Something in her eyes changed then, turned from unexpectantly aroused to painfully foolish.
“Emma?” he asked, knowing he was a tool for pulling her gently onto his lap, “are you all right?”
She looked up into his eyes, more defenseless than he’d ever seen her. “No, I’m not all right. I’m jealous,” she admitted in a small voice.
Without letting himself dissect his actions, not willing to admit that his urge to comfort her was at odds with his desire for revenge, he ran his thumb over her lush lower lip. “Don’t be.”
She shook her head. “How can I not be? You’ve not only had beautiful women, but two at once. How can I ever compete with that?”
Jason hated to watch her new self-confidence fall away like this. It wasn’t what he’d intended.
Not yet, anyway.
“You don’t have to,” he said, unable to be anything other than honest with her in this moment, even if she didn’t deserve it. Even if she hadn’t been the least bit honest with him ten years ago.
“None of that actually happened, Emma,” he admitted. “I was just playing with you.”
“You don’t have to deny what you did to make me feel better. I can handle it. You’re entitled to your own life.” Her voice breaking, she said, “I stupidly gave you up to other women a long time ago.”
Jason spoke quickly before Emma went any further. Before she delved any further into the past.
“I’ve never done a ménage. I swear. You just seemed to want to hear about one so badly.” Working overtime to change the tenor of their skinny-dipping session, he gently teased her. “A ménage is one of your fantasies, I take it?”
Her smile came back then. Not as quickly as Jason would have like, but there nonetheless.
“No,” she protested, but judging by the excited way she’d begged for details, he didn’t believe her.
Not that he could ever share her with another man. Or another woman, for that matter.
It might have been stupid, emotional suicide even, but now that he was with Emma again, Jason couldn’t deny the truth any longer: He wanted her all to himself.
Eleven
Emma could hardly believe he’d toyed with her like that. Then again, she’d asked for it, hadn’t she? Had been dying to hear about his threesome. She’d been trying to be so brave, so blasé about it all, but she’d only ended up feeling foolish. Inadequate.
But now that she knew he’d only been playing with her, teasing her, she felt both relieved and hornier than ever. Buoyed by the water, she shifted until she was straddling him.
All she wanted was to have fun with him again. To explode in his arms. To feel beautiful and wanted.
“I can’t let you get away with that, now can I? You’re going to have to pay the price for telling fibs.”
“I hope so.”
“Bad boy,” she whispered as she sank down on his erection, taking him all the way into her without preamble.
“Emma,” he groaned as he pulled her lips down to his and ravaged her mouth.
She rode him with all of her pent-up desire from the hot air balloon, letting loose all of her jealousy at the thought of him sleeping with other women, taking and taking with no thought of anything but finding her pleasure.
The sun was fading by the time they parked in front of Jason’s dark and empty restaurant. He held open the door for her and helped her out onto the sidewalk, the perfect gentleman as always. Well, maybe not always, she thought with a secret smile.
She wouldn’t want him to be too much a gentleman in bed, now would she?
“Hungry?”
Her stomach growled in response. “Starved.”
“Since we’re closed tonight, think of Cravings as your own private restaurant.”
She followed him inside, memories of their naughty romp in the dining room flooding through her as they headed for the kitchen. Jason flipped on some lights and she looked around, utterly amazed by his lair.
“Very impressive.”
He shrugged. “Your standard restaurant kitchen.”
“If you say so,” she said, doubting that other restaurants bothered with aesthetics in the private space that was off limits to customers. “The colorful tile backsplash is a nice touch,” she said, running her fingers over the mosaic inlaid to look like tropical fish were swimming in a lagoon.
“The artist owed me a favor.”
“Sure. Or maybe you just like working in pretty environments.”
“Sounds kind of girlie to me,” he joked, but the look Emma gave him made it clear that she thought he was anything but girlie.
Jason turned and pulled out pots and ingredients for their meal and Emma started to feel more and more out of her element. Useless, really. All those years of dieting hadn’t really inspired her to learn how to cook. But after two days back in Jason’s world, she realized how much she’d been missing all her life.
Taste.
Flavor.
The excitement and pleasure of truly enjoying a meal. And a man, for that matter.
“Teach me to cook,” she said impulsively.
Jason snorted. “Sorry. I don’t know how to make rice cakes.”
Emma instinctively lifted her hand to cover her heart. “That’s not fair,” she protested hotly. “I’ve eaten everything you have today.” Didn’t he know what an effort she was making to change? Perhaps if he’d made the rice cake comment in college she could have rolled with it, would have known that he was only teasing her because he was concerned about her. But they were on such weird ground and she wasn’t sure how to take his comment. Other than to know that it hurt.
He raised an eyebrow, clearly intent on calling her bluff. “Sure, you’ve been a wild woman for one whole day. Come tomorrow you’ll probably go on a ten-mile run to burn off the calories and insist that you’re full after half a grapefruit.”
She hated the way he was mocking her.
Hated even more that he was right.
“You’re wrong,” she stated, hoping that her words would be true one day, even if they weren’t right now.
Her face falling, she admitted, “No, you’re not wrong. But I wish you were. I’m sick of working so hard all the time to be skinny.” Feeling scrawny and lacking as a woman, she gave voice to her fears. “Do you really think of me as just a bag of bones?”
“No,” he said, pulling her against him. “God no. You’re right, I’m just being an ass again. Us guys are stupid about women and food.”