One Little Kiss (Smart Cupid)

by Maggie Kelley

  “Kate…honestly…this is my fault.” Hand still clutching the knob, she turned back slowly. He picked up her discarded tool belt and approached her casually, the way Matt Lauer might move toward a tiger on one of those wild animal segments for the Today show. He held out the belt. “Jane had no idea I was flying in early.”

  “Eagle Scout’s honor?”

  He held up his right hand. “Eagle Scout’s honor.”

  She accepted the belt and wrapped it around her hips. “You’re really selling the condo?”

  “I’m really selling the condo.”

  “Just selling the condo?” A fully-loaded click of her tool belt punctuated her words. Not that she wanted him to be here for any other reason, but selling the condo, overseeing repairs, finalizing escrow—all could have been managed remotely. So why was he here? In New York? Her brows rose expectedly.

  Jake dug his hands deep into his pockets. “Actually, I’m making good on the last of my contractual obligations to my agent, or rather, ex-agent.”

  “Ex-agent.” Her words tumbled over his, her question only partially satisfied. “I see.”

  He shrugged. “New manuscript.”

  After a short pause, she cleared her throat and continued. “So, you’re writing again?”

  “Seems I was inspired.”

  “Inspired.” She forced herself to take a breath. “To write or—”

  “Yes, to write and—”

  “—to just walk in after six weeks and kiss me?”

  Jake stood still, looking over at her as if he suspected there was a right answer to her question and a wrong one. “Maybe?”

  “Maybe. Maybe?” To think she recalled her time with him on the island as a romantic, sexy dream. Maybe. She pulled her cell from the pocket of her tool belt and autodialed Manhattan Taxi. “I’m calling a cab.”

  He opened his mouth, probably to try a different answer, but she waved him off and moved toward the door. “No need to explain.”

  A hand tore through his hair. “I didn’t expect to see you here tonight. I didn’t mean to…”

  “To kiss me? Yes, I got that.” Distracted by his hips in those low-slung shorts, she’d hesitated long enough that her hand was only now wrapping around the doorknob.

  “Yellow Cab.” The dispatcher’s heavy New York accent broke through a Muzak version of “Ridin’ in My Car.”

  Jake moved toward the door. “Stay. This is my fault. Let me make it up to you.”

  “Hey, anybody there?” She pressed the phone against her chest to mute the cabbie’s obvious frustration.

  She looked back at him, unexpected tears pricking at the back of her eyes. “I’ll be back in the morning to finish the floors.” She moved to go.

  “Kate.” His fingers curled around the edge of the doorframe. “Please. Stay.”

  A deep breath. Her body stilled. Her eyes shut against the pull of that one simple word. Please. In all her life, no man had ever asked her to stay the way he was asking. Please stay.

  He reached out and caught her fingertips, and that simple touch made everything come rushing back. The kisses. The Scrabble. The cove.

  Please stay. The words threw her heart into fast-forward, and she knew that if she looked in his eyes, her last hope for sanity would vanish. Crazy as it seemed, she had missed him. Missed this man she barely knew.

  The dispatcher’s impatient voice broke through the line. “Honey, this is all peaches and cream, but is there any chance in hell you still need a cab?”

  She took a deep breath and met Jake’s gaze. He smiled, less sure than she’d ever seen him. “No, I’m sorry…no cab.”

  “You sure you’re okay?” he asked, his tone all New York protective.

  Kate smiled into the phone. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  “’Kay. That changes, you call me back,” he said before the line went dead.

  Kate tucked the phone into her belt, looked over at Jake, and tried to ignore the way the linen shirt clung to his muscled shoulders. Damn his busted air-conditioning. She looked away. Like she’d told the cabbie. Nothing here she couldn’t handle.

  “I’m sorry,” Jake said, stepping away, lowering both hands into his pockets. “I shouldn’t have walked in and kissed you that way.”

  “Yeah. You shouldn’t have.”

  Of course, neither should she.

