Wild Fling or a Wedding Ring?

A phone booth with a wooden shuttered and hinged door that ran almost floor to ceiling.

A phone booth at the farthest end of a scarcely traveled, dimly lit switchback hallway. With Jake’s broad, powerful back a further shield against any prying eyes should someone actually venture this far.

She’d never see this man again. No one would ever know.

Jake’s lean male hips ground forward again, his head bowed and his lips pulled at the vulnerable skin beneath her ear, shredding her resolve.

And then all she could think was that they were alone. With the female singer’s smooth molasses voice pouring over them from the speakers above, and the space around them fading into nothing more than a hazy backdrop for this single stolen moment. His teeth grazed the column of her neck, and one hand caught her wrist to pin it at the wall beside her head. Her body seized; her mind blanked of anything beyond giving in.

She clutched at him with her knees. Rocked her hips to meet his and desperately sought his mouth with her own. Lips fused together, their tongues tangled, mated, and merged. Their mouths were completing the act clothing barely restricted lower on their bodies. So intimate. She could taste him. Feel him thrusting and licking inside her.

She could wrap herself in his strength. Lose herself in his control.

And then he stopped, held her still as she teetered at the brink of a precipice she couldn’t believe she’d been brought to. Her breath fired in moist bursts between them as tension gripped her with stunning intensity, leaving her helpless, desperate, shaking with need.

“Jake.” The plea in that single husky word was unmistakable, and she felt his answering smile curl against her ravaged mouth. Oh, yes.

“Come for me.” His low growl stroked like a vibration deep through her body and soul, curling around the tender spot between her legs just as he rocked again, letting her ride the steely length of him in one long, brutal caress that unlocked her every inhibition.

Spasms of hot pleasure lanced her core, relentless and intense. Stealing her breath through each ratcheting increment until at last it burst free with her shuddering release. Jake caught her fleeting cries with his kiss, held her steady in his arms as her body melted against him. Seconds ticked by as she floated in blissful oblivion. Then slowly her mind cleared and reality descended with the resounding thud of Jake’s back hitting the phone behind him.

Cali’s eyes blinked open.

A bar.

A phone booth, for heaven’s sake!

A stranger.

No. Of all the wrongs piled into one grotesquely cheap heap in Cali’s mind, Jake Tyler wasn’t one of them. She might have met him only hours ago, but something about the man spoke to her on a level she couldn’t deny. He was the kind of guy she could fall for—if she were in the market for falling. Which she wasn’t.

Jake’s brow, damp from restraint or exertion, or possibly a combination of the two, pressed against hers as he stood, eyes closed, shaking his head. “I feel like a teenager.” He didn’t sound upset so much as stunned.

She smiled her understanding—not that she’d actually ever done anything even remotely like this when she was in high school, but she would have liked to. “I think you had more fun as a teen than I did.”

Jake chuckled, that low and sexy sound that made her wonder if maybe—

No. Tonight was an exception.

A brief foray into fantasy. A depraved one-night indulgence she was certain she should already want to forget. Only it had been too good to forget. And, with her work cut out for her with MetroTrek, the memory of this night would probably have to keep her warm for the next few years at least.

Seeing how completely Jake affected her was reason enough to keep her libido in check and an incentive to make a hasty exit. Though not too hasty, because she didn’t want to seem ungrateful.

She was grateful, all right. Was she ever!

But Jake—Well, neither exchanging numbers nor getting busted for lewd behavior in the back of a bar held much allure for her. It was extraction time from this sticky situation. The man who had so generously withheld his own release, and now ran his big sexy hands over her hips to smooth the wrinkles from her skirt, needed to become a fond memory she’d never have to see again.

She didn’t know what to say, how to get out of the phone booth and back to her life. “Um, thank you. That was—”

“A better kiss?” he asked, flashing the easy smile that had gotten her into this situation in the first place.

“You’re a charmer.”

He brushed his thumb over her cheek. “Yeah, and you’re standing on my foot.”

Cali jerked back, coming up short against the booth wall, before righting herself with the help of Jake’s hand at her waist. “Sorry.”

“Not a problem, but we should probably get out of this booth before some schmuck’s phone battery dies and our luck runs out.”

She glanced up at the ceiling, feeling the flush of embarrassment heating her cheeks. “Flee the scene of the crime and all?”

Jake caught her chin with a crook of his finger and tilted her face to look at him. “I’ll take you home so we can do this right.” His gaze held steady, intense and hungry.

Her breath hitched at the thought of what he could do on a bed, if given the chance.

“Jake, I can’t have a relationship.”

He shook his head, letting out an ironic laugh. “And, trust me, I can’t give you one. But tonight…I could give you tonight.”

Just one night?

A quiet ping sounded from the floor, piercing the lustinduced fog of her brain. Oh, no, it was a message alert from her phone. The phone so carelessly dumped with her clutch on the floor when her hormones had skidded out of control on a collision course with Jake.

Her link to Amanda, to her job, to her future, was a hair’s breadth from being trampled! A few hours with this man and her focus was shot. What if she gave him a full night? She already knew the answer to that. It wouldn’t be enough. With a man like Jake she would want more.

She kicked the small bag out of the booth toward the safety of the abandoned hall, and then, forcing the air from her lungs, pulled free of his gentle hold and voiced the words that would hurt to say. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

Jake’s brows drew down, his features hardening as he inched back to let her pass. “Cali, wait—hold on.”

She shook her head, scooping up the bag with her phone and holding them close to her chest. “I wish—” But that wouldn’t do any good. Pinching her lips between her teeth, still tasting him on her tongue, she shook her head and ran from the club as if temptation itself was on her heels.

CHAPTER THREE

AWARENESS crept in, staking daylight’s claim over her consciousness, shooing away the hazy bliss of midnight’s oblivion. Within her hotel room, Cali fixed her gaze on the ceiling above her.

She’d done it in a phone booth. Almost.

In the deserted back hall of a jazz club.

With a man she’d just met.

It was totally a one-night stand.

Okay, so she hadn’t had actual sex. A technicality. They’d been standing. And it had been one night. One incredible night, topped off with an incredible kiss that flamed so far out of control it had passed X-rated—and by the time it finished, so had she.

Wow. It definitely counted.

A one-night stand. Something “good girls” were supposed to regret. Not wake the next day feeling refreshed, rejuvenated, and all around delighted to have cast their morals aside.