Sweet Deal (21 page)

And over those days he felt himself sliding into something, something sweet and warm, something hot and exhilarating, something he couldn’t name, but it both soothed him and tied him up in knots.

Finally the funeral was over and it looked as if life could go back to normal. Well, sort of normal. And certainly not for Kiara.

Jake took Shelby back to her apartment that evening, and didn’t think twice about going in with her. In her living room, they turned into each other’s arms, seeking comfort, consolation, life.

He pushed the little cardigan she wore off her shoulders and began unbuttoning the silk blouse beneath it. She stood there gazing at him, a small smile on her lips.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“For what?” He concentrated on the small pearl buttons.

“For being here. For being you.” She pushed his hair back off his forehead, let her fingers trail over his cheek and jaw. The tenderness of her gesture made him feel like a fist was squeezing his heart. “Take me to bed.”

Her words inflamed him. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t had sex at all the last few days—they had. But tonight felt like an ending.

And a beginning. It felt…significant. Like it meant something.

He parted the sides of her blouse, tugged it out from her skirt, skimmed his fingers over the top curves of her breasts above the lacy bra. It had been a funeral, for Chrissakes, and he’d still been imagining what she had on underneath the tidy little skirt, blouse and cardigan. He tugged the double strand of pearls she wore at her neck, getting all kinds of dirty ideas about that, using the pearls to pull her closer to kiss her mouth.

“Oh yeah,” he muttered. “Wearing nothing but these pearls.”

She moaned and clutched his shoulders.

He pushed off the cardigan, and then the silk blouse fluttered to the floor. Her zipper rasped open and the skirt joined her other clothing, leaving her standing in black high heels, black lace and pearls. Jesus. He took a moment to appreciate her with his eyes, the visual stunning and erotic and lovely.

Twisting the pearls in his hand, he turned and walked toward her bedroom, tugging her along with him. Her soft moan made him twitch hard. In her dim bedroom, he flicked on the small lamp then turned to her, still holding the pearls, making them snug against her throat, and he kissed her.

She’d had a rough day. A rough few days. He wanted to make her feel better. So much better. His tongue slid into her mouth. She tasted sweet, her tongue against his making him hard, and he wanted her. Fire lit up every nerve ending in his body and he lifted his mouth from hers and kissed her bare shoulder, licked her skin, still holding the pearls. Her soft moan inflamed his senses even more.

He managed to flick open the bra at her back and she wriggled out of it with an enticing jiggle of her lush breasts, and still he held her by the pearls as he kissed her throat and licked his way down between those breasts. Her head fell back and he took his time sucking at her tight little nipples, loving the sweetness, the feel of them fitting to his tongue, the soft resilient flesh pressed to his lips.

His other hand slid down her back and slipped into her panties, cupping one smooth cheek. She trembled and he lifted his head. “Take your panties off,” he ordered hoarsely.

Without a pause she pushed them down over her hips and stepped out of them, now wearing heels and pearls. “Oh baby,” he groaned. Reluctantly he released the necklace and lifted her. He carried her to the bed where he laid her down, gently, reverently, as if she were fragile. And he quickly stripped out of his own clothes, too many clothes, the damn suit and tie he’d worn to the funeral.

She toed off her sexy shoes, letting them fall to the rug with a
thunk-thunk,
and she slipped under the covers. He slid in beside her and moved over her. Her hands reaching for him, her soft murmurs of pleasure, had heat pouring over his body, liquid pleasure running through his veins.

Her body rippled under his hands as she gave herself up to him, and he got lost in it, in the sensation, in the heat, in the unbearable sweetness and erotic pleasure, but also in the emotion of it, swelling inside him, powerful and huge.

They rolled and twisted together, mouths fused in long, endless kisses, hands all over each other, sliding into a hazy, erotic dream. She bit his shoulder softly, licked his skin, made him burn. He worshiped her with his mouth, his tongue, his hands, everywhere, slipped his hand between her legs, found her soft, wet center, and rubbed his thumb over her clit until she vibrated.

He shifted away from her to reach for a condom beside the bed, and her hand on his shoulder stopped him. “No,” she whispered. He met her eyes, huge and shadowed in the dim room. “I don’t want that tonight. I want to feel you inside me—just you.”

He nodded. They’d danced casually around the subject one night, knew they were safe with each other. And he so wanted to be inside her, bare, flesh to flesh, feeling her sweet heat. He fell over her, buried his face in the side of her neck, breathed in the familiar peachy-pear scent of her. He felt something clench in his chest, struggled to breathe, then levered himself up above her.

The pearls lay at her throat, creamy and gleaming softly in the low light. Her lips parted, her eyes gazed up at him, her hands on his chest. Their gazes held for a long moment while heat built and shimmered around them. His heart beat in a slow, heavy rhythm against his ribs at the raw emotion on her face, her shining eyes, soft mouth.

He twined his fingers into the pearls once more, made them a snug collar, the gesture utterly dominant, possessive and claiming. And still she held his gaze, submitting to him, surrendering to him, allowing him to claim her and in doing so, completely captivating him and making him hers.

He lifted her thigh, pushed into her body, and as his bare flesh met hers, scalding hot and wet, as she surrounded him and tightened around him, sensation poured over him, and the overwhelming intimacy of it made him feel like he was dying and flying up to heaven, lost, completely lost. He slid in and out of her silky heat as she squeezed around him, her small hands pressed to his chest.

“Jake.”

He gazed down at her, riveted by the sight of her beautiful face, his hand holding the pearls at her throat, her bare shoulders, as he thrust deeper, harder, felt her lift into him. He watched her eyelids drift closed, her mouth open, drank in her hot little whimpers and soft sighs that built to a climax of pleasure, her fingernails digging into his pecs in a sweet bite of pain. He’d never seen anything as beautiful as watching her come, her body tightening, her pussy rippling around him, and it undid him, the surge of sensation and emotion inside him almost unbearable.

