Jack was a twisted man to be so torn up over a girl who showed every sign of being even less open to a relationship right now than he was. She was like a soldier on her umpteenth tour of duty, hunkered down behind her sandbags of attitude, M16 at the ready, cynicism resting heavy on her shoulders, like armor she couldn’t put down.
Still, the flash of uncertainty he’d glimpsed in her hazel eyes after he’d lied—bald-faced lied—about not angling to sleep with her kept him in the game. He tried to tell himself that the pull he felt deep in his gut was not the recognition that she was going to be his next best mistake. Talking to her was not pulling her essence under his skin, forcing him to pursue her. He didn’t enjoy being around her so much that he’d lied about needing tacos in order to stave off a hangover. That flush under the lovely brown of her cheeks did not make him want to take care of her and make sure she had everything she needed.
He definitely didn’t want to do a little dance for joy when he saw that his favorite taco truck was still a block away from the bar. And he absolutely didn’t become uncomfortably aroused when she made a little moan in the back of her throat.
“This is my favorite truck!” She looked at him with bright eyes and lips curved into a smile, the first he’d seen on her. It wasn’t even about him, but it knocked him flat on his ass. She slapped his shoulder with the back of her hand and he barely suppressed the need to catch her fingers between his own.
“Because you have great taste.”
“You don’t know that about me.” She picked up one foot and pointed to her shoes. “I could think that these look really neat.”
“Nope. You said you were working earlier. Guessing the shoes you wore to work were killing your feet.” And he was sure the shoes she’d been wearing to work were sexy as hell. If she’d been wearing stilettoes when they’d met, she might as well have stuck one pointy heel right into his heart. Her legs were devastating as they were; heels would almost be too much.
“You were paying attention.” She sounded surprised, and he hated that.
“Of course I was. Who wouldn’t pay attention to you?” She was captivating, at least to him. But she didn’t seem to see it. As soon as she’d turned, ready to commit heinous acts on behalf of her friends, he’d been caught up in her. Maybe her favorite tacos would give him some insight as to why.
“What’s wrong with you?” Her question caught him off guard only a little.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean—and don’t let this go to your head—you’re good-looking, probably not broke, and you don’t seem stupid right off the bat.” She stopped and ran a hand through her dark brown hair. He couldn’t help but look where the strands nuzzled her breast. “Why are you even talking to me? Are you a glutton for punishment?”
In addition to being superhot, she was definitely a pill, but the superhot part was winning. Plus, there had to be a reason she was giving him such a hard time. He’d chalk it up to journalistic instinct that he wanted to know what was up with her. “Definitely a masochist.”
“Figures.” She rolled her eyes at him, and—hand to God—it made his heart race.
“You’re seriously not going to cut me any breaks, are you?”
“Why should I?”
He hated that she was likely lumping him in with some douche-bro who’d done her wrong, but he could understand. He knew what kind of shit men pulled when they were trying to dip their wicks. He’d been friends with Chris and Joey for two decades.
“My winning smile?” He crossed his arms over his chest, and she mirrored him as though she wasn’t going to give him an answer. When she said nothing, he raised an eyebrow.
“Just a nice boy from a good family, just making conversation. Aren’t you?” She shook her head.
Her voice sounded world-weary, and he felt empathy with that. But good family? His family was just fine, normal for his block. But after his parents split up, the kids had kind of been left to fend for themselves. And things with his mother still weren’t the same. She’d wanted more than her husband and kids. Gone back to school, got a job at the Museum of Contemporary Art, found another husband. By the time she’d tried to make her way back into her kids’ lives, they’d all sort of moved on. Michael to their family contracting business, Jack to school and his various girlfriends, and Bridget to being the very best at everything all at once.
A shard of anger worked through the lust that Hannah had kicked up in his gut. How dare she peg him as some idiot bro? He knew what he looked like, but that didn’t give her the right to toss her baggage at his feet.
