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  He moved the little food basket to the side and leaned toward on his elbows.

  “I could be your friend.” A wry smile followed his throaty words.

  My mouth twitched to the side. I couldn’t figure out if he was flirting or pitying me.

  “But I go back on tour at the end of the week,” he continued. “And, well, shit is a bit crazy. So I can’t make any promises about when I get back.” He frowned.

  One of my eyes closed and the opposite eyebrow raised as I studied him for a beat.

  “Are you proposing a friend fling?” I asked.

  His bottom lip stuck out a little, and one shoulder rose. “Maybe?”

  People in this city were batshit crazy.

  “I’m not trying to sound shitty,” he continued. “It’s just I have no idea where my life is going. And I’d rather be upfront now than a douche later.”

  I must have also been batshit crazy, because I was seriously considering it; my friend count was at three if I included a dog and a work acquaintance.

  “Come on. Give me your number.” Jake pulled his phone from his pocket, typed in the code, and slid it to me. I wiped my fingers on the napkin from my lap and punched it in.

  “Just so you know, I don’t answer calls or texts at work.”

  “Not very friendly.”

  “Says the man who just put a time limit on our friendship.” I handed him back his phone and his thumbs busied with a text. My own phone dinged from my bag.

  “Just checking,” he said in a deadpan voice.

  Adam came over to check on us. It was a slow night, with the other-customer tally at two.

  “Can I get you guys another round?” he asked.

  Reality reared its horrid head. “I would love another drink, but I have to get up and go to work in the morning.” It was Monday, and even though I was pretty sure days of the week didn’t matter to drummers, they did to assistant producers.

  “Just the check.” Jake almost sounded disappointed.

  I reached into my bag and pulled out my wallet. He put his hand on top of mine to stop me.

  “It’s on me. A thank-you for the lunch.”

  Ignore that he’s touching me. Ignore that it’s making my head spin.

  He pulled back his hand and winked as he balanced on two legs of his chair. He topped it off with a warm smile, which forced me to look anywhere but back at him. The hand on my back had been one form of electricity, but this was something else. He pulled some cash from his pocket and tossed it on top of the bill.

  “Ready?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  It was close to ten o’clock, and the streets of Hollywood were empty. We invented destinations for random cars passing by and were back at the front gate of my building before too long.

  “Look,” I said. “You don’t have to do this friend thing. I’m sure you have a million better things to do than pity friend a girl from Indiana.”

  A small smile grew on his face, and his eyes narrowed in on me.

  “Thanks for dinner,” I continued. “It was a lot of fun, and the tacos were amazing.” As I turned to put my key in the door to enter the courtyard, the heat of Jake’s body invaded my personal space, and his breath warmed my neck.

  “Louana?” he asked in a deep whisper. The sound of him saying my name went straight from my hairline to my very happy place. When I turned around to face him and our eyes met, it was as if he could read me perfectly.

  Hunger. Lust. Desire. I tried to blink them away, but they weren’t going anywhere. Jake put his hands on the gate, framing me into him. My entire body burned hot, and before I knew it, his mouth was on mine and his tongue was parting my lips, searching for its counterpart. He kissed me hard, deeply, madly. My heart raced. Grabbing his hair at the neckline, I gave it back just as hard, just as deep, and just as madly. It had been far too long since I’d kissed a man, and my hunger overrode any modesty.

  But it was his embrace, and he drove it. He eased the pace, teasing every ounce of me. And then he stopped and pulled back, leaving barely an inch between us. His eyes danced with mischief and landed on my mouth, as if the last five minutes hadn’t satisfied him enough. He tilted his head and leaned in again. I was ready and oh so willing for round two. Instead, he tenderly bit my bottom lip and tugged it in his direction.

  He let go, and with a devilish twinkle in his dark eyes, he said goodnight.

  I couldn’t believe it when he released me from his thralls and walked away. He left me standing there stunned, shocked, and in a deep pool of sexual frustration.

