She shook her head.
“I think I’m going to grab a few more things, since I’m already here. Why don’t you go ahead?”
After a beat, Jake handed her briefcase back, slipping the strap over her shoulder and straightening her jacket. “Whatever you want, Cali.”
The weight of the bag dug into her strained muscle, but she smiled as though it were nothing.
Watching him leave, Cali dropped a few random selections from the shelves into her basket. When he was safely out of the store, she walked to the front counter to make her purchases. Through the plate glass window she could see Jake halfway down the block, drawing to a stop when a pretty blonde crossed the traffic with a broad smile and an eager wave to get to him. A baseless, utterly irrational stab of jealousy cut through her at seeing his arm slip across the woman’s shoulders.
A familiar ping alerted her to a waiting text. Absently she plucked out the phone and read the message. Reynolds was back and could meet with her now. Perfect. Cali pushed out a steady breath and sent a short reply that she’d meet him in twenty minutes, back in conference room four.
This was why she’d come to Chicago. Not for the attention of some sexy man who couldn’t walk down the street without a beautiful woman throwing herself into his path. But, even so, she couldn’t fight one last glance down the street.
Three hours later, Cali made it home. The news from Reynolds wasn’t what she’d wanted to hear, but at least she knew what she was up against. Tomorrow morning she’d wrestle the project back on track.
Dropping her bags in a heap by the door, she kicked off her shoes and groaned as blood surged to her aching toes. Eyes closed, she dropped onto the couch and dragged the unopened bag of trail mix up to her chest—fairly certain she was still hungry, but beyond the point where she could differentiate one discomfort from the next. She’d forgotten her bottled water by the door. Cranking her head to the side, she debated exerting the energy to get it. Her gaze drifted from the flimsy Snappy Store bag to a white piece of paper on the floor a foot over. A note? Had the movers been by? There hadn’t been any messages on her phone.
She forced herself from the comforting hold of the cushions and swept it up.
No, not the movers. Jake.
“Stop by my apartment when you get home tonight.”
“Tonight” was underlined. He owned the building—maybe he’d spoken to the movers. Thinking back to the blonde, she wondered if he’d have company. He wouldn’t have left the note if he wasn’t alone. Would he? Only one way to find out.
Shoulders back, head high, stomach in knots, she strode down the hall to Jake’s door and knocked. Waited. Maybe he wouldn’t answer and she’d be able to skulk back to her apartment without having to face him.
No luck.
Within seconds, the lock sounded and her fate was sealed. The door swung open and rock music spilled out into the hall.
“Cali?” Jake, bare chest glistening with sweat, dark hair pushed back in damp disarray, rested his forearm against the door frame and scanned the length of her. “You okay? You don’t look so good.”
Her mouth went dry, her head light. Hell, she might not look so good, but she’d never seen anything as criminally attractive as Jake in her entire life.
It was obscene. He should know better than to answer the door like that. Sure, he wasn’t naked. The longish black basketball shorts hung low on his trim hips covered a stretch of him, but she couldn’t keep her eyes from trailing down the crisp hair of his abdomen to—
“Cali,” he growled, “eyes up here, if you don’t mind.” Her gaze, filled with horrified embarrassment, collided with the pure masculine amusement of his. “I’m guessing your awed silence has something to do with that ‘man-candy’ thing you mentioned the other morning?”
Okay, that did the trick and broke through her haze of lust. She coughed out a laugh. “Get over yourself.”
He raised a brow at her. “It’s not like I was gawking. At least your color’s back. You were looking a little pale there.”
“I wasn’t gawking!” she protested, waiting for a bolt of lightning to strike her down for the lie. “You just took me by surprise opening the door like…” she flapped her hand around at his body “…like that! Jeez, what if there were children out here?”
“Hey, it’s almost twelve on a school night. Kids out this late wouldn’t be up to much good anyway.” He grinned. “I couldn’t take credit for corrupting them.”
