Читать книгу Look At Me - Cara Lockwood, Cara Lockwood - Страница 12

CHLOE COULD BARELY sleep as she thought about what that message might mean. Did he want her to join him? Or join him and her? A threesome? Chloe thought about the woman’s amazing body and instantly shelved that thought. No way could she get naked in the same room as that runway model. She wasn’t about to let her muffin top compare to the skin-and-bones double-zero. Chloe had curves, and that meant that sometimes they jiggled when they weren’t supposed to. Maybe Jackson hadn’t really invited her over for sex. Maybe he was just calling her out on her snooping? She couldn’t figure it out, no matter how hard she thought about it.

Part of her was embarrassed—after all, she’d watched her neighbor have sex and hadn’t turned away. Granted, they’d left the windows open, but still. It violated basic rules of decency, and Chloe knew it, yet she couldn’t help but feel even more intrigued by Jackson now that she knew he was so...endowed. Part of her wanted to tell him she did want to do more than watch. Ugh. Did that make her a raging slut? Probably. Or was she just looking after her own needs? Just look at the man! Gorgeous. Rich. Probably never intimidated in any locker room he ever entered. Chloe felt her face flush once more, the image of him naked flitting through her mind. Her running shoes pounded the pavement taking her east to the running trail on Lake Michigan.

After crossing a few intersections, she took the underground pedestrian tunnel to the lakefront and then wound her way north on the running trail, the sun rising above the pristine blue water, looking expansive across the horizon, so large it seemed impossible that it was fresh water and not the salty sea. The waves broke on the sandy beach as she ran, her heart thudding. The air got warmer while the sun rose in the sky and sweat broke out across her lower back. Just a few more feet, she thought to herself, and then she turned around, heading back to her apartment. This morning she’d shower. She’d put on something cute. Maybe even put on makeup.

Trying to impress Jackson? Hoping he gets a glimpse of you? Are you going to tell him he made you touch yourself last night?

Part of her wondered if he’d like to know.

She bit her lip. She’d taken the flirting to a new level when she’d watched him last night. She’d crossed a line. And that was probably his girlfriend. She couldn’t get involved with a man who was so clearly involved and deeply intimate with someone else. She remembered just how deeply as she thought of his long, hard thrusts.

Though the woman hadn’t stayed the night. That still didn’t mean anything. There could be a million reasons for that. She was coveting her sexy neighbor, but he was in a relationship, and Chloe wasn’t going to cross that line.

Was she? She bit her lip.

She ran back to her apartment, punching in the code to her place and trotting up the stairs and swiping the sweat off her forehead. She tried to catch her breath, convinced that the best thing to do was just ignore the message. Wasn’t that the right thing? Yet, as she eyed the message—still in his window that morning—she felt a little shiver run down the back of her knees.

Next time, want to do more than watch?

Hell, yes, she thought to herself. She did. She wanted to do so much more than watch. Yet what was she thinking? Was she seriously going to jump into bed with her neighbor? What happened if she did and...the sex was terrible? Or worse, he broke things off? How would she feel living next door to an ex?

All rational thought told her that fooling around with her neighbor was a bad idea.

The cold water from the shower flushed a little of her desire down the drain, but her brain still buzzed with Jackson’s invitation. She wanted to ask him a million questions, she needed to know exactly what he was offering.

She remembered the dark tattoos on his shoulder. Wings of some kind. She wanted to see them up close. To touch them. Read the inscription, if there was one. Ask him why he got them.

But he lives next door. This could be a disaster.

She thought about Ryan. He’d be telling her to go for it, no doubt. She almost imagined his hearty congratulations if she told him she’d finally found a rebound from Kevin. Hadn’t Ryan just told her she needed to put Kevin behind her...and be more social?

Still, was she really going to do this?

Chloe hesitated. She still hadn’t decided what to do about his message. Ignore it? Reply?

She glanced out her window, seeing the words there as clear as day, his third floor dark. Was he still sleeping? Had he left for work while she was out running?

She suddenly imagined herself writing a message on her window and then his blinds popping up, and him catching her in the act. The idea was mortifying. She wasn’t even sure she could bear to look him in the eye after last night.

Chloe decided to ignore the message and booted up her computer. Then, after answering a few emails, she glanced once more at her neighbor’s darkened windows. He might be at work. She might be able to send him a message. But what?

