Nobody But You (16 page)

She'd told him she couldn't fall, not ever again, and yet she was seriously doing just that.

This was crazy. Crazy impossible. And just thinking about it, she began to have a very quiet, very internal freak-out.

Except maybe not so internal. She didn't realize she was trembling until, with a low murmur of concern, Jacob pulled her in closer, running his big hands over her as if to warm her.

But he couldn't, because she was cold from the inside out. Cold with the certainty that she'd truly done exactly what she'd promised herself she wouldn't.

She'd fallen. And as the commercial went, she didn't think she could get up.

“What's the matter?” he asked.

“Nothing. Everything's peachy. Listen, I think we should forget this happened.”

His long look suggested she was mental, and she gave a nearly hysterical laugh, because he was just now figuring that out? Sitting up, she began to re-dress. “Hurry.”

“Where's the fire?”

She'd broken the hook on her bra, dammit. She slipped her blouse back on without it. Her damn nipples hadn't gotten the freak-out memo and were pressing against the thin material. It was hugely annoying, but when she glanced over at Jacob, he seemed anything but annoyed. “Okay, so I'm not in a hurry to get somewhere. I'm in a hurry to get away from any awkward…after.”

He laughed. “Since when do we do awkward afters?”

She stared at him and remembered last time, in his bed, where he'd taken her to new heights. Over and over again.

No awkward after. “Fine. Whatever. I'm taking you home.”

His slow, sexy smile told her she'd just played right into his big hands, but at the moment she didn't care. She took control of the boat and headed across the water at a fast clip.

The evening was truly gorgeous. The water was like a piece of glass, and she cut straight through it, loving the light spray off the front of the hull, the wind in her face…She was almost thankful that Lucas was such an asshole.

Almost.

When she got back to the north shore, she slowed down, passing the row of cabins. When she came to Jacob's, she lined up with his dock the best she could, but she wasn't good at coming in from this direction, and the wind and waves were not being her friends.

“Careful,” he said. “The corner—”

“I see it.” She whipped her head around, trying to eyeball the maneuver, still getting used to how differently a boat glided over water versus a car on the road.

Jacob stood up. “Sophie—”

“Sit down or jump into the water,” she said. “Because I can't see around you.”

He stood on the very edge of the boat, one foot on the hull, the other reaching out to work as a buoy for the dock. “You're coming in too hot,” he said. “You've got to—”

“I see it.” Shit. He was right. She'd overcorrected, and now she was stuck in the position of having to overcorrect an overcorrect—which never worked out.

“Sophie—”

“I got it!”

But she didn't, and in the next second she heard the boat collide with the dock. And a big, huge chunk of the dock broke off and fell into the water.

J
acob took over, leaping onto the dock, the rope from the bow of Sophie's boat in his hand, which he used to tie it to the torn dock. “Got it, Andretti,” he said, turning back to Sophie with a smile that quickly died on his lips.

She hadn't moved from the controls, though she'd turned off the engine. She was still white-knuckling the wheel, head bent.

Silent.

He reached for the rope at the stern to tie that as well. “You breathing over there?”

“I'm so sorry,” she whispered.

Finished with the boat, he crouched on the dock, as close as he could get to her with her still behind the wheel. “Hey.”

“I'll get it fixed,” she said. “I promise.”

“Soph. Look at me.”

She lifted her head. She was pale, upset. And goddamn it all to hell, anxious. A stark difference to how she'd been looking at him fifteen minutes ago, when she'd been on her knees between his, eyes lit with erotic promise as she'd driven him wild with her mouth.

“It's just a dock, Soph,” he said softly. “It won't take much to fix it. I can do it myself.” He shifted closer, and she froze. Froze into a solid block of ice, every inch of her—except for her eyes, which flared with defiance, and her hands as they tightened into fists at her side.

The gesture was familiar. Jacob had seen it every time he and Hud had gone head-to-head, or with his unit when they'd bickered…She was braced for a fight. He stared at her, trying to figure out what the hell. How could she think he was going to yell at her over a mistake, or worse…
Jesus
…put his hands on her in anger?

Moving slowly, he continued with what he'd originally planned on doing. He touched her cheek, stroked his fingers over the curve of her jaw and let them sink into her hair, gently pulling her face up to his.

She closed her eyes, and he felt his heart press up too hard against his rib cage. “Sophie, please look at me.”

She opened her eyes and focused them on his face, specifically just above his own eyes, probably at the scar that bisected his eyebrow. It was a trick he knew all too well from having to stare at commanding officers who were yelling right in his face. He wouldn't give them the respect of looking straight in their eyes, saying
fuck you
by looking right through them. “I once fell out of a tree trying to beat Hud to the top,” he said.

Her startled gaze flew to his. “What?”

