Montana Reunion (10 page)

He nodded and wrapped his arms
around her, giving her a warm, gentle hug.
Maddison
relaxed into it, arms around his neck, head pressed to his chest as he held
her. It was like every bone in her body
softened,
her
muscles relaxing as if her entire body was exhaling.

It
was what she’d needed
. To just be held, to feel loved,
to
make her feel like everything was okay in the world even though she knew it
couldn’t be further from the truth.

“I don’t want to ruin our
friendship, Jack,” she said, still holding on to him, her cheek firmly against
him.

“Me neither.” His response was
immediate, mouth against her hair.

“So what do we do?” she asked, not
wanting to let go of him. Not ever.

“We take it one step at a time,
starting with dinner,” he said.

Maddison
shut her eyes, but they popped open less than a second later. “Shit!
The rice.”

She bolted to the pot, turning the
gas down and pulling the lid off.

“Shit!” It was boiling like mad.
She spun around to get a spoon, only to find Jack right behind her, a big smile
on his face and a wooden spoon in his hand.

“Looking for this?”

She laughed.
“Yeah.”

Maddison
turned back to stir the rice, stiffening when his arms encircled her from
behind. “Shall we go back to slowing down, now?”

She nodded.
And
at the same time wondered if she should have disagreed and asked him to go
faster.

“Uh-huh,” she said, trying to keep
her hand steady as she stirred the rice.

Funny,
she hadn’t even thought about her ankle with Jack by her side in the kitchen.

CHAPTER
SEVEN

JACK put down his utensils. “That
was amazing.”

Maddison
smiled at him, but she was avoiding his gaze. She had been ever since they’d
sat down. “Not bad for making it from memory, I guess.
Plus,
being without a few ingredients.”

Trust
her to be modest.

“So you didn’t answer my question
before when I asked how long you’d actually be here for. Do you have a date to
head back?”

That made her
eyes connect
with his.
“If I want to keep my job?
I don’t know, maybe a few days.” She smiled. “But I’ll be back again as soon as
this event is over.”

“To be with your
dad?”

Maddison
didn’t say anything for a moment, like she was figuring out how to answer, what
to say.
He shouldn’t have asked, but part
of him wanted to hear her say that she was coming back for more than just her
father.

“Jack, what are we doing?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Eating
dinner?”

She laughed. “You know what I
mean,”
Maddison
said, voice low now. “I mean are we
actually going to take this further or are we just playing around? What you
said before about whether this could be real one day…”

He laughed. “Playing
does
sound kind of fun,” he teased.

Jack saw the slight tremble in her
lower lip, the dart of her eyes – all signs he remembered from childhood. She’d
been so daring, but sometimes he’d seen her crack when she’d hurt herself more
than he’d realized climbing trees or when she’d been trying to prove herself to
the other boys.
He’d pushed her too far.

Jack stood and walked around to the
other side of the table. “I was just teasing,” he told her, pulling out the
chair beside her and tugging it close before sitting down. “It’s not that I’m
not thinking what you are, I just don’t have the answers. Not yet.”

Maddison
slowly turned her body until their knees touched, bumping together as he leaned
forward and reached for her hands. Her smile was shy, but it was there.

“Do you want to marry me?” he
asked.
“Because if you don’t, I can always settle the estate
in court.
I’ll never let this land be stolen from me,
Maddison
, never. So you don’t have to do this unless you’re
absolutely sure. Maybe we should just take some time, think it through. There’s
no hurry.”

She was nodding, but he could tell
that something was still troubling her, that there was something simmering away
behind those eyes even though she wasn’t saying a word. They’d only talked
about marriage an hour ago, had agreed to take it slow, but something was
spooking her. It was written all over her face.

“So what do you say?” Jack asked,
squeezing her fingers against his.
“
Maddie
?”

She tilted her face when he said
her name, stared at him, then pulled her fingers from his.

He
was losing her. She was pulling away…

Holy fuck.

She launched at him so fast, so
unexpectedly, that he wasn’t prepared. His chair tipped as
Maddison
grabbed him around the neck, arms looping around him as she fell into his lap,
knees alongside his thighs, locking him into place. Her lips, so soft and
pillowy
last time they’d kissed, were insistent this time;
rougher.
And he liked it.

This wasn’t the
Maddison
he knew.
This
wasn’t the girl who’d
been balking at the idea of whatever was happening between them earlier, the
girl who’d been bashful in the kitchen cooking their dinner.

And he’d been wrong about losing
her. Something had changed,
but for the
better.

“Hey,” he said, trying to catch his
breath as she stared down at him, mouth still so close to his. Jack had one
hand tangled in her hair, the other on her butt.

“You can’t hurt me, Jack,” she
whispered, pressing her forehead against his. “Just promise you won’t hurt me.
Promise?
I need to hear you say it.”

Right now he’d agree to anything
just to get back to what she’d started.
But
he wasn’t going to lie to
Maddison
.
“I promise,”
he said honestly.
“So long as you can promise me the same.”

She must have agreed, because one
minute she was staring at him and the next she was kissing him like a woman
possessed, her lips like fire against his, tongue teasing like she was thinking
about a whole lot more than
just kissing.

And
damn it, so was he.

Maddison
was clutching him tight, nails digging into his shoulders, like she had no
intention of stopping any time soon.

Jack placed
both hands on her backside, fingers inching up to touch the curve of her waist,
down to the firmness of her thighs and back again to her butt.
To hell with worrying
about just being friends
.
He
was ready to be initiated into friends with benefits.

Maddison
knew she was being impulsive, crazy even, but it was too late to back down and
she didn’t want to. His lips against hers, his body strong and hard, it was
doing something to her that had her completely out of control.

