Hope Breaks: A New Adult Romantic Comedy Read online

  This was the soundtrack of life. And love was the beat, the heart, the ultimate force pushing us through our days.

  And it was all the more beautiful together.

  Together…

  I felt it wash over me without the slightest warning. Hot and divinely powerful, the wave of my orgasm slid over me, drowning me in bliss and release. I’d thought I’d been having orgasms, but I realized as this force of nature roared through my veins, that they had been pale imitations. There was really no substitute for human sexual contact. Sorry Mr. Wiggles, our relationship had been lies—smoke and mirrors.

  This was real. This was what I’d been hungering after for oh, so long.

  I fell back into it, letting it pull me under in invisible arms, giving up all control.

  When I opened my eyes Jake was staring down at me, the look on his face was so strange. The look a child has on Christmas morning.

  I took a breath to ask what was wrong, but he placed his forefinger over my lips.

  “That’s number one,” he said, and before I could ask what he meant, he showed me. Dipping his face down and capturing my lips as his body hardened and he surged into me once more, tearing moans and happy screams from my lips as he pushed me toward that cliff once more.

  I dug my fingernails into his shoulders and he gasped as I clamped my sex tighter around his.

  He was coming with me this time.

  Chapter 14

  THE MORNING SUN GLOWED through my sleep-laden eyes, its rays waking me from probably the best sleep I’d had in years. It also soothed me, gently caressing my flesh with its warmth.

  Something smelled good too. Something unfamiliar yet undeniably needed. I breathed it in and sighed, and then realized that my head was not lying on a pillow, but on something warm and alive… and naked.

  A naked man…

  That should have woken me up—but I just pushed it off as yet another really good Brad Pitt dream. I snuggled in and rubbed my cheek against Brad’s strong, smooth chest.

  Then that chest shook with laughter… and the voice laughing wasn’t Brad’s.

  I shot upright in my bed, pulling the sheet up over my chest, my eyes snapping over my bedroom, at the scattered clothes and the knocked over objects of my bedroom—including the lamp from my bedside table.

  I turned and looked at the man in bed with me…

  I blinked and squinted…

  He was better looking than Brad. At the moment he was rubbing his eyes and grimacing into the morning light streaming in through my window.

  Jake…

  Oh boy, I was in bed with Jake…

  I was naked in bed with Jake…

  And from the way I’d just hogged the covers, exposing a wonderfully bare hip and leg, Jake was naked too!

  Oh boy…

  Okay… I’d slept with Jake…

  But I didn’t remember it…

  Damn, drat, double damn…

  I had to remember it, didn’t I?

  It was probably the best sex any woman has ever had and I freaking forgot it? Somehow, I hit delete instead of auto-save!

  No, not possible…

  After all, I’d never lost time before… this wasn’t freaking fair!

  Jake’s warm, strong hand slipped over my shoulder, his calloused fingers stroking down my arm.

  I was suddenly back in last night, in this bed, with Jake against me, around me, inside me…

  Ah, it all was coming back to me now… just like the song said.

  Jake pulled me to him and I sighed as I fell into his embrace, once again magically fitting perfectly into the nook under his arm.

  I closed my eyes and inhaled again. His flesh smelled even better with the light of day pressing in on it, warming it. I wondered if it would taste better too. So I kissed the firm, smooth flesh of his peck, and then gave him a quick lick.

  Yummy… even better than last night.

  “You’re going to have to stop that,” Jake growled in a sleepy, sexy as hell voice. “Or we’re never going to get out of this bed.”

  “Would that be so bad?”

  He chuckled. “No, not at all. But I have to be at work in about twenty minutes.”

  “Maybe you should call off?”

  He kissed the top of my head and shook his head. “I’m an old fashioned kind of guy. I go to work, no matter what.”

  Part of me was ready to whine and grouse that I needed him to stay with me, to do all the things he’d done to me the night before again, and a few new things… if there were any. Another part of me just loved that he was dependable… a man of his word.

