Page 31 of A Lonely Road
“Did we?” he asked, cocking a brow as a slow smile spread across his face.
The effect that smile had on my insides was instantaneous, but I shook my head. “Oh no, you’re not getting any more of that until I try some of this famous carrot cake. I spent an hour thinking about how good it looked before I came over here and I’ll have you know that I’ve now worked up an appetite.”
“Sustenance again?” Jake pasted a look of pure innocence on his handsome face. “I can’t deny you that, not when we’ve expended so much energy already—and hopefully will again as soon as I’ve recovered. If you want to wait here, I’ll go get it and bring it up.”
Eating cake in bed with this devastatingly attractive man was an offer simply too good to refuse. I watched him bend to pull on his jeans, unabashedly admiring the way those sleek muscles of his back blended into what had to be the nicest ass I’d ever seen up close.
When he caught me staring, he leaned over the bed to kiss me one last time before he winked and trotted downstairs shirtless.
Without him, the room felt colder, so I slipped under the comforter and nestled deep into his pillows. They smelled like him, a faint trace of pine and fresh cut grass. Was it creepy to press my face against the pillowcase just to breathe it in?
Without him there to judge, I decided I didn’t care and did it anyway.
The man was a walking aphrodisiac; I wanted him again already, missed the heat of his body, the way he filled me, the joint sensations of being both tenderly cared for and enthusiastically worshipped.
Jake returned quickly, clutching the box in one arm and a pair of forks in the other. The second his gaze landed on me snuggled up in his bed, there was a quick shift in his expression, a flare of his pupils—something that on another man might have been possessiveness, but that seemed too primitive for a man like Jake Lincoln.
Hunger? Need? Pure, blind lust? He set the cake and forks on the side table as I pondered it.
Then again, the look in his eyes when he removed his jeans seemed remarkably similar to what I was feeling. There was a blatant haze of desire gathering in those baby blues and I wondered if primitive might be just what I wanted right now, with him. He lifted a brow as he slid under the covers beside me.
“Dessert? Ordessert?”he asked, dropping his head for a light, teasing kiss.
“Cake first. Then Jake.”
The teasing words made him laugh aloud, but he settled back against the pillows to cater to my demands. I grinned and leaned across him to grab a fork from the side table, intentionally letting my breasts graze his bare chest along the way. Despiteproclaiming my need for food, I felt my body readying, tingling under his gaze just as it had under his skilled fingers.
With the bakery box balanced on his impressive abs and his free arm wrapped around me, we dug into the cake together. After a first tiny bite, I abandoned all pretense of dainty feminine manners and closed my eyes on a dramatic sigh.
“Oh, that is good,” I moaned.
Jake nipped at my earlobe, grinning when he felt the shiver run through me. “Your repeated use of the word ‘good’ feels a tad insulting.”
“You could do worse than being compared to this heavenly confection, Jake Lincoln.”
My eyes lifted to his as I very deliberately licked the frosting from my fork. A vision of him lapping frosting off my nipples promptly filled my head, and from the molten heat in his eyes, I wondered if he was imagining it too.
“Temptress,” he growled, but he took another bite of cake as I laughed.
Between the two of us, we made an impressive dent on the pretty cake, then I flopped back on the pillows as Jake set the box on the bedside table. When he turned back to me, I had the blanket pulled up to my chin, so he raised a questioning brow.
“Maybe I should go,” I said quietly, though I made no move to leave the bed.
“If that’s what you want, sure. Or, as an alternative, you could stay,” Jake countered, watching me closely.
If he thought I was really spooked, I knew he’d back off immediately. That knowledge bolstered me against the uncertainty that had started creeping in. When I said nothing after a long, silent moment, he rolled onto his side, his face six inches from mine on the pillow.
“If you really want to go home, I won’t insult you by trying to convince you to spend the night. We can get dressed right now and I’ll walk you home, hopefully kiss you goodnight, and come back to bed alone. But I’d be honored if you would stay, Nora.”
His tone was soft, somehow managing to sound reassuring without cajoling. My fingers twitched a little, tightening around the blanket and then opening again. Though I got the distinct impression he wanted to reach out and touch me, to clasp my hand in his own and offer comfort, he held perfectly still.
This decision needed to be mine alone, and the fact that he recognized that settled something deep in my chest.
“I don’t usually . . .” I trailed off, my gaze shifting away briefly before returning to meet his. “It’s just easier to be the one to walk away first.”
“Love ’em and leave ’em,” he replied, nodding. The words were gentle and entirely without bite.
“Something like that. You really want me to stay?”
