CHAPTER TWELVE
Jake wasn’t all that clear on the details of what brought Maggie’s lips to his, but he’d never been a man to pass up an opportunity. Maggie was so pent up, she was shaking like a leaf.
Yet as soon as he slid his tongue along the length of hers, he found himself rejecting the idea that Maggie was an opportunity. She wasn’t.
She was Maggie.
In an instant he was rock hard and wanting her in a way that made him wish they were somewhere with a big bed and the whole week ahead of them. He slowly slid his hands to her hips and pulled her closer, but then he couldn’t peel his hands off her backside. All that hot delicious female flesh right there in his palms. Now that he had it, he never wanted to give it up. It made him hard to the point of aching.
She made a sound deep in her throat, something between a growl and a purr. He was being given a taste of something he’d been longing for but hadn’t known. Not just a woman. This woman.
That should have been reason enough to push Maggie away and run back to Dallas. It forced him to consider something he’d never thought about before, ever. Not when it came to women.
Was he taking advantage of her?
The idea struck him like a blow to the face. Why couldn’t he fucking un-think it and go back to the fun and games of driving Maggie back to the ranch and dragging her out of her clothes? What was wrong with him?
But even as he raked that voluptuous lower lip between his teeth and buried his hands in her soft warm hair, he knew he wasn’t going to do that. Treating her like something disposable was a dick move—the kind of thing her shithead ex-husband would have done. Jake refused to do that.
But he’d still lost his fucking mind. A hot spur of anger dug into his sides. Here was this gorgeous, insatiable woman, a woman he’d worked his ass off to get, and now he had an attack of conscience? Since when did he even have a conscience? Since when did he, Jake Sutton, say no to sex?
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered.
Despite her lush, disheveled sexiness, Maggie looked stricken. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” Except me.
What did that say about him—that he needed to make sure she came to him because she wanted to, not because he’d put stars in her eyes with his dog-and-pony show.
Was that what it was then? A show? It didn’t feel like a show. It felt like a gesture he’d made to a woman he was wildly attracted to, yes, but who needed a little magic in her life. So why would that keep him from doing the one thing he’d come here to do, which was to take her, face-to-face, from behind, sideways, upside down, in every possible position until he died of happiness?
“Is it because we’re here?” she whispered, that tempting carnal mouth just inches away. “Because they’ll see?”
Jake pushed one hand through his hair. His dick twitched and throbbed, as angry with him as he was with himself. “It is peculiar how we always find ourselves outside during these little encounters,” he muttered.
“Then take me back to the apartment,” she said huskily.
And holy mother, how he wanted to. For a second, he almost did. He almost said fuck it, and shoved her into the car. Maggie understood the rules. She knew how this would eventually play out—he’d give her a wonderful sexy adventure and then he’d be on his merry way. Because that was how shit worked in the real world.
The fact that he didn’t want to do that to her bothered him profoundly. It went against who he was and everything he stood for. And it was insane.
“We’re in no rush, are we?” He put his arm around her and slid her next to him. It wasn’t cuddling. He refused to call it cuddling. Jesus, he had some self-respect left, didn’t he? “Let’s watch Casablanca.”
At first he thought she was offended. Maggie’s cheeks were flushed. She was breathing heavily. She looked a little wild. But she settled into his chest where he could smell the fragrance of her shampoo and her light floral perfume and the musky scent of desire. Something like agony and lust crashed over him.
While the waiter brought them non-alcoholic spritzers and mineral waters, he and Maggie watched Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman deliver their classic lines, all under an enormous Texas canopy of stars.
Of course he needed someone to yell at him, someone who knew him like Mason, who could tell him what the fuck was wrong and how to fix it. But if he had to admit the truth, sitting here with Maggie snuggled up next to him was the most enjoyable thing he’d done in a long time. Except for the part where he really wanted to get her naked.
What he needed was a cigarette.
He dug into his pocket for his pack of Dunhills.
“I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how bad those are for you,” Maggie said.
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” He moved her so he could cup his hand around the flame. Then he settled back and rearranged her next to him.
“You’re full of surprises,” she said.
“How’s that?”
“Every time I think I’ve got you figured out…”
“You realize I’m a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma?”
She smiled up at him. It was the kind of smile that curled up around his heart and did things to it. Bad things.
“I was going to say you are more of a gentleman than I gave you credit for,” she murmured.
Jake tapped the ash off his cigarette and took a long thoughtful drag. “I’m not, actually. Or at least I didn’t think I was.”
