Rev It Up (Black Knights Inc. #3)(36)

Don’t do this to me…

She hesitated, taking a deep breath before swinging around to face him. She shouldn’t ask, but she just couldn’t help herself, “Why is that?”

“Because I got your letter.” Her heart began beating so fast she felt dizzy. “And it changed everything for me.”

She resisted the urge to lift a hand to her spinning head. “Wh-what do you mean?”

“I mean, I always figured you hated me. I figured you’d never be able to forgive me after the way I treated you, after the things I said, after what happened to Preacher. But then I got that letter from you, asking me to come here, telling me you, Boss, and Rock were waiting for me, worried for me, and for the first time I began to have hope.”

“And your response to that hope was to completely ignore me?”

“I wasn’t ready yet,” he admitted. “I needed to wait until I was sure of myself.”

“What are you talking about?” she demanded, planting her hands on her hips.

He smiled and took a step toward her, but at her hard look, he halted and tucked his hands in his pockets. “I’ll explain everything to you. I promise, I will. But right now, the thing that’s most important, the thing I want you to realize, to understand, is that I haven’t slept with anyone in two years.”

Suddenly, she was unaccountably tired, and the toothpick comment didn’t seem all that farfetched. “So what do you want from me, Jake?” she sighed, shaking her head. “A medal?”

“No. No medals. I just told you so you’d know I’m nothing like your father.”

Her cheeks stung with swift heat. “Now what is that supposed to mean?”

“Boss explained what happened with your dad. He told me what a bastard the guy was and that you think I’m just like him. But I’m not, Shell. You can trust me. If you give me your heart, I promise I won’t shit all over it like your father did.”

“Yeah,” she scoffed, amazed at both his audacity and his ability to not only lie to her, but also to himself. He was exactly like her father. He’d proven it time and again. “Because you were sooo careful with my heart the first time.”

“So, you admit to giving me your heart? Earlier tonight you said you’d never loved me.”

Crap, crap, crap!

“Whatever,” she waved a hand through the air. Hoping, in the process, to wave away the point he’d made. “The fact of the matter is: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

“But I didn’t fool you. There were circumstances you don’t—”

“It doesn’t matter,” she quickly interrupted, so tired of listening to lies, and worse, actually finding herself wanting to believe them.

He opened his mouth to say something else when Franklin’s sleepy voice drifted down from the second floor, “Mama! I’m thirsty!”

“I’ll be right up, sweetpea!” she called, beyond grateful for the excuse to quit the field as once again she turned toward the living room.

“We’re not finished talking about this,” Jake grumbled at her back.

“Yes, we are.”

From the corner of her eye, she saw him take a determined step in her direction, and she swung around, startled.

He moved with the easy beauty of the supremely fit. Not one ounce of wasted movement. And no matter how hard she tried to tell him she was serious, that she didn’t have anything else to say, she could only stare in horrified awe at the resolved glint in his eye.

She finally managed to work her tongue loose. “Wh-what in the world are you—”

He didn’t hesitate, didn’t telegraph his intentions. One second he was stalking toward her, the next second he had her face cupped between his strong hands and his warm lips settled over hers. The kiss was so tender, so deep, that it forced all the breath from her lungs.

***

This is a mistake.

He knew it like he knew his name was Jacob Michael Sommers. But he couldn’t help himself. She refused to listen to what he had to say, and the only other way he could think to convince her that she was wrong, that there was still something between them, something that could grow if only she’d let it, was to prove it to her physically.

“I want you so much,” he breathed against her lips, reveling in their lushness, in the sweet taste of the wine that still lingered on her tongue from dinner. “And I know you want me, too.”

He could feel it in the way she fought with herself, fought to keep from stepping toward him, fought to keep from fully tasting his tongue.

She failed on all counts.

“No,” she shook her head. But when he bent to kiss the side of her exposed neck, she melted instantly, her body language completely at odds with her next words. “I don’t want you.”

He glanced at her face, gratified to discover she was lying through her teeth. Because there was no mistaking the hot desire shining in her gorgeous, gorgeous eyes.

She licked her lips, her tongue a flash of delicious pink, and he could barely breathe, barely think. His brain cells were no longer receiving enough blood to fire his synapses. So he kissed her again, walking her backward until he pinned her against the wall.

And he remembered this was how it’d been that night at the Clover. The two of them, against the wall of the men’s restroom, caught in a burning embrace that threatened to ignite into an inferno at any second.