Sweet Dreams. Stacey Keith
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a man like you doesn’t steer a woman like me out here alone for no reason,” she said in a way that had his senses tingling.
He let his gaze wander over what he could see of her in the darkness. All around them were the high-pitched calls of the spring peepers and the quieter chorusing of crickets. Music drifted over from the pavilion, which suddenly seemed as though it were miles away. He saw the outline of her thighs in the gauzy dress and heard the huskiness of her voice. It was intoxicating.
“I got you out here because I mean to kiss you,” he said.
She leaned away from him, facing the interior of the gazebo, bracing her weight on the palms of her hands. It had the unsettling effect of arching her lower back, which was one of his favorite places on a woman. All he wanted to do was brush his lips there.
“Do you think I should do it?” she asked. Her tone might have been teasing, but her eyes weren’t. Her eyes were testing him for the truth. Lies. Weaknesses.
He went with the truth. “If the kiss is good, I’ll want more.” Lazily, he ran a long spiral of her hair through his fingers. Watched it spring back. Heard her breath quicken. “We’ve already established that I’m not boyfriend material. And that you hate weddings. So we can get all those silly expectations out of the way.”
“Do you promise to behave horribly?” Her voice was barely more than a whisper. “And to never do anything that will cause me to like you? Not even a little bit?”
“I promise,” he said, and every molecule of his body leaped like a wall of flame.
That alone should have alarmed him, but it didn’t. He was too focused on the way her breasts rose and fell inside the neckline of her dress. He wanted her naked and waiting for him in his bed, all that long dark hair flung across his pillow. He wanted to taste her.
When she licked her lips, need punched him in the stomach. She’d cast a spell over him without meaning to, without even caring. A tiny voice inside his head warned him not to do it, that kissing this woman would send him down a road he’d sworn he would never set foot on. But it was already too late.
She gazed directly at him, a heavy-eyed, almost insolent look which made the flames of his personal damnation rise even higher.
“So what are you waiting for?” she asked.
CHAPTER SIX
Maggie’s heart hammered wildly as Jake leaned closer. It felt as though every part of her body had come alive. She’d been asleep, waiting for the kiss that never came, the kiss that would change everything and awaken her. Now, a surge of desire boiled through her veins, drowning all thoughts except one: this or die.
If kissing Jake did make her die a death of pure raw need, it was still better than the other death, the one she’d been experiencing slowly, the one she tried to stave off by working and doing things for others. It had been her penance for trusting that love would save her when it didn’t.
Now here she was basking in the secret knowledge that Jake was safe because he didn’t care. He wasn’t going to stick around. He wasn’t the sticking-around type. She’d finally figured out the great secret of life and relationships—risk your body, but never your heart.
His lips devoured hers, slow and hot and drugging, and she moaned against them. Who kissed like that? Who smelled as though he were the embodiment of everything male?
She barely felt the bench against her back as he eased her back and unbound her hair. Everything he did seemed to free her by degrees, first from sexual hibernation, and now from the notion of who she was supposed to be. Maggie is the steady one. Maggie would never. Maggie’s such a hard worker.
No man had kissed her with such intensity before. His hand slid behind her head, angling it so he could plunder. She felt fragile in his arms, exquisitely feminine.
There was no point in wondering if Jake kissed all women this way. She didn’t care. She just wanted more and more until everything inside her that was blood and flesh and bone came roaring back to life.
Their tongues met, danced, retreated and met again. Her need escalated. It made everything between her legs swell and throb and cry out to her that the only way to make this painful needing stop was to give herself to him. His tongue. His touch. His body.
All she had to do was say yes.
Jake changed angles, sliding her lower lip between his teeth. Then he fused with her again, hungrily, yet with expert control. And even though she basked in the heat of his attention, she wanted to know the Jake that existed beyond his own control. She wanted to feel him between her thighs, convulsing inside her. That craving ate at her. It would never leave her alone. Not after this.
Her fingers trembled against his face. They dug into his hair. She was going mad. Desire would kill her at this rate and the sheer speed he drove her at sparked sudden fear. He was pushing her toward a cliff and maybe she wasn’t ready to fly.
You didn’t just walk away from sensations like these. She was playing with fire.
Jake brushed his hand against her breast and then cupped it. With strength she didn’t know she had, she pushed him away and staggered to her feet.
For once, Jake wasn’t suave or mocking. He looked as disheveled as she felt.
First surprise and then annoyance flashed in his eyes. “What are you doing?” he asked.
She had trouble forming words. They wouldn’t arrange themselves into sentences. “I’m saying no.”
“But you already said yes just a minute ago.”
“I’m saying no now.”
Jake winced. He had what appeared to be an enormous, painful-looking erection. “May I ask why?”
“Because this is crazy, that’s why,” she said, struggling to smooth her dress. “I thought we were going to kiss.”
His face darkened. “What do you call that then?”
“That wasn’t a kiss. It was…” She cast around for the right word. “Sex with tongues.”
He let his head drop against the back of the bench. “It’s just not my day.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, annoyed by his obvious self-pity. “Oh, I’m sorry. Was I supposed to service you?”
“Come on, Maggie. You know how this works. We could have enjoyed an incredible evening together.” His gaze burned right through her dress—or it felt like it did. “You are a damned desirable woman.”
“So you were going to have sex with me right here on the bench like we’re a couple of teenagers?” It seemed as good an excuse as any to blame him. The truth was, if her knees hadn’t gone weak with panic, she probably would have said yes to a bench, a table or a washing machine.
“Would you have preferred the plane?” he said. “We could fly to the nearest Hilton. It’s not too late.”
He came here in a plane. No, he didn’t. Wait. Jake had a plane?
“I’m going.” She turned around, her legs almost giving way on the stairs. She could feel his eyes boring holes in her back. How was she even doing this? How was she in command of her limbs, walking away, saying no to something she wanted so badly that there were tears in her eyes? Her stomach felt as though it had been hollowed out with a shovel.
What woman said no to Jake Sutton?
* * * *
Jake leaned his head back against the gazebo bench and stared at the ceiling. His breath sawed in and out of his chest, heart pumping. What the holy fuck just happened?
He could feel his body pulling at him to finish what he’d started, but with Maggie practically running in the opposite direction, that wasn’t in the cards. Of course, there was the actress—she’d been throwing longing looks at him all night—but seriously, after