Page 73 of Raging Fires

“That’s on them for not being specific.” Jake put a strong arm around her shoulder and she knew not only could she walk out there, she wasn’t even embarrassed as long as he was there by her side. Any woman in the restaurant was probably watching her with envy more than anything else.

They giggled all through the rest of their meal, especially whenever the waiter cut his eyes over to their table. Their food was cold now, but Kelli didn’t care. In fact, she thought it was the best food she’d ever had. Or maybe it was just that she was so happy.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Life settled into something of a routine—if anything with Jake could be said to be routine—as May moved into June. The days were already turning scorching, and Kelli decided it was too hot for Toby even under the shade of the jacaranda tree beside the house. She began taking him with her into the office when she went to work, deciding that Toby was a patrol dog and therefore allowed in the bar as long as he came in the front and was never in the kitchen.

Still, there were her off days, which she was taking more regularly now, so Jake put in a doggie door so that Toby could come inside when he got hot.

“I thought you refused to have a dog in the house,” Kelli said with a little smirk.

“Yeah, but this is Toby.”

Amazingly, Toby turned out to not only be house trained but moderately well-behaved, chewing up only one of Jake’s Nikes. Kelli did learn pretty quickly she couldn’t leave any food on the kitchen counters, though, even if she was just running to the bathroom.

Toby’s bed of choice, unsurprisingly, was Jake’s, but since Jake now spent all his nights in Kelli’s bed, it worked out well.

They had only one argument: Jake wanted to replace Kelli’s double bed with his king size one. Despite Kelli protesting that it was too big for the space, Jake wouldn’t let it go until they measured the room. Then he had to admit that they wouldn’t be able to open the closet door with his bed blocking it. The disagreement ended, as so many things did with them these days, with mind-blowing sex.

Kelli would have said that Jake was sex-crazy except that she was just as bad as he was. When she wasn’t with him, she was thinking about him, and every night when she walked out of the back door to find him waiting for her, she couldn’t keep from wrapping her arms around him and kissing him like she’d just come home from a 2000-mile trip.

You’d think she would be sated after a while, but it never happened. All Jake had to do was smile at her, and heat would blossom deep in her belly. If he took off his shirt, Kelli couldn’t resist running her fingers along the lines of his muscles. And if he touched her… well, then she just melted, desire pulsing in her, and she wanted him inside her, buried deep within her, his breath rasping in his throat, sweat glistening on his shoulders, as he moved within her.

It made it difficult to get anything done. Fortunately, the Pumas’ Organized Team Activities, better known as OTAs, began the first of June, and Jake had to be at practice early and stay until three, so at least Kelli managed to get into her office on time and get some work done.

One afternoon Kelli was standing behind the bar, running down a list of inventory, when the front door opened. Wilson, the bartender, murmured, “Whoa.”

Kelli looked up and saw a woman standing just inside the door. She was tall, even before you added the stiletto heels. She was wearing a power red suit that just brushed the top of her knees. Her hair was black and wound into a prim bun at the nape of her neck. Her lips were the color of the suit, and her fingernails matched them both. She carried a laptop case in one hand, and a large Coach purse hung on the opposite shoulder. She was sleek and sophisticated and not at all the kind of woman who usually walked into the Blue Shack.

“Barracuda,” Kelli said under her breath. Aloud she said, “Can I help you? I’m afraid we don’t open for another hour.”

“That’s fine.” The woman cast a glance around the barroom, and Kelli felt a twinge of embarrassment at the bare look of the place, quickly followed by a burst of indignation at this woman looking down on the Blue. The stranger strode over to them, saying, “I’m just here to see Jake Riley. I was told that he, um, lived here?” Her voice rose a little at the end.

Who the hell was this? Kelli’s chest got tight. She suddenly felt awkward, underdressed, and decidedly unsophisticated. She crossed her arms and regarded the woman coolly.

Up close, the woman was as attractive and polished as she had appeared at a distance. Her eyes were brown, with a little flair of gold around the pupil that made them gleam. Her eyebrows were perfectly shaped, her nose straight, her chin firm, and her cheekbones could cut glass. Her expression was not so much disdainful as it was assessing, Kelli decided.

“He lives in a house on the property.” Kelli knew Jake had come in; she’d heard his car and Toby’s ecstatic barks a few minutes earlier, but she saw no reason to make it easy for this woman. “Why don’t you have a seat, and I’ll see if he’s there.” She nodded toward the table.

“Thank you.” The woman sat down on a barstool right in front of Kelli. Whoever she was, she clearly wanted to establish her dominance from the start.

Kelli pulled her phone from the back pocket of her jeans and called Jake. There was the sound of a phone ringing in the kitchen, and in the next moment, Jake stepped through the swinging kitchen door, looking at his phone and cancelling the call. “Hey, babe, what’s up?”

“That’d be me,” their visitor said in an amused tone, standing.

Jake’s head snapped up. “Emma?” A huge grin spread across his face, and he crossed the floor to hug the woman. “What are you doing here?”

Kelli slipped to the other end of the bar, gesturing for the bartender to follow her.

“I was just in town, seeing to some other business, and I thought I’d drop by and check on you.”

“That’s great.” Jake, still smiling, turned toward Kelli. “Kell, come here.” He strode down the length of the bar. “I want you to meet my agent.”

“That’s your agent?” Kelli said, keeping her voice low.

“Yeah. I told you my agent was a woman.”

“You didn’t say she was hot.”