by Misty Dietz
He frowned. “You were always insecure about my feelings for you. But the fact that you’re surprised I didn’t move on immediately afterward makes me realize how doomed we actually were.”
“Don’t say that!” She ran her sweaty hands down the sides of her shorts. How did she always make such a mess of things? “I didn’t mean it like that either. I’m just so much more of a mess than you.” She grabbed his hand, because if she had to go without touching him for one more minute she’d expire. “I never wanted to hurt you, Jack. I don’t know why I used Artie to make you jealous. I’m trying to change. I don’t want to make people crazy. Honestamente.”
“Why change now, after all this time?”
She sighed and her shoulders drooped. “I don’t know. Maybe I finally see how my self-interests have often been at the expense of other people’s feelings. Once you see that in yourself, it’s hard to forget.” She paused, not ready to see confirmation in his eyes. “Makes you feel like a jackass.” She was still getting used to the think-before-you-speak thing, but she had to admit, it had saved her butt a few times already.
He remained silent. She raised her gaze to his. His eyes now had an amused glint to them. When he brushed a hand through her messy hair, her heart cartwheeled.
“Good luck finding a partner. I’m sure you’ll do well at the competition.” He turned away and moved onto the portico before his words even registered.
“What?” She stared at his back. “Are you kidding me? You can’t lead me on like that!”
He entered Ivy and Cole’s house and closed the door behind him. She muttered several bilingual insults under her breath, knowing all the while she was sliding backwards from all her good intentions. But, whatever. When she caught up to him inside, she already knew all the choice words she’d unleash upon the arrogantly handsome professor.
It was going to be such a release.
Her hand twisted the doorknob, but it wouldn’t turn. When she twisted harder, her palm slid across the immobile brass.
The third try was also a bust.
The magnificent bastardo had locked her out.
Jackson took a moment in the foyer to compose his disordered, sexually explicit thoughts. Truth was, he was both giddier, and, thanks to the threat to her safety—more wary and on the qui vive—than he’d been in ages. Sparring with Mya—actually being able to knock her off balance as much as she did to nearly everyone she came into contact with—was a heady thing.
Locking her out of the house was the pièce de résistance of their whole exchange.
Score one for the boring professor.
Until reason returned, bringing with it memories of the riot gas assault this morning. Of course he was going to partner with her so he could keep an eye on her. And so he didn’t have to suffer the thought of another man’s hands on her body.
He ground his teeth together, praying he’d remember how incompatible they were sooner rather than later.
“Thought I heard someone come in. Did you ask her then?” His gramma peered through the side curtain onto the portico.
Shit. Rosie never missed anything. This was starting to feel like high school, trying to keep his love life private all over again. “Shouldn’t you be leaving for Denver?”
Rosie never got a chance to answer. Mya blew into the house by way of the back patio, Spanish insults dropping a hundred knots an hour from her fantasy-inducing lips, leveling everyone in her path. She moved toward him, her lovely mouth spewing abuse. He stood his ground as she came right up in his personal space, certain parts of his anatomy awakening at her nearness. “Don’t go away mad, just go away,” he said, trying in vain not to smile.
“Uh oh, Jack. That was foolish,” Rosie warned pleasantly.
Mya’s eyes spit green-gold fire as she used both hands to shove at his chest, pushing him a step back. Before he had a chance to recover, she rammed into him again, and he stumbled backwards briefly. The next time she came at him, he was ready. He grabbed her upper arms, swung her around toward the wall, and pushed her back against the gray grasscloth wallpaper, bending down so they were sharing airspace. “So much for learning to curb your impulses, you little liar.”
Rosie tapped his back. “Jack, you’re being a brute.”
Mya tilted her chin up, her hair catching on the textured wallpaper. “Jerking me around outside wasn’t fair!”
“Hear, hear!” Rosie crowed.
