Rules of the Game

by Lori Wilde

  “You sound disappointed.”

  “I was hoping for a romantic story.”

  “Jodi doesn’t have a romantic bone in her body,” Suki said, momentarily distracted when Talbot waved to get the waitress’s attention.

  “No kidding?” Jake eyed Jodi.

  “She hates public displays of affection.” Suki nodded. “Jo, do you remember that time when Ryan—”

  “You can stop talking now.” Jodi bumped her younger sister with her elbow.

  “Ouch.” Suki rubbed her arm, winced at Jake. “But clearly public displays of violence are just fine with her.”

  “I didn’t hurt you.” Jodi affectionately tousled her sister’s hair.

  “Hey!” Suki smoothed her stick-straight hair back in place. “It wasn’t so much the nudge as the intention behind it.” Suki turned her gaze back to Jake. “See what you’re up against as best man? You have my sympathies.”

  “A little vinegar never hurt anyone,” Jake said philosophically.

  “So just because I take up for myself I’m sour?” Jodi glared, but he could see it was all a cover-up. She liked for people to think she was tough, but he knew better. “What? I’m supposed to roll over and let people walk on me just because I have a generous nature?”

  Roll over. Oh yeah. He’d love for her to roll over him again.

  Jodi lowered her lashes, took a sip of wine. A loose curl fell softly across her cheek and he gave up trying to hide his desire and was now seriously reconsidering sticking to their only-one-night agreement.

  It wasn’t just Jodi’s sweet cleavage and the sight of that bra peeking through the open button of her white silk blouse and the sweet raspberry-colored bow of her mouth. When she canted her head the light glinted off the pearl earring and it made him light-headed. The urge to lean across the table and flick that gorgeous ear with his tongue was overwhelming. He wanted to dip the tip of his tongue inside the luscious seashell shape and whisper sweet, dirty nothings.

  But then Breeanne said something and Jodi smiled and the softness in her eyes was so welcoming, he tumbled into those wide blue-gray pools and drowned. He must have made some kind of noise, because she shifted her gaze back to him.

  “Are you sick?” she asked.

  Oh yeah. Sick with desire. He held his breath and pushed his wineglass away. “Too much celebrating.”

  “Me too,” she said, and pushed her own glass to the middle of the table.

  She seemed nervous. Was she nervous? He hoped so, because he was damn nervous and didn’t like being there alone.

  Jodi licked her lips again and Jake’s hands itched to touch her.

  Control. Pretend you’re at the plate. The bat is in your hand. Don’t swing too soon.

  If he wanted to convince her this chemistry between them deserved another shot, he had to take it easy. She was skittish. He wasn’t going to make the first move. The next pitch was up to her.

  But that didn’t mean he couldn’t send signals with his eyes.

  Jodi couldn’t hang on to Jake’s inquisitive stare one second longer.

  Thankfully, the waitstaff had finally brought out the main courses. The food was served family-style, everyone passing around platters of lasagna and spaghetti, veal Marsala and eggplant Parmesan, and for a few minutes it provided a distraction from Jake. She took a small portion of each dish, focused on cutting her food into equal pieces so she could have a bite of everything at once, but her appetite had vanished. At least her appetite for food.

  She hungered for something else entirely.

  The waiter brought a fresh basket of bread and she and Jake reached for it at the same time, their fingers touching over the same slice of hot Italian bread. Simultaneously, they jerked back. The warmth of his hand short-circuited every rational thought in her head, leaving only two words imprinted inside her brain in bright red neon. I want.

  She was inflamed.

  For Jake.

  “I was getting it for you,” he said. “So you could divvy it up with the rest of your food.”

  “Thanks,” she mumbled, and accepted the bread he offered and proceeded to tear it into small chunks.

  All around her, family and friends were proposing more toasts. To the happy couple. To a long life together. To the future pitter-patter of little feet. Jodi smiled and raised her glass and did everything in her power to tamp down her lust for Jake. It was ridiculous, this excessive attraction, but it refused to be quelled. Every time she glanced his way she felt it—the leap of electricity, the memory of their scorching night together, the secret hope of what if?

