“So we’re back to trust.” I fought like hell to keep the annoying thought from popping up in my head, the one that said she had a valid reason not to trust me, but I wasn’t that same man.
I didn’t want to be.
She released my hand and went over to the stove.
I grabbed two plates and offered them to her.
We worked in silence.
Her hands shook as she dished out her secret sauce and vegetables, and when the shaking increased, I finally just took the food from her hands and spun her around to face me.
She stared straight ahead at my chest.
“Playing it safe doesn’t guarantee you don’t get hurt.”
“It’s better than living dangerously,” she argued.
I captured her bottom lip then whispered against her mouth, “Hate to break it to you, but you were living dangerously the minute you proposed.”
She gasped. “I did not propose!”
“You did. I mean I did the one with the ring, but you’re the one that started this, Miss I-Don’t-Live-Dangerously.” Had her there.
She glared.
I kissed her mouth again.
She didn’t respond, still glaring.
And then I wrapped my arms around her and backed her up against the counter. “Admit it, you don’t hate me.”
She gave in, sighing against my body. “I’m having a hard time conjuring up anything but lust and need. You’ve been shirtless for at least eleven minutes.”
“Keeping time?”
“It’s been a good eleven minutes.” She grinned.
“And if I take off my jeans?”
She reached for the front button and slid her hand inside. “I think my enthusiasm matches yours.”
“And you think you play it safe. How cute.”
She squeezed me. Hard.
I flinched and then chuckled as I reached for a breast and said, “Two can play that game.”
“Tit for tat.” She released me and then climbed me like a fucking tree, wrapping her legs around my waist as her tongue slid past the barrier of my lips.
God, this woman.
This. Woman.
I dug my fingers into her ass, walked her over to the closest guest room, and opened the door.
“Jessie!” she hissed. “It’s bad fortune!”
“It’s a bridal bed. You’re my bride. Now strip.”
“I swear if we find any more chickens . . .”
“Only cocks in here, sweetheart.” I laughed and then nearly tripped as she threw a pillow at my face.
It smelled like her.
Sweet.
Her shirt was gone.
Leggings stripped.
Nothing but a thong and a smile.
I crooked my finger.
She pounced first, launching herself in my direction so fast that I had to brace myself against the wall.
We never made it to the bed.
I was inside her before I could count to three.
And she was screaming my name before I could breathe out a four.
I never wanted to leave that room.
My chest ached when I thought of all of the times I’d put up with a wife who loved herself more than she loved me, and now I knew what it felt like to be part of a team.
To want someone so badly.
And know without a doubt it’s returned tenfold.
I love you.
I said it in my head.
I meant it from the heart.
But it was too soon. Although we’d technically met a year ago, I had only really gotten to know her in less than two weeks.
It was because I was a man starved.
A man who’d been living a life of gray and was finally introduced to red—Isla.
I never wanted to go back.
She lit me up from the inside out, coaxed a slow burn of desire that refused to extinguish.
She was fucking mine.
She just didn’t know it yet.
Chapter Forty-Six
ISLA
It was almost impossible to concentrate on work. Jessie’s words, his promises, the way he held me the night before. All of it played like a bad rom com in my head until my temples pounded.
I analyzed.
I didn’t want to.
It was in my nature.
I looked at every angle.
And all I did was go in circles over and over again.
“Isla?” Blaire snapped her fingers in front of my face. I straightened and forced a smile. “You’ve been staring at your computer screen for twenty minutes.”
“I’m researching,” I lied.
“It’s black. The screen.” Her eyebrows shot up. “So unless you’re researching black computer screens and why they exist, you’re daydreaming.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m just . . . tired.”
“From all the Jessie sex?”
Abby tilted her chair backward and eyed us. “Jessie sex?”
“Phone’s ringing!” I yelled.
Luckily the phone rang at the perfect time.
“This isn’t done!” Abby called back to me.
I laid my head on the desk. “Why is he so hot? Why?”
“There, there.” Blaire patted my head and then took the chair next to me. “Well, it’s probably because he’s out to get you. He’s being hot on purpose, damn him.”
“Shut up.”
“Hey, you’re the one marrying and sleeping with the enemy . . . in a dragon bed. But we won’t discuss all the reasons that’s weird, we don’t have enough time.”
I groaned and lifted my head. “It’s a bridal bed.”
“Yeah . . . that makes it worse. Let’s just call it the dragon bed.”
I reached for my cold cup of coffee. “Seriously, it’s like the minute he smirks at me—and you know the smirk—”
“Honey, your Goo-Poh even knows the smirk. A nun would know that smirk. Hell, my blind grandma would know the smirk by feel alone.”
“Not helping.”
Blaire grinned. “It’s just in his nature to be hotter than ninety percent of the male population, don’t hold it against him.”
“He needs more flaws.”