“I didn’t realize— I didn’t think—” She’d come knocking on his door at midnight. Shame-faced, she focused on a point halfway down the hall. This was so sending the wrong message. Finally, she held up the note. “I didn’t realize it was so late. I had to go back to work, so I only just got this.”
Jake shifted in her peripheral vision. “Don’t worry about the time. I was kind of keyed up from a case today and was working it off. I’m glad you came over.” He stepped back. “Come on in for a minute.”
“No,” she nearly choked. She didn’t have to look to know that sinful smile played on his lips. “No, thank you. I just—”
“Cali, I’m standing in the doorway, dripping sweat on the hall carpet. Come in a minute and let me clean up. I’ve got some stuff for you.”
She didn’t want to go into his apartment. If ninety seconds in an elevator seemed bad to her, there was no way she could brace herself against this half-naked-behind-closed-doors business.
“Inside, Cali.” He leaned out and reached for her hand. “Think of the children.”
“Oh, fine.” Rolling her eyes, she brushed his hand away and nudged past him into the apartment, surprised to find the space was significantly larger than hers and filled with an eclectic mix of styles that combined to create a cool setting epitomizing Jake.
An enormous oriental rug covering much of the hardwood floor somehow complemented the modern blown-glass light fixtures, and tribal art hung on the walls. It would have been sophisticated styling if not for the treadmill parked in front of a sixty-five-inch flatscreen television scrolling financial stats.
Jake walked over to the stereo and turned the music down, then grabbed a small towel and carelessly dragged it over his face, neck and torso.
Deep breaths.
“Okay, Cali.” The playful glint was gone from his eyes. “Amanda told me your stuff hasn’t been delivered yet. You should have come over.”
She might have—only every time she got within a few feet of this man she found herself giving in to a pull she had to deny. “I was fine. If I’d really needed anything I would have knocked or just gone and gotten it.”
He stared at her then, those blue eyes holding her in place, making her squirm, challenging her as if he doubted what she’d said.
To hell with him. “I would have.”
“Sure—that’s why you’ve been eating microwave meals off plastic forks all week.”
Amanda.
Rather than get into it any further, Cali stepped over the cardboard box atop the low coffee table. There were two plates, a skillet, two settings of silverware, a roll of paper towels, a pot, a four-cup coffee-maker, a mug from some pharmaceutical company and two glasses packed with a dish towel and a potholder. Her throat tightened at the thoughtful generosity of this man she was working so hard to avoid. “Thank you.”
“No big deal.”
She shook her head, daring a glance at him. “It is to me.”
Jake offered a nod, watching her with eyes that saw more than she wanted to reveal. Eyes that echoed the satisfaction curving through his lips at whatever he’d found. “So I guess I’m your hero, then?”
She swallowed, unable to look away, barely able to speak. “God, your ego.”
That smug smile pulled to one side and he closed the distance between them in two lazy strides. Her heart slammed against her chest as he leaned closer, until his breath warmed the whorl of her ear and the heat of his body licked across the scant space between them. “Yeah, well, stop stroking it and
maybe it’ll go away.”
Her traitorous body seized under the rough stroke of his voice and she stumbled back, shocked at the ease with which he could get past her defenses. She cast him a sidelong glance, afraid of what he’d manage if she let him out of her sight for too long.
Jake tossed the towel toward the treadmill, where it caught over one of the rails, and turned back to flash a wide grin. “Come on. I’ll carry this box back to your place and then let you get some rest.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
BY SATURDAY morning the bulk of the MetroTrek delay had been resolved, but Cali was suffering. She’d worked until nearly two a.m., only to be awoken four hours later with a phone call from the movers. An hour and a half later, twenty-two boxes had been delivered. By nine, the pressure in her head—a slow, radiating throb behind her eyes—was enough to make any sane person curl up into a ball on the floor of a dark closet.
