True Divide (8 page)

“Lacey?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you know what one hat said to the other?”

I was still stuck on his previous question, so all I could do was scrunch my face up in confusion.

“You stay here, I'll go on . . . ahead.”

Then we were back to the brand of fun I remember having with Jake. Corny jokes to make me laugh, him giving me grief about my taste in music, the threat of tickling and dunking in the hot springs.

I make him leave the spring first, promising I won't stare at his naked body as he does. Total lie. I stare and he takes an extraordinarily long time to put all his clothes on, which leads me to believe he knows I'm cataloging his grown-up body and doesn't care. After enjoying an indecent inspection of his tight ass when he walks away, the shift of his back and shoulders as he pulls his T-shirt on, and the way his hands move across the flat of his stomach to zip and button up, it's all I can do to stop from allowing an embarrassingly breathy moan to escape my mouth.

Once he laboriously slips the heavy wool sweater over his head, he stands there eyeing me while I remain in the water. I tip my head and wait until he turns away.

“No fair, Shoelace. I gave you an eyeful. You took it; I know you did.”

“Not my fault you like showing it off. Or that you fell for my
don't worry, I won't look
ruse. Amateur hour.”

“Well, just so you know, I'm imagining you naked right now. Drawing a very detailed picture in my mind.”

“Go ahead. How do I look?”

A frustrated manly grunt is the only response, followed by him resignedly clasping his hands atop his head and sighing.

But he does the right thing and stays turned around while I slither out and dress, leaving my wool tights off because trying to tug them on over dry skin is hard enough. The drag of cold damp skin would make it an exercise in futility.

Halfway down the path back to the truck, I realize that I have what feels like approximately ten pounds of sharp little pebbles and dirt inside my wellies, dragged in as a result of barefooting my way out of the spring and over to my clothes. In my zeal to get clothed, combined with the need to get back to the heater inside the truck, I shoved my feet in the boots without even stopping to brush off the bottoms of my feet. Every step hurts and once we make it to the truck, Jake holds open the door and I hop over to perch on the very edge of the bench seat, the skin on the backs of my thighs rubbing against the rough texture of the saddle-blanket seat cover.

As I slip one boot off, careful to keep my foot off the ground while I tip it over and shake it out, Jake stands there with one hand on the top of the still-open truck door and shakes his head.

“Did you walk all the way back down here with a bunch of rocks in your boots? All you had to do was ask me to stop. We could have saved your little toes from the beating just inflicted on them.”

“It wasn't that bad.” With one foot handled, I lift my other leg up and stand flamingo-style, toes pointed unnaturally, and start in on the opposite side. Just as Jake starts to chuckle and offer another smart comment, a tight, squeezing sensation runs through my calf. A wicked muscle cramp seizes up the entire length of my lower leg, from the ankle up to the back of my knee. Likely triggered by the cold air wreaking havoc on my previously hot spring–limbered muscles, combined with pointing my toes so exaggeratedly. I groan and flex my foot, then try to make it stop by shaking out my leg as a dog might.

Jake immediately looks concerned. “Jesus. Are you OK?”

“Leg cramp,” I say, barely intelligible through my gritted teeth.

His hand drops from the top of the door and Jake comes to stand in front of me, then grabs around my waist, shoving me onto the seat. I flop over to rest the side of my body against the back of the seat, my legs still hanging out the open door space, the tension steadily lessening as I swing my leg around a bit more.

Before I flail enough to finish it off, Jake's hands, the manly ones that haven't seen a manicure, well,
ever,
land against my calf and begin a steady and, dear Lord, intensely deep massage. It ends the muscle spasm but also forces me to bite down on my lower lip, just to suppress the groaning that would come naturally if I allowed it. I stare at his hands, refusing to lift my gaze to his face or eyes, because if I do, that's it. Those hands and any remotely zesty look on his face will obliterate what remains of the determination that I started the evening with.

