Wild Fling or a Wedding Ring?

  Playtime was over. This was what he wanted.

  “I’ve got it.” Jake’s voice was closer than she’d expected. She turned to find him right behind her. He set one hand at her waist, crowding her, as he took the platter from her grasp and, reaching over her, stowed it in the uppermost cabinet.

  Her fingers gripped the countertop at either side of her hips as Jake lowered his deep blue gaze to hers, smiling that lazy, smooth smile.

  This man had the most beautiful mouth she’d ever seen. And she didn’t have to imagine or guess what those firm, chiseled lips would feel like rubbing against her own. She already knew. Ecstasy.

  Flashes of the phone booth came in quick succession as her back pressed into the counter behind her and her torso absorbed the heat of Jake’s body.

  Oh, God, she could barely breathe.

  His chest was right there, and he smelled so good, and her mouth was suddenly dry. She tried to conjure Amanda, hoping the mental image of her boss getting all breathy about Jackson would be enough to douse the flames licking low in her belly—get her to stop this mind-traveling back to that night in the bar.

  Slow jazz. The seductive, gliding caress of his tongue against hers. His ragged groan, “Tell me to stop.”

  Only it didn’t work. She was alone in her apartment with Amanda’s Jackson, standing there watching him tempt her into seeing him as just Jake. The truth was he’d been tempting her all day. Longer, even.

  He was just Jake. He’d been with her all day. Making her laugh. Making her think. Talking about life and—and she was making a mistake letting herself think that way for even a second. Only she couldn’t stop.

  A shiver ran the length of her spine, skirting around to tighten the skin across her chest, hitching her breath to a halt. There was no stopping it, this desire that built within her every minute they were together, that jumped and flared at every innocuous touch. He read it in her eyes. He had to. She needed him to.

  His pupils dilated, roiled with turbulent emotion. He was going to kiss her, and this time—

  “Turn around and lean forward over the counter.”

  “Wh-what?” Cali’s eyes flared wide, but Jake took her by the shoulders and steadily turned her away from him. Her heart slammed a staccato beat against her ribs. She couldn’t move, couldn’t voice a word of protest as his wide, strong hand spanned her lower back, then skimmed up her spine, using a gentle but firm pressure to bend her over.

  He gathered the hair that hung heavy down her back, parted it at her nape and, twisting the untamed curls, pushed them to fall forward over her shoulders. And then those long fingers were sifting through the weighty mass, tugging at the strands so tiny sparks of pleasure flared at the roots. The tingling sensation of shifting follicles had her fighting a groan, only to lose the battle when his hands moved with steady pressure in a downward stroke from the base of her skull across the slope of her shoulders.

  “Jake,” she gasped as his thumbs pressed into the taut tissues astride her spine, circling slowly until her worn muscles succumbed, releasing their tension to his ministrations.

  He worked the muscle groups, large and small, his every touch and murmured comment—“Hard? Like that?”—melting her resolve.

  Making her want more.

  Need more.

  Warm breath bathed the exposed skin of her neck as he worked the joints of her shoulders, her upper arms, traps and deltoids. His fingers walked the path of delicate bones that collared her neck. Touched on the tops of her pectoral muscles, making her breasts peak and ache for the attention that remained just out of reach. Dipped lower in an elusive caress, still inches from her nipples, before retreating to the spread of her shoulders.

  His skilled hands followed around her ribs, moving over her in confident, deliberate strokes. Easing lower. Locking around her hips as he kneaded the small of her back.

  “You’re so tight.”

  Cali’s teeth sank into her bottom lip at the gruff sound of his provocative words—words that conjured erotic images—used in a context to torment her.

  “You like that?”

  Her belly knotted as her body went liquid beneath his touch.

  “Jake,” she gasped again, his name riding a quivering breath. “Please….”

  The heat of him radiated over her, so close, but not quite touching.

  “Tell me what you want, Cali.” His voice was rough velvet at her ear, making her knees weak. Her body burn. “Tell me. And I’ll give it to you.”

