“Oh, right. The outfit,” she said, smiling. “It’s…”
“Colorful?”
She chuckled. “Very diplomatic of you.”
“I like it.”
The beauty of Selena’s smile was in her eyes. When she really smiled, they sparkled and laughed and tempted him to be the one to make her happy, again and again. But that wasn’t how their story went. What he felt now was just the echo of old memories and the undercurrent of lust that was deeply woven between them.
Time to leave.
He took one last drink of that smile, but this time he saw something more in her eyes. Desire. Like he wasn’t the only one who had spent the day thinking about that kiss in her doorway. And he just couldn’t make himself go. Instead, Jace lifted his hand to her face and traced a path down her cheek with his fingers. Her smile faded, and her cheeks flushed.
“Want some company for a while?” he asked softly.
She bit her lip, and her brow wrinkled. Her gaze traveled down his body, taking him in. He was dripping on her front hall carpet, and the bag of leftovers still dangled from his hand. Then, a hint of a smile quirked at the corners of her mouth.
“Company would be nice,” she said. “You should warm up, and I still have your blanket.”
Jace nodded, his heart thumping in his chest. He let out a quiet sigh of relief as he bent down to unlace his boots. They were just spending a little time together, nothing serious. He stepped out of them and slipped off his coat, hanging it by the door. The desire, the spark of connection after all these years wasn’t just his overactive imagination. Maybe they could suspend the past for just a few hours.
Jace followed Selena up the stairs to the open living room and kitchen. The place was impressive, with its high ceilings and exposed beams, even more so considering that he had heard it was a second home. The room was filled with expensive-looking furniture, curtains, blankets, and a bunch of other crap someone else probably would appreciate. A little potted fir tree sat in the corner, sparsely decorated. A string of white lights lit it up, and more of them glowed around the big stone fireplace and the large windows.
Jace walked over to the kitchen’s island and set down the bag of food.
“The bathroom down the hall has a shower if you want to warm up,” she said and held out his blanket. “Just set your wet clothes outside the door and I’ll throw them in the dryer. You get to be naked under a blanket this time.”
He chuckled and took it from her.
“What’s in the bag?” she asked.
“Leftovers from the engagement dinner last night,” he said. “Turkey, mashed potatoes, two kinds of pie. A step up from cocktail sausages.”
“I already ate,” she said quickly, turning away from the food.
He surveyed the kitchen. An empty bowl, a glass, and a few cocktail sausages left in a skillet. She couldn’t bethatfull. But the food was from his family, one of their many complications, and her message was loud and clear:Let’s keep this simple.
His eighteen-year-old self might have been hurt, but he had nothing to lose with this woman tonight. Jace gave her a little smile, shrugged and started down the hall.
“Suit yourself. I’ll go get naked.”
Chapter Seven
Bad idea. Jace was in her house, and she had just pointed him toward the shower and told him to strip. Now she couldn’t get the thought of his naked body out of her mind. The water running down all those muscles…
At least that’s what she remembered about him: smooth, hard muscles across his chest and arms and stomach. There was a time in her life when Jace was hers, and she had been too torn about whether they had a future together to fully appreciate it. If she had a chance to explore again, just for a little bit, she’d—
Stop.Selena froze that thought before it went any further. If she did any exploring of Jace’s muscles again, it wouldn’t—couldn’t—be tied to the past.
She walked toward the bathroom and grabbed the clothes Jace had dropped on the hallway floor. All of them. His pants were soaked through, but his shirt was only wet around the collar, where the rain had seeped down the opening in his raincoat. Um, she wasn’t going to stare at his boxers, wondering what he’d look like taking them off. She buried them in the pile and gathered it in her arms.
The scent of Jace hit her hard. The shirt smelled like him, and the memories flooded back faster than she could stop them. It felt good, so she let her mind travel down that road just a little more. Sitting on his lap in his car, the one place they could be alone. Her parents could never, under any circumstances, know she’d had sex before marriage. They didn’t accept that things were different for her than they had been back in their hometown in Mexico. That a woman wasn’t ruining her chances for marriage if a man found out she wasn’t a virgin.
She and Jace had been careful, so careful. How many times had they parked by the beach and eased the front seats back? She’d learned to wear skirts on Friday nights senior year, so she wasn’t squirming out of jeans in the passenger seat of his Corvette. Positions, firsts, and so much fun. She’d given him his first blowjob there. It had lasted thirty seconds max, and he narrated the experience with all sorts of swearing and groaning that had her both giggling and turned on. And then he had gone down on her.
A rush of pleasure ran through her. Shit. She was standing in her hallway fantasizing about her teenage sex life. Who had her best sex at eighteen? Hopefully, not her.
Selena gave a quiet snort of laughter and headed downstairs. She threw the clothes into the dryer, then returned to the kitchen. The island countertop was loaded with Jace’s wet delivery. She peeked into the bag of food, and the smell of pecan pie flooded her senses.
