Shut Off (Just This Once #3) (8 page)

He threw the steak in the pan, the sizzle of the meat cracking loudly as he looked over at me expectantly, reminding me he had asked a question.

“I guess. I haven’t cooked enough in other people’s kitchens to really know.”

“That’s because you’re trying to be a hotshot lawyer and think celibacy will somehow help with that.”

“My life isn’t messy. Well, it wasn’t anyway. And I didn’t really have time to, you know, put myself out there in that way.”

“And now?” His back was to me, but I heard the question clear enough. The desire for my response was evident, if not in the serious tone of his questioning, it rang loud and clear by his positioning. Any other time he would look me in the eye—daring or teasing me for a response—yet this time he couldn’t even meet my face.

I
was still understanding
the gravitation toward him; how could I tell him that he was different? That he made me forget all of the reasons why it shouldn’t work? The truth was, I didn’t think I’d ever be too busy for him. He was the type you rearranged your day just to spend time with, and that was a new feeling for me. I’d never met anyone that I wanted to spend more than a night with, and even then, I always said no because I wasn’t the type of girl to do the walk of shame the next morning. Never mind the fact that Las Vegas was a small town and I would hate to risk my career by sleeping with a potential client or defendant. You could see how one careless decision could land me out of a job.

Except, there was that one time at the hotel where I knew better.

With Joel, I became a different person. One less concerned about climbing the ladder and more concerned with the kind of life I was building. I wasn’t sure when I started to focus solely on my career, but it had been so long since I even gave it a second thought that I wasn’t exactly sure if I could name a time when I cared about anything else.

“Now is…it’s hard to say.”

Joel turned his body partway so I could see his face when he spoke next. His green eyes were glassed over with sorrow as his eyes fluctuated between looking at me and everywhere but me.

“Blaire, I know we couldn’t have come at a worse time for you, but I don’t regret that night. I should have been more honest about my situation,” he said as he flipped the steaks over. “It was never my intention to draw you into this shit. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I thought you should know that.”

“Let’s talk about something else. We can deal with that later.”

He returned to cooking and asked, “You seem to know everything about me. Who is Blaire Banks? I probably should have found out before I brought you home. You’re not an axe murderer, are you? Shit, I did ask you if you were seeing anyone, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you don’t remember? You were practically naked in my living room. You asked if anyone was going to be fighting through the storm to make it back to me.” I chuckled lightly at the memory. He could have asked me the night before, but I barely remembered the sex we had, let alone a conversation between us, but what I did remember made my stomach curl in warmth and skin prickle with awareness.

“Oh, right. See, I’m a gentleman. You know code of honor and all that shit.”

“Don’t go getting ahead of yourself. And I’m sure you know by now I’m not an axe murderer. No crazy bones in this closet.”

“Let’s see, I’m the oldest daughter. The first time I left Iowa was when I went away to college eight years ago. So, the craziest thing I’d gotten into before moving to Vegas was cow-tipping and setting an abandoned shed on fire.”

“Great. You’re a pyro. That little tidbit of info would have been good to know before I gave you full reign over my kitchen. Do I need to put child locks on the cabinets?”

“
Haha
.
Very funny.
I mean I’ve had a fairly boring life.”

“And what about college? You didn’t find the man who would scoop you up and put his 2.5 kids in you?”

“I think he was too busy putting his 2.5 in someone else.”

“Oh. Shit, Blaire. What kind of fucking idiots were you dating? The smart ones would know to lock you down immediately.”

I stared into the marble slab, my fingers tracing patterns across the surface. Not that I considered myself ugly, but I liked to think I was plain, so when he said things like that so matter-of-fact, I didn’t know how to respond. I never was good at receiving compliments.

“Well, needless to say, I didn’t have much luck in that department.”

“I’d like to apologize on their behalf,” Joel
said,
pan in hand, making his way back over to the island. “You deserve better.”

