CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Maggie couldn’t believe she’d actually said those awful, needy words.
Now that she had, she couldn’t take them back. How many times had her lack of filter gotten her in trouble?
She waited, wishing she were the kind of woman who didn’t put her cards on the table. Who knew when to keep her mouth shut.
But the music of the water, the chatter of the birds, the heat in his eyes, all conspired to drug her into sensual submission. She was being pulled apart. She could save herself by walking away or she could save herself by giving in to this terrible raging need.
Jake leaned back against the tree they sat under and gave her a strange smile. The smile made her heart pound because she sensed he could see inside her and knew exactly what was going on.
She couldn’t breathe.
“Why don’t I ask you the same thing, Maggie?” he said. “Tell me. How does this end?”
“You’re talking in circles,” she said, which annoyed her because she wanted straight answers. She wanted to skip to the end of the book and discover if there was a happily ever after before she’d even figured out if there was a happily ever now.
It sounded unfair. Maybe it was unfair. But that didn’t stop her from wanting it.
Jake brushed the back of his hand across her cheek. Maggie gazed into his startling blue eyes and felt herself slowly dissolving, bit by bit, like a sandcastle being washed away by the sea.
If someone had told her a month ago that she would fall in serious lust with a man like Jake, a billionaire playboy used to getting his own way, she would have laughed.
Yet here she was—no, here they were—alone for the first time since they’d met. And she knew he was waiting for her to make up her mind. Was she in or was she out? Did she accept the terms and conditions of his contract? Had she read the fine print?
But it didn’t really matter what the contract said. It was only a matter of time before desire simply tore her apart.
Intoxication swept over her again. It made her mouth dry and other parts of her…less so. If she didn’t do this, she would have to live with the ache, the agonizing need, for the rest of her life. It would kill her slowly and make a coward of her. And if there was one thing Maggie knew for sure, she wasn’t a coward.
“Maybe I don’t care what happens,” she whispered, her breath hitching. “Maybe I just want you.”
Jake’s eyes glittered. She could see his pulse pounding in the taut, tanned skin of his throat. He stretched over her, bringing his heat close, closer, and her lips parted to receive him. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening.
Everywhere he touched, he ignited. He spread liquid fire to all parts of her body. He took from her. He tasted. His hands were in her hair, but she felt them everywhere else.
Everything he touched, he changed. Her skin first. It felt sunburned from the inside, each tiny hair standing at attention, each inch of overheated flesh sensitized to the point of pain. He dragged his lips down the line of her neck and along the ridge of her collarbone. By the time he found her breasts, the heat had pulled her under until she was gasping with pent-up need.
Jake laid her down on a bed of moss and dried leaves. She arched beneath his touch, crying out to him. Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.
Maggie’s hands shook. She didn’t know where to put them. Jake solved the problem by pinning them above her head with one hand and unbuttoning her top with the other. She lay before him half-naked and exposed, the soft crescents of her breasts cradled in a pink satin bra. He gazed down at her with a deep guttural sound of male approval.
Jaggedly, she thought, I can’t be doing this.
Her flimsy pink bra had a front clasp. Jake found it and her breasts spilled out. His eyes darkened. He released her hands so he had the freedom to use his own to cup her warm abundant flesh. Her nipples ached for his lips and then his lips were there. He licked and pinched and teased with his teeth and tongue while she writhed beneath him. Jake’s mastery came from experience. She didn’t even care. Electric shocks wicked down to her belly and pooled between her thighs.
It didn’t matter that he’d been with a lot of women. All his intensity was hers. Just hers. It burned a trail straight to her sex, which throbbed with need, slippery and engorged and ready. Oh, God, so ready.
His T-shirt. She had to get it off. She had to feel her skin next to his. Starting from the bottom, she pulled it over his head and flung it aside. A kick of pure female lust crashed into her. Jake was all smooth skin and hard muscles, not an ounce of flab on his washboard stomach.
