Slow Burn (Dynasties Seven Sins #7) - Janice Maynard Page 0,23

resent me for missing her childhood?”

“You can’t have it both ways.”

He had to get out of this house. His head threatened to explode with a million unanswered questions, and his libido wanted to get laid.

Not with just any woman. With Nikki. Nikki of the pale white skin and the fiery hair and the eyes that went moss green or forest green depending on her mood. She was a fascinating, desirable female.

Even though he had gone an entire decade without seeing her, he could have used the encounter in Atlantic City to build something new, something more than his vagabond existence offered him. But he hadn’t had the guts to try again.

His own lazy, selfish choices had brought him to this point.

Jake had run away fifteen years ago. He had wanted to be left alone, and he had succeeded in his quest. As he wandered the globe, he’d kept his friendships and his sexual relationships on a shallow plane. Expedient. Disposable. Forgettable.

The one woman he had never been able to forget was Nikki Reardon.

Now it was too late.

He stood up abruptly, nearly tumbling the chair. “I need to go,” he said. “I’ll call you later.”

Nikki stood, too, seeming hurt or relieved or maybe both. “Okay.”

“Joshua is getting married soon. I’ll need a plus-one.”

She gave him a loaded look. “Is that an invitation?”

“You know it is,” he said, feeling more irritated by the minute.

Nikki shook her head slowly. “Charming. You sure know how to make a girl feel wanted. I’ll think about it.”

“What’s to think about? Who else would I take?”

Nikki poked her finger in the center of his chest. “You need to learn some manners, Jake Lowell. I don’t know what kind of women you’ve been hanging around with, but I’m not some floozy you can pick up and put down when the mood strikes you.”

“Floozy?” He laughed out loud despite his uncertain temper. “This is the twenty-first century, Ms. Reardon. Women aren’t judged for their romantic entanglements anymore. Haven’t you heard?”

She poked him a second time, eyes flashing. “You know what I mean. You’re the absolute definition of a man who keeps a woman in every port. Just because you and I share a history doesn’t mean I’m going to let you push me around. Are we clear?”

They were toe-to-toe now. He could feel her breath on his skin, hear the uneven hitch in her angry words. “Poke me one more time, Nik. I dare you.”

Her chest heaved as she sucked in a breath and exhaled. “I’m not scared of you.” One feminine finger prodded his sternum.

“Well, you should be, you frustrating woman.” He groaned the words and snatched her up in his arms, backing her into the refrigerator. “Because you make me insane.”

Six

Nikki was a rule follower, a straight arrow.

Even as she recognized that Jake was neither of those things, she was drawn to him inescapably.

He hitched her legs around his waist and buried his face in the curve of her neck. “You smell good, Nik.”

As he nibbled the sensitive skin below her ear, she shuddered. “You like the scent of tomato sauce?”

“On you I do.” He caught her earlobe between his teeth. “Tell me to go home.” He begged her with as much sincerity as she had ever heard from him.

She smoothed his hair. “You told me you don’t have a home.”

“You know what I mean.”

He let her slide to her feet, but where their bodies were pressed together, she could feel the hard length of him. Her memories of Atlantic City undermined her good sense. “I’ve dreamed of you holding me like this, Jake.”

“I did more than hold you five years ago,” he said huskily.

She unbuttoned two buttons of his shirt and slipped her hand inside to test the warm contours of his chest. “Yes, you did. I was there, remember?”

Sexual tension pulsed between them.

Jake shifted his feet. “At the risk of jumping the gun, are there any condoms in this house?”

“What do you think?” She kissed his chin and tasted his lips, loving the way he shuddered at her touch. “Don’t you have one or two?”

“Not on me.”

His disgruntled response might have been funny if Nikki wasn’t so wound up. Being a single mom for the past four years had been a monastic existence. Life was hard. Busy and good, but hard. Not much time for a woman to indulge her sexual needs. And now here was Jake—sexy, gorgeous, every inch the man of her dreams.

She wanted badly to undress him and explore his taut, hard