A Great Kisser (31 page)

“She didn’t say how he found out?”

“No, she didn’t, but she wasn’t at all surprised. Like I said, he apparently follows Washington news very closely. He’s a resort town mayor, but he still has his San Francisco big-city roots, I guess. She didn’t think it was out of the ordinary.” Lauren lifted her head so she could see Jake’s face. “Why?”

“So, he wasn’t mad that you hadn’t told her?”

“I’m guessing, from what she said, that he was more disappointed, because he felt that meant I wasn’t completely on board with them as a couple, that we hadn’t fully made up. He knew how close we were and that in other circumstances I’d have told her the minute I’d made the decision.”

“Charlene said all that?”

“Not in so many words, but that’s my take on her thoughts about it.” She lifted up more and braced herself on his chest so she could hold his gaze more directly. “Why are you so interested in this part of our conversation? Does it have to do with what you can’t tell me?” She smiled, wanting to keep things okay between them this go around. “I’m a lawyer, remember; you can’t distract me with miscellaneous details.”

He smiled back, but there was still a renewed tension between them, which she already hated but didn’t know how to resolve. She vowed not to jump to conclusions this time.

“They’re not miscellaneous details; it’s your life, and your relationship with your mother, that I am interested in.”

Her smile grew. “You sound almost surprised by that.”

“Trust me, I am. Like I told you in one of our earlier conversations, I never ingratiated myself into anyone else’s personal business unless absolutely necessary. But I care about you, so I want you to be happy, and that means mending fences with your mom. And figuring out where you stand with Arlen, or her marriage to him.”

“Or both.”

“Or both, yes. And so I was just curious if that whole revelation changed the tone between you and your mom. Both that you didn’t tell her, and that you quit your job.”

Lauren laughed, which clearly surprised him. “Actually, she was more interested in whether or not me quitting my job might mean I’ll pursue my burgeoning relationship with you, and if my not having any immediate plans for my future, if things progress with us—”

“That she’ll have her daughter living in the same town.”

“She was certainly invested in the potential, yes.”

Jake smiled. “Which I’m taking as a good sign.”

Lauren gave him a wary look. “I haven’t made up my mind about anything. Yet. And don’t get hurt or wounded, I’m just saying that—”

“I’m not asking. Yet,” he said, still smiling, but there was a definite added gleam in his eye on that last word. “I’m just happy that things are heading in the direction they are. There, is that nonthreatening enough?”

Now she laughed, albeit a bit ruefully. “If you team up with my mother, I don’t stand a chance.”

His grin was downright devilish. “Good to know.”

“I walked into that one.”

“You did.” Jake rolled her to her back. “Now, how can I walk you out of your clothes and under the covers of this bed?”

“You can tell me why you were mostly interested in the discussion with my mother as it pertained to Arlen.”

“You already supposed he was the common thread.”

“And that tells me exactly nothing.”

“Okay, let me ask you one last thing.”

“Promise?”

“No,” he said, “but yes, for the moment, anyway. Then I plan on focusing all of my mad interrogation skills on getting you naked.”

“Oh sure, keep secrets and don’t tell me what’s going on, but still expect me to go to bed with you? Good luck with that.” Her retort would have carried a lot more weight if she wasn’t grinning while issuing it.

“I’m feeling pretty lucky today.”

She pushed at him, and he slid his hands into her hair, bracing his elbows on the bed as he leaned down and kissed her. But rather than a heated, claiming, “make her mind go numb” kiss, it was tender, and slow, and…almost poignantly sweet. When he finally lifted his head and stared intently into her eyes, all signs of that mischievous smile gone…she really didn’t know how to feel or what to say. Just when she thought she had him pegged, he’d always go and do something like that. It had been like that since she’d pegged him as some kind of plane jockey and he started talking about the power of the mountains and his place in the universe.

She really had to stop pigeon-holing him…and perhaps, in doing so, underestimating him.

“What?” she finally asked, as he continued looking into her eyes as if he could keep doing so for hours. She couldn’t help wonder what it was he was finding there.

“It’s not because I don’t want to,” he said, and she didn’t have to ask what he was referring to. “And the moment I have this all sorted out, and I will, you’ll be the first person I talk to. I’m going to ask that you trust me, and trust that I have your best interests in my heart at all times. Just as I have Ruby Jean’s.”

