Jake (8 page)

              He told himself to turn around. To look at the ocean. To follow the wheeling of the sea gulls overhead. Anything but focus on the way her clothes—or lack of them—sheathed her body.

              Damn. There was no way he could run with a hard-on and he was more than half way there.

              She brought her foot down and turned, lifting her face so that she could deliver a cheeky smile.

              Jake felt a growl rumble through his chest. “You know exactly what you’re doing.”

              “I hope so.” She moved closer, until there was only an inch of air between them. “For some reason, I really want to win today.”

              “This isn’t a race,” he pointed out.

              “I want to be stronger than you,” she revealed.

              “That will never happen.”

              “Them are fighting words,” she returned.

              “Are you competitive in all things?”

              She tipped her head to the side, considering. “I didn’t think I was competitive at all. Until I met you.” She lifted her hands, letting them flutter around his body. “You’re just so obviously fit. Strong. Immovable.” Then she leaned closer. “I want to move you, Jake.”

              He could taste her breath and nearly popped a boner when her tongue slipped between her lips to stroke them.

              “You know you do.” He was already breathing like he’d run a mile.

              “Control, that’s it,” she said, stumbling onto her discovery. “You’re always in control. And I want you to lose it. I want to be the reason you do.”

              She lifted her hand and Jake could see the intent in her eyes. He matched his palm to hers and stopped her before she could lay a teasing touch on him.

              “Do that and I’ll have to change my pants,” he warned.

              Ivy’s eyes flared and then her laughter bubbled up, throaty and full. She laced her fingers with his.

              “Then I have you where I want you.”

              “I’ve been there from hello.”

              Her smile deepened. “Catch me if you can,” Ivy invited and sprinted off.

              Jake watched her go.

              He’d never run half aroused. He’d heard that some men ran into battle with a full erection, that it made them more alert and was responsible even for the more daring charges into enemy territory—steps men would have lacked the courage to take had they not been on edge—and the most stunning victories. As he fell into an easy lope, he had serious doubts about those reports. He tried to ignore the rub of material against his shaft and made his eyes focus on Ivy’s hair, the way her pony tail bounced and swayed with her steps. Every time his gaze began to drop lower, Jake pulled it back. He increased his pace, lengthened his stride, and kept Ivy within capture. Which wasn’t easy.

              She was fast and smooth, her arms toned and her body fluid. A sheen of sweat covered her skin and Jake thought about licking her clean. Salty, sweet, spicy. She would be all of those, satisfying his tastes. He wondered if she would let him between her thighs, allow him to bring her to satisfaction first by stroking her sex with his tongue and drinking deeply of her essence.

              He wanted that more than he wanted joining with her. He wanted her cries to ring out of him every shred of patience and control. Yes, she had pegged him right. Control was important to him. He’d never lost it as an adult because he remembered the nearly fatal consequences of losing it as a kid. He remembered the swirling, chaotic sensations of being at the whim of his emotions and he never wanted to repeat that. But with Ivy, maybe. Maybe he could let go. A little. Because losing himself in her would be glorious.

              Could he trust himself enough to let go that completely? He thought about the car, the black night, the girl sitting beside him and her scream shattering the odd quiet. He’d been lucky. They had both walked away from his mistake. His girlfriend had suffered a few cuts, an abrasion where the seat belt had jerked against her throat. She had walked and kept on walking and Jake had been glad for it. He had risked their lives for the rush it had given him. He would never do that again.

              Ivy followed the winding path and Jake suddenly lost sight of her. It snapped him out of the past. The splintered boardwalk under his feet, the rolling surf beside him and the vast emptiness in front of him surfaced, their sharp edges rubbing out memories and fantasies.

              He’d let Ivy get away from him. He fell back on years of discipline, clearing his mind and stepping up his speed. He felt his lungs tear for air and the burn in his quads as he ate up the distance between them. She had the quality of liquid, but he wouldn’t let her slip between his fingers.

              He caught sight of her before she slipped into the cover of palms and dunes. He couldn’t give her what she wanted. Not completely. Because the loss of control, for him, had disastrous effects. But he would make up for that with other things.

              He caught up with her before the next bend. Her arms were pumping, her legs falling into long strides that cleaned the dust off of him. He adjusted his pace to fit hers and noticed her focused gaze, the determination in her features. And knew that her persistence, combined with her natural effect on him, could easily shatter his resolve.

              “You were playing with me,” Ivy accused when she had breath to speak. They were walking off their endorphins, easing their muscles back into common demands. She ignored the brush of his arm against her shoulder and the warmth that spread there.

              “Not true,” he replied. “I really slipped up out there. I lost focus.”

              She turned so that she could look him in the face. His blue-green eyes were full of sincerity.

              “Hmmm,” she murmured doubtfully.

              “Really,” he insisted.

              “Yeah? So what were you thinking about when you should have been focused on the finish line?”

              “I was focused on the finish. Remember, I’m results-oriented?” He paused a beat and an odd tension entered his voice. “Oral sex.”

              Her heart kicked against her chest. Her lungs, not fully recovered, struggled for breath. “Me or you?” she managed.

              “Oh, definitely me. On you. I’m here to serve,” he reminded her. She didn’t look at him, but could hear the smile in his voice.

              “And I was going for this?”

              “You loved every minute of it,” he assured her.

              A sudden burst of heat exploded at her core, releasing a tremor she felt to her fingertips. He must have noticed it, too, where their hands were joined, because he said,

              “Exactly. Only bigger, better.”

              “And what will I owe you in return?”

              He shook his head. “There’s no payment plan on this, Ivy. When I make love to you it’ll be because I get as much pleasure out of it as you do.”

