by Ava Miles
“Jesus, God.” His eyes closed, a shaft of pleasure shooting straight to his toes.
He jumped when a hand caressed his arm. “I have missed you like this. Your eyes closed in delight as the passion of flavor travels down that long, hard body.”
“I told you. It can’t be like this anymore, Sim.” He removed her hand.
She angled her head to the side. “Are you sure?”
Needing air, he cracked open the patio door. The winter wind whistled in, cooling his heated flesh and clearing his head. Mutt howled and lumbered out of the room.
“Yes, I’m with Jill now. I…won’t betray her in that way.”
She leaned against the couch. “I admire that, after Andre. Are you still mad? Andre and I may not have been legally separated, but in the important ways we were not together. There were other women for him. Why could I not find my own happiness? There was only you.”
He wondered if she was telling the truth. “We’re not going to solve this tonight. I need some time to think about your offer to open a place together.”
She wrapped a honeyed curl around an emerald-ringed finger. “I understand. In the meantime, I hope to share some new ideas with you. Being in France again really inspired me. I think you’ll like what I’m thinking. It’s only an addition to what we’ve discussed before, of course.”
Their visions of the restaurant they’d like to open had always been perfectly in sync. He had no doubt it would wow customers and garner a prized Michelin rating.
He could so easily imagine himself back in New York—the cars rushing by, the people striding down Broadway as they talked about business, food, and art. His reputation in the food world would be restored by their partnership. It would change everything for him professionally, and after all the hard work he’d invested in his career, longing flickered through him.
Her body sashayed as she walked toward him. “Let me help you, chérie. ”
“I know you can. I just need…to decide what’s best for me.” Was leaving Dare for his career the answer? But that would mean losing Jill again. It tore him apart, having to decide between the two things he wanted more than anything: his dream and the girl who had always meant home to him.
“We always worked well together. It won’t be any different now.” Her smile flashed like a sunburst. Turning on her heels, she walked to the kitchen for her satchel. “I will leave the cheese and bid you goodnight. I will draw up a menu while I wait.” She shrugged into her coat. “Bon nuit. ”
Brian laid the cheese down carefully in the refrigerator and slammed the door. He fingered a photo of him and Jill held by a Don’t Soy With Me magnet.
What in the hell was he going to do? Jill would never go for a long distance relationship because she’d interpret it as him choosing his career over her. And given his fear of long-term commitment, he wasn’t sure he could make that leap either. He wanted to be with her now, but what if something changed? Hadn’t his parents suddenly up and decided they were done with each other? That decision had pretty much destroyed everything in its wake.
God, could she even trust him again when she found out the whole story about Simca? Hell, she didn’t even know everything yet, and she seemed just as upset as she’d been after high school. He understood why she was hurt. She deserved to be with a man who knew what he wanted, one who was willing to making a real commitment to her.
He had to make a decision.
This was the real world. He couldn’t have everything.
Chapter 14
Keeping watch outside someone’s apartment made you slime, just like that Peeping Tom Peggy had arrested on Valentine’s Day. With the temperature in her car hovering only a few degrees above the temperature outside, Jill was cold, hurting slime. She’d come over to have it out with Brian, but when his French ex had arrived, she’d decided to hide and wait her out.
The minutes ticked by. She slumped in her seat when Simca came sailing out of the building, a smug grin on her face.
Oh God, had this been a bootie call?
Jill wrapped her hands around the car keys. Should she leave? Her body was vibrating from head to toe. No, she needed answers—now more than ever. If he’d slept with her, then he’d made his decision.
As the Corvette purred away, she uncurled her stiff, cold frame and strode inside. She pounded on the door. When it swung open, Brian froze.
“Jill.” His expression was a combination of horror and panic that seemed straight out of a slasher movie.
“She was here! What was she doing here?” The hurt exploded inside her like a bomb. Before she realized what she was doing, she slung her purse off, rushed inside, and smacked him.
“Hey! Stop it,” Brian cried, fending off the attack while trying to slam the door behind her.
“No!” she huffed out. “Tell me the truth. Did you actually invite her over?” Her voice held a tinge of the venom that had done in Cleopatra, so not her.
“No! Christ almighty! Were you spying on me?”
“I wouldn’t have to if I trusted you, but you’ve blown that to bits. Again.”
“Jesus, she looked up my address. Will you calm down?”
“No, I won’t calm down. She had this smug smile on her face.” Her voice hitched. “Tell me you didn’t have a quickie with her.”
“Dammit, of course not. Is that what you think of me? Why even come over then?” He grabbed her purse and tossed it on the loveseat. Mutt trudged closer.
She started stroking the anxious dog without even thinking about it. “I was coming to talk. To make you tell me the truth, but after this…” Her stomach radiated with pain, so she curled her arm around it.
“Jill, you’re jumping to conclusions. Nothing happened!”
All the evidence suggested otherwise. “How am I supposed to trust you when you won’t tell me the truth?” She pressed her hands to her temple. “Do you have any idea how much it hurt to know she was in here? After ten o’clock? That’s when people come over for bootie calls.”
