“Okay, well, if you’re not interested in Jane, what about Audrey or Vivien?”
Adam’s brow furrowed. “From the coffee shop?”
“Yeah. They were in the other night, trying to get as much info on you as possible. And not just them. Every single woman under forty has given me the third degree about you.”
“I’m not interested.” This time, Adam wasn’t lying. He had zero interest in starting anything with anyone. He was off the market.
“So, how are things going over at Gowan’s place?” Levi asked as if he were changing the subject. “I haven’t seen you around much this week. They keeping you busy?”
Adam might have been born, but it wasn’t yesterday. “Yep. Pretty busy.”
Levi nodded. “You like it over there?”
Adam did, actually. Up until now in his professional career, he hadn’t believed in what he was doing. His work for the government had been all politically based, and the app he’d created was purely for financial gain. This was the first time in his life he was working on something he believed in. Something that could make a significant, positive difference in people’s lives. Young people who didn’t have any opportunities. Just like he hadn’t had when he’d been their age.
“I do.” Adam knew that his cousin wanted more info, but he didn’t feel like going into it. “How are things here? Has Charlie been around?”
“Yeah. He was just in for lunch yesterday.” Levi’s face tightened, and his tone grew flat.
Adam understood Levi’s defensiveness. He was proud of his cousin for even giving his dad a chance.
“Logan and Lucky are planning on coming out to visit again before the summer is over. They said that they’ll both make it for the B&B grand opening and then they might hang for a while. You know, get to know the old man.”
“That’ll be good.”
Adam hadn’t gotten to see much of his younger cousins when they had flown out for Levi’s wedding. They’d only been able to stay for one night. It made sense that they wanted to get to know their dad. Charlie had been in Levi’s life off and on until he was six, but he hadn’t been in the twins’ lives at all.
“Yeah,” Levi agreed.
Glancing at the time, Adam saw that he only had ten minutes to get back home and pick Jane up. It was plenty of time, but nerves still gripped him as he grabbed his keys off the kitchen counter.
Damn, he needed to get a handle on his reaction to this…business arrangement.
Chapter 9
‡
The headlights of his newly acquired truck brightly shone on the side of Jane’s house when he pulled up the drive. The engine quieted once he’d pressed the keyless starter button. As he stepped out of the driver’s side, it occurred to him that he’d never driven anything this large before; Adam had always had cars. After deciding to stay in Hope Falls, he had known he would need transportation, and getting a four-wheel drive had been the only logical way to go. As much as it surprised him, he had to admit that he liked the feeling of the powerful machine beneath his hands.
As he neared Jane’s door, he heard her voice. Although it was muffled, he could clearly make out some of her words, and if she had a cuss jar, she’d be emptying her bank account. She sounded more frustrated than mad though, and Adam couldn’t help the smile that crept up his face as he raised his hand to knock.
Jane was one of the most prim and proper women he’d ever met. To hear those words, even muffled and through a closed door, was adorable to him.
After he’d knocked three times, a very clear, “Shit,” in what could only be described as a whisper-yell came through the door.
He thought about asking if this was a bad time and making a gracious exit, but right then the door flew open.
“Hi,” Jane spoke, clearly out of breath.
Normally, not a single detail got past Adam. Maybe it was his training. Or maybe he just had an eye for detail. Maybe it was both. Back in Virginia, his nickname was Shawn Spencer—like the guy from the show Psych. Adam always had the ability to see things other people had overlooked.
So when Jane opened the door and all he could focus on was the dress she was wearing—more importantly, the top half of the dress—it was very out of character for him.
“Um…so…could you…?” Her breathing was labored, only serving to draw more attention to her ample cleavage, which was not helping the laser focus Adam was experiencing at all.
Then she turned, and Adam noticed the hanger attached to her dress—sticking straight up. Words started tumbling out of her mouth, and Adam did his best to concentrate on what she was saying.
“I was trying to pull the zipper up, but that didn’t work. So then I was trying to pull it down, but that wasn’t happening, either. Now, I just want to get the stupid hanger off, but I can’t seem to do that, either.”
Her voice began to wobble, and that snapped Adam out of his momentary lust haze. It was clear she was growing more and more upset by the second, and her situation crystalized in his mind.
There was a straightened-out wire hanger with a small hook at the end stuck through the small hole of her zipper. His hands moved without thinking and removed the hanger—first from her grasp, then carefully from its tiny, metal noose. After setting it on the small table beside her front door, Adam went back to the zipper of her dress and realized he wasn’t sure which way she wanted him to go. Up or down.
“Do you want it zipped up or…?” His voice was raspy, even to his own ears, and his palms were tingling.
He’d zipped and unzipped dresses for Alexis more times than he could count, but he’d never felt like this. Adrenaline and arousal were rushing through his bloodstream like hot lava from a volcanic eruption. His heart was hammering so hard against his ribcage that he was sure Jane must have been able to hear it.
She looked over her shoulder, her large, hazel eyes shining up at him. She licked her lips nervously, and the sight of her wet, pink tongue running along the seam of her pouty mouth was almost more than Adam could take. He swallowed a moan.
