by Piper Lawson
“Whoa. What was that?”
“I don’t know. A shoe? I might have imagined it.”
“Give it time.”
The next thing was more impressive. “Holy shit, was that a chair?”
Followed by…
“An Elvis sculpture?!”
It was like watching a fireworks display. Just when you thought it couldn’t be topped, it was.
After the grand finale—what looked like a full-sized mirror, hurtling over the edge only to smash on the asphalt below—I turned on the engine.
“So?”
“It was everything I hoped and more,” she said.
I couldn’t remember having a better time than I did with this girl. Eating corn nuts and laughing like she was a kid, her eyes dancing.
I leaned over, my gaze dropping to her breasts. “Crumbs,” I explained as I trailed a finger down her chest, flicking it along the edge of the bikini top.
“Right.” The humor fell away as I took her in. Her eyes. Her lips, just parted. The flush of her cheeks against pale skin.
Most of the women I knew would be coy. But Jordan looked up at me like she had no idea what I wanted from her. Which shouldn’t have been sexy, but hell. Nothing was hotter than seducing a woman who didn’t know she was about to be seduced.
It was one thing to exercise control when we had an entire room between us, but now, I couldn’t resist bending toward her.
The noise low in her throat had me hard again.
Her mouth was an inch from mine. She didn’t move closer, but didn’t pull away either when I leaned in and—
My cell rang and we sprung apart.
“Fuck. There’s nothing I have to do today—” I checked the number, groaning. “Except this. Someone wants to see Axe’s house,” I explained.
Sometimes I hated my work. Though I wasn’t ready to admit it that anything Mick said was worth more than Chihuahua shit, maybe there was something to his claim. Being at the top of your game and having a life was challenging.
Not that I’d ever had to try before. With Gia it hadn’t mattered because she was my business. We’d listed together, bought together. There was no compromise. Everything had been for work.
“I’m sorry, Jordan.”
Jordan surprised me by lifting a shoulder. “It’s OK. We leave now?”
“We?”
“Yes, we. You promised me the day.”
“So I did,” I murmured, a grin pulling at my mouth.
It took less than half an hour to get to Axe’s. My fingers flew over the keypad from memory, and I left the gates open and pulled up in front of the sprawling stucco house.
I unlocked the door using the key he’d given me, but froze as screeching came from the other side.
“Shit,” I muttered, dropping my forehead against the door.
“What is that?” Jordan asked, recoiling.
“Arnold. Axe’s wife’s King Charles spaniel.”
“Sounds cute.”
“He’s evil. See that line of scars?” I pushed up my sleeve to show her the two tiny white marks on my wrist.
“So he won’t make a good welcoming committee.”
“No. Which means we have—” I checked my phone, cursed “—fifteen minutes.”
“Let me try,” Jordan ventured. “Ava’s cat loves me. Probably because I let him rub on my leg and shit in my shoe.” She opened the door a crack. “Hey Arnold,” she murmured.
What came back was snarling worthy of the biggest, hungriest lion on a savannah. Jordan slammed the door. Her shocked expression would’ve been funny under different circumstances. “You’re right. We need a plan. Is there somewhere we can contain him?”
“You mean like a tiger trap? There’s a doggy door that opens into a run in the back.”
Jordan and I stood opposite one another, staring at the ground for a long moment.
“I’ve got it.” She explained her plan to me while I listened with increasing skepticism. “It’s worth a try.”
“That’s what we’ll tell the ER doctors at UCLA. ‘It was worth a try.’” I relented. “Who’s the bait and who’s the hook?”
Jordan cocked her head. “You be the bait. You’re prettier. Plus—” she went on before I could protest “—if the neighbors see you sneaking around the back they’ll know who you are.”
“Fine. You stay here and keep Arnold’s attention.”
Saying a quick prayer to anyone listening, I started around the side of the house. I picked my way through a grove of palm trees and down the terraced gardens. There was a tall gate I’d forgotten, which would be locked from the other side. I stepped on a garden sculpture that probably cost as much as my car, using the height to throw myself at the gate.
The air whooshed out of me as I hit the wall.
This looks so much easier when Axe does it on TV.
I pulled myself to the top of the gate and dropped down the other side, my heart pounding.
That’s why you work out six days a week. So you can do things like jump fences and defend potential clients from tiny dogs.
After unlocking the gate so the next person didn’t have to do a Jackie Chan, I found myself in the back yard. I surveyed the pool area until my eyes found what I was looking for.
Bingo.
The dog run was on the far side of the yard.
I crossed the broad patio, passing the pool and hot tub on the way. Getting over the four-foot fence to the dog run was way easier than the side gates, and I crossed to the small doggie door, listening for any signs of Arnold.
I pulled out my phone and sent off a text.
I’m in the yard about to open the door
You good?
Roger that
I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Hey Arnold! You little demon…You want a piece of me? Yeah, you do. You had a taste and now you want to finish the job.”
Barking sounded far away. Then Arnold’s claws skittering over the floors as he bolted through the house.
His destination: the doggy door, and beyond it? Me.
I ran flat out for the side of the dog run. Just before I hit the fence, my foot caught on a root.
