by Mae Martini
****
Driving from Randi’s house to the bar she wanted to go to, she didn’t stop talking. Why, why, why, he thought to himself.
“He had yellow teeth and was a bad kisser so I said no, I’m not going out with you anymore...”
All Jake heard was blah, blah, blah. She was trashing the last guy she went out with. Not cool in his mind. He was sure she’d be trashing him to the next guy.
Jake held the door to the Hog’s Head open for Randi and followed her in. This was her usual hangout and she said they were going to meet a few friends from work there. At least he thought she said that.
They walked to the back of the bar and she introduced him to a guy named Allen, who was the shipping manager, a girl named Jada, the receptionist, and an older woman, named Fran who was her boss, the quality assurance manager.
They were polite to him and he was equally polite back. He liked them and mingled with them.
As the night wore on, he realized he didn’t really like Randi. Not that she was a bad person, she just wasn’t his type. He didn’t feel anything for her. He soon grew bored so he did the only thing he thought he could do at the time. He got drunk. This, however, was not a wise thing to do because the next morning he woke up naked in her bed and she was still talking and trashing old boyfriends while cuddling up to him.
When he got up and got dressed she asked where he was going and when would she see him again. Jake paused. Shit! He couldn’t just dump her after sleeping with her. He sure as shit didn’t want to be alone with her anymore, so without thinking, he said, “Why don’t you come down to the Pedernales River tomorrow. A bunch of us get together and swim, eat, and hang out and relax.” Oh, Jake, you’re an asshole, man, he said to himself. He had just invited her to meet his friends.
“Okay, I’d love to. Can I bring a friend or two? I usually hang out with Allen. You remember him from last night, and a coworker is in town…”
Jake zoned out again, thinking about the pinto he was going to start training that day. When she stopped talking, he just looked at her.
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Can I bring them?”
Jake had no idea what she was talking about, but he just needed to get out of there, and besides, Cord was going to be pissed. He was running late and had an hour and a half drive back.
“Yeah, yeah, sure.” He walked to her front door and just as he turned the knob…
“Jakiepoo, you’re not going to kiss me goodbye?”
Jakiepoo? What the fuck? Ugh! He turned around and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek near her mouth then went out the door.
Chapter 8
“Rore, you had to see it. That horse was crazy. It took me, what, like four hours to even get near her, Jake?”
“Yeah, about that long.”
Rory and Calista, along with Jake, pulled up to the river at the same time Cord and Annie did. They unloaded coolers and set up chairs and blankets.
The girls sat on chairs and ate peaches, talking about their guys—nothing bad—and shoes while the guys were down by the river’s edge drinking beer as they talked about training a wild Mustang Cord picked up from a ranch nearby.
“Seth called me after she bit his wife, and after she bit just about everyone else at his ranch. I brought her home on Wednesday and couldn’t even have Doc Landers check her out till yesterday.”
“Do you think something’s wrong with her?” Rory asked.
“No. I think she was abused. I let her loose with my other horses for a few hours and when I went to check on her, she had a few bite marks on her. She wasn’t as aggressive after that.”
“Aha! The bully being bullied?”
“Yeah, I think so. Anyway, Doc Landers looked at her yesterday. There don’t appear to be anything hurting her.”
They heard the echo of car doors closing and Jake, who was facing the river, furrowed his brows as he squeezed his eyes shut in what appeared to be a look of pain.
Rory and Cord had their backs to the river, facing Jake, and saw Randi and her friends walk up to the blanket where Calista and Annie were sitting.
Rory and Cord looked at each other. Rory had a look of shock while Cord grinned silly.
“Yeah, yeah, I know she’s here. I heard the car,” Jake said, not wanting to look back.
“What did you say her friends’ names were?” Rory asked.
“I don’t know. Allen and Gina, I think.”
Cord Harrumphed. “Gina, huh?”
Jake shrugged his shoulders, then took a sip of beer.
“Um, Jake, turn around, man,” Rory said.