  A nervous feeling settled in her stomach. She closed the door with a quiet click, let go of the knob, and walked over to settle at the bottom of the stairs. Maybe this wasn’t how she had planned to see him again. But here she was. No navy suit. No busy restaurant.

  On the bottom step of a spiral staircase.

  She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear and tried to ignore her heart knocking up against her ribcage. “Good flight?”

  He walked over and settled next to her. “Long flight.”

  She glanced over at him from beneath her lashes and was struck by just how well he cleaned up. “Any martinis?”

  He let out a low, sexy chuckle. “No martinis.”

  “Too bad.” He was close enough to kiss again. Close enough to breathe him in. Made it tough to remember that he was just a sweet, sexy stop along the road to self-actualization. “So, what’s it about?” His brows rose in question. “The new book.”

  “Oh, the new book.” He appeared startled, as if he’d never imagined telling her, and if not for the leak in the kitchen, he might never have told her. She may have glimpsed the cover through some bookstore window. Picked it up. Remembered their twenty-four hours. Funny to think about how it all worked. Fate. Karma. Luck.

  He ran a hand over his jaw. “Let’s call it a modern take on adding romance to your life.”

  Kate bit down on her lip. Talk about one hell of an exclusive. “Something along the lines of The Romance Factor?”

  An easy shrug of his perfect shoulders. “More along the lines of…defining contemporary relationships.” He pushed up his sleeves. Wow, even his forearms are better than I remembered. “Never had a chance to thank you for not splashing me all over in Internet in my boxer briefs.”

  Now was her chance. If she wanted to be taken seriously…well, here was her opportunity. “How do you feel about an exclusive?”

  “Exclusive?”

  “An interview for the book,” she raced ahead, “and before you shut me down, this would be a strictly promotional, non-personal, non-matchmaking article.”

  “No bachelor-of-the-month, win-a-date-with-Jake Wright madness?”

  “No bachelor-of-the-month, win-a-date-with-Jake Wright madness.”

  He nodded slowly, deliberating. “But we’d spend time together.”

  “Researching the article—yes.” Best to establish the rules up front. “All business, nothing personal.

  He gave her an assessing look. “Three days. All business. Nothing personal.”

  “Three days?”

  “That’s how long I plan to be in New York.”

  Kate held her breath and shoved aside her twinge of disappointment. If this was business, his timeline worked perfectly. An exclusive interview with the up-until-now reclusive Jake Wright was the definition of “the un-gettable get.” The kind that made careers. In three days, she could have a knockout piece that practically guaranteed her the job at Cosmo.

  “Deal?” He bumped her shoulder with his, like a kid sitting on the curb with his neighborhood girlfriend, and extended his hand. Like it was simple.

  But was a deal with an ex-lover ever simple? She’d had her heart broken so many times, but her career depended on this exclusive. Besides, she was the new Kate. Realigning her ch’i. Focusing on her life. Letting love find her.

  And avoiding it in the wrong places.

  “Deal—for Cosmo girls everywhere.” No time for second thoughts, she slipped her hand into his, and a familiar sense of kismet—non-martini infused kismet—rocked her insides. Clearly, her ch’i was already cracking. Even so, she’d gotten the exclusive. Now, if she was smart, she’d get the
hell out of there before her biorhythms went totally out of whack and she felt inspired to kiss him again. She shoved her hand into her back pocket and turned to go. “We can start in the morning.”

  “Whoa, wait a sec.” Jake caught her elbow. “In the morning?”

  “In the morning.” Kate glanced at his hand, wondering when her elbow had become an erogenous zone. “I’ll be here at seven.”

  “Kate, no. It’s already almost four-thirty. You’ll barely have time to get home before you have to turn right back around.”

  “I’m not sure I see an alternative.”

  “Sure you do. Stay here.”

  Her gaze met his. “Not sure that’s such a good idea.”

  He grinned. “Worried you can’t handle me?”

  “I’m sure I can.” Except she wasn’t. “It’s you I’m worried about.”

  He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “No funny business from me. You take my bed. I’ll take the couch.”

  She looked at her watch. Damn him, he was right. Half an hour to get home. A shower. Lay down in bed. Then it was time to get back in a cab.