              “Wrong choice of words,” she agreed, and wondered why she thought of it—sex—as a costly thing. Maybe because with Trace it
had
cost her. Towards the end, she’d paid for it with her self-respect. She would never risk that again.

              “He must have been a prize,” Jake observed.

              “Who?”

              “The man you were married to.” She had thought so, when she was sixteen and on the run. It didn’t take long for her to realize her mistake; but too long to take responsibility for it.

              “Were you ever married?”

              “Never. I came close, or so I thought.”

              “But all the time away from home did that in?”

              He shook his head. “No. It didn’t help any. But it was me rushing things, always conscious of the clock ticking.”

              “But now you have a year home?”

              “About that.”

              “Then where do you go?”

              “Wherever they need me.” He gave her hand a light squeeze. “I’ve been through Afghanistan twice. I could be called for a third and thrifty—that’s when we’re deployed as a special unit for a specific purpose, usually temporary.”

              He paused and Ivy turned so she could see his profile. His face, still bathed in a light sheen of sweat, was tense. She sensed he was about to reveal an important truth and waited.

              “My last deployment didn’t end well,” he said. “We were already coming up on a year in-country. We were ready for home. But things change there is a heartbeat. Literally. We got the call and moved out within hours. Our last act on foreign soil for a while. We were juiced. Ready. We trained every day, waiting for that command. We knew the danger. Accepted the sacrifice.”

              His words drifted toward silence and Ivy waited for more. She felt the slightly abrasive rub of his palm against hers, the brush of his arm, the steel strength of his muscles.

              “One of you didn’t make it,” she said quietly.

              “I’ve been lucky.” He turned and caught her gaze. “Until that day, I’d never lost a man.”

              “You did everything you could to keep that from happening,” she said, and she knew it was true. Jake was a man of honor and integrity. Follow-through. She’d known that an hour into hello.

              “How do you know?”

              “I’m getting to know you, Jake,” she returned. “No half-measures. No easy outs,” she

observed. “You don’t have it in you to do less than what’s called for.”

              His eyes stayed with hers, deepening a gaze that was threatening to pull from Ivy every thought, every secret.

              “You’re too fast to trust,” he warned.

              She shook her head. “No, not anymore. Now my motto is, ‘Prove it.’” With Trace, she’d believed words, she’d invested herself in the dream those words had constructed. “I’m all about the evidence. Facts. Big words and cheap gestures don’t move me.”

              “I’ll remember that,” he promised.

              “You’re all about action, Jake. So far, what I know about you comes from what you’ve shown me.” And it put the fear in her, because she suspected Jake was the real deal. “But it’s still early yet,” she added, more as a reminder to herself.
Proceed with caution
. She should be clinging to the words of wisdom that she lived by.

              They were approaching Jake’s truck, parked a block up from the beach, and he stopped and shifted his stance so that they were facing each other.

              “Are you worried that I’ll disappoint you?”

              She shook her head. “I’m more worried that you won’t.”

              Confusion made him frown. “Explain that.”

              “Relationships are risky. I’m not very good at them. At all,” she underscored. “If we go by the numbers, chances are I’ll mess this one up, too.”

              He shook his head. “Not true. Playing the odds, we’re both due for success. Add our mutual growth, changed approach and desire to make it work and we’re a match I would bet on.”

              She had thought the same earlier, that she was due for a healthy relationship, that after two bad bites, she had hit on a good apple.

              “Maybe,” she conceded.

              “Come on.” He started them walking again and reached into his jog pocket for the truck key. “What do you feel like? Surf or turf?”

              He pressed the key and the truck lights flashed, then he pulled open the passenger door for her.

              “Surf,” she said. “Callahan’s is close by. Ever been?”

              “Once or twice. They have a great seas bass in garlic and clove.”

              She smiled. “I love it, too.”

              “So it’s Callahan’s,” he agreed and bent over her, sealing the decision with a kiss.

              This time, he lingered over her a little longer. His lips learned the shape of hers. His tongue stroked and she opened for him. He swept into her mouth, tangling with her in a dance that was hot and heady. And then he pulled back and gazed into her eyes.

              “This is only going to build,” he said. “It can only get better.” He lifted a hand and brushed aside a strand of hair that had worked loose from her clip. His fingertips passed over the sensitive curve of her ear and Ivy trembled in response.

              His caress stirred something molten inside her. Small touches, consuming heat. He was right, it would build. In the meantime, she would exist in a semi-aroused state and spend most of her time frustrated.

              “Don’t keep me waiting too long,” she warned and heard the complaint in her voice. Apparently he did, too, because his mouth opened in a wicked grin.

              “Hurting?” he guessed.

              “Almost constantly.”

              “Me, too.” His hand curled around her neck and he nudged her gently toward him until his forehead rested against hers. “It will be worth the wait.”

              “Promises, promises,” she murmured. And he was so close—his breath fanning across her lips and his scent, an honest sweat mixed with spice filling her nose—that she simply closed the distance between them and planted a kiss on him she hoped would challenge his resolve. She stroked him with her tongue and felt him yield to her. Before he could become aggressor, she dipped in to taste him. She moved her tongue against his in a slow rub that called from him a rumbling growl. She rolled to her toes to make their connection solid, and pushed her hands into his hair. She wasn’t going to release him until she was ready. She wasn’t going to give him the opportunity to even think about putting space between them. She would do that this time—be the one to pull away. Leave him hurting for a change. Her mouth moved against his, her breasts pressed to his chest, her pelvis to his. So his reaction was unmistakable—a full, thick erection that grew between them. He rocked against her, separated her legs with a soft nudge of his knee, and lifted her slightly. And then suddenly he was there. Right where she wanted him. His shaft pressed to her sex. She lifted a leg to cradle him, felt him sink into her until her back was pressed against the truck and his body a vise clamped tightly to hers.