“I’ve lost count of the number of arguments since our engagement,” she continued quietly. “I feel like I spend all my time fighting. If not with my mother, then with one or more of my brothers, or with you. I like peace. Quiet. Managing Hayden’s is stressful enough—I can’t handle having my personal life fraught with constant turmoil. I’ve never considered myself a quitter, but I’m just so damn tired of fighting.”
He raised her hand to his lips and pressed a quick, hard kiss against her palm. “Then let’s stop fighting.”
“Based on the last four miserable months—which seem to grow more miserable by the day—easier said than done.”
“No, it’s not. We just need to stop fighting each other. If there’s fighting to be done, let’s do it together—for each other. Our families are causing the tension. It can’t touch us if we don’t let it.”
“A great theory, and one we’ve discussed before. But as these last four months have proven, it’s difficult to ignore one’s family. Especially when you work with them. And live only a few miles away from them. And when they show up during your get-away-from-them weekend.”
“Difficult, definitely. But not impossible. And they’re gone now.” He took her other hand then pressed her palms against his chest. “I love you, Jess. So damn much. Nothing…nothing is as important to me as you. You know that…don’t you?”
She blinked back the tears burning behind her eyes at his words and nodded. “It’s just that I’m so…disappointed.”
“In me?”
She shook her head. “No. In this whole situation. In how badly it’s turned out. I always imagined this one big, happy family scenario—gatherings, holidays, cookouts. And instead it’s one big unhappy mess.”
“As long as you and I aren’t a mess, that’s all that matters, Jess. Your mother and Kelley will just have to fight it out without us. After the wedding, everything will settle down.”
“I keep telling myself that—”
“Good.”
“—but I’m not sure I can stand this for another two months. At least not without the benefit of a morphine drip.”
One corner of his mouth twitched, but remnants of worry still lurked in his
eyes. “We have the next few days all to ourselves. No pressure, no arguments. Nothing to worry about except us.”
He brushed his mouth over hers, once, twice, softly, and her weariness melted away, replaced by a sudden, fierce need to feel. A need to feel Eric. To recapture the magic between them. To rediscover how good they were together. To remember what they stood to lose if they were foolish enough to let it all get away from them. A need to forget everything and simply drown in sensation.
“Nothing except us sounds really nice,” she whispered against his lips, slipping her hands over his shoulders and twining her arms around his neck.
He leaned back and his gaze bored into hers. “Do you love me?”
The uncertainty reflected in his beautiful eyes shamed her, filling her with a hollow ache she couldn’t name that he’d felt it necessary to ask. That she’d made him doubt her feelings. While there was no doubt she hated this situation, there was also no doubt she loved him. And she was so afraid it was all slipping away.
A surge of fierce love rushed through her, coupled with an almost desperate need to reassure him, to not only tell him, but show him how much she loved and wanted and needed him. Now.
Rising up on her toes, she pressed herself against him and pulled his head down for her kiss. “Yes. God, yes. I love you. So much—”
His lips silenced hers in a hot, deep, passionate kiss that left her breathless. “Love you so much,” she repeated, sprinkling kisses along his jaw to his ear where she raked her teeth against the lobe. “And I miss you. It’s been so long…”
“So long,” he agreed, tunneling his fingers through her hair. “Too damn long.”
Her hands slipped beneath his sweater to run up his smooth back, and he groaned.
“Are you trying to seduce me?”
“Yes.” She rubbed herself against him. “Is it working?”
“Absolutely.”
Chapter 5
Eric looked into Jess’s eyes and his body hardened to instant attention at the heat simmering in her chocolate-brown depths. She certainly didn’t need to put much effort into seducing him—she could accomplish the task with a mere look. A lone touch. A single word. A fleeting smile.
Need, sharp and edgy, scraped him, overwhelming him with the desire to yank her into his arms and spend the next few days blocking out the last few stressful months, specifically the last few stressful hours. All he wanted to do was drown in her.