Luke grinned. “Good, good.” He turned to Janie and looked down at her knowingly, as if to say, Don’t even think about it. “I hate to stop this party before it even starts, but we should probably head out.”
She gritted her teeth while smiling at him. How did he know she didn’t want to go out with Miguel? She was fairly certain he’d heard what Miguel had said just as he’d been walking up. Before Luke could even finish his statement, Miguel interrupted.
“I’m happy to get her home if you need to be somewhere,” Miguel said. Then he smiled down at Janie. She smiled back.
“We have that list we need to go over,” Luke said, pinching her back and pinning her with his gaze when she looked at him. Then he turned apologetically to Miguel and said. “Sorry, Miguel. I don’t mean to cut your time with Janie short, but she’s asked me to work on a list of things that need to be done, and we haven’t quite finished that meeting, so…” He let his voice trail off.
“I understand. I know the event next weekend is probably taking up everyone’s time.” He looked at Janie with a resigned smile. “Perhaps after next weekend we can continue our conversation.”
“That would be great,” Janie smiled back, her heart pumping madly as Luke’s fingers pinched at her hip again.
“Do you have a card with you?” Miguel asked. Janie almost laughed. The guy definitely had balls, given Luke’s glowering look.
“Yeah, actually.” She dug into her back pocket and pulled one out, always prepared.
Miguel took it happily and looked down at the card. “The Local Yokel.” He looked back up at her. “Great name.”
“Thanks,” she beamed.
“Well, good to see you again, Miguel. As I said to your father, my office will be in touch on Monday,” Luke said. His hand stroked at Janie’s back then made its way up to cup the back of her neck. “You ready?” he asked her. His blue wolf eyes burned into her green cat ones. The wolf sizing up his prey.
She looked up at him and bit her lip. She wanted to giggle, cuddle into him, and kiss him. Instead, she simply nodded then turned to Miguel and put out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Miguel.”
“Likewise. I’ll be in touch,” he said with promise.
Janie smiled one last time at him as Luke led her away and muttered, “I bet you will.”
“He was cute! What was wrong with him? I think we should add ‘courageous’ to the list. Don’t you think he showed some real gonads with you staring him down like that while you were pawing at me in public?”
“I wasn’t pawing at you. And I’m happy to add ‘Has Balls’ to the list,” he said, calling over Carolyn with their coats.
“He might be a good contender. He fits two of the things on the list so far. ‘Has Balls’ and ‘Creative’.”
“Yeah, but did you see his feet?” He shook his head sadly. “Definitely small.”
She let out a gut laugh, then stumbled a bit while walking.
“You’re completely drunk,” he grinned.
“No, I’m not. I’ve just had a lot to drink tonight.”
“That’s the definition of drunk, baby.”
“Gimme a break, would ya?” she grumbled good-naturedly, happy at his term of endearment.
Carolyn arrived with their coats and once they had them on, she passed Luke a box.
“The jewelry,” she said with a smile and winked at Janie.
“Is that the jewelry for the dress?” Janie asked as they walked to the elevator. “I still haven’t paid for it.”
Within seconds, they were in the elevator catapulting down to the first floor. Janie’s stomach lurched a bit and she put her hand on the wall to steady herself.
“Are you going to be sick?” Luke asked with concern laced with humor.
“Nope. I’m good.” She didn’t even sound confident to her own ears.
He didn’t seem to believe her because he put his arm around her waist and let her lean on him.
She looked up at him, unable to hide her love for him. “Let’s add sweet to the list.” Oh, Luke. Why are you such an idiot?
He smirked and leaned down, kissing her nose. “You got it.”
She sighed contentedly, their eyes locked on each other for a few seconds. The elevator dinged and the spell was momentarily broken. He’d never kissed her on the nose before. He tweaked it, or hugged her, or kissed her cheek like a brother would. But he’d never kissed her on the nose.
