She froze. “Omigod. How many people saw that?”
AJ shrugged. “Enough.”
“Great.”
“We all thought it was.” She sighed. “Reminds me of when me and Cord first hooked up. Man. We could not keep our hands off each other.”
Keely snorted and pointed to AJ’s distended belly. “You still can’t keep your hands off each other.”
“True. It’s great to be me.” She grinned.
Carolyn bustled in with a cardboard box. “Okay. The kitchen is cleaned and this is the last of my stuff to take home.”
Since her mom’s hands were full, Keely hugged her from behind. “Thanks for everything. You rocked it, Ma. It was a fantastic party.”
“I thought so, yet I’m glad we’re only doin’ this once.” Carolyn yawned. “Lord, I’d better get home before I fall asleep standing up. AJ, darlin’, you need a ride?”
“Nah. I have my truck since Cord took the boys home.”
“Good enough. See you.” Carolyn hefted the box and disappeared out the side door.
At AJ’s 350 Cummins turbo diesel Chevy, Keely said, “Need a boost getting into your monster truck, el preggo?”
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77
Lorelei James
“No. But you can bet your butt I’ll let my handsome hubby give me a hand to help me down.”
Knowing Cord, that hand would go straight up his wife’s skirt. Those two still acted like randy teens.
Keely admitted a tinge of jealousy her best friend had found the type of love all women dream of.
She meandered to her own rig, anxious about going home, which was a total crock because chances were slim Jack would even be there yet.
Still…how would this play out? Scenarios flitted through her brain but nothing solidified. Maybe having a blank slate wasn’t such a bad thing.
Trudging up the stairs, she knew she’d ditch her high heels first thing. People thought pointy-toed cowboy boots were painful? Please. Boots were bedroom slippers compared to these torturous devices.
Keely had just locked the door behind her and tossed her purse on the side table when she heard him speak.
“I was beginning to wonder if you’d chickened out.”
His deep, slightly amused voice triggered tingles of anticipation. “No. My mom did all the party prep work. I couldn’t leave her there to handle the cleanup.”
“Thoughtful of you.”
“I try.”
She focused on him, slouched in a straight back kitchen chair. The glow of the backlighting gave Jack an attractively dangerous look. Barefoot, with his pristine shirt unbuttoned; his sleeves were rolled up, exposing his thick forearms lightly dusted with dark hair. Clutching a glass of amber liquid in his hand, he reminded her of James Bond—a gorgeous professional male, but ruggedly raw and masculine beneath the polished exterior. His face was shadowed, masking his emotions. But the aura surrounding him wasn’t the cool and collected demeanor of a patient man. No, the air crackled with the energy of an animal ready to pounce.
Right then, Keely knew she was way out of her league with Jack Donohue. He’d push her. Control her. Force her to experience levels of need and desire she’d never fathomed.
Jack tipped the glass and sipped, studying her from his spot in the center of the room. She waited. It damn near killed her to wait, but she did it.
“So tell me, are you scared of me?”
“A little.”
“Because you think I’ve been drinking?” He waggled the glass. “Iced tea, not whiskey.”
“Good to know,” she said inanely.
“Why am I scary to you, Keely?”
“Because we’ve been avoiding getting tangled up for a reason, and here we are, about to get seriously entangled.”
“What reason?” he asked nonchalantly.
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All Jacked Up
“My reason? Or what I think yours is?”
His white teeth glimmered in the darkness when he smiled. “Your reason first. And I expect nothing less than complete honesty from you, buttercup. Especially when you enlighten me with what you perceive as my reason.”
Keely squeezed her hands into fists and counted to ten. Twenty. Thirty. Forty. Fifty. Sixty.
“I’m waiting,” he said huskily, when she’d hit the one hundred-twenty mark.
“Here’s the God honest truth. I’ve avoided getting tangled up with you because I’ll give in to you, Jack. I’ll give you everything you demand from me in bed, every part of myself I’ve never shared with another man. I’m a strong-willed woman. I’m used to calling the shots with men. But when I look at you, I have the overwhelming need to…surrender. I’ve felt the sexual heat shimmering between us since I was sixteen and I had no clue what it was.”