  Jake Riley was a terrible friend.

  3

  Until Six

  * * *

  LOUANA

  Jake: I like being your friend.

  I smiled. What a great line. How was I supposed to reply without sounding like an idiot? I sat down at the table in the conference room, put the phone next to my plate, and stared at it while I considered what to write back. “I like it too” sounded weird. Maybe I should tell him I thought he was a shitty friend for leaving me such a state. Or I could tell him he was a good friend and hope he would catch the reference to what an amazing kisser he was. By the end of my meal, I had begun and deleted so many texts, I couldn’t remember what sounded cool and what came off as a desperate teenager. It reminded me how much I hated texting. I ended up writing those very words.

  Me: Not a big fan of texting. Will be done with work at six. Call me after if you want.

  Send.

  I read it back. Unsend! “Could I have sounded more like a bitch?” I whimpered to my empty plate.

  Then I made a bigger mistake. I googled Jake. The third and final blunder was when I hit the link to the Images section. There, I found his gorgeous face with many, many women.

  When I got back to my desk, I swore and continued my pity party, prompting Bob to ask if I was okay.

  “I’m an idiot,” I said, then made a slow raspberry with my mouth.

  “Louana?”

  I glanced back to Bob, whose wrinkled face had softened.

  “Don’t ever say that.”

  I beamed a warm smile back.

  ⸎

  6:28 p.m. Jake calling.

  The overly air-conditioned grocery store I stood in suddenly could have been a sauna.

  “Louana Higgins,” I said, playing it cool. I told myself I was a cucumber.

  “Hey, it’s Jake.”

  I had hoped he would call and that my text message hadn’t done too much damage, even after my discovery of pictures where women dripped off his arms. Which in itself I took as a bad sign.

  “Hi,” I said. My eyes moved over to the cucumbers, and I pleaded with them for support.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Buying eggplant.” I picked one up, found a bruise, and chose another.

  “Did you know I love eggplant?”

  Such an obvious lie. “Are you trying to crash my date, Mr. Riley?” Phone flirting. I could handle that. So much easier when my red cheeks blended in with the tomatoes to my left and weren’t in front of the man I couldn’t wait to kiss again.

  “Are you cooking for someone?” Jake asked.

  “Yes.”

  He didn’t need to know it was my landlady.

  “Louana, I’m taking our friend fling very seriously. You’ve been at work all day and have made it clear you won’t talk to me during business hours. That’s almost half of the day. I’m leaving Thursday morning. We don’t have a lot of time.”

  “Right.” I hoped he would get to the part where he planned on kissing me again.

  “But for real, I’m going to have to crash your date. Besides, I want to hear more about Fern. She sounds too good to be true.”

  I smiled as I pushed my phone into my shoulder and ear. I weighed the eggplant and put it into the basket hanging in the crook of my elbow.

  “I never said it was with Fern. It could be someone else. I know other people.”

  “It’s so obviously with Fe
rn. She told me you cook for her all the time and never let her eat red meat.”

  Busted. If he was waiting for a formal invitation, it was already in the mail.

  “As I was saying, would you like to join Fern and I for dinner?”

  “Was that so difficult?” Thank heavens he wasn’t there with those winking dark eyes and ridiculously charming smile. “I’ll be there in about forty-five minutes.”

  I picked up the rest of the items on my list and paused before the checkout, trying to think if I needed anything else. My thoughts went to what would happen after dinner. If we were going to take up from where we had left off the night before, I might just need condoms, Instagram groupie pictures be damned. I hadn’t gotten laid since I’d seen my ex-boyfriend at Christmas. I didn’t care if Jake was a friend, fling, or both. I was on board. Here today and gone on Thursday suited my instant gratification libido just fine.

  Thirty minutes later, I was in my kitchen listening to Charles Trenet, and well into my eggplant caponata, when Fern knocked on the door and let herself into my apartment. Archie made a beeline for the couch, hopped up, and looked at us as if to say, What? I belong here.

