Love Hard (Hard Play Book 3)

by Nalini Singh

  Oh. “Part of the company’s fleet,” she said. “I borrowed it while mine was in the garage.” She made a face at him as she unlocked the vehicle, then popped the hood. “You really thought I always drove around with a car that has S3X11 on the number plate?” She was trying to avoid the media hounds, not flash her existence.

  “Jules, predicting you has never been my strong suit.”

  As Jake disappeared behind the hood of her car on those words, she found herself tucking her hands into the back pockets of her jeans and rocking back and forth. She’d never had a man in this house who wasn’t a tradesman. Jake took up a whole lot more space than her plumber or electrician.

  “Anything obvious?” She fought the urge to pad closer.

  “No, but I see a couple of likely suspects. I’ll have to take a section of the engine apart to see for sure.”

  “I’ll contact the garage.”

  “No, I can fix it.” He looked around the side of the hood, a curl tumbling over his forehead and his eyes bright. “I haven’t had a chance to work on an engine like this for a while.”

  Juliet could eat him up, stuffed-shirt ways and all.

  Dear Lord, whatever I’ve done, I ask for mercy. Please end this torture.

  God didn’t listen to her fervent prayer. Probably because, prior to the wedding, she hadn’t entered a church for five years.

  It was an endless ten minutes later that Jake unhooked the hood and put it back down. “I’ll bring the correct tools the next time.”

  Next time.

  Juliet decided her car would stage a miraculous return to perfect function in the next few days. “Thanks.”

  Holding up his grease-stained hands, he said, “Mind if I use your laundry sink to wash up?”

  As with most houses of this vintage and design, her laundry was an alcove cut into the garage. There was only one problem: “Laundry tap’s not working at the moment. Plumber’s coming back tomorrow with the right part to fix it.” She waved him into the house with a sense of inevitability.

  Air freshener or not, his scent would torment her all night.

  After Jake ducked inside the bathroom and water flowed in the sink, she went to open the sliding doors that led from her lounge to her deck. The crisp night air was a welcome slap against her cheeks, the skies dark and dotted with stars. She had no view as such, but the land fell gently away on the other side of her low wooden fence to reveal a small stream. Lush ferns and other native plants grew in abundance around it.

  “This is nice.”

  Juliet didn’t jump though he’d entered behind her—her Jacob Esera antenna was working just fine. “Got the grease off okay?” she asked, and when he nodded, said, “I’ll show you to the front door. You must be wanting to get home.”

  He met her gaze full-on, and the impact of those brown eyes was a punch that made her throat tighten, her stomach flutter. “Kicking me out, Jules?”

  “That’s Juliet to you,” she responded automatically, wondering why he was still hanging around, why he was looking at her that way. As if she was the only woman in the entire world.

  Her mouth dried up, her pulse thunder in her ears.

  “You’re right, you know,” he said. “I’ve always had people around me who’d catch me if I fell.”

  Oh. That’s what he’d stayed behind to clear up. “I shouldn’t have made it sound like an accusation.” Flushing, she broke the eye contact. “It’s a good thing you have. I envy you.”

  “I know my family is my greatest advantage in life.”

  She found herself looking at him again, caught by how solemnly he said that.

  Their eyes collided again, and this time the jolt was so visceral that a shiver rippled over her. Wetting her lips, she went to say she’d walk him to his car when Jake lifted his hand and cupped her cheek. Hot, a little rough, the gentle hold locked her in place, her chest rising and falling in a sharp rhythm.

  “Jake, you have to go home.” It came out a rasp.

  “Yes.” The slightest tremor in the hand that continued to cradle her face. “We’re not right for each other.”

  “Nope,” she agreed, the word hard to get out through the tension in her throat. “We’ll drive each other to homicide.”

  “Double, you think?”

  “Hundred percent certainty.”

  Neither one of them moved.

  “I don’t do one-night stands.”

  “Neither do I.” She sucked in a desperate gulp of air. “It’s just some weird chemistry thing.” At least now she knew it wasn’t embarrassingly one-sided… though that made the attraction far more perilous.

