Opening the fridge door, he grinned at the sight of the dark bottles. His cousins might have to buy more. Hell, he’d get them more himself. On second thought, this wouldn’t be his last night here.
Grabbing two bottles, he made his way back to the living room and took a seat on the middle of the couch and opened the pizza box.
“Come eat. You’re going to need your energy later.” Glancing up at her, his gaze fell to her neck and satisfaction all but drowned him.
Yeah, he’d marked her good and he was glad he had after hearing how Justice reacted. His friend was damned peevish over the fact that Miss Hamblen had chosen a lover, and that it had been Jacob.
Jacob wasn’t a stupid man, though, he’d known he’d probably pissed her off last night, leaving as he had. But when a man starts thinking things like he’d been thinking when it came to a woman then it was time to get the hell out and consider what he was doing.
“It doesn’t take much energy to sleep,” she assured him with false sweetness.
He lifted his shoulders negligently. “We’ll see.”
Something clenched in his chest at the sudden flash of vulnerability he saw in her gaze. He hadn’t just made her mad. He’d hurt her and that was the last thing he’d wanted to do. Sallie hadn’t had a lover in the three years she’d been there, and according to her cousins, at some point, her heart had been broken. To know he’d hurt her after that didn’t sit well with him. But he took comfort in the fact that she hadn’t shot him yet, as Tara had predicted Sallie would do.
Moving slowly, warily, she sat in the chair next to the couch and simply watched as he pulled a piece of the loaded dough free and took a healthy bite.
It was from the best pizza joint around.
She wasn’t eating, though, she just watched him as though she didn’t quite know what to do with him. And that glimmer of hurt she wasn’t hiding as well as she thought she was, was pricking at a conscience he hadn’t known he possessed.
It was bad enough he was craving the taste of her like a man addicted to something sweet, but he was doing something he’d never done, allowing himself to use his training to decipher those minute expressions to see beyond the anger.
He was going to have to stop that shit, he thought irritably. Hell, he thought he had stopped doing that when he’d left the agency.
“Why are you here?” Cool, short, and to the point.
His survival instincts perked up in interest.
Finishing the slice of pizza, he pulled another free, placed it on a napkin that came with the delivery and extended it to her.
She looked at it then back to him with a go-fuck-yourself look.
Damn, he just might end up liking this woman far more than he’d first thought.
“Come on, eat with me, then I might leave you in peace.” Though he sincerely doubted it.
“In peace?” Her smile was deadly. “What makes you think you can bargain with my peace? Or with my pizza?”
He turned the slice back and took a bite of it before eating it with relish.
She might call the sheriff on him to have him thrown out. Thankfully, he knew the sheriff pretty well.
“Good pizza,” he assured her, lifting the cold beer and taking a long pull as he watched her.
He couldn’t help but let his gaze slip to her neck. His cock throbbed at the sight of the whisker burn and the love bites he’d left there. Maybe he should be more careful of her delicate skin, he thought. Or place the marks in a less conspicuous place.
Maybe.
But then, everyone who saw those marks would know who she belonged to.
He frowned, taking another bite of the pizza. She’d covered her marks while she was at the store, hiding them beneath Tara’s scarf.
“Finish it and leave.” She rose, slapped the box closed, and picked it up as she strode to the kitchen as though she wasn’t just as hot for him as he was hard for her.
He glimpsed those tight little nipples beneath her cotton top. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Was she wearing panties? He couldn’t tell for certain with the loose fit of the cotton pajama bottoms. And damned if she didn’t have a nice ass. It curved just the way it was supposed to and tempted a man to take a bite … He could swear he could feel sweat forming on his brow at the thought of playing with that fine little ass.
He finished the slice of pizza, used a napkin she’d left him to wipe his lips, then finished the beer. Jacob rose to his feet and followed Sallie to the kitchen, watching as she pushed the pizza, box and all, into a nearly empty refrigerator. Dropping the beer bottle into the trash, he moved to her and let his hands settle on her bare shoulders as she closed the appliance door.
She froze.
Not in fear, nor in denial. From where he stood, he glimpsed her profile, watched her lashes drift to her cheeks and hunger flash across her expression.
“You need to leave.” Her voice was just as firm as ever, though she didn’t move from beneath his touch. “Now.”
Stroking her arms, feeling the delicacy of her, the silk of her flesh, he couldn’t imagine leaving without another taste of her.
“I should have made an effort to protect your privacy last night,” he said softly, his lips lowering to the shell of her ear. “I should have thought about how folks would react and taken the effort to hide the fact that I was here.”
Brushing her hair from the back of her neck, Jacob couldn’t help but rake his teeth over the nape of her neck before laying several kisses against the sensitive flesh. The shiver that worked through her body at least gave him hope that maybe she wasn’t actually going to throw him out.
“And I’m sorry you felt you had to leave so abruptly.” She all but tore herself from the grip he had on her shoulders. “Trust me, I won’t be any better tonight than I was last night. Find someone else to amuse yourself with.”
She thought he’d left because she hadn’t pleased him?
Hell.
He should have thought about this, but he’d been so damned screwed up with the thought of marking her and by spilling himself inside her that he hadn’t been able to get past it.
“You do know I didn’t wear a condom that last time?” he reminded her, watching her expression closely.
A small frown pulled at her brow and a bit of surprise showed on her face before she shrugged. “I was protected, and I haven’t been with anyone in six years. And you don’t seem the type of man to forget to protect yourself.”
Protect himself?
“I protect my lovers first and foremost,” he growled, the thought of being able to spill inside her drawing his balls tight in exquisite lust. “I don’t forget condoms, Sallie. I don’t forget that it’s a responsibility I take for a lover. Forgetting and realizing I didn’t bring any in with me slapped me upside the head with the fact that you stripped me down to my last thread of control. Not an easy thing for me to accept.”
She rubbed at her arms, and he realized he’d watched her do that at the bar as she watched the dancers, and again as she’d watched him.
Stepping to where she stood in front of the center island, he let his palms touch her shoulders again, run down her arms and back up again. What he suspected wasn’t something he was comfortable with. His stubborn, proud Sallie ached for touch. It was there in her expression as it softened, in the response he glimpsed in the darkening of her pale blue eyes.