Called Out

by Jen Doyle

  With a laugh, Chantal turned to Jack and gave him a hug as well. “Really happy to see you here. Let’s get together this week.”

  “That would be great,” Jack answered, and Lola tried not to be jealous. “Nate has my number.”

  “You’d better believe I do,” Nate said, even more grumbly now. He gestured for Chantal to go ahead of him. With a curt nod, he followed her out the door.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lola was no dummy. Rather than turn to Jack at the first possible opportunity, she kept her eyes on the driveway, only relaxing a little when she heard Nate’s car start up and saw the Mustang back down to the road. When she glanced up at Jack, the look in his eyes made her knees go weak. He came around to where she stood, stopping only a few inches away.

  She felt upended. Dizzy. Like the whole world was spinning around her and she couldn’t quite find solid ground. “Standing ready and willing, huh?” she managed, everything in her impossibly tight.

  “For two solid days.” Jack’s voice was gruff. Then he reached his arm around her and pulled her against him, demonstrating exactly how ready and willing he was.

  Her whole body sighed.

  She may have also whimpered when he brushed her hair aside. “Sounds painful,” she said. Well, she kind of gasped it as he planted a kiss at the base of her neck while moving his hand slowly down her front. “You probably should have done something about that.”

  “Oh, I tried,” he answered, his voice muffled by her skin. “I sure as hell tried.” He took her head in his hands and stared down at her, his eyes all glittery and heated. “You know what it did to me to watch you come like that?” he asked. And then his hands were on her hips and he was lifting her and suddenly her back was against the wall.

  Oh, God.

  She threaded her hands through his hair and pulled him down to kiss her.

  His mouth was firm and just the right amount of wet. She ran her tongue along the seam of his lips, drowning in the taste of him.

  “Why are you wearing so many clothes?” she asked, trying not to whine as she grasped at least three hems and tugged them up.

  “Self-protection.” He braced his hands against the wall on either side of her, not doing a damn thing to help. Even worse, he glanced down at her heaving chest and smiled. “You’re one to complain.” His gaze came back up to meet hers. “Buttons?”

  Yes, she’d chosen this blouse for a reason other than what it did to set off her eyes, although that didn’t hurt. He’d just gotten it turned around. “Actually, I was thinking I’d undo them for you.” She just hadn’t counted on being overtaken by this feverish need.

  There. She’d finally managed to get his sweater and the two shirts underneath off of him. His chest and shoulders were as amazing as she remembered them to be. She forced herself to slow herself down and run her hand up his arm and then down the center of him. She could barely breathe. Her heart skipped a beat as his eyes darkened.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Can’t wait.” And then he tore her shirt open. He didn’t even bother to wait for her to take it the rest of the way off before reaching inside and brushing his fingers over her skin. “So damn soft,” he said, bringing his lips down to her shoulder as she dropped her shirt to the floor.

  “You know,” he said, “I’d really wanted to take it slow this first time, but it’s been awhile for me, too, and I might actually die if I’m not inside you soon, so could we maybe save that for later?”

  Define “awhile,” she wanted to say, because a part of her wanted to know everything about him. That was not the part of her in charge at the moment. “Did you come prepared this time?”

  That did make him pull back and smile. He took a condom out of his back pocket and held it up. “You?”

  It was frightening he already knew her well enough to know she wouldn’t take any chances. “I may have bought a box or two.”

  A wicked grin came over his face. “Two, huh?”

  She attempted a lighthearted shrug. “I would have gone for more, but I didn’t want to be presumptuous.”

  “Oh, we’re being completely honest?” The smile shone in his eyes as he reached back into his other pocket. “I got presumptuous.” He pulled out a strip of five more condoms and held them up.

  She could fall in love with this man.

  She wasn’t going to, of course, it was just that she could.

  She moaned when he thrust his thigh between her legs and lifted her just enough to ride him.

  Damn it. No. She wanted him naked the rest of the way. This was time for fun, not games. Hoping he’d get the hint, she reached down, smiling at his hiss of breath when her fingers came in contact with one of her favorite parts.

  “Jesus,” he murmured as she undid the button of his jeans and wasted not one second before getting her hands on him. It had been far too long since she’d held a man’s cock. Since she’d squeezed and stroked and reduced a six-foot-and-change, two-hundred-pound man to a trembling mass of muscle.

  He let his head fall against her forehead as he groaned, his hands coming down hard on the wall on either side of her head. He was pulsing in her hand; twitching. Otherwise holding himself so rigidly she was almost afraid of what would happen when he finally let himself go.

  It took all of two seconds to find out. Just as she ran her thumb over the tip of his erection, he grabbed her wrist. “No,” he said, a rasp in his voice as he reached for one of the condoms he’d dropped on the shelf behind her. His mouth went to her neck, and she redirected all her focus toward the effort of not having a full-blown orgasm before he was inside her, although her hips seemed to be moving all on their own.

