“And you think you can get all of that?”
She shrugged. “Sure, why not?”
“Tall order,” he said, trying to think of a way to discourage her. He didn’t like this plan, but he couldn’t put his finger on exactly why.
“No pun intended?” she teased.
He chuckled, but inside, he was furious. A sperm bank? What the hell?! They talked about other things for a while and he asked about the plot to the book she was working on. She’d taken a new turn on this mystery and it was going to be another best seller, just from the sound of it.
It was late before they separated for the night. But even as he lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, he knew that he didn’t like the thought of Jessa going to a sperm bank to get pregnant. Not even a little.
Later that night, Jessa stared up at the ceiling, thinking about Jayce. He was so handsome and so huge and so…everything she wanted in a man! And yet, he was so unattainable.
Rolling over, she punched her pillow, trying to find a comfortable position. But too many nights were like this. Too many nights, she struggled to fall asleep, thinking about Jayce and his shoulders, his arms, his chest. Wondering what it would be like if he just took her into his arms and…well, her mind wandered after that. But almost every fantasy centered around him pulling her into his arms and…doing things. Lots of things. Sometimes, it was just laughter. But a lot of times, he’d make love to her over and over again, showing her all the ways that a man could pleasure a woman. All the ways she’d never experienced!
What did he sleep in? Was he naked right now? Just boxers? Or was he the tighty-whitey kind? She doubted it. He didn’t look like the kind of man who wanted anything tight around his body. Including a woman.
He’d been pretty quiet tonight. Had she shocked him with her idea about the sperm bank? Or was he horrified that she would want to get pregnant without being married? Surely not, she thought. Nothing in their previous conversations would indicate that the man was socially conservative. She’d had homosexual characters in her novels and he hadn’t even blinked when she’d discussed their roles in the plot.
Still, what did the man do for a living? He was so secretive about that. And why did he disappear suddenly? One day, he was here, talking with her and debating whatever news had happened during the day, and the next, he was gone. He’d reappear just as suddenly a few days later. No explanation. Nothing.
At first, when he’d disappeared, she’d thought that she’d done or said something to offend him. But when he showed up again with his beer in hand, as if nothing had happened, she accepted that he was just mysterious.
“This is not a good pastime,” she muttered to herself. Not for the first time either. Jessa knew that she’d spent way too much time thinking about her handsome neighbor. But seriously…would any woman not think about Jayce? He was…he was buff. And funny! Goodness, he could make her laugh! And sweet, kind, considerate. Jayce Cole was the kind of man that women only dreamed of, but…he was here. Her neighbor.
And a friend.
Just a friend.
Rolling over, she tried to fall sleep, but whenever she closed her eyes, all she could see was Jayce, his big, strong hands touching her, his green eyes lighting up with…well, she wasn’t really sure what they would light up with. It had been so long since she’d been intimate with a man. Her former fiancé hadn’t been very big on sex which, turns out, was a good thing since he discovered a week before their wedding that he was gay. A shock, yes. But it relieved some of her anxiety about their wedding day. She hadn’t been overly interested in him anyway.
So, why had she agreed to marry him?
Because two years ago, she’d been sick of dating. She’d had a series of bad relationships. George had been nice, kind, and attentive. He was always on time for their dates. He was considerate of her feelings and a great cook.
Not exactly a recipe for an exciting life, but she’d thought it was enough.
That was before she’d met Jayce.
What was it about Jayce that tempted her so much? Initially, she’d glimpsed a huge man with too many muscles and dismissed him. Every time she’d seen him working out in his backyard, he’d tugged off his shirt and…well, she was only human. She’d watched from her window.
That wasn’t so bad. Even Ms. Scarlett, the mischievous octogenarian of their quirky town, had heard about Jayce’s yard work attire, or lack of attire, and had led her grey haired ladies over so the sidewalk in front of his house. They’d opened up lawn chairs and sat down on the sidewalk, eating popcorn and watching Jayce mow the grass.
Jayce had caught her laughing that afternoon and that had been the end of her resistance to his friendship. Now they talked whenever he was in town.
She suspected that he was much wealthier than he let on, which she actually liked. Overt displays of wealth weren’t really interesting. The man drove a luxury car that seemed powerful and sexy. And his house was beautifully decorated. But other than that, he wasn’t ostentatious. Well, he had what she suspected were hand tailored suits. And yeah, she loved watching him walk out of his house each morning. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on his body! So when he stepped out in those suits…oh my! Was there anything better than a man’s tight butt in a pair of dress slacks?
Jessa groaned and rolled back over. The clock on her cell phone clicked over to one fifteen. Another sleepless night. If she didn’t get to sleep, she was going to miss him going to work tomorrow morning.
“No way!” she muttered to the dark bedroom. “That’s definitely not going to happen!” Besides talking to Jayce every night out by the water and watching him walk out of the house in the morning were the highlights of her day!
Getting up, she padded barefoot into the kitchen and poured some milk into a plastic container. Popping it into the microwave, she stood there gazing out into the night as she waited for her milk to heat up. Warm milk usually put her right to sleep.
That’s when she saw him.
