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Instinctively her hands went above her head, bracing against the door as he began to thrust roughly into her, the rhythm savage and needy and deep. His arms came around her, moving up until he cupped her head, holding her protectively even as his body slammed into hers.
Her nails found his back, clawing, knowing that she was leaving marks, and not caring.
“Jake.”
He hissed as she said his name, rolling his hips into her. “Again.”
“Jake.”
His fingers clenched in her hair, once, twice, and then he went over the edge, calling her name on a hoarse cry as he spilled into her. She found her own release seconds after, her cry echoing through the tiny closed space of the car as she clenched around him, her hips moving in smaller and smaller jerks until the shaking finally subsided.
They held each other through the aftershocks, her hands smoothing the scratches on his back as he gently massaged her scalp.
“You’ve got to stop playing with my hair,” she said after long minutes. “You’re making me sleepy, and then I’ll fall asleep, and then your mom will know I didn’t sleep in the guest bedroom with her sewing machine.”
He brushed a kiss against her temple. “Always the good girl. Always following the rules.”
“Good girl? We just humped in a rental car.”
He pulled back then, grinning down into her face. “Did you just say humped?”
She blushed. “It seemed … fitting.”
But his smile had faded, and he was preoccupied as he drew absent circles with the top of his finger against her shoulder. “That thing you told my mom and sisters in the kitchen …”
She scrunched up her face. “When? What?”
“You said that you weren’t here because of the story. You said you liked me.”
Her stomach clenched. Oh. That.
Jake slowly moved one of his hands until it encircled her wrist, his thumb resting lightly against her pulse, which she knew was in overdrive.
His gaze collided with hers. “Did you mean it?”
She opened her mouth, but no words came out. What could she possibly say while lying beneath him in the backseat of a car, naked?
That she hadn’t meant it? That she’d lied to his family, and that she planned to write all about this little encounter on the blog?
But she couldn’t very well tell him to his face that she did mean it. She’d bet her left ovary that Jake Malone was a pro at giving easy, kind set-downs to overassuming women, and she had no intention of receiving one of those pretty dismissals.
So instead she met his gaze steadily and went for a compromise.
“I like you,” she said, watching his eyes go warm even as they went wary. His thumb skittered across her wrist in a gentle flicking motion.
“But,” Grace said, adding iron to her voice, “I also like baby tigers and hot fudge and too much wine, and a whole other slew of things that aren’t good for me. So you don’t have to worry about me chasing you when this is over.”
And it would be over.
Soon.
“I like you too,” Jake said, his expression once again easy and relaxed. “And Grace … you’re a very close second to Hannah Tanner.”
Then he stifled her outraged shriek with a very, very long kiss.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Two weeks later, things were still going almost alarmingly well. Far too well for a non-relationship that was supposed to be ending.
