Dinner with Zach?
Her body was screaming, Yes! But her mind was standing firm, arms crossed, shaking its head no with disapproval.
Jessie knew that what she wanted to do and what she should do were not the same thing. That seemed to be a recurring theme since Zach had come into her life.
Decisions. Decisions.
Chapter Fourteen
Zach yawned loudly as he walked down the wooden staircase into the darkened basement. With each step, the stairs creaked beneath his size-thirteen running shoes. A brisk chill hung in the air.
His gaze locked on the spot where he first laid eyes on Jessie. It had only been two weeks to the day that he’d removed the splinter from the pad of her fingertip, but Zach had a hard time remembering what his life had been like before she’d been in it.
Not that he’d spent a lot of time actually with her. He hadn’t. In fact, other than the one dinner they’d had together on Saturday night, they’d hardly spoken two sentences to each other.
A shiver from the drop in temperature ran through him as he flipped on the light switch, illuminating the cold room. Moving across the concrete floor, Zach realized that he hadn’t ever really taken a good look at how much space was down here. There had to be a good four hundred square feet of unused real estate that would be perfect for some training equipment.
Zach had only ever lived in apartments that hadn’t had space for anything more than a weight bench. But he could put a bag down here with plenty of room for a treadmill and his weight bench.
Setting his basket down on the folding table, Zach lifted the lid to the washing machine and dumped a scoop of detergent in the basin as it filled with water.
He would have to ask Jessie, of course, if it was okay with her that he turn the basement into his home gym. Hopefully he’d be able to do it better than the last time he’d asked her something. It hadn’t surprised him in the least that Jessie hadn’t taken him up on his oh-so-smooth dinner invitation.
Last night, when he’d impulsively knocked on Jessie’s door, he’d done it with the intention of casually throwing out an invitation for dinner. Instead, he’d acted like a nervous sixth-grader asking the most popular eighth-grade girl to the dance. He’d been tongue-tied—completely unable to speak.
The second she opened the door wearing only a towel, he’d lost every ounce of charm he’d ever possessed. He wasn’t sure where it had gone. He only knew that it was no longer hanging out with him. Zach found out a valuable mathematic lesson: Zach plus arousal minus charm equaled a fiery crash-and-burn scenario.
In fairness to his charm—that, up until last night, had never failed him—the picture that Jessie had presented in nothing but a towel, was more than any mere mortal man could ever be expected to see and not get knocked flat on his ass. Zach was a fighter—that’s what he did for a living—but seeing Jessie half naked and wet was the closest thing to a knockout punch that he’d ever experienced.
His eyes had hungrily devoured the sleek slope of her neck. His mouth had watered at the damp tendrils of baby-fine hair that were slicked against the supple skin behind her ear. The seductive line of cleavage that formed where her towel had been gathered, had caused a fire to erupt inside of Zach, and by the time his eyes had made it over the rounded curve of her terrycloth-covered hips down to her bare legs glistening with beads of moisture, he was scared he might spontaneously combust right there in the hall without even having touched her. He’d all but aborted his mission before it had even begun, turning and hightailing it downstairs without once looking back as he babbled an invitation to join him.
Another equally valuable lesson learned last night was: Cooking dinner with a raging boner was not the easiest thing in the world to do and could be hazardous to one’s…health. He kept knocking into things with his protruding shaft and had actually been relieved that Jessie hadn’t been there to witness it. Sadly, that relief was short-lived.
When he sat down to eat alone, something he’d done so many times he couldn’t count, for the first time ever, it had felt empty. He’d stared across the table where Jessie had sat a few nights before. The spot had been vacant. And for the first time in Zach’s entire life, he’d felt…lonely.
Shaking off the memory of his loner dinner, he dumped his darks into the machine and closed the lid. Deciding to turn his attention to something more productive than rehashing the disappointing way last night had turned out, he figured he would measure the space so he could plan a layout. Pivoting on his heels, he was stopped short when he came face-to-face with, hands-down, the sexiest-looking panties and bras Zach had ever laid eyes on.