“He eats cereal from the bottom up—that counts as at least ten flaws in my book. Who the hell massacres a box of Lucky Charms because it looks prettier?”
I nodded in agreement. “But he’s just so . . . big and muscly. Blaire, last night I counted at least five muscles near a rib. A RIB!”
“And you were counting his muscles while he slept because?”
“Leave me alone! If I want to count muscles instead of sheep I’ll count muscles!”
She leaned back and nodded. “Woman has a point.”
“Besides, he said things, and then I couldn’t sleep, and . . . the things were nice, they weren’t typical Jessie things.”
“So he wasn’t being an asshole?”
“NO!” I threw my hands into the air in exasperation. “But it would be so much easier if he could revert back to that before I—”
I cleared my throat and looked away.
“Before you . . .” Blaire prodded. “Or since you’ve already?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You like him . . . you’re well on your way to falling in love with the guy, plus I know you. I’ve never once seen you do casual sex. It’s not in your nature.”
She got me there.
I even made Wayne wait until we were engaged.
See? I had major personality flaws! Why was Jessie giving me the smirk?
“Isla.” Blaire grabbed my hand. “Stop overthinking this, because honestly it’s not going to make a lot of sense. There is absolutely nothing logical about moving in with a guy, fake marrying him, and claiming to have his twins. There’s just not. You aren’t going to rationalize crazy, it’s impossible.”
I frowned. “Then how do I deal with it? I have to put everything in its box so I know how to deal.”
“Or,” Blai
re said slowly, “you can just take it one day at a time and stop thinking about tomorrow.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“Easy to say, not easy to execute.”
I sighed, blowing a breath from my lips as I eyed my phone. “Should I text him?”
“Oh hell,” Blaire whispered. “I don’t know, do you think he’ll circle yes or no if you send him a boyfriend request meme?”
I narrowed my eyes at her.
“Adulting. You should try it.” She winked and stood. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to find myself a cheater.”
“Danica?” I guessed.
“Oh yeah.” She saluted. “I hope you don’t mind, but she wanted to have lunch with us, apparently she has something to confess. At any rate, I knew you were busy with Jessie’s muscles so I’m taking one for the team.”
I frowned. “Blaire, I can go.”
“Nope, you just sit there and stare at the black computer screen while thinking about Jessie’s six-pack, way better use of your time, and if you get the sudden urge to do some work you can go through the client profiles for the next two weeks. We’re booked solid and we need to pick the fastest cases first.”
I sighed. “Got it.”
She grabbed her keys and left.
I stared at the screen like a lovesick idiot.
Then grabbed my phone.
A text popped up.
Jessie: Don’t overanalyze the next sentence.
I smiled at my phone.
Jessie: I miss you.
I’d tried so hard to keep my heart protected, so damn hard.
And with one simple text he had me wanting to sprint to wherever he was and kiss him on the mouth and rip his clothes off.
I texted him instead.
Me: I miss you too.
His reply was immediate.
Jessie: Lunch?
Me: Time and place?
Again immediate, I loved it.
Jessie: Seedy pub where we can get burgers, I’ll text you the address, want me to send a car for you?
I frowned at my phone.
Me: Why would you send me a car?
Jessie: So you don’t have to walk or drive or do anything except sit and think about all the wild sex we’re going to have tonight.
I cleared my throat and fanned myself before I replied.
Me: Deal.
I felt giddy.
Like this was a real date.
Maybe everything was going to be okay.
Maybe Blaire was right.
Maybe it was time to take the plunge and stop rationalizing about all the reasons why—and focus on the why not?
Chapter Forty-Seven
JESSIE
I sent off another text to Danica, explicitly telling her that the deal was off, and that under no circumstances was she allowed to have contact with Blaire or Isla again. I’d been in a low place when I hired her. The press was having a field day with my failed marriage and all the lies Vanessa and I had told to keep up our perfect façade. Speculation continued about my lying about our perfect relationship, and I just . . . I lost it. Fixing the situation had been my only goal, and I had been obsessed with it.
“Sign it,” I’d ordered in a low, irritated voice, exhausted from seeing my face on so many tabloids, and my ex-wife giving so many interviews about our private relationship.
Danica blinked at the paper and scribbled her name across the dotted line.
I exhaled in relief, this would fix everything. “Any questions?”
She gave her head a shake. “Nope, I think I got it. You sure I won’t get caught?”
“They won’t see through it, if that’s what you’re asking, and by the time they do figure something out, you’ll already have the info I need.” The information that would sabotage Dirty Exes and show me to be the innocent party.
She shook my hand.
My body trembled with rage. At myself. With horror at what I’d been willing to do in order to take them down.
If she did sue, it wouldn’t be done quietly.
I was too afraid of screwing things up again and landing on national television.
I took a sip of water and grinned when the town car pulled up and that gorgeous woman stuck one heeled foot onto the pavement, then another. The driver offered his hand.
She tipped him.