Once they were in the limo, she put her head back on the seat and closed her eyes. “I wanna pay you for the jewelry,” she slurred tiredly.
“Don’t worry about it, baby.”
Her eyes popped open at the second use of the endearment that day, then she closed them again on a groan, the conversation with Lana now becoming a reality. “Don’t be nice to me,” she whined.
“Why?” he chuckled.
She sighed. “Luke?” she murmured.
“Yeah.” His voice was quiet, but she could tell he was smiling.
“I have a confession to make,” she said tentatively, feeling extremely guilty about the ladies’ room encounter.
“Okay.”
She opened one eye and rolled her head to look at him. “Promise you won’t kill me.”
His wary gaze found her one eye that was open. “What did you do, Janie? Has your mouth gotten you into trouble again?”
“That’s yet to be determined,” she mumbled.
“What happened?”
“You haven’t promised not to kill me yet.”
“Fine. I promise not to kill you. What did you do?”
“And you need to promise not to maim me either.” She giggled then covered her mouth.
“Cristo, niña. What already?” His tone was exasperated.
“Promise first.”
“I promise. Talk.”
She bit her lip. “There might be a rumor circulating about you in the coming days.”
He continued looking at her and waited.
“About maybe you being gay.” Janie cringed then couldn’t stop the giggles.
He blinked. “Excuse me?”
A rush of words spilled out, her giggles turning to angry huffs. “She was gonna get her claws into you, Luke. And she was so not right for you. She may have been a redhead, but she doesn’t like getting her hands dirty. Plus, you can tell she’s a manipulator,” she babbled. “She’d pretend that she likes you in charge, but she’d really be playing you and I couldn’t sit around and let that happen.”
“Janie, what the hell are you talking about?” he asked calmly, completely confused.
“Lana Gastaldi came into the bathroom and was saying she wanted to take a ‘bite’ out of you!” Janie nearly growled. “Then she asked me if you were serious with anyone. Can you imagine? She doesn’t even know me! What if I was seeing you?” she sputtered. “And even though you’re doing whatever it is you’re doing with Vanessa, it was none of her business so,” she stuttered, “I may have hinted that you weren’t interested in the female population.” She sat back breathing heavily, waiting for him to blow.
He continued looking at her in complete astonishment then started cracking up.
A whoosh of air escaped her lungs in relief. She smiled at him. “You’re not mad?”
That seemed to make him laugh even more and he wiped at his eyes, shaking his head the whole time.
“What the hell am I going to do with you?” He let out a sigh, still chuckling. He looked over at her. “So you were afraid she was going to let me think I was in charge, but really she’d be playing me instead?” His look told her he was thinking of something amusing.
“Yes. And she was a manipulator. I can tell,” she pouted.
“Yeah, I can see how a woman who likes to play with a man’s affections would be someone you wouldn’t want me to be around,” he said dryly.
“What?” she blurted. “Are you insinuating that I play around with men’s affections?” She crossed her arms over her chest in annoyance. “I’m not a tease, Luke
.” She shook her head to show him she disagreed with him, but also to clear her head from its slightly inebriated state.
“I never said you were.”
“You implied it.”
“A tease is a woman who leads a man to think one thing then does something else entirely. You’re not like that with men, I’m sure.”
“I’m not! Do you think I am?” she nearly screamed. He was really pissing her off.
He was quiet, then took out his phone and dialed. “Javier? Hey, sorry to call so late. Listen, there may be a story circulating tomorrow or the next day about me being gay.”
Janie heard a yell and a laugh on the phone then Luke smiled and kept talking.
“Yes, Javi, I know you would love to bring me over to your side,” Luke said dryly. Janie let out a giggle and Luke glared at her. “Well, how lovely. Tell your darling hubby the offer of finding me a man is really sweet. He’ll be the first to know if my DNA miraculously changes and I start leaning in a different direction…Yeah, Janie made a joke to someone she wanted to dissuade from coming near me…” Then he chuckled at something Javier said. “You can high five her next weekend…That sounds good…Yup…Alright, see ya Monday.” Luke disconnected and put the phone back in his pocket.
