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“The best thing is to stay out of the spotlight,” Autumn said. “If you work the far stage, the lights are newer and…”
He played a few rounds of blackjack with Sabrina, while the girls kicked around technical issues, then went to check with Taylor on inventory and got busy with his routine—verifying the dancers scheduled for the night, checking in with the DJ, the waitresses, testing the lights and sound equipment, inventorying supplies. All the little things that ensured a smooth night.
Jackson hadn’t really wanted this job, but Duke had begged him. They went back for years and the man had loaned Jackson the money to start his auto shop, so he had to help out, as annoying as Duke could be.
Jackson took pride in having turned the place around. Receipts were modest, but steady, and he’d hired a good crew and set new rules. Everything decent and aboveboard. No skimming, no hint of drugs and pure respect for the dancers.
Duke seemed under assault these days. Family stuff, Jackson had gathered. His nephew Stan, whom Jackson disliked, shadowed Duke, showing far too much interest in the nightly receipts. The kid hung with some malevolent-looking guys, more than one of whom Jackson had eighty-sixed for getting grabby with the girls.
The night flew by, business was brisk and he even spun some tunes. Got some praise from a guy from L.A.—PR flak for a record studio—on the mix of retro punk that went well with the night’s dancers and their routines.
At 2:00 a.m., he locked up and headed out. He loved the drive home. Top down, middle-of-the-night quiet, warm air wicking the sweat from his skin. This time of night, he owned the streets.
He reached his place and pulled into the garage, filled with that comfortable peace he always got. He would listen to some music, then hit the sack.
Except he had company. Heidi. Yeah. He got a charge of anticipation, which he squashed flat. She was off-limits. That annoyed him and made him tense. Dammit. He needed to unwind at home, not hold his breath and tiptoe around not thinking about cuddling up to all that sunshine and sweetness.
At least this was only a temporary interruption of his peaceful life. He grabbed the sack of clothes from Autumn and cosmetics from Nevada and headed for the door, braced for the smell of cleanser and lemon oil, since Heidi had been cleaning like a fiend.
Instead he got the sweet aroma of something baked—fruit and pastry. By the stove light Heidi had left on for him, he saw there was a pie on the counter. Cinnamon-streaked peaches oozed from holes in the center. She’d baked him a pie?
Eager saliva flooded his mouth and he felt ravenous, with that hand-rubbing delight he used to get sliding up to his mom’s holiday table. He grabbed the pie knife she’d set out—he didn’t know he had one of those—cut a piece and took a huge bite, not even sitting down. Sweet peaches exploded against his palate and the crust melted like butter. It was so good he had to shut his eyes.
When he opened them, he noticed how peaceful the kitchen was, clean and gleaming even in the dim stove light. The mugs in the glass-front cupboards were in straight rows and strangely blank. Ah. She’d turn the naked ladies to the back. He smiled. Heidi was a trip.
Then he noticed a note in swirling letters sitting on a folded pair of jeans—his favorites, he realized, getting closer—which had gone missing. He thought Gigi had taken them by mistake.
Thanks for helping me out. I’ll try to make your life easier…H
The pie and the jeans were a great start, for sure. He sighed and took another bite. A roommate who cleaned house and cooked wasn’t half bad. So what if she vacuumed when he was battling for number one in the virtual Indy 500? Or made him want to jump her bones when she cleaned? She could take all the hot baths she wanted, for sure. He’d need plenty of cold showers anyway.
He wrote her a note back, thanking her for the pie. He peeled the stickers from the cosmetics, so she wouldn’t know he’d bought them. He almost wanted to get up early enough to see her face when she saw it all. Too stupid. He put a spare house key on top of the note. She’d need that while she was here.
Finished, he headed down the hall, tiptoeing so as not to wake her. He paused outside her room.
What was she wearing? Was she naked? Wearing her daisy panties? He pictured her lying on her side, one leg bent, her cheek in the pillow, one perky nipple making a tiny dent in the sheet, ribs swelling and subsiding with her soft breaths.
He fought the urge to push open the door—already cracked a bit—just to peek, maybe find out if she smelled as sweet in sleep as she did awake, and backed away, toward his room.
And plowed straight into hard metal—his weight bench, he figured from the clanking. What the hell was it doing there?
“Ow. Damn. Shit.” He rubbed the back of his head, then the back of his thighs, which had whacked the kick bar.
“Jackson?” Heidi’s voice was husky with sleep and sharp with alarm. “Are you okay?” There she stood in her doorway, softly lit by his hula-girl nightlight wearing, of all things, his torn-up Hawaiian shirt.
