ALL IN (7-Stud Club Book 1)

by Christie Ridgway

  That hadn’t stopped the server from flashing her a less-than-subtle thumbs-up after pouring coffee and taking their orders. On a sigh, Gemma doctored her brew with a couple of creamer thimbles.

  “Sorry,” Boone said. “Is being with me making you uncomfortable? I didn’t actually ask you to breakfast and that guy…”

  “That guy?”

  “He said he asked you to marry him.”

  “I’m not wearing a ring,” Gemma pointed out.

  “But people still consider you two an item? This is a small town, for all our daily flood of tourists and varied economic streams.”

  Gemma took a quick glance around the interior of the diner as she lifted her mug to her lips. More than one customer was watching their table, it was true. However… “I think the slack jaws and surprised expressions might not be because I’m with you but because you’re with me. Is it unusual for you to be seen out with a woman?”

  “No.” His mouth turned down. “I go out with women. We’ve gone out, don’t forget. Dinners, lunches…” His words trailed off.

  “Hah!” Her mug landed on the tabletop with a clack as understanding dawned. “It’s the first meal of the day, isn’t it? You avoid being with—or at least being seen with—a female over hash browns and wheat toast.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Boone muttered, looking away. After thirty seconds, he met her gaze again. “Okay, maybe it’s true.”

  “Do you have a motive for that?”

  He looked pained. “Breakfast…”

  “It’s the first meal of the day,” she prompted in a cheery tone, enjoying his discomfort.

  His gaze narrowed.

  “Okay, okay,” she said, straightening in her seat and folding her hands like a straight-A student. “I’ll be good. Breakfast…”

  It was possibly a curse he mumbled under his breath. Then he cleared his throat. “It can be misconstrued.”

  “How so?”

  He glanced into his coffee. “Say…say you’ve been with a woman.” More hesitation.

  “In the Biblical sense,” she added for him, chirpy again. For some reason needling Boone made her day brighter.

  He plowed on. “Then it’s morning. The start of a new day. Maybe breakfast implies…the start of something.” Without looking at her, he lifted his mug, took a long drink.

  “Now doesn’t that feel better?” she asked, so, so sweet, even though she felt anything but. “To be all truthful and stuff?”

  His gaze flashed up. “I always try to be honest,” he said, defensive.

  Instantly contrite, she slumped back in her seat. “I’m sorry. I had no right to get into your business like that.” Thinking of him with a succession of breakfast-less women fouled her mood, however, though for no rational reason.

  The moment passed as their food arrived and they dug in, both of them having ordered full platters of caloric goodness.

  “You tell me something now,” Boone said, as they each took a rest from forking up eggs and sliced fruit.

  She glanced up. “Uh…what? Like, it’s Friday, we live in California, you look good with a morning beard? You shouldn’t shave more often, by the way.”

  He stared at her.

  Ooops. That last part she should have kept to herself.

  One of his eyebrows went on a slow, slow journey toward his hairline.

  Gemma’s pulse fluttered. “Or we could talk about, um, our favorite colors. Movies that we could watch over and over. That TV series we keep meaning to—”

  “Tell me about your romantic history.”

  “So boring,” she said quickly, before realizing how that would sound.

  He laughed, as he should. “One thing—one guy.” Then he frowned. “Not Ethan.”

  Okay, explaining Ethan was out. Yay. But—her mouth moved again, without her planning what to say ahead of time. “Glen.”

  “What’s special about good ol’ Glen?”

  Gemma opened her mouth, then shook her head. “I have no idea why his name came up. I liked him when I was fourteen years old.”

  “First kiss?” Boone guessed.

  “Yes.” She waved her fork in the air. “But the particulars are lost to the annals of time. Or in the Pit of Humiliation. I was grossed out because he tried to stick his tongue in my mouth and I didn’t understand why.”

  Boone’s smile spread over his face, slow and easy. “But you understand why now, right?”

  “Mm-hmm. Sure.” It was Gemma’s turn to mumble. She bent her head over her food and kept it down as they finished. So engrossed, she even missed the bill-paying portion of the event.