“I do,” she said, and realized she meant it. “But if there’s a conflict of interest—”

“Then all bets are off. Meaning if I can’t take care of both of you my own way, then I bring both of you into the loop and we try and figure it out together.”

“I guess what I don’t understand is why we aren’t doing that now?”

“It’s—”

“Complicated. Rrrrr,” she fake-growled.

“I know.” He stroked the hair from her forehead, then toyed with the ends, sending the most delicious shiver up her spine. “But this way I can keep from putting either one of you in situations that you’d be a lot more at peace with not being in. I know that doesn’t make any sense—”

“Actually, it does. So…you’re protecting me, then?”

“Trying to.”

“From myself? Because that’s a little patronizing, don’t you th—”

“You’re not used to anyone stepping in to do that, I get that. But I’m stepping. And you’re going to have to adjust a little, because while you are someone I look at as an equal partner, I’m also going to want to take care of you. Sometimes, you’re just going to have to let me, in my own clumsy male way, do that. Trust me, it will never be because I don’t think you can handle it. But because you simply don’t need to. You have enough…I’ll deal with this.”

She held his gaze for the longest time, and saw—knew—there was no condescension in his attitude. Still, it wasn’t easy to capitulate. It wasn’t something she’d ever willingly done, because getting ahead in her career precluded that, on every level, every step of the way. “It’s not easy, what you’re asking. You need to know that about me. I might always push, and fight you on things like this.”

He smiled, and it was such an easy smile and so full of honest affection, any possible grudge she could hope to nurse against him was simply impossible to sustain.

“And you need to know that I’m going to push anyway, and stomp around on your heretofore list of things that you would never let someone else help you with.”

“You’re not helping; you’re superseding my help and circumventing me being a part of any of this. I don’t even know what it is you’re helping me avoid having to deal with.”

He kissed her nose. “Exactly.”

“I should be so frustrated with you right now.”

“And you’re not?”

She tugged him down and kissed him hard and fast, and then more slowly, and deeply, until they were both breathless again. “No,” she said roughly, when she finally pushed him back slightly.

“Could have fooled me.”

“I trust that you won’t let anything bad happen to me without telling me…so I guess I can afford to sit back and see how this goes. Then, next time you pull this kind of thing, I’ll know better just how frustrated I should be.” Now she smiled. “And how, exactly, I’ll fight you on it.”

He grinned right back. “At least you’re already conceding there will be a next time…and that you’ll still be around to handle it.”

“We’ll see.”

Even that pseudo-warning didn’t seem to phase him.

“Yes…we will.” He slid his weight more fully on top of her. “Now, what do you say we get ready for bed. We have an early flight in the morning and I have to get my pilot’s beauty sleep.”

She feigned an innocent look. “You were thinking we’d go right to sleep, did you?”

“Well, not until you tell me a bedtime story.” He started to unbutton her blouse.

“Bedtime story…what about?”

“That’s for you to decide, but I really like the one about the damsel in distress.”

“I might have a hard time with that one.”

He slid his hand inside her blouse and rubbed his finger over her quickly hardening nipple, making her gasp and reflexively pump her hips.

“There’s all kinds of distress…”

She closed her eyes and arched into his hand more fully. “Why yes…you might be right about that.”

He continued undressing her. “Once upon a time,” he urged.

“There was a headstrong prince who thought he knew every damn thing…”

“Oh, I’m liking this one already.” He slid her shirt open and replaced his finger with his mouth, suckling her through the silk cup of her bra.

Lauren gasped again, and her hips continued to twitch.

“Knew every damn thing,” he prompted as he started to slide down her torso, undressing her as he went.

Her thighs were literally quivering as he tugged the edge of her panties down…with his teeth. And the ache that had sprung to life between them was sweet torture. “Yes. Right,” she managed.

He moved his fingers…and his tongue, right to where she wanted them both. “And?”

Her hips were bucking now and he pinned her to the bed, while he continued his torturous assault on her most sensitive skin.

“And…maybe he knows a few damn things. Oh, my Go—”

Jake was chuckling as he drove her up and over the edge, so effortlessly she should have felt cheated, except while every nerve ending in her body felt like it was still quivering in pleasured response, he was shoving off his clothes and sliding up her body…and pushing deep and hard and fast into hers, his stroke so sure and steady, she climaxed instantly, all over again, and he kept her there, humming, as he moved inside her like he’d been built exclusively for that purpose.

