“Why did you?”
“I thought it might be nice to make a good first impression with your mom.”
She laughed against his throat. “True. Although I think she wouldn’t put up much of a fuss if we were together.”
“No?”
Lauren smiled and kissed his chin, following it with a little nip on his jaw. “No.”
Jake swerved around the last curve and swung into the driveway. “Good to know,” he said, leaning down to kiss her again. “Very good.”
“Your house?” she asked, a bit breathless as he continued kissing her. She slid her glasses off and dumped them blindly on the dashboard.
“Mine. Looks down on the school and whole valley below.”
“Can’t wait to see it in the daylight. Did you grow up here?”
“No, we lived on the other side of town, closer to where your mom and Arlen live. And my grandfather lived just off Main, right in the center of town. I inherited his place—Ruby Jean and I did—but I stayed out here more often than not. So I finally built this. It was completed about three years ago. The land is part of school property.”
“
You
built?”
“Mmm hmm,” he said, kissing her temple, then her forehead, working his way down to the tip of her nose. “Took four years and a lot of blood, sweat, and swearing. And a little bit of help. Maybe more than a little in some cases.” He smiled against her mouth. “Would you like to see it up close and personal?”
She smiled back. “I thought you’d never ask.”
He popped open his door, and rather than let her wiggle back off his lap, simply pulled her out with him and swung her up into his arms.
“Jake!”
“What?”
“I’m—you don’t have to carry me.”
He grinned down at her. “I know, that’s what makes it fun.”
He climbed the steps up to the deck that wrapped around three quarters of the house, all of which hung off the side of the mountain.
“What I can see of it, in the moonlight, looks gorgeous,” she said. “I love the log cabin look, but wow, that front window, it soars up at least—”
“Two and a half stories. Come on.” He turned so he could unlock and open the front door, still carrying her.
She craned to look down. “Where is Hank?”
“Oh, he likes it down at the school. The hangar is home to him. He can wander up here whenever he wants, there’s a back trail that is a shortcut up the hill, but mostly he likes sprawling out down there.”
He let her legs slowly slide out of his arms, until she was standing hip to hip, inside the circle of his arms. “I know I’m pushing you—this—a little, but—”
“I don’t get pushed anywhere I don’t want to go.”
He smiled and grabbed another quick kiss. Her quick smile, her confidence, her vulnerability…it didn’t just grab at him, it clutched him. Hard. Why wasn’t he running, looking for an out, or at least a safety net? Instead he was scrambling to find a way to get her to leap with him. “I could give you the tour now, or—”
“In the morning,” she finished for him, pulling him into a deeper kiss. “When do you have to fly out?”
“Fly out?” he said, his head spinning as she took control of the kiss, capturing first his mouth, then his tongue, all the while working her fingers up the back of his neck and into his hair. She had the rest of her life to cut that out, too.
“Vegas?”
“Right,” he mumbled against her lips. “Vegas…” He back-walked her to the nearest wall and pinned her against it. He loved the feel of her lush, tight curves pressing into his body. Made him crazy. The feel of her, the scent of her. “In the morning.” He took her mouth again. And again. He hiked her up, wrapping her thighs around his waist, then slid the band from her ponytail and finally, mercifully did something he’d itched to do all night, and drove his fingers into her hair. “We have hours.”
“Hours,” she gasped as he moved his mouth along the side of her neck. Her nails were digging into his shoulders. The little sounds she made drove him wild. She moved against him when he bit her chin.
“All night.” He groaned and pushed his hips into hers, making her gasp and buck up against him. All he wanted to do was strip them both naked, or as naked they needed to be so he could drive every aching inch of him into every welcoming inch of her. “Lauren—”
“Jake,” she said, her voice raspy, husky as she broke their kiss and began kissing the side of his neck, raking her fingers up the back of his neck and into his hair as she arched her back away from the wall.
He kept her shoulders pinned with his weight but slid his hands down to palm her hips, pulling her up and onto him, so he could move against her, thrusting, pushing. She was groaning now, grinding right back on him. And those guttural, grunting noises accompanying her little moans were his. “You—I want…” he started, but couldn’t finish because she was robbing him of his breath and every last scrap of control. Not that he minded in the least.
