* * *
Something had happened in the last three and a half seconds Jase hadn’t seen coming. He’d thought he had Emily ready to beg. To plead. To offer up home-cooked baked goods and a back rub if he would just finish her off.
Yeah, not gonna lie, it was hot as hell listening to those breathy, desperate noises coming from her. In fact, thirty seconds ago, he would have ventured to say there wasn’t anything hotter.
But that was before Emily Klein realized she wasn’t interested in giving up the upper hand. At least not without a fight.
And holy hell, what she had in her arsenal.
She’d tipped her hips into his touch and given him one of those seductive looks from beneath the ashy fringe of her lashes. A look that said she liked what he was doing, enough to maybe let him keep it up a while. Yeah, it was the kind of look that lesser men embarrassed themselves over…because hot.
Where had she learned that, anyway?
He didn’t have much time to ponder, because then her lips parted on a soft sigh. It was the precursor to the pink tip of her tongue wetting the inner flesh of her kiss-swollen bottom lip. Followed by her neat teeth pressing into that same flesh as she slowly rolled her hips from one side to the other, tracing her fingertips across her neckline.
Jesus, someone had been watching too much porn to be pulling moves like this.
To have him ready to drop to his knees and give her just about any damn thing he could think of.
And then she did it. Low and breathy and infinitely confident, immeasurably sexy, she murmured softly, “Please, Jase.”
Damn. Those words, delivered in that tone, with that look.
He could feel the tightening at the base of his spine. His body reacting like he’d been pumping inside her for the past hour, not like he hadn’t even had a taste of what she’d be like yet.
Every man had his limit.
Mouth crashing down on hers, he thrust his tongue past her lips, needing to be inside her more than he could remember needing anything else. Knowing it was going to be mere seconds before he was thrusting deep, but not being able to wait for that last bit of realignment.
Not that Emily seemed to mind. She was moaning around his tongue, licking at him with small flicks as he spread her wide to him, positioning himself until he was just exactly there.
The frantic hunger of their kiss eased.
Time slowed and their eyes met as he pushed into that spot of soft give, groaning at the tight passage gripping him. At the breathless mewls against his ear. At the feel of Emily’s hands clutching at his neck, his shoulders, his arms and chest. Like she desperately needed to hold on to something, to him, but she didn’t know exactly how or what would be enough.
Inch by inch, he pressed inside her, working himself deeper and deeper, pulling back only to give her body a chance to adjust, then pushing forward again until he’d taken her completely and they were staring into each other’s eyes.
Her hands were still on the move, still restlessly roaming from one spot to the next. Clenching and flexing. Doing things to him he couldn’t handle if he wanted to last.
And Jesus, he did. Because this was never happening again. Which meant he didn’t want to rush. He wouldn’t risk Emily not having a good time.
No way.
He’d never hear the end of it if he did, and while the idea of her ruthless insults were maybe making him even a little harder than he’d already been, the part of him that didn’t like to lose had plans to make it so good that she would have to think of him if she ever wanted to come again.
Yeah, definitely harder still at that thought.
She’d be so pissed.
Lips parted, she narrowed her eyes on his mouth.
“What’s that look?” she demanded breathlessly, her voice barely holding although he sensed that steel in her spine was as strong as ever.
“Just thinking about how pissed you’re going to be when I ruin you for all other men.”
Her mouth curved, a sexy little laugh escaping. “Good luck with that.”
“Don’t need luck,” he growled, starting to move within her. All he needed was the promise of Emily cursing his name every time another man tried to satisfy her.
“Jase!”
* * *
“You what?” Lena gasped, as Emily paced back and forth across her best friend’s office floor.
“I think I might have let him ruin me for all other men.” Emily stopped, glared at the ceiling, and shook her head, cursing her own stupidity. “He warned me. Actually warned me what he was about to do. And Lena, you should have seen the look on his face. Like he didn’t have a doubt in his mind that he could. But did I heed the warning?”
There was a little too much delight in her best friend’s eyes when she answered, “I’m guessing no.”
“No! And not just a simple no. I dared him to do it. I basically challenged him, Jase Foster of all men, to do his worst.”
“And he did.” Lena’s expression was something between sympathy and amusement, one seeming to break through the other in regular intervals.
She really wasn’t taking this seriously enough.
“Yes, he most definitely did.”
Being the pragmatic sort that she was, Lena leaned back in her too-big executive chair and steepled her fingers.
“Okay, I don’t want to minimize what you’re going through here. But Em, it’s only been two days. I think maybe you’re giving him more credit than you should just yet. I mean, how many other guys have you been with since Saturday morning?”
“None,” Emily grudgingly admitted. It was only Monday at noon, and honestly, her average was probably one sexual partner every two to three years. So chances were good it would be a while before she actually got to prove what she knew deep in her heart to be true—that she’d been ruined. Completely.
Because nothing had ever even come close to what Jase had done to her against that front door. And then on the back of her oatmeal linen sofa. She was pretty sure that the point where she had nearly lost consciousness…yeah, that had been on the buffet cabinet in her living room.
“Three times, Lena. To his once.”
