by Kat Cantrell
She pulled out of his achingly familiar embrace and cleared her throat. “Thanks. You can go back to bed.”
Jesse’s too-accessible features closed in, and he rose. “Don’t stay out so late next time.”
Chapter 4
The next morning, Jesse left without saying good-bye. Alexia couldn’t face him so soon after the embarrassing panic attack of last night anyway. Once the engine roar faded from the main drive, Moki aimed malevolent vibes in her direction over his dust rag.
“You have a problem with me, Moki?” she finally asked after the third evil eye interception. Might as well bite the bullet if she would be stuck here on a daily basis with someone who grimaced at her like he’d bolted down a kerosene mai tai. “What did Jesse tell you about why I’m here?”
She leaned on the back of a chair casually, as if she didn’t really care either way how he responded. But she did. It was hard to be disliked for no apparent reason.
He glanced up and the dust rag went still. “He said Mrs. Jesse is coming to stay. His wahine. That’s all he said. If you’re his wahine, why you not already here? Mr. Jesse is alone all the time.”
He shook his jowly head and went back to beating the dust into submission.
“What’s a wahine?” she asked, fairly certain she would be sorry to find out.
“His woman. He said he’s bringing his woman home. He don’t have to say there is much trouble there.” Moki mashed his lips together and concentrated on the spotless vase decorating the mantle.
Her cue to leave, obviously, and to feel chastised as well.
Well, she did. And she still felt bad about staying out late the night before. Jesse had obviously been waiting up for her. She’d also been pretty witchy to him by the pool when all he’d tried to do was give her a margarita and dinner. Yet he’d still held her through a panic attack, beating back the darkness.
She felt even worse about her behavior yesterday when a furniture store truck pulled up in the half-circle drive forty-five minutes later and bulky, uniformed men began unloading a four-poster bed and bedroom set. Moki directed the delivery men upstairs to one of the empty bedrooms without hesitation, no doubt because he’d known they were coming. As she peeped around the corner, the room took shape, piece by gorgeous, ebony wood piece. They even hung artwork, the sort she’d pick out herself if given the opportunity.
It was a Before Jesse kind of deed, and the generous gesture sat low in her belly, coating it with shame. She didn’t deserve to stay in the newly decorated room but tested the fluffy mattress anyway, which was large enough for her and Useless, with his forty-seven middle-of-the-night position changes. The rest of the day, she debated about whether she would move from the salon to the newly appointed bedroom.
The kicker came when Jesse arrived home clutching a little box. He wiped his feet on the mat by the garage entrance and then strode into the family room. When he caught sight of Alexia sitting in the window seat overlooking the pool, he slowed.
“Hey,” he said.
His tone wasn’t nearly as cool as it should have been, and he wore a Bon Jovi shirt like he wasn’t disappointed about yesterday or even a little miffed. She’d been expecting Tool or Korn at the very least.
“Hey,” she returned and fell silent. There was so much to say, and yet words wouldn’t form when he looked all disheveled and windblown and mouth-watering, like he’d driven home with the top down.
“This is for you.” He handed her the box wrapped in cartoon clownfish paper and stepped away as if afraid she would bite. Her behavior since storming into his office on Monday had been deplorable, so really, it was a logical reaction. Her stomach pitched anyway.
“You shouldn’t have.” Apologizing would have been much easier if he’d been mad. Instead, he came bearing gifts, like Before. Was he deliberately conjuring up the ghost of Jesse Past?
The biting scent of industry rolled from him in waves. Machine oil streaked his jeans and hands. He’d probably never set foot in the office and had instead spent the day fiddling with a line machine or taking apart a die press. He was a hands-on kind of guy, as she well knew.
Jesse’s hands were a really bad thing to be thinking about right now. Skimming along her bare back, gliding across her midsection.
And still thinking about. It was that stupid factory smell. Why did it turn her on so much? Stop it.
“I’m sorry I left in such a huff yesterday,” she said and searched his face for some clue how to be around him when they weren’t fighting. Mad was so much easier to handle.
