Secret Love - Brenda Jackson [21]
“Don’t wake her, boy. Let her sleep,” Blaylock had said to him over his shoulder. He had nodded, then turned and left the room to go upstairs to take a shower. By the time he had come back downstairs an hour or so later, he knew she had awakened when he had heard voices coming from the kitchen. He had stopped short when he walked into the kitchen and had seen twelve extra faces crowded at his dinner table. He had frowned. They were men who usually ate elsewhere in the afternoons. Other than the few who had permanent residences on Whispering Pines, he couldn’t recall any of the others ever joining him for dinner before. He wasn’t stupid. He knew why they were there.
“Is there any reason the masses of you aren’t giving your business to Pearl’s Diner tonight?” he had asked them.
The men, he had noted, had the decency to blush. However, it was his foreman, Percy Davis, who had laughed before audaciously saying, “Jake, didn’t you know that we enjoy being around you so much, it’s just natural for us to be eager for your company.”
“Yeah, right,” he had snorted before taking a place at the head of the table. Blaylock had seated Diamond at the other end, facing him. It was a spot that should have been reserved for the lady of the house. Since there was not one, that seat had normally remained vacant during meals. It had seemed strange to see someone sitting there, especially since that someone had been Diamond.
“Do you really think the men enjoyed the pies?”
Diamond’s question intruded on Jake’s thoughts, and brought him back to the present, reminding him they were now back at the cabin. “Sure they did, couldn’t you tell?”
Diamond smiled. “Yeah, I guess so. What about you, Jacob. Did you enjoy it?”
They had reached the door and stood facing each other. Diamond looked up at him for an instant, and a part of her wished she hadn’t. His eyes held hers, and she couldn’t do anything but stare back at him. She took in a quick perusal of his features under the moonlight. His handsomeness dazed her.
Blinking, she forced herself to turn her gaze away from his. Her cheeks flushed with sudden heat when she felt the pit of her stomach go hot. “Did you enjoy your pie?” she asked him again to get conversation going. She needed something—anything—to break the deep attraction she was feeling for him. She licked her lips.
That single gesture pushed Jake over the edge. It had been an edge he had been dangerously close to falling off of all day. “Yeah, I liked the pie,” he said. “And I think I’m going to like this here even better.”
His mouth was halfway to hers when the meaning of what he said hit Diamond. She was more than ready for his kiss and tilted her mouth up to meet him as he leaned toward her.
First he softly kissed the corner of her mouth before closing his full mouth over hers, gently inserting his tongue for the sweet taste he knew awaited him. His desire for her suddenly became overwhelming. He intensified the kiss when he heard a soft moan escape her throat, then wondered if the sound had really come from her and not him.
Their lips continued to fuse together hotly for a long, delicious moment. Neither was in a hurry for this time to end as rampant, hot and heavy emotions tore into them. Jake deepened the kiss even more, and his fingertip lightly traced patterns on the back of Diamond’s shirt.
Her hands were busy, too, as they encircled his neck. Her fingers caressed the side of his face underneath his ear. Both of them were drowning in the smoldering depths of the devouring kiss, their need spinning, raging.
With a deep tormented moan, Jake broke off the kiss to breathe. Heavily. Forcefully. Getting air past his lungs was