I stared into his milk chocolate eyes for what seemed like a lifetime, and then finally pulled my gaze away.
“I’m sorry I pulled you into my dream.” I felt my face flush from shame. “You can go now.”
“But I just got here,” he said, and I looked back to him. “And I came on my own… couldn’t stay away.”
Oh sweet baby Jesus, this was so twisted. Jake would never even want to talk to me, not to mention show up half-naked in one of my dreams.
I closed my eyes and leaned back, hitting my head ineffectually against the padded back of the fainting couch.
A pair of hands glided down my bare neck—I must have my hair up. They were big and strong and they found exactly where I was tense.
I opened my eyes and looked up… and jumped again.
Raphael Morales stood over me, his hands kneading the tight muscles of my neck and shoulders.
He wasn’t shirtless, but his silky dress shirt was open all the way and a tantalizing expanse of tan, creamy skin and rippling muscles played over his chest as he massaged me.
I tensed all the more as I realized that both men were in my dream.
Shiiit…
“Relax,” Jake drawled as he kissed his way up my thigh.
“Yes, chica,’ Raphael purred, his hand smooth and warm as they pressed down over my chest and under my dress. “Everything will be just fine.”
I arched as they two men hit their mark.
Chapter 27
Jake
I used to love days off. I’d work on my truck, fix something on the house, maybe mow the lawn or go help a friend with something or other. Always busy—I like it like that.
But today I’m off, and I can’t will myself to get off the couch.
Hell, the TV’s not even on.
I’m just sitting here, moping like a complete loser.
But I can’t stop thinking about her…
Hope.
Maybe if I hadn’t had such a pathetic crush on her in high school I wouldn’t be still swooning over her now.
Like a love-sick teenager.
Sickening, really.
It’s like my mind is a broken record. It starts with memories of her in high school, back when I was just one of her brother Southie’s invisible friends; tall and gawky, nothing like her big tough brother. I was so skinny I barely left a shadow on the wall.
She was kind of the same way: thin and delicate—but not. Always getting in trouble, rebelling against her mother—lord, just the thought of her mother still made my flesh crawl—and I thought I had the world’s worst mom. She made Norma Leer look like June Cleaver.
Hope was a walking disaster. I’d never seen a girl more accident prone. She probably held the world record for dropping her books. I tried my best to be there to help her pick them up as much as possible. Sometimes I’d get an absent “Thanks,” sometimes half of a smile before she rushed off.
But one time she looked me full in the eyes, dazzling me to the point I almost fell over on my ass. It was like I’d been struck by lightning, the current running through me like a wild fire.
But she never really saw me. I was invisible to her.
That was until she walked into Wal-Mart and asked me to fix her car.
Hell, I could have lifted the hunk of junk up over my head one handed just seeing her again.
And how she’d changed: so damn gorgeous I was afraid I’d start drooling on my boots instead of being able to talk to her. Curves where there had only been rail thin legs and arms, creamy peach colored flesh where she’d been alabaster white.
And the biggest change of all? She was looking at me, and seeing me.
And flirting with me…
I couldn’t freaking believe it.
Maybe that’s why I pushed so hard. All those stupid, silly pseudo dates, all that food—I remembered that even though she’d been a stick back then, she ate like a ravenous rhino.
Maybe that had been the problem? I’d pushed too hard, we’d gone too fast, and now look where we were.
Nowhere, with three miles of mixed messages, mistakes, and betrayal between us.
But when she got smacked in the head with that giant beach ball at the Jimmy Buffet concert, I nearly fell over myself helping her up. It was just like high school, and I still had the biggest crush on her.
A tingling heat rose up in my chest, and I had to rearrange myself in my jeans. Just thinking about being in her bed, having her beneath me, made me hard as a concrete wall, and got me thinking about driving over there to her house and…
And what?
What the hell did I think I was going to do?
I heard footsteps on my front porch, but there was no knock. There was the slide of a key in the lock, though.
I jerked up off the couch and headed for the door, ready to grab the baseball bat I kept stashed in the umbrella stand.
But when the door opened a familiar face popped into view.
“Paula?” What in the hell was my sister doing here?
“Hi Jake,” she growled.
I shook my head. “You ever hear of knocking?”
Paula waltzed in and a thin, impeccably well dressed woman followed her in, a suitcase in each hand, a bothered glower on her gaunt face. My mother, Norma Leer, stopped and tilted her head as she scrutinized me.
“Jacob Michael Troy, I don’t need to knock when I’m entering my own house.”
Shiiit…
She dramatically set her luggage on the floor and placed her hands on her nearly nonexistent hips. “Is that any way to treat your mother, standing there with your mouth hanging open?”
My mouth closed with a click, and though I really, really wanted to run for the back door, I sucked it up and walked forward and gave her a hug. She was so thin and frail in my arms, but I knew she was forged out of iron.
She sighed and patted me on the back, and then pushed herself away, holding me at arm’s length. “Your sister tells me you’re dating that Jones girl.”
I shot Paula a filthy look. I was going to kill her.
