“Moved my business to Florida and started again from scratch. Dad went black with grief. Dark and morbid. He scared the shit out of me. Jared too.”
“Is this the first time you’ve left him since?”
“Yes.” The only reason he’d come here was because of that voice in the night. “I’m glad I did; it was way past time. I wouldn’t have met you if I’d ignored the call.”
“I don’t think either of us was able to resist.” She brushed her lips against his earlobe, then down his neck. The buzz spiked a warning and blood rushed.
He gave her a light squeeze. “Thank God.”
The zing settled back to a low glow as she snuggled against him. Seattle was colder than Miami, and he found the sea-laden air sharp and surprisingly refreshing. He hadn’t noticed how little he enjoyed the Florida heat until he was away from it.
Through the trees that lined the drive, he saw clouds scud overhead, promising rain through the night.
He thought of keeping Lexa warm under the down covers at Perdition, his legs tangled with hers, his heart beating against her chest, her smooth soft breasts a cushion against him.
“I suspect your father can take care of himself. Besides, if he chose a good woman the first time, have faith that he’ll choose well now. If this lady’s not right for him, he’ll know it soon enough.”
“She made him sound happy; that’s a good start.” Besides, Jared was there. With his jaded view of romance, he’d spot trouble right away.
“We could turn around, Jake,” she said with a nod toward the gate. “We don’t have to let the spirits play with us again.”
“I don’t think they will. Not to the same degree anyway. We both know how we feel now, and that’s more than anything dead hookers can bring to the table.”
She grinned and the lighthearted glance she gave him eased his load of worry about Jed. He climbed out and opened the gate to Perdition.
“Put on your tool belt for me, Jake.” The heavy promise in her voice chased around his belly, then headed south. Blood rushed and he swelled.
“My tool belt.”
She nodded while sitting primly on the side of the bed, hands folded in her lap. “If you want to see me in that sex-kitten corset Faye lent me, you’ll strip to the buff and strap yourself into your tool belt.”
Lexa in that corset.
Then Lexa out of that corset.
“Fair’s fair,” he said, and sent a silent thank-you to the spirit who’d goaded him to pack it. “With or without tools?”
“You did not lug tools across the country.”
“I may have a screwdriver or two.”
“No hammers?”
“No hammers.”
She put on a dramatic sigh. Her chest rose and fell in a way that should have made her breasts jiggle.
“What are you doing?” she asked as he advanced toward her.
Without touching her flesh, he used one finger to unbutton her top two buttons. The woman wore denim well. She was practical; he’d give her that.
The third button popped open, and with the precision of a television detective with a pen, he widened the gap to expose the truth. Her breasts were held up by the eye-popping corset.
“Witch. You’ve been wearing this all along?”
She nodded slowly, her eyes heavy-lidded and sultry. The woman was in serious need.
“Then the least I can do is put on the belt.”
Lexa watched as Jake dug into his duffel bag. He rooted for a moment, then, with the panache of a sleight-of-hand artist, pulled out the wide leather belt by the buckle end. A double buckle, she realized. The man meant business.
Her heart picked up speed as she watched every inch of the heavy tan leather rise out of the bag. One pouch, a couple of loops for hammers, a smaller loop for a screwdriver. “Don’t forget to strip to the buff,” she said. His jeans hung seductively low on his hips. “On second thought, just take your shirt off before you put it on,” Lexa said with a strain of desire that lashed them both. “You can leave your jeans on.”
He tugged his tee up and over his head, giving her a perfect view of his sculpted chest and the V of hair that warmed her fingers when she played. He slung the belt around his hips, catching the buckle end. When he’d buckled both catches, he stood for inspection with his hands on his hips.
His eyes twinkled with humor, but his neck flushed.
Men really had no idea how beautiful they were. His forearms flexed, his shoulders gleamed, his belly hitched in a notch as he caught her expression. Which must, she realized, be pure lust.
