Love Him: A Love Him, Hate Him, Want Him Novel

by Blaze, Stella

  “You ran away,” Jake said, his voice raw and crackly.

  “I was coming back,” I mumbled.

  Those pretty eyes turned to slits as he scrutinized me.

  “I was. I was just going to get in my car and drive back to San Antonio.”

  “She was, Mr. Sexy-Pants!” Patty offered.

  “She just told us everything, and I—” Flo cleared her throat dramatically. “Well, we, showed her the error of her ways.”

  I looked up into Jake’s sexy, gorgeous face. “I was a dumbass. It just took me a few hours to see it clearly.”

  Jake looked up at the ceiling and let out a frustrated sigh. “But why did you leave?”

  There was a chorus of exclamations from the gathered patrons of Trudy’s Eats.

  “Hope there ran into Janie, your ex-wife and her former best friend,” Patty started, and then Flo cut in.

  “And your ex told Hope that you judged all women by her, and that you had a perfect picture of her in your head—and how in the world could she live up to that?”

  Jake groaned and looked down at me, his angry eyes melting into sexy pools of caring.

  “Where the hell did you ever run into Janie?”

  I looked down at the tile floor and kicked it with the toe of my shoe. “In the Wal-Mart parking lot. I was there to surprise you with lunch, but she surprised me instead.”

  “She’s back in town?”

  I nodded. “Staying with her folks.”

  We stood there staring at each other. I still wanted to throw myself into his arms. But I’d been super stupid, and I didn’t deserve for him to forgive me… again.

  A man cleared his throat and the entire assembly turned back to the open kitchen, where Al stood behind the grille.

  “The part they forgot to tell ya, mister,” Al gestured with his spatula, “was that they figured, since you’ve known her since high school, and you already know she’s a train wreck.”—Wow, that stung—“She shouldn’t be running away from you. She should be driving that piece of shi—” Al dipped his head and said he was sorry solemnly. “I meant, she should drive that rusty old car of hers back and make up with you… again.”

  Flo was smiling, her expression bursting with pride and adoration.

  “Oh, Al! You have been listening to all the stuff I’ve been telling you all these years.”

  I felt Jake’s hand take mine, and I looked up, startled.

  “I know you’re a klutz,” he said gently. “I know you make the wrong decisions, and you can’t cook.”

  I grimaced. “You noticed that, huh?”

  He took hold of my chin and pulled my face up to look me straight in the eye.

  “I know all this, and I love every bit of it…”

  I suddenly couldn’t breathe. Was he saying...?

  He pulled me closer until I was pressed up against his hard, warm body, and I could feel his warm, sweet breath against my lips.

  “I love you, Hope Jones. It’s always been you.”

  I jumped up and wrapped my arms around his neck, kiss, kiss, kissing his beautiful, luscious lips, tasting his mouth, losing all restraint as I pulled him as close as was physically possible.

  He tasted so good. He felt so good in my arms, against my body.

  I could hear cheering and hooting, cat whistles and howls and laughter filling the diner.

  After what seemed like the greatest week ever, our lips finally parted.

  “I thought I was going to have to call the fire house to come over and spray you two down before you set the restaurant on fire,” Flo chortled.

  Jake’s lips were bruised red and shiny from our kiss. His eyes were half closed, heavy with want. I could feel that want pressing hard against my thigh.

  “Is there a motel in this town?” Jake asked, and then looked to Flo.

  Flo let out a war whoop of laughter and pointed toward the setting sun.

  “Spincer’s Motor Lodge. Just two blocks that way.”

  Jake took my hand and started pulling me toward the door.

  “Mind if I leave my car here for a bit?” I called over my shoulder to Flo.

  I didn’t hear her reply, with the clanging of that stupid bell over the door, and my heart thudding so loud in my chest.

  Jake opened the door to his old truck and literally picked me up and set me inside. A slam of the door, and a few beats later he was angling himself behind the wheel. A few minutes later we were at the motor lodge, and after what seemed like an eternity, we left the front office and headed toward our room.

