SheLikesHimBad (4 page)

Her proclamation shook him. He knew it probably wasn’t wise
to have a fling with her, but he was sorely tempted. And he didn’t believe for
a second he was the only one who felt that way. Was she afraid of the way he
made her feel? Why was she forever running from him? He guessed he should be
used to their tired old story by now.

He shrugged. “Your choice. Sometimes it’s nice to not have
to worry about strings.”

“I don’t have casual sex,” she informed him coolly.

“Interesting. Then what would you call what we just did?”

“Stupidity. A one-time-only deal.”

Now that stung, even if he had been thinking along the same
lines not too long ago. “Is this ice queen routine something you only reserve
for lowly country boys like me, or are you always a bitch?”

He surprised her with that one, he could tell. Her eyes
snapped with fire.

“You’re every bit as much of an arrogant jerk now as you
were when I left, Jackson Fielding.” Having delivered her final shot, she spun
away from him. She turned back when she reached the door. “I hope I never see
you again.” And then she slammed her way out.

It wasn’t until after she was gone that he noticed her bra
flung halfway across the room. Feeling unaccountably grim, he retrieved it.
Damned if he didn’t hold it up to his nose for one last scent of her. Vanilla.
It was hard to believe she still had the ability to get under his skin. Harder
still to believe their frantic sex had even happened. It seemed like a dream.

Tink whined from his crate in the mudroom, bringing Jackson
back to earth. He hated that she could still tear him up. He hated that he
still wanted her. Maybe his dog could distract him from his stupidity. It was
worth a try, at least. Time to take Tink for a long, head-clearing walk.

* * * * *

She needed junk food and she needed it fast. There was only
one way to cure what ailed her, and it involved ice cream and copious amounts
of nacho cheese. Emma was in the frozen section of Taylor Markets, the only
grocery store in Paradise. It looked exactly the same as she remembered, with
low, open cases that had been in use since the seventies. They were still
closed on Sundays. They still sold dollar lunches in their café. Some things
never changed.

Like the way she felt about Jackson.

She wanted to kick herself. She’d been rude and cold,
desperate to escape before she made any more of a fool of herself. Being with
him had done strange things to her. She hated to admit that what she’d felt
with him in his kitchen had been more than she’d felt in the year she’d been
with Rob.

Combined.

It was truly a sad testament to the state of her personal
life. She reached into the frozen case and liberated a pint of vanilla-caramel
ice cream. What was wrong with her? She’d come back to Paradise to lie low,
recuperate from the train wreck of a relationship she’d recently ended. She
definitely hadn’t come back to relive her high school days. So how was it that
she ended up naked with Jackson on her first day back in town?

“Emma Lee, is that you?”

She looked up from her thorough perusal of the ice cream
selection to find her oldest friend Leah approaching her. She was pushing a
shopping cart with a cute baby girl seated in the front.

Genuine happiness filtered through her. “Leah, it’s so good
to see you.”

Over the years, they’d stayed in touch through email and
social media, occasionally reaching out to one another. But this was the first
time she’d seen Leah in person since high school. Time had been fair to her,
she reflected. Her figure was great, especially considering the age of the
toddler in her cart. She was still as pretty as ever, with dark, curly hair and
bright-blue eyes.

“Good to see you too, stranger.” Leah gave her a quick hug.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were in town?”

“It was kind of a last-minute decision,” she hedged, too
embarrassed to reveal she’d needed to get away from L.A. in a hurry. After all,
she hardly wanted to make a public service announcement that her boyfriend had
been cheating on her.

“How long have you been here?”

“I got in last night.” She glanced back to the happily
gurgling toddler. “Who is this?”

“This is my daughter Ashley.”

“She’s gorgeous, Leah. Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” She bestowed a proud-mama smile on her daughter.
“I think she is too, but of course I’m partial.”

For the first time, Emma experienced a twinge of envy. Maybe
it was because she was turning the dreaded thirty and was still single and
childless. Maybe it was because she’d started to notice laugh lines bracketing
her eyes that no longer disappeared when her face was relaxed. Actually, it was
probably a combination of many things. She couldn’t keep herself from
wondering. What would it be like to have a comfortable, settled life with a man
she loved?

