Hot in Here (2 page)

Jenna McCabe.

Bryce scrutinized the familiar long strawberry blond hair and the smattering of freckles over the bridge of

her nose. He saw her blue-green eyes flash beneath copper-colored lashes, and watched the way she

toyed with the plastic sword that held the slice of banana and the cherry in her drink.

She looked like Jenna McCabe, pretty in a girl-next-door sort of way. She was dressed as she usually

was, tailored, simple. Nothing risky. Nothing sexy. The black wide-legged pants and red blouse she

wore spoke of professionalism and intelligence.

She was dressed like Jenna. She looked like Jenna. But this air of confidence, this undercurrent of

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distaste and, dare he say, disapproval was most un-Jenna like.

“Bryce, did you really say you liked your women fast and easy?”

Damn him, he blushed. He never blushed. But the way Jenna was staring him down, like he was a

Neanderthal dragging his knuckles on the ground, made him feel ashamed.

And why should he? He was a rich bachelor. He played the field. Big deal. He had nothing to be

ashamed of. He had no ties, and no desire to make them, either. Playing the field was what he wanted

out of life, and he was not going to be embarrassed about it, nor was he going to be cornered into

anything permanent. No way.

Shit.How many guys his age were doing the very same thing, scoring a different chick every night? Hell, it

was a rite of passage for his generation. And he wasn’t fucking apologizing for it, either. Not even to

sweet, little country-faced-girl-next-door Jenna McCabe.

Bucking up, he sat straight up in his seat and pressed forward, catching and holding her gaze above the

dinner candle that flickered gently. The sooner she realized that the guy she’d known in high school was

long gone, the better it’d be for her, and him. Because, truth be told, he was damn tired of seeing that

sad, disappointed look in her eye whenever she saw him. More than that, though, he hated the feel of the

gut rot that gnawed his insides whenever he thought of being a failure in Jenna’s eyes. Not that her

opinion meant shit, of course.

Keep telling yourself that, and one day you might actually believe it.

“You know I’m easily bored. It takes a lot to capture my notice, and even more to hold it.”

Something flickered in her eyes, but she didn’t back off. “And the other?” she asked, her voice dropping,

giving it a husky tone he’d never, ever imagined she possessed. “Did you flaunt the fact that you’ve made

millions on your cookbooks and your cable TV show, and all from the hard-earned cash of those

housewives you secretly mock?”

A muscle worked in his jaw. How could she even ask him such a thing? Yeah, he was a horn dog, but he

wasn’t a complete asshole. Had he really sunk that far in her eyes?

“I can’t believe you’re buying into everything that rag mag is saying, Jenna. You of all people should

know me better than that. We’ve been friends for a decade.”

“Have we?” Her expression appeared startled and the look in her eyes made his gut churn even more. “I

wouldn’t exactly say we were friends for all those years. More like acquaintances.”

Well, wasn’t that a kick to the middle?

Startled by his sudden, violent reaction, Bryce reached for his beer and chugged it back, using the

seconds to try to find his footing, while attempting not to examine his feelings. But it was no use. One

look into those soft eyes and he was thinking—remembering. Yes. He’d thought of her as a friend—hell,

his best friend. And she . . . she had thought of him as what? An associate? A social contact?

What the fuck?

“Look, just answer the question, Bryce. I’m not here to judge you. I’m on your side, remember?”

“Yeah, you are on my side. And you’re on it because I’m spending an outrageous amount of money to

cover your fee. So you’re damn straight you’re on my side.”

The old Jenna would have shrugged and dropped the topic like hot coals. She might have even gotten a

little teary-eyed—she had always been such a sensitive thing. But the new, confident Jenna didn’t so

much as blink at the arrogance he heard in his own voice. This new Jenna wasn’t going to be cowed by

his asinine show of male dominance.

