She checked her phone again, her stomach on full tilt when she reread Jax’s text. Get here now.
If she didn’t need her hands to feel her way around in the dark, she’d fan herself with the notebook of ideas she had for Jax’s redecorating. There was an urgent tone to his words that made her feel desirable—sexy, maybe even wanton, a word that had once reminded her of soup, but now had a whole different meaning. His text made her feel as if she were the only woman in the world capable of fulfilling his need.
That’s plain stupid, the voice in her head, the one that said she was headed into murky waters, blared. Those aren’t the thoughts of a woman about to embark on a no-strings-attached rendezvous. Rein it in.
Her phone vibrated in her hand, sending her eyes to the screen.
You okay?
She smiled at Jax’s text. Strangely, she really was okay. She wanted Jax. And she’d said so. In easy to understand words and with a directness she was coming to like about herself.
She’d blocked out her mother’s certain disapproval, and the odd looks Dixie had given her that day when she’d confessed she didn’t want to become involved, and she’d gone for it.
It felt wildly good not to overthink it, not to think about anything but the pleasure of it all.
“Em?” Jax’s husky whisper cut into the dark.
Some of that pleasure she was high on rippled along her arms in the way of goose bumps. “Shhh!” was her automatic response until she realized she was as noisy as he was.
She saw his dark head in the peeling doorway of his ramshackle guesthouse and made a beeline with his large shadow as her beacon.
He let the door shut behind him and loped down the path to greet her, holding out his hand. “Sorry,” he muttered on a smile. “This might take some getting used to.”
“Tell me about it. I’m about as covert as a bulldozer. I think I’ve crunched through every pile of leaves possible here in Forest Hawthorne.” She curled her fingers into his, loving the way their skin connected.
He pulled her up tight against his back and gave the door a hard nudge with his shoulder to dislodge it. It creaked open, slamming against the wall with a heavy thud.
“Shh! The way we’re going, we might as well post a sign outside the door that reads Jax and Emmaline Are Doin’ It. Do Not Disturb,” she chided.
Jax’s chuckle rippled from his lips slow and deep. He pulled her close, his powerful chest pressing to hers. “Sorry. I’ve never hidden from a whole town before.”
She batted her eyes at him, something she was getting very good at. “Now you’re just bein’ facetious. It’s not the whole town. Just parts of it.” Most of it. The big mouths of it.
Jax traced her lips with his fingertip. “It is so. You said you didn’t want people in town talking about you any more than they already did. You didn’t say one or two people in town. Just people.”
“Are you splittin’ hairs with me at a time like this?” Now, when I have on the tiniest powder-blue confection ever created out of a polyester blend and a matching thong to boot?
“I like the trench coat. Very discreet.”
Right. Check. The trench coat had been a cliché, stupid idea. “Pathetically obvious. I never wear trench coats. I was going for mysterious and sexy.”
He shrugged his shoulders and grinned when he ran the tip of his finger along the curve of her cleavage, stopping at the top of her silky negligee. “I like cliché and obvious. I think it’s sexy and mysterious. What’s this?” He tugged at the notebook.
“An idea book. I thought once we were done...well, I thought we could look this over and you could show me what you like and don’t like. You know, for the house?”
“With you dressed like that, and me dying to see what’s under that coat, the last thing I was thinking about were colors for my house,” he teased.
Em forgot what she was wearing when she glanced over his shoulder. Her breath lodged in her throat. As promised, Jax had blown up the air mattress. It lay against the wall patched with old barn wood, just beside a stack of dusty pictures. He’d thrown some plaid flannel sheets across its surface along with a couple of blankets with tattered holes in them.
He’d also brought along a bottle of wine and candles. So many candles. The flames danced with the rush of the wind seeping through the double windows on each side of the guesthouse.
How beautiful.
But wait. She wasn’t supposed to be feeling gooey on the inside because he’d made a romantic gesture. That was reserved for a relationship. She had to stick to the rules. “I told you no romance...no wine, no candles.”
Jax gave the door his toe, closing it. He walked her backward, keeping his hands at her waist until her calves touched the back of the air mattress. “Who says this is for you, sexy lady?” He grinned.
Jax chest-bumped her in playful challenge when she didn’t answer. “Well?”