One of These Nights (26 page)

Jason chuckled, and she was glad to see the crinkles at the corners of his eyes return. “Yeah, she's something. I don't know about fancy, though. She's really not very ladylike.”

“It's because you've provided her a safe, relaxed environment, Mr. Sweatpants Man. I have no idea where she would have gotten the idea it was okay to let it all hang out at your house.”

“Hey. I'm expanding the wardrobe. It's Mr. Cargo Shorts Man today,” he said. Then he looked down at them and sighed. “You have no idea how much I miss my jeans.”

“Me, too,” Zoe said, and then laughed at his expression. “What? They look good on you. So does your uniform.”

His brows lifted. “I don't think I've ever come in here with my uniform on.”

“I've seen you around,” she said. “It's not my fault you're oblivious to being stared at.”

He looked surprised . . . and pleased. “I'm going to have to work on that.”

“You really don't. It'll ruin my fun.”

Jason smiled, then set his empty plate down beside his half-finished glass of wine. Zoe felt the muscles in her lower belly tighten immediately. It was crazy, how little it took for her to want him. But then, she kind of always wanted him. It was just a matter of suppressing it enough to go on about her daily business most days. When he looked at her again, heat suffused her from head to toe.

“I think we managed it,” Jason said.

“Managed what?”

“An actual date. No crazy family members, no bribery . . .”

Zoe grinned at him. “That reminds me. You still owe me for my selfless gesture, Jason Evans. I aided you in your time of need. We had a deal.”

He groaned softly, but it was good-natured. “I'm not off the hook? What are you going to make me buy? Nothing weird. Please. I don't know where I'd hide it.”

“Actually,” Zoe said, “I've been thinking. I'm willing to renegotiate your method of payment.” She'd been thinking about it since early last week, though it had started as nothing but a lark at first, a silly idea to toy with. Now, though, it was something she actively wanted.

Jason's slow, lazy smile would have given her plenty of ideas if she hadn't already had something in mind. “Oh yeah?” he asked.

She had to jump in before she ended up just taking his clothes off. “Well, Aaron's show is the biggest one I've done here, and the one thing I don't seem to have for it is a good-looking man on my arm. So I thought, since we're sort of, ah . . .” She trailed off, not sure what she ought to call it yet. “Boyfriend” always made her feel about sixteen. “Lover” was cringeworthy. “Mine” was how she felt, but that might not go over as well as it did in her head. Finally, she avoided a term altogether. “Why don't you come to Aaron's show as my date?”

His reaction wasn't quite what she'd hoped. A little of the heat in his eyes died, replaced by wariness she'd hoped not to see again. “An art show?”

Zoe nodded. “It'll be dressy, full of critics and artists, and to be honest . . . completely terrifying.” She saw the uncertainty on his face and pushed on. “For me, I mean. Not for you. But I could use the moral support. Somebody there just to lean on if I need it.” Zoe hesitated, then finished, “You. It would mean a lot to me.”

“So . . . critics and artists and buyers will be there. From New York?”

She didn't understand why it mattered. “Yes, quite a few. Why?”

He frowned, looked away, and Zoe got the distinct impression he wasn't telling her the whole truth.

“I'm just not sure . . . I respect what you do, Zoe. But I'm not an art-show guy. I'd stick out like a sore thumb and end up being more work you don't need.”

Zoe stared at him, utterly puzzled. “You're not work. And you'd fit in fine anywhere. Give yourself some credit; you know plenty about—”

“I don't, though,” Jason said. “I know about the things I like, but even then it's pretty basic. I can't talk art with those people.”

“Those people? Meaning my people? Art people? You do just fine around Sam and Aaron.”

“It's a different type and you know it,” Jason said. “I've been around it, and it's not something I planned to do again.”

His ex must have dragged him to shows, Zoe decided. Still, there was something in his expression, almost panicky, that suggested there was more to the story. She wished he would just tell her, but that didn't seem to be Jason's strong suit. He'd tell her in his time. Or not. The latter possibility didn't sit well with her.

His trusting process was very Ent-like, she thought. Slow, steady, and often infuriating. She'd nicknamed him well. And she still wanted to kick him.

