CHAPTER ELEVEN
Maggie Roby was a wet dream.
Jake couldn’t keep his eyes off her, even though he knew staring was never good form.
He gave a low whistle. “You’re killing me.”
It flustered her a little, he could tell. She looked around and then strode with more determination than eagerness down the stairs to the car. It was the only car parked there, so lucky guess.
She stood next to it, clutching her purse like a life preserver. Clearly, she didn’t want people to see her going anywhere with a man.
“Why, Magdalene, you aren’t nervous, are you?” he asked, knowing she was and amused by it. “Afraid the locals will talk?”
“They always talk. Can we go now?”
Jake opened the door and watched her slide across the seat. There was something about the way she sat there looking straight ahead, all prim and church lady-ish, that made him…hungry. He wanted to get in beside her and pull her onto his lap. He wanted to see what good Texas girls who didn’t like to be talked about wore under their sexy party dresses. Maybe they didn’t wear anything at all.
And he was hard already. Rock hard. He closed the door before she could see, glad he’d put the top up. Thinking about it wasn’t helping. Besides, he was getting way ahead of himself. Maggie wasn’t going to be a pushover like most of the women he dated. But why the hell did he find that so refreshing?
“So who was that I saw upstairs with the ears and the tail?” he said, getting in the car and starting the engine. “You don’t actually call that a dog, do you?”
“His name is Gus,” she said with a bit of the indignation he liked provoking in her. “He’s a highly trained attack dog, so watch it.”
“More genetic nightmare than attack dog.” He grinned, waiting for lightning bolts to come shooting out of her eyeballs. But again the impression he got was nervousness. Even in the dim light of the dashboard, her face was so open, he could have read her like a book. Her alarm. Her need. Her distrust. Her fascinating ambivalence.
It was all there, and it drew him in despite a firm belief that liking a woman was far more dangerous than just sleeping with one.
“So tell me, Magdalene,” he murmured, nosing the car past the first of Cuervo’s two stoplights. “Aren’t you curious to know where I’m taking you?”
She shrugged, which practically shouted yes. The dress he’d gotten her showed enough cleavage to be distracting. Even out of the corner of his eye he could see the delicious rise and fall of her breasts, just as real as the rest of her, real and ready for a man’s hands. For his hands. He clamped them tight to the steering wheel to keep from doing something impulsive.
“The way I figure, Mason wouldn’t be friends with you if you were a serial killer,” she said. “So the chances of you hacking me into tiny pieces aren’t great. More than that, a girl should never expect.”
“Boy, you set the bar high.” Interesting, he thought, tucking that tidbit away for later consumption. There was nobody as jaded as a disappointed idealist like her. Still, Maggie had the power to surprise him, which was new. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been surprised by much of anything, woman-wise, except the time he’d walked into his hotel room in Munich to find the girl from reception sprawled out naked on his bed.
“I like to think I’m a realist,” she said. “You know—manage your expectations. If at the end of the night no one’s screaming or bloody, that’s a win.”
She looked so prissy sitting over there with her hands in her lap and her ridiculous notions about “managing” expectations. He just couldn’t let her get away with it. “That’s quite a line of bullshit you tried to get over on me,” he said.
Her eyes widened. “What?”
“You’re not a realist, Magdalene. You’re the most hopeless romantic I know.”
Bullseye.
He grinned.
She’d puff herself up now because he’d found her out. If there was one thing Maggie didn’t like, he knew, it was being told a truth about herself that she wasn’t prepared to admit to yet.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, looking out the window.
He picked up speed on the farm road heading toward Richmond. “Of course you do. You have a record player in your bakery. Mason says you listen to Frank Sinatra and Jack Jones all day. Maybe, if you’re feeling frisky, a little John Coltrane. I saw what you drive—it’s a 1953 Chevy pickup, in cherry condition, too. You own a vintage cash register and go completely gooey around babies. You don’t just wear your heart on your sleeve, princess, you run it up a flag pole and carry it on parade.”
He didn’t think she knew how beautiful she was when the mask came off. She stared at him, her mouth a small oh, with none of her usual “How long before you try to grope me” hauteur.
And fuck if he wasn’t just eating it up.
“I don’t miss much,” he said. “Not when it’s someone who’s worth my interest.”
“It’s like you’ve been stalking me,” she said, doing a poor job of pretending not to smile. “Do you know what I have for breakfast?”