But Cali wasn’t sane. She was a week behind schedule on getting her living space in order, and now that her belongings had finally arrived no amount of sleep deprivation was going to keep her from it. As with everything else even remotely tied to this stint in Chicago, she’d found herself off track and out of sync with a plan she’d lived by for the last three years. She simply couldn’t stomach the idea of letting it go for even one minute longer. So, exhausted, she hung up her clothes, put the linens away, and now was up to her elbows in an eruption of newsprint and bubble wrap.
Shifting her weight from her groaning knees, she rolled onto the balls of her feet into a crouch, wiped at her forehead with the back of an ink-darkened hand and glanced out over the lakefront and the waves glinting in the late-morning light below.
She should have felt good about her progress, only the slow-going drag and monotony of her task was weighing on her as never before. It didn’t make sense. This was the routine. It worked. So why the restlessness?
Gathering an armful of packing paper, she folded the mess into a recyclable bag. She’d break to dump the trash, stretch out her limbs, and then get back at it.
The lobby doors were propped open, allowing for a hint of the day’s fresh, early-summer air and sunshine to circulate within the otherwise dark lobby. Jake strode through the open doors, following the parquet past the iron-railed stairwell toward the elevator. Catching the doors as they were sliding closed, he stepped into the car to find Cali—an adorably dirty Cali—peering up at him. He stopped short. Dark smudges streaked her skin from cheek to chin and ear to brow, and her auburn curls sprang in wild disarray.
“Wait, don’t tell me. Mud-wrestling—and what happened to my VIP pass?”
Even her answering laugh sounded exhausted, but her smile was genuine as she wearily answered. “Hi, Jake. My stuff came this morning.”
“My second guess. That’s great. How’s the unpacking going?”
Her head tilted back against the corner of the car, exposing the slender length of her neck. “About half done. Maybe a little more.” She blew out a breath. “I just can’t wait to finish. I’m ready to be settled in, you know.”
“Yep. I get that.” He remembered the frustration of a life in limbo all too clearly, and imagined that with the frequency Cali moved the stability of a home environment was even more important to her.
As she rested against the wall, the thumb she’d hooked into her front pocket slipped free, and she jerked as if she’d been three-quarters to sleep already. Jake’s focus narrowed on the smudges around her face, the shadows beneath her eyes. “Did you sleep?”
“A little. Late-night working.”
He reached out and brushed a streak of dirt from her cheekbone, letting his thumb run slowly across the delicate rise. No reaction beyond the sluggish shifting of her gaze to meet his. This was beyond tired. “That’s it. As a professional courtesy to the ER doctors on duty today, I’m taking you off box-cutting duty before you take off a digit.”
Her nose crinkled in confusion.
“I’m going to help you,” he clarified, in his most unyielding tone.
She was beat, all right, without any fight left to muster. Too tired to shield the relief and gratitude that flooded her eyes. Too tired to make up some lame excuse to try and keep her distance. “Really?”
Jake nodded as the elevator doors opened on seventeen. He took her arm, leading her down the hall to his door. “Quick pitstop here for some emergency rations.”
Letting her in to his place, he went straight for the fridge and grabbed a couple of cans of soda. “Caffeine boost,” he said, handing her one. “Drink up.”
Cali tipped the can back, taking a long swallow, and then followed him down the hall.
“Jake, you’ve got to have more exciting things to do than sit around and unload boxes with me.”
As a rule, most anything was more exciting than unpacking someone else’s stuff. Except this someone was Cali—and she happened to have a four-inch smudge of dirt peaking out of her cleavage. But even without that tantalizing attraction he liked being around her. Liked getting a rise out her and watching her frantic retreat when he got just that much too close.
“I don’t know. I could get lucky and score the box with your racy panty collection and your dirty tell-all diary.”
A reluctant smile spread over her lips as one fist settled on her hip. “Hate to rain on your parade, but neither exists.”
“Then I’ll just have to settle for this being my good deed for the day.”
“By keeping me out of the emergency room?”
