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by Tessa Bailey
Jasper flipped the carving knife back on, lowering it to the turkey, which was probably cold by now. “What can I say, Rosemary? I must be some kind of secret chauvinist.” He gave an exaggerated smirk. “I saw this little lady attempting to cut the meat and my ancestors wouldn’t stand for it.”
Obviously Jasper’s grandmother was no stranger to his sense of humor, because she said, “Oh poo,” while reaching past Rita to hit him in the back with a dishrag. “Be about your business, then. I have plans for the afternoon.”
“I’m going, I’m going.” He winked at Rita, his technique perfect as he operated the blade. Of course his technique was perfect. “Tell me about your plans, Rosemary. If you’re seeing Mr. Wells for the third time this week, that counts as serious in my book and I’ll be paying him a visit.”
Rosemary nudged Rita’s arm and threw a withering glance at the heavens. As if to say, Can you believe this man? And, no, Rita couldn’t, exactly. Men usually found her strange or confusing. Sometimes she got really lucky and found a man who was turned on by strange, confusing women, but none of them cared enough to dance her out of a near panic attack. Or transitioned from calming her down to covering for her without missing a beat. Why was he donating so much energy to this temporary acquaintance? And why did she feel compelled to savor Jasper, too?
Realizing she’d been standing there too long without speaking—and paying way too much attention to the way Jasper’s triceps flexed as he operated the carver—gym membership indeed—Rita opened a couple cabinets in search of a serving plate, wanting to give him a place to lay the slices of turkey. They sat down at the dining table five minutes later, passing around the kind of food usually reserved for once a year. Still feeling a little jumpy after the memory she’d collided with in the kitchen, Rita managed to eat only a few bites of mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and turkey. Meanwhile, Jasper put away enough to feed a hungry construction crew, before asking for seconds.
“So, Miss Rita.” Rosemary waved a dinner roll across the table as if it were a cell phone and she was searching for reception. “I don’t know how much Jasper has talked about me—I’m assuming quite a lot. Did he mention my senior group?”
Rita swallowed the sip of Sprite she’d taken. “No, that might be the one thing he didn’t mention.” In her periphery she caught Jasper’s grateful wink.
“Well. We meet once a week for an activity.” She tossed her dinner roll back in the basket. “And it just so happens this is my week to choose what us birds get up to.”
“Oh.” She traded a look with Jasper, who’d paused midchew. “Did you come up with anything yet?”
“As it happens, something did fall into my lap.” Rosemary leaned in. “Wouldn’t it be a hit if you taught a cooking class? A big-time chef from—where are you from, exactly?”
“San Diego,” Rita managed.
“San Diego!” Rosemary settled in with that fact for a while. “It would only be a few of us. We could do it at the new kitchen at Jasper’s eatery. Maybe in the morning before the bar opens and all the scuttlebutt filter in.”
Jasper was obviously thrilled over that description of his customers. “There wouldn’t only be a few, Rosemary. There’s damn near thirty of you.”
“Twenty-five,” she muttered. “What do you say, Rita? Does this Saturday, the sixth, work for you?”
“I’m sorry, I won’t be here that long.” For some reason, Rita felt the need to avoid looking at Jasper. “My family and I are leaving as soon as our Suburban is repaired.”
Why did Rosemary look skeptical? She did. One white eyebrow had lifted, along with the corner of her mouth. And, for a split second, the flightiness she’d exhibited since they’d pulled up fell away. “Sure you are.”
Chapter Fourteen
Jasper pulled his bike into the parking lot of the motel, half wishing the place was another ten miles away just so Rita could cling to him a while longer. She’d been quiet since they’d left Rosemary’s house. Then again, Jasper supposed he’d been quiet, too. When they’d set out this morning, time seemed like a relative thing, whereas now it was finite.
Well. He’d just have to set his mind to carving out more, wouldn’t he?
