by Cathryn Fox
Lila gave a mock shiver. “Jeez, that guy sets my body ablaze with just a simple look.” She grinned and arched a playful brow. “Do you think he does house calls for that kind of fire?”
“No, and you should stay away from him.” Vic’s stern voice caught Josie off guard and had her wondering what it was about Adam Collins that riled her friend so much. Adam might be a playboy, but she also knew he was a nice guy, even though he hadn’t spoken to her since she’d returned home from college earlier that year and started teaching at the local elementary school.
“Oh, why’s that?” Lila asked.
“Because you’re a nice girl and he’s hell-bent on staying single,” Vic added.
“Who says I’m looking for anything more?” Lila shot them all a wicked grin and continued, “I mean, come on. Sometimes nice girls just have to have really good, down-and-dirty sex too, you know.”
Josie laughed and shook her head, unable to deny that. Not that she’d ever experienced really good, down-and-dirty sex before, considering she’d only slept with one guy in her entire twenty-six years. He’d been a gentle lover, considerate enough, she supposed. The fact that he’d never once brought her to orgasm in the three years they dated back in college, however, did have her thinking she might be flawed in some way.
Lack of orgasms aside, Josie also knew that the fire was missing from their relationship. Plus, he’d never once attempted to tap into or satisfy any of her secret fetishes. Not that she’d ever had the nerve to tell him what they were, or anyone else for that matter. Heck, she doubted she’d even tell J.A.D. about all the scintillating things she’d love to experience. After all, she didn’t want anyone to think she was some sort of sexual deviant. But she couldn’t help it that she found the idea of having sex outdoors with the chance of getting caught, or having her lover spank her, utterly exciting. Just considering it now had blood rushing through her veins and her body hungering for so much more. She clamped her thighs together as her mind drifted in an erotic direction.
Okay, so she might not be a one-night kind of girl, but if Mr. Right didn’t soon appear and help soothe her aching libido, she just might have to rethink her lifestyle choices, because the truth was, she’d gone without sex far too long and was in desperate need of a man’s intimate touch—whether he could bring her to orgasm or not.
After Lila turned her attention to the table beside them, Tabby and Vic leaned forward, and from the conspiratorial looks on their pretty faces, Josie braced herself for an inquisition.
Tabby lowered her voice. “So,” she said, “since there are no signs of any man with the initials J.A.D., do you think you should forget about what Madame M said and start dating the local men from Whispering Cove?”
Josie grabbed a French fry and dipped it into the ketchup. “The only problem with that idea, Tabby, is that you gals just snagged the last two decent men in town.”
With that they both smiled, then Vic said, “Okay, so who says you have to date a decent man?”
Josie jabbed her thumb into her chest. “Uh, I do.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Josie asked, dumfounded by the question. Her friends knew her well enough to know that she wasn’t about to settle for anyone less than her perfect mate. “Because I want a nice respectable guy and don’t want to end up married to an indecent man.”
“Who says you have to end up with him?” Tabby asked.
A mischievous look came over Vic’s face. “Indecent men do have benefits too, you know.”
“Oh really, Vic, and how, pray tell, do you know this?”
Vic pointed a finger and redirected the conversation. “This is about you, remember.”
“Okay, fine, so what are you getting at?” Josie asked, deciding to humor her friends.
“Well, while you’re waiting for Mr. Decent to come along, why not have some fun with Mr. Indecent?”
Josie’s eyes opened wide. “What exactly are you suggesting?”
“I’m suggesting that you need to get out and have an orgasm or two. Look at you. You’re all tense and stressed out about finding this guy with the initials J.A.D. While you’re waiting for him to come along, why not have some fun? Like Lila said, sometimes nice girls just have to have really good, down-and-dirty sex, too.”
Shocked at her friend’s scandalous suggestion, but unable to deny that her body was aching for the erotic touch of a man, she asked, “And exactly who do you think I should have this fun with?”
“How about with someone who is always up for a good time? Someone who isn’t going to go all serious on you and want more than you can give him?”
“Okay, I’m listening.”
Victoria pointed a finger and Josie followed the direction. “How about someone like him?”
“Adam Collins!” Josie blurted out.
“Yeah, why not?”
“Ah, didn’t you just warn Lila to stay away from him?”
“That’s because they’re all wrong for each other.”
Josie’s head jerked back. “Oh, and you think we’re right for each other.”
“I didn’t exactly say that.”
“Then what exactly are you saying?”
“That he’s the perfect guy to help you pass the time until Mr. Right comes along.”
Josie let her glance wander to Adam as he made his way across the fairgrounds. Oh yeah, he was perfect all right. From his thick hair, his sun-kissed skin, his lean, fit body and size-twelve shoe, the man had perfect written all over him. Perfect trouble, that was.
She swallowed and asked, “What makes you think Adam Collins is the perfect guy for the job?”
“Because you’re sweet, Josie. The kind of nice girl that respectable guys want to marry and bring home to their mothers.”
Josie rolled her eyes. “And where might I find these respectable guys?”
“With Adam you can have a little fun and not risk him falling for you or making things awkward while you wait for Mr. Right.”