No. That was crazy. Why would she write him a message? Just let it go, Chloe, she told herself. Just pretend none of it ever happened.

Except that she couldn’t. Even as she tried to focus on work, her attention kept wandering back to Jackson’s darkened windows, to the message he left for her there. She couldn’t forget his amazingly chiseled body, his blue eyes watching her.

She didn’t have a bar of soap to write on her window, so opted for a pad of sticky notes. Her window was large, and she began laying out her message, using the notes to form letters. Then she stopped and ripped them all down. She glanced at Jackson’s darkened windows. She was crazy for replying to this, wasn’t she? She had to be crazy.

She glanced at the pink sticky notes in her hand. Maybe she was crazy. She started again before she lost her nerve.

Jackson sat at his desk in his office at Drake Properties, flipping a pen around his fingers, thinking about the dream he’d had the night before. He’d dreamed of Chloe, standing on the other side of a full glass window, wearing nothing but cherry-red heels. He hadn’t been able to pay attention to even a single email this morning, as he wondered what Chloe had done when she saw his message that morning.

He knew he’d taken a risk putting the message on his window, but a man like him didn’t build an empire without taking risks. He had seen the want on her face, knew that if he pushed hard—but not too hard—she might just wind up in his bed. How he wanted to know what she was like. Did she just like to watch? Or would she perform, too?

What was she doing right then? He hoped crafting a response. The thought made him smile. He’d never been so aroused by a woman’s eyes before. By her dark, sensual eyes. She’d watched him and Annaliese boldly, almost without fear. He couldn’t wait to see what she’d be like in person, when there wasn’t a window between them. He wanted to explore her darkest places.

“Mr. Drake? Call on line one. A Miss Smith?” his assistant asked through the intercom on his desk.

Jackson felt snapped back into reality. That was Laurie, his ex, on the line.

“Send her to voice mail, please,” Jackson called to the intercom.

Just then, a new message popped up on his phone. From Laurie.

I need to talk to you. Please. Call me.

He hit Delete again, and then he thought about blocking her. She wasn’t taking no for an answer, and it irked him.

There’s nothing to talk about. We’re done.

She quickly wrote back, But I love you.

Please.

She didn’t know what love was. She knew all about betrayal and deception and greed, but nothing about love. Jackson saw the flashing red light on his phone, indicating the voice mail left by Laurie, and quickly hit Delete without bothering to listen to it. He didn’t have time for such nonsense. She was obsessed with his money, nothing more.

He finished the first offer letter to Kent for the 1209 property and sent it off, pretty certain that it would be flat-out rejected. It was below market value of the building, but Jackson had to start somewhere. He figured they’d eventually meet in the middle if Kent really was serious about selling to him and this wasn’t just some elaborate game. It could be. Kent no doubt would love the idea of just toying with Jackson, making him believe he had a chance at a property that Kent had no intention of selling. Kent didn’t care so much about wasting their time as he did about annoying Jackson. Honestly, the man should get a hobby. Or a wife to keep him busy. Something.

Still, he liked the idea of being Chloe’s landlord. He knew he could take better care of her and her building than Kent ever would. He liked the thought of dropping in, asking her if anything in her apartment needed fixing. There were certain things he’d like to fix right now, like the fact that he wanted to see her naked. In his bed.

This made him wonder if she’d responded to his question yet. He glanced at his calendar, which was thin for the rest of the afternoon. Maybe he’d just pop home and see.

He walked out of his office and saw Hailey typing at her desk. Then he remembered Chloe’s smashed phone and the devastated look on her face when he’d returned her mangled device.

“Oh, Hailey, do we have any extra smartphones? I need a backup,” he said.

Hailey didn’t miss a beat as she turned to fetch a key from her drawer to unlock a cabinet near her knees. She pulled out a box and handed it to him.

“And a manila envelope, please?”

She handed it to him, no questions asked.

“Thanks, Hailey. I’ll be back in an hour or so. Let me know if anything urgent comes in.”

“Will do, sir,” she said, and nodded at him, and then turned her attention back to her computer.

Jackson tucked the new phone into the envelope, and thought Chloe would be surprised when he showed up with a replacement for her smashed one. He remembered how absolutely brokenhearted she looked when she saw her phone fall from her window. She wouldn’t have been sitting there if they hadn’t been moving in, and so he figured the least he could do was replace it.

