Sweet Southern Nights (Home In Magnolia Bend Book 3) (13 page)

Eva watched for a moment, and as she stood there an idea uncurled in her head. They’d abandoned the water hose on the side of the yard, so if she sneaked around front to the side gate, she could grab the hose with the power nozzle and soak all of them.

Seconds later she slid stealthily through the gate, kicked off her flip-flops and turned the water to full blast. Grasping the big power nozzle, she whipped the coiled hose behind her and charged out from around the corner. Jake and the boys were in the middle of the small backyard, engrossed in tossing balloons at each other. They weren’t prepared for the wild woman barreling toward them. She flipped the switch, and the water shot out in a thick torrent. She went for Jake first.

“Agghhh!” he screeched, grabbing for his super soaker gun. The boys screamed and ran, but Jake stood firm, ducking beneath the blast, looking like a special forces member as he rolled across the grass and came up firing.

Eva felt the water gun blast hit her chest, but she didn’t stop aiming her stream at Jake. She planted her feet and let him have it. Until he started toward her, head down, goggles abandoned, scrambling against the force of the water she aimed his way.

Dropping the hose, she ran back toward the side yard. Her bare feet slipped as she rounded the corner, and she careened out of control, landing on her butt in the wet grass. Didn’t matter, she was already soaked.

Jake hit the corner hard at a full run and, seeing her sprawled on the grass, tried to leap over her. His foot caught her knee and he tripped, falling and taking a roll on the grass.

Eva grabbed her sides and laughed.

“Oh, you think that’s funny, do you?” he said, reaching out and grabbing her ankle, dragging her toward him. She struggled but there was no contest. Jake was strong and determined...and she was laughing too hard to put up much of a struggle.

“Jake,” she squealed when he clutched her elbow and gave her a tug. She toppled onto him, laughing so hard she snorted.

But then her body registered the warmth of Jake. The hardness of his torso against the squishiness of her breasts. Her soft places met his hard places, and the laughter caught in her throat.

Jake looked up at her with his too-blue eyes filled with awareness.

Eva met his gaze, her breath catching as his eyes dropped to her...oh, crap...white T-shirt.

Yeah, she wore a white unpadded sports bra beneath a white T-shirt with a cute turtle on it—her one concession to the turtle theme. She didn’t do ninjas. But she would totally do the sexy firefighter lying beneath her. If only she’d let herself.

If only they would both stop fighting it.

Her nipples tightened under his gaze, and she knew he could see through her shirt.

“Nice,” he breathed, swallowing hard. “I knew they’d be incredible, but...”

He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw, letting go of her arm.

Eva scooted away, trying like hell to regain control of the stampeding horniness consuming her.

“Eva!” Charlie yelled.

Okay. Yeah. That worked. They were at a seven-year-old’s birthday party. Sweet jumping Jehoshaphat. Jake had an erection—if she were any judge of anatomy—and she’d been on the cusp of ripping her clothes off and rolling around in the wet grass with him.

There were four kids just around the corner.

Good gravy.

“Coming,” she said, struggling to her feet, leaving Jake lying in the fading day looking so damn good.

“No, you’re not,” Jake muttered. “Unfortunately.”

She almost laughed at the desolation in his tone. But the disappointment welling inside her stifled the neurotic need to lose it over their situation.

They were like teenagers, totally at the mercy of their bodies. The slightest glance of flesh, the whisper of a suggestion, the almost visceral fantasies popping up at the strangest moments—all conspired to fell them...to bring them to the point where they lost all reason and just went at each other like a pair of dogs in heat.

Eva emerged from the side of the house, crossing her arms over her breasts so she didn’t give a couple of elementary-school-aged boys a peep show. “What is it, guys?”

“Can we eat now?”

Eva shook her head. “We have to clean up first. Y’all pick up the popped balloons and I’ll get y’all some towels. And I have to change real quick.”

She slipped into the house, padding back to her room and en suite bathroom. Shucking her jeans, she pulled the T-shirt off and tossed it toward the tub, where it landed with a slap. Then she unhooked her damp sports bra, letting it fall as she reached for a hand towel to dry her hair.

