Catch up on all the Calling It titles
At precisely 9:00 a.m. the next
morning Lola was sitting in her car outside the farmhouse.
At 9:04, she was still sitting
there, a jumble of thoughts, none of them productive or good.
She finally got herself moving when
Jack came around from the back and leaned against the side of the house, his
arms folded in front of his chest as he watched her. “Glad to see you’re
wearing a shirt,” she said, slamming the car door shut and walking toward him.
He smiled and a huge thrum went through her, proving just how
bad an idea this arrangement was. “I’ll state for the record that if you ever
choose to declare a no-shirts-while-working day,” he said, “I’m all for it.”
She didn’t for a second believe him.
He’d been Nate’s best friend since his rookie season; Silas’s favorite player.
She’d watched him on and off the field for years and even though she’d already
succumbed to it twice she knew that
low drawl and easy smile went along with the part he played. He used them on
everyone from the grandmothers whose programs he signed to the reporters who
interviewed him. Up until this last year, at least.
She resisted rolling her eyes as she
replied, “I’ll state for the record it’s unlikely to happen.”
“Well, then, I sure hope you weren’t
spending all that time in the car thinking about the clothes I did or didn’t
have on,” he answered.
Unfortunately, that was exactly what she’d been thinking about.
Or, rather, him in various states of undress, her in the same, and how hot and
hard he would feel against her. In danger of giving in, she went with the
surefire way to shut that conversation down. “I was thinking about my husband,
if you’d truly like to know.”
“About him not wearing a shirt?”
“Do
you really know how to do this kind of stuff?” He was a professional baseball
player from Connecticut. Not exactly the guy she’d call to hang a picture, much
less help renovate a house. Then again, Nate had put him here to work and Nate
generally knew what he was doing.
Still, it didn’t help when Jack gave
answers like, “I’ve got a great phone. I can look up how-to videos from pretty
much anywhere.”
She frowned at his grin. “You’re
really not worried about your hand?” Pissing his father off was one thing;
ruining his career another entirely.
“Don’t you worry,” he said, his smile turning
wicked. “My hand works just fine when it needs to.”
Trying not to let on that his smile
had hit her right below her belly, she threw her hands up in the air. “Does
everything you say have to be some kind of sexual innuendo?”
“I
was talking about pitching.” He cocked his head. “Wait, you were
talking about sex?”
He wasn’t talking about pitching. She wasn’t that out of practice. But it
had been long enough for her to be entirely off her game. The best reply she
could come up with was a snorted, “You wish.” Except the
second she said it, she snapped her mouth shut, because he looked at her in a
way that made her wonder if maybe the whole flirty thing he had going on wasn’t just a way to get under her skin.
No.
This was just a game to him; it had to
be. He couldn’t seriously be interested.
Except
then he swallowed hard and looked away.
Lola’s
heart was racing and it felt harder than it should to breathe. But they were
both adults here; they each knew exactly how bad an idea it would be to let
this go further. And so at the same time they both turned to leave the room.
The problem was that they bumped into each other in the process.
“Oh,
shit,” he muttered as his hand came down to steady her yet again.
Her
thoughts exactly. It was just that
it
had been so long since she’d touched
a man—accidental stumbling excepted—and she wanted so badly to feel that again. He was the wrong person to be thinking
this about. Yet she couldn’t stop herself from looking up at him.
Everything was suddenly clearer.
Sharper. Even the way he stood, although he hadn’t moved so much as a muscle.
His gaze bored into hers, then traveled past her jaw, between her breasts,
right down the center of her before coming back up. She felt the heat rise
through her, as she dropped her gaze to his lips. She’d done a lot of kissing
in her life, but only with Dave. Would Jack taste different? Feel different?
“I’m not a good guy, Lola. You
deserve a lot better than me,” he said, his voice gruff as he straightened up a
little. But all that did was bring their bodies closer into alignment—close
enough for her to feel exactly how aroused he was.
She wasn’t sure what she deserved.
She’d been a good wife to her husband. She’d always thought she and Dave
deserved to live a long and happy life together. That hadn’t been meant to be.
Was it wrong to want so badly to feel a man’s touch, even if it wasn’t Dave’s?
To want to touch a man so badly?
“Lola…”
he said. Groaned, really. “This
is a horrible idea.” But instead of moving away from her, he straightened up
all the way, which meant they were now separated only by centimeters. She could
feel his heat surrounding her.
“Horrible fucking idea.” This time
he spoke more to himself.
But it didn’t stop him, either.
Instead, his hand came up and after
a moment of just hanging there, he cupped her jaw, and just the touch of his
hand to her skin had her nearly whimpering in longing. This was what it felt
like to have a man touch her again. This was what it felt like to have her whole
being reawaken. She put her hands on his chest. Everything
inside her was humming. Throbbing in the most delicious and frightening of
ways. She needed to be
listening to what he said because he was absolutely right. And yet she brushed
his lips with hers.
He stared down at her for a few
seconds as she pulled slightly back. And then in one swift motion, he picked
her up and spun them so her back was against the wall as his mouth took
possession of hers.
He
wasn’t a big fan of kissing women. Fucking them, yes. Being involved in
everything else that led up to the fucking, absolutely. But kissing wasn’t his
thing. Not like that, at least. Never like that.
