And she never wanted it to stop.
* * *
The sun had been up for hours by the time Emily and Jase found their way out of bed. Now, beneath the spray of the shower, Jase held her with one arm around her middle, her back to his front.
“I’m pretty sure we’re clean.” Emily sighed contentedly as he made another sudsy pass around her breasts with the bath sponge.
“If it was clean I was after, we’d have been dried off thirty minutes ago.”
Emily laughed, her head falling back against his shoulder. “So what you’re after is something dirty, then?”
She could feel the curve of his lips against her neck. “Usually.”
But not right then.
She got it. This wasn’t about sex. Or rather it wasn’t just about sex. It was about being together.
“I meant what I said last night, Em.” He hung the sponge on its hook, loosening his hold on her just enough so she could turn to face him and wrap her arms around his neck. “I missed you.”
Her heart was doing that slow, almost painful thudding. The kind that might make a cautious person worry just a little, even if they didn’t want it to stop.
“I’ve been right here. We’ve hung out a few times every week.”
He nodded, sending a drop of water running from the damp Superman curl falling over his brow. “And being friends with you… It means a lot to me. I could have been happy with it if that’s all you wanted. But sweetheart, this is different.”
Pushing to her toes, she pressed a lingering kiss to his lips. “Different good.”
Catching one of her hands, he gave it a kiss. “Definitely good.”
The corner of his mouth hitched in that sexy way of his as he examined her fingers. “You’re turning into a prune. Let’s get out of here.”
They dried off together, and Emily again amended her previous assertion about the sexiest thing she’d ever seen. Because Jase standing there with her Blue Lagoon towel wrapped low around his hips while he used a hand towel to dry the damp mess of his hair… She swallowed. Definitely a contender.
Heck, she could see the muscled indent at the side of his ass.
Propping a hip against the sink, she settled in to enjoy the view.
Snapping twice in rapid succession, Jase veed his index and middle fingers in the universally recognized Eyes up here, perv flag.
“What?” she asked, only bothering to meet his eyes for a second before letting them drop again. This time getting distracted by the muscles banding across his abdomen and the trim line of dark hair bisecting them.
Hawt.
“Get dressed,” Jase instructed with a warm laugh. “I’m taking you to Ann Sather for breakfast.”
Emily’s belly perked up, and she straightened, glancing around the still-steamy room. She grabbed a hair elastic, stuck her toothbrush in her mouth, and skipped out of the bathroom.
Jase’s body was mouthwatering…but Ann Sather’s cinnamon rolls were nothing short of a miracle.
Brushing her teeth with one hand, she wrestled herself into panties and a suitably stretchy pair of yoga pants. She passed Jase pulling on his suit from the night before as she ducked back in to spit.
“I’ll agree to stopping by your place for a change of clothes before we go, but you better promise to be fast.” She rinsed and then turned back to him, ready to elaborate on what exactly constituted fast when she stopped short at the accusing eyes locked on her.
“I knew it,” he stated, his voice thick with censure and…satisfaction?
Something told her she was in trouble, sort of, maybe…
“What?” Maybe that sounded a little defensive. Coupled with her crossed arms and the step back she’d taken, possibly a lot.
Jase was shaking his head at her, reaching into the bathroom, and then towing her back out. Pulling her to him and pinning her there as he grinned down into her face.
“You are the most competitive woman I’ve ever met.”
Yeah. But it wasn’t like that was something new, so what…?
Following Jase’s outstretched arm to her open closet door and the dartboard she’d mounted against it two weeks earlier, she cringed. Just a little.
“Oh, that.”
“I asked you how you upped your game so fast. And what did you say? Natural talent or some such BS?”
Cocking a brow, she corrected him. “It might have been ‘I’m just that good.’”
He bit his lip and looked her over. “You can’t stand to lose.”
A puff of laughter escaped her. “Like you can?”
“How many hours of practice did it take?” he asked, his sexy, stubbled jaw so close she just wanted to lean into him and bite it.
“Not as many as you wished it took.” Okay, probably twice that many. But he was right; she’d really wanted to win. And she had.
His focus dropped to her mouth before returning to her eyes. “That so?”
Her breath was coming faster. “In your face, Foster.”
Catching her by the backs of the thighs, he hoisted her, squealing, over his shoulder.
“Jase!” Her hands were on his ass, his thighs. Her laughter spilling free like she was sixteen again. “Let me go!”
He tossed her onto the bed and crawled over her, using his body to cage her in. Turning her insides molten with one hot look. “Not for all the cinnamon rolls in Ann Sather, baby.”
Chapter 21
May
Belfast did a pretty solid weekday business, but with the steady drizzle they’d had over the past two days, Jase wasn’t entirely surprised to find only two of the four pool tables in use and a handful of available seats at the typically standing-room-only bar.
Catching Jill’s eye from where she was waiting on an order at the end of the bar, he motioned for a beer.
“Newcastle?” she mouthed, because even with the reduced crowd, there was too much noise to hear.
He nodded and then glanced down at the phone that had started to vibrate in his hand.