But then the bathroom door opened.

Eva froze as a very wet Jake appeared in her mirror.

Gasping, she clasped her breasts and spun toward him, clad only in her lacy pink panties.

“What are you doing?” she managed.

He shut the door. And then he leaned back against it. He didn’t respond, just allowed his gaze to lazily move over her body.

Eva stood there, not knowing whether she should drop her hands and go to him or affect maidenly outrage and order him from her bathroom. Seconds ticked by.

“Do you know how many times I imagined what you look like naked?” he asked, plucking his wet T-shirt from his chest. The fabric sucked against him, making a sound that matched the feeling in her gut.

“No,” she managed to say.

“You are my friend, but I’m a man, you know?”

She didn’t say anything. Just watched as he moved her way.

“There were times you’d leave the room to go shower and my mind would flash to you standing under the spray. I couldn’t stop it, and I told myself that’s what guys do. Totally normal.” He stopped in front of her and traced the upper curve of her breast. Eva couldn’t control the heart thumping in her chest, the breaths shortening as she caught the scent that was Jake’s alone.

“And then when I’d go in to shower, I’d smell you. That pomegranate and orange blossom shampoo. Your perfume. Even the strawberry lip balm you kept on the counter. I’d think about your lips...and where you dabbed that perfume.” He traced the valley between her breasts. “Here?”

Eva nodded dumbly, wishing she could find the words. But the moment was hushed like a church or some other sacred thing.

“I thought it was normal, but maybe my body knew more than my head. You know?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think—”

“Shh,” he said, pressing a warm finger against her lips. “Don’t say it. Just don’t.”

Jake tugged her hands away from where they cupped her breasts. She let them fall.

He closed his eyes, expelling a heavy breath.

“Better, way better, than I could have ever imagined.”

Eva swallowed as he opened his eyes again, his gaze hungrily moving over her standing before him. Then he did the single most erotic thing she’d ever experienced. He lowered his head and sucked her right breast into his mouth.

“Oh,” she groaned, sagging against the vanity, grabbing hold so her buckling knees didn’t send her crashing to the floor.

Jake made low noises in his throat as he grasped her hips and pressed her back toward the mirror with his forehead. All the while he maintained the delicious pressure on her sensitive flesh, alternating nips with gentle suckling.

Eva felt liquid warmth pool in her pelvis.

Like a well-oiled engine, she purred for him.

His hands invaded her panties, sliding around to cup her ass, squeezing as he released her breast, dropping little kisses along her breastbone toward the uber-sensitive column of her throat. Making more low noises in his throat, he captured her lips.

It was heaven—that thrust and parry of his tongue, the way his hands stroked her, turning her warm desire into a raging inferno in mere seconds.

Then he pulled one hand from her ass, hooked it behind her knee and lifted her leg, dropping down to his knees so that his face was level with the juncture between her legs.

“Ah, sweet, sweet Eva,” he said, stroking a finger down the crotch of the silky panties holding her damp heat.

She panted, unable to speak as he slid one finger beneath the lace, teasing, stroking her soft down edging the slickness.

“Just one little taste,” he murmured, lifting the fabric and pulling it aside so she was exposed to him.

“Oh,” she breathed, her head sinking back onto the cold mirror. He held her leg up with the other hand, and she surrendered to him, letting Jake do whatever he pleased.

She needed him to touch her, to love her, to do what she’d fantasized about in the darkness of her bedroom. She opened her eyes and looked down at him.

“So beautiful. I have to taste you, sweet girl,” he said, eyes half-lidded with desire as he leaned forward and—dear Bessie—licked her.

“Ahhh.” She tilted her hips as he fastened his mouth on that place that would...

Her body exploded.

Hips convulsed, shaking as she came apart. He held her firm, working her as she experienced the strongest, fastest orgasm of her life.

After what felt like hours, she pressed against his forehead for respite. He looked up at her, his blue eyes dilated, his face portraying the deepest satisfaction.

