Jake rode by, the mare cantering. Or maybe it was a lope. She couldn’t remember, but it didn’t matter. Jake made it look sexy, easy, his hips rocking in time to the mare’s stride, his firm thighs wrapped around the saddle, his stomach lean and hard in a T-shirt. He wore a baseball cap to ward off the afternoon sun. He had laughed when she asked him earlier where his cowboy hat was, but an odd shadow crossed his eyes and she didn’t press further.
He rode by again, speaking softly to the mare, his hand stroking the horse’s shoulder. She could picture him as a boy, riding a fence line, cornering a loose calf, making the girls swoon on the fence as he rode by. She didn’t swoon, but her belly did a funny flutter when he glanced her way, a smile on his lips, the tension she’d seen earlier on their journey here finally gone.
The horse burst forward, faster, galloping around, then he leaned back, his hand barely touching the reins, and they slid to a stop, dirt flying. Then he tapped his heel on the horse’s side and she spun to the right, dizzyingly fast, her legs a blur.
He breathed, “Whoa,” and they stopped, the horse chomping on the bit, waiting for Jake’s next cue. He met Tia’s eyes then and grinned boyishly. He nudged the mare again with his heel, and she walked forward to the rail, Jake at ease in the saddle.
“Impressive. Can you rope cattle, too?” It was way more than impressive, but she wasn’t going to make his head swell any more than it already was.
“I used to be able to. I haven’t done it in years.” He patted the mare’s sweaty neck. “Do you want to try?”
Tia didn’t know if she wanted to ride in front of him. He was much better than she dreamed he’d be. “I can’t make her do all that.”
His grin grew wider as he swung down from the saddle. “She’d probably be happier if you didn’t.” He held out a hand to her, between the fence rails. “C’mon, give it a try. She’s pretty easy to ride.”
“If you say so.” Tia took his hand, ducked between the fence rails, her heart quickening. She hadn’t ridden since she was a kid, and that was English. But how different could this be? “What’s her name again?”
“Jessa.” The mare swung her head toward him at the sound of her name, and he patted her neck. “Do you know how to get on?”
“I’m only wearing sneakers.”
“Keep your heels down, you’ll be fine. I think I may have a pair of boots kicking around you can use tomorrow. My brother, Corey, brought his wife here for their honeymoon and they left a bunch of stuff that I was supposed to send back. Or we’ll go into town and get you a proper pair.”
She looked up at him, a little afraid. He was so at ease, so comfortable that she felt at odds with her inexperience. She wasn’t used to him being better at something—in bed, they were equals. “You’ll have to shorten the stirrups for me. You’re taller.”
“Not a problem.”
He held the mare as she put her left foot in the stirrup and swung up. She settled into the seat and inhaled, liking the combination of sweaty horse and leather. Jake would smell like this, too, but better. “She’s taller than I thought.”
“Tonka’s bigger,” he said and adjusted first the left, then the right stirrup for her shorter legs. His hand brushed her ankle, then on her calf as he shoved her foot back into the stirrup, and the heat lingered, even after he stepped away. “Feel okay?”
“This is fine.” She gathered the reins and looked at him expectantly, unsure what to do next.
“Go have fun.” He jumped up to sit on the top rail of the fence.
Tia cautiously gave the horse a nudge with her heels and gasped when Jessa obediently walked forward. She experimented, turning left, then right, and then down to a halt.
“Feel comfortable?” Jake called from his perch.
“She’s very responsive. Did you train her yourself?”
“Yep. Jessa was my first girl—human or horse. I got her when I was fifteen. She was three.”
“So how old is she now?”
“Trying to find out how old I am?” He laughed, and she hated that he knew exactly what she was up to. “How old are you?”
“Not nice to ask a lady her age.”
“Well, Jessa feels the same way.”
She sighed. “I’m twenty-eight.”
“She’s twenty.”
He was thirty-five, then. “Is that old for a horse?”
“Not ancient. She lives the good life now. My friend keeps her and Tonka for me when I’m not here. She gets good care, exercise, and when I can get away, she comes home to me.”
“Sounds like a perfect arrangement.” A part of her wondered what it would be like, to come home to him. She shook that away. This was a one-time thing.
“I don’t think she agrees, but it works for me.”
