Page 7 of One Night to Fall
“I hate surprises,” he mutters, my ministrations slowing as I digest that. “It’s all of it—the name and that you werein town on business.” He scoffs. “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”
“You didn’t want to see me again?” I mean it to be flippant, but it sounds accusatory even to my own ears.
Pushing himself up on his elbows, Jesse turns his head and stares at me over his shoulder, making my breath catch at the intensity swirling in his chocolate-colored eyes.
Dammit.
“You rode the line between telling the truth and lying,” he says, my brain stuck unhelpfully on the wordrode.“I told you I live here. It never occurred to you that we’d run into each other again?”
Holding my hands out to the sides in surrender, I shrug. “I thought we might—hopedwe might—but I didn’t thinkthiswould be where it happened. We didn’t exactly exchange numbers, since you made it clear that wasn’t an option, and hell, now that we’re here—you could’ve told me your family owns half the damn town.”
“We do not and what the hell does that have to do with anything anyway?” he snaps, rolling to the side as he swings his feet over the edge of the table. The only part of him covered by the blanket is a small section of his thigh, the rest of him gloriously exposed.
And hard.
But it doesn’t matter because I am too.
Fuck me.
Better yet, I just want to fuckhim.
Clearing my throat, I let my gaze drop quickly to his lap before meeting his gaze. Growling, he yanks the blanket over himself and points at the bulge in my jeans. “You already lost.”
“But you?—”
“Yeah, well, the bet wasn’t to see if I’d get hard—that was practically a given.” The look he gives me is unhinged, a mix of desire and need that’s absolutely intoxicating.
A little too late, I realize that aside from the sexual tension threatening to suffocate us,I’m at work.
And I like my job.
“Jesse,” I start, gripping the back of my neck as I stare at the ground because right now, in this moment, Jesse Sterling is still my client.
“What?” he says, letting the blanket drop and pushing past me to where his clothes are piled on the chair. It takes everything in me not to flat-out stare at him as he shoves one leg and then the other into his boxer briefs, the tight black fabric doing nothing to tamp down the way I want to bend him over my table and fuck him the way we both need. Glancing at the clock, my heart sinks—his time isn’t up. “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna tell my sister.”
“What, you’re a mind reader now too?” I scowl as he pulls his shirt back on, but he just grins—a slow, sexy one that tell me he knows exactly what he does to me.
“Nah, but that’s what I’d be worried about if I’d fucked my boss’s brother.”
I don’t correct him and say that Merrick Ellis is technically my boss—it wouldn’t matter anyway.
“So now what?”
“Now,” he says, getting close enough that I could brush my lips against his if I just lean in, “you get to meet the horses.”
5
JESSE
To say that seeing Nate—Adrian—yesterday had been a shock was an understatement. I’d made it my mission not to sleep with anyone in Wintervale if I could help it and never with anyone with direct ties to my family. Relationships are messy, and adding family connections is the last thing I want to do.
Adrian had poked fun at my family owning half the town, and while I’d brushed it off, he wasn’t exactly wrong. My father has slowly expanded our property and our influence in our little piece of Montana.
Winston Sterling breathed life back into the Wintervale Tree Farm, taking a failing business and helping it thrive. It’s not technically ours, but it might as well be. We made it a destination,an experience,and then my cousin Reid launched us into the stratosphere with his spreadsheets for tracking tree growth, health, and variety.
It’s impressive but it’s on the same excitement level as watching paint dry. The only person who isn’t bored to tears is his boyfriend, Harlan, and I’ll be shocked if the two of them aren’t engaged by the end of the year.
I scoff as I make my way toward the barn. Slowly but surely, my cousin and the rest of my siblings have paired off, the commitments ranging from dating to married with a baby. The last makes me shudder because even though I love my nephew more than anything, I’ve never wanted kids of my own.