  It also touched an old grief stored deep inside her heart. “Is this wrong?” she blurted out. “Because of Callie?”

  “I never looked at you this way before.” No confusion in Jake’s face, nothing but blunt openness based on a bedrock of confidence. “You were just Calypso’s annoying friend.”

  “And you were her irritating boyfriend.” She and Jake, they’d never betrayed Callie, not even in thought.

  An exhale inside her, a worry she hadn’t realized she’d been carrying around, poofing out of existence. “You’re still irritating.”

  “But I’m hot too.” Jake’s words were so deadpan that it took her a moment to realize he was teasing her.

  “A little, maybe.” Not her best effort since she was all but hyperventilating, but a woman had to try.

  “I need a good night’s sleep.” Jake ran the pad of his thumb over her cheekbone, the heat in his eyes threatening to burn. “I have training on Monday.”

  Juliet’s toes curled at the implied admission that she’d been keeping him up nights. Good. It was only fair. She, too, would be a wreck by Monday if they didn’t deal with this. Deal with it out of existence. “We’re not friends, so we can’t be friends with benefits.”

  “Just once.” Hand tightening on her cheek, Jake stepped closer, the furnace of his muscular body pure erotic temptation. “Get it out of our systems, move on.”

  A small voice piped up in the back of Juliet’s head, reminding her of how much fun she’d had with him this afternoon. Fun that had nothing to do with sexual heat. Don’t risk it, Jules. What if one night of sex only addicts you deeper?

  Intense brown eyes locked with her own. “Yes?”

  “Yes,” she said, shushing that worried voice on a wave of naked want.

  Then Jake’s lips were warm and firm on hers, his hand sliding to grip the back of her neck, his chest crushing her breasts as he slid his free arm around her waist. Everything about him was hot and hard, including the erection pushing against her abdomen. Juliet felt shockingly soft, delicately female—and wanted in a way that made her head spin, the last threads of caution slipping from her grasp.

  Wrapping her arms around his neck and anchoring the fingers of one hand in the thick black of his hair, she parted her lips. Jake kissed like he did everything else: with purpose and concentration. First he learned her mouth, learned exactly how she liked things, then he used that knowledge to make her weak at the knees.

  Juliet was a confident woman, had made herself that way through sheer strength of will, but the majority of her sexual experience had been with Reid. That didn’t exactly leave her in any kind of shape to deal with a man who took his time making love to her mouth until her lips tingled and her toes curled.

  Painfully tight nipples pushing against the white lace of her bra, she pressed into his body, her nails digging into his neck. He bit lightly at her lower lip before taking another kiss. In revenge, she deliberately pricked him with her nails again—and got a deep, wet kiss that was all tongue and sex for her trouble.

  Juliet melted.

  She’d never been kissed this long and with such open satisfaction, never had her panties go damp before a man so much as touched her breasts.

  Lifting his head at last, both of them panting, Jake glanced toward the stream, then to the right and left. She had higher fences on either side, and the way the h
ouses were positioned meant none of her neighbors could look in on them, but when he tugged her inside, she went without hesitation. The last thing she wanted was to give a lurking photographer with a telephoto lens a big payday.

  It wouldn’t be Juliet who’d command the high price. No, it would be straitlaced Jacob Esera caught making out with “Notorious WAG” Juliet.

  Locking the sliding door behind them, Jake took another kiss, this one harder, his breath choppy. “Bedroom?”

  15

  Clever Hands and Orgasms to Ruin a Woman (*Fans Face*)

  Juliet moved toward her bedroom, crossed the threshold, and all at once wasn’t sure what to do. It wasn’t as if she made a habit out of inviting men into this room; in point of fact, Jake was the first man she’d invited in. But he’d walked into the bedroom behind her and he swept aside her hair to kiss her nape before she could stumble.

  Juliet moaned.

