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Only as she followed the series of switchbacks through the back hall of the club—past the Men’s Room, then a door to the stage, and further on to the Ladies’ Room—images of an easy smile and flashes of fathomless blue eyes began to chip at her resolve. At the end of the hall a sign glowed in neon blue for a phone, with an arrow pointing around the corner. Jake was probably down there and, for an instant, Cali considered following.
One night.
Really, what was the harm if she never saw him again? She’d been so very good, for so very long. Totally focused on work, completely dedicated…
Her gaze drifted down to the end of the hall, her body rebelling against her mind, until finally she pushed open the Ladies’ Room door and stepped inside to splash some cold water on her face and some sense into her head.
CHAPTER TWO
IN the relatively quiet back hall of the club, Jake ended the call about his bypass patient from that afternoon. Heading toward the main bar, he flipped the phone closed and glanced down as he pushed it into his pocket.
A slice of white light pierced the shadows just as Cali stepped out of the ladies’ lounge and straight into his stride.
“Aack!” came her surprised yelp as their legs tangled together.
“Easy, I’ve got you,” he assured her, catching her against him with one arm around her waist, the other braced at the wall.
Her palms covered his chest; her breasts and belly pressed against him so he could feel the rise and fall of her every tempting breath. One of them should have stepped away—put the distance back between them—but neither moved. Her gaze touched on his, hungry and aware, before drifting down to his mouth and holding as her lips parted on a trembling sigh. The air went thick with tension, and need surged to life, pumping hot through his veins, stifling reason.
The lounge door swung closed behind them, dropping the narrow hall into semi-darkness. It was intimate and secluded, and he wanted her. Every muscle tightened throughout his body, straining to take her. He wouldn’t, but, watching the desperate flutter of her pulse at the hollow of her throat, he couldn’t make himself step away either.
A tiny furrow etched between her brows as a single word pushed through her lips. “Don’t.”
Only Jake hadn’t moved, hadn’t given in. He was still holding himself in unrelenting check as he realized Cali hadn’t been speaking to him, but to herself.
“Cali,” he warned, something predatory responding to her weakening resolve. If she wanted to stop this, she’d have to tell him no. Only she didn’t say anything. Didn’t push him back. Instead her fingers curled into his sweater, her breath pulled ragged from her chest and the indecision faded from her eyes, taking his every good intention with it.
Cali’s body shifted, soft and tempting against him in torturous slow motion, as she rose up on her toes and whispered, “Just one,” before pressing her lips to his.
Sure, he thought, fighting a smile. No matter how good the intention, one would never be enough.
Slanting his mouth over hers in a smooth glide, deliberately light and teasing, he offered a kiss that hinted and lured, rather than taking outright.
Cali shuddered, her breath slipping over his lips with a soft moan that left every muscle in his body tensing, straining for more—but he could wait, because he knew it wouldn’t be long. Splaying one hand against the base of her spine, he cupped her cheek with the other and pulled back to meet her gaze. “That good, huh?”
Her lips curved as she drank him in through half-lidded eyes. “I’d forgotten just how good that felt.” The tip of her tongue darted out to moisten the sexy swell of her pink bottom lip. “It’s been a really long time since I’ve been kissed.”
Hell. He didn’t want to think of her as vulnerable. Didn’t want to like it. Not when that kind of knowledge, coupled with the husky quality her voice, was doing strange things to his ego, drawing out some inner need that damn near demanded he show her just what she’d been missing.
“Wasn’t much of a kiss, if you ask me,” he murmured. “I can do better.”
Her eyes darkened like smoked sea glass and locked on his mouth, sending “go” signals toward his groin. Her breath hitched as, moving closer, he traced the smooth line of her delicate jaw with his thumb, sifted his fingers through the silky hair at the nape of her neck, and tilted her face to his.
“Maybe just one more,” she whispered breathlessly, her lips an enticing invitation.
“One more,” he agreed, intent on doling out a kiss with every skill and seductive nuance he’d honed since high school packed into it. And that kiss would become the prelude to a night in bed.
Jake’s mouth descended on her yielding softness, sinking with a slow, steady build. A light back-and-forth rub. A gentle, parting pressure as his tongue sought the barest taste. She was warm and wet and teasing, fresh and inviting, and as her sultry sigh feathered against his mouth his smug satisfaction gave way to a rising need.
Her breathy gasps called like a plea for more and, angling his head to take control, he plunged his tongue between her lips. Lithe arms slipped around his neck and, delving into the warm depths of her mouth, he stroked in a wet velvet rub against her teeth, tongue and lips, thrusting and retreating in an erotic, suggestive rhythm.
Cali responded, clasping her arms tighter, molding her firm breasts and flat belly against his hips and chest.