He didn’t know which was worse—the goose egg forming on the back of his skull or the hard-on in his jeans at the sight of her in that pinned-together old shirt sagging to the middle of her thigh. Just plain begging to be ripped off. All he could say was, “Great pie.”
4
“I’M GLAD YOU LIKED IT,” Heidi said, fuzzy-brained from being jolted awake by Jackson’s crash into the weight bench and subsequent cursing. She’d barely drifted off. Even as exhausted as she was, tension about her plight made it tough to sleep. “I moved your bench because it fit better there. I guess I should have warned you in my note.” She’d never imagined he’d back into the room or not turn on a light. “Are you hurt?”
“You’re wearing my shirt.” He swallowed visibly, still rubbing the back of his head, and blinked at her. Repeatedly.
“I hope it’s not a favorite.” She’d found it under the dresser, buttonless and streaked with washed-out grease, so she’d been positive he’d used it as a rag. She’d washed it, along with her only clothes, in the tiny washer-dryer combo unit, figuring it would do for pajamas.
“Used to be my lucky work shirt. I had a vintage car repair shop. It’s just a sweat rag now.” His voice was faint, his eyes transfixed. “On you it looks new.”
She blushed to her toes, hoping he couldn’t see how easily she’d reddened. The only light was from a nightlight in the hall featuring a topless native woman with a hibiscus in her hair.
Jackson perused her body, top to bottom, and back again, lingering here and there—her toes, thighs, breasts, then settling on her mouth. Something very male showed in his eyes. Maybe she hadn’t blown it completely with the hot-oil-shiny-engine remark. He sure wasn’t joking now.
He smelled of bay rum and car leather and cigarettes, a combination that made her think of clinking ice in smoky liquor and dangerous promises made in dark bars. Excitement coursed through her. The narrow hall felt intimate and they were very alone.
“Sorry I woke you,” he said.
“Sorry I hurt you.”
“Mild concussion. Couple bruises.” He shrugged, still looking transfixed.
“I wasn’t really asleep.”
“No? Worried?”
“A little, I guess.”
“So how about a nightcap? Loosen the tension.” He gestured for her to accompany him. “Come on.”
Come on. He’d said that to her before, just being friendly, and she’d liked the way it made her feel as though she belonged. This time there was sexual interest in the words, and she felt a thrill. Maybe something could happen after all. Right now. Tonight.
She followed him down the hall, liking the way her smaller steps echoed his big thuds. In the kitchen, he grabbed highball glasses from the cupboard and went for ice.
She noticed a heap of cosmetics beside a stack of folded clothes on the table and a key on a note. “What’s this?”
“Some extra stuff from girls at the club,” he said, not looking at her.
She fingered the containers. “But this is all new. You bought it for me?”
“God, not me. I’m not that kind of guy. Nevada picked it out.” He grinned, but he was glossing over his thoughtfulness. “Just drugstore stuff.”
“That was very sweet.” She picked up the key. “And this?”
He glanced her way. “For as long as you’re here.”
She liked having a place until she figured out what to do, even if it reflected poorly on her self-reliance.
“You need a ride to work?” He twisted the ice tray over the glasses, his forearm muscles twining nicely.
“A bus line goes right by the salon. The stop’s just on Thomas.”
“I’ve got two vehicles. You can borrow my van, no problem.”
“I’ll be fine.” Jackson was a generous guy. Probably in bed, too. And sex was an important step in her journey. Lemonade from lemons, right?
She watched him slide the empty ice tray back and forth under the faucet, his muscles swelling and subsiding. She imagined those arms around her body, those blunt-tipped fingers on her skin. He shoved the refilled tray back into the freezer.
“Bar’s in the living room.” He tilted his head toward the pass-through, grabbed the glasses, and headed that way.
She followed him to the tiki bar, pulled out a bamboo stool, which turned out to be fragile and wobbly, creaking wildly as she situated herself on its scratchy surface.
Jackson set the glasses on the bar, then reached past her to turn on the hula-girl lamp, his finger brushing the bare plaster breasts ever so lightly, a move she felt along her spine. Soon it might be her he touched so lightly…or not so lightly. She shivered.
To distract herself, she took a prickly pear jelly out of the snifter into which she’d emptied the Cactus Confections sack during her cleanup. Slowly, she munched the tangy treat. The golden light drenching the plaster hula girl made the bar an island of warmth in the intimate dark.
Jackson ducked behind the counter and rose with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He twisted the lid with a fist and splashed their glasses, efficient as a bartender. He managed a bar, after all. She leaned her elbows on the glass surface, which made the hula girl bobble under her lamp shade. Her painted-on eyes seemed to wink at Heidi: You go, haole girl.
She intended to.
