weeks of physical therapy before I’m sure I won’t have one. But it did have one good side effect.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“By the time I was done cursing all doctors, both north and south of the border, I wasn’t that pissed off at Lana anymore. Maybe she broke my heart, but at least she only did it once.”
“Cheers to that,” she said and leaned forward to clink glasses with him, although she would have been happier to hear that he despised his ex and never wanted to hear her name spoken aloud again.
J.D. snagged her hand when she went to sit back. Braceleting her wrist with his thumb and forefinger, he rubbed the rest of his fingers against the skin of her arm.
“Enough about my drama. What about you? How’s your love life these days?”
She tugged against his grip, but he didn’t let go.
“Me? Oh, no. I’m off men completely.”
“You too?” He pulled her toward him, and since she was tired of leaning forward, she slid off the pillow and eased closer to him. “And here I was just thinking of asking you to climb on top of me.”
“Shut up,” she scoffed and reminded herself that he’d always teased her like this.
Okay, maybe there’d been a little less sexual tension when she was twelve.
Maybe a lot less.
“I am not climbing on top of anyone these days. Male or female,” she added in response to the speculative glint in his eyes. “I am officially a no-climbing zone.”
“Come on, Sarah Bearah—” he winked at her “—Haven’t you ever wondered what it would be like?” He flipped her palm over and pressed his lips to the crease at the base of her thumb. She felt the warmth of his breath float over her skin and wondered if teasing shouldn’t be outlawed even if both people were old enough for consensual sex.
Ever wondered? It felt like she’d spent far too many years of her life wondering.
The breath she’d inhaled what felt like an hour ago burst out of her in a huff. She shook herself awake from what was essentially a sexual daydream. Time to put a halt to this little game.
Before she could open her mouth to say a word, a piercing ring blasted from a phone across the room, followed almost immediately by a click and a recorded message. A voice like maple syrup poured into the room after a loud beep.
“Sugar, I got your message. Now, get off your high horse and call me so I can say I’m sorry about Jane, okay? I didn’t fly to Chicago for my health. And are you seriously planning on staying here? It’s like two polar bears crapped a giant frozen poo and they built a city on it. I’m so cold my teeth are chattering. Right. So, that judge you saw in the Dominican Republic? He’s not, in fact, a member of the legal profession. So, you know, teensy problemo. And since we gotta deal with that, I wanted to talk to you about Ben’s new project, too. There’s a role that’s perfect for me, and you know he’ll do anything for you.” The slow sugar drawl dropped to a new level of husky. “Just like me, baby. Call me, husband.”
The last drawled word seemed to echo through the open warehouse space.
Holy. Shit. She was holding goddamn hands with Joey Damico, at last, and he. Was. Married.
Of course he was. And to a woman who talked like a frigging porn star. Way to make a regular woman feel inadequate.
“She’s such a drama queen.” J.D. squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, but he was sort of grinning with one side of his mouth, like he was more exasperated than angry. She realized that he was still holding her wrist in his hand. His fingers began to move against her pulse, which jumped like a rabbit as heat pooled in her belly. Still, her brain locked onto that one word—married—like a heat-seeking missile. “Where were we?”
She tilted her head down and gave him a stern look from beneath lowered brows. “Stop it. You’re a married man. Maybe.”
“I’m really not. Lana’s sweet—morally challenged but sweet—and the ins and outs of the Dominican legal system aren’t her strong point. She doesn’t have any idea what she’s talking about.”
When his fingers stroked higher on her arm to the sensitive skin inside her elbow, she broke out the big guns, “Stop teasing, or I’ll get my big brother to beat you up.”
“Hmm.” After a moment, he let go of her wrist with a rueful grin. She scooted back a bit, needing a little breathing room. On second thought, she leaned forward and grabbed the wine bottle.
“Tyler would actually kick my ass, wouldn’t he?”
“That’s right,” she said and nodded as she poured. More wine might not be a good idea, but she’d never been this thirsty in her life. Still, she stopped at half a glass.
“Ah, well. Maybe next time.”
She could have tossed the wine all over him when he winked at her and sat back as if it was no big deal. When she opened her mouth and the words she was thinking rolled right out, she realized that any wine, in fact, might have been too much while sitting half-dressed on the floor next to the man on whom she’d had a massive crush for most of her formative years. One who’d left town, married some wannabe starlet, and hadn’t even had the courtesy to get a real divorce.
“I wouldn’t sleep with you for all the yen in China. Or Japan. Or wherever, Joey Damico. You were the first in a long string of guys to steal my heart and hand it back to me in pieces.” She shook a finger at him. “And since you started the trend, I figure you should get the blame for every jerk and jackass who followed.”
“Me?” The shock on his face looked genuine but she refused to feel sorry for him. “What did I do?”
She pushed her head forward and stared him down, but his look of confusion didn’t even hint at any guilt.
“What?”
“You kissed me,” she enunciated with precision, just in case his hearing was as defective as his conscience, “and then five minutes later you were making out with Jessica Blackwell in the bathtub.”
“I never—when?” he demanded, swinging his legs over her head and dropping his feet on the floor by her side with a thud. He set his wine glass on the end table and turned back to her. “When did I kiss you, and who’s Jessica Blackwell?”
The last three words did nothing to improve her impression of him. She waited for him to remember.
After a minute of their glaring at each other, it became clear that that was not going to happen.
With pleasure, she enlightened him.
“July, 1995.”
“July ninety-five…” His forehead wrinkled and then smoothed as she saw the memory return to him. She sat up straighter and waited for his apology. It had been a long time coming.
“But you were only, what? Twelve!”
She could hear from the disbelief in his voice that