Eva dropped her leg onto the vanity top with a splat.

She swallowed several times, blinking at him. And then the reality of the situation struck her. “Oh, crap. Charlie!”

Jake actually had the nerve to laugh as he tugged the crotch of her panties back in place. “Not usually the response I get, but—”

Eva pushed him away. She was shocked and confused about what had taken place. And totally freaked about the fact that a bunch of soaked seven-and eight-year-olds galloped about her backyard with no supervision while she straddled Jake’s head in the bathroom.

What in the hell had she just done?

Grabbing her bathrobe off the hook, she struggled into it. Her face suffused with color as she registered that Jake still knelt on her bathroom floor, T-shirt still molded to his body, a very impressive erection straining his jeans and a triumphant smile plastered on his face.

Oh, cripes, she was such a whore.

Who did this sort of thing in the middle of their baby brother’s birthday party?

A deranged horny woman, obviously.

She pushed past Jake, ducking out in the hall.

It was totally quiet.

Which probably meant the boys were playing with matches, squirting lighter fluid at the grill or choking on the remnants of the burst latex balloons. And what if one of them had a peanut allergy she didn’t know about? Or a bee allergy?

Not that she even had bees around. Or peanut butter.

She scurried down the hall and peeked into the backyard.

Then exhaled in relief.

They had gone back to playing the same game they’d been playing before.

Jake set his hands on her shoulders, and she jumped a good foot off the ground.

“Relax,” he said.

She turned on him. “Seriously? That’s what you say to me after what we just did back there?”

“What do you want me to say?”

Her mouth opened and shut, opened and shut. Like a cartoon. No, like a horrible ’80s romantic comedy.

He crooked his head. “Are you okay?”

“No. No, I’m not,” she managed to squeak out before stalking back to her bedroom. She shut the door a bit harder than she’d meant to and locked it for good measure.

Jesus.

No, she couldn’t bring Jake into her messy life right now.

She sank onto the bed and pressed her fingers into her eyes.

“You’re a dumb-ass. You’re a dumb-ass,” she whispered to herself before opening her eyes and catching her reflection in the mirror above the dresser.

Absolute mess.

The robe clung to her larger than average breasts, gaping at the chest. Her hair had half dried into something that looked as if a kindergartener had taken shears to it. But her eyes, well, they looked a bit dreamy, and her cheeks were rosy as...roses? Overall, she looked like a woman who’d had a fulfilling encounter with a sex god in the bathroom, followed by a partial meltdown.

She laughed.

Because she really couldn’t cry.

“Oh, God,” she said, covering her mouth, her eyes going all googly. She’d just let Jake go down on her in the small bathroom with the vintage tile and claw-foot tub. In the middle of a children’s birthday party.

Classic.

She didn’t have time to overthink it, though, because she had to go put the mustard and ketchup in the cute glass dishes she’d bought for the party. And she needed to get the birthday cake candles out of the bags she set in the laundry room. Oh, and she had left the dump truck–shaped pencil erasers in the passenger seat of her car and still needed to put them in the goody bags.

She hadn’t even known that she needed goody bags for each child as a token of thanks for coming to Charlie’s party. Thankfully, they’d run into Abigail at the dollar store and she’d imparted her extensive wisdom in the art of kids’ parties.

Who knew?

So she didn’t have time to think about losing control and doing, well,
that
with Jake.

There were bean bags to toss into clown faces and karaoke songs to sing.

Exactly.

No time to think.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

J
AKE
HAD
THOUGHT
of nothing else for the rest of the day but the image of Eva with her head dropped back against her bathroom mirror, moaning his name. Like a mosquito circling his head, the image wouldn’t leave him alone. So he embraced it.

It popped up when he brushed his teeth.

And when he pulled on his pajama pants.

And damn sure when he slid beneath the sheets in the quiet darkness of his room.

He’d promised himself that when he logged into his shift at the station he would put aside the memory of Eva spread before him, sighing with pleasure. Just like laundry he would put it away, compartmentalize neatly...not that he knew what that looked like. Neat freak he wasn’t.

