Game, Set, Match (A Humorous Contemporary Romance) (Love Match) (34 page)

Nick brightened up when he saw him. “Dude, my mom’s photos are making a killing. Jess just took stock. We’ve sold all but six so far.”

Jessica nodded. “Not that you don’t already know we’ve made a ton of sales, seeing as you’ve bought four so far.”

Damn right he’d bought four. He’d have bought another one as well if the mayor hadn’t beaten him to the punch. “Guilty as charged. There are a couple of these I’ve been trying to get my hands on for years.”

Nick looked at Jessica. “You think if she sells all of them, she’ll be in a good enough mood to buy me that Vespa I asked for?”

Jessica laughed. “Don’t push your luck. Not to mention you’re still a couple of years shy of being able to drive.”

Nick shrugged, but didn’t look defeated. “You just wait. I’ll wear her down.”

Distracted by the sight of Izzy in his peripheral, Jason half smiled at Nick. Something in the determined set of Nick’s clenched jaw made his stomach flip. Could Sabrina have been telling the truth?

But he had used a condom. He always had with Sabrina, never trusted her to be faithful. He knew the truth, but it didn’t stop him from wondering, almost wishing. The train of his own thoughts surprised him enough that he looked for a way to excuse himself.

As luck would have it, he didn’t need one. Simon sauntered toward their general direction. He nodded to Jason. “Cartwright.
Nice of you to support your photographer.” He gave Jessica the type of empty vacant look reserved for elevator rides. But to Nick he turned a beaming smile, “What’s happening, Nicky boy?”

Nick scowled at him. “I hate it when you call me Nicky boy.”

Jason was relieved he wasn’t the only one not feeling the love for Simon.

Simon blinked several times as if unsure of how to respond. Jessica, sensing his weakness, sprung her attack.

“Don’t bother, Nick. This schmuck doesn’t understand the finer points of how to talk to people.”

Simon turned cool eyes in her direction. “I see you attempted to put yourself together for the event. How does it feel to be without your piercings and combat boots?”

“Probably the same way it feels to walk around without a soul, the way you do.”

Jason looked between the two of them. “Look, maybe you guys want to keep your voices down. Today is Izzy’s day.”

Both turned to him in unison. Jessica’s face flushed, and her eyes went wide. Simon’s eyes dilated and his breathing turned rapid. Jessica muttered an apology, but Simon didn’t bother. He turned his attention to an approaching Izzy, who sent a beaming smile in their direction as she walked by.

Jason would have sworn he caught the moron staring at Izzy’s ass. Not that he could fault him. The way the material skimmed over pert roundness—Jason had caught himself staring more than once.

Unfortunately, Nick also noticed Simon’s attention to Izzy. Scowling even harder into his glass of soda, he asked, “Do you have to look at her like that?”

In total agreement, Jason picked up another glass of champagne off a passing tray and said, “Tell me about it.”

Jessica looked back and forth between the two of them. “I think things are a bit testosterony for my taste. If you’ll excuse me…” She abandoned them to follow a tray of canapés. Simon stared after her for a long moment before heading in the opposite direction.

Nick looked up at Jason. “So you
gonna ask her out, or what?”

Having just taken a sip of champagne, bubbles tickled his nose, and Jason choked. “What?”

“My mom. Are you going to ask her out? I’ve seen you guys sniffing round each other.”

Somehow this kid always had him off center. “Well, Nick, we are sort of on a date now.”

Nick pondered that for a moment then nodded. “Okay, good. She hasn’t ripped your head off yet, so that’s a good sign, right?”

This kid was too astute for his own good. “Yeah, in my experience it’s generally a good sign.”

Nick looked over at Izzy. “And she looks happy.”

Jason wondered what kinds of things kept Izzy from being happy so he could get rid of all of them. “I want her to be happy.”

Nick shifted his eyes from his mother to Jason. “I wouldn’t be cool with it if you did something to make her unhappy.”