“Oh. My. God.”
He was man to her woman, male strength to her feminine, hard to her soft. She melted.
“Now,” he said, “it’s your turn.”
In her lust, she’d forgotten she was even in the corset. “Fair’s fair,” she repeated, and rose. She slowly undid the last of the buttons on her shirt and slid the sleeves off her shoulders, letting them fall to the bed behind her.
The female core of her melted and opened, woman for man, and her mind followed. He was hunger, she was food, she was empty while he could fill.
Drawn by aeons of primitive awareness, they moved into each other and held on.
He tilted her head back while he looked his fill. Her heart pounded in time with his. Jake. This was Jake, and he was everything she’d ever wanted or could want in a man.
Everywhere they touched, the spark snapped and popped between them, rising as the fire enveloped her.
Lexa pressed her hips to his in perfect alignment, the buckles of his tool belt cold and hard on the flesh of her belly below the corset. Her breasts, held up and out, speared against his chest.
She swished them in a back-and-forth motion he couldn’t ignore. Reaching into the low-slung cups, he scooped her bobbling flesh into his hands.
When he finally lowered his lips to suckle her, she crooned and bucked toward his mouth. She lifted her chin to expose her neck, and he traveled up from her nipple to her throat and on to the sensitive flesh under her ear.
“Jake, I need you. All of you. Your hands, your mouth, your cock. Please, Jake. Now.”
She reached for his belt buckle and began to work at it. The tool belt fell away, leaving his zipper available for plunder.
She made short work of his jeans and kneeled to take him full in her mouth, devouring and lapping.
She thought she heard a sigh of feminine need, but she ignored it. But he turned to look over his shoulder at the same time.
“Do you think we’re alone here?”
“I know I’m in charge, Jake. What I feel for you is all me,” she said, certain of it.
“Me too.” He jutted toward her mouth, and she took him deep into her throat. He cupped the back of her head to encourage her. “I can’t take much more.”
“You won’t have to,” she promised. Both nipples puckered and ached as she swished her nipples against his knees. Anything to feel the delicious sparkles everywhere.
“Enough,” he said, stepping free. He clasped her shoulders and guided her to the bed. He followed her down into the soft comforter, making her sigh with the rightness between them.
“This is all us, Jake,” she whispered. “And it’s so right, it scares me.”
“I love you, Lexa, and it’s never been better.”
For that shining moment between wanting and having, she believed him. And wondered if she felt the same.
Could she love this man? Was she as cursed by this burning touch as he claimed to be?
Heart hammering, her thoughts spun away, and she let herself drown in sensation. Jake. Jake. Jake.
Lexa spread her legs in a plea for his touch. He obliged and poked a finger up the leg of her shorts and found the string of her wet panties between her legs.
Tugging the wet material from her flesh, he pulled it taut and rolled it back and forth across her clit, making her moan and thrash.
“In, I need you in.” Her whisper was barely more than a so
ft croak.
So wet.
So hot.
So his. All for him.
“I need you inside. Now!” She yanked at her shorts, struggling to slide them down her hips.
He unzipped her, then drew the denim down her legs. She kicked them off and opened her legs wide. She streamed from her slit onto the bed. “I’ve never seen a woman so wet or so open, Lexa. You’re mine, even if you haven’t accepted it yet.”
“Jake!”
He pressed his palm to her mons and slid two fingers into her sopping channel just to ease the immediate need.
“Oh! I want you everywhere at once. In my mouth, in my pussy. I want your mouth on mine, but I need your tongue on my clit too.”
Her fingers danced across his scrotum and squeezed gently, sending his cock into spasms. She slid her hand to the sensitive spot just below the crown and squeezed hard enough to hold back his come.
He brushed her mouth and fingers away and grabbed for a condom. With a snap of latex that stung and heated his already overheated cock, he was ready.
He rolled onto her, sliding between the cradle she eagerly offered. The moment she felt him settle, she clutched at his hips and pulled him close, grinding her pubis against his.