“Coffee. Black. Toast on the side, buttered right up to the edges.” He heard rather than saw her quick intake of breath. “I’m right, aren’t I? Now ask me what it is you really need from life, Magdalene Roby.”
“Whatever it is, I’m sure you think it should involve nudity of some kind.”
“Lots of nudity.” The word just sort of hung there for a minute while his mind went places it probably shouldn’t have, not with Maggie only an arm’s reach away. “What you need is someone who can show you a bigger world. Who isn’t afraid of women who are hungry for it. Hungry for everything, actually.”
His voice was low and the drawl had crept back into it. Hell, he hadn’t been in Cuervo a full ten hours yet and already he was drawling. He’d worked hard to get rid of that hick remnant of Palestine, Texas. Now it had worked its way back in somehow, as though it knew he didn’t have to be anything less than who he really was now.
“Suppose I was…hungry,” she said, gazing straight at him with those marvelous dark eyes. “Suppose there is, as you say, a bigger world out there. I can’t just leave my bakery, my friends, my family, and follow my dreams. I have responsibilities here.”
Her voice had gotten a little shrill, which he recognized for what it was: an attempt to strangle that deep, forbidden longing. Craving, even. And sitting next to Maggie without touching her gave him fierce cravings of his own. They crawled over him, inside him, biting like fire ants.
“I’m not like you,” she said. “You avoid staying in any one place for long. For me, one place, the right place, is all I need.”
“Maybe not all you need,” he said. “How do you know you like something until you’ve tasted it?”
Now the word tasted slid around in the space between them. It reminded him of what he’d been thinking about earlier, which was what she might have on underneath that dress. He liked buying her dresses. He liked imagining what they might look like on her voluptuous curves. Then he liked imagining what his hands would look like gliding over those curves.
But when he thought about that, it was difficult to remember anything else. Where he was going, for instance.
“Whoa, almost missed the turnoff.” Jake hit the brakes and fishtailed into the turn, just enough to make it fun. He could see her alarm and confusion, especially since the road wasn’t paved and it seemed to go right into the middle of nowhere.
“Okay, maybe I’m not joking about you chopping me up into tiny pieces,” she said. “Are we at the old Peterson place?”
If he were the kind of man who chortled, he would have totally done that, all evil genius with the hands rubbing together and the diabolical laugh. As they started up a low hill, he felt the thrill of a personal triumph coming on. She was going to love this. Now that it was almost here, he loved this, too.
Emma had helped, of course. He couldn’t wait to tell her how it turned out, minus the panting and moaning and the clothes coming off.
If clothes were coming off. Christ, he hoped so.
When they crested the hill and Maggie saw what he’d done, she gasped. He wore that gasp like a merit badge. His chest swelled with pride. His heart suddenly felt too big for it. But the little girl joy he saw on Maggie’s face was so worth any trouble he’d gone to. It was even worth worrying that he’d done too much, too soon. Just because he was used to wielding authority and indulging whims didn’t mean everyone else was comfortable with it.
He’d bet that a hopeless romantic like his Maggie would love the gesture. And she clearly did.
“I don’t believe it,” she whispered.
On top of the hill, he’d created a drive-in movie theater. A full-sized movie screen sat at one end; a grill and a cooking station sat on the other end where the best chef Emma could find in the area waved them in. The waiter wore formal attire—also Emma’s idea—and there was a table covered in white linen next to a tree hung with decorative lanterns.
Jake couldn’t stop grinning. It was perfect.
“How on earth…?” Maggie couldn’t get all the words out.
“You’re a classic movie buff,” he explained. “Like me.”
“Who told you?”
“Cassidy, of course.”
Jake parked the car and she got out, walking slowly toward the table as though afraid if she rushed it, the whole thing would go poof. He joined her, accepting a champagne flute of sparkling water from the waiter. Maggie did the same.
“Am I dreaming?” she asked.
“Maybe you are.” He clinked glasses with her and looked around, as pleased with himself as if the grass, the trees, the starry sky were all his doing, too.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “For all of it.”
In just that moment, all the wariness was gone from Maggie’s face. Instead, it glowed as brightly as the lanterns behind her. Her entire heart shone there, a woman’s heart, before life had had its way with it.
Jake was so moved, he leaned down and brushed his lips against hers.
