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All of her trembling confusion transformed into heated excitement. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer, opening her mouth to the advance of his tongue.
And she wanted him so much. All of him. Exactly like this.
This was the Jake she’d always wanted.
His body was hard and hot as it pressed against hers, and then his free hand slid down until it was cupping the curve of her ass.
His hand in such an intimate place fired up even more of her senses, and her whole body started to throb with growing arousal.
He was getting turned on too. She could feel a hardness building where his groin was pressed against her middle.
He tasted faintly of the lemonade slush, exactly as she did. And he smelled just like Jake. He filled all of her senses.
She moaned low in her throat as pleasure and desire flooded her body, and she dug her fingers into his back, trying desperately to feel as much of him as she could.
Then suddenly he was releasing her, jerking away, stepping back awkwardly.
Leaving her limp against the car, shaking and bewildered.
“Oh, damn,” he muttered, turning away from her abruptly and bracing himself with one hand against the front of his SUV. “Oh, fuck. What am I doing?”
She’d known what she was doing. She’d been finally taking what she wanted.
And now she couldn’t even speak after how jarringly it had been ripped away from her.
They both just panted loudly for a minute. She stared at his tense back, and he stared at the pavement.
There was a spot of perspiration on his shirt, just between his shoulder blades. She wasn’t sure why she kept noticing it.
She really should have known better.
Miraculously, it seemed like he might be attracted to her. At least a little. Surely he wouldn’t have kissed her like that otherwise.
But attraction was never the strongest thing.
It was more than clear—it had always been more than clear—that, even if he wanted her, Jake was never going to take what he wanted.
“I’m sorry,” he said at last.
“It’s fine.” Her voice was soft, slightly resigned. Exactly as she felt. “Sometimes things like that just happen.”
“It shouldn’t have happened. I know it was…entirely inappropriate.” He still wasn’t looking at her. “It won’t happen again.”
Well, that made it even clearer.
She only had two more weeks to work for him, and she was at least going to hold onto her dignity. She wasn’t about to let him know she’d been so foolish as to fall for him. She would protect herself at least that much. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll just pretend it never happened. I’m not going to be working for you much longer anyway.”
His body jerked visibly, and he shot her a quick look.
“It was just a kiss,” she said, trying desperately to sound casual. “It’s not the end of the world.”
It felt kind of like the end of the world to her, but that was because she was still being foolish.
Her stupid, stupid heart was still hoping for something that she knew would never happen.
Four
The rest of the drive was quiet. Jake didn’t even make any more calls.
Anne desperately wanted things to return to normal between them—since she couldn’t stand the thought that he’d realized her feelings and was somehow feeling sorry for her—but there was nothing she could think of to say to clear the air.
She noticed Jake shooting discreet looks over at her occasionally, as if he were checking to see how she was feeling. She tried not to show any of her inner turmoil in her expression, but she didn’t know how successful she was.
If only there was work to do, she was sure they could get back to normal again. But there was no work left for them on the remainder of the drive. Just tension and a lot of silent questions that had no answers.
They finally made it to their hotel in San Diego. It was later than they’d planned, because of the heavy traffic, and Anne just wanted to hide in her room and pretend the day had never happened.
It had been better when all she’d had were vague daydreams. At least then she could enjoy the fantasy. Now, however, she had the intense memory of what it felt like to kiss Jake for real. She also had the bleak knowledge that he would never do it again.
