by Anne Oliver
‘Want to know what I think about you?’ She was leaning forward now—too close for him to be comfortable, she knew, but she didn’t care. Indignation burned at her temples.
‘Not really, Brooke. You see—I’m not like you. I don’t need people. I don’t need their approval and I don’t need anyone to like me.’
‘Clearly. Is there actually anyone that you treat well? Do you have any friends? What about your family? Are you as mean to them as you are to me?’
‘I’m not mean to you, Brooke, I’m honest. There’s a difference.’
‘Yeah, there’s a difference. It’s called tact. If you were being honest you’d have some. Without tact you’re just mean.’
Brooke was angry. Somehow this man always made her angry. Which was why the fact that she found him physically attractive was so annoying. And right now the way he was leaning back, all relaxed and comfortable, his dark hair sitting perfectly and a layer of stubble swathed across his jaw, he looked even more attractive than he ever had.
Brooke reached for the tequila bottle and poured two more shots. ‘How about I employ your brand of tactless honesty? See how you like it?’
‘Go ahead.’
He turned to smile at her and Brooke wondered how the hell he could look so boyishly gorgeous at the same time as looking like sex on a stick. It truly was a gift.
‘I think you’re lonely. I think you have Daddy issues. I think you have no friends because you have no idea how to treat people. I think you’re mean and you’re bad and you use your looks and your money to make friends and bed women. You’re a bad person, Jack Douglas. Bad and mean.’
Brooke sucked back her tequila, not taking her eyes off him.
There was a pause before Jack lifted his head, held her eyes and spoke—in that deep, calm voice of his. ‘“Bed women”? Do people actually say that?’
‘What? Yes. They do. Bed women. That’s what you do.’
‘Pretty sure I have sex with them. Sometimes I kiss them too.’
He smiled and Brooke felt it all across her body. The way he said sex. The way his eyes held her steady when he talked. The way his smile said good boy and his eyes said badass sex god. Brooke knew her breath was becoming shallower. She could hear herself breathing heavily and she wanted to stop it but she couldn’t.
Slowly he reached for the bottle and topped up her shot glass before topping up his own. Then he drank and so did Brooke.
He placed his glass on the table and leaned in closer, his voice now dark and dangerous and way too deep to be legal. ‘Sometimes I go down on them—and if they’re very bad I might even spank them. Bed them hardly seems to say enough, does it?’
‘No.’ Brooke heard her voice squeak a little. ‘It doesn’t.’
Brooke leaned back. Away from his voice and his eyes and his provocative scent and those hands and those arms and his muscles and tattoos and everything else that was making the tequila rush to her head much too fast. No, no, no. Not this man. No.
‘Jack.’ There was a slight wobble to her voice so Brooke sucked in a breath. ‘Why am I here?’
Thankfully Jack leaned back, too. But not before pouring another tequila and handing it to her. Brooke paused. Getting drunk was not a good idea. Not when thoughts such as what those vastus lateralis muscles looked like in the flesh kept pushing into her mind. She put the glass down and picked up her mineral water. She was here for business, not pleasure. He wanted something from her. Maybe if she gave it to him she could get the publicity she needed. But how much was that going to cost her? she wondered.
The pause after she spoke seemed to last a very long time. Jack looked down at his drink, then back up, then at her.
‘I like you.’
‘You like me?’ Brooke was confused. What was he saying? The tequila was making her a little dizzy. ‘What do you mean?’
‘What do you think I mean?’
He looked away and stared into his drink again. What did he mean?
‘I don’t understand?’ She felt anxiety coiled, poised. Ready to strike when he delivered his blow.
‘I mean I like you. I like how you tell me things I don’t want to hear. I like that you argue with me and fight with me and stop me from turning into...well, stop me from making bad choices. I want you and I to be...friends.’
He liked her. He wanted to be friends. Her friend. Not her lover?