She tasted of peppermint. Something hot and drugging drove straight through him. She returned the kiss, softly at first, drawing him after her. This was a different kiss from the one in the gazebo. This was a kiss Maggie meant, and he found himself intoxicated by the tenderness of it. Sweetness he’d always thought killed passion, now made it that much hotter.
Gently, he claimed her mouth, lost in the lushness of it. The urge to take more moved restlessly inside him, more of that intense rush, that sensation of flying. More of her warm pink lips.
Maggie was no ordinary woman.
But he was beginning to understand what that actually meant.
* * * *
Maggie pulled away and opened her eyes, half-expecting everything to have vanished like a dream. What she saw instead were the smooth planes of Jake’s face, his sensuous lips and bristly lashes. He felt warm and male and powerful.
He had created this fantasy for her. Just her.
But she also worried. She couldn’t help it. Maybe she worried because there was no precedent for this, not in her life at least. The men she knew didn’t make grand gestures. They drove old beater trucks and went hunting. You always caught them with dirty magazines under the bed.
As much as she wanted Jake, she still balked at the idea of sleeping with him just because he’d succeeded at sweeping her off her feet. Or of Jake thinking this was all some kind of prelude to her capture. She couldn’t bear the thought of him casting her aside, not now. Not after this. And not only that he would cast her aside, but that the fantasy he’d created was done with the purpose of sleeping with her, not simply pleasing her.
“Stop thinking,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “I can hear the gears turning.”
She took a deep breath to ground herself, a breath full of his woodsy, smoky, expensive scent. It floated through her, spiraling around and around in her belly, yet comforting somehow. With his face so close to hers, she could see the prisms of his eyes, blue upon blue, like the sky seen through layers of glass.
“It’s amazing,” she murmured against him as he squeezed her close. “All of it.”
“Better than any date ever, right?” Together they strolled toward the table, which was set formally with the assorted forks and cloth napkins and elegant stemware. “I don’t believe in doing things by half measures. Go hard or go home.”
Politely, she refrained from telling him that the word hard made everything inside her go red-hot.
Maggie couldn’t get over the feeling of freedom that came from dining with the stars as their ceiling. She reached the table and a waiter pulled out her chair. This morning, she was knee-deep in demanding customers. Now she was being pampered and waited on.
Please let this never end, she thought.
Jake shook out the napkin and draped it across his lap. “You look like the cat that ate the canary. I’ve never seen you purr before.”
“I am purring,” she confessed. “It’s like I’m dreaming.”
“Well, I had to sift through a lot of other ideas first before I came up with this.”
“Such as?”
“Bungee jumping.” His eyes twinkled. “I didn’t think you’d go for it. Not in that dress.”
“Undignified,” she agreed. “Listening to me scream? Definitely not sexy.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.”
She gulped and tried not to fidget in her seat, but good Lord, it was hard. No, it was difficult. Why on earth did every word that popped into her head lead back to sex with Jake?
“I considered taking you horseback riding,” he said.
“I love horseback riding.”
“But there was also the dress issue.”
Jake leaned back while the waiter served the first course—grilled shrimp cocktail in what appeared to be a lemon aioli sauce. Maggie sniffed at it appreciatively, pleased to see that the shrimp were peeled and the sauce was served in separate bowls. She had always been a staunch believer in non-communal dipping.
Was this really happening? Was she having dinner with Jake under a black velvet sky?
“We also have another reason to celebrate,” Jake said. “I got the Regal.”
Maggie stopped eating. “The Regal is yours? Does that mean you’ll be in town awhile?”
The corners of his mouth twitched. “Do you think you can make time for me?”
She tried not to stare at him in the candlelight because staring at Jake felt as though she were plunging off a fifty-story building. Yet every time her eyes passed over him, they lingered in fascination. This thick, corrosive heat would build in the middle of her stomach and then start blistering her from the inside like a bad sunburn.
She loved the way his eyes crinkled slightly at the corners and the lazy Texas drawl that spread a thick coat of honey over the things he said. She loved the way he looked at her over the rim of his glass, the easy grace of his lean, powerful body, the cowlick that parted his hair on one side so that a few spikes stuck up, soft irresistible spikes that she longed to touch.
As they talked over the lobster bisque, she enjoyed discussing his vision for the Regal, even stuff she knew nothing about like air-conditioning schematics or the difference between preservation and restoration. By the time they’d made it through the hearts-of-romaine salad and the grilled rib eye with fingerling potatoes, shiitake mushrooms and rosemary jus, she felt as though she’d eaten more than just dinner. She’d actually learned things, and learning things was new territory for her—unless she took into account what Todd had taught her about bronc busting.
