I Know What You Read (2 page)

Jade read a handful of romance novels over the last few years, but these stories were more to the point and engaging. Her most recent favorite was a short story about two handsome friends who recently discovered they had an attraction for each other. She could easily picture Ethan and Julian in place of the characters, and it always sent her pulse soaring as she read about their tender moments of passion.  Her skin would flush with color, her vagina would begin to tingle and moisten, her hand would disappear below the desk unobserved by the world beyond her office, and slide up her thigh; thank goodness she was into skirts lately.  Her panties, when she wore them anymore, would be pulled to the side and she would work slowly and gently right there in her office until she completed one of the sexual ‘bucket list’ items: an orgasm in a public place. The only problem with something so fun was it could become a habit instead of an occasional thrill.

She eyed the new releases when one grabbed her attention about a hitchhiker. “Time for something new,” she whispered as she glanced out to the newsroom floor through her half-glassed walls. Everyone was busy as usual.

Perfect
. 

She began to read.

The story unfolded about a young woman who picked up a handsome hitchhiker in the Tampa Area.

Cool, a little local flavor
.

Within minutes, she was absorbed into the story as this woman wondered if the sexy man beside her was a serial killer. Things began to click into place and the man was offering a long night of passion—if she was willing. Jade could feel the heat beginning to pulse through her veins.

By the time they were in the motel and clothing was being removed, Jade was working her way toward some place warm and wet. She read about the first gentle touches of the man’s hands on this woman’s body, as her own fingers dipped softly into her tingling folds for moisture and then began to circle and stroke her clit. Oh, yes, it was feeling magnificent.  The heroine in the book was just coming to her first peak and Jade wasn’t far behind when a male voice startled her so badly she knocked the mouse off her desk.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Noah stated as he stepped into her office.

Her right hand quickly hit the power button to her monitor; the screen went black.

His eyebrows rose.

“Sorry,” she said as the heat continued to flood her senses, “I’m working on an exclusive and no one is allowed to peek.”

He smiled slowly, “I was just coming by to tell you I’ll drive—if you don’t mind.”

The sensation throbbed to a slow stop—damn it. “Drive where?”

“To the game. First pitch is a little after six but we have to get there by three to talk with the players.”

She felt her jaw muscles tighten as she tried to force a smile onto her face. Her fingers below the desk were slowly removed from under her panties and then slid carefully down her thigh so it wouldn’t be obvious what she’d been doing. “I think I already declined this offer once.”

“Hiram didn’t talk with you yet? He told me he wanted
both
of us
to cover the game.” The smile on his face grew larger.

Her left hand now rested on her knee.  She drew it out and grabbed the telephone.  “Bullshit,” came her one word response. She dialed her boss’s extension, “Mr. Spencer, I have Noah Taylor standing here telling me—  Pardon me? Yes, sir, I know it’s a community event, but…” She drew in an annoyed breath as her boss explained that, although he had forgotten to mention it to her after he talked with Noah, he did indeed expect her to cover it. “Okay, fine,” she snapped and hung up the phone.

He was leaning against her desk at this point as he reached out and gripped her hand in his.

Oh, shit—not good—fingers still damp!

“You don’t have to be so nervous,” he chuckled as he lifted her hand and kissed the back of it.

When he paused for a moment, she wondered if he caught the scent of the daring game she’d been playing. She knew she didn’t have any unpleasant odor, but, by nature, there was a scent even though it was light.

“You have a gorgeous tan, but I swear you’re going to need sunscreen because your face is scarlet. I have to grab a couple things and I’ll be back.” He kissed her hand again then left.

An hour later, she stood under the dome at the Trop surrounded by hunky ballplayers. She worked the local flavor angle with the guys who made Tampa their permanent home while Noah talked stats, contracts, agents, and such.

“Let me throw a couple balls,” he said, as a challenge to Longoria. The guys laughed and bantered a few more moments then started walking out onto the diamond.

