Why had his cart looked like he was a contestant on Supermarket Sweep? Because he didn’t know what kind of food Jessie liked. His plan was crumbling already.
“Yoo hoo down there. Hello, handsome!”
Zach heard a high-pitched, female version of a catcall ring out above him. Tilting his head back, he saw Margie’s head sticking out of the top-floor window. He couldn’t tell what color track suit she was wearing today, but he would bet she was wearing one. He did see that she had what looked like hundreds of tiny, pink rollers stuck to her head.
“Hey, Margie. How are you doing today?” he asked. A friendly smile spread across his face as he paused in front of the stoop.
“Much better now.” She waved with a wink. “A little man-candy always brightens my day.” She then wiggled her fingers as she singsonged, “Tootle-loo, hot stuff,” before disappearing inside and shutting the window.
Zach laughed as he headed up the concrete steps to the front door. Entertaining. That was what the M&M sisters were.
After opening the door, Zach noticed that Jessie’s keys were not in the key hook that was shaped like a large old-fashioned key, which Jessie had hung the day she moved in. Moving through the house to the back of the kitchen, Zach looked around at all of the little touches Jessie had added to the décor. They were tasteful. Every piece added character and was not overly feminine or masculine.
Besides the key, she’d also placed several large vases with different-colored, tall, decorative sticks arranged in them as well as some plants, artwork, and his favorite addition—a new couch. It was brown suede, L-shaped, and more comfortable than any couch he’d ever sat on in his life.
Thankfully, Margie and Mabel had been more than happy to take back the green couch he’d spent a fitful night of sleep on during the first night here. When he’d taken it upstairs with Jessie’s cousin Alex, Margie had said that there were a lot of “good memories” on that couch. Alex had looked at him with his eyebrows raised, and Zach knew that Alex was thinking the same thing that was running through his own mind—that that couch had seen its share of freakiness. That had made him wish he would have put a sheet down before spending the night on it. Hindsight was always twenty-twenty.
He set the grocery bags down on the kitchen counter and saw that the laundry schedule was written on Post-it notes that were stuck on a corkboard calendar—another one of Jessie’s contributions to the place. Everything she’d added had made the brownstone feel more and more like a home.
While unpacking the groceries, he noticed that, over the last few days, she must have gotten new dishes. Behind the glass cabinet doors, there were bright ceramic plates, cups, and bowls. They were displayed like they belonged in a storefront window. Zach never would have picked out those dishes himself, but he liked them. A lot. Just like he felt about the person who had picked them out.
After putting the groceries away and prepping the chicken, Zach decided to go take a quick shower. He didn’t want to cook with the clothes he’d worked out in all day at the gym. He took the stairs two at a time, and when he reached the top, his eyes automatically turned down the hall to Jessie’s room. Her door was half open, and all he could see were her bed and a chair that sat in the corner.
He had zero reason to go into Jessie’s room other than the burning desire to see the space. Not a good enough reason, he admonished himself. Turning towards his end of the hall, Zach roughly pulled off his hoodie in frustration. He felt more like a little kid with a crush than a grown-ass man, and it was really starting to piss him off.
Once he’d stripped down, he grabbed a towel and stalked back down the hall to his bathroom, intentionally not looking in the direction of Jessie’s room. After closing the door behind him, he reached in and turned the nozzle as far as it would go in the direction of the ‘H’.
He knew that common logic stated that when a man was overheated, he needed a cold shower. Zach had always found that, although a cold shower definitely took care of unwanted hard-ons, they left him irritable and tense. Whereas steamy, hot showers had the same effect below the belt as cold ones and they left him with a much more calm and relaxed feeling.
Needless to say, he’d been using his fair share of the hot water in the few days he’d lived here.
Stepping underneath the hot water streaming from the showerhead, Zach let his head fall forward so the pulsing spray could massage the tight muscles in his neck. No sleep plus extra hours in the gym had left his body feeling more than a little sore. The massage he’d had the other day had helped some, but not as much as he’d hoped. Billy had been in his ear the entire time, going on and on about Jessie.