“Like you’d even make it there. One glimpse of the blood and you’d be out on the floor, your A-positive staining the hardwood. Really, my generosity is selfishly motivated.”
She snickered behind him, sounding more alert already. “The cleaning and all?”
“Exactly. Now, let’s get a move on.”
Within a few hours they’d finished unpacking, and Cali’s apartment had begun to look like a home. Pictures of her family sat out on a corner table, books and knick-knacks filled her shelves. They’d even hung a few black and white framed prints on the walls. She’d tried to shoo him out over those hours, but Jake wouldn’t give and they’d ended up working and talking through the early afternoon.
It had been easy. Fun.
Being with Cali was unlike being with anyone else. There was just something about her he couldn’t quite get enough of. She’d asked him about his marriage and, to his surprise, he’d actually told her. Given her the nutshell version of his biggest failure. The “high school sweethearts getting hitched too early” song and dance. He’d been able to own up to the fact that he hadn’t had the slightest clue as to how to be a good husband, and Cali had seemed to understand.
When she’d asked what had finally happened to end things, he’d told her about Pam’s affair in one concise sentence. He didn’t like to talk about it, didn’t like to think about it, but for some reason he’d been as close to revealing the details to Cali as he’d ever gotten with anyone. There was just something about her that made him curious, made him want to talk—made him want more than that. If he examined it long enough, he imagined that that something had a lot to do with the fact that she was a temporary attraction in his life. Nothing quite as safe as a woman who couldn’t even commit herself to a single city, let alone one man, and would most likely be living across the ocean within a few months’ time. He didn’t have to trust her for life, just a few weeks or so. No time for failed expectations or betrayals. No time for anything to get deep enough to regret. He could relax around her, and it felt good.
Now the dishes had been run through the washer, and they stood in the kitchen, emptying the racks. The last leg.
Jake pulled out four slender stemmed glasses, still warm from the heat cycle, then slid them into the ironwork rack suspended above the sink. There were a few circular slots reserved for wine bottles. He’d bring over a Santa Margarita he had at his place, and maybe a Fiddlehead too.
Behind him, Cali was muttering to herself about the shelves. ?
??Salad and dinner plates. Bowls….”
He grabbed a stack of plates and handed them over, falling into the easy rhythm of working side by side with her as naturally as breathing.
“Thanks. I love getting this stuff put away.”
“It looks good in here,” he said, nodding to the half-filled cabinets. Then, taking in the dark circles under her eyes—the ones that hadn’t washed off when he’d brought a damp cloth out for her—he added, “Cali, you need some rest.”
“I’m too excited to rest.” Then she smiled at him. “So, you know you really are my hero, don’t you?”
The things she did to his ego. “Finally—some recognition.”
“We’re done after this one.” Shaking her head with a laugh, she grabbed the last item from the dishwasher. Jake slid the empty racks in, then closed the door, sharing her sense of completion. Leaning a hip against the sink, he turned to her, surprised by the peaceful satisfaction in watching the line of her body extend to house the last dish.
It was nice—only suddenly it wasn’t.
His mouth drew down as he recognized the familiar sense of companionable domesticity for what it was. His gut tensed as he tried to ignore the niggling unease settling over him. It was five minutes and didn’t mean anything. Probably nothing more than some kind of emotional muscle memory, wired to sharing space in a kitchen. Nothing a little reprogramming couldn’t handle. Some whipped cream, ripe berries and two days of sweaty sex against every available surface and he’d be able to unload the dishwasher without getting caught up in some rubbish warm, fuzzy contentment trap. Mental note to get on that—ASAP.
“I need to get a step-stool in here.” Cali went onto her toes with a serving plate in hand.
Perfect. He focused on the sweet, heart-shaped curve of her bottom, letting his gaze linger at that vee between her legs before moving up to the sexy stretch of bare skin between the hem of a tee-shirt that clung to her curves and the top of her jeans.