  She was lost. Her mind spun, trying to grasp onto a solid reason she shouldn’t, but there was nothing beyond this aching need. No sense. No reason. No more resistance.

  “Please…touch me.”

  “Like this, Cali?”

  And then the distance between them was gone as all that warmth was coupled with solid muscle and man. His mouth closed over the base of her neck and his hands snaked around her belly, slipping beneath the hem of her tee-shirt to cup the swells of her tender breasts.

  An answering moan was all she could manage as the fingers of one of his hands curled into the top of her bra. He caught her beaded nipple between his knuckles and squeezed gently.

  “Or like this?” he asked, scraping his teeth over the muscle at her shoulder.

  Her knees buckled under the sensual assault. Jake’s gruff, sexy laughter rasped against her spine as he held her to him.

  “Too much, sweetheart?” he asked with mock concern as he teased a hot palm across the skin of her belly. “Should I stop?”

  “Don’t.” Reaching over her head, she sifted her fingers into the dark silk of his hair, holding him close to her. “Don’t stop. I can’t stop—”

  The shrill ring of her phone sounded from the counter in front of her, shocking her frayed nerves.

  “No,” she groaned. Her body, enslaved by a touch she’d been too long denied, vibrated with need.

  She’d stilled in Jake’s arms, but his sensual assault continued. His hands ran from her breasts to her thighs, pressing her into the hold of his hard body. “Who is it?” he murmured at her ear.

  A glance at the display showed the name and number. “IT guy working this weekend… He’s getting back to me on overtime projections… It’s going to be quick…but I—I….” Jake sucked the fleshy lobe of her ear into his mouth. “I—mmmm….”

  His hands skimmed up her body, following the line of her raised arms until he had both her hands held in his. Pressing one into the counter in front of her, he slid his thick fingers between hers, holding her in place.

  The other hand he guided to wrap across her waist, settling in a loose hold at her hip. “Don’t take it.” Gentle suction pulled at the nape of her neck followed by the light rasp of teeth.

  She’d been waiting on the information. It wasn’t a huge deal, but this employee was giving up part of his weekend because of her mandate. He wouldn’t leave until she’d spoken to him. Disappointment washed through her, twisting her stomach with frustration so intense it hurt. Ignoring the call wasn’t an option. But after—

  Freeing the hand at her hip, she grasped for the phone and connected. Put it to her ear. “Calista McGovern.”

  On the other end of the line the IT guy began rambling about numbers and his projections. Cali closed her eyes and focused on the metallic voice as Jake’s palm slid hot across her belly. His body, broad and powerful, against her back.

  “Thank you. That’s what I was looking for.” Drawing on every brain cell she could muster, she forced the words from her lips in what she prayed was coherent order. This call couldn’t end fast enough. “Send me the file and we’ll be set.”

  Hot breath, and the sense of a smile behind it, whispered at her other ear. “You sound breathless, Cali… Concentrate for me.”

  Jake’s fingers splayed wide, tugging her closer into him. His breath was moist and warm, loosing undeniable chemical reactions to snake through her system, justifications to lick at all the tender, needy places, driving her blind with desire.


  The call would only take a minute. His touch felt so good. She could handle it.

  “God, you’re making me hot. You need to end this call, because I can’t not touch you,” he growled. “Can you feel me? Feel what you do to me?”

  Yes. She could feel him—his steely length was pressing against her.

  A single nod.

  Answered with a cool lick at the shell of her ear, turning her body to liquid fire.

  More details about some unexpected delays in her right ear. Please!

  “Does that make you hot—to know what you do to me?” The question, punctuated by a nip at her left ear, made her body seize. “Does it make you wet?”

  “Mmm-hmm,” she answered both men, her need ratcheting higher by the second. This was insanity, and yet she couldn’t summon the strength to pull away.

  Jake slipped his fingers free of the hand he’d pinned to the counter. Then he began to run both his palms over her breasts in slow, tight circles that had her pushing into his hands, her head dropping back against his shoulder and her eyes drifting closed.

  “I don’t know if you’re talking to me or your IT guy. I’m going to have to find out for myself.”