Jason recognized the territorial pissing and half respected it, half wanted to laugh since it was coming from her son, and not her father.
“Understood.”

Jason spent much of the rest of the opening hanging out with Nick. He talked to the occasional politician and Hollywood type, but funnily enough, he felt most comfortable with the kid. The same kid who pretty much told him if he messed up with Izzy, he was a dead man.

As the last guests made their way out of the gallery, Izzy discussed instructions for shipping with the gallery owner. When she finished, she walked over to him and gave him a brilliant smile. “Thank you so much for hanging out through the whole thing. I know these things can be a bit dull.”

He took her hand and pierced her with a look. “First, customary practice is to take your date home at the end of the night and not leave her to hitch her way home. That won’t usually get you a second date.”

Her laugh was clear and loud and made him want to hug her to him and capture that laugh as his alone. “I suppose that is the custom for dates.”

Relief washed over him that she hadn’t tried to suggest this wasn’t a date. “Yes, it is. Secondly, I love to see you do your thing. Your photos are beautiful. Everyone should appreciate them.”

She smiled shyly. “Thank you. Except for everyone to appreciate them, you should have to give up a couple of the ones you bought. Jessica said you bought six.”

He shrugged. “Let everyone else get
their own. I’m keeping my six.”

She laughed and shook her head. He loved her laugh, the way she threw her whole self into it. “Fine, you can keep the ones you bought, but I really must insist you release the ones you’ve got on order.” She spread her arms. “Where are you going to put all of them?”

He knew exactly where they were all going to go. “You let me worry about that.”

“Have you seen Jessica? I need her to sign off on some order and delivery forms with the gallery owners before she leaves.”

Following her toward the offices and coat check, he asked, “Are you sure she didn’t take Nick home?”

She shook her head. “No. Well, yes, she did that earlier. He’s got a sleepover with a friend tonight. I saw her come back though.”

“I last saw her in the midst of giving Simon a proper what-for about something.”

She flashed him a grimace as she searched the main office. “I hope they didn’t kill each other. I suppose I should be grateful they didn’t get into a bitch fight in the middle of the opening.”

He wondered if he should tell her about their earlier sparring match, then thought better of it. Let her believe everything went smoothly. No reason to ruin her image of a perfect evening. “Yep, we’ll thank God for small favors.”

“I don’t know what it is with the two of them. They were never the best of friends, but it’s gotten worse of late.” She chuckled. “Part of me wants to tell them to either go ahead and shoot each other, or go ahead and sleep together. At least that way, we’ll all get some peace.”

The clashing images of uptight Simon and punk rock Jessica in flagrante forced a snort of laughter out of his lungs. “Somehow I doubt we—”

A thud from the coat check interrupted him. The two of them exchanged a curious look before simultaneously heading in the direction of the noise. As they approached, the thud turned into a series of thuds and increased in frequency.

Izzy levered her hand on the doorknob, and he flashed his out to meet hers. “Iz, wait. We might interrupt someone.” He raised his eyebrows to add emphasis to his meaning.

“Oh c’mon, who has sex in the coat check? It’s so cliché. I mean—” Her voice cut off abruptly as she swung the door open.

The sight of the broad back of a charcoal gray suit jacket and bare brown male ass wrapped by pale feminine legs greeted them. Eyes squeezed tight, Jessica’s head rolled back as she moaned. “Yes, Simon. Harder. Yes—”

Izzy closed the door on a rush of air and avoided his gaze.
 
Shit, was she still hung up on the guy?

Jason cleared his throat and rocked back on his heels. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

Eyes wide, she leveled a gaze up at him. “Are you kidding? This is fantastic.” As she pulled him away from the door, she giggled and chattered at high speeds. “They’ll finally stop sniping at each other, and he’ll finally stop giving me attitude about breaking up with him.”

His eyebrows drew in. “So you’re not upset?”