Arnold’s barking grew louder. I hauled myself up.
Shit, shit, shit!
Something latched onto my pants. I looked back to see Arnold, snarling, his teeth buried in my three hundred dollar jeans.
“Get off! Arnold! Bad Arnold!”
I managed to get free and throw myself over the fence. I ended up lying on my back on the tiles surrounding the pool. My eyes closed and I breathed as Arnold yapped hungrily at the wire fence.
It could’ve been minutes or an hour before a shadow appeared over me and I opened my eyes.
“You got the doggy door shut from the inside?” I panted.
“Yeah.” Jordan offered a hand, but I pushed myself up off the tile and brushed the dirt off my shirt and jeans.
My phone buzzed with a call. “Just in time,” I said to Jordan before answering the phone. “I’ll be right there.”
I strode through the house and opened the front door to reveal Lucie Wyatt, a realtor with another company who I’d worked with a few times. For whatever reason, her clients all seemed to be actors in daytime dramas. The woman with her looked like she was carrying five pounds of Botox in her face.
Lucie set off to tour the woman around the space. Staying out of their way was easy.
“Do I get a tour?” Jordan whispered in my ear.
Crisis averted, I set off in a different direction from Lucie and her client, keeping my voice down. “Here’s the kitchen. Chef’s-grade appliances, granite counters. Custom track lighting.” I gestured.
“Right. In case I feel the urge to whip up a soufflé.”
My mouth twitched. “You cook?”
“Mostly scrambled eggs. I have been known to diversify into toast. Rye, sourdough, whole wheat, you name it.”
“You can make all those kinds of bread?” I raised a brow.
“No, that’s baki
ng. Not in my wheelhouse. One time I tried to make cupcakes for Lex’s birthday. I had to throw them out and get new ones from down the street.”
She trailed me down the hall, whistling as I opened the door. “This is the garage. The current owner is a collector, as you can see by the three Aston Martins. He has them spread out but you can fit six cars here.”
Jordan surveyed the space with a critical eye, tapping a finger against her lips. “Good. I’d hate to have to downsize my vintage car collection.”
I snorted and turned back down the hall.
“Let me do the next one.” We wandered through another corridor and I flipped the switch on the wall in the room at the end.
“Well, this is ridiculous.” Jordan blew out a breath.
“Interesting opener. Risky, though…you sound uninformed. Start again.”
She shook out her arms like she was loosening up. A smile pulled at the corner of my mouth. I liked this Jordan, the light one, the fun one.
“This is the games room.” Jordan gestured to the half-court at the far end, her hand outstretched like a game show host and the other on her hip. “For a lazy game of basketball when the perfect weather makes it unbearable to be outside.” I snickered. “And there’s table hockey. For when you’re too tired of real physical activity and want to live vicariously through tiny cardboard people.”
“You’re a natural,” I commented as we went back toward the kitchen. “You ever think about a career in real estate?”
“No way. I don’t think I could deal with people the way you do. Try to get inside their heads, care about what they want.” Jordan gestured to stairs. “What’s up there?”
I stilled, listening for the sound of Lucie maneuvering her client to another wing of the house before I took the steps two at a time.
At the top was a giant loft. One side was a glass wall overlooking the pool, the patio, the lawn and the dog run. The line of sight extended further to the ocean.
“This is the master suite.”
Jordan whistled under her breath. “That is one hell of a bed.” She crossed to it, ran a finger over the silk duvet cover, in a rich red.
“There’s a reason they call it a California king.”
“What do you even do in one of those?”
“Maybe you should come try mine.” Jordan turned back to me and I stepped closer.
She blinked as I closed in, my gaze running over her smooth skin, full lips. The tank she’d put back on over the bikini to come over here.
“You want me to sleep in your giant bed.”
“No,” I murmured. The control I’d been exercising failed, a muscle exhausted under the strain of too many reps. “I want to fuck you in my giant bed until you’re too sore to get out of it. And then…” I tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, gently. “I want to fuck you again.”
Jordan’s gaze wavered on mine. Shocked, yes.
But startled. Excited.
Shit, she wanted that too.
My attention dropped to Jordan’s lips and the temperature cranked up ten degrees in a second. The air between us was hot enough to combust, and I suddenly noticed Lucie’s voice in the room below us. “This room is ideal for entertaining. You could easily fit a hundred here, plus another hundred on the patio.”
I pressed my finger to my mouth. The universal signal to be quiet.
Then my fingers found the back of her neck and I pulled Jordan to me. She didn’t resist and her eyes drifted closed.
Just a taste, I promised myself.
Her mouth brushed mine. The first slide of her lips, the brush of her tongue, had me groaning. Desire roared to life and my fingers tightened on the back of her neck, forcing her closer.
She stepped into me like she needed that too, her fingers gripping my shirt.
I’d wanted to take this easy but when her hands found my back, her fingers digging into the muscle there, it was impossible. Having this girl who wouldn’t admit to needing anybody need me? It was unreal.
And addictive.
My mouth slanted greedily over her soft lips. My hands skimmed down her sides, thumbs stroking just beneath her shirt. The citrus smell I’d learned was her shampoo was my new favorite perfume. The room was soundless except for our shaky breath.