Jack bared his teeth. His fingers tightened more on Mya’s arms as he swiveled his neck to glare at Rosie. “Gramma, would you Please. Leave us. Alone?” When Rosie disappeared down the hall with an exaggerated sigh, Jack returned his gaze to Mya, steadfastly refusing to look at her mouth. “You spilled your guts outside without so much as a prompt from me, so don’t pin this shit on me.”
Her lips parted, and of course he looked at them. Fuck. His dick surged to life.
“You—” Her mouth snapped shut. Lips pouted. Then frowned. Then looked like she was about to cry.
Oh, Jesus. Now he was the Big Bad Wolf.
His fingers loosened their grip on her arms. A tear beaded up on her thick, black eyelashes. His chest expanded with all those damned soft, messy feelings she stirred up in him. “Myaaa…”
She snuck her arms up between them, squishing the heels of her hands into her eyes. She sniffed loudly. “You’re right. I suck at this.” As she lowered her hands, they scuffed against his lower ab wall. He nearly went cross-eyed. “I’m sorry, Jack. I don’t blame you for thinking I’m a head case.”
“It’s fine. You’ve had a lot to deal with today. Stress can make anyone act like a monster.”
She blinked luminous eyes that made him fantasize about bedrooms and satin sheets. “You think I’m a monster?”
“What? No. I just meant, well, you know what I mean.”
She shook her head and unabashedly yawned. “No, I really don’t.”
Well, hell. He couldn’t remember what he meant either when she was looking at him so languorously. “You haven’t been sleeping enough, have you?” The words slipped out before he could stop them. Before they’d dated, she’d confessed that she never slept more than five hours a night. Being with him had been good for her sleep hygiene—middle of the night sexual hijinks notwithstanding. He wondered if she’d reverted to her poor sleep patterns after their breakup.
She yawned again. “I can sleep when I’m dead.”
Aha. “We’ve had this conversation a hundred times, Mya. There are neurocognitive consequences of sleep deprivation. Your prefrontal cortex needs to rest every twenty four hours.”
“Blah, blah, blah. My gray matter is not your concern anymore, science boy.”
“It is if I’m going to be your partner.”
She squinted, refocusing on him. “What? I thought you said…”
He was quite enjoying her consternation. “Getting ready for a national competition will take hours. Tell me why I should give up my free time to do this?”
She blinked as though trying to clear away cobwebs of exhaustion. “If we place in the top three, Aspire Athletic is going to sponsor me, providing capital to open a new studio. In addition to regular offerings, I plan to provide free classes to low-income students. You’d be helping make that possible.”
“That’s still mostly about you. Try again.”
“Because you like to dance?”
“I don’t even know if that’s true anymore.”
He stopped breathing when something gave way in her eyes. She lifted a hand to his chest. “I think, deep down, we both wonder if there’s still something between us,” she whispered.
He swallowed hard. “I wouldn’t have to dance with you to discover that.”
She shook her head, the black strands shifting across the grasscloth behind her head. “Dancing opens the senses.”
He leaned down further. “So does kissing.” He pressed his lips to the silken hair by her temple.
She shivered. “Yes.”
That simple agree
ment pleased him inordinately. He smiled and leaned back fractionally to take in her closed eyes, the slightly parted lips, the rapid rise and fall of her chest. Exquisite. He widened his stance and placed his forearms beside her head, leaned down, and felt the walls concuss when their lips met. She opened to him, and they both inhaled in wonder. The gentle give of her lips, feathery soft. Her body pliant and lush. The sensation of falling into her even as his body expanded. Made him drunk and disoriented, invincible and filled with clarity.
Her fingers, palms, arms, and legs sought his skin, rubbing against him with an earthiness that he had yet to find an equal in any other woman. She tugged off his glasses, pulled his head down, and kissed his eyelids, his cheekbones. Yes. He recognized her. He’d missed this. The years between them dissolved, and here she was again, the missing piece that challenged, annihilated, and then reordered him with such precision.
Her jaw fit perfectly in his hand as he held her in place. Kissing, tasting, exploring the fragrant spot where her pulse beat in her neck. The wall underneath his palm shook again, and Mya stiffened, then lifted her chin to break his hold, then froze. What?