The line of his mouth stayed firm and flat, betraying nothing. “Open your present.”
Warily, she pulled the strings of the bow and lifted the lid. Her pulse stumbled and squeezed her heart. A night-light lay in the box.
“It’s a peace offering.” He took it from her and set it down. One large, rough hand engulfed hers. The other tilted her chin toward him. “I was hoping for a real second chance, and so far, it’s not happening. It killed me to find you huddled on the floor of the salon last night. Stay in the bedroom down the hall and use your new light.”
His irises had transformed into Caribbean Sea color, clear blue and bottomless, and she couldn’t tear her gaze from his.
Geez, where had this earnestness come from? He really did want a second chance, like a really real, starting-over-from-scratch second chance. Panic clawed up her spine and slithered around every bone.
She didn’t have any defenses against this type of an onslaught. Focus on the flaws. All the hard edges, arrogance, and high-handedness which came bundled with good looks, devastating charm, and incredible thoughtfulness.
Remember how the sex was only so-so.
Liar. Faulty memories were easy to manufacture while still alone at night in her apartment, but not with the real thing two feet away and an impossible-to-ignore vibe sizzling between them.
“Why can’t you do the expected, just once?” She shook her head, but the tangle of thoughts stayed knotted.
“What would be the fun in that?” He grinned, and it took over his whole face. “I have a temper, I’m Catholic, and you couldn’t separate me from my Guinness with surgical equipment. I’m so Irish I bleed potatoes. So I like to keep you guessing on the stuff I can.”
She should have taken it as a warning.
He yanked on her hand and met her lips dead-on in a searing hot mating of mouths. Scorching hands snaked around and pressed on her back, molding their torsos together as he kissed her breathless.
He was so hard and masculine and delicious. Her entire body caught fire as he worked his black magic. For an eternity, she got lost in the sensation rocketing through her body, the stimulating thrill of his fingers dancing across her skin.
The taste of him, the smells. She moaned. It was like Before, so warm and familiar. So familiar an ache sprang up deep inside and spread, white hot, to her core. She needed him, like she needed to breathe.
As his mouth tore through her defenses, that need incinerated her loneliness, her resistance. This larger-than-life man filled her to the brim. Always had.
No. She couldn’t let the devil’s lure tempt her away from the right path.
As she broke his hold and stepped away, she struggled to put two thoughts together. Her lips tingled and then cooled. He surveyed her without speaking, without the slightest ruffle, his thoughts as much a mystery now as they had been before he kissed her brainless.
Desperate to put some distance between them, she turned and fled. He didn’t follow.
Coward. She was such a basket case she couldn’t even kiss Jesse without freaking out. Back in the salon, she paced for a long time, still unable to calm down.
She couldn’t be sucked into him again, fall into old habits, let him be the aggressor and the one who did all the strategizing. The one who had all the control.
This was a game with unfamiliar rules, and the whole proposition had just gotten a lot more dangerous with the discovery her heart still had a Jesse-shaped
hole in it. How in the world was she going to suffer through three months without letting him know? Without giving in to the dark swirl of need?
She needed advice, a friend, or at the very least, someone to tell her everything was going to be okay. That left Shannon out. In desperation, she dialed her old college friend Mark. She’d certainly listened to her share of his relationship woes over the years. It was his turn to lend an ear.
But he didn’t answer. Drat. She’d have to leave a message.
“It’s Alexia. I need to talk. It’s about Jesse. Terrible stuff is going on, worse than before. And there are legal issues this time. Outlaw is at the center of it all, just like always.”
She half laughed. Too much info for a message, and she’d rather personally explain how Jesse had filed for the patent. “Call me back,” she finished and hung up.
So that idea was a bust. What would Mark advise her to do if she had reached him?
He’d say she couldn’t give Jesse any more openings. Since business was so important to him, she should happily adopt a similar philosophy. Living in this house was nothing more than a business arrangement, and she needed to treat it like one from now on. Whether Jesse thought of it that way or not.