Zach wished he knew why he was feeling as strongly as he was about this girl. He also wished that he had someone he could talk to about it. For a moment, he’d almost confided in his friend, but he knew that, if he did, he wouldn’t hear the end of it. He could talk to Lloyd, who he loved like a father—or at least how he thought someone would love a father. Since Zach’s father had taken off when he was two, he didn’t actually have any frame of reference to base his comparison on. He’d only seen his father once as an adult.
Two days after Zach’s first Pay-Per-View fight, Doug Francis had walked into Gianni’s like he owned the place. Zach had only known who he was because, the year before, he’d used some money he’d made (the easy way) to hire a P.I. to track him down. The private investigator didn’t have to look far. Doug lived in Chicago. In fact, until he was ten, Zach had lived with his mom and grandparents just six blocks away from his dad. After his grandparents passed, he and his mom had moved across town, but in Zach’s mind, that still didn’t give him a pass for never showing up.
Zach could still remember the feeling he’d had from seeing the man he’d only seen in pictures. He’d felt paralyzed.
When their eyes locked, his dad got a smug grin on his face as he said in a condescending tone, “Well, son, you didn’t turn out to be the loser I thought you would be after all.”
At hearing those words come out of the man who had abandoned not only him, but his mother as well, the man who had gone on to get married and have two more kids (who Zach guessed were his half brother and sister) he had stuck around to raise, Zach was filled with more rage than he’d known he was capable of feeling.
He jumped through the ropes and was on top of his dad before Lloyd, Charlie, or Billy could do anything about it. Before the three men pulled him away, he’d been able to land two good punches.
To this day, those were the two punches Zach knew he’d remember until the day he died. Not punches that had made him money. Not punches that had garnered him a belt. The feeling of his fist breaking his father’s arrogant nose and jaw, were the two that counted.
As Zach stood beneath the heated water and washed his body, he could still see the bright red blood dripping down his father’s nose as he screamed that he was going to call the police, have Zach arrested for assault, and sue him for every dime he had.
In that moment, Zach didn’t give a shit if he went to jail. To him, it had been worth it. Lloyd had followed his dad outside, and to this day, he didn’t know what his trainer had said to Doug Francis, but Zach never heard from the man again.
Zach’s foot was stepping on the white towel he’d laid on the floor as a mat when he heard the bathroom door shake. Whenever a door shut on the second floor, all the other doors on that floor would shake.
Jessie’s home.
* * *
Calm down. Jessie told her heart, her hormones, her pulse, and every other part of her body that was racing because not only was Zach home, he was in the shower. As she walked up the stairs, she saw steam escaping from beneath the door, causing her fingers to tighten their grip around the handle of her white plastic laundry basket. A shiver ran up her spine as she passed the door; she knew Zach’s naked body was behind it so she picked up her pace, practically running into the safety of her bedroom.
A vision of water streaming down Zach’s muscular chest and
rippled abs, flashed in her mind as she shut the door to her room. Okay, not the mental image she should have been having if she wanted to comply with her own ‘calm down’ directive. Her heart beat quickly in her chest as she leaned back against the solid wood of the door and tried to slow her racing pulse.
Frustration at her body’s total and complete betrayal of her self-imposed objective, bubbled up inside of her. She tried to reason with herself that it wasn’t totally her fault that her body was clearly experiencing sensory overload.
Jessie had expected to come home this evening to an empty house and hadn’t been mentally prepared for Zach to be here. This was the first night he’d been home since their Italian dinner.
On Sunday and Monday, she really prepared herself to see him. Pep talk and all. On the train ride home from her office, she worked hard to build up her resistance to Zach and all of his charms. For the last three nights, she’d been ready, barriers of resistance in place, to see his Greek-God-like physique, hear his sexy voice, and smell his intoxicating scent. But she’d come home to an empty house, gone to sleep, and woken up to the same thing.
