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  She answered by spinning around in his grasp and kissing him for all she was worth. There wasn’t any time to spare. He kissed back just as enthusiastically, his tongue diving into her mouth in a way that made her fingers tingle. His teeth scraped against her lower lip as his hands moved under her shirt, and she felt like she was going to orgasm right there in the middle of the barn.

  That thought brought her somewhat back to sanity, and she had enough of her mental faculties together to remember that they couldn’t let Jessica and Aaron walk in on them like this.

  Jeremiah was clearly thinking the same thing, because he pulled back slightly, breathing heavily, and nodded toward a nearby ladder. “How about we go up to the loft?”

  She didn’t need to be asked twice.

  Renee climbed the ladder and found herself on a platform twenty feet above the ground, the rafters of the barn low enough that she needed to duck when she walked under them. A large pile of Christmas lights sat in one corner, waiting to be strung around the room for the wedding.

  While the rest of the barn was lit by the open door and windows, the loft was steeped in shadow, an oasis of evening even in the middle of the day. Renee stood and placed one hand on the rafter in front of her, looking out across the expanse below.

  It was quiet and peaceful. The arch graced one end of the barn, tall and white and covered in greenery. The potted plants formed a walkway from the door to the arch, like escorts waiting to usher Jessica down the aisle.

  She pictured her sister, beautiful and happy, walking down that aisle to the man she loved, and she felt that twinge again. As sure as she was that she didn’t have time for any of that in her life, she had to admit that it would be nice to feel so loved.

  And then Jeremiah was behind her again, his hands slipping across her stomach, and the scene dissolved. She leaned backward into him, and his hands roved higher. By the time they slid beneath her bra and found her breasts, her nipples were tight and aching for his touch.

  His tongue and lips caressed her neck, sending jolts of electricity down her spine, and his fingers teased at her already-sensitive nipples, making her gasp with the intensity. She pressed her entire body back against him, feeling the bulge in his jeans. He growled deep in his throat at the contact, and she reveled in the powerful feeling that came with knowing that she drove him wild.

  Then he rolled one nipple between his fingers and any sense of power disappeared. There was only need.

  She turned to face him, her fingers dancing down across the muscles of his arms, all the way to the hem of his shirt. In a flash, she had his shirt over his head and soaked in the view of his naked torso. Even in the dim light, she could see that her fantasies hadn’t done full justice to him. She moved one hand over his abs, marveling at the flesh below her fingers. He sucked in his breath at her touch. “You need to be careful doing that,” he said, “because after being interrupted last night, I can’t promise I have much control left.”

  She smiled wickedly and stroked his stomach again, making him groan. He said, “Remember on the ride from the airport, when I asked which one you were? You are most definitely the sexy one.”

  Renee laughed. In a lineup with her tall leggy sister and her perky blond best friend, Cindy, she highly doubted she would ever get labeled “the sexy one.” But Jeremiah said it with such sincerity that a different kind of warmth flowed through her, this time headed straight for her heart.

  That wasn’t a good sign. Not if this was only going to be a one-week thing. She needed to bring it back to just physical. “You’re even hotter than in my fantasies. I didn’t even realize a guy could have an eight-pack.”

  With that, she ran her fingers along the waistline of his jeans, stopping at the button and working it open as quickly as she could. His stomach muscles shuddered again at her touch, and her stomach clenched in anticipation. “What exactly occurred during these fantasies of yours?” he asked, his voice deep and full of the same desperate need she felt.

  Renee felt a blush coming to her cheeks, but she answered honestly. “There have been a lot of fantasies since Vegas, and we’ve done so many things in them, it would take too long to go into detail.”

  He growled deep in his throat and leaned down to kiss her neck again. “Well, which one would you like to do now, in real life?”

  That question had been running around her head for hours. Instead of answering with words, she lowered the zipper on his pants and reached in, her hand gliding across the smooth skin of his penis, rock-hard, as if it had been eagerly waiting for her touch.

  Which it had been, she thought with a smile. He moaned, and his caresses suddenly turned urgent, his teeth grazing the skin of her neck and his hands kneading the tender flesh of her breasts until the clenching in her stomach had nearly reached a crescendo. One of his hands moved from her chest down toward her pants, and anticipation ran through her.

  That was when they heard voices. Jessica and Aaron, getting louder as they approached the barn.

  With another groan, this one of frustration, Jeremiah pulled himself away from her. The areas where his warm hands had been were suddenly exposed to the cold air. Jeremiah rubbed one hand across his face and gave her an exasperated look. “I’m going to kill Aaron, and he’s not even going to know why.”

  Renee had to laugh, but she felt the same way about Jessica. Her stomach still felt tight and dissatisfied with the rude separation, and it didn’t help that Jeremiah grabbed his shirt and tugged it back on.

  “Renee? Jeremiah? Where are you two? Food’s ready!” her sister called from somewhere below.

  Jeremiah took a deep breath, gave Renee a grin and a wink, and leaned over the edge of the loft. “We’re up here! Just working on untangling the lights so we can hang them up,” he said, his voice much more lighthearted than Renee felt.

