As Juliet stood staring at the roses, she realized so did she—and it was freaking her out. Jake was flirting with her, but to what end? No way could this ever work between them.
Yet… he’d stood by her through Reid’s machinations.
Not only that, he’d made her smile when all she’d wanted to do was rage at the world. Each time she caught the scent of the roses, her lips curved. As for his cards, she had them tucked into a zippered pocket of her bag.
Serious Jacob Esera didn’t seem the type to write silly poetry. But he had.
Teeth biting down on her lower lip, she took out her phone: Sorry to interrupt the honeymoon, she typed to Charlie, but I have a question.
Her phone pinged ten minutes later while she was finishing up the last emails for the day. Piña coladas and sunshine—it’s a hard, hard life.
You forgot the sex, Juliet messaged back with a grin.
I’m currently watching my gorgeous husband walk around our beachfront cabin in nothing but a pair of old rugby shorts. Trust me, I have a certain physical activity permanently on the brain.
Chuckling because Charlie was probably blushing as she typed that, Juliet went to respond when Charlie said, What’s the question?
Juliet made herself push through her hesitation. Hypothetically speaking, if Jake sent a woman roses two days in a row, one with a poem attached, would that mean anything?
Our Jake?!!!
Yes, your Jake.
Can I consult Gabriel? You’ll be anonymous, promise.
Juliet decided she might as well get the info straight from the top. Yes, okay.
The next few minutes inched by.
Gabe says that either his brother has been possessed by aliens, or this woman must be special. Jake doesn’t do courtship or flirting.
Juliet stared at the roses, thought about the messages he’d sent her, the silly poem, and her breath, it stuck in her chest. To have a man like Jake, devoted and steady and passionate, in her corner? It would be a dream.
Of course, even if she ignored the whole media drama, the dream could quickly turn into a nightmare. She and Jake weren’t friends, and after her childhood, after Reid, Juliet needed to be friends with her lover, needed to be able to lower her shields with him. Needed to be able to cry and break and curl into him.
Right now all Jake had seen was her prickly outer shell.
What if the softness inside repelled him?
She was still thinking about that the next morning when there was a knock on the door. It sounded like the impatient knock of a courier, but she looked through the peephole to make certain. Seeing the familiar cranky face of her local courier driver, she opened up to sign and receive the package.
Carrying it to her kitchen counter afterward, she saw it had been overnighted from a local address. She opened it up with a frown to glimpse the jacket for the hardcover book Humans of New York by the photographer Brandon Stanton. Hands trembling, she opened the book. It took her a second to see that there was a pink sticky note poking out of a particular page.
Turning to that page, she saw it was a photograph of a couple in Times Square. They were re-creating that famous image of the sailor kissing a woman bent over his arm. On the sticky note were the words: I’ll bring the sailor suit if you bring the dress and the heels. – Jake
Juliet dropped the book on the counter, only to pick it up an instant later to stare at Jake’s scrawly writing. It was as terrible as it had been back in school. Her fingers traced the jagged lines. That was when she noticed the edges of the book bore a few small marks, and when she turned the pages, she saw the imprint of two tiny fingers on a photograph featuring a group of children—possibly in ink, maybe in juice.
This was Jake’s copy of the book.
Jake, who didn’t flirt, who didn’t do courtship.
Heart thunder, Juliet decided to pack a dress and heels.
23
A Deadline (Also, Phenomenal, Circuit-Blowing Sex May Come Up)
Two days after Danny’s weirdly wise bit of insight, Jake thanked his brother for dropping him and Esme off at the airport.
“I want a souvenir key chain in return,” Danny said, squeezing Esme into a hug. “Boo,” he said when he released her, “make sure he gets me the kind with a big fluffy apple. I don’t want no tiny-ass doll apple. I want the serious shebang.” He held out a hand, palm out.
Esme slapped it. “I gonna make sure, Uncle Danny.”
After exchanging a complicated leftover-from-teenagehood handclasp with Danny, Jake took his daughter’s hand to walk to the departure area. Esme was excited both because they were going away and because she’d been given special permission to be off school, though she had to finish a bunch of homework during the trip.
“Daddy, are we going in a big plane?”
“One of the biggest.”
Having had a message from Juliet this morning—a very prim and professional message that made no mention of the book he’d sent her—he looked for her after they cleared security and reached the executive lounge. It was his daughter who spotted her. Tugging at his hand, she pointed excitedly toward the coffee bar.
Juliet was ordering a drink using the tablet mounted beside the barista’s workbench, and though she was dressed in a relaxed pair of black pants that looked soft to the touch and a simple gray sweatshirt, his body stirred as if she were wearing her sexy bridesmaid’s dress—or nothing at all.
Yeah, he liked her best in nothing at all, but he could grow to like those pants.
His hand itched. He knew what the swell of her hip felt like under his palm, knew the smell at the curve of her neck, knew how tight and soft her body was when he thrust into her and how sweetly she gave of herself in bed. Going down on her had been ridiculously fun for him; she’d gasped with such shocked surprise when he’d licked her into an orgasm.
I mean, things like that gave a man ideas. Mostly of doing it again. Even better.
“Jules!” His daughter bounced up and down next to Juliet. “Surprise!” She threw out her hands like a circus magician.
Beaming, Juliet knelt down to enfold her in a hug. “Hello, Boo.” She pressed a kiss to his daughter’s cheek. “Do you want a hot chocolate?”
Esme glanced over her shoulder at Jake, her eyes in full charm mode.
He grinned. “Since we’re going on semi-vacation, knock yourself out.” A little indulgence wouldn’t hurt her.
Juliet winced as she rose to her feet. “Sorry,” she murmured under her breath. “I should’ve asked you first.”
“It’s not a problem, Jules.” He wasn’t going to get bent out of shape because she’d been nice to his daughter; he liked that Jules was so naturally kind to his baby girl. “Can you order me a long black?” he added while fighting the urge to stroke his hand over her extremely fine ass—though if Danny ever mentioned said ass again, he’d deck his brother.
In all likelihood, Danny had done it on purpose. Pressing buttons was Jake’s younger brother’s specialty, especially when the button push led to revelations. It wouldn’t surprise him in the least if Danny switched from sports psychology to law. Though he supposed psychologists were nosy as hell when it came down to it, and that suited his brother to the ground too.
What he didn’t fight was his urge to ruffle Juliet. It probably wasn’t good for his health, but Jake had decided on this risk—and once he decided, he didn’t hold back. It was how he’d gone from not playing for a year to making a representative team in eight months. Fear be damned.