  The door closed behind Jake, and in seconds we were kissing again, his hands pawing at my ass, dipping into my jeans. I tore at the pretty, red flannel shirt he was wearing, so enjoying popping the buttons as I ripped the shirt open to reveal his smooth, muscular chest.

  It had only been a day, but I’d missed him so much. I’d missed the way he smelled, how he tasted, and how his flesh felt against mine.

  We raced to pull each other’s clothes off. I kissed and licked and nibbled at every inch of him I could find. Before I knew it we were in the bed, he was so wonderfully naked, and hard. I groaned as he pushed himself into me. I could practically hear a sizzle as his manhood penetrated me, bearing down into me, stretching me until he was all the way inside me.

  I held tight to his neck, devouring his lips as he pushed in and pulled out of me, making me moan and gasp with every thrust. My body tightened around him, and he hissed and redoubled his efforts to pound himself right through me.

  A hellish orgasm burned up right through me, setting my skin, my blood, my entire body into merciless flame.

  He pulled his lips from mine, looking down on me as he slowed the pace of his hips, pulling his cock from me until only the tip was still inside me.

  “Say it,” he growled.

  I gasped for breath. “Say what?”

  He thrust back into me, making me yelp and gasp and moan in ecstasy.

  His green eyes blazed as he stared down at me.

  “I told you I loved you,” his voice rumbled. “You didn’t say it back.”

  I hadn’t?

  I remember him saying it, being breathless, and then launching myself at him—and the kissing.

  He pounded his hips into me again, glowering as I writhed beneath him.

  Oh god… please don’t let him stop.

  He pulled out and hammered himself into me again.

  “Say it!”

  I reached up, my hands making slapping noises as I took his face in my hands, and took his mouth in the hardest kiss I’d ever given.

  “I love you,” I rasped between kisses. “I love you more than anything.”

  Our bodies melted together, and for what seemed like a heavenly eternity we made love, on the bed, on the floor, in the shower.

  We fell asleep in each other’s arms, Jake’s voice saying “I love you,” playing over and over in my head.

  Chapter 54

  Jake pulled in right behind me, and he had my Taurus’ driver’s side door open before I even turned the engine off.

  The instant I got out of the car he kissed me.

  He kissed me on the way up the path to the porch, he kissed me as I tried to unlock my front door, and he picked me up and kissed me as he carried me to the couch.

  After even more kissing—and some rather naughty hands play—my belly started rumbling again.

  Any more making out was temporarily suspended until I got something to eat.

  Jake followed me into the kitchen, his flannel shirt un-tucked and unbuttoned—the truth was it only had two buttons left. He looked so damn sexy. I opened the fridge and scavenged for food and ended up with a cold chicken sandwich and some potato salad.

  I split the grub with Jake, but he seemed more interested in feeding me, and then getting me back on the couch, or up in my bed.

  I looked over to my laptop, which I had carelessly left behind and open when I’d left. I blinked. There were a hundred and fifty emails.

  I
started to scan down the list. The senders were all strangers, but the subject line was all pretty much the same: Your Covers.

  I opened the first one. An author wanted to know how much a cover would be for her paranormal romance, both ebook and paperback versions. She’d also sent the dimensions of the paperback.

  I went back to my inbox, Jake standing silently behind me, his hands on my hips.

  I scrolled down the list of emails until one caught my eye. Covers for a Series.

  I clicked on it.

  Dear Miss Jones,

  My best friend, Dion, is about to self publish a four book series and is looking for some beautiful covers. We both think your portfolio is fantastic and would love to talk to you about shooting and designing the covers for her series.

  It’s a New Adult Romance series, each one between 90,000 and 120,000 words. She’s planning on putting them out over the next year, but wants to have them ready to go so she can concentrate on writing the next books.

  Please contact me so we can talk about the project.

