Loved Up
Scarlett Scott
Book one in the Coastal Heat series.
When she accidentally runs into the back of a gorgeous stranger’s truck at a stoplight, the last thing on Kassie’s mind is indulging in her deepest, hottest fantasies with him. Until he shows up on her doorstep as the contractor she’d hoped to hire to remodel her home and things get interesting…fast.
With a sexy drawl, skilled hands and a body that makes her panties all but melt, Jax is exactly the kind of man she shouldn’t get involved with after breaking off her engagement and starting over in another state. But she’s helpless to resist the powerful desire he makes her feel, and before long she’s letting him have his wicked way with her all over town.
Jax knows falling for a woman like Kassie’s a bad idea. He’s experienced enough heartbreak to see the signs. He can tell she’s ready to run, but when she’s in his arms, he’ll do everything he can to make her stay.
A Romantica® contemporary erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave
Loved Up
Scarlett Scott
Dedication
For my wonderful husband, who uprooted his life in Canada to be with me in the States.
Chapter One
Kassie was running late. Again.
“Shit,” she muttered to herself as she hightailed it up to the traffic light on Ocean and Main. She’d kicked a lot of old habits since leaving her too-busy-to-breathe life in New York behind several months ago. Adam, for one. Not enjoying the little things in life for another. But being late? That hadn’t changed a bit.
She braked behind an alpha-man pickup truck, casting a glance at the dashboard clock to confirm that she only had about ten minutes to spare until the contractor showed up to give her a price on the office reno she’d been planning. And she still needed to answer precisely one hundred and two emails, grab a bite to eat and clean up the mess she’d left all over her kitchen when she’d gone to the grocery store that morning.
Yeah, she was not a morning person. At all.
Kassie sighed. Some things couldn’t be changed. She glanced up then, knowing from experience that the traffic light was notoriously slow but nevertheless hoping it would cooperate just this once. And then she caught a glimpse of the man driving the alpha-diesel truck in front of her.
He was unspeakably gorgeous. Chiseled, model good looks. Dark hair. Just the right amount of mouthwatering stubble. Killer lips. A tattoo on his tanned left arm. No wedding band on that hand, either. Not that she was looking. Because really, she wasn’t, but with a man that beautiful, how could she not?
Wow.
She swallowed. Then, something totally crazy happened. Model Man looked into the mirror, meeting her gaze, and a spark shot straight through her. Awareness. Hunger. Oh my God, she was actually turned-on from making eye contact with a man. It was a whole new low.
She jerked her gaze away and hit the gas, somehow forgetting to check the traffic light first. And crashed right into the rear end of Model Man’s big, shiny alpha truck. Her entire body jolted forward with the force of the impact. Shock hit her, making her hands shake.
God. She had to be dreaming. This couldn’t be real. Had she actually just smashed her ancient four-door into the back of a stranger’s truck because she’d been checking him out? A glance up from her steering wheel revealed that it was all too real. The driver’s side door of the truck swung open. A long, lean, jean-clad leg emerged. He was wearing cowboy boots. For some reason, she noticed the ridiculous, small details in that instant of awful comprehension.
When he was on two feet, striding toward her, she realized he was even better looking head-on. Dark hair, a simple black shirt over his well-defined chest, big blue eyes. Big, angry blue eyes.
Crap. She was ogling him again, and he was standing outside her car, looking at her as if she were deranged.
“Are you okay?” he asked, a slight drawl coloring his concerned voice.
“Um, I think so,” she said, even if she probably wasn’t. Not after doing something that stupid. “Are you?”
“Fine,” he bit out, his jaw going rigid now that he’d ascertained her well-being. “What in the hell happened?”
Oh, great. No more Mr. Nice Model now that she wasn’t bleeding from the head. She bit her lip, trying to find an answer that would make sense. There was no way she could tell him that she’d been so distracted by his hotness that she’d smacked right into the back of him. “I, ah, thought the light was green,” she tried.