During the pistachio sorbet, with the warm breeze fluttering the hem of her dress and the stars glittering overhead, she sucked up her courage and decided to tell him who Todd actually was. To keep it a secret after everything Jake had done for her just seemed dishonest.
“I need to tell you something,” she said.
“Uh-oh. Nothing good ever comes after an opener like that.”
“It’s nothing too awful, I hope.” She crushed her napkin in her lap. “That man you saw me with the other day. Todd. He used to be my husband.”
It felt as though someone had put a three-day-old catfish on the table. She glanced up at him, waiting for what she imagined would be a subtle distancing. No matter how modern she thought she was, deep down she couldn’t help but think she was less of a person because her marriage had failed.
Her divorce was the first on either side of her family, she explained. She had a great aunt and a second cousin who’d told her, for that very reason, why divorcing Todd was a mistake. “So he cheated,” Great Aunt Mary had said, shrugging. “Most of ’em do. And let’s not forget that Todd’s rodeo. Cowboys are hard dogs to keep on the porch.”
Jake listened with the kind of attention she should have found flattering if she weren’t afraid he’d use the gory details against her later. Still, it was good to have it off her chest.
There was never a right time to tell somebody your ex couldn’t keep his pants zipped, but sooner was better than later. She didn’t tell him about her attempts to get pregnant though. And she didn’t tell him about Todd knocking up her best friend. There was still too much shame.
“I knew there was a reason I hated that guy,” Jake said. “What a fool he was to throw away a woman like you. But his loss, my gain.”
It struck her that he was serious—Jake Sutton, who sampled women like sweets in a chocolate box. She had to remind herself not to read things into his behavior that weren’t there. Just because she wanted to think he cared didn’t mean he did. Jake was gorgeous, charming, romantic, a multibillionaire…and he badly wanted to get in her pants. Men said a lot of things they didn’t actually believe when their penises were involved.
The waiter brought coffee. Jake shook his head, but she didn’t. She wanted to be as alert as possible for the “Buyer Beware” clauses she feared were coming—the “I’m not looking for anything serious” or the “Don’t get too attached because I’m not sticking around that long.” There were always clauses, especially after you’d told a man you were divorced.
“Are you ready for the movie, sir?” the waiter asked.
Jake lifted an eyebrow at her. He had the look of a man who saw something he wanted and despite the mouthwatering meal they’d had, he still looked hungry.
Her body tingled in response. That purely carnal intensity in his blue gaze, that crook to his lips. Was she ready for a movie or was she ready for him to pin her naked to the bed?
“What are we watching?” she asked, surprised to hear herself speak.
“Casablanca,” he replied, and she knew he’d chosen it for her. Chosen it because Casablanca was a beautiful old movie about a doomed romance, the way theirs would be when Jake proved what she already knew: men couldn’t be trusted to consistently water a house plant, let alone save you from heartbreak. And she was walking straight into it because he’d bought her beautiful dresses and created this fairytale and didn’t seem to mind that she was divorced.
She was about to watch Casablanca under the stars with a man who made her toes curl. Even though nothing in her life would ever compare to this again, she really ought to just relax and enjoy it.
The waiter got the film rolling while Jake escorted her to an overstuffed couch. Maggie melted into it and gazed up misty-eyed at the stars.
Stop thinking, Jake had told her. I can hear the gears grinding.
Well, she could hear her life grinding—right down to the bitter cud gnawed on by old maids and divorcees. Did she want that for herself? To go around telling herself everything was great when it wasn’t?
“You make it hard to watch the movie,” Jake said, sitting next to her. “If I’d remembered, I would have picked a movie with more explosions. Apocalypse Now, maybe. Always tough to kiss a girl when body parts start flying—”
Maggie grabbed him and crushed her mouth against his. She felt as though she’d lost a long battle with her self-control. Now that the flood gates were open and she’d invited the bad decisions to just start pouring over her, she didn’t care about the future anymore. She didn’t care about anything but this.
He was chocolate.
Every cell of her body trembled, wanting chocolate.
Jake sank his fingers into her hair. She felt the heat of him against her lips and then lower, lower, pooling between her legs. She wanted him. She wanted. And even knowing the waitstaff guessed what was going on behind the couch wasn’t shameful enough to stop her.
She’d played with the matches. Now she was on fire.