Jake let out a sigh, turned and picked up his head. He saw Randi and..., his breath caught. Shaking hands with Annie was Gia. GIA?
He turned to his friends with his mouth opened and the boys laughed at his expression.
“Come on, let’s go meet them,” Rory said as he pushed passed Jake.
Jake grabbed Cord’s arm as Cord was following Rory. Cord looked back to Jake with a question in his eyes.
“What do I do? I don’t want to blow it.”
“I don’t know. Follow her lead?” He shrugged.
Jake paused. “Okay.” And they walked to greet Randi and her friends.
“Oh, there’s my Jakiepoo,” Randi said as she saw the three boys walking their way.
Calista’s eyes shot to Annie and mouthed ‘My Jakiepoo’.
Annie had an amused look on her face.
Gia caught the girls’ exchange and smiled. She looked to Randi and trained her eyes to where Randi was walking. Walking up to them was Jake and his friends Cord and Rory. Her jaw dropped. She had a hard time forgetting him and didn’t think she’d ever see him again. She sighed as she looked him up and down. She knew he was watching her, too. She thought she saw a little smile on his face.
She knew Randi started dating a guy named Jake, whom she raved about, but she never, in her wildest dreams, would have thought it was Jake Warner.
She didn’t know how to play this. Did she say she knew him or pretend she didn’t? She quickly decided to follow his lead.
Randi ran the rest of the way to him and threw her arms around him. She kissed his lips and Gia watched with disappointment.
Randi almost knocked Jake over and he put his hands on her arms to slow her down, but he wouldn’t wrap his arms around her and he quickly removed his lips from hers without taking his eyes off of Gia.
“Oh, God,” Calista said sarcastically and Gia turned her attention back to her and the two shared an ‘I know what you mean’ moment.
Intros were made and Gia was disappointed that the guys acted like they didn’t know her. She let them get away with it, but she held their eyes long enough when being introduced that they knew she knew.
Allen, who had carried a cooler full of beer from the car to the picnic area, took out a beer, sat on an end of the blanket and made himself comfortable. He was already in a conversation with Rory, about cars.
Calista grabbed a bottle of beer and turned to Gia, who was removing a black gauze dress, revealing a hot pink string bikini.
Jake was transfixed by her. He knew he shouldn’t stare, but damn, he couldn’t help it. He remembered every inch of her luscious body. His only regret, well, okay, there were more, but one of his regrets was that he didn’t get to taste her. All he could do was fantasize and he did a lot of that, especially at night while in bed, before falling asleep.
“Oh, I love your belly ring,” Calista said to Gia, who was sporting a cluster of diamonds dangling on two chains. “That’s it, I’m going to get one, too. Annie, you’re going to have to come with me and hold my hand, and you might have to hold my other hand,” she said to Gia, laughing. “I’m a baby when it comes to pain.” She giggled.
Gia and Annie giggled too.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Annie said. “I’ve been trying to get you to get it for years now.”
“Thank you,” Gia said as she took the
beer offered her and she crossed her legs at the ankle and sat down. “I had someone hold each hand, too, when I had mine done.”
“Did it hurt?” Calista asked.
“Like a Motherfu-um, no.” Gia sniggered as she caught Annie shaking her head, and Calista and Annie giggled, and Gia noticed, Jake laughed.
She looked Jake’s way and he smiled at her. She shyly put her head down and when she felt him continue to stare at her, she lifted her head, smiled and took a sip of beer.
Jake continued to watch her. Not only was she a striking woman, and those eyes, hauntingly beautiful, to say the least, were captivating, but it moved him to see her converse so easily with his sister and his friends. Even Allen was at ease. Randi, on the other hand, was only interested in him. She didn’t even attempt to chat with any of Jake’s friends and they tried to engage her, but after a while, they didn’t bother with her.
Jake prided himself on his friendship with Cord and Rory. They went way back. They were as important to him as his family. Heck, he considered them family. He knew Annie through Calista, and had treated her like a sister from the moment he met her. For Randi not to connect with them was telling to him.
