“Oh, I’m just getting started at showing you what I’m good at.” The slow, cocksure smile that slid across his face at that moment shocked the hell out of her.
Her head fell back against the wall. That face with that body, in that suit, oozing sexual confidence? It was possible she wouldn’t survive the night.
“Where’d all this come from?” She’d only ever seen him this self-assured about his baking, and it was seriously doing things between her thighs.
His smile flashed wickedly in the dim light. “Talking to women has always been hard. Kissing them’s a lot easier. No conversation required.”
“Take me home. Now,” she ordered. Then a dreadful thought struck her. “Wait. Nooooo! I’m supposed to help with the cleanup.”
Erik groaned and dropped his forehead against hers. “Presents, flowers, all that?”
“All that,” she confirmed, dismay swamping her. “When I offered, it didn’t occur to me that I’d have a hot hookup on the line.”
His sigh brushed her cheek. “So we stick around to help out.” He dropped a kiss behind her left ear. “And you spend the rest of the reception thinking about all the things you want me to do to you later tonight.”
Another kiss, this time on her collarbone, robbed her of her breath.
“Already on it,” she managed to gasp as his teeth lightly scraped her skin and gave her full-body shivers.
He took a step back, his fingertips running the length of her bare arms before they finally fell away. But the heat in his eyes remained, and they seared her from behind as he ushered her back inside and to their table. Once he’d delivered her to her chair, he ambled over to the cake table while she willed her nipples back into submission. Of course, watching the big slice of man she’d be going home with did nothing to calm her body down. He circled the remains of his cake like a jungle cat, assessing she knew not what. But that miraculous suit stretched over his body as he made the rounds, and she bit her lip while she openly ogled his ass.
“I guess I reallyamoff the hook tonight.”
Jake folded himself into the seat next to her, and ordinarily, she’d make some kind of jokey come-on that he’d pointedly ignore. But tonight her eyes bounced right back to where Erik was smiling as he sliced a piece of cake for a little girl in a frilly pink dress whose head barely cleared the table. And just like that, her ovaries exploded.
“Does he know what he’s getting into with you?”
Heat rolled through her body for the second time that night, but this time it was the angry variety, which was way less fun than the lusty one. “Excuse me?” She narrowed her eyes at him, but Jake just calmly rattled the ice in his mostly empty highball glass.
“Listen, you toy with me and don’t mean any of it. But I think you might mean it with him.” He tilted his head toward the Beauty and the Toddler show happening in front of the cake.
“Mean what?” Even as she asked, she knew. She didn’t know howJakeknew, but somehow the seventy-hour-work-week brother of her best friend had seen past her showy exterior and divined the secrets in her heart.
“You’re the most optimistic romantic I’ve ever met, even though you hide it behind your legendary man-ogling. But every time you take somebody home, you’re hoping for forever. It’s one of the reasons that you and I haven’t ever…” He had the good grace to look a little chagrined as he waved his glass in a vague circle between the two of them.
She tipped her head toward him. “Why, Jake Carey, are you saying you’ve thought about getting withall of this?” She slid a hand down her side with a saucy wink.
“Yes, actually. Once I got to know you, I… thought about it. You mean a lot to me.”
Her mouth fell open. In all the time she’d been messing with him, not for a second did she think he’d taken her seriously.
He quirked his perfectly perfect lips at her surprise. “I know. It shocked the hell out of me too. But you’re my sister’s best friend, and the thought of fucking up that dynamic made it impossible for me to…” He frowned and stared into his glass, suddenly looking tired and more vulnerable than she’d ever seen him. Then he straightened. “Anyway, we both know how busy I am. No first dates and definitely no second dates.”
“Sounds lonely,” she said softly.
He drained the rest of his drink in one quick motion. “Yeah. But it’s who I am.” He set the glass down on the table with a thump, then nodded toward the cake table. “That guy though? Is he a second-date kind of guy?”
She frowned. “I’m not sure actually.” Erik’s explosion of words on the balcony had twisted her insides. He wanted her. That was clear now. But did he want her in a “bang it out and get on with our lives” kind of way or a “let’s go on a third and fourth and fifth date” kind of way? She watched him serving a fresh wave of cake-hungry guests, pride flickering in her chest as he sliced up his product and handed out business cards with histhis-is-physically-hurting-mesmile. Wow, did she like him.
“Oh my God, get out of here already,” Jake ordered.
Josie groaned, folding her arms on the table and dropping her head. “I told the guys I’d collect their gifts and whatever else so they can go start their honeymoon without a care in the world.”
Jake tapped a finger against his empty glass before he spoke. “What if I handle it?”
She lifted her head slowly. “Really?”
“Not like I’m taking anyone home tonight.” He nodded toward Finn and Tom swaying together on the dance floor. “I’m sure the lovebirds will help me out.”