  “Who’s joining us?” Fern asked as she noticed the extra table setting.

  “Jake. The guy you met yesterday. Hope it’s not a problem.”

  “Are you kidding? I could look at him until I drop dead.”

  I shook my head and went back to the kitchen to put the water on to boil the pasta. Not long after, the buzzer announced Jake’s arrival. Fern let him in, a curious Archie by her side. The three of them said hello, and Fern was thrilled by the chilled white wine in Jake’s hands. He’d even brought a toy for Archie, who was delighted to play with it before lying down and tearing it to shreds.

  “Hi.” I smiled at Jake, hoping to hide my elevating heart rate. “Thanks for the wine.”

  “My pleasure.” He winked at me.

  Dammit. Those things were more powerful than I remembered.

  “Hope it goes with your eggplant. Smells good in here,” he said. His black T-shirt was barely tucked into his dark jeans, accentuating his thin frame. But the sleeves stretched on his biceps, and a tattoo of his initials hid below. Good Lord. Since when did rock stars go to the gym?

  Having a bit of life in my apartment was refreshing. Jake had no trouble wrapping Fern around his finger by the end of the meal. And the feeling may have been mutual. She told him the story of how her brother had won the apartment complex in a poker game and left it to her in his will. She’d been living here for forty years and had seen many, many people come and go.

  “You take what people give you when they’re in front of you and wish them well as they leave,” she said as she folded the napkin and placed it on her empty plate.

  “Best meal I’ve had in a long time. You can cook for me whenever you want,” Jake said as he tapped his belly.

  “Thanks.” I rose and gestured to the empty plates. “Leave these. I’ll do them when I get back. Come on, Archie.”

  As I walked out the door, Fern said to Jake, “I bet if you wash those dishes while she’s gone, you’ll have a much better chance of getting laid. She hates cleanup.”

  I was thankful my back was turned; I imagined my face was as red as the sauce I had just served them.

  After a tour around the block, I found Jake and Fern on the couch, laughing like schoolgirls. Fern stood up, made a horrible excuse about something she wanted to watch on TV, and took Archie back to her place. It didn’t go unnoticed that the dishes had indeed been done.

  Once alone, it hit me I hadn’t made much of an effort with my appearance, and I froze. I was wearing a black, asymmetric cotton skirt with a black tank top. My hair was in a messy bun on top of my head, and my makeup hadn’t been touched since the morning.

  Still on the sofa, Jake found my gaze and signaled me to come hither with his right hand. I bit my lips inward but obliged. When I sat down next to him where Fern had been moments before, my chest tightened. I reached for my wine. Liquid courage to the rescue.

  “You’re a great cook. Where did you learn?”

  But before I could answer, his hand was on my thigh at the hem of my skirt, and electricity was shooting to all the corners of my body.

  “Louana?”

  I stared at his hand.

  “Yes,” I answered, in a voice barely above a whisper.

  “Louana?” he asked, a bit stronger this time.

  Our eyes locked.

  “Is this okay?” He nodded to my thigh, which was on fire.

  “Yes.” Again, just audible.

  “Because once we start, if there’s something you’re not okay with, you need say so. You can tell me to stop if you want.”

  “I don’t think that’s gonna happen.”

  And as if my own words were the green light I had been waiting for, I climbed up on top of his lap and straddled him. I leaned in and kissed him. As much as I wanted to relive the intensity of the night before, I also wanted to savor every second of the embrace and discover those heavenly lips. My kiss was slow; it was playful. My mouth moved from his down to his neck, up to his ear, and back to his mouth. His whiskers tickled my cheek and I curled my fingers into his shaggy hair.