  She heard a wrapper being torn, heard him mumble a curse and let out another hiss of breath, but he somehow managed to be doing increasingly wicked things with his mouth for the whole time. A kiss at the hollow of her throat. A tug at her nipple with his teeth. Wet, open-mouth kisses and licks as he made his way down the center of her, tugging her pants down over her hips and legs and ending up on his knees in front of her. He looked up at her from below as she stood there in her bra and panties and nothing else. Then he laid a kiss on her knee, on her thigh, on the outside of her very lacy, excessively expensive, exceedingly damp panties before pulling them off and she had to brace herself against the wall before she forgot how to stand.

  “Christ,” he murmured, pulling his head back as he looked up at her again. “You are so damn beautiful.”

  She had to remind herself this was not about love. This was purely physical.

  And already frighteningly close to perfection.

  God, she was easy.

  He pulled her in closer, his tongue lapping at her core, sending whispers of sensation spiraling through her.

  Her knees buckled. Her head fell back and her nipples tightened and her belly went warm as a current raced its way up her spine.

  Yes. Oh, God, yes. Except...

  “No.” She pushed his head away. “Inside me. Oh, God, please come up here and get inside me.”

  This time he didn’t bother hitting the other points along the way. Maybe it was the way she clutched at his hair and pulled him up that gave him a hint at how desperate she was. It could have been the way she was trembling, or the way her breaths skittered through her. Whatever it was it had him smiling evilly as he finally stood up, took off her bra, and then wrapped her leg around him before positioning himself right up against her.

  That alone sent a wave of heat rippling up through her. When he slid his length up along her folds, she braced her hands against his chest. “Jack...”

  And then he was inside her and it was every bit as amazing as she remembered it to be. Possibly even more so. He was going slowly—so slowly—and she knew it was deliberate. Whether because he knew it had been awhile and he didn’t want to hurt her or beca
use he very specifically wanted to tease every last ragged moan out of her, she didn’t know. But whatever the reason was, she felt herself pitching forward. Clinging to him. Nearly sobbing as she felt him move, so hard and so deep inside her it was almost painful, but agonizingly and deliciously so.

  “Lola,” he said, his voice in her ear. “Babe.” He ran a hand over her breast, down her side, around to her hip... “I’m gonna go fast now.”

  Part of her didn’t want him to. It had been so long since she’d felt anything like this—and, after this morning, she had no idea when she’d feel it again. She wanted this to last forever. But trying to contain it was just feeding the fuel inside of her. Breathing hard now, she could only nod as she arched her hips into him. “Yes,” she gasped. “Oka—”

  He thrust inside her, every movement he made ratcheting her tension up further until it all exploded in one big ball of light thundering through her with an intensity she hadn’t realized was possible. All she could do was hold on as her release rocked through her. Hold on to him with her legs and her arms, threading her fingers through his hair. She held his head to her shoulder as he groaned his own release, not stopping until he’d wrung every last shiver out of her.

  “Well, then,” he said after a minute, angling his head slightly only after he’d collapsed against her, pinning her body to the wall. Then he kissed the corner of her mouth, her cheek, her eyelid, with a tenderness that would have shocked her into silence if she’d even been close to being able to speak. She put her palm to his cheek and rested her forehead against his.

  How had she ever seen him as cold?

  He’d just given her two stunning orgasms in as many days. He’d taken care of her boys. He’d seen past the grieving and lonely widow everyone else still mostly tiptoed around, and released—oh, how he’d released—the woman inside. The woman who still had a lifetime ahead of her. She’d hold on for as long as he’d let her.

  She pushed the thought aside and dashed her tongue between his lips, needing just that one more taste before saying, “You think you want to try that again sometime soon?”

  Eyes sparkling with a smile, his forehead came down to hers. “I would absolutely be on board with that.” Then he bent down and nuzzled her neck and tension began to coil inside of her again.

  Chapter Fourteen

  She was soft. So freaking soft.

  Her breasts were full and her curves were perfect and sinking into her felt better than hearing the roar of the crowd as he threw the first pitch on opening day. He wanted more of her. He wanted to taste every inch of her, to run his tongue over each and every whispery white mark that trailed across her skin. But she’d laughed and smacked him away. Then she’d pulled him up and taken him deep within her, so he hadn’t minded so much. Not until the middle of these last few sleepless nights when all he could think about was having her over and over again.

  Being with someone more than once wasn’t entirely unusual; Jack wasn’t one of those one and done guys. In fact he had long-standing relationships with several women in cities scattered across the globe. There was Annalisa who lived in Houston; she’d been his girlfriend his junior year at Rice. A couple of friends from high school, one in New York, the other in Atlanta. And Cassidy, who he’d escorted to her debutante ball in Newport back in the day, one of his mom’s earliest attempts at matchmaking. He liked them all, he supposed. They were a known quantity—the type of woman he’d grown up with. They were surgically maintained, incredibly vain, and viscerally cold. All of which was incidental, since they each wanted the same thing he did: no connection beyond the literal one. No mess, no complications.

  Lola, unfortunately, defined the word complication. There were so many reasons he should file her away as a happy memory and move on. It was what she seemed to have done, in fact. They’d spent hours together in the several days since that morning, often with Chantal there and sometimes with Nate, and not once had Lola indicated any interested in a repeat performance. He should be happy with that. Thrilled.

  But goddamn it, it made him want her again.

