She sighed and dropped her forehead to his chest. “I don’t have plans to go anywhere, Jack. Does that make you feel any better?”

When he didn’t respond, she lifted her head and let out a mirthless laugh. “I see that makes you feel worse,” she said. “Since it means you’re stuck with me. Aren’t we a pair? Look, I really do need to go. Apparently I can only pretend to like you in small doses.”

Ignoring the fact that they were visible to anyone coming down the street, he pressed into her again, plastering himself to her from chest to thigh.

An electric charge zinged between them, heating the air. She didn’t move, not a single muscle.

He couldn’t say the same since he went instantly hard.

“Jack,” she whispered, gaze on his mouth. “Don’t. We’re too bad at this.”

“So let’s go back to something we’re good at,” he said, and kissed her, long and hard and wet. It wasn’t enough. Fisting his hands in her hair, he held on to her and plundered. With a moan that soothed his soul, she wound her arms around his neck. “Damn you,” she murmured against his mouth. “Damn you.”

With a growl, he backed her into his front door, unlocking it, pulling her inside.

They staggered like drunks into his living room, still kissing while attempting to strip each other.

Kevin, thinking they were playing, was jumping up and down on his back legs like Scooby-Doo, trying to get in on the fun.

“Sit,” Jack told him.

Kevin barked. Jesus. “Kevin, bark.”

Kevin sat.

Leah was shaking with laughter when Jack once again took her mouth with his. The urgency hadn’t abated. She got his shirt unbuttoned and off one arm. He kicked off one boot while ripping off her sweater. She tripped over the boot, and they both went down onto his couch.

She landed on top, forcing the air out of his lungs with her bony elbow. Hell, she very nearly unmanned him completely with an ill-placed knee. None of it mattered as he continued to kiss her like she was better than air.

And in that moment, she was.

Chapter 19

Leah sat up to take in the glorious sight of Jack sprawled beneath her on the couch. He wasn’t like any other man she’d ever been with. Even when he was in a hurry, he never let anything rush him.

She’d watched him at the fire. Calm, level-headed, never losing his cool.

Now he lay still with deceptive languor, deceptive because she could feel him, thick and hard between her legs as she straddled him. Weaving her fingers in his, she slowly slid his arms up, resting them above his head on the back of the couch. Holding him like that, she rocked against him.

He groaned, simmering heat radiating from his big body. “Leah, kiss me.”

Oh yes, she’d kiss him, but first she let go of his hands to shove his shirt up. “Mmm,” she said, and stared down at what she’d exposed. Warm skin and ridged muscle.

He looked up at her, gaze hot and unapologetically sexual. His pants had ridden low, revealing the way his obliques were cut at his hips. She wanted to taste him there. So she did just that, humming in pleasure while he gave a low growl.

At the sound, Kevin bounded over and thrust his huge head between Jack’s and Leah’s, trying to see what he was missing. “Lay down,” Jack commanded.

If he’d used that voice on her she would have done anything he commanded, but Kevin only whined.

“Horse factory,” Jack grated out.

Kevin heaved a sigh and trotted off.

“Do you have birthday plans?” Leah asked Jack softly, unbuttoning his pants. She ran her fingers down the center of his chest and lower abdomen, following the line of dark hair to where it vanished into his opened pants.

“Yes,” he said, his voice sounding as strained as the waistband of his boxers. “I have plans to make you scream my name.”

“I’m not much of a screamer.”

“I have my ways.”

Leah shivered because she knew it to be true. She’d seen firsthand what happened when Jack was…determined. Her body quivered again as she took in the sight of him beneath her, taut, ripped, waiting with mock patience. “Ah,” she said, “but it’s your birthday. Maybe you’ll scream my name.”

He slid his hands to the backs of her thighs and then up her skirt to cup and squeeze her bottom. Then he tore away her panties.

“Jack!” she gasped in shock.

