“I’m not leaving here without feeling you again.” There was worry in his tone. It sounded as if he thought whatever magic made us come together would fade as soon as we walked out of the room.
He wrapped my legs around his waist, pressing me against the wall. What happened next wasn’t intimate. It was pure, carnal pleasure.
He placed a chaste kiss on my forehead before lowering me to the floor. “Now, go get dressed.” He popped my bare behind. “Your new clothes are in the foyer.”
“I can just wear the clothes I came in.”
“Please,” he always laced that word with sarcasm. “I got you something nice.”
How could I refuse him when he’d been so thoughtful? I picked up the bag and started toward the bedroom.
I pulled out several smaller bags from the large bag. The pretty pink one caught my eye first. Victoria’s Secret…Oh my! I was expecting something slutty like an edible thong, but instead, I found a pair of conservative cotton underwear, similar to the ones I’d worn here but nicer. There was also a matching bra in my size. I hadn’t had matching undergarments in years. I briefly considered how unsanitary it was to wear new underwear without washing them, but I slid them on anyway. I’d done crazier things in the past twenty-four hours.
In the next bag I found a black and white off-the-shoulder silk blouse in floral print with a spaghetti strap tank top to wear underneath and a pair of stretch jeans from…Dolce and Gabbana! It must’ve cost a small fortune! Finally, at the very bottom, there was a pair of black knee-high boots, also Dolce.
I’d never owned anything so expensive.
I expected none of it to fit, but as I slipped on each article of clothing, it fit like a glove. I looked at myself in the mirror, tugging at the blouse to bring it off both shoulders. I hardly recognized myself.
I dabbed on some powder, mascara and lip-gloss from my purse and gave myself the once-over. I looked like me six years ago: classy, well dressed, smart, and most of all, I looked chic. I was smart, but I hadn’t looked the part since George had left us with nothing.
I also had a glow about me that I could only attribute to my night and morning with Jake. He’d given me more than clothes.
I stepped out into the living room, and Jake took me in once, twice, three times before he said, “You’re radiant.”
“You shouldn’t have spent so much money. I would’ve settled for something from Walmart.”
“You would be lovely in a tow sack, but I like spoiling you. Let me.”
“A trip to Vegas, a night and morning to remember, and at least two grand worth of clothes, I think you’ve spoiled me enough.”
“Not possible.”
“Which reminds me, here’s your money from the blackjack game.” I pulled the two thousand dollars from my purse, holding it out to him.
“That’s yours. You won it.”
“No,” I said firmly. “It’s yours, and that’s all there is to it.” I shoved it into his hand, letting him know that there wouldn’t be a discussion on the topic.
The vacation was welcome; the clothes were nice, but cash, no, I couldn’t take it. Especially since we were on the friends-with-benefits train. It would’ve made me feel dirty, and Jake made me feel the exact opposite, so no matter how much I could have used the money, I wouldn’t take it because it would’ve made what we had done feel tainted.
“Take the money, Jake.”
“All right.”
“Let’s do this,” I said with my purse on my shoulder and the Dolce bag filled with both of our dirty laundry in my hand.
“Wait, there’s one more thing we need to discuss before we walk out.” Jake stopped me.
I rolled my eyes. “What now?”
“Are we presenting as just friends or more?”
I thought on it. “Whatever is best for your image,” I said, not wanting to put pressure on labeling how I felt about him or vice versa.
“Let’s just wing it.”
“That does seem to be our style these days.” I smiled.
“They will bombard you with questions. You can say whatever you want. Answer, don’t answer, whatever makes you most comfortable.” I nodded. “There’s a car waiting for us in the parking structure so we won’t have to go out front, but the press will be in the lobby.”
“Okay,” I said nervously. I looked at him in his black V-neck fitted sweater. The thin material accentuated his broad shoulders and toned physique. He’d matched it with dark jeans. I glanced at him then looked down at myself. He noticed.
“You’re beautiful,” and with that, he ushered me out the door. There were several staff members lingering in the hall but nothing major. I thought he had overreacted until we exited the elevator in the lobby. I could hear the crowd before I could see them. Hotel security had formed a line to allow us room to walk through.
“Kate, are you pregnant?” one man shouted.
“Kate, what is your relationship with Jackson?” a lady said. I kept my head down.
We were almost to the outer door when a man said, “Jackson, how was she?”
It felt as if everything stopped when Jake leapt through the security guards, slamming the man against the wall.
“Jake!” I yelled.
“Don’t ever disrespect her again! Any of you!” he shouted over the crowd before taking my hand and pulling me through the door to the garage.
“Are you okay?” he said when we got in the Town Car. I nodded, despite my embarrassment over Jake’s reaction to the guy in the lobby.
“I’m just ready to get home,” I told him.
This version of Jake, Jackson, had a temper. My Jake would’ve never done something like that. His whole demeanor had changed. It was as if I had left my friend in the corner suite of the Aria and picked up this guy in the elevator.
I noticed the muscles of his jaw clench as he scrolled through his phone.
“What? What does it say?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why are you so tense?” I had never seen him like this. He’d always been so laid back.
