10. Jake
TEN
JAKE
“Draw twenty-five? Are you kidding me? This game is rigged!”
Darcy cackles across the table, tipping back her whiskey tumbler. We put together a dinner from some leftovers she had and decided to have a little whiskey to loosen up after the big coyote scare. Darcy picked out a stack of classic country records, and we’re working our way through them over a game of Uno.
Darcy’s pretty. Beautiful. Especially now with cheeks rosy from the booze and eyes glassy from all our laughing. She’s taken down her hair, continually tossing it and messing with it, tipping her head to the side to wind curls around her fingertips.
She has to know that’s hot, right? It’s not like she’s trying. She’s just cutting loose.
“Ugh, it’s hot in here,” she says, lifting her shirt over her head to reveal a top that’s little more than a bra with some extra fabric to cover her ribs.
Okay, maybe she’s trying a little bit. Now I have to keep my eyes on her face and not sneak looks at her perfectly pushed-up cleavage.
“Eyes up here, cowboy,” she drawls, and my cheeks heat.
Fuck. Guess I wasn’t as slick as I thought.
“Sorry. Whiskey did it to me,” I try.
She lets out a raspy laugh. “Oh, it’s the whiskey, huh? What’s every other man in history’s excuse?” she asks. “Draw the twenty-five. I ain’t got all day.”
“No way,” I say. “I forfeit. This is bullshit.”
“No one likes a quitter, Jake.”
“Are you bullying me, boss?” Stormy jumps up next to me, stepping into my lap and arching her back to beg for pets. “Aw, there’s that kitty.”
Darcy shakes her head, propping her chin into her hand with wide eyes. “She usually hates men.”
I scritch the space next to her mouth. “I’m not just any man and she’s not just any cat. Isn’t that right, kitty?”
Stormy kneads my thighs and Darcy’s jaw drops. “Is she making biscuits? She loves you! What is going on here?”
“Miss Darcy’s about to get her familiar stolen, isn’t she, kitty?” I coo. “How’d you get her?”
“Rescued her,” Darcy says. “Literally. I was leaving work one day and it was raining real hard. I heard this weak little screech, and even though I was getting soaked, I couldn’t ignore the sound.” She watches Stormy on my lap, her eyes softening. “My little girl was in a current in the gutter, about to get swept into the sewer.”
I cover Stormy’s ears and gasp. “No! Not this kitty!”
“I know,” she says, raising her eyebrows. “I took her back into the office and got her warmed up. Sat on the floor with her by the space heater under my desk. Nursed her back to health. And then she was just mine.”
“Where’d you work?” I ask.
“I worked for the hockey team in Raleigh. I didn’t have much puck knowledge when I started, even though my second cousin dated one of the Seattle Sealpups. I didn’t really think they’d hire me, but they liked my writing and organization, so I got the job.”
I nod, then pause. “Wait, the NHL team?”
“Yeah,” she says.
“You miss it?”
Darcy picks up the Bulleit Rye bottle and pours a little more into her glass, suddenly turning morose. “I was just considering that while we were walking over here. I’m not sure.” She holds the bottle toward me. “More?”
“I’m not driving, why not?” I ask, gathering up the cards to put them away. “Let’s play my game now.”
Darcy guffaws. “What game is that?”
“Never have I ever,” I say. “You drink if you’ve done something I say I haven’t.”
“Oh, I’m familiar,” she says with a smirk.
“Good, then you can start.” I take a sip of whiskey while I think, rubbing my lips together after I swallow.
Darcy’s eyes travel over my throat, her cheeks turning a soft pink. “Never have I ever gotten a tattoo.”
I drink. She props her chin on her fist. “What is it?”
I lift my shirt and slide my arm through the left sleeve so she can see the whole thing. “Oh, geez,” she says, holding up her hands to shield her eyes.
“It’s just my chest, darlin’.”
“It’s Darcy,” she snaps back.
I wink at her. “I know what I said.”