Jackson’s face flashed through her mind.
Hold it right
there.
She was going to be locked away in a padded cell somewhere if she
kept this up. Emma was losing it.

She dragged her mind back to the conversation. “It’s great
to see you. We should do lunch while I’m here.”

“I’d love that.” Leah’s smile was genuine, so different from
the injected and whitened barracuda grins she’d come to expect from ladies who
lunch in L.A.

In some ways, coming back home wasn’t as difficult as she’d
thought it would be. Though it scared her to admit it, there were aspects of
life in Paradise she’d missed.
Gasp.
If her inner monologue had had a
sound track, it would’ve played screeching brakes. What the hell was wrong with
her?

They exchanged numbers with promises to text in the next few
days to set up a concrete time and place. Emma was only slightly ashamed of the
heart attack-inducing contents of her shopping basket. Luckily, Leah didn’t
comment on it before she went on her way.

That didn’t, however, preclude the gum chewing,
super-pierced teen manning the checkout from speaking her mind. Much to Emma’s
dismay.

“This looks like my cousin’s last splurge before she went to
fat camp,” the girl observed as she ran a bag of frozen onion rings across the
scanner. “You gonna eat all this yourself?”

Emma fought and lost a battle against mortification. She
forced a smile. “Sure am. I’m treating myself.”

The clerk’s eye makeup looked as if it had been applied by a
wily band of raccoons. Black eyeliner was liberally smudged everywhere. A tiny
diamond stud winked from her right nostril. She ran the last item, a now
melting tub of ice cream, across the belt. “Well, have a great time then. Will
that be cash, credit or debit?”

“I will,” Emma gritted. “And it will be cash.”

She paid the girl, grabbed her bags, and hightailed it out
of the store feeling as if a cloud of infamy followed her. She told herself
that even if she was bingeing on food, at least she wasn’t suffering from a
massive teenage forehead breakout.

By the time her mama found her a few hours later, she was
bawling her eyes out while watching a movie she’d last seen when she was a
sophomore at Paradise High. There was evidence of her food extravaganza all
over the coffee table.

“Emma Lee, what on earth is wrong with you?” her mother
demanded. “Where did all this food come from?”

“The grocery store,” Emma answered around a mouthful of
deep-fried cheese sticks. So much for watching her diet.

Mama slapped her hands on her hips and glared at her. “Did
something happen between you and Jackson?”

Sweet Lord in heaven.
Something
was such an
understatement.
Something
was way off the mark, in fact. A bout of wild,
life-changing sex had happened. But she couldn’t tell her mother that. God no.
She’d sooner go through the checkout back at Taylor Markets with a whole new
supply of pig-out food.

“Nothing at all,” she lied with a fake smile. “I dropped him
off just like you asked, and then I picked up a few things at the grocery
store.”

Her mother narrowed her eyes. “I don’t believe you.”

How was it that twenty-four hours in her childhood home
could make her feel like a tween sneaking cigarettes after school? “Don’t
believe me if you don’t want. It’s true, though.”

“Good. Then you won’t be upset that I invited him for dinner
tonight.”

She sat up, crumbs skittering to the floor unnoticed.
“What?”

“I invited Jackson over for dinner.” Her mother winked.
“It’ll be like old times.”

She’d had more than enough of old times this morning. It was
all the proof she needed they couldn’t interact as mature adults. They were
either bickering or having insane sex, neither of which was productive or a
good idea.

“Mama, I came here to get away from people and spend some
quality time with you,” she protested. “I don’t want to have dinner with my
high school boyfriend. I can’t even stand him.”

Okay, so that was the biggest lie she’d told so far. But her
mother didn’t need to know that.

“Oh honey.” Her mother sat next to her on the sofa and slid
a comforting arm around her shoulders. “I know you’re upset about that awful
ex-boyfriend of yours, but it’s not good to hide away from the world. You have
to snap out of this blue mood. Besides, I’m fixing my famous beef brisket. Been
working on it since yesterday. It’s too much for just you and me.”