  There weren’t that many people like that in this over hyper, over caffeinated world anymore.

  “Fine,” I said with some haughty pout to my voice. “Do you have time for some coffee?”

  “There’s always time for coffee.” He sat up, leaving me lying alone in my sheets as he stretched that beautiful, strong body and then dragged himself out of bed.

  I lost my breath at the sight of him as he ambled across the hardwood floor of my bedroom and snagged his jeans from where he’d pulled them off. Every part of him just seemed to flow into the next piece of him, as if an artist had rendered him in living marble.

  I watched as he pulled his jeans on, and then scratched his firm, hard ass.

  Firm… was there any part of Jake that wasn’t firm?

  I had to tear my eyes from him and push my body to the other side of the bed just so I could make my mind think of anything other than that man naked. I reached out for my silky canary yellow robe and felt a deep, wonderful soreness that I hadn’t felt in years.

  It was as if I could feel him still inside me.

  I shivered as I pulled my robe around me and pulled myself up to my feet. My first steps were more of a stumble, but by the time I made it to my bedroom door I was almost walking in a straight line.

  I looked over and saw Jake pulling his now dry black AC/DC t-shirt on over his head and shoulders. I saw him stop and sniff his shirt, long and hard, as if it smelled divine.

  Did it smell like me still? Even after the rain?

  I walked out to the kitchen and flipped the switch on my coffee machine. I always had it filled with the best Columbia had to offer, and ready to go. Mornings weren’t my best time of day, and the last time I’d tried to load my coffee machine when I had just woken up, I’d made a lovely pot of hot water… twice.

  I stood there in the golden morning light and listened to the coffee percolate, to the sounds of my familiar house… and the sounds of a man pulling on his clothes and using my bathroom.

  That was even more unfamiliar than post sex soreness. For a scary little moment I almost got pulled into an unwanted and better forgotten memory.

  Relationships, even bad ones, had good moments… sometimes even great moments.

  I shook my head and stared hard out my window, at Bette’s house, at my birdbath, grounding myself in the here and now.

  Jake came up behind me and wrapped his muscular arms around me, pulling me against him.

  Whether he had to get to work or not, he was hard against my backside.

  He kissed and nibbled at my neck.

  “Coffee’s ready,” I said, reaching out and grabbing a couple mugs from my cupboard and filling them.

  I then moved out of his hold, got the cream from the fridge, and made my coffee. Two teaspoons of sugar too.

  Jake sipped his coffee black and smiled. “You make good coffee, Miss Jones.”

  I had to smile back. T-shirt and jeans aside, he sounded more than a little like a lecherous boss praising his secretary’s “skills.”

  I suddenly had this strange feeling that something was off, that there was something we were forgetting to do.

  Sex?

  No time for that, and hell, hadn’t we had enough of that last night?

  One look over at Jake and I knew that NO… and HELL NO we hadn’t had enough sex yet.

  Then my belly growled, and then so did Jake’s
.

  Food! That was what was missing. Every time we’d done anything there had always been food.

  I turned and pulled open the freezer compartment of my fridge. I pushed past some frozen Brussels sprouts and a half eaten container of butter pecan ice cream to get to my favorite breakfast food.

  Breakfast burritos…

  They weren’t quite as good as McDonald’s but they were a great runner up. And you didn’t have to get dressed and drive the ten blocks to the nearest drive through. A quick wrap up in a paper towel, ninety seconds in my trusty microwave, and voila! They were hot and steaming, and as much as my stomach was growling, they tasted like freaking ambrosia.

  It had been so long since I’d spent a night… well, spent a night doing anything at all with a member of the opposite sex, that I’d forgotten how exhausting it was. But as the breakfast burrito filled my hungry belly, I realized that my exhaustion was the good kind. The kind I hadn’t had in forever.