Tia stopped in front of him and gazed out across the yard. His farm was so beautiful, with rolling hills and green pastures. She could understand why he couldn’t bear to sell it. “Do you wish you could just stay here? Not go back?”
“Sometimes. This is where I’m the most relaxed. Normal, if you will.” His smile faded. “But it’s not the life I chose. Thankfully, Chase knows what I need and lets me come home as often as possible. So I work my ass off and he repays me by giving me my sanity in the form of long weekends.”
“He’s a good boss.”
“He’s a better friend. A better friend than I am.” He gestured to the ring. “Go faster. You can’t enjoy her if you’re just standing there.”
Tia kicked the mare forward, and she trotted. She couldn’t sit as well as Jake did so she reverted to her English posting days, rising in time to the horse’s stride. One, two. One, two. Then she sat a beat and asked for the canter and grinned as the mare obediently jumped forward, the gait lilting, rocking. She cantered around and around, Jake grinning at her every time she flew by, and the whole experience felt surreal, as if she’d been transplanted into a different woman’s body, in a totally different era.
But her inner thighs ached, reminding her that she was here and human. Could she stop her the way Jake did? She grabbed the saddle horn, shoved her heels way down, rocked back into her seat bones and whispered, “Whoa.” The mare slid to a stop—not as impressive as Jake’s, but it counted. She grinned at him, unable to contain her joy. “I did it!”
Jake smiled back, and she’d be damned if he didn’t look a little proud. “She’ll spin for you, too. You want to try?”
“Maybe tomorrow? I haven’t ridden in ages. I’m going to be sore.”
“You’ll need a massage, then.”
Oh, her inner thighs would love that, as would other regions farther north. She dismounted, and suddenly he was so close, his hip brushing hers. She’d had sex with him so many times, yet she felt giddy at that simple bit of contact. She glanced at him, unsure. She just didn’t know what to expect still. “You offering?”
“Of course.”
She swallowed then, the unsure feeling expanding, growing until she realized what she was feeling was desire. Not lust, but a sweeter version, one that wanted his hand around her waist, maybe a brief kiss on the lips. He took the reins from her hand, and she stopped him. He looked at her, his brow arched, and she rose on her toes to kiss him on the cheek. It fed her desire, and she found she wanted more, more kisses, more contact with his hard form.
But she held back, and instead said, “Thank you for sharing her with me.”
He blinked and looked at her with something that resembled wonder. “I haven’t been kissed on the cheek since I was fifteen.”
She smiled, glad she’d held back. Maybe normal meant they learned to feel desire first. That’s what normal people did.
“How does it feel to be normal?” She peered over her shoulder as she walked away.
“Right now, it feels really good.”
Chapter Six
Tia spent the rest of the late afternoon cooking while Jake settled the two horses into the stable out back. Tomorrow, he said, they’d go for a trail ride. Tia would ride Jessa, and he’d ride Tonka, the younger, less trained gelding he’d bought a few years ago. The idea excited her. She’d never ridden out of a ring before, and for some reason, being with Jake made the idea even more tantalizing.
“Smells great in here,” Jake said as he came into the kitchen, the screen door banging behind him. He removed his boots at the door and made his way to the sink in his stocking feet. Tia blinked. There was something so domestic about a man in socks. Blue ones at that. She pictured him to be a stark-white guy.
She turned her attention to the timer on the stove, her cheeks taking on a flush that wasn’t from the heat from the oven. “I roasted the chicken we picked up at the grocery store. We’ll have mashed potatoes. Gravy. I even found flour that was still good to make biscuits. Sound okay?”
“Sounds great.” He went to the sink and washed his hands, dried them, and then turned and leaned against the counter. “Where did you learn to be domestic?”
She looked at him from the stove as she checked the boiling potatoes with a fork—almost done. “My mother wasn’t around much. I had to cook. I didn’t mind.”
“It’s a good skill. My mother was around all the time, so I didn’t get to learn that. I learned to cook on a campfire from my dad before he died, but the kitchen was my mother’s domain.”
“What about when you moved out?”
“College, then the service cooked for me.” He shrugged. “And after that, I just figured it out the best I could. And it’s hard to cook on the road.”
She frowned. She knew why she worked so much—so she didn’t have to face the truth about her life. That it sucked. So why did he? “Not all agents travel all the time.”
