Jill Shalvis - Simply Irresistible

“I’m going to be cold,” she whispered.

“I’ll keep you warm.” Leaning forward, he pressed his mouth between her warm, full breasts. Gently scraping his lips over one plumped curve, he worked his way to her nipple, which had already tightened for him.

“I don’t think I got hurt there.” But her fingers slid into his hair to hold him in place.

“You can never be too sure.” Slowly, he drew her nipple into his mouth and sucked.

Her head fell back, and she let out an aroused murmur that went straight through him. “But I fell on my butt.”

“You’re right. You need some serious TLC.” He slid his hands into her loosened sweatpants, tracing his fingers down the center of her sweet bare ass. Lingering… “Here?”

She gasped and shifted away. “No!”

With a smile, he slid his fingers lower. Wet. God, so wet.

Her arms clenched around his neck, and her breath was nothing more than little pants of hot air against his skin as he stroked her. “How about here?” he asked, slowly rubbing the pad of his callused finger over her, groaning when she spread her legs a little farther apart for him, giving him room to work. “Are you injured here?”

“N-no.” She clutched at him, panting for breath in his ear. “Jax-Jax, please-”

He loved the sweet begging, but it wasn’t necessary. Because he was going to “please.” He was going to please the both of them.

She rocked into him, her hands running over his chest, his abs, trying to get inside his clothes, trying to get inside him. He felt the same. He couldn’t get close enough. She was warm and curvy and whispering his name, and that worked for him, big-time. He reached down to tug off her shoes so he could get her out of the Santa sweats when red and blue lights flashed from outside, slashing into the office window.

Maddie straightened and stared at Jax, before zipping herself back up. She got to the window just as Sawyer opened the back door of his sheriff’s car.

Chloe huffed out and stormed toward the cottage.

“Oh, boy,” Maddie said, feeling Jax at her back.

“Sawyer’s pissed,” he said.

“How can you tell? He’s wearing a blank expression.”

“That’s how you tell. He gives nothing away when he’s in that kind of mood.”

Maddie’s gut tightened. “What do you think she did this time?”

“This time?”

Maddie hurried outside. “Chloe?” she called out.

Both Sawyer and Chloe turned around.

“It wasn’t my fault,” Chloe said.

Sawyer snorted.

Chloe tossed up her hands, whirled, and started walking again.

“You’re welcome for the ride,” Sawyer said to her back.

Chloe flipped him the bird and slammed the cottage door.

“What happened?” Maddie asked Sawyer.

“She talked Lance into taking her hang gliding by moonlight. The two of them climbed Horn Crest and flung themselves off the cliff, landing on Beaut Point with about six inches to spare before they would have plunged to their deaths.”

At 6,700 feet, Horn Crest was the highest peak in the area. Beaut Point was the plateau overlooking Lucky Harbor, and it was about the size of a football field, sitting three hundred feet above where the Pacific Ocean smashed into a valley of rocks below. Picturing what Chloe had done, Maddie felt sick. “Is she all right?”

“Are you kidding me? She’s like a cat with nine lives. I don’t know how many she has left, though.” Sawyer shook his head in disgust. “Lance was under the influence. I’m hauling his ass in until he sobers up. Chloe wasn’t drinking, so technically, I can’t hold her. And they didn’t actually break any law since it’s actually not illegal to be stupid, but they were trespassing, and I should have ticketed her.” He blew out a breath. “At this point, it’s a waste of paper.”

He rubbed his hands over his face and turned to Maddie. “She was lucky tonight, damn lucky. I’d ask you to try to talk some sense into her, but I’m not sure that’s even possible.”

• • •

A few minutes later, after having said good night to Jax and Sawyer, Maddie walked through the cottage to the small bedroom, where she found Chloe sprawled facedown and spread-eagle across the bed, already out cold.

The Wild One…

Maddie had always secretly yearned to be the Wild One. Anything would have been better than the Mouse. Except that no longer really applied, did it? A mouse wouldn’t have given this place a shot. A mouse wouldn’t be having spectacular sex with a man who had a singular ability to obliterate her heart. A mouse wouldn’t be fighting to get to know her sisters, and herself.

Maybe what was happening with the inn was inevitable, and maybe she couldn’t save it. And maybe what she had with Jax was truly just a little snapshot in time and couldn’t be saved either.