“Welcome to Tiki Town,” Jackson said, handing her the drink. He gave the expanse of bamboo and glass a look of possessive satisfaction. “Bought it off a roadie for Jimmy Buffett who hauled it out from Florida.”
“I’m honored to be here.”
Jackson clicked his glass against hers, the sound sharp in the middle-of-the-night quiet. “You look right at home, dressed like that.” He looked as if he wanted to swallow her whole. She wanted him, too. This felt like their own private club and it was very, very late. They surveyed each other, energy crackling like heat lightning.
“I feel like I’ve been shipwrecked on an island…and now it’s just you and me…all alone.” She spoke over the glass, which she held close to her lips. The smoky liquor made her nose and eyes sting. How could anybody drink something this poisonous on purpose? She preferred chocolate martinis or prickly pear margaritas, something that eased the bite with sweetness.
“Aloha,” he said with a wink and took a quick swallow of the booze.
She did the same, and it burned like crazy. “Mmm,” she said to cover her gasp.
He burst out with a belly laugh. “You hated that.”
“It was…startling, that’s all.”
“You don’t have to drink like me, Heidi. Go ahead, scrunch up your freckles. It’s nasty stuff.”
She wished he hadn’t mentioned freckles. They made her seem young.
He rested his elbows on the bar, leaning close enough that she could see the crinkles around his eyes, the smooth planes of his face, golden brown whiskers just emerging from his jaw.
He grabbed a jelly and handed it to her. “Wash it down.”
“I can take it. Really.” She leveled her gaze at him.
He came to attention and let the jelly fall into the jar.
“One of my goals in moving here was to have new…experiences.”
“Experiences?” His gaze drifted to her mouth and he unconsciously licked his lips.
“Yes. Like drinking whiskey in the middle of the night with a man I hardly know in a little private bar called Tiki Town.”
“I see,” he said softly, pulled into her energy, despite the resistance in his posture, the wariness of his shoulders.
“Drinking whiskey…and other new things.” She leaned closer, making the bar jiggle and rattling the bottles behind the bamboo. The hula girl’s hips swayed wildly. Heidi’s stool squealed in agony, but if she shifted back she would seem to be withdrawing. And she was pushing onward. As far as she dared.
“What did you…have in mind?” he murmured, eyes gleaming.
“Exactly what you think.” The husky quality of her voice made her sound more sure than she felt, and that was good. In this quiet moment at Jackson’s bar, she wanted to be a woman who went for what she wanted. Without hesitation, without waiting for him to make the first move…Would he make the first move? Hell, didn’t look like it.
So she grabbed the soft fabric of his T-shirt, tugged him closer and said, “This,” before she closed her eyes and pressed her lips to his.
He froze. Shocked, no doubt. He tasted of liquor and toothpaste and his lips were strong, but soft. She pushed the tip of her tongue the tiniest way out, offering it.
He didn’t move, didn’t reach for her, didn’t meet her tongue, but she felt him start to tremble. At least that. He was holding back, so she’d show him she meant business.
She tilted her head and kissed harder, pushing up from the stool so she stood on the rung, letting him know she wanted more.
Abruptly, her lips were ripped from his and her feet slammed to the floor. The stool rung had given out beneath her heel.
Jackson grabbed her upper arms to steady her. Her stool thudded to the carpet behind her. “Those chairs are kind of rickety.”
So were her legs. And her ego. Her sexy move had practically become a pratfall.
“You don’t want this,” he said, low. His steady gaze still held heat and at least he wasn’t laughing.
“Yes, I do.”
“You’ve been drinking.”
“One swallow.”
“Your life’s up in the air. You’re confused.”
“Not about my…um…needs.” Flames of mortification washed over her. The hula girl, rocking wildly, now seemed to be jeering. You screw up big-time, haole girl.
“You don’t want me,” Jackson said.
Yes, I do. She opened her mouth to say that, except her gaze caught on the picture on the wall beside his head—Marilyn Monroe in velvet with full, lovely breasts. To her left, the hula dancer’s endowments jiggled. To her right, a hugely be-knockered model in a bikini smiled from a sports-car hood. Jackson was a breast man. She wasn’t want he wanted. The realization stung her cheeks the way the Jack Daniel’s had her throat.
“But it is late,” she said, pretending to sigh. “And I’m probably overtired.”
“You’ve been through a lot.”
“True.” She bent to upright the stool, then took a backward step. “Thanks for the drink.” She’d left the full glass on the bar. “Good night. Sorry about the head injury.” She turned and moved off, just wanting away from her humiliation.
“Can I cut you a piece of pie?” Jackson called to her, trying to make up.
“No thanks,” she called over her shoulder.