“Be inside me, Jake, please, finally, be inside me. I need you.”
The plunge into her was slow and easy as he allowed every millimeter of sensation and heat to grip them both. Penetration at this agonizing pace made her blind with need. Her vaginal walls grasped and pulled at him, coaxed him deeper and deeper, clinging and releasing as he pressed in.
It had been forever since she’d felt this fullness. And never had she felt so complete.
With every slide, he penetrated more fully while she opened slowly, needfully, her acceptance of him rapturous and oh so natural.
She watched his face, heavy with concentration and connection. “I love you, Lexa, I do.”
His cock slid home.
“I care for you too,” she said on a whimper, feeling the truth rise up and grip her heart. Rocking up toward him, she sighed into his mouth in a deep, need-filled kiss.
He rode her slowly and gently while love spiraled from his heart into hers. She kissed his nose, each ear, and even his cowlick between smiles of joy and acceptance. “I can’t believe what’s happening to me, Jake. I—Oh! Jake!”
His eyes glittered, then closed as she felt his tight control slip.
Her orgasm gathered in a knot of need and tight nerves. Jake tipped his pubic bone hard against her, and she carried him along into ecstasy.
He groaned and gathered her close to hold her while his spasms blasted into her. The pummeling she took from the sparking heat and his tightening body rose inside her as she tipped over the edge and crashed.
She kissed him and tasted the salt of tears. His? Hers? Lexa didn’t know, or care.
11
T heir hearts pounded as one, each of them trembling. Jake held her close and tight, her arms and cradle a sanctuary he never wanted to leave.
Exhaustion hit him hard as he nuzzled the heated flesh between her earlobe and neck.
He rolled off the bed and lifted her. She weighed so little, and he was used to hard physical labor. Her head lolled against his shoulder, her expression sated and loose. “Is it crazy to feel this much for you this soon?”
“Crazy? Cursed? What’s the difference? It’s more real than either of us has ever had before.”
She thought of her previous boyfriends and her lukewarm response to them. “You’re right.” She looked up at him as he carried her through the doorway into the bathroom. “You were right about the spirits too. What just happened was all us.”
He took her into the shower and washed them both in the tight corner unit. Tempting images of a water-drenched pussy slid through his mind, but he resisted dropping to his knees to eat her into oblivion. She needed to rest, and he wanted to give her time to think. Pushing her now could backfire.
After the shower, he watched as she slid into one of his work shirts and quietly slipped out the bedroom door.
She was gone a long time, but tempted as he was to follow, he figured she needed her space.
He’d had a lot of years to ponder the curse, while she’d just been hit with more than any normal person should be expected to accept.
He rolled into position and sank into a dreamless sleep.
Lexa found the photo album where she’d left it. The marble-topped side table showed up clearly in the moonlight. The leather felt cool to the touch, but it would warm soon.
Crossing the hall, she slipped through the dining room and turned right into the conservatory at the front of the house. Octagonal, with high windows in every panel, the hush enveloped her and even her breathing slowed to calm.
Here was the spot, she knew. It was here that Annie fell for Matthew while they worked side by side to build this fantastic addition. She trailed her fingers across the panes of glass, imagining the plants and aviaries Belle would have put in here. All gone now. From what Faye had said, the elderly woman she’d inherited from hadn’t been able to maintain the mansion.
But whispers and shadows showed her the way it had once looked. As if a curtain lifted, daylight filled the half-built conservatory and she saw a boyish-looking person in work pants sawing a two-by-four on a sawhorse. The lad removed his hat to swipe his sleeve across a sweaty forehead, and she knew it was Annie she was seeing.
Matthew, tall, lean, and handsome, was approaching from the cliff. He’d been swimming, and water still dripped from his sculpted body.
The look on her great-grandmother’s face at the sight of her man stunned Lexa, and she knew what it was their spirits wished for her.