“Why would I be?”

Unsure, he rubbed the end of his nose. “I don’t
know, your best friend and your ex going at it in the coat closet.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not with him for good reason—absolutely no chemistry. If they make each other happy, all power to them.” She smiled and sidled up to him at the end of the darkened gallery hall. “And, in case you haven’t noticed, I came to this event with the world’s sexiest man.”

“Well I won’t argue with a beautiful woman. You and 
People
 can’t be wrong.” He took both her hands and drew her closer. “So, am I to take you home, or am I to take you to Malibu?”

The look she gave him made the blood rush out of his head about two feet south. “Is that what we’re calling it now? Going to Malibu?”

He couldn’t help the laugh that burst forth. He shook his head and said, “I guess that is what we’re calling it now.” Leave it to Izzy to diffuse some of the thick tension that surrounded them.

Turning serious, she gave him a long look and nodded. “Let’s go to Malibu.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“Hey, why so far away?”

Jason bit back a groan as she patted the seat next to her. Everything about her sent a siren call to him.
Her perfume, her satiny skin, the rise of cleavage that peeked out above her dress. His fingers and tongue itched to taste and tease and explore. Not to mention plunder and ravage and live out every dirty fantasy he’d ever had about her. If he touched her now, they’d never make it into the house.

He shook his head to clear the lust thickened cobwebs and croaked out, “Not yet, I want to look at you.”

She dipped and angled her head, her lips parted in a feminine smile. All the while, she patted the seat again more insistently. “You’ve been looking at me all night. I want you to touch me.”

Damn, he wanted to touch her. His hands ached as they remembered the feel of her full breasts. He wanted to feel her hair through his fingers and kiss the nape of her neck and a slew of other things he wouldn’t be able to stop once he started. “And I want to touch you.” He shifted to give himself more room in his pants. “I want to take you home and treat you like the princess you are. Not go at it like two teenagers in the back of a Buick.”

She considered him, then narrowed her gaze. Delicate French tipped fingers adjusted the material of her dress, bringing the sleeves into perilous danger of slipping off her slender shoulders.

He coughed, desperate
to clear an airway to his lungs, as his eyes snapped to the line of material just above her breasts. He prayed and willed it to slip off. His fingers gripped the edge of the leather seat, but he didn’t join her. Stubbornly, he set his jaw, and gave her a smile somewhere between wolfish and pained.

Her resulting grin made his cock swell and leap against his trousers. She studied him for a several moments before she shifted to showcase the slit in her dress. Crossing her legs forced the satiny material to fall and reveal a smooth chocolaty expanse of bare leg to mid
-thigh, tormenting his imagination. He locked eyes with her, and she cocked her head at him and smiled in invitation.

His already ragged breathing ceased as he watched her slide her dress past the mid-thigh point.
One inch, two inches. She kept up the movement, crossed and uncrossed her legs again, and drew his attention to the darkened valley between her legs. 
Is she wearing underwear? Did she wax?

“Shit.” The ragged word slashed through his teeth as he launched out of his seat to join her.

“Little girls who tease get punished.”

Her eyes searched his face, a light of mischief danced through her expression. “I’m counting on it.”

His response was swift and consumed him. He couldn’t hear any of the soft music that played in the back of the limo for the blood rushing in his head. His hands fisted in her hair. He dipped his head and hovered above her lips for several beats. Her mouth parted in open invitation, pink tongue moistening her lower lip.

He tried to be gentle, but one taste of Champagne and chocolate and Izzy, and he forgot all about gentle. He cupped her head and held her in position while he explored
every nook and cranny of her mouth with his tongue. Blood rushed and roared, and drove him to brand her, make her his, he didn’t know if he could stop even if the limo were on fire.

She clamored to get closer to him, and straddled him to get better access. Her kisses were curious and sensual as she nipped at his lips, and he could have spent the rest of his life kissing her.