Unfortunately, the more time he spent with Rita, the more he wanted to fuck her into an incoherent state. His missing ability to feel a significant, sweaty, down-low attraction seemed to be making up for lost time, directing itself now toward Rita like a high-wattage, phallic-shaped spotlight. God, he wanted her riding him. Wanted to do some no-holds-barred riding himself, her knees wedged up underneath his armpits. Male intuition honed from too many hours spent being bad told Jasper they would move well together. Better than well. Explosively. Because his attraction to Rita wasn’t limited to physical need. Around her, his faults and decent qualities felt caked to his skin, everything hovering on the surface, wanting to—touch her.
The way she’d made him feel back in the kitchen, when she’d hit him with a sucker punch courtesy of two golden-brown eyes? He’d never experienced that kind of protectiveness before. Sure, he took his responsibility as an only grandson seriously, doing for those who’d done for him. But that buildup of steam in his chest while swaying back and forth with Rita—he wasn’t letting the pressure seep out. He wanted to punch a few dials and see how much more steam he could handle. Those dials, however, were controlled by Rita.
He’d waged a heavy debate with himself back on the highway, confident that if he took the turnoff to his house, he could end up in bed with Rita. The new bed he’d purchased after burning the old one during a whiskey binge in his backyard. No one had been in the new bed save himself, but he could see Rita there. What he couldn’t stand to see? Rita walking out the front door afterward, chalking him up to a satisfying fling on the road to something better.
So he’d gone right past the turnoff and kept driving toward the motel. Now, with their afternoon coming to an end, Jasper was feeling a mite anxious. Okay, more than a mite. In a different life, he might have banged Rita in his office last night and sent her a friendly wave this morning on her way out of town. He wouldn’t have taken the time to roll around in her sense of humor or even seen the vulnerable girl in his grandmother’s kitchen. And, hell, wasn’t that just goddamn terrifying?
Without any actual communication between his brain and his body, Jasper revved the engine of his bike and passed the motel entrance, circling around to the side, where no cars were parked. None of the individual room doors were located on this side of the motel, either, giving Jasper the privacy he needed.
“My room is back that way,” Rita husked above his right shoulder.
“All right.” Jasper pulled to a stop, turned off the ignition, and helped Rita climb down. He was in a do-or-die situation. Had spending the morning with him inspired a desire to spend more time in his company? Or less? He reckoned he’d know in a minute. “So I’ll see you tonight, then?”
Her dark head came up, fingers working beneath her chin to unstrap the helmet. Not for the first time today, he wanted to wipe the makeup off her eyes, maybe count her eyelashes if she was in a mood to indulge him. “What?”
“For our date.” He sent her a low wink. “You didn’t forget, did you?”
Rita narrowed her gaze. “I can’t always tell when you’re joking, and that is very annoying.” She hung the helmet from the handlebar of his bike. “But I know I never agreed to a date.”
He acknowledged that with a nod. A step forward. “See, now, I was kind of anticipating you agreeing out of sympathy for a desperate man.”
“Anticipating a yes? That’s pretty cocky.” She betrayed her intended put-down with flushed cheeks, a quick but telling glance at his mouth. “There might be a…small chance I could be persuaded.”
Jasper disguised his groan with a cough into his fist. Damn. Celibacy was turning out to be a real asshole. Everything moved in slow motion as Rita ran a hand through her helmet hair, tightening the material of her T-shirt. Spiked nipples, arou
sed nipples, stood out against the front. If nipples could talk, Rita’s would have been saying, Too bad, so sad, your loss, hoss.
“You just had to go and flirt with me…while looking like that, huh?” And shit, he’d said that out loud. There was a Rita-specific weightiness in his stomach, like a warm coating of lust slip-sliding down his insides. “Dammit, Rita. I’m trying here.”
Her lips parted on a puff of air. “Trying to do what?”
No one had ever cared enough to listen to him once the bed springs stopped creaking, so putting thoughts she’d so thoroughly jumbled into words wasn’t easy by any stretch. “If you could just agree to go out on a date with me tonight, without making me kiss the answer out of your mouth, I would sure appreciate it.”
“But that sounds like so much fun.”
“Fun for you.” When she flinched, the slippery weight in Jasper’s stomach turned to acid. It took two quick steps to bring him into Rita’s personal space, tipping her chin up, even though she was trying her best to look at everything but him. “Wait. Just, wait. That came out ass backwards, beautiful. Look at me, sweating in this parking lot, trying to take you out for some damn sushi. You think I don’t want to kiss you?”