  No. Not what if. Something that burned this hot was bound to flame out and that’s all there was to it. No what-if thinking allowed. Once was definitely enough. Once made it special. Anything more, and it would become a habit.

  The waiter poured more wine. Between the toasts and her need to deny her feelings for Jake, Jodi drank more than she should have. Especially since she wasn’t much of a drinker. Two glasses and her head buzzed sweetly. She felt smooth and mellow.

  Alcohol lowered her resistance and she finally raised her eyes. How could she not look at him when he was seated right next to her? She had to look at him. He was there—big, commanding, oozing sexuality.

  Play it cool.

  Easily said, impossible to do when his look burned her up like a potato chip in a campfire. God, he was so sexy, and without the beard even more so. Her fingers itched to trace that smooth skin, to see what he felt like without the soft prickle of hair.

  His eyes were transfixed on her. “What is the name of that cologne you’re wearing?” he whispered. “It’s driving me crazy.”

  She shrugged casually past the rapid sprint of her pulse. There had been no name on the bottle. “Eau de hope chest?”

  “What?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Whatever it’s called, the perfume is as intoxicating as you are.” He growled so low she was hopeful that no one else heard.

  “Stop it.” She hissed as if she was angry, but really it was a seductive hiss that said, Ignore what my lips say, listen to my eyes. I want you. I need you. Take me.

  Crazy. This was out-of-control crazy. A condition she’d spent her life striving to avoid.

  But wasn’t a wild sexual adventure the very thing she’d wished for when she opened the hope chest? She’d wanted excitement, something new and different from what she’d known, and Jake was certainly that.

  “A secret toast,” Jake whispered, and lifted his glass. “To a beautiful redhead.”

  “I’m not toasting that.”

  “Why not?”

  “This is Breeanne and Rowdy’s evening. Stop making it about us.”

  “You’re right,” he said, but kept his glass raised.

  Just to get him to lower the glass since everyone else had finished toasting, Jodi clinked glasses with him and downed her last swallow of wine. Instantly her brain tingled dizzily. Oh wow. Okay. Time to back off the hooch.

  Her father was telling a story about how he and Breeanne had been watching television together the very first time Rowdy took the mound as a pitcher in the major leagues. It was a romantic story that neither Jodi nor Jake was much listening to.

  Jake’s eyes held her fast, as if he knew every thought slipping through her head. He sent her a short, sly smile, and she felt as if she’d been lit on fire, her nerve endings blazing hot as she recalled the pressure of his lips on her skin. White-hot embers of yearning burned inside her, growing from the instant they’d first met.

  She couldn’t take it any longer.

  “Excuse me,” she said, putting down her napkin and hopping up. “Ladies’ room.”

  Breathlessly, she escaped the banquet hall, rushed down the corridor to the lavatory, but in her altered state, took a wrong turn and ended up in the cloakroom. What if she just grabbed her coat and left? The thought tempted.

  But she couldn’t do that to Breeanne.

  Knees shaking, she leaned her back against the
wall of the roomy walk-in closet, took deep breaths, and tried to calm herself. How in the world was she going to make it through an entire month of events that put her in such close proximity to Jake? This simply wasn’t going to work. She had to speak to Warwick about reclaiming his spot as best man. There were things he could do for his public-speaking phobia. See Dr. Jeanna. Take beta-blockers. Visit Toastmasters.

  She came out of the closet and glanced back down the hall to the banquet room, saw Jake standing in the doorway watching her.

  No. Go away.

  He stepped into the corridor and shut the banquet room door behind him, his gaze drilling into her.

  Her feet rooted into the floor. Around her she heard restaurant sounds—the clank of dishes, the soft whisper of romantic music, the hum of voices—but it was as if the sounds were an ocean away and it was just she and Jake on a desert island.

  Nothing existed but the two of them.