Breathless now, she slipped over to the glass doors and peeked out. He wasn’t wearing anything but a tight pair of boxers, the soft, cotton material clinging to his butt. And it was even better now in the moonlight than it was in the morning covered with a pair of dress slacks.
Good grief, the man was built! She’d watched him mow the grass just as every other warm-blooded woman did. But this…this seemed even better. Maybe because she was the only one looking. It seemed more intimate somehow.
The microwave beeped.
At that same moment, Jayce turned, looking right at her. There was no way he could have heard the microwave beep! No one’s hearing was that good!
Was it?
Regardless, he watched her. Waited.
She knew what he wanted. She lifted her finger up, telling him to wait. She walked over to the microwave and took the milk out, pouring it into a mug, then adding a bit of honey. Warm milk wasn’t good without something to sweeten it up.
She then carried her mug out onto the stone patio, trembling with awareness that she tried to hide from Jayce.
The stone was cold under her bare feet as she approached Jayce in the quiet of the night.
“Are you okay?” she asked softly.
He was silent for a long moment, then he nodded. “Yeah. I’m okay.”
Jessa wasn’t convinced. “Why are you up at this time of the night?”
One of his big, muscular shoulders went up and down. “Why are you?”
She smiled. There was no way she was going to tell him that she’d been thinking about making love with him, wondering if he was as big…um…everywhere else. And wondering what it would be like to kiss him. To have the freedom to explore every inch of his huge, muscular body.
No, that wouldn’t be wise. Their friendship would disappear and Jessa was discovering that she cherished her friendship with Jayce too much to put it in jeopardy.
“I was thinking about things,” she told him. Not really a lie, but not the complete truth either.
She laughed. “Yeah, some of the things I was thinking about will go into my book. Definitely.”
“Intriguing,” he said softly, taking her hand and pulling her closer. “Like what?”
Another choked sound that might have been laughter, or it might have been horror that he could ever find out what she’d been thinking. “Oh, this and that.”
“Sexy this and that?” he asked.
Oh my! Had the world just slowed down? Could he hear her heart rate accelerate? “Why would you say that?” She stood very still, hoping he wouldn’t ask any more detailed questions.
“Because you’re wearing a very thin shirt,” he commented.
Jessa looked down at the satin nightshirt she’d forgotten she’d pulled on hours ago. Sure enough, her nipples pressed against the thin material. “Oh, goodness,” she gasped and covered her breasts with her arms.
He chuckled. “I like it.”
Another snort. “You do not. It’s embarrassing.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Of course not! We’re friends!”
Nothing. Just silence. She sipped her warm milk, wishing that the night was cold so she could blame her nipple issue on the cold air. But it wasn’t. In fact, the night was balmy, like a soft, humid caress against her skin. “I’d better head back inside.”
“So you can come up with a game plan on your pregnancy issue?”
She paused and glanced back at him, almost laughing at how close he was to the truth. “Something like that. Good night.”
She walked inside, painfully aware of him watching her. The nightshirt was pretty short and she knew that she must look silly like this. But hey, she’d come outside just to talk and make sure he was okay. It was Jayce, after all. He didn’t think of her like that.
Chapter 2
“What’s wrong?”
Jayce looked up, irritated with Carly’s interruption. “Go away,” he growled.
His baby sister promptly sat down in one of the leather office chairs. “What’s wrong?”
Jayce tossed the pen onto his desk in disgust, leaning back to glare at her. “You’re bothering me.”
She didn’t take the bait, more’s the pity. He could use a good fight right about now. An argument might allow him to blow off a bit of steam.
“You’re pissy and irritated. What’s wrong?”
He rubbed a hand over his face. “Carly…” Maybe he should just challenge Oz or Ryker to meet him in the gym. Or better yet, challenge either or both of them to do the obstacle course with him. Yeah, that insane obstacle course that Ryker kept switching up would force him to concentrate on something other than Jessa and her crazy plan. One couldn’t be distracted on the obstacle course! Plus, running full out for several miles would banish some of this tension.
Unfortunately, he suspected that she’d follow him if he walked to Oz’s office. She leaned forward and he noticed something about her hands, but wasn’t sure what it was because they quickly disappeared behind the edge of his desk. “Jayce, you’re normally a pretty easy going guy when you’re home. I know that you take on a different persona when you’re on a mission. You’re a badass extraordinaire. But here, you’re the nice brother.”
He grinned, chuckling at her description. “Does Oz know that you like me better?”
She smirked and leaned back in the chair. “I didn’t say that.”
“So, you like him better?” he demanded, outraged.
Carly rolled her eyes and he chuckled again. “I love both of you dearly.” She crossed her legs. “Most of the time. Tell me what’s wrong and I’ll like you better today.”
“Just for the day?” he teased. He hadn’t known about her growing up, but knew that she’d endured a hellish life under their bastard-father’s heavy hand. He wished the man were still around so he could…hurt him as badly as he’d hurt Carly. She was sweet, smart, and amazing, but he also knew that she hid a part of herself, a part that hadn’t ever recovered from that time with their father. She didn’t trust men and he didn’t really understand her obsession with organizing, and reorganizing, everything. The entire office was obsessively color-coded. As was her house. He chuckled every time he looked in her pantry or medicine cabinet, then moved things around and changed the color tags just to mess with her.