Jessie had no idea what kind of schedule he kept. For all she knew, he was home during the day when she was at work and then left at night. He was a fighter. She really doubted that was a nine-to-five—or in her case, eight-to-seven—type of a job.
The only reason she knew that he had been home at all was because every morning she’d come downstairs to a freshly brewed pot of coffee. Which, in her book, equaled heaven. Since she’d started drinking coffee freshman year in college, no matter where she lived, she’d always been the first one up in the morning. That meant that, if she wanted coffee, either she made it or she bought it. As much as she was trying not to get used to the luxury of a freshly brewed pot waiting for her, she knew that, the first day it wasn’t there, she would miss it. Badly.
After pushing off the door, Jessie dumped her clothes on the bed and began folding her t-shirts, jeans, and sweats. It was Wednesday. Her ‘laundry day’.
She’d hung up her specialty bras and panties on the clothesline downstairs in the basement. After she clipped the last clothespin holding an off-white lace bra in place, she’d taken a quick photo of it on her phone and sent it to her sister Haley. Not solely because she thought she’d get a kick out of the old-fashioned clothesline, since her older sister was just a little bit obsessed with antiques, but also because all the lingerie hanging on the line had been designed by Haley and she knew her sister would be happy to know that Jessie was wearing them.
Haley knew that, if Jessie didn’t like them, sister or not, she wouldn’t wear them. She would buy them—of course—to support her sister, but no way was she going to be uncomfortable out of some kind of misplaced loyalty. Luckily, her sister designed sexy, wearable undergarments that Jessie loved.
Jessie carried the last pile of clothes across the room and carefully set the stack of t-shirts in her top drawer then shut it. Now that her clothes were put away, she could move on to the part of her day she’d been looking forward to since her eyes had opened this morning. Bath time.
As she stepped into the large master bath, she still felt a warm feeling of love wash over her, just as strong as the first time she’d laid eyes on the clawfoot tub. Actually, it was probably stronger because now she’d been in it. Now she knew how the smooth surfaces contoured to the lines of her body. How its basin was so deep that the water level reached her chin, so her entire body was submersed in liquid heaven while she soaked away the stresses of the day.
Leaning down, she turned both the hot and cold nozzles and ran her hand beneath the stream of water until she felt just the perfect temperature. Then, once she put the drain stopper in place, she stood and looked out the large window to the left of the tub. The city had installed twinkle lights in the trees as well as large, red bows on the black lampposts in preparation for Christmas. It was so picturesque and serene that it seriously looked like it could be on a postcard.
Just as she was about to step away from the window, she saw something that caught her eye—the top of two heads with curly, white hair shuffling across the street. She would recognize those heads and the bright jackets anywhere.
What in the world are Mabel and Margie doing going to the park at night?
Jessie’s question was quickly answered when she saw two men she recognized as two of the four men she saw daily playing cards on the bench. The older men greeted the sisters with kisses on the cheeks and the foursome headed deeper into the trees.
Great. Even Mabel and Margie were getting more action than Jessie. It didn’t matter if the kiss on the cheek and a stroll in park were all their evening entailed. It was still more action than Jessie was getting.
Moving around the room, Jessie lit several of her scented candles and turned off the lights that were positioned above the mirror. Then, seeing that the bath was full, she turned the water off after testing it once more just to make sure that it was the ideal temperature.
She unzipped the back of her skirt and pushed it over her hips and down her legs. When she fully stepped out of it, she walked back into her room and hung it up in its place. Then, after unbuttoning her shirt, she put it on a hanger and hung it beside her skirt in the dry-clean area of her closet.
Whenever she took in her dry cleaning, the people working the counter would give her a strange look. She’d asked several of them why they looked at her like that, and even though they were in different cities, even different states, they’d given her the same answer. They’d all told her a version of the same statement: No one ever brought in clothes hung up perfectly on hangers, without a spot or wrinkle on them, to get dry-cleaned.