“It wasn’t a fucking bootie call.” He rocked on his heels, taking a few deep breaths. “I’m sorry it hurt you. She came over to give me something perishable. A French cheese I enjoy, okay? Do you want me to get it out of the fridge?”
His explanation made her want to bawl. God, they were in a bad place. Her deepest fear clawed at her throat, demanding release. “I’m afraid you’re going to choose her over me—like you did with Kelly. I’m afraid you already have.”
“Jesus.” He strode over and gripped her shoulders. “Don’t think like that.”
How could anger and comfort exist in the same moment? “Nothing happened, I promise.”
She edged back against the couch, shaking. The tense muscles around his mouth and eyes told her he was just as upset as she was. She’d seen that earnest look before. Mutt crawled to the edge of the rug with a high-pitched whine. “I want to believe you.”
He sat down beside her and took her hand. His eyes held hers. “Then do.”
How many times had he held her hand and stared straight into her eyes that way? Thousands. Yet she could only look away. “God, I can’t do this. I thought I wanted to talk, but every time I get near you I feel like I’m a rocket coming back into the airspace with its tail on fire.”
His mouth twitched. “Well, it is a nice tail.”
“Humor won’t work.”
He leaned closer. “Then I have another idea. You know what they say about not being able to hide the truth in a kiss. Kiss me.”
Her mouth salivated just at the prospect, even though it was ridiculous after what had happened. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Look, I know you. Remember how I used to give you a cookie when you were upset. Words don’t work, Red.” He held out his hand again, eyes as calm as the sea. “Come here.”
She sat in front of him. He cupped her face and slowly moved his head, watching her the whole time. His lips brushed hers like a feather. The gentleness undid her, and her eyes welled w
ith tears.
“When I saw her, I thought…” Jill broke away as the truth bubbled up from her tight diaphragm. Her forehead rested against his. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“Oh, Jill,” he whispered and fitted his mouth to hers again, taking the kiss deeper, infusing each stroke of his tongue and press of his lips with an emotion so pure her head throbbed. “Close your eyes and listen.”
His mouth settled over hers without demand. He stroked. He caressed. He wanted her.
Everything opened.
Her heart uttered a soul-anguished cry, the force echoing up her chest, clawing at her throat. Desperation. Wanting. Love. Confusion. Fear.
She could taste them all.
He was right. There was truth in a kiss. And the power of it was more than she could deny. This was what she’d always wanted. His lips. His heat. His body. Him.
She grabbed the back of his head and fed the starved part of her who’d always wanted him, was terrified of losing him, and didn’t think she could love anyone but him.
It was like setting a match to gasoline. His mouth devoured her. He pressed her into the couch, the leather sighing with her, covering her with his long, powerful frame. She opened her legs to take his weight and groaned at his hardness. Her arousal spiked like a thermometer plunged into boiling water. She fisted her hands in his hair and thrust her tongue into his mouth. He responded with force, grinding against her pelvis with an urgent roll of his hips.
She gave a long moan as his hands pressed under her sweater and tugged at her bra, freeing her breasts. Her back arched when he twisted and pulled on her nipples.
Teeth scraped. Lips swelled. Tongues laved.
Jill clenched her legs around him, thinking, Take me. All of me. Devour me.
“God,” she cried aloud when his mouth pressed against her neck and bit gently.
Passion took on superhero speed. She shoved him back blindly and tugged off her coat, her sweater, her dangling bra. His hands fisted around her ribcage as she pulled off her jeans.
“Wait…are you sure?” he rasped.
She yanked his mouth back to hers, not wanting to hear reason. The compulsion to be with him blew every thought out of her mind. She had to have him or die. Years of wanting burned her to ash. She wanted to rise like the Phoenix in his arms.
She ripped at his shirt, buttons flying, her hands digging into the tight skin of his corded abdomen.
“Jesus, God,” he uttered in a voice she didn’t recognize.
He helped her drag his shirt off. She struggled with his zipper, and then she had her hand on him in seconds, his heat and hardness pulsing in her palm.
He threw back his head, thrusting against her. “Okay, we need to slow down.”
His texture was new and hot and incredible. Jill gave him a few feather strokes and then increased the pressure. “No,” she hissed back and fitted her mouth to his again as he rolled her under him.
The deep thrusting of his tongue, the feel of his furnace-hot body against hers, and the perfect suction of his mouth had the sexual energy flying north, south, east, and west. Brian flipped her onto her back, his hand cupping the V of her thighs. She opened her legs wider, giving him access, and uttered an anguished moan when his fingers rubbed her core and thrust inside. Her pelvis shot up, seeking more contact. Jill became a mindless fiend of sexual desperation.
She had only one desire. To be filled. Entered. Penetrated. By him. Finally. Her mind nudged her about the need for a condom, but she didn’t want to interrupt things. The odds of her getting pregnant their first time seemed miniscule. She fell back into the moment.
Freeing her mouth, she panted. “Now! Right now.”
His neck arched. “God, let me get—”
“No, it’s fine.” She yanked him close.
He surged into her with a deep thrust, lifting her off the couch. Given her near-virgin status, the fit was tight, and her senses were flooded with a mixture of pleasure and pain. Her legs wrapped around him. He sank deeper and pumped, hands pulling her hips to him, sealing them together. She met his rapid thrusts. Mindless, she was nothing but sensation, rhythm, movement.
