Page 21 of Her Property

“This way,” he said, and as if unable to control her own legs anymore, she walked with him. She should have been concerned for her own sanity, walking with this man she’d met only hours before, Alfred’s nemesis, down to the edge of a swimming hole on a crisp fall evening. Yet somehow she felt completely safe. She understood, from some innate part of her inside, that this man would never lead her anywhere she didn’t want to go.

They stopped at the edge of the water, and he turned to face her. Her skin was tingling where his palm pressed against hers. The last residual streaks of sunlight brought the gold flecks in his eyes to a fiery precision.

“Jake, you better tell me what the hell we’re doing. I told you, I don’t like doing things without knowing the facts first. I’m—”

“Just try being ready for anything,” he said. “See how it feels.”

Cat swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry, her belly once again swimming with a mix of nerves and excitement.

Try being ready for anything.

“We’re going to get in the water,” Jake said, his voice low. Cat took in, vaguely, the chirp of a cricket, and overhead, the first stars beginning to emerge like tiny pinpricks in undulating navy velvet.

But what unseasonable warmth there had been earlier was long gone—it was freezing out now.

“Oh, hell no. I’m not going swimming.”

“Not swimming,” he laughed. “Just your feet.”

“What?”

But before she could protest further, or walk back to the truck and demand he get in and drive her home, he dropped to his knees. She gasped as he leaned forward and wrapped his hands around her calf so her shoe rested on his knee.

“This is crazy,” she said.

But she didn’t stop him. She wobbled on her one leg and had to catch herself from falling by dropping her hands onto his broad shoulders. His hoodie was soft under her fingers and she had the thought she wanted to slip her hands under his collar; under his shirt underneath, right down to the hot smoothness of his skin.

“I can’t believe I’m letting you do this,” she breathed, and when the words were out she pictured her saying them in another context, with Jake leaning over her on a mess of blankets, his lips inches from hers.

She shivered as Jake’s hand swept up her calf, sliding into the soft scoop behind her knee. Then higher, up the back of her thigh. Electricity shot through her so hard she thought she was for sure going to collapse on him. Somehow she stayed upright. Somehow she endured the exquisite torture of Jake’s palm burning heat through her jeans.

He pulled off her shoe and Cat gasped as cool air hit her stockinged foot. He slid his hand up under her jeans, his fingers spreading against her bare skin, searching. The move was so sensual she found herself breathing from her mouth, unable to stop him. Wanting him, in fact, to do more. Finally, he rolled down her sock and tossed it aside.

His fingers were electric against her bare skin. She closed her eyes and imagined the sensation of his fingers against her waist and hips, hooking under a slip of fabric he’d slide over her hips and down her legs.

“This is insane,” she said. Her voice was barely a whisper.

“A little bit of insanity is just loosening your grip on control. It’s healthy.” He reached for her other leg.

She couldn’t stop him if she tried now. The feel of his hands on her legs was hypnotizing. How, when he lifted the other leg up, the hand on her thigh was higher now, only inches from her ass. Her flesh tingled under him.

Jake angled sideways and pressed her leg against the hardness of his chest, repeating the movements on this leg.

“You ready?” he asked.

“No,” she said, her voice hoarse, as if she hadn’t spoken in a week.

He grinned, then bent down and rolled up the legs of her jeans. Cold seeped up from the earth through her bare feet, curling around her toes and ankles.

But she barely felt it. Instead, she felt the points of her nipples against her t-shirt; the new wetness between her legs.

When he stood in the dusk he was a broad, solid shape before her, standing so close she could smell the woodsy scent of him, feel the heat emanating from his body. He stared into her eyes and for a moment, didn’t move. Then he reached down and pulled his own boots and socks off.

It was when he was turned away from her that she got ahold of her senses. At least a little bit. She wasn’t going to let him lead her in. If she was going to do this, she’d do it herself.

When Jake stood up, Cat planted her hands on his chest, sliding the bandaged one up to his collar. He groaned as she slid the other hand up his neck and into his hair. Pulling his ear down to his lips, she whispered, “Last one in’s a rotten egg.”

Then she pushed him off and walked boldly to the water. Her chest seized as her feet sunk into the soft mud. It wasfreezing.Her ankles ached with it.

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