  When that intimacy between them was supposed to have evaporated.

  She tried denying that it lived, pulsing and sparking, as he once again placed his fingertips on a publicly approved portion of her anatomy. As they walked through the parking lot toward his car, his hand slipped beneath her hair and his rough palm cupped the nape of her neck. Her system went haywire, pulse seeming to throb in her lips and heartbeat drumming at the point where his skin touched hers. There was no place in her body for air.

  Discombobulated, she didn’t break away when he unlocked the car then ushered her around to the passenger side and, hands at her waist, lifted her into the seat. Instead of closing the door, he stood in the opening, caging her with one hand on the frame the other on the leather head rest. She stared into his eyes before her gaze dropped to his mouth, noting those lips, framed by bristling whiskers that she wanted to explore with her fingertips.

  “Gemma…” he said, then his head bent, his dark hair flopping over his forehead.

  “What is it?” she whispered, and succumbed to impulse, touching the black strands, sliding the sleek lengths of them along the sensitive insides of her fingers. “What’s the matter?”

  “I have a meet up with some friends at Hart’s,” he said. “Would you…I don’t…”

  His hand reached up to catch hers and he brought it to his mouth as his head lifted. Their gazes met and the connection between them vibrated like a tuning fork, for the moment the two of them resonating at a perfect pitch. “Of course I’ll go with you,” she said, though he hadn’t voiced aloud the request.

  Because she’d do whatever was necessary to snap this link, she told herself.

  Take whatever time it took.

  He nodded, and she supposed he was as unwavering as she in that worthy goal.

  She focused on the road ahead on the return to Sawyer Shores and another house a few blocks from theirs. Cars and trucks were gathered nearby, taking up the driveway and the spaces along the curb.

  He parked across the street, then ushered her toward the front door, his quick steps hardly giving her a chance to take in anything but the large shape of the house, the grass in need of a minor trim, the flower beds empty of anything but healthy dirt. On the doorstep, Boone froze.

  She tucked her hand in his elbow. “Is Hart here?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “Last night he flew out to be with her parents.” His hand forked through his hair. “We’re here because…I forget exactly why we decided to meet here.”

  The door opened and his friend Eli grabbed Boone by the shoulder for a bear hug, leaving Gemma on the mat. Then she was yanked inside, and the door shut, enclosing her with the low murmur of a crowd and the sight of a dozen people she didn’t know milling about the large living space.

  Clutching her purse, she tried for invisibility as Boone was sucked into the center of the group. He didn’t need her now, she thought. It would be nothing to slip out and make her way back to her place, where she could talk things through with the kitchen pig, the square dancing mice, the flock of geese. As a rule, she avoided the faceless prairie dolls because they were too close to some murderous clue from an eerie detective series.

  Then two willowy figures approached. She blinked, because they were identical—teenagers with long limbs and long straight hair. They each grabbed one of Gemma’s arms. “Boone sent us,” they said tog
ether.

  Though she could see his dark head in the midst of that crowd, she couldn’t see his face. “You know him?” She narrowed her eyes, gauging their age. “Has he ever taken you to breakfast?”

  Ignoring that, they walked her toward a spacious kitchen where a couple of women were pouring lemonade into red plastic cups. Another, her back to Gemma, was manically going through the refrigerator, dumping to-go cartons and questionable-looking produce into a garbage bag. She seemed to be muttering under her breath.

  “Sophie,” one of the lemonade ladies said gently. “You’ve already dusted and vacuumed. This can wait.”

  “Until what?” Sophie whipped around and Gemma recognized the barista from her favorite coffee place. “Until Hart gets home and he realizes that…that—” Silent tears coursed down her small pretty face. She hugged herself, then ran from the room.

  A man strode in, his expression drawn. “My sister?”

  “You better follow her, Cooper,” someone suggested.

  “Yeah.” He disappeared.

  “Maybe I should be on my way,” Gemma ventured, glancing at the twins who looked unsure, upset, and more like six now, instead of a probable sixteen.

