“I love you, too.” But he sounded as if he were apologizing, and Amanda couldn’t stand that.
She lifted her head, resting an elbow on his chest, and glared at him. “You’d rather you didn’t?”
She’d surprised him. The corner of his mouth quirked as he lifted a finger to run it down her cheek. “I’d sure get more sleep.”
She huffed in indignation. “We’re just making up for lost time.”
Jake chuckled now, and the sound of it lodged in Amanda’s chest like spring wind. “Face it, Amanda,” he challenged, cupping her bottom. “I can’t keep my hands off you.”
Amanda liked the sound of that even better. “I don’t remember asking you to.”
His palms were rough, too, and they felt delicious against her sensitive skin. She began to move against him, just a little.
“A woman like you doesn’t wait her whole life for the feel of callused hands,” he argued, even as his pupils dilated and his hands quickened.
Amanda couldn’t help laughing. “A woman like me? May I tell you something about a woman like me, Jake? I spent the last six weeks before showing up here out in Los Angeles. Holl-ee-wood. I actually sat down to meals with people like Brett Clark. You know the guy, six feet four of muscle, savoir faire and brains? Every woman’s dream in a tux? He asked me out a couple of times. He and three or four other people, because they knew who I was. They knew I’d written books that were going to be movies, so it was okay, I guess. And they did their best to charm me. And guess how many of them I ended up on the floor with?”
“Amanda—”
She scowled at him, loving the stern lines his face gathered into when he was admonishing her. “Don’t ‘Amanda’ me. This is important. I went home alone every night for six weeks, and you know why? Because they bored me. Because not one of those guys was real. Not one of them had calluses on their hands, and I’ll tell you something, Jake. Calluses say a lot about a man. Ilikecalluses.”
“You do?”
She shared a smile that promised dreams he hadn’t even thought of. “I knew you had calluses the minute you first rode up to that cabin,” she admitted. “I said to myself, ‘Lordy, Amanda, there’s a man who doesn’t have to ask his astrologer if the signs are right to get a massage. There’s a man who doesn’t live just to hear the sound of his own voice. There’s a man I’d like to get to know.’”
“Well, you did that.”
Her smile broadened. She let her hand drift. “Intimately. And I plan on getting to know you even better.”
His belly. Amanda loved his belly. It was so flat and hard, not from weight machines or personal trainers, but from hard, honest work. She loved to run her hands over the hair that trailed down from his chest, and then dip her fingers into his navel. She loved to see his reaction.
“Amanda, stop it,” he protested, without pulling her hand away. “We can’t figure that this is just going to solve everything.”
“It’s not,” she assured him, turning her gaze to his mouth, on those lips that could torture her so easily. On the hard line of his jaw that brooked no argument. Except hers. “But I love you,” she repeated, lifting her gaze to his eyes, which she loved the best. “And since we only manage to get together about once every four or five days, it seems that this is the best way to cut through all the small talk and let you know.”
Jake obviously didn’t seem to know whether to be surprised, outraged or amused. “You do have a way with endearments,” he admitted, reaching up to tangle a hand in the hair that fell along the side of her face. Amanda smiled at the shower of sparks his fingers ignited, at the intoxicating play of his hand in her hair. She whimpered when he pulled her down to him.
“And where did you get that lingerie?” he demanded against her mouth, his hand holding her, his lips teasing her. “I thought you were an all-cotton woman.”
She giggled, breathless and suddenly shy. “I was,” she admitted, her hands splayed out against his chest, her hips seeking his. “Those were a free... aaah, gift with the computer.”
His chuckle incited her. “Just for you, huh?”
“No,” she answered on a whisper, on a promise. “Just for you.”
He groaned, deep and primal. He pulled her to him, so close even the firelight couldn’t come between, and rolled with her. Amanda felt the cushion of the thick rug against her back, felt the hair-roughened weight of Jake against her belly. She looked up into eyes made molten by desire, and knew what it was like to become irrevocably lost, because she became lost in those eyes. She became lost in the feel of those hands that praised her in ways no person had ever thought to praise her before. She became lost in the growl of his hunger and the delicate dance of his tongue against hers.
There was no rush this time, no all-consuming fire. This time there was discovery, exploration. This time Jake held Amanda’s hands in his, keeping her still, while he watched her body in the firelight. She blushed with his frank appraisal, sank into his delighted smile.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, dipping his head to kiss her throat, her ear. “So very beautiful.”
She arched to his touch, hungry, cold without him, aching suddenly for the torment of his hands. For the touch of him against her hands.
“No,” he denied her, catching her hands again. “It’s my turn to show you just how much I love you.”
Amanda lost her breath. She knew Jake could hear her heart, it tripped so loudly in the silent room. She knew he could see the flush of pleasure bloom on her skin. She’d never had a man look at her the way Jake did, or touch her with such reverence. She’d never wanted one to.
His hands skimmed and searched. They paused, tormented, teased. Skirting the line of her ribs, under her arm, around to her waist, he let his fingers hesitate just shy of her breasts, knowing already that they waited for him, seeing the hard peaks of her nipples just at his approach. He swept the lines of her legs, caressed the backs of her knees, her calves, her thighs. He cupped her bottom in his hands and then tested the sensitive skin at the small of her back.