  Jess

  The full name on the email was Jessica Bennet.

  I closed the email and saw an email from PayPal. It was one of those collective emails, where you’ve received multiple emails from the same person. I clicked it open and gaped at what I saw. Forty seven people had “Sent me money,” payment for some of my premade covers.

  I multiplied forty seven by the price Raphael had set them at.

  My stomach did a little flip flop.

  It was more than I made in six months.

  I reached for my cell phone and called Raphael.

  “It’s about time you got back.” He sounded harassed.

  “I… well…”

  Raphael sighed. “You were off having a mini nervous breakdown, I got the memo.”

  There was a memo?

  “But while you were off making up and making it with the mechanic, your brand spanking new business just exploded.”

  I whistled as I looked at the balance of my PayPal. “I see that.”

  “So now you need to answer all those emails, round up the models, somehow schedule all those photo shoots, and design these author’s dream covers.

  “Oh, and don’t forget that you have to email the finished covers for the pre-made ones ASAP.”

  Something just dawned on me. “Crap! What if some of them ordered the same covers?”

  “Already thought of that. Put in a failsafe. As soon as they click on the cover they want it sends them to the PayPal page, and when they send the money, that cover is marked sold.”

  I clicked on the website Raphael had made for me. Most of the pre-made covers had a “Sold” banner pasted over them. One flickered to Sold before my very eyes.

  Jesus…

  “Those puppies are selling fast.” Raphael said, and I heard computer keys clicking. “You might want to raise the prices on the next batch you do.”

  Next batch?

  Wow…

  Yesterday I was unknown and unemployed.

  Today I’m in demand, in a big way.

  Jake plucked the phone out of my hand and brought it up to his ear. “Hope needs some stress therapy before she starts filling orders. She’ll call when her session is over.”

  He thumbed my phone off and then turned it off.

  I felt a queasy twinge just looking at its little blank screen.

  I’d never had it off since I’d bought it.

  Was this smart-phone withdrawal?

  I didn’t have a chance to contemplate it.

  Jake scooped me up in his arms and carried me upstairs for his own, personal brand of stress relief therapy. It took over two hours, and required us both to be naked. It was a lovely way to beat the stress.

  By the time it was over, and my personal therapist was done with me, I was a limp, sated and deliriously blissful Hope Jones.

  A woman loved.

  A woman loved to an inch of her now rather wonderful new life.

  I watched Jake pull on his jeans and reach for his nearly button-less flannel shirt. I grabbed for it first, and held it to my bare breasts.

  He stared at me with hungry, penetrating eyes.

  “I think you need some therapy now, Mr. Troy.”

  He chuckled, the slabs of his chest heaving with every guffaw.

  “You do, do you?”

  I sat up, letting the shirt slide down to puddle in my lap.

  Jake’s eyes did that lost in lust thing I love seeing so much.

  I cricked my finger at him, drawing him near.

  “I do… I really do.”

  *The End*

  Need More Bette?

  Enjoy the following excerpt…

  Excerpt of Need Him: A Love Him, Hate Him, Want Him Novella

  Coming Soon!

  Bette

  Chapter 1

  Raphael kissed my hand. Well, it was a little more than that. We were in his kitchen and I was just telling him about this great gal I knew that worked in IT at Christus Santa Rosa Hospital: tall, svelte, athletic, and bilingual. I’d noticed how he was looking at me lately, and since I’d already decided he wasn’t the man for me, I was now trying to pique his interest with other women—in earnest.

  But when I turned back around from where I’d pulled up IT gal’s Facebook profile, there he stood only six inches away. The amorous glow in those deep, dark eyes of his was intoxicating. He reached out and took my hand in both of his, pulling it gently up to his mouth.

  That full, soft, luscious mouth…

  I couldn’t move—I mean, damn… I hadn’t expected this! I was doing my best to wave him off, to let some other lucky woman have a crack at him. I thought he would have gotten the hint by now.

