21. Cherry
The front door to the shop opens and I look up with a smile, ready to greet my customer, but it freezes on my face when I see Jake walk in instead. He isn’t dressed for work, the suit has been replaced by worn jeans that hang off his hips. A V-neck white tee molds to his muscular chest and I fight the urge to wet my lips. His feet are encased in tattered biker boots, and he still wears the jacket he’d had back then.
He looks like my Jake, the one who broke my heart but also the one who made it beat faster, who’d text me ‘good morning, beautiful’ or some other sweet greeting each day, just like the one I’d received this morning. My heart beat harder in my chest as he grins and walks closer.
“Good morning, Blossom.”
God, why did he have to be so hot? Folding my arms over my chest, I cock my hip and glare. “What do you want?”
“Is it too cliché to say you?” He scrubs his chin and tries giving me a hopeful look.
“Don’t be cute.”
As he leans his elbows on my counter, his scent surrounds me, but this time I detect t he subtle hint of motor oil too. Nostalgia invades my senses and I can’t help but think of him on his bike. How it had felt to hold on to him and feel like every turn we made, no matter how fast or dangerous, knowing he’d always protect me.
“I want to show you something.”
I narrowed my eyes in suspicion. “What?”
“I can’t tell you. This is something you need to see in the flesh.”
I’m intrigued, and a big part of me wants to spend time with him, wants to see whatever he wants to show me, but a bigger part knows it’s too risky. Jake has hurt me more than anyone ever has, and I can’t just forgive what he’d done. “I’m busy.”
“The shop closes in ten minutes. I know you’re only open for half a day on Saturday.”
It was true. We didn’t get enough footfall on a Saturday to warrant remaining open, so I usually used the afternoon to work on a room design. “That doesn’t mean I’m not busy. I might have a date or client coming to see me.”
The scowl on his handsome face is worth the white lie I’m about to tell and I hope like hell my next client will go along with it when he arrives.
“Who? I didn’t know you were seeing someone?”
His indignation almost makes me laugh and I have to roll my lips between my teeth to hide my mirth. “Why would you? We aren’t friends.”
It is fleeting, but I see the wound I inflict land before he brushes it off with a smile. I wish I could say I don’t care, that hurting him gives me some kind of satisfaction, but it doesn’t.
“No, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care, Blossom. I know I hurt you but I never stopped caring.”
“Don’t, Jake. I don’t want to talk about the past. You keep giving me small nuggets of information but never a true picture. So until you can do that, I don’t want to hear it.”
“Fair enough. I can agree to that. So, what time will you be free and where is he taking y ou? You better not have met on a dating website. Those things are full of creeps.”
“Oh, are you on there too?”
“Haha, very funny. I’m serious, Blossom. I don’t want you putting yourself in risky situations.”
“Well, what you want is no concern of mine, but for the record, I know this man well and we met in a bar.”
A frown mars his handsome brow, his lips thinning in annoyance. “I don’t like it.”
I gave him a big fake smile. “I don’t care.”
Before he can say more, the door opens again and my smile is genuine as I rush around the counter and run to the man who just walked in. He catches me in his arms and spins me around as I laugh.
“How’s my favorite girl in the world?”
Eddie Crowe holds me off the ground in his big arms and gives me the grin that makes millions of his fans swoon. As the most famous country music star of the moment, he sings to packed arenas about love and heartbreak. We’d met on a night out with Lexi when he played an impromptu acoustic set, just before his star began to rise.
We’d hooked up once, but it never went as far as sex, just some hot making out, then decided we were better off as friends. Both of us had had our hearts broken, and so a friendship had developed. His blue eyes twinkle and his thick, dark hair falls to his shoulders, making him the pin-up choice of every woman from fifteen to fifty, but for me, it was his voice that melted butter. Deep and full of gravel, but with that lazy southern twang that makes you think of whispered secrets and sultry nights.
“I’m good, Eddie. I missed you.”
“Missed you too, sugar.”
“So I have a situation I could use some help with.” My voice is low enough that only Eddie will hear.
“It involve the man glaring at me like he wants to kill me?”
“Yeah, that’s Jake. ”
Eddie’s brows shoot up a little before he rocks his head slowly. “Okay. I got you, baby girl. Lead the way.”
A wave of warmth falls over me at how lucky I am to have this man as my friend.
Grabbing his hand, I tow him toward the counter where Jake is watching us with a measured expression. I can practically feel the tension dripping off him. It serves him right, thinking he could march back into my life like what he’d done was nothing.
“Eddie, this is Jake, a friend of Hunter’s.”
I still hold Eddie’s hand and he gives mine a little squeeze before he offers his hand to Jake. “Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you, too, and I’m a very old friend of Cherry’s. We go way back.”
Eddie chuckles as he pulls me closer, wrapping an arm around my back and pasting me to his hard body. I play along, placing my hand on his chest and gazing up at him.
“Good to know.” Eddie looked around the store before giving his attention back to Jake. “You here for some furniture?”
“No, I’m here for Cherry.” Jake pins me with a gaze that says ‘game on’. “Aren’t I, Blossom?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure why you’re here, Jake.”
“I wanted to show you something, remember?”
“Well, make an appointment and I’ll look then.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that.”
Jake’s slow, steady breaths and the tick in his jaw show how annoyed he is by not getting his own way. Good. It will do him good to know the world doesn’t revolve around him.
“That your bike outside?”
Jake brought his bike? How had I missed that?
“Yeah. You ride?”
“Not as much as I used to, but yeah I do. That’s a sweet ride.”
