Breathless Read online

  After praying as a kid that someone—anyone—would say them to me just one time.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  The happiness stills as I notice the way he angrily jabs his arms into his tuxedo jacket. “Jake, where are you going?”

  He shakes his head. “I need air. I just told you that I love you, and you . . . I don’t know what I expected. Maybe that you wanted more than just sex with me, but from the way you freaked out earlier and the way you’ve said nothing now, I get it, Claire. I get it.”

  What does he get?

  I’m so confused, so lost.

  “Jake, I don’t—”

  “Leave the acting at the door.” He snags his keys off the entryway table, bouncing them in his hands. “I need to get out of here, I need to breathe.” As if his body realizes that what he says is true, he drags in a harsh breath. “I want you, Claire. I love you. But I know that I’ve come on strong over the last few weeks. At my parents’ restaurant, at your house . . . I pretty much forced you to come tonight because I was desperate to have you with me. That wasn’t fair to you.”

  “I wanted it,” I burst out. “I wanted all of it.”

  “But do you love me?”

  Yesyesyesyes. But, again, the words stall.

  His gaze cuts to the floor as his shoulders slump. “Take a few days to think things over without me hovering around you. Not having kids is something I don’t mind. But I don’t think I can deal with loving you, and always worrying that I bullied you into this relationship.”

  “I don’t even know where this is coming from!” I point at the couch. “We just had sex, fucking amazing sex, and you’re walking out? Maybe this has nothing to do with me not being ready and everything to do with you knowing that you want kids but not wanting to hurt me.”

  “That’s not it.”

  “I think it is.”

  Our gazes clash, and I feel like we’ve been transported back to all those weeks where we were at each other’s throats. I’m breathless, I’m panting so hard—with anger, not passion.

  Jake swallows. “I’ll call you a cab, Claire. Let’s just . . . take a few days, to think over everything.”

  “I already know what I want. And what I want is—” You. What I want is you. But those aren’t the words that emerge. Nothing emerges.

  Disappointment cuts across Jake’s face, and it nearly sends me to my knees. “I’ll get you that cab.”

  And then he’s gone, leaving me alone in his apartment. The stupid, stupid man. Couldn’t he see how much I want him?

  You clammed up. He opened himself to being vulnerable and you said that the sex was amazing and didn’t even mention how you felt about him? How do you expect he’d react?

  Badly. I’d expect he’d react badly.

  He’d wanted to hear that I loved him, too.

  And I do.

  But how do you say those words to someone when you’ve never, not once, said those three little words before . . . to anyone?

  14

  Claire

  I hate life.

  “What’s a fine chicken like yourself doing out here on the streets?”

  Have I mentioned that I hate life?

  My talons curl into fists as I swing my head around to glare at the douchebag eyeing my scantily clad chicken costume. He’s pulled up to a red light at the intersection, and isn’t even bothering to pretend he’s not checking me out while his buddy drives the car.

  “You’ve got nice thighs . . . and even nicer breasts.”

  Does he really think that I haven’t heard that joke before? And, okay, maybe I’m feeling a little edgy today due to recent circumstances that I won’t allow myself to dwell on for too long, but I’m fully aware that . . . I really shouldn’t throw a fried drumstick at this guy’s car.

  Unfortunately, I do.

  It launches through the air, spiraling like a football, and—magically, because I’m the worst athlete on the planet—nails the guy right in the face.

  “You bitch!”

  Victory. It tastes so sweet.

  A grin curls my lips, the first true smile I’ve given life to in days. Eleven days to be precise. Eleven days of thinking about Jake and the way we parted ways at his house. Eleven days of wondering how I’m going to make everything right when it clearly went so wrong. Eleven days of—

  “Did you just throw a drumstick at that guy’s face?”

  My gut clenches at the sound of Darci’s voice. With hunched shoulders, I glance over at her, already opening my mouth to beg for her to stay quiet with Jake’s parents. I can’t lose this job right now.

  I’m not given the chance to speak.

  Darci’s eyes go wide (she’s sans chicken costume, the lucky bitch), and she lets out a rough laugh. “You’re my new hero.”

  “Are you mocking me?” I wouldn’t blame her if she was. In the eight weeks that I’ve been here, I don’t think I’ve spoken out of turn to anyone . . . Okay, I’ve definitely called Jake out more than a few times, but that has to count for something, right?

  Sure, you were secretly telling him you loved him each time you uttered the words, “you’re a prick.”

  Damn it, I miss him.

  “Claire,” Darci says, “unless you’re going to pull on your big girl panties and go after him, stop thinking about it all.”

