Jacob's Ladder: Gabe

  “If the tow strap doesn’t work, I’ll go to the boom. I don’t want to put any more pressure than I have to on the hitch.”

  “Thank you for that. Jake will kill me if I bring his Jeep home all banged up.”

  Once the straps were in place, I motioned to Gabe. “Okay, can you shift the gear to neutral?”

  “Yeah, sure.” Gabe sloshed through the water to climb into the Jeep. “Done,” he called as he craned his head out the window.

  Nodding, I got back inside the cab of the tow truck, threw the gear into drive, and eased my foot down on the accelerator. At first, the Jeep didn’t budge, but after switching to a lower gear, it started inching slowly out of the mud. Thankfully, it hadn’t been too submerged, or it might’ve taken even more effort. Once I had it completely out of the water, I hit the brake and then shifted the wrecker into park.

  After grabbing my iPad on the seat beside me, I jumped back down. I placed it on the back of the wrecker before I went to undo the tow straps. When I finished, I deposited the soaking strap on the truck bed before taking off my waders. I then collected the iPad and walked back over to Gabe. “Okay, you’re free and ready to go just as soon as you sign the paperwork.”

  Gabe jerked his hand through his hair. “Ms. Hart—”

  “Rae,” I corrected.

  He nodded. “Rae, I…uh…I just wanted to apologize for my earlier comments. I certainly never meant to disrespect you, and I really do appreciate the fact that you came out here so quickly. I’m sure it was an inconvenience on your day off.”

  “Normally, I would say you might regret those words when you see how much it is for the emergency towing fee, which your insurance doesn’t cover, but I have a feeling you can easily cover it.”

  Gabe grinned. “Yeah, I think I’m good.” I unlocked the screen and opened the program. “Just sign here.” I handed Gabe the Hart and Daughter pen that had a stylus on the end.

  After he signed in a flourish, Gabe said, “Listen, after the way I acted, I’d really like to do something to make it up to you. Why don’t you let me buy you dinner to say thanks for all your help?”

  And there it was: the offer for dinner, which I would have wagered good money was really just a lead-in for sex. While I wasn’t too accustomed to that happening with men here in my hometown, it had been standard practice when I was in the Legends Football League, or Lingerie Football, as some people like to disdainfully call it because of the uniforms—or maybe I should say the lack of uniforms. I’d played for the Atlanta Steam for three years when Linc was just out of diapers. During those years, I’d received countless invitations for dinner, AKA sex. I’d only taken one man up on the offer, and that was because he was a starter for the Falcons. It wasn’t one of my better decisions, not to mention the not-so-fabulous sex.

  Turning my attention back to Gabe, I said curtly, “Our standard towing cost plus the emergency weekend tow fee will more than compensate me.”

  “Come on, I’d really like to see more of you.” Gabe’s gaze slid from my eyes down to my breasts. “Maybe all of you.”

  Ugh. What a creep. I couldn’t believe he was seriously standing there spouting that bullshit. Crossing my arms, I gave a low whistle. “Wow, do you seriously score women with those pickup lines?”

  With a smirk, Gabe replied, “Women usually don’t make me work so hard to take them out.”

  “Of course not. They usually throw themselves at you, right?”

  “Yes.” He waggled his brows. “Along with their underwear.”

  “They must not be on as tight of a budget as I am—I don’t have the money to waste my underwear by throwing them at some rocker with an overinflated ego.”

  Gabe stared at me for a moment before bursting out in laughter. “Damn, you have a sassy mouth. I like that in the women I date.”

  Tilting my head, I asked, “Do you actually date, or do you just screw?”

  “Well, I prefer the screwing, but I do like dating when it serves my purpose.”

  “Your purpose?” I rolled my eyes. “It would be all about you.”

  “Come on, Rae. Let me buy you dinner and get to know you better.”

  “As in the biblical sense?”

  “Sure, why not?” A wicked smirk curved his lips. “I bet you do wonders with that sassy mouth of yours.”

  “Because that’s not who I am. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t jump into bed with random douchebags—even famous ones.”

  “You could always make an exception in my case.”