“Yeah, it’s a custom Arch KRGT-1.”
“Nice. I wish I had the time to get out more. ”
“Yeah, I know the feeling. Nothing like your bike, your girl, and the open road. Hey, Blossom?”
What is happening here? These two idiots are bonding over a bike, even if said bike was a thing of absolute beauty.
“I’ll take your word for it.”
I give Eddie a sly pinch and he jumps a little before seeming to get the memo that he wasn’t here to bond with Jake but to be my buffer.
Giving me a look of absolute adoration, he focuses back on me. “We should get going, baby girl.”
“Of course.” I turn to Jake with a sugary smile. “Sorry, Jake, I need to close up. Eddie and I have plans this afternoon.”
I pull out of Eddie’s arms and he lets his hand run down my arm as if he can’t possibly let me go longer than a second. “Yeah, we’ve got plans all afternoon, sugar.”
You’d need to be an idiot to miss the implication in Eddie’s words and Jake was no idiot. His head tips back, his legs spread and he looks dangerous all of a sudden. Like he wants to rip Eddie apart.
“I’ll let you go, but can I just get one word in private, first?”
That’s the last thing I need after poking the bear for the last five minutes. “I don’t—”
“It’s about Lexi.”
I narrow my eyes at him knowing he’s up to something, but not willing to take the risk that he did want to talk about Lexi and ignoring him. “Oh, okay. Do you mind, Eddie?”
Eddie cups my cheek with a wink, playing his part to perfection. “Course not, sugar.”
I lead the way to the back room and see Jake close the door and give Eddie a smug smile. Before I can start he’s stepped into my personal space and has me pinned between his hands on either side of my desk. A whoosh of air leaves me as I lay my fingers on his chest with the idea of pushing him back, but he covers my fingers with his hand, pressing my hands against his pecs.
“Are you really seeing that playboy? ”
His question is almost a snarl and I feel a grave sense of satisfaction that my plan has worked. “Eddie isn’t a playboy.”
“Oh, please. He has a different woman on his arm every week.”
“Eddie and I are different.” Not a lie. We were different in that I had no intention of being anything more than his friend and he feels the same way.
“He tell you that?”
Tilting my chin, I give him a haughty smile, but the warmth of his body beneath my fingertips takes the bite out of my words. “Yes, he did, and I believe him because he isn’t a lying jerk like some people I know.”
“He’s not right for you,” he says again through gritted teeth, a vein pulsing in his temple so hard I think he might have a stroke.
“Disagree.”
“Have you fucked him?”
“My sex life is none of your business.”
His body relaxes just a fraction. “You haven’t.”
“Well, even if I haven’t today, hopefully by tomorrow I will have. More than once.”
A growl comes from deep inside his throat as he crowds me back, his head dipping to my neck and skimming his lips over my pounding pulse. My eyes fall closed as desire makes me light-headed.
“I can still taste you on my tongue, Blossom. Every time I jerk off, it’s with the memory of your pussy wrapped around my cock, the sweet salt of your climax on my lips. He doesn’t get that.”
My breaths become choppy as I picture his words, and feel his lips on my skin. “He gets whatever I decide to give him.”
Jake lifts his head, his hooded eyes heavy with hunger. “If he touches you, he dies.”
I start to roll my eyes, but he lifts his finger to my neck, a dangerous look of determination on his face.
“I mean it, Blossom. He touches you, I’ll kill him.”
With that he pushes off me, dropping my hand from his chest, and walks out the door .
My body sags against the desk as I hear the door to the shop open and close and then the roar of a powerful motorbike. My hand trembles as I push off the desk and blow out a breath.
I thought I’d seen every side of Jake, but that right then had been different. He’d meant every word of that threat and I should be afraid. I should be freaking out, but I wasn’t. I was turned on.
“So, that’s the infamous Jake.”
I nod at Eddie who stands in the doorway, his shoulder braced against the jam, hands in his pockets.
He looks calm, almost amused. “Yep, that’s him.”
“Not what I imagined if I’m honest, sugar.”
On wobbly legs, I push past Eddie, not sure how to respond to his comment. I feel him at my back as I lock up the shop and set the alarm. The sun is shining as we leave and I tip my face up and close my eyes, letting the warmth breathe joy back into me.
The last few months have been a slog, and it’s taken everything in me to remain strong and keep my mask in place. I am the strong one, the one who fights for her friends and family, who smiles despite feeling hollow inside some days.
“You good, sugar? We can do this another day.”
Pasting a smile on my face, I open my eyes and grin at Eddie. “Don’t be silly. I said I’d look at your plans and I will. I’m excited to see them.”
“Appreciate that, but I’m not sure your man does.” Eddie nods his head toward the end of the road, where I see a sleek black bike with a scary ominous rider watching me from beneath his helmet, visor raised.
I clench my thighs as heat floods my body. Even from this distance, our connection is tenable. Like a live wire that pulls between us and sends pulses of electricity bouncing along the line.
“He’s not my man.”
“Yeah, I think he is, sugar.”
I can’t tear my gaze away as I continue my conversation with Eddie who stands at my back. “He hurt me. ”
“We all make mistakes, Cherry.”
“I know, but I’m not sure I can forgive him.”
“I’m not sure you have a choice. That man isn’t giving up and the chemistry between you is atomic bomb level.”
“If you mean destructive, then I agree.”
A chuckle is all I get in response as he opens the door to the black Range Rover waiting at the curb. I watch as Jake snaps his visor closed, revs his engine, and rides away with a sense of inevitability that makes a thrill run through me.