She didn’t want to be his friend. She wanted to kiss him and sleep with him and have him go down on her and spank her and all those other bad things he said he did. She didn’t want to be friends. She wanted more and he didn’t.
His rejection hurt. Just as Mitch’s had hurt twelve months ago. Just as it had hurt when her parents had rejected her. It hurt and he wasn’t getting away with it. Not this time. This time she was going to take it.
‘No.’
‘What?’ Jack turned to her, clearly surprised.
‘I said no.’
‘No? No, I don’t like you?’ Now he looked confused, as if he’d never heard the word no, let alone had anyone say it to him.
‘No. You do like me. And I like you. But I don’t want to be friends.’
‘You don’t?’ He still looked confused as he turned the glass around in his hand. ‘You don’t want to be friends?’
‘Stop saying that word.’
‘What word? Friend?’
‘Yes. Friend. I’m not your friend. Nor will I ever be your friend. I have enough friends. Real friends. Friends I actually like. I don’t need any more friends.’
The silence that followed dragged out for what seemed like hours. Jack spun the glass in his hand. His right leg shook as he tapped his foot on the ground.
‘Right. OK...’ was all he said.
The silence stretched out for too many minutes. Jack didn’t speak and neither did Brooke. But she didn’t want to leave either.
‘We need more tequila.’
Jack’s eyes hit hers hard. She took him in—his dark eyes, the stubble on his jaw, his full lips. Her eyes trailed down his chest to the dark hairs that whispered at his neckline. She wanted him. She wanted to put her hands on him and her lips on him. She wanted him to feel something for her. She wanted him to stay.
Jack breathed in, long and hard. She waited for him to refuse her, for him to get up and leave. But he didn’t.
‘Hit me.’
EIGHT
The tequila went down fast. As it did so Brooke found her shoulders relaxing. She also found herself moving closer to Jack. Drunk Jack was a lot more entertaining that sober Jack. When he smiled at her Brooke noticed the crinkles at his eyes. Sexy. He was so sexy when he smiled.
‘Tell me about you, Brooke. What were you like as a teenager? Wait—let me guess? Straighty-one-eighty, Miss Goody Two-Shoes, I-didn’t-lose-my-virginity-until-I-was-eighteen?’
Brooke tried to be indignant but it was true. ‘Nineteen, actually, and, yes, I was a good girl. Still am.’
‘Good girls make the best bad girls,’ he teased, his arm resting close to her shoulder but still not touching. Never touching.
Brooke felt her body heat. Mitch had never made her stomach flip and the heat curl low in her belly the way Jack did. ‘Good girls make terrible bad girls. We think too much.’
‘That’s what makes you so good at being bad. You know what you’re doing. When you decide to let yourself go you do it completely and without any hesitation. Confidence and knowing what you want is incredibly sexy.’
Brooke knew where this conversation was headed. She really should stop it but the tequila said no. ‘Sounds like you’ve had plenty of experience.’
‘I have. But that’s not a bad thing. It means you don’t have to worry when you’re with me. I’d satisfy you. I wouldn’t give up until I did.’
‘
Ha! You wish.’
‘I do wish, Brooke. I do wish.’
It was the sincerity in his tone that did it. It was the way he seemed really to mean what he said. Her brain knew that he didn’t, but her stupid, needy, desperate tequila-laced heart wanted to believe he did.
Which was why she leaned in. Which was why she stared at his lips. And which was why, when the hotness of his lips met hers, she let herself go. Completely.
* * *
Jack pulled her bottom lip in between his teeth. This was what he’d been wanting to feel all night. Her. Close to him. So close he could taste her. And right now she tasted like lemon and salt and warmth and comfort and it was just what he needed. Especially after his terrific failure at actually trying to be honest with her earlier.
He’d struggled in the past few days. He’d thought about her so much. About the way she exposed his faults. The way she made him want to be better. He realised now it wasn’t just lust. He liked her. Who she was. He wanted to let her in.
