Page 47 of Raging Fires

But then, what would he put up? A photograph of him and her in their wedding t-shirts with soda in their hair?

Kelli snorted a laugh and made herself close the app. She leaned back in her chair and twirled it around to look out the window. Still no sign of Jake’s SUV. Clearly, he wasn’t going to help her take the dog to the vet’s. Not that she had thought he would. Keeping appointments was not one of the things Jake did. Of course, to be fair, she hadn’t actually asked him to go with her. She’d just assumed he would. Which was stupid and another sign that she needed to create the old distance between them.

They weren’t really a couple.

She tried to think of some reason to call Gran. Gran loved to talk—she’d given Kelli a complete rundown of one of the O’Malleys taking their pet to Dr. Sam’s. In the course of chatting, Gran might say something about Jake spending last night at her house. The problem was that Kelli couldn’t think of any good reason to call Jake’s grandmother again, and besides, the way Gran was, she’d figure out something was going on and try to worm it out of Kelli. Hopefully Gran’s spy Tiny hadn’t caught sight of her and Jake cavorting around in the yard.

Kelli flushed with embarrassment even though she was by herself. How could she have been so careless? What if someone had seen them? They’d been hidden from the bikers who’d come in from the side entrance, but someone coming around from the front entrance would have had a full view of her and Jake.

Worst of all was knowing that she was one who had started it. She was the one who suggested they wash the dog together. She was the one who’d poured water over Jake, knowing what he would do. And she was the one who had kissed him, literally jumping at him. She was the one who had been this close to coming just because of his touch.

And no doubt now Jake would be all smirky and conceited and acting like she was the one who was into him—as if his wet shorts hadn’t been highlighting a very definite erection. As if he hadn’t kissed her back like a man who was starving.

Kelli let out a wordless noise of exasperation and jumped to her feet. She might as well leave early for the vet’s and take last night’s cash to the bank on the way. She sure wasn’t getting anything done sitting here and replaying yesterday’s mistakes. And when Jake came back, she’d be the one who was gone.

Toby was somewhat hesitant at the open door of her car, but after a pat or two of the seat, he jumped in. As she got into the car, he turned to look at her, shivering a little and his big brown eyes on her face. He was scared. She wondered if he had been taken for a ride in a car and abandoned, and her heart nearly broke.

“Don’t worry,” she told him, putting her hands on either side of his head. “I’m not going to leave you anywhere.” She rubbed behind his ears. She paused, then admitted, “I’m just going to take you to be tortured a little.”

He licked at her face, his tail beginning to wag, and she decided he was reassured. She headed out of the parking lot and rolled the dog’s window down despite the fact that it sucked out the air conditioning. He stuck his head out the window in doggy bliss, and when she went through the drive-through at the bank and the teller sent a dog biscuit with her receipt, whatever fear the dog had had was gone.

Kelli pulled into the parking lot at Dr. Sam’s, who did apparently have a last name, and put on his collar and leash. She was definitely going to get one of those dog-bone tags for him to annoy Jake. He hopped out of the car and trotted unsuspectingly up the sidewalk and into the building.

There was a tiny dog in the reception area that started barking at the top of his little lungs, which reminded her of Howard’s Princess Fleek. A cat in a carrier began to hiss. Kelli’s dog immediately ducked behind her. Okay, so not exactly a guard dog.

She went up to the desk and gave the receptionist her name. The woman, who looked like the kind of woman Justin Kowalski would date, typed in her name, then asked, “And your dog’s name?”

Kelli sighed and said, “Toby.”

Chapter Twenty-three

Jake turned in at the Blue Shack, trying to decide what he should say when he met Kelli. He suspected that she was going to be pissed at him about last night. No reason for her to be—she kissed him first and what was he supposed to do after that?—but that was generally the way things went. At least she couldn’t accuse him of being late to take Toby to the vet; he was at least fifteen minutes early.