Chapter 28
Hope
I woke to the sound of my alarm bleating like a dying parakeet. Covered in sweat and breathing like I’d been running a marathon, I pulled my Hello Kitty covers closer. I was in my usual pajamas—yes, Hello Kitty was the theme there too—but I felt totally naked.
I could still feel them touching me, Raphael’s strong, smooth hands rubbing my breasts, Jake’s soft, soft lips and scratchy five o’clock shadow working over the space between my legs.
Oh dear god, I’d had a sex dream about two men… two men I knew in real life.
This was not happening.
Especially the Raphael part of the dream.
Hell, I didn’t have any right to dream about Jake either.
I tried to smother myself with my pillow… a harder proposition than it sounds. Failing at that I sat up in bed and shook off my lusty reverie.
I needed coffee.
I needed food.
I needed a cold, cold shower.
I traipsed into my bathroom, pulled off my sweat soaked pajamas and stepped into my shower. The cold part of a cold shower only lasted five, six seconds tops. I decided that that was enough time for the cold water to teach my libido and roaming nocturnal thoughts to behave.
When I emerged from the shower pink and wrinkly from water saturation, I wrapped myself up in a towel, pulled my hair up in another towel, and padded barefooted into my bedroom.
I’d set my alarm for eleven thirty, and it was now a quarter past noon. I didn’t have anything planned—besides searching frantically for a date for Janine’s party.
I had… oh lord have mercy, less than thirty-three hours before the party.
I could just throw myself on Bette’s tender mercies. I’m sure she had a male friend that wasn’t a complete pervert.
My little black book was more a list of six guys I’d dated for approximately three weeks a piece. Not that they were bad guys, I ju
st had it in my rebellious head that if I let a relationship last more than a month, I’d get sucked into staying here forever…
And isn’t it funny that’s exactly what happened, but pretty much because I left and found the world outside of San Antonio just a tad too stimulating.
My wrist ached, right where my star shaped scar was. I held it for a moment and wriggled my toes. I’d read in Oprah’s magazine that it was a good way to trick your brain into being in the here and now.
I could almost hear that song again by The Black Keys: the way it played on a loop, and had been the soundtrack of the worst night of my life. The sour smell of sweat, and his voice cracking with desperation and anger, filling me with panic.
I pulled on some jeans and a t-shirt, yanked my hair back into a ponytail and then headed downstairs with my laptop.
I needed to talk to Raphael. And I needed coffee. Coffee would make everything better. That and some of the microwavable frozen pancakes I’d bought a couple night ago.
Luckily Bette had given me Raphael’s phone number, so I didn’t need to go over there and be subjected to his underwhelming charms.
I loaded my coffee maker and flicked on the switch as I dialed his number.
Maybe he wouldn’t be home.
No luck… he answered on the second ring.
“Hello neighbor… what can I do for you today?”
The bastard either had my phone number programmed into his phone (I’d have to have a talk with Bette if that was the case) or he had caller ID. The obnoxious, arrogant ass.
“Sprinkles,” I couldn’t resist bringing that up. “Have you had your whipped cream and precious little candy specialty drink yet? I was heading over to Sheetz and would be happy to pick one up for you.”
Silence.
“Funny,” he said flatly. “Very funny.”
I try. “It’s nothing, really.”
“So have you found a date yet for your party?” I could practically see him smiling as he brought that one up.
“As a matter of fact…” I was about to lie, tell him I already had a date, and hang up on him.
But I didn’t.
And I needed a sexy, swaggering peacock of a man; which he was, in spades.
“As a matter of fact, I do need a date. Are you still free?”
He chuckled. “On a Friday night? What kind of loser doesn’t have a date set up for a Friday night?”
Asshole.
He waited and waited, not saying a word, waiting for me to finally admit I was a loser and needed him as a date.
I sucked in the air to tell him to shove it straight up his ass…
But he really did have a great ass, and the broadest shoulders I’d seen in person, and that chest…
Good grief, I needed him on my arm for business, but my out of control sex drive was going to get me in far more trouble than any job was worth.
I looked around at my house, at my kitchen, and my percolating coffee.
I loved living here, and if I screwed up my job with Janine’s publishing house I could lose it. All of it.
I hate you. “Yes, I’m a pathetic loser who doesn’t have a date for this Friday night.”
A long, silent few beats.
“And?” he prompted.
I really hate you. “Will you please go with me to the party?” I hate you, I hate you, I really, really hate you!
“Can you hold, I’ve gotta check my calendar.” The line clicked over to some wacked out muzac, like you’d expect on the home shopping network.
Twisted…
I waited for a good three minutes, tapping my fingers, wanting to pour myself a cup of coffee, but afraid he’d burst onto the line and make me jump, and I’d end up scalding myself.
“Hope?” he said, finally coming back on the line.
“Yes, Raphael?”
“Are you home?”
I hesitated. Why would he want to know if I was home or not?
“You’re not going to try to chop down my sycamore tree again, are you?”
He laughed and I could practically see the sexy little creases around his dark, brooding eyes.
No! Not sexy! Irritating!
“I just have something for you, and would rather get it to you now than later. And I thought I could give you my answer then too.”
