Firestorm (27 page)

“I’ve never had anything this beautiful,” she said, her small hand going to touch the large, perfect aquamarine surrounded by blazing diamonds.

He’d give her lots of pretty things. And get pleasure doing it. “Get used to it. You’re going to be Mrs. Jake Green. If I feel like it, I’ll drape you with as much glitter as Deb wears.”

Kate watched Jake’s adoring expression when they accepted congratulations from the last of the GreenTex employees who flocked to his office a few minutes later.

Then she realized he was playing a role.

The heat of his erection scorched her back, and his arms were like a tightening vice, draped as they were around her waist. His heart beat out a steady rhythm against the base of her neck.

Ann Jacobs

Firestorm

160

“Let’s get out of here,” he murmured, his warm, damp breath tickling her ear.

His subtle aftershave tickled her nose and made her want to taste him the way he was nibbling at her ear and neck.

“Why?” she asked a few minutes later when he’d settled behind the wheel and gunned the car’s powerful motor.

“Why, what?”

“Why did you want everybody in your office to think you’re madly in love with me?” As she fastened her seat belt, Kate focused on Jake’s big, rough hands. He was holding the steering wheel in a death grip.

“For you, honey. Besides, I like touching you and holding you, and I don’t want anyone to doubt that you’re my woman.”

He frowned. “You don’t mind me touching you when we’re alone,” he reminded her in that deep, seductive drawl he used when they made love to tell her explicitly and succinctly what he wanted.

“No. I don’t mind. It’s just that for a minute there in your office, I thought…” Kate stopped mid-sentence. She couldn’t say it, not now. Maybe not ever.

“You thought what? That you’d managed to draw out some deep emotional commitment out of me? Baby, that just isn’t going to happen. I thought you accepted that I don’t have that to give.”

She trembled. “I did. But why did you pretend the way you did? You should have warned me.”

“Warned you? Hell, Kate, what did you expect me to do? Tell my co-workers we made some kind of fucking business arrangement?” Jake shifted gears and maneuvered the sleek sports car onto an exit ramp. “Do you want that? Seems you’d want folks to believe we’re getting married because we can’t keep our hands off each other.”

He paused. “Come to think of it, that’s pretty much the truth. At least for me. When we get inside, I’ll show you again why I want to keep you in my bed.”

He pulled into the garage. His eagerness seemed forced, though, when he hustled her upstairs and into the bedroom.

When he stripped her and then ripped off his own clothes, he acted like a man possessed.

Covering her immediately with his powerful body, he kissed away her doubts. As if he needed her, needed to reassure himself of her presence and her desire, he parted her legs and tested her readiness with tempered strokes of his hand. Wet and unbelievably ready for him, she arched her hips so he’d have easier access.

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“God, honey,” he moaned, pulling away from her to open the drawer of the bedside table. She watched the play of small muscles in his back as he ripped open the package and rolled a condom over his rigid sex.

God, how she loved this man! She longed to say the words she knew he didn’t want to hear.

What he wanted was inside her pussy. Now.

Roughly, he knelt and draped her silky legs around his shoulders. Grasping her hips, he positioned her and buried his cock to the hilt in one smooth thrust.

It felt like heaven and like hell. Her tight, wet pussy clasped him with rippling motions and made him want to lose himself inside her.

His cock pressed against the tip of her womb.

Jake wanted this fuck to last forever. He also wanted to move hard and fast, to explode in a carnal conflagration.

“Jake. Oh, Jake.” She clenched down on him hard, arching her back and taking him even deeper. “Love me.”

She slid her hands down his back and cupped his ass, urging him to move. He wrenched them away and held them at her sides, stroking her hard and fast until her moans crescendoed and she screamed his name.

One more thrust was all it took. His cock felt like it was exploding when he shot his load. Drained, he barely had the strength to roll onto his side before he collapsed.

She lay there facing him, her face flushed. Her rapid heartbeat made her beautiful tits move rhythmically against her chest.