He liked the idea of getting her a gift, and whistled to himself as he took the elevator down to the parking garage. A quick drive home in his Maserati meant that he was pulling into the parking space near his condo a few minutes later. He glanced up, clearly seeing her message to him. It was spelled out in Post-it notes on her window.

Maybe.

He grinned. Maybe she wanted to do more than watch? Well, he’d have to get to work on convincing her he was worth the trouble. He carried the envelope holding the brand-new phone he’d taken from his office as a replacement for her cracked one. He scribbled a quick note there on the porch and slipped the piece of paper into the manila envelope. He took the package and laid it on top of her mailboxes and then rang her buzzer.

Chloe heard the buzzer, but finished the posts she was doing for her client on Instagram. She figured it was just another package delivery, though she couldn’t remember what she’d ordered exactly. She finished up the post and then headed downstairs, swinging open her building’s front door. A manila envelope sat on her mailboxes, addressed to her. Except it had no postage. Or mailing label. Just her name in thick black marker: Chloe Park. There was a small note inside. It read:

Chloe,

“Maybe” sounds like you need more convincing that it’s more fun to do than to watch. Call me if you need the reasons why.

Jackson.

Bewildered, she ripped open the package and found a brand-new smartphone. What the...? Her new, rich, tattoo-clad neighbor had just handed her an eight-hundred-dollar phone. She glanced at the mobile, shocked. Who did that? Someone who owns a Maserati and a whole building.

She fetched her cracked phone from her kitchen table, and then compared it to the sleek new phone. She couldn’t believe this. Was he...for real? He didn’t even know her. She couldn’t accept a gift like this. Besides, what would his leggy, model girlfriend think? The one who showed up at his house not wearing a bra or underwear beneath that microjumper?

She glanced up at his building across the alleyway, but she couldn’t see into his window from this angle, though she saw the blinds were open and it seemed like there might be a light on, but the daylight made it hard to tell. Should she march over there and give this back to him?

Or would he get the wrong idea and think she was there to do more than watch? But maybe that was exactly what she wanted to do.

She studied the phone. She couldn’t keep it. It was too big a gift from someone she didn’t even know.

You know what he looks like naked and you know how he can satisfy a woman. And not only is he up for a booty call, but he gave you the phone to do it.

Still, she told herself, tamping down her naughty thoughts. What if she took the phone and then he expected her to...do things in return?

Then again, that didn’t sound bad. Not bad at all.

No. She had to give the phone back. She couldn’t keep such an expensive gift. Right? It was crazy, wasn’t it? Just as she debated what to do next, the new phone in her hand came to life with a standard ringtone.

What the...?

She glanced down at the phone and realized the thing was on. On and clearly activated, because a call was coming in from Jackson Drake.

Uh...should she answer? Should she ignore it? Why did the man give her a phone with his number programmed into it? No better time than now to tell him she couldn’t accept such a gift.

“Hello?” she said as she pressed the phone to her ear.

“Hey, neighbor.” Jackson’s voice was like melted chocolate. Smooth, sexy, sweet.

“Oh...uh. Hi.” When she looked at her windows, she saw the back of her own blinds. She’d drawn them after the show the night before, not trusting herself not to glance out once more. Her window was still open, though, since she didn’t want to call the AC repair person just yet—not until a few more freelance checks came in. The light in her studio apartment was dim, so she flicked on the kitchen light and went to retrieve some water from the tap.

“I see you got my gift.” His voice, warm, deep, made her own insides go gooey.

“Uh, right...about that... I mean, thank you so much. It’s so generous of you, but...I don’t think I can accept it.”

“You don’t like it?” Now Jackson sounded concerned. She almost felt he might run out and buy her a different one if she’d asked.

“No. No! I love it. I mean it’s an amazing phone.” And it was. The sound quality was so good, and the thing was so light, the screen so big, she knew from the commercials she’d seen that this was the brand-new, just out, must-have model.

“If you love it, then keep it.”

“It’s so expensive, and...I mean...”

“Chloe.” He said her name as if he owned it. The determination in his voice sparked something inside her. Want? Or maybe more primal. Need. His voice rumbled through her chest and settled in her belly. “I have many phones for the Realtors at my office, and so, seriously, I insist. Take one. Otherwise, it’ll just sit in a drawer and not get used.”