Jake turned to see her hair pulled back in a low ponytail, and she wore a Michigan Wolverines baseball cap, a simple yellow gold tank, and jeans. But she might as well have been in that pink bra and those flowered panties from the other night—because just the sight of her warmed him, and made him start getting hard, too. He was glad to be sitting down.
And as they exchanged smiles, he began to wonder exactly what kind of panties she
did
have on. Because, okay, sometimes it
was
all about sex and excitement. So far, her underwear had ranged from hot and classy to cute and sexy, and it kept him curious about what was hiding under her simple clothes. And feeling rather privileged to know the sides of Carly no one else did.
After she said hello to Tom and paid Frank for her lunch, Jake said, “Why don’t you grab a bar stool—eat here with me.” And it had nothing to do with pushing her out of her comfort zone—he was simply glad to see her.
“All right,” she said quietly, even if she looked a little uneasy about sliding up onto the leather-covered stool beside him.
Across the bar, Frank looked surprised and said, “Guess it’s true.”
“Guess what’s true?” Jake asked, reaching down for another chip.
“Heard you bought her pie. I missed the auction this year, but everybody in town was talkin’ about it.”
At this, Carly simply raised her eyebrows at Jake as if to say,
See
?
But he only replied with a shrug, as if to say,
So what
? “Yeah, I bought her pie.”
“Heard you paid thirty-five dollars,” Frank went on. “That’s outrageous.”
To which Jake only grinned. “Kind of, yeah.”
“So was it worth it?” Frank asked.
“Every penny,” Jake told him, then gave her thigh a quick squeeze under the bar.
“Well, I think it’s nice,” Frank said. “’Bout time our Carly kicked up her heels a little.”
And this time it was
Jake
who raises his eyebrows at
her
.
See
?
“Well, enjoy your lunch,” Frank told them, wiping his hand on a towel. “Bon appétit—or whatever it is they say.”
T
urnbridge wasn’t exactly a mecca of fine dining, but the Grizzly Grill, just a block east of Winterberry’s on Main, served good home-cooked meals, boasted a dark, warm décor, and offered tall, somewhat secluded booths. Not that that kept anyone from finding Carly and Jake on their Friday night date. One key thing Carly had forgotten was that anyone going out to dinner in Turnbridge on the weekend was likely to show up at the Grizzly.
They had just ordered their food when Dana and Hank spotted them and came over to say hello. “Introduce us,” Dana insisted with a big smile, so Carly did.
“Nice to meet you,” Jake said, coming off as perfect as he had the very first time Carly had seen him. No, even
more
perfect. Because this wasn’t a man after only sex. This was a man who wanted to spend time with her. This was a man who respected her in spite of everything he knew about her. There was no denying it: This man went
way
beyond perfect.
After small talk about Dana’s impending baby arrival and how Jake liked their little town, the other couple departed, but not before Dana gave Carly a big wink that both annoyed and embarrassed her in front of Jake. And by the time their food arrived, they’d seen Tiffany and her parents, Frank Schubert’s wife, and a handful of other Turnbridge residents who had known Carly her whole life and were clearly amazed to see her out on an actual date with a man.
“This is exactly why I wasn’t too wild about going out on the town together,” she told him across the table, voice low.
“To avoid having people see you commit the horrible act of eating with someone?” he asked teasingly.
“To avoid being the talk of the town,” she corrected him. “Since, as you can see, people seem inordinately interested in who I’m out with.”
He just gave his usual shrug. “It’s because I’m new here. And because they care about you.”
“And because I’m the girl who never goes out on a date.”
From Jake, yet another shrug. “And now you do.” Then he pointed to her plate and changed the subject. “How’s your meat loaf?”
“Just as good as I told you it was. Here, try a bite. You’re gonna regret not getting it.” She cut a chunk off with her fork and held it across the table for him to sample.
After she eased the fork into his mouth, his expression transformed into one of pure pleasure—and then he admitted, “My God—this is the best meat loaf in the freaking universe.”
“Told ya.”
“We might have to trade,” he suggested, looking down at their plates. “I mean, the pork chops are good, but . . . damn.”