They ate these gourmet sandwiches, consisting of figs and prosciutto on ciabatta bread, and goat cheese, spinach and chopped olives on croissants that Annie had made and they drank and listened to country music on the radio while they conversed.
“Is that ham and cheese?” Cord asked Allen with wide eyes, as Allen unwrapped a hero he took out of his cooler.
“Yeah. I have more. You want one?”
“Hell, yeah.”
Allen handed Cord another hero and Annie watched the exchange.
Cord turned to Annie and gave her a sheepish smile and shrugged.
Annie laughed as she shook her head. She knew Cord wasn’t a fan of her gourmet sandwiches.
“You ladies have beautiful nails,” Gia said to Annie and Calista, noticing their neat tips. Annie had a French manicure and Calista’s long nails were painted a neon orange. She looked at her own short, neatly manicured colorless nails. “I’m constantly in the ocean and my manicures just don’t last.”
“Swimmer?” Annie asked.
Gia shook her head. “Surfer.”
Annie proceeded to tell her that she and Cord took surfing lessons in Hawaii on their honeymoon.
“A couple of weeks each December, I head there and instruct on Waikiki Beach.” Gia said.
“Now there’s a place that’s overpopulated and very touristy, right, babe?” Cord asked Annie.
“Yes, but I love it and want to go back.”
“Yeah, me, too,” Gia said. “There’s just something about it that calls to me. I surf on the North Shore a lot and it’s fun and exciting there, but Waikiki, I don’t know, there’s just something there that lures me in.”
“We did some shark diving on that side of the island, before we headed to Maui. Man, that was exhilarating.” Cord said.
“Exhilarating? I was scared to death. I didn’t know they lure the sharks there by actually putting bloody fish in the water near you. One of them tried to stick his nose in the cage. Remember, honey?” Annie asked.
“Yeah, I’ve never seen you look so scared before, and through a mask, you looked comical. Your arms and legs flapping…” Cord chuckled.
Annie cracked up at remembering and the gang laughed, too.
“They’re not supposed to do that, nor are they allowed to lure them with any kind of bait. It’s illegal to feed them.”
“Do you ever think of sharks when you’re surfing?” Calista asked.
“No. You’re too stoked to think about that. All you think about is the next wave you can catch, or you reflect on the last wave you caught and think about how you could have improved on it.”
Jake found it hard to concentrate on anything anyone else was saying. His ears were on Gia only. When Randi asked him a question three times, she threw her hands up in the air and blew out a breath, all frustrated.
Everyone turned to her and Jake. Jake had been watching Gia, and Rory, who was sitting on his other side, had nudged him. He reluctantly turned to Randi and answered her question.
At that point, Rory got up and walked to his truck. He came back with a football.
“How bout a little touch football?” he asked no one in particular.
Everyone rose up and Rory and Cord chose up sides.
Cord chose Annie, Gia and Allen while Rory chose Jake, Calista and Randi.
To Gia’s disappointment, Jake was on the other team, but Cord and Rory purposely set it up that way.
They set up rough boundaries. One side was between two boulders and the other side was between two trees.
It was Rory’s idea, so his team had the ball first.
On the line, Calista passed the ball, through her legs, to Rory, who almost fumbled it because he was staring at her sexy ass.
He recovered it and moved back. He threw it to Jake and Jake almost made the touchdown, when out of nowhere came Allen and he took him down.
It was supposed to be touch, but get guys together to play and you have tackle.
Another snap of the ball and Rory again threw it to Jake, who made the touchdown.
Cord got his crew in a huddle to talk strategy.
The line was set up, but when Jake found himself on the other side, guarding Allen, he quickly switched places with Rory, who was guarding Gia.
Annie hiked the ball to Cord, who looked to Gia. It seemed that Jake backed off, so she was open. He threw the ball to her, and she caught it and ran with it. Jake was quickly on her tail and brought her down, swiftly bringing his arms around her and turning her to protect her from the hard ground.