Josie took another long pull from her straw, trying to wrap her brain around the idea of her and Adam Collins—together in bed. But when she realized it wasn’t all that difficult to imagine, she swallowed hard and said, “Vic, I don’t know how you come up with this stuff.”
Vic’s eyes widened. “So you think it’s a good idea then?”
“No, I don’t. Besides, Adam has never even given me a second glance. At least not since I’ve returned from college.”
Tabby arched a perfectly manicured brow and questioned, “Oh, so you’ve noticed him not noticing you then, have you?”
She took a moment to think about Adam, about how his rich, earthy smell reached her nostrils and brought on a shiver when she’d walked past him earlier. Thought about how athletic and sexy he looked standing there outside the sultan’s tent, hands jammed deep in his pockets and pulling his jeans low to expose tight, oblique muscles—muscles Josie would love to run her hands along, as well as her tongue.
As heat moved into her stomach, she gulped air and wondered what the hell she was doing. She shouldn’t be fantasizing about Adam. She should be concentrating on finding her Mr. Right, because everything about the hot, sexy man who undoubtedly knew his way around a woman’s body screamed wrong, with a capital W.
When she realized her friends were waiting for an answer, she blew out a breath and said, “Come on, Tabby. He’s a little impossible not to notice, don’t you think?”
Tabby sat back in her chair. “So then why don’t you go for it?”
“Because whenever he sees me coming, he goes the other way. Clearly I’m not his type. I’m a kindergarten teacher looking for everlasting love. He’s a playboy looking for lust, and the kind of girls he goes out with are brazen women, women who are only in it for the sex.”
“And that’s the only reason you’d be in it too, Josie.”
As Josie’s body quivered in sensual delight, she bit her lip as thoughts of sex with Adam pinged around inside her brain. Her skin flushed, her sex
ached and everything inside her urged her to go for it, to have a little fun with the town’s playboy until her future husband came along. As a tremor raced through her blood, her pussy fluttered in anticipation and she took a moment to think about what it would take to gain his attention, to get him to finally notice her.
Dear God, she couldn’t believe she was actually thinking about it, thinking about having a scandalous affair with Adam Collins.
“So you’re going to go for it then?” Vic asked.
“No. Never. And this conversation is over,” Josie announced, slamming her palms on the table. But the truth was, now that the two had planted that outrageous idea in her head, it was all she could do to keep her salacious gaze from straying to Adam, Whispering Cove’s most eligible bachelor—a man who, according to his reputation, knew how to light a fire in a woman, and, more importantly, knew how to tamp said fire out.
Maybe he really was the guy who could get the job done.
Good Lord, what was she doing? She really, really shouldn’t be thinking about Adam like this, thinking about how perfect his hard body was, how his raw sexuality reached out to her and stimulated her body like a lover’s caress, or how that sensuous mouth of his would feel on her flesh, between her legs.
Then again, she was growing tired of waiting for J.A.D. to come along and maybe, just maybe, a little afternoon delight with a hot guy like Adam, a man who was anything but a one-woman kind of guy, was exactly what she needed to help her pass the time, soothe her raging libido and get her through the lonely, cold nights ahead.
Chapter Three
By the time Adam settled himself into the kissing booth, the sun had set and a multitude of brightly colored lights lit up the downtown core, providing enough illumination for the townsfolk to easily stroll along the sidewalks and partake in the nighttime activities.
The children’s festivities had shut down hours ago, and the closed-off streets were now filled with adults, many of whom were hanging out at the beer tent, or getting the life scared out of them over at Hauk’s haunted bar down on the waterfront.
Since Adam was always up for a good scare, he thought he might venture on over there later, after his firefighter demonstration in Town Square. He glanced up to see the line of women forming on the street, all eager to trade a dollar for a kiss. Adam grinned, thinking the kissing booth trumped the psychic booth any day, but then a darker, more serious thought wiped the smile from his face.
As his best bud Trent, who was in charge of crowd control, went to work on getting the ladies to form a straight line before he opened the booth for business, Adam took a quick moment to consider what Madame M had told him. That he’d fall in love with a woman with the initials J.C.W., and find true happiness.
True happiness, his ass!
Clearly the woman knew nothing about his fate, or the undeniable fact that he had his father’s blood running through his veins. Adam’s father—like his father before him, and his father before him—had never been faithful a day in his life, even when he was married. Eventually he’d up and left his wife and two sons, skipping town with a young waitress from the Seafarer. Adam heard rumors that he’d stayed with her for a little over a year before he moved on to something shinier. Sadly enough, there hadn’t been a Collins man yet to break the pattern.
With the Collins curse handed down from one generation to the next, no one in the small town of Whispering Cove expected Adam or Jacob to be any different—including their own mother—and so far both he and his brother had lived up to those expectations.
As far as Adam was concerned, Madame M had simply pulled the initial J.C.W. out of thin air, because he clearly had the inability to fall in love or commit for any length of time, which in his books meant true happiness.
Despite knowing that, he wasn’t sure why that so-called psychic’s prediction had bothered him so much. Like he’d told Errol, he didn’t believe the woman had any spiritual abilities anyway. Then again, perhaps it was simply because it hit too close to home, and she was suggesting he could have the one thing he knew he couldn’t.