“I…is that a rhetorical question?” The way he was holding her chin was smooshing her lips together, making her question emerge sounding like Izata behoribal weston?
“Jesus God, you’re cute.” He let go of her chin and planted a thumb in the corner of her mouth, before dragging it along her upper lip, feeling the slickness of original ChapStick. When had she managed to reapply it? “Here’s the thing. I swore off women. But then you came pedaling into town with this mouth, those eyes and the way they see everything…and fuck yes, I want to kiss you. I want to do all manner of things to you.”
Her breath came out in little fits against his thumb while it raked back and forth. When had he pressed her ass up against the bike? Was he even in control of his actions around this woman? He needed to be. Needed to make this time between them count. Frown lines formed between Rita’s eyebrows, so he moved his thumb up in that direction to smooth them out.
“Did you just say you swore off women?”
“I did.”
“So why are you trying to take me out for some damn sushi?”
Jasper’s mouth lost the battle with a smile, but seriousness descended almost immediately. Important. This is important. “Because I’m going to see you tonight. I don’t want to think about not seeing you. And I need to put a table between us so I can find out what’s going on in your head. Without that table, I’ll—”
“What?”
He lifted her onto the bike seat, as if his hands were being operated by a remote control in someone else’s possession. “Please don’t ask me that,” he growled. “I almost ruined everything last night.”
Rita was staring at his mouth. “Who says sex has to ruin anything?”
“I guess…” Jasper stepped between her splayed thighs and yanked her close, swallowing hard when a shudder seemed to go through them both. Fuck. Was she having as hard a time breathing as he was? “I guess if I were a different man, it would be a subject for debate. But I’m this man. And I only know you won’t want anything to do with me afterward. I’ll have served my purpose.”
Maybe he’d said too much. Or maybe he’d said just enough. Because Rita curled her hands in his shirt and pulled, pulled until he was wedged so firmly between her legs he could have rubbed her to orgasm with the ridge behind his fly, just by lifting up and down on his toes. “You said something like that last night.” She glanced up from her perusal of his panting mouth. “I didn’t really…like it then, either.”
She’d actually listened to him last night. Heard his words without writing them off as bullshit coming from a bullshitter, the way everyone tended to regard anything that came out of his mouth. Not this woman. Not yet, anyway. And one day of keeping this interesting woman’s attention was a miracle in Jasper’s book. “I’m going to try and stop saying things you don’t like, but I can’t guarantee anything.”
“If you just said a bunch of things I liked all the time,” Rita breathed, “I wouldn’t believe the good stuff when you say it.”
Jasper’s hand shot up and buried itself in her hair, as if propelled by Rita’s words. An outsider would have no idea what they were talking about. And he loved that. Coveted it. He’d never had that with a single other person, for any space of time. “Believe this, Rita. I think you’re gorgeous as sin and I need your mouth on mine.”
Rita nodded, meshing their wet lips together in the process. “I want to believe that. You might have to help me.”
“Thank Christ.”
Their mouths slanted and somehow—somehow—that feast of lips and tongue and teeth was even more potent than the night before. His knee rammed into the bike—almost as if his leg had tried to buckle—shooting pain up his right thigh, but it vanished under the pleasure. Vanished into vapor. The stroking, hot, abandon of Rita. They were both breathing through their noses so as not to break the voracious mouth-fucking they were engaging in, and that shouldn’t have been so all-out sexy. But it sure as shit was. They were attacking each other with seeking tongues and open lips, playing chicken to see who would give in first.
When her hands slipped under his shirt and pulled down on his belt buckle, putting pressure on Jasper’s cock, he cursed into her mouth, securing his fist in her hair like a goddamn barbarian. And she liked it, too. Why else would she be tugging on his belt, encouraging him to rock into the notch of her pussy? Too far. This was going too far. Any farther and they’d end up somewhere naked.