She was winded as she giggled, and when they made eye contact, intense, eye contact, she became aware of his whole body on top of her and she felt butterflies at the very core of her.
When Jake brought her down, he was aware of their bodies touching and being this close his cock began to grow. Since that morning in Vegas when she ran out, she had become the woman of his dreams and here she was, live and under him.
He felt it, he felt the electricity, the only way he knew how to describe it, shoot through him again, like he did the first time he touched her. He knew she felt it, too, by the intake of the breath she took, and as he looked into her eyes, he saw desire rather than shock, like the first time she felt him, when she fell into his lap.
He slowly lowered his head and she knew he was going to kiss her, and she had craved that kiss, but out of the corner of her eye, Randi came into focus and Gia turned her head to the side just as Rory ahemed.
Jake paused and sighed. Disappointed, he quickly rose up, taking her with him and they quickly moved to their own teams.
Gia, Jake noticed, kept stealing glances his way.
On the next play, Calista intercepted the ball and ran for a touchdown. Rory’s team was winning by two touchdowns, but no one really counted.
With the ball back on Cord’s team, Annie, once again, snapped the ball to her husband and he threw to Gia again.
Gia ran with the ball when all of a sudden, she felt an arm around her waist, and an arm behind her knees, and her feet lifted. She knew it was Jake. She giggled so hard, she was crying. He turned, and with her cradled in his arms, he ran the other way for a touchdown.
Everyone laughed, well, everyone, except Randi.
“Touchdown!” Jake shouted as he put her back down and did a victory dance.
“Hey! Is that legal?” Gia asked as she turned around to Cord with a grin on her face.
Cord shrugged his shoulders and chuckled. “You never let go of the ball.”
Rory picked up the football and walked back to the blanket. He took out a beer and everyone else followed. The game was over and no one cared or bothered to ask who won. It was all in fun.
Jake removed his T-shirt and sat in a beach chair with a beer and Randi came and plopped down on his lap. He wanted to throw her off, bu
t that would have been mean. He didn’t know what to do. He glanced Gia’s way. He hoped by some miracle she couldn’t see them. Foolish, he knew.
When Gia witnessed Randi plopping down on Jake’s lap, she rose up and made her way down to the water. The temperature was hitting almost ninety and she needed to cool off. Okay, yes, the temp was hitting ninety, but when Jake removed his T-shirt, Gia grew warm, well, more like hot, remembering just how hard and smooth his chest felt. Watching him and Randi together, though, just made her mad.
She walked into the water and just at about waist high, she dove in, all the while thinking about Jake and his steely hard chest. She’d remembered it so vividly in her mind, the look of it, the feel of it, and the power of it. She longed to run her hands over it again and feel the smooth corded muscles, roll his distended nipples through her fingers, nip them and listen to him moan when she does, like he’d done.
Everyone made their way into the water and soon after, they were swinging from a rope that Cord attached to a tree.
As always, Calista and Rory started with the chicken fights. It was at that point that Gia got out of the water. She wanted to be happy for Randi, but she just couldn’t get past it. She didn’t like seeing Randi on Jake’s lap and she didn’t want to see Randi on Jake’s shoulders.
When Calista lost in the first round, she, too, got out of the water while the others frolicked about.
Randi did get on Jake’s shoulders and they lost the second round to Annie and Cord. Jake didn’t even try to help her stay on. Then Cord got out of the water when Allen said ‘let’s swim to the waterfall’. In fact, Jake got out also, leaving Randi, Allen, Annie and Rory swimming over to the waterfall on the other side of the bend.
“You have the most alluring eyes I’ve ever seen,” Calista said to Gia, who was sitting on the blanket, one leg tucked under her and the other leg stretched out behind her, looking up to Calista who sat in a beach chair facing her.
“She gets that a lot,” Jake said, chuckling behind her before she could say thank you to Calista.
Gia whipped her head around to see Jake bending down, grabbing a towel while he watched her with a grin. He dropped to his knees on the blanket Gia sat on.