  “I know this is probably a shock to your ego, but not every woman in the world has a lady boner for you.” Okay, so maybe I was lying with that one. He had certainly gotten my nether regions up and running, but that was before he opened his mouth. I’m pretty sure my once-on-fire vagina had withered to cold ashes now.

  “I promise I’ll make it good for you.

  “Oh, how that statement repulses me rather than turns me on.”

  Gabe threw up his hands. “Fine. It’s your loss, babe, not mine.”

  “Trust me, if you were the last man on earth and the survival of mankind relied on us copulating, I still wouldn’t fuck you.

  On that note, I turned on my boot heels and marched back to the wrecker.

  Holy. Shit. I had just been rejected—no, let’s rephrase that: I’d been annihilated.

  Trust me, if you were the last man on earth and the survival of mankind relied on us copulating, I still wouldn’t fuck you.

  Rae’s words echoed in my ears as I watched her hips sashay somewhat provocatively back to the wrecker. I was glad she had her back to me, because I must’ve looked pretty fucking pathetic standing there in all my rejected glory. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t recall the last time I’d been rejected.

  It had to have been back in middle school when Shelley Dupree wouldn’t go to the end-of-the-year dance with me. In her words, she didn’t want to go with “the fat Renard”. Sure, I was a bit heftier back then. After three years of my parents working in different parts of Mexico, I had come to love the cuisine. Would I have called myself fat? Probably not. Up until Shelley’s rejection, my weight hadn’t been much of an issue since it served me well on the football field. As I grew older and my height evened out with my weight, it was no longer an issue.

  When I hit high school, I had my pick of any girl I wanted. After all, I played football and was in a band. That was like bottled sex to girls, but back then, I was a lot more pious and faithful than I was lately. While I wasn’t sporting a purity ring like the Jonas Brothers, I didn’t lose my virginity until I was seventeen, and that was in a long-term relationship.

  Then when Jacob’s Ladder saw a little success, my appeal with women skyrocketed. Not only did our music turn more secular, you could say I succumbed to the temptations of the world. While I still considered myself someone of immense faith and belief, I wasn’t on the straight and narrow path.

  As Rae screeched off in the wrecker, it kicked up a mud storm that splatted all over the hood of the Jeep. “Fuck!” I shouted when a blob smacked me in the face. Tearing my shirt over my head, I wiped my cheek. Apparently when I’d thought this day couldn’t get any worse, the universe had decided to say, Hold my beer!

  I stomped around the car and threw open the door. I was sure I looked just like Jax and Jules when they threw a tantrum. After pressing the ignition button, I shifted the gear and the Jeep lurched forward. As I started careening back down the dirt roads to get the hell out of Bumblefuck, my thumbs absentmindedly began tapping out a beat on the steering wheel.

  Momentarily taking my eyes off the road, I glanced down at my hands. Without a second thought, I began humming the melody my thumbs were playing. While humming a few bars, words began to form in my mind.

  “You pried me from the walls of my prison,” I sang out.

  The moment the line escaped my lips, I slammed on the brakes. “Holy shit!” After cutting the wheel hard to the right, I pulled off the road into a clearing. I threw open the
glove box and grabbed out my notebook. My hand fumbled inside to try to retrieve my pen, but as hard as I searched, I couldn’t find it. “No, no, no! Not now!”

  My wild gaze spun around the inside of the Jeep. Just as I was ready to prick my finger and write in blood so as to not lose my muse, something shiny flashed from my cup holder. “Fuck yes,” I muttered.

  Holding the pen up to the light, I read the words embossed on the side: Hart and Daughter Wreckers. I rolled my eyes as I realized Rae was going to be saving me for the second time that day. Furiously, I began scribbling the line down, and then, like a dam had broken, the words started rushing at me so fast I feared I might not be able to write fast enough.

  The first streaks of amber sunlight sliced across the blackened sky, waking me from a deep sleep. Blinking my eyes, I surveyed my surroundings. Sometime during the night, I’d passed out in the back of the Jeep. Based on the position I’d slept in, I was sure I was going to have a hell of a crick in my neck.

