Actually Love - Jessie & Zach (17 page)

“I can’t believe you, Zach Courtland, a.k.a. Playboy, have lived with a woman who is a smokin’-four-alarm-fire, burn-you-up-from-the-inside-out
hot
for forty-eight hours and you
haven’t
seen her naked yet. You’re slippin’, man. Slip-pin’.” Billy emphasized the two syllables for maximum effect.

Zach was slipping, but not in the way Billy was referring to. He wished it were that simple. It would make things a hell of a lot easier if Zach had just lost his panty-dropping mojo and Jessie were not the least bit interested in him…but that was not the case. In reality, every time she looked at him with those huge brown eyes and he saw arousal flickering just below the surface, it chipped away at his steely determination to keep things platonic with a capital ‘P’.

“I mean, come on. Let’s keep it real. You
know
you’re going to hit that,” Billy challenged.

“No. I’m not.” Zach gave Billy the same answer he’d given him the hundred other times his friend had asked him if he was going to have sex with Jessie.

“Bullshit,” Billy said, lifting his hand to cover his mouth as if he were coughing.

Zach did not give a rat’s ass if his friend believed him or not. It wasn’t going to happen. Sleeping with Jessie, no matter how tempting it was, was a bad idea. A
very
bad idea.

Not solely because it could make their living situation awkward or worse, but also because Zach didn’t trust himself not to get wrapped up in her and distracted from the one thing in life he couldn’t get distracted from. His career.

As it was, he was having a hard time (literally!) because he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Her deep-brown eyes haunted him. They held so much emotion. Even though most of the time Zach suspected Jessie was trying to disguise it. Never before in his life had he ever met someone who kept things as close to the vest as Jessie did. She was carefully guarded with her words and her actions. The one thing she couldn’t seem to mask was what he saw in those dark-caramel pools beneath her long, inky lashes.

Then there were her lips, which were hands down the most sensual pair of lips Zach had ever seen, which drove him crazy with desire. To the point that he’d even become jealous of inanimate objects. Her bottom lip was fuller than the top, and it made him want to suck it into his mouth and run his tongue along it before nipping it with his teeth and repeating the same trail with his tongue.

As Talia began applying more pressure, digging her fingers into him as she continued his deep-muscle massage, Zach tried to think of the least sexy image of Jessie that he possibly could. Since
not
thinking about her was obviously not working out, he thought that maybe he could redirect his Jessie thoughts into a less sexually explicit direction. Unfortunately, it didn’t matter what she was wearing. Business wear, casual wear, or sleepwear, she managed to be the epitome of his fantasy girl come to life. Zach was pretty sure that she could wear a burlap sack and still pull it off as sexy.

The other night, when he’d come home to find her working, her clothes were baggy and he was sure that she hadn’t worn her oversized Snoopy shirt, sweats, fluffy slippers, and glasses in an attempt to be seductive. Somehow the fact that her sex appeal was so innate and organic, made her appearance that much sexier.

In Zach’s life, females had always
tried
for his attention. Even before he’d been a professional fighter. Sometimes to the point that he had even felt embarrassed for them over how they were behaving. They threw themselves at him with no regard for their own well-being.

Jessie, in contrast, was self-assured, contained, guarded. It made him want to know what she was like when she dropped her defenses, when she let go. Something told him that, since Jessie didn’t easily let people into her world, once you had the privilege of her trust, it was an amazing thing.

Zach felt like a lust-Jessie-fog was filling his brain. That or his mind was just so clouded because he hadn’t been sleeping for shit. Friday night, his sleep had been bad because he’d been on a couch that hadn’t been designed for sleeping. But the last two nights, he’d been in his bed. His king-sized, comfortable bed. The bed on which he normally fell asleep the second his head hit the pillow.

Except the last two nights. The second his head hit the pillow, the citrusy scent of Jessie’s perfume filled the air. Visions of her lying in his bed, in his shirt, filled his head. He knew he could wash his sheets—even though it wasn’t technically ‘his laundry day’ until Thursday—but he didn’t want to. He liked the fact that his sheets smelled like Jessie. Which was one of the reasons that he knew he couldn’t sleep with her.

He was feeling way too much for this girl. Too much desire. Too much connection. Too much affection.

“Hey, have you guys seen my dad?” He heard Maxi’s voice and heels as she stepped into the locker room, where Billy and Zach were both laid out on massage tables.

“Office,” Zach directed her. He’d seen Charlie back there with Lloyd about ten minutes earlier.

Billy let out a high-pitched wolf whistle as Maxi walked in front of the massage tables on her way to the back offices, her heels clicking loudly on the hardwood floors. “Damn, girl, you look good enough to eat!” Billy exclaimed.

“Thanks,” Maxine replied happily.

Zach lifted his head to make sure that Maxi wasn’t just making nice and saying thanks to lower Billy’s defenses before she socked him in the face—or worse, below the belt. Maxine Rizzo
never
let guys get away with saying stuff like that to her,
especially
Billy.

“You’re in a good mood. What’s got your tail wagging, beautiful?” Billy asked, grinning like the cat that swallowed the canary.

Maxi’s face lit up so bright she was beaming. Her sparkling eyes widened and she looked like she could barely contain her excitement. Her olive-toned cheeks were flushed and she was radiating happiness as she smiled from ear to ear. Clasping her hands together at her chest, she explained, “I just got hired at SPC. I start Friday. I’ll be working directly for your girlfriend. Or um…fake girlfriend… Or whatever, who is such a badass by the way. And I’ll have a team of four people. That. I. Get. To. Choose!”

Zach had never seen Maxi this excited before about anything. She’d been happy when she’d been hired by Magic Media right after she graduated, but she always said that she wanted to end up at a larger firm like SPC.