He had not lived the life of a Boy Scout by any means; Zach had seen more than his fair share of lingerie. Not only were the pieces he was staring at in and of themselves enough to get any man’s engine revving, but the fact that the lace and satin garments were hung side by side on an old clothesline made them seem so much more provocative and hot.
Zach’s first instinct was to reach out and touch the delicate fabric. Obviously, he refrained. He might not be himself around Jessie, but there was no way he was going to turn into the creepy panty guy who touched ladies’ underwear. Still, that didn’t mean he couldn’t look. His gaze continued down the line, where he saw that there were stockings and garters in addition to bras and panties.
Fuck. Zach’s jaw tightened as his hands fisted at his sides. He had never been one of those guys who were into fetishes or anything like that, but there was just something that he’d always found innately sexy about a woman in stockings and a garter belt. Add a pair of stiletto heels to that picture and it became his ultimate fantasy.
Heated lust rushed through Zach’s body as pictures of Jessie, wearing each and every one of the things that were hung up and displayed before him, flashed in his mind. He’d seen the heels she owned, and that was all he needed to go on for his mind’s eye to instantly dress her up like an X-rated paper doll. Each time a different combination of lingerie and stilettos popped up in his mind, his dick grew like he was Jack and it was the beanstalk.
Zach was so screwed. He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that every time he saw Jessie from now on, he would be picturing what she was wearing beneath her clothes. It was bad enough that he already had to stop himself from picturing her naked all the time. Now he had a sexy peepshow that was imprinted into his consciousness, which he was sure his libido would press play on without getting the a-okay, thumbs-up from his brain.
Great. That’s exactly what he needed.
* * *
Dammit.
Jessie couldn’t believe how late she was running. After clicking off the hair dryer, she ran a brush through her hair and decided that she would apply her makeup either on the train or when she got to the office. She grabbed her small makeup bag, stepped out of the bathroom, and dropped it in her brown leather satchel.
This was the second time in less than a week that she had slept through her alarm. Well, the first time, she had been sleeping in Zach’s bed and had forgotten to set it entirely, so she didn’t think that actually counted, but this time, she’d set it and just slept right past it. Sleepless night or not, Jessie was not letting herself off the hook. This was unacceptable behavior and it could not continue.
If she couldn’t manage to figure out how to live with Zach and function, then she was going to need to figure something else out. One month. That’s what she would give it. Jessie didn’t care if she had to continue paying half the rent here for the duration of the lease while she lived somewhere else. If she hadn’t pulled herself together after one month, she was out of here.
After picking out her black skirt and white-and-black-striped shirt, she moved to her dresser and pulled out the top drawer. All that laid in it were brightly colored bras. No white bra to be seen.
Seriously. Jessie had completely forgotten that the reason she’d been up so late was that she’d been waiting for Zach to go to bed so she could sneak down and get her underwear from the clo
thesline last night. After Zach’s dinner offer, she’d stayed up in her room for fear that she would pounce on him like a jungle cat in heat if she dared to even step a foot downstairs before he was safely closed behind his bedroom door for the evening.
Okay, all she had to do was run downstairs, grab her stuff, run back up, get dressed, and head out the door.
Simple enough.
She pulled a robe tightly around her waist as she stepped into her puffy, white slippers. Yesterday had taught her that the basement was a lot chillier than the rest of the house. She’d been freezing her toenails off when she’d ventured down there with bare feet. Not going to happen again.