“I know.” And it was all there—the sultry bedroom eyes, the bitable lower lip. Christ, he was going to hate himself in the morning.
“That’s why you surprise me,” she said. “It’s the best surprise so far.”
* * * *
The first thing Jake saw when he woke up the morning after his date with Maggie was the hard, unlovely face of Mason’s housekeeper, Mrs. Birch.
She was barking at him to get up.
“What time is it?” he gasped, groping for his smartphone. “Don’t you ever sleep?”
“It’s late.” She snatched his shirt off the chair, dropped his shoes with a thud in the closet, and then she jerked open the bedroom curtains.
Daylight hit Jake smack in the eye and he practically catapulted out of bed. “Jesus Christ!”
“You said to wake you at seven-thirty,” she muttered. “I woke you at seven-thirty.”
“Please never listen to me again if I say that.” Unless you’re prepared to pay for my therapy.
“Breakfast’s waiting.”
She left with his shirt and Jake fell back in bed, scrubbing his face with his hands. He hadn’t gotten much sleep after dropping Maggie off at her apartment. It was hard to sleep when you were busy asking yourself what happened to the man you used to be. Or how to deal with the fact that you had turned into an enormous pussy.
Plus all those crickets and frogs and shit drove him crazy.
He got into the shower with his usual morning hard-on but didn’t have enough time to do anything about it. Pete Manford and two other foremen were meeting him at the Regal in less than an hour. But he knew what he would have thought about if he’d had a few quality moments alone with his dick. Maggie on the couch last night with her dress pulled up.
Jake hurried through his shower and shave. He pulled on jeans and boots instead of his usual business attire. He’d have to shed his city stink if he wanted to make any headway with the locals.
Fortunately, he knew how to do that.
A plate of eggs and bacon waited for him in the breakfast room. Damn if they weren’t the best eggs and bacon he’d ever had. Mrs. Birch may have been meaner than a bag of snakes, but she sure knew how to cook. Jake made short work of breakfast, jumped into his car and then drove to the Regal.
He parked around the corner from Sweet Dreams, still a little early for his meeting with the foremen, but not early enough to go in and say hi to Maggie. He wanted to. He wanted to see her covered in cake batter and smelling of sugar and vanilla. He wanted to kiss her until she melted into him, soft and warm and delicious.
But the air didn’t exactly smell like cake batter—it smelled burnt. He sniffed again to be sure. His Maggie had scorched a batch of something this morning, and for some reason the thought made him chuckle.
He got out of the car, flicked his lighter and leaned against a tree to smoke. The urge to see her kept needling him. After last night, it would be amusing to see how she behaved. Would she play it cool and pretend that date hadn’t rocked her world?
Maybe he could go in and see her for just a minute. He looked around for a place to put out his cigarette. Jesus, was he really doing this? Putting romance over business?
Jake heard voices and looked up. That dickhead Todd was heading toward the bakery with his two little ankle biters. Todd was all duded up in his cowboy gear. He’d put some extra shine on that oversized belt buckle of his.
“Sonofabitch,” Jake muttered.
The only part of Todd he ever wanted to see again was that stupid hat of his crushed on the road with a tire track across it.
To hell with waiting. He hurled his cigarette to the ground and then started across the street. If Todd wanted Maggie, he’d have to go through Jake first. A tiny voice in his head told him it was too soon. The wrong move. Exactly the kind of macho crap a woman like Maggie hated. He didn’t care.
By the time he got halfway across the street, a white Ford F-350 pulled up to the curb and the three foremen got out. Jake had worked with them before, renovating an old turn-of-the-century bank he’d won at auction. If he went into that bakery now, he would not only make an ass of himself in front of Maggie, he would lose face in front of the foremen, too.
He was smarter than that. He had to be smarter than that.
“Good to see you again,” Pete Manford said, shaking his hand.
Through a small window on the side of the bakery, Jake could see Todd inside, grinning like an idiot.
Don’t you do it, a tiny voice inside his head told him. Don’t you fucking do it.
Jake shook hands with the two other foremen, both smart professionals specializing in restorations. He needed to get them on board with his restoration instead of wasting time doing this jealous teenager routine. Hell, acting like a jealous teenager wasn’t something he’d done when he was a jealous teenager. Back then he had the luxury of pretending that he didn’t care.
But after the meeting?
He planned to find out everything he could about that shit kicker Todd. In life and in business, it paid to know everything you could about your opponent.
Game on, motherfucker.