  “Don’t,” a deep voice said, then Boone’s hand cupped the nape of her neck again, using his hold to draw her against him, her body tucked at his side. “Stay? Please?”

  She glanced up and their gazes caught, need blooming between them, but the kind of need that went beyond heated blood, greedy touches, tab A sliding into slot B. Closing her eyes, she pressed her forehead into his chest, momentarily defeated. Right now she had no more power to leave him than she had the power to turn time counterclockwise and bring back his best friend’s fiancée.

  Boone’s mouth pressed the top of her head. “Thank you.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll let you go soon.”

  She should be looking forward to that.

  Chapter 12

  Boone glanced over at Gemma, then redirected his gaze out of the truck’s windshield. They’d spent the morning at Hart’s and their next destination was her shop. “Okay, spill it. What did they say about me?”

  “What?” she asked, all innocence. “Who?”

  “I saw the twins and Sophie in a huddle with you.” He could only imagine the direction of their conversation.

  “I know Sophie from Harry’s, of course. Those two teenagers are sweet.”

  “Way to duck the subject,” he said.

  “They might be able to help out at my shop,” Gemma told him. “Some afternoons and weekends.”

  “Gemma—”

  “I like your friends too. Your poker buddies. Even though the mood was naturally subdued.”

  “Rafael’s a fucking flirt,” Boone had watched him chat her up, and barely resisted taking a swing at the other man.

  She waved a hand. “I think that’s just a habit with him.”

  Yeah, with available women, but a friend’s girl was off-limits, and the bastard knew it. Except, shit, Gemma wasn’t Boone’s girl.

  He glared out the windshield then forced his mind to move on. “Thank you for coming up with the idea of tackling the landscaping. We needed something to do.”

  At her suggestion, they’d dragged out the lawnmower and cut both the front and back lawns. Then a small party had hit the nursery that Eli owned and returned with some shrubs and flowers they’d all pitched in to plant in the empty beds.

  “Do you think Hart will approve?”

  Boone didn’t think his friend would notice any change except for the tragic one to his personal life, but he gave a grunt of assent. “Yeah, baby.”

  Baby. What the hell was he doing? He ran a hand through his hair, hoping it would set his head on straight. I’ll let you go soon, he’d promised her earlier, and now had come the time to do that exact thing. He’d taken up enough of her day.

  Traffic slowed him up as they entered the downtown business district. “Have I completely put you off schedule?”

  “No,” she said. “Thanks to last week’s long hours I’m in good shape. Right now my biggest concern is the guy working on my upstairs renovation. He seems to need regular doses of motivation.”

  Boone remembered now. An apartment into which Gemma would move. “Would you like me to check on the progress?”

  “I couldn’t ask you—”

  “Of course you can. You helped me out today…and last night.” He shot her a quick glance, saw she was shooting him the same, then they both glanced away. Boone’s gut clenched. Should they have a conversation about that?

  But it would only bring to mind the sleek heat of her on his tongue and surrounding his cock, the sweet sound of her moans which made his heart pump and his ego swell. He didn’t need to relive the slight weight of her sprawled over his chest in sleep.

  He’d never forget any of it.

  “In that case, sure, you can take a look at the apartment,” she said, her voice as neutral as Switzerland. He checked her face again, but her profile gave away nothing. “I’d appreciate it.”

  Before you get out my life, he finished for her in his head.

  But he did owe her, so he found one of the free diagonal parking spots near her shop. And then he didn’t refuse his hand’s need to find a place at the small of her back while they took the few steps to the door. When the bells tied to its handle rang out as they entered, he forced his arm to drop, but he could feel the heat of her on his fingertips, and he shoved them into his front pocket, storing away that last, final intimacy.

  Letting go of her now, he told himself, which should be its own pleasure. Letting go of her forever.

  Her assistant May and her irrepressible energy bounced from a rear room, and she smiled at them both. “I told you when you called, Gem, you could have the day. Sharon and I are doing fine. We made it through lunch and now it’s the usual early afternoon lull.”