Zach remembered that she made a vision board, which at the time he’d thought was a little hokey, and on it, she had all the things she wanted in her life. At the center of the page was a picture of the building that SPC was in. He wasn’t a ‘vision board’ kind of guy but he couldn’t argue with results.

“Congrats,” Zach told her as she turned and hurried to the back offices, practically bursting at the seams to tell her dad the good news.

“So now Maxi’s working for your girlfriend, huh?” Billy said with a smirk in his tone. “That’s cozy.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Zach clarified.

She’s not my girlfriend
. He silently repeated the mantra he’d adopted over the last seventy-two hours to ground him in some small sliver of reality once more.
She’s not my girlfriend
.

Z
ach rounded the corner onto his street and adjusted the multitude of bags he held in his hands and arms. Grocery shopping was not really his thing, and he was afraid that he might have overdone it. The cold air swept over his face as he picked up the pace, double-timing it home.

He had no idea what time Jessie normally got home since the last three nights he’d stayed at the gym until almost one a.m. Actually, he didn’t know what time she left for work either since, even with his late nights, he still got up at five fifteen, took a quick shower, had coffee and breakfast, and was out the door by five forty-five.

The last three days had passed by in a blur. Between the early mornings and the extra time at the gym, he was feeling more than ever like Bill Murray in
Groundhog Day
. Since he and Jessie had had dinner together, he’d been trying to avoid her at all costs. Today, he realized when he’d fallen asleep on the weight bench, that his solution was not going to be a long-term one.

His new plan was to just…be normal. Zach was going to go about his day like he normally would and not let the fact that Jessie was his roommate influence any of his actions. That was the plan anyway. Since he’d already strayed from it (and he wasn’t even a full four hours into it), he was realizing that he might need to re-strategize.

It had been going well up until the time he’d hit the grocery store. All he’d meant to pick up was chicken, brown rice, and veggies, enough for tonight’s meal and then a meal or two for leftovers. Instead, he’d gotten enough to feed six, as well as the makings for three more meals.

Why had his cart looked like he was a contestant on
Supermarket Sweep
? Because he didn’t know what kind of food
Jessie
liked. His plan was crumbling already.

“Yoo hoo down there. Hello, handsome!”

Zach heard a high-pitched, female version of a catcall ring out above him. Tilting his head back, he saw Margie’s head sticking out of the top-floor window. He couldn’t tell what color track suit she was wearing today, but he would bet she was wearing one. He did see that she had what looked like hundreds of tiny, pink rollers stuck to her head.

“Hey, Margie. How are you doing today?” he asked. A friendly smile spread across his face as he paused in front of the stoop.

“Much better now.” She waved with a wink. “A little man-candy always brightens my day.” She then wiggled her fingers as she singsonged, “Tootle-loo, hot stuff,” before disappearing inside and shutting the window.

Zach laughed as he headed up the concrete steps to the front door. Entertaining. That was what the M&M sisters were.

After opening the door, Zach noticed that Jessie’s keys were not in the key hook that was shaped like a large old-fashioned key, which Jessie had hung the day she moved in. Moving through the house to the back of the kitchen, Zach looked around at all of the little touches Jessie had added to the décor. They were tasteful. Every piece added character and was not overly feminine or masculine.

Besides the key, she’d also placed several large vases with different-colored, tall, decorative sticks arranged in them as well as some plants, artwork, and his favorite addition—a new couch. It was brown suede, L-shaped, and more comfortable than any couch he’d ever sat on in his life.

Thankfully, Margie and Mabel had been more than happy to take back the green couch he’d spent a fitful night of sleep on during the first night here. When he’d taken it upstairs with Jessie’s cousin Alex, Margie had said that there were a lot of “good memories” on that couch. Alex had looked at him with his eyebrows raised, and Zach knew that Alex was thinking the same thing that was running through his own mind—that that couch had seen its share of freakiness. That had made him wish he would have put a sheet down before spending the night on it. Hindsight was always twenty-twenty.

He set the grocery bags down on the kitchen counter and saw that the laundry schedule was written on Post-it notes that were stuck on a corkboard calendar—another one of Jessie’s contributions to the place. Everything she’d added had made the brownstone feel more and more like a home.

While unpacking the groceries, he noticed that, over the last few days, she must have gotten new dishes. Behind the glass cabinet doors, there were bright ceramic plates, cups, and bowls. They were displayed like they belonged in a storefront window. Zach never would have picked out those dishes himself, but he liked them. A lot. Just like he felt about the person who had picked them out.

After putting the groceries away and prepping the chicken, Zach decided to go take a quick shower. He didn’t want to cook with the clothes he’d worked out in all day at the gym. He took the stairs two at a time, and when he reached the top, his eyes automatically turned down the hall to Jessie’s room. Her door was half open, and all he could see were her bed and a chair that sat in the corner.

He had zero reason to go into Jessie’s room other than the burning desire to see the space.
Not a good enough reason,
he admonished himself. Turning towards his end of the hall, Zach roughly pulled off his hoodie in frustration. He felt more like a little kid with a crush than a grown-ass man, and it was really starting to piss him off.

Once he’d stripped down, he grabbed a towel and stalked back down the hall to his bathroom, intentionally not looking in the direction of Jessie’s room. After closing the door behind him, he reached in and turned the nozzle as far as it would go in the direction of the ‘H’.

He knew that common logic stated that when a man was
overheated,
he needed a cold shower. Zach had always found that, although a cold shower definitely took care of unwanted hard-ons, they left him irritable and tense. Whereas steamy, hot showers had the same effect below the belt as cold ones and they left him with a much more calm and relaxed feeling.