The images faded as the light retreated to darkness again. She settled in a patch of moonlight and opened the photo album.
The next morning, Lexa felt the bristle of Jake’s leg hair, the knobbiness of his knee under her calf, and she reveled in the sensations that made up Jake MacKay. He smelled like desire and man with a twist of sex musk added to the mix. She nuzzled her nose next to his ear, felt him grin in response.
She tested her thoughts, considered her level of morning desire, and knew she was alone in her own head. Nice.
“Last night was fabulous, Jake.” She replayed the way he’d taken his time with her. The first slide inside her had been so slow, so complete, she’d tilted into an orgasm the second she’d felt his fullness.
“Sorry I fell asleep. I wanted more.” His voice was early morning rough, and she loved the sound.
“I didn’t. It felt right to make love slowly, completely, knowing we were alone in our bodies.”
He tilted his head to look at her. “This is good, Lexa. We have a good thing here.”
He was right. This crazy thing they’d fallen into was unbelievably great, but she still needed to keep things light. Falling for a guy within hours was just about the craziest, least likely thing for her to do. “Tell me. Was it a witch or a gypsy who cursed you and all your male relatives?”
His chest rose and fell with a chuckle. “I don’t know how it started. All I know is, when a MacKay touches a special woman, there’s an electrical charge they can’t escape.”
“Like the one we share?” Her heart picked up speed. She lifted her head to see his face. She got a great view of his straight nose and strong jaw, but he didn’t turn toward her. She settled back down and slid her fingers through his chest hair.
She palmed his chest over his heart and pressed. “Can you feel it here?”
He nodded. “Deep as can be.”
“It runs under my skin like an itch…but travels lightning quick,” she said.
“Does it settle into something softer?”
“Eventually. And it’s always lighter after an orgasm.” The need for which was building. He felt good and strongly solid in a world that had gone all kinds of wrong. Hell, so wrong she believed she’d actually spoken to a ghost yesterday.
“It lightens up f
or me then too.”
“I’m not frightened by it, though. Not anymore.” Intrigued, curious, comforted, but not frightened. “Should I be afraid?”
“Not unless you hate my guts.”
She laughed. “That’ll never happen.”
He rolled to his side and cupped her cheek. The hum of heat trailed down to her low belly as she studied his serious expression. “It’s more than touching a special woman, Lexa.”
“More?”
“It’s love at first touch.”
She huffed out a ragged breath. Love. He’d said it before, during the throes of orgasm, but she’d been quick to deny it. She was quicker now. “You’re kidding, right?”
He shook his head.
She skittered off the bed, falling on her ass in her haste. “No, not love. Lust,” she said, needing his reassurance. “That’s easy. Lust is easy.” She nodded her head like a marionette, unable to stop. “I can do lust.” She motioned from her chest to his. “We can do lust.”
But her belly flip-flopped, and her heart hammered. He couldn’t mean it.
“It’s love, Lexa. For me it will always be love.” He sat up on the side of the bed.
“But we live on opposite sides of the country. We have businesses to run.” Damn that midnight vision. She wished she’d never gone downstairs, had never set foot in the conservatory.
“I know.” He scrubbed at his hair, revealing his cowlick, and for a moment she saw him as he’d have been as a little boy. “No one ever said love was convenient.”
Her heart cracked at the idea of Jake as a child. Having a child, being a father. A father for her child. The images refused to clear. Someone or something had put them inside her head. She raised her face to the ceiling.
“Stop making me think of these things!” she called, but got no response. The room was silently still. She whipped around to look at the window, but fluttering lace curtains was the only response she got.
It was Annie, her great-grandmother; she just knew it. Annie and Matthew had brought Jake here. For her.
To give her a chance to know love. Their kind of love. The forever kind.
She squeezed her eyes shut for a long moment. Popped them open quick as a wink. She spun in a circle but caught no movement, not even a shadow.
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