Chapter Thirty-Five

Jake

It had been a complete spur of the moment decision. Now that I was doing it, I was regretting my impulsiveness. I didn’t do this kind of shit. This wasn’t me. I thought it would be some grand gesture and we would ride off into the sunset.

“You’re an idiot. That shit doesn’t actually happen in real life,” I told myself.

I felt like an idiot now and the longer I sat outside the house, I grew to realize I was behaving like a fool. I had managed to track her down with a little help from Tom and Don at the lodge. I knew she had been on some writing thing, but I assumed she would be home today. Her last engagement had been yesterday. Knowing the little I did about Calla, I guessed she would have gotten up and been on the road home. Maybe I had assumed wrong. Maybe she wasn’t even staying at her parents’ house. Calla did say she crashed in various places.

Checking my watch, I saw I’d been sitting here for over an hour. I had noticed the woman peeping at me through the blinds next door and expected the police to roll up at any minute to arrest me for stalking. I knew what I looked like.

“Just go, man. This was a waste of time,” I said to myself, running my hands over my face. I wasn’t really sure about what I’d hoped to accomplish. A quick fuck? Her phone number? Pour out my heart?

Looking at the scratch paper I had in my hand, I had written a note and was going to leave it on the door. In the end, I couldn’t bring myself to leave without seeing her. I drove all this way—I had to see her at least.

I looked at the phone I had bought at a store earlier. It felt weird in my hand, foreign. I had owned a cell in the past, but had lost it and never bothered to get another. We didn’t get service on the mountain anyway, and I never felt the need to call anyone. It was time I started to live like a man in the twenty-first century. The phone was some month-to-month thing. I didn’t do a contract. I couldn’t. That was a commitment I wasn’t willing to make. Baby steps.

“Fuck it,” I groaned, standing and brushing off my butt. It was cold and it was pretty clear she wasn’t coming home anytime soon.

I wrote down the number for the new phone and moved to put the note on the door. As I was walking down the steps, a dark SUV pulled in behind my truck.

“Shit,” I cursed, figuring it was a detective or some other law enforcement person coming to check out the guy sitting in front of some woman’s house.

I kept walking, hoping to get in my truck and leave before I had to explain myself. The back-passenger door opened, and a woman climbed out. I didn’t look directly at her. I wasn’t interested, but something made me look again. The dark shades, the hair, the fuck-me shoes and the slutty dress were a good disguise, but my body knew Calla’s. I was staring at a woman I didn’t recognize.

I couldn’t move or draw breath.

“Calla?” I croaked, staring at the woman who looked nothing like the one I had spent the weekend with.

She smiled and pushed up the dark sunglasses. “It’s me. Ignore all this,” she said, waving a hand over her body. My eyes followed the hand, focusing on the copious amounts of cleavage on display.

I shook my head, not believing my eyes. The woman standing in front of me was a knockout, but she wasn’t as pretty as the woman that stumbled into my life a week ago. This girl in the sleazy black dress was the type I would pick up at the bar for a dirty night. Calla was not that kind of woman, even if she pretended to be.

She walked towards me and all I could do was stand there with my mouth hanging open. The dress was mind-boggling. All the blood in my brain had run south. I shifted uncomfortably, trying to easy the ache in my groin.

“Hi,” she whispered, standing directly in front of me.

A man got out of the SUV, deposited a suitcase on the curb, and then jumped back in before pulling away. I saw a woman’s face pressed against the glass in the backseat as the vehicle sped away.

“Hi,” I replied, a split second before I grabbed her face and kissed her soundly.

She leaned into me, arms wrapping around my back, pulling me in close. Her mouth welcomed me and I felt the familiar passion flaring between us. I pushed my tongue inside her mouth and moaned at the sweet taste. It had been too long.

My hand ran down her side and around her waist. I wanted her something fierce, but I wouldn’t disrespect her by making a scene in front of the house. I couldn’t let her go. I felt her breath hitch and a low moan in her throat.

“Calla,” I breathed against her lips. “We need to get off the sidewalk.”

The next thing I knew, she was pushing me away. “You’re right.

“Wait, where are you going?” I asked, reaching out to stop her.

“I’ll be right back. Go ahead and go on up,” she said, walking away on killer heels that lifted her ass, making it appear much perkier than I knew it to be. She stopped and turned back to look at me. “Can you take my suitcase up?”

