Leo caught it, spun it to Jake. “By which you must mean a man with high levels of intelligence.”
Grinning, Jake, who’d been voted the “safest pair of hands” in rugby two years past, spun the oval ball into Viliame’s big hands. “How about the lion emoji the fans use for you online? Full size on the chest.”
“Nah,” Christian said in that deep voice of his. “You know he wants an elephant—with a certain part of his anatomy as the trunk.”
“Hey, not my fault you’re jealous of my trunk,” Leo retorted without pause.
“Oh, ouch.” Christian clutched at his chest. “That might hurt if you weren’t a shrimp.”
“Yeah, well, better a sexy shrimp than a floppy flounder.”
Christian, known for his intense and unsmiling expression on-field, doubled over. “Floppy flounder? Jesus.”
All four of the men were laughing now, and Juliet knew her team had plenty of footage that could be cut for an excellent commercial. The words spoken didn’t matter as there’d be a voice-over for most of it. What Everett had needed was relaxed interaction between the men, the impression of them hanging out in a locker room—while wearing designer underwear.
Shoving a hand through his hair, his eyes bright with humor, Jake looked straight at the still camera. Juliet didn’t think he’d done it on purpose—Kalia was moving around too fast. But from what she could glimpse on the computer to their right, to which Kalia’s camera was automatically feeding the photos, the shot was impossibly perfect. Jake’s abs were defined in beautiful relief, the light caressing his tattoos, his hair tumbled enough that he looked like he’d just rolled out of bed.
The boxer briefs he had on were black with a partial design on the right-hand side that was subtly spotlighted as a result of his position.
It couldn’t have been a better shot had they choreographed it.
“I messed up my hair,” he said with a grimace. “Do I have to go back and get it fixed?”
“No, we’re good,” Kalia reassured him. “Another few shots of you alone, then Vili, and we’re done.”
Jake didn’t stiffen up again, but he exited the faux locker room the instant Kalia announced she had everything she needed from him. “I have to drop my daughter’s flute off at her school,” he said to the other guys.
Juliet’s phone buzzed as Jake disappeared into the changing area, but she spoke to Kalia before answering. “With Vili, we want playful along with a bit of swagger. I’ll be back after I handle this call.”
“No sweat,” Kalia said, her eyes already on her model. “I couldn’t take a bad picture of Viliame if I tried.”
Leaving Kalia to it, Juliet stepped outside. She was finishing up her call when Jake walked out. He paused, as if about to say something, then strode on toward his SUV.
“Bye, Jake,” she said after hanging up the call, relief cool and heavy twining with another, thornier emotion. “Thank God that’s over.” She wouldn’t see him again for six months, at the next contracted shoot.
Plenty of time for this alien attraction to fizzle out.
That night she dreamed of tracing the coils and shapes of his tattoo with her tongue, fantasized about licking sweat from his skin after a hard game of rugby, and woke at midnight to the impression of his strong body pinning her to the bed while he smiled down at her.
“Oh hell.”
Juliet was in trouble.
Jake lay in bed at one in the morning, staring up at the ceiling. He was usually an early-to-bed, early-to-rise man, but today his mind wouldn’t stop running around in circles.
The shoot had gone far better than he’d expected.
A little because of the guys and how not seriously they’d taken it, but mostly because of Juliet. Though it hadn’t been until bedtime that he’d realized she’d picked up on his nerves and deliberately distracted him.
It was a whole lot terrifying that Juliet, of all people, knew him well enough to discern that. He could still remember the first time he’d seen her. Her hair had been messily braided, her uniform skirt torn slightly along the hem, and her uniform shirt haphazardly tucked in. Yet there’d been a kind of pride to her that dared him to make a comment.
Not that Jake would have regardless. He’d been raised better than that. His mother would’ve clipped him upside the head, then sent him out to spread fresh manure over her entire vegetable garden if she’d heard that he was critiquing girls’ clothing.
Too bad he’d forgotten his mother’s lesson on the day of the wedding.
Back in school, it hadn’t been Juliet’s clothes that roused his interest anyway. It had been her air of not giving a single fuck. Pretty much the only time she hadn’t given that impression was with Calypso. Every so often, he’d find them together and they’d be laughing, their heads together. But Juliet’s softness had only been for her best friend.
Jake never got anything but hackles and snark.
Now that same defiant girl was tensing up his insides. His urge to poke and play with her had only gotten worse since the shoot, after he’d seen her in action in her chosen field of work. That her boss had left her in charge of such a major and expensive endeavor said a hell of a lot about the trust the man had in her.
God, she’d looked hot being all competent and professional.
He’d wanted to stroke his hand over the curve of her butt the entire time. His palm still tingled. But most of all, he’d wanted to cross words with her, just to have her focused on him, even if it was only to aggravate.
He knew she thought him a stuffy ass, but he didn’t care.
He didn’t feel stuffy when he was with her. He felt young and a little wild and had sex on the brain in a way he hadn’t since he was a teenager who’d just discovered girls.
His body began to harden even as his brain flashed bright red warning signals.
Jake had never been attracted to the type of woman who bragged about being a WAG—a wife or girlfriend of a sports star. That was exactly what the tabloids had branded Juliet during her relationship with Reid Mescall, and even though the attention hadn’t been her doing—the label slapped on her rather than claimed—her past notoriety would mean a media onslaught the instant Jake was seen with her.
It was the very thing he’d spent his entire professional career avoiding.
He fisted his hand against the sheet.
Why was he even thinking about this? It wasn’t as if he planned to ask her out. Ask Juliet out? Was he nuts? She’d laugh herself into a coma, then shred him to pieces for having had the nerve to think she’d give him a second look. Though… he felt weirdly hollow at the idea of not seeing her again for months.
Maybe he could nudge Charlie into inviting Jules over for dinner, then invite himself. Or he could find out her favorite coffee shop and… “And what, Jake?” he muttered to the ceiling. “Start creeping on her there so you can pick fights with her?” His blood heated at the idea of engaging with her, even if it was to fight.
“Cut it the hell out,” he ordered himself, “and go to sleep.”
His subconscious had other ideas. He woke with an erection so rigid it was painful, the scent of Juliet in his head and her laughing voice in his ear. Most of all, he remembered how her eyes had danced as she’d teased him at the shoot by calling him a Goody Two-shoes.