Summer Kisses (315 page)

“Oh, good. Thanks. Did they, um, did you have a nice visit with them?” She had a feeling this conversation would have been awkward even if every shopper who had just seen her have a nervous breakdown because of a tabloid weren’t hanging on her every word.

“It was fun, yeah. Kinda cold for LA, but we spent all weekend in the pool anyway.” His voice hitched and he hesitated. Then, “We missed you, Lou. The exotic dates start this week and we’ll be in Peru next weekend, but the week after Miranda promised we’ll be back here for the kids’ visit and the Elimination Ceremony. Will you come with them then?”

Sucking face on a tabloid or not, Lou couldn’t say no to the request. Her heart melted and the steel went out of her spine. “Yes, of course I’ll come.” She’d have enough weekends alone when this was all over.

“Good.”

Lou heard Miranda’s voice in the background demanding Jack get ready for the Elimination Ceremony. He muttered something distinctly uncomplimentary about her friend and said goodbye. Lou closed the phone and tucked it back into her purse, feeling like a hundred pounds had been lifted from her shoulders.

Until she looked up and met the disapproving gaze of Ms. Hot Pocket. “Give him an inch and he’ll take your heart, sweetie. Don’t be stupid just because he can be charming.”

“I’m not.” She wasn’t. Was she?

“Mm-hmm,” Ms. Hot Pocket muttered, completely unimpressed. She’d reached the front of the line and began loading her items onto the conveyor belt, but she glanced back at Lou. “Just remember
Sterling McCormick
.”

“Is that your ex?”

“Honey, that’s my divorce lawyer. The best. You’re gonna need a barracuda. Especially if you go all mushy every time that asshole calls. Sterling McCormick. He’s worth every penny.”

“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind,” Lou murmured.

Ms. Hot Pocket humphed and turned back to her groceries. Lou took a deep breath and tried to get a hold of her mixed up emotions.

She was too upset that Jack had been kissing someone else, too excited that he really did want her to come back next week, and too guilty for the fact that she felt like she’d disappointed Ms. Hot Pocket by not standing her ground.

She was a mess. But in a couple hours the kids would be home and her usual routine would keep things on track until she saw Jack again.

Anticipation swirled insider her. She couldn’t wait to see him again. Big-breasted blonde kisses notwithstanding.

Jack couldn’t wait to see Lou again. The last three weeks felt like a lifetime without her—especially the last six days. They’d entered the jet-setting portion of the show and the Suitorettes were really starting to get into it. Natalie had already declared herself in love with him and two others admitted that they were
falling for him
.

He’d even found himself getting sucked into it a time or two as well. A few times there this week he’d actually felt like he was on a real date with a real woman—no cameras and no pretense. Usually with Marcy, but occasionally even with Katya. It just went to show that you could get used to anything.

They were gorgeous and fascinating, sexy beyond belief and all they wanted was him.

His sense of reality was definitely getting skewed.

And because things were amping up with the show, with fewer, longer dates and more exotic travel, he’d only get Saturday with Lou and the kids this week to reestablish his link with the real world. Then he had one last date and an Elimination Ceremony at the mansion on Sunday before the show went on the road again for the Meet-the-Inlaws episode.

Though on the plus side, the week after that all the girls came to Chicago to check out his place, which was intrusive, but it also meant sleeping in his own bed and talking to Lou and the kids as much as he wanted. No more producers demanding he get off the phone. No more long airplane rides for Lou and the kids. Just seven solid days of home sweet home.

“Daddy!”

Jack turned as two small bodies smashed against his legs. He bent and pressed a hand against each of their backs, but his gaze stayed trained on the door until Lou stepped across the threshold. It wasn’t until relief zinged through him that he realized how nervous he’d been that she might decide not to come again.

She hesitated, biting her lower lip as she hovered in the entry. “Hi, Jack.”

“Lou.”

She looked amazing wearing another of those little stretchy dresses like the one she’d worn last time. Her hair was down around her shoulders again, curling around her face. Her pale blue eyes leapt out at him, meeting his.

For a moment, something intangible stretched between them—a question or a hope, he didn’t know which—but then the kids must have sensed something with their Adult-Connection-Radar. They jumped up and down, each grabbing one of his hands with both of theirs as they demanded his attention.