“Seriously?” His expression turned skeptical, but damn did he make skeptical look sexy.
“Yes,” she lied, trying to focus on what had just happened. Really, she wasn’t normally this scatterbrained. “I’m so sorry.”
He glanced down the road before turning his gaze back to her. “No one’s coming yet, but we’d better try to move off to the side of the road before they do, or else we’ll have even bigger problems.”
“Right.” She nodded, wondering why she hadn’t thought of that. Probably because she was too busy wondering what he looked like with his shirt off.
He gave her another long, slow stare before turning and striding back to his truck. She couldn’t help it. She checked out his ass in those perfectly fitting jeans of his. It was just as flawless as the rest of him. Kassie swallowed.
“Get it together,” she told herself. “You’re a grown woman.”
Even if she wasn’t acting like it. Model Man hopped back into his truck and guided it onto the shoulder. Kassie followed him, her car limping a great deal more than his huge, gleaming ride. These days, it seemed that she couldn’t catch a break. It was bad enough that she’d had to wrangle the vehicle she’d driven through her high school days back from her mother and stepfather after leaving New York. Now she’d managed to make it almost undriveable.
After years of either traveling by foot or by subway, maybe she wasn’t the best driver in the world. But hey, she had to get back into suburban life at some point, and the car had seemed like a step in the right direction. Until now.
The handsome man whose day she’d managed to ruin reemerged from his truck. He was still the sexiest man she’d ever seen. And that was saying a lot since she’d spent a decade in New York City, home to some of the planet’s most beautiful human beings. Too bad she hadn’t met him under normal circumstances, and too bad that she was late for her appointment for real now.
A quick check of the clock confirmed it. Seven minutes had passed. She’d have to call the contractor and apologize. Grimacing, she swung open her car door. It creaked, but that was nothing new. The car was admittedly more than half her age, and it had seen its better days even before she’d driven it as if she’d stolen it back in high school.
She got out of her car and realized she was still wearing her pajama bottoms and an old concert t-shirt. Nothing said I’m an adult like puppy-patterned fleece and Matchbox Twenty. Dear God. She ran a hand through her sleep-mussed brown hair and hoped she didn’t look like a complete mess, futile as that was.
Model Man stopped less than a foot away. He was almost scowling at her as his gaze went from his cracked bumper, to her, then back to his bumper again.
“I’m really sorry for hitting your car,” she said, feeling like the awkward girl in school facing the class jock.
“Truck,” he growled.
Huh? He really was taking this alpha man thing to new levels. Not exactly a conversationalist. She blinked. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t drive a car,” he elaborated, his gaze intense and discomfiting on hers. “I drive a truck.”
Really? He was quibbling over her word choice at a time like this? She inwardly downgraded his sex appeal by a few points. But fine, she could play his game. After all, she was the one in the wrong, th
e one who was severely lacking in the multitasking department.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I didn’t mean to hit your truck. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
He ran a hand through his hair again. “That makes two of us.”
She swallowed a retort. “It was an accident. My fault. Look, let’s just exchange insurance info and move on with our days.”
He nodded. “Good plan. I’ve got to be somewhere.”
Oh good. They had reached a common ground. She tried not to frown at him, because he was as beautiful as he was grumpy. Did he really think she’d ruined her only vehicle on purpose? Or his for that matter? “Me too.”
“I’ll grab mine and we’ll swap. No need to call the cops. I’m already late.” He turned on his boot heel and gave her another excellent view of his tight bum.
Kassie pried her eyes away and headed back into her car, going for the insurance and registration in the glove compartment. She leaned inside the passenger door, grabbed the necessary paperwork and turned to find that Model Man stood directly behind her. She was staring right at a luscious male chest. Damn he was tall.
She looked up at him, meeting those blindingly blue eyes, and forced her brain to function. “Here’s my info.”
He held out two pieces of paper as well. “Here’s mine.”