  Her eyes flew open as his hand brushed over the fly of her jeans, opening the snap and the zipper. He wouldn’t…. But then his knee nudged between her thighs to widen her stance as his fingers skimmed at the sensitive skin below her navel.

  And she knew—

  He dipped into her panties as the IT guy droned on about the working conditions at his last job. Wait—she hadn’t followed the transition of the conversation. What else had she missed?

  Her body tensed, but not from pleasure. She’d gotten in so far over her head the room spun. This was a disaster!

  Except that thick fingers were slipping against her aching wetness, parting and pushing into her. Her mouth opened in a silent cry as her body betrayed her, seizing in an attempt to draw him deeper. Jake was at her ear again, hot and urgent.

  “Time to hang up, Cali. You’ll call him back.”

  He moved in and out of her, so good, so deep.

  “Cali?” He stilled.

  Only her body didn’t care that the thrust and retreat had ceased. The penetration had pushed her past the edge of control. She was falling.

  “Hang up, sweetheart.”

  And then the phone was out of her hand, abruptly disconnected. She cried out her completion in gasping breaths, with Jake’s midnight voice at her ear, talking her through the crashing waves of an orgasm so strong it had battered her senses and convictions into the dust to get free.

  “Cali?” Jake turned her around, tucking her into the hold of his arms. She peered up at him as the cool, wet path of shame streaked down her cheek.

  Her throat was too tight to speak so she shook her head.

  “Don’t look like that.” He caught one guilty tear with his thumb, tried to brush it away. “Sweetheart, it’s not—”

  “Don’t. Please, just don’t say anything.”

  How could she have been so stupid? Why? She’d all but come into the ear of some poor IT guy, putting in overtime this weekend just to provide her with the information she’d requested! Heaven help her, she was going to have to call him back with some fabricated excuse.

  “Come on, Cali, it was just some fun.”

  “It was my job!” she lashed back. “Don’t you understand? I’m not like you, Jake. I haven’t gotten to where I want to go yet. I haven’t reached my goal. I’m still working for it, and stunts like the one we just pulled won’t get me there.”

  He stood back, his brow furrowed in obvious frustration. “That guy isn’t going to have a clue what happened here. I disconnected the call before the fireworks started.”

  “It doesn’t matter—this isn’t what professionals trying to get to London do!”

  Closing his eyes for patience, he muttered a curse.

  “Just go. I need—” She needed to burst into tears, and she needed to do it alone.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  WITHIN the small sixth-floor office she’d been assigned Cali hung up the phone, disconnecting from the latest status report with Amanda. She leaned back in her chair and spun toward her window, stretching her neck as she observed the late morning activity on the dappled dark waters of the Chicago River below.

  Amanda had hinted again about London during their call, causing Cali’s pulse to bump at the mention, then transitioned smoothly into her favorite subject. Jake. Jackson.

  When had Cali last seen him? Really? That long ago? How was he wearing his hair? Wasn’t he handsome? Did Cali think he was as funny as Amanda thought he was?

  She’d talked to her boss about Jackson as though he didn’t exist beyond the context of his relationship with Amanda, but Jake had become the guilty secret that loomed like swollen thunderclouds above her career, ready to burst at any moment. On and on it went, each probe ratcheting the tension between her shoulderblades higher, until finally a bead of sweat had rolled from her temple and dropped into a single small splatter on the top page of her budget report and Cali had abruptly redirected the conversation to work.

  It was too much. Answering politely about a man who made her feel anything but. Feigning indifference over the days that had passed since she’d told him to go. Pretending that guilt and loneliness weren’t eating her alive. Jake wasn’t to blame for what had happened between them, and, as mad as she’d been, she’d known that all along. The only thing she could blame him for was having the ability to make her weak. Make her want. Make her crazy.

  The phone buzzed, jarring Cali back to the present. Leaning over the desk, she connected the line.

  “Yes?”

  “Pack it in, Cali,” came the jubilant voice of Trish, her closest co-worker. “It’s Friday, it’s noon, and you know I’m not taking no for an answer.”