  Jake finished his food first, drained his coffee and grimaced at the clock on the wall. For a second I thought he was making fun of my little cow clock. And that was just so wrong. The little cow slowly traveled the outside of the clock, moving from one number to the next. It mooed once for every hour, and the sun that it traveled past at noon changed—with the sliding off a little plastic door—to a smaller moon. So in the evenings the cow jumped over the moon.

  But then Jake checked his watch and sighed.

  It was the time he was grimacing at. That was okay… tragic that he had to go so soon, but… well, let’s just say he wouldn’t have liked the tongue-lashing I wouldv’e given him for disrespecting the cow.

  “You’re leaving?”

  “Got to,” he whispered as he came closer and slid his hands around my waist, his soft lips brushed over my earlobe, and then down my neck, ending in a gentle, spine melting kiss on my collar bone.

  I lost it. I reached up grabbed hold of his face with both hands, my palms making little slapping sounds as they fastened to both sides of his head, and pulled him into a desperate kiss.

  The kiss seemed to last for a week as our lips got reacquainted, as I licked up into his mouth, as his strong, muscular arms pulled me closer. One of his hands slid up my spine to hold the back of my head, the other slid downward and cupped a butt-cheek with a possessive squeeze.

  Damn, that really got my engine going…

  He started to let go, and pulled himself from my lips.

  “I really have to go,” he said, smiling, his lips bruised beautifully from the kiss.

  “Fine,” I said with feigned haughtiness. “Go be a grown up. I’ll just have to…” I shot him a naughty grin. “I’ll just have to take care of… this feeling… all… by… my… self.”

  Jake’s melted chocolate eyes went from smoldering to four alarm fire in about three seconds. He leaned in closer and seemed on the verge of grabbing me up and dragging me back to the bedroom.

  Unfortunately, he closed his eyes and shook his head, stepping slowly away from me.

  “That was close… you’re quite the seductress, Miss Jones.”

  I grinned smugly as he backed away from me a few steps. “I aim to please,” I said in a voice far more sultry than my own. Maybe it was my inner Mae West...

  Probably my inner Sharon Stone.

  He literally backed all the way out of my kitchen, as if I had a loaded gun pointed at him. He gave me a little wave and a sexy smile as he started out of my foyer and through the front door.

  “I’ll call you.”

  I gave him a half-hearted return wave, and sipped my cooling coffee, thinking more of how he’d tasted than the coffee did.

  He’d cheated. His breath had been minty fresh. He’d used some of my Scope before we kissed.

  Little stinker…

  I heard his old truck start and then growl deeply as it sped away.

  My house phone rang. Almost no one called me on my “landline.” I knew who it was anyways. I rolled my eyes and picked it up.

  “Greg?” I teased.

  “Very funny,” Jake groused though he was laughing.

  “Oh, it’s you… already?” I continued.

  “You are so going to get it when I see you next.”

  Breathe…

  “Promises, promises.”

  He growled through the connection. I sauntered down the hallway from the kitchen to the front foyer, and then slipped out the door. I sat down on my front step, not caring that all I was wearing was a silky robe and a smile. The morning sun glowed warm on my bare legs.

  “So do you have plans tonight, or do I have to make an appointment?”

  I chuckled. “I’ll have to check with my social secretary. I’ll have her call you with the details.”

  Another growl, this one lower and sexier than the last.

  “Would you look at that,” I said breathlessly. “You’re in luck… I’m free tonight.”

  His growl turned satisfied. “Good. Wear something rippable.”

  My eyebrows shot up to my hairline. “You’re going to…?”

  “Yep…”

  “Oh… my…”

  “Around eight?”

  I had to swallow before I could speak. “Eight it is.”

  He hung up.

  I sat there in the sun, basking in the post-coitus afterglow, and the certain knowledge that the man that had given me the afterglow was making a return visit tonight.

  Damn…

  I saw a sold sticker slapped on the real estate sign in the yard next door. A new neighbor. I wondered how long it would take Bette to have the scoop on them.