The next morning, Jesse woke in a foul mood, and a long day at Outlaw didn’t improve it.
When he got home, he took a blistering shower in anticipation of his first date with Alexia. That didn’t help his mood either.
He swore at nothing in particular and yanked a shirt over his head. It stuck, raveling up against his damp hair. If only that kiss with Alexia could have been considered headway, he’d take the painful frustration of having it cut way short. Steam clouded the mirror, and he swiped at it with a towel, but it kept fogging over again, back and forth, like the dance with Alexia.
She’d been a fluid inferno in his hands, hot and willing. Cautiously optimistic, he lost himself in her again, in all that seething passion. It galvanized him to take it deeper, devouring and claiming. Then bam. She started thinking instead of feeling and shut down faster than a seized-up cylinder head.
He wished he could erase it from his mind, but only a bout of amnesia could do that. Everything north of his knees stood in stiff salute to the hotness of that kiss and had all day. Yes, it had been a while. Too long.
Alexia just fit him. And he’d missed her. Talking. Laughing. The meshing of her fiery personality against his. The gratification of finishing a hot kiss to its natural conclusion. Being sated with Alexia.
He groaned. Patience. Unfortunately, that was in shorter supply than the blood to his head. Their first date was in less than half an hour, and he had to get back in control of the situation. Fast.
The doorbell rang, and voices floated up the stairs as Moki answered it. Jesse grinned and went to meet his guests. There was no better buffer on a first date with your estranged wife than the people who always had his back.
Ben and Debbie waited inside the massive front door. As Jesse came into the foyer, Ben nodded, his prematurely graying hair glinting in the bright light. Debbie gave Jesse a long hug. They hadn’t socialized in quite a while, which was too bad. Ben’s wife was a great girl, well suited to both a black-tie deal and doing shots in a dive bar. Just like Alexia.
“Nice house,” she said and cocked her head at the foyer. “Much more impressive in person than it is on the news.”
He shrugged, embarrassed all of a sudden. “Thanks.”
Jesse led them through the family room, where Moki had recessed the sliding glass panels leading to the pool, which effectively merged the area with the covered patio. Low music permeated the air from small speakers scattered throughout the house and hidden in the landscaping. The sunlight had begun to wane, and twilight wouldn’t be far behind.
“Thanks for coming.” Jesse held out a couple of freshly poured beers. “Make yourselves at home. Danny will be here soon.”
The couple took the wicker loveseat, and Debbie craned her neck to look at all the ornamental plants surrounding the pool. Jesse tapped a quick note to send her a few and set his phone to vibrate.
“Sattlewhite still balking?” Jesse asked and downed half his beer.
Alexia had been taking up a fair portion of his thoughts and energy. This acquisition wasn’t going to happen on its own, and it was far past time to get caught up on it.
“Yeah.” Ben shifted and pulled at his khakis, a lawyer convention Jesse would never understand. “He’s asked for another extension.”
“What?” Jesse clunked his mug down on top of the grill. “Is he kidding? He can’t keep drawing this out indefinitely. Why didn’t you call me?”
Ben raised his eyebrows. “I found out on the way over here, so I’m telling you now. There’s a second bid. Holloway.”
Annoyance lanced through Jesse. “Holloway. He’s only been in business a couple of years. How did he come up with that kind of capital?”
With a shrug, Ben said, “Banks are eager to back a company with solid numbers.”
“Numbers.” Jesse hmmphed. “I have cash. I’m much better positioned than Holloway. He won’t see black for months, not with his line still so new and juggling an acquisition simultaneously.”
“Sattlewhite doesn’t care as long as his baby is taken care of. I think he’ll go with us in the end because we get that. I’m just advising you of the complication.”
Complication. Ha. A complication would have been if Sattlewhite had already sold to Holloway. No way was this deal slipping, not with all the careful planning and solid expertise behind it.
