Dreaming of the Wolf (Heart of the Wolf #8)(17)

Despite his better judgment, he ignored her comment, which had as much as said she thought he had just wanted her for the sex and now was leaving her behind. He tucked his arms behind his head. “I’ve only been to Breckenridge the one time. You might know the area better than I do. Anyplace you’d like to go? Hiking? Kayaking? Something else?”

Her eyes widened a bit as she pulled on her blouse and began buttoning it. “Are you serious?”

He thought from the tone of her voice that she might even be pleased. But her expression was still guarded. His gaze slid down her long bare legs, and again he envisioned her on her back and those shapely legs wrapped around his hips as he entered her again. He blinked, trying to get the image out of his mind.

“We could take in a movie. Drive-in preferred if they have any here in Breckenridge.”

She smiled a little at the suggestion, and he swore he could see her thinking like he was—snuggling, kissing, getting hot and bothered in the backseat of his pickup, and forget whatever was playing on the silver screen.

“You are serious.” Her expression brightened several degrees. “But the nearest drive-in is about three hours away.”

In that moment, she looked innocent again, not at all as though she might imagine the lustful notions he was conjuring up. He took a deep breath. He had it bad.

It didn’t seem fair to her that she didn’t know what her sweet body was doing to his thoughts. Except that his body was already reacting to his lascivious ruminations.

“I had considered going back with you to your hotel and checking out your accommodations. To make sure they’re safe.” He suggestively waggled his brows, noting that she was having a hard time keeping her gaze focused on his, her eyes considering his physique as if she was amused he was having trouble keeping his bodily reactions under control.

And that was causing him further difficulty in keeping his mind on the idea of tackling other pursuits with her.

She smiled wryly at that. “Umm-hmm.”

“I’m serious. I’m game for anything else you’d like to do. And we’re still having lunch at the steak place later this afternoon—on me.”

“All right,” she said softly, and tossed his boxers to him.

He caught them midair and grinned, the utterly wicked gleam in his eye saying he wanted her again. “You keep looking at me the way you do, and we’ll be here all day and night.” He gave her a lustful wink that said he was game.

Caught in the act of ogling him way too much, Alicia felt her face heat, and she smiled at Jake, although she hadn’t thought he had noticed her studious appraisal of his sinful body since he was so busy admiring hers. She didn’t recall either of her husbands caring anything about what she looked like after she’d been with them for a while, just as long as she removed her clothes quickly and was ready for them to sate their needs in record time. They had been drunk half the time when she was married to them and just wanted to get the deed done before they passed out.

But with Jake, it was so different. So right.

Trying to get her mind off his hunky body and her embarrassment at getting caught perusing him to such a degree, she leaned down to get her skirt. She figured that women were probably always taken in by his arresting looks and he was oblivious to it.

But she could kick herself for agreeing to do anything further with him when she should have been fighting this rabid attraction they had for one another all along. He was so hot. No one she had ever dated had been as sexy or funny or protective as Jake. She’d thought he wouldn’t have been as good “in bed” as he was, that maybe having a fling would make her realize how he was just like her ex-husbands, neither of whom had made the effort to pleasure her.

She’d thought sex was about the man having all the fun. Not with Jake. Her needs, her arousal came before his own. For the first time ever, she’d really climaxed! She hadn’t faked it. Hadn’t needed to. She could still envision Jake’s fingers entering her, as if he was ensuring she truly had reached the pinnacle before he found release in her. She couldn’t believe he had done that and thought the world of him for it.

Yet something was holding him back now. A former relationship gone bad, maybe? A man who could have fun for a little while, but commitment wasn’t part of his psyche?

It shouldn’t have mattered. She shouldn’t have even gone this far with him. But during the three years since her last divorce, she’d avoided men like the plague. Until she had seen Jake and been drawn to him, probably because he had been intrigued with her from the start and then definitely because of his coming to rescue her in the restaurant. And then coming for her here to protect her if she needed protecting. She’d never known any man to stick his neck out for her. Not her fly-by-night boyfriends or her two ex-husbands, either.

She blamed her first marital misstep on his and her youth and wanting to get away from her mother and the loser her mother had picked up at the time. The second marital mistake was one of those proverbial on-the-rebound blunders. Both marriages had been over in a flash since she’d married in Texas and they’d been Army guys. Quickie divorces were the thing. Neither of the guys were hero types like she thought a man in uniform should be. Oh sure, many were. But with her luck with men, she’d picked up two that were anything but. Carousing, drinking, all-around losers. She’d attributed it to looking for love in all the wrong places.