Game, Set, Match (A Humorous Contemporary Romance) (Love Match) (38 page)

“I’d taken your advice, like the moron I am, and tried to seduce him. We were having some serious extracurricular activities until he saw a photographer on the beach with his creepy telephoto and serious flash.”

“Holy cow.”

“I know. Needless to say, that put a stop to any fun we were having. He called security, but I don’t think they ever got the guy.”

“My, my, Izzy Connors. You are an adventurous one. On the balcony? I never thought you had it in you.”

Heat flushed Izzy’s body. “It was your idea for me to go and get what I wanted.”

Jessica conceded. “Yeah I guess you’re right.” She indicated the magazine and asked, “What are you gonna do about this?”

Izzy stood up. “The only thing I can do. I need to talk to Jason.” She checked her watch. “He has physical therapy downtown at twelve. I can probably catch him before he starts.”

“I mean what can you really say? It’s not his fault someone got a picture of you guys.”

“It might not be his fault, but when people start splashing pictures of me on a magazine, something about it isn’t right. He lives a high profile life, and we don’t.”

“Hmmm.”

Izzy’s eyes narrowed. “What’s the hmmm for?”

“Izzy, you chose to try a relationship with this guy, even against my better warnings. You chose to jump right in. You can’t pick and choose the parts you want. You gotta take it all, the good the bad and the ugly.”

She wasn’t picking and choosing. She was trying to protect her family. Maybe she’d gotten too carried away with Jason. Maybe they needed to slow things down. Maybe she just needed to talk to Jason.

“I know. I’ll talk to him. There has to be a way to keep us out of the glaring paparazzi bulbs. Like normal people.”

****

Jason knew she’d be in the lobby before he even got into the building. He’d seen her car as he pulled into the parking lot. He’d also seen the 
US Weekly
 that morning. He was such an idiot. Should have just gone after that photographer himself as opposed to letting security try to find him.

Then those pictures wouldn’t have come out. In truth, though, nobody would recognize her in the photo. They’d all recognize him, though. He didn’t want to think about the hell Nick would catch at school if any of the kids found out the woman in the picture was Izzy.

He walked into the lobby but didn’t pause when he saw her. He lowered his voice, mumbled, “Follow me,” and motioned her in the direction of the locker rooms.

She looked askance but followed him anyway. When they were in the private changing room, he dropped his bags before he turned to face her. “Paparazzi followed me to the gym. They’re not allowed on the property, but they would have loved a shot of you in the lobby.”

Eyes wide, her full lips parted. “Are you serious?”

“Since last night, they’ve been on me like flies on shit. The only reason they haven’t found you yet is every time I’m coming to see you, I switch cars and drive around aimlessly for an hour before actually coming to you.” He shrugged. “Either that, or they haven’t put two and two together that you are my photographer and date to the opening last week. It won’t take long though.”

She turned to stare at the door they’d come through. “Is that how you live your life every day?”

He nodded.
“Pretty much. Sometimes it’s my own fault. I’m out at a club and do or say something stupid. Mostly, I’m going about my life and they’re not there, but if they smell a story, they’ll hang around until I’m less interesting.”

“I—I didn’t really realize what it must be like. I mean you’re coming to physical therapy. What’s so interesting about that?”

He shrugged. “They’re hoping I’ll injure myself even more, and they’ll get a photo of it. Or they hope I use PT as a ruse to meet a beautiful woman.”

She ducked her head in embarrassment. “You’re not supposed to say stuff like that. I’m here to read you the riot act.”

He cringed. “
Us Weekly
?”

“So you’ve seen it?” He splayed
his arms. “What the hell, Jason? Is this what it’s going to be like? People following us around everywhere?”

Desperate to calm her down, he reached for her. “You have every right to be pissed.”

She shrugged out of his hold. “Damn right I do. You can imagine my shock when Jessica showed me the stupid picture worried you were going to hurt me. You can imagine 
her
shock when I told her 
I
 was the one in the picture.”

He couldn’t help the shit-eating grin tugging at the sides of his lips. “Was she jealous?”

“Jason!”

He laughed. “I’m sorry, baby. But this is part of it. If you want to do this, we can continue to try to exist in the little cocoon of your house or my house, but I don’t want to. I want to live our lives. Go see a match of Nick’s. Maybe take one of those photo vacations you always talk about. I don’t want to hide.”

“I don’t suggest we hide, but—”

“Then what do you suggest? If your suggestion is you walk away and pretend we never met, I’m not interested. We’ll find another solution.”

Deflated, her shoulders sagged. “Well that just takes the sport out of being pissed.”

He pulled her in close. “Baby, I know it’s not what you signed up for. But remember, you’re giving me a chance.
Giving us a chance. I promise I’ll do what I can to keep you and Nick out of it. Right now, they just think you were a date to an event. They don’t know that you’re—” He abruptly stopped himself before he revealed too much. It was too early to tell her he loved her. She’d bolt. He amended his statement. “That we’re involved. They’ll find out soon enough, though. And, when they do, the best way to get rid of them is to live our lives. They’ll get bored eventually.”

She folded her arms across her chest, but her spine and shoulders softened. “I don’t want to be the subject of tabloid magazines. It was a real shock to see myself on the cover of
Us Weekly
.”

He grinned at her and hoped for forgiveness, hoped she’d adjust like he’d learned to. “I
gotta say, you look like you were having a blast though.”

Annoyed, she smacked him on the arm. “That’s not funny.”

He dodged another swat and drew her closer so she couldn’t take any more swipes at him. “C’mon, tell me the truth, you came all the way down here because you missed me didn’t you?”

