Page 12 of Winner Takes All

His low chuckle warmed the kitchen. The teasing was infectious, and she laughed along at herself.

Being with him again was so easy, so relaxed. During the past week, they’d certainly been together enough for her to realize that. Except for at night, they’d been together nearly every moment, sharing instructions for the jockeys, debating the merits and weaknesses of the rest of the field, talking about horses and racing…talking about everything except the attraction that had once been between them. Heated. Aching. Undeniable.

Her smile faded. She swallowed hard and dared to ask, “Did you miss me?”

He froze, his hand in mid-reach for another one of the sheets. He paused only for a beat before moving on, but long enough for her to know that she’d rattled him. Because he didn’t look up at her.Thatwas the Jackson Shaw she knew. If he didn’t acknowledge a problem, it didn’t exist. That was why he’d insisted on writing down all the information on the rest of the field so that he’d be forced to acknowledge the competition and deal with it. That was also why he’d left her at Uncle Jonas’s door that first day, why he’d never once attempted to contact her during the years they were apart…She was a problem he didn’t want to acknowledge.

“Doesn’t matter,” he murmured, his eyes glued to the paper. “Portland’s filly has a good bloodline back through the Goldophin—”

“Of course it matters.” She leaned forward on the chair, setting her unwanted coffee aside. “I missedyou, Jack. A great deal.”

“You shouldn’t have.” Giving up on the sheets, he tossed the page aside with an aggravated flick of his wrist. “What we had was youthful infatuation, that’s all.”

“It was more than that.” She reached across the table to place her hand over his. “In your heart, you know that.”

“What I know is that a viscount’s daughter had no future with a stable master.” His eyes flared with self-recrimination, but he didn’t pull his hand away. “That’s the way the world is, and that’s how it will be long after we’re gone. A few kisses could never change that.”

“It was more than a few kisses.” She punctuated that reminder by entwining her fingers with his. “We could have that again if Midnight wins the race and—”

He yanked his hand away as if her touch burned him and shoved himself to his feet. “It was a wonderful time, I’ll admit. We were good friends.”

She nearly laughed. “We were more than friends.”

“We werefriends,” he repeated forcefully. “Don’t make it into more than it was.”

If that was supposed to have been a warning, it didn’t work. “Liar.”

She knew exactly what had been between them, and it wasn’t youthful infatuation or simple friendship. Neither were the feelings for him that stirred inside her now.

She stood and slowly circled the table to him. Careful not to put too much weight on her recovering ankle, she slid between him and the table, where she rested back on its edge and unwittingly arched herself toward him. She didn’t mind the mistake, especially when his eyes flared with desire.

Anticipation blossomed in her belly as she brought her mouth close to his. His warm breath tickled achingly across her lips.

“Then don’t kiss me,” she challenged, arching up even more seductively to tease her lips against his in featherlight temptation. “Just stand there and prove me wrong. Prove how much you don’t want me.”

A groan of capitulation tore from the back of his throat, and his mouth darted down to seize hers. With none of the teasing from the last time he’d embraced her, this kiss was hot and urgent and filled with the taste of how much he wanted her. A surge of excitement thrilled her, and she melted into him with her own answering moan of desire.

He gathered her into his arms and pressed her against him. As he continued to take heated, open-mouth kisses, his hands slid down her back, then up the sides of her body to cup her breasts in his palms. Liquid fire pooled inside her when he began to massage her. Despite the layers of clothing, Frankie felt as if there was nothing between them at all. Only his warm and strong hands worshipping her body, driving her mad with want and need.

“I was right,” she panted as she pushed herself against him, bringing his hands harder against her. “You wanted me then…You still want me now.”

He nipped her earlobe in punishment for her audacity. The pleasure-pain of the bite shot through her and landed with a jarring throb between her legs.

“Of course I want you, minx,” he admitted in a raspy murmur as he kissed at her neck. He wiggled his fingers beneath her corset and chemise to tease her hard nipple with his fingertips. “I’m a man, aren’t I?” He tugged her clothes down to free a single breast for his hungry eyes, and the ravenous look that darkened his face took her breath away. “What man wouldn’t?”

“Most every other man I’ve ever met.” She shivered when he traced a fingertip playfully around her nipple. “Once they find out that I’m not some passive society miss but a woman with a mind of her own, opinions of her own.” When he strummed his thumb over the hard point, she bit back a whimper. “Challenging, willful, independent—”

“To a fault.” But the irritated grumble he’d tried for was lost beneath the desire thickening his voice.

He lowered his head to place a delicate kiss to her nipple. The tenderness nearly undid her. She clenched at his shoulders and fought down the urge to simply lie back across the table and wantonly let him have her right there in the kitchen. As if reading her mind and still fighting the attraction that flamed between them, he slipped his arm around her and pressed his hand against the small of her back to keep her upright.

She struggled now to maintain her breath as he continued to tease at her nipple with his fingers and lips. The caresses stirred the aching heat that licked at her belly and at the backs of her knees, the two sensations slowly moving together to meet between her legs.

“You never cared about that, though, did you?” She played her fingers through the silky hair at his nape, and his breath turned shallow with arousal as it fanned warmly over her breast. “You wanted me despite that.”

He confessed in a rough rasp, “I wanted youbecauseof that.”

His mouth claimed her breast. She gasped as his lips latched around her nipple and sucked hard, so hard that each pull drew her deep into his mouth, the force of it hollowing out his cheeks. This wasn’t like the tender kisses of before. Thiswas sheer plunder. With each deep suck that seemed to pull all the way down to the demanding ache between her legs, his wicked tongue circled her nipple in a tantalizing lick.