By the time he had continued, pushing deeper, faster, and moving her higher…and higher still…she swore she was seeing stars when her final climax drove him over the edge at the same time.

He collapsed, his skin slick, on top of her, and she reveled in the heaviness of his weight on top of her, inside of her. “A few damn things indeed,” she choked out, her throat dry from moaning—okay there might have been more than moaning—and her heart was still pounding.

He half chuckled, half rasped, “And don’t you forget it.”

From somewhere, she found the strength to roll him to his back, making him half laugh, half gasp in surprise. “And don’t you forget that it takes two to achieve what we just did.”

He smiled, shook his head, but defeat was clear on his face as he pulled her close and kissed her. “Right you are.” He kissed her again. “Two is always better than one.”

“Glad you know that damn thing, too.”

He traced her mouth. “We’ll figure this out, I promise.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

He pulled her close. “You’d better.”

I
t wasn’t until they were at the hangar the following morning and he was prepping the plane for takeoff that he realized he’d never remembered to ask Lauren about the odd thing she’d started to tell him about the night before. About finding the bike.

He glanced over to where she stood, just inside the open hangar door by his office drinking coffee and making small talk with the guys, who were all quite a bit more somber—hungover was more like it—this morning. He smiled and went back to his checklist as he moved to the other side of the plane. It was still amazing to him, pretty much all the time, how easily she’d slipped into his life and filled in all the cracks. He hadn’t even known he’d had cracks that needed filling. He’d always thought a long-term, committed relationship was more work than payoff, or at least not potentially worth the trouble over the long haul.

But last night, dealing with the sudden rise in tension between them, and disagreeing on how to handle resolving it, showed him they could be on opposite sides of an issue…and still be okay.

When he woke up beside her this morning, for the second morning in a row, things were so crystal clear to him, he wondered how he’d ever been so blind. Well, he knew why. He’d never met Lauren Matthews before. When it was right…it was ridiculously easy. Even when it was hard. Without question, he’d go through a hell of a lot more than a little tension and the continued complications of Arlen, his sister, and whatever else life threw his way, if it meant waking up to her every morning.

And it had been a pretty damn fine morning.

He made a mental note to ask her later, after they’d dropped the guys off, what it was she’d wanted to tell him. And to also tell her how much he appreciated that she’d stepped back and respected that he needed to handle things his own way, despite clearly not being all that crazy about that option. “Just don’t screw this up, McKenna,” he muttered under his breath.

Checklist complete, he walked back inside the hangar. “Ready to board, gentlemen?”

“You know,” Adam said, following Jake out to the white and blue Cessna, “if I’d known the women got prettier and more interesting the farther west into the Rockies I went, I might have reconsidered making Denver our base of operations.”

Jake smiled easily, but admittedly liked it—a lot—when Lauren slipped her arm through his and laughed just as easily. “And if you all ever want to take your smooth-talking ways to Washington, I know some people who could really benefit from your skills.”

All the guys laughed good-naturedly, and in no time at all, they were all inside, strapped in, and ready for takeoff. Jake looked over at Lauren, who was next to him and clearly nervous.

“Just don’t touch anything and we’ll be fine.”

“Oh, have no fear. Just don’t go having some kind of malfunction where I have to take over, like every airplane suspense movie ever. Because then we’re all doomed to die. I’m just saying.”

He laughed as he ran through his cockpit preflight checks. “You might surprise yourself. In fact, I think you’d love to fly.”

“With lots of instruction and lots of practice, maybe. Even probably. But today, it’s all you.”

“You know, about that instruction part…I do know somebody who might be able to help you with that. And he loves practicing. In fact, he’s a firm believer that practice makes perfect. Or at least perfect practice.”

Lauren smiled and settled in as Jake started things up, then radioed in his flight plans and listened to the return report. He shifted to look over his shoulder. “And we’re off,” he told them. “Sunny skies all the way to Vegas. We’ll be there before your coffee has had a chance to work its magic.”

“Did you get any? Coffee, I mean?” she was quick to add, raising her voice to be heard over the increasing whine of the engines.

He reached over and briefly wove his fingers through hers. “I got all the magic I need right here.”