Urgency ripped through him. His hand fisted in the fabric at the waist of her skirt and she moaned around his plundering tongue, a quiet, mewling sound that nearly had him yanking her skirt above her hips. Shocked by his own response, he tore away from the heated embrace. Stared down into Cali’s flushed face.
He wanted her naked and beneath him the next time she made that sound.
Forcing the words out, he said, “Let’s get out of here.”
Breathless, she peered up at him, agony in her eyes. “I can’t. I—Couldn’t we—?” Her smoky gaze fixed on his mouth as the tightening in his gut became painful. “Just one minute more?”
The way her eyes went all warm and soft and needy—he’d have given her anything she asked for at that moment. He wanted to be inside her, but this gorgeous girl who hadn’t been kissed for so long didn’t want it to go that way. Hell, the strain of a few more minutes probably wouldn’t kill him. And even if they did, it wouldn’t be a bad way to go.
“Oh, yeah,” he murmured, hauling her up against him so her feet lifted from the floor. He maneuvered them around the corner, to where the hinged door of the phone booth provided a modicum of privacy. Pulling her into the booth, barely large enough for them to stand side by side, he lowered his mouth to her ear. “Just one more minute.”
Her fingers clutched at his shoulders as she pulled him back to her. “Thank God.”
Cali was a woman possessed. It couldn’t go further than this. She was treading on dangerous ground as it was, but, heaven help her, she couldn’t give up the decadence of this stolen moment.
It might have been three years since she’d last been kissed, but she could say with all certainty she’d never in her life had a lip-lock like this one. A mind-numbing, moral-melting mainline into pleasure. His taste, touch and scent thrummed through her veins, so quickly and so thoroughly addictive the idea of breaking free was physically painful, mentally incomprehensible.
What harm could come from just a few more innocuous minutes of indulgence?
Strong hands ran in a crisscross down her back, until one wide palm pressed over her bottom, pulling her into closer contact with the hard contours of his body.
How could anything feel so right?
Grabbing her thighs, he hoisted her up. Her skirt bunched as her legs wrapped around his hips. Her shoulders braced against the wall as he rocked against that throbbing, long-neglected spot of need. Fingers of sensation stroked through her middle, tugging the strings of desire dangerously taut.
It was good. Too good to give up so fast. Just another minute like this and she’d stop. Leave. Run. But not yet.
“Oh, God!” she gasped when his hips ground forward again, rasping rough denim and damp lace against her achy sex.
Some distant part of her mind screamed a frantic warning.
She had rules about this sort of thing.
But their position was too perfect, the contact just right, and she was halfway to satisfaction already.
Jake’s mouth tore free from her lips, his blue flame gaze searing over her as his breath punched free in ragged bursts. “Tell me to stop,” he gritted out, his hips moving in a steady rhythm so good she couldn’t have told him to stop if her life had depended on it.
On some level she knew he was right. One of them was going to have to come to their senses, and instinctively she understood the burden fell on her shoulders. But why the hell did it always have to be the girl?
As exciting and amazing as it was, they were in a bar.
In a phone booth.
Her eyes blinked open, her gaze flitting over the small confines of their space.
A phone booth with a wooden shuttered and hinged door that ran almost floor to ceiling.
A phone booth at the farthest end of a scarcely traveled, dimly lit switchback hallway. With Jake’s broad, powerful back a further shield against any prying eyes should someone actually venture this far.
She’d never see this man again. No one would ever know.
Jake’s lean male hips ground forward again, his head bowed and his lips pulled at the vulnerable skin beneath her ear, shredding her resolve.
And then all she could think was that they were alone. With the female singer’s smooth molasses voice pouring over them from the speakers above, and the space around them fading into nothing more than a hazy backdrop for this single stolen moment. His teeth grazed the column of her neck, and one hand caught her wrist to pin it at the wall beside her head. Her body seized; her mind blanked of anything beyond giving in.
She clutched at him with her knees. Rocked her hips to meet his and desperately sought his mouth with her own. Lips fused together, their tongues tangled, mated, and merged. Their mouths were completing the act clothing barely restricted lower on their bodies. So intimate. She could taste him. Feel him thrusting and licking inside her.
She could wrap herself in his strength. Lose herself in his control.
And then he stopped, held her still as she teetered at the brink of a precipice she couldn’t believe she’d been brought to. Her breath fired in moist bursts between them as tension gripped her with stunning intensity, leaving her helpless, desperate, shaking with need.
“Jake.” The plea in that single husky word was unmistakable, and she felt his answering smile curl against her ravaged mouth. Oh, yes.
“Come for me.” His low growl stroked like a vibration deep through her body and soul, curling around the tender spot between her legs just as he rocked again, letting her ride the steely length of him in one long, brutal caress that unlocked her every inhibition.