But she could save her relationship with her sisters. And she could save herself from going back to the way she’d been before.

She could be whoever she wanted. Knowing it, she felt herself smiling and pulled out her phone. “Still close by?” she asked when Jax picked up.

Jax watched Maddie peer out the Jeep’s windshield at the unlit, unmoving Ferris wheel. “It’s closed,” she said with disappointment.

“It’s Christmas Eve.” He had the Jeep running, the heater on full blast. The interior of the vehicle was dark except for the glowing light from the instrument panel, but he had no trouble seeing the life in her eyes or the smile on her face.

He knew if asked, she’d say he put that smile there. She’d been coming to life a little more every day, but the truth was that he’d had nothing to do with it. She’d taken on her world, and it was sexy as hell to watch.

“I guess I’ll have to find another adventure tonight,” she said and turned to him. Her hair fell around her face in soft curls, just past her shoulders. He knew what it smelled like, knew how it felt brushing over his bare skin. He knew how she tasted and how to make her moan his name. He knew she was slow to open her heart, but that once she did, she was fiercely loyal to those she cared about. He knew what foods she craved, that she had a low tolerance for alcohol and a penchant for drinking it anyway. He knew that she pretended to be annoyed by Tara’s steely resolve but really admired it, just as he knew she also admired Chloe’s spirit. He knew that after a life in Los Angeles, she thought Lucky Harbor would be heaven. He knew she was looking for more…

And that she hoped she’d found it.

She knew things about him, too, more than he’d revealed to a woman in a long time. Unable to help himself, he ran a finger along her temple, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Name it,” he said. “Tell me what you want.”

“But we don’t have a condom.”

He couldn’t help it, he laughed.

She grinned. “I’m sorry. I think it’s the fresh air here. And the pounding surf. And maybe also, it’s you.”

“No,” he told her quietly. “It’s all you. Come on.” He turned off the Jeep, pulled two heavy coats from the back seat, and handed her one. When she was bundled up, they walked the pier.

They passed Eat Me, and Maddie’s stomach growled. “I could use some of Tara’s Badass Brownies right about now.”

“Badass?” he asked.

“As in they’re so badass that you turn badass just by smelling them.”

He laughed and pulled her in close for the sheer pleasure of touching her. “Do you want to go in? I’ll buy you a Badass Brownie.”

“No, Tara’s in there. She’ll be annoying.”

They hadn’t gotten five steps past the café when they heard a loud voice.

“Maddie Moore, I see you.”

Maddie jerked around. “What-”

Jax pointed to the loudspeaker on the corner of the building, just above the large picture window on the café, where several faces were pressed up against the glass, watching them.

“Step away from the good-looking man,” came the disembodied voice.

Tara.

Maddie groaned but surprised him by tightening her grip on his hand instead of dropping it. “What does she think she’s doing?”

“Amusing her customers.” Jax’s gaze locked in on their audience in the window, some shoving for better position, a few others waving.

“Madeline Annie Traeger, this is your conscience speaking,” the loudspeaker said. “We’re watching you. And-Hey, are those my Gucci boots?”

Maddie tipped her face up to the stars as if looking for divine intervention. “Some people have normal families,” she said. “They get together once a month or so and have dinner. My family? We have pancake batter food fights, steal each other’s footwear, dye our hair green, and yell at each other over loudspeakers in public.”

“Keep it moving, sugar. No loitering on the pier.”

“Everyone loiters on the pier!” Maddie yelled at the speaker.

“And especially no standing beneath the mistletoe for any reason at all.”

Both Maddie and Jax looked up at the mistletoe someone had hung on the building’s eaves. “What does it say about me that now I want to stand beneath it?” Maddie asked him.

“That we think alike?” Jax stepped closer, bent his head, and-

“Hold it!” the voice of Maddie’s “conscience” called out.

Maddie sighed. “Jax?”

“Yeah?”

“I need a chocolate shake.”

He didn’t point out the fact that it was thirty degrees or that her breath was crystallizing in front of her face. They headed toward the ice cream shop.

It wasn’t Lance serving tonight, mostly because he was still sitting in the single holding cell at the sheriff’s station. Instead, it was Tucker, Lance’s twin brother.

“Sawyer’s keeping an eye on him,” Jax said to Tucker’s unasked question. “He’ll be out in time to celebrate Christmas. He’s okay.”