Rachel Gibson - See Jane Score

“Why?”

Why? This was the hard part. “Because I loved you and you didn’t love me. I’m not the kind of woman you date. I’m short and flat-chested and I can hardly dress myself. I didn’t think you’d ever care for me the way I care for you.”

“So you did it to get back at me?”

She looked over her shoulder and forced herself to turn and face him. To face the contempt she might once again see in his eyes. “No. If I’d wanted just to get back at you for not loving me, I would have kept myself anonymous.” She folded her arms across her chest as if to keep her pain from spilling out on the floor. “I did it to end the relationship before it began. So I could blame the article. So that I wouldn’t get in too deep.”

He shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“No. I’m sure it doesn’t to you, but it does to me.”

“That’s the most ass-backward excuse I’ve ever heard.”

Her heart sank. He didn’t believe her. “I’ve been thinking a lot this past week, and I’ve realized that in every relationship with a man that I’ve had, I’ve always entered an escape hatch just in case I might get hurt. The Honey Pie column was my escape hatch. Problem was, I didn’t get out fast enough.” She took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “I love you, Luc. I fell in love with you, and I was so afraid that you would never love me. Instead of thinking a relationship with you was doomed to end, I should have fought to keep it together. I should have… I don’t exactly know what. But I do know it ended badly. I take the blame for that, and I’m sorry.” When he didn’t say anything, her heart plummeted further. There was nothing left to say except, “I was hoping we could still be friends.”

He raised a dubious brow. “You want to be friends?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

She’d never thought one little word could hurt so much.

“I don’t want to be your friend, Jane.”

“I understand.” She put her head down and moved past him to the door. She hadn’t thought she had any more tears to shed. She thought she’d cried them all, but she was wrong. She didn’t care if the rest of the Chinooks were in the tunnel; she had to get out of there before she fell apart. She twisted the door handle and pulled, but nothing happened. She pulled harder, but the door didn’t budge. She turned the lock, but it still didn’t open. She looked up and saw Luc’s hands above her head holding the door shut.

“What are you doing?” she asked as she turned to face him. He stood so close her nose was inches from his chest and she could smell the clean cotton scent of his dress shirt mixed with his deodorant.

“Don’t play games, Jane.”

“I’m not.”

“Then why do you tell me you love me in one breath, and then in the next tell me you just want to be friends?” He placed his fingers beneath her chin and lifted her gaze to his. “I have friends. I want more from you than that. I’m a selfish guy, Jane. If I can’t be your lover, if I can’t have all of you, then I don’t want anything.” He lowered his face to hers and kissed her, a soft press of his lips to hers, and the tears she’d been trying to hold back filled her eyes. Her hands grasped the front of his shirt and she held on tight. She would be his lover, and this time she wouldn’t invent reasons to get out. She wanted this too much.

He slid his mouth across her cheek and he whispered in her ear, “I love you, Jane. And I’ve missed you. My life has been total shit without you.”

She pulled back and looked into his face. “Say it again.”

He raised his hands to her face and brushed his thumbs across her cheeks. “I love you, and I want to be with you because you make my life better.” He pushed her hair behind her ear. “You asked me once what I see when I look into my future.” He slid his palm down her shoulder and took her hand. “I see you,” he said and kissed her knuckles.

“You’re not mad at me?” she asked.

He shook his head and his lips brushed the backs of her fingers. “I thought I was. I thought I’d be mad at you forever, but I’m not. I don’t really understand your reasons for sending that column in, but I just don’t care anymore. I think I was more pissed off about feeling like a fool than about the actual column.” He placed her palm on his chest. “When I saw you waiting for me, my anger evaporated and I knew I’d be a bigger fool if I let you go. I want to spend the rest of my life getting to know your secrets.”

“I don’t have any more secrets.”

“Are you sure there isn’t at least one?” He wrapped an arm around her back and kissed her neck.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re a nymphomaniac?”

“Are you serious?”

“Well… yes.”

Jane shook her head and managed a weak, “No,” before she burst out laughing.

“Shh.” Luc pulled back and looked into her face. “Someone will hear you and bust in on us.”

She couldn’t stop laughing and so he silenced her with his mouth. His lips were warm and welcoming and she slid into the kiss with the abandon of a true nympho. Because sometimes in life, Ken didn’t always choose Barbie. For that, he had to be rewarded.

She Shoots! She Scores!

Luc stepped off the elevator to the observation deck of the Space Needle and looked to his left. A woman in a red dress looked out at the glittering skyline of downtown Seattle. Her hair fell to her shoulders in soft dark curls, and a warm August breeze tossed a few strands about her face. They’d just finished having dinner in the restaurant below, and as he waited for the bill, she slipped away to the upper deck.

As she watched him walk toward her, the corners of her red mouth turned up in a seductive smile.

“Nice night for watching stars,” he said.

She bit her bottom lip, then spoke just above a whisper, “Do you like to watch?”

“I’m more of a doer.” He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her back against his chest. “And right now, I want to do my wife.”

“That’s not in the script,” Jane said as she rested against him.

They’d been married for five weeks now. Five weeks of waking with her every morning. Of looking at her across their dinner table, and then loading the dishwasher together. Of watching her brush her teeth and pull on her socks. Never in a million years would he have ever thought those mundane, ordinary things could be so sexy.

Most of all, he liked to watch her work. To create all those erotic stories in her head. To look beyond that natural girl face, and see the real woman.

Since their engagement, she no longer wrote about being single in Seattle. And Chris Evans was back from his medical leave, working his sports beat. The Times had let Jane go completely, and now she was the newest sports reporter for their rival, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

They’d had to plan the wedding around the Stanley Cup playoffs, and since Luc had been out of town about half the time, Jane and Marie and Caroline had done the planning mostly on their own. Which had been just fine with him. All he’d had to do was show up in a tux and say, “I do.” That part had been easy. Watching her dance with every damn Chinook at the reception had been difficult.

A few months before the wedding, the Chinooks had made it to the finals, but they got beat out for the Cup by the Colorado Avalanche in the third round. Luc lowered his face and buried his nose in Jane’s hair. There was always next year.

“Do you want to go somewhere else?” she asked.

They’d spent a lot of time exploring Seattle together. Him and Jane and Marie. Jane knew all the good spots and the places to avoid. “I want to go home,” he said. Marie was spending the night with Hanna, and Luc wanted to take advantage of some time alone with his wife. “What do you say?”

She turned and wrapped her arms around him. “Home is my favorite place.”

Home was his favorite place too. But home for him was anywhere Jane happened to be. Never in his life had he loved someone as much as he loved her. So much that it scared him sometimes.

He pulled her against him and looked out over the city. He was in love with his wife. Yeah, he knew what that said about him. That he was a goner. Leg-shackled for life. Whipped by a short woman with a big attitude.

Yep, that’s what it said about him, and he didn’t care.