  That part was unusual. A woman was either into it or she wasn’t and he had no need to chase anyone down. The fact that Lola didn’t seem to reciprocate his feelings should have been enough for him to look elsewhere. It shouldn’t have bothered him that, other than a rosy glow that emanated from within her ever since the morning they’d spent together, she seemed completely unaffected. So, two days after they’d had sex, he shouldn’t have even noticed her flirting shamelessly with some old friend of hers from school, much less been bothered by it.

  Well, she wasn’t flirting, the guy was, but she wasn’t doing anything in particular to shut him down. Aaron somebody, a contractor Lola had brought in this morning to talk to Chantal now that the plans were in place. To Jack’s extreme irritation, the guy made no bones about having known her first.

  Well, whatever. Jack was a fucking All-Star pitcher in the fucking major league. He could swagger with the best of them. He also knew exactly how to catch Lola’s attention. He came up behind her, his hand brushing the small of her back as she and Aaron bent over the plans. Her eyes came up briefly to meet Jack’s when he moved around the table to stand across from her.

  “If we move that window over here,” Aaron was saying, “we can probably get you a few more square feet in that closet.”

  “What is it with you and the closets?” she muttered, turning back to the plans.

  “Well, uh...”

  Even Jack could tell it was odd for this guy to stutter; it was therefore no surprise to him that Lola’s head came up.

  “Spill,” she said in that no-nonsense, I-am-a-freaking-mother-of-four-hellions-and-I-can-strike-you-down-with-my-eyes fiery glare. He had to give Aaron credit for only taking half a step back.

  “Oh, my God,” she said after a few seconds. “It was Dave. He complained about me wanting that extra closet for my shoes, didn’t he?”

  Of course the builder guy would be friends with her husband. Goddamn small towns.

  Goddamn small towns with Nate Hawkins in them, because Jack couldn’t even use his Major League status. They were already hardened to it.

  “I wouldn’t say he complained,” Aaron said with a strange enough look on his face for even Jack to be suspicious. All it took was another one of those glares from her and the tips of Aaron’s ears got bright red.

  “Aw, Christ, Lo,” he said. “You know we all had a thing for you and your boots.”

  “My boobs?” she spat out.

  Jack had to be honest. He was starting to feel for the other guy. “Boots, Mama Bear.” Although she did have a gorgeous rack. Tasty, too. But he liked his balls exactly where they were; he wasn’t about to mention it and have her cut them off and hand them to him.

  It didn’t matter. She turned her focus to him, looking for the words he hadn’t said—and, unfortunately, saw them in his expression. Her gaze sharpened even further. Luckily his bread and butter came from appearing as if he didn’t give a shit about people staring him down, so he just gave her his own look back. He wasn’t called the Iceman for nothing. And although it didn’t come quite as easily as it usually did, he managed to put a smile on his face indicating that he, too, liked her boots. And her boobs. He tried not to get too much satisfaction out of the flush that came up over her cheeks.

  He did not, however, expect her to point her finger in his direction and say, “Don’t even think about licking anything, Jack Oxford.”

  Well, actually, he hadn’t been. Not in the last sixty seconds, at least. But he sure as hell was now. And if the look on her face was any indication, she was, too. Her eyes went to his mouth and her own tongue darted to her lips. The temperature got about a hundred degrees hotter.

  Aaron coughed, no doubt to remind them they weren’t alone.

  Jack didn’t give a shit. If she he
ld that finger out for another second he was absolutely going to take it into his mouth and remind her of all the things his tongue could do. And then go straight down from there.

  Damn it. Now he didn’t have a chance in hell to stop thinking about it. The way she’d taken hold of him and—

  “Aren’t you supposed to meet up with Nate?” she asked, her voice suspiciously breathless.

  And leave her alone with the builder guy? Hell, no.

  Jack looked down at his phone. Fuck, he was late. “Yes.”

  Nate had been in Chicago since Monday night so they hadn’t been training for a few days. Jack had taken the opportunity to do demo up on the second floor, getting it ready for the real work to begin. So he was going to do the mature thing and leave the woman he was not involved with alone with the guy who she’d not only grown up with, but who had clearly been good enough friends with her husband to tell her how much he’d thought about her boots. And other parts of her.

  “Bye, Jack,” she said sweetly.

  “Bye-bye,” Aaron said with a smile of his own.

  Jerk. “Later.”

  Except not later, he thought as he grabbed his sweatshirt and headed out to the truck, because she either worked nights or went home to her kids. Which was fine, of course. She had her life and he had his. It wasn’t like he was expecting her to come back here one night after work, maybe revisit the whole licking idea. Even if she did happen to drop by, he wouldn’t be here. Instead he’d be in Des Moines, in his penthouse suite at his boutique hotel. Alone. Not that she’d know, since she’d never once asked him where he was spending his nights.

  By the time he got to Nate’s, he wasn’t in the best of moods. Which was strange, because he’d spent a lot of the last year pissed off. At himself, first, and then at the world. It was just by realizing how pissed off he was right now that he realized he hadn’t been irritated for at least the last week or so, which was...strange. Strange enough that he forgot to put on the mask he always wore, even here with Nate.