He set the pan down and stood across from me, his eyes searing mine with sincerity and not quite love, but something else that made my heart pump excitedly in my chest. Ninety-nine percent of the time Joel was sarcastic, witty, and funny, so when he said things without any sign of a smirk or hint of laughter in his voice, it was disarming.

A sincere Joel knew how to throw a girl off-kilter.

“You know why I went after you so aggressively?”

I nodded my head no and he continued, “That week spent with you was the best I’d had in a really long time. You’re sweet and sexy, smart and driven. You have everything I admire in a woman. You’re one of a kind, Blaire. That night at the club…I couldn’t miss an opportunity to at least get your name.”

“Well, you got more than that. Wait. You didn’t even ask for my name.”

“I didn’t?”

“Not from what I remember.”

“You didn’t even remember going home with me, so it’s not like your memory is anything to go by.”

I rolled my eyes as he continued plating our food, surprised that he could pull together a meal that rivaled his
own chef’s. Dinner was delicious, with casual conversation and the lights of Vegas shining beyond the glass like fireflies. It was everything you would want from a considerate boyfriend—a home-cooked meal and good company.
Is this what it would be like to be Joel’s girlfriend? Would things always be this easy between us?

Chapter Seven

Joel

I knocked on the bedroom door to let Blaire know it was time to go. After all of our talk of “dates” the day before, I decided to finally ask Blaire on a proper date. She said she thought it was silly to go on an “official” first date, but I saw the way her eyes lit up at the prospect.

“Blaire, are you ready?” I asked. I could hear her rushing around the room, the sweep of her feet brushing the stone tiles.

She threw open the door looking a little startled. It was a look that left me feeling even more enamored, if that was possible. At that point, I was already completely enthralled.

“You look…beautiful,” I sounded a bit star-struck even to my own ears. She held the door open as she stood in the doorway, giving me a moment to take in every inch of her. The black V-neck blouse she wore dipped low enough to show me a flash of her cleavage that already had my mouth watering for a taste. Her jeans were dark blue and encased her legs like a second skin. The same strappy black shoes she wore the night I met her were the ones adorning her feet, giving her 5'2" height a boost.

“Thanks,” she responded shyly—a look I wasn’t sure I’d seen before crossed her face, making me feel like it really was a first date and we weren’t two people already well acquainted with each other’s most secret places.

“You look like a woman who’s expecting more than a kiss at the end of this date.”

“You wish,” she replied, sliding by me, careful to rub her ass against my crotch. My dick was already straining, and I wondered if she knew, or if she was trying to get a rise out of me. Literally.

We drove for two hours, the sun fading behind the mountains on our left as we drove north outside of the city. The sky sprayed violent reds and yellows before it eventually turned black. The farther I drove away from the city, the more excited I was to show her a favorite place of mine. A place I was sure she hadn’t visited yet and one not a lot of residents made it out to see.

“Are you going to tell me where you’re taking me? If I didn’t know any better, I would think you were trying to dispose of a body.”

She looked out of her window, and I watched her reflection in the glass as she squinted into the blackness.

“You don’t trust me?” I mock-played like I was insulted. “You know, I
am
good for a few things outside of fucking.”

“Like what?” Blaire crossed her arms beneath her chest, her cleavage deepening with the lift of her breasts. I barely registered the uptick in attitude, I was so focused on the smooth span of skin that looked ripe and ready for me.

“Oh look, we’re here,” I snickered beneath my breath. “Guess I’ll have to give you that list later.”

“Hmph. Where are we?” Her eyes squinted, trying to look out into the darkness as I unbuckled my seatbelt and moved to get out of the car. I rushed over to open her door just as I heard her door unlock.

“Where are we?” she asked as she could now see the large, jagged rocks and mountainous terrain.

“Cathedral Gorge State Park. They have star parties up here on the weekends. Come, the tour starts soon.”