“Ah shit, you guys, my eyes! Get a fucking room.”
“Andre! Language!” Mya scolded.
Jackson followed Mya’s gaze to the five bodies squeezed in the hall beyond the foyer. Andre shook his head with a disgusted look, gave them the bird, and turned back down the hallway in a rapid retreat.
Rosie was smirking in a decidedly non-grandmotherly way. “Things were just starting to get interesting! Don’t mind us, lovebirds. Please do carry on!” she singsonged.
“Not cool, Gramma.” How the hell was he going to turn around with this monster erection?
Nat giggled. “Naw, you’re cool, Rosie.”
Ivy wrapped one arm around Cole’s waist and draped the other around Nat’s shoulders. “Well, then, shall we get going and leave them to it?” She smiled at Jack and Mya. “Feel free to stay as long as you like. Guest bedroom and laundry are both down the hall to the right. Just lock up when you leave.”
Jack felt tongue-tied. Mya wasn’t saying anything either, which was exceptionally unusual, and this disorderly intimate-human-relations-caught-in-the-act stuff was not his territory.
And he still couldn’t turn around.
Mya wiggled against his erection. He nearly swallowed his tongue. When he looked down at her, she was smirking.
“You’re trouble with a capital T,” he whispered.
“Good thing you enjoy puzzles, hombre.” She ducked under his arms and went to hug her family goodbye. Cole gathered everyone’s luggage, told Mya she wasn’t allowed to use his truck, then herded Ivy, Rosie, Andre, and Nat into Ivy’s car.
Soon enough, the house was quiet, and the wicked thoughts started rolling through Jack’s mind….
The feel of Mya’s thighs parting, the delicate pink of her nipples…
Ivy had invited them to use the bedroom.
Don’t be rash. Mya had enough of that particular trait for both of them.
But God, they were good together. Sex didn’t have to be complicated.
Yeeeeeah, right.
“Earth to Jackson.”
His eyes refocused on the Cuban beauty in front of him. Her smile was perhaps the most saccharine he’d ever seen on her. His senses went on instant alert.
“So…about that dance partnership…?”
“You can save your ingratiating smiles, Mya. They have no power over me.” Liar. “However, I will consent to testing out a partnership—”
She squealed and threw herself at him in one of her monkey hugs, all boa-constrictor arms around his neck, her toned, dancer legs wrapped around his trunk. His hands found her ass like they were equipped with a homing device.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you, Jack. I know we can do this. I promise to be good.” Her words dropped fervently against his neck, making his heart race and his body seethe with tension.
His fingers curled into the taut muscles of her butt, lifting her against him until he felt her gasp. “I didn’t commit yet. We’ll have to see how it goes.” He had to make sure she knew this was merely a trial.
And he only had about another twenty seconds of coherence with the way she was starting to grind against him.
“Lo sé, s’okay,” she breathed.
He started walking to the guest bedroom, his thoughts fracturing. “And only if you promise you’ll stay close by until the police figure out if this was a targeted attack. I mean it, Mya.”
Her head popped up from where her lips had been fused to his earlobe. “I will not be kept, Jack.”
He paused in the middle of the hallway because he couldn’t be mobile and get his brain firing with enough agility to handle Mya’s objections at the same time. “I’m not suggesting a ‘kept’ arrangement. I’m only proposing a logical solution.”
She smiled and kissed him flat on the mouth, short circuiting his synapses. When she lifted her head, her eyes had that warm glow he’d remembered a thousand nights, lying alone in his tent.
“I’ll be fine at Rosie’s whether you’re there or not. The only other places I’ll be are at work or the gym practicing with you or training a new group of students.” She wriggled out of his arms and patted his cheek. “You are a lovely man. I’ll cook you ropa vieja y frijoles negro con arroz to show my appreciation. See you at Rosie’s later! Adios!”
She grabbed her brother’s off-limit keys from a hook next to the garage door.
