Love. Local. Latebreaking.: Book 1 in the newsroom romance series

by H. Laurence Lareau

  She stood and bid goodbye to the news team, then walked out of the bar holding Jake’s hand. I can’t worry about the rough parts tonight, she thought. I’m just going to enjoy how wonderful he is. She glanced over at him and took a deep breath. This may be the last time, she began. She checked herself quickly. I don’t know how many more times I’ll be able to be vulnerable with him and still be able to walk away.

  They reached the Tesla and climbed in. Buckling his seatbelt, he said, “Automatic door locks are just one more thing killing the last remnants of chivalrous manners. Back in the day, men used actual keys to unlock the passenger door, then they held it open. Now it’s just a beep and then fend for yourself.”

  Everything that comes out of him smells like commitment, she thought. I can’t love him without getting lost. And besides, I have a plan. As wonderful as he is—pretty much everything I ever wanted professionally and personally—he is Des Moines, and I am SO not Des Moines.

  Arriving at Jake’s grandiose carriage house, Karli felt immediately comfortable walking up the steps from the Tesla’s place of honor to the living space upstairs. The photos, the completely controlled and directed lighting, the lingering smell of his cologne and the bleachy-clean smell of the karate uniforms he had washed and hung up to dry were all familiar and homey sensations for her, and they were reminders of other times they had been alone there together and of all the intimacy they had shared there.

  Karli was first through the unlocked door. Jake came in right behind her, and she started just a bit as the door closed harder than usual. She turned to see if anything was the matter and found Jake just inches away and moving closer. His heady, spicy scent filled her nose, and her skin tingled where each little kiss’s dampness evaporated cooly away. The smell of him—which was the smell of the carriage house, too—surrounded her comfortably.

  He grabbed her by the waist and pressed his face to her neck, kissing lightly and mumbling, “I couldn’t wait to get you away from all that newsroom crowd and alone.” The absolute silence of the carriage house was filled with their breath and with the scratching of his unshaven cheeks along her neck. She could feel her nipples tightening inside her blouse. He was so all around her and so irresistible and so overwhelming.

  Karli felt him move his hungry mouth along her neck, her heart pounding the march beat for his lips moving toward her own. He lifted her confidently and turned to press her against the door. She could feel the pressure of his bulge against her. Setting her down, he took her face in both hands and locked eyes with her. Even though she was still lost in his eyes, she felt her mouth reach for his and her teeth clamp lightly down on his lip.

  His hands moved opposite to one another, his right sliding up to her chest, where she felt him discover the hard peak of her breast. His left hand slid down her side and raised her skirt. She felt his caress on the smooth globe of her ass, then felt his hand pause as he discovered the lacy edge of her thong where it slid down to hide between her cheeks.

  His kisses grew ever more intense, and she felt the door’s patterned wood press into her shoulders. She leaned back, pressed there by the weight of Jake’s passion, pinned so that she had little need to bear weight on her stiletto heels. She felt his hand leave the roundness of her butt, then move around to slip underneath the suddenly itchy lace that barely covered her in front.

  His breath carried a whisper to her ear, nearly unintelligible over her own heavy breath and the thudding of her heart’s beat.

  “My God, you are beautiful,” his breath washed over and through her ear. “I’ve wanted to touch you like this for days.” Saying this, Jake’s fingers found the slick wetness under her thong and began moving in deliberate circles. Karli felt her body’s responsive shudders almost as an involuntary reaction. And though Jake’s fingers were gentle, his palm pressed hard against her smoothly waxed pubic mound, fixing her firmly to the door.

  Karli tilted her head up and back against the door and felt the clenching inside her begin to feel more urgent. She’d been wound up so tightly that just a few thrusts of his fingers inside her—just exactly like that, she thought—and a little more circling would spring her. She lifted her leg slightly to better open herself to Jake’s touch.