  My phone rang and I picked it up from where I’d absently set it down, and hit the answer button.

  “Now what?” I said with faux agitation in my voice.

  “I’ve been calling and calling!” Janine’s voice erupted from the receiver. My spine straightened and I gulped some air. She sounded upset… which was never good.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Olivia hates the new cover photos.”

  I gulped some more air down into my lungs. “You’re kidding. Those are some of the best pictures I’ve ever taken!” I pulled myself back, already feeling that I was already sounding defensive and belligerent… and with the woman that filled my bank account with automatic payroll deposits.

  Janine must have missed the anger in my voice, or was wiser than me and skirting a conflict.

  “I know, I know…,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it either. But Olivia said that the models were too young. That they looked like they belonged more on a juvenile cover than an adult romance cover.”

  Well, they were young. That had always been the first rule of the romance cover trade. Hot, in shape, and young.

  “I myself wouldn’t have a problem with them. They are smoking hot and as adult in flavor as anything I’ve seen from you. I mean, they are young, but at the most one could argue they’d be good on a “New Adult” cover. But never a Young Adult.”

  I’d already hotfooted it up to my bedroom, shucking my flimsy robe and pulling on some fresh jeans and a t-shirt. I gulped down the rest of my cold coffee and was ready to start flipping through what was on my laptop. I saw I had a Nikon lying on the floor beside my nightstand and grabbed it as I stalked out of my bedroom and into the studio.

  I hadn’t remembered having a camera in the bedroom…

  Oh, yesterday… but now it was the day before… when Drew and Darla had taken the photo shoot on a little field trip into the guest bedroom.

  How had the camera gotten in here?

  I shook my head. I had photography equipment all over my house. Nothing new.

  In my head I tried to accept that Olivia Lovelace had actually thought those pictures were too juvenile? Something about the camera in my hand started to nag at me. A niggling little thought that I batted out of my mind.

  I needed to concentrate on this humungous problem right now, not something I didn’t even know was a problem.

  I s
at down at my laptop and plugged the wayward camera into the USB port.

  I opened my pictures folder and watched as the new photos loaded onto the screen. I felt my hopes dashed as they started to appear. They weren’t of Drew and Darla. They were cast off pictures of the photo shoot before them. The one with the plastic, generic, absolutely passionless couple.

  The first photo shoot to have been turned down.

  Shiiit…

  I watched in horror as one after the other of those photos flared to life on my laptop.

  “I’m hoping the silence means that you’re sending me some new images. Hopefully of a more mature couple…”

  I started. I had completely forgotten that I had my phone held to my ear.

  “Well, umm…”

  Then this utterly gorgeous, amazing photo sprang to life on my screen. It was the last one to download, and it literally took my breath away.

  For a moment I had no idea when I’d taken it, or who it was of. Then that nagging little thought bloomed in my head like the explosion of a Fourth of July fireworks display.

  Last night when Jake and I had been in bed… when he’d pushed into me that first time. I’d lost control and my arms had shot out and hit the nightstand, and there had been this flash of light. I’d just thought it was either lightning from the storm rolling over San Antonio, or that it had been some neurological short circuit caused by having Jake inside me.

  It hadn’t been either of those things. It had been the flash of the Nikon camera that was now spilling its secrets into my laptop.

  The image before me was Jake with my leg raised and resting on his shoulder, his face held up in ecstasy as he entered me. His hard, defined chest heaved, his strong, beautiful arms flexing, a sheen of rain and sweat coating his flesh.

  The Nikon had captured every stunning detail of it.

  It wasn’t pornographic, for the image ended a little under his belt line. However, it was by far the most sensuous photograph I’d ever seen. I couldn’t say I’d taken it. That would be a lie. It had been an accidental shot in the dark.

  But now it was a very real, and a very dangerous image on my laptop.

  I set the phone down and lowered my head into my hands.

  Oh god, oh god, oh god…