Читать книгу Kiss Me Again - Jessa James - Страница 9

I jumped three feet in the air as my new cell vibrated loudly in my pocket, bashing my head hard on the roof of the truck. I’d only picked up the new phone yesterday, a little bonus gift from Callie for doing the work on the app, but I hadn’t had the time to work out the most basic of functions on it yet.

Mom told me to sit down with the manual and work it out, but I had laughed at her – it was such a female thing to do. I’d figure it out. One cell is pretty much like the next after all. I seemed to have lost my gadget obsession as I got older. In the past a new toy would have been dissected in moments, but I was just happy if they did what I needed them to now.

I rubbed my sore head distractedly as I yanked the phone out of my jeans pocket, struggling to make sure my change didn’t follow it out and all over the floor. I really needed new pants, or to hit the pool a bit more often. Just a few weeks in a demanding desk job, with no time to work out at the gym or the pool, had made me fill out slightly in ways I did not want. Though I was grateful that my torso still remained defined as ever, it wouldn’t take too much to get back into shape.

The shocking buzzing had heralded the arrival of an email from “Wooed and Won.”

That will absolutely be the last time I bet on Jake being prepared to eat anything, I thought.

After eating wings drenched in a cayenne pepper sauce and even a whole basketful of fried locusts, he had balked on a simple green olive. Apparently they were his kryptonite. I was sticking by my side of the deal though, but Callie had predicted pretty accurately that there was indeed an army of people who didn’t have the courage to ask anyone out on a date, and somehow her advertising had found all of them.

The app wasn’t exactly bursting with gorgeous, smart and sassy women. It was more of a haven for the quiet, clever, and unusual. Weeding out the candidates was proving tough. Sure they were smart, but social skills and hobbies in common seemed to be zilch, nada! I had already been forced to endure three of the worst dates of my entire life. I just had one left to go on and my end of the bet would be held up. I prayed that whoever had mailed me this time would be more interesting than the best of the bunch so far: a thirty-year-old librarian who collected and crocheted doilies.

Not wanting to crash, I decided to check it out later and jumped out of the cab of my beaten-up old truck and crunched my way up the gravel drive to the back gate.

The sun was still out, the sky a haze of pinks and darkening oranges as it dipped lower towards the horizon, and that meant that everyone would be out back. They’d enjoying the small swimming pool Tom had managed to get for a huge discount when a client at his work had offered to trade skills. Since its arrival the family had barely been found inside the house, they were so excited to have such a luxury. Tom and my mom were always out on the lounge chairs sipping mojitos most days now. Hopefully there would be a few beers in the cooler too.

Today was most definitely not a cocktail kind of a day. My mouth watered at the thought of the promise of a crisp cold beer that’d soon be hitting my taste buds. It had been a rough journey home to Newton. The traffic had been insane as I had crossed the border between Rhode Island and Massachusetts, the usual hour-and-a-half trip taking closer to three hours, and after three all-nighters and two weeks of manic days at the office, I was beat.

My second year as a summer intern at the DA’s office in Providence was proving to be a real eye opener. As an assistant to the Assistant District Attorney I was the lowest of the low, but the experience would look great on my CV. I’d always wanted to be a lawyer, a public defender in fact. I think everyone has the right to a fair trial, and a good defense.

I was picking up a lot about how to build a solid case, and though I was currently on the “wrong” side, I was learning how to make things tough for your opponents, but it was damn hard work! The office often dealt with some pretty heinous crimes, and we were currently trying to get a guy put behind bars where he belonged after he had brutally attacked a convenience store owner and taken every penny he had. He had a great attorney though, and his minions were making things tough for us, trying to bury us with all kinds of motions and wads of paper a mile high. Coming home on the weekends when I could and being with my family helped me unwind, though it always felt like something, someone, was missing.

“Cole, will you take me to the zoo tomorrow, please?” Morgan announced. My adorable half-sister emerged from the pool, dripping wet in a bright red bathing suit with an open-mouthed Elmo emblazoned across the front of it. She held her arms up to me, wanting me to pick her up and swing her around.

“Sure, but don’t you want Mommy and Daddy to take you?”

She shook her tight curly head at me. “You’re more fun, and you always buy me ice cream,” she said thinking about her answer seriously.

