Hard Wood Read online

  My eyes snap open just like that—asleep to awake. Here I am, in the tent with Mia. One lovely, feminine leg is flung over mine, and a smooth, toned arm is draped over my stomach. Her eyelids flutter, and her lips twitch. She’s on the edge of a dream, I suspect.

  I don’t move for several seconds. Instead, I let my imagination picture this moment unfolding again and again. Waking up next to Mia. Having permission to touch her. Being able to pull her close and take her in my arms.

  Like she’s done to me.

  But that’s something Dream Mia did. Not Awake Mia. No matter how enticing this scenario is, I force myself to focus on how it isn’t reality.

  The leg on mine? It means nothing.

  The arm on me? It tells me zilch.

  Turning my head, I scan for Zeus. He’s staring at me, like he knows all my secrets.

  Well, the dude does. Pets know everything. If cats and dogs could talk, man, the things they could spill.

  I catch a flash of silver, and my eyes home in on the metallic glint. Oh hell. Mia’s shirt is twisted, rising to her belly button, revealing a piercing—a simple silver barbell with a purple ball at the end. I’d like to say it’s the sexiest thing on her body, but then I spot something hotter.

  And cuter at the same damn time.

  On her hip bone is a silhouette of a fox. The outline of the animal tattoo is unmistakable, from the pointy ears to the fluffy tail. It’s about the size of a dime, one of the smallest pieces of ink I’ve ever seen.

  This woman will be the death of all my restraint. I want to run my thumb over that tattoo so badly. To watch her body arch into that slight touch, and feel her tremble as I trace the lines of the tail.

  I raise a hand, hovering it above her, tempted, so damn tempted.

  Then she sighs, and a dart of I don’t want to get caught with my hand in the cookie jar jolts me. I snatch my hand away, casually threading it through my hair and yawning.

  “Just woke up,” I say in my best groggy voice.

  “Me, too.” Her voice is gravelly, so sleepy-sexy.

  Her eyes drift down, and she seems to realize she’s tangled around me. “Oh, sorry.”

  “I didn’t mind.”

  She slips her leg off me and then moves her arm. She stops at my stomach, patting it. “I like your snack baby.”

  I chuckle lightly.

  “It’s very . . . firm.”

  Jesus. That’s not the only part of me that’s firm. “Feel free to conduct a full test of firmness.”

  “As if your belly were a mattress?”

  “Well, you do seem to be sleeping on me,” I say, trailing off.

  “Is it weird that I find you so comfortable?” she asks, her voice low and soft.

  “I’m normal and comfortable. Would you also like to tell me I’m reliable?”

  She twists her neck to look up at me, wiggling her eyebrows. “And punctual, too.”

  I roll my eyes. “Great. Just great.”

  Maybe it is great, though. Because her hand is still on my stomach. Her hand isn’t moving. And I’m not moving, either. I lie perfectly still, watching her fingers splayed on my abs, picturing all the directions that hand could go. Up would be fine. No objections there. She should feel free to explore my pecs all she wants. But down? That’d be even better. I’d really like to see how her hand looks slipping under my shorts. Heading south. Wrapping around my—

  Wait. That’s not what I want.

  Don’t get me wrong—I do want to feel those soft hands all over my dick. But more than anything, I want to feel her. I want to touch that fox, then lick my way up her belly to her breasts, the hollow of her throat, her alluring neck. I want to roll over, slide on top of her, pin her wrists above her head, then tell her how badly I’ve wanted to have her beneath me since the night I met her at her brother’s apartment.

  And if she wants the same damn thing as I do, I know myself. I won’t be satisfied with snacks of Mia. I’ll need the full meal. Hell, I want the whole menu of Mia.

  But the miles between us . . .

  They loom so damn large. I’ve been around the block. I’ve dated. I’ve had serious girlfriends. And I’ve learned this—proximity matters. It’s quite possibly the foundational element of a relationship. You need to be able to see each other. I don’t want to rely on texts and phone calls. I want nights and mornings, and weekends, too. Maybe that makes me greedy, but I’m thirty-three, and I’m not interested in a fling anymore. I don’t want a part-time woman. I’m ready to go all in.