A flush creeps higher on her neck and she lightly shakes her head to clear it. “A tiger, huh?”
A tiger stretches from the top of my shoulder down to my heart, where the tail coils around. “Indeed.”
“Just the one?” she asks.
I tip my head to the side. “For now.”
She nods. “Alright. Your turn.”
I hold back a shit-eating grin. “Never have I ever been flustered by someone I saw sitting in a bar.”
Darcy’s eyes narrow and she chuckles as she lifts her glass. I lift mine too. “You’re not supposed to say things you’ve done. The point is to get the other person drunk.”
“You’re playing by my rules,” I say, sitting back and lacing my hands behind my head. “I reserve the right to do whatever I want in my game.”
“Ooh, cowboy law,” she jokes. “Alright. Never have I ever saved a cat from a pack of coyotes.”
I gesture for her to drink and raise my glass. “You gotta drink too. I don’t think they would have backed off without your air horn. It was a team effort.”
“Fine,” she says, throwing back a generous gulp. “Your turn.”
My tongue coasts along my upper lip. “Never have I ever gone skinny-dipping.”
Darcy freezes and looks at me weird, then lifts her glass. “Why do you think I’ve been skinny-dipping?”
I wink at her. “You seem the type.”
She points at me. “You with that damn wink again. You winked at me at the bar! What was your plan with all that flirting?” Her accent’s getting thicker the more she drinks. “Were you going to show up at the bar every night until you saw me again?”
I smirk and scan her features: bright, curious eyes, all those curls, teeth combing over a full bottom lip. “I figured if we were meant to see each other again, we would.”
“And here we are,” she says.
“Here we are,” I agree.
Darcy traces her fingertip around the top of her whiskey glass and it does something dirty to me. It’s not like she has some sexy manicure. In fact, her nails are cut short and not painted, probably ready for farm work. But her hands are delicate, feminine, and the filthiest part of my brain sends a signal that I’m tired of my own hand on my cock.
It does not help one bit that I know how hot her curves are without a stitch of clothes on them. I clench my jaw and remind myself that she’s my boss. We officially met today. I should probably cool it.
But there’s something here between us, and all that rage earlier might have been her twisted version of foreplay. Our gazes flit over each other, but keep meeting in eye contact. It’s humid in the house, and the dense air pulses between us.
“Never have I ever flirted with my boss,” Darcy says, her voice smooth and low.
I don’t let my eyes drop from hers as I take a sip of my whiskey, letting it roll across my tongue before sending it down my throat. The burn as it hits my stomach meets the flutter from this strange dance we’re doing. I’m flirting, but so is she.
I twist my lips, thinking. “Never have I ever danced with my boss in the kitchen.”
Darcy’s holding back a huge grin, pinching her lips together to suppress it. “You lookin’ to change that, cowboy?”
“Reckon I am,” I say, rising from the table and coming around to her side. “It’s ‘Neon Moon’ after all. The opportunity won’t get better than this.”
With bright eyes, Darcy puts her hand into my outstretched one and I square us up to dance. A jolt of hormones surges through me. How long has it been since I really touched a woman? Surprise crosses Darcy’s face as we start to move together.
“Must have romanced a lot of cowgirls in your day with this two-step,” she teases, and I’m all stirred up with the look on her face: playful, smug, fucking with me.
“If I tell you the reason I learned, you won’t believe me.”
“Try me,” she purrs.
“My sister wanted to learn how and didn’t have a partner to take lessons with her. Some boy at school turned her down so I just said I’d go with her.”
Darcy’s eyes round and her lips puff out. “No way. That’s too sweet.”
I laugh. “I said you wouldn’t believe me.”
“I just can’t figure you out. I can’t figure out if you’re trouble or if you’re secretly a really nice guy.”
“Guess you’ll just have to wait and see.” I spin her, finishing with a dip that lands my face between her tits. I pull her up to stand again slowly, unable to resist the urge to trail my nose along her skin. This must be what angels smell like. She stumbles as I bring her back to standing.