“Up,” she said softly before swallowing so loudly that it was probably classified as a gulp.
He nodded, his eyes never leaving hers. At that point, he didn’t trust himself to speak.
Their gazes were still locked, and even though there was a voice inside his head screaming for him to move back, disengage, he just couldn’t bring himself to break the stare. Usually, she stood close to a foot shorter than he was. But tonight, she had to be wearing high heels, because her lips were only a few inches away from his as he looked down at her.
The desire, the overwhelming need, to close the electrified space between them and kiss her sweet, full lips was so strong that Adam had to fight against it like a piece of metal being drawn to a magnet. He wanted to taste her. He wanted to cover her mouth with his, plunge his tongue between her pillowed lips, and then slowly explore.
A blush that was almost the same crimson color as her dress spread up her smooth cheeks, and she tucked her chin down as she lifted her hand and scooped her hair off her neck. His mind knew that this was so no strands would get caught in the zipper, but the rest of his body was reading the gesture as an invitation—an invitation to press his lips against the sexy slope at the base of her neck. Thankfully, his mind was still running things. But, honestly, he couldn’t promise how long that would be the case if they didn’t get out of there. He was fairly certain he was teetering on the brink. The point of no return was rapidly approaching.
He might not have been able to think in full sentences, but he was able to put enough brain cells together to make out simple commands.
Pull. Zipper. Up.
Another benefit of this not being his first time at the Zipper Rodeo was that he was able to quickly assess that the dress was pulled up too high to zip. If he had to guess, he would say that, when the dress didn’t immediately zip up, Jane may have panicked and wiggled around, causing the fabric to bunch.
So, using every bit of s
elf-control he had—and some he didn’t—he ran his hands down her sides and tugged the fabric at her hips. For a moment, literally a second, he allowed himself to rest his palms on Jane’s rounded curves. He gave in to the impulse to wrap his fingers around her waist.
But when a small gasp escaped her mouth, he moved his hands back and, with very little effort, pulled the offending, stubborn zipper all the way up. Then, calling on his past experience, he clasped the hook and eye before wisely taking a step back.
“All set.” Maybe that wasn’t the most Don Juan thing Adam could’ve said, but he considered the fact that he’d been able to speak at all, pretty damn impressive.
“Really?” Jane spun around in disbelief, trying to look at the back of her dress.
The motion must’ve knocked her off-balance, because the next thing he knew, she was in his arms. Her ample chest was crushed against the hard planes of his abs, and the sensation of the weight of her body caused another area farther south to grow even harder than it had already been.
“Shit,” he cursed under his breath at the state of his obvious arousal.
“Sorry!” Jane began scrambling to get out of his arms. She pushed off him with her arms and attempted to regain her footing.
Apparently, his body translated her actions as a full-body lap dance, because his situation down south grew more evident by the second.
Tightening his grip on her was on purpose. One, he didn’t want her to hurt herself, and she was definitely not on solid ground yet. Two, he needed her to stop wiggling around or he was going to need to stop by his house to change his clothes. Three, he was almost positive that, if she continued wriggling, the already plunging neckline on that dress was going to expose a hell of a lot more than the mouth-watering cleavage it was currently putting on display.
It had taken him a good forty-eight hours to stop sporting constant wood after he’d gotten a peek at the black lace undies she’d been wearing under her split slacks. If she had a Janet Jackson wardrobe-malfunction moment, he might be facing a permanent-chub future.
“No. It’s fine. You’re fine.” He tried to not let any emotion beyond confident assurance bleed through.
The last thing he wanted was for her to think he was cursing because of her. It wasn’t her fault that, for the past week—hell, if he was being honest, the past month—he’d been thinking of them being like this, except a lot more naked.
Unfortunately, his words didn’t have the desired effect. Actually, they had the exact opposite. Instead of relaxing, she worked harder to extract herself from his hold.
“I didn’t mean to… I just slipped… I’m sorry… I just…”
“Jane.” Her name came out much more forcibly than he’d intended it to. It sounded more like a command than anything else.
His comforting words had sent her into more of a panic. But at the harsh bark of her name, she stilled completely. Well, except for her chest rising and falling against him in labored pants.
Adam gazed down at her, and what he saw caused his erection to grow even more painfully hard. His arms encircling her small frame. Her body pressing firmly against his. Her hair falling over her bare shoulders. Her large caramel-colored eyes gazing up at him under a bed of dark lashes. And her full, shiny, red lips slightly parted. It was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. And the rightest thing he’d ever felt.
She fit in his arms. He didn’t know how else to explain it except to say that she felt right. Their bodies seamlessly molded together like adjoining pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
That feeling was the equivalent of touching a hot stove. He needed to get away from it. So he gripped Jane’s slender arms, lifting her up and away from him and setting her down on steady feet. Taking a step back, he ran his fingers through his hair.
Confusion swam in Jane’s light golden eyes. As much as his instinct was telling him to comfort her, to explain that his actions had nothing to do with her—well, other than the fact that it was her effect on him that made him feel so out of control—trying to explain it, even to himself, didn’t make any sense.
