by Lindsey Hart
Except that it wasn’t Jesse waiting for her on the front lawn of a house that the words like massive, sprawling, and even mansion did little to describe. The area is brand new, a suburb for the rich and maybe even the famous, a gated community with houses that sprang up out of the ground like granite mountains.
It was his mom and dad, and oh yeah, those were definitely tears of straight fucking joy leaking down his mom’s face.
Sydney leaned back against the seat with a groan.
She was so royally effed.
CHAPTER 5
Jesse
He had been waiting an hour for the car to pull up. Martin texted as soon as the plane landed, so he wasn’t sure what the heck took them so long to pull up.
He couldn’t believe it when he rushed to the door and found his parents standing on the front lawn. Parents. As in plural. With an S.
Jesse barely restrained a groan before he ripped open the door. “Mom?” He called to her just as Martin got out of the SUV. He heard the slam of the driver’s side door. “What the heck are you doing here?” he hissed under his breath, so that only his parents could hear him and his voice wouldn’t travel to the street, or, god forbid, to any of the neighbors. The last thing he needed was a bored housewife leaning out her window, yelling things down at them or recording the whole thing in hopes of getting somewhat internet famous. “I thought I told you to stay away and let me work this out!”
Of course, his mom was standing there on the lawn crying. Leaking real tears of joy down her cheeks. Her hands were clasped so tight that her knuckles were white. There was a radiant flush riding high on her cheekbones. His father looked skeptical, doubtful, and pissed off that he’d been dragged away from his afternoon golf game or sports watching or newspaper reading, to come down and take part in what promised to be nothing short of complete and utter drama.
“Mom!” Jesse hissed again when she didn’t answer him. “I wanted to meet Sydney here and talk to her myself. We both know that this might not… be what it seems.”
His mother completely ignored him. Jesse could only watch helplessly as Martin stalked around to the other side of the SUV and opened the door. And there Sydney was, in all her dark haired, dark eyed glory. Beautiful did not begin to do her justice. She stepped out of that back seat like a queen arriving at a red carpet event. A queen clad in tight jeans and a loose fitting t-shirt that hung off her shoulder and defined her perky breasts which didn’t appear to have a bra on, but a queen none the less.
Jesse found himself subtly adjusting his package, which had hardened to a state of utter embarrassment given that his parents were standing five feet in front of him and the entire neighborhood was looking on and he was still in his work clothes, wearing a pair of crisply pressed black slacks that were expensive and tailored a little too well in the crotch area to hide the massive boner he was sporting like a high school kid in gym class.
He could only watch helplessly as his mother ran. Frickin’ ran straight to that SUV. She didn’t let Sydney get so much as a breath off after she’d stepped out before she was enveloped in a tight hug. Since his mom was pretty short and Sydney was astoundingly tall, achingly beautiful, a luscious, raven haired goddess, the whole thing looked pretty comical. It wasn’t. It wasn’t funny at all.
“Well, son, it looks like you’re royally screwed.” His dad had the nerve to clap him on the back so hard the air rushed out of his lungs. “Don’t break your mother’s heart now.”
“I told her not to get her hopes up and not to get involved. She knows exactly what this is. It’s Sam that you should be nearly killing with your crazy back slaps,” Jesse squeezed out when he could get enough air into his lungs.
“Well, your mom isn’t taking no for an answer. She’s like a hungry wolf who has sensed blood and she’s going in for the kill.”
Jesse squeezed his eyes shut. “Thanks, dad. That’s a great analogy.”
His dad just shrugged, and Jesse didn’t like the look in his eyes, a cross between utter horror and something sheepish, like he was just there to keep his wife happy or he’d never hear the end of it.
“Welcome home, Syd,” his mom was saying, as she pulled away. She wasn’t just leaking joy out of her eyes now, she was damn well watering the lawn. Or, the sidewalk, as it was. “You can’t know how happy this makes me! I’ve waited years for this. Years!”
