Merry and Bright Read online

  “Because we’re so different.”

  “That’s right.”

  He felt himself go very still. Shit, he’d really been an idiot. Standing, he walked out of the bedroom, away from the gorgeous creature in silk, so he could think a moment. And what he thought made him very unhappy. All the alluding to Mr. Right and Mr. Wrong, the times she’d mentioned their differences . . . While he’d been enjoying those differences, she’d been thinking he was a step down for her. A big step. How it’d never occurred to him, he had no idea, but—

  “Jacob.”

  She’d followed him into the living room. He let out a breath and stared out her window into the dark night. “I realize I don’t have the fancy degrees or the high-paying job, but I don’t like the idea that you’re just slumming with me.”

  “No. No, you misunderstood. We’re different, yes. As in I’m anal, single-minded to the point of obsession, and frankly, socially handicapped.”

  He turned to face her but she held up a hand before he could speak. “You, however . . .” she continued softly, “you’re tough and confident and funny and effortlessly sexy. I’ve never been with a guy like you, Jacob, and now I know I shortchanged myself. That’s what I meant before. Yes, I’ve been interested in you since I first saw you again on your ladder in a pair of worn Levi’s, looking in charge of your world, and yeah, that’s extremely shallow of me, but it’s so much more than that. I love the way you think, how you always say what you mean, no guesswork. What you see is what you get with you, and that’s . . .” She searched for the words. “Incredibly appealing.”

  “I’ve been interested in you since I first saw you again,” he said. “Before I even knew it was again.”

  She looked surprised. “Really?”

  “Yeah, really. You were wearing a black skirt and a white blouse, with a peekaboo hint of lace beneath. And fuck-me heels.”

  She choked out a laugh. “I was not. They were higher than my usual, but I had a meeting that day and was looking for power.”

  “You got lust.”

  “My hair was out of control.”

  “It was up in some complicated twist and you had a few strands of hair falling out the back, dangling against your sweet neck. You were late, you were rushing, and you looked like a hot mess. Emphasis on the hot. But even then it was your brain that attracted me most. I love watching you think, Maggie.”

  “Do you know what I’m thinking now?” She stepped closer and slid her hands up his chest. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she pressed all that hotness up against him.

  “I could guess,” he murmured.

  She smiled, and it staggered him. “My life has always been MapQuested out,” she whispered. “The route carefully highlighted. But with you, I don’t know what to expect, I don’t know what you’re thinking or what you’re going to do. Nothing is planned out, nothing is guaranteed, and it’s . . . exciting, Jacob.”

  His hand swept down her body and up again. “So I turn your body on.”

  “You turn my head on.” She caught his face in her hands and went up on tiptoe. He could feel her breasts, nipples hard, pressing into his chest. “Do you understand?” she murmured against his mouth. “This isn’t a fifth date, where I’ve carefully reflected and decided it’s time to put ‘have sex’ on the calendar. I haven’t lit a candle or turned on the music like I usually do because that’s what sets the mood and helps me relax. I haven’t slathered myself in some pretty-scented lotion to make sure I’m turning you on. Hell, I didn’t shave my legs—” She went still and closed her eyes, relaxing back down on the balls of her feet. “Dammit, I didn’t shave my legs.”

  He grabbed her before she could turn away, hauling her back up against him. “I don’t care. Finish. Finish what you were going to say.”

  “I want you because you’re different from the norm for me. I want you because when I’m with you, I don’t have to think. I can just feel. I know we said this was a one-time thing, but make me feel again, Jacob, just once more.” She stepped back, then slowly slid first one spaghetti strap off her shoulder, and then the other, letting the cami slip. It snagged on her nipples for one heart-stopping second, then fell, revealing her mouthwatering breasts. She nudged it past her hips, where it landed in a puddle of silk at her feet. Eyes on his, she hooked her fingers in her panties, and he stopped breathing. “Love me, Jacob,” she whispered, gliding them down past her injuries—which made her want to wince, he could tell—past her thighs to join the cami at her feet. Straightening, she reached for his shirt. “Love me.”

  He had a feeling he already did, but that wasn’t what she meant, and all she wanted from him was this adventure, was what he could do to her in bed, so he tugged his shirt off over his head, lifted her up, and carried her back to her bedroom.

  Maggie expected Jacob to put her on the bed and then follow her down, but instead he sat on the mattress with her in his lap, his spine against the headboard.

  “So you don’t put your weight on your cuts,” he said, pulling her thighs on either side of his hips so that she straddled him, letting her feel exactly what her kisses and touches had done to him.

  There was something about being entirely naked while he still wore his jeans. It made her feel exposed, and yet so aroused she could hardly stand it. “I’m a little underdressed here.”

  “I know.” His eyes were lit with heat and desire as they took her naked body in. “I like it.” Then he covered her mouth with his, going in for a long, drugging kiss that did something shocking to her brain that she’d never managed before.

  It turned off.

  She wasn’t worried about what she looked like naked, or wondering if she’d turned off her cell phone, or if her front door was locked. She wasn’t doing anything but feeling—and oh, God, what a feeling she had with his hands skimming down her bare back, cupping her bottom, gently pulling her in closer, careful of her cuts and bruises, until she was as snug against him as she could be, making her intimately aware of his jeans. The denim rubbed her inner thighs, and between.

  He was hard. Big and hard and she pulled her mouth free to pop open his buttons, while his hands stroked her breasts, gliding over her nipples, leaving her to restlessly rock her hips. “Jacob—”

  “I know.” He took his hands on a tour down her ribs, her quivering belly, her thighs, which he urged even wider. His gaze dropped from hers, and he looked his fill, exhaling very heavily, very slowly, only to suck the air back in when she freed him from his jeans. Lifting his hips, he helped her shove them out of the way as his hands swept up her back, pulling her in close for another deep, soul-wrenching kiss, his hands making their way back down, over her bandages, between her legs. “God, you’re wet. So wet. I want to taste—”

  “Later—” She gasped out the word as he slid a finger into her. Needing him inside her, she lifted her hips.

  “Wait,” he rasped out. “Maggie, wait. I want to—”

  She sank onto him, and he gripped her hips to hold her still, his eyes trapping hers. Their twin sighs commingled in the air, and she knew right then, nothing about this was a one-time fluke.

  “Maggie,” he said, just that. She rocked her hips to meet his, staring with wide wonder into his eyes, her hands touching as much of his hard, damp, straining body as she could. Yeah, it’d been a while, a long while since she’d been with anyone else, and yet she could say with the utmost authority that it had never felt like this.

  And then he began to move. Her toes curled, her entire body tingled from the inside out as sheer, unadulterated pleasure hummed through her. It was perfect, it was heaven, and when he banded his arms tightly around her, pushing up, thrusting hard, his teeth scraping her throat, she felt herself start to come apart for him again.

  But this time, he was right there with her, just as far gone himself, and when she came on a cry of sheer surprise at the infusion of pleasure, she heard his own low, rough groan as he shuddered and followed her over.

  9

  Jaco