-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Â
To: Katherine Bloom
From: Julia Boudreaux
Subject: Good news
Ratings
went through the roof
during the pet segment. The audience
loves you when you get all
red and embarrassed. Which is why I've
decided on the next show. "The Lover's Lesson." A
show about sex
products, just like you suggested.
Julia Boudreaux
Owner
KTEX TV West Texas
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Â
To: Julia Boudreaux
From: Katherine Bloom
Subject: No way
Don't you
dare go all owner on
me!! I will not do a show on sex
products. I suggested a
pregnancy show!! A perfectly respectable
segment on women getting pregnant.
KCB
Katherine C. Bloom
News Anchor, KTEX TV West Texas
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Â
To: Katherine Bloom
From: Julia Boudreaux
Subject: Perfectly boring
... and you
know it. The pet
psychic was not boring. The look on your
face alone when Mistress Reynalda instructed you to pet that cat was
priceless. Though surely we can find a balance
between too prepared and
not prepared enough. I'll send a whole slew of products over so you
can
have a look this time. Get all prepared, if you have to.
XO, j
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Â
ELEVEN
Jesse walked out of the guest cottage, intent on getting a few
clubs and heading across the street to the seventeenth fairway of the
country club. It was dark, after midnight, and he was guaranteed to
have
the course to himself.
But when he saw Katie in her kitchen, he stopped because she was
pacing. With a lamenting sigh, he
set his clubs up against the wall,
then went to the back door.
Katie stopped and whirled to face him when he entered. She wore a white
tank top tucked into
drawstring pink pajama bottoms rolled up at the
ankles. Her hair was loose and curly, like she had
been running her
hands through it over and over again, and the tea she had made sat on
the counter untouched. She looked half wild, half hot as hell.
"What are you doing?" he asked bluntly.
"I'm trying to decide what to tell Julia when I quit."
After she had jumped through hoops to keep her job, this came as a
surprise. He was too confused to reply.
She threw her hands up in the air, the tank top pulling tight across
her breasts. She didn't have on a bra. The cotton outlined the sweet
fullness, her nipples showing through the material, making heat sizzle
through his body. Jobs and quitting them were forgotten, and he felt an
urge to take her to the guest cottage and peel the pajamas off so he
could run his tongue along each breast, then lower.
"Great!" she bleated. "Just great! I know what you're thinking!"
"You do?" He grimaced, refusing to feel any sort of guilt because
thinking and doing were two separate issues. Just because he was
thinking about breasts, tongues, and Katie in the same scenario didn't
mean he was going to do anything about it. He wasn't.
He eyed the door and knew that tonight he'd be in for a cold shower.
"See, you're antsy to get away from here. You're embarrassed to be seen
with a woman who can't look
at a cat, hear someone call it a ... a
pussy"âshe shudderedâ "without turning bright red, like a freaking
cherry."
All this talk of pussies and cherries wasn't helping.
"I heard that!" she yelped.
"Heard what?"
"You groaned. You're tired of hearing about it. Me and my job. You're
thinking that I should just go
out there and find other employment
because I'm not cut out for TV."
"Ahâ"
"Oh, sure. Stand there and be all judgmental."
"Okayâ"
"I knew it! You think I'm making a fool of myself, and if I had any
balls at all that I wouldn't put up
with it. I'd stand up and say no! I refuse to become the laughingstock
of
West Texas!"
He sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets. "You're venting."
"Venting?" she all but hollered, her arms extended, her hair wild, her
breasts playing havoc with his
mind. "Do I look like I'm venting?"
"Actuallyâ"
"Don't answer that. Tell me if I'm venting after you see this."
Jesse felt more confused by the second and was doubly wishing he had
kept going down the driveway instead of stopping in here. He loved
women, loved being around themâexcept when they turned into raving
lunatics.
"Katie, you're upsetâ"
"You bet I'm upset." She started pulling things out of a brown paper
bag. "I'm upset about this."
She slammed down a handful of plastic-wrapped multicolored grocery
items.
"You're mad about Fruit Roll-Ups?" he asked, things not getting any
clearer.
She yanked out something else. "Fruit Roll-Ups and these!" She shook a
plastic-wrapped package of oversized dice.
"I still don't get it," he said.
She didn't bother to explain. She continued on, pulling out a board
game. On closer inspection, he
realized that it was some kind of golf
entertainment.
Then she upended the bag and a whole slew of other items tumbled out.
It took a second for them to register. Then he started to laugh.
