watched, comparing the two women. At first glance, they looked very different: Jessica was tall, with long auburn hair and lightly tanned skin. Renee looked almost petite next to her, though she couldn’t be under five foot six, with strawberry blonde locks barely grazing her shoulders and freckles dotting her pale cheeks and nose.
There were plenty of similarities when looked at more closely, though. They had the same shape of face, and something about the way they stood made it clear they were related.
He watched them embrace, their wide smiles nearly identical. He kept looking at Renee, studying the way she held herself, the tilt of her head, and thinking about what he might expect when they managed to find themselves alone together. Would she be as straightforward as her talk and her kisses implied? If so, he was in for one hell of a week.
He relived the kiss in his mind, feeling the sensations again as her tongue slid across his teeth. His heart revved back up to sprinting speed just thinking about it.
“Hey man, thanks for grabbing all that stuff and picking up Renee and everything,” Aaron said, startling Jeremiah out of his reverie. While he’d been absorbed in every movement Renee made, he had completely failed to notice that his friend had come up beside him.
Jeremiah looked at Aaron and tried to sound casual, as if he hadn’t been mentally undressing his buddy’s sister-in-law. “No problem.”
“Everything okay?” Aaron asked, his forehead creasing as he lifted an eyebrow. “You seem a little distracted or something.”
Jeremiah wanted to smack himself. It hadn’t even been two minutes and Aaron could already tell something was up. How was he going to manage to keep this thing quiet? It didn’t help that he was a horrible liar. He just had to act normal, that’s all. Jeremiah shrugged and replied, “I’m fine,” then waited to see if he had pulled it off.
Aaron looked at his friend for another moment, then moved toward the bed of Jeremiah’s truck. “Let’s get this stuff unloaded,” he said.
Glad to be out of the spotlight, Jeremiah immediately went to work.
* * *
JESSICA HUGGED HER AGAIN. “It’s great to see you! How was your flight? And the drive in? I hope it was okay that Jeremiah picked you up.”
More than okay, thought Renee as she glanced at Jeremiah, who was standing with Aaron. Just the sight of him made her heart beat loud in her chest, and she hoped she hadn’t started blushing. She suddenly felt warm despite the cool February weather.
“Everything’s been great. I’m ready to be put to work. Should we start unloading the truck?”
Before she could even turn to make good on the offer, though, Aaron and Jeremiah were tackling the job. Jeremiah climbed into his silver monolith of a vehicle, and Aaron shook his head at the two women. “We’ll take care of this. You ladies go catch up.”
Jessica ran over to her fiancé and gave him a kiss, which seemed to Renee as if it was going to turn into much more when Aaron looped his arm around Jessica’s waist and lifted her up, pressing her body against his. Renee looked at Jeremiah again, and found him looking back at her and smiling. She wasn’t sure if it was because of his friend’s antics or because he was thinking of what he would do to her when he got the chance to get an arm around her. The latter was probably wishful thinking and she was definitely projecting some of her own thoughts on him.
But a girl could hope.
Then Jessica was back, a little breathless. She grabbed Renee’s hand and started steering her toward the front of the house.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t help?” Renee asked, partly because her New York sensibilities rankled a bit at the idea of letting the guys do all the work and partly because she wanted to watch Jeremiah using those very sexy muscles she could see straining beneath his shirt.
She didn’t let herself think about how much weight each reason held in her mind.
Jessica shrugged. “Nah. It’s a bit of a battle trying to get these Texas boys to stop doing stuff for us. They’re very gentlemanly. There are definitely worse problems to have. Anyway, I want to show you around and hear how things are going, so we can let them win this one.”
If Texas is a state where “letting the guys win” means sitting back while they unload a full truck, maybe it isn’t such a bad place after all.
She had without doubt warmed up to Texas over the past ten minutes. And if she kept thinking about Jeremiah’s lips against hers, it would soon become one of her favorite places.
Before Jessica could pull her around the corner, Renee took one look at Jeremiah. He stood in the back of his truck, his body all muscle and hard lines, which made the perpetual smile crinkling his lips and eyes that much more breathtaking.
* * *
JEREMIAH WATCHED RENEE disappear around the corner of the house. Just before she was out of sight, she turned and gave him a smile. Not the sweet smile he’d seen her use on her sister, or the tentative one he’d seen when he first picked her up from the airport. This smile held a promise that made his pulse pound in his ears. It was only for a moment, but it was enough.
He had to figure out how to get her alone as soon as possible, or he might internally combust from all the heat flowing through his veins.
He would have kept staring at the place where he’d last seen her, picturing all the things that smile hinted at, but Aaron interrupted his train of thought.
“You’re staying for dinner, right?”
You couldn’t drag me away. Aloud, though, all he said was, “Yeah, if that’s okay.”
Aaron nodded distractedly as he started pulling at the assorted bars and wires which would eventually become a wedding arch. Jeremiah moved to help him. As they pulled out each wedding-related item, Jeremiah said, “It looks like there’s still quite a bit to do before the ceremony next weekend. Will everything be done in time?”
He really wanted to ask if Renee would have any free time at all or if Jessica would keep her so busy that he would almost never see her, but he couldn’t think of a way to say it that didn’t sound too much like he was asking when he’d be able to bang Aaron’s sister-in-law.
“It should be pretty simple, actually, but Jessica wants to double-check everything, so that’ll take some time.”
“She’s really putting in the effort to make sure nothing unexpected happens, huh?”
Jeremiah didn’t know why he would ask that. Maybe he was trying to remind himself exactly why he had to keep his hands off Renee. In public, at least.
Aaron smiled what Jeremiah called his “Jessica smile.” It was full of love, pure and simple. “Jessica wants everything to be as planned as possible, and she’s willing to do everything she can to make that happen.”
Jeremiah had no idea why that made Aaron smile, but he was glad his friend was so happy. Ever since Aaron had met Jessica in Las Vegas two years ago, he’d been happier than Jeremiah had ever seen him.
Being in love definitely didn’t seem that bad.
* * *
RENEE
