The Lucky Charm (The Portland Pioneers) (24 page)

He sighed. “Okay, it might have been a date of the conscripted variety.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“To put it bluntly, Foxy dragged me along and had his date bring a friend so I wouldn’t seem quite so pathetic.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. I know. I really am pathetic,” Jack said ruefully, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Well, actually, no, that wasn’t what I was thinking,” Izzy said carefully. “I just wondered what it would be now, you know,
after
. Is it still a date?”

“It’s not a date,” Jack said quickly. “It was never a date. I never liked her. I only wanted her to be you.”

The toilet flushed and Izzy blushed again as the brunette exited the stall and fixed Jack with a steady glare as she washed her hands at the sink. “Actually,” she said, “you’re
both
pathetic. Just so we’re clear.”

“Transparent,” he responded cheerfully with a smile that shouldn’t have been so wide.

The brunette dried her hands and threw the paper towel in the trash. On her way out, she glanced back. “Just so you know, this is
still
the ladies’ restroom.”

The door slammed shut behind her and Izzy glanced ruefully over at Jack. “She’s right. We should get out of here.”

“Wait, Izzy,” he said and though she was already to the door, she turned back. “I meant it. It wasn’t a date. It’s not a date. But tomorrow…”

Of course he had to bring up the one thing she couldn’t explain—where they were going from here. She still couldn’t date him, not really, not the way he wanted her to. They couldn’t go back to being just friends; clearly that was going to fail no matter what. And she didn’t want to lose him completely either. In some ways, the kiss had both changed everything and nothing at the same time.

“Tomorrow we’ll talk,” Izzy promised. “But I’ve got a dinner I need to get back to. Also,
not
a date.”

“Right,” he said, a teasing grin on his face. “Bart and Jed. A couple of real keepers.”

“They’re sweet. Kind of insane, but mostly sweet.”

“As insane as still being in the ladies’ restroom?” he asked and let the door swing shut behind them.

When Izzy returned to the table, Jed and Bart looked over at her tentatively. “Are you okay, Izzy?” Bart asked hesitantly, like she might break into a million pieces at any moment.

“I’m great,” she said with a big smile.
I kissed Jack Bennett and it was awesome
. “Sorry for leaving so abruptly.”

“Not a problem,” Jed said. “We haven’t even ordered.” It really was sweet they’d invited her tonight and even postponed their dinner when she’d left so abruptly. For a moment she thought they might actually like her, but that would make them even crazier than she’d supposed.

“And Pilar Richardson came by the table while you were gone,” Bart added. “She said she was sorry she missed you, and that maybe she’d catch you tomorrow at the stadium.”

Even though she had told herself not to listen, she swore she could hear Jack return to his table. She swore she could hear Foxy’s voice, greeting him, and the pouting tone of the blonde Jack had abandoned to chase after her. Even though he’d reassured her it wasn’t a date and she
did
believe him, it was still really hard not to glance back over her shoulder and look at him. And if she was being honest, she wanted to do a hell of a lot more than just look.

“I didn’t know you knew Pilar Richardson,” Jed said, and she knew he was fishing.

“Barely. She introduced herself on the long road trip, but I’ve been so busy…” Izzy purposefully let her sentence trail off so she wouldn’t have to explain what she’d been so busy doing during the road trip. She hadn’t been spending time with Pilar Richardson, that was for sure.

She picked up her menu and actually read it this time. “So what looks good?”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I
zzy really meant to talk to him. She really,
really
did. She wasn’t in a regular habit of making promises and then breaking them, especially to a guy like Jack Bennett who was pretty freaking spectacular in just about every way—especially that way where his lips were on her lips and his tongue was in her mouth—and though she’d nearly messed this whole thing up, there was still a chance she could salvage it.

Plain and simple, the talking thing wasn’t nearly as fun as the making out thing.

Of course it hadn’t exactly been difficult to lure him to her hotel bed, the remnants of another pizza in a box on the desk forgotten, just like that other night when they almost kissed—but tonight, any thought of
almost
kissing had been put to bed. Kinda literally.

She kissed him with purpose, her fingers creeping up toward his neck, tangling in the short hair there. Pulling him closer, Izzy thought she might be able to feel just how much he wanted her if she managed to move him just a little to the left, but before she could pull him the last bit of distance, he pulled away and flopped over on his back.

Izzy knew what he was going to say before he probably did, and decided that he wasn’t going to ruin this perfectly awesome evening with words. If he ran, she was just going to follow him. “This isn’t talking,” he half laughed, half gasped as she swung a leg over him, placed a hand on either side of his head and dipped down, searching for his lips again.

She almost just kissed away his observation, but then she looked closer and saw his expression had turned serious, and as much as she wanted to deny it, she knew why. He was serious about them—serious about
her
. Under any kind of normal circumstances, this would have sent her running for the hills, but now she just wanted to kiss him some more.