  “That’s such a good idea. Thanks, Jeremiah.”

  She couldn’t see Jessica, but the genuine relief in her voice filled Renee with guilt. Her sister desperately wanted help getting everything ready for the wedding, and they had been seeing to their own desires instead.

  Jeremiah gave her a look that said he was thinking the same thing, and they each rearranged their disheveled clothing without a word. Before they could start down the ladder, though, Renee said quietly, “I think we need to cool it, at least for today. I have to be here for Jessica, you know?”

  Part of her prayed he would come up with an argument that would convince her otherwise, but he just sighed and nodded and she knew it was the right thing to do, no matter how delicious he looked.

  He gave her a lopsided grin and shrugged one shoulder. “You just let me know when you can take time off from being a good sister and I’ll be there.”

  His smile was so endearing she wanted to tackle him right there. But then he disappeared down the ladder and she took a deep breath of Jeremiah-free air and was able to strengthen her resolve before following him.

  Jessica was waiting for them near the door, and they walked together to the house. Over sandwiches—ones that blew Renee’s corner deli out of the water—Jessica discussed next steps.

  “Since you two started on the lights,” she said, pointing at Renee and Jeremiah, “you can finish untangling the lights, checking that all the bulbs work, and stringing them up through the rafters while Aaron and I meet with our reverend in town. Does that sound okay?”

  Renee wanted to slap her forehead. Or Jessica’s forehead. She wanted to be a helpful sister, but it was as if Jessica was trying to put her into situations that made it impossible. Now she was supposed to spend a bunch of unchaperoned time up in the loft with Jeremiah, and Jessica expected them to get anything done?

  If she wasn’t careful, only one thing would get done up there, and she was positive it wasn’t on her sister’s list.

  Jeremiah gave her a brief glance that told her exact
ly where his mind had gone, and she pressed her hands against her legs under the table to stop them from jittering.

  No, she told herself. They would have to get the lights taken care of first. If they finished and had time to spare, though...

  * * *

  JEREMIAH COULDN’T WAIT for lunch to be over. All he’d wanted was more time up in the loft with Renee, and here was Jessica, handing him just that. Once they were back in the barn alone and climbing the ladder again, however, Renee went straight to the pile of lights and began tugging at them.

  He wanted to make her forget all about the damn lights, but he thought of the conversation they had had before lunch. She was just trying to be a good sister, and he didn’t begrudge her that, no matter how much the pressure in his jeans protested. He sat down beside her and grabbed a knotted section of lights and set to work.

  “We need to get this done for Jessica,” she told him.

  He hoped she meant they needed to do this first, because their last two encounters had left him desperate for more, and if he had to go home without getting to touch her again, he thought he might go crazy. Still, he nodded and set to work.

  After just a few seconds of silence, the tension in the air became too much for him. The quiet gave him too much time to think about the delights they could be having, and it made him feel precariously close to throwing down the lights and pressing her against the rough boards they were sitting on.

  “So,” he began, not really sure what he was going to say, “we’ve established that you’re the workaholic one and the sexy one. What else are you?”

  If he wasn’t allowed to kiss and touch her, he could at least learn more about her. She smiled and shook her head, but didn’t glance up from her task. “A, I’m not the sexy one by any stretch of the imagination. And B,” she continued before he could argue, “workaholic sounds way too negative. I prefer the term driven.”

  He laughed. “I’ll let the workaholic thing go, but you’re definitely the sexy one. It’s cute that you don’t see it.”

  She shook her head again, but he could tell she was flattered. He hoped she understood that he wasn’t just saying that; her captivating eyes and the curve of her smile set his blood on fire. Not to mention the perfect size of her breasts and an ass that made him hard just thinking about it.

  He ripped his thoughts back to more appropriate aspects of her. If he had to sit next to her without groping her or going insane with lust, he’d need to control those thoughts. “I bet you’re the funny, clever one,” he said, hoping she didn’t notice how he shifted position so his erection wouldn’t be too painful.

  She shrugged. “Very few people would consider me to be the funny one. My sense of humor is, let’s say, more unique than Jessica’s.”

  As the guy who was always considered the entertainment of the group, he had to hear more. She continued, “Jessica is better at being sarcastic. I’m more...punny.”

  “Punny? I don’t think that’s a word. Give me an example.”

  She sighed, and he could tell even in the dim light that she was blushing. “You really don’t want to hear my jokes, I promise.”

  “Tell me just one. Please?” he begged.

  He tried to pay attention to the lights, but he was so interested to hear her response that it was hard to do much more than fumble around with them.

  “Fine,” she answered, sounding both amused and exasperated. “But you asked for it.”

  She paused for a second, then, “Did you hear the one about the three holes in the ground? No? Well, well, well...”

  He groaned and laughed simultaneously, delighted. “That was so corny.”

  She smiled and shrugged again in that way she had. “I told you. Please don’t ask me for any more, because that was my best one.”

  He thought about the terrible joke again, chuckling while he tried to come up with a new topic of conversation.