  He strode toward her and damn if she wasn’t rushing toward him. He caught her up in his strong arms, whirled her around in the dimly lit hallway. “I need you.”

  “I need you too.”

  “We can’t—”

  “I know.”

  But he was planting a kiss against her neck and she was threading her fingers through his hair.

  “This is crazy.” She gasped.

  “Insane.”

  “One more time?” she dared.

  “Where?”

  “Here?” she asked.

  “In the restaurant?” There was shocked delight in his voice.

  Yes, said her inner Gwendolyn. “Coat closet.”

  “Holy shit.” He grinned.

  She darted a glance up and down the hallway. The banquet room was closed off. No one from the dining area could see them from this angle. She grabbed his hand and pulled him inside the closet, her heart thumping like mad. She wasn’t in her right mind. She was consumed with need for him and couldn’t seem to fight it. Correction: Didn’t want to fight it.

  “Jodi.” He groaned her name. “My sweet Jodi.”

  Why did he have to say it like that? Like she was special. Like she meant something to him.

  It was completely dark. She could be in the closet with anyone. The lack of sight served to push her lust into hyperdrive. Her palms spread over his broad chest and she felt the vibration of his low chuckle radiate through her fingers.

  His mouth found hers. They kissed. Deeply, passionately.

  “Hurry,” she said, her fingers tugging at his zipper. “We have to hurry before they miss us.”

  “You really are serious?”

  “Yes. Kiss me again.”

  “But you said—”

  She grabbed him by the collar, pulled his face down to meet hers. “Forget what I said. Let’s do this.”

  He groaned against her neck, lifted her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist. He lost his balance, crashed into the back of the closet.

  “Shh, shh, shh, people will hear. We—”

  He pressed his mouth to hers, cutting off the rest of her thought, but a second after she caught her breath the old panic flared and she thought, This is not a good idea. But he was charged up now and she didn’t have the heart to keep yanking the poor man around. Plus she didn’t want to look fickle. Besides, he smelled like her perfume and that turned her on even more.

  Quit thinking.

  That was her problem. She thought too much. But thinking was good, right? It kept her from doing reckless things and ending up like Vivian. Thinking—

  Mmm …

  Now his hot palm was sliding up the hem of her blouse to graze her bare belly, the buttons on the silky material surrendering of their own accord, gently popping open as his hand traveled higher to push underneath her bra and cup her breast, and the closet morphed into a rocket ship streaking toward the stars.

  They groped each other, like horny people in an erotic movie. He bent to run his hand up her skirt, grab hold of the waistband of her panties, strip them from her legs. She kicked off her panties in the dark, yanked down his zipper without undoing the button, freed his shaft through the opening.

  He lifted her up, she wrapped her legs around his waist, his stiff erection pressing against her bottom. If she wriggled just right, he would be inside her.

  “Condom,” they gasped at once.

  “Hang on,” he said, and moved in the darkness, sending coats swinging and hangers clacking against one another. “Got one in my wallet.”

  She twined her legs tighter around his waist. He pressed her against the wall of the closet to hold her steady while he reached around for his wallet in his back pocket.

  She slipped down the wall, and the nape of her neck rammed into hard metal.

  “Ouch, ouch.”

  Jake’s arms went back around her. “What is it?”

  “Hook.”

  He pulled her upright. “Sorry, you okay?”

  She put a hand to the dent gouged into her skin. “I’ll live.”

  “Spontaneity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” he said as she felt his erection drain away, along with their sense of urgency.

  So much for wild adventuresome sex.

  She unwrapped her legs, slid down the length of him to the floor. He put a hand to her shoulder to hold her steady. She heard him zip up his pants. She buttoned her blouse with shaky fingers, smoothed her skirt.

  Thank heavens for that hook. It had taken a poke in the back of the neck to wake her up.

  A knock sounded on the door.

  Every part of Jodi froze, including the hairs on her head.

  “Oh shit,” Jake muttered.

