Actually Love - Jessie & Zach (14 page)

In Zach’s mind though, the only potential problem he could think about was the potential problem of him not being able to control himself around his way-too-sexy-for-
his
-own-good roommate. Zach was seriously unsure of how he was going to be able to keep his hands to himself and his dick in his pants.

It would be one thing if the overwhelming attraction were a one-way street. But he knew that wasn’t the case. In fact, it wasn’t even a two-lane street. What they had was a four-lane lust freeway, and every time they were alone together, it felt like they both merged right into the desire fast lane.

Margie and Mabel were the least of his worries. Not being able to put the brakes on before they crashed into ecstasy while going one hundred miles an hour, pedal to the passion metal floor, was. Zach knew that, as much as he wanted to get to know Jessie better, as intrigued as he was by her, he needed to exit the highway and stay on the safe city streets in the town of Keeping a Safe Distance.

He had a fight coming up. Spending more time at the gym was a good thing. For his career—and his out-of-control hormones.

R
olling her neck from side to side, Jessie yawned as she blinked her eyes several times to clear her vision. She still had a dozen more emails to respond to, and she was having a hard time staying awake.

After her family had left this evening, she’d looked at her phone—for the first time all day—and saw that she had over forty missed calls. Jessie never went more than an hour without checking her phone for messages. Her job was not a Monday-through-Friday nine-to-five. She was unofficially “on call” twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

Stretching her arms above her head, Jessie leaned back against her wooden kitchen chair and took in a deep breath, trying to move some blood and oxygen through her system in an attempt to wake up so she could get the rest of her work done. Her stomach growled loudly, and she looked at the time displayed on the bottom right-hand corner of her computer screen. Ten thirty. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast this morning.

Today had gotten away from her. Between moving, her family showing up, and Margie and Mabel’s bombshell, she was exhausted. It also didn’t help that any reserve energy she might have had was currently being used up by trying to keep her overactive libido in check. She was worse than a cat in heat. All day, every time she saw Zach, thought about Zach, heard Zach’s voice or his
laugh,
Jessie suddenly morphed into Mae West, thinking things like,
Hey there, handsome. Is that a pistol in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

Last night, she’d seen the evidence of his arousal tenting his sweats when they’d been in the kitchen, and then again, this morning, his gun had been drawn like he was in a showdown at noon. Both times, it had rendered her speechless. It wasn’t just the size, which was impressive, that made her body pulse with need. It was the fact that she affected him so potently that gave her a powerful thrill.

She’d seen the women Zach had dated. They were some of the sexiest in the world. It wasn’t that Jessie had ever lacked in the self-esteem department. Jessie knew that she was attractive. She also knew that she was smart and controlling.

Most men did not find those qualities to be turn-ons. Most men were intimidated by her. Most men pursued her until they got to know her, and then things usually ended with them calling her a heartless bitch or some form of that same sentiment.

Maybe she was. She didn’t dream of the same things that a lot of women did. Career. That was where her focus was. Returning a phone call after two dates was not her priority. Neither was inflating some idiot’s ego after they’d slept together. A lot of guys found her behavior off-putting to say the least.

Somehow Zach just seemed different. Zach was not
just
serious man-candy that she loved visually indulging in—which Jessie hated to admit since she prided herself on judging people not on their outer appearance but on their minds—but he was also the definition of alpha-male. And her body, it turned out, was all about that too, contrary to what she believed about herself until that fateful day in the basement a week and a half ago. But the pièce de résistance of Zach Courtland was that he
saw
her.

Jessie was not in the habit of letting people in, but with Zach, she found herself saying more, explaining more than she did with anyone else in her life. And he didn’t just listen to her, he
heard
her. He even called her out on things. Like when he’d asked why she kept cutting off her sentences and pressing her lips together. She herself had only been vaguely aware that she’d been doing that.

Her phone buzzed and she picked it up. Her heart sank a little when she saw that it was a text from her assistant.

No
. She could not do this. Since she’d sat down to work a few hours ago, she’d been looking up expectantly every time she heard a sound coming from the front of the house. In the back of her mind, she was waiting for Zach to come home. Hoping any minute he’d walk through that door. Each time that didn’t happen, she felt a twinge of disappointment. Now, when she got a text and it wasn’t from Zach, she felt more than a twinge in her chest. This behavior was
totally
unacceptable.

Get a grip
. She shook her head in irritation.

Returning her focus to her work, Jessie was able to push Zach out of her mind and concentrate. Just as she pressed send on the final email, she heard the unmistakable sound of the front door opening. Her heart sped up as adrenaline raced through her system.

Well, at least she’d been able to lock that down long enough to get her work finished. Baby steps.

Shutting her laptop, Jessie decided against her original plan of having dinner right after she finished her correspondence. Her room was her safest bet at this stage in the game—at least until she figured out how to stop her body from channeling Mae West every time Zach was around.

She stood quickly, grabbing her laptop as she spun to exit the kitchen and came not face to face, but face to Zach’s very strong, very broad chest, stopping just a hair short of plowing into said chest.

