Love the One You're With (2)

by Lauren Layne

  And then there’d been that moment when he’d accidentally-on-purpose let his fingers play over her palm and she’d almost dragged him by his tie into the coat closet.

  All because he’d touched her hand.

  No wonder 2.0 kept hollering at her to watch her back.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not inviting myself over,” Jake said, resting his head against the back of the seat and closing his eyes. Grace watched his face in the shadows, grateful, for once in her life, for the traffic jam that was New York City. They were going nowhere fast, and for all her posturing about dropping him off, and her certainty that under no circumstances should she invite him up to her place, the pathetic truth was that she just liked spending time with this man.

  However she could get it.

  With his eyes closed and his features relaxed, Jake looked every bit as classically handsome as when he was smiling and vibrant, despite the purple shadows under his eyes. But there was something else there too.

  There was a loneliness about him that made her ache. As though he held himself just a little apart from everyone else, but only revealed this solitude in repose.

  “You look tired,” she heard herself say softly.

  He smiled without opening his eyes. “A woman would slap you for such words.”

  “One of those double standards, I’m afraid. I’m guessing you can handle it.”

  “I haven’t been sleeping much,” he said, opening his eyes briefly when their cabby honked futilely at the unmoving taillights in front of him.

  “How come?” she asked, resisting the urge to touch him. To soothe.

  “Got a woman on my mind,” he said, in a bad imitation of a cowboy voice.

  “Just one?” she teased.

  He turned his head to face her, his eyes locking on hers. The answer was written all over his face, and Grace’s mouth went dry.

  “Oh.”

  His gaze dropped to her mouth. “If I kiss you, will you write about it?”

  “Do you want me to write about it?”

  “Do you want me to kiss you?”

  The gauntlet had been thrown down. And Grace could either run from it and let her massive amount of man issues push him away, or she could …

  And then there was no more thinking as they both reached for each other, their mouths meeting hungrily, her fingers tangling in his hair as his hands found her waist.

  Dimly Grace thought of the cab driver and the free show he was getting, but for the first time in her life, she didn’t care about being proper or appropriate. She didn’t care that her mother would probably faint at the thought of her daughter indulging in a PDA, and she didn’t care that kissing Jake definitely violated her no-man rule.

  She only cared about the way his lips fit perfectly over hers, the way his tongue slid against hers in hot, lingering strokes. One of his arms pulled her closer, his fingers splaying over the small of her back, his hand hot through the thin fabric of her dress.

  He broke away only long enough to nudge her chin to the side so he had access to her neck, and if they hadn’t fogged up the windows before, they did now, because the hot, wet kisses against her neck were just about the best thing she’d felt in way too long.

  Grace tugged at Jake’s hair, bringing his mouth back to hers as the cab started moving again. She poured herself into the kiss, and had his hands not held her waist steady, she would have crawled on top of him to get closer, dignity be damned.

  It was Jake who came to his senses first, gently pulling her back, although his heavy breathing told her he didn’t set her aside easily. “We’re here.”

  “What?” she asked, already loathing the separation.

  He smiled. “We’re at your apartment.”

  Oh. Oh. Mortified to realize that they were parked outside her building—had possibly been parked for quite some time—Grace adjusted her skirt even as she fumbled for her wallet.

  And she absolutely refused to glance at the rearview mirror. No way could she meet this cab driver’s eyes.

  Jake put a warm hand over hers. “I’ve got this. I’ll pay him after he takes me back to my place.”

  Grace was both relieved and disappointed that he didn’t even make a token effort to prolong their evening. What would she have said if he’d asked to come up?

  Then she pictured Jake peeling her dress over her head. His hand finding her bra clasp, his lips finding her—

  “Grace?”

  “Right,” she breathed. “Right.”

  She reached for the door handle. “Goodnight.”

  His eyes roamed her face, his expression more serious than she would have expected. He opened his mouth, and for a second she thought he was going to ask to come up after all. She held her breath.

  Then the cabbie made some impatient muttering noise, and the moment slid away, Jake’s soft expression disappearing behind his usual easy smile. “Night, Brighton.”

  That wasn’t her heart sinking at his flippant tone. Really, it wasn’t.

  “Malone,” she said, keeping her voice cheeky rather than longing. At that, 2.0 breathed a sigh of relief. “You should work on your kissing technique. Stiletto has a few articles you could read. I’ll email you.”

  She heard his chuckle even as she got out of the cab and closed the door with a saucy wink as her farewell.

  Grace refused to turn around and stare after the cab, but when she felt her phone vibrate, she let herself get her hopes up that it would be a text message from Jake.

  She wasn’t disappointed.

  You seemed to like my technique just fine.

  She rolled her eyes as she typed her response. Cocky.

  He wrote back immediately. Maybe. Horny? Definitely.

  Grace was smiling as she started to slide her phone back into her purse, but then it buzzed again and she wasn’t smiling so much as swooning at his next message.

  I can’t stop thinking about you.

  She stopped walking altogether, not caring that she was blocking the entrance into her building, causing the man behind her to shoot an annoyed glance her way.