“Take me to bed, Jake,” she managed. “Or right here. But, for the love of God—”
He pushed her shirt and tank top up and she slid her arms up over her head, helping him get them both off of her. He kept her arms pinned above her head, pushing her spine back up against wall again as he slid his hands down her arms. He shoved her up higher as his fingers slid down her spine, making fast work of the hooks there, his mouth already on the front of the pale pink silk and the hard bud of her nipples.
Her breathing was coming in pants…and so were his. Her fingers were in his hair again, nails raking his scalp, her thighs wrapped around his ribs as he slid the straps and helped himself to the warm, scented skin of her breasts. Full, ripe, they filled his palms and his mouth.
She was writhing in earnest now, wild as he teased one nipple with his fingertip while tasting the other with his tongue.
“This—you—” All she could manage was a hoarse whisper.
“Yes,” he said, his heart pounding. “This—us.”
He swung her away from the wall, catching her to him when she gasped in surprise at the sudden move. His face was buried in her breasts, and he let her slowly slide down until she settled around his hips…and his mouth could once again find hers. “Us.”
“Yes,” she panted. “Yes.” Then took his mouth, took him into her mouth, joining them in the only way they could truly mate.
Something he intended to correct. Immediately.
“Hold on to me,” he said, wrapping her more tightly as he stumbled them both down the hall toward the master suite that was, essentially, the entire back half of the house. Built, literally, halfway into the side of the mountain, the only source of exterior light were a series of reinforced sky lights that formed almost all of the ceiling. It was a bitch keeping the snow from piling too deep on them in the winter…but the payoff was sleeping under the most brilliant carpet of stars in the universe.
Somehow, tonight, he didn’t think he’d be seeing anything but the equally brilliant glitter of desire in Lauren’s eyes. And he was perfectly content with that.
He lowered them both to the bed, pushing her back until he could pin the full length of his body over hers. Her legs still wrapped around his waist, and he lifted her hips up as he pushed hard between them.
“Too many clothes,” she managed.
“Way,” he grunted.
She unbuttoned the rest of his shirt; he unzipped her pants. He slid down her body, pushing her farther onto the wide sea of his bed so he could feast once again on the lush fullness of her breasts. Her hips moved sharply beneath him as he suckled her nipples, teasing the turgid tips with his tongue.
“Jake, please…”
“Please, what?” he asked. He reluctantly left her nipples, damp and tight, and oh so incredibly perfect…and began a slow, winding trail of kisses down to her navel.
“Just…please,” she said, a thread of humor in her breathless voice. “Me,” she added, a definite smile in her tone now, her hips moving restlessly now as he teased his tongue along the open zipper of her pants.
“Your wish,” he said, then slid her pants down her hips with his hands…and her panties down with his teeth. “My command.”
“If I’d only known it was so simple…oh!”
He slipped his tongue over her, knowing from her heady scent she was ready for him. Which was going to come in really handy since he wasn’t sure how long he was going to be able to sustain the playing part. Any other time, he’d want to prolong this moment, these small intimacies, for as long as he could, learning her body, imprinting her scent and taste onto his very psyche, until he’d know her blindfolded in a crowd of thousands. But this time was different. His body was like a coiled spring, even pressing against the mattress was shooting him to the edge. Certainly sliding his tongue into her was going to—
“Oh! Jake…” That last word had come out on a low growl; primal, it vibrated against something so deep inside him he hadn’t known it existed.
She began to move against his mouth and he couldn’t keep from pumping his hips into the bed, the need to take her, claim her, to join himself with her in the most basic way a man could with a woman—his woman…he couldn’t begin to describe the power of it. He’d never felt the need to possess…or the feeling of being possessed. It should have terrified him, and maybe the magnitude of the emotions rocking through him, so foreign, so fresh, did, just a little. But the anticipation of finding out what happened next, and where giving in to the needs and wants that were now driving him would take him—take them—was far more intoxicating.