Noah peeled off his dress shirt, revealing his nicely sculpted, powerful arms. She didn’t know why she didn’t see it the day she met him in the hotel but now she observed tattoos on the undersides of his wrists and forearms. He had an intricate dragon on his right and a bird of some type on his left.

She grabbed the nearest gloved ballplayer and promptly pulled him in front of her. “I don’t want to get hit by a ball,” she explained, cringing slightly. Several of the guys laughed and corralled around her.

“Don’t worry, beautiful,” one of the men stated, “we aren’t going to let a ball get anywhere near you.”

“Thanks,” she lightly giggled, “because I know he’s not going to get past Longoria’s swing.”

The men let out a whoop-whoop as they called her a true Rays’ fan. She honestly did like baseball; she just hadn’t been to a game in a long time.

Surprisingly, Noah still had his pitching ability from his years with the Yankees. He managed to get two past Longoria, but he slipped by the third.  The crack of the bat caused Jade to duck on instinct, but the ball was all the way up and into the catwalk over head.

The guys chatted for a few more minutes but they had to start warming up for the game, which meant she and Noah needed to get off the field.

Noah slung his dress shirt over his shoulder as they moved toward the seating he’d arranged in the Avantair Home Plate Club.

“Shouldn’t you put that back on,” she said as she stared at the outline of his sculpted chest through his white cotton undershirt.

He laughed, “Do I make you nervous, Jade? My pants are still on.”

“You don’t make me nervous at all,” she responded, trying to sound confident. “I just think it’s more professional if you—“

“Then give me a chance,” he whispered as he leaned in toward her neck, “and I will eventually.”

That gave her a little shiver. “Does it bother you at all that you’re married and your wife is expecting?”

“Come on, Jade—we live in the real world. You have to know Yvette married me for the money, and I married her so I could have a couple heirs. I mean, she’s a great gal, but I catch her looking at other people, too. As long as I pay her credit card bills and she doesn’t get knocked up by someone other than me, we have a pretty open relationship.”

“God that sounds awful,” she said before she could contain it. “What about falling in love?”

He was checking out her figure as she slid past him into her seat, “Oooh,” he sighed, “I might be doing that right now.”

“No thanks,” she snapped. “Whether you believe in the sanctity of your marriage or not, I don’t go out with married guys.”

“That’s not what Hiram said,” he shot back with a small grin.

“Ah!” It was the only thing she could get out. She was shocked to discover that her boss evidently shared some of her personal life with this handsome creep. It was true; the last guy she dated was married but she didn’t know it at the time. Two months down the road and she realized her new boyfriend had some privacy issues. When she did a little more checking, she discovered why and immediately broke off the relationship. “That wasn’t my fault,” she managed to say. “He lied to me.”

“Jade,” he said with all seriousness back in his voice as he stared at her.

“Yeah?”

“I’m not married. Does that help my chances?”

“You may think you’re funny, but I honestly didn’t know James was married. No, it doesn’t help; your chances are still zero.”

“Hey, a guy has to start somewhere. I can work from the ground up; I’ve done it before.”

He was an annoyingly charming host for the rest of the ballgame. But, try as he might, he didn’t make a dent in Jade’s resistance.

CHAPTER THREE

“Bing!  We have an innocent playing this game.”

Monday morning she made it in a few minutes before 8 a.m. to find a manila envelope on her desk with a post-it from Ethan.

Here is the pic Noah wanted you to have.  Whether you bother to get it autographed or not is up to you. Ethan

She was a little concerned it might actually be a full nude shot but somehow she couldn’t imagine Ethan doing that to her. She breathed a sigh of relief when she pulled it out to find it was an upper body shot. She laughed and put it back in the envelope—it would never be autographed, nor framed.

She sat in front of her computer and noticed, in her frustration over covering the game with Noah, she didn’t shut it down for the weekend. She had merely turned off her monitor and left it. As soon as she hit the power button to the screen, she remembered what she had almost been caught doing at her desk.

