Page 20 of Handling Skylar
There was a quietness emanating from his core, and it filled him with the kind of confidence I’d seen in the West in the hard-riding, hard-living cowboys who knew exactly who they were.
Jake had seen hardship in his personal life and that scored him with the kind of anger I often saw in his brooding silver eyes.
Had he had a change of heart? Did he want to pursue this…thing we seemed to have for each other? It was something I needed to know. I wanted to be on even ground with him.
“Let’s take a break,” he said, reaching out his hand to assist me down from the machine, the gentleman all the way. At the golf cart, he opened the cooler and reached in, tossing me a bottle of cold water. I screwed off the top and downed about half. He drained the whole bottle in a few gulps and reached for another one, draining that one, too.
“So, Jake,” I said. “Are we going to discuss what we’re doing here?”
He licked the moisture off those sensual lips of his and patted the back of the cart. I obliged by sitting down.
He leaned in smelling of warm, sweaty male, Jake’s unique masculine scent that reminded me of rain and the earth. He captured my eyes. “I’ve been thinking lately about all this shit I’m shoveling on myself.”
“Mucking out a stall gives you a nice clean area to lay down fresh straw,” I said.
“Cowgirl wisdom?” he drawled, his eyes sparkling.
“Yeah, something like that.”
He huffed a sigh, “Last week…that kiss opened my eyes. I haven’t been able to get you off my mind.”
“Since last week—”
“No.” He leaned in some more and my breath backed up in my chest. “Since I first laid eyes on you, sugar.”
“Two years ago?”
“Yeah, two years ago.”
“I’m not exactly the right kind of woman—”
“Fuck that,” he said fiercely. You listen to me, you show interest, genuine interest in what I love. It’s easy with you and so damn hard with Anna Kate. If I got more involved with her, I think I would strangle her. I think she would drive me insane. For once, I think I’m going to do what I want to do. Our reputation is tarnished, but—”
I cupped his face and he closed his eyes, his words ending abruptly. “Everyone in this town has learned its lesson about blaming people for something that happened in the past. Let it go, Jake. You don’t have anything to prove to anyone.”
His strong jaw clenched and he nodded once, rubbing all that scratchy, sexy stubble against my palm. He slipped his arm around my back and lifted me right off the seat. His voice gruff and unsteady, he whispered, “Ah, Sky.” Sealing his hot mouth over mine, knocking my hat off, his big, hot hand, the palm rough against my face, his fingers caressing my bound hair, he kissed me. Weak with his confession and the feel of him against me, my mouth softened, absorbing his assault and gentling him.
He shuddered, breaking the kiss to look into my eyes. My heart rolled over at the need in him to be the kind of man that would carry on their family name. Something real and elusive passed between us and a knot formed in my throat. I only knew how to wear my heart on my sleeve. It was all I was capable of, but the loss of my family had made me wary of giving everything I had. His tortured eyes only made me want to soothe him, take him deeper into my embrace even with the danger of getting involved with a man who was enmeshed with one of the nastiest and most influential women in this town.
But I had backbone to spare. Gumption was my middle name.
Shifting the angle of my head, he kissed me on the lips, his chest expanding raggedly when he dragged his mouth away. “I’ll understand if you’d want to walk away. No hard feelings, Sky. I promise—”
I covered his mouth with my fingers and shook my head, words beyond me at this moment. He pressed a kiss to my temple. And that one single, gentle caress devastated me, and I caught him by the back of his neck and turned my face against his. I thought fleetingly of telling him about my sordid past, but realized that I didn’t care about it. It was something I had moved on from, and it wasn’t in my present thinking. I was well aware that I wasn’t exactly the kind of woman he wanted to bolster up his family reputation and name, but I was the woman he needed.
Everything else was simply irrelevant.
Chapter 6
JAKE
This woman was a gem. How stupid and blind I had been in the past not to make a move on her. We had so much in common and everything about her turned me on. I held her against me for a few more minutes. Now came the hard part.
“Sky, I will need to let Anna Kate down easily. She’s a proud woman, and she’s not going to look kindly on anyone I get involved with.”
“Especially me. She hates my guts, bragging about having you and sleeping with you.”
“What?” I said sharply. “I’ve never slept with her.”