“Hmm. That’s a good start.” He nudged her bra straps from her shoulders. “Take this off,” he said, then put his attention to shoving up her skirt. His gaze followed his fingers, and at the sight of her, he growled out her name.

She unhooked her bra and let it slip down her body, and then kissed him again, a soft touch of lips to lips before pulling back slightly.

His warm brown eyes were heavy-lidded as he watched her watching him. Reaching for her hands, he guided them down his chest and farther until she’d wrapped her fingers around his hard length.

She squeezed, and a slight tremor ran through him. Practically vibrating with pleasure, she kissed her way down the same path her hands had taken. “Happy…” She gave him a long, slow lick. “Birthday…”

With a low, long groan, his fingers slid into her hair. Not pulling, not guiding…more like he needed a handhold.

Against him, she smiled. He’d been her neighbor. Her protector. Her greatest friend. But her favorite thing was what they were now. Lovers. They fit together as if they were made for each other. Knowing it, reveling in it, she took him into her mouth. Beneath her, hands still tangled tight in her hair, his h*ps bucked, control slipping. “Fuck, Leah.”

“Later,” she said, and made him snort. And then she made him sweat. And pant. And swear like a sailor.

And then finally, she made him come, hard.

Afterward, he hauled her up his body to kiss her with enough heat to let her know he’d liked the birthday gift.

Then he flipped them so he was on top, his arms bracketing her body. Every part of him slid against every part of her, and she wrapped her arms and legs around him, anticipation swimming through her.

As she’d done to him, he slid his hands to hers and slowly guided them above her head to the armrest of the couch. He squeezed her fingers and met her gaze, his message clear. Leave them there.

She drew one breath before he took possession of her mouth, and it was like she’d never been kissed before. She’d never even dreamed that a kiss could be so…soul searching.

Perfect.

It was different from their earlier kisses, which had all been just as hot, but also flirty. No end destination.

This was different. This was…intense, demanding everything from her, and her heart started to pound against her ribs.

Lifting his head, he stared into her eyes, trailing his fingers down her jaw, his mouth following, along her throat, where he stopped at the pulse point.

His thumb lightly glided over the spot. “You’re either having a heart attack or I’m really doing it for you,” he murmured.

“Both. Jack—”

“Shh,” he said, his gaze hot enough to scorch. “It’s my turn now.” And then he lightly nipped her throat before soothing the sting with a kiss. Her collarbone was next, and then her breast. He took her nipple into his mouth and laved, nipped, and teased until she was writhing beneath him. Then he switched sides, taking his sweet-ass time about it too, until she whispered his name. And then said it again in a rather commanding tone that matched the frantic rock of her hips.

This only encouraged further torture on his part. He slid to his knees on the floor as he finally, God finally, kissed his way down her stomach.

Her skirt was still shoved up to her waist, and he seemed to really like the look as he stroked a hand over one thigh, urging her to open for him, to hook her leg on his shoulder. His other hand rested low on her belly, so low his thumb could lightly scrape over her. And then not so lightly. “I have condoms,” she managed. “An entire box of them. In my purse.”

He looked up at her, his eyes dark and intense with concentration, though now there was also a light of humor. “That’s a big box.”

She felt herself flush. “Well, I thought maybe we weren’t done yet.”

Turning his head, he rubbed up against her inner thigh with a day’s worth of scruff on his jaw.

She nearly came. “Jack—”

“I bought some too. Also a big box. Because I was sure we weren’t done yet.” He glided his thumb over her again and followed it up with his tongue, eyes still on hers.

A man had never looked at her like that, not in her entire life. And okay, so she wasn’t all that experienced, but she was feeling things, so many, many things, and she could tell that he was feeling them too. She breathed more than said his name, and he let his eyes drift closed as he went back to what he was doing—driving her out of her ever-loving mind. He was quite thorough about it too, and she lost it completely, coming with a shuddering cry that rocked her to her very core.

Jack staggered to his feet. “Bed,” he said firmly.

“I can’t feel my legs.”