  “Fine,” she said. No matter how tempting he might be, all cleaned up and good-looking, she was done looking for love in all those sexy, charming, wrong, wrong places. Love was going to have to find her. “But this is all business. Nothing else.”

  Because she’d definitely stopped looking.

  Definitely.

  For good.

  Chapter Eleven

  On a what-was-I-thinking scale of one to ten, Kate’s late-night deal with Jake topped out somewhere around eleven. Seventy-two hours spent researching Jake’s hot new theory. And no hanky panky? What had she been thinking? That she could spend three sex-free days with the man? She lined up another piece of the hardwood and set the mallet against the edge.

  Hell, the past seven hours had sent her senses reeling. Memories of their time on the island had kept her tossing and turning. In his bed. Alone. Damn. She slammed the mallet too hard against the plank. From across the half-completed floor, Jake flashed one of his wicked smiles. Like he knows exactly what I’m thinking.

  She looked back at him, annoyed by the effect his smile had on her, irritated by the overly-meticulous way he lined the next floorboard. “Oh my word,” she said, losing her cool. “We’re installing a floor, not performing brain surgery. For crying out loud, put the tongue in the groove and bang it.” She slammed another plank into place. Clearly, all those deep breathing exercises were not helping.

  His smile widened, all flirtatious and gorgeous. “Think I’ll stay with slow and easy.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I was talking about the floor.”

  He angled his mallet against the side of the board. “I thought you meant—”

  “I didn’t.” She banged a piece of hardwood into place. Let him be as flirtatious as he wanted. She was through with making relationships more significant than they actually were. No more bad dates. No more half-assed relationships.

  “Kate, can you give me a hand with this?” he asked, tapping the mallet into the board. “This one won’t connect.”

  She pinned him with a suspicious look. “I thought you renovated the floors in your bungalow.”

  He leaned back on his haunches, and the faded denim of his jeans stretched across the muscles of his thighs in a way that made her feel like she might melt into the floor. Or possibly say the hell with it all, grab him by the collar, and pick up where they left off last night.

  “I refinished those floors. Installation is a whole different technique.” He smiled. Okay, definitely melting into the floor. “Of course, I’m more than willing to learn a new technique.” The way he said it could mean more than a simple home renovation tutorial, but she needed to keep her eye on her exclusive.

  No. No way he meant that. They’d agreed this wasn’t going anywhere beyond business.

  “Let’s stick with the basics.” She slid across the floor to settle next to him.

  He eased closer. “I like the basics.”

  I bet you do, she thought. After slipping a tapping block from her tool belt, she leaned forward and placed the block against the side of the floorboard. “See how the groove in the block aligns with the tongue of the plank to give it a cushion? Makes it less likely to cause damage. Some blocks have multiple groove lengths. Others have ball-shaped handles.”

  She reached for another piece of hardwood and tried not to think about the fact that he was the hottest-looking guy she’d laid her eyes on—ever.

  “So how’s dating going now that you’re the new Kate?”

  She slammed the mallet down. Hard. “That’s really none of your business.”

  “You think I’m trouble,” he said.

  “I know you’re trouble.”

  His smile widened. “Just wondering how the new you is working out. You know I’m rooting for you.” He raised his eyebrows. Shot over his persuasive sweet, charming smile. “Don’t want you to miss an opportunity to be spontaneous.”

  Her tongue dashed out to wet her lips. “Spontaneous?”

  He grinned, clearly aware of the effect he was having on her with his talk about dating and spontaneity. “A woman ready to dive into a new spur-of-the-moment adventure is sexy.”

  She ignored the sudden rush of heat flooding through her. “This from a man who overpacks a picnic and meticulously measures his floorboards.”

  A low, impossibly sexy laugh rumbled up from his chest. “Maybe I know the value of caution, but I also know there’s something sensual about embracing the unexpected. Letting go.”

  Letting go. Exactly what she was trying to do—let go. She focused her attention back on the damn the floor, but her heart was pounding so hard, she wondered if he could hear it. “And how does this exclusive lesson apply to installing a new kitchen floor?”

