Just as he knew he wouldn’t.
In an instant, he’d snatched her up close, pulling her into him until their bodies were pressed so tightly together, he could feel the heavy drum of her heart. She opened her mouth to him and Jake moved in, taking what he’d hungered for the last couple of days. Surrounded by her heat, her scent, her taste, he lost himself in the glory of it and shoved away all thoughts of caution.
Something raw and powerful rose up inside him and he rode the crest of that raging need, taking Cassidy with him. She moved in even closer, threading her arms around his neck and holding on as if he was the only stable point in her universe. He knew that feeling as the world around him rocked and swayed unsteadily.
In the back of his mind, a voice sounded, whispering, insisting that he stop now before he lost his grip on the last tattered remains of his self-control. And he fought the voice because he didn’t want control. He wanted this. Her. He didn’t know why she had hit him as hard as she had, but there was no denying the spark between them, the heat engulfing them.
The question was, did he surrender to the flames or snuff them out? Before he could make a call, the decision was made for him as shouts and conversation and bursts of laughter reached them from outside. His cowboys were back, headed to the barn.
Jake tore his mouth from hers and quickly pulled her arms from around his neck. She swayed a little and damned if he could blame her. But in a couple of quick seconds, she was steady again and he envied it. For him, the world was still slightly tilted and the pain in his groin was like a throbbing toothache.
“I should go. Help Anna.”
“Yeah.” He yanked off his hat, speared his fingers through his hair and sucked in a long, deep gulp of icy air. It didn’t change a thing. “We’ll all be inside soon.”
Nodding, she backed up, her gaze locked on his. He couldn’t look away either, because whether he wanted to admit it or not, he was done avoiding her. Done pretending that the need clamoring in his gut was going away. He needed her. Wanted her. And she wanted him back. Tonight, damn it, they’d have at each other and put the passion to rest.
She reached the door and had to squeeze past the cowboys and their horses. A few of them spoke to her, and she answered, but Jake hardly heard any of it. All he could think was, night couldn’t come soon enough for him.
* * *
It was like a big, noisy family, Cass thought as she carried platter after platter of fried chicken, potatoes and corn to the table set up at one end of the massive kitchen. She was still amazed that the long table had folded out from the wall. It easily sat twenty, and could be folded down and tucked away when not in use. The house kept amazing her at every turn.
Of course, so did the man who had designed it all. Her gaze slid to where he sat at the head of the table, laughing at something his foreman and Anna’s husband, Charlie, was saying. Cass’s heart gave a little lurch in her chest. Jake Hunter scowling was enough to make a woman drool. Jake Hunter smiling made her want to climb right up all six feet four inches of him and settle in for a long visit.
Tingles of anticipation, flavored by memory, whipped through her bloodstream as she chatted and laughed with the cowboys. Anna had a good system here. Cook up a mountain of food and just keep it coming. The laughter, the good-natured teasing, the shouts, the bets on football games, it was...cozy, somehow. With the snow outside and the fire in the kitchen hearth snapping and crackling, this room was like sunlight.
Cass had always loved the idea of a big, boisterous family and now here she was, smack in the middle of one. She wondered if Jake even knew that his employees were his family. He was so determined to be alone, to have no connections, that he probably hadn’t even realized that he was never really alone. Everyone here was important in his life.
And for right now anyway, Cass was a part of it all.
Her gaze landed on Jake again and he looked up, as if sensing her staring at him. His blue eyes darkened and a muscle in his jaw twitched. He was remembering their kiss in the barn. Remembering how they’d nearly set fire to each other with the heat between them. Heck, she hadn’t been able to think of anything else for the last two hours. Several times, Anna had caught Cass daydreaming when she was supposed to be cooking and Cass didn’t even have a good excuse to give.
“Cass, Anna says you made these chocolate cookies.”
Shaken out of her thoughts, she turned to Lenny and nodded. “I did.”
“Well that settles it, you’ll have to marry me.”
Everyone laughed, even Lenny’s wife, sitting beside him.