Her friend’s brow pushed up slowly. “Three times in a row? Or with breaks? I mean, did you guys stop for some water or—?”
“No water. No breaks. He just… He was… I don’t even know how…and then…”
Lena was up out of her chair then, rounding her desk, concern—genuine this time, thank you—filling her eyes. “It’s okay. It’s okay. Just sit down, Emily.”
And then Lena winced, looking from the club chair to where Emily was standing beside it. “I mean, can you sit down?”
“Yes, yes.” Just not without thinking of Jase. Which was all part of the same problem. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him since she’d thanked him for the good time—drawing on every bit of false confidence and composure she could muster—and walked him to her door.
Where he’d looked like he might kiss her good-bye, but then she’d known she was already in too deep and had simply laughed like she was still the one in control and waved him out.
“Okay, I know that there are guys capable of making women climax more than once at a shot. But, Lena”—she met her friend’s eyes—“it was more than just your run-of-the-mill orgasm. It was a really, really good one, and then another, and then”—when she had well and truly been begging—“another. Who can do that?”
Lena shook her head. “No. There’s always someone else. At least until you meet the one. But from the way you talk about Jase—and I really wish I’d known before the wedding how you felt about him—he’s not.”
Emily agreed. “Definitely not. Which is why thinking about him like this is making me all the more angry.” Just like he’d known it would.
God, she hated it when he was right.
Lena was waving her hands in front of herself in that way she did when she wasn’t interested in hearing something that was probably the truth.
“No. We’ll give this another week or so, and then you’ll take matters into your own hands. Buy an incredibly complicated vibrator with all the bells and whistles and set yourself up with Magic Mike XXL or something. You won’t be thinking of Jase Foster when it’s done. You’ll be cured.”
Emily wanted to believe, but the fact that she’d gotten chills at the mention of Jase’s name—and not the prospect of Channing Tatum doing those incredibly erotic dance moves—didn’t bode well.
* * *
Jase walked up to the freshly shoveled stoop and, kicking as much snow from his boots as he could, let himself in the front door.
“Hey, Dad,” he said with a nod, unbuttoning his coat as a wave of warmth enveloped him.
“Jase.” His father grinned, straightening from where he’d been leaning over a sea of tiny screws, nuts, and bolts spread across the tabletop. He rolled his shoulders, making Jase wonder just how long he’d been sorting all that crap, and strode over for the bear hug that always put a smile on Jase’s face. “I didn’t know you were coming by.”
“Few errands in this neck of the woods and thought I’d take my old man out for some grub. You eat yet?”
Joe shot him a sideways look. “Worried I’ve started hitting the senior specials at four?”
Jase knew he hadn’t. If there was one thing he could count on in this life, it was the sanctity of his father’s routine. From as far back as Jase could remember, the man had worked Monday through Friday, leaving the house at 8:15 a.m. so while Jase had still lived there they could have breakfast together. He was back in the door by 6:05 p.m., and though dinner occasionally ran late around Jase’s practices or games, it never, ever happened before 6:30 p.m. Just one of those things. Like Joe bowling on Wednesday nights, poker on Fridays, and Jase coming out for a few hours in the afternoon and staying through dinner every Sunday.
It was nice. Comforting, like the smell of banana bread right out of the oven.
And Jase liked knowing that whatever kind of shit storm was brewing in his life, home would be as constant as ever.
They decided on the brew pub they’d been going to for years and folded themselves into Jase’s SUV. But before Jase had even gotten his seat belt on, Joe asked, “So what’s got you so spun up that you’re making up excuses to come all the way out to see your pops in the middle of the week?”
Jase shot his dad a look, but the old man had his number. Better even than he had his own, because it wasn’t until he heard his dad say the words that he realized they were true. Yeah, he liked to get his running shoes at the place where he’d been buying them since he was six, but he lived in Chicago. And while there were probably a hundred stores he could have chosen that weren’t an hour away, he’d gone to the one in Oak Park because he’d wanted to talk to his dad.
“Brace yourself. It’s about girls.”
“Hell, didn’t Ray teach you about that stuff when you were fourteen?”
He had. And then Bear and Mick too. It had been an awkward evening, to say the least. Memorable and informative beyond anything Jase had been ready for.
Letting out a low chuckle at the memory, he joked, “Yeah, well. Maybe I need to brush up.”
His dad huffed out a laugh, muttering something about being fairly certain that if one of them needed a brushup, it wasn’t Jase.
A few blocks from the house, he just said it. “I slept with Eddie’s girl.”
His dad’s eyes stayed trained on the road ahead as if he were the one behind the wheel, a small smile at the corner of his lips. “Eddie has a girl?”
Had he really driven all the way out to Oak Park for this?
“Emily,” he clarified.
“Ahh, yeah. I remember you mentioning her a few months back. What did you say, she gets to you ‘like nails down a blackboard’?”
Jase blew out a breath. “I didn’t mean for it to happen. I didn’t want it to happen.”
“Why not? You had a thing for her, if I’m remembering correctly. Before she was Eddie’s girl. Isn’t that right? You were thinking about making her yours?”