  Yup, I’d caved and spilled my guts to Darci the very next day after the gala. I don’t know what it says about me that she’s the closest girlfriend I’ve got, but one minute I’d been piling fried chicken onto my silver tray, and in the next, I’d curled into a fetal position on the restaurant’s kitchen floor.

  Don’t judge me.

  The traffic light turns green, and the car with the asshole drives off into the abyss. In other words, New York City traffic. It’s practically the same thing.

  Tucking the tray against my hip, I turn to Darci. “I’m fine.”

  Her brows lift in overt disbelief. “You just threw a drumstick at someone.”

  “He was being an asshole.”

  “Girl, we deal with assholes every day.”

  “What’s that saying again?” a male voice muses from behind me. “Excuses are like assholes; everyone’s got one?”

  Crap. Devin.

  I whip off my chicken head, trying desperately not to remember the way that Jake did exactly the same to me just two weeks earlier. And then kissed me. If I weren’t so emotionally inept, he could be kissing me right now. But, no, instead we’re talking literal assholes, of which I’m one for sure.

  Who can’t summon up three little words during the most important moment of their life?

  This girl. Claire-Emory-Whoever-I-Am.

  With my heart somewhere in hell, I notice Darci mean-mugging Devin just before she snaps, “And who the hell are you?”

  Devin flashes a megawatt smile. “Not an asshole.”

  I roll my eyes, open my mouth to speak, and am soundly cut off by my coworker: “Impossible. All men are assholes.”

  “Correction,” Devin murmurs, holding up a finger, “all men have assholes, as I previously mentioned. But, really, I’m a rare breed of man.”

  Darci’s hands go to her hips as she gives Jake’s best friend a blatant once-over. “You look pretty average to me.”

  Oh, God. Darci’s claws have come out to play today. I’ve learned in the last few days that she has absolutely no luck with the opposite sex, and swore off dating a few years ago. Poor Devin doesn’t even realize what he’s getting himself into right now.

  Reaching out, I place a hand on Darci’s arm and squeeze. Cut the shit, my grip reads.

  She doesn’t listen.

  Wiggling out of my grasp, she tosses back her hair. “Trust me, I’ve dated guys like you. Smooth-talking. Handsome—”

  “You think I’m handsome?” Devin flutters his lashes ridiculously. “You’re not so bad yourself, sugar.”

  Someone, please bash me over the head and wake me from this nightmare.

  Eyes na
rrowed, Darci’s hands lift from her hips and that’s when I have the awful premonition of her trying to strangle Devin. Yeah, not good.

  “Children, children, let’s play nice.” I step forward, hands outstretched. “Darci, ignore the asshole in our midst, yeah? Devin, what the hell are you doing here?”

  “I have Jake for you.”

  Against all physical odds, my heart leaps and plummets all at once.

  And then his words actually settle in, and my stupid heart begins to gallop. I’m not kidding. It’s pumping so hard I feel nauseous and lightheaded and absolutely panicked. “Wait, what? You have Jake with you?”

  Devin nods, crossing his arms over his burly chest. “Yep, he’s in the car.”

  “In the . . .” I shake my head, hoping to disperse the confusion. “I’m sorry. Did you say that you have Jake in the car?”

  An evil smile flickers on his face, sending warning bells clanging in my head. “He’s been moping. A lot. Our clients are noticing, and, honestly, Max and I are over it.”

  Knowing that I sound like a parrot, I whisper, “Over what?”

  “You and Jake tip-toeing around each other. Obviously, you love him.”

  I don’t even know what to say to that because my brain has latched onto only one thought: Jake is in the car, Jake is in the car, Jake is in the car. My gaze searches the parking lot, skimming over Hondas and Fords and everything in between, searching for his familiar vintage Mustang.

  But it isn’t here.

  “When you said he’s in the car, do you mean he’s here in the car?” I glance to Devin. “In the Mustang?”

  “Nah, not the Mustang. Unfortunately.”

  Oh.

  “Do you love him, Claire?” Devin asks, his voice low.

  Darci scoffs. “Isn’t that something she should be discussing with Jake and not with you?”

  Devin ignores her. “Answer me, Claire. Do you love Jake?”

  Yes, with all my heart. For eleven days now, I’ve been a total wreck. How do you teach yourself to let go, to give up your protective walls, when all you’ve done for decades is build them up? Every morning, noon, and night since the gala has been spent writing and rewriting my speech.

  I know, a speech. Because that’s obviously the way to go. Love should be spontaneous, un-orchestrated. But the fact remains that I’m comfortable with my scripts, with my prewritten words. It’s pretty much the only way I can visualize opening up to Jake for the first time.