  Yeah, sure, I’d flirted nonstop with him when he moved in two houses down. I was both interested in test driving him myself and in gathering intelligence on him. It’s just a little hobby I have going. Some women macramé. Some scrapbook. I like to covertly take a peek at my neighbor’s personal lives.

  There’s nothing bad or morally corrupt about that…

  Not really…

  Don’t look at me like that!

  Raphael stood there, holding my hand in his as if he were praying.

  I was breathing kind of fast, my heart pounding.

  I’d gone out of my way to find a top that mostly covered up my décolletage—but I always buy clothing that accentuates my best qualities. I wasn’t wearing any perfume, I’d muted my makeup to the point I was teetering on schoolmarm territory, and my skirt was an inch below my knees.

  Where that skirt came from I will never know, but when I went into my two-bedroom-deep walk-in closet this morning, there it was in the back with my funeral-black numbers, and my nun’s habit (I played Maria in an R rated stage production of The Sound of Music, and I can’t even sing, not like that.)

  So I really hadn’t meant to get the man all worked up.

  “Raphael…” I tried to say. “I think…”

  I watched as his eyelids slid closed, and he bowed his head until those amazing, beautiful lips brushed the inside of my palm.

  Oh, sweet baby Jesus…

  It was as if the world started to shake apart. I could literally feel the floor beneath my feet churn like we were having a goddamn earthquake: a 4.5 on the Richter scale, at least.

  As if time was stopped, he held my hand to his lips, his grip gentle and warm, his lips feverishly hot against my flesh. Only when his hot breath caressed my open palm did I know time was still ticking by.

  And then the thought I’d been having for the past week tolled in my head like a death knell.

  What will I do when he leaves me?

  That question sent its icy claws down my spine, turned my skin to ice, and made my hand jerk out of Raphael’s grasp.

  I was instantly five feet away from him, with my butt pressed up against the back door of the kitchen, holding my hand to me as if he’d burned me.

  “Bette?” Raphael looked confused, his
angelic face so tragically beautiful it made me want to weep.

  But more than anything I wanted out of that kitchen and away from him.

  “I don’t think we should see each other anymore,” I said, my voice coarse as sandpaper.

  I heard him call out my name again as I launched myself out his back door and sped my way across my neighbor Hope’s backyard and back to my house.

  I fumbled with my back door handle, and when I did finally get inside—slamming the door, throwing the locks, and leaning, gasping for breath against said door—I still didn’t feel safe.

  I didn’t feel safe in my own house!

  It was insane.

  I owned seven guns, various knives, a samurai sword, mace, a mace, a taser, and a baseball bat—and I knew how to use all of them with lethal accuracy.

  But…

  But I wasn’t afraid of Raphael.

  I knew he would never hurt me. Not like that.

  He was a gentleman. He was one of the good guys.

  But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t leave me.

  And there it was. I was afraid Raphael would leave me.

  That if I let him in, let myself fall in love with him, that he would, someday leave me.

  Like all the other men I’d loved…

  I had abandonment issues.

  I could just hear Dr. Garvin now, that anemic little cackle, that prim, repressed little smile.

  Took you long enough to figure that one out!

  I’d gone to see her for some “personal growth” therapy back when my last marriage had ended with my husband, Trent, boning his partner-at-his-law-office’s secretary, and me with a restraining order for what I’d done to his Porsche with my baseball bat.

  After ten weeks of twice weekly sessions, and over five thousand dollars in co-pays, she’d brusquely told me that I had “abandonment issues.”

  I had been ready to rip her skull off her shoulders.

  “Ten weeks, and that’s all that you can tell me is wrong with me? I could have gotten that from a late night radio call-in show!”

  She’d reached out and touched my hand, which was shocking enough that I fell silent. She hadn’t even shaken my hand when we met, and went out of her way to always have a three foot personal space between us. But right then she had put her hand on top of mine.