“I’ve got you.” Bending over her, he stilled when she slapped a hand to his chest.

“You’re not going to carry me like I’m some silly girly-girl in the movies all romantic-like,” she said. “It always brings me out of the scene because I worry about his back, and— Hey!”

He’d scooped her up and over his shoulder into a fireman’s hold.

“Jack.” She laughed and squirmed to get free, but then realized that she had a most excellent view of his most excellent backside as he strode down the hall as if she were light as a feather. “Put me down.”

“I’m dragging you off to my cave.”

Well then. Willing to play, she tried to bite his ass. Since she couldn’t quite reach, she settled for low on his back, but the bastard didn’t have an ounce of fat on him so she couldn’t really get a good hold.

He swatted her butt. “Behave.”

She tried to bite him again, but then she was flying through the air and landing on his bed. Before she could bounce twice, he’d pulled a condom from his bedside drawer and was on top of her.

And then in her.

He stilled and pressed his face to her neck. “I’m a dead man,” he murmured, and then, holding her right where he wanted, he began to thrust, pulling out with each stroke, rolling his hips, and then grinding back in. She could feel him hot and hard, deep inside every time he moved. He gripped her thighs and pushed them forward slightly so he slid in more, pressing a spot deep inside of her. She’d never experienced anything like it. When he groaned her name, she knew neither of them were going to last. Everything about him was causing sensations in her body that she didn’t even know what to do with. Squeezing her legs around his waist, she clutched him, crying out.

They came together. Or at least she thought they did. She couldn’t be sure because she lost track of all her senses.

When she came back to herself, they were damply entangled and she was breathing like a lunatic. Holy cow… She tried to roll free and found she couldn’t move. She was pinned by one-hundred-and-eighty solid pounds of muscle, and he was breathing just as hard as she, the small of his back slick with sweat. And her only coherent thought was, if they kept at this whole na**d friends thing, they were going to kill each other…

Eventually Jack got up to get them some water and sustenance, and Leah managed to roll over and shove her hair from her face. His bedside drawer was open, the box of condoms torn into and spilling out over a colorful stack of envelopes—

Leah went still, then reached out and brushed the condoms away, even though she didn’t need to. She knew what that stack of cards was.

Her own cards, sent to Jack when she’d first left Lucky Harbor. Christmases, birthdays, Valentine’s Days…she’d used them all as excuses to keep in touch, her own way of hoping he would keep her in mind.

He still had them. Every one of them, by the looks of things. Her throat tightened as she wondered what it meant. But she knew. It meant that she’d been important to him.

And she’d hurt him.

She could have had something here with him, something real. Instead, she was now stuck in this…fake relationship that was quickly turning not so fake at all.

And it was all her own doing.

The next morning, Jack knew the minute Leah woke up because, like Kevin always did, her entire body tensed without moving a muscle.

He wondered if she expected him to do what he did with Kevin: point to the floor and say, “Get down.” The truth was, he was far more likely to roll over and expose his vulnerable underbelly.

Instead, he let her have the moment of pretense as he watched her in the early morning light. God, it felt good to wake up with her, which begged the question—how long was she sticking around? She seemed to be settling into Lucky Harbor, though this didn’t make any sense at all if she’d won Sweet Wars. And surely she had won. This meant she had the prize money to start her own pastry shop and was financially stable, probably for the first time in her entire adult life.

Maybe she’d continue to revamp her grandma’s bakery. Surely she wouldn’t have started this thing between them if she’d been in a hurry to go anywhere. He tried to figure out what that might mean but couldn’t. “Morning,” he said quietly.

She didn’t move.

This didn’t surprise him. If he knew her, and he sure as hell did, he knew she was panicked right about now and reviewing her options.

And most likely the closest exit.

He could feel her heart kick into high gear, and he had some sympathy. She wasn’t alone in this. This whole new lover intimacy they had going between them now was going to affect their friend intimacy, no matter what they said or did.