I couldn’t help but laugh. I hadn’t been sure that I was ready for a new sister at seventeen, but I adored her even though she reminded me so much of her other half-sibling growing up. The same auburn hair, the bubbly personality, the huge, deep green eyes. It was like we still had a little bit of Lucy here with us. The gap could never be filled, but it sure helped having the munchkin around to keep us all busy.

I picked her up and twirled her round as she giggled maniacally.

“I’d better go and get changed. I’ll be back in a moment,” I explained as I set her down and her cute Cupid’s bow mouth began to pout. I ruffled her wet hair, and gave her a quick kiss. “I won’t be long.”

“Promise?” she asked.

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” I replied without hesitation and stuck out my pinky finger. Morgan quickly shot out her own pinky and wrapped it around mine.

“Deal,” she said and smiled from ear to ear, revealing her dimples once more and then sprinted as fast as she could back into the pool.

“Hey Cole,” Mom said warmly as she emerged with a tray filled with iced drinks.

“They look good,” I said salivating at the sight of the long-necked beer bottles covered in condensation. Mom laughed.

“How long are you staying this time honey?”

“Why, do you want to get rid of me already?” I teased her, knowing she would have been happy for all of us to live at home until the day we died.

“Never, but I know you. You’ll want your space again soon.”

I had to admit that once Morgan had arrived, as much as I loved her, it had gotten a lot noisier and harder to pay attention to my studies and get anything done at home. When the opportunity came to go to UCLA and then to law school at Roger Williams University on full scholarships, I had jumped at them. UCLA, in particular, had been a long way from home and it had been tough being so far away, but it had meant that while Tom had scoured the East Coast schools for Lucy, I had used my weekends to do the same on the West Coast.

When I graduated in the top five of my class, I had won a place at Harvard Law which had been a little closer to home, but the fees had been out of my reach, and with all the competition there had been no financial aid. Roger Williams was a bit farther away and obviously hadn’t got anywhere near as good a reputation, but the scholarship and the money I got from the work from Callie and Jake’s company, Glitch, meant I could afford a nice little apartment to myself. It also helped that I wasn’t too far from where they’d set up their offices in Providence. Having my two best buddies nearby, after two years where the entire continent had separated us for most of the year, was definitely a plus point for Rhode Island.

Jake thought Rhode Island was the best place in the world, and had missed it while we had all been at UCLA together. He couldn’t wait to get home and when his and Callie’s first collaboration started to make them serious money he jumped at the chance to drop out and head back. It suddenly hit me that Callie must truly love him, otherwise why would the sexy Californian not have insisted that she return to her beachfront home on the West Coast?

No, she hadn’t even stopped to think about it, had just upped and left to work with him back east. How had I been so blind? Maybe a bit of that vanity again, like Jake I had always assumed that if she had a crush on anyone that it was probably me. Well, I would do a bit of matchmaking when I got back and push the idiots into each other’s arms where they belonged. Looking back over the years of our friendship, I wondered why I hadn’t picked up on it before - there were just so many clues!

“Just tonight, sadly Mom. I have to get back to the office by Sunday afternoon. We’re having a final strategy meeting before the trial starts on Monday.”

“Then we had best make the most of you. Go and get changed, you must be sweltering. I’m going to try and tear your sister away from the pool and get her to bed. I only let her stay up this long because she knew you were coming. There was no point in even trying, she would have been escaping every five minutes to see if you were here yet! So, if you hear any screams it’s probably me,” she said.

“Well don’t make a liar out of me. I promised Morgan I’d be back to play,” I replied.

“Oh, fine then,” she laughed and rolled her eyes. “She can stay up a while longer. Go get your trunks on.”

I nodded and ran up the stairs and dove into the shower to rinse the accumulation of travel sweat off me.

The shower was cool, and I felt refreshed when I emerged. I pulled on some swimming shorts, and picked up my cell. I remembered the email and quickly pulled it up. It was a notification of a new member who would like to chat. I sighed heavily and clicked on the link to go to the site, not expecting much but figuring this could maybe be my final date requirement and then this hell would all be over.

I was not prepared for the shock I got when I saw the profile picture of the woman who wanted to maybe hook up with me and was forced to sit down on the end of the bed.

In a swirl of conflicting emotions, my spirits soared and my heart sank as I studied the face before me on the screen.

On the one hand, I realized that this candidate could never be my final date to end the bet. No, I’d still need to keep looking for her. I sighed with mild frustration at the prospect of another evening in the company of the lost and unwanted of Rhode Island.