“It would mean a lot to me to have you there,” she said. But his posture, the sudden tensing of his shoulders, the way he couldn't quite look her in the eye, said she hadn't come close to convincing him. She'd get to the bottom of this . . . later, Zoe decided. Somehow, she didn't think this was about her. That didn't make it any less important to fix—she wanted him to be involved in this part of her life if they were going to make a go of this—but it didn't seem worth ruining the evening over.

Not tonight.

“I'm sure you'll be great,” he said. When he met her eyes again, he offered a small, rueful smile, as though he had managed to frustrate even himself. “I don't contribute much but debris to the art world. You know that.”

Zoe considered him and was swamped by a rush of affection she was helpless in the face of. The man didn't seem to know his own appeal. She supposed that was her good fortune. Otherwise, he would have been snapped up long ago. It pushed her to offer something she might otherwise have kept to herself.

“You'd be contributing to my enjoyment of the evening, debris and all, though I suspect you clean up well. I like to share things that are important to me with people I care about,” she said.

His eyes darkened with some strong emotion she hadn't seen before, but his voice remained low and steady. “Then . . . I'll think about it.”

“Okay.” It was the best she'd get for now, but it was better than nothing, Zoe decided. And the way he was watching her, the unsteady beat of her heart as the heat that was always between them suffused her, pulled her toward him.

Am I really going to do this in the middle of my gallery?
She considered it for all of two seconds.
Yes. Yes, I am.

She set aside her plate and glass, drew her legs up under her, and crawled across the blanket to where Jason was comfortably sprawled on his pillow. He watched her steadily, like the wolf he often reminded her of.

“That still doesn't solve the matter of your debt to me,” Zoe said. He chuckled, and she knew the tense moment had safely passed. For now.

“What did you have in mind?”

“Well,” she said, rising on her knees in front of him, “I did have some work out back I suppose you could do. Moving pavers around. Hauling dirt. That sort of thing.”

One eyebrow curved. “But then you'd have to wait until my cast was off.” He hooked a finger in one of her belt loops and tugged her forward, into his lap. Zoe went willingly, straddling him as he leaned back on his elbows. The feel of him, the memories of riding him until he bucked beneath her, made it difficult to keep up her end of the conversation.

She could no longer remember why she'd stayed away all week and vowed never to do it again. Diving in was scary . . . but not diving in would be so much worse.

“Do you have a better idea?” Zoe asked, her hips pressing into him when he glided one hand up her thigh to her waist. His soft laugh was slightly breathless. And oh, was he ever hard. She bit her lip to keep from moaning, wanting to keep the upper hand while she could. He might have a sweet side, but when he wanted her under him, she'd be begging him to do whatever he wanted as long as he didn't stop.

“I might,” he said, and now he pushed his hips up beneath her, just enough to create hot little sparks of friction at the juncture of her thighs. This time Zoe heard her own ragged gasp. “I thought about having you like this all week,” he said, his voice dropping to a rough growl that scraped pleasurably across her nerve endings.

“Just like this?” She slid her hands up beneath his shirt, over hard, lean muscle that jumped at her touch.

“No, I think I probably covered the entire
Kama Sutra
. But this . . . this is good.” He pulled the shirt off over his head. Zoe did the same with her sweater, and he immediately filled his hands with her breasts. She rocked forward again, back arching to allow him better access. He toyed with her nipples through the silk of her bra, the thin barrier sweet torment.

“This is better than good,” she sighed. She lifted her hands from his chest to unhook her bra, then tossed it to the side. Her hips moved in a slow rhythm, teasing him, stoking the fire between them. Jason's cheeks were flushed, his breathing shallow as she ground into him. He dropped one hand to her hip and pulled her closer, quickening her pace.

“Christ,” he groaned. She leaned forward to claim his mouth in a kiss that began as nips and licks, and quickly became a hot tangle of tongues. He tasted of sugar and lemons and wine, and kissed like pure, unadulterated alpha male. She felt her control slipping away as he took the lead, and Zoe gladly let him have it.