  The door cracked open, letting in a shaft of light and the sight of Axel Talbot’s grinning face. “Um, I don’t mean to interrupt, but Suki wants her coat if y’all are done rolling around on it.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Jodi Carlyle’s Wedding Crasher Rules: Watch where you

  leave your panties.

  Mortified didn’t begin to describe the way she felt. Ashamed, degraded, horrified, embarrassed, chagrined. Check. Check. And triple check. All of the above.

  Caught having sex in a public place. At her sister’s engagement party. With her family and friends just yards away. But at the same time, the same glorious time, she felt electric. Like a switch had been flipped. A light turned on.

  That she liked it made her feel even more ashamed.

  They returned to the party as if nothing had happened. Jake went back first, while Jodi scurried to the ladies’ room to splash cold water on her face and reapply her makeup.

  When she returned to the banquet hall, Jake was regaling the group with baseball stories and had them eating out of his hand. Hardly anyone looked her way when she slipped into her chair. It was only then that she realized she’d left her underwear somewhere on the floor of the closet, but she sure as heck wasn’t going back to look for it. She pressed her knees together tightly and prayed no one knew or guessed what she and Jake had been up to.

  But Suki knew. She grinned like an opossum when Jodi sat down. “You’re my new hero.”

  “I thought you were leaving,” Jodi said.

  “Not after I heard you were having sex in the coat closet!”

  “Shh!” Jodi whispered.

  “Hey, hold your head up. Be proud. You’re a sexual human being. Some of us were beginning to have our doubts.”

  “Doubts about what?” Breeanne asked from across the table.

  Jodi cringed, waited for Suki to spill the beans and say something utterly outrageous. But surprisingly, her baby sister took pity.

  “That you and Rowdy would ever work out your issues and get to happily-ever-after, but here you are,” Suki said to Breeanne.

  Breeanne slipped her arm through Rowdy’s. “You’ll find your own true love one day, I just know it.”

  “Thank you,” Jodi mumbled to Suki.

  “I got your back.” Suki winked. “Us adventuresome sisters have to stick together.”

 
; It felt weird being compared to bubbly, impulsive Suki, but not bad. Not bad at all. A few minutes later Suki and Talbot left together, mentioned they were headed to the Swimmin’ Hole for Trivia Night, and immediately the table started buzzing about that budding romance.

  Whew. Off the hook.

  The rest of the evening passed in a blur and somehow she managed to keep from looking at Jake, although her body was acutely aware of him beside her. Every time he moved, she felt it, his scent, combined with her own, rushed over her until it was the only thing she could smell. Them.

  By ten o’clock many of the guests had already dispersed, and Jodi was stone-cold sober and seriously starting to regret her rash actions. Jake lingered. Why couldn’t he just go? As Breeanne and Rowdy stood at the door saying good night to her parents, she and Jake got up from the table.

  He leaned over and whispered, “I’ve got your underwear.”

  “Thank you,” she said, relieved. She’d been fretting over someone finding her panties before she could retrieve them.

  He tugged the lacy teal from the front pocket of his pants, held it in a tight fist.

  Jodi slipped her hand over his. “Give it to me.”

  “You have the hardest time holding on to your underwear.” He chuckled and surreptitiously transferred the panties from his fist to hers.

  “Because of you,” she said, making sure no one was watching before quickly stuffing the panties in her purse.

  “Oh, so this is my fault? As I recall you’re the one who pulled me into the closet.”

  “It was a mistake. I lost my head.”

  “And your panties.”

  “It’s time for you to go,” she said.

  “What?”

  She nodded toward the door. “You go first. We shouldn’t be seen leaving together.”

  “Why not? You’re the maid of honor and I’m the best man. You have your car, I have mine.”

  “This is a small town. Do I have to spell it out for you? I don’t need tongues wagging around here long after you’re gone.”

  “Then why’d you pull me into the closet in the first place?”

  “Just go,” she begged. “Please.”

  “Well, since you asked so nicely. Have a good night, Jodi. I guess the next time I’ll see you will be …”