by Maggie Wells
This time Jake laughed outright. Only Darla would dare call Harley Cade cheap. The fact that she lumped his partner, one of the Cooks Network’s biggest stars, in with the man most of Mobile thought had the Midas touch when she was proclaiming them skinflints was gravy.
“Now I’m a little afraid to taste it,” he admitted, poking at his food with the tines of his fork.
“I’d offer you some of my steak, but….” She let the thought trail away as if the impossibility of such a thing happening was a foregone conclusion.
He eyed the rapidly dwindling serving of grass-fed beef and chuckled. “There’s not enough. I understand.”
One finger lifted, then the others joined in, signaling for him to hold the thought while she finished the morsel she’d denied him. “And another thing.” She set her utensils aside. “The prices,” she hissed. She reached for her wine and her neckline gaped, completely undermining whatever outrage she was attempting to stir in him.
His focus zoomed in on the sweet curves the plunging neckline revealed and he was lost. “I wanted to kiss you.”
One dark brow arched as she set her glass down. “What? You did.”
“The other night, when I came over to help Grace,” he clarified, dragging his wayward gaze up as far as her plump pink lips before meeting her eyes straight on. “I should have kissed you again. Maybe if I had, I wouldn’t keep thinking about kissing you in your kitchen, and I could act like a semi-normal human being.”
“Only semi-normal?” Her gratifyingly breathless voice came soft, undercutting the hum of the bustling restaurant.
“Brian tells me semi is the best I can hope for most days.”
“I’m not sure he’s a reliable authority on normal.”
She delivered the insult to his brother with such frankness he couldn’t repress his grin. “He’s not, but most of the time I think about what he would do, then do the opposite.”
“And Brian would have kissed me?”
“I’d kill him if Brooke didn’t beat me to it.”
“Which leaves me wondering why you didn’t.”
Pushing his plate away, he reached across the table to capture her hand. “Because I don’t want to confuse things.”
She glanced down at his hand. “Seems to me we have more confusion than ever.”
“I’m torn,” he confessed, figuring he was better at firing with both boosters than wading in. “I don’t want the work I’m doing with Grace to be adversely impacted by my feelings for you.”
“Adversely impacted,” she murmured. “No, we don’t want that.”
“On the other hand, I can’t deny this…spark.” He ran the pad of his thumb over her knuckles, reveling in the feel of her silky-smooth skin against his and tried with all his might not to think about touching more of her. There. Then. In the middle of one of the Gulf Coast’s premiere hotspots. “I should have kissed you again,” he mused, almost to himself. “God, I wanted to.”
“You did?”
Emboldened by the prompt, he held her gaze. “Are you kidding? All I can think about is how delicious you tasted. How good you feel pressed against me. Your perfume.”
She wet her lips, sending his internal temperature shooting through the stratosphere. “My perfume?”
“I catch little hints of it every now and then.” He let his eyes drop to her cleavage. “Did you put some there?”
He was semi-hard from watching the hollow at the base of her throat bottom out as she swallowed hard. God, he wanted to taste her skin, dip his tongue into the vulnerable sweet spot, and breathe deep, imprinting her on his senses.
“Do you want me to tell you, or do you want to find out on your own?”
The air rushed from his lungs as he pondered the options. “Both.”
“You should have kissed me again,” she chided, slipping her hand from under his.
“I want to.”
Hope and fear mingled in his gut as she slid a finger under the thin chain of the handbag she’d hooked over the back of her chair.
“Where are you going?” he asked as she rose from her seat in one fluid motion, treating him to a better view down the front of her dress before she straightened.
“I’m going to powder my nose.” She took two steps, then glanced back over her shoulder. “I’ll meet you up front.”
“Are you done?”
Darla spared the scraps of overpriced beef left on her plate a glance and favored him with a slow smile. “I’m done with dinner, but I’m very much looking forward to dessert.”