  “I appreciate that,” Gemma said, glancing around the place. Then her gaze lifted to the ceiling. “I’m mostly stopping by to check on the apartment. Nat do any work today?”

  May grimaced. “I think he was here for, like, twenty minutes, then he said ‘mumble, mumble, girlfriend, mumble, Monday, mumble.’ Sorry, boss.”

  “It’s not on you.” Gemma blew out a sigh. “I’d blame myself for not being here, but I’m no better at lighting a fire under his lazy butt.”

  “Maybe I should talk…” Boone began, then forced his mouth closed. Out of Gemma’s life, remember. Out of her life, her business, her bed.

  She didn’t seem to hear him, and instead strode toward the back, calling over her shoulder in his direction. “Can I get you a cold drink before we head upstairs?”

  “Sure,” he said. They’d snacked on cheese and crackers at Hart’s. Feeling May’s gaze on him, he turned, giving her his best raised eyebrow when he noticed the smirk on her face. Even that was cute. “Problem?” he asked.

  “She’s a workaholic,” the woman said. “Never takes a day off.”

  “Are you saying I’m a bad influence?”

  “Oh, yeah.” May rubbed her small hands together, her many bracelets clattering with the movement, her expression gleeful. “Be bad with her Boone. Please be bad.”

  And the memories surfaced again, straight from the heated hours in her bedroom. Beautiful Gemma on her knees at his feet, her lips wide around his cock. Sexy Gemma, with her head thrown back as he sucked on her clit. Her fingers curled in his hair, demanding—

  “What’s happening in here?” the woman currently starring on the full screen of his dirty mind questioned, striding into the room with a water bottle in each hand and a suspicious glint in her eye.

  He tried wiping his face clean of expression as he came forward to meet her. “Just waiting for you to show me what’s going on upstairs.”

  Following her there, he found the second floor was stuffy with trapped, heated air. At the top of the steps, Gemma pointed out a five-foot tall door that she said opened to a storage room. Next, she waved him down a narr
ow hall leading to a broom closet-sized bathroom, then an open room designed to serve as a studio apartment. Positioned against the longest wall of that larger space was a kitchenette. Opposite, underneath a steep eave, was the area allotted for a bed.

  Gemma crossed to new windows, labels still stuck to the panes, and pushed them up to let air into the room. No finish work had begun—the window casings, baseboards, and door trim all lacking. The walls had been mudded but were not yet primed and painted. While cabinets had been installed, the hardware for the drawers and doors sat in a plastic bag in the stainless-steel kitchen sink. The space wouldn’t be luxurious, but it would do for a small person with few storage needs.

  “Where are you going to hang your clothes?” he asked Gemma.

  She grimaced. “I’m going to cut way back on my wardrobe.”

  Which, damn it, made him think of her naked and he had to squeeze shut his eyes to force that image to close. “Are you okay?” she asked, and he felt her hand on his arm.

  Spinning away from her touch, he strode to the nearest window to breathe in a lungful of fresh air. “Yeah. Great. Just calculating how much time it would take to finish up in here. Not long.”

  “Tell that to Nat,” she grumbled. “He was supposed to be done two weeks ago.”

  Boone turned and gave her a sharp look. “You haven’t given him the final portion of his payment, have you?”

  “Um…” She busied herself with a long swallow from her water bottle.

  “Gemma?”

  “He’s the son of a friend of a friend of my mother’s. There was a problem with his truck. Then his nail gun.” She hung her head. “I usually make savvy business decisions. This time, not so much.”

  “Baby.” He hated to see her self-recrimination. “Tell you what. Give Nat his marching orders. You don’t need him anymore. I’ll finish it for you. For free.”

  Her head jerked up. “No.”

  “Yes. It won’t take long at all.”

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  Boone shrugged, trying to be casual about his sudden impulse. “If we don’t get this apartment ready, when your friends get back you’ll have to go from being my neighbor to being my roommate.”