“No, of course not! It’s just…”
Harley reached out and covered Jes’s hand with hers. “Are you okay? Your heart is beating like a drum right now. Did something happen between you and Jake that you’re not telling us? You’re not scared of him, are you?”
Jes lifted her gaze to see Harley and Misty regarding her worriedly. “No, nothing like that!”
“Then what is it?” Misty asked. “One second, you seem thrilled at the idea of sleeping with Jake, but the next you seem petrified at the thought. It’s like you don’t know what you want.”
“Maybe because I don’t.” Jes sighed. “When I met him at the American Embassy, I was ready to hate him. It’s complicated and stupid, and I’ve already apologized to him for it, but still, up until a few days ago, I had no intention of liking him at all.”
“And now?” Harley prompted.
“And now, less than twenty-four hours after I kissed him, I can’t get him out of my head. I close my eyes and there he is. I want to sleep with him so badly it hurts even though I’m a little worried he might bite me. Worse, I’m willing to risk messing up the whole team-chemistry thing we’ve got going on the off-chance this thing between us might work.” She shook her head. “None of this makes sense. I’m not normally the kind of person who falls for a guy in a matter of days. That’s not me. And it’s freaking me out.”
Jes held her breath, waiting for Harley and Misty to tell her she’d completely lost her marbles. Because seriously, who in their right mind would pass up the chance to be with a great guy like Jake?
“I think you’re overthinking the hell out of this,” Harley said. “Even though you just met Jake a few days ago, you’re already into him. And even though Jake’s a werewolf with claws and fangs and everything else that comes with it, you still want to sleep with him.”
Even though it wasn’t exactly a question, Jes nodded. Harley had nailed it.
“So, when we get back to the B&B, go sleep with him,” Harley continued. “Stop thinking so much and worry about what comes next when you wake up in the morning. Even better, put off worrying about it until after we make it through the fight tomorrow against Darby and his buddies. Considering we still don’t know how to even hurt those things, being concerned about a future with Jake might be a waste of time.”
That wasn’t a very cheery thought.
“Is that what you’d do if you were me?” Jes asked.
Harley took her hand away and sat back, sipping her latte again. “I’ll never be you, but I can promise you if I ever found a person who looked at me the way Jake looks at you, I sure as hell wouldn’t be sitting here drinking coffee. I’d be back at the B&B in bed with him.”
On the other side of the table, Misty smiled. “Harley’s right. You should go for it.”
Jes laughed. They were right. She was overthinking things. Well, she was done with that. “Then what do you say we finish our drinks and head back to the house, so I can tell Jake exactly how I feel about him?”
Chapter 11
Jes was so preoccupied with what she was going to say to Jake—not to mention excited about the prospect of finishing what they’d started the night before—she didn’t give much thought about the rest of the team being in the house when they did it. Luckily, Harley and Misty did. The moment they walked into the B&B, Misty informed Forrest and Caleb they were going out to dinner with her and Harley.
“I just had a sandwich,” Caleb said, coming out of the kitchen with a stack of shortbread cookies in his hand that were obviously dessert.
Harley grabbed his leather jacket off the coat rack in the entryway and tossed it to him. “What, you’re telling me you couldn’t eat again?”
Caleb shrugged, then stuck the cookies in his mouth for safekeeping while he slipped on his jacket.
“What about you and Jake?” Forrest asked Jes, looking confused as he got up from the couch where he’d been reading something on his phone. “Aren’t you guys going, too?”
“We’ll bring something back for them,” Misty said quickly, giving Jes a wink as she took Forrest’s arm and ushered him toward the door.
“Where is Jake, by the way?” Jes asked before they left, trying to make the question sound as casual as she could.
Forrest glanced at her over his shoulder. “Upstairs. He said something about grabbing a shower.”
An image of Jake naked and wet, his perfectly chiseled body covered in water droplets flashed into Jes’s head and she stifled a moan.
As the door closed behind her four teammates, Jes tossed her purse on the couch and headed for the stairs, butterflies making her stomach quiver a little more with each step. Cornering Jake and telling him how she felt had seemed like a good idea over coffee with Harley and Misty. Now, she wasn’t so sure. What if he thought that kiss last night had been a mistake and didn’t feel the same way she did?
She reached the second floor just as Jake came out of the bathroom he and the other guys had laid claim to wearing nothing but a pair of running shorts and a towel draped around his neck. His jet-black hair was wet and tousled and glistening beads of water he had missed with the towel ran down the smooth skin of his chest.
Jes simply stood there and stared, not even bothering to hide the fact she was ogling him. Damn, he looked hot. It was all she could do not to run over and grab the towel from around his neck and help dry him off. Who the hell was she kidding? She didn’t want to use the towel to dry him off. She wanted to shove him against the wall and lick those water droplets from his skin one by one.
Thank God for willpower.