“Nope, no way—I
told
you to get the meat loaf. Maybe next time you’ll listen,” she scolded playfully.
And it was that easy.
To be with him. On a date.
And yeah, maybe everyone she knew
was
talking about it, but she was beginning to see—with Jake’s help—that it was really no big deal. Maybe it was even a
good
thing. She’d just never felt so darn . . . normal before, so she wasn’t used to it. But it was nice.
“Dessert?” he asked when they were done.
“No,” she said quickly.
His eyes widened. “
That
was decisive.”
“And you’re not having any, either.”
He gave his head a derisive tilt. “Wait a minute here.”
“Trust me,” she told him quietly. “Don’t have any dessert and I’ll make it worth your while.”
At this, Jake flashed a lascivious look. “Okay, with talk like that, you’re starting to sway me a little more. In fact, now that you mention it, I think I’m ready for the check.”
“A
ll right, honey, make it worth my while,” Jake said once they’d gotten back to her place, and he didn’t bother trying to hide his lecherous intent. He liked her a lot, but he also liked
fucking
her a lot, and by the time they’d chatted with a few more people on the way out, paid the bill, and walked back up the street to her place, he had a hard-on the size of Detroit’s Renaissance Center—or that’s what it felt like anyway.
So as soon as they reached the top of the stairs, passing by the big, quietly sleeping cat at the top, he playfully pushed her back onto the bed and pinned her there, one eyebrow arched as he waited to see what she had in mind for him.
That’s when she bit her lip and let out a little laugh.
“What’s funny?” he asked.
“I, uh, may have given you the wrong idea when I said I would make it worth your while.”
Now
both
his eyebrows shot up and he flashed an accusing look. “Is that so?”
“Let me up,” she told him, “then close your eyes.”
Jake rolled to his back on the bed, thinking her cute as hell despite how eager his penis was to get down to business. He supposed they’d get to sex soon enough. “This better be good,” he teased, eyes shut.
A moment later, the mattress shifted as she rejoined him there, and she said, “Okay, you can open ’em and see your surprise.”
She sat cross-legged beside him, holding a fluffy-looking meringuetopped pie—she’d also brought over two small plates, some forks, and a knife.
He sat up and smiled. “Chocolate cream, I presume.”
And she nodded. “You seemed to like the last one so much that I thought you deserved another one—for free this time. As a . . . thank-you.”
“For what?” he asked, leaning a little closer—although maybe he already knew.
She met his gaze and said, “Being patient. And not thinking I’m the freak from hell.”
He shrugged. “Well, I was probably more demanding than patient, but . . . ”
“Whatever,” she told him, giving her head a quick, happy shake. “Either way, you’ve made me feel pretty damn normal the last few days. And that’s kind of monumental for me. So I made you a pie.”
As he leaned in to give her a kiss, saying, “I can’t wait to dig in,” he realized that, more and more, he was seeing in her what the people of Turnbridge saw. She really
was
a sweetheart—nothing in that was any sort of an act. She was just a sweetheart with a really naughty side she’d never been able to let out, and to his way of thinking, it was the best of both worlds. It still nagged at him a little to wonder why, to wonder what had kept that hot, sexual side of her caged up for so long—but he told himself again that it wasn’t his place to worry. Maybe his only duty here was to keep enjoying setting her free.
Almost as if reading his mind, she bit her lip, cast a sheepish smile, and said, “Sexy lingerie and some Desiree-style seduction probably would have been better, huh? See? If I don’t become someone else, I have no idea what I’m doing.”
Jake started cutting the pie as he formed a response. “Lingerie and seduction are nice. But so is pie. I’m a fan of both. And either way, I’m gonna have you naked soon enough, so we can start with dessert.” He concluded with a wicked grin, still feeling his hard-on, but at the same time also looking forward to the pie. And as they sat on the bed eating, he was reminded that the pie committee didn’t give her those blue ribbons for nothin’—it was good stuff. “Damn, this is almost
as good as
sex,” he told her on a low chuckle.
She laughed in reply and said, “I wouldn’t go
that
far, Officer Lockhart.”
