Manhunting Read online

  “How?” Kate asked dazedly. “Why?”

  “It’s a small town,” Nancy said. “We’ve been watching each other fall in and out of love forever. Beats TV.”

  “I’m not in love with Jake.” Kate took a deep breath. “And he’s not in love with me.”

  “Hold that thought, honey.” Nancy grinned at her. “It’s not going to do you a bit of good, but it will steady you for a while.”

  Kate concentrated on not looking back at Jake. “I think I’m in trouble here.”

  “Why don’t you go back in the storeroom and hunt me up another jar of olives,” Nancy said kindly. “Take your time. Breathe deep. Put your head between your legs.”

  “Olives,” Kate said. “Gotcha.”

  Chapter Nine

  Jake went back to the table and began to play, but his eyes were full of Kate. She was the kind of woman who would get him into trouble. She was vulnerable and bright and funny and desirable—God, was she desirable—and he’d end up following her back to the city and before he knew it, the hat would be gone and he’d be shaving the mustache off.

  Then he thought of Kate again, smiling at him. It might be worth it.

  He tried to look at the pool table, but his eyes were still full of Kate. All his memories came back—Kate laughing at him in the boat, Kate in lace and satin after taking off her blouse, Kate stretched out across the pool table under him, Kate walking out of the lake.

  He miscued, and the ball bounced off the table.

  “That’s going to cost you, buddy,” Ben crowed and began to run the table.

  Kate coming out of the lake. He closed his eyes and imagined her as she was then, imagined her under him as she’d been when they’d played pool; imagined her melting under him.

  “Come on, ace. It’s your turn.”

  Jake chalked his cue absentmindedly. Kate stretched out in the boat, her legs tangled with his. Kate stretched out on her bed, holding her arms up to him. Kate at the bar, her lips parted and her eyes half closed, telling him to send the right signals. Kate coming out of the lake.

  He miscued again.

  Ben stared at him. “Are you throwing this game?”

  “What?” Jake asked from a long way away.

  “Never mind,” Ben said, and started his run.

  Kate leaned against the shelves in the storeroom and tried to examine the situation logically. It was clearly impractical. Impossible. Jake was just a buddy. A good buddy. No, a great buddy. She remembered how much fun she’d had with Jake in the boat, how she’d felt with Jake’s eyes on her as she walked out of the lake, Jake’s leg carelessly touching hers in the boat, Jake’s hand on her arm, on her back. Jake.... She breathed faster, thinking about him.

  She heard a yell from outside in the bar. Somebody had just won a game of pool.

  Jake was clearly impossible, clearly, intoxicatingly impossible.

  She was in big trouble.

  At that moment Jake came into the storeroom and closed the door behind him. He watched her as she turned to look at him, her eyes full of heat.

  “Ben just beat me at pool.” He stood in front of her with his hands on his hips.

  “Good grief,” Kate said. “What did you do? Fall on your cue?”

  “I got distracted.”

  Jake leaned against the shelves, a hand on each side of her, and looked into her eyes. She suddenly had trouble swallowing.

  “We seem to have been a little slow here, darlin’,” he said, and bent down to kiss her softly. Time stopped, and Kate felt his lips distinctly on hers, not as a blurred impact, but as Jake’s lips touching hers. This is Jake, she thought. Jake. Oh my God.

  His mustache tickled a little, and he tasted faintly of beer and something else that was hot and sweet and intrinsically Jake. She opened her mouth to taste him again, touching his lips with her tongue and leaning into his kiss, and he pulled her into him, bending her back under him as he kissed her harder. She felt the world spin around her and kissed him back mindlessly, pressing against him, clutching his shoulders until he broke the kiss and moved her head under his chin. She could feel the pulse at the base of his neck pounding, feel herself breathing fast against his chest.

  “This isn’t quite what I had planned,” he said.

  “I know,” she said wildly. “Me either. Who cares? Kiss me again.”

  Jake cradled her face with his hands and kissed her softly once, twice, running his tongue over her lips, down her neck, kissing the hollow at the base of her throat. She trembled with wanting him, moving her hands over the muscles in his back, feeling them hard and tense under her touch.

  “This is making me crazy,” she said. “We have to stop.”

  “Right,” he said, moving his hands away. “Right.”

  As he brought his hands down, he accidentally brushed against her breast and she moaned. He froze, and then moved his hands under her tank top, cupping her breasts, rubbing his thumbs hard across her nipples through the lace of her bra. She clenched her teeth and shuddered, pressing against his hands, gasping at his touch, running her tongue along his collarbone, his neck. He kissed her, his tongue thrusting in her mouth, his hands hard on her breasts, and she pressed her hips against his, crying out with need.

  “Oh, God, Kate,” he said.

  She bit his arm through his shirt.

  “We need to make love,” he said into her hair. “For about two weeks. Right now.”

  She rubbed her face in his shirt. “Anything,” she said breathlessly. “Just keep making me feel like this.”

  Nancy knocked on the door came in.

  “Go away, Nancy,” Jake said, holding Kate close.

  “Kate’s off now,” she said. “Take the woman home.”

  “Good idea,” Jake said. “I’ll go bring the car around.” He slowly let her go, touching her cheek once, and then went out the back door.

  When he was gone, Nancy said, “You okay?” and Kate opened the large upright cooler and stuck her head in it.

  “In the long run, I’m in terrible trouble,” she said from inside the refrigerator. “In the short run, I’ll be okay as soon as that man puts his hands on me again.”

  “Go for the short run,” Nancy said.

  Kate expected to be embarrassed when she got in the car with him, but all she really felt was heat. She was having a hard time breathing.

  “I want you tonight,” Jake said as she got in the car.

  He took what little breath she had left away. The world looped around her.

  “Good,” she squeaked.

  “We have to go to my cabin first for protection,” he said.

  Kate swallowed and tried to fight her way through all the images that swamped her. Jake’s hands on her. All night Jake touching her. All over. “Oh, God.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Just touch me,” she said, and he put his hand on her leg, stroking her thigh while she breathed deeply beside him. She slid down a little in the seat, and his fingers moved higher, into the heat, until he supped his little finger under the lace of her panties, and she slid down farther, to make it easier for him.

  “Or we could just pull off to the side of the road here,” Jake said huskily.

  “Sounds good,” Kate said, and he laughed softly and moved his hand away.

  “We’ve been waiting a week,” Jake said. “We can wait the ten minutes to my cabin.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t know we’d been waiting a week,” Kate said, leaning closer to him.

  “I did,” Jake said. “I just wasn’t paying attention.” He put his arm around her and pulled her close while he steered the car up the road to the cabin. “I’m paying attention now.”

  Jake parked the car at an angle in front of his cabin, and pulled Kate up the steps, kissing her as they went. He shut the door behind them and caught her to him, kissing her again until she clung to him, breathless. “We don’t have to make up for the whole week tonight,” he told himself out loud, and Kate said, “Yes, we do,” and pu