Jake got a glimpse of lacy white bra containing a mouth-watering swell of breast. He put his hand on her shoulder. Applied enough pressure to stop Ella’s examination of her shoe, and brought her up straight.
She was all wide eyes and swish of brown hair. Moonlight, sunlight and everything untouchable and amazing he’d ever known.
Jake bent his head, tipped Ella’s chin and kissed her, catching her mouth on a gasp of what he hoped was anticipation and not outrage.
She didn’t feel outraged.
She felt soft and feminine, but incredibly strong in her skin. Jake skimmed his fingers across years of underlying muscle in one slow stroke of Ella’s arm.
His hand slipped to her hip and he stepped her sideways along the wall inside his office so he could back her up and kiss her the way he wanted to—was going to—like she was all his.
He kissed Ella through firm and rough, through questing and gentle, until she moaned into his mouth and under his hands and made him get rough again. Through panting, through desperate, till he had a hand under Ella’s thigh, pulling her closer and her heel scratched the back of his calf where her ankle rubbed his trousers.
Slow it down, Honeychurch.
Back off, buster.
Cool it, dude.
Softly, Jake stole a last sneaky taste of Ella’s lower lip, discovered a taste in the very corner—of apples—and had to check again to be sure.
Slowly, he lifted his head. Ella’s eyes were closed and he had the extraordinary pleasure of watching them open. Her eyes were a lighter colour than he’d thought, and now he knew that was because it’d been too dark to see last night and he’d never been close enough before to get the full effect of the mocha specks sneaking into all that dark chocolate.
Jake put his hand to her hair, giving the mahogany strands a twist in his palm. Was it the colour of her hair that had fooled him into thinking her eyes were so dark?
Gently, he cradled the back of Ella’s head, hugging her face into his shoulder as he brought them both down.
‘Do I need to say sorry?’ he whispered.
‘For kissing me?’ she said, a little breathlessly, ‘Or for stopping?’
‘I didn’t want to stop. Stopping wasn’t the major thing on my mind.’
He felt a pressure from her, a change of weight that told him it was time to let her go. Hardest thing he’d ever done.
* * *
It might have been the hardest thing she’d ever done, stepping out of Jake’s arms. In fact, Ella was pretty sure she wasn’t thinking straight. What woman would want to be out of those arms once she’d made a place there?
But this was his office and a hardware store, for goodness sake. People didn’t kiss like that in hardware stores, or offices. People just didn’t kiss. Like. That.
Ella’s fingers crept to her lips, as if double-checking they were still there.
‘Are you okay?’ Jake asked her.
‘Fine. I’m fine.’
When had she ever been kissed like that? Ever? Her thoughts flew to Marshall, the after party and the aftermath. Marshall hadn’t kissed her like that.
Erik kissed like … like Erik did everything. With German precision.
Ella took a tiny step sideways to give her feet a firmer plant and felt her bottom bump the wall. That felt nice and safe and secure, so she stayed there while she caught her breath, looking around Jake’s broad shoulders.
So this was his office? He had an office, not a space. She supposed he deserved it if he owned the business, like Harvey Begg. Did hardware stores have salespeople of the month? Was there an award for most sales of nails and hammers in the Great Southern?
‘Ella? Okay, now you’re scaring me. Talk to me so I know you’re still in there.’ Jake had been holding a curl of her hair. Now he tapped the side of her temple.
‘I like your office,’ she said.
He swung around, putting more space between them, and she watched as he checked out his walls, one hand on his hip and the other spreading left, right and rear before he came back to centre.
‘You have your own filing system. That’s a very big desk,’ she said.
‘Maybe you should sit down.’
She pressed her bottom firmly into the wall. ‘Nah, I’m good.’ She was. She was good. Very good. That was some kiss. Ella felt her lips again.
‘Okay, I think I’m going to insist.’ Jake held out his hand. ‘I think you’re drunk.’
He might be right. Ella shifted her left heel further sideways, and a rip-crackle sound tore the air. When she looked down, she saw she’d put her heel through the new offer from Henry Graham.
‘Well that’s a bit of a bugger,’ she said.
Jake laughed, bent and picked up her dropped phone.
Ella leaned on the wall for balance and reached for the foot she raised, heel first, with the papers spiked to it. She peeled the offer from her heel and set her foot back on the floor.
Nice flooring. Durable. You’d expect that in a hardware store.
Ella raised her hand to indicate Jake’s desk and his three office chairs. One high-backed executive chair that looked like it would swing and dip just like Bob Begg’s, and two guest chairs opposite that each looked far classier than her one and only office chair at her space.
‘Shall we have a seat, Jake?’
‘That’s been my line for about three minutes. Please. Be my guest.’ He put her phone on the desk and pulled one of the guest chairs out for her, waited till she got her bottom from his wall to the seat, then walked around his desk and sat in the big black leather chair opposite.
It felt like she spent a lot of time sitting at various front steps, chairs, tables, benches and desks with Jake Honeychurch. She was tired of sitting. She wanted to lie down
