My God, what had she been missing all these years?
“Marvin? Emma?”
Emma spun around to see Jason in all his masculine glory striding toward them on the sidewalk.
Hewas what she’d been missing all these years. Jason was the one person she hadn’t let herself be close to. The one person she needed more than anyone else. Yes, she hadn’t let herself indulge in chocolate ice cream, but that deficiency paled to her need for Jason.
Her tongue moved to lick a drop of chocolate off her upper lip. “Good morning,” she said, suddenly shy, worried that she looked like a ridiculous glutton with her huge ice cream cone. Making excuses she said,
“I figured you had to work this morning so I decided to take Marvin for a walk and do some shopping.”
“And eat ice cream?”
She glanced guiltily at her cone. “I know I shouldn’t have.”
“Are you kidding me? The Chocolate Cow makes the best ice cream in the country. I’ve been trying to get them to work up a plan for national distribution, but wouldn’t you know it, they want to remain a small family business.”
Nodding stupidly, she said, “It’s the best ice cream I’ve ever had.”
Something in his eyes softened. “I’m glad you’re enjoying it. When I think back to all those times in college that I tried to get you to eat ice cream.” His words fell away then, and Emma remembered how concerned he’d been in college, always trying to get her to eat something besides Diet Coke and fruit. He was one of the only people who had cared enough about her to point out that her eating habits were troubling.
In fact, it was during those years with Jason that she’d actually gained a little weight. Her mother had been on her constantly, and Emma had grown frightened of the way love could take away her self-control.
Being with Jason, in some ways, was equated with the danger of being fat. It was yet another way she’d thought he was bad for her. She’d hardly known herself when she was with him. The only difference now was that shewanted to change into someone new. Perhaps flirty clothes and ice cream cones were only the beginning.
Plus, now that he’d finally brought up their past she didn’t know how to respond. So she didn’t. She just stood there clutching her cone like a lifeline, chocolate beginning to run down her arm. Finally, Jason broke the tension by saying, “How about I get a cone and join you?”
Emma spoke before she could rethink her words. “You can share mine.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t want you to feel deprived.”
Heat shot through her. She felt anything but deprived. Not with the things he did to her body. “I don’t.”
She realized what she said and stuttered, “I mean, I won’t. Please. I can’t eat it all. My eyes were way bigger than my stomach.”
As if on cue, a huge chunk of fudge began a slow slide down her hand to her wrist. Jason moved quickly, running one index finger up the sensitive skin at her pulse point, making her shiver even while standing in direct sunlight.
He sucked his finger into his mouth, holding her gaze. “Delicious,” he said, and she wasn’t sure if he was talking about the ice cream. Or her.
Shocked to be feeling so aroused while standing in the middle of a bustling main street, she lowered her mouth to the ice cream cone. Jason grabbed Marvin’s leash and together the three of them walked across the street to a lovely town park. Anyone who didn’t know better would have thought that they were a happy couple taking their dog for a walk and sharing an ice cream on a warm summer day.
But Emma did know better. And no matter how much she wished that was exactly what was happening, it wasn’t. Not with so much pain still lingering between them.
Three hot lovemaking sessions couldn’t change ten years of silence and betrayal. Suddenly she realized that if they were ever going to work through their past they’d have to acknowledge it. Later, when the time was right, she would try to get them to laugh together over old times. Good times.
Having a real friendship with Jason again, having him love her again, was her greatest wish. She didn’t want money. She didn’t want power.
All she wanted was Jason.
Silently, Emma vowed to do everything in her power to make it happen. She might have been frigid for most of her life, but she wasn’t stupid. And she knew damn well that taking a trip down memory lane wouldn’t be enough to break through Jason’s walls.
Continued seduction was her best bet. She felt certain of that after his passionate response to her last night, his lack of control in her arms.
The question was, what could she do to seduce Jason today that he wouldn’t expect?
And couldn’t refuse.
What the hell was he doing sharing an ice cream cone in the park with Emma? Sure, he’d planned on stringing her along before he dumped her ass to the pavement as hard as she deserved, but acting like the happy couple had certainly not been on his radar. He’d taken one look at her standing on the sidewalk with the ridiculously big ice cream cone and been so glad to see her—so glad to see her actually eating too, something he’d worked so hard to get her to do in college—that he temporarily lost grasp of the blackness within him. The part of him that wanted Emma to hurt, rather than be happy.
He was behaving like a fool. A lovesick fool. Somehow he needed to figure out how to walk the fine line between stringing Emma along and being lovey-dovey. Wherever the hell that was.
“Are you off on break right now?” she asked between licks, and it took everything in him to fight the urge to kiss the chocolate off her lips.
He nodded, even though Cravings was closed on Mondays and he usually took the afternoon off to
recharge for the busy week ahead.
“I was hoping I could steal you away for an hour or so,” she said and he could hear the apprehension in her voice. It made him feel sorry for her, which he hated, and his voice grew hard in response.
“I don’t know if I’ll have time,” he said. “You caught me off guard with your visit. It’s the busy season.”
While everything he said was true, the real truth was that he couldn’t control himself around her, and if he admitted to having the entire day off, he’d likely spend the next twenty hours worshipping her with his hands, his mouth, and especially his cock.
Instantly, Emma reverted back to the prim and proper, not-a-hair-out-of-place girl he’d known so long ago. “Of course you’re busy. I should never have presumed that you would be able to give up more of your valuable time.” All of her lush, expressive sensuality disappeared as if it never existed. “I should probably get back to work as well,” she said, her lips tight, her eyes dead.