Hearts Collide (Canyon Cove Book 4) (8 page)

Chapter Eight

Jackie

Brent picked me up as we kissed and I wrapped my legs around him. I tilted my head back as his lips brushed against my neck.

“When do you get off work?” he asked, his voice husky.

“When the night is over,” I said.

“Then I’ll tell everyone to leave now.”

“Samantha would kill you.”

“How do you think she got this job? Gunnar’s a good friend.”

He pressed his body against me as he bit my earlobe.

“Is it true you can’t stop thinking about me?” I asked.

“I told you he talks too much,” Brent said. “But I did tell you that the other day.”

“No, you said you had been thinking about me. You didn’t say you couldn’t stop.”

“I can’t stop. I don’t want to stop,” he said, then kissed me again. “Come home with me tonight.”

Yes!

“No,” I said, wondering what was wrong with me. “I don’t...I mean...you and I...”

I didn’t know what I was trying to say. Everything in my head screamed, “Yes, yes, go home with him!” But my mouth said something different.

Brent set me down and his eyes darkened, making them almost black. He clenched his jaw tightly as he shoved his hands into his pockets.

“Forget you hate me for just one night,” he said.

I wanted to tell him I didn’t hate him. That I was a stupid person dealing with baggage I couldn’t get over and that he’d be better off running in the other direction, but none of that came out of my mouth.

“Just one night?” I asked.

“Just one,” he said as he turned away from me. “It won’t mean anything. It’ll just be two adults having fun. And when morning comes you can go back to hating me and pretend none of this happened.”

He sounded so cold, so unemotional. It wasn’t like him.

“Is that what you really want?” I asked.

He looked over his shoulder at me and our eyes met.

“What do you want? What do you really want?” he asked.

What did I want? I wished I knew the answer. Right there and then all I wanted was to be with him. And I didn’t care if it was only one night.

“Meet me here at midnight,” I said.

***

I was in the middle of wiping down the kitchen when I heard the echo of Brent’s shoes on the floor. I had rushed to finish everything up as soon as all the guests left, hoping to be done before midnight. The result was that my hair had fallen out of my ponytail. I was a mess.

I pulled the elastic from my hair and shook my hair loose. As I gathered my hair back, Brent came up behind me, took the elastic from my hands, and wrapped his arms around my waist.

“I’m sorry about before,” he whispered. “It’s no wonder you hate me.”

He kissed my neck and even though I didn’t want him to stop, I couldn’t help how gross I felt.

“No,” I said. “I don’t think this is going to work out tonight. I was being impulsive before when I said yes.”

Brent’s head bobbed slowly.

“I can understand that,” he said. “I can be impulsive too. I don’t want you to regret anything.”

“It’s not that,” I said. “I don’t think I’d regret it at all, it’s just...I’m a mess. The kitchen is hot back here. I’m sweaty and really need a shower.”

“Today’s your lucky day. I just so happen to have a shower at my house. I’d be happy to let you use mine.”

I thought about his offer and as much as part of me wanted to say no and keep hating him, a bigger part of me wanted him.

“You sure?” I asked.

“You know how long I’ve wanted you?”

I shook my head.

“I’m going to make you come so much, you’ll forget everyone else you were with,” he said with a lopsided grin.

“Oh? You’re going to make me a virgin again?”

His laugh echoed through the kitchen.

“Just come home with me,” he said. “Like I said before, give me one night. If you don’t want to see me again after that, then I’ll back off, but I’m hoping after I make you come five or six times that you might hate me a little less.”

“Five or six times? I’m going to hold you to that, you know,” I said.

“I’ll keep count for you.”

***

We left my car at the hotel. Brent had a Maserati like the one he donated to charity, but this one was white.

I shifted in my seat to look at him while he drove. I still thought he could substitute for Ken if Barbie ever needed a date, but there was something more to him than just being gorgeous.

“It’s weird,” I said. “I feel like I’ve known you for so long, but I really don’t know much about you.”

“There isn’t much to know about me,” he said as he turned off the freeway. “But I know what you mean. From the first moment I saw you I felt connected to you somehow.”

“Maybe it’s because we’re both so close to Samantha.”

“That could be it.”

He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye and smiled.

“What do you want to know?” he asked.

I thought about his question as we drove past a golf course. I knew he grew up in Canyon Cove and I knew he was a big time attorney who worked to protect the environment and various charities. The more I thought about it the more I realized I did know a lot about him, except for one thing.

“How come you stayed in Canyon Cove?” I asked.

“Actually I didn’t. After I got my law degree I moved to New York City for a while. I lived there until about a year ago when I decided to move back.”

“Is that why you’re so close to Gunnar?”

“He and I have been friends a long time. When I got to New York, I used to join him and his other ad friends going to the bar and picking up women. I’m almost embarrassed to admit it was like a sport for us.”

“Why did you stop?” I asked.