  How can we be all in with each other when we’re on separate coasts? Sure, I spend time in California now and then for work, and a few months ago I was there even more. But I hired a West Coast tour manager, so I don’t have too many reasons to jet out there every weekend.

  Against all my desires, I sit up ramrod straight, and her hand slides off me. She brushes one against the other. I stare ahead at the opening of the pop-up tent. “We should go.”

  “Is it that late?”

  I shake my head, checking out the sun patterns cast across the top of the tent. “I’m guessing it’s a little after one. But we need to hike down, and you have your conference call.”

  She groans. “I should have canceled that call.”

  I laugh lightly, but I don’t say I told you so. If she needs to do the call today, my job is to take her home. She straightens her shirt and gathers our supplies, minimal though they are.

  We retrace our route, but this time we’re faster, less chatty. We make no pit stops for hugs or deep conversations. We’re all business, and I’m not sure if it’s because I pushed her hand off me, or if we’ve simply talked ourselves out. Perhaps there’s nothing left to say. Wouldn’t that be great? Wouldn’t it be absolutely wonderful to discover I have no more conversational bits and pieces to share with this woman? That’s my new dream—that with this day I’ll have exhausted my interest in her.

  Then she won’t have such a claim on my thoughts.

  Inside the Jeep, Zeus curls up on the back seat and falls into slumber as I pull away from the trail, heading to the highway that’ll take us back to the city.

  “Patrick,” she says after a few painfully silent miles.

  I grip the wheel tighter. “Yeah?”

  “Normal isn’t a bad thing.”

  “That so?”

  “Nor is comfortable.”

  “Really?”

  “And reliable isn’t, either.”

  “Yeah, I get that,” I say with a heavy sigh. I still wish she’d chosen other adjectives.

  She taps her bare fingernails against the dash. “I dated this guy a year ago who always said he’d show up. But Zach was late. All the time. Sometimes when we’d made plans, he didn’t show up at all.”

  I hate this Zach. “And?”

  “I broke up with him.”

  “So you’re looking for a punctual guy?” I ask, a flicker of hope inside me. I’m excellent at arriving on time.

  She shakes her head. “That’s not what I’m saying. And I’m not looking. I’m not out trolling for someone who’ll show up at seven p.m. on the dot. I’m just saying . . .” She slows down, taking a beat, her voice the slightest bit wobbly. “I’m saying I like that you mean what you say. You do what you say. You show up.”

  “That seems a base level of acceptability, Mia,” I say gently, but firmly, to get my point across. “Why should you, or my sister, or any woman, for that matter, feel like she should be happy if a guy merely keeps his word? Shouldn’t we all do that?”

  “Yes, of course,” she says, her pitch rising. “But that’s not what I’m trying to say.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  She blows out a long stream of air. “I’m saying normal is awesome. Normal is what we all want,” she says, dragging her hand through her caramel-blond waves. “But it’s hard to find. My God, you should see the guys out there.”

  For a flash, I picture her on a date with another guy, a nameless, faceless schmo, and my wo
rds come out harsher than I’d like. “Please, tell me more about the men you date.”

  She flinches, then snaps her gaze to me. “Wait. Are you jealous?”

  Yes, I am. I’m jealous of Zach. I’m jealous of anyone who came before and anyone who’ll come after Zach. I’m jealous of any guy who’s taken her out for so much as a cup of motherfucking coffee.

  After today—the things we shared, the jokes we told, the fears we laid bare—what is the point of keeping this treacherous ball of jealousy rolling around in my chest a secret? I should say yes. I should admit it.

  I glance away from the road momentarily, meeting her gaze. And in her soft hazel eyes I see her kind spirit, her good heart, her wicked sense of humor. I relax my viselike grip on the wheel, the tension spilling out of me. I don’t need to ruin our friendship with a misplaced admission.

  “It’s all good, Mia. Keep talking. About the normal thing,” I say, keeping it calm, keeping it chill.