  With a groan, I rose into a sitting position. As I ground the sleep from my eyes with my fist, my elbow brushed against my notebook, knocking it onto the seat. Then it hit me: I’d spent most of the night writing. The words had come so fast and furiously that my hand had cramped trying to keep up.

  Glancing through my notebook, I slowly shook my head back and forth. “I’ll be damned,” I muttered.

  Somehow I’d managed to crawl out of my pit of writer’s block to pen a song. After I read over the lyrics, I smacked the pages with an enthusiastic fist bump. They weren’t just words taking up the lines of the paper; they were good words—fucking incredible words.

  I couldn’t help wondering what had made the difference. Was it staying out all night under the stars? No—I’d tried that already both from my balcony in the city and at Jake’s farm. It hadn’t helped.

  I realized what the difference was: a petite brunette with a tight ass, perky tits, and a smart mouth…a woman who hadn’t given two shits about my celebrity status and had put me in my place.

  Rae was the difference.

  She had been the key to unlocking my writer’s block. Something about just being in her presence had inspired me more than any other woman, and I couldn’t help thinking the more I was around her, the more I’d be able to write. I might even be able to get the entire album done in just a couple of days.

  Fuck. I had to see her again as soon as possible.

  Of course, there was the glaring issue that she despised me. Yeah, she hadn’t just turned me down; my advances had utterly crashed and burned. But, maybe if I explained my situation to her, she would change her mind. What woman wouldn’t want to be a man’s muse? That was all kinds of romantic.

  Glancing in the rear-view mirror, I recoiled at my reflection. Not only was my hair a mess, I was starting to resemble the Wolfman with my lack of shaving. I lifted my arm to sniff under my arms. Eli might’ve been exaggerating about me stinking the previous day, but I certainly did now after wading through the mud and sleeping in the car.

  There was no way I could see Rae like this. If I was going to ask her to hang out with me, I needed to look presentable, sexy, desirable—not like a swamp-man, as I did now. Surely if she spent more than five minutes with me, she’d want me. Yeah, I could start slow, lure her in, let her see what she was missing because she’d written me off.

  Although I had a change of clothes with me, I found myself with a lack of running water. When I checked the time on my phone, I saw it was barely seven a.m. I had plenty of time to find a hotel or motel to get presentable in before Rae got to work. While I worked on improving my physical self, I would also need to work on how to get Rae to accept my compromise. Then she’d have no choice but to like me…right?

  As strong arms enveloped me within their grasp, a warm mouth closed over mine. Stubble brushed against my cheek as his tongue thrust inside my mouth. Our tongues tangled together with the same desperation as our arms and legs. With his cock buried deep inside me, I raised my hips to meet his frantic thrusts. The most intense pleasure I’d ever experienced ricocheted through me.

  “Yes, Gabe!” I cried.

  And just as I orgasmed, I came awake with a start. As my gaze swung around my empty bedroom, both relief and mortification pulsed through me. First, I was thankful to see that Gabe Renard wasn’t actually in my bed, and second, I was embarrassed as hell that I had just experienced an orgasm merely off his image.

  The truth was, I often took a while to come with physical stimulation, but I seemed to be doing just fine without it this morning. Both my hands were above the covers and nowhere near my center. I was sure Gabe would find it amusing as hell that just me dreaming of his hands and mouth on my body had the ability to make me come. As cocky as he was, I knew he would have never doubted his ability with a woman.

  “Dammit,” I huffed as I kicked off the sheets. How could I have possibly just had a sex dream about someone I detested? Even if he was physically sex on a stick, Gabe was a complete asshole and egomaniac. He was exactly the kind of man I loathed to come in contact with both personally and professionally, the kind who thought a woman’s true purpose was to be a life support system for a pussy.

  The blaring of my alarm clock on the nightstand drew me out of my thoughts. Rising out of bed, I threw my arms over my head and stretched. After pulling my hair into a messy bun, I threw my robe on over my nightgown. When I opened my bedroom door, the deliciously decadent scent of espresso entered my nostrils. I padded down the hallway and into the kitchen, where Kennedy stood at the stove and Ellie sat at the counter, manning the espresso maker. Since we all needed caffeine running through our veins to not only survive but not throat punch someone, we’d all chipped in to buy the rather expensive appliance.