Their mouths fused, deepening the connection, breaking for a breath every few thrusts. The energy built until the crown of her head tingled along with her hands, fisted at his waist to anchor him to her. She felt the urge to bear down and tighten all her muscles around him. She arched as he drove straight to her heart.
Her body became a long sweep of electricity from loins to head, and then she exploded. She pulled her mouth back to breathe shallowly, crying out as she pulsed with pleasure.
“Jesus,” Brian shouted.
He tunneled his head against her neck and surged into her with three deep thrusts, lifting her from the couch. He growled as he came, his whole frame shaking against her. She took him deeper into her body as the sensations built again, taking her higher.
“Brian,” she murmured, somewhere between rapture and bliss.
Quiet moans sang from her throat with the shallow, rapid breaths. Ecstasy filled every pore as their chests rose against each other, their hearts beating in time. Deep inside, she knew this was where she belonged, a destination she’d been traveling toward all her life. A white light spread through her, uncurling a new ladder of love into her existence.
She drew it all inside her. His shallow breath. His earthy smell. His perfectly-made body.
Her Brian.
Her ankles went lax around his waist, and her hands fell open in total surrender. To him. To herself. To what they were together, whatever it meant. She leaned her head closer, wanting a deeper connection with him as her awareness returned. His shallow pants on her neck tickled, but she didn’t care. Couldn’t move. Didn’t want to.
When he lifted his head, his hair was mussed, a sheen of sweat tinting his ruddy face. His eyes shone like bright stars, piercing light into the recesses of her soul. “Jesus, Jillie,” he uttered with a trace of awe.
Then, slowly, like he was awakening from a dream, his face tensed, his eyes narrowed.
In that instant, she knew he was more afraid than she’d ever seen him. And all because of what they’d done, how right it had felt while they were doing it, and how wrong it felt now.
He lowered his forehead to hers. Mutt barked, drawing her attention. Drool pooled from the dog’s mouth as he stared at them. Something inside her cracked. Oh God, this wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.
She closed her eyes, shaken and exposed.
He wasn’t ready, and they’d done it in front of his dog. Where were the candles? The quiet murmurs? The slowness? The soft professions of love?
This was madness.
Pleasure faded like raindrops down a windowpane after an intense storm, leaving regret in its wake. The words I love you surfaced, but she knew she couldn’t say them now—not when he wouldn’t be able to say them back. She’d allowed herself to be swept away. After all this time, they’d come together without a clear vision for a shared future. Right after his ex-whatever had visited.
Stark vulnerability cast a dark cloak over her. A tear slid out of the corner of her eye. She tried to wipe it away before it fell on his skin. When he lifted his head, she was more emotionally naked that she’d ever been with him.
After all this time, this was what was between them. As if they were two symbiotic organisms, she read his thoughts. Pleasure, yes—even ecstasy—but laced with the combustibles of fear and uncertainty. They’d traveled far beyond anywhere she’d known, like the far edges of the Dark Continent on maps of old.
How could he still not know this was love?
“Don’t cry, Jillie,” he whispered in a hoarse voice, rubbing her tears away. “Please, baby.” He stared at her, his fear as plain as day.
He knew it. She could see it in the mistiness of his eyes. They had reached the farthest boundaries of their souls and nudged the door open to a whole new realm…but he wasn’t ready to live there with her. He didn’t think it could la
st because nothing else in his life had.
She turned her head away and closed her eyes. Why was she surprised? The hurt crawling through her wasn’t rational. She had to get away. Shield herself. Grow some new armor.
“Would you please get off me?” She coughed to clear her throat.
His fingers traced her cheek without the sureness of his usual touch. “I know this isn’t how we both imagined it, but don’t ask me to leave you now, Jillie.”
The howl inside her started to build. She pushed at him. “Please, Bri, let me up.”
The slickness of their skin, the wetness between her thighs, and him pulling out only made her more aware of how monumental this mistake had been.
She picked up her clothes and struggled to the bathroom. When she slammed the door, she used a towel to clean herself up, her hands shaking. She scrubbed her eyes with cold water as sobs trickled out of her mouth. God, she had to get a grip. This emotional monsoon was a bunch of shit.
When she emerged, he was sitting on the floor by the bathroom, wearing only his jeans. His Adam’s apple bobbed.
“I heard you crying. You aren’t the only one affected by this, Jill.”
She took a deep breath and strode away, aware of the tenderness rubbing against her jeans. “No, I’m not.”
“We didn’t use anything.”
His words made her squirm, but she needed to face the truth. She pressed her hand to her forehead. “I know,” she whispered.
She didn’t think his face could have fallen more, but the grooves cut deeper around his mouth. “We’ll deal with whatever comes.”
She crossed her arms around herself. God, they’d made an enormous mistake. Now she understood in the heat of the moment. “I don’t—”
“Would you please let me hold you?” he nearly shouted, pushing up off the floor. “Goddammit, Jill. We finally made love, and you’re further away from me than you’ve ever been.”