Crap on toast. “You can just tell me now. Whatever it is you have for me will keep.” Yeah, like until the end of time!
“No, I need to see you face to face. So are you home or not?”
I had to find myself some handsome male friends to have on standby so I never had to resort to this kind of foolishness again.
“I’m home.”
“Come out on the porch and I’ll give you my answer and what I have for you.”
He hung up.
I stood there in my kitchen, so needing a cup of coffee, yet wanting to get this whole porch thing finished and over with. So I checked that my ponytail was still intact, and walked to my front door. If this was some kind of practical joke, I was going to castrate the bastard myself.
I walked out onto my porch. The second I did my phone rang in my hand.
“Hello,” I said.
“My answer is yes,” Raphael said, voice smug. “I’ll go to the party with you and be your arm candy.”
I rolled my eyes. “Thank you.” I still hate you. “So what do you have for me? Because I’ve got a little something for you too.”
“Look to your left,” Raphael crooned. “They’re coming your way.”
They?
I turned and about fell over. Marching down the sidewalk toward me were two hauntingly familiar women. The younger of the two looked like a much older, wider version of Paula Troy, my personal tormentor from high school, and Jake’s sister. By her side, looking identical to how she looked when I took typing class from her was Ms. Leer. Norma Leer: the wickedest, evilest teacher in the history of Wallace High.
Oh, and she’d hated me with a hellish vengeance.
Both women locked sights on me. I glanced over toward Raphael’s house. He was standing on his porch, waving good naturedly, smiling like the evil, back stabbing bastard he was.
“That’s for Sheetz, baby. Enjoy.”
“I’ll get you for this,” I hissed into the phone and hung up on him. I turned around and started to walk back toward my front door, as if I hadn’t already seen the two women coming my way.
“Stop right there!” I heard Paula bark in her most malicious, eerily familiar voice.
I sped up my pace.
“Miss Jones.” It was Ms Leer. Just the sound of her authoritative, disapproving alto made my entire body freeze as if I was being sucked up into a perverted time warp.
Slowly I turned around to find the nemeses from my high school years standing before me on my front porch, looking at me the same way they did all those years ago. Paula glared at me like she’d just found me smeared on the heel of her favorite shoe. Norma Leer leveled an icy gaze on me that could have freeze dried an entire cow.
I closed my eyes.
Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me...
I was so going to get Raphael back for this.
“Miss Jones,” Norma said, her voice as frigid as her stare, “Are you ill?”
Yes. “No, I’m fine.” I tried to smile at them, to lure them into a sense of faux civility, but all I wanted to do was run back into my house and lock the door. “Whatever can I do for you? I’d heard you both lived in Florida now.”
“We made a special trip when we heard about you and Jake,” Norma said.
“I couldn’t fucking believe it—” Paula started.
“Language,” Norma said flatly, her tone no less frosty toward her daughter than it had been to me.
Paula cringed, her head falling in a moment of shame… but then she recovered and glared at me once more. “I could not… believe it when I heard from Ann Williams that my brother had hooked up with the likes of you!”
The likes of me? As if she was some sort of p
rize?
I almost lost it and said what I was thinking, but more than anything I wanted Paula Troy and her ice queen mother to just go away. Being polite might be the fastest way to accomplish that.
“I had a hard time…” Norma Leer paused to contemplate what she was going to say next, seeming to mull it over in her head to nice it up. “What I mean is Jacob hasn’t dated anyone for almost two years,”—join the club—“and I and my daughter were duly surprised to hear he’d started dating again, that it was someone we both… knew.”—Oh boy—“And that it had ended practically before it had begun.”
“Jake won’t talk about it,” Paula said sourly. “He’s just being a hermit again, shut in that old house all day. So all we know is what I’ve gathered off the grapevine.”
I was gossip fodder. How nice.
“And what my daughter has gleaned from her friends up here,” she looked around at the city she’d spent most of her adult life teaching and raising a family in with clear distaste, “is that you broke up with him.”
What?
“Jake is famous for not breaking up with women.” Paula said. “It’s like a disease. Once a woman sneaks in under his defenses he’s powerless to get rid of her.”
Norma closed her eyes and cringed. “Even when it’s perfectly obvious he should.”
Paula tilted her head and gave me the closest-to-violence stare I’d ever received. “So, Hopeless Wonder,”
I was wondering when she’d start using the pet name she’d had for me in high school.
“Why did you break my big brother’s heart?”
I gulped. They had it wrong. I hadn’t broken up with Jake. He’d broken up with me, and for a very good reason. One I was not going to tell them. They’d form an impromptu lynching party and hang me from my sycamore.
“Ah…” They wanted answers, and I didn’t have any. Not any that would make them go away. “That’s between Jake and me.” I took a small step back toward my front door. “So if Jake didn’t tell you, then I really shouldn’t.”
Paula shrieked, her arms jerking as if she wanted to reach out and smack me. “I told you this little twit wouldn’t have the sense god gave a housefly!”
Love Him: A Love Him, Hate Him, Want Him Novel Page 20