She’d leave the encounter with no doubt of his experience, because, hell, Jasper knew every button to press, when to change rhythm, when to be forceful or pull back. Knew it all. But Rita wouldn’t look at him the same way afterward. She’d see the local tramp, like everyone else.
She’d leave. And he’d have failed in his one attempt to be more to someone.
Jasper tore his mouth free, releasing a gruff exhale into her neck. “You have me ready to bust in my jeans, beautiful. I was smoother than this in high school.”
“That’s a scary thought,” she breathed out in a rush, her fists still curling in his shirt. “Was that the other half of your apology for last night? B-because I have to say, it was pretty effective.”
“At the risk of sounding arrogant, Rita, I haven’t even moved my hips yet. You’ve barely gotten a preview of how thoroughly I can…apologize.”
“Don’t leave me in suspense,” she whispered, those golden-brown eyes going as big as salad plates.
Don’t do it. You’ll have a hard-on for a decade. “If you agree to go out with me tonight, I’ll rub that wet, aching seam of yours with my own ache.”
Rita’s head fell back on a whimper. “Fine. Yes.”
Victory moved through his veins like liquid gold. Drugging him, relieving him, propelling him. With an arm wrapped low around Rita’s hips, he dragged her forward to the edge of the bike seat. Teeth gritted against her soft neck, he imagined her naked in his king-sized bed, imagined that first thrust into her tight body after about an hour of foreplay, give or take. “I really am sorry…about last night,” he lifted his head and husked, mouth a mere centimeter away from hers. Lord, don’t kiss her while you dry hump her. You’ll rip her jeans off right here in this parking lot. Already groaning, Jasper rammed himself into the notch of her legs, pinning her ass against the bike, agonized by the outline of her pussy where it branded the fly of his jeans. “I’m sorry. You want the other half of my apology?” Another five rough, pounding pumps that made the bike creak and teeter beneath Rita. Creak, creak, creak. “I’m sorry.”
When her head lolled to one side, his mouth latched on to the sensitive flesh of her neck and sucked. Damn right I’ll leave a mark. Any way I can.
“Again,” she moaned. “Just a little more. I’m so—”
“Stop. Don’t tell me.” Jasper ground his forehead against
her shoulder, in utter disbelief that he wasn’t going to finish her. This woman who seemed to have his cock on a leash.
Risky move, man. You think you’re good enough to earn the reward?
“I don’t know,” Jasper said out loud, taking a last inhale of her scent before stepping away, turning his back to calm himself. Which wouldn’t happen if he kept looking at her.
“You don’t know what?” Rita asked, sounding dazed.
When he heard her boots find the ground, he faced her. “Nothing, beautiful.” His throat was raw. “I’m picking you up at seven, all right?”
“Okay. I’ll wait here.”
They both laughed, but the notes held more pain than humor. “Go ahead inside. I need to watch the door close behind you for my peace of mind.”
Rita blinked at him for a few beats before ducking her head. Why did his concern seem to surprise her? She shuffled forward a few paces, then stopped, sending him a self-conscious look over her shoulder. “I accept your apology.”
“Now that’s something.”
She stared out over the parking lot. “I don’t like sushi so much.”
His chest felt light. “Italian, then.” When she nodded and walked toward the front entrance, leaving him behind, words just kind of left his mouth without warning. “Rita, how do you feel about going to dinner right now?”
She kept walking, but her shoulders were shaking. “See you at seven.”
Chapter Fifteen
Rita was still staring at the closed motel room door when the commotion started outside. Commotion might have been too strong a word, but since she’d been sitting in silence for an unknown quantity of time, trying to piece together how some desert-dwelling player had wedged himself underneath her skin in a matter of twenty-four hours, any disturbance in the force qualified as a commotion.
Really, she should call off the date. And if her pride allowed her to go back on an agreement—even though it had been made in the heat of the moment—she might have done just that. What was stopping her from canceling? Why was she wasting her time? Funny enough, she’d asked herself the same questions before the sparse dates she’d been on in San Diego. Those men would never mean anything to her, or vice versa. They were looking for a Peggy. Or some other cool girl who cheered for a specific sports team and got invited to poker night. Jasper couldn’t be so much different from those men she’d so easily disregarded, could he?