Someone had clearly done a number on her. It wasn’t his job to clean it up. She didn’t want him; she’d made that clear. He didn’t walk away, though, because the anger wasn’t enough to overpower the lust and the growing tenderness she’d reached into him and pulled out.
“Who hurt you?”
She snorted, and her face contorted into as close as it could get to ugly. Still pretty. “Who hasn’t?”
He reached out his hand to her, waited for her to take it. “I haven’t hurt you, and I promise I won’t.”
“You won’t.” She shrugged, still not reaching for him. “We’re just getting tacos.”
“Shake on it?” He threw in a smile, which softened her up like it had inside the bar.
She grabbed his hand, and he liked how her soft skin felt against his palm.
He didn’t let her go but tucked her hand under his arm and escorted her to the taco truck.
He didn’t laugh out loud when they both ordered the same thing—carnitas. Once they found a seat at a picnic table under a streetlamp, he started on the questions. “So, where’d you grow up, Hannah?” He couldn’t stop saying her name. “Where were people such assholes?”
“Outside of Minneapolis.”
“Aren’t people from Minneapolis supposed to be nice?”
“I was born in LA.”
“Figures.” Hannah narrowed her gaze at him, and God help him. “I just meant—LA face.”
The side of her mouth quirked up. “But I don’t have the Oakland booty to go with it. And that doesn’t save it.” Damn, she wasn’t going to let him get away with anything. “You’re from Chicago?”
“That obvious?”
She smiled again, for real this time, and he savored it as though it was something crazy-precious. And frightening. “The accent gives it away.” She took a deep breath, as though she was thinking hard about whether to continue talking. He couldn’t breathe until she opened her mouth again. “You also walk like you have a big dick. I’ve noticed that a lot of guys in Chicago do that, regardless of what they’re packing.”
So, she was calling him a cocky bastard, and he wouldn’t disabuse her of that. Not if the decent-but-cocky-guy thing would get him laid—not tonight, but eventually.
“I’m not walking like that because I’m putting on airs, Duchess.” He winked at her. She’d opened the door to this conversation when she’d mentioned his cock.
She rolled her eyes again, and it was even more of a turn-on because he didn’t think she wasted the energy to roll her eyes at guys she didn’t like just a little. “I’m not angling to find out.”
She’d demolished her taco in a fashion that was kind of scary but mostly impressive. His instincts told him that she was going to bolt, and he didn’t want that. He wasn’t about to throw her over his shoulder caveman style—that wasn’t him—but he didn’t meet a girl he sparked with like this every day. Or even every six months. Though he wasn’t looking for anything serious, he couldn’t help hoping for more than a taco.
“Can I have your number?”
She shook her head and leveled him with a look that would make a lesser man run in the other direction. When she wiped an errant drop of crema off the side of her wide, lush mouth, he quaked a little in his boots. Instead of showing weakness, he pushed th
e remains of his food aside so he could lean over the table. To get closer.
“Why would I give you my number?” There was an unmistakable breathy hitch in her voice.
“So I can use it.”
She leaned back, and that’s when he knew he was going to get it. She was just as affected by being close to him as he was by her. “How good’s your memory?”
“Damned good.” Had to be when deadlines were tight and news stories came fast.
She rattled off ten numbers, and he fumbled with his phone to enter them. Just as he got the last one in the phone app, she stood up. “Thanks for the drink. And the food.”
The few seconds of hesitation before she grabbed her phone, something expectant about it, gave him the chance to stand up and get next to her. He glanced at her screen, where it looked like she was booking a car. They were close—close enough to kiss. But he wouldn’t kiss her without permission. So he just waited.
Her breaths were little gasps as she looked up at him. “I told you that I don’t date.”
“Then why’d you give me your number?”
She shrugged, but it was more trying to be cool than actually being cool. “You amuse me.”
“Bullshit.” That made her break eye contact with him. He was losing her, and he had to get her back. Although he’d been benched for a minute, he was still a world-champion suitor. That had to be why watching her leave right now would physically hurt him. “You feel this thing between us too. Just admit it, and I won’t pester you for a date.”