  He’d found that sensitive spot where her neck met her shoulder. Reaching back to grip his thighs, she angled her head a fraction more. She felt his lips curve against her even as he slid one hand around her waist and pressed it flat against her stomach. The idea of Jake smiling as he kissed her, of Jake enjoying doing things to her that pleasured her, it melted her in ways that were far deeper than sex.

  She shoved aside that thought, because sex was all this would ever be. Even if they didn’t aggravate each other nine seconds out of ten, she wasn’t the kind of woman a man like Jake took home to his parents. There was a difference between being welcomed as a friend of the family and entering as a possible future daughter-in-law. No parent wanted a scandal-ridden partner for a beloved son.

  Why was her brain even thinking these things?

  Jake slid one big, warm hand up over her body to close it over her breast, shattering her into a kaleidoscope.

  Desperate to feel his touch directly on her skin, she lifted her hands to the buttons of her shirt and quickly undid them one by one. Jake moved back the instant she was finished and drew the shirt off over her arms.

  After dropping it to the floor, he returned to his previous position, chest pressed to her back and hand splayed against her stomach. It quivered, his heat and scent her own personal aphrodisiac. As he kissed his way down her neck and along her shoulder, she tried to put together enough brain cells to figure what she could do for him.

  That was how this worked.

  “I can’t really touch you,” she managed to get out, raising her hands to hook them around the back of his neck.

  “You can touch me later.” A deep-voiced response. “I don’t want this over with quick, and it will be if you put your hands on me.”

  No man had ever said anything sexier to her. Bones liquid, she dropped her head back against his shoulder and let him do what he wanted. The rumbling sound he made in his chest transformed her blood into honey. He returned his hand to her lace-covered breast not long afterward, molding and shaping with unhidden interest before he used his thumb and forefinger to clasp her nipple, roll it.

  She had large nipples, and they were ridiculously sensitive. Gritting her teeth against the sounds that wanted to come out—she was pretty sure they’d be whimpers—she found herself rubbing against him.

  As she’d already discovered, Jake was a very smart man, one who listened and learned. He released her nipple but only so he could explore her neglected breast, tease the other nipple. The rasp of the lace against her skin, it made those whimpers escape her control. Jake bit her lightly on her shoulder in response before stepping back.

  Bereft, she tried to find her balance, but he was back in a matter of seconds. It was his bare chest that he pressed against her. There was a slight, delicious roughness to his skin, and she remembered the fine chest hair she’d noticed at the shoot.

  Her fingers prickled, wanting to touch, to explore.

  Nudging her head to the other side so he could kiss the curve of her neck, he reached around to the front at the same time and tugged the cups of her bra down beneath her breasts. Juliet looked down… and heat erupted underneath the brown of her skin. This seemed naughtier than if he’d taken off her bra, as if she was serving herself up in a frame of white lace.

  She watched with her heart in her mouth and her throat parched as he put two blunt-tipped fingers around the rich brown of her nipple and squeezed.

  Her thighs clenched, her eyes fluttering shut. She ground back against him, unable to stop the rawly sensual movements.

  Jake slid his free hand up to close gently around the front of her throat even as he continued to pluck and roll her nipple with his other hand. Each touch shot an erotic bolt through her, the pleasure on the edge of pain.

  “Can you come like this?” Rough, focused, a question that demanded an answer.

  Juliet struggled to form words. “I don’t know.” No one had ever spent this much time on foreplay and never on her breasts. Jake, however, obviously liked things slow and maddening.

  “Let’s find out.” Then the man with fingers clever enough to fix engines and hands strong enough to keep a rugby ball safe on the field set himself to Juliet’s pleasure.

  At some point she found herself falling back onto the bed, Jake standing between her legs, which half hung over the side. His eyes were hot, his hair tumbled as he leaned forward to brace himself with his palms on either side of her shoulders. A single instant of searing eye contact before he lowered his head and sucked her nipple into his mouth.

  The cry that left her lips this time was more of a scream, her body arching up toward his. Continuing to hold himself up with one hand, he used the other to squeeze the breast he wasn’t sucking, his thumb rubbing hard over the nipple.