Janie had her hand over her mouth, caught between laughing and feeling remorseful over what she’d done. “I’m sorry, I always forget about the press with you.”
“Javier will take care of it,” Luke shrugged, referring to his publicist. “Although, we’re now going to have to add one more thing to your list,” he said with a snicker.
“It’s not going to be how to hide a body, is it?” she said around her hand, biting her lip and looking at him with mirth in her eyes.
He made a face as if he was contemplating it, then she playfully kicked at his leg and he laughed, grabbing her foot. He yanked on it so she’d look at him. “Your man will definitely need a sense of humor.”
She removed her hands from her mouth and flopped back on the seat. “I thought you were going to kill me.”
“That’s always an option,” he said, his tone droll.
She looked over at him. “You don’t care if the public thinks you’re gay? It might hurt your status with the ladies.” She began giggling again. She couldn’t help it. She was half drunk and in love with the idiot.
“The public will think whatever they want to think. And I’m confident it won’t hurt my status with the ladies.” His light blue eyes warmed.
“Is Vanessa going to –?”
“I’m fairly certain Vanessa already knows my sexual orientation.”
That shut Janie up and wiped the smile from her face immediately. “Yeah. I guess you’re right.” She slowly removed her foot from his hand and sighed. Turning away, she looked out the window of the limo. They were almost to her loft, thank God. The reality of his Vanessa comment completely erased the fun she’d been having all night. Now all she wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep.
He was quiet next to her so she ignored him for the final two minutes it took to pull up in front of her place. When Kenneth opened her door to let her out, Luke got out as well. She looked stupidly at him.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m walking you to your door,” he stated in a no nonsense voice.
Janie looked over at Kenneth who was getting back into the limo. Once he was in with his door closed, Janie spoke. “I don’t need you to walk me to my door.” She turned and started heading to the entrance, stumbling only once.
See? She was fine.
“I’ll see you next weekend,” she continued, letting her voice lilt up as if she was happy as a clam and didn’t have a care in the world. “Thanks for tonight. It was fun.”
He was at her side within two seconds holding her elbow as she approached the building’s front door. “I’m walking you in anyway.”
“I don’t need you to,” she ground out.
“Tough shit, Janie.” He glared down at her.
She huffed and took out her key, letting herself in to the foyer and mailbox area of the warehouse. She turned to stop him from following her in. He didn’t even slow and grabbed her arm, gently pushing her back into the foyer so he could walk her to her loft door.
“You’re a pain in my ass,” she grumbled.
“The feeling is mutual at the moment.”
She’d reached her door and turned on him. “Then why the hell are you even here if I’m such a pain in the ass? Just,” she sputtered, “go find Vanessa, will you?” It was the last thing she wanted him to do but she was so pissed and hurt that he never seemed to catch a clue, she just wanted to lash out at him, push him away.
He backed her into the door, but kept his hands in his coat pockets. “Is that what you want? You really want me to call Vanessa right now?” He was so quiet. And he was pissed.
She smelled the wine on his breath coupled with the cold air still clinging to him from outside. Just underneath, she could make out the subtle spice from his cologne. His hair fell over his eye as he leaned over her, and his light blue eyes lasered into hers. He licked his lips.
“Do you?” he whispered.
She was done playing games. She shook her head no and blinked madly to stop the tears now watering her eyes. She felt physically sick thinking of him going to Vanessa, like she was going to throw up any minute.
His look went from pissed to worried in the span of a heartbeat. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m just tired,” she murmured. “I’m going to bed. I’ll see you next weekend.” The last thing she wanted him to do was leave, but the whole Vanessa conversation was exhausting her.
