while he turned onto Maple Hill Road. “How far?”
“A mile on the right.”
They drove the mile in silence, while his wipers tried to keep up with the snowfall. There was something hypnotic in the rush of flakes coming towards them, as if they were speeding through a galaxy of stars.
“This is it,” she said after a few minutes, pointing at a small white house with a front porch. Out back, misted by the falling snow, he could see woods and rolling hills.
“It’s nice,” he said, turning off the engine.
Erin nodded. “I love living here.” She glanced at her house and then back at him. “Do you want to come in for a minute? There’s actually someone inside you might remember.”
He stared at her. “Someone inside? I thought you said you lived alone.”
She smiled. “I do.”
She’d made him curious, but he should still say no. Going inside with Erin was a very bad idea. She looked so beautiful smiling up at him like that, with her creamy skin and big gray eyes and fair hair starting to come out of its complicated knot.
In spite of himself, his eyes went to her lips.
If he went inside, he wasn’t sure he could resist the temptation to kiss her. But if he did that… if he bent his head to cover that soft, generous mouth with his…he’d be using her.
He’d be losing himself in Erin’s sweetness to fill the emptiness inside him. He’d be using her to forget everything that had happened this last year, even if it was just for a little while.
And there was nothing he could give her in return. He wouldn’t even be able to stay the night, if things went that far. He never knew what he was in for when he fell asleep. Until the nightmares stopped coming he wouldn’t risk sharing a bed with someone, no matter how much he wanted to.
He shook his head. “I should really be getting home.”
“Just for a minute,” she said, her sweet smile coaxing him, and he opened his mouth to say no.
“Okay,” he said instead, even as he kicked himself for the third time that night. “But only for a minute,” he added, more to himself than to her.
He’d find out what she meant by someone who might remember him, and then he’d clear out. He had the weather as an excuse, after all.
He followed Erin up her snowy steps and waited while she unlocked the front door. Once they were inside he stood for a moment, looking around, conscious that the snow that had fallen on him would soon be dripping onto the beautiful wood floors of Erin’s little house.
“There
he is,” Erin said, taking his coat and hanging it on a hook beside the door, along with hers. He was distracted by her bare shoulders and didn’t look where she was pointing.
“Who?” he asked, finally registering what she’d said.
“An old friend,” she answered, nodding towards the staircase.
He looked, and saw a black cat on the bottom step, gazing up at them. He was sitting back on his haunches, his tail wrapped neatly around his front paws, and something about the tilt of his head…
“My God,” he said stupidly. “Is that Pepper?”
Erin nodded, crouching down to scratch the cat under his chin. “When I moved here a few years ago your mother gave him to me. She wasn’t crazy about the idea of me living alone, and she said Pepper would keep me company. And he does, don’t you, sweetheart?” she said softly as she picked up the cat and handed him to Jake. “Bring him into the living room and get reacquainted while I make us some tea.”
Erin disappeared into her kitchen and Jake did as she’d suggested, going into the living room and sinking down onto the navy blue upholstered couch. He settled Pepper on his lap, half expecting the old cat—he had to be fourteen by now—to jump down and run away. He hadn’t seen him in years, after all.
But he didn’t run away. Jake put a hand on the cat’s head and Pepper arched his neck, leaning into the caress just the way he used to. Then he rose up on his hind legs, resting his front paws on Jake’s chest and bumping his cold, wet nose against his face. Jake felt his rumbling purr vibrating all through him.
It hit him without warning. All these months he’d been able to resist human kindness, human concern…but the unquestioning love of an animal was something he had no defense against.
He’d been numb for so long that he wasn’t ready for the sudden wave of feeling that crashed through him. His heart swelled up inside him like a pent up river against a dam, threatening destruction.
He closed his eyes. He had to do something to stop this. It would shatter him, destroy his defenses—destroy the precarious balance he’d created for himself in the last few months.
He had to get out of here.
But Pepper kept purring, kept bumping his head against his jaw, and at that moment he heard Erin’s voice from a few feet away.
“Look at that! Oh, Jake, he remembers you.”
He opened his eyes, and Erin was standing in the doorway to the kitchen. She was holding a blue mug in her hand and she looked like an angel.
And suddenly, without warning, his libido roared to life. His body hardened with an urgency he hadn’t felt in months. He wanted to bury himself inside Erin and forget that anything else existed.
He lifted Pepper off his lap and set him gently down on the couch. Then he rose to his feet and walked to the front door without saying a word.
***
Erin stared at him as he walked away from her. “Jake? Is something wrong?”
He didn’t answer until he reached the door. Then he turned to face her, his expression neutral. “Nothing’s wrong. I just need to head home. What time should I pick you up tomorrow?”
Something had happened, but Erin had no idea what. She set down the cup of tea she’d made and walked over to him. Jake’s eyes stayed cool, but she could feel his tension growing as she came closer.
She stopped when she was about a foot away. The hardness around his mouth and jaw were the only outward signs of the turmoil she could sense inside him.
She glanced out the window as a sudden gust of wind rattled the panes. The snow was coming down harder, and the wind was rising. She hated the idea of Jake going back out into that.