Every woman he had dated in the past five years had been the polar opposite of Jenna. All of them had

been self-absorbed, stunningly beautiful and sexually experienced. And all of them couldn’t have cared

less about him. They wanted to see and be seen. Those women didn’t talk to him—not really. Not about

anything more meaningful than “What are we doing tonight and what should I wear?”

And none of those women had been more heartless than Chrissy Smithson. Chrissy and her conniving

ways had pretty much ruined him for any other woman—most especially the nice, settling-down types.

But Jenna was different. A different kind of woman from Chrissy and all the nameless others. Jenna was

comfortable. Someone you could just hang around with while tossing back a few beers. She wasn’t one

of these high-drama diva types. She was as low maintenance as a woman could be. But what he liked the

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most was that Jenna was nonthreatening. She wasn’t out for a slice of his financial portfolio, and she

didn’t use her body to get him into bed. Jenna was just Jenna. With Jenna he didn’t have to be on guard,

always wondering what her underlying motives were. With Jenna he was just Bryce, and for once he

could be himself.

“Okay,” she muttered, licking her lips before taking a sip of her chocolate martini. “I know thatCelebrity

Gossip is infamous for taking stories and exaggerating them. And truthfully, ‘he said, she said’ no longer

matters. What matters is your business empire. It’s pretty much going to hell in a handbasket.”

She didn’t even blink as she trashed his ego with her analysis. This definitely was not the Jenna he had

known since junior year of high school. This was the powerhouse marketing genius, confident in her

abilities, glowing with the ideas of some brilliant plan she was secretly masterminding.

And, God, what a turn-on to watch her like this.

The mad thought broadsided him and he stole a look at her over the rim of his beer glass. His cock

suddenly stirred behind his fly, testament to the fact that watching Jenna like this, all confidence and

brains, was having an unsettling effect on his dick.

If he hadn’t poured the beer himself, he would have sworn someone had slipped some libido-enhancing

drug into his glass, because now he was as hard as he’d ever been in his life, and he couldn’t keep his

gaze from slipping down to her lips and imagining what that plump red mouth would feel like wrapped

around his cock.

“What?” she asked, her brow creasing. “You’re frowning. I’m sorry if I ticked you off with that last

comment about your empire going down the toilet, but let’s be truthful here.”

Yeah. Truthful. That was what he needed to be. And the truth was, Jenna wasn’t his type of woman. She

was sexually inexperienced (as far as he knew) and a little too heavy for his tastes. Not that she was big,

but compared to the size zeros and ones he was used to getting naked with—well, Jenna wasn’t exactly

small. She had much more tits and ass than what he normally went for.

“Wholesome” was how he would describe her. And he definitely wasn’t into wholesome. He wanted the

sex bomb, not the milkmaid.

No, the truth was, he admired her brain and her success. She’d made herself a name in the world of

marketing and PR, despite the cutthroat industry and her lack of finances when she had started up. She

was a force to be reckoned with in business. But the business of being a woman had never come easily

to Jenna. And as a consequence, Bryce had never had aserious sexual thought about her.

Until tonight.

Until she sat up straight and made him take notice. Until she picked up that damn plastic sword and

pulled the glistening red cherry, dripping with its juice, into her mouth with the tips of her perfect white

teeth.

Oh, hell, yeah, he was taking notice.

Bryce almost choked, watching her tongue flicking along the tip of the red plastic, lapping at a

rose-colored drop of maraschino cherry syrup.

His raging hard-on burst to life in his pants, rearing up as if trying to connect with her mouth so it, too,

could feel what it was like to be cleaned up by Jenna’s flicking tongue. Suddenly the thought of his dick

drenched in syrup had merits, but only if he could watch Jenna lap it clean like she was doing with that

innocent bit of plastic. Bryce swallowed hard, trying to get a hold on his rampant, surprising lust, not to

mention the naughty visual of Jenna on her knees sucking him off.