  She bit her lip, debating prudence over honesty. The latter won. I can’t stop thinking about you either.

  Again, his lightning-fast response. We’re in trouble, huh?

  Grace didn’t need 2.0 to confirm. They were definitely in trouble.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Neither wrote about the kiss.

  But that didn’t stop the whole HeSaidSheSaid battle from escalating to full-on combat. Public combat.

  It started when both Stiletto’s and Oxford’s online teams put links to the new website on their respective home pages.

  Harmless enough. Until a couple of the local newspapers picked up the back-and-forth of HeSaidSheSaid as well, touting it as a battle of the sexes, blog-style.

  A week later it was on one of the morning talk shows. Is all fair in love and war? Manhattan’s sexiest dating experts find out.

  Now everybody had something to say about who had the upper hand on whom.

  The results changed daily.

  The past three weeks had been an endless blur of employees on both sides conspiring to get Jake and Grace into the same elevator at the same time.

  From there, every word was observed. Every look was analyzed.

  And it all went up on the website.

  Even the bosses were in on it. For their part, Cassidy and Camille were constantly insisting that Jake and Grace take lunch breaks together, and then they’d send a staff photographer to catch the whole thing in action.

  Most recently, it had been an unassuming lunch at a taco truck that had sent the cyberworld into a tizzy. Whatever did it mean that Grace gave her extra guacamole to Jake? Was that a point in his favor since he was able to sweet-talk her out of the best part of a taco? Or a point in her favor, because a smart woman knew that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach?

  Camille had even asked if the two of them had any email correspondence that they’d be a
ble to share on the website. In the end, Grace and Jake had capitulated. Now all of their electronic communication went up there too.

  For her part, Grace was mostly loving the whole process. At least she was loving it today.

  That morning’s latest poll results indicated that 64 percent of voters thought Jake was more smitten with her than she with him, and 59 percent thought that she knew men better than he knew women.

  Even though they hadn’t yet completed the original assignment of five dates followed by a recap, Grace was well on her way to accomplishing her mission: showing the world that she wasn’t ever going to be blindsided by a man again.

  In weaker moments, when she forgot that Greg wasn’t dead to her, she liked to imagine her ex reading it. Maybe even regretting that he’d let her go.

  But in the quiet evenings, when the website updates had ceased for the day and there were no more interactions between her and Jake to be analyzed until the following day, she felt … a little hollow.

  She and Jake hadn’t been alone—not truly alone—since that night in the cab.

  The sexual awareness still simmered between them, but ever since their text message exchange that night, there’d been a slight wariness as well. As though it was a path that neither wanted to go down even as they desperately did.

  See, this was why relationships were bad news. They turned rational adults into game-playing teens.

  And that was the real kicker. She wanted him. She liked him, even. But she didn’t trust him.

  Ever since that first date when she’d have bet her favorite pair of Jimmy Choos that he was honestly into her, and then he’d told the world that it had been a carefully manufactured “moment” designed to reel her in, she’d known she couldn’t trust him.

  She knew that.

  And yet, every damned night, she was tempted to call him.

  Of course, 2.0 was pissed, but 2.0 apparently had forgotten what a good kisser Jake was.

  Grace hadn’t forgotten. Not even a little bit.

  And wouldn’t the HeSaidSheSaid readers like to find out that little tidbit!

  This entire thing had devolved into a circus in which they didn’t even have to worry about analyzing the other person, because the rest of the world was doing the analysis for them.

  Grace kept reminding herself that she should be thrilled. Camille had made a big show in the weekly staff meeting about how it was the most groundbreaking Stiletto undertaking since

  “Of course your stylist is in on it. This is like the new reality TV,” Emma said.

  “Jake’s not going to notice that I got a half-inch trim. None of you noticed.”

  “You have to at least show up,” Riley called after her. “Women are in the lead!”

  “Whatever,” Grace muttered, walking right past the restroom. She needed to get out of here. And thanks to her friends’ intel, she knew exactly where she wouldn’t be going. No Lucky’s burger for her.

  She paused as she headed toward the elevator. Too bad Riley hadn’t been more specific about the time of Jake’s lunch break. Did she risk taking the elevator and running into one of the Oxford guys who would push her toward Lucky’s to accomplish whatever obscure mating challenge they’d dreamed up for the day?

  Or …

  Before she could change her mind, Grace slipped into the stairwell. Not a place she’d spent a lot of time in, outside of fire drills and the rare power outage, but if walking down seven flights of stairs meant a few minutes of peace and quiet and the potential to eat lunch without having everyone critique every blink and smile, she’d take it.

  Her four-inch heels made it slow going, and she’d only made it down one flight before the door flew open, nearly knocking her over.

  “Shit, sorry—I didn’t think anyone would be in here … Grace?”

  Jake gave a nervous glance over his shoulder and shut the door quickly, leaving them secluded in the silent stairwell. “What the hell are you doing in here?”

  “Oh, you know—just getting a little midday exercise.”

  “By walking down? I don’t think so.”

  She crossed her arms, defensive. “What are you doing here?”

