Page 77 of Five Alarm Kiss

“Laurel…” Jake shimmied down the tree until he was at her level, back against the trunk, legs bent on either side of her. He moved her hand and lifted her chin, forcing her to look at him. “I’m sorry if I overstepped.”

Oh, great. Now he regrets what we did.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

“Hey, look at me,” he instructed.

She obeyed. What was it about this man that made her give up control and bend to his every will?

“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable,” he clarified, “but I’m not sorry you came in my arms.” She blushed furiously, but that didn’t stop him from adding, “It was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”

She highly doubted that. For someone with as much experience as he obviously had, her orgasm had to be low on his excitement meter. Whereas, this encounter—not to mention this man—was the top of hers.

“You—” he kissed her lips “—are the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Not,” she scoffed under her breath.

“Yes,” he said with certainty.

Oh, cranberries! He heard that?

“Princess, you have no idea what you do to me.”

“What?” The question popped out before her brain had the chance to stop it. She held her breath, not sure she wanted to hear his answer.

He pushed a strand of hair behind her ear and kissed the crease that appeared between her eyebrows. “Make me want to be a better man,” he confessed.

Her eyes widened. Of all the things she’d thought he’d say, that answer wasn’t remotely close to any of them. It wasn’t even in the same universe.

“I know,” Jake conceded. “That’s so cliché, it’s pathetic, but it’s the?—”

Laurel kissed him so fiercely, his head banged against the rough tree bark. He winced, making her immediately pull back. “Oh, I’m sorry!”

“Make it up to me,” he ordered, slamming his mouth back onto hers. He wrapped his arms around her, crushing her against his chest… kissing her like he was searching for salvation.

“Fuck, I want you,” he breathed against her lips before claiming her mouth again in a searing kiss.

Her head was spinning, blood singing in her veins. She’d never felt so desired. So all-consumingly wanted.

Ethan had never made her feel this way, not in all the years they’d been together. Looking back, he’d treated her more like a convenience than a partner. Someone to have sex with and do his laundry, not a woman he wanted to strive to be better for. He thought he was superior. She hadn’t seen it before, but she saw it now. Ethan cared more for himself than he ever did for her.

But Jake… Jake had barely known her a month, yet he wanted to become a better man. For her.

Tears suddenly burned behind her eyelids. She was drowning in emotions, floundering in feelings he’d conjured. It was both exhilarating and frightening—the way he made her feel. Thethings she started to want. The painfully obvious fact she was falling for him.

Touching Jake’s face with trembling fingers, Laurel was the one who deepened their kiss. She pressed her body closer, but it still wasn’t close enough. Not nearly close enough.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said against her lips, but it came out as a question.

She knew what he was asking. Knew what it would mean if she said yes. She wasn’t surprised by the heat and passion she saw when she searched his eyes because she was certain they were mirrored in her own. But it was the other emotion barely flickering, practically hidden in those clear blue depths that sealed her decision... vulnerability. Hers to crush or embrace.

With a single nod, she offered up her own.

Chapter Twenty

What the hell’s wrong with me?

Jake berated himself as he closed the passenger side door of his Jeep and walked around the front to climb inside with Laurel.

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