“The scar you're looking at. I got it when I was a kid. The funny thing is that Hud has one exactly like it on the opposite eyebrow. He got his when I hit him with a bat.”

Her eyes widened and she gasped.

“Not on purpose,” he said. “He was catcher on our high school baseball team and got caught by a wide swing.”

She stared at him. “You're trying to distract me.”

“If I were trying to distract you, we'd both be naked again.”

She blinked. “Awfully sure of yourself,” she said.

A challenge. He liked a good challenge. He also liked her pissed off instead of anxious. He got that she was afraid of getting emotionally attached and he'd thought that worked for him. He'd mistakenly assumed that her past, and her scars from that past, were none of his business. He'd been wrong. And if it was Lucas who'd taught her to fear confrontation, he'd be teaching him to drink through a straw.

“I don't care about the dock,” he said. “Or the damage. What I care about is you.”

She was very busy studying her feet.

She didn't fully believe him, and he did his best to not be insulted by that. “Okay,” he said. “Let's try this instead.” And then he pulled her face to his and kissed her. He went in quick and easy, or meant to. But even with their awkward angle, with her in the boat and him on the dock leaning over her, there was absolutely nothing quick or easy about the way their mouths clung greedily.

She pulled back first, shaking her head like she needed to clear it. She tried to speak, but either she couldn't find the words or she was still as dazed as he was, because she ended up just staring at him.

He nodded. “I'll take that as ‘Why, Jacob, I care about you too.'” He rose and offered her a hand out of the boat, which she took.

“I stand corrected,” she said. “You were able to distract me.”

He smiled, but she pointed at him. “But I'm onto you now, so that won't work again.” And with that, she headed belowdecks.

Another challenge, he thought, and he was absolutely up to the task.

Sophie went belowdecks and pressed her hands to her racing heart. God. God, what had she done?

You let him in…

And then you destroyed his dock.
She plopped down on the bed and closed her eyes. Damn, her body was still trembling. From good sex, adrenaline.

Anxiety.

She'd crunched his dock, and just like that, she'd been back in her bad marriage…nervous, jumping. Upset.

The truth was, Lucas hadn't always been a coldhearted dick. Once upon a time he'd been fun. Happy.

Then he'd been hired by a cutthroat law firm, and she'd rarely seen him. He'd felt a lot of stress and pressure on himself and he'd…changed.

Suddenly everything she did irritated him, annoyed him, pissed him off. He'd lost his patience and grown a nasty temper, and she'd…hated it. She'd also allowed herself to feel responsible. Just like she had with her dad, she'd rushed to please him.

An impossible task.

But eventually she'd gotten used to always being wrong, and worse, she'd gotten used to the yelling. It shamed her just how much. She'd withdrawn, retreated inside herself, and she was only now coming back into her own. It was way too soon to think about having feelings for anyone, and yet that's exactly what she'd done—even though she'd told Jacob she couldn't have feelings, that she absolutely wouldn't.

Ever.

It wasn't too much later that there came a knock on the door. And then… “Soph.”

She closed her eyes. What was it about his voice that always reached her, even when she was mad, hurt?

And that was the problem, she knew. Not that she was mad or hurt. But afraid, of her own heart, no less.

“Let me in, Soph.”

You're already in…
Not that she planned on admitting any such thing. She stared at the ceiling. “The door's unlocked.”

“Let me in,” he repeated quietly.

Sophie turned her head and stared at the door. Damn him. He didn't want to bulldoze his way in. He wanted her to let him in.

If he only knew.

She stood up and went to the door but didn't open it. “Are you wearing a shirt?” she asked cautiously. She didn't trust herself if he wasn't.

There was a beat of silence. “Do you want me to be?”

She banged her head against the wood a few times, sighed, and opened the door.

He'd changed his T-shirt. This one said B
OMB
S
QUAD…
I
F
Y
OU
S
EE
U
S
R
UNNING,
Y
OU'D
B
EST
K
EEP
U
P
, and she laughed.

His mouth quirked, like he enjoyed the sound of her laugh. “Come up on deck?” he asked, and without waiting for her, turned and vanished.

She followed, as he knew damn well she would.

Night had fully fallen, but that wasn't what surprised her. No, it was the candles lit on the hull, shimmering in the dark. The blanket spread out on the floor of the boat.

In the center was a picnic. A bottle of wine, cheese, crackers, salami, grapes.

“My version of cooking,” Jacob said. “Sophie, about before.”

“I'd rather not talk about it.” She kept her back to him as she took in the spread he'd put out for her, needing a moment, needing space, because whenever she got too close to him, their mouths gravitated toward each other like magnets.

“Not that,” he said, voice low. “Before that. I honestly didn't realize you thought I was lake patrol. I should have, but I'm…”

When he trailed off, she turned to face him.

“I'm people rusty,” he explained, and then grimaced. “Specifically,
women
rusty.”