She rolled her eyes, but his grin grew wider as he spotted the bit of pink blooming in her cheeks. Lauren might have been a Washington power player, immune to most bullshit…so he kind of liked it when he slipped past her defenses. He liked it a lot.

They slipped on headphones that allowed him to hear her as he taxied out to the runway, then started down the narrow strip of pavement.

“Oh, wow,” she breathed as she watched them head directly for the ridge in the distance.

“My sentiments exactly,” he murmured. “Every time.” He loved how the flight school had been constructed across the long, flat top of a ridge that was just above town, but central enough between the two larger ranges, to allow relatively easy takeoffs and landings. It could get windy in certain conditions, like a dustbowl, but was generally also protected well from the worst of the air conditions that plagued any pilot when dealing with flying in and around mountains. On takeoff, it did look as if he was launching himself like a slingshot, right at the highest visible range, just to the north of the town. Landing was equally stunning, as you could see all of Cedar Springs, sprawled out below.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t get up for a solo tour, but—”

“It’s okay,” she said, her voice still hushed in awe. “This is like the most amazing ride in the best amusement park ever. I can see how a person gets hooked on it. It’s a totally different experience, sitting up here. Look at the mountains!”

Jake grinned and continued doing his job as he listened to her running commentary. His love for flying, and his mountains, had never dimmed, but it still excited him to hear someone else’s initial reaction.

All too soon they were landing in Vegas.

“It’s so…brown,” she said, trying for enthusiasm and failing by a mile.

He slid his headphones off and smiled. “Maybe Colorado is rubbing off on you after all.”

She shot him a grin. “Something is rubbing off on me.”

“Good to know. I like things rubbing where you’re involved.”

She was laughing as they debarked and went through the motions of saying good-bye to the guys. There was back slapping and last minute reviews of earlier discussions, as well as a reiteration of his promise to get them some airtime in
Betty Sue
.

“We’ll make it happen,” he assured them, and then they were waving their final good-byes as they climbed into their waiting limo and slowly drove off. Jake turned back to the plane. “I have to go inside, have a quick conversation, then refuel and we’ll be back up in the air. I’m sorry we can’t take advantage of being in Sin City, but—”

Lauren laughed and held up her hand. “I got any urge to gamble out of my system after working on the senator’s first two re-election campaigns. He wins, I keep my job, he loses, I have no career. I prefer my entertainment not to have such monumental consequences.”

Jake moved in closer and put his hands on her hips, tugging her to him. “So, I suppose I should be flattered that you’re willing to risk something so precious with me.”

She put her hands on his shoulders, toyed with the hair on the nape of his neck, a habit of hers he was quickly becoming addicted to. “And what precious item might that be?”

He lifted a hand and drew a little heart on her shirt, directly over her heart. Her entire demeanor changed, he was discovering, when he said or did things like that. Not that he planned them, but he liked that her confident, take charge, independent self always seemed just a little bit undone by the way he slipped past her carefully built guard. Her eyes went a little dreamy, her shoulders curved more softly, and her lips parted the tiniest bit as she exhaled softly in wonder while trying to regroup.

“If it makes it any less terrifying,” he said, tugging her closer still, until their hips bumped. “You’re not the only one gambling.”

Her mouth curved then, and back was the confident smile, the witty, easy bantering gleam in her eyes. But there was a lingering softness, too, an honest affection, that meant more to him than all the heated looks and pent up desire she had to offer.

“Not remotely less terrifying,” she said as she leaned in for a kiss. “But I’m glad I’m not the only one shooting craps with her heart.”

Jake laughed and when she lifted her head, he pulled her back for another kiss, a little bit longer this time, slower. “I have to confess,” he said as he finally lifted his mouth from hers, “I’m getting used to this.”

“It’s not exactly a hardship,” she agreed, her pupils wide with desire, her lips a bit softer, fuller looking, from his kisses.

“In some ways, it blows my mind pretty much every waking minute, how quickly and vastly my life has changed.”

“For me, too…which is saying something given how drastically it had already changed just before I met you.”

“Do you ever think, or wonder, if it’s because you’re in such a state of flux, and emotionally maybe a bit more taxed due to your issues with your mom, that—”

She pressed a finger to his mouth, gently, teasing him as she rolled her eyes. “I don’t think you caught me at a weak moment, if that’s what you’re angling at. But I do think that if my life hadn’t been in such a transitional state, I’d have never allowed myself to look at you, much less get involved.”

