Page 48 of An Unexpected Turn
He skimmed his thumb over my raw bottom lip and shook his head.
“Thisis why we aren’t talking here.” He nodded back toward my front door. “I want you for so much more than this, but you’re so damn beautiful I can’t help myself.”
I bit my bottom lip as I held in a whimper. His mouth, his eyes, his words, this couldn’t be my reality. I’d made Jake a teenage dream but never got to know the real man behind the gorgeous exterior. Now that I did, I wanted him even more, and it was still the best kind of surreal that he wanted me back.
Even if it came with the nagging voice in the back of my mind reiterating all that could go wrong.
TWENTY-ONE
JAKE
“Where are you taking us?” Peyton asked, her pinched brow in my periphery as I drove.
“Somewhere private.”
She squinted at me when I turned my head.
“More private than my condo?”
I turned down the back road and pulled onto the patch of gravel where we all used to park. In the summer months, the lake was packed from early in the morning until almost midnight. It was the closest thing we had to a beach, but I used it to clear my head in the colder months when only the hard-core fishers would come this early.
“Private and where I won’t be tempted to strip you before we can talk.”
My head fell back with a laugh when her eyes darted to my back seat.
I cupped her chin and pulled her into a kiss, brushing her lips lightly in an attempt not to start anything I didn’t want to be tempted to finish.
“That’s why we didn’t stay at your condo and why we’re getting out of my truck. I’ll grab a blanket from the back.”
Peyton eyed me with playful suspicion before climbing out of the passenger seat.
“I’m still a city girl and haven’t embraced the ice-cold outdoors yet like the locals.” She shivered and grasped the paper coffee cup in her hands.
“You never played in the snow as a kid? Brooklyn has snow sometimes, right?”
She chuckled around the lid as she took a sip.
“Sometimes. My mother wasn’t exactly the play-in-the-snow type, and in Brooklyn, the snow is gray and gross after about five minutes. Uncle Keith would take me sledding up here when we’d visit, but I didn’t build many snowmen in my time.” She shrugged, darting her eyes away as she probably felt the same twinge of guilt I did at the mention of her uncle.
“Well,” I started after I pulled the blanket out of the back of the truck and shut the door, “after the first snowfall this year, we need to fix that.”
She burst out laughing, her chocolate eyes twinkling as she peered back at me.
“You want to play in the snow with me?”
She shot me a sexy grin, but I didn’t smile back. I cupped the nape of her neck and pressed my forehead against hers.
“I want to do everything with you. Feels good to finally admit it.”
“That it does.” She exhaled a long sigh and leaned into me.
“Come on.” I kissed the top of her head and pulled her by the hand. “I usually come here alone this early in the morning. It’s quiet enough to drown out the noise in my head.”
I led us to a grassy area next to the rocks. The lake was still. It was cold but not frigid enough to spot any ice on the surface. I spread out the blanket and pulled her to sit next to me.
“It’s pretty. I can kind of see why you’d want to come here, even in the cold.”
Silence washed over us for a moment, and the only sounds for a few long minutes were the tapping of Peyton’s nails against the side of the cup.