“Sorry,” Jessie apologized as she tried to scoot around him. His body blocked the entire doorway, making her task impossible. Against her better judgment, she looked up into Zach’s deep-green eyes. When she did, her insides did a happy dance of desire, which she tried desperately to ignore as she explained, “I was just heading upstairs.”

“Have you had dinner?” Zach’s perfect mouth formed words, but it took a moment for Jessie’s brain to process them. He stood in front of her wearing a dark-gray beanie, a black hooded sweatshirt, loose-fitting blue jeans, and white tennis shoes. Not normally attire that Jessie would consider swoon-worthy, but it was all somehow causing a substantial swoon to bubble up inside of her.

Zach couldn’t be further from Jessie’s ‘type.’ She was attracted to businessmen. White collar. The kind of men who owned more ties than she had shoes, and she had a lot of shoes. But there was something about Zach that worked for her. He broke all the rules of attraction she had. No, he more than broke them. He obliterated them. Zach smashed them into tiny little pieces and ground them up until they were microscopic pieces of dust invisible to the naked eye.

After a few lust-fogged moments, she was able to form words again like a normal person. “No, I’m not hungry. I’m just going to go to bed.”

As the words were leaving her mouth, her body betrayed her by growling so loudly she couldn’t ignore it.

Zach’s brows lifted in question.

Jessie was determined that she was not going to be derailed by her stomach acid. “It always does that when I’m tired.”

Okay, granted that was possibly not the most creative or believable explanation, but she
was
hungry and exhausted and desperate to break free from this intimate space she shared with Zach.

“Really? Mine does that when I’m hungry.” A small smile pulled at the corners of Zach’s lips.

She gave him a curt nod in recognition, smiling as she waited for him to move out of the way so she could exit.

Instead of doing that, he held up two bags from Domico’s Italian Eatery, which happened to have the best Italian takeout—or dine-in for that matter—in the city. The delicious scent of pasta, tomato sauce, and, oh boy, garlic bread drifted up into the air. Before she could stop herself, she inhaled deeply, and once again, her stomach rumbled. Loudly.

“You need to eat,” he stated firmly.

Jessie was waiting for her no-one-tells-me-what-I-need-to-do indignation to kick into high gear.
Any time
, she thought to herself. But nothing happened. Logically, she was ready to set Zach straight. Since, instead of doing that, she stood there staring at him like a mute, she guessed that she wasn’t operating logically this evening.

Perfect
. That was just what she needed when she was around Zach. It wasn’t like she had any impulses to do things that were totally
inappropriate
and
unwise
or anything that she would need
logic
to jump in and stop her from doing.

“I have enough food in here to feed an army.” He finally moved out of the doorway as he crossed the small kitchen and set the bags of food down on the tile countertop.

Relief washed over Jessie as her eyes darted to the doorway. Jessie’s mind was telling her feet to move. The escape path was clear. In a few steps, she could be at the stairs, halfway to her safe zone, a.k.a. her room. Instead of listening to her mind’s instructions, her feet remained planted in the middle of the kitchen.

“You want to grab a couple of plates and silverware?” Zach asked as he pulled the containers of food out of the large bag and set them on the counter.

Jessie watched, mesmerized, as his hoodie pulled taut against his broad, muscular back. His movements were smooth, reminding her of a sleek, powerful panther.

A shiver of awareness spread through her, and she felt moisture in two places on her body. One, at her core. The other place was at the corner of her mouth. When she lifted her hand, her fingers brushed against her lips, and sure enough, there was saliva there. Apparently, just watching Zach remove to-go containers was enough to make her panties wet and her mouth salivate to the point of drooling.

If she weren’t so irritated with herself, she would give Zach a round of applause. The fact that he’d been able to reduce her to this state, without even trying, was an impressive feat. Jessie always gave credit where credit was due.

Zach turned, his arms loaded with delicious-food-filled containers. He gave her a strange look. It took her a minute to figure out why, but then she remembered that he’d asked her to grab the plates.

Shit.
She needed to get a handle on whatever ridiculous hormonal or pheromonal response her body was having to him. After placing her computer down on the countertop, Jessie made quick work of setting the table. When she put her mind to something, she could accomplish tasks at about double the speed other people could. When she was growing up, it had always frustrated her sisters that she could finish chores—and do them right—in so much less time than they could. Well, all of her sisters except Krista. Krista could clean like the Tasmanian Devil if she was mad.

Standing in front of the fridge with the door open, Zach looked over his shoulder at her as she set down the napkins and utensils. “Do you want water, wine, or Coke?”

Wine
. That was what she wanted. Unfortunately, alcohol plus Zach was a surefire equation for disaster.

“Water’s good. Thanks.”

*     *     *

Reaching into the cold refrigerator, Zach’s hand wrapped around two water bottles. While pulling them out, he tried to slow his racing heart. After leaving his visit with his mom, Zach had gone straight to the gym and worked out harder than he had in a while. He’d punished the heavy bag with all of the pent-up sexual frustration that had been building inside of him like a volcano ready to erupt.