They swapped the documents, and Kassie grabbed her cell phone to snap a picture. He did the same with hers. It was the fastest way for her to get back on the road, and hopefully the contractor was running late and she could still catch him. Now that she’d completely humiliated herself, she just wanted to get it over with and move on to the rest of her day. As much as part of her wanted to jump Model Man’s bones, she had a feeling that simply wasn’t in the cards.
She handed his registration and insurance cards back to him. “I’ll call my insurance company as soon as I get home.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Their fingers brushed as they once more traded papers. Kassie couldn’t deny the surge of awareness it sent over her. Damn, he was just too handsome to be real. Shaking the unwanted thought from her mind, she flashed him a smile. “Thanks for being so understanding. Sorry again.”
When he didn’t answer, she decided that was her cue to exit, stage left. She skirted the depressingly smashed front of her car and slid back behind the wheel, where she would hopefully do no more mayhem for the five minutes it would take her to drive to her house in downtown Atlantic.
“Hey,” he called out to her just before she turned the key in the ignition.
Her window was rolled down because her AC also happened to be broken. She turned, startled.
He grinned. “Look out for those tricky red lights.”
Asshole. She pursed her lips, wishing he still wasn’t so darn hot. But he was, and even his snarky comments only served to turn her on more. Maybe she was a glutton for punishment. Maybe she was crazy. Lord knew that there was a time in her life that she’d never have looked twice at a tattooed alpha man in a pickup truck with a bad sense of humor. Now she was practically drooling.
Get a grip, Kassie.
“Yeah, thanks,” she called back before starting up her car and heading home with her tail between her legs.
Jax surveyed the damage to his rear bumper one last time. Not too bad, he mused, but the truck was his pride and joy, only six months old. He hated to see it cracked up already. At least her car had been a gutless piece of shit, so the damage wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. He’d take it to his brother’s shop in the morning and drive his Jeep in the meantime.
With a sigh, he strode back to his truck, hopping up into the cab. He was late to meet his client now, but he’d just have to explain. Her address was only about five minutes down the road anyway. Besides, it wasn’t every day that an absentminded hot chick rear-ended his truck.
And she had been smoking hot, despite the fact that it looked as if she’d just rolled out of bed before she’d creamed the bumper of his ride. When he’d first felt the impact of the crash, he’d been furious. His anger had abated after he headed back to the perpetrator and realized she had wide blue eyes, long dark hair, a mouth that begged to be kissed and the nicest pair of breasts he’d ever seen in a Matchbox Twenty t-shirt.
Yeah, that had helped to squelch his irritation. He hadn’t been able to resist teasing her. Watching her squirm had been fun. She wasn’t used to his down-home sense of humor, that much was apparent. As she’d pulled away, the Pennsylvania license plate had confirmed his suspicion. She was an out-of-towner, which was too bad because he really wouldn’t have minded having a run-in with her again. The kind where she didn’t plow into the back of his diesel and then call it a car.
He fired his truck up, relishing the low, steady roar. There were two sounds he’d never grow tired of hearing in his life. One was the sweet growl of a diesel truck, and the other was a woman moaning beneath him. End of story.
He guessed he’d probably be far too much for a woman like her to handle. Despite the pajamas and shit car, she had prissy written all over her. He probably would have scared the hell out of her.
Grinning to himself, he pulled back onto the road. He took a right on Main Street and rolled into downtown Atlantic, looking for number seventy-three. His potential client had an office renovation project in mind, and he’d do best to turn his mind back to business. No fantasizing about the breasts under that faded t-shirt while measuring a room for tile. Not very professional.
He was now ten minutes late, and that bugged the hell out of him. He’d never, not once in the twelve years he’d been working for his family’s renovation company or the eight years since he’d been running it, been late for a meeting. Chalk it up to the troublemaking brunette in the foreign car.
As he spotted seventy-three and began pulling into the driveway, there it was as if he’d conjured it from his mind. The car whose owner had given his bumper a run for its money. His grin widened. Well, hell. What were the odds of that?