“Dad, can we go to the zoo today, can we?”

“Can we please, Daddy?”

Jack glanced at Lou with raised eyebrows.

She shrugged and gave a slight nod—their I’m-okay-with-it-if-you-are signal. “The driver mentioned there’s a new baby tiger at the LA zoo. It’s not San Diego, or anything, but the kids really latched onto the idea.”

“Yeah, Dad, we’re latched,” TJ declared, in his I’m-one-of-the-grown-ups voice.

Jack ruffled his hair and grinned. “If we’re latched, I guess we’d better check out this baby tiger.”

After the week he’d had, a day at the zoo with Emma, TJ and Lou sounded like heaven on earth.

~~~

Lou shifted Emma’s limp form in her arms as she followed Jack, who carried an equally boneless TJ, up the stairs. After their day running around like monkeys at the zoo and pigging out on dried-out burgers and stale fries at the zoo food court, the kids had immediately conked out on the drive home—almost before they made it out of the parking lot.

It had been a great day—without a single mention of
Marrying Mr. Perfect
and not a camera in sight—but now Lou felt like she’d been run over with a steamroller. Every muscle she had was sore and she was weary down to her marrow.

Kelly had sent her off with instructions to seduce the hell out of Jack as soon as the kids were asleep, but a hot shower to work the aches out of her muscles and a rendezvous with her fluffy pillow were the only things on Lou’s mind as they trudged to the top of the stairs and down the hall to the room where the kids usually slept.

She and Jack were still being too careful with one another, dancing around and pretending they weren’t constantly tense around one another.

He shouldered open the door and held it open with his foot until Lou carried Emma into the room. They silently changed the kids into pajamas and settled them into bed. There was nothing unusual about the bedtime ritual, but Lou was overly conscious of Jack through it all—the brush of his hand against hers when she handed him TJ’s pajama pants, the strength in his shoulders when he lifted the six-year-old to slide him under the covers, and the half-smile he shot her when their eyes met.

Lou slipped out into the hallway and Jack quietly clicked the door shut behind them. Only minutes ago she’d been desperate to get some sleep, but now she lingered in the hallway, hoping Jack would give her an excuse to stay up with him, held silent by that strange tension.

He laid his hand on her elbow and guided her down the hall away from the kids’ room. She didn’t know what to say, seemed to have forgotten how to talk to him, but he solved that problem by bringing up their one universally safe topic: Emma and TJ.

“The zoo was a great idea. They really went nuts for that baby tiger.”

“The chimpanzees were a real hit too.” Great. She’d been reduced to itemizing the animals at the zoo.

“I must be getting old,” Jack grumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. “I used to be able to go nonstop and it didn’t faze me a bit. Now after one measly afternoon at the zoo, I ache all over.”

Lou eyed the muscles shifting beneath Jack’s T-shirt as he worked the kinks out of his neck. “Oh yeah, you’re geriatric, all right. Mister Perfect, the nursing home edition.” Lou glanced around, suddenly realizing why the house felt so quiet. “Speaking of Mister Perfect. Where is everyone?”

He grinned. “They’re taking the day off. Almost the entire crew got a free day today before we start traveling again. Even the house staff get a break, so I hope you weren’t expecting turn-down service.”

They were alone. Completely alone. An inappropriate shiver of delight ran across Lou’s nerve endings.

Not that anything would happen. Of course nothing would happen.

Together, they paused in the hall outside her room. Lou wracked her brain for something to say, some way to prolong the evening. Why was she so terrible at this? She’d never been good at small talk. Lou’d never really felt it was such a terrible thing not to be chatty, but now she’d sell her soul for a conversation starter.

Jack nodded toward the pool. “I’m going to take a soak in the hot tub before I call it a night. Care to join me?”

Lou tried not to cut him off in her eagerness to agree. “Sure,” she said, going for nonchalance, as if wild horses could keep her away. “Meet you down there in ten?”

“Perfect.”

When Mister Perfect disappeared down the hall in search of his swim trunks, Lou ducked into her room, debating one of the single most important choices of her life to date: one piece or bikini?

The one piece was a simple black racer-back suit that covered her from collarbones to hips. Jack had seen her in it before, every time they went to the Y with the kids, and it had never elicited an I-must-ravish-you-this-instant response.

The bikini, on the other hand, was brand new, fire-engine red, and designed with the words
va-va-voom
in mind. Kelly had insisted Lou buy it as part of the original Ultimate Seduction plan, but when Lou fished the scarlet scraps out of her overnight bag, she couldn’t believe she’d let herself be talked into purchasing anything so overtly come-and-get-me. Could she really wear it?

The black one hid all her faults. Lou kept herself in pretty good shape, but she was no swimsuit model. How was her amateur va-va-voom supposed to compete with someone who looked like a goddess for a living?

The image of the busty blonde kissing Jack on the magazine rose in her mind and she tossed the red scraps back into the bag.

He would think she was ridiculous if she tried to be sexy for him. Especially when he was surrounded by real sexy.

Lou laid out the black one piece, but hesitated.

Safe or bold? Maternal or sexual? If she put on the bikini, was she announcing to Jack and the world that she was more than a carpool chauffeur? If she went with the black, was she giving up on ever having Jack as anything more than a friend?

Her wardrobe had never seemed more complicated.

Lou closed her eyes and reached for her suit of choice.
Now or never
.