Jase cranked around to check out his dad, who was unwrapping a stick of chewing gum. He offered it with a guileless look and, seeing Jase’s confusion, shrugged. “You were pretty obvious about it.”
Maybe to his dad. And he was fairly sure Emily had a sense of it—for a while, anyway. But not anyone else. Not Eddie, or he never would have called dibs.
’Course, way back when, Jase wouldn’t have thought that Eddie would do half the shit he ended up doing. The car, the booze, the drugs.
“So you and Emily? I’m guessing the fact that you’re referring to her as ‘Eddie’s girl’ and sleeping with her versus dating her means you won’t be bringing her around for dinner anytime soon.”
Jase let out a short laugh, thinking about Emily’s assurance that what they were doing meant nothing. And the way hearing that had actually made him feel better.
And yet, some part of him that he really didn’t want to deal with was thinking, Yeah, my dad would like her a lot. Especially that laugh of hers—the one she gave so freely to everyone except him.
“No, not that kind of thing.”
Joe folded a rectangle of gum into his mouth and nodded.
“So why are you telling me about her? Again.”
It made sense that he’d ask. After all, it wasn’t as though Jase brought home the tales of his every conquest and hookup. In fact, he rarely talked about the women he dated. Sure, his dad knew about them because of the guys. Once every month or so, they’d all get together and his dad would demand updates on his boy. Jase would joke about the fact that Joe saw him every week, and the old man would counter that he wanted all the dirt Jase never ponied up. Dirt Brody, Sean, Max, and especially Molly loved to dish.
So his dad knew he wasn’t a monk and never would have expected him to be.
But this, him coming out to talk about Emily… Yeah, it had to mean something. Though he had no idea what. And maybe that was just it.
“I don’t know what I’m doing with her. I don’t know why I just couldn’t stop.”
They pulled up to a stop sign and Joe shifted in his seat, crossing his arms over that big chest of his. “You feeling guilty? Like maybe you took something you shouldn’t have?”
“What, because she’s Eddie’s girl? No. It’s been, what…eight, nine years since things ended with them? I haven’t even seen the guy in three.” And when he had, the kid he’d loved like a brother had been a shadow in the bloodshot eyes Jase barely recognized. The eyes that said that last stint in rehab hadn’t done the trick. Jase had talked to Eddie’s parents, but Eddie didn’t want help.
“I was thinking it might be more about having sex with a woman you don’t like. Wondering if maybe that’s what was getting to you. Your conscience.”
Jase was about a hairsbreadth from saying hell no, when something inside him yanked that knee-jerk response back. Made him sit on it a second longer and really ask himself what he thought.
They drove in silence another block before he looked over at his dad and told him the truth. “She makes me furious. And I can’t get along with her to save my life. And every single thing out of her mouth grates over my nerves like nothing else. But aside from all that, she’s actually a really good girl. Cares about her friends. Cares about everyone.” Except him, probably. “She’s smart. Funny.”
Gorgeous.
“If I’m really being honest with myself, yeah, I like her a lot. Just not in a way where—”
“Where you can do anything but take her to bed.”
Jase gave in to a weighted sigh. “Pretty much.”
“And you feel okay about that?”
&n
bsp; The answer was obvious. If he did, he wouldn’t have made the hour-plus drive to get his dad to help him figure out what he already knew.
Yeah, it definitely couldn’t happen again.
Chapter 11
January
The New Year came and went, and Jase’s resolution to get his head out of Emily Klein’s panties was a complete bust. Not good, since he was about to see her for the first time since she’d shooed him out of her apartment approximately twelve and a half minutes after they’d collapsed on the floor beside her bed.
Sally and Romeo’s wedding had been rescheduled and pared down even more. The service was taking place at five that evening with a priest they hadn’t met who’d come to take over while the man who’d baptized Sally recovered from surgery. And from there they were going to some bistro they’d managed to rent out for the reception. The guest list had gone from the initial seven hundred and fifty of their closest friends and family down to three hundred and now down to fifty-seven. But it didn’t matter. There was bound to be at least one available beauty on hand that evening to keep him from any more wayward thoughts about Emily.
Yeah, all he needed was a new pretty face, and he’d be done thinking about the curve of Emily’s leg in his hand. The breathy sounds she’d made when he was inside her. The way she’d gasped his name when he made her come. How soft and wet and tight—
Jase groaned, bracing a hand against his fridge door.
Enough.
A message popped up on his phone, and Jase saw the guys were out front waiting for him. The weather had mellowed back to Chicago’s more typical winter, with the temps hovering just above freezing. So they’d lost a good portion of the snowfall, and the roads were still clear.
No more monkey wrenches courtesy of Mother Nature. At least not tonight.
Jase locked up, being sure to engage both dead bolts, and then took the elevator down to street level, where the “security” door was propped open with a broken piece of concrete and had a sheet of paper taped to it regarding the party happening on seven. Outside, Brody was double-parked. With Max in the front, Jase hopped into the too-small rear and clapped both men on the shoulder. “Sure hope I don’t get carsick back here,” he warned, making a last-ditch effort to score shotgun.
May the Best Man Win Page 9