“I- er…” Sydney’s dark eyes flashed to him and the look there was absolutely murderous.
Her lips pulled into a thin line and the blush riding on her golden skin just above her finely carved cheekbones wasn’t there due to pleasure, he was pretty dang sure. She had a beautiful face. Always had. He never stood a chance when it came to her. She was pretty as a little girl and when she’d turned into a woman, god… it just wasn’t fair to the male species that she was blessed with that heart-shaped face, huge eyes, thick lashes, full lips, tiny perfect nose. She was five nine and for her height, she shouldn’t have been blessed with curves like she was or her boobs.
Jesus, those boobs.
They were practically staring him in the face like a set of headlights and he was the deer about to get smacked by the oncoming truck. God, that’s a terrible analogy. He couldn’t look away though, and her nipples were definitely staring him back. Those hard little points were having a standoff with her t-shirt. Or, more accurately, with him.
“I’ve been waiting ages for this!” His mom took Sydney’s hands in her own and chaffed them like it was cold out and not the middle of summer. “You have no idea how happy you’ve made me! All those nasty girls Jesse used to date, girls who were just with him for his money, girls who just wanted to get themselves knocked up with his baby so they’d be set for life-”
“Mom!” Jesse cut in. He was already moving forward before his mom could finish that sentence
He stalked down the length of the front yard, which was just grass. Immaculate grass, but not fancy fixture so far. He hadn’t exactly got around to ordering one like the rest of the neighbors on the block. He didn’t give two shits if he had trees or a flower garden in the place, a damn fountain with a water fixture, benches, a statue here and there, any of it. He’d just moved in three months ago and already the neighborhood was seriously grating on him.
Sydney’s face was a shade of red he’d never seen before. Her eyes swept to his face and he knew he was in for it the minute they got inside. She was never going to believe he hadn’t put his parents up to this. Showing up and guilting her into being with him over that status. He never should have blurted anything to his stupid brother who couldn’t keep his stupid fat mouth shut.
“Mom,” Jesse ground out. He smiled at his mother, as sweetly as he could, which was probably the equivalent of a mouse turning around and flipping off the bastard who had just screamed on finding it and smacked at it with a broom. “Seriously. We should go inside now. Sydney and I. Alone. Thanks for- erm- coming and all that, but we really need to talk.”
His mom’s eyes shone, and her bottom lip started going, trembling and puckering like he’d just told her she had three and a half seconds to live.
“But- but… honey, we’re so excited. Our babies, all grown up. I always knew this was right. You two together. You were the most adorable friends growing up and I knew one day it would turn into something else.”
“Mom!” I am seriously a dead man.
Sydney stood there, for the first time in ten years in front of him, right there, on his sidewalk, her mouth hanging open, just as dumbfounded as he was.
Jesse hedged, caught in between trying to save his balls, which were likely to be cut off by Sydney the second she got the chance, and between trying to keep his mother from having a nervous breakdown. She was cautiously optimistic, but he was something else entirely, considering he didn’t even know the woman standing before him anymore. She was little more than a stranger, ten years of distance and time between them.
“Oh, Jesus, I’m sorry, son.”
His dad had
somehow snuck up behind him and when he clapped him on the shoulder, he nearly jumped out of his skin.
Jesse had no idea what he was talking about until his mom brought both her hands up, swiped at her eyes, and gave him what could only be described as a purely evil smile. She’d sell her soul to the devil for a grandchild and he damn well knew it.
As the news van screeched to a halt right behind the SUV and a female reporter with the hugest, most flammable looking hair he’d ever seen, tumbled from the van, a camera guy close at hand, another scrambling for the mics and other equipment they needed, while a third going to battle with a huge camera and telephoto lens that was completely ridiculous given the bastard was standing a few feet away from them, set up on the sidewalk.
