Chapter 5 Holly Jacobs
HOLLY JACOBS
The Montana sun warms my shoulders as I lounge under the striped umbrella, laptop open, a contract and a script across my thighs. The potential new movie role for Winston could launch his career into the stratosphere. Not that he isn’t already a success.
A popular organization for female entrepreneurs has asked me to join their podcast next week. I prime myself with answers to the questions they sent me to prepare in advance.
What’s it like to manage Winston’s career?
I type on my laptop: Being a cat manager takes up most of my days. But I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Winston had originally been my auntie’s pet as a kitten, the inspiration for her series of cozy cat mystery novels. And a few years later, the star of a limited-run TV series based on her books.
One summer, as a preteen when my parents divorced, Mom sent me to live with Auntie.
I spent the few months training Winston to do funny tricks, and we became glued at the hip.
Auntie could see how much Winston helped me in a time of great family distress.
So, she gave the cat to me. Ever since then, I took on overseeing his career.
I couldn’t imagine what else I would want to do with my life. Or spending my life without him—
A splash of water cuts clean through my thoughts.
I tip my sunglasses down. Scott slices through the pool in smooth, powerful strokes, like this is his private training lap pool.
Rude. Also extremely titillating to watch. And a major distraction in my life. I mean, look at him.
He touches the wall and surges into a flip turn, water sheeting over shoulders carved for sin. When he surfaces at the shallow end, his eyes find me. They rake once—slow and unapologetic—over my pink bikini and white strappy heels propped on the lounge.
Heat pulls low in my belly. I bite my lip so hard it could have drawn blood.
It has been far too long since I let a man touch me.
Time I needed to heal from my ex and all his games and cheating.
Since him, the only date I’d been on was the one with Scott back in Vancouver.
I still can’t believe I resisted him that night.
He’d have made an excellent rebound fuck.
But now? Spending the past few nights talking and watching movies together? Trying to sleep knowing he was one door down from me? I don’t know how much longer I can resist him.
I push my sunglasses back up. “Are you planning to do that all afternoon, hotshot?” I call, aiming for bored and landing somewhere between breathless and flirty.
“Depends.” He braces his forearms on the edge, grin wicked under dripping lashes. “Am I bothering you, or helping you procrastinate?”
I focus back on my laptop at my side. “I’m working.”
“Yeah? I already worked my ass off on the ice today.” He launches himself out of the pool in one easy, obnoxiously athletic movement.
My eyes forget all about the computer screen, instead noticing water running in rivulets down his chest as he snags a towel.
He dries himself off across his abs, down his V, pushing his trunks down lower, my eyes following, until I could almost see a bulge.
I lick my lips. Mm. Are all hockey men built this solidly with muscles everywhere or just him?
Why have I always blocked out men who play sports from my life?
I always go for the jerks in suits with money and supposedly class.
Men my mom would approve of. Suitable for our status, she’d always say when I’d bring bossholes home for her to meet.
Forget them. It’s out with the old me. The new me wants to get down and dirty with a guy who plays nice with a big stick.
“Holly? Did you hear me?” He laughs and sits at the end of my lounge by my feet. His gaze drops to my heels. “Not complaining, but do your feet ever hurt in these? Ever hear of flip-flops?”
“Beauty is pain.” I wiggle my toes, getting blood flowing, and hating how I sound like my mother. She spends way too much on herself, trying to remain youthful and chic at any age.
“In your case, from what I can see, beauty comes naturally.” Could he be any smoother with the compliments?
He takes up my foot, and I don’t complain when he slides the buckle on one heel free with a practiced thumb.
The other follows. Before I could snark about it, he presses his thumbs into my arch, slow and sure.
He rolls a knuckle along a line of tension I didn’t know I’d been clenching since I left L.A.
“Oh.” I moan. My head falls back against the cushion with a sigh and a swallow. Every nerve ending tingles from his touch. “Didn’t know you were so talented. There are women in L.A. who would pay thousands for your treatment.”
“And yet I’m only here for you. Feel good? Admit it,” he murmurs, far too pleased with himself, belied by his cocky chuckle.
“I hate you. Keep going,” I say, breath catching as he moves to the ball of my foot, then the pads of my toes.
“Bossy woman,” he teases, and switches feet. Heat licks up my calves, settles in my core, swirls to a hum around my nipples. My laptop slides a little precariously toward the edge of the lounge.
“Scott,” I warn, except it comes out more like a plea. Who knew footy play could be such a turn-on, bringing me to the edge?
He glances up through wet lashes, eyes hot. “I’ve got a few talents that don’t require skates. I’d love to show you.”
“I am not sleeping with you just because you know how to rub feet,” I blurt out suddenly when he does something incredible to the inside of my heel, almost sending me over the edge.
“Believe me. If I ever get you in a bed, sleeping is the last thing we’d do.” The way he’s so sure of himself does nothing but add to the wetness pooling between my thighs.
The alarm on my phone rips through the spell. I jerk upright, nearly kicking him in the face. “Winston! It’s his snack time. He’s on a schedule.”
Scott blinks, then stands, towel and hands low on his hips. “Here I thought we were getting somewhere.”
“Sorry.” I fumble for the phone, and silence the alarm. I stand and gather my things to head inside.
“You like to baby him a lot don’t you?”
“I wouldn’t say babying, more like caring for his well being. A schedule just helps us get through a day of taking proper care of ourselves.”
“You know who else is on a schedule?” He taps his stomach.
“Me. I just burned a gajillion calories in hockey practice and swimming. I need to replenish, otherwise the team nutritionist and my coach will be all over my case when I drag tomorrow at practice. How about we have dinner in town together tonight? My treat.”
I hesitate. But hell, look at him. A 6 foot tall tower of fun. I need fun. I need a man to bring me back from the dead. “Sure. Winston would love the change of scenery. I could try out his new cat stroller.”
“I-I was hoping to be just us.” He leans in, eyes dancing. “Do you ever do anything just for you?”
He isn’t wrong. The past year has been a long bout of not-fun. Of fixing my broken heart, of taking care of Winston, and of throwing myself into my career, telling myself certain needs could wait.
I study him at the end of my lounge chair, water still beading on his chest, towel clinging to a body that should’ve come with a warning label. It would be dangerously easy to say yes.
“I suppose you’re the man to show me what I’ve been missing out on in life?”
He looks around with a cocky grin, nothing but us and land that goes on for acres and acres. “I think I’m the only man around for that job.”
He’s right. Other than the crew and the director and producer daily on set at the TV show, he’s the only man in my life. But while I’ve kept things professional on the set, Scott is here under my roof, hard to avoid.
I think… I really want him. “Fine. Dinner for two it is. Just give me a while to get Winston situated.”
He follows me back through the house. “Without your heels on, you’d fit perfectly under my chin.
Just saying. If you’d like to dig out a pair of flats from your closet, we could try it out tonight,” he tempts me, giving me a smoldering grin as he stops at his door and lets me pass along to mine at the end of the hall.
My mind races to figure out if I even brought any flat shoes with me other than tennis shoes.
But when I open my bedroom door…
I scream.