The Sapphire Affair (Jewel #1)(39)

He stood watch by the edge of the dance floor, the darkness of the purple lights from overhead eclipsing him. He alternated between keeping an eye on her and not letting the guys out of sight. Didn’t like them. Before Steph had arrived, he’d spotted them at the end of the bar, and he swore the blond dude with the stupid-ass grin had dropped something in a drink. Jake had no clue what had become of the drink, but he was going to make damn sure the guy didn’t try to pull that shit with Steph or anyone else.

She was smart, and he doubted she’d take a drink from a stranger, but when the guy inched closer to her, a glass of clear liquid in his hand, Jake wasn’t going to take a chance.

The blond dude smiled and said hello to her.

Oh hell no. That was not going to fly.

Quickly threading through the packed crowd on the dance floor, he found his way to her and dropped a hand on her hip. She flinched at first, then glanced back at him.

“Oh. Didn’t realize you were still here,” she said.

“Still here,” he said, meeting her blue-eyed gaze. They hadn’t talked after their recon mission—she’d gone straight to the stage, and he didn’t want to spend too much time with her in public, though a few minutes now, by the darkened edge of the stage, amid the huge crowd, was safe enough. Jake’s eyes drifted briefly to the blond guy who hadn’t quite gotten the message. He was standing far too close, so Jake tugged her near him. “A woman like you doesn’t need a frat boy,” he said in a low voice, just for her.

She arched an eyebrow. “Is that so? What does a woman like me need?”

The guy flubbed his lips and walked away. Mission accomplished.

Jake could walk away, too.

But he didn’t. He was mere millimeters from her, and that coconut scent was in his damn nostrils again. Reminding him of how her skin tasted. How she smelled when he’d kissed her. And how goddamn much he wanted to wrap her legs around his waist.

Digging his thumb into her hip, he answered her. “Someone who knows how to savor a stunning marine biologist.”

That earned him a sparkling smile. She raised her chin as the music pulsed from the stage. “Savoring is your specialty, I take it?”

While he hadn’t cut across the floor to flirt, he found himself unable to stop. Being this close to her short-circuited all his brain cells. “Oh, believe you me. I am excellent at that pursuit,” he said, letting go of her hip, so his fingers drifted across the fabric of her dress to her belly.

“How would you do that? Savor me, that is.”

He flicked her belly button ring through the material, and her breath caught in response. “I’d run my tongue across this ring, then properly kiss you all over. Every inch. That’s what you need. That’s what you deserve.”

“Proper kissing? Everywhere?” she asked, her voice breathy and low, but he heard every word because they were only for him.

He splayed his palm over her flat belly. The club goers crowded them in, crushing them closer together, and the press of bodies and the tightness of the space made it so hardly anyone could tell who was with whom. “Everywhere,” he said as his thumb dropped lower, tracing a line along the waistband of her panties, making his intentions clear. “Everywhere along your beautiful body.”

She shivered, and her lips parted, but she said nothing. Maybe she was wondering why the hell he was saying these things when they’d agreed to cool it. Hell, he was wondering, too. “You deserve someone who craves the taste of your lips. The feel of your body. Most of all, a woman like you deserves a man who understands the three-to-one ratio.”

She scrunched her brows together. “What’s that?”

He brushed her blonde strands away from her ear, cupped a hand over it, and whispered, “I would make sure you come three times before I even do once.”

She gasped, and her lips fell open.

He wrenched back. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow at two. I’d better go before someone sees how much I want you right now.”

Because he wasn’t supposed to. He wasn’t supposed to want her this badly.

He made his way to the exit. The same guy from last night was manning it. Jake cleared his throat. “I believe there’s a gentleman in there who might be slipping something into women’s drinks,” he said, then described the blond guy.

Cal Winters nodded a thanks. “I’ll take care of it right away.”

Then Jake returned to his hotel room and pictured working on that three-to-one ratio.





CHAPTER FIFTEEN


Shorts and T-shirt, skirt and tank top, or sundress? What on earth do you wear to a . . . stakeout?

Was this even a stakeout?

Steph shook her head, answering her own question.

No. It was more of a mission. An intel-gathering mission, to be precise. And her role was playing the getaway driver as well as the diamond babysitter.

Still, she couldn’t decide what to wear. Her bed was a mess, littered with clothes and bikinis, because one should always have a bikini handy in a beach town. She grabbed the pink one with polka dots, tugged it on, pulled on a sundress, and slid into flip-flops. There. Seemed a suitable wardrobe for this next phase of the plan.

She was grabbing her purse when someone rapped on the door.

She froze.

She’d hoped to be in the lobby at two and meet him there. Because Jake in her room? That would test all her sweet-devouring, three-to-one, do-bad-things-to-me resolve.