Emily.
Signaling that he’d be back, he pointed to the table where Max, Sean, and Molly were already gathered. Jill nodded. And he stepped back out to the sidewalk so he’d be able to hear.
“Hey, gorgeous, meeting get out early?” Early being a relative term since it was already after seven.
“It did, but now I’ve got another one coming up in a half hour. It’ll probably be close to nine before I get over there.”
Jase frowned. Not because of the timing. That was how it went with Emily’s job. She was a drop-of-the-hat, any-hour, get-it-done-and-done-right woman when it came to work—or anything she cared about. Anyone.
It was the sound of her voice, the drawn-out quality to her breath, that gave him pause.
“Em, what’s going on?”
She sighed through the line and he felt it wrap around his chest and pull. She was upset.
“It’s this account. We busted ass landing it, and everything was going great until one of our junior associates came up with an idea they ‘accidentally’ copied the client on. They thought Charlie Teller would hit our mark as a celebrity spokesman.”
“Yeah, I know the name.” He’d seen Forest for the Trees like every other guy in America, and it had been hard to miss the media feeding frenzy when, after taking home a best supporting actor award at the Oscars, Teller announced he’d had it with the Hollywood bullshit.
“Everybody does. He’d be perfect. Only I’ve been trying to score a meeting with this guy for two years and can’t get anywhere near him. But because our client saw his name, now he’s all they want. And they’re talking about jumping ship if we can’t get him.”
“If you can’t get him, no one else is going to be able to either,” Jase said, certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was right. “And screw this client. If they’r
e shortsighted enough to miss what they have with you, then you don’t want them. There are hundreds of brands or companies or industries or empires out there just waiting for you to land them. Dump these losers. You’ve got—”
Emily’s soft laughter cut him off where he was. The sound hit him hard, but in all the right places.
“That’s what I needed,” she said quietly, the smile back in her voice. “That’s why I called.”
Jase kicked at a crumbling section of curb. “For my stellar advice?”
Another laugh, even better than the first. “Not really. I just knew you’d make me feel better. And you did.”
Simple words. Ones he’d heard from different women at different times over the years. But they’d never mattered to him like they did in that moment.
“I’ve gotta run,” she said, the sounds of her gathering up her things in the background. “Save a beer for me. I’m going to need it. Actually, some food too. I haven’t eaten anything but that granola bar you stuck in my bag this morning.”
“Text me when you’re leaving, and I’ll have a beer and a burger waiting for you. The Stampede with the bacon done extra crispy the way you like and extra barbecue sauce on the side for your fries.”
“My hero,” she purred, teasing him.
But he’d take it because, damn, she made him want to be just that.
“You know it, baby.”
“Bye, Jase.”
Jase pocketed his phone and followed a couple of women huddled under an umbrella back into Belfast. Stepping past them, he headed to the table where Molly, Sean, and Max were finishing what he’d guess had been a couple of burgers and a basket of fish and chips for Moll.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said, snagging one of Sean’s fries before hanging his overcoat on a hook on the wall.
Max dropped a crumpled napkin on his plate. “What’d you do, swim over?”
Jase pushed his hair back from his brow, his hand coming away wet. “Guess I didn’t realize how hard it was coming down.”
Or how long he’d been standing in it.
“Emily’s held up with another meeting,” he said, grabbing the empty chair next to Molly. “But she’ll be over in an hour or so.”
Sean slumped back in his chair, hand over his chest. “Thank God, man. I was worried.”
Molly flicked his ear, earning herself a hissed “demon woman” from Sean, though Jase was pretty sure half the shit the guy pulled was to get a rise out of her. The other half being for Max.
“Ahh, bite me,” Jase suggested, reaching for the beer Jill had waiting for him. Then nodding across to Sean, he added, “Saw your ugly mug in the paper on Sunday.”
Sean shifted in his chair.
“Yeah, hospital benefit. It wasn’t too bad.”
“You and Valerie looked pretty comfortable.” At least from the snap they’d caught with her hand on his lapel and Sean looking down into her face, his smile at least close to the real thing. Or at least the real thing when he was with the guys.
The other smile, the polite one he reserved for dates and public appearances… Hell, with all the play it got, that one might have been real too.
Sean wagged his head. “She’s a good girl. Smart, stylish. Nice. And I mean not just faking-it-for-the-boyfriend nice. But really nice.”
What Sean didn’t have to say was that she also met the other criteria, making her eligible as a maybe Mrs. Wyse. She’d gone to the right schools. Knew the right people. Came preapproved and hand-selected by the parental units.
“That’s great, man. Hey, Emily has tickets to the symphony in two weeks. She suggested you guys join us.”
Molly’s beer hit the table with a thud, bringing all eyes to her. “Sorry, it slipped.” Then she hopped up from her seat and started stacking the plates and silverware from their meals. She wasn’t working, but she probably wanted to check in with Brody anyway. “Want anything while I’m up?” she asked.
They were good, so she headed back to the kitchen.