He sat still, mesmerized by the not-at-all subtle sway of her hips as she walked away. The second she disappeared from view, he yanked his wallet from his pocket, tossed cash to cover four meals on the table, and shot out of his chair so fast it fell back on the varnished plank floors with a jarring clatter. Their fellow diners looked up in surprise, but Jake couldn’t spare a moment to be embarrassed. He had a beautiful woman counting on him to provide dessert, and he meant to deliver.
Righting the chair, he nodded a brusque apology to the diners at the next table and took off toward the door. An older man waited at the valet stand. Jake tapped his foot and peeked over his shoulder, running his thumbnail along the edge of his claim ticket as a pearly-white Cadillac glided to the curb in front of the restaurant. The gentleman ahead of him waved to a much younger woman in the bar area, then held the door open wide as a signal to her to cut her flirtation with the bartender short and get a move on. Clearly oblivious to her escort’s impatience, the woman made a point of sauntering to the door, her eyes fixed on Jake.
She slid him a sidelong smile as she passed, then turned her attention to her escort, murmuring, “My, everyone’s in a hurry tonight,” in a husky drawl.
The valet’s cheeks reddened as he took the ticket Jake thrust at him. He turned to the rack of tagged keys muttering, “No kidding.”
“Sorry,” Jake called after the kid as he rushed out the door.
He felt a small hand land on his arm and turned to find Darla smiling up at him. “What are you sorry for now?”
“Nothing,” Jake answered quickly.
“You say that a lot, you know.”
“What?”
“You’re sorry.” Her lashes lowered and she peered up at him from under the thick fringe. “Are you really?”
“Sometimes,” he answered truthfully. “Most of the time, I just don’t know what else to say.”
Her smile faltered the tiniest bit, letting him know she wasn’t exactly sure what to say or do next.
His honesty made her uncomfortable, and for that, he truly was—“Sorry.”
Darla wet her lips. “Well, uh, I prefer my apologies on the sincere side.”
“I’m not the least bit sorry I was looking down your dress.” The words came out before he could think too hard about them. When she looked up at him, those big brown eyes wide with shock but warming by the second, he decided to own them. “I know it’s rude to stare, but I can’t help it. You look so pretty in that dress.”
“Keep talking like that, and you might get to see me out of it.”
“Please, God.”
Something about his fervent prayer tickled her. Throwing her head back, she laughed out loud. And he’d be damned if her laugh wasn’t the best sound ever. Full and throaty, her laugh had a rasp that shot straight to a man’s crotch and grabbed him by the balls.
“I’m not kidding. I know I’m supposed to play it cool and act like I don’t care one way or another, but I do.” Staring straight into her eyes, he ran his thumb over the curve of her cheekbone, then came completely clean with her. “I want you, Darla.”
The door opened and a blast of warm, damp wind ruffled her dark curls, but he didn’t move. Couldn’t. Not until she gave him the go/no-go.
“Sir? Your car?”
Frustration surged through him. Darla held his gaze but remained silent. The urge to breathe fire at the kid holding the door
open wide burned with the ferocity of a solid rocket booster, but Darla slid her hand down his arm and into his before his temper could fully ignite. Dainty fingers closed around his. Her palm was soft and reassuringly damp. Without sparing the impatient valet a look, he pulled her hand to his mouth and brushed a kiss across her knuckles.
Darla tipped her head to the side as if one thoughtless little gesture was a game-changer of some kind. At last, she raised her eyebrows and said, “Come on, we’re a go.”
Chapter 7
The realization of what was about to happen between them sent a jolt down Darla’s spine. She studied Jake’s profile as he turned into the parking lot of his bayside condo. Here, on his turf, all of his antsy awkwardness seemed to dissipate. In fact, the man looked positively placid. If it weren’t for the tiny muscle jumping in the corner of his jaw, she’d think he was the epitome of cool.
Thank goodness for the little tell.
The chink in his otherwise unruffled exterior kept her from melting down with mortification. She’d been the one to up the ante. She couldn’t really blame the guy for calling her bluff.
