Wondering what was going on, he started to stand, but then paused as his gaze fell on Nicole again. She was flat on her back on the tabletop, bare from the waist down and legs spread, knees on either side of him and dead to the world. Despite having just woken up from a post-coital fainting spell, the sight was tempting. Although, it hadn’t really been coitus, he supposed. Maybe he should move on to that now, Jake thought, his hands sliding up her legs of their own accord.
A smile curved his lips and he began to harden when Nicole shifted on the tabletop and murmured sleepily in response to his touch. The idea of waking her with kisses, pulling her to the edge of the table and sliding into her warm welcoming body grew in his head, and Jake’s erection grew with it. Damn, even when unconscious and drooling, the woman was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.
“Jake?”
Head shooting toward the door, he quickly stepped away from Nicole and rushed to the entry to peer into the living room. Dante was just stepping off the step, heading toward him.
Jake was about to ask him to stop where he was when Dante did so on his own and announced, “Just a heads-up. Those workers you called in to take care of the pictures are done downstairs and ready to start up here.”
“Oh.” That explained the noise, Jake thought, glancing over his shoulder to Nicole.
“I’ll tell them to give you two minutes,” Dante said turning back to the stairs before adding, “That way you can wake Nicole and get her dressed before they come up.”
Jake’s eyes shot back to the man, but he was already out of sight on the stairs.
“And that is why living with immortals who can read you is a pain in the ass,” Jake muttered, turning back into the kitchen. His cousin must have read his mind to know Nicole wasn’t dressed. That or he’d already been up here before this and had actually seen it, Jake thought and scowled harder. He really needed to remember to make sure they were somewhere private before jumping Nicole. The problem was, he found it hard to think when she was near. His brain seemed to have one mode right now and that was the “Let’s get Nicole na**d and . . .” mode. The part after the getting her na**d changed with the situation, but it always involved getting her na**d. Though he didn’t even seem to be able to accomplish that fully, most times. Out of the four interludes so far, she’d been completely na**d only once.
Jake didn’t wake Nicole, he merely scooped her up and carried her out of the kitchen to the bedroom. But by the time he set her on the bed she was stirring.
“Hi,” he said softly when she opened her eyes as he straightened.
“Hi.” She smiled uncertainly.
“We had to vacate the kitchen. Workers were about to invade,” Jake explained.
“Workers?” Nicole asked, sitting up and peering around with a frown. “Where are my jeans?”
“Oh, crap. Hang on,” he muttered and hurried back to the kitchen to retrieve her jeans and panties from the kitchen floor. Men were just coming into sight on the stairs as he hurried back through the living room. Jake slipped back into the master bedroom and then paused. Nicole wasn’t on the bed anymore. He relaxed when he heard the water turn on in the bathroom, and then set her jeans and panties on the bed and slid out of the room again to head to the bathroom outside his own room.
Jake quickly relieved himself and washed his face and hands, then headed out to investigate what had been done in the house so far. He nodded in passing at the men working in the loft living room and then hurried down the large, open winding staircase to the main floor. Dante and Tomasso were settled one on each of the couches in this larger living room, working on two large pizzas that lay open on the coffee table between them. An action movie was playing on the big-screen TV at the end of the room.
“Pizza?” Dante offered, lifting the box closest to him for Jake to consider its contents.
“No. Thanks,” Jake murmured, his gaze moving to the sliding glass doors next to the big screen. Through it he could see a man standing beside the hot tub, watching a pump spit water out into a large open barrel.
“Did you remind him that the water’s poisonous?” Jake asked, eyeing the man. He’d warned him when he’d called, but people sometimes didn’t listen.
“Yeah. He’s wearing protective gear and that’s why it’s going in the barrel. He brought several of them to take the water away. He said it probably wasn’t a good thing just to pump it out onto the grass and let the ground soak it up,” Dante told him and then asked, “When the hell did you call these guys? I thought you were so busy with Nicole you wouldn’t think of it. I was going to make the calls myself.”
“While I was making coffee when Joey and his girlfriend were here,” Jake answered. He’d put the coffee on and quickly made the calls. Quick as he’d been, Jake had barely finished when he’d heard Melly announcing that she wanted to leave. He glanced to Dante and Tomasso now. “She was something else, huh?”
“A bitch,” Tomasso rumbled.
“Couldn’t get away from her quick enough,” Dante said dryly. “Nicole’s brother is an idiot to put up with her. She doesn’t care about him. All she’s thinking about is what he can give her.”
“Yeah.” Jake grimaced, but then shrugged. “He’ll figure it out soon enough.
“You don’t think we should give him a heads-up?” Tomasso asked.
“I don’t think he’d appreciate it,” Jake said mildly, recalling his own resentment when they’d given him much the same message about his fiancée years ago. “Besides, how would you explain knowing?”
Dante and Tomasso both merely nodded, and then glanced past him and smiled.
Glancing over his shoulder, Jake found himself smiling as well. Nicole was coming down the stairs. She’d changed her clothes, put on some makeup, and her hair now flowed in soft golden waves around her shoulders. She was also carrying her purse.
“Where are we going?” he asked with a grin, moving to meet her at the foot of the stairs.
“I’m going shopping,” she answered lightly and then blushed and added, “For skirts and dresses.”