And then she’d arrived in her sexy shirt, almost open to the waist, and she hadn’t let him get away with anything. She’d made him accountable, and she’d made him want to actually talk. She’d told him what she thought of him. That was unusual. People usually told him what he wanted to hear. He was surrounded by people too scared to annoy him, but she seemed to have no problem with it. Which was why he wanted more with her. But she’d refused. She’d said she had enough friends. Real friends.
But now she was moving her soft lips against his and exploring his mouth with her tongue—and it felt very friendly. And he wanted her close. Her hands snaked up his chest. He grabbed her wrists and held them back. She leaned against him, trying to press her skin to his, but he held her away. Her mouth he wanted close, but not her skin.
‘Jack, what’s wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ he murmured as his kisses moved from her mouth and down her neck.
She made a little mewling noise in the back of her throat and he knew he’d found her spot. It was at the base of her neck, and as she arched her back he kissed it again, letting his tongue flick the spot and his teeth tease her skin before soothing it with a hard kiss. She said she didn’t want to be friends. He wanted more. Not just sex. More. But she didn’t want that. He had to hold back. He couldn’t fall. He couldn’t get too close. He needed to protect himself.
‘Jack...let me touch you,’ she whispered as she pushed against his hands.
He had them held still. No, she couldn’t touch him.
‘Relax. Let me touch you.’
When he felt her wrists stop fighting against his hold he lifted a hand to cup her jaw and moved his mouth back to hers. Taking her lips, kissing her deeply, allowing her bad girl every excuse to escape. She was proving to be a wonderful bad girl. Responsive. Passionate. The noises she was making were making him even harder. The way she tried to push herself into him made his body heat and his brain blur. But not enough to stop him keeping her wrists held so she knew not to touch.
Slowly, carefully, he let his hand explore her skin. Down her jaw and neck and further down still, till he hit the soft mounds of her breasts. They were small, but perfect, and when he’d pulled her shirt away earlier he’d glimpsed a flash of dark pink. He wanted to feel her nipple now. Twist it between his fingers before licking at its hardness.
He moved his head and she seemed to encourage him as he kissed down her chest, but a loud cough to his right brought him back to reality. They were still in the bar. There were people either side of him. Public displays of affection were not his thing. He hadn’t kissed a girl in a bar in years—too many camera phones had stopped that habit. But the combination of Brooke and tequila was making him do some very stupid things.
Like trying to get her naked right here in front of everyone. Like sleeping with a contestant. Like wanting more from her. That was a monumental mistake. Even through the tequila he knew that was wrong.
Quickly and efficiently he pulled her shirt back to where it was supposed to be and sat up. Brooke’s eyes opened wide, as if she were coming out of a daze, and she rubbed the back of her hand across her mouth.
What the hell was he thinking? He’d become too carried away. She was so easy to talk to and she laughed in all the right places. It was as if he’d reverted back to his sixteen-year-old self for a second. Thinking that this girl was different. Thinking he could actually trust her. Of course he couldn’t. The only reason she was here was to get publicity for her business, and the only reason she’d agreed to meet him tonight was because he’d forced her. Bullied her into getting what he wanted.
No, that wasn’t him. He wasn’t going to be like his father and make people do what he wanted even when they didn’t want to. If she was going to be with him it would be because she wanted to. He had to pull back.
‘Wow. I think we got a bit carried away.’ A shy smile spread across Brooke’s face and she lifted her eyes to his.
Jack’s body tensed when he looked at her. Her hair was loose and curling round her shoulders, her lips dark red and her green eyes glowing in the low light. He wanted her even more than ever but he couldn’t do anything about it. He had to stop. He could easily throw himself at her in here, but he wasn’t going to do that. He liked her too much and that meant it would cut him too much when she left.
‘We did. My mistake.’