She slid her hands across his muscular chest and watched his eyes flicker. They never left her face.
This wasn’t sex. It was a revelation.
His lips were at her lips, her throat, her breasts again, making her feel as though she were deliciously at his mercy. When he touched her, she was beautiful. Desired. His. And when he muttered all kinds of filthy, decadent things, things he wanted to do to her, she burst into a thousand fiery pieces.
His hands moved to the waistband of her jeans. He slipped the button out and pulled the zipper down, taking his time while she groaned with impatience.
“I didn’t bring anything,” he said in his deep voice. “But we can do other stuff you’ll like.”
“You don’t have a condom?” she asked faintly.
Jake shook his head. “At the ranch. We’ll get to that later. First …” His smile turned knowing, and she swallowed hard.
He reached down and wrenched off her boots and socks.
Oh, God.
He grabbed her jeans by the belt loops and peeled her out of them. Then her pink cotton panties, which he took his time slipping down her legs and over her feet.
Now she was naked and the feel of the cool air on her sensitive, intimate flesh made her shiver.
As he knelt between her legs, the sight of his broad shoulders and small waist, the huge erection straining the zipper of his jeans, made her reach for him. All she wanted was the hard, slick heat of Jake inside her before she remembered that she ought to care about things like condoms.
“I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time,” Jake said softly, his eyes zeroing in on their target. “Fasten your seatbelt.”
She was practically panting. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.
With the expression of a starving man who now expected to feast, Jake ducked his head between her thighs. Was she okay? There’d been a lot of riding and—
His tongue found her. She cried out and closed her eyes. Her hands were in his hair, tensing and releasing like a cat. Oh, God, those…skills. He bore into her with the confidence of a man who knew exactly what he wanted.
When he added a finger, then another, slowly twisted them in and out, her mouth dropped open. Maybe Jake had a blueprint of her body. He knew all the stairs and secret passageways. Pressure built inside her with reckless speed. The sight of him between her thighs, licking and sucking and flicking, pushed her even faster toward the edge of the cliff.
A needy whimper escaped her lips. She had one hand in his hair now and the other digging her nails into the dirt. Blind urgency made her feel as though her body wasn’t even hers anymore. She could feel the expert precision of his tongue intensifying, circling and finding her, boring in on the sweet spot. Her stomach went wobbly but her thighs tensed.
“Holy—” she gasped. “Sweet—oh, God. Jake.” And the orgasm wrecked her.
Throe after throe of mindless pulsing waves slammed into her. She cried out, back arched, enslaved by that wicked, talented tongue. She felt herself clutch around his fingers as they worked inside her. Jake sent her spinning into a bright hot sun.
Slowly, the eddies subsided and she drifted back down to earth. She lay panting and nearly gutted. “Never,” she said. “I never—”
Jake made a sound of male triumph. “Ready for more?”
“More?” She stared up at him in alarm. It had never been about her before. No one had ever made any kind of an effort. Not like Jake had.
“Princess, I’m just getting started.”
* * * *
Sitting astride Delilah with her trembling thighs, Maggie had trouble forming a coherent thought, let alone knowing exactly where she was. What had Jake just done to her?
Jake looked over at her with a Cheshire Cat grin. Soooo pleased with himself. Well, maybe he had a reason to be. Men had orgasms if you left the door open and there happened to be a stiff breeze. For her, things were different.
She’d never had an encounter like that one. She’d never had orgasms like the ones he gave her. And the fact that it was Jake—the one man who would never stick around to give her those orgasms in perpetuity—had her worried about her chances of ever being happy with anyone else.
“You still look pretty dazed,” Jake said. “Gotta say I’m kind of loving it.”
The moon showed clear and bright over the prairie. She liked seeing the glow of his cigarette and hearing the horses’ bridles jingling. Crickets sawed away in the tall grasses that edged the trail. There were lights in the far distance, which told her they were almost back to the ranch. What if the staff saw her looking like this? Patting the back of her head, she said, “I have leaves in my hair, don’t I?”