“I just have to admit it?”
He nodded and gave her his most winning grin. Even though she looked as though she wanted to slap him, he could feel something about the invisible ten-foot concrete barrier she had around her crumble a little bit. He wanted to pump his fist in the air. But he was about to have something infinitely better to do with his hands. “Admit you like me. And then you’re off the hook for a date.”
“Okay.” And then she had the audacity to look bored.
Because of the blasé look on her face, he didn’t expect it when she pressed her mouth to his. Everything in him froze with the feel of her mouth against his. The press of her hands against his chest. His hands hovered over her shoulders, as though repelled by the electromagnetic field of holy hell sweet baby Jesus yes surrounding this kiss.
He didn’t react, couldn’t. He was so surprised that it took him a beat to really make the most of this opportunity before she ripped it away. But when he remembered himself, he pulled her close and took her mouth with his.
And she let him get away with it, softened under his kiss. It was perfect. She was perfect. In a split second, he knew he would crave the feeling of this woman dissolving into a puddle under his lips forevermore.
He almost broke away from her then; it was simply more than either of them had bargained for. She’d seemed to freeze up, too. Knowing he’d have to give up on the feeling of her soft mouth under his pained him.
Just as he was about to pull out of the death spiral, she grabbed ahold of him. And the way she wound her arms around his neck and pulled him close told him that—even if kissing had been impulsive—she definitely wanted more. Flames of need worked their way through his whole body, no chance of banking them as she pressed her body close. Her curves molded to every inch of him.
Damn, she might not date or be down for a one-night stand, but she could kiss. His arms around her waist, she let a breathy moan loose into his mouth. When he put his hand on the back of her neck and took the kiss deeper, she bit his bottom lip. It was as though a crack of thunder went off in his body. The way they kissed, he knew that everything with her would be a battle of wills, a fight that made his cock hard. Little whimpers into his mouth sounded like victory. He ran his fingers through her hair and gathered the strands at the back of her neck to pull her closer, to angle her head so that he had all the access to her witchy mouth.
The text tone of her phone, which she clutched to the back of his head, made her pull back. Still, her gaze was hazy, bewildered. Looking as though he’d stolen her puppy. Jack was much more interested in her kitty, finding out how it tasted. He groaned, imagining how she’d look at him after he’d spent time between her thighs.
“My car’s here.”
Jack nodded, still satisfied by how stunned she seemed to be by their kiss, even though she’d initiated it. It didn’t affect him any less. This time, when he grabbed her hand and walked with her over to the Kia with its blinkers flashing on the corner, she didn’t even try to pull away. He might have been imagining things, but he thought he felt her squeeze his hand before releasing it to get in the car.
He kept his smile at bay until he’d shut the door and the car had driven away.
CHAPTER THREE
HANNAH’S WORK WIFE, ROOMMATE, best friend since freshman year, and all-around platonic soul mate, Sasha, came into her office and closed the door. This was never a sign that all was well with Sasha, but it was especially bad ten minutes before their Friday morning staff meeting. Sasha’s meltdowns generally took at least fifteen minutes to clean up, and—judging by the smudged mascara around her eyes—this was a twenty-minute tantrum. Nay, a mantrum.
“What did this one do?” Hannah passed over a wad of tissues and a mirror she’d gotten as swag for an event they’d done for a bestselling romance author last month. She made a motion under both of her eyes to indicate that Sasha needed to get her shit cleaned up.
“He sent me a dick pic.” Sasha’s voice came out as a watery wail, and Hannah could barely keep herself from rolling her eyes. “This morning on my way to work, my phone pings. And it’s a dick pic.”
She honestly couldn’t comprehend why her best friend continued to subject herself to loser after loser on dating app after dating app. This app was always going to be different; she was always on the verge of meeting “the one” at the next singles event. Or at least they would be if Hannah didn’t go along with Sasha to speed-dating events just for the drinks and snacks and end up heckling the feckless douchebags.