  The Chicago office had the afternoon off, and Trish had been planning a department-wide trip to the beach that afternoon.

  Cali hesitated, trying to decide if there was any reason she shouldn’t take advantage of this beautiful day. The sun was shining; the temperature was a perfect seventy-eight. Taking a quick survey of her desk and what awaited her attention, she saw there really wasn’t anything she couldn’t take home with her for the weekend. Why not? She needed the break, and spending time with Trish might actually keep her from obsessing about a man she shouldn’t want.

  “I’ll be right down.”

  When Cali arrived in the lobby, she stopped short. Trish, sporting a beach bag, flip-flops, and a tee-shirt that hung off one shoulder, leaned against the front desk, happily chatting up the guard and two guys in suits Cali vaguely recognized from Accounting.

  The look was quite a contrast to the soft pink pencil skirt, neatly tailored linen blouse and three-inch heels completing Cali’s ensemble.

  Trish dismissed the men while surveying Cali’s dress. “Have you got your suit on under there?”

  She nodded as a flush of heat crept up her neck at the thought of the bikini she’d purchased years ago but never actually worn. This morning, while riffling through her drawer looking for the more conservative tankini she normally wore, she’d realized it had somehow been misplaced in the move. Running late, she’d grabbed the tiny electric blue number with the tags still attached, and a long cover-up to go with it. Unlike Trish, however, Cali hadn’t been willing to walk through the lobby in her beach garb and opted to wear work clothes—at least until they got to the cab.

  “Perfect. The guys from team six already went ahead to get set up. We’ll grab a cab and you can change on the way.”

  Cali shifted on her feet and glanced back at the elevators, feeling the guilty pull of her project tugging her back.

  “Oh, no, you don’t.” Trish wagged a finger her way. “Amanda said to tell you to stop working for a few hours and to enjoy the sun. So don’t make me call her back with the report that you can’t follow orders.”

  “All right, all right,” she concede
d. “Let’s get over there.”

  By the time the cab pulled to a stop at Oak Street Beach Cali had freed herself from her work clothes in an ungainly display of jutting elbows and pulled hair, and handed them over. At Trish’s teasing whistle she’d gratefully donned the cover-up, ready to enjoy an afternoon in the sun.

  They walked down the concrete path and onto the wide stretch of flat, light sand beach toward an area spread with blankets, a few coolers, and a beach volleyball net. Cali recognized a number of faces from the office, and waved as one after another stopped to greet her or offer a welcoming smile. Picking a nice spot midway to the water, they spread a blanket, using their shoes to secure the corners in the balmy breeze.

  The sun warm on her skin, Cali sat beside the cooler as Trish dug out sandwiches, bottled water, and a few tubs of cold deli salads. Matt Novack jogged over and edged a seat beside Trish, joking good-naturedly about some mutual acquaintance he’d hoped to get to know better.

  Tucking into the meal, they discussed the various “fests”, concerts and street fairs abundant throughout the Chicago summer: Taste of Chicago, Venetian Night and Lalapalooza. There were also art fairs, garden walks, air shows, and a veritable plethora of other appealing activities to fill all the free time Cali didn’t have.

  Still, it was exciting to hear about the masses filling Grant Park, to imagine herself into a life that allowed for such good times. And then, glancing around—at her co-workers, at the gorgeous lakefront with Navy Pier in the distance, the Drake Hotel, and John Hancock building piercing the clear sky above—she realized that somehow this fantasy life was actually hers. For now, anyway.

  Cali raised a bottle of water to her lips and took a long draw as a shadow fell over their group, and a pair of legs, tanned, muscular, and lightly dusted with dark masculine hair, stepped up to them.

  “Hey, Cali,” came the rumbling dark voice from above, setting off a tingly reaction across her skin and through her center. “Was hoping I’d catch you out here.”

  She froze, knowing instantly who it was. She’d recognize his voice anywhere, and that unique blend of excitement mingling with anxiety only surfaced when one man was in her proximity. Jake.