She started to tremble, and her moan took on a deep, almost keening sound. Her fingers were wrapped in his hair, her hips twisting as he took her, literally, screaming, over the edge.
And that was where his control ended. He should probably temper the ferocity of it all, but when she reached for him, pulling him up and over and into her body, any rational thought fled. Replaced by the pure, primal need to mate.
“Lauren—we need to—”
She took his face, so close to hers now, with her palms, so their gazes met, and locked. “It’s okay. I’m—we’re okay.”
He trusted her. He’d have never done that before, no matter what his partner said—not the first time, anyway. He was a cautious man. But he was there, and she was everything. Holding him so tightly, so perfectly…so naturally.
“We’re more than okay,” he said, then, keeping her gaze, he started to move inside of her.
There was nothing in the heavens or on earth that could match the wondrous sparkle of desire, want, and need that lit her eyes. She never left him, not her body, not her hands, not her gaze. She was completely, beautifully and fully open to him.
He could only hope she saw the same thing in his eyes.
“It’s crazy,” he said as she pressed her knees into his hips, crossed her ankles over the lower part of his back, and lifted up so he could push even more deeply into her. He’d have sworn he’d have taken her wildly, but the rhythm they established right from the start was steady, and deep, and made all the more powerful for the way it allowed them both to feel every push, every slide, every pulse, and quickening.
“What’s crazy?” she murmured, lifting her head up to take his mouth, her eyes drifting shut as she claimed him with a kiss that was every bit as deep and profound. They were so fully joined.
He closed his eyes, too, and was stunned further by the emotions that rocked him as he felt himself gather, felt her body tighten instinctively as she felt him climbing higher, faster.
He was thrusting now, deeper, harder, and there was this rushing sensation that overtook him, all of him, heart, mind, body, soul, as his climax thundered toward release. She was with him every inch, every pulse, whimpering, moaning—or maybe that was him—he honestly couldn’t tell where he ended and she began.
And when he came, it was almost with a violence that left little stars twinkling in the periphery of his vision. Or would have if he could open his eyes. He tried not to collapse on top of her, but she wouldn’t allow him to shift his weight, pulling all of him down on all of her.
“Stay,” she murmured, keeping him wrapped up in her body.
He gave in without a fight, as it was exactly where he wanted to be, in this moment, and for as many other moments in his life he might be lucky enough to have. He buried his face in her neck, striving to regain his breathing, feeling the racing of her heart match his, the pulse in her neck rippling against his cheek as they both tried to find their next breath.
Their breathing slowed, though their skin was still warm and slick from all the exertion. She played with his hair, trailed her fingernails on the back of his neck. He hummed his approval and rolled to his side, taking her with him despite her protesting his leaving her. He groped over his head for a pillow and dragged one under his cheek, even as he curled her into his body, pulling her leg over his, her cheek pressed against his chest. Against his heart. Which was in a wild freefall that he knew it wasn’t going to recover from anytime soon.
“What’s crazy?” she asked again, slipping her arm around his waist, nestling in closer, making herself at home in the protective circle of his body. He wanted nothing more in that moment than to keep her right there, just like that, forever.
He kissed the top of her head and debated saying the words that were circling around and through his mind. And his heart. It
was
crazy. And speaking them out loud, saying them to her, especially in such an emotionally charged moment, would be both crazy and foolish.
She shifted her head back and tilted her chin up so their eyes met. She searched his for a long moment as he fought speaking his mind, saying the words that were bursting forth, clinging to the tip of his tongue.
Then she said, her voice soft, and still deep and a bit raspy from their lovemaking. “Is it crazy that I already feel things for you that I’ve never felt for anyone in my life?”
And that was it. Done deal. His heart was totally and completely hers. “I thought it was…but I’ve changed my mind.”
Her lips curved just the tiniest bit as she searched his face, looking for whatever signs she needed. And he prayed she found whatever it was she was looking for, because he was pretty damn sure she was feeling the same thing he was. What in the hell were the chances of that happening? And how on earth had he gotten so lucky to have it happen to him?