  “Morning,” I called as I walked over to the cabinet to get a coffee mug.

  With spatula in hand, Kennedy glanced at me over her shoulder. “Morning.”

  “Were you running this morning?” Ellie asked, her dark hair swept up in a ponytail.

  “No. Why?”

  “Your face is all red, and you’re sweaty.”

  My skin burned like a raging wildfire under her inspection. “Oh…must be a reaction from the nightmare that woke me up.” I wasn’t totally lying—any form of a sexual scenario with me and Gabe Renard was a nightmare, regardless of what my traitorous body wanted to think.

  With a gasp, Ellie’s hand flew to her mouth and her brown eyes widened.

  “What?” I demanded at her reaction.

  “Were you…” She waggled her brown brows.

  Kennedy whirled around at the stove. “Seriously, Ellie, if you’re going to talk about it, at least say the word: masturbating. Rae was masturbating.”

  “I was not!” I huffed.

  She jabbed the spatula at me as her dark eyes narrowed on mine. “Then why did I hear moans coming from your bedroom?”

  Ducking my head, I focused on pouring some espresso. “Because I was having a scary nightmare.” Once I had filled my cup, I finally met Kennedy’s intense stare. “Look, I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”

  “What’s with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  Kennedy shook her head as she flipped the omelet in the skillet onto a plate. “I call bullshit, little sis. You’re never one to shy away from sex talk.” After she passed the plate to me, she lowered her voice to ask, “You didn’t sneak a man in here last night, did you?”

  “No, I most certainly did not. You know how I feel about that with Linc.” Since the time he was old enough to understand what was going on, I’d always feared Linc finding a strange man in my bed. Because of that, I’d always had sex at the guy’s place or let Linc go spend the night with my dad and Stella.

  Shrugging, Kennedy said, “You could always lock the door and sneak the guy out the window.”

  “Thank you. I’ll remember that if the need ever arises.”

  Ellie eyed me thoughtfully as she chewed on a piece of bacon. “If a man wasn’t in you
r room, then you must’ve been masturbating.”

  I sighed. “Fine. If you must know, I was having a sex dream.” Shuddering, I added, “A very intense sex dream.”

  “Ha! I knew it was something sexual,” Ellie replied as she gave me a triumphant look.

  After handing me the omelet, Kennedy chewed her lip in thought. “Why are you so embarrassed about a sex dream?

  “Because of who starred in it.”

  Wrinkling her nose, Ellie said, “Ew, it wasn’t Vernon, wasn’t it?”

  I started choking on my omelet. After I threw back some coffee, I replied, “God no!” Vernon Neighbors was a sixty-year-old front-end specialist at Hart and Daughter Wreckers. With his greasy hair and wiry frame, he was no woman’s fantasy lover.

  “Ah, but he’s a front-end specialist,” Kennedy joked, waggling her brows.

  “For the record, Vernon will never be allowed anywhere near my front end.” When Kennedy opened her mouth, I shook my head. “That goes for my rear end as well.”

  While Kennedy laughed, Ellie slid into a chair across from me at the table. “Don’t hold out on us—tell us who the mystery fucker was.”

  “Gabe Renard.”

  “Like the Gabe Renard, the drummer for Jacob’s Ladder?” Ellie questioned.

  “I’m pretty sure he’s the only Gabe Renard I know.”

  “What brought that one on? Were you listening to some of their music before you went to bed or something?”

  As Kennedy brought her plate over the table, she replied, “Nope. She answered the tow call when he got his Jeep stuck out on Cutler’s Ridge yesterday.”

  Forget the old adage of saucers—Ellie’s eyes widened to the size of dinner plates at this revelation. “You actually met Gabe Renard?”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “I cannot believe you told Kennedy but didn’t tell me!”

  Since I hadn’t been able believe what had transpired between me and Gabe, I’d gone straight home to tell Kennedy about it, not even taking the time to drop the wrecker off. It was still parked outside in the driveway. “Just how was I to do that when you were gone all day?”