Kate gave him more pleasure than any other woman ever had, and Jake took satisfaction in knowing he had brought her again to sensual oblivion.

He reached out and smoothed a wayward curl off her sweaty forehead. Then he peeled off the condom and tossed it into the wastebasket before pulling up the sheet and closing his eyes.

Kate wasn’t Alice.

Jake kept telling himself that. Staring at the ceiling while the room kept getting darker, he imagined the sun outside disappearing into the western sky.

Painful memories still assailed him. Memories of another woman and love turned to hate, grief for a child that never had a chance at life. The stinging ego-buster of knowing Alice had left him for Durwood Yates.

Yates had to be insane. And his madness must have festered over the years and finally come to a head in his decision to destroy GreenTex.

Despite the warmth of the bed and the woman who slept beside him, Jake shivered.

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He didn't love Kate or even completely trust her, but he needed her desperately. He turned back on his side and pressed his body to hers. With one arm, he held her close.

She warmed him as nobody ever had before, and he went to sleep.

When he woke, the morning sun was shining. Kate snuggled closer when he moved, and no force on earth was going to keep him from tightening his arms around her and holding her. When they finally got up and headed back to Groveland, Jake began to relax.

That inner contentment vanished when he thought of Yates and his hirelings, and of the vengeance he was going to take on the man for the misery he’d caused.

* * * * *

“You’ve been awfully quiet,” Jake commented as he made the turn off I-10 onto the secondary highway that would take them back to Groveland.

He hadn’t said much, either. He hadn't wanted to inflict his bitterness on Kate.

“I’ve been thinking about what I need to do. I don’t even know what you have at your ranch, or how much room you have for my things.”

She sounded sad. Jake hoped she wasn’t having second thoughts about packing up and leaving the home that obviously meant so much to her.

“You can redecorate the place from top to bottom if you want to, honey.” That was the least he could offer. And he was offering damn little, compared with the wholehearted love he’d once given Alice. “You’ll like the ranch.”

“I’m sure I will.”

Jake winced. He had built the house there after his divorce, thinking he would retreat from Houston and the bitter memories. “It’s got five bedrooms and six baths.

And half a dozen rooms downstairs. There’s plenty of space to put whatever you want.

I didn’t bother furnishing a lot of the rooms.”

“Oh. I assumed you’d have hired a decorator.”

“It seemed crazy to have the whole place fixed up just for me, since I’m away most of the time.”

“I see. Will you be spending much time there after we’re married?” When she twisted her ring around on her finger, he noticed her hands were shaking.

“Weekends, mostly. This field will keep me pretty busy for the next year or so, but at least it’s close enough so I can fly back and forth.”

When he saw her shocked expression, he grinned. “Not in the Lear. I have a twin-engine Cessna I keep out at the ranch. There has to be someplace close to Groveland where I can land it.”

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Kate smiled. “There’s a little airstrip about two miles from my house. Mike Thomas might be willing for you to use it. He has a couple of old airplanes he uses to do crop dusting.”

“That would be good.” Suddenly Jake realized he didn’t want to be away from Kate five days a week. Not as long as his cock was demanding regular attention from her pussy.

“You know,” he said, “if the noise doesn’t bother you too much, you could come back and forth with me. We could stay at your place. I’d like that.”

“So would I. Are you sure I wouldn't get in your way?”

Kate was pretty, but when she smiled at him the way she was doing now, Jake thought she was downright gorgeous.

“You wouldn’t be in the oil fields with me while I work. And I like to have you getting in my way at night.” Jake paused.

It wasn't just that he wanted Kate around to fuck. He liked waking up and finding her curled up next to him. And he enjoyed the easy companionship they shared sometimes when they both let down their guard.

He could handle those feelings, he told himself. As long as he could hold back the deep, tender emotions that would give her the power to hurt him.

“Would you like that, honey?” he asked, and he reached out and took her hand.

With one finger, he nudged the big diamond in her ring.