  “I want to be inside you,” he said. “Now.” She felt him lift her leg even more, and she reached down to open the series of buttons that strained to keep his erection covered.

  “Oh, yes,” Karli whispered, feeling him spring out his jeans and into her hand. This is the only place I’ve felt relaxed since I came here. And Jake pushed himself inside her, the lace of her thong having already been moved to the side.

  “You’re so wet and tight,” he said, through gritted teeth. He thrust himself slowly in to his full length, and Karli thrummed to the sensation. She felt him all around her, smelled the sweetness of his breath, felt the thrusting. Oh my God, she thought. I’m getting pounded.

  He was pulling himself hard against her and pressing her hard against the wall, and his tongue was in and out of her mouth, mimicking his dick’s strokes.

  The entire world seemed to slip away from her, and all she knew was him and herself and how amazing every sensation in her entire body felt.

  She heard Jake breathing with effort and moaning with pleasure. “Damn, you’re hot,” he groaned. She wanted to let go and feel the release of orgasm, yet she also wanted this to last forever.

  Without warning, the wave broke over her and she clenched around him and the blood pounded through her and Karli found herself finishing with a suddenness and shivering intensity that surprised her. Her legs nearly failed her, and she almost collapsed to the floor.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, holding her in his strong arms. “I’ve got you.”

  Karli felt her breath slowing along with a lull of mild, incipient disappointment that the orgasm had ended. The melting release swept over her, and she heard Jake whispering in her ear, “You’re so beautiful when you come.” Her eyes had started to open, but they fluttered closed with his words.

  She felt Jake pull her from the wall, lift her, and carry her to the couch where they had shared so much unguarded conversation over the last few months. She slumped back onto the couch and felt him unbuttoning her and taking her clothes off.

  She reached up to fumble with his shirt buttons, found that he’d already gotten them started, and ran her hands on the skin inside his shirt. His skin tightly covered hard muscles that rippled as he moved and as she moved her hands over him.

  Her hands worked downward till they came to his huge erection. She ran her hands along the strong velvet length, realizing that she had finished first again. “You own every bit of me when we do that, you know,” she muttered.

  Feeling him like this, her lassitude vanished, replaced by a surprising new surge of sexual energy. Jake rumbled with a half-groan, half-growl in response to her gentle stroking. The sound found its echo within her, and she closed her eyes.

  Then her shoes lifted and her legs went with them. She opened her eyes to see Jake holding a heel in each hand, and realized that he had removed all of her clothing except for the shoes, which he now used as handles to position her legs and steer himself toward her. “I can’t wait to be inside you,” he rasped. “You are so wet and tight and . . . just perfect.”

  As he entered her again Karli heard herself moan, “That’s even better...” She felt Jake’s full length sliding through her slippery wetness, and she lost herself again in the thrusting, the sounds of Jake’s pleasure, and the warmly familiar smells that surrounded her.

  The incessant buzz of her usual stream of thoughts slipped away, and Karli found herself concentrated only on Jake and herself and how amazing every sensation in her entire body felt.

  She heard his breathing deepen and quicken to match her own. The finish was coming, and she ached for it, but she didn’t want it to end the intensity of his obvious pleasure or her own.

  She felt him relinquish the heels to wrap his hands at her waist a
nd pull hard on her hips to bring them crashing together over and over. As he slowed, he rubbed a thumb steadily around her clitoris.

  Karli crossed her high heeled feet behind Jake’s ass to pull him into herself, and their eyes again met and locked. Jake moved his hand with more urgency and said, “Soon.”

  Karli felt the wave from afar this time, locking eyes with Jake and crying out a long, “Yesssss,” just as he called out her name. She felt him come inside her, felt herself clenching tightly around him as she throbbed in climax.

  She saw little beads of sweat on his forehead as he worked to get control of his breath. “You un-man me, Karli Lewis,” he said. “I cannot imagine myself with any other woman.”

  Oh, wow, she thought. That’s a lot. She goggled up at him, speechless.

