Page 81 of Rock Bottom Girl

“Your lady friend is a good luck charm,” Uncle Max observed.

“Yeah, she is,” Jake said, looking in my direction and winking.

I tried to dissect exactly why his cocky attitude and overly confident persona was so appealing to me. Normally, I went for a different type. Non-threatening. Easygoing. Maybe just a little preppy leaning.

Jake was rough enough around the edges that I could get splinters. Maybe it was just the fact that he was a damn good kisser.

With the game officially over, everyone set about cleaning up and packing up leftovers. It was a mass exodus of yawns and “see ya Mondays,” and before I knew it, I was alone with Jake Weston in his house. I debated going home. I glanced his way and noted the very nice flexion of his ass muscles as he bent to pull the trash bag out of the can. Yeah. Going home was smart.

“You want a beer?” he offered.

“Uh. Sure.” I wasn’t in any danger here. This was a fake relationship. I wasn’t going to fall prey to his charms, rip my pants off, and tackle him. And let’s be honest. Would that be so awful? My last relationship had been, shall we say, lacking in thebow chicka wow wowdepartment for quite some time.

Could wild sex with Jake Weston really do me any harm?

36

Marley

Jake pulled a pair of beers from the fridge and popped the tops all one-handed and sexy-like. “Come on,” he said, nodding toward the back door. “I’ll show you the porch.”

It sounded like a euphemism. And along I went, willingly.

“Oh, wow.” Okay, I was a little disappointed that it wasn’t a euphemism, but the disappointment was tempered by the fact that we were standing in a cool-ass screened-in porch. The seating was of the cozy, wicker, old-lady variety. But the cushions were deep and inviting. There was a tiki bar crammed in the corner with a half-dead palm of some sort in the other corner, and the lighting was soft and glowy from an actual table lamp, and a few strings of lights hung from the ceiling.

“This is my favorite thing about the whole house,” he said. “Thinking about doing a grilling patio over here.” He gestured into the dark yard.

The crickets were loud, the lights were soft, and my beer was cold. Life felt pretty damn good.

I sat down on the couch, relaxing into the cushions. Jake ignored the chair and crowded me on the couch. He kicked his feet up on the coffee table and took a long pull of his beer. “You mind?” he asked, pulling a cigar out of his pocket and rolling it between his fingers.

“Not at all,” I shrugged. My shoulder was squished against his, and I missed the contact when he leaned forward to light the cigar. When he relaxed back, he looped his arm over my shoulders. His body heat took the chill out of the night air.

The smell of cigar smoke was sweet, pungent. Blue rings of smoke floated lazily to the ceiling.

The crickets lulled me into a relaxed trance.

“You cold?” he asked.

I rubbed my arms. “A little.”

Jake reached behind us and pulled a quilt off the back of the couch and arranged it neatly over us. I pulled it up to my chin and let my head tip onto his shoulder.

This felt…good. How long had it been since I’d felt like this? Everything was always such a battle. A constant, overwhelming wave of anxiety. Always afraid of losing the job, the man, the security. But right now, in this moment, on this pretty little porch, I felt good.

“How did you end up with this house?” I asked him.

He tilted his head and blew a gauzy cloud of smoke upward. “It was my grandmother’s. She died a year or so back and left it to me.”

“That explains the family feel,” I said. “You haven’t changed it much, have you?”

“I’ve added a superficial layer of mess to make it feel more like mine,” he joked.

“Mmm. I know all about waiting,” I told him.

“Waiting?”

“You know. Having all these plans but waiting to do anything about them until something is right or the timing is perfect.”