This was what he wanted, what he needed, what he wanted to give, this was everything. It was sex. It was life. It was love.

His thighs quaking, his balls tight, the tension at the base of his spine sizzled painfully. His vision darkened, electricity sparked up his spine, frying his brain, singeing every nerve ending in his body. He dropped his head between her breasts and he came, his cock jerking with every wrenching pulse inside her, so hard and violently, he was afraid he’d completely lost his mind.

And his heart.

Chapter Seventeen

A melting sweetness throbbed through Shelby as Jake’s heavy weight pressed her into the mattress, and tears welled in her eyes at the perfection of it, the overwhelming intensity of it, the rush of emotion inside her so strong, so sweet.

She wrapped her arms around his back and held on tight, as tight as she could. His face buried between her breasts, he drew in long, ragged breaths. He had to feel it too. It was too powerful not to.

Oh dear lord. This wasn’t supposed to happen to them. This was a deal. A sweet deal, yes, but a deal nonetheless, both of them on the same page about not wanting a relationship, not wanting anything more than hot sex and a fake boyfriend for her.

There was nothing fake about the emotion swelling in her, so achingly lovely, so terrifyingly real. He consumed her, he took possession of her, and she’d willingly let him, given herself over to him completely, and not just her body, knowing that giving herself to him was not only what he wanted and needed, but was what
she
wanted and needed.
He
was what she wanted and needed.

She was in love with him.

She sucked in her bottom lip, eyes stinging, heart constricting. She knew he’d felt something, but he was a guy, and maybe it was just his orgasm that had made him look so…what? What had that look in his eyes been? It looked like tender possession, like worship and devotion, but was it really love?

“Oh, Shelby.” His murmured words had her blinking tears as he moved on her, lifting himself so he could kiss her. A long, tender kiss that had her heart turning over. “You undo me, baby. Completely undo me.”

She blinked up at him and gave a shaky smile as he rolled to his side, pulling her with him, still inside her in the most intimate of connections. He pulled her thigh over his hip and tucked her head under his chin.

She wanted to talk. She
so
wanted to talk, to ask him a million girlish questions about his feelings. But she’d done that before—asked all those questions right after sleeping with a guy, a guy she probably shouldn’t have slept with, then felt him withdraw and cool off. Never to be seen again. So she kept her questions to herself, snuggled into Jake. She loved how he felt against her, big and hot, hair roughened and masculine. She loved how his hand stroked absently up and down her spine, sending a torrent of tingles over her when he reached that sensitive spot at the base of her spine and lingered there.

“Back to work tomorrow?” he asked her, his hand sliding back up her spine.

Okay. So this was where the after-sex talk was going to go.

“Yeah.” She sighed. “Thanks for your help with my project stuff. I’m going to have to meet with Andrew and go over it all.”

“You’re welcome. I like doing stuff like that. Better than my own job, in fact.”

She lifted her head. “If you don’t like your job, you should quit. Life’s too short to be miserable all day, every day.”

“I guess.”

“The economy is picking up. Are you sure you couldn’t do it?”

“I need a partner.”

“Why?” She rubbed her hand over his shoulder. “Really, why? You’ve got everything you need. Look how you helped me with that problem. You know your stuff. That wasn’t even your company and you knew how to help me. You didn’t make me feel like an idiot. You even came up with a great idea for how to fix things.”

“No.
You
came up with the great idea.” He smiled at her. “Maybe my suggestions sparked something, but you came up with it on your own, and I have to say, it’s brilliant.”

Warmth spread in her chest. “I’d hire you.”

“Thanks.” His smile deepened.

“Seriously, Jake. Is it the money? Do you need someone else to make it work financially?”

“No.” He ran his hand over the curve of her butt and she wriggled against him in response. “I have enough money put aside. There aren’t huge start-up costs for a consulting business. I could even work from home at first.”

“You might need to tidy up a little.”

For that he gave her a little swat on the butt, but he smiled.

“I just need money to keep me going until revenue starts coming in. That could take a while.”

He told her then about his plan, about the contacts he’d made, about how he’d approached many of them about whether they’d use his services and how he’d felt confident he had a good start on a client base.

“There you go. You could totally do it.” She paused. “Look at what happened to Adam.”

“What do you mean?”

“He was only a few years older than you.”

“I know. It’s scary, isn’t it?”

“But in a way, it makes you think. What if we only had a few years to live? How would you want to spend it?”

He gazed back at her and then his eyes closed and his arms tightened around her. “Yeah,” he said, raw emotion roughening his voice. “Yeah.”

The next day both Jake and Shelby returned to work full time, ready to get caught up. In his office, that feeling of a new beginning stayed with Jake. He remembered how Shelby’s faith in him when they’d talked last night had made his heart squeeze, how he’d gazed back at the beautiful, loving, supportive woman in his arms, and how that sensation of falling had come over him, and how he’d grabbed on to her and held her tight.

He also recalled the conversation he’d had with Drew.

Having just attended the funeral of a thirty-three-year-old man must have shaken him up a bit, made him think of all kinds of shit. Shelby made him think of all kinds of shit. The bigger picture of his life. He was usually so good at seeing the big picture. But now he saw how for the last year he’d been so narrowly focused on how wrong he’d been done, rejected, abandoned, full of self-doubts, that he’d lost sight of his goals and plans and hopes and dreams.

He went back to the file he’d kept on his USB drive for the last year. The business plan for the consulting business he and Andrew had been starting he’d told Shelby about. The financials. The market research. The list of potential clients. The economy was picking up. Things were a lot more positive than they’d been a year ago.