“So, if you’d come out here as the senator’s still very much employed assistant, same reasoning, to talk to your mom, mend fences, same storm, same hired chauffeur…that there would be no chance we’d still be standing here right now?”

She tilted her head a little, taking his question seriously. “I’m—I don’t know. My first impulse would be to say no, we wouldn’t be. Because if I was still working for Fordham, I’d be umbilically attached to him twenty-four/seven by some technological device.”

“Even if you’re here on personal time?”

She laughed. “Personal time. You’re so cute.”

Now he laughed. “So you’d have been too busy, too worried, too stressed out to give me the time of day.”

“I’d have said so, yes.”

“Do I hear a but?”

“Are you so hard up for compliments that you have to go fishing?”

“I’m just curious.”

“But, now that I know you…I don’t know. I can’t say definitively that you wouldn’t have found a way to slide behind all my carefully constructed defenses.”

It was so close, almost verbatim, to what he’d been thinking earlier, he couldn’t help but grin. “I’m stealthy like that.”

“Yes,” she said, tipping up on her toes to kiss him again, then taking a step back. “You most definitely are. So, to answer your original question, no, you’re not tricking me into anything, and—”

“Hey, that’s not—”

“And I’m not going to wake up tomorrow, or probably any other day that we’re together, and suddenly freak out and run back to my life in Washington.” She grinned. “At least not without telling you first.”

He groaned. “You’re killing me.”

“I’m here. And you’re here. We’re spending every waking minute we can together and I’m really, really good with that.”

“Me, too.”

“Okay, then.”

“Okay, then.”

“Figured out yet what you’re going to do about this big Top Secret problem you have?”

“Can’t we go back to talking about how much you want to be in my personal space, with my hands all over you, all the time?”

“Is that what I was saying?”

He spanned her waist with his hands and lifted her up against him, then wrapped her tight and close, keeping her feet off the ground. “That’s what I was hearing? Was I wrong about any of that?”

She giggled. He loved it when she did that. “Um…no. No you weren’t.”

“Right again, then. Just, you know, for the record.”

“Yes, Mr. McKenna. Right, again. My faith and trust in you, once again, growing by leaps and bounds.”

“Hold on,” he said, and nudged her legs around him as he carried her around the plane and up the steps. “Duck your head.” He tucked them both inside, then set her gently into one of the passenger seats.

“Jake—”

“Just relax and let me take care of a few things.”

“I thought maybe you were bringing me in here to show me your…owner’s manual. Or something.” She tried batting her lashes, but it made them both laugh.

“No, I brought you in here so I didn’t pull you down to the tarmac and ravish you like I was wanting to.”

“Pity.”

“I was thinking the faster I got you home, the faster we could be somewhere far more private and far more comfortable.”

“In addition to being right—again—you’re also pretty smart and forward thinking. I like that about you.”

“Good to know.” He started to back out of the plane because it would be all too ridiculously easy to stand here for the better part of the day and just banter back and forth with her. He ducked out, then swung around again to face her. “The other thing I was going to say, back there, when I was talking about this being amazing.”

“Yes?”

“Was that it also feels like the most natural thing in the world. Crazy, huh?”

“Crazy, indeed.”

He paused, then said, “You, too, then?”

She nodded, that sweet affectionate look stealing into her eyes again, only this time he wasn’t even sure what he’d said to earn it. “Yes, me, too. You know, you’re also very cute when you’re vulnerable.”

“Hmm, the soft underbelly was showing, was it?”

“A little. I kind of like it. Matches mine.”

“Good to know.”

He was whistling as he jumped off the stairs and headed toward the hangar offices.

They were halfway back to Cedar Springs, smooth flight, when he remembered to ask her about her story from the night before. They’d been flying in companionable silence for a while, so he reached over to touch her knee so he wouldn’t startle her. “Last night—”

She smiled immediately. “Mmm, last night. Yes?”

He laughed. “That, too. But you had started to tell me something, before we got…sidetracked. About the bike? You said you found it, in the text you sent me, but that it was odd.”

“Oh, right! I can’t believe I forgot to tell you. It was in my room when I got back, but—”

“
In
your room?”

“I know, right? But that’s not the odd part, or the only odd part. I figured someone found it, turned it in to the motel staff, knowing it was mine—”