Danny Denholm, Jesse’s second-oldest friend, and his date joined them on the patio. Jesse rose, clapped Danny’s hand, and nodded to Layla. Danny had asked to be introduced to Outlaw’s new marketing director, and predictably they’d hit it off. As long as Jesse had known Danny, he’d gravitated to young, beautiful woman and vice versa. Hopefully when he moved on to greener pastures, Layla wouldn’t take it too hard.
With a pointed glance at the pool and beyond, Danny whistled. “The place looks even more amazing now than it did when I came out to do the news story.”
“Thanks.” Jesse nodded and handed over a couple of drinks.
The news about the second bid and Alexia’s conspicuous absence worked in tandem to put Jesse in an antsy mood. At ten after eight, he had to do something with his hands besides pour beer into his mouth, so he fired up the grill. And waited some more. She was making a point, knowing he’d said eight. But it was a wasted effort because he’d track her down and drag her out here in full view of everyone in a heartbeat.
Under the guise of retrieving the steaks from the house, he turned.
There she was, framed in the doorway, pale light spilling out around her like a corona. Poured into a screaming red dress with a plunging neckline, she burned his retinas until he blinked. Need clamped down, spiraling out of control, stealing his breath and coalescing in his groin. She was his, and raw pride and longing combined to mute everything else.
Confusion flitted across her features. She hesitated and stepped backward, like she meant to dash in the other direction.
Oh, no you don’t. In two strides, he reached her side and slipped an arm around her bare shoulders so she couldn’t run away.
“I hope this is okay with you.” He spoke low in her ear, his lips a fraction of a centimeter from her lobe. It took a great deal of willpower to keep from sinking his teeth into it and molding his lips around the sensitive shape. Instead, he nodded to the two couples on the patio. “I thought it would be better to start off low-key, with less pressure.”
Her eyelids snapped shut. “Thanks. It was considerate of you.”
Mildly surprised at the acknowledgement given freely and without provocation, he prodded her onto the patio.
Her lip curved slightly as she took in the guests. “Just like old times. Your college buddies and their women. I’ve been meaning to catch up with Debbie.”
Yes, it was like old times, and nostalgia relaxed him an
iota. He slipped a hand into hers and squeezed. If she’d cooperate and give him a break, they might have a shot at a fun evening together.
“You could have told me we were hanging around the pool,” she whispered. “I have to change clothes. This is not a backyard barbecue kind of dress.”
“Feel free to take it off. Would you like some help?” Though he’d like it better bunched up around her waist, giving him free rein to explore her secrets at will. Hot and wet Alexia was his favorite.
What was he trying to do to himself? Patience.
As she smacked him in the arm in response, Ben and Debbie jumped up to greet her, and then Danny leaned in for a one-armed hug. Alexia and Layla gave each other the once-over, and Layla stuck her nose in the air as Danny introduced them. Uh, oh.
“This is Layla Montoya,” Danny said.
“We’ve met.” Alexia didn’t elaborate and crowded Jesse, eyes narrowed. Under her breath, she hissed, “What is she doing here?”
“Layla? Looks like she’s drinking a beer.” He steered Alexia away and placed a mug in her hand. “Why don’t you do the same?”
“Don’t mind if I do.” She drained the glass and smacked it back into his palm. “That was low, even for you.”
“What are you talking about? I thought you liked Guinness.” The landscape lighting reflecting off the water danced a slow rhythm across the bare expanse of her throat and into the valley between her breasts, and he let his eyes drift with it until she snapped a reply.
“Be serious. For once. I get you have an absolute need for control, but this is going too far. I don’t appreciate being manipulated like this.”
The only absolute need he had at this moment started and ended with the creamy spread of skin tantalizingly covered by Alexia’s dress. “Manipulated like what? You’re unhappy about the pool party? I could have sworn you called it considerate a minute ago.”
It was like being in the middle of a Red Bull–enhanced table-tennis match. Keeping an eye on the ball took considerable effort.