  She clears her throat. “What I’m trying to say is I’ve met plenty of guys who are weird in all the wrong ways. Weird about commitment, weird about boundaries, weird about truth. I don’t mean weird as in they have cute idiosyncrasies like constantly reciting the temperature inside a house.”

  I straighten my shoulders. “That’s not weird. That’s normal.”

  “It’s something men do that I will never understand.”

  “I will never understand why women can’t turn lights off when they go from room to room. You flick a switch,” I say, miming turning off a light. “There. Simple. And as for the temperature, we like to know precisely how hot or cold it is, so you’ll have to try again on the ‘not normal’ thing.”

  She smirks. “You’re missing the point. I’m trying to say that I like normal. A lot. The thing I want most is a normal guy.”

  I wait for her to continue. To reveal more. But she’s quiet. She doesn’t say she wants me—that I’m the normal guy she wants.

  Maybe this is the moment of truth. This is what I need to get this dumb lust out of my system. In fact, today has been precisely what I needed. A cold dose of reality.

  I flick on the right-turn signal, heading onto the bridge that’ll take us back to Manhattan. I fiddle with the radio and tune in to a station that plays indie music. An upbeat song starts as the car rolls past the tolls and over the water.

  For a flash, that primal fear of crashing into the sea lashes before my eyes, but the music shoves it out. I turn the dial a bit louder, and then Mia places her hand over mine.

  I flinch briefly.

  She turns my palm over and threads our fingers together.

  My breath stops.

  For several seconds, I don’t even try to exhale. Nor do I tear my eyes from the road. Her fingers clasp mine, and finally, I relax into it.

  There is no earthly reason why holding hands should feel this good.

  But it does.

  It feels better than good.

  It’s astonishing.

  It stokes flames inside me, especially when she strokes my palm with her thumb. Every reason I recited in the tent—proximity, three thousand miles, different coasts—threatens to march back into my brain, but I tell them to scram. Right now, I want to feel her touching me.

  I squeeze her hand as we cross the bridge. When we’re on the other side, I steal a glance at her. She smiles at me, kind of sweet, kind of nervous, kind of like she likes this, too.

  “Hey, Jackrabbit,” I say.

  She winks. “Hey, Kangaroo.”

  Right now, I’ll take that nickname, thank you very much, even if it started from a douchey marsupial meme. I’ll take it because she’s holding my hand.

  She doesn’t let go. Not the rest of the way. Not till we reach the parking garage.

  We separate, and I’m hit with how much I want to touch her again.

  When we’re inside the elevator, I press the button for the twentieth floor, then the twenty-fifth.

  Once the doors close, she leans back against the opposite wall to me, her hands gripping the railing. “I liked holding your hand.”

  Zeus meows from his post on the floor, and I step closer to her. “It felt so normal,” I say, using her favorite word.

  Her eyes shine with desire. “It felt so good.”

  8

  Like I said, proximity usually wins.

  In this case, it’s not only trumping the miles that often separate us, it’s stomping all over any restraint I might once have had.

  There are no miles now. This is a battle of inches. And I’m losing.

  Gladly fucking losing, because my pulse races rocket-fast, and my skin is hot, just from being near her. “So, what do you think? You and me. Bad idea?”

  She shakes her head. “Definitely not bad.” She swallows. “Good idea?”

  “Maybe the best idea?”

  “Would it be?” she whispers.

  “What do you think?”

  She’s breathing hard, and I love that. She licks her lips, her cheeks flushed. “Want to know what I think?”

  “You know I do.”

  She lifts one hand and places it gently on my chest, pressing her fingers against my pecs. Even through my shirt, her touch triggers an instant response—a rush of desire to every molecule in my body.

  “Sometimes I wish you still visited San Francisco,” she says. “I liked it the few times I saw you out there.”

  We played pool one night when I flew into her hometown en route to a tour in Tahoe. Another time, I took her out to her favorite sandwich shop for a tomato and mozzarella panini for lunch, before I met the guy I’ve since hired as my West Coast manager. That’s when I learned of her impressive appetite. Or, of how much bigger her eyes are than her stomach—that stomach I want to touch, and I have permission to at last. I run the tips of my fingers down the fabric covering her belly, and she gasps—a quiet but sensual little sound that leaves no room for argument. She’s into this.