As he pulled up in front of the house, he saw that Kelli’s car was gone. So was the dog. She’d taken Toby to the vet without waiting for Jake. Yeah, she was pissed at him. Well, let her. Kelli might have wrapped herself around him last night, but she was still Kelli and she was going to bitch at him.

Jake got out of the SUV and closed the door with more force than was necessary. He’d been stupid the last few days, thinking she was like the old Kelli, laughing and joking with him, talking to him about her problems, roping him into one of her dopey, soft-hearted schemes. Maybe he was just oblivious to what was really going on, too insensitive and self-centered, like she always said. He’d been enjoying it so he figured she was too.

He was starving, as he usually was after a workout, and he made himself a protein shake. As he drank it, he tried to prepare a defense to whatever she was going to say. Knowing Kelli, she’d be mad at herself for losing control like that, for letting her hunger rule her, sweeping aside all her rules and her dislike of him. She’d hate it that she had been the one who broke the rules; worse, she’d hate that he knew exactly how much she wanted him.

Jake smiled to himself. Yeah, that was pretty gratifying, actually. However much she didn’t like him, didn’t want to like him, Kelli still melted in his hands. They’d hardly gotten started, and she was already rubbing herself against him and letting out that little low moan that he knew meant she was close to orgasm.

He loved making her come, feeling her flood over his fingers, seeing that heavy-lidded satisfied look on her face, hearing that funny little sound she made, a sigh that was almost a groan, having her push against him as if draining every last drop of pleasure she could.

Okay, this was not helping. He was supposed to be figuring out how to respond to whatever she was going to throw at him, not daydreaming about Kelli. He should concentrate on something else, something very non-arousing. Like the stadium steps. Or traffic jams. Or Kelli’s angry face. Although, sometimes her mad face was kinda hot, too.

Jake gulped down the last of his shake and washed out the glass. See, Kelli? I can be neat and orderly. That’d hold him for a while. So… if Kelli was mad at herself for losing control, she’d get mad at him because he was the one she’d lost control about. Didn’t make any sense, but then neither did getting pissed off at a cornerback because he intercepted a pass you’d waited too long to throw, and Jake had done that plenty of times.

But there was no way she’d say she was mad because he was too hot and tempting. So, it’d be something else. Like she’d wanted ‘to talk about it’ but he’d taken off. That one was easy; he didn’t leave until after she’d been sulking in her room for two hours.

Or maybe it’d be that he was gone all night, and he didn’t even text her to tell her where he was, and she was worried. He’d gone over to talk to Kowalski, who seemed to be the guru of the team even though his own relationships were basically toxic. Kowalski hadn’t had any sage advice, but he had had plenty of beer and Madden 2004, which was the best Madden video game and the one Jake had played all through middle school. The more he drank, the harder it got to play the game, but then Gramps was knocking them back, too, so it was a pretty even, though bumbling, contest.

Jake hadn’t been wasted, but he had had enough he probably would have blown an intoxicated on a breathalyzer. Which was the sort of jackass thing he would have done in the past that made him too big an off-field risk for many teams. So Jake’d just stayed in the guest room.

That was all reasonable, right? Mature, even. Of course, he could have texted her to let her know where he was, and he hadn’t. And since the reason he hadn’t called her was because he was pretty pissed off at her for getting him all worked up and then running off, leaving him desperate to finish what she’d started, he didn’t think that was an excuse that would help.

And, really, why was he bothering to come up with a reason Kelli would accept? It wasn’t like he had to get along with her. That was definitely a benefit of a fake marriage, right?

He sat down, trying to decide whether he should flip through the channels or be responsible and study his playbook. He didn’t really want to do either. Finally, he opted for the playbook, but he was happy to set the iPad aside when he heard Kelli’s car pull up in front of the house. Her old junker still had that death rattle when you cut it off—no one could fix that car, only ward off its demise for a little while longer—and the walls of this house were too thin to shield you from any sound.