“Because that wasn’t me. We had a lot of fun for a while, but eventually it didn’t matter to me. I realized I wanted more.”

“Is that when you moved back?”

“No, that’s when I met Bryn. Bryn and I connected right away. She was an attorney at another law firm. She was smart, beautiful, and I didn’t know it at the time, but she was taken.” Brent’s face hardened. “I guess I have a type,” he muttered.

“What do you mean?”

He cleared his throat.

“Never mind,” he said. “Bryn told me she was in a loveless relationship. She said they had been together for a long time but never broke up because it was easier to keep things as they were. She said he had other women and she had me. It wasn’t what I wanted though, I wanted a relationship. By the time she told me about her relationship, I had already fallen in love.”

I thought about my own bad relationships and how sometimes love made a person do things they wouldn’t normally do.

“I tried to keep the relationship the way it was. Bryn made it easy to forget she was with someone else. She never spoke about him, she was free to see me whenever I wanted, every thing was great as long as I didn’t think about the truth,” he said.

“So what happened?”

“I was out one night with Gunnar and the guys. We were out celebrating when the man at a nearby table proposed. They were passing out champagne to celebrate and that’s when I saw the woman was Bryn. She was radiant and happy wearing the ring he just gave her. I couldn’t pretend anymore.” Brent silently steered up a small hill. “I decided New York wasn’t all it was cracked up to be so I started my own practice here in Canyon Cove.”

“Do you ever think about her?”

“No, not really,” he said. “Honestly I question whether I really loved her or if it was just some childish crush. I learned a lot from it though.”

Brent stopped his car in front of a set of wide gates. A guard stepped out from the building to get a better look, then waved to Brent as he pressed the button to open the gates.

I had heard about the Canyon Coast section before, but never knew anyone who had been there. Canyon Coast was a small group of mansions on the top of a hill that overlooked the ocean.

The houses didn’t look like anything spectacular from the street, but I had heard what made these homes special was their view.

Brent pulled into a driveway that sloped down behind a Craftsman style home. The underground garage opened as we approached and inside Brent had a collection of exotic cars. The garage was big enough to house three of my apartments.

As we got out of the car, Brent held his hand out to me.

“Come, I’m sure you want that shower,” he said as we entered the house.

Shade was waiting as we entered the house. His tail wagged with such force, his entire body wiggled. I knelt down to say hello to him and he knocked me over as he excitedly rubbed his head against me.

“Shade, I’ve told you before, a little wine and some dinner and then you can knock them over,” Brent said.

“I guess he’s used to you having a lot of women over?” I asked, trying to keep my jealousy in check.

“No, not unless you count family. I told you, I’m not that guy.”

I wanted to believe him, but in the back of my mind I kept thinking about his proposition. Why else would he want me there if he wasn’t that guy? He was the one who said it was only for one night.

Brent led me through the house and upstairs to a large bedroom that faced the back of the house. The wall was all glass and even though it was dark, I could make out the lights of a couple of small fishing boats on the water.

I followed Brent into the bathroom and couldn’t believe how huge it was. The shower was it’s own room. It had several shower heads on the walls and each one had a line of jets underneath it. Just outside the open doorway for the shower was a control box for steam and to control the jet spray.

“Wow,” I said. “You weren’t kidding when you said you had a shower.”

He smiled and pulled me against him.

“Mind if I join you?” he asked, his voice husky.

My heart pounded in my chest. It had been so long since I was with anyone, I was afraid I’d explode on first contact. I bit my lip and swallowed nervously as he turned the shower on.

Brent undressed me slowly. Peeling each layer of clothing off as he gently caressed my body. I entered the shower and let the warm water run over my skin as I watched him take his clothes off.

His shoulders rippled as he removed his shirt, exposing his perfect abs. I could have stared at his stomach muscles all day, but once he was completely naked my eyes moved to his stiff manhood.

Brent entered the shower and his hands immediately cupped my face, pulling me up to his lips. His tongue slipped against mine before he pulled away and grinned.

“You wanted a shower first,” he said as a smile tugged at his lips.

He reached for the soap and lathered it up in his hands. His strong hands moved over my body as he bathed me. As the water rinsed the soap from my skin, his mouth claimed the spot. I was getting dizzy between the combination of his smooth hands with the hunger of his lips.

I wondered if he was secretly torturing me and getting back at me for hating him so much. But if this was my punishment, I would keep doing the crime.

Once he was done with the soap, he kissed me hungrily. I held onto his slick skin as the jets of the shower burst against us.

“This is one,” he said as our eyes met.

“One?”

“I told you I would keep count.”

His lips slipped over my neck and down my collar bone as his hands grasped my ass firmly. He lowered himself, kissing me as he went, until he was kneeling in front of me.

Gingerly he lifted my leg, as his fingers moved over my sex. His smiled slyly as I leaned against the shower wall.

He kissed my inner thigh and then sucked where it met the rest of my body. I giggled and his eyes darted up before his lips moved closer to my sex.