She looked around as the world beyond her office was caught up in the business of business. She had an interview at ten thirty.
Hmm, two hours to kill
. She smiled and decided to start the story over from the beginning. She thoroughly enjoyed letting the suspense build. She’d never been a jump-right-in-and-get-it-done-right-away kind of girl. Matter of fact, that was probably why she never had a relationship work out.

It seemed as if most guys were interested in what Jade called TV sex. That’s where they barely get the door closed before they jerk each other’s clothes off, the sheets on the bed become a quick tangle, and three minutes later they lay there smiling like they just filmed a KY Intense commercial.

What happened to romance? What happened to really good foreplay? Yeah, hard and fast sex might have its place—maybe somewhere dangerous—but not in the bedroom every night. When TV sex becomes the norm, it screams the lazy man’s mantra, “Baby, I want to bust a nut with minimum effort!!”

Jade was still looking for the guy who liked epic novel or movie sex. Yeah, she sighed silently. The kind of romance you wait for on the edge of your seat, praying the two will eventually get together. The kind so thick with anticipation, you’d swear anticipation must have a flavor because you can taste it. The kind revealing a man who wants his woman to feel the love he’s pouring into her deeper than the six inches sliding between her thighs. Yes, this was the kind of man she longed to find.

She was quickly reabsorbed into the story once again, feeling every touch of the stranger’s hands. The hitchhiker slowly kissed all around the woman’s pubic area and thighs.  He gently worked a vibrator against her hungry, slick entrance. Damn, it was feeling wonderful! Jade’s fingers were at her own entrance as she and the woman in the story rode over the mountain of satisfaction together.

Oh, shit
, she thought. She wiped her forehead with her free hand. The office was about 72 degrees, but she was sweating as her pulse struggled to come back to normal. She took a deep breath and looked around to make sure no one was watching. Everyone was involved in their own little worlds.

Good
. She hadn’t done anything stupid—like moaned or cried out when she came. She finished the story and was thoroughly satisfied with the ending. Perhaps a guy on the side of the road with his thumb stuck out wasn’t your typical prince charming, but the author had done an excellent job of turning him into one.

She glanced at the display in the bottom right of the screen.
Wow, where did the time go?
She put a spot of hand sanitizer in her palms and rubbed them together. It was a quick fix until she could get to the bathroom and wash her hands properly. She gathered up her briefcase and purse, then called Julian’s extension and said as soon as she made a bathroom pit-stop, she would be ready to leave.

Jade’s story was on four generations of women in one family taking part in the three day Race For The Cure campaign.  The matriarch of the family was 77, her daughter was 57, her granddaughter was 36, and her great-granddaughter was 18.  The cool angle for her story: great grandmamma was a tri-athlete.

She put the top down today, glad that Julian didn’t mind. His hair wasn’t excessively long but he did manage to pull it into a pony tail. What a beautiful and blissful mid-Monday morning! Julian, charming as usual, had all the ladies hamming it up for his camera. It always tickled Jade to watch women go for him (or Ethan, depending on which one she had with her). It appeared to be one of the advantages to being gay; they seemed to understand how to communicate with women on a level without barriers.

They finished up and were setting their stuff in the backseat of her car when Julian asked how her ‘date’ with Noah went.

“Date?” she snapped with a bit of ire. “He’d better not be telling anyone we were on a date. We had to cover the Rays’ game together. And, to tell you the truth, I think he has Hiram wrapped around his finger because I’m ninety-percent sure he talked him into assigning me the story. Did someone say it was a date?” she asked, her curiosity too much for her mouth to keep in check.

Julian laughed as he opened the passenger’s door and sat down, “No. Ethan told me Noah was gunning for you from the moment you met him—which, by the way, he showed me the pic. He has a great body and a jumbo bank account.”

“Why does everyone think money makes a difference to a woman?” she asked as she shook her head and sat beside him. “I mean, a great body certainly helps a guy’s chances, same as it does for a girl, but why does the bank account always have to be part of the picture?”

“Okay, so you’re saying you wouldn’t mind a good looking man with zero in the bank?”