“Well, it might be a close second,” he conceded. Then pondered further, saying, “Put the two together and it would be heaven on earth.”
After which he looked at her, watching as she forked a bite of the fluffy, creamy pie into her mouth—the same sweet, soft mouth that worked such miracles on his cock—and . . . shit, that was all it took.
He didn’t know why, but something about the simple act of watching her eat suddenly made him crazy for her. Crazy in a way that wouldn’t wait for pie anymore. Maybe his erection was through being ignored. But whatever the case, she was wrong about him being patient—when it came to her, he was the most
im
patient man alive.
So he picked up the pie and set it on the bedside table, along with his empty plate. Then he took her plate and fork from her hands without a word of explanation, setting them aside, too.
“What are you doing?” she asked, wide-eyed.
“I’ve had my dessert,” he told her. “Now I’m having
you
.”
When he pinned her to the bed this time, it was much more passionate than playful. But when his first deep kiss elicited a moan from the girl beneath him, he knew she was into it, too. Thank God. As he sank onto her body, melding his harder, muscular parts with all her softer, curvier ones, it was like descending into bliss. As his hands found her breasts, she let out a heated sigh, and there was a part of him that simply wanted to mold and caress those two alluring mounds all night—but the bigger part of him was the impatient part, the part between his legs that wanted to get her clothes off.
So he wasted no time stripping off her fitted pink top over her head, then removing the cute capri pants below, finding more scintillating undies underneath. Tonight a lacy lavender bra hugged her round breasts and her panties were transparent lavender mesh sporting little pale green bows at each hip. One glance at them nearly made his cock lurch from his pants.
A lot of guys he knew couldn’t care less about lingerie, but Jake appreciated “the wrapping,” as he thought of it. Not to mention the anticipation it built. Yet since he’d already had enough anticipation tonight, he peeled those pretty panties right off, following with the bra to leave her completely bare.
As always, the sight of her breasts elicited a low groan from his throat, and he framed them with his hands. “Will you slap me if I say you have spectacular tits?”
She gave her head a quick shake, her eyes heavy-lidded, lips parted. Thank God. They’d come a damn long way since last weekend when it had cost him thirty-five dollars just to talk to her.
“Good,” he murmured, caught up in studying her rosy nipples, beautifully stiff and ready to be sucked. “Because they
are
.
Fucking spectacular
.” And then he lowered his mouth and feasted on her.
He loved her hot sighs, the feel of her fingers in his hair, her nails making his scalp tingle as he licked and suckled one sumptuous peak before moving on to the other. Damn, he could get lost in this. And yeah, his dick ached for her, but suddenly he realized he didn’t want to rush now that they were in the thick of the passion. Getting her naked was helping to restore his patience, making him want to take his time enjoying every inch of her pretty body. And that’s what prompted him to say, “I can only think of one thing that would make these beautiful nipples any tastier.”
“Um . . . what?” she asked in a breathy whisper.
“This,” he said—then he reached over and indelicately jabbed two fingers into the remaining pie, scooping out both pudding and meringue, and smeared it across the peak of one sumptuous tit.
She sucked in her breath at the sensation, eyes wide at what he’d done.
Then he unceremoniously licked and sucked all the pie away, letting out a deep “Mmm” of satisfaction as he worked.
When he met her gaze, her wet, now-sticky breast between them, her breath trembled.
“Like I said,” he told her, “heaven on earth.”
She said nothing, but she didn’t have to—her eyes, dark and impassioned, told him how hot she thought it was. So he said, “Lift up and let me pull down the covers. I don’t want to get your quilt messy.”
“Okay,” she whispered, helping him get the quilt and top sheet down, and apparently not caring much about the sheet beneath her or she’d have said so. Good to learn a little kinkiness was more important even to good girl Carly Winters than getting chocolate on her sheet.
They used their feet to shove the covers completely off the end of the bed while Jake hurriedly shed his clothes at the same time—then he reached for another glob of pie, this one bigger than the first. Smearing it on both her lovely breasts, this time he used the fingertips of both hands to rub it in circles, to make sure she felt the gooey stickiness from her erect nipples outward, and because it felt good to him, too—so slick on top, so soft underneath.