And he hated that he hadn’t been there for her when she’d been in trouble. Which only meant that he wanted to be here for her now.
“Tell me what’s wrong with your hands and I’ll tell you why I’m irritated.”
He watched as her fingers curled into small fists. He knew that she was hiding something. Again. Leaning forward, he looked into her green eyes, so similar to his own and yet, so different. On him, the eyes were just green. On Carly, they were pretty and haunted.
And closed off. She didn’t want to talk about her hands, but he’d eventually find out the truth. “Fine. Then is there anything else you’d like to discuss?”
“Jayce, what…?”
He shook his head. “No Carly. You can’t help me on this one.” His eyes moved down to her still-fisted hands. “But I bet I could help you with whatever is going on with your hands. And why they are all messed up.”
She stared back at him for a long moment, then jumped up, heading to the door.
“Carly!” he called. She stopped and turned, but kept her hands hidden. He’d solve that mystery soon, but… “Is a woman’s biological clock something that can be stopped?”
Her features softened into a smile and her shoulders relaxed.
“Not really.”
He wasn’t aware of his scowl, but it must have been bad because she turned and smiled at him. “Why the hell not?”
She stepped back into his office, crossing her arms over her chest. “Because women only have a certain amount of time to have a healthy baby. Men can get a woman pregnant anytime during their entire lives. As long as he can…um…” she floundered. He could have supplied her with a word, but he enjoyed watching her suffer. “Get it up,” she finished, as a soft pink filled her cheeks. “But women don’t have that option. We can only safely get pregnant during a certain period of our lives. And pregnancy is pretty hard on a woman’s body. So, even if we were able to get pregnant later in life, it would be difficult.”
He thought about that for a moment, then nodded. “Okay. Thanks.” She turned and he called out again. When she was facing him, he tilted his head towards her hands. “You know I’m going to find out, right?”
She rolled her eyes. “Just leave it, Jayce.”
She turned around and ran into Ryker. The man had been standing there in the doorway. Jayce could have warned her. But hey, he was a brother and brothers just didn’t operate that way.
But Jayce’s eyes narrowed as he watched Ryker catch hold of Carly’s upper arms, steadying her. The blush was there again and…holy hell! What was going on?! Carly was blushing? At Ryker’s touch?
Oh hell no!
Carly walked out, stepping carefully and pointedly around Ryker, who walked into Jayce’s office.
“What is going on with…?”
“Thwacker is active again,” Ryker announced, interrupting the question.
Jayce looked over Ryker’s shoulder, not an easy thing to do since the man was six feet four inches. Jayce himself was three inches over six feet, but Ryker seemed bigger. And that was saying a lot since Jayce was a huge man by anyone’s standards.
Perhaps it was Ryker’s silence that seemed to make the big man loom larger than life. Or perhaps it was the perpetual scowl.
Then Ryker’s words registered. “Tell me.”
Thwacker was the ever-elusive person that had been causing havoc recently. The international terrorist with loyalties to no one but himself and the almighty dollar popped up on the radar occasionally, but before anyone could catch him, he went quiet again.
For the next half hour, he and Jayce, and eventually Oz, discussed Thwacker’s activities. The terrorist
was suspected to be in South America and had somehow gotten into the Argentinian National Bank, draining several bank accounts. How he’d managed it, avoided all of the security traps and the firewalls, was their next mystery.
After lunch, Oz, Jayce, and Ryker gathered their teams for a mock mission in the large training area. They quickly transformed the warehouse-like area into a small town in Argentina in which they hoped to trap “Thwacker”. These in-house training missions were exactly why The Solutions Group had established their headquarters in LowPoint, Kentucky…far away from big cities and suburbs where people might ask questions about strange noises.
They’d bought up a huge tract of land that spread far and wide into the mountains, creating difficult conditions in which to train. In addition, there was an obstacle course that had mock land mines, booby traps, and seemingly impossible obstacles. This course was made even more difficult by Ryker’s ingenious brain. He changed things up, moved the “land mines” around and added surprises, which kept the teams on their toes. There were even underground cells that could trap a person out of sight.
This kind of training was what kept The Solutions Group at the top of the list of people to call when a government or corporation needed something accomplished. That and the technology that Carly purchased, as well as their tech teams, which watched over the teams via satellite in order to keep everyone as safe as possible during a mission.
The training missions were grueling, testing them to the limit and then going beyond. They moved the mock houses and storefronts around and worked through close-in combat in various scenarios until the teams had a solid fix on the plan. By the time Jayce got home that night, he was relaxed and feeling better than he had that morning. The training had been brutal and had helped him work off his tension.
He glanced outside and, sure enough, she was there, sipping a glass of wine. She was calmer tonight, her shoulders relaxed and the wine filled up only about half the glass. He grabbed a beer, popped the top and tossed the cap into the trash bin behind him. He didn’t even bother to look over his shoulder to make sure the top went into the trash. He knew it would.
His Baby Deal (The Diamond Club Book 6) Page 2