  He wanted to know more about her, everything about her, but he didn’t know what to ask. He looked down at the lights and thought about how she’d taken a break from her beloved work to come decorate for her sister’s wedding. “Have you and Jessica always been close?”

  Renee smiled, but she kept her eyes down on the lights. “We’ve never had any big fights or anything, but we weren’t very close until our dad got sick.”

  Jeremiah nodded. He knew the story about their father and his long illness. He’d died two years ago, the same weekend that Jessica and Aaron had met. Jeremiah wished he hadn’t reminded Renee of it—the way her voice grew quieter as she said it made him ache inside.

  She continued, “We both pitched in to take care of him, so it helped us connect a bit more than we had as kids.”

  He tried to turn the conversation away from her dad. “Why weren’t you two better friends when you were kids? Was she a mean older sister?”

  Renee brushed her hair behind her ear as she thought. It was a simple unconscious move, but something about it struck him as particularly endearing. “No, she was fine. We’re just different people. Always have been.”

  Before he could ask another question, she shot one back at him, asking how long he’d been friends with Aaron.

  The time passed quickly as they chatted. After two and a half hours, they had untangled the lights, checked for missing or blown bulbs, and begun stringing them up. They’d also told each other about their childhoods, first crushes (his, a girl in his third grade class named Claire Isaacs, hers, Jonathon Taylor Thomas from Home Improvement), favorite movies (The Truman Show and When Harry Met Sally, though Renee confessed she secretly loved High School Musical), and she’d gotten him to admit that yes, the songs from Frozen were actually pretty catchy and he knew more of the words than a man his age should. “My niece loves that movie,” he tried to explain, “and we had to watch it at least twenty times the last time I visited.”

  Renee nodded and said, “Sure, I believe you. Your niece likes it,” but her smile was more like a Cheshire cat grin than anything else, and he loved it.

  In fact, he loved almost everything about her. Her laugh, her terrible puns, the way she raised one eyebrow when he said something she thought was strange.

  He’d been pretty sure before, but now he was positive: this thing wasn’t going to end easily for him at all. He was getting further and further from casual sex, and there wasn’t any way out that he was willing to take. He was already hooked on her, and without some sort of drastic change over the coming week, he would be left alone and worse off than before once she went back to New York.

  * * *

  RENEE STOOD ON the edge of the loft, holding a rope of lights bunched up in one hand. When she tossed it, it unraveled as it flew through the air. Jeremiah, standing on a ladder several feet away, deftly caught the end of the string and began circling it through a rafter above him. They had been working for hours, and she thought it would be torture to be so close to him for so long without finishing what they’d started.

  In a way it was, but talking to him had been pretty amazing, actually. He was as pleasant and amusing as Jessica and Aaron made him out to be, but more than that, too. He was sweet and confident, and there was an air of honesty about him that was incredibly refreshing. It wasn’t something she saw a lot in New York.

  She plugged in the final strings of bulbs and climbed down from the loft. She and Jeremiah stood just to the side of the door in order to survey their work. The barn was still romantically dim, but the bright dots of light threaded through the rafters added a fairy-tale quality to the whole place. She hoped Jessica would like it.

  “We’re done,” she said, not sure how to transition from lighthearted conversation to making out. She suddenly felt awkward around him.

  “It was an en-light-ening experience,” he said, grinning and lifting his eyebrows. “Get it? Because of the lights,” he added. “That�
�s your kind of joke, right?”

  She laughed and leaned into him, meaning to bump him playfully with her shoulder, but he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her tight before she could do so, and in an instant they were kissing.

  Renee fell into the kiss, letting her mind blank as he enfolded her.

  Then she froze as she heard Jessica gasp. Oh shit, she thought, pushing away from Jeremiah.

  Her sister stood in the doorway, not ten feet from them, looking up at the ceiling. Relief flooded through Renee as she realized Jessica hadn’t noticed them. She took a deep breath and looked at Jeremiah, whose facial expression had gone from panic to amusement in the two seconds it took for him to comprehend what had just happened.

  They smiled at each other and Jeremiah shook his head in exasperation. She felt the same way. Would they ever get enough time alone together to actually make something happen?

  Renee shrugged back and turned her attention to her sister. “You like it?”

  Jessica nodded, still gazing at the room before her. “You two did an amazing job. Thank you so much!”

  As frustrated as she was at yet another interruption, Renee was happy she’d done something for her sister instead of being completely selfish and using all that time to indulge in fantasies.

  Well, somewhat happy.

  Anyway, she was sure they’d find time.

  Jessica looped her arm around Renee and squeezed. “I owe you big-time.” Renee thought about the interrupted kiss. You sure do, she thought.

  “I think that’s enough work on the barn for today,” Jessica said, to Renee’s chagrin. “Let’s head back to the house. We can spend the rest of the day double-checking the menu and going over seating arrangements.”

  Renee knew her sister was meticulous, but this seemed a touch overboard. “I thought there were only thirty guests or something. Do you really need seating arrangements? Can’t people just sit wherever?”

  Jessica looked at her like she was crazy, and Renee knew this wasn’t a battle she could possibly win. “Seating arrangements it is,” she said before Jessica could explain to her exactly why they were so important.