Rev It Up (17 page)

There. Hostess duties complete.
Now
turn
around, get your butt upstairs, and forget he’s in your house.

Uh-huh. Right. Like that was possible. Still, the first step was to take the first step. Literally.

“Goodnight, Jake,” she said, swinging back into the living room.

“You head upstairs right now, and all you’ll do is toss and turn.” He set the mugs of tea on the kitchen table.

Busted.

Warily, she turned and watched as he lifted a brow at the roses. “Pretty flowers. Weird color though.”

“Did you pick it?” she asked, trying and failing not to drool over the bunch and twist of his tanned muscles as he leaned over to smell the roses.

“What?” He straightened.

“The color of the roses?”

“What are you talking about?” His brow furrowed.

“Oh, uh, nothing. I just…I thought maybe they were from you.”

He smiled, and the flash of his dimples had her heart pounding. “When I send you roses, doll, you’ll know they’re from me. They’ll be blood red, none of this blue shit, and they’ll come complete with a card that declares my undying love.”

“Stop.” She raised a hand.

“Shell—”

“I’m tired, and I’m going to bed.” End of discussion.

“There are still things we still need to talk about.”

Oh Lord.

He could
not
keep telling her he loved her.

Not when she kept fanaticizing about him naked, not when his kiss had caused all those delicious, awful memories to rise too close to the surface, making her feel vulnerable and lost. And certainly not when the fear of what her brother had inadvertently involved her in made her long to seek the comfort of a strong set of arms.

Because she just might convince herself to believe him. And if she convinced herself to believe him then—

No. He doesn’t love me. It’s lust. It’s just unsatiated lust…

“We said everything that needed to be said,” she hastily informed him, taking a loose-kneed step back toward the living room, which was made all the more difficult considering each of her feet weighed about two-hundred pounds.

And then his next words stopped her in her tracks.

“I haven’t slept with another woman in over two years,” he said.

Don’t do this to me…

She hesitated, taking a deep breath before swinging around to face him. She shouldn’t ask, but she just couldn’t help herself, “Why is that?”

“Because I got your letter.” Her heart began beating so fast she felt dizzy. “And it changed everything for me.”

She resisted the urge to lift a hand to her spinning head. “Wh-what do you mean?”

“I mean, I always figured you hated me. I figured you’d never be able to forgive me after the way I treated you, after the things I said, after what happened to Preacher. But then I got that letter from you, asking me to come here, telling me you, Boss, and Rock were waiting for me, worried for me, and for the first time I began to have hope.”

“And your response to that hope was to completely
ignore
me?”

“I wasn’t ready yet,” he admitted. “I needed to wait until I was sure of myself.”

“What are you
talking
about?” she demanded, planting her hands on her hips.

He smiled and took a step toward her, but at her hard look, he halted and tucked his hands in his pockets. “I’ll explain everything to you. I promise, I will. But right now, the thing that’s most important, the thing I want you to realize, to understand, is that I haven’t slept with anyone in two years.”

Suddenly, she was unaccountably tired, and the toothpick comment didn’t seem all that farfetched. “So what do you want from me, Jake?” she sighed, shaking her head. “A medal?”

“No. No medals. I just told you so you’d know I’m nothing like your father.”

Her cheeks stung with swift heat. “Now what is
that
supposed to mean?”

“Boss explained what happened with your dad. He told me what a bastard the guy was and that you think I’m just like him. But I’m
not
, Shell. You can trust me. If you give me your heart, I promise I won’t shit all over it like your father did.”

“Yeah,” she scoffed, amazed at both his audacity and his ability to not only lie to her, but also to himself. He was exactly like her father. He’d proven it time and again. “Because you were sooo careful with my heart the first time.”

“So, you admit to giving me your heart? Earlier tonight you said you’d never loved me.”

Crap, crap,
crap!

“Whatever,” she waved a hand through the air. Hoping, in the process, to wave away the point he’d made. “The fact of the matter is: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

“But I didn’t fool you. There were circumstances you don’t—”

“It doesn’t matter,” she quickly interrupted, so tired of listening to lies, and worse, actually finding herself wanting to believe them.

He opened his mouth to say something else when Franklin’s sleepy voice drifted down from the second floor, “Mama! I’m thirsty!”

“I’ll be right up, sweetpea!” she called, beyond grateful for the excuse to quit the field as once again she turned toward the living room.

“We’re not finished talking about this,” Jake grumbled at her back.

“
Yes
, we are.”

From the corner of her eye, she saw him take a determined step in her direction, and she swung around, startled.

He moved with the easy beauty of the supremely fit. Not one ounce of wasted movement. And no matter how hard she tried to tell him she was serious, that she didn’t have anything else to say, she could only stare in horrified awe at the resolved glint in his eye.

She finally managed to work her tongue loose. “Wh-what in the world are you—”

He didn’t hesitate, didn’t telegraph his intentions. One second he was stalking toward her, the next second he had her face cupped between his strong hands and his warm lips settled over hers. The kiss was so tender, so deep, that it forced all the breath from her lungs.

***

This
is
a
mistake.