“Careful, now,” I say, huskier than I mean to. “I get you flustered?”
Darcy presses her chest forward so we’re touching, her brown eyes glowing up at me. “What should I be careful of?” she hums. “You?”
“No reason to be afraid of me, darlin’,” I say, just above a whisper. I lick my lips and gaze down at hers. It would be so easy, kissing her. Locking her legs around my waist. Pressing her against that wall over there. Feeling her body. I’m buzzed, but I’m more drunk on the temptation hanging in the humid air.
“That’s what all the bad ones say,” she says, her voice so low I feel it in my balls.
“You want me to be a bad guy?” I ask.
Darcy’s chest heaves, her eyes still soft. “I’m not allowed to touch you. I’m getting a new vibrator.”
My eyebrows shoot to the ceiling, my cheeks heat, and my mouth drops open. That was not on the list of things I thought she’d say next. Yes, in my head, I’m dirty as can be, but I’m holding it together on the outside.
She just let the inside out.
Darcy is mortified. She buries her face in her hands, giggles shaking her frame. She stumbles back from me, folding in half at the waist. “Oh my god, what did I just say?”
I bend and pull her hands off her cheeks. “You brought it up, so we’re talking about it,” I laugh.
“No, we can forget it,” she squeals, trying to cover her lobster-colored face again.
“I don’t think touching me and getting a new vibrator are mutually exclusive, boss. I’m not above bringing in reinforcements to aid the cause.”
My hand splays across her lower back as I get us in rhythm again. She stiffens under my grip, eyes wide until that smirk returns.
“I think you’re lying.” She licks the corner of her lips. “Most men oppose having help in that regard.”
It’s my turn to smirk. “Those aren’t men, Darcy. I like to hear my name screamed. Whatever it takes to make that happen, I’ll do.”
Darcy’s mouth hangs open and she stops dancing, her eyes rounded. A couple noises come from her throat. She gulps and draws herself up taller, like she’s steeling herself to be a tough guy. “I’m not dating.”
I look her dead in the eye. “Who said anything about dating?”
She shakes her head with a snort.
“You, Jake Warren,” she drawls with a poke to my breastbone, “are nothing but trouble. You’re a shameless flirt and a shit stirrer. Can you make it home alone tonight, or is your bed broken and you need to sleep in mine?” She sticks out her bottom lip to mock me.
I grin at her. “We could break yours together.”
“Keep trying, cowboy.” She pats my chest twice. “Thanks for the dance. Now we can say we’ve done it. I need to get to bed. Horses and farmers markets wait for no one.”
“I’ll dance with you anytime. It was my pleasure.”
She pauses and I swear her eyes flick to my mouth. We’re frozen.
With a curt nod, she steps away from me, grabs our glasses from the table and moves to put them in the sink. Her hips shift from side to side and she glances over her shoulder at me. She’s fucking showing off and she knows it. If I knew her better and knew she’d be open to it, I’d put her back on that kitchen counter and tease all that sass right out of her.
But I don’t know her better. So instead, I squeeze my eyes shut and head for the mudroom to put my boots back on. I pause in the doorway. “Hey, what time do you need me to bring the horses in with you? I’m the horse guy, after all.”
She waves a hand. “I got it. I’m used to doing it alone now.”
My gut twists. She walked both horses at the same time this morning, and while it seemed to be going fine, it’s not really safe. Still, I don’t want to critique her performance. “You sure?”
Darcy looks back over her shoulder. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
I pause, then slip my boots on. I poke my head around the corner just before I go. “Night, boss. Let me know when your vibe comes in. I’ll help you break it in.”
“Don’t forget the boss part,” she shoots, her eyebrows raised at me.
“Role reversal? I’ll be the boss at night?”
I pull my face out of the doorway just as a dish towel hurtles my way, Darcy’s frustrated growl the last thing I hear before the side door closes behind me.