Of course she would.
It was Isla.
Her white wrap dress was paired with red heels that had me dying to get her back home. I was going to demand she keep those heels on the whole time.
I waved her over when she walked in.
And because I missed her.
Because I couldn’t help it.
I stood and pressed a searing kiss to her mouth in hello.
She returned the kiss with equal enthusiasm and wrapped her arms around my neck. I moaned into her mouth before breaking away.
Her blush was gorgeous. “Sorry, long morning.”
“Long morning without enough kissing,” I agreed.
I pulled out her chair and handed her the wine list.
“Wow, I get wine and a juicy hamburger?”
“Play your cards right and I may even get you an ice-cream sundae.” I winked.
She lowered the wine list and reached her hand across the table. At first I thought she was going for her water, but she kept moving. I gripped her fingertips and immediately a pulse of heat sizzled between our palms.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“What are you sorry about? I mean other than the chickens.”
She bit her lower lip like she was thinking and then pursed her lips. “I’m sorry for last night.”
“We had sex four times last night. Please don’t be sorry,” I joked, trying to lighten the mood.
She released my hand and smacked my arm. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I guess I’m just sorry about not trusting you.”
I held my breath.
“I do,” she said in a small voice. “I’m trying. I want to. I . . . trust you.”
I almost jumped out of my seat and threw a fist into the air, instead I went with “Thank you.”
My first mistake was being too engrossed with Isla to check my surroundings.
My second mistake was thinking that I could get away with a lunch date without being noticed.
“Hey.” A woman with a low-cut crop top walked up to our table and started jumping up and down. “You’re Jessie Beckett!”
“I am.”
Isla pulled her hands away from me.
“And you!” She turned to Isla, shocking the hell out of me. “How dare you!”
“Excuse me?” Isla looked between me and the girl.
“Homewrecker,” she muttered. “I can’t believe you’d break up—”
“Okay.” I stood. “I think it’s time for you to go, and for the record, my wife was cheating on me, and the lady you just insulted was the one who, though in a backward way, discovered it for me—”
“But—”
“Leave.” I gritted my teeth. “Before I call the police.”
“Asshole,” she said under her breath before stomping off.
Yeah, I’d made a scene.
I was still shaking.
“Jessie.” Isla reached for me.
I sighed and stared at her outstretched hand, then took it. I wasn’t that guy, the one who yelled at fans. The one who lost his fucking mind in public.
That wasn’t me.
I’d been trained by Vanessa to keep calm in front of others, always smiling, always fake.
“Thank you,” Isla whispered. She stood and pulled me into her arms and then braced my face with both of her hands. “You know, you’re pretty protective of the woman who ruined your life.”
I kissed the inside of her right wrist and whispered back, “You didn’t ruin it—you saved it.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
ISLA
“This is . . .” I put my hands on my hips while Jessie looked ready to s
trangle Goo-Poh where she stood.
I didn’t want to offend her.
But the last thing I wanted was to get married in the old church with its red carpet, red pews, red walls, and weird-looking wooden cross hanging down the middle.
It reminded me of a vampire book.
And not a good one.
“This is where your parents were married, where I was married, this was where—” Goo-Poh stopped midsentence when the ancient minister walked into the sanctuary. He looked like he’d been around since the beginning of time, had a long white beard, and was missing every hair on his head. He had more wrinkles than a bulldog, and something about his inability to walk more than two steps without taking a break didn’t give me confidence that he would make it through a ceremony. “No,” Jessie breathed out next to me. “Hell no.”
“Careful, you’re in a church.”
“Am I? Because I think I saw a dungeon on the way in, and the pastor looks pale enough to feed off the souls of anyone who walks past the door.”
I snorted out a laugh, the minister was just . . . very . . . old.
Ancient.
“His heart may legitimately stop during the ceremony,” Jessie whispered. “How’s that for memories?”
I smacked him in the stomach. Goo-Poh made her way back over to us, her face a mask of worry as she pressed a hand to her mouth like she was holding back tears. I’d only ever seen her cry twice, both times my fault. “It is not available until two weeks from now, but we’ve already chosen the dates and the bridal bed has been delivered. I’ve ordered food.”
Yeah, that was news to me.
What food exactly did she order?
Did I even want to know?
“Goo-Poh.” Jessie stepped forward and wrapped a massive arm around her small frame. “I have an idea, feel free to shoot it down—”
“I probably will.”
“I know.” Patient, patient man. “But you only get married once . . .”
He cringed.
I inwardly groaned.
“Start over,” Goo-Poh ordered. “I don’t like how the conversation is going, choose your words carefully. Now, begin.”
My skin started to itch as Jessie cleared his throat and then locked eyes with me while speaking. “Isla deserves something elaborate, something as classy as her—why don’t we let her pick, and I’ll foot the entire bill.”
Dangerous Exes (Liars, Inc. Book 2) Page 19