I couldn’t remember a time when a girl had got under my skin like this one. I was barely aware of the noises from downstairs as Jordan’s lips hitched and dragged under mine. Our skin met and parted, each time twisting the need in my gut tighter.
Screw kissing. I was ready to push her down on that bed and make her moan my name in that voice that wouldn’t leave my head.
“Ethan?”
I jerked back as Lucie’s voice, not Jordan’s, broke into my consciousness.
Jordan looked down at the floor, reaching up a hand to rub the back of her graceful neck. I wondered if she’d been as close to losing control as me.
I jogged down the steps to find Lucie and her client hovering in the kitchen. “How can I help?” I plastered on a smile I hoped looked friendly and not menacing.
I answered a few routine questions about the architecture, then saw them out the door before returning to the living room.
Jordan was inspecting the decor, moving from the custom stone mantle—who needed a fireplace in California was beyond me—to Jules’ precious art-couch.
“How do you think it went?” Jordan asked.
“We’re getting an offer.”
Jordan raised her brows. “You know that from how that woman looked walking out?”
“I knew it from how she looked walking in.”
“You’re that good.”
“I am that good.” I grinned. “Want to bet on it?”
“If I win, I get your car. For a week. To drive to Lex and Dylan’s wedding.”
“Done. If I win, I get you. In my giant bed. For an entire night. Doing anything I want.” Just saying the words had my blood humming.
“Like…sex things?” Her voice dropped.
Yapping through the screen door broke the tension.
“I guess we better let Killer back inside,” I said finally.
We stepped out onto the back patio where the party had been. A few steps beyond, the pool beckoned, was blue as the ocean itself.
Jordan gazed out at the water.
“It looks a lot more appealing without a hundred drunk models in it.”
“I can’t believe you never had a house like this. I mean, you could’ve had anything you wanted growing up, right?”
Jordan looked at me thoughtfully. “I rode horses in the summer. Skiied in the winter. The things my parents’ friends’ kids did. When my mom got sick, they tried to keep things normal for me, whatever that meant. But there’s no normal through that. When she died, the only thing I wanted was my mom back. Once I realized that wasn’t going to happen, the other stuff just seemed less important.”
“The other stuff is less important.”
“Yeah, but I overdo it,” she went on, descending the few steps from the patio to the pool deck. I followed a few paces behind. We both stopped at the edge of the sparkling water. “I had a hard time connecting with people. So I just avoided them. I didn’t hang out with the girls in school who were into clothes and boys, thinking they were flaky. But now, meeting people like Ava and Lex…” She shrugged. “Maybe I missed out. Taking myself too seriously.”
It was quiet around us except for a few birds in the trees, the pool at our feet glinting in the sun.
Adrenaline coursed through me.
“Hey Jordan?”
She met my gaze. “Yeah?”
My hand found her shoulders.
And I shoved.
24
Ethan
Shock gave way to indignation as she lost her balance, her arms windmilling.
What I didn’t expect was for her to grab the front of my shirt on the way down.
The splash was deafening, and the impact knocked the air from my lungs. My clothes soaked through, p
ulling me down with their sudden weight.
I clawed through the water. When I finally surfaced, it took me a moment to realize the water barely passed my shoulders.
Jordan stood a few feet away. Her tank top hung off one shoulder and her eyes were wide with shock.
“Glad you wore your bathing suit?” I sputtered, rubbing drops out of my eyes.
“What the hell was that?”
“That was not taking yourself too seriously.”
Jordan shot me a look. “Sometimes, you’re such a…”
“A what?”
She sculled backward toward the edge of the pool and I followed until she was trapped between me and the edge. A drop of water glistened on her full lower lip. She was beautiful, an angry mermaid.
“A guy!”
My hands found her waist, under the shirt that’d floated up. The water made her skin slick and I couldn’t resist stroking the curve of her waist with my thumb.
“Well, sometimes you’re such a girl.” My gaze dropped deliberately to her mouth and I watched her swallow. “And I like that about you.”
“You think you can just throw me in the pool and pick up where we left off upstairs? You are deluded.”
“No, I want to pick up where I left off after jerking off to you last night.”
I grabbed the edge of the pool behind her and closed the distance between us. Her eyes went round.
“I was picturing that morning in Vegas. Only in my fantasy, no one interrupted us.”
My fingers reached for her hips and pulled her toward me, so she had to tilt up her face. So I could watch her gaze darken when she felt how hard I was through my soaked jeans.
“I took that syrup and dripped it all over you—even under those little shorts. I pulled you down on my face and licked you clean for fucking hours.”
The last part I murmured against the wet skin of her neck, and she shivered. Like part of her knew she should resist, but couldn’t.
The other day in the garage, she’d given me something. Part of her, pieces of a whole. Seeing the way she responded to me even now, I knew she was holding something back.
I knew that guy Kent had nothing on me. But it didn’t stop me wanting to prove it.
My hands tangled in her hair and tugged as I pulled back to look at her face. Her lips parted, gaze wary and aroused on mine.