His hands and fingers feel too warm against my cooling skin, that friction only exaggerating every trace of our skin coming together. Finally, perhaps because I've closed my eyes and let my mouth drop open slightly, Jake slows his hands to trace down my calf, over my ankle, and then uses one hand to dust any remaining dirt or pebbles off the underside of my foot. Propping his foot up on the truck floorboard, he lays my outstretched leg against the top of his thigh and reaches down to grab my boot, tipping it over and shaking to make sure nothing remains inside.

After he slips the boot back onto my foot, he shifts to stand right in front of me, my legs parted just enough that he can wedge his body into the space between my knees. I lift my head and right my body so I'm sitting upright. When I do, Jake leans forward, as close as he can, then puts his hands to my hips, jerking my body toward his with a tug. My ass, nearly bare save for the small panties under my skirt, drags roughly across the seat cover, and the combination of it all—that roughness on my skin, his hands insistently pulling me to him—makes my world cant off balance, dizzy and buzzed by the decision to be OK with wanting this right now.

Without giving voice to all those thoughts, I let my body tell him, by simply pushing my knees and thighs tighter to him, stopping shy of allowing my legs to curl completely around his waist. It's enough, though. Jake's head bows forward, resting in the crook of my neck, his lips brushing against my skin and the smell of sultry spring water coming off his hair.

“Fuck, Lacey. How is it that you can still drive me so goddam crazy?”

His voice hitches against the last word and the sound is nearly too much. If I'm not tremendously careful with every decision now, this will domino faster than either of us can get our clothes off.

But I still want more. I quickly rationalize that there is no harm in taking a bit more from this foolish trip down memory lane. Two grown adults, a half-empty bottle of tequila, and one bench seat. Right now that's sounding plenty good enough for me.

I've kept my hands at my sides in a tight grip, nails digging into the seat. Unclenching my hands, I raise them to slip gently against the back of his neck. I can feel a spattering of overgrown hair across his neckline and it somehow becomes unreasonably evocative to me. The way I can't stop considering it as evidence of his single and available status, because a good woman would remind him to get a haircut. Jake is simply an unattached man who couldn't care less about getting a haircut until it's absolutely necessary. I, a similarly unattached woman, proceed to curl my fingertips upward and tug against all the hair I can grasp.

Jake's hands drift from my hips, where he had been grasping since tugging me toward him, and move to press flat against my thighs. Tracing down until he can slip under the edge of my skirt, he stops, warm hands pressing against my legs, prompting me to give a small whimper and drop my head onto his shoulder. Immediately, his hands surge forward until the tips of his fingers nearly meet the edge of my panties. His thumbs, now resting toward the insides of my thighs, begin to rub tiny circles there, the smallest of patterns. The incessant trace of his rough skin on my sensitive inner thighs leaves a tender etching in its path, nearly inducing me to latch on to his wrist and force his hand deeper between my legs.

That touch, the raw feel of it, is another reminder this is the grown-up Jake touching me. As his hands continue to press and trace, Jake shifts so his lips come nearer to my ear.

“Did we fix your leg, baby? No more pain there?”

I nod into the space where my forehead rests against his collarbone and hum an affirmative sound.

“What else hurts? I'll fix it—just tell me where.”

Holy hell. Jake's gravelly tone forces me to consider that he might be too much for me now, even when the words inspire an immediate answer in my head, the incredibly specific places I want to direct him to, all the parts of me he might fix with these capable hands. The young Jake often mumbled a thank-you when I let him touch a new part of my bare skin. Would this man do the same if I let him keep going? Not likely. And the fact that he wouldn't, or the idea he might ask for permission but wreck me properly once he has it, does insane things to me.

“Tell me, Lacey. I'll touch you how you want, where you want. All you have to do is tell me where.” Jake digs his fingers into the flesh at the top of my thighs. “Or tell me to stop.”

I can't think or move. I can't speak or follow a single thought. Between our bodies is a rigid desire, not the kind that prompts slow, tentative sensuality or even morphs into an impetuous round of meaningless sex. Instead, the way we're strung so tightly against and around each other, waiting for one of us to trip the switch, nearly guarantees a wild ride that might leave us both unable to speak.