Halfway down the stairs, the rich smell of coffee met her with a ‘good-morning, how-are-you-today’ greeting. Jessie just did not think that she could adequately describe the feeling that meeting the day with a fresh pot of coffee gave her. Of course, she knew that there were coffee makers, that she could program to turn on at a certain time each day, that would garner her the same results, but she didn’t trust those. Ever since her sister Haley had accidently left her curling iron plugged in when she was thirteen and the girls’ bathroom had caught on fire, Jessie hadn’t trusted any appliances. Period. So, the knowledge that a hot pot of coffee would be waiting for her after she ventured down into the frozen tundra, a.k.a. the basement, filled her with happiness.
As she opened the door and started down the wooden steps, the first thing she noticed, before she even made it halfway down, was that the light was on. A quick thought crossed her mind—that she could have sworn she’d remembered to turn it off—before she heard the loud rumblings of the washing machine.
Aha! She hadn’t forgotten to turn it off—Zach had. He must have come down to throw in a load of clothes this morning before he headed to the gym or wherever he went at the ass crack of dawn. Of course. That made total sense because Thursday was his ‘laundry day’. She had a little ‘aww’ moment at the thought that Zach had actually taken her schedule seriously. That sweet feeling was over before it had a chance to take root because the stark realization that, if Zach had been down here doing laundry this morning, he must have seen her unmentionables.
Great. That was going to be a fun conversation to have. “Hey, sorry I left my drawers hanging around. Hope they didn’t get in your way.” As she reached the bottom of the staircase, Jessie wondered what the appropriate time was to bring something like that up. During dinner seemed a little crass. Passing in the hall seemed a little forced.
Lifting her head, she got her answer. Now. Now would be the time to bring it up. She saw Zach’s back as he stared at her lady wear.
Why? Why did he still have to be here this morning? And why did he have to look so freaking sexy in sweats, with his back turned to her? She could not handle his level of sexiness before she’d had at least one cup of coffee.
She was tempted to turn and leave, but she stopped herself. Get in and out, she told herself. You don’t have time to be embarrassed. She would need to file this incident in her mental ‘revisit at a later time’ folder. That folder had probably doubled in size since she’d moved in with Zach.
“Morning,” Jessie’s voice rang out brightly to alert him to her presence and also set the tone of their interaction. Brushing past him, Jessie’s fingers were shaking as she began unclipping each garment from the clothesline.
It’s from the cold, she told herself. Right, and Santa Claus is real too.
“Sorry. I meant to come grab these last night, but I must have crashed out early.”
Jessie knew that she was misrepresenting the events of the previous night. But what was she supposed to say? That she’d fallen asleep while waiting for him to come upstairs so that she could sneak down and retrieve them? No. There was no way that she was going to make that embarrassing admission. No siree Bob.
After gathering each and every one of her unmentionables, she turned to rush back upstairs and came dangerously close to running smack dab into Zach’s solid chest.
Had he moved closer to her while she was collecting her laundry or was that where he had been standing when she began? She couldn’t say for sure, but what she could definitely confirm was that his five-o’clock shadow was making her body want to do things to him like she had never wanted to do to another man. For instance, lick her tongue from the base of his neck, over his Adam’s apple, along his jawline, stopping only to pull his earlobe between her teeth and nip…
“Are you busy tonight?” Zach’s deep voice was so low that Jessie thought she might have misheard him.
“What?” she asked, her voice sounding raspy with desire even to her own ears.
“I told my mom about Thanksgiving and she’s on board. She just wants to meet you first. She says that it will help her get in character and also she wants to go over our backstory so that we are all on the same script.” Zach shrugged with an adorable what-are-you-gonna-do expression on his face.
It wasn’t fair that he could be all man and still possess a boyish charm.
Zach sighed as his mouth turned up in a half smile. “She always wanted to be an actress, and I think she’s looking at this as an improv opportunity.”
Jessie was just so happy that his mom wasn’t looking at this like “What in the hell did this crazy chick get my son involved in now?”
“Yes, of course. I’d love to meet your mom.”
“Great.” Zach’s lips turned up into a full smile then, revealing perfectly straight, white teeth, which made her insides all mushy.