But on the other, as I gazed into the depths of the emerald eyes of this enquirer, hypnotized by her absolute perfection, I was overwhelmed with relief.

Lucy was alive, and by some stroke of luck or fate or both, she was almost within my reach for the first time in years. Closing my eyes, tears threatening, I took a deep breath and finally allowed all the worry and pain to slowly disperse from my body.

Yet I knew that it would definitely take much more than a week of emails and texts to build this one’s trust to meet me for a date.

I could feel my heartbeat pound against my chest.

Thank fuck that I now knew where she was. I’d always tried to keep my hopes in check over the years, never really believing that I’d find her, and yet here she was beaming at me on the screen.

She looked just as spunky, and clearly as determined as ever. The picture showed her in a cap and gown, so I knew she’d graduated college even without family support. You had to admire that.

What a girl Lucy Rivers had always been. Her face was as familiar as my own once, but now I could see the clearer lines and less rounded features of a woman, not a girl. She looked harder, tougher than I remembered her, but her cat-like eyes were still filled with the sadness I had seen in them when she’d left here five years ago with hatred in her heart.

But still, even through the haunted look in her eyes, she looked fantastic. I could feel the usual pull that her closeness had always left me with as a teenager, an ache in my groin and a desire I could never shake. And all this from a tiny profile photo… I could only imagine the effect she would have on me if I were to see her in person.

Yet, how could I possibly let her know who I really was?

She would run a mile, but I had to know she was okay, had to try and rebuild the trust we had once shared. She was the only woman who had ever gotten me so hot and horny I couldn’t think straight, and trying to maintain our lifelong friendship had been tough as we had blundered through our teen years.

God, I remembered that glorious, summer night like it was yesterday. We had so nearly taken everything to the next level… and that incredible kiss still tormented me to this very day.

The perfect moment when we had finally been alone had been unexpectedly interrupted by the news that would change everything, forever. I could still recall the frustration I had felt, my cock so hard and eager, and my body feeling so robbed of the sensation of her soft breasts pressed up against my hard chest, her silky skin under my fingers.

Even now, just thinking of that night alone in her bedroom made my cock twitch with excitement. Oh, I wanted her… still do.

I pushed the urge to explore the memory further as I tried to figure out my next move. My head felt dizzy with indecision.

I should tell Lucy’s dad, Tom, and my Mom that Lucy was okay, that I’d inadvertently found her. They’d want to know she was fine and had fulfilled her dream of being an interior designer. They had a right to know, I told myself, but an almost imperceptible inkling urged me to keep the information under wraps for now.

Guilt swirled in my belly. Tom had been worried out of his mind for years, had tried to trace her, but without enough money to hire a private detective we had come up against every kind of barrier. The police had deemed her old enough to make her own decisions. Her leaving home had broken the poor man’s heart. Mom had tried to console him, and the arrival of Morgan just six months later had probably helped him to learn to live with the absence of his beloved first daughter, but he had never come to terms with her being gone. It had been so hard for them both when they got married, not having her there, not having her blessing.

It had been tough for me too. I hated the idea that the girl I adored was now my stepsister, but I didn’t take it half as badly as Lucy did. To her my mom and her dad getting married was a betrayal she simply could not get past.

I wondered if she was still angry, or if maybe I could find a way now to be the friend she had so needed then, but that my idiotic, hormonal teenage brain couldn’t bring itself to be at the time. I’d been angry too. I had wanted her too badly. The new sudden change from best friends – and almost more – into being siblings had made it insanely hard to be around her, and my desperate attempts to make her listen, not just react, had made her push me further away too.

But unlike Luce, I had known that Joanna, her mom, had schemed to ensure her husband would be cared for and loved by her best friend even on her death bed. And I was stubborn. I couldn’t, and wouldn’t condemn my mom, or Tom for doing what Jo had so begged them to do – not even for Lucy.

They deserved to be happy too, and I know they found solace from the pain they had both been through in each other, and real love grew between them. It wasn’t just about Jo’s dying wish; it was about what made them both feel whole again. I would never want to deny anyone that feeling. I hoped every day that I would find my better half so I could be whole again too. And here she was, in Providence, Rhode Island - and suddenly the mountain I had to climb to gain her trust again seemed even higher than when I had no clue where she was!