But when it came down to it, he sorta failed at tucking the image away anyway.

Because when he got to work, Eva somehow looked more sensuous in her uniform than ever before. Which he knew was crazy because she’d dressed as she’d always dressed—gray polo shirt monogrammed with MBFD tucked into navy uniform pants, dark nonslip-sole shoes on her feet. Her hair lay braided down her back, not a trace of makeup beyond slick lip gloss. But somehow she looked smoking hot.

“You going to eat that last piece of cornbread?” he asked her.

She didn’t answer. Just passed him the platter holding one lonely piece of cornbread. Dutch and Hank looked sorry they hadn’t thought to ask first.

“Thanks,” he said, taking the platter and setting it on the corner of the table.

“What’s up with you two?” Hank asked, scraping the last of the beef stew out of the pot.

“Nothing,” Eva said, not looking at any of the men. Her spoon had her full attention.

“Well, usually y’all are jabbering up a storm, but for the past few weeks it’s been weird. Is it because Wendell is retiring and a spot is up for grabs?”

“Nope,” Jake said, shaking his head. “Guess me and Eva have just run outta things to say.”

Hank barked a laugh. “About damn time. I was tired of talking about the Eric Church concert or who’s gonna kill who on the next
Walking Dead
episode.”

Eva stood up, the sound of her chair screeching making them all wince. “I’m going to bed. I’ve got a headache.”

“It’s only eight o’clock. Don’t you want to watch
Chicago Fire
?” Dutch asked.

“No, I’ve been getting up early with Charlie and I’m beat. Need some z’s.”

The other two men looked at Jake with questions in their eyes. They knew something was wrong between him and Eva, but it wasn’t as if Jake could casually say, “Yeah, I went down on her last night in the middle of her half brother’s birthday party.” Seemed rather inappropriate dinner conversation.

“But it ended in a cliffhanger,” Dutch said.

“I have DVR,” Eva replied moving down the hall.

The click of her bedroom door sounded louder than normal.

“What did you do?” Hank asked, leaning back with a belch. “She’s acting weird.”

“It’s probably because of her brother,” Jake offered, averting his gaze. He didn’t want the guys to see the truth in his eyes.

Uh, what that truth was could be a lot of things. Hell, Jake didn’t know what way was up when it came to Eva. All he knew was she drove him nuts.

He hadn’t planned what had happened in the bathroom yesterday. He’d gone in after her to grab a towel for himself so he could get the wieners inside and set up the hot dog bar for the boys. Her room door had been open a crack, and he could see into the mirror hanging over her bed...which reflected Eva pulling off her shirt.

It was as if his feet moved of their own accord. Before he knew it, he’d walked into her room and rounded the corner of the bathroom. And there she stood, large breasts so...he really didn’t have words for them. They were so perfect. Large, round with puffy dark pink nipples. Her stomach was flat, slightly ripped. Her panties delicate against the smooth, rounded hips. She was like an Amazon goddess—lean, muscular and very, very feminine.

He hadn’t been able to leave.

Not even if a serial killer with a chain saw had been after him. Nothing could have made him leave.

Except maybe Eva herself.

But he’d seen the desire in her eyes—she wouldn’t tell him no. But he didn’t ask. No, he took. And it was the sweetest thing he’d done in forever and a day.

Of course, after she’d pulled on clothes and donned her mask of shame, he’d had doubts. After all, he’d promised her he wouldn’t kiss her and then he’d tossed that out when the first little bit of temptation came along.

Okay, it was a big temptation.

But still, he’d violated the terms of their agreement in a very big way. He’d finished with the grilling, helped the boys set up the mini-bonfire in the fire pit and then got the hell out of there. He’d spent the rest of the night watching crappy movies, begging himself to not think about how upset Eva had looked after the bathroom incident.

“I’ll go talk to her,” he said, rising from the table and making his way back to the bunk area. Eva slept in the smallest room, sharing it with Moon, whom she professed was neater than a nun.

He knocked softly. “Eva?”

She opened it before he could knock a second time. “What?”

