Page 34 of I'm Not Yours
“How were the interviews?”
“They were fine.”I missed you.I put down my fork. I love calzone, but I could hardly focus on it with Jace sitting across the kitchen table from me looking all manly, the sun plopping down over the horizon. I had lit my scented candles. He looked even lustier by candlelight, and that beat down my resistance to him even more.
“And? Are you moving?”
“I don’t know.”
“Were you offered jobs?”
“Yes, two offered me jobs and I received a call this morning from the third.” The salaries were impressive. The workload would be incessant, draining, and no Jace.
He nodded, those brown eyes guarded, not happy.
I had a quick vision of me underneath him on his couch the other night . . . how far we’d gone, how yummy and toe tingling it had felt.
“I would be selling expensive clothes to expensive women again. Traveling, too.” How frivolous. How lonely. I was wearing a burgundy sweater with a deep V, jeans, and crystal earrings, my hair up in a loose ponytail. I will not admit that I wore a black push-up bra so my cleavage would be up and out for Jace. I was so much more comfortable without the tottery four-inch heels I wore during the interviews.
“Would you be happy doing that?” he asked.
“No.”
He leaned back in his chair. “Do you not like me?”
I like you and I love you.“No. I like you.”
“Good. I like you a lot. You’re my favorite person. Let’s play a game.”
“A game?”
He pulled his chair over until our knees were touching. “If you don’t kiss me, we don’t go to the barn dance together. If you do kiss me, you’re my date.”
“I’m not going to kiss you.”
He grinned.
“For heaven’s sakes, Jace.”
I stood up, he stood up close to me. I moved to the left, he moved to the right. I moved to the right, he moved to the left.
He knew I was starting to feel waves of luscious desire rolling on through. I could feel my own blush. He knew what he did to me. He bent that dark head, his mouth an inch from mine. He pulled me close, hip to chest.
“That’s not fair. You can’t touch me.” My voice was all whispery, breathless.
“That’s not part of the rules.”
I took a few steps back. He backed me into the wall. I put my hands on his shoulders and laughed; couldn’t help it. Sexual tension did it, I was sure. We were pressed up close to each other. “One kiss, Allie,” he murmured. “One.”
He pressed up even closer, tight and warm, and I wanted to wrap my legs around his hips. I could smell him. Mint, pine trees, yum. His mouth was inches from mine.
“I missed you,” he said. “Missed your smile, your laugh.”
My eyes fluttered closed and I breathed in deep. The man was overwhelming.
“I looked down the hill and your lights weren’t on. You weren’t there.”
I was revved up about as high as I could go. I could feel his heart under my hand.
“I thought of you not being there, and I think I’d have to sell my house, honey, if you moved.”
