Chapter 5

He recognized me. Okay, so I'd had to do a little nudging. Some guy named Nate told him I was Sierra, and apparently that had steered him away from figuring out my true identity.

But now we were facing each other with just a small space between us. A couple more steps from either of us and we'd be within kissing distance.

I wanted him to make the first move. I wanted it more than I wanted my next breath.

"I never forgot about you," he said. "Coming back here, it was all I could think about. When I saw you behind that desk, I told myself I was imagining things. I was thinking about you, so of course the first person I met in town would remind me of you."

As he took a step closer toward me, my breath caught. In that moment, I could clearly remember what it was like to kiss him. The woodsy scent of his aftershave, the way his tongue had gently probed my mouth. It wasn't my first kiss, but it showed me the difference between kissing a teenage boy and kissing a man.

The problem was, I'd struggled to find a kiss like it since.

"I recognized you right away," I said. "But I did have the benefit of you giving me your last name." I laughed. "If I hadn't and someone told me your name was Jack or Bob, I probably would have made the same assumption you did. That it was just my mind playing tricks on me."

"What are the odds we'd find each other again after all this time?"

I liked the way he worded that. "Find each other" hinted that we might not be temporarily passing through each other's lives.

But I couldn't fool myself into thinking that. Whatever happened over the next few days, that was all it would ever be. I had to accept that or not go beyond this point.

"I thought you looked like…you," he said. "You're just different enough."

"My hair is blonde now." I reached up and touched it, glancing over at the mirror in the process. "And I've filled out a little more."

Maybe I shouldn't call attention to the fact that I'd gained weight, but it had distributed to all the right places. My hips and ass captured attention everywhere I went. It looked like they'd caught Jesse's attention for a second time.

I took a step closer to let him know I was down with whatever he wanted to do. As I stared up at him, the intensity in his eyes made my knees go weak. He'd never looked at me like that before. The unbridled desire in his stare was how a man looked at a woman he wanted to ravage.

"You held back when we were together before," I said. "I don't want you to do that now. If, you know, you want?—"

"I want you," he interrupted. "Have since the first day I saw you. You were just so young, and your parents didn't approve."

"My parents didn't approve of anyone I dated," I said. "They had no idea how old you were."

And that was the truth. My mom even commented that he was awfully young to own a vacation rental cabin. I didn't correct her because they were already picking apart the boy next door, looking for an excuse to forbid me from seeing him.

"Are your parents still strict like that?" he asked, reaching out and brushing my hair back over my shoulder.

He settled his hand onto my neck, his thumb sliding over my jawline. My gaze lowered to his mouth, which was even closer to mine now.

"That's part of the reason I took this job and moved away," I said. "I wanted to make sure they couldn't nose into my life, even if they wanted to."

If I wanted him to kiss me, I needed to stop talking.

"Well, then," he said, slowly moving his mouth toward mine. "I guess it's time to corrupt you."

The second our lips touched, we deepened the kiss like two people hungry for each other. We'd waited seven years for this moment and I, for one, didn't want to waste another second.

His other hand immediately went to my back, sliding upward as he pulled me closer, pressing my breasts against his rock-hard chest. When an involuntary moan escaped my mouth, it seemed to urge him to go further. He pulled my shirt out of my pants and then both his hands were moving along my bare skin, his thumbs spanning outward to move up my waist and then the area just below the bottom of my bra.

He suddenly broke the kiss and tugged on the hem of my shirt, lifting it upward. I looked around. The door behind him was closed, but there was a window, and if someone peeked in…

"Hold on just a second," I said as I slipped my shirt back into place and crept over to the door.

The hotel was mostly empty. The majority of the guests weren't arriving for two days. But there was still a chance a guest could come strolling in here, even at this late an hour. Even with the sign that said the workout room was open from seven a.m. to nine p.m. It was well after nine now.

That thought sent a surprising thrill through me. I didn't want to lose my job, but there was something about the risk of being caught that made this even sexier.

Still, as I stepped away from the door, I whipped off my shirt. I passed Jesse and headed straight toward the far wall. If someone did peek in, it would look like no one was in here.

Heat flooded the lower part of my body as I reached behind me and undid my bra, then unbuttoned my pants, turning to face him as I unzipped them and let them drop. He was still in the same spot, but he'd angled his body toward me, and his stare was fixed on my breasts. He seemed to like what he saw.

"Get over here and take those pants off," I said as I kicked off my shoes and stepped out of my own pants.

My goal was to sound and look as confident as possible even while I was shaking inside. I sat on a nearby weight bench, perching on the end of it while waiting for Jesse to do exactly what I commanded.

He wasted no time removing his shirt, then undoing his jeans and letting them drop. As he walked over to me, he wore only a pair of blue briefs. There was no denying that he was turned on. The size of the bulge in his underwear made my eyes widen.

Only as he approached did I fully realize what I was preparing to do. I was a total novice to all of this. I'd never even gotten gropy while making out with a guy. But somehow, I knew Jesse wouldn't hold it against me. In fact, he might love the fact that he was my first…even after all this time.

My eyes connected with his as I reached for the band of his briefs and tugged them downward. I would have pulled them farther, but his erection sprang free, and he was so big, it nearly reached all the way to my mouth. I wrapped a hand around it and continued staring at him as I slowly stroked his full length. Only as I tentatively touched my mouth to the tip did I take my eyes off him, closing them to focus my energy on what I was doing.

He moaned, and I knew I was on the right track. Maybe I wouldn't be so bad at this after all.