For Crimson Romance's one-year anniversary, we authors are posting chapters from our books. This is Chapter Nineteen from On the Fly! Stuff's about to get steamy!
Chapter Nineteen
Monday, October 31st: End of the
Night
Jacey leaned
against the taxi window, legs crossed. She tried to make herself as small as
possible to accommodate the two extra-large hockey players beside her. Carter
took the middle seat to shield her from the one-hundred-proof Kevin Scott. On a
good day, the six-foot, four-inch left wing could charm with the best of them,
but tonight his auburn hair looked like crazy porcupine quills, and the dark
circles under his eyes weren’t from costume paint. The Eau de Bourbon cologne
didn’t help. Shortly after Carter had angled him into the cab, Kevin’s head
lolled back, his eyes closed, and the snoring began. At least the cab driver’s
loud, Simply Sinatra radio station drowned most of it out.
“You really know
how to show a girl a good time, Phlynn.”
“Now you call me Phlynn? We are so moving
in the wrong direction.”
“I kind of want to
kill Scotty. Is that a normal, ownerly feeling?”
Kevin’s head
dropped onto Carter’s shoulder, eliciting a disgusted wince from the captain.
Carter pushed him back against the door. “Oh, he’ll pay for interrupting our
date. There’s an afternoon practice tomorrow. He sleeps through it, Nealy skins
him alive. He shows up like this, he’ll wish he was so lucky.”
Even though she’d
already sort of known, it was different to hear him say it. “Date?”
He stared at her a
minute, his expression unreadable. For a brief second, she thought he’d take it
back, say he misspoke. The hope in her voice was embarrassing enough to make
her consider tucking and rolling right out into the street. Then his smile
flickered back. “I know these aren’t the most romantic circumstances right now,
but the night started off pretty well.”
Heat crept up into
her face as the first hot kiss replayed in her mind. He’d caught her mid
accusation, and once the shock wore off, her Id came out to play and shoved
Super Ego Jacey in the closet. She couldn’t remember ever letting go like that.
Her pulse sped up at the memory.
Carter curled his
fingers into hers and kissed each knuckle slowly. His lips felt warm and smooth
as silk against her skin. She shot a nervous glance at Kevin, but he was dead
to the world. And Carter didn’t seem to care one way or the other. He turned
her hand over and kissed the pulse point at her wrist. “Night’s not over yet.”
Id hip-checked
Super Ego Jacey back in the closet and threw away the key. I am so gonna regret this.
* * *
After they dropped
Scotty off at his house, only the cabbie’s occasional, rear-view-mirror glances
kept Carter a gentleman. Jacey looked like a sexy super villain in the glowing
horns and that dress. The glittering black flame hemline kept inching up her
legs. The black wig looked hot, but he wanted to take it off and run his
fingers through her soft curls while he kissed the responsible out of her. Arms
folded under her chest, he could see her mentally wrestling with something. He’d
bet anything its name was Madden.
“You trust him,
right?”
“Who?”
“The brother you
still picture with braces and acne.”
“I don’t…okay,
maybe I do. It’s just…”
“Diamond Cove.
Here we are!” The cabbie turned the music down and slowed the car to a stop in
front of their neighborhood gates. Carter handed over the fare and tip then
helped Jacey out. She’d been relaxed around him all night, and he couldn’t get
over it. The no-nonsense woman who’d turned his life upside down step by step
actually had a soft side.
He key-fobbed them
in and offered his arm. She took it without reservation, and as they fell into
step, he felt something hit the back of his leg. Her devil tail. For a minute,
he stared transfixed as it swayed from her backside. A sharp poke to his
stomach snapped his head back around.
“Didn’t your mother
ever tell you not to leer at a lady with a pitchfork?”
“Ahh, let me
think. ‘Wear a helmet. Homework before hockey. Stop picking on Shane; he’s
smaller than you.’ Nope, must have missed that one. And I was not leering. I
was admiring.”
“Uh huh. Shane?”
“Reese. We grew up
together. Closest thing to a brother I’ve had.”
“You’re lucky.”
“What did Madden
do? I mean, aside from sleep with the enemy. You were about to say.” Carter
directed his gaze to the sidewalk lit by the fancy streetlamps. He didn’t want
to put more pressure on her by staring. She didn’t pull away, but he could feel
her tense up.
“You don’t have to
answer that…”
“He always had a
head for numbers. Mix that with poor impulse control, and you get a world-class
gambling addict. Twelve-step programs for Madden were more like thirty-six
steps. But supposedly, he did it—quit. I knew Vegas would be bad for him. He
ran up a huge debt with a loan shark. To a normal person, the answer to debt
isn’t more gambling. To an addict…”
“I get the
picture. He keeps making it worse.”
“He’s not a bad
kid. He has a good heart. But I think we’ll have to sell the house. I was going
to anyway, eventually. It feels more like a Hollywood set than a home. We’ll
pay his debt, and then I’ll make sure he—”
“Jacey, stop.” Carter
stilled and gave her no choice. She faced him, her expression curious, and it
broke his heart a little. “You didn’t ask for any of this, did you? You
probably had some job lined up with a Fortune 500 company. Then your father
passes and leaves you with a basically new hockey team to run all by yourself.
The way you talk, I can tell this isn’t the first time you’ve assumed
responsibility for your brother. Why do you do it?”
“What else would I
do? My father is the reason I had the chance at the best education, made the
best contacts. This team was his soul, and he left it to me. I can’t walk away
from that. I won’t. And Madden…he’s the only family I have left. Yes, he’s a
screw-up, but I’m not giving up on him. He needs me; I’m there. It’s who I am.”
The passion in her
voice and the certainty in her eyes touched him. What would it be like to have
someone feel that way about him? Shock set in as he realized he wanted to be on
the receiving end of that devotion. It was a scary thought and one he
immediately questioned, but the answer remained the same. Any man would be
lucky to have Jacey on his side.
He stepped
forward. When she didn’t back away, he cupped her jaw and kissed her. It
started out soft, but when she didn’t protest, he deepened it. A few seconds went
by before she returned it, tentative. He pulled back just enough to rest his
forehead against hers and looked into her half-lidded eyes.
“What was that
for?”
“Being you.”
She smiled and
leaned up to kiss him this time. He slid his free arm around her waist and
hauled her closer. It elicited a surprised purr from the angelic devil woman,
and the sound stole his last scrap of reason. “Your street’s one block over.
Mine’s around the corner, and it’s still relatively early. Do you want to come
over for a while?”
He fully expected
her to say no. Jacey, the list-maker, the pro/con weigher, the only person who could
define Type A better than he could would never agree to it—especially on a work
night. He could see the mental war on her face, and every silent second made
his heart beat harder. Had he gone too far? They’d more or less obliterated the
boss-employee professional boundary tonight. But if she said yes, they were
likely to do something they couldn’t take back or laugh off.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“I don’t know what
this is. I know professionally that I shouldn’t, but tonight, as crazy as it
was, I relaxed for the first time in a really long time. I like being with you,
God help me.”
The last part
sounded so resigned that he had to laugh. “Gee, thanks.”
“You know what I
mean.”
He brushed a light
kiss to her lips, the corner of her mouth, then the base of her ear. “I like
being with you too. Let’s go work on that relaxation some more.”
To find out what happens next, check out On the Fly here:
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