  She saw Jake’s intent gaze turn suddenly sheepish, and his head turned with a suddenly shy smirk. “I guess I kinda took you there, didn’t I?” He looked down and then back up to Karli’s eyes. “With those heels, that skirt, and especially that thong, I don’t suppose you’re too surprised, are you?”

  The two laughed quietly together, and Karli nodded. “Yeah,” she said, “I was kinda hoping you’d notice me.”

  “Notice you?” Jake’s eyebrows shot up together and his face took on a serious expression. “Karli, I can’t stop noticing you or thinking about you or wanting you.” Then, after a significant pause, he rose gently from the couch and said, “I’ll be right back.”

  Karli watched the firm nakedness of his butt retreat, and then she felt a little chilly, what with being in the altogether and no longer moving in rhythm.

  In just a moment, though, she saw Jake return with a pile of folded laundry in one arm, a basket hanging from the same arm, and a big grin on his face.

  He plunked himself down on the couch and make a big swirly production out of silently handing Karli a warm washcloth.

  Saying nothing at all about it, she watched him shake out a man-sized nightshirt and present it to her. “In case you get a chill,” he said. She immediately pulled it over her head, rushing so as not to miss the sight of Jake sliding a matching nightshirt down over his head and over his otherwise naked body.

  She laughed as he knelt fluidly on the floor in front of the couch and took her foot in his hand. “The shoe most definitely fits like it belongs,” he said, gently easing first one, then the other of her high heels off her feet.

  He then pulled a bottle of wine—another New Zealand Marlborough, Karli noted with approval—from the basket, followed by pears, a knife, a miniature cutting board, and two kinds of cheese.

  As she watched the preparations, Karli touched the little bit of a rough patch on her neck left by his scruffy beard, smelled his smell on her, and savored the satisfied and swollen and sluggish after-sex feelings.

  Jake’s preparations were simple and homey. Karli took the glass of wine, grateful for the cooly crisp taste. She next bit into the salty-sweet of crumbling white cheddar atop a vanishing slice of pear. The tastes, the quiet, the comfort of the couch, and Jake’s arm finally around her shoulders all felt unutterably safe and tender and permanent. She did not want to go anywhere, to think anything, to do anything.

  Her phone chirruped from inside the bag she had dropped on the way in. Jake stepped quickly to grab and silence the call. Then he made a show of holding the power button down till the phone asked him to swipe to power off. Karli realized she had actually forgotten how to power her iPhone off, and she felt an odd twinge as the turning gear indicated an end to her electronic connection to the outside world.

  “I don’t plan on letting you leave,” Jake muttered into her ear. “Should we order in pizza or something?”

  “I had that big dinner with Jerry and John,” Karli said. “But if you’re keeping me for the whole night, I’ll help you eat a pizza.”

  Jake reached for the landline to call for pizza. “I really want to keep you here for good, you know.”

  Ohmyfreakinggosh, Karli thought to herself. Then she thought, I guess I’m not really surprised. And it feels really nice in a way. I knew I smelled commitment somewhere. But I cannot say I love him. She took a deep breath and felt the muzzy warmth of the sex pull her thoughts out of focus.

  Her sigh gusted across Jake’s chest as he ordered a pizza for delivery—and she smiled to herself as she listened to him specifying sausage, but only if it had no fennel, and mushrooms, but only if they were portabella.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Bravo! Cucina Italiana

  West Des Moines

  Friday evening, April 25

  Karli leaned forward and hissed in an urgent whisper, “How in the world did you find out—they’re not supposed to make announcements till the awards dinner, are they?”

  Consultant Bielfeldt and News Director Schultz leaned comfortably back in their chairs, wide grins on each of their faces. Bielfeldt glanced over at Jerry, then lifted the bottle of pricey but unexceptional chianti to fill the beautiful stemware at the top of each place setting.

