Page 54 of Pure Seduction (Chamberlin Brothers 1)

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Laurel

LATER IN THE evening when I pulled into my drive and cut the engine, I was still coming to grips with everything that had happened tonight. From the sensual high to my crash back down to reality, there was no way to deny the delicious lethargy in my body. I pushed open the car door and pulled Noah’s jacket around me tight.

Ever since Noah’s return, I’d been taut as a tripwire, tense, and on edge. His sudden reappearance had wreaked havoc with my internal wiring. But after that initial shock had passed, a different kind of tension altogether had settled in.

Well, he’d certainly taken care of that tonight, because the satisfied hum now coursing through my veins guaranteed I’d get the best sleep I’d had in weeks. Hell, maybe even months.

I headed up the stairs to my front door and, luckily for me, no one was around to witness my late-night return. The last thing I needed was for people in town to start whispering about me. But tonight, I’d allow myself to bask in the moment alone. I’d wrap myself up in the scrumptious memory that was Noah’s mouth, hands, and body all over mine, and enjoy the best date I’d been on in years. Before I put it in the memory bank, never to think of again.

I unlocked the door and stepped inside, then kicked out of my heels. I tossed my keys on the foyer table and was about to head down to my room.

“I didn’t know you were going out tonight.”

I gasped and clutched at my chest, then whirled around to see Jake sitting on one of the couches in the dark. He was supposed to be at Caleb’s tonight, and the shock of seeing him there automatically erased my relaxation from seconds ago and replaced it with motherly concern.

“Jake?” I switched on the light to make sure he was in one piece, and when I couldn’t see anything out of the norm, my breathing calmed and my heart began to beat again at a normal rhythm. “What are you doing home? I thought you were spending the night at Caleb’s?”

“Yeah, that’s pretty obvious.”

The judgmental tone was so unlike Jake that it immediately made my hackles rise. I straightened my shoulders, and when Noah’s jacket slipped down my arms, I quickly reached for it, knowing the dress I had on underneath was not something Jake was used to seeing me in. Something that wasn’t lost on him.

“Whose jacket is that?” he asked, getting to his feet.

“Excuse me? I’m the adult in this house, and I believe I asked you a question. What are you doing home? You told me you were spending the night at Caleb’s.”

“So? I changed my mind. You wouldn’t care if you weren’t trying to sneak in in the middle of the night.”

Right, that was it. I knew the two of us needed to talk after today’s blow-up at the baseball field, but I was just about done with this new attitude. I stalked across the room and jabbed him in the chest.

“Listen to me, young man. I know we’re pretty casual around here and have a different kind of relationship than most. But that doesn’t give you the right to be disrespectful or rude. What’s gotten into you?”

Jake narrowed his eyes and looked me over in a way that made me cross my arms over my chest. That niggling feeling from earlier started again in the pit of my stomach.

“What’s gotten into me? You’re the one acting completely different these days.”

Wow. He was clearly pissed off, and that was something we needed to discuss. But no matter how angry he was, or how much he did or didn’t know, I wasn’t going to stand here and be talked down to by my teenage son.

I turned around and stalked off toward my bedroom.

“Go to bed, Jake. We’ll talk about this in the morning.”

“I don’t want to talk about it then.”

I could hear his heavy footsteps behind me as I flicked on the kitchen light and spun around. “Well, that’s too bad. I don’t want to talk about it now.”

“Whose jacket is that?”

Knowing this was not going to end unless I told him, I placed a hand on the back of the kitchen chair and braced myself. “The jacket belongs to Noah. We had dinner tonight.”

Jake scoffed. “Dinner, huh? Is that why you’re creeping around at—”

“I’m not creeping anywhere,” I shouted, much louder than I’d intended. But at this stage I was finding it difficult to temper my annoyance.

“You’re not? Looked like it to me.”

“I don’t care how it looked to you. Plus, you aren’t even supposed to be home.”

“Which is why you went in the first place. You wouldn’t have to be home at a respectable hour.”

“Just who do you think you are? The dating police? It’s not a crime that I decided to finally go out, you know? And weren’t you the one telling me I should?”

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