I spent too many nights chasing this exact high right after Dusty and I broke up. I turned myself out into the world, to bars and Montana's best attempts at nightclubs, trying to find a different kind of man. Maybe a banker or a lawyer. Or, at the very least, just someone I didn't grow up with. On the surface, I claimed I was looking for something real. But I was a twenty-five-year-old woman who couldn't assert herself in the world, at least not beyond my breasts in a push-up bra. If I did meet a contender, I threw myself in his path, in the lowest-cut shirt possible, and hoped for the best. Because if he had a six-figure tax return and thought I was enough, then we'd surely live happily ever after in a big suburban house with a four-car garage on five groomed acres and I'd have a standing appointment at the best salon in town.

Most of what I ended up with was free watery drinks and a vague homesickness when I listened to yet another story about some guy's latest “epic” trip to Tahoe with his frat buddies. But what I really needed was
this
. The hyperawareness two people share when there is more to be had between them.

Jake grunts into my ear, the sound of him prompting me, and despite knowing how easily we could do this, how amazing it would feel—I can't.

He's leaving the minute this storm clears and the snow has stopped, which means tomorrow morning the clouds will have lifted and Jake Holt will be long gone. If I take him home, or just let him do this right here, tomorrow will come on harshly. As much as I want to take this night and enjoy the hell of him, I know myself too well.

Worse, just the distress of watching him go after what I'm pretty damn sure will be spectacular sex could lead me to dyeing my hair black, wearing nothing but oversized shapeless shift dresses in drab colors, and refusing to leave my home until I'm certifiably old enough to be called a spinster and not give a damn. It's distinctly possible the naked shenanigans would be that good.

I pull my hands from around Jake's neck and drop them to cover the tops of his, ceasing the movement of his callused thumbs across my thighs. I don't want to tell him to stop or say the words aloud, even though I probably should. That's what I should do. Leave no ambivalence to wander toward, by way of his hands lingering or the opening of my legs against his waist. No space where either of us might think that if he simply nudged closer, he could prove how much he wants me by tipping my body back across the seat and letting his fingers soothe every tight, aching spot on my skin.

All I can communicate with my hands over his is one thing.

I can't.

Jake lets out a pent-up breath, relief and disappointment in the sound of it, and puts his lips to my temple with nothing but gentle pressure. Not a kiss, not even a slight pucker of his mouth, simply the admission that he is so close, but any second now, he won't be.

When he pulls away, I turn and bring my legs into the cab of the unbearably cold truck, and the sound of him shutting the door makes my head hurt. We drive back to town in silence, with me pressed to the passenger door, head resting against the glass, and wondering if I've just made a pointlessly dumb decision. Considering the way my entire body is thrumming with dissatisfaction and a restless tingling sensation, I think I did.

Jake does nothing but drive and crank the heater up, turning all the vents toward my side. I take one glance at him when he turns down my street. His jaw is clenched tight, his one hand on the wheel to steer, the other propped on the trim panel so he can rub his left temple.

He doesn't even try to convince me to invite him inside. For a nightcap or whatever he might call it. He probably wouldn't even sugarcoat it with innuendo. Instead, he might just blurt out the obvious. “You going to let me in so we can fuck like mad until the sun comes up?” And if he did, there is a strong chance I'd agree before he got all the words out.

But he doesn't. He pulls to a stop in front of my house and leaves the motor running, then turns to me with the saddest, weakest half grin I've ever seen, and says good night. I have to open my own goddam door and walk myself to the house, which compounds my annoyance. Until I remind myself this wasn't a date.

I turn back, considering that the idea that flipping him off and shouting, “Good riddance,” might not be out of line. Only to observe him sitting there with the cab light on, pressing his palms against his eyelids and heaving out what appears to be an enormous sigh. Then I kind of want to throw the truck door open again and crawl over the seat until I'm in his lap.

Given my perusal of his naked lumber out of the springs, I'll grant him a win. But I'm still up by two for the evening, although the way both of us look hollowed out and frustrated, it seems no one's taking a trophy home tonight.