He tried to remind himself that this was Jenna McCabe, high school friend. Jenna was not a sex kitten

hidden behind a red wrap blouse. Jenna was safe, and he liked temptation. Jenna was . . .Shit, he

thought, watching her run her tongue along the sword in slow, erotic flicks. Jenna was hot as hell and he

was getting singed.

“What?” she asked, her voice husky.

He reached for his napkin and fought the urge to wipe his brow with it. Jesus Christ, what was happening

here? Jenna showed him a bit of a spine and a dose of feminine self-confidence and he was ready to

throw her down on the table and get sweaty with her? What the hell was the matter with him?

“Bryce?”

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A hallucination came out of nowhere, of Jenna sliding onto his lap, straddling his legs, her voice a husky

purr. Hell, he could almost feel the weight of her body on his lap, of her heart-shaped ass filling his hands.

And suddenly he knew that fleshy ass would feel so fucking good in his palms as he kneaded her while

she rode him.

“Bryce? Are you okay?”

Blinking, he looked around. The vision of Jenna naked, riding his cock, slowly dissipated until all he saw

was the familiar sights of his restaurant. Turning his head, Bryce expected to see the woman he’d invited

to supper. Instead, he saw someone else. Someone totally new. Someone totally hot and completely

wrong for him.

“Is it getting hot in here?” he croaked.

Caving, he snatched the white linen square from the table and mopped his sweating brow. She shifted

and leaned across the table, her breasts pressed provocatively together, giving him a tease as they inched

up over the neckline of her blouse. She was well endowed—he’d always known that—but damn, he

didn’t know how much he liked it or the silky cleavage he couldn’t stop staring at.

He found himself imagining what her bra was like beneath the soft fabric. Imagined getting his hand up it,

feeling her up as he whispered something naughty in her ear.

“If this is too much for you,” she said, “we can talk about it in the morning.”

Too much? Little Jenna McCabe too much forhim —for Bryce Ryder, the man who had any woman he

wanted? The man who never wanted for sex?

His mouth tried to work, tried to make a sound. But he couldn’t. He just sat there like a mute idiot, still

wondering if the bra beneath the blouse was soft and silky, or sexy and lacy. And that was when he

realized that maybe she really was too much for him. Because for the first time since he’d been a virgin,

he felt awkward and unsure around a woman.

“I’m hot as hell,” he finally managed to choke out, his gaze drifting along her body. He shook his head.

Blinked. And still saw Jenna sitting across from him, looking totally sex kittenish, totally kissable. Totally

doable.

“I’d better get to the kitchen,” he muttered, trying to shimmy out of the booth and still hide his massive

hard-on from her.

“Yeah,” she drawled. “You better. Itis getting kind of hot in here.”

Kinda? Ten more seconds, and he would have lost all sanity and tossed her on top of the table, tasting

her mouth and pussy like they were the finest chocolate in the world.

And he fricking loved chocolate.

“Tyson,” he barked, as he plowed through the swinging kitchen door. “Where’s the appetizer?”

“I’m just coming out with it.”

“Good. And, Mark, get a move on with the main course.”

“What?” his sous chef said with a teasing smile. “The wining and dining not going so well?”

No, it was going too well. Hell, on his present course, he’d be eating dessert off of Jenna’s tits. An image

came to him, of chocolate and warm caramel trickling between her cleavage, and him licking it off,

offering it to her on his tongue for a taste.

That was the way dessert was meant to be eaten—off a body and shared with tongues.

The fly of his trousers grew tighter.Friends, he reminded himself.Just friends.

Steeling himself, he went back to the table, where Jenna was just reaching for a bread stick. This dinner

was a business meeting. Pure and simple. He needed Jenna and her remarkable PR skills.

He didnot need her in any other capacity.

As he slid into the booth, his cock twitched in his pants, once again growing hard and stiff—damn achy,

and just a tad spiteful. While his brain told him he didn’t need Jenna, his hard-on was telling him the

complete opposite.

“Everything okay now?” she asked.