They were all wrong. She did.
Organization was very important to her and she enjoyed taking very good care of her belongings. Even as a girl, Jessie’s Barbies’ house was always clean and their clothes were all stored by color and season. She’d brushed their hair every day, and on the few occasions she had played with them outside, she’d immediately washed them off with a washcloth, soap, and warm water.
Her family used to give her a hard time about it. Jessie never cared though. Even at that young of an age, as important as her family’s opinion had been to her, her own had been more important. Jessie cared what they thought, but she cared what she thought more. Plus, whenever her sisters wanted to play Barbies, they always asked to play with hers. Why? Because hers were the best.
Sitting on the side of her bed, Jessie unclipped her garter belt and rolled her silk panty hose down her leg then repeated the same thing on the other leg. After unhooking her bra and slipping off her panties, she placed all of the items in the black satin lingerie bag her sister had designed specifically to separate her delicates for laundry.
The moment she stepped back into her bathroom, Jessie felt as if she’d been transported to a different world. The flames burned brightly, causing soft light to flicker off the cream-colored walls as the scent of jasmine and lavender wafted through the air. She pressed play on her iPhone, which was docked on her vanity table, and the smooth sounds of jazz floated out from the speakers.
As she slipped into the warm water, she felt all the stresses of the world drain from her heavy limbs. Drifting into total relaxation, she let her arms float to the top of the water’s surface as she rested her head against the towel she’d placed behind her neck.
Even the fact that Zach was home was no longer affecting her. In the rest of the house, she walked around on edge, not knowing when or if she would see him. But not here. This was her sanctuary, her safe place. The place where she knew she was insulated from all of the intense pheromones Zach was emitting. Breathing deeply, she shut her eyes, enjoying her tiny piece of heaven on earth.
A loud knock on the door startled her, and she sat up in the tub, causing her towel to slip beneath the water with a splash. It was silent except for the water sloshing due to her rapid movement and the soft, mellow notes of the jazz music coming from the
iPod dock. She sat perfectly still for a moment, thinking that maybe she’d fallen asleep and just dreamt that there had been a knock so loud that she was surprised it wasn’t followed by, “Police! Open up!”
Just when she was sure it must have been in her head and was reaching for a new towel to rest her head on, there was another knock on the door. The loud rap came three times in quick succession.
There goes bath time.
Jessie stood from the bath and grabbed her baby-blue towel, which was hanging on the door. “Just a second,” she called out.
Nerves were ping-ponging through her as she quickly dried off and wrapped the fluffy cotton around her body, tucking the corner of it into itself. Taking a deep breath, she tried to present a calm exterior even though inside, she felt like she was going to jump right out of her skin.
Reaching for the doorknob, she saw that her hand was shaking. Shaking!
What in the hell was wrong with her?! Knowing that she didn’t have time to delve too deep into that question, she filed it away as something to revisit at a later date as she opened the door.
Oh. My. God.
Zach stood before her in sweats and a t-shirt, his hair still damp from the shower, looking like sex on a stick. If she were wearing panties, they would definitely be damp with desire.
“Hey,” she said then clamped her jaw shut after she realized that, since opening the door, she’d been staring at him in silent, open-mouthed wonder. She had no idea what he was feeling, but from her side of things, the arousal between them was palpable. It felt alive—tangible.
“Hey.” He shook his head slightly, looking like he himself was just coming back from a daze. Taking a step back, he lifted his hand as he was already turning around and halfway down the hall. “I was just about to make dinner. Chicken, rice, and veggies. It’ll be done in about twenty minutes. If you’re hungry.”
Before she had a chance to answer him, he had already disappeared down the stairs. Weird. Jessie stood staring after him for a moment before closing her door.
Actually Love - Jessie & Zach (The Crossroads Series) Page 13