“Mr. Samson,” the female reporter with the big hair said. Ironically enough, was just about as tall as her, since she was all of five feet, petite, with a fire engine red pantsuit on, got straight down to work. “Tell us, who is your fiancé?”
“Fiancé?” He and Sydney spoke at the same time.
They shared a look and the feral gleam in her eyes said that he should most definitely be afraid of getting neutered the second they were safe in his house. He made a mental note to hide all forms of scissors and knives possible. He knew what Syd was capable of. She blinked that fringe of thick, dark lashes, ridiculously thick and insanely dark lashes, that said she knew what he was thinking and that she’d beat him to all pointy, sharp objects since she’d always been more athletic, and she knew it.
He knew it too and swallowed hard.
“We got an anonymous tip,” the red engine, blonde beehive went on while the cameras blinked in their faces.
Snap. Snap. Snap. The guy with the camera seriously wasn’t wasting any time.
“That you’re engaged now. Are we the first to break the story?”
“Er…” Jesse hated the media. Always had.
They printed stories up about the company, which in their founding days, was good, but he hated when the focus shifted to his personal life. He’d always viewed that as off limits. He seriously wished he had a lighter, just to hold it out and flick it and threaten the lady to back the hell off before he lit her hairdo sky high.
That’s mean. Seriously. What the heck am I doing standing here, thinking about lighting that lady’s hair on fire.
That was just the media. Always seemed to bring out the best in him.
His mom turned to the side, so Sydney couldn’t see her, and winked in his direction. He knew exactly who had tipped off the media. She tilted in, wrapped her arm around Sydney’s waist, and dragged her forward a step. Sydney was so shocked she couldn’t fight back. She nearly fell on her face, probably would have, if his mom didn’t have that hand steadying her. He also realized who gave his gate password away so that the damn van with the horrible roach reporters could get into the suburb in the first place.
“Here she is. Sydney Underhill. It’s a match made in heaven. Kept their romance a secret this whole time, even shocked us with it, but she’s here now. They’ve been friends since they were kids. It’s the perfect love story with the perfect happy ending.”
The words happy and ending received significant stress and Jesse winced.
He finally realized that Syd was too shell shocked to do anything. He had to, for once, be the one who saved her before everything went to shit in a handbasket and his entire world was a brown poo coated version of what could have been if Sydney was serious when she wrote that status. He wasn’t going to let anything ruin the one shot he might have.
Not even his mom and her insane version of matchmaking.
He practically felt her arrow shred his heart, but she was no Cupid and she was going to drive Syd away before he ever had a chance to get close to her.
Jesse acted fast, without thinking. He mumbled something that he didn’t even catch, stepped forward and shoved his hand into the recording camera’s lens, knocking it askew without causing any damage. While the leach on the other end cursed and tried to refocus his shot, he sidestepped his mom, wrapped his hand around Sydney’s wrist, gave the reporters a wave and Martin a pleading look, and ran, yes, ran, practically dragging Syd behind him until he thrust her through the front door and locked it behind him.
“What the actual fuck,” she panted, her voice dripping with barely restrained rage that echoed through the massive foyer.
Through the whole house really. It was a new construction and he’d moved in and barely got around to hiring someone to furnish the place. The walls were still stark, and the rooms were so huge that they dwarfed the few pieces of furniture he actually did have.
Yeah. That pretty much summed everything up. What the actual fuck had just happened out there?
CHAPTER 6
Sydney
Fudging pineapples, I’m hungover. It must be a new brand of hungover too, because Sydney had never experienced anything like it. Her boobs were sweating. Seriously. Her boobs. Her armpit area was soaked, and she was afraid to lift her arms because of the pancake sweaty marks that were probably hiding there like a darn snake in the grass, ready to spring on some unsuspecting individual and kill them with their grossness. She kept them glued to her body as she walked penguin style away from the foyer with the huge glassed-in modern looking closet and the beautiful tile work on the floor, ceiling, and wall, like only the trifecta will do for a house of this caliber.
