the look on his face wasn’t helping her make any prudent decisions, either. The hope in his eyes combined with a smile that promised so much more. How could she let this opportunity go by?
Renee took a deep breath and looked out the front windshield in order to keep herself from leaning toward Jeremiah again. She tried to focus some of her attention on the view, but the trees and mountains spread before her were overshadowed by the sexy cowboy sitting inches away. “Okay,” she answered, and out of the corner of her eye she saw his smile widen into a full grin. She had to force herself not to smile back. “But,” she continued, “there have to be ground rules. Number one—Jessica and Aaron absolutely cannot find out about this. Jessica would turn it into such a big deal, and even though Aaron’s your best friend, he might tell Jessica. And number two—once I go home, we’re done. This is just a casual thing. Just sex.”
She continued looking out the windshield, waiting for a response, but was met with silence. It was only then that she realized he’d never said anything about them having sex. They’d had one two-second kiss and she had already good as told him that she was ready to jump into bed with him at a moment’s notice. What kind of woman did that make her?
The kind of woman that hadn’t gotten laid in a long time and had spent way too much time thinking about getting laid by this particular guy. But had she gone too far too quickly?
She looked over at him, hoping for some kind of positive response. Jeremiah was looking at her, that half smile still on his face.
* * *
JEREMIAH STARED AT RENEE, surprised. She couldn’t get much more straightforward than that. Just sex? He had given up the casual-sex thing months ago, and was serious about finding something more than that. Did he really want a secret one-week fling? To risk hurting his best friend’s fiancée for something that would be over in just a few days?
Then she looked at him, her green eyes silently questioning, and reminded himself that Jessica wouldn’t find out, and therefore couldn’t be hurt. He knew it was a weak argument, but really, there was only one answer he could possibly give this beautiful woman beside him.
He leaned forward again, pulling her into another kiss, this one slow and deep, full of the promise of more to come.
She responded immediately, falling into the kiss, but he pulled away after just a few moments. The indignant expression on her face made him want to laugh. The way her erect nipples showed through her shirt made him want to tear her clothes off. He took a breath. “Rule number one, remember? It’ll probably be pretty hard to keep this thing a secret if Jessica finds us making out in front of her house.”
Renee’s eyes grew wide and she turned to look out the back window, searching for her sister, worry evident on her face. This time he couldn’t stop the laughter.
Once she had carefully scanned for any sign of Jessica, she looked back at him and smiled. “Right, so maybe this isn’t the most discreet location.”
He knew they only had a few more seconds of privacy together, and he didn’t want to separate without planning something. He needed to have another opportunity to kiss her in the near future, or it would drive him crazy. “When can we meet?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know what Jessica has planned for me. I might be able to get away at some point tonight, but won’t you need to go home?”
Jeremiah smiled. “I think I can manage to stick around here for the evening.”
She looked like she was about to say something else, but before she could, a door somewhere nearby closed loudly and two voices started moving toward them. Jeremiah tried not to look too disappointed. “That’ll be Jessica and Aaron,” he said, opening his door and tearing his eyes away from the beauty next to him.
He climbed out of the truck cab just as Aaron and his tall, leggy fiancée walked around the corner of the house. Before Jeremiah could walk around the truck to help Renee down, she was clambering out herself and moving with quick footsteps to hug her sister.
Jeremiah watched, comparing the two women. At first glance, they looked very different: Jessica was tall, with long auburn hair and lightly tanned skin. Renee looked almost petite next to her, though she couldn’t be under five foot six, with strawberry blonde locks barely grazing her shoulders and freckles dotting her pale cheeks and nose.
There were plenty of similarities when looked at more closely, though. They had the same shape of face, and something about the way they stood made it clear they were related.
He watched them embrace, their wide smiles nearly identical. He kept looking at Renee, studying the way she held herself, the tilt of her head, and thinking about what he might expect when they managed to find themselves alone together. Would she be as straightforward as her talk and her kisses implied? If so, he was in for one hell of a week.
He relived the kiss in his mind, feeling the sensations again as her tongue slid across his teeth. His heart revved back up to sprinting speed just thinking about it.
“Hey man, thanks for grabbing all that stuff and picking up Renee and everything,” Aaron said, startling Jeremiah out of his reverie. While he’d been absorbed in every movement Renee made, he had completely failed to notice that his friend had come up beside him.
Jeremiah looked at Aaron and tried to sound casual, as if he hadn’t been mentally undressing his buddy’s sister-in-law. “No problem.”
“Everything okay?” Aaron asked, his forehead creasing as he lifted an eyebrow. “You seem a little distracted or something.”
Jeremiah wanted to smack himself. It hadn’t even been two minutes and Aaron could already tell something was up. How was he going to manage to keep this thing quiet? It didn’t help that he was a horrible liar. He just had to act normal, that’s all. Jeremiah shrugged and replied, “I’m fine,” then waited to see if he had pulled it off.
Aaron looked at his friend for another moment, then moved toward the bed of Jeremiah’s truck. “Let’s get this stuff unloaded,” he said.
Glad to be out of the spotlight, Jeremiah immediately went to work.
* * *
JESSICA HUGGED HER AGAIN. “It’s great to see you! How was your flight? And the drive in? I hope it was okay that Jeremiah picked you up.”
More than okay, thought Renee as she glanced at Jeremiah, who was standing with Aaron. Just the sight of him made her heart beat loud in her chest, and she hoped she hadn’t started blushing. She suddenly felt warm despite the cool February weather.
“Everything’s been great. I’m ready to be put to work. Should we start unloading the truck?”
Before she could even turn to make good on the offer, though, Aaron and Jeremiah were tackling the job. Jeremiah climbed into his silver monolith of a vehicle, and Aaron shook his head at the two women. “We’ll take care of this. You ladies go catch up.”
Jessica ran over to her fiancé and gave him a kiss, which seemed to Renee as if it was going to turn into much more when Aaron looped his arm around Jessica’s waist and lifted her up, pressing her body against his. Renee looked at Jeremiah again, and found him looking back at her and smiling. She wasn’t sure if it was because of his friend’s antics or because he was thinking of what he would do to her when he got the chance to get an arm around her. The latter was probably wishful thinking and she was definitely projecting some of her own thoughts on him.
But a girl could hope.
Then Jessica was back, a little breathless. She grabbed Renee’s hand and started steering her toward the front of the house.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t help?” Renee asked, partly because her New York sensibilities rankled a bit at the idea of letting the guys do all the work and partly because she wanted to watch Jeremiah using those very sexy muscles she could see straining beneath his shirt.
She didn’t let herself think about how much weight each reason held in her mind.
Jessica