Looking for Trouble (Jackson: Girls' Night Out 1)
Lauren’s gaze began to stutter over different parts of the room. The man’s T-shirt crumpled on the couch? Check. The empty beer bottles next to the sink? Check. The bedroom door opening to reveal a big, naked, tatto
oed beast of a man wearing nothing but a white towel around his waist? Oh, fuck yes, that was probably a big check mark, too.
“Oh, shit,” Lauren murmured. “I guess that’s better than a cinnamon roll.”
Alex just raised his eyebrows.
Sophie thought she might die right there, but her heart kept rebelliously beating on. “All right,” she squeaked. “See you tomorrow.”
“Okay,” Lauren whispered, then tore her gaze off Alex to look at Sophie. “Sure.” She widened her eyes as if she could convey a hundred questions with that one gesture.
Sophie jerked her head toward the door, but before she left, Lauren took the opportunity to ogle Alex one more time. Once she’d looked her fill, she backed outside. “Bye!”
Alex raised one hand in farewell. Sophie slammed the door. The silence rang in her ears again. It must have been ringing for Lauren, too, because Sophie didn’t hear her footsteps head down the stairs for quite a while.
“Coworker?” Alex finally asked in the quiet.
Sophie turned and leaned weakly against the door. “Yes.”
“Damn. Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she whispered, then cleared her throat. “She’s a friend, so...”
“So she won’t tell everyone in town?”
“Exactly.”
“Good. I don’t want to fuck things up for you.”
She managed a smile at that. “That’s sweet.”
“You have a strange idea of sweet.”
She relaxed a little and laughed. It would be fine. Lauren might give Sophie shit for years, but she wouldn’t tell anyone else. And there was an upside. Now Sophie had someone to talk to. Because she had so much to tell.
Just looking at him standing there was enough to inspire hours of conversation, and Lauren had seen it, too. Yeah, this might get her through a few long, cold winters.
She pushed off the door and walked toward him. “Need something?” she asked.
Alex groaned. “I had to crawl to the shower. Are you trying to prove your superiority? I give. Uncle.”
Sophie laughed. “It was a genuine question! Coffee? Pants?” She wrapped her hands around his neck and leaned back to look up at him. “What’d you come out here for?”
“I don’t remember,” he said. She felt him growing hard against her. “Jesus, you’re a witch. The kind that can raise the dead.”
“Maybe you’re more of a man than you thought.”
He groaned again. “I’ll punish you for that later.”
“Promise?”
“No. I probably won’t have the strength.”
She laughed and kissed him as he closed his arms around her and lifted her a few inches off the ground. Yeah. He had plenty of strength.
“Mmm,” he hummed into the kiss before setting her down. “I remembered. I came out to tell you that I parked the bike on the side of your house, but I’d better get going now that it’s light. I guess I really screwed up that quest for discretion.”
“Well, you put on a nice show, at least.” She traced her fingers over the wide tattoo that covered most of his chest. This one was an ominous wave that covered nearly his whole torso. It looked like a Japanese woodblock print. Her own little ocean right here in Wyoming.