He moved like a cat, getting her on her back in a quick, fluid movement that Zoe barely registered before he was over her, nestled between her legs, his bare chest against hers. She could feel his pounding heart against her skin and knew her own matched its beat.

“Jason,” she murmured, hands skimming down the muscles of his back as they tightened and released in time with the relentless pulse of his hips. Zoe arched beneath him, restless and aching. Everywhere he touched shimmered with sensation; everywhere he didn't cried out for his attention. He dropped his head into the curve of her neck, breath hot against her skin. When he licked the sensitive spot beneath her ear, then nipped it lightly, what was left of rational thought completely deserted her. So did her powers of speech. All she could manage was a broken moan and vague, insistent thoughts of
yes, more, now
.

“Hang on,” he growled. He rose, shifted into a sitting position at her feet, and stripped off his shorts in a few fumbling motions that told Zoe his thoughts were no less urgent than hers. She followed suit, stripping off her boots and jeans, the dampened scrap of silk that was her underwear. It was wonderfully decadent, being with him like this in the gallery with the lights low and the music winding sensuously through the air, nothing against her skin but the soft chenille of her blanket. She doubted she'd ever look at this place quite the same, and that was all right. She didn't want to.

She no longer wanted to imagine a life without Jason in it. Mistake or not, it was the truth. Zoe knew what it meant, couldn't dwell on it now. All that mattered was the way Jason felt when he covered her body with his, when he filled her with a single, hard thrust that sent pleasure crashing through her. He made a low, guttural sound that had Zoe tightening around him. She liked knowing he felt as good as she did. That his need matched her own.

Zoe drew up her knees to take him in more deeply as he began to move in long, hard thrusts that left her quivering every time he withdrew. Her fingers dug into his shoulders as he kept up the exquisitely slow pace. Every inch of her skin grew highly sensitized, until even the brush of an errant curl against her shoulder made her gasp with pleasure. Jason kept the pace steady, the seeming ease of his control belied by the occasional ragged breath he took when he drove deep.

Zoe could take only so much. Every minute that passed seemed to leave her hotter, tighter, wetter, until her body began to beg for release.

“Jason,”
she said again, a plea this time. He had to be able to feel her shaking against him, but he was relentless, quickening his pace only a little. With each thrust he brushed against the swollen nub of her sex, but never enough to free her. Instead, all that seemed to happen was more pressure, more pleasure, until Zoe began to lose herself in the haze of it. She writhed beneath him, finally reaching between them in desperation to stroke herself. Jason cursed softly—she'd never heard obscenities sound quite so hot as when he was growling them while he was inside her—and pulled back to look at her. His hair was in his eyes, sexily mussed, and his skin was flushed. Zoe removed her hand from between her legs, suddenly embarrassed, but Jason moved quickly to catch it and put it back. When his eyes met hers, there was a question in them she would never have entertained for any man before. Until him.

“Please,” he said, “don't stop. I love to watch you get off, Zoe. Let me watch. Like this.” He slid onto his knees, careful of his cast, and then sank down low before pulling Zoe's hips up onto his lap. He spread her legs wide, then caught her knees beneath his arms before thrusting into her again.

She thought she saw stars before her eyes closed, her mouth opening on a cry that caught in her throat. The change in angle took him even deeper, creating new points of friction that rippled over her skin, pooling between her legs with increasing intensity. She was completely exposed to him this way, but Zoe no longer had it in her to play shy. Her eyes opened, and the way he looked at her, as though she were the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, torched any remaining inhibitions she might have had.

She watched his gaze follow her hand as she slid it slowly down her stomach, then parted the slick folds. Jason gave a broken moan as he began to move again, faster this time, harder, until her body rocked back with each thrust of his hips. The sight of him before her, lips parted, eyes burning, the muscles of his lower belly flexing as he drove into her, did as much to push Zoe toward climax as the rhythmic flickering of her finger. Her breath began to catch, her body quivering as she neared the tipping point. Jason hissed out her name, his pace growing wild, though he never took his eyes from her even as he came. His body went taut, hands gripping her knees hard as he gave a rough cry. The sight of him like that, losing himself in her, was what finally pushed Zoe over the edge.