  Jake’s hands slithered from my knees to my hips, and I had to fight my urge to grind against him. It didn’t take long for me to lose that battle as he intensified things from his end, taking control and moving his hands to my breasts. The material between his touch and my skin was an obstacle to what was sure to be bliss. I reached down and pulled my tank top over my head, revealing my small, black lace bra. Jake pulled away, then smirked the same smile as when he bit my lip the night before. He pulled down the cups of my bra, exposing my breasts. My nipples stared right at him, inviting his touch. He answered their call by caressing them before a little twist sent an instant rush between my legs. I moved to my knees and offered them to him. He played the perfect balance of teasing and torture. I was still fully clothed from the waist down, but I could already feel my climax mounting.

  “You’re driving me crazy,” he confessed, after a nip on my shoulder.

  With one quick movement, he flipped me onto my back and leaned over me. Proof of the frustration in his pants rubbed against my thigh. His hands found my waist and he dug his fingers into my skirt and panties, ripping them down in one motion. He backed up and pulled off his own shirt, revealing his tan and fit torso. I spotted a couple more tattoos and made a mental note to inspect them later, if I had the chance. But in the moment, I closed my eyes and arched my back, inviting him to return to my body. His gorgeous and skilled mouth assaulted my stomach and travelled south.

  “I can’t stop,” he whispered between kisses.

  “Please don’t.”

  His mouth met my inner thigh with a grin before he moved to center stage. He tormented me with his tongue and slipped a finger inside. When he went from teasing to sucking, I knew I was about to explode. Unable to take anymore, I whimpered as I squeezed around his finger, my body in convulsions.

  “Holy shit,” I said. That must have been a record.

  Jake mouthed his way back to my neck, leaving a trail of sex from my stomach to my jaw. My head spun, but I wanted more. I needed to know if the rest of him was as amazing as his mouth.

  “I have condoms in the bedroom.” I nodded to the wall behind me.

  “Then let’s go there.” He got up, smiling, and I stood as well. But before I could take a step, he scooped me up over his shoulder—fireman style—and carried me through the small hallway to my room. When we got to the foot of the bed, he dropped me playfully onto my back.

  “Lose the bra.”

  His bossiness was sexy, but I wouldn’t surrender without at least a little fight. I tilted my head to the side and dared him: “Lose the pants.”

  “My pleasure.” He dropped his pants, calling my bluff and smirking. To say he was proud of what he had just put on display would be an understatement. His dick was the perf
ect personification of the rest of his body. I studied him as I removed my bra. Then I leaned over to my bedside table, found a condom, and said a silent thank-you to myself for having put them there a couple of hours prior.

  This time it was me who beckoned him over.

  He moved to the side of the bed and said, “Put it on.”

  I was happy to follow orders, but when my task was complete, I wasn’t sure of my next move.

  “Lie back,” he said.

  Jake leaned over my ripe body and moved his hand back between my thighs. His fingers caressed me inside, and I moaned to their delicious rhythm. When I sensed he was about to push himself in, I tensed a little.

  “You okay?” He paused his action.

  “Never better.” I swallowed and prepared myself for the next very big step.

  His face softened. “Relax. Breathe,” he said.

  The warm air from my nose hit my upper lip, and I could feel his tip probing for entry. I exhaled and tried to let go of all my tension.

  I took him in, and his slow and gentle start soon quickened and intensified. He pinched my nipples hard, all the while keeping his stride. I was in sensory overload and could feel the energy at the base of my spine swirling and threatening to rise again. When his hand moved down between my legs and his fingers rubbed against me, I erupted in pleasure for the second time. It was stronger than the first—having him inside me had given it extra power, like an orgasm on steroids.

  He let me have my moment, watching me with a satisfied grin.

  “Flip over.”

  As I moved to all fours, he stood behind me. His hand stroked my backside.

  “This. This is a great fucking ass. Better than I imagined.”

  He’d been thinking about my butt? Win. Total win.

  But before I could celebrate, he thrust back into me. His hands dug into my hips and he pushed us both back and forth. His pace was relentless. I moaned—I think I may have even screamed—but he did not stop. Not that I wanted it to end. While I was no virgin and far from a prude, this intensity and skill was new to me, and the best form of pleasure I could imagine.