She was going to be his wife. He recalled the other promise he’d made to the Old Man before he proposed—that he’d start a family without delay.

Keeping her with him made sense. He’d have a better shot at getting her pregnant if the sex wasn’t limited to weekends when he made it home. His balls tightened painfully when he imagined fucking Kate every day without a condom between his cock and her tight, wet pussy.

“I’d like to stay with you.” Her slender fingers tightened around his hand, as if she shared the sudden sexual tension that just washed over him. “You said you’d like children. Did you mean you want them right away?”

“Yeah, if you don’t mind. It’s time. I’m thirty-one years old, honey. You're…hell, I don’t know how old you are, do I?”

There were a lot of little things he didn’t know about Kate. That bothered him.

There would be plenty of time to learn, though, he told himself as he stopped the car in front of her house.

Kate unfastened her seat belt. “I’m twenty-eight. My birthday is November twenty-eighth. I guess it’s past time for me to start a family, too,” she said as he walked around the car to open her door.

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“Our birthdays are close together. Mine’s the third of December.” He got Kate’s suitcase and followed her into the house.

“We can celebrate together,” he said, setting the bag in the hallway.

“I’ll like that. Are you going somewhere?”

Should he listen to his cock or his brain? Stay here and fuck her until they were both exhausted or go check out the drilling situation with Skip? His brain won out, but it was a damn close call.

“I’ll be back. I told Skip I’d go over the seismic readings with him and Fish as soon as we got back. Besides, I need to drop my stuff off at the trailer.”

Her soft curves tempted him, though, and he wrapped his arms around her and rested his cheek against her silky hair.

“You aren’t going to stay here with me?” she asked as she snuggled up closer.

“Not all night. Your neighbors wouldn’t much like me moving in before the wedding.” And he didn’t want to give sanctimonious biddies like Gladys Cahill another stick to beat over Kate’s head. “I’ll sneak out of your bed and sleep in the company trailer until we’re legal.”

“But—”

“This isn’t Houston, baby, and we’re gonna be spending time together around here for a good long time to come.” He tweaked her nipples, grinned with satisfaction when they beaded up against his fingertips. “Don’t take that to mean we’re not gonna have our fun.”

“All right. But Jake, I’ll miss waking up with you.”

No more than he’d miss sleeping with her soft and warm in his arms.

“Give me a kiss,” he said as he tunneled a hand into her hair. When he finally broke the contact and stepped back, his cock was so hard he thought it might burst.

“I’ll be back for dinner,” he said, and then he left while he still could. For a long time, he suffered with a painful hard-on.

* * * * *

Kate wandered around the house, looking at pictures, glassware and furniture she’d lived with all her life. Her feelings were jumbled. She loved Jake dearly and was anxious to marry him and start their family.

But a small voice kept reminding her he didn’t return her love. And the thought of taking family treasures out of the home they had graced for generations tore at her heartstrings.

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Sighing, she sank down onto a battered recliner that had been Pop’s favorite spot to rest. Without Jake, she was at loose ends. How quickly she’d become accustomed to the comfort of his presence.

She’d called Becky and put a chicken casserole into the oven. Now, Kate knew she should start sorting through boxes that held more than a hundred years of family memories. Even though Jake said she could send it all to his ranch, she couldn’t take everything. She should pack what she couldn’t bear to part with and make arrangements to discard the rest.

She’d start that job tomorrow.

Now she leaned back in Pop’s old chair and began to revisit memories she’d leave behind when she moved with Jake to Texas.

Pop used to hold her on his lap in this chair, reading Dr. Seuss books and telling her stories about her several times great grandfather who came to Groveland and built this house. While they’d taken their time together each evening, her mother had sewed or knitted, her slight body curled in a corner of the sofa by the window. Whenever Pop had said something interesting or funny, Mom had set down whatever she was doing and joined in the laughter. Even though Kate was the only one left now, she had a strong sense of family.

Pop had instilled it in her. From his stories, she’d come to know each of the long-dead family members whose pictures hung in nearly every room of the house.