"This is no laughing matter, Jesse Chapman. Julia has lost her mind.
She has sent me a bag of sex games and tells me I am
going to do a show about them." She picked up a fruit roll and tore it
open. "Tell me, what could this possibly be used for?" She ripped off a
piece with her teeth and started to chew.
"Edible underwear."
She gasped, then spit it out. "What? How can this be used as underwear?"
"If you really want to know"âhe couldn't help but grinâ"you unroll it,
cut two long strips, cross them between your thighs, bring them up and
secure them at your waist with a ribbon or a belt."
She blinked about half a dozen times. "Like X marks the spot?"
"You got it."
"I'm appalled."
He shrugged with a devilish nonchalance. "You asked."
"How do you know these things?" she demanded.
"You'd be surprised what a guy can learn on the golf circuit." Jesse
grabbed the golf game and chuckled. "Now this is inventive.
Fore!
Play.
A combination of the sex and golf term wrapped up in a single bedroom
game revolving around golf. Clever."
"It's sick."
"So you're not a golf fan." He grinned. "But admit it, you love the
dice."
She glared at him as he ripped the oversized cubes from the package.
But she didn't wait for more enlightenment. She started pacing again.
"Everyone wants me to be some new Kate. I don't know how
to be a new
Kate. I can't even decide who this new Kate is supposed to be. I can't
concentrate. Though
I could if ... if ... if you weren't distracting me. That's it. You're
the one throwing me off."
"Me? What did I do?" he asked with a choking laugh.
Instantly, she stopped and groaned. "You're right. You haven't done
anything. But you're here and
you're easy to blame, what with all your
wild distracting ways, great body, incredible hair, and that damned
sexy smileâ"
"You like my smile?"
"I hate your smile. It's enough to make the smartest women alive lose
their concentration. Heck, they write about it in People magazine!" She
sighed dramatically. "Though my problems aren't your fault. It isn't
you. I know that. But if my not figuring this out isn't about you, then
I have to accept the fact that it's about me. Which means that I have
to fix me. And I haven't a clue how to be anyone else."
All the vigor and anger drained away, leaving her spent. Unable to do
anything else, Jesse touched her chin, making her look at him.
He smiled at her.
She scowled. "Your sweet talkin' ways aren't going to work on me this
time," she stated stubbornly.
"I'm unhappy and miserable and you aren't
going to make me feel better."
His smile spread. "I'm not sweet talkin', sweet thing. I'm just telling
the truth. You've never understood how great you are, how you have
always been good enough just as you are."
"Tell that to Julia, or all those viewers who think they're critics."
"I've never thought of Katie Bloom as a whiner."
"Exactly! This is what getting real has done to me."
He ran his thumb along her jaw. "You can do it, Katie. You can win. But
you can't give up."
He saw the pulse in her neck flutter. He watched as her hazel eyes
flared with green before her lips set
in a firm, forbidding line.
He put his hands up in surrender. "Fine, see it your way, Miss
Award-Winning News Anchor. You,
Miss Highest Weekly Ratings for KTEX
since the station started airing
Getting
Real with Kate
."
She shot him a glare. "Great. Next the infamously bad Jesse Chapman is
going to launch into a lecture
on honor, morals, and respect."
His lips tilted. "Is that a rock group?"
Her eyes narrowed, then she couldn't seem to help herself. She laughed.
"You're bad, Jesse Chapman."
"I try."
She breathed in, then exhaled long and slow. "Why are you being nice to
me?"
"I want to see you happy," he said softly.
As sudden as a summer storm, every trace of suspicion in her expression
fled, replaced by a hint of
tears that welled in her eyes. "Really?"
"Really."
The moment was intimate and caring, and it made him feel uncomfortable.
He might want her happy,
but he didn't want this, not the emotion or
the intensity. He couldn't handle itâthe hope and need he
saw in her
eyes for him to be correct that she was good enough as she was. He
dropped his hand and moved away.
"You're leaving?" she asked, her nose wrinkling. "If you stay, I
promise to play nice," she offered with
a sweet, hopeful smile. "I might even have a beer in the refrigerator."
His gaze ran down her body. Despite everything he had been telling
himself about this woman and all
that she represented, heat and desire
flared. Without ever taking his eyes off her, he knew he couldn't walk
out when she had that look on her face.
Then without thinking, he picked up the worded cubes, and rolled them.
Her appreciative smile turned to concern. "What are you doing, Jesse? I
said I promise to play nice,
not dice."
There was a quaver in her voice.
