Page 24 of The House on Blueberry Lane

“I didn’t say I was okay with anything, Jaye, and why does it concern you?” she asked, walking around him toward the steps. After a day dealing with Principal Dunning and the likes of Allen Bordeaux, she really didn’t need a discussion with Jaye about Webb Crawford’s foolishness.

“It concerns me when the man shows up at my office wanting me to agree to keep my distance from you.”

His statement made Velvet stop and turn around. “He did what!”

“You heard me. The man is outright interfering in your love life?”

Her love life? Now that was a laugh. However, the last thing she wanted Jaye to know was that she hadn’t dated anyone since leaving him. Instead of answering, she said, “There’s no need for you to be concerned with my love life, Jaye. In fact, you could have simply let him know that you had me for three years and after all that time, I didn’t come to mean anything to you then, and that I don’t mean anything to you now.”

She was turning to head up the steps when Jaye reached out and grabbed her shoulder. She was about to read him the riot act when she met the intensity of his gaze. There was anger in the dark depths, and she wondered why he was mad when she’d spoken the truth. Suddenly, his anger was replaced by something else, something she knew and recognized—desire.

She drew in a sharp breath, wondering why here and why now? She didn’t know who made the first move, but suddenly her body was pressed to his, and she felt her nipples stiffen and poke him in the chest like they usually did when she was aroused.

And she was aroused. There was no way to deny that. Just like there was no way to deny he was aroused as well. The firm hardness of his erection pressed against her middle reminded her how things used to be between them and what usually came next.

The intensity she saw in his eyes made her shudder before releasing a throaty moan. Velvet felt his presence in every part of her, and for the first time in two years, her body was responding to a man. But then standing before her wasn’t just any man. He was the man who had taught her body to sing in the most sensuous voice possible. The man who had the ability to make her come, just from his kiss.

His kiss...

He began lowering his head and automatically, she moved her mouth toward his. She felt a jolt of sexual energy, and it dawned on her just how much she’d missed this.

Their mouths were mere inches from touching and she was about to use her tongue to trace a path over the lips she knew so well when suddenly the sharp ringing of her phone made them quickly step back from each other, although their gazes remained locked. Velvet recognized Ruthie’s ringtone and appreciated her best friend’s timely interruption. Just seconds ago, she’d felt vulnerable to her desires and her needs for the first time in two years. No man could have made her feel that way other than Jaye. He could make her sizzle just from a look or a glance.

Feeling intense heat flow all through her, it was at that moment she realized his hands were still on her. At some point, they had moved from her shoulder to her waist. “Please let go of me, Jaye,” she said in a soft voice.

He immediately dropped his hands to his side. Without saying anything else, she turned and hurried up the steps, unlocked the door, went inside the house and closed the door behind her.

CHAPTER EIGHT

JAYE LET HIMSELF inside his home, tossed off his jacket and nearly ripped off his tie before heading toward the wine cabinet and straight to his bottle of scotch. He needed a shot. If things hadn’t been real before, they were pretty damn real now. The moment he had touched Velvet, desire and need had been as real as it could get.

It had been two years; two years since he had been with a woman, refusing to sleep with anyone after Velvet had left him. At first, he’d told himself he’d needed time to adjust but then after a year he’d known it was more serious than that. He needed and wanted Velvet and no other woman would do. He didn’t want a substitute, and he found the thought of sharing his body with another woman became downright nauseating.

Finding out where she’d gone hadn’t been easy, especially when her best friend, Ruthie, refused to even talk to him. Velvet had also given orders to her executive staff at the Spencer’s Corporation that her whereabouts were not to be shared. For the longest time, Jaye had assumed she was living somewhere under an alias or had even moved out the country. He’d almost lost all hope of seeing her again when he’d finally gotten word from the private investigator he’d hired of where she was.

If nothing else, what had just happened proved they still had the hots for each other, but he wanted more than just desire and need connecting them. He wanted love. He needed to prove to her that he loved her above all else. And he did love her, with every beat of his heart and with every breath he took. Mentally, she consumed his entire being. However, today upon touching her, he was reminded that physically she consumed him entirely as well.

He’d come close to kissing her, rekindling that taste that had once been as much a part of him as the feel of blood rushing through his veins and drawing air in his lungs. He had wanted to hear her moan his name, break apart in his arms and to come—to have an actual orgasm—from the mating of their lips. That had happened between them more times than he could count.

He downed a shot of scotch and flinched when the strong liquid flowed down his throat. He had forgotten just how addictive Velvet Spencer was. He had desired her on Saturday but not like this. Not with an intensity that made him want to go downstairs, knock on her door and pull her into his arms and finish what might have happened had her phone not interrupted.

And then, he recalled she was wearing his favorite color. Yellow. When she got out of her car wearing that yellow wrap dress with a flattering scoop neckline and a hem that hit just above her knees—which emphasized her shapely legs—he was reminded of just how much he loved those legs. Whether they were walking or wrapped around his waist while they made love.

He rubbed a hand down his face, needing to regain some semblance of that control he’d had with her on Saturday. His true mission in coming to Catalina Cove was not to regain Velvet as a bed partner, but to get back inside her heart.

He sat down at the table to recall when they’d first begun dating. After their spontaneous dinner at Captain Scampi, he had been determined to get her in his bed and make her a one-and-done. But no matter how many dates they’d shared after that, Velvet wasn’t having it. She’d made him earn a place in her bed, something he’d never had to do with any woman. She hadn’t been easy, had stood her ground and in the end, he had given her what she wanted—an exclusive relationship.

Jaye’s thoughts shifted to Webb Crawford and the sheer audacity of the man. Gentlemen’s agreement, his ass. It had sounded more like an order Crawford expected to be followed. Well, he had news for Crawford. Velvet was off-limits but in a way the man would soon discover was not in his favor. Crawford’s intention was clear. He only wanted a spot in Velvet’s bed, whereas Jaye wanted a lot more than that. He wanted a place in her heart just like she had a place in his.

“YES, RUTHIE, SORRY I missed your call,” Velvet said, easing down on her sofa and trying to get her heart rate back to normal. She could not believe that she’d been just seconds from kissing Jaye in their front yard. How could she?

“I was returning your call from earlier today,” Ruthie said.

Yes, she had called her best friend and immediately remembered why. “I need to get away, Ruthie. Real bad. How does a girls’ weekend in New York sound?”

“This weekend?”

“Yes,” she said, hoping Ruthie and her fiancé, Todd, didn’t have anything planned.

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