  “I definitely wish you were in New York City more,” I tell her, traveling to her arm, brushing my fingers down her bare skin. Goose bumps appear on her flesh, and she feels so good to touch. Her eyes flutter closed for a second, maybe more. When she opens them, those hazel irises are fiery with lust.

  “I wish you weren’t friends with my brother,” she says, her tone unexpectedly dark. It gives me pause. I don’t see why Max would be an issue. Not for us. Max isn’t the type of guy to be a territorial asshat, and I’m not the type of guy he has to worry about with his sister.

  “Why?” I raise an eyebrow in question.

  Mia shakes her head. There’s something she’s not telling me. “It just makes it harder . . . and other reasons.” She doesn’t elaborate. I’m not sure I want her to right now. Not when we’re both finally saying the things I’ve wanted to speak out loud and hear.

  Besides, we know the score.

  And yet, we’re still here, barely any space between us, the elevator rising higher, dinging softly as it passes each floor.

  “There are always reasons.” I lift my hand to her hair, brushing it away from her face. She moves with me, her cheek following my palm, and the most desperate look crosses her eyes. Like she can’t bear not to be touched right now. “But are those reasons more powerful than the fact that I’d really like to kiss you right now?”

  My muscles relax, and heat shoots through me. It’s a spectacular relief to give voice to how I feel, and a huge turn-on, too. Now she knows. We aren’t playing poker anymore, holding our cards too close to the vest. I still don’t know how much either one of us is willing to bet and willing to lose, but we’re in the same card game.

  She trembles, and her voice is feather soft and so inviting when she says, “Kiss me.”

  Hell to the yes.

  I cup her cheek, rubbing my thumb across her skin, and it’s as if she dissolves, as if she floats, and I can feel how incredibly mutual this attraction is.

  However, she’s also incredibly short.

  I don’t line up that eas
ily with her. When I line my body to hers, my hard-on meets her navel. That’s not the big issue—though it is big. The pressing issue is I’m more than a head taller. I dust a quick kiss to the top of her hair, laughing, to emphasize my point.

  She laughs, too. “You’re a foot taller.”

  “More than a foot.” I lower my hands to her hips and lift her up, setting her ass on the bar in the elevator. She lets out a little squeal. Out of the corner of my eye, I see floor fifteen light up on the pad as we pass it.

  This is going to be one fast kiss.

  But I’ll take it. I’m inches away from her soft, sensual lips. She parts them, and I close my eyes, dipping my mouth to hers, then the elevator slows.

  On the seventeenth floor.

  I groan and huff in frustration.

  She winces, as if not kissing is as painful for her as it is for me.

  The doors whisk open.

  She slides off the bar, her feet hitting the floor as a fortyish-year-old woman strolls into the elevator, carrying several empty canvas grocery bags. She wears electric-blue glasses, and her black hair is twisted high in a bun. Earbuds blast some kind of loud music in her ears, and she clutches her phone, bopping along with it, and gives us a quick nod. When the doors close, she stabs the down button, then mutters under her breath, probably because she’s realizing she entered an elevator going up.

  I sigh heavily, because she’s not even headed in the same direction as us. She doesn’t even need this ride.

  I look at Mia, right next to me. She brushes her hand over her hair, smoothing it out though I didn’t get to mess it up like I wanted.

  She shrugs and gives a what can you do smile as the elevator slows again, approaching my floor. Then she rises on tiptoe and dusts her lips along my jaw. Now it’s my turn to shiver because . . . holy fuck. Those lips. I want to feel them all over me. I stare hard at her for the last two seconds of the ride, my eyes trying to say everything.

  I want you so much.

  The twentieth floor comes far too quickly, and I grab my backpack with my cat in it and give her a tip of the cap. “Time for your conference call, Jackrabbit. I don’t want you to be late for it.”

  She smiles. “Considerate. You’re considerate, too.”