“No. Chase sends me out a lot.”
“He sends you, or you ask to go?”
“I never thought of it that way before. Chase knows I’ll go, so he sends me. If I’m on a plane, I don’t have to run.”
She laughed. “That’s incentive.”
“I hate running, but you can’t chase bad guys if you’re out of shape.” He blinked and did a manageable job of looking somewhat innocent. Jake and innocent mixed as well as oil and water. “You?”
She shrugged. “I ask to go. I moved to your division because I wanted more.”
He studied her, and she felt a little naked under the heat of his gaze, as if he were undressing her mentally and liked what he found behind the mask she, like everyone with something to hide, wore. “What was your best cover?”
She didn’t expect that question. “You said the house doesn’t like work chatter.”
He shrugged, and the heat in his gaze snuffed out. “The house will live. We’ve appeased many of its rules and will appease more.”
She thought for a moment, mulling over the options. “Best cover was a week on the French Rivera on some rich guy’s yacht as his body guard. He had a boyfriend and political connections, so all I had to do was look good and stay sharp. He hid the boyfriend aspect, so he wanted me on his arm, draped across his body. Hard work, since he was gorgeous. Hard. Tan.”
Jake laughed. “I don’t think I can beat that.”
“Okay, worst cover, then.”
The laughter left his eyes, his lips and was replaced with something a touch cold. Like he was protecting something. “I can’t talk about that. It was actually my best and worst cover, all rolled into one.”
“Why can’t you talk about it?”
“Because it involves Chase, and he gets pissy. But I’ll tell you we lived in Paris for a month on surveillance involving a terrorist cell. The awesome part of it was the culture. I practically lived at the Louvre and even took a few art classes. Chase spent the time learning to cook. The bad part of it was the stupid food and no women, because it was work, after all.”
“That would be pretty bad. Not the food; the no sex. I like French food.” But it made sense why he’d been a little cold a moment ago. Jake was a man who protected what was his, even if it was six-foot-one of equally dangerous best friend who probably didn’t need protecting.
“Bad porn and a little wine solves a lot of problems.”
She raised a brow. She knew Jake too well to think he spent the whole time just drinking. “Lots of lotion and time spent alone in the bathroom was probably more like it.”
“That was about it.” Jake laughed, and the tenseness faded.
She studied him, wanting to know more. “What’s your best asset, as an agent?”
Jake smiled. “Well, I think it’s being impulsive, but Chase would disagree wholeheartedly.”
“Impulsive doesn’t sound good.” Impulsive got you killed.
“Impulsive got you a weekend leave with a man bent on giving you proper orgasms. I would think you’d be on my side.”
The heat of a blush crept to her cheeks, and Tia ducked her head to hide behind the veil of her hair. The last time she’d blushed was probably at fifteen. “I guess when you put it that way…”
“What’s your favorite color?”
She snapped her gaze to his. Where the hell did that come from? “I don’t know. Why?”
He shrugged. “Why not?”
“Yellow. You?”
“Blue.” He cocked his head. “I expected pink from you.”
She didn’t like anything pink or soft or innocent or girly, solely because that was as far from the woman she’d become as she could get. “I’m not a normal woman, Jake.”
“This weekend, you are.” He listened for a moment as a song came on the radio—a dance thing they loved to play in the dance room at the club. “Dance with me.”
Tia looked up at him, shocked. She hadn’t been asked to dance in a non-work environment in…years. She didn’t dance at the club. “Now? In the kitchen? I’m covered in flour.”
“Why not?” He grabbed her waist and swung her around, and she laughed, unable to resist. But as he settled into a sway, his hips inches from hers, she noticed the tempo he set was way slower than the song, though her heart had no trouble racing to keep up.
“You’re not moving fast enough,” she chided.
“I guess I need more practice. You don’t put me through my paces in that aspect. And I usually don’t enjoy dancing. Not anymore.”
“We don’t go to the club to dance,” she reminded him but slid her hands along his shoulders to meet at his nape, his longish hair brushing her fingertips. So sinfully good under her hands, his muscles firm. She stared up at him. “If you don’t like to dance, then why are we?”
“So I can touch you without breaking any rules,” he whispered, his eyes darkening. The smile he gave her was sinfully sensual. “The house would be pissed.”