Weren’t boxers supposed to be missing teeth or something, or was that hockey players? Jessie thought to herself. Either way, it would make this situation a whole lot more manageable in the hormone department if he didn’t look like he was in a toothpaste commercial every time he smiled.
“Do you want to meet back here at seven?” Zach asked.
“Tonight?” Jessie clarified, swallowing over a lump that had formed in her throat.
Zach nodded slowly as an expression somewhere between concern and what’s-wrong-with-you-didn’t-we-just-establish-that flashed across his chiseled-to-absolute-perfection face.
“Okay,” Jessie agreed.
Standing as still as stone statues, the two of them stared at each other silently for a few moments before Jessie snapped out of the powerful magnetic trance he effortlessly pulled her under every time they saw each other. She moved her fluffy, white slippers across the floor and began to move around him. She’d only made it two steps before she stopped up short.
“Oh shoot.” Jessie spun back around. “This is Thursday. I signed up to volunteer at the Faith Rescue Mission food line from seven thirty until nine.”
Zach did not look fazed in the least. “Faith Rescue Mission is on the corner of Branson and Maddox, right?”
Jessie nodded.
“That’s not too far from Avalon. If you can be here by six, we can stop by, see my mom, and then I can go with you and volunteer.”
Jessie didn’t know what to say. What kind of a guy just gave up a night to go work at an outreach after going to visit his ill mother to introduce her to his fake girlfriend. This guy couldn’t be for real…right?
“Can you be home by six?” Zach asked when Jessie just stood there in shocked silence.
“Yeah. I’ll see you then.” Turning and hightailing it up the stairs she tried to escape before she could embarrass herself any further.
First the underwear, then the speechlessness. Sure, Jessie wasn’t an overly talkative person, but normally her silence was self-imposed. It was a choice. A calculated decision. It didn’t stem from the fact that she couldn’t string a sentence together to save her life.
“Hey, Jessie,” Zach’s voice called up to her.
She turned around, and her heart skipped a beat.
Zach stood at the bottom of the stairs looking every bit the fighter that he was. Zach was wearing gray sweats a dark-gray hoodie. He had one hand braced on the wall and the other resting on the railing that had st
arted this whole arrangement. With another man, the stance might look benign, nothing special, but Zach looked totally…male. Dangerous in all the right ways.
“Do you mind if I put some equipment down here for a home gym?” He motioned to the open space in the center of the basement.
“Sure. Go ahead,” Jessie easily agreed.
“Thanks.” Zach’s full lips turned up into a sinful grin that woke her body up quicker than any cup of coffee ever could.
“No problem.” Jessie smiled tightly as she turned and hurried upstairs.
She was running late. She was meeting Zach’s mom tonight. She and Zach would be volunteering together.
Jessie honestly didn’t know which one of those facts made her more anxious.
Chapter Fifteen
“We could have walked.” Jessie shifted in the leather seat, her hands moist with nervous energy as she sat beside Zach, staring straight ahead out the windshield. She was trying to calm herself down by focusing on the fact that she wasn’t meeting Zach’s mom in the traditional “meeting the mom” capacity, but rather as a necessary evil that came along with her and Zach’s arrangement.
It wasn’t working.
“You’re right. We could have.” Zach nodded in agreement as his hands moved on the steering wheel and they pulled away from their curb.
Even though Jessie knew that technically he was agreeing with her, his response made her want to argue her point more. She didn’t, however, because it would be as useless as painting your nails, not letting them dry, and then hopping in the shower. Zach had shown up at the brownstone at five to six in a black SUV.
Jessie’s nerve endings were so on edge that she could swear she felt the tires turn against the asphalt as they headed down their street. She’d tried to ignore her stress. Push it down. Stomp on it with facts. But every time she’d successfully pound it into submission more would pop up in its place. Questions and anxiety filled her.
Actually Love - Jessie & Zach (The Crossroads Series) Page 14