Mama’s beef brisket was legendary and delicious. She hadn’t
had it in years. “I don’t eat meat,” she offered. “I can’t eat beef brisket.”

“I’m sorry.” Her mother flicked her platinum hair in a faux
innocent gesture. “I didn’t realize cheese sticks were a diet plan.”

It was Emma’s turn to pin her mother with a narrowed glare.
“Whatever. I’m on vacation.”

“Then you can eat my beef brisket.”

“Not if Jackson is coming for dinner I can’t.”

“Honey, you’re being a child. I already invited him.”

She almost retorted
am not
, but even she could see
the irony in that. “So uninvite him.”

“Why, that would be rude.” Her mother patted her knee with a
well-manicured hand. Her nails were perpetually hot pink. “You’re just going to
have to be nice. You weren’t rude to him this morning, were you?”

She almost choked as an image of his face between her legs
rose in her mind. “I was perfectly polite.” Well, sort of.

“I hope you were. He’s a very nice man. You could certainly
do worse, you know.”

“Mama, don’t even go there. I didn’t come back here so I
could reconnect with Jackson Fielding. In fact, the last thing I need in the
world is another man right now. I’ve had my fill, thank you very much.”

Her mother gave her a critical look. “You’ve had your fill
of junk food, that’s for sure.”

“Nothing like boosting a girl’s self-esteem,” she grumbled.

“You know what I mean, honey.”

Her mother was right, she secretly acknowledged. Stuffing
her face with calories wasn’t going to make her feel any better. “Mothers,” she
muttered.

Jean had the nerve to laugh. “Daughters. They’ll make you
crazy unless you marry them off to the right man.”

“Mama.”

“Just kidding, hon.” She gave Emma’s knee another pat.

Emma didn’t believe she was kidding. Not for an instant.

* * * * *

By the time the doorbell rang later that evening, Emma had
resigned herself to seeing Jackson again. She couldn’t avoid him. It would be
too obvious. Besides, like she’d said to him that morning, they were adults.
She could spend time in his company without melting into a puddle of lust.
Couldn’t she?

She stopped to check her reflection in the hallway mirror.
Her hair was being uncooperative thanks to the Georgia water. Was her go-to
black dress cut too low for a casual dinner? And why had she gone with nude lip
gloss?

“Emma Lee, could you get the door?” her mother asked from
the kitchen.

The delicious scent of Jean’s famous beef brisket wafted out
to Emma, making her stomach growl. So much for trying to stay on track with her
diet. Not even two days back in Paradise, and she had already broken all her
rules.

The biggest rule of all was not to fall into bed with
ex-boyfriends. Of course, she could technically argue the point with herself.
After all, they’d had sex in the kitchen. Maybe that effectively voided her
indiscretion?

“Emma, honey?”

“Getting it,” she called back, feeling like a
twelve-year-old who was trying to sneak out of doing her chores.

She took one last look at herself before going to do her
mother’s bidding. She could survive the evening if she kept a tight rein on the
inappropriate thoughts crowding her brain. She would not think about his tongue
inside her. She would not think about what that gorgeous body of his looked
like under his clothes. Above all, she would not think about him sucking her
clit.

But when she opened the door, her good intentions dissipated
because there he was, Jackson Fielding, one hundred percent sex god, standing
on her mama’s porch. He was casual in jeans and a white shirt that fit him to
mouthwatering perfection. He grinned and she felt arrows of desire zinging
directly into her. Why did he have to be so damn good looking? It wasn’t fair.

“You’re late,” she told him, aware she’d been staring and
needing to divert his attention.

His sculpted lips kicked into a wry grin. “Good to see you
again too.”

She belatedly noticed he was carrying a wine bottle in one
hand and a small wrapped package in another. He held the package out to her.
“This is for you. Open it later when you’re alone.”

Her curiosity went into overdrive. Emma had been the kind of
kid who tirelessly hunted down all her Christmas presents and then re-hid them
without her mother ever being the wiser. She loathed suspense. Open it alone?
What the heck did that mean?

Emma frowned. “It’s not going to explode, is it?”