  She slammed the mallet down—right onto her thumb. She dropped the mallet and sprang onto her feet, yelping curses.

  He came after her, held up his hands, waiting for her to calm down. “Come here, come here, come here.”

  Her whole hand throbbed with pain. She cradled it in her other hand. “I’m an idiot.”

  He took her hands into his. Soft touch. So soft. “No, it’s my fault. I kept trying to get under your skin.”

  She glared at him. “So you admit it.”

  “Old habits die hard. And you’re so much fun when you’re angry. Let me see.”

  She swallowed, closed her eyes, and opened her hands, afraid of what she’d see. “Is it bad?”

  “Well…we might have to amputate.”

  She opened her eyes and glared at him. “Still joking—”

  He rubbed her injured hand with his palms. “It’s fine. Maybe a little bruise.”

  Already, the pain was subsiding. And his touch was leaving something very troublesome in its place. “Stop that. My hands are dirty.”

  “My hands are dirty, too. Does that feel better?”

  It did. A lot. Too much.

  He brought his hand to her mouth and kissed it. Her body shuddered. What a mess. But it left her hungry for his touch. He lowered her hand and started to turn away.

  “Jake…”

  It was all the invitation he needed. His lips brushed hers, a fleeting touch that left her wanting more, so she pulled his mouth down to hers, kissing him completely, and the torn-up kitchen fell away. Call it spontaneous. Call it research. She didn’t care. She breathed him in, all spicy soap and fresh laundry. She wanted the feel of his lips on hers, kissing her until she literally thought her heart might explode into hundreds of pieces. She could barely breathe, barely string two thoughts together.

  The vibration of her phone against her hip reverberated through the fog of her thoughts. She tried to ignore it, but the damn thing kept buzzing. Reaching for the place where it was hooked into her tool belt, she felt Jake’s fingers skim down her arm, searching for the phone.

  “Oh God, please,” he whispered against her mouth, “don�
��t answer.”

  “I have to answer.” The phone kept buzzing and buzzing and buzzing, so she shifted away from him, pulled the phone from the compartment on her tool belt and answered without looking at the screen. “Kate Bell.”

  Jane’s voice echoed through the phone. “I’m on my way.”

  Kate struggled to keep her tone even and calm. The last thing she wanted was to give her friend the slightest hint she was breathless, that moments ago, she’d been dangerously close to a round of spontaneous research.

  “On your way where?” Jake dropped a kiss on her shoulder, and she waved him away.

  “To Jake’s place,” she said in her direct way. “When you didn’t turn up at the office, I figured you were still working, and since I owe you for the floors…”

  She stared at the phone, her head already shaking no. This was a disaster waiting to happen. The last thing she needed was for her friend to arrive, find out her brother had arrived early, and get any new matchmaking ideas. “Jane, I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

  There was a short pause as if she’d thrown her for a loop, and then, “Coffee’s always a good idea.”

  “Normally, I’d agree with you, but…we’re just banging away over here.” She sent Jake a pleading look. “No need to stop by.” Jake fell back against the floor and groaned. Too late, she realized her mistake. Not only was she a dating disaster, but she was a terrible liar.

  “We?” Sharp as the edge of a backsaw, Jane pressed for more information. “Who’s we?”

  Kate raised her eyes to the ceiling and scrunched up her face, readying for the blow. “Me…and your brother.”

  “Jake?” Her voice leaped an octave. “He wasn’t supposed to get here until this afternoon. Let me talk to him.” Kate shot him another pleading look, and he held his hand out for the phone.

  While he spoke with his sister, Kate smoothed the line of her T-shirt, straightened her tool belt, grateful they’d been interrupted mid-kiss, mid-whatever. Because all that action in the middle of his kitchen floor might have been spontaneous, but it also defined the words “close call.” Kate shoved the tapping block into its compartment and yanked on the belt, wondering why the hell she’d kissed him in a way that clearly violated her own rules. Chalk it up to the fact that the sex between them had been amazing and sweet and tender.