So, instead of addressing the obvious tension between them—that, on his part, was one hundred percent sexual—he simply asked, “Are you ready to go, or did you need a few minutes?”
Confusion quickly morphed into surprise. She blinked and her eyes widened. “You don’t have to… We don’t have to go… We can just…”
As much as Adam didn’t want to admit it, even Jane’s stammering was beginning to read as sexy to him. It always seemed cute, but now, it had graduated to adorably sexy.
Shit.
Again, his instinct was to reassure her. Tell her that he’d been looking forward to this, whether he’d wanted to or not, since Nikki had suggested it. That, with every day that had passed, his anticipation hadn’t just doubled, it had multiplied exponentially.
But he knew he shouldn’t, couldn’t, do that. Self-preservation trumped natural impulse, so he found himself once again ignoring the obvious. In fact, he didn’t even address the fact that she’d spoken. Instead, he offered her his arm like the gentleman he didn’t feel he was whenever Jane was around.
She took it, smiling as she dipped her head, and grabbed her purse from the table. As they walked in silence to his truck, he tried in vain to erase the urge to pick her up, throw her over his shoulder, take her back in her house, strip her out of her dress, and take her up against the wall, on the floor, on every surface of her home. Marking not only her but also her space his.
Whenever she was anywhere near him—hell, even if he heard her name mentioned in passing—a very unfamiliar, very caveman-like, animalistic side of himself emerged. One he’d had no idea he’d even possessed before the night he’d been playing pool at his cousin’s bar and locked eyes with the most breathtaking girl he’d ever seen. One word and one word only had formed in his mind that night and every time he’d seen her since then.
Mine.
What the hell was wrong with him?
Chapter 10
‡
Deep breaths. In and out.
Jane concentrated on breathing so that she didn’t pass out. Her inability to perform the simple task of exchanging oxygen had less to do with the fact that her dress was a tad snug and everything to do with the man to her right. She’d been pinching herself all night to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. Since she’d walked into the fundraiser—under a blanket of twinkle lights, no less—she’d felt like Cinderella at the ball. Adam, of course, was playing the role of Prince Charming, and he was doing a pretty convincing job.
This wasn’t a real date, but his behavior certainly wasn’t supporting that fact. As much as Jane was trying to convince herself he was just a gentleman, she couldn’t help but notice the very ungentlemanly looks she kept catching in his eyes as they sat side by side at the table that Gowan Enterprises had bought for the event.
Mike leaned down between Adam and Jane. “Hey, man. Can I borrow you for a second?”
Adam nodded as he stood. Before following Mike, he bent over and briefly rested his hand on Jane’s shoulder, and his thumb brushed across her collarbone as he spoke next to her ear. “I’ll be right back.”
“ ’Kay,” she barely squeaked out, what with all the internal swooning she was doing. His gravelly voice and tantalizing touch vibrated through her body, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes.
All night, every time he’d been pulled away for business, he’d checked in with her, made sure she was okay. Attentive was the name of his game that night, and it was almost more than Jane could bear. He treated her like…a princess. Adam was unintentionally setting a bar so high that she wasn’t even sure a gold-medal Olympic pole vaulter could clear it.
No man had ever shown her this kind of attention which was fully a reflection of her poor choice in men. She took responsibility for the fact that, in every relationship she’d ever been in, she’d settled.
With each of the men she’d had significant relationships with, she�
��d seen things, even early on, that had made her more than pause—they’d stopped her dead in her tracks. But she was a world-class benefit-of-the-doubt giver. She could explain away almost any behavior…and she had.
With Disaster #1, she’d told herself that the only reason he was more interested in video games and hanging out with his friends than he was in her was because he was young. She’d met Peter during their freshman year of college and dated him until senior year. He was her first, so she hadn’t had any frame of reference. She’d settled for having unfulfilling sex once every six months, because even though she hadn’t truly believed it, she’d worked very hard to convince herself that it must be normal. That is, until two weeks before graduation, when she’d walked in on Peter and his roommate, Mark, having what looked like quite fulfilling sex to both of them.
The incident should’ve taught her to trust her instincts more. But it hadn’t.
“Holy hot tamale!” Nikki fanned herself as she sat down in the seat Adam had vacated. “You and Daaaam have so many sparks flying. I’m surprised you haven’t set off the sprinklers.”
“Daaaam?” Amy sat on the other side of Nikki, her brow furrowed.
“Adam,” Nikki explained, seeming quite proud of herself. “I was telling Jane that, every time I see that boy, he’s so fine I just think damn. Then I realized that the letters in his name spell it.”
Tilting her head, Amy pointed out, “They spell the noun form of dam that relates to reservoirs.”
“Tomayto, tomatoe.” Nikki waved her sister’s observation off. Then, turning her full attention towards Jane, she rubbed her hands together and whispered conspiratorially, “Okay, quick. Before the guys come back. Spill.”
“What?” Jane wasn’t sure what information Nikki wanted. But her friend’s enthusiasm level alone caused butterflies to start a house party in her stomach.
Nikki didn’t miss a beat. “You and Adam. What’s going on? What’s the four-one-one? Details, please. Don’t leave anything out.”
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