  As he poured, he responded in tones of consummate self-satisfaction. “Karli,” he said, “you understand that the news business is all about developing sources, don’t you?” He beamed again at the news director and continued, “Well, my work in consultancy has put me in touch with quite a few of the industry’s movers and shakers. And three of them sit on the awards panel.”

  “And my friends in the national association have confirmed John’s sources, so this is firm. The reports that you and Jake did during the flood are going to win an Emmy.”

  Schultz raised his wine glass and tipped it toward Karli. “This is going to be huge for Three NewsFirst, and it’s going to be huge for you, Karli. You’re going to be the premiere field reporter for the entire state of Iowa.”

  Karli flushed with the surprise and gratification at winning one of television’s most prestigious awards and with the unexpected praise from her news director. She took a deep breath to collect herself, then remembered dancing through the sheep dip at the Iowa State Fair and a hundred other indignities she had suffered covering both rural and urban stories in the past months. “The entire state of Iowa, huh?” she asked, lifting her own glass to meet the others. “Well, then, here’s to all three million Iowans,” she declared, lifting her glass and then sipping.

  “May each one of them know your name and face,” the news director solemnly intoned, drinking from his own glass.

  “And what sorts of things go with being Iowa’s premiere field reporter?” Karli asked.

  “Your duties won’t be much different, really,” Jerry said thoughtfully.

  “You will, of course, have to make more public appearances,” John interrupted. “Parades and charity events and beauty pageants and things. Your name recognition will be crucial for the station’s success.”

  “That much time in the public eye might prevent you from tackling some lower-profile kinds of assignments, too,” Jerry said, picking up where the consultant had left off. “Like your renewable energy series is a huge time commitment and might not fit into what’s going to be a pretty much celebrity schedule.”

  “Wait,” Karli interjected. “You’re telling me that being a premiere reporter means I’ll be doing less reporting and that the reporting I’ll do won’t be on in-depth pieces that can actually inform public opinion on big issues?” And I’ll be forced to go milk goats at the stupid State Fair, to judge the awful noise of the husband-calling contest, and to go shopping for prom dresses with the girls from the state basketball tournament. There’s some hard-hitting journalism, all right. She looked at each of the men, challenging them to back away from everything they’d just said.

  “No, not at all, Karli...” Jerry began in wheedling and utterly unpersuasive tones.

  Karli’s phone buzzed in her bag, and she reached for it. Looking down at the alert, she smiled to herself. “Guys,” she said, “I’m afraid I have to take this call. Please excuse me.”

  She rose from her chair
and swiped to answer. “Karli Lewis.” Then, as she retreated toward the women’s restroom she said, “Yes, I’m so glad you called. ... No, this isn’t a bad time at all, really. My plans just became very definite, and I’m excited we can talk about them.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Cosi Cucina

  Clive, Iowa

  Saturday evening, April 26

  Jake rose as he saw Karli directed to their table. He took in the entire picture of her, from the curved arches shaped by the dramatic heels to the amazing figure contained in her elegant dress to her shining face, and caught his breath. She is absolutely the one, he thought. He felt at his jacket pocket for the tenth time in as many minutes to make sure the little box was still there.

  As the host made a fuss of pulling her chair out and seating her, Jake calculated the fractional second that had him sitting down just after her. The host filled her wine glass, topped up Jake’s, and told them that Robert would be with them shortly. Jake quirked his most mysterious smile at her, raised his glass, and said, “Here’s to you, Karli. You are an absolute vision tonight.”

  Jake saw Karli’s smile reflecting the warmth he always felt in her presence, and she raised her own glass in reply. “Thanks, Mr. Devastatingly Handsome. You’re something to look at, too, you know.”

  They both drank and then made small talk about menu choices. Once Robert had come and taken their orders, both Jake and Karli leaned forward across the table toward one another, taking breaths preparatory to speaking. When Jake saw that they were doing the same thing, he laughed and began to fish the little box out.