“Mya, wait! It’s not safe to go out alone—”
She squealed Cole’s truck tires backing out of the garage. Jackson closed the garage door, locked up, and walked back to his rental car parked at the curb trying not to think about someone who might possibly mean her ill will.
Or the risk he was taking with his own heart and sanity.
Chapter Six
Mya loved Rosie’s kitchen. The rest of the home needed massive updating, but this tiny, bright space was perfection with its white cabinets, black granite counter tops, glossy white subway tiles, and windows that kissed the home’s nine foot ceilings. She set three grocery bags on the counter, then peeled off the yellow post-it note attached to the stainless steel refrigerator.
You are in trouble, little lady. Make sure all doors are locked, then call me. Immediately.
So bossy. Jack had obviously come here looking for her after she’d left Cole and Ivy’s, but she’d stopped at the hospital to check on Artie. Seeing his eyes wrapped in gauze shook her up more than she’d been this morning when everything had gone down. The doctors had performed some serious ocular irrigation to flush out residual CS particles and had discovered some corneal abrasion, but they were hopeful he’d recover without any permanent vision loss.
Please make it so.
Instead of calling Jack—she did not feel like a lecture—she texted her all’s well to the number he provided, then turned on the radio and arranged the ingredients for ropa vieja and black beans with rice next to the stove. After changing into yoga pants and a tank top she’d borrowed from Ivy, she poured a glass of wine.
She could hardly wait until Jack got home. He’d texted back saying he’d checked in at the university. But he hadn’t said when he’d be back.
Don’t start depending on him.
After a few days, she could stay with Cole. She should stay with him, but…
She’d rather stay with Jack. She wasn’t even going to question her reasons. She’d get through this disturbing home invasion thing, then deal with her feelings about Jack. Rosie had said the university wanted to keep him longer than a year, but so far, he’d only committed to one.
She needed to remember that. And stay on alert in case someone wanted to hurt her.
She heated a Dutch oven, coated the pan with oil, and added two flank steaks. Besides the drug felons who maybe blamed her for their incarceration, who else could be angry enough with her to attempt this kind of attack? A few parents had pulled their kids out of da
nce lessons last month, but that had been due to conflicts with the gym where she was currently teaching, not any beef they had with her.
She added onion, peppers, and garlic to the pan. Forty-five minutes later, she had the beans prepped when the front door opened. A smile tugged at her mouth and her shoulders unwound. She poured a second glass of wine, and took it with her as she headed into the living room. “I’ve been wait—”
She stopped mid-stride as Jack stepped back, allowing a tall blonde to precede him into the room. The woman was startlingly attractive in a make-up-free, pale, northern European way.
And physically, the polar opposite of Mya.
She set the wine glass on an end table and met Jackson’s eyes.
“You clearly didn’t receive my text,” he said, the expression in his eyes unreadable. “This is my colleague, Dr. Lilith Erickson. We met at a symposium at Stanford and have consulted on multiple projects over the years. Her expertise is environmental isotope geochemistry, but her main interest is paleohydrology. She’s the one who lobbied to bring me to CSU.”
How nice. Mya was self-aware enough to realize that Jackson was overcompensating for the sudden awkwardness in the room by continuing to talk, but Jesus, isotope paleo-whatever? Something to do with water and chemistry, obviously.
Could she feel any more deficient? She’d only attended one year of technical college before she decided to start earning money doing the dispatch thing so she could start a college fund for Nat and Andre and set something aside for a dance studio of her own. How could she have forgotten the scholarly circles Jack ran in? After two years of working with world-renown archeologists on a high-profile excavation, she would probably bore him to tears with her plebeian talk.
After Jack fell silent, Mya stepped forward to shake the brilliant and beautiful geochemist’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Dr. Erickson. Will you stay for supper? It should be ready in another half hour or so.” You can enlighten me about things I won’t understand, and I can watch you and Jack laugh with your insider geology jokes. Won’t that be fabulous?