No more tequila, Jack decided. Time for a real drink. He picked up the discarded Scotch on the table and took a sip. He hated the taste. He hated the burn. And he hated the way it reminded him of his father. Wouldn’t his father celebrate if he could see him now? Another mistake, Jacko? I knew you’d slip up.
Jack sipped again—before almost spitting it out when he felt Brooke’s hand on his thigh.
‘What if it wasn’t a mistake? What if it’s what we both need?’
Jack felt his chest rise and fall. Something about Brooke made him uncomfortable. Not in a bad way but a confrontational way. She made him feel things he didn’t want to and think things he wished he didn’t have to. But he’d been handling it fine because she always delivered her messages with spit and fire. Now she was touching him, and her smile had gone sexy, and her lashes blinked. His eyes slipped to her breasts again. He wanted to touch them. He wanted to feel her body beneath him. And she wanted him—that was clear. But maybe it was just the tequila talking.
‘What I need to do is take you home.’
Brooke’s mouth drooped a little at the edges and he didn’t like it that he’d done that. He liked it when he made her laugh. She had a wide smile and deep dimples, and when she flashed her white teeth she looked carefree and fun and everything he wished he could be.
‘What’s the matter? Are you scared?’
‘Not scared. Sensible. You’re a contestant. It’s unethical.’
‘What do you care about ethics?’
She had a point. ‘I don’t like messy.’
‘Messy?’
Her eyebrows shot down and her hand moved away. Strangely, he missed it.
‘It wasn’t “messy” when you wanted to be friends—why would this be messy?’
‘Because one of us would want more.’
Her smile was back. Wide and gorgeous.
‘More? From you? I know better than to expect anything more from you.’
There it was. The reason she didn’t want more. He wasn’t good enough for her. Well, maybe he wasn’t. But she didn’t know that. She assumed she knew him. Had read about him in the papers, heard the rumours. But she didn’t know him. She thought he just wanted sex. Well, he might as well live up to his reputation—she was determined not to like him anyway.
‘Well, seeing as you expect the worst—let’s go.’
She stared at him but didn’t move. Just as he’d suspected. She hadn’t meant what she’d said. She didn’t want anything fro
m him. He’d had enough. He wanted to go to bed. The tequila had given him a headache and with a staff meeting scheduled for tomorrow he was in for a big day. This woman was doing his head in. She was complicated and confusing and he wasn’t in the mood any more.
‘OK.’
It was so quiet he thought he’d misheard, but then she repeated herself.
‘OK. Let’s go.’
At those three words, Jack’s whole body fired up. She’d said OK. She wanted to go home with him. The woman he wanted actually wanted him. But he shouldn’t. She was a contestant and she was fiery and she could make trouble. Sensible. That was what he had to be.
But her hand was back on his thigh and she massaged the muscle just above his knee. Then he watched as her hand slid up his leg, closer and closer to his groin. Her pink-painted nails glowed against the lighting in the bar. He couldn’t believe he wasn’t throwing her hand off. He didn’t want her to touch him. He never wanted anyone to touch him. But her hand was firm and confident—as if she knew what she wanted. Good girl gone bad. They were hard to find, but when you found one...
Brooke’s hand expertly cupped him and he felt as if he was going to explode. He wanted to stop what she was doing but her hand moved again, up past his buckle and over his chest. As if she was feeling every inch of him. He didn’t want her hands all over him but he couldn’t stop her. He was mesmerised by her fingernails.
When her hands hit the skin of his neck he finally looked into her eyes. He saw lust and something else. Something deeper. She lowered her chin and her mouth was close again. He wanted to throw her back and kiss her. He wanted to have his hands all over her. But he held steady. He still couldn’t figure out why he felt so much for her. It was almost chemical—like a magnet attracted to iron. He couldn’t stop thinking about her and his mind refused to let him forget about her. Even though the logical part of his mind knew he shouldn’t like her—the rest of him didn’t care. He liked her. He wanted her. He had to have her.