“I screwed up,” he said simply, without looking up. I stared at him for further explanation, but I didn’t get it.
I leaned my head on the car window and watched the city’s lights creep by. He screwed up. What he’d really meant was that he’d screwed me, and by proxy, made a stain on his career.
We didn’t speak when we boarded the plane. He was too busy returning text messages. The plane was something straight out of the movies, but I couldn’t find it in myself to care. I was too distracted to enjoy it, and Jake was too distracted to notice.
The flight attendant offered me an eye mask, among other things, which I politely declined. Jake waved her away as if she were pestering him. At that, I couldn’t hold my tongue. “Excuse me,” I said when it was just Jake and me in the cabin. “If you can pry that thing from your hands long enough, that nice woman was trying to speak with you.”
The look he flashed me could be described only as a mixture of aggravation and embarrassment. “What did she want?”
“Ask her yourself, rude ass!”
“I didn’t—” he started, but I turned away.
I leaned my seat back, closing my eyes to let him know that I was done talking to him. I hated being shooed like a fly. It made me feel less than human. I was surprised Jake could be so full of himself. He actually thought he was better. What an asshole. I sure fooled easily because he’d had me going with that whole humble act.
“We’re here.”
I opened my eyes, completely discombobulated, trying to figure out where I was. I looked to my left to find Jake standing over me looking at me thoughtfully.
“You slept right through the landing.”
Wow, he’s gorgeous, was the first rational thought I had through the sleep fog in my mind, a blissful moment when nothing mattered but what lay directly in front of my eyes.
Then I remembered… “I screwed up,” he’d said. I retrieved my purse a
nd bag of clothes.
“Let me get that for you.” He reached for the bag.
“I’ve got it.” I brushed by him, but he gently took my elbow.
“Katie, I’m sorry about all of this.”
“Yeah, me too,” I said. His eyes seemed to get lighter as his dark brows drew together. I had hurt his feelings. How? I wasn’t the one who felt like I’d “screwed up.”
“It’s too much for you, isn’t it?”
“What? The paparazzi?”
“Yeah, I know it’s a lot, but it will calm down.”
“I don’t give a shit about that.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
“Nothing…” I said, pulling my elbow out of his grasp, but then I spun back around to face him, because I wasn’t one of those girls who just said “nothing” when there was something. “You know, I’m sorry that spending a night with me, a night that I think was amazing by the way, qualifies as a ‘screw up’ to you, but you don’t have to be so ugly about it.”
“Katie, no! That’s not what I meant at all! I loved being with you! It’s the best thing…” He ran his hand through his dark hair. “I would never take it back.” I was confused. “I just meant that I screwed up by getting you wrapped up in my crazy life.” I glared at him and turned to walk away. “No, this is coming out all wrong. I don’t want you to be perceived by the world as just another girl, because you aren’t. You’re so much more than that to me.”
“So when you said you ‘screwed up’?”
“I meant that by taking you to a hotel, spending the night with you, and going out for contraceptives, I made it seem to the world like you’re just the girl of the moment when that’s not how I see you at all. I don’t want you to feel that way.”
“I didn’t feel that way until you said that. I told you, I don’t care what everyone else thinks.”
“I know you believe that, but this way of life has a way of stripping that innocence from you and stomping on it. Promise me, that no matter what they say, you’ll give me a chance to make it right.”
“You aren’t even making any sense.”
“I know it doesn’t seem to make sense now, but you’ll see. Just promise me. I don’t want you to shut me out again.”
“Jake, obviously my shutting you out was a mistake. I’m sorry. How many times should I say it? You have to forgive me, too, if you want to move forward. I’m not going to do that again. Your friendship is important to me.”
“Promise me,”
“I promise,” I told him.
His hand came to my face, “Spend the week with me, here, at home.”
I dropped my eyes, shaking my head. “You know I have to work and—”
“You have responsibilities. Yeah, I know, but spend your free time with me.” I thought it over without really thinking it over at all. It would be nice not to be lonely all week with Ty out of town. As long as I knew that we were just friends hanging out, as long as I didn’t invest emotionally… “Please,” he said a little anxiously.
“Okay, but you can’t show up at my work and stuff. You have to recognize that there are boundaries. You may be Jackson Jacobs to the world, but you’re still Jake Lewis around here.”
“Fair enough, but no rules during your free time, deal?”
“I’m not making any more deals with you, mister.” I smiled and started backing away, but he was pursuing me with that sexy smirk on his face.
“No boundaries behind closed doors.” He brought his hands up, and I thought he would tickle me, but he grabbed my waist and jerked me to him. “Say it.”
No boundaries at home? As in I would let him do with me what he wanted?
“Okay,” I said shakily. I didn’t know what I had just agreed to, but the butterflies were taking over again, clouding my judgment.
There was a car waiting for us on the tarmac. When we got in, I told the driver to drop me first. “We’re going to the same place,” Jake corrected.
I looked at him sharply. “You aren’t moving in.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Ah, no, you’re not. Seriously.”
“Fine, I’ll go home while you’re at work, but I’m spending my evenings with you.”
“What will your mom think?”