  His eyes flashed guiltily, and he pulled on his earlobe.

  “You’re avoiding me,” she said, her eyes going wide.

  “No! No. I mean yes, but not avoiding you, just avoiding …”

  Grace gave a relieved laugh. “Everything? Everyone? Me too. I thought you were going to Lucky’s.”

  “Yeah, you were supposed to think that. What do you want to bet half the Oxford and Stiletto offices got a sudden craving for hamburgers today?”

  “So you set up a decoy plan. Well done, Mr. Malone.” They began descending the stairs, Jake offering his arm so she didn’t wobble on her heels. She took it, surprised that it felt like the most natural thing in the world to be holding on to Jake Malone in the stairwell while they hid from the world.

  “I admit, I was thinking you’d probably be the first one to Lucky’s,” he said, glancing down at her as they made it to the fifth floor. “Most of the guys spent all morning trying to figure out what the next female wile was.”

  “My hair,” Grace said, flicking her ponytail. “You’re not supposed to notice that it’s a half inch shorter. Or maybe you are supposed to notice? I can’t keep it all straight.”

  “Well, chalk this one up to the voters with boobs, because there’s no way in hell I would have noticed your haircut.”

  “What about me?” she asked. “What was my challenge for the day?”

  “Sports. I was going to mention being a huge fan of a fictitious sports team to see whether you’d fake interest, or if you’d ’fess up and say that you’d never heard of such a team.”

  “Kind of a risky plan, don’t you think?” She lowered her voice to a mock whisper. “What if one of them had found out you don’t like the Yankees?”

  “You wouldn’t have told them,” he said confidently.

  “I might have.”

  “Nope.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “How do you figure?”

  “Because that little bit of information is something I told only you. And you want to keep it that way.”

  Grace opened her mouth to dispute him. She couldn’t. “You know, I don’t know who planted the seed in your head that this whole cocky routine was charming, but they did you a disservice.”

  “I planted that seed in my own head. But confess now, Gracie. If the boys had come to you with a fake sports team, would you have admitted you had no idea who they were? Or pretended you were a fellow fan?”

  Grace pursed her lips as they made it to the second floor. “Probably confessed because I wouldn’t want to get caught in the lie later. But I don’t know. Maybe I would have faked that I knew what you were talking about. I hate feeling dumb, especially around you.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean. I used to think I was pretty comfortable with myself, but this whole thing has made me second-guess every action when I’m with you.”

  “Even now?” she asked as they made it to the lobby floor and stopped.

  “No.” His eyes searched hers. “Not now. This deeply romantic slow trot down the smelly office stairwell has been one of the best moments I’ve had in weeks.”

  She scanned his face. He wasn’t lying. She was pretty sure of it.

  “Me too,” she said quietly, reaching for the door handle so she wouldn’t have to look at him. She was too afraid about what might be written on her face.

  His fingers gently touched the back of her hand and they both froze. She forced herself to meet his eyes, and she saw the same wretched torture on his face that had caused so many sleepless nights for her.

  They were so in over their heads.

  Unlike their previous two kisses, Jake moved slowly, one hand moving gently to her hip as the other slid behind her neck, tilting her face up to his. The kiss was sweet and teasing, the type of perfect kiss where the other person’s mouth feels meant for yo
urs, their taste the best thing you can imagine.

  Grace let her arms wind around his neck as she tilted her head and took the kiss deeper. Jake groaned and walked her back a step until she was pinned between him and the wall. She didn’t know how the kiss went from painfully sweet to painfully hot, but before she knew what had happened, her hands were pinned above her head, their lips and tongues fighting for dominance in a battle far more private—and far more vital—than the one they waged for the rest of the world to see.

  When Jake finally lifted his head, he looked every bit as bewildered as she felt.

  Just what the hell was going on here?

  But exactly as it had before, the mask fell back into place, disguising any vulnerabilities, and Grace pushed aside the ridiculous urge to beg him to take a chance on her. On them.

  Jake grinned then, looking very much like the confident, carefree guy she remembered from that fateful first cab ride. “So … where are we going to lunch?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “You know, I get that we’re trying to escape prying eyes, but fleeing Manhattan might have been a wee bit excessive,” Grace said.

  “Probably. But you said you were hungry, and Brooklyn has some of the best food in the city.”

  “No argument there,” Grace said as she took another bite of her steak salad. “How’d you find this place?”

  “Dated a girl a few years ago who lived around the corner. She got kind of crazy, but the food stayed good.”

  “Exactly how many girlfriends have you had? Or do I want to know?”

  Jake dunked a fry in ketchup and considered. “I’ve never really understood at what point a woman stops becoming someone you’re casually dating and actually becomes a girlfriend.”

  Grace put an offended hand over her chest. “Clearly you haven’t been reading Stiletto. This is exactly the sort of thing we analyze. In detail.”

  “No doubt. But to answer your question … I dunno. Maybe one true girlfriend? Lasted about four months?”

  Grace grinned and stole a fry. “Seems to me that was my precise assessment of you that first day in the cab.”