“A bunch of leaves,” he said, unrepentant. “They look great on you, too.”
Jake’s eyes sought hers and everything inside her fell apart all over again.
“Let’s grab some dinner,” he said. “After that we can see what develops.”
Like more orgasms that ruin you for life? I’m in.
“What do you do for an encore?” she asked playfully.
“Bad things,” he replied. His voice was silky smooth in the darkness. “Things you’ll end up begging me to do to you again later on.”
She started tingling, which annoyed her because it gave him such an advantage. “Do you have to look so pleased with yourself?”
“A man’s only good at the things he likes,” Jake said philosophically. “What things do you like to do, Magdalene?”
Heat rushed to Maggie’s face. She found herself imagining all kinds of scenarios—things she may have thought about secretly but never had the nerve to ask for. Certainly not from Todd. He was the kind of man who promised you the moon, but delivered you a bug zapper. And boy, had she ever been zapped.
“I don’t know what I like,” she told him truthfully. “Not until I try it.”
Jake gave a low whistle. “That leaves the door wide open then, doesn’t it?”
As they got closer to the house, Atlas and Delilah picked up speed. Maggie heard car doors slamming and voices. Strangely familiar ones. What on earth…?
She recognized Cassidy’s voice first. “I think there’s a can of biscuit dough in the freezer, Mom.”
Then her mother, clear as day, replying, “Don’t bother, Cassidy, honey. I picked up dinner rolls on the way over.”
My mother? What was her mother doing here? What were Mason and Cassidy doing here? Sweat sheeted Maggie’s face. Then she had an awful thought. Priscilla knew she would never agree to a family dinner that included Jake. Not this soon. So had Priscilla made Mason and Cassidy come all the way to Cuervo for dinner just to have an excuse to meet Jake—who conveniently happened to be staying here?
Maggie sucked in her breath. She smelled a Priscilla-sized rat. She’d been expecting her mother to try something. But this?
“Oh, my God,” Maggie said, frantically raking leaves out of her hair. The last thing on earth she wanted was for her parents to know what she’d been up to in the woods with Jake.
“What’s wrong?” Jake asked.
“My mother!” she burst out, too bothered to hide the truth from him. “She found out you and I were dating. Ever since, she’s been conniving to meet you. I told her absolutely not.”
“Do I embarrass you?” he deadpanned. “It’s the hair, isn’t it? Too short?”
“You don’t know my mother,” she said hotly. “She’s like one of those dogs that won’t stop sniffing your crotch.”
“Your mother is going to sniff my crotch?”
“Jake! I’m serious. Quit trying to make a joke out of this.”
“Maybe I don’t mind meeting your mother,” he said. “You don’t need to protect me, you know.”
It’s too soon, she wanted to scream. You’re not ready to meet my family. And I know for a fact that I’m not ready for them to meet you. Besides, this was her life. Priscilla had no right. The only good thing about this was the chance to see Cassidy and Lexie.
Well, and Mason. But only if he was still making Cassidy happy.
“Are you sure?” she asked, chewing worriedly on her lip. “Do you know what you’re getting yourself into?” Do you know what it means to have parents who want to know every damn thing about your personal business?
“An older, wilier version of you?” He winked, but it mortified her to think it might be true. “I’m pretty sure I can handle it.”
Maggie had looked forward to dinner alone with Jake—and to an evening of naughty adventures. Her gaze skated over his sexy, pleasure-giving lips. Disappointment sat heavily on her.
When they turned the corner, sure enough, there was Mason’s SUV and her dad’s Chrysler Plymouth. Maggie pulled up on the reins to stop Delilah, who kept dancing with impatience. Then she dismounted and the stable boy led away their horses.
She and Jake stood together in the courtyard. They stared inside the dining room window, where her entire family had blithely gathered to murder her sex life.
“Wow,” she said. “I can’t believe you’re going in there.”