  But in eleven days, the right words haven’t come. I need them to be perfect.

  So, one day slips into another, and then again and again, until here I am in a damn chicken suit, wondering how I can wrangle my feelings into three little words. Let’s be honest, those three little words can’t even encapsulate how I feel about Jake.

  “Claire?”

  At Devin’s soft murmur, I nod. “Yes, I really do. I love Jake with everything that I am.”

  “Good.” He returns the nod. Then, “Yo, Max!” he shouts, startling me. “We’re a go. Let’s do this.”

  Let’s do this . . .?

  I don’t even have the opportunity to process the words.

  My world slips, tilts, and then settles upside down as I realize I’ve been tossed bodily over a masculine shoulder. Max’s masculine shoulder.

  His ass is the center of my vision, and I hear Darci arguing with Devin over the blood thumping in my head.

  “Max! Max, put me down.”

  He grunts when I thump my fist down on his—admittedly—tight butt. “In a sec.”

  “In a sec?” I echo, watching his boots cross yellow parking line after yellow parking line. “This is theft!”

  I feel his shoulders bounce with laughter under my stomach. “Kidnapping, maybe, but not theft. Don’t worry, Claire, we’ve got you covered.”

  And then just as quickly as I was thrown over his shoulder, I’m lowered to the ground beside a very fancy car—Max’s car, if I remember correctly—and then Max swings the door open, clamps a hand on my arm, and urges me inside.

  My legs give up the fight, and my butt comes in contact with the driver’s seat. “Max, seriously, what the—”

  “Think of Devin and I as your fairy godmothers,” he says with a half-smile. “Oh, and you’re going to want this.” Folding a key into my palm, he kisses my cheek and slams the door shut.

  I stare after him, wondering if he’s lost his ever-loving mind, and then—

  “Hello, Claire.”

  Jake.

  15

  Jake

  As much as I’ve missed Claire, running into her for the first time in eleven days while I’m tied up and stashed in the back of a car is not how I envisioned our reunion.

  Neither did I envision her blonde hair.

  Honey. Her golden hair is the same color as honey, and I’m desperate to sink my fingers into the thick strands and tug her close for a kiss.

  Not that that’s going to happen anytime soon, thanks to the fact that I have—

  “Oh, my God,” she whispers, covering her mouth with one hand as her brown eyes burn bright with humor. “Did they . . . Did they really . . .”

  “Lock pink, furry handcuffs around my wrists?” I offer, dropping my head against the seat’s headrest as I watch her. “That they did.” I jiggle my hands a little, rattling the cheap chains. “They’re assholes.”

  “Everyone’s got one,” she murmurs cryptically. She lifts one hand, a key pinched between her index finger and her thumb. “I suppose I know what this key is supposed to be used for now.”

  Freedom.

  But do I really want freedom when I’m locked in a car with the woman of my dreams? Nah, not really.

  So, I drop my hands to my lap, right over my crotch. If she wants to fasten the key in the latch and set me free, she’s going to have to climb into the back of the car and work for it. “Throw the key away,” I say, flicking my gaze to her beautiful face. “I want to talk to you anyway.”

  “Correction,” she says, drawing in a deep, rattling breath, “I need to talk to you.”

  “Correction,” I counter, finding a thrill in the way her eyes narrow, “I fucked up two weeks ago, Claire. You opened up about your past, you let me in, and I walked out.”

  “You didn’t walk—”

  I cut her off. “I did, baby. I walked out. I listened to you. I heard your pain. And then when I admitted that I love you, I stupidly expected to hear the words come back to me. That wasn’t fair, especially knowing that saying those words wouldn’t come easily to you.”

  For a moment, she only watches me. Her brown eyes track down my face to my neck to my chest to my hands before swerving back up again. And then she moves, clambering over the front seat’s console and it’s at that point that I realize . . . she’s still wearing her chicken costume.

  I know, I know. I should have noticed sooner, but I’d been so caught up looking at her face, meeting her eyes, that everything else just faded away.

  But now that there are feathers dancing in the air as she attempts to join me in the back seat, and now that I have an up-close visualization of her shiny bikini top and even shinier short-shorts, I do the only thing someone can in this situation: I laugh.

  It’s not the soft, husky sort either.

  Nah, I laugh so hard that tears well in my eyes. I laugh so hard that Claire bursts into laughter not thirty seconds later when she finally falls awkwardly into the seat beside me. She clutches her suit around the middle and tosses her head back, exposing her neck to my gaze, as she lays awkwardly sprawled across my lap.

  “I’m sorry,” she chokes out, “I need to get off you.”

  My wrists sanctioned together by the chain, I press them to her leg. “