“She knows how much I’ve missed you. She won’t think anything of it.”
I faced forward, wondering what it would be like. I had been on my own for so long I didn’t know how I would adjust to having someone besides Ty in my personal space. I had been sort of looking forward to having a week to myself. I knew I would miss Ty like crazy, but to be able to just go home and do whatever I wanted for a week sounded fantastic. Bubble baths and binge television or… I could have a sexy man in my bed every night. Decisions, decisions.
I would take Jake, for sure. Besides, it wasn’t as if he’d said that he wanted to make this about sex. He might just want to hang out, which was fine too.
I noticed him staring at me.
“What are you deliberating?”
“How do you know I’m deliberating?” I smiled.
“Because you’ve looked at the ceiling of this car about ten times doing that twisty thing with your mouth.”
“Can’t get anything by you.”
“Nope. What’s going on in that mind of yours?”
“I was just thinking about all the bubble baths and movies I’ll miss with you hanging around all week.”
“You can have both.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He put his arm around me so casually that it felt like we hadn’t just spent the morning exploring each other in ways we never had before. Maybe he did just want to hang out and relax. I leaned my head back against his arm with a smile. My week with Jake had officially begun.
****
When we pulled up to my house, I noticed a woman sitting on my front porch swing. She stood up, straightening her slim-fit skirt and slipping her sunglasses off with a leather-gloved hand. Her red hair was trimmed in a smart bob around her slender face. The way she tiptoed off my porch in her four-inch heels gave away the fact that she wasn’t happy to be here. Frankly, I wasn’t too pleased to see a stranger treating my porch as though it had snakes slithering across it.
“Here we go,” Jake said sarcastically.
“Who is that?” I asked, but she was already approaching us with a clickity-clack on the sidewalk.
“I told you not to make me come down here. Didn’t I say that?” She dusted some make-believe dirt from the hem of her skirt. She was old enough to be his mother, and she was acting like she was just that.
“Joan, this is—”
“I know who she is. Hi, Kate, pleasure,” she said with a forced smile before turning back to Jake. “You’ve managed to go seven years in the spotlight without a scandal, yet here we are in Hickstown, USA.”
“Excuse me,” I interjected. She regarded me but didn’t say anything. It was like a dare, and I took the bait. “I don’t know who you think you are, but if you don’t like it here, I welcome you to take your uppity ass right on back to wherever it is you came from.”
She raised a vibrantly red brow at Jake, but he held his hands up as if he were staying out of it. “I like her,” she told him.
“I told you,” he said, grinning from ear to ear. I was dumbfounded by their exchange, so I stomped off toward the house but stopped around the corner when I heard Jake say, “I’m shocked they’re not here.”
“They will be. They just haven’t found Ms. Masters’ home yet. They are currently camped out on your mother’s front lawn.”
“Figures. What should I do?”
“That depends. Do you care about her?”
“You know I do,” he answered.
“We could spin it as a whimsical love story.”
“What? No!” he snapped. “Katie wouldn’t be comfortable with that, and I’m not spinning anything when it comes to my relationship with her.” Hearing him say that calmed me. He was still my Jake. He was st
ill my friend.
“Then I guess you play out whatever this is and see where you land. Just understand what that means.”
“I know. This isn’t my first time.”
“It kind of is,” she noted. “I brought the confidentiality contract.”
“I don’t need it.”
“Jackson, I know how you feel about her, but don’t be stupid.”
“I said I don’t need it, Joan. I trust her.”
“You say that now but—”
“No, I trust her.” His tone was firm.
“Fine, I’m taking the jet back to LA tonight. I’ll do what I can to contain this but no more trips to the drugstore, you got me?”
“Yeah, I’ve got it. Thanks for coming.”
“Reflect your gratitude in my bonus. Who knew there was a place where mosquitoes could survive the winter,” she said in disgust. I heard her clacking heels headed for the car. “But, Jackson,” she called out.
“Yeah.”
“Call me when they find her. I’ll come back if I have to.” When I heard the car door slam, I scurried on up to the house.
He cared about me. Of course he did. We’d been friends for years! I debated in my head. I couldn’t make a big deal about this. I wanted, no, I needed this…A few days, footloose and fancy free, with my best friend sounded too good to pass up.
I flopped down on the couch, opening the recliner, trying to look casual so he wouldn’t know I had been eavesdropping. Jake walked in all smiles, as if nothing concerning had happened. I wanted to ask what a confidentiality contract was, but instead, I said, “Movie?”
“Maybe. I just have to call and check on my mom.”
“Yeah, I want to get changed. These clothes are really nice, but I prefer comfort over luxury.”
“I prefer the towel,” he said. Just like that, warmth spread through me. I didn’t know how to react to him now. Was he kidding? Should I laugh? Should I jump him? He made the decision for me by turning to his phone. But it wouldn’t be that easy every time. I was in uncharted territory. I didn’t know how to do casual sex, but I felt like I was about to learn. I would just let him lead the way. He would be the director, and I would be an actor in his play. I could get on board with that analogy.
Love Reconnected (Hollywood Series Book 1) Page 9