***

“If you look over to the left a little, you can see the constellation Scorpius, with stars Antares and Sargas being the brightest stars, and over there is Ursa Minor,” our tour guide said while pointing up at the corresponding constellations.

I watched Blaire’s eyes transfixed on the night sky, searching for each star pointed out by the woman guiding our party. There were five other people with us—a couple who looked like students there for school credit, a man our guide knew by name, and an older couple.

Up there, the stars looked endless, but nothing rivaled Blaire’s beauty. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

“We’re going to move on to point #2 on your maps.”

The guide looked over the few of us before she began moving to the next spot. I didn’t even bother shining the light on our map because I had no intention of moving. The whole night I’d been planning a moment alone with Blaire, underneath the stars with no one but the two of us, and I took the first opportunity that came.

Blaire grabbed the blanket she’d been sitting on, dusting off the dirt before she moved to follow the others. I grabbed her arm halting her, “Wait.”

“But everyone else is leaving, Joel,” she said, looking in their direction. The black outline of their bodies faded into the background until only the lights from their cellphones could be seen in the dark.

“Let ‘em. There’s something I have to do.”

“I am not having se—”

She didn’t get the rest of her sentence out before I had my arms wrapped around her back, crushing her to my chest with my mouth absorbing the last of her protestation. The blanket dropped back into the dirt in her surrender.

I knew if I wanted to, I could convince her to go along with whatever my dick had planned, but I had a better idea. If this was our first and, quite possibly, our last date, I wanted it to be something deeper than a quick fuck. Blaire needed to be convinced that what I wanted from her was more than stolen moments at hotels. I hadn’t quite come out and told her how I felt about her, and as much as I wanted to, I didn’t think it would be fair to start something when I didn’t know what my life would look like in the coming days, weeks, or months. No point in her tying herself to a sinking ship, and according to the phone call I had with my lawyer the night before, it was definitely a possibility, as he garnered no new information from Lara’s deposition.

I pushed all of that from my mind and did the only thing I could in that moment, the one thing that always felt right between us—I kissed her. She was so small in my arms, as she sank further into the kiss. Her mouth opened against my prying lips, and her tongue reached out to touch mine. So soft, so gentle. My hands held the sides of her neck as I kissed deeper, luring her tentative tongue into my mouth. I felt her moan vibrate my lips, sending tingles across my face.

Her hands moved up into my hair, tugging my face down until she was no longer on her tippy toes to reach me. I slipped my hands back down to her hips and lifted her up, wrapping those legs around me so our faces were aligned. She nibbled my mouth for entry before tangling her tongue with mine. The hands that had found their way up to my hair were now pulling with renewed vigor as her mouth wrestled mine. Her chest moved wildly against mine as she panted through our kiss. My cock hardened between us, and it was a surprise that I stayed committed to my initial intent. This wouldn’t go any farther than a kiss. Yet the more I tasted the sweetness of her lips, the harder it was to tell myself no.

I spun us around until her back was to the blanket, where I laid her down. In the dark, I could see the sparkle in her eyes, the glimmer of hope that resided there. We both had been fighting us for so long that it felt unreal that I had her now, there, open for me. She didn’t have to say she wanted me; her body did that for her. I watched her chest climb with her ragged breaths and her legs splay open, just enough to entice me to come down to her.

I fell down into the bundle beside her, my elbow propping up my body so I could lean over her.

“This feels like a new Joel. Are you turning over a new leaf?” She tried to sound like a smart ass, but it came out too breathy, too needy.

“I guess that depends.”

“On what?”

“Do you like it?”

I didn’t wait for her to answer, but I could see she was still thinking as I kissed her neck. I licked her lightly between kisses, tasting the saltiness of her skin mixed with the sweet smell of her perfume. My lips didn’t stop there—I rained kisses across the apples of her cheeks, the column of her throat, her clavicles, right down to the dip between her breasts. I kissed her everywhere her skin was open and available for my lips.