And it always ended in tears Hannah had to clean up. The last one, Mitchell, Sasha had dated for nine months. He’d been promising as a life partner, if boring in bed. But then, on the way to meet her parents, he’d told her that they couldn’t continue seeing each other unless they “opened up” the relationship.
Hey, Hannah was a live-and-let-live kind of gal, but ol’ Mitch was a moron if he looked at Sasha and thought she was down to share. No judgment for people who that worked for, but it just wasn’t her best friend. Sasha was a perfect Catholic pearl, from her skin-care-ad complexion to her curtain of shiny black hair. Sasha was basically a Disney princess.
Half her closet was pink, for Christ’s sake. She had more than one floral dress. Sasha was not the kind of girl to get a second boyfriend because her first boyfriend couldn’t live without dipping his wick all over town.
It would have been understandable for douchebag Mitch to assume that Hannah was into OPP. He wouldn’t have been the first, and he wouldn’t be the last. Like Miguel Contreras, the guy she’d dated for six months before she’d met her last serious boyfriend. She’d liked him because he wanted to talk about feminist theory until the wee hours of the morning. He’d really seemed to get it. Until one night when he’d taken hours trying to explain to her that monogamy was merely a tool of the patriarchy and she was subjugating herself by insisting on exclusivity. She hadn’t bothered to explain that her philosophy—if I lick it, it’s mine—worked just fine for her feminism.
Miguel had shown his ass when he called her a stuck-up c-word on his way out the door. After that, she’d started to suspect that all straight, cis-gendered men were utter trash. But after Noah, she’d confirmed it.
And her image and demeanor had sort of transformed until she was the hard-ass bitch sitting in her office right now. The all-black, all-the-time wardrobe was easy—but it was also
a warning. Her eyeliner was always perfectly winged because she did not have mascara-smudging meltdowns at work. Not anymore. Nor did she have eyeliner-obliterating make-out sessions. At least not usually.
She wore lipstick as red as the blood of her enemies to warn any unwary souls who might wander into her sight line that she was not to be fucked with. It also made it less likely that anyone would try to kiss her. And it mostly worked.
Until she’d stolen a kiss from Jack.
Jack, who hadn’t taken her firm suggestion that he piss off for an answer. Not yet. On the other hand, he hadn’t faltered in the face of her rage at his friends. He’d soothed her with a drink, the best carnitas in town, and a kiss that she could still feel imprinted on her lips.
In the six days since the night they’d met, he’d been texting her almost every day. Not dick pics, but it didn’t make her wish she’d given him a wrong number any less.
The problem was, Jack was charming her. He’d kept his promise and he hadn’t asked her out, as though he knew that would be too much. But he was enticing her with each street-taco picture, and every snap of a happy dog he met on his morning run melted her resistance. His texts were so chatty and disarming that she was closer to asking him out with each random question he asked.
Lou Holtz or Ara Parseghian?
It was definitely Coach Parseghian. The fact that he’d asked about her team, even though they were sworn enemies because he was a Michigan alum, touched her in a previously icy spot in her heart. It seemed as though he actually wanted to get to know her.
But she was still waiting for the other, perverted and/or misogynist shoe to drop.
It didn’t help that her Goth-girl, power-bitch look had the unfortunate side effect of making some guys think that she would screw them and that they didn’t have to take care with her feelings. But that was a problem for a different day.
Today’s problem was getting Sasha to see that none of these guys she was dating were worth her tears. If they couldn’t see the real, tender heart of her best friend, they didn’t deserve her, and they certainly didn’t deserve for her to risk losing her job because she cried through the mandatory staff meeting. Of course, eventually Sasha would marry someone, but Hannah knew that she’d probably be replaced by a married girlfriend at that point. Someone who could understand what it was like to get bored with the person she’d pledged to love forever.
Not the Girl You Marry Page 3