“Can we talk?”

Staring hard at him, she slowly shook her head. “I’m fine. There’s nothing to say.”

“Look, they know something’s up by the way you’re acting. You’ve hardly said a word all night.”

“So? I don’t care what they think. I told them I had a headache. Now go watch TV and give me some space.”

“No. We’ve got to address this. Ignoring things isn’t working.” He pressed his hands to the door frame before glancing back at where Dutch and Hank sat sipping coffee and talking about Hank’s son walking on at University of Louisiana Lafayette. “Let me in and let’s figure things out. We can’t work this way.”

She stepped back. “Fine. But I like the idea of ignoring it. I’m horrified you did that—”

“Come on, E, don’t make me sound like a sleazebag. Last time I looked, I’m a grown man and you’re a grown woman. No need to make what happened in the bathroom sound like a crime,” he said, hating the hurt that curled into a ball in his stomach. “Stop making what we have between us bad.”

He jerked his head toward the still-open door. Eva closed it. But she didn’t look happy about it.

“Look, what happened
happened
,” she said. “And it’s my fault. I let you do it, and I’m angry at myself for being so weak.”

“So here’s the deal, Eva—we may not have wanted to feel this way about each other, but pretending it away, wishing it away, is not working. Obviously, the attraction isn’t a passing thing for either of us.”

Eva crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t want this. I mean, I do, but—”

“We were wrong—wrong to think we can’t be more than friends. Time to stop fighting and embrace it.”

“Who says you have the power to declare that?” She sat down hard on the bed, her arms moving down to curl about her waist. For a moment she looked like a little girl. She stared at his boots, and he got the feeling her mind whirred with possibility, doubt and maybe...hope.

“No one gave me the power to decide, but you can’t say that what we’re doing now is working. So why don’t we try to see if we’re good together before we decide we’re bad? We both shot down the idea before really examining it, before trying it on. We might work.”

“What?” she said, lifting her gaze.

“Go out with me. On a date.” He hadn’t intended on suggesting they start dating. He’d only wanted to stop the awkwardness between them. The past few hours had been filled with deafening silence. But taking Eva on a date would do one of two things—it would either prove they should remain friends only or it would break open a new possibility. Either way, taking a few steps on a new path couldn’t hurt as long as they didn’t get too far down. Of course, they’d sort of already turned a corner in that bathroom.

“You want to take me on a date?” she asked. She sounded confused. As though he’d just asked to borrow her pantyhose.

“To dinner. Or that drive-in movie place that just opened over in Creole Gap.”

“You want to go on a date?”

“That’s what I said.” He tried not to be flippant but her reaction made him defensive. What? He wasn’t worth getting her nails done for? Not that Eva ever painted her fingernails.

“I don’t know what to say,” she said.

“I’m pretty sure it’s either yes or no.”

A few seconds ticked by before she shifted on the bed and folded her hands over her knee. Like a therapist. Like she was prepared to be logical about the matter. “I know we’ve had some hiccups in restraining ourselves, and I don’t know why suddenly everything’s changed, but I don’t think we should date.”

Something hard and spiteful smacked him. Rejection. “So you’d rather continue meeting in bathrooms for oral sex? Cool, I think it’s my turn to receive.”

Color flooded her face before she set her jaw. “You’re just mad because I didn’t collapse at your feet and squeal, ‘Oh, Jake, yes, a date would be lovely.’”

“No. I’m mad that you’re being stubborn. That you’ve talked yourself out of giving us a chance.”

“For what? A two-or three-month fling before you move on to Tracy at the Cut-n-Curl? For one thing, we work together. When you cut me loose, you’ll still see me. And for another, our friendship means more to me than that. I don’t want to ruin us, Jake.”

“And what if it’s not a two-or three-month thing? What if it’s more?”

Something flashed in Eva’s eyes. The power of the emotion within the depths hit him. Everything Matt had said the day before came spiraling back.
Eva’s always had a thing for you
. For her, this wasn’t about sex. It was about her heart.

And that made him hesitate.