He knew it like he knew his name was Jacob Michael Sommers. But he couldn’t help himself. She refused to listen to what he had to say, and the only other way he could think to convince her that she was wrong, that there
was
still something between them, something that could grow if only she’d let it, was to prove it to her physically.

“I want you so much,” he breathed against her lips, reveling in their lushness, in the sweet taste of the wine that still lingered on her tongue from dinner. “And I know you want me, too.”

He could feel it in the way she fought with herself, fought to keep from stepping toward him, fought to keep from fully tasting his tongue.

She failed on all counts.

“No,” she shook her head. But when he bent to kiss the side of her exposed neck, she melted instantly, her body language completely at odds with her next words. “I don’t want you.”

He glanced at her face, gratified to discover she was lying through her teeth. Because there was no mistaking the hot desire shining in her gorgeous,
gorgeous
eyes.

She licked her lips, her tongue a flash of delicious pink, and he could barely breathe, barely think. His brain cells were no longer receiving enough blood to fire his synapses. So he kissed her again, walking her backward until he pinned her against the wall.

And he remembered this was how it’d been that night at the Clover. The two of them, against the wall of the men’s restroom, caught in a burning embrace that threatened to ignite into an inferno at any second.

She’d been telling the truth about one thing tonight…

Some things never changed. Because the passion that flowed between them was as volatile and explosive as ever.

And though he knew he needed to talk to her before he took things any further, though he knew he should slow things down and make her listen to what he had to say, what he
knew
hadn’t quite caught up with what he wanted.

Because what he wanted was her. All of her. All naked skin and slumberous eyes. Her body moving beneath him in that sliding, sensual way inherent in the female of the species. And he wanted it now. Right here in the middle of her kitchen.

When she tentatively snaked an arm around his neck, pressing her luscious breasts against his chest, what few thoughts he’d been able to hold onto immediately flew from his head. All he could think was,
Yo, this is
Shell.
Back
in
my
arms. Finally.

He wanted to yell with the joy of it…or cry. He wasn’t sure which. Maybe both.

***

Michelle was having an out-of-body experience.

That’s the only thing that could account for why her arms were around Jake’s neck, seemingly of their own accord, and why her tongue was eagerly tangling with his.

But she’d always figured an out-of-body experience left you feeling numb and disconnected, which most certainly was not the case here.
Huh-uh
. In fact, she felt
very
connected.

Every inch of her skin was on fire, her belly roiling, her scalp tingling.

It was exactly as she remembered it. Everything about him, about the two of them together, was exactly as she remembered it, and her heart absolutely ached at the reminder of how it’d once been, how it might’ve still been if only—

He shifted forward until they were groin to groin and—
oh, mercy, mercy me.
He was hot and hard and throbbing steadily, and she remembered that, too. She wanted nothing more than to—

But she couldn’t. She could
not
allow herself to fall for him again. The consequences of that action had been heartbreaking the first time. She couldn’t bear to think what they’d be now. Of course, when he slid a hand up her side to gently brush the underside of her breast, her libido screamed at her to throw caution to the wind and just give in. Give in to the lust in his eyes and the pleasure in his touch…

And it was tempting. Oh lordy, it was tempting. But she had other things to consider now besides her own desires.

The little boy sleeping upstairs, for one.

And right on cue Franklin called, “Mama! Where are you?”

Pushing Jake away was one of the hardest things she’d ever done, even harder when she glanced up to see him raking in breaths like he’d just completed a hundred yard dash. Oh, man, his eyes…They were so green, so fierce and bright, and when he looked at her like that—

“Shell, I—”

“It’s over,” she interrupted and took another step away, scrubbing a shaky fist over her kiss-moistened lips. Her heart felt like she’d popped it in her pressure-cooker and set the temperature to high. “It’s been over for a very long time.”

“It’s not,” he insisted, crossing his arms and grinding his jaw until his cheeks muscles twitched. “You kissed me back just now.”

He wasn’t as big a man as her brother, not as thick or muscle-bound. He was elegantly built, with a quintessential surfer’s body. Still, at 6’4” he managed to stand nearly a head above her. The disparity in their heights, particularly when she wasn’t accustomed to having to look up at many men, drove home the main reason she couldn’t just save herself the headache and heartache and immediately insist he leave.

Because there he stood. Tall, strong, steady. Ready and willing to lay his life on the line. And,
dangit!
, she needed the protection he offered. Her
son
needed his protection.

“Mama!”

“I’ll be right up!” she shouted, before turning back to Jake. “If it weren’t for my son, I’d throw you straight out the door for that stunt you just pulled.”

“You
did
kiss me back. Try to deny it.”

She couldn’t. “I kissed you back. And it was as big a mistake now as it was four years ago. I’m going to bed. I suggest you do the same. We have an early morning tomorrow.”

“Shell, I—”

She turned then, waving off whatever else he might think to say as she calmly strode across the living room, careful not to trip over the toy car lying on its side on the rug. She forced herself not to take the stairs two at a time—though every instinct she had screamed at her to
run
, because she could feel his eyes burning into her, trying to see into her soul
.
But she carefully climbed each and every step, refusing to give him the satisfaction of watching her flee the scene.