No
man had ever made her feel like this.

Warmth was spreading through her,
curling in her belly, hot. Jack pushed her back slightly, breaking the tight
hold she had on him, but when she realized what he wanted, she gave in.

His fingers scrabbled at the bottom
hem of her top, tugging it over her head, before his hands were back on her
again, only this time against her bare skin. She
moaned,
neck arched back as his mouth moved down lower, tongue against the hollow under
her jaw, trailing to her collarbone. Jack sucked, teased, before she yanked his
head back so he could kiss her mouth again.

“Slow down, tiger,” he
whispered,
his voice husky – sexy as hell.

She laughed, not even recognizing
the low timbre of her own voice, feeling more confident than she ever had with
a man.
Because this was
Jack.
This was a man she
trusted, a man she’d loved for most of her life… just not in this way before.

Maddison
grabbed his shirt, fumbling at the buttons, wanting to rip them all off in her
frustration. Only Jack’s hands stopped her from doing exactly that.

“
Maddie
,”
he murmured. “What happened to going slow?”

She glanced
up,
annoyed that he’d stopped her. “I changed my mind.
Screw
slow.”

He chuckled, fingers playing
against her skin, teasing her stomach.
“You sure about that?”

“Aren’t you?”

That really made
him laugh
. “Sweetheart, me checking with you about going slow has
nothing to do with what I want.”

Her burst of annoyance had been
uncalled for. Jack was giving her a chance to back out, to call her out on her
impulsiveness. And a man giving a shit about her feelings was a courtesy she
hadn’t been afforded in a long, long time.

“I’m sure, Jack,” she whispered
against his mouth, needing to kiss him like her life depended on it. “I’ve
never been so sure you in my life.”

“That,” he said, lips dancing
against hers in a kiss so soft all the bones in her body felt like they were
turning to liquid, “was all I needed to hear.”

Jack’s hold on her went from soft
to firm, catching her tight around the waist as he stood and lifted her in his
arms. She didn’t need any encouragement, wrapping her legs tight around his
waist, locking herself into place against him.

He wasn’t wasting any time telling
her what he wanted, either. Jack’s mouth was hot and wet against hers, and she
gave back in every way she could.
Maddison’s
arms
were wrapped around his waist, and she didn’t care when he stumbled into a
wall, slamming her into it, before stopping at the foot of the staircase.

Jack stopped, but he didn’t stop
kissing her until she forced them apart by finding her way to her feet. She
glanced back at Jack, his wicked grin and devilish eyes mirroring the way she
felt inside.

“Race you to the top?” she asked,
giggling as she said what they’d always asked one another as kids.

He winked. “I’ll give you a three
second head start.”

He sounded… wicked.

“Why?”

“
Just run
.”

Maddison
bolted upstairs without hesitating, scrambling and laughing as she tried to
take two at a time, even as she tried not to put too much weight on her ankle.
He was right behind her, she could hear his heavy footfalls, but she only had
one step left to go…

“Gotcha.”
Jack grabbed her around the waist, his hold firm enough that she knew she’d
never get away.

Maddison
wriggled and squealed but he had her, and there was no chance she was escaping.
Even if she wanted to,
and she certainly didn’t.

“Jack let me go,” she protested,
half-heartedly trying to avoid his mouth as part of the game, but desperately
hoping it would only make him more insistent.

“No,” he growled, flipping her
around so she was facing him full on, before pushing her down against the
stairs, head on the top step, while grabbing the lace of her bra with his teeth
and giving a tug. “I gave you a chance to back out. Now, you’re mine.”

Anticipation hit her, like she’d
just consumed champagne that had gone straight to her head. Goose pimples
tickled her skin as Jack reached for her hands and pushed them into the carpet
above her head, holding her down.

“What if I want to get away,” she
whispered as he trailed kisses down her arms, hands still pinned high above her
head. Jack skimmed over her breasts, his teeth scraping against the lace on his
way to her stomach.

“You can’t,” he murmured into her
skin.

Maddison
writhed, half trying to get away from him, half desperate for him to torture
her more.
She’d had no idea what she’d
been missing out on. She’d never felt like this before. Never had a man lavish
this much attention on her, be so hungry for her… make her feel so alive.

But having Jack’s hands on her
wasn’t enough. She wanted to touch him too, wanted to pleasure him like he was
pleasuring her.
Wanted
her
lips
on his skin.
They needed to be on equal footing.

“Stop.”
She said the word firmly.
Loud.

Jack’s lips slowly withdrew from
her skin, his hands releasing her. He looked up, straight into her eyes, and
she regained control of her hands.
She’d
known he would stop if she asked, because he’d never force her to do anything
she didn’t want to do, no matter what he’d said.

“My ankle…”

Jack moved back slightly, reaching
down to touch her foot and
Maddison
took advantage of
his distraction, jumping up the final step and racing for his bedroom.

Only
his old room clearly wasn’t his any longer.

“Not mine,” he said, smile wicked
as he stopped a few feet from her. Jack’s eyes were bright, alive, like a
predator waiting to take down prey he’d stalked for hours.

“Lead the way then,” she told him,
her voice a low murmur.

Jack stayed still, like he was
expecting her to bolt again, before stepping back and pointing to a room
further down the hall.
His
parents’ old room
.
She was guessing he’d upgraded to the master
bedroom now the house was his.
She should
have guessed.

Maddison
walked slowly, sedately to the correct room, conscious of Jack following close
behind her. She was certain that if she stopped, his big body would crash
straight into her.
Which
meant she was toying with the idea of doing exactly that.