Sean rubbed a hand over his mouth, seeming to weigh the idea of joining them for the symphony. “I wasn’t planning on seeing her again quite that soon, but that’d be cool. She’d like it. Text me the date and time, and I’ll have her check her calendar.”
Jase nodded, used to the way Sean handled his dates.
Sean wanted to get married. He wanted a life like the one his parents had. He wanted to be his dad, and he was well on his way. He’d gone to his father’s school, now worked as an executive in his father’s company, and lived in the apartment below his parents in his father’s hotel. The only hitch seemed to be the girl. He hadn’t found just the right partner yet.
Jase had a few ideas as to why that was, but he’d given up trying to talk relationship sense into the guy back in college. Besides, until Emily, their relationship management techniques hadn’t been much different.
He laughed to himself thinking about his date-night rules and how he’d all but blown them to hell within the first week of Emily granting him more-than-friends status. Now they spent the night together at one of their places more often than they spent the night apart.
He checked his watch. Man, he hoped Emily’s second meeting was going better than the first. He kept thinking about the sound of her voice at the beginning of that call.
Max was giving Sean shit about the picture from the paper looking like love, and asking whether Sean’s parents were already picking out invitations, when Molly came back with the darts.
“Okay, ladies,” she crooned. “Ready for your weekly shaming?”
Apparently not, because Jase and Max beat the snot out of Molly and Sean.
“It’s the trash talk, Moll. Just keep it coming,” Jase urged, getting ready to start the next game. “Fires me up every time.”
Bull’s-eye.
“Aww, shit,” Molly moaned, as Sean started dancing around on the balls of his feet, shaking out his head and shoulders like a fighter getting ready for a big match.
Handing over the darts, Jase stepped back, checking the message that had just come through on his phone.
Mtg over but haven’t got it in me to hit the bar. Going home to collapse in a heap and eat leftover Thai from Mon.
He stared at the message, hating that Emily was feeling so beaten down.
In the past, if a woman he’d been dating had had a rough day, he’d have been grateful for the out. It wasn’t that he didn’t have any feelings or that the women didn’t matter. Of course they did. But those relationships hadn’t been about support and friendship. They’d been about fun. End of story.
Tonight, though, he didn’t want to wait until Emily was in better spirits to see her. He just wanted to be with her. But only if that was what she wanted too.
Am I still coming over? he texted back.
After a second: Yes pls.
Then a few seconds later, Have fun. See you later.
Why did that feel like he’d just scored a slam-dunk?
“Dude, you going to hang on your phone all night, mooning over your special friend?” Sean asked, holding the darts out for Jase to take.
Pocketing the device, he shook his head.
“Nope. No more calls.”
Max’s brows pulled together and then went wide as he barked out a laugh. “No way, man.”
Way.
* * *
Slumped against the back wall of the elevator, Emily was pretty sure the ride up from the lobby to her floor was going to kill her. She’d never make it. Not with gravity getting in on the beat-down this day had already given her.
That meeting. She’d known it was going to be bad, but…
Pressing her palms into her eyes, she tried to ease the throbbing behind them. Telling herself it wasn’t her fault.
The elevator dinged and she heard the doors open. Knew she was only a f
ew steps from home. From food. Wine. And eventually Jase.
Which meant that unless she wanted him to find her riding this car up and down like it was her eternal penance, she needed to drag her butt out of it.
With a heavy sigh, she dropped her hands and opened her eyes.
“Shit!” she shrieked, her heart slamming against her ribs.
Arms crossed, one shoulder propped against the open elevator door, Jase stood smiling in at her. “Think you’re ready to make the trek down to your place, or should I carry you?”
She smiled. Something she hadn’t been expecting to happen for another few hours. “What are you doing here?”
Jase pushed off the door and reached in to take Emily’s computer bag as she stepped out.
“That Thai food can’t be good anymore. Figured after the day you’d had, you might want something better.”
That’s when she smelled it. Grilled meat, hot grease, and enough fat and carbs to merit an EMT standing by. The Stampede.
Sure enough, down by her door she spotted the two white paper bags—geez, how much food had he brought?—a bottle of wine, and a movie.
This was going to be super embarrassing if she started to cry, but her chest was already pushing past that too-full place, because the whole way home, all she’d been thinking was how much she wanted to see him, how badly she wanted to feel his arms around her, and now Jase was here.
“Thank you,” she managed a little brokenly, hating what a mess she must be.
“Hey, come here.” And then he gave her exactly what she needed. Right there in the seventh-floor hall, he wrapped his arms around her and just held her.
She tried to fight it, but her shoulders quaked.
“That bad?” he asked against the top of her head, his hand smoothing down her back.
“They made me fire him,” she sniffed, thinking of how the kid had tried to hold it together. How he’d asked her what he was supposed to do.
“The junior associate who sent the email?”
She nodded, knowing the tears had her beat.
“Ahh, Em, I’m sorry.”
An hour later, they’d talked out Emily’s day and Jase was refilling their glasses in the kitchen. Tucked into the corner of the couch with her arms folded over the back, she asked what had happened at Belfast.