  She came.

  Her entire body went stiff, her internal muscles clenched, and pleasure kicked through her in a languorous rush. Somehow her hand was in Jake’s hair, clutching in a vain effort to find solid ground. The feel of his teeth as he playfully scraped her nipple before releasing it turned everything white for a second.

  When she emerged from the haze, it was to spots in front of her eyes and to Jake looking down at her with a distinctly satisfied expression on his face.

  “Now we know.”

  She wondered if she should be irritated by his smugness, but in all honesty, what would be the point? The man had earned the smug. She wanted to kiss him—he’d earned it so without question. Right now smug looked cute on him.

  Also, she might be drunk on orgasm hormones.

  That was fine with her.

  Tugging down his head, she kissed him, all languid and wet, while stroking the fingers of her free hand over the dark lines of his tattoo. His body was sleek and cut under her touch, his chest hair a delicious abrasion. All out of inhibitions, she licked her tongue against his.

  He groaned before pushing off the bed into a standing position.

  As she watched, he dropped his hands to the top button of her jeans and flicked it open.

  “Up,” he rumbled.

  In no mood to deny him anything, she lifted her bottom off the bed. Her muscles felt like jelly, but she wasn’t close to done. No, she wanted to know what else Jacob Esera could do with those clever fingers and that smart mind.

  A tiny, rational part of her worried that he might ruin her for other men—because she didn’t have to be a sex diva to know that he was good at this, really good. The kind of good that came from having an intense ability to concentrate on his lover. This wasn’t paint-by-the-numbers or a predetermined set of moves. Jake was reacting to her reactions, as quick on the uptake in bed as he was rumored to be with strategy on the field.

  So yes, ruination was a possibility.

  But Juliet wasn’t about to allow fear to stop her from living what promised to be the most sensual experience of her life.

  It didn’t take him long to pull off her jeans and drop them to the floor. He stopped, gazing down at her splayed-out body. At her light blue panties with white lace edging, a tiny white bow in the center. The white la
ce bra she’d matched with it continued to obscenely cup her breasts.

  Blue socks patterned with pink flamingos wearing feather boas covered her feet. Aroha had given them to her as a birthday gift, and Juliet thought they were a hoot. But sexy? A big nope.

  Jake’s gaze, however, was on the rest of her. “Nice,” he said, and her entire body clenched as if he’d mouthed the dirtiest thing on the planet.

  It was the look in his eye. He liked what he saw, and he was making no bones about displaying it. A woman could get used to a man this blunt, this open—though that was the last thing she’d ever thought she’d say about Jacob Esera. The man was the definition of closed up more securely than a bank vault. Except, it appeared, in bed.

  Bending to cup the back of her knee, he stroked all the way down to one foot. But instead of tugging off her sock without looking, he glanced down. His lips kicked up. “Cute.”

  Her stomach dropped. Jake was dangerous when he smiled.

  “Let’s leave those on.”

  She thought he was joking until he dropped her foot and went to undo the top button of his jeans. All at once, she didn’t care about her flamingo socks. She watched, dry-mouthed and restless, as he finished undoing the button and began to lower his zipper.

  “Do you have protection?” A solemn question, Jake’s hand halting with the zipper barely undone.

  “Yes, in the bathroom cabinet.” She’d bought the box a couple of months ago in a fit of determination to get out there and strut her stuff. But when push came to shove, she’d balked at the idea of picking up a man in a club.

  Juliet had nothing against people enjoying casual encounters, wished she could. A woman had needs that sexy television doctors alone couldn’t fulfill. But the gawky, unwanted girl she’d once been continued to exist in her sexual self—she needed to feel comfortable with a lover before she could get naked. For her, sex required friendship at the very least.

  Yet here she was, with a man who wasn’t a friend.

  Disquieted by the sudden return to rational thought, she was in the process of sitting up by the time Jake returned from the bathroom. He just put one hand on her chest and nudged her back down.