“You should stay,” she said. “The storm’s getting worse. You can sleep on my couch,” she added, to make it clear she wasn’t propositioning him or anything like that.
“I can’t stay.” His voice was harsh, and there was a flicker of something in his eyes, there and then gone.
“Jake, what’s wrong? What happened in the last five minutes?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. What time should I pick you up tomorrow?”
She took a half step closer. She wanted so badly to touch him, to ease the tension in him somehow, that she couldn’t stop herself from laying a hand on his arm. Underneath his suit jacket, his muscles went rigid.
He pulled away from her and reached behind him for the doorknob. “I’ll come back at eight in the morning. Good night, Erin.”
She should let him go. Everything about him was telling her to back off, his body language as clear as an animal’s with its hackles raised and a low growl in its throat.
Instead she stepped close again, although she didn’t touch him this time. “Stay,” she said again.
For a moment he was still. She heard the rasp of his breath, the voice of the wind outside.
Then, slowly, he reached up a hand to cup the side of her face.
The feel of his rough palm on her skin awoke something inside her. Up until this moment, she would have sworn her only desire was to comfort him, to be a friend, to give him shelter from the storm outside.
Now she knew better.
She stared up at him, caught by the expression in his blue eyes. The mask had fallen away and she was looking at Jake, the real Jake, in the grip of raw emotions that seemed almost too much for him.
His pupils dilated until his eyes were almost black. She’d seen that happen to him once before. The memory made her heart pound, sending blood rushing to her cheeks.
He spoke her name in a whisper, ragged and uncertain. “Erin...”
She couldn’t speak. She was trembling, and she could have sworn that he was, too.
They were teetering on the edge of a cliff. A single touch would send them over.
Erin wasn’t an impulsive person. She wasn’t the type to get swept away by desire, or let her heart rule her head.
Except when it came to Jake. Eleven years ago he’d given her her first kiss, and no other had ever come close. She knew how rare this feeling was—for her, anyway. If she didn’t act on it now, she might never feel this way again.
She turned her head and pressed a kiss into his palm.
He inhaled sharply. “Erin…”
She heard the struggle in his voice, could see it in his eyes.
“Erin,” he said again, sounding almost desperate. Then he lowered his head and covered her mouth with his.
He was gentle at first, his lips just brushing hers as his hand moved to cradle the back of her neck. Then her head fell back as he deepened the kiss, trapping her between his strong hand and the increasing pressure of his mouth.
The world fell away. When Jake froze for just an instant, she knew he felt it, too.
He slid his other arm around her waist and pulled her tight against him.
His kiss was more demanding now, his body hard and hot. She tugged impatiently at his jacket, and when he shrugged out of it, never taking his mouth from hers, she could finally run her hands over the corded muscles of his arms with only his shirt in the way.
But it wasn’t enough. She needed to feel his bare skin. She fumbled with his shirt, and when his tongue slid into her mouth she pulled so hard she heard buttons pop.
She jerked away, mortified, but Jake shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Jake, I’m so—”
“Don’t worry,” he said again, undoing the last few buttons himself and letting the shirt slide to the floor.
There it was—the bare skin she craved so badly. She pressed her palms against his chest and he took a shuddering breath. When she kissed him there she could feel his heart pounding.
He slid both hands into her hair and took the pins from her chignon, one by one. Her scalp tingled as sensation rolled over her in waves. When her hair was loose he ran his hands through it again and again, murmuring something incoherent.
Then his lips were on her hair and along her jaw line and caressing her neck, and all she could do was grab his shoulders and hang on.
His hand moved to the back of her dress, and a metallic whisper and the brush of his fingertips made her catch her breath.
But he only lowered the zipper a few inches. “Once I take this off I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop. Do you have condoms?”
A cold rush of reality broke through the sensual fog she’d been floating in.
Condoms. Because they were going to have sex.
Something she’d never done before and hadn’t been planning to do tonight, which was why there were, in fact, no condoms in her house.
Her mouth felt dry. “Don’t you have some?” She’d been under the impression that men never went anywhere without them.
He kissed a path along her collarbone. “God, I hope so. I might have some in the truck.”
He wasn’t sure? “How long has it been since you—” She stopped, suddenly embarrassed.
“Long enough that I don’t remember if I have condoms in the glove compartment or not. How about you?” he asked softly, his mouth close to her ear and his hand caressing the bare skin of her back.
Now she was caught flat-footed, with no idea of what to say. How would he react if she told him the truth?
He pulled back a little, smiling into her eyes as he swept the pad of his thumb over her kiss-swollen lips. “Last year? Last month? Last night?”
She took a deep breath and let it out. “Never.”
There was a sudden, frozen silence, and Erin’s heart plummeted. A moment ago Jake had been in the grip of the same desire she was feeling, and now he was staring at her like she had three heads, one of which was purple and covered with tentacles.
She took another deep breath and started to babble. “I’ve dated and…you know…fooled around. I just never, uh—”
“You’ve never had sex?”
She turned red. “No. But—I want to. With you,” she added, as if he couldn’t have figured that out.
He was still staring at her. “Jesus, Erin. I don’t know what to say.”
Waiting for You (A Contemporary Romance Novel) Page 3