She wiggled and tried to free herself, but he held her tight, breathing in her unique scent of jasmine, vanilla and spice. His memory flashed to their night in Malibu. The way her hair felt between his fingers.
The petal soft texture of her skin. The way her legs tightened around him when she was ready to come. He needed her. But, like last night, making love would have to wait.

Once he and Nick had come back inside, and Nick had apologized to Izzy, they’d had a fun night. Nick salvaged the Pad-Thai. They’d laughed.
Played a spirited game of Gin Rummy. Like normal people. First time he’d felt normal in years.

Jason hadn’t touched Izzy aside from the casual touches of two people in close proximity. After his chat with Nick, he figured it was a good idea to give Nick a chance to adjust to the idea of him before he started groping his mother in public.

But he missed her. Missed the smooth glide of her skin on his. Missed the way her eyes darkened when she was about to—

She giggled. “Jason, I think the racket in your pants wants to go a couple of games.”

He groaned, but didn’t let her go. Planting kisses on the baby-soft hair at her temples, he murmured, “Forget games, he’d like to go several matches.”

“Several huh?”

He nodded as he tried to temper the insistent urging from his body to be as close to her as humanly possible. “A whole tournament.”

She rose on tiptoe, and he bent his head to meet her half way. She brushed her lips to his before breathing out, “We should do something about that and give him a proper workout.”

His cock jerked inside his shorts. Izzy would be the death of him. “You shouldn’t tease a starving man like that.”

“Who’s teasing?”

“Iz—”

She wrapped her arms around his neck pulling him in for another kiss. Her lips tasted of coffee and strawberries, the flavor of her drifted over his tongue and drew him in. He smiled into the kiss and wished he could stay like that forever.

Her hand traced a path from his shoulder and only stopped to explore his chest, before it moved down to the waistband of his shorts. When her hand reached beneath the thick elastic waistband, every nerve call in his body screamed 
Danger Will Robinson, Danger.

Delicate fingers eased around his already engorged cock. When she pumped the length of him slowly easing her hand from the base to the tip, he bit of
f a stream of curses. “Damn it, Izzy, what are you doing? We—”

“You want to argue with me? Or do you want sit back and enjoy this?”

He knew when to shut up.

Backing up against the training bed all the while tugging at his shorts, she released him from the confines of his shorts. When the hard length of him sprang free, her eyes widened with mischievous glee. He had no time to register the look before warm breath encircled his cock.

He squeezed his eyes shut and willed his body to relax. He was not a fourteen-year-old about to embark on his first sexual encounter. He had some control. 
Didn’t he?
 It had been a while though. He’d missed her.

He lifted his head and peeled his eyes open to look at her. Nothing was more erotic than watching her full lips engulfing every inch of his penis, then slide back and release him.

Too tempted, he wove his hands into her hair, the thick texture enough to drive him climbing toward the peak. “Izzy.” Her name came on a breath he didn’t know he had left in him.

When she traced her hand up his thigh, he knew we wouldn’t last long. Using every non-verbal cue he could think of, he tried to warn her. “Izzy, wait. I’m—”

She didn’t listen.

One hand continued to work the length of him in alternating turns with her lush mouth. The other hand traced a path up his thigh until it reached his balls. The instant her fingers grazed the sensitive skin, he knew he was lost.

She knew it as well. He could swear he saw her smile through his haze of ecstasy. As he soared over the cliff of dizzying pleasure, her mouth milked every last drop of his essence from him.

She released him and grinned. “So exactly how does one evade the paparazzi?”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Brash ringing permeated Izzy’s cocoon of lustful relaxation. She reached for the phone, ready to pitch it across the room when she realized she wasn’t in her bed, and it wasn’t her phone. She lifted her head and took in the sleek contemporary furniture.

Jason’s.

With Nick at a sleepover, they’d snuck in under the cover of night. That, and she’d ducked down in the car once they’d hit the coast.

The phone shrilled again. She stretched and released the protesting groans of muscles unaccustomed to such—vigorous use.

“Jason, phone.”

The running water of the shower was all she heard. Groaning, Izzy wrapped a sheet around herself for modesty, not that she had any left. Giving semi-public blowjobs could do that for a girl.

Without knocking, she entered the bathroom, smiling at his rendition of 
Living on a Prayer
. “Hey, Bon Jovi.”

The sexy smile she’d grown so accustomed to spread across his face with a lazy ease.

“No free shows, Princess. The toll is you have to join me.”

Her laughter bubbled up in her chest.
“Oh no you don’t. I’m not getting my hair wet this time. It takes forever to dry.” When she slid the glass door aside, she scooted out of his reach. “Not to mention you’ll be really late for your meeting.”

“But I have to drop you off anyway, and you need a shower too.” He waggled his eyebrows.

“You’re incorrigible.”

Playfully, he flicked water at her.

“Jason!” She held the phone over the toilet. “Try that again, and the phone gets it.”

He held his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay. But you’ll have to make up the toll charge.”

“Looking forward to it. Your phone’s blowing up.”

He ducked his head under the showerhead. “Hmm, called more than once?
Probably Aaron to remind me not to be late.”

“I thought it might be important.”

He grabbed a towel off the shelf. “Could you pick it up if it rings again and tell him to chill. I’ll be there on time.”

Izzy smiled as she meandered out of the bathroom. This was all a dream. Things like this, men like Jason, didn’t happen to her.

Through half of her adult life she’d gone through the motions of dating. Of relationships. Of sex. If this was what all the fuss was about, she could shoot herself for missing out.

Thanks to Nick’s sleepover, she and Jason had some uninterrupted alone time.
Perfect alone time. She shoved the cloud of doubt that threatened to rain on her bliss to the far reaches of her brain. He wasn’t permanent, but she deserved to be happy for a while, no matter how long it lasted.