Honestly, he just needed to put her ridiculous prediction behind him and remind himself that she had no idea what she was talking about. Although he couldn’t deny that she did seem to know the nickname his father used to call him before he’d skipped town some fifteen years ago. But Adam had always been athletic—joining every sport going. Everyone knew that about him, and a lot of fathers called their sons “sport”, right?
“Hey, Adam.” The sound of Cheri’s voice pulled his focus, and when he glanced at her and noted the pair of dark, sultry eyes looking him over with genuine interest, it helped lighten his mood and bring his attention back around to the task at hand.
“Cheri,” he greeted, as she sat down in the chair on the other side of the small booth.
She slid her dollar across the table, and from the way she was looking at him, Adam could tell she was interested in a lot more than a simple kiss.
Puckering her lips, she purred like a kitten and said, “This is just to whet your appetite, baby.” She leaned forward, her mouth only inches from his. “Then later, when you’re done here, we can really get down to business because I have a pussy in need of a fireman’s attention.” With that she planted her perfectly painted lips on his.
Adam had kissed Cheri before, and while he thought she was a great kisser, very hot and passionate, this time he felt nothing as her soft lips pressed against his, nor did her sexy little game of firefighter rescuing the kitty excite him either. There was no doubt that she was putting her best efforts forward, but Adam just couldn’t muster up the enthusiasm to give her anything more than a small peck.
Madame M and her asinine prediction clearly rattled him more than he cared to admit.
He began to inch away, but before he could break contact, Cheri gripped his T-shirt to prevent him from moving, and tried to slip her tongue into his mouth. That’s when Trent broke things up.
“Next,” he called out, grinning at Adam as he tapped Cheri on the shoulder.
Adam sat back and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Jesus, that woman was so bold. So brazen. So like the girls he always went for. Which begged the question, why was he suddenly so disinterested?
She gave him a wink and said, “Later, Adam,” before she disappeared.
“Something bothering you?” Trent asked as he leaned against the booth and crossed his legs at the ankles.
“Nope.”
“Cheri looked like she wanted to eat you alive and you seemed a little…distracted.”
“Everything is fine,” he assured Trent, but the dubious look on his friend’s face made it perfectly clear that he wasn’t convincing.
Before he had a chance to press, Adam said, “If we want to make our firefighter demonstration, we’d better get this show on the road.”
Shaking his head, Trent gestured for another woman to have a seat. Then before Adam knew it, the night had slipped by, and over the course of the last few hours he’d kissed so many women he’d lost track of the count.
But no matter how many pretty ladies had planted their mouths on his, and no matter how many had openly invited him back to their place, he still couldn’t get enthused. Finally, after giving his last kiss of the night, he dipped his head to see the stack of money in the box at his feet, pleased to see how much he’d raised for the community center.
He was just about to shout to Trent, who was chatting quietly with Katy, to tell him to close up so he could do a count, when another woman dropped down into the seat across from him. Adam lifted his head to see who it was, and opened his mouth to inform her that his shift was over, but when he caught sight of the beautiful girl sitting across from him, the world around him tilted on its axis and his stomach punched into his throat.
“Adam,” Josie greeted, those big blue eyes of hers staring at him as her mouth turned up in a warm, inviting smile—the same breath-robbing smile she’d given him earlier that day.
; “What…what are you doing?” he finally managed to ask once he regained control of his voice.
She casually rolled one shoulder, and slid her dollar across the counter. “Like you, I’m just doing my part to raise money for the new community center.”
“Oh,” he said, and wet his lips. “I guess I just didn’t expect…”
She gave him an easy, playful grin, and everything in the way she looked at him had his body reacting with heated need. His glance raced over her face, taking in her big eyes, full, lush mouth and long blonde hair. Christ, she looked so gorgeous and sensual that it had his cock tightening to the point of pain. He shifted, uncomfortable, as his body reacted to her closeness, not to mention what that sweet jasmine scent of hers was doing to him. As his blood went from simmer to inferno, he cleared his throat and tried to relax.
“Didn’t expect what?” she asked with bright-eyed innocence, except beneath that innocence he thought he spotted something else. Something that looked like desire. White-hot desire, that was. For him.
Oh fuck!
“I don’t know.” Flustered, he raked his hair off his forehead. “Never mind.”
Her mouth curved. “Shall we get on with it then?” Josie asked, her voice playful, teasing, as she leaned forward to poise her mouth open. With the top two buttons on her dress undone, her actions gave him a perfect, unobstructed view of her cleavage. Adam tried not to stare. He really did. But he was a guy, for Christ’s sake!
And a pathetic one at that.
When she toyed with the third button on her dress, Adam nearly swallowed his tongue. With his mouth salivating worse than his brother’s Saint Bernard on a hot summer day, he briefly pinched his eyes shut and worked to get his thoughts focused. But how the hell was he supposed to keep a calm demeanor when Josie, the sweet girl who’d invaded his fantasies for as long as he could remember—a girl who suddenly seemed to be coming on strong—was waiting for him to kiss her?