In the damn entrance, for goodness sakes.
Without being asked or invited, because they were probably beyond that, she flopped down on a huge leather couch. It looked like it was imported from Italy. When she reached out and smoothed her palm over the fine leather, it definitely felt that way too.
Jesse slowly crept into the room like a shadowy thing from her nightmares.
Except things that went bump in the night didn’t look like Jesse.
All she could say, as her eyes took in the crisp white dress shirt with the rolled-up sleeves, and those black slacks and expensive shoes, was that Jesse had really grown up in the ten years since she’d seen him last. He’d always been a little on the thin side, the geeky side. Well, heck. He’d lost the glasses. Probably paid to have laser eye surgery. Lost the baggy hoodies and jeans that never fit well.
And god, those forearms. Strong. Muscular. Striated veins. Crisp dark hairs. Those forearms could be the death of her if she let them.
His face wasn’t any better. Seriously. It was damn murder material. He’d filled out a little in ten years and in a good way, like he hit the gym four hours a day, every single day, kind of way. His shoulders were broader than she remembered, his chest thicker, his waist just as trim, but his legs strong and muscular under those slacks. He looked more like his brother did when the guy was on the football team in high school. Athletic. Lean, but in a powerful sort of way. He reminded her of a predator, a mountain lion or something. Not that she’d ever seen one before, but in the pictures, they looked sleek and rippled with muscles. And they were beautiful.
Damn it! She didn’t want to notice that kind of thing about Jesse, but he had a nice face. He’d always had a nice face in a cute way, but now he had a nice face in a hot way too. In the chiseled cheekbones and jawline, piercing blue eyes, high forehead and proud nose kind of way. His hair was cut just right, shorter on the sides, slightly longer on top, but not in the hipster up-cut kind of way that every other person seemed to be getting. He looked fashionable. He looked expensive.
Obviously, the years had been good to him and it intimidated the hell out of her. It made her armpits sweatier and tied her stomach and her tongue in knots. What she wanted to say was that the whole thing was a mistake. That she never should have been farting around on there, not when she was drunk, not at all. She didn’t mean to send that stupid message and she was hungover as hell, her head hurt, her stomach felt like it could potentially eject its contents all over the shiny tile floor, and her patience was severely at an end after getting kidnapped by goddamn Jeeves, Alfred, whatever his name
was.
“Why is your underwear so fucking hot anyway? I don’t see why people would buy the shit. It’s probably grossly overpriced and made for like, five cents overseas.”
“That’s slightly racist.”
“Nothing racist about that statement. I’m just saying, it’s probably true.”
Jesse sighed as he sat down on the other end of the couch. He crossed his arms over a chest that shouldn’t be sexy, couldn’t be sexy, a chest of a guy she used to think of like a brother, and what do you know, the shirt gods must seriously be against her, because those buttons bulged and strained at all the wrong angles, exposing just a hint of bronzed skin below.
Annnnddddd cue the whole dry mouth thing.
Which was probably just a by-product of being hungover. It was definitely a by-product of being hungover.
Sydney swallowed convulsively as Jesse sighed again.
“It’s actually made right here in the US, which was part of the reason the company took off. People want to support local. Make local. We use sustainable resources like cotton, bamboo, and hemp.”
“Hemp? You use Mary-J to make your gotch?”
“First of all, hemp is a fiber. It has nothing to do with marijuana, really. Not in that way. Secondly, it’s strong and durable and has been used for centuries as a textile fiber. It’s a very smart product to use.”
“Still. What does your underwear do that everyone else’s don’t?”
“First of all, we believe in the fact that everyone should have access to sanitary products and that’s not a reality for a large portion of the world, so for every pair of underwear sold, we donate a pair to developing countries, where they are needed most. They eliminate the need for those products that aren’t readily available, or even if they are here, many women find it more convenient not to use them and it certainly goes a long way in helping the environment.”