She stared at him as that sank in. He'd spent the past nine long years as a soldier, doing and saying God knew what. Of course he was rusty.

Anyone would have been, and she should've seen that. She smiled and hoped it conveyed her apology as well. “So your plan was to what, give me orgasms until my brain cells blew so I wouldn't notice?” she teased.

He flashed a grin. “I blew your brain cells?”

“You know you did.” She gave him a little push and he stepped back.

“Your choice, Soph,” he said. “Always will be.”

He was telling her flat-out that she was in the driver's seat here, that she had the controls. Too bad she had no idea what to do with that.

Or him.

Liar
, an inner voice said.
You want to strip him and ride him like a bronco
.

When he laughed softly, it sent a bolt of heat through her that turned into a shudder racing up her spine. “What?”

“I half expected you to shove me overboard. Instead you're looking like maybe you want to eat me for lunch, dinner, and dessert.”

She closed her eyes. “Well, not all three at the same time.”

He laughed again, and eyes still closed, she shook her head.

“Say it,” he said quietly. “Say what you need to say.”

How did he know? How did he always know? “All right,” she whispered. But she needed space for this, so she took a few steps back from him. “You told that lake patrol guy that we had a private dock secured.” She met his gaze. “We? Is that the royal ‘we,' or you and the mouse in your pocket?”

“Babe, that's not a mouse in my pocket.”

She rolled her eyes. “You lied for me, Jacob. Why?”

“It wasn't a lie. You're staff for the Wounded Warriors event. And did you forget what I told you about us?”

Her heart did a slow roll in her chest. “I'm yours,” she whispered. “For the duration.”

“Yes, but more than that, I'm
yours
,” he said, quiet steel. “That means I give you everything I can. Help. Backup. Whatever you need.”

Because that was way too much for her brain to compute, she turned away and looked at the spread he'd laid out. “This looks like a date,” she said warily.

“Dinner.”

“So…not a date?”

He smiled. “Which will get you sitting down and eating with me?”

“Not a date,” she said instantly.

“Fine.” He snagged her hand, pulled her down to the bench to sit with him.

“No glasses,” she said, nodding to the wine.

“No plates either.”

“I can go belowdecks and—”

“No need,” he said smoothly, opening everything and pulling out his pocketknife to slice the summer sausage and cheese. When he had a cracker loaded, he handed it to her and then made one for himself. He repeated that action a handful of times, until he sighed with pleasure. It was a sound she knew well, and it had her nipples tightening.

“I was starving,” he said, and opened the wine, offering the bottle to her.

It was a visceral reminder of that night they'd shared the Scotch, and the memory made her hesitate.

He grinned.

“Shut up,” she said without heat. “I swore off alcohol after the Scotch, but after a day like today, a girl needs a little something-something. And don't—” She pointed at him. “Don't turn that into a double entendre.”

“Don't have to,” he said, still grinning. “You did it for me.” He watched her drink and then held out his hand. She passed the bottle.

He let his fingers drift over hers for a beat before taking a drink. There was something about watching his mouth covering the lip of the bottle where her mouth had just been that felt so…intimate.

And sensual.

As she had that night, she stared at the way his Adam's apple moved when he swallowed, at the stubble on his jaw. And then, inexplicably drawn upward, she looked into his eyes and sucked in a breath when she found him watching her watching him.

It had her busying herself with wrapping up their leftovers, which granted, wasn't much. Apparently a shitty day plus oral sex in public made a girl hungry. “I owe you dinner,” she said. “And while this is very good, mine will be better.”

“I'm going to hold you to that.” He took another long pull of wine, and she realized something. His eyes were shadowed, and lines of exhaustion were etched in his beautiful face.

She thought of what she'd seen at the resort, him with his siblings and the unease she'd sensed in him. “You've been hanging out with your family,” she said casually. “How's it going?”

He lifted a shoulder.

She smiled. “Maybe you could use some words?”

He gave her an impressive eye roll. “Could be smoother,” he admitted.

She hesitated but couldn't help butting in where she wasn't wanted. “They love you, you know. Your family.”

Another oh-so-expressive shoulder lift.

She set down the bottle. “You know, it's okay to give yourself a break. Sometimes you have to get things wrong before you can get them right, and that's okay.”

He slid her a look. “Is that what you do?”

“Hello,” she said, spreading out her arms. “Look at me. I'm a temp worker in a temp job because I excel at getting things wrong. But I'm trying.”

“You think I'm not?”

“I think you need to learn to let things go,” she said gently. “You came back, Jacob. You get points for that, no matter how it goes. Stop looking in the rearview mirror and start looking out in front of you. Earlier today, Hud couldn't take his eyes off you. I think he wants you to be at home here. He just doesn't know any better than you do how to deal.”