It looked like Miss Matchbox Twenty and his potential client just might be one and the same.
* * * * *
Kassie admittedly hadn’t gotten accustomed to not having someone else keep the house clean for her. Living in New York with Adam had left her spoiled. Fortunately, her contractor was late too. Either that, or he’d grown tired of waiting for her and left. Just in case, she was frantically shoving her dirty dishes into the dishwasher. Her groceries had gone straight into the fridge, bags and all, regardless of whether they needed to stay cold.
Crap, there were crumbs all over the counter. Not to mention that she still had unopened boxes from moving everywhere. After the nerve-racking fender-bender, she’d barely had time to change into a little black dress before heading for her kitchen to try to restore it to order. If there was such a thing. Maybe the angry words Adam had thrown at her before she’d left him weren’t so far off the mark.
You’re nothing but a spoiled brat who didn’t realize what she had.
Nah. She’d realized what she’d had all right. It just happened that it hadn’t been what she wanted. The doorbell rang then, interrupting her frantic efforts and troubled musings. She did a quick, desperate sweep of her hand, knocking all the assorted crumbs into her sink, then hit the faucet, sending them down the drain. She hoped she wouldn’t pay for that later in the form of a plumbing bill.
After hastily surveying the kitchen—halfway decent—she padded to the door in her bare feet and pulled it open. And almost had to catch her jaw before it hit the floor. The tall stranger staring her down from her front porch was none other than the guy she’d just rear-ended not twenty minutes before.
Was he stalking her? Had he followed her home? Should she be worried or flattered? She didn’t know. Her mind was going so fast that it was stumbling over itself. She wasn’t sure what she should say.
“Hi,” she blurted. Great. Very intelligent, Kassie. She inwardly grimaced at her awkwardness.
He gave her a slow
perusal, the kind that made her much warmer than the late-September weather warranted. “Kassie Ryan?”
She blinked at him. “Yes?”
“I’m sorry I’m late. Someone rear-ended me out on Route One.”
No. It couldn’t be. What were the odds that the man she’d rammed into, the sexiest man she’d ever laid eyes on, had been sent here from the renovation company she’d contacted? Impossible as it seemed, he was staring at her expectantly. It was true. Luck wasn’t on her side.
Kassie mentally shook herself. “I guess I’m the one who should be sorry. Looks like I’m the someone in question.”
He gave her a deadly grin. The kind that made him look even sexier than he already did. “At least I don’t have to explain why I’m late.”
“No.” She took a step back to allow him to come inside. “Please come in.”
He crossed the threshold and the dynamics between them changed. They were no longer standing alongside the road. Now he was a tall, dark and handsome invader of her personal space. She tried to remain unaffected, but it was truly difficult. He was unbearably good-looking.
“So you’d like to renovate a home office?” he asked, sounding all business.
She wondered briefly if he regretted giving her a difficult time earlier, now that he knew she was a customer. Likely not, but she had a feeling that his boss wouldn’t approve of his cocky ways. Not that she was about to rat him out, but she rather enjoyed the feeling of once more having the upper hand.
She closed the door behind him and turned on her heel, unnerved to find him watching her in that steady way he had. What had he asked? Oh yes. Business. “Yeah, as you can see, this place is kind of a work in progress.”
Her house had been built in the 1890s, and while it had its fair share of modern upgrades, much of it still needed a helping hand to bring it into the twenty-first century. When she’d first left New York and Adam, it had been totally unplanned and unexpected, and she hadn’t had anywhere to go, so she’d moved back in with her parents in Pennsylvania. After finding her feet, she’d decided to move to the beach and the small-town comfort of Atlantic, Maryland, for a fresh start. The little historic house on Main Street was up for sale, she’d had enough in her savings for the down payment and she’d fallen in love for its potential rather than its current state. For the first time in her life, she’d jumped without waiting to see if a net would catch her if she fell.
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