"Hmmm," he teased. "Lick showing on one die, and Lips on the other."
He came toward her.
"Now what are you doing?" she asked nervously.
"Showing you how to use the dice. It's the least I can do. I know how
much you like research."
Then he licked her on the lips. "Mmmm, cherry Fruit Roll-Up."
He saw her uncertainty as she touched her lips. What had started out as
a teasing game suddenly didn't seem like a game any longer. He wanted
to do more than lick her, at least more than lick her lips. He wanted
to lick the lines and creases of her body.
"Why do you keep doing this to me?" she whispered.
As if he could do nothing else, he tossed the dice again. "Kiss and
Face."
Alarm brightened her cheeks. But combined with alarm, she breathed in
deeply, her breasts rising.
"I'm not going to play," she stated without
much conviction.
"I dare you."
"I'm not six years old anymore."
"Chicken," he teased softly.
He saw that old competitiveness surge, and more than anything he felt
relief that his old Katie was back..The despair gone, the uncertainty
erased.
"I am not chicken."
"Bauck, bauck," he whispered.
She growled, then leaned forward as fast as a chicken and pecked him on
the cheek. "I did it."
"You never could resist a dare."
"Like you could?" She snorted.
His smile turned wicked. "Okay, I accept." He rolled again.
"I wasn't daring you!"
"Sure you were." He peered at the dice. "Touch and Foot."
Kate looked relieved until he said, "Mmmm, this might take some
inventiveness," then told her to sit on the counter.
"Absolutely not!"
He lifted her with ease, her body sliding up against his before he set
her down on the tile.
"Now, Jesse."
She bit her full lower lip, making it glisten, and he wished the dice
had come up as Lick and Lips once again.
Instead, with his gaze never leaving hers, his hand skimmed down her
pajama pants until he came to her ankle. It was slim and delicate. He
started to take hold of her foot, but she gasped, then hurriedly
brushed off the bottoms.
He raised a brow.
"I wanted to make sure they were clean."
But every ounce of resistance evaporated when he ran his palm over her
arch. Their eyes were locked together, her chin
slightly raised to meet his gaze, and her lips parted in a silent
intake of breath.
Katie had always been cute with her wild curls and big hazel eyes. But
sitting here now, she was
changing before his eyes. Day by day, bit by
bit. She had grown into a beautiful woman.
It had become harder and harder to see her as little Katie whom he had
known forever. And when his hand drifted over her ankle and underneath
the flannel pant leg, he wasn't thinking about friends.
His pulse drummed through his body as he ran his palm up her calf,
pulling up the soft baggy material
as he went. The gold in her eyes
flared as his other hand slid beneath the flannel on her opposite leg.
He lingered at the sensitive spot behind her knees before nudging them
apart and stepping closer. He curled his fingers around the backs of
her knees, then slowly he pulled her round bottom to the very edge of
the counter.
Leaning close, he kissed her temple, running his hands up underneath
her T-shirt, along her spine, her skin smooth like silk. The heat in
the room seemed to grow, but her nipples pulled into tight buds
beneath
the thin cotton as if it were cold outside.
She trembled, and when he leaned down and gently kissed her, she sighed
against him. Desire exploded, but he kept it in brutal check. He knew
women, and he knew Katie wanted him. But he didn't want to scare her,
and when he brushed his lips over hers, her hands fluttered for a
second as if she didn't know what to do with them before they settled
on his chest.
He was sure she must feel his pounding heart, and he groaned quietly,
dropping light kisses along her lips.
"Open for me," he whispered.
After a hesitant second, she did, her hands curling into his shirt when
he found her tongue, pulling her closer. With the V between her legs no
more than an inch away from his cock, he wanted to press her against
his hard length, then sink inside her. He could almost feel her warmth
surrounding him, hot and slick.
Letting his control slip a bit, he pressed his arousal against her. Her
body tensed at the feel of his insistent need, but she gave a soft moan
at the same time. Running his hand down her spine, he pressed her body
to his, slowly, over and over again.
When he lifted his head, she was breathless. He wanted nothing more
than to lift her shirt, capture her arms above her head, and take each
nipple into his mouth. And he would have, consequences be damned. But
without warning, her breath seemed to freeze in her chest, her eyes
going wild. Then she caught him off guard when she pushed at his chest,
ducked beneath his arm, and scrambled down from the counter.
She hurried away without a glance, though he would have sworn she was
chanting, "No sex, no sex, no sex," as she disappeared out the door.