“You really want to talk?” Izzy asked, as she leaned down and closed her teeth gently over his lower lip, nibbling. It was kind of unlike her to be this aggressive, but she’d mostly figured out his passive-aggressive tactic of waiting until she made a move, and despite the confusion over a guy that
didn’t
push, Izzy had discovered she kind of liked being the one calling the shots. Besides, she knew what she wanted, which was pretty much to do this, over and over, until she couldn’t ever forget what he felt like underneath her.

And maybe
over
her, too.

Jack hesitated, just long enough that she almost pounced again, but then he sat up a little, tilting her backwards onto his lap.
This
was the confusing part. Izzy could feel him underneath her, hard and solid and
definitely
interested in taking this to next level. She raised a questioning eyebrow, and he just shrugged.

“Yeah, maybe I do. Maybe a guy doesn’t want to get used for his body unless he knows the reason why.” His tone was slightly defensive, and she didn’t want to feel like a bitch for pushing the physical half of their relationship, but she wasn’t about to hide that she wanted him.

“The reason why?” Izzy couldn’t help herself, she was definitely gaping at him a little. “You’ve seen yourself, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” Jack said, and he shifted just enough that she couldn’t quite stay on top of him without a fight. Izzy wanted to believe that he hadn’t done it on purpose, but she wasn’t sure what to think right now.

“Wait, you don’t think…” Izzy began, then trailed off, realizing that he could very well think that, because hadn’t she thought that herself once upon a time? When she’d first come to Portland, she’d salivated over Noah Fox, and in comparison, had found Jack a little lacking in the looks department. Objectively, he wasn’t the most handsome guy in the universe; more ordinary than anything else. But he’d long since become pretty much insanely attractive to her, and in the end, that was what mattered, right?

“Exactly,” he said ruefully, his gaze dropping to the comforter.

“Listen, if I wanted to be with someone else, I’d be kissing them right now, but just in case you missed it, I like you. I like you a lot.”

He smiled like he’d just hit a home run. Or maybe even a grand slam, but then his eyes grew a little more calculating. “Do you like me outside this hotel room?”

She’d been terrified that he’d ask that, and of course he had. That was the very reason he’d wanted to talk in the first place, and she’d stumbled right into it, like an idiot. Of course Jack Bennett didn’t need her to tell him how hot she found him; five minutes ago, she’d been shamelessly plastered against him. But calling him out on his little maneuver was acknowledging that he’d manipulated her, and she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing she’d fallen for it.

Izzy steeled herself and said in a low voice, “you know why we can’t be seen together.”

“I thought maybe you’d changed your mind. After all, you kissed me in a women’s bathroom. Nothing public about that at
all
.”

She almost retaliated with some crack about how it’d been a huge mistake, but it hadn’t felt like a mistake then, and it didn’t feel like a mistake now. That was just the problem. Kissing him had felt like the rightest thing she’d done in weeks, maybe even in months, and she didn’t want to give him up—and at the same time, she couldn’t give him the freedom he wanted to acknowledge his feelings in public.

“Things are complicated,” she finally admitted. “But I kissed you because I wanted to, and because I’d wanted to for a long time.”

His eyes softened a little, until Izzy felt like she was almost drowning in the blue. “Then why don’t you try it again?” he murmured, threading his fingers through her hair and cradling her skull in his hands.

Jack slid his key card and opened the door with a semi-vicious jerk. It was killing him to keep everything he wanted to do and say with Izzy under wraps, and by the time he made it back to his room, he was usually boiling with a lethal combination of lust and frustration. On one hand, he never expected her to put him above her career, but on the other, his feelings for her had multiplied so rapidly that he felt like he was drowning some days. He wanted her until he ached with it, and fundamentally, he wished she felt the same about him.

Yeah, they were friends, and he was there for her, and they had enough sexual tension to power a small electrical plant, but he’d come to the conclusion that her feelings weren’t nearly as deep as his and man, that
hurt
. It made him want to punch a wall or throw a bat—pretty much every sort of macho stunt that was bad news.

He spent most of his time with Izzy alternatively wanting to rip her clothes off or tie her to a chair and make her confess just how crazy she was about him. Jack shoved a hand through his hair and clenched his jaw. She had him balanced on some kind of insane tightrope and sooner or later, he was just going to break.

“Rough night?” Jack glanced up and Foxy was lying on his bed, the TV on ESPN with the volume turned down low.

He collapsed onto his own bed. “You have no fucking idea,” he groaned.

“Let me guess. Still no sex?”

The moment Jack confessed to his best friend that he was keeping his pants on because he didn’t want to dive headfirst into a relationship until she was nuts about him as he was about her was probably going to be the moment Noah had him committed for crimes against the masculine sex. So he just shook his head.