Spasms of hot pleasure lanced her core, relentless and intense. Stealing her breath through each ratcheting increment until at last it burst free with her shuddering release. Jake caught her fleeting cries with his kiss, held her steady in his arms as her body melted against him. Seconds ticked by as she floated in blissful oblivion. Then slowly her mind cleared and reality descended with the resounding thud of Jake’s back hitting the phone behind him.
Cali’s eyes blinked open.
A bar.
A phone booth, for heaven’s sake!
A stranger.
No. Of all the wrongs piled into one grotesquely cheap heap in Cali’s mind, Jake Tyler wasn’t one of them. She might have met him only hours ago, but something about the man spoke to her on a level she couldn’t deny. He was the kind of guy she could fall for—if she were in the market for falling. Which she wasn’t.
Jake’s brow, damp from restraint or exertion, or possibly a combination of the two, pressed against hers as he stood, eyes closed, shaking his head. “I feel like a teenager.” He didn’t sound upset so much as stunned.
She smiled her understanding—not that she’d actually ever done anything even remotely like this when she was in high school, but she would have liked to. “I think you had more fun as a teen than I did.”
Jake chuckled, that low and sexy sound that made her wonder if maybe—
No. Tonight was an exception.
A brief foray into fantasy. A depraved one-night indulgence she was certain she should already want to forget. Only it had been too good to forget. And, with her work cut out for her with MetroTrek, the memory of this night would probably have to keep her warm for the next few years at least.
Seeing how completely Jake affected her was reason enough to keep her libido in check and an incentive to make a hasty exit. Though not too hasty, because she didn’t want to seem ungrateful.
She was grateful, all right. Was she ever!
But Jake—Well, neither exchanging numbers nor getting busted for lewd behavior in the back of a bar held much allure for her. It was extraction time from this sticky situation. The man who had so generously withheld his own release, and now ran his big sexy hands over her hips to smooth the wrinkles from her skirt, needed to become a fond memory she’d never have to see again.
She didn’t know what to say, how to get out of the phone booth and back to her life. “Um, thank you. That was—”
“A better kiss?” he asked, flashing the easy smile that had gotten her into this situation in the first place.
“You’re a charmer.”
He brushed his thumb over her cheek. “Yeah, and you’re standing on my foot.”
Cali jerked back, coming up short against the booth wall, before righting herself with the help of Jake’s hand at her waist. “Sorry.”
“Not a problem, but we should probably get out of this booth before some schmuck’s phone battery dies and our luck runs out.”
She glanced up at the ceiling, feeling the flush of embarrassment heating her cheeks. “Flee the scene of the crime and all?”
Jake caught her chin with a crook of his finger and tilted her face to look at him. “I’ll take you home so we can do this right.” His gaze held steady, intense and hungry.
Her breath hitched at the thought of what he could do on a bed, if given the chance.
“Jake, I can’t have a relationship.”
He shook his head, letting out an ironic laugh. “And, trust me, I can’t give you one. But tonight…I could give you tonight.”
Just one night?
A quiet ping sounded from the floor, piercing the lustinduced fog of her brain. Oh, no, it was a message alert from her phone. The phone so carelessly dumped with her clutch on the floor when her hormones had skidded out of control on a collision course with Jake.
Her link to Amanda, to her job, to her future, was a hair’s breadth from being trampled! A few hours with this man and her focus was shot. What if she gave him a full night? She already knew the answer to that. It wouldn’t be enough. With a man like Jake she would want more.
She kicked the small bag out of the booth toward the safety of the abandoned hall, and then, forcing the air from her lungs, pulled free of his gentle hold and voiced the words that would hurt to say. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
Jake’s brows drew down, his features hardening as he inched back to let her pass. “Cali, wait—hold on.”
She shook her head, scooping up the bag with her phone and holding them close to her chest. “I wish—” But that wouldn’t do any good. Pinching her lips between her teeth, still tasting him on her tongue, she shook her head and ran from the club as if temptation itself was on her heels.
CHAPTER THREE
AWARENESS crept in, staking daylight’s claim over her consciousness, shooing away the hazy bliss of midnight’s oblivion. Within her hotel room, Cali fixed her gaze on the ceiling above her.
She’d done it in a phone booth. Almost.
In the deserted back hall of a jazz club.
With a man she’d just met.
It was totally a one-night stand.
Okay, so she hadn’t had actual sex. A technicality. They’d been standing. And it had been one night. One incredible night, topped off with an incredible kiss that flamed so far out of control it had passed X-rated—and by the time it finished, so had she.
Wow. It definitely counted.
A one-night stand. Something “good girls” were supposed to regret. Not wake the next day feeling refreshed, rejuvenated, and all around delighted to have cast their morals aside.