“You had too much wine tonight,” he said backing away, finally allowing her to breathe. He didn’t wait for her to respond and took her key from her hand, unlocked the door and slid it open letting her in. Flicking the light switch on the wall, the area by the door became dimly illuminated.
“I’m a grown woman, Luke. If I wanna drink too much wine, I will,” she mumbled on a slur, practically tripping over to her sofa. “And you know, maybe you need to make your own list. So you don’t get snookered by women like Lana,” she groused then collapsed inelegantly, her body falling sideways so she landed face down onto the end pillow. She muttered into it. “You should be more appreciative that I saved you from her,” Janie pouted into the pillow.
He was kneeling next to the sofa, removing her purse from her shoulder and tossing it to the floor.
“You may be right,” he said humorously, then he pulled her to sit up so he could help her take off her coat. She looked up at him and raised her eyebrow inquisitively while he worked her arms out like she was a doll he was undressing. He smirked at her facial expression.
She tried not to look shocked, but his comment nearly floored her. If he was seriously going to start making a list, he better not want her to find him a woman. She might have to kill him.
“I mean,” he said sardonically, “now that my reputation with the ladies is going to be stilted for a while –”
“What about Vanessa?”
He looked at her intensely then said, “Up.” He stood and put out his hand. She looked up his body appreciatively until her head was back and she was staring into his smiling eyes. Her hands began to sweat with nervousness. She had no clue what he was going to say. “Can you stand?”
She nodded, her limbs feeling heavy. Before she could stop herself, more giggles escaped. She put her hand in his, but couldn’t seem to stand. He leaned down and scooped her up a second later.
“I can walk,” she slurred. “I’m too heavy,” she protested, snuggling into his neck and inhaling his scent.
“Shh,” was all he said. When he got to her bedroom, he put her on the edge of the bed where she fell back onto her mattress. She heard him chuckling. He began removing her boots.
“What about Vanessa?” she asked again, staring at the pipes on the ceiling. It was dark in the bedroom with only the light from the living room on.<
br />
“Vanessa is nice enough,” he finally said, removing her first boot. “But I’m not dating her anymore, so it doesn’t matter.”
Tiffany was right. “You’re not?”
He began yanking on her second boot and Janie looked at him. He just shrugged and shook his head no.
“When did you stop dating?”
He looked her in the eye. “I don’t remember. Sometime in mid to late October, I think.”
She chuckled nervously. Her heart felt like it would burst with that news, so she just nodded, taking in that tidbit. With her back still on the bed, he removed the second boot, tossed it then leaned over her putting his hands on either side of her on the comforter.
“Do you want to sleep in your clothes?” His voice was husky.
Her body reacted to his tone and words with goose bumps, feeling his voice caress her in all the right places. “No, but I don’t care at the moment,” she whispered. He looked hot as hell leaning over, staring into her eyes. “Unless you wanted to help me out of them,” she added, then giggled.
His eyes perused her face, chest, then rested on the snap of her jeans. He looked like he was actually thinking about it and she held her breath.
Fire extinguisher, please.
She watched him swallow then stand up. “I think maybe you should just sleep in your clothes tonight,” he said dryly and picked up her legs to swing them up onto the bed. Her heart was pumping hard and fast. He sat down next to her and brushed a curl off her face, reaching up for her hairclip and releasing her hair to fall around her on the pillow.
She sighed and closed her eyes as his hand rubbed her scalp. “You know,” she murmured keeping her eyes closed, “the list is for finding someone for a serious relationship. Is that what you want, a serious relationship?” She stopped and opened her eyes.
He acknowledged her statement with an affirmative head movement, but didn’t say any more. His eyes moved to her hair, a smile played on his lips.
Breathe, Janie. “What would the first quality be if you were making this list?” she asked. “Maybe some girl who doesn’t drink too much wine?” She couldn’t help but look at him playfully.
Remembrance: A Contemporary Erotic Romance (Iris Series Book 4) Page 12