I nodded, unable to speak. Seeing her in that dress was going to kill me. I could feel my cock hardening and lengthening. I liked Calla just the way she was, but that dress was something I could really get into—literally. I watched as her hips swayed as she walked down the sidewalk to the neighbor’s driveway and then up to the front door.

She turned to look over her shoulder at me, giving me a look that nearly had me at her knees begging for mercy.

“Damn, she’s fucking hot,” I murmured under my breath before going back to the porch to wait for her.

I watched over the hedges as she chatted with the woman who had been watching me from the window. A few minutes later, she was walking towards me, holding a tiny dog.

“What is that?” I asked, trying not to turn up my lip.

She rolled her eyes. “It’s my dog, Evie. The neighbor watches her if my parents aren’t home.”

“Uh, that’s more like a cat,” I pointed out, guessing the dog weighed less than ten pounds.

Reaching out, I let the dog sniff my hand before I rubbed its head. Calla bent over to put the dog down and I got very excited. I just knew her breasts were going to spill out of the dress with the movement.

“You’re going to fall out of that dress,” I warned her, focused on the huge opening in the chest part of the dress. Her round breasts were barely concealed. I fought the urge to reach down and cup her breasts. They were beautiful.

She stood up and grinned. “Nope. I’ve got about a roll of tape on each side, holding this dress in place. The girls won’t be coming out to play.”

I raised an eyebrow, challenging that declaration. If I had my way, they were most definitely coming out of that dress. “Tape?” I questioned, imagining duct tape pressed against her sensitive flesh.

“Boob tape,” she clarified. “It keeps the dress where it’s supposed to be. I’m not that much of an attention whore that I’d flash my tits to get a little press.”

“You’re not wearing any panties,” I said, in a low growl, barely controlling my lust.

She turned to the side, giving me a good view of the lace panel that ran down the side of her body, stopping mid-thigh. “No, I’m not. This dress doesn’t allow for anything but the dress. I’m completely naked under this.”

My mouth went dry as I stared at her curves wrapped up tight in that stretchy fabric. I loved how confident she was. The dress was close to being X-rated. I was a little jealous. Her body was mine to possess. Knowing other men ogled her made me angry.

“Is this how you normally dress?” I blurted out, hoping I didn’t sound condescending. “Does Blake like this?”

Instead of getting mad she smiled, “There is no Blake.”

I made a choking sound when she bent over to slide the key in the lock. Her ass danced in front of me. I couldn’t even remember my name let alone the other guy’s.

“This is my disguise for when I am doing public appearances to promote my books,” she said, around a bubble of laughter.

“I guess sex sells.”

She grinned, “You could say that.”

She unlocked the door and pushed it open. I stood on the porch, almost afraid to go in. I wanted her so badly it hurt. If I went in that house, I knew what would happen and that had not been my intention when I drove the distance. I couldn’t let my lust get in the way. Not yet.

The dog was sniffing my boots. I was afraid to move out of fear I would accidentally kick the dog across the yard. I waited patiently for the thing to finish her perusal. She finally got bored and pranced into the house. I followed behind the dog, shutting the door behind me, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable standing in Calla’s living room.

Though, I had prepared a speech, and gone over it in my head again and again while I waited, now that I had her in front of me, dressed like every man’s wettest dream, I couldn’t think straight. I didn’t move away from the door. It was my commitment phobia. I was preparing in case I needed to make a quick exit.

“I have to get these heels off,” she said, sitting in a chair and quickly removing the strappy shoes.

I’ll confess, I was a little bummed to see her lose the shoes. If I had my way, those shoes would be on the next time we had sex.

“You look amazing,” I told her.

“Thank you. This dress, well it’s a little risker than what I usually wear. It was a publicity stunt. The publishers wanted a little free press for my next book and like you said, sex sells. They wanted me to look like the stars of my books.”

I nodded my head, not really understanding, but completely on board with the dress choice.

“I think that look will definitely drum up some press. That dress should be illegal.”

She smiled, “Thank you. I’m afraid I’m going to pop out of the thing, and I have no idea how I’m getting all the tape off.”

The conversation stalled at that point and we stood there looking at each other. The tension was building by the second. It had been different in my cabin. Fucking her had seemed natural there. It didn’t seem like an option here—something had changed between us. I didn’t know how to handle it, and immediately started coming up with an exit strategy. It had been a mistake to go to her, I knew that now.