~~~

Jack groaned as he sank up to his neck in decadently hot water. He’d left the patio lights off, so the glittery lights atop the gazebo were the only illumination, providing a soft glowing oasis in the warm California night. Behind him, a bottle of champagne left by a forgetful crew member sat on the edge of the Jacuzzi. The ice chilling it had long since melted and the wine was undoubtedly lukewarm, but he wasn’t picky. A glass of anything alcoholic sounded pretty damn good right now. A great way to unwind after the long day.

He let his eyes fall closed and dropped his head back against the lip of the hot tub. Bliss. He stayed like that, letting the warmth work into his muscles, until he heard the sound of the sliding door whooshing open.

Jack opened his eyes. And nearly swallowed his tongue.

Holy hell.

Lou stepped out of the house and into the moonlight wearing a fragment of a scarlet bathing suit designed to incite dirty thoughts.
Very
dirty thoughts. And Jack was far from immune.

He must have sex on the brain from the show, but he couldn’t help appreciating the view as she walked toward him. The mile-long legs, the smooth curve of her waist flaring out to her hips, and the full, perfect handful of her breasts straining against the ties holding them in place. She was a feast for the eyes. He’d never seen her wearing so little, or looking so edible. He felt like he’d never seen her at all. Blood already warmed by the water surged hotter.

“Hey,” she said softly as she climbed the steps up to the hot tub. Her hands were flaring and clenching nervously at her sides. Jack felt something tight in his shoulders release at the sight of the fidgeting. It proved his no-frills Lou was still there beneath this sex goddess’s gleaming alabaster skin.

This was Lou. Just Lou. Though there was no
just
about how she looked tonight.

She sank slowly into the hot tub, giving a soft sigh as the water rose up around her. Jack loved that sound, the helpless pleasure of it, as if she couldn’t
not
make the noise. He’d heard it before—that was her chocolate moan—but never before had it triggered thoughts quite so sinful as it did now.

“Mmm, this is heavenly,” she murmured.

Jack needed to remember how to form words. He was never tongue tied around Lou. She’d start to wonder what was wrong with him if he didn’t get his act together.

Alcohol. That would loosen the knots in his tongue. “Tepid champagne?” he asked as he reached behind him for the bottle and glasses.

Lou laughed. “Of course. You make it sound so appetizing.”

Jack pressed against the cork with his thumbs, wanting for some inexplicable reason to impress her with his champagne-opening prowess. The pressure released suddenly with an explosive
pop
, sending the cork rocketing across the gazebo. He was lucky he didn’t take her eye out. Champagne gushed out in a river of bubbles.

The producers would probably have made him reshoot. Lou just laughed. Wading through the water to his side, she grabbed one of the glasses from him and tried to catch the bubbly spilling out the top of the bottle. “Are you sure the show won’t mind that you’re wasting good champagne on someone who isn’t a perfect Suitorette?”