He’d only thought of the pleasure...of the way she made him feel. Even after talking to Matt, weighing the pros and cons of dating Eva, he’d still managed to convince himself he could handle the fallout when they called it quits. After all, they were adults and friends. It would be like Elaine and Jerry on Seinfeld—two ex-lovers who still hung out. But he’d never contemplated love.

Eva gave an incredulous laugh. “Please, Jake. I’ve been your friend for over three years. I’ve watched the parade of women. You’re good for two months at the most. I’m not looking for casual, Jake. I never have.”

“So you’re telling me you thought Chase was forever?” His words were like darts, angry, metallic.

“I wanted to.”

Such honesty. One of the things he liked about Eva. When she talked about her personal life, she never covered the ugliness with a pretty latch-hook rug, pretending the damage wasn’t there.

“So the answer is no? Because you’ve already decided you know me. You’ve decided I’m that kind of guy, huh?”

“I think the answer has to be no,” she said, sorrow coating her words, making her voice raspy. “We can’t be so selfish as to take what we want without foreseeing the ramifications. The downside is too bumpy.”

He felt for the doorknob, her rejection stinging him. He felt under assault—his character assassinated. But it had all been brought on by his choice to live as he’d lived. Jake now reaped what he sowed. Eva thought he was pure heartbreak. “So this is what we’re left with? A strained friendship?”

Eva stood, her chin relaying her determination even as her hands trembled. “I want you, Jake. That’s something I can’t deny, but I couldn’t bear it if you weren’t in my life. I’ll take what we have over what we could lose. I’ve spent three years pretending. I’ll deal.”

Jake opened the door, turning back to her. “You’re afraid.”

Eva nodded.

“That’s no way to live, Eva.”

“Says the pot to the kettle.”

Jake flinched.

She continued. “We do what we do to make life tolerable. My life’s not horrible, but I’ve never had what you have here in Magnolia Bend. You have a big family who loves you, who are always there for you. I’ve carved a place in this town, and I finally feel like I belong somewhere. If I’m a coward for protecting that, then that’s what I am. I won’t toss all I am so I can sleep with you for a few weeks. I just can’t.”

He gave her a curt nod, afraid of the emotion churning inside him. His brother was right. Eva was right. Everyone was right. Jake wasn’t the kind of guy a chick dated with the dream of wedding cake and chubby baby feet in her eyes. Though he wanted Eva with a need that had shaken him like a sapling in a hurricane, he respected her feelings.

“Night, Eva.”

“Good night, Jake.”

He walked out, not bothering to shut the door. Somehow he couldn’t. It was too final.

“Hey,” she whispered from the doorway.

Jake turned. “Yeah?”

“Tonight was hard after what happened, you know? But it will get better. We’re good, okay?”

He glanced back at Dutch and Hank, who were deep in conversation. “Sure.”

She shut the door softly, like an apology.

Jake stared at the closed door, knowing they weren’t okay and wondering what he could do about it. Maybe nothing. Eva was right. He wasn’t a man who could love a woman the way she needed. He was who he’d always been.

Something he’d carried around with him for a long time...something it seemed he would carry awhile longer.

* * *

T
HE
NEXT
EVENING
Eva took Charlie to a special service at First Presbyterian and learned that hard church pews, long choir programs and seven-year-old little boys did not mix.

“Stop,” she hissed for the twenty-second time in the past hour as Charlie kicked a steady rhythm on the back of the pew in front of them. Mildred Chandler sent a scowl over her shoulder before straightening her old crow shoulders and issuing a harrumph.

Old hag.

“Did you say something?” Shelby Beauchamp whispered, popping a pacifier into her infant daughter’s mouth.

“Uh, no.” Eva pressed her lips together, wondering if she was going cuckoo in the third row of the Magnolia Bend First Pres Church. She didn’t think she’d uttered the insult out loud, but she was so damn tired she couldn’t remember. Sleep had been as elusive as an antelope flying across the Serengeti. If it wasn’t Charlie crying out from his wet bed, it was the memory of Jake’s face as he walked away from her the night before.