But this wasn’t a bluff. She wanted him every bit as much as he wanted her. She wanted wild monkey sex. Been a while since she’d had anything approaching more than what she’d classify as the somewhat excitable squirrel variety, and damn if she wasn’t aching to swing from the tree limbs. Even if only for one night.
Darla’s train of thought completely derailed when Jake pulled to a stop directly in front of the one warehouse building that had been completely renovated. Suddenly, she found it impossible to look directly at him. Instead, she stared holes in the faux-rock facade flanking the building’s main entrance. She was a mother, for cripes’ sake. The mother of a teenage girl, no less. She should be setting a better example than this. Not that Gracie knew she was thinking about having hot monkey sex with her nerd god mentor. They were close, but Darla believed some boundaries were preordained by the laws of nature. No child should ever have to contemplate her mother’s sex life. Ever.
“Are you okay?”
His voice was soft and deep. A rich, mellow baritone any voice-over announcer would be proud to claim. But no. This man was made for telling other people’s stories. He had too much of his own to share, too much to discover, to spend his life speaking other people’s lines. She closed her eyes, envisioning him standing at a lectern dressed in a tweedy sport coat with elbow patches. Almost, but not quite. The image shifted and merged with memory. Jake with the sleeves of his blue oxford cloth shirt rolled up to his elbows and his head bent over a book. A textbook. Instead of a roomful of co-eds hanging on his every word, there was only Grace. Her perfect little girl, whose dreams hinged on this man’s help.
“You can’t…” She sputtered, then stopped. “I don’t want….”
Once again, she let the thought drift as she groped for exactly the right thing to say. Saying how she wanted things to be shouldn’t be this hard. She’d been the one calling the shots for almost fourteen years. Coming up with a few more rules in a life already governed by a myriad of self-imposed do’s and don’ts shouldn’t be this much of a challenge. But it was. How the hell was a woman supposed to engage in a steamy affair if she had to set guidelines first?
“I can take you home.”
The soft-spoken offer slipped into her scrambling thoughts. “What? No.”
Jake killed the engine, unclipped his seatbelt, then turned to face her. The expression on his handsome face was achingly sincere. “Darla, I didn’t expect to sleep with you tonight.”
Bless his ever-lovin’ heart, the man’s voice actually broke. The telltale creak alone almost landed him a lapful of lady, but he didn’t give her a chance to make good on her lascivious intentions.
“I wanted to spend some time with you.”
Her scoff was reflexive. She turned on him, falling back on the old offense as defense bit. “Spend some time looking at my tits, you mean.”
His jaw tightened and a flush crept up past the collar of his shirt. “No, I asked you to have dinner with me. I did not choose your outfit for the occasion.”
Instant regret twinged her heart, and the crisp, sharp edges of his words bit into her skin. “No,” she admitted in a whisper.
“And I apologized for staring. I know I was rude—”
“Jake—”
“But I never did or said anything to make you think there would be some kind of quid pro quo expected—”
“Points for vocabulary words,” she interjected.
“For anything,” he continued, undaunted. “I am not helping Grace to get to you, and I never even implied I expected this evening to result in anything of a sexual nature.”
“God, you’re hot when you get all stiff and starchy.” Darla clamped a hand over her mouth, her cheeks bursting into flames as she stared at him wide-eyed. “I did not mean to say that out loud.”
He stared at her for a moment, his gorgeous mouth slightly agape, then sighed his defeat. Clasping the top of the steering wheel, he dropped his forehead to his knuckles, muttering things about never understanding women and something about blood loss. When he didn’t move for a full minute, she reached over and placed a tentative hand on his shoulder.
“My turn to apologize.”
He shot her sidelong glance. “Is this a trap?”
His wary response coaxed a rueful laugh from her. Raising her right hand, she tilted her head down to look him in the eye. “I swear, no trap.” Heaving a sigh, she lowered her hand to her lap and curled her fingers into a loose fist. “I need things to be clear between us.”
“Clear?” He barked a laugh and turned his face to his hands once more. “Clear as a friggin’ nebula.”
She grinned, his lapse into geek speak putting her more at ease. “I’ll pretend that means something good and blow right past.”
“Please do.”
The retort earned him a self-deprecating chuckle. “So polite. Even when a woman dangles the prospect of sex in front of you, then yanks it away.”
Jake inhaled deeply then fell back in his seat. He gave his neck a tired roll and reached for the ignition. “Yep. That’s me. Two more miracles and they make me a saint.”
A surge of panic clogged her throat as the engine purred to life. Unable to manage more than an unintelligible cry, she grabbed his hand before he could reach for the gear shift. Their eyes met and held, hers searing hot with the threat of tears, his dark and dejected. “No. Don’t.”
He stared at her, his usually expressive face disturbingly blank. “Darla, I didn’t really eat, and spent most of my day having impure thoughts, so my brain’s a little muddled. I’m trying real hard to be a good guy here, but I’m really about done with the mixed signals, okay?”
“No more mixed signals,” she promised in a rush.
They sat there, the two of them suspended in some kind of bubble made out of want and confusion. “What do you want me to do?” he asked at last.
“I don’t want you to take me home.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Biting her bottom lip, she turned her hand over and pressed her palm to his. “I want this. You. But I need to make sure we understand each other first.”
“I have to say, we’re not off to a good start on that score.”
She conceded the point with a weak smile, then gave his hand a gentle squeeze. “No, but let me give it another shot.” Pulling their clasped hands into her lap, she took a steeling breath. “What you said before, about you and me being separate from Grace? My life is complicated. You see, Gracie and I, we’re a team.” She raised a shoulder in a helpless shrug. “She’s the most important person in the world to me.”
“Any idiot with eyes can see that.”
“Right, but that fact hasn’t always sat well with some of the idiots I’ve dated.”
“Darla, I knew you before you had a kid.”
“Yes, but not really.”
She flashed a wan smile. “I mean, yeah, we knew each other, but not like we do now, and definitely not like we’re about to know each other.”
The exaggerated leer she added at the end might have been overkill, but it was hard to tell with a guy like Jake. Steel trap mind or not, pinpointing the bits he might cue was challenging to say the least. Thankfully, he rolled his eyes to let her know the added emphasis wasn’t needed.
“What I’m trying to tell you is I learned a long time ago not to mix the two.” The befuddled frown came back, and she hastened to clarify. “Gracie and the guys I date. If we do this, you and I, our…thing has to be even more separate from you and Grace than I think you’re thinking.”
“Two post-graduate degrees and I’m having a hard time unraveling this chain of logic,” he murmured, searching her eyes. “Can you tell me what I need to know?”
“What I was trying to tell you earlier.” Darla released his hand. “My life is very complicated. I like to keep this part simple. Very simple. No strings. No promises. We don’t have to waste our time together trying to do date-y things because, trust me, we’re not going to have a lot of time alone together.”
The crevice between his brows deepened. “Are you saying you want this to be about sex?”
“I’m saying mapping out our expectations up front will probably be better for everyone. That way, we start out on the same page.”
“The just-sex page.”
“I don’t see any reason to confuse things. You said you want me. I want you, too. If we agree we won’t be taking my daughter miniature golfing or having sleepovers at my house, this will be simpler. Even if she isn’t there. That’s Grace’s space, and I can’t risk her getting hurt.”
“And you automatically assume I’ll hurt her?”
His voice was flat and dull, all richness lost. The hollowness in his tone made her heart ache, but she was no stranger to that particular malady. Her heart had been bruised, battered and broken by the people she should have been able to trust most. She’d survived worse. She could survive the loss of Jake Dalton when all was said and done.
Dropping her own voice to a whisper, she touched his arm gently. “I know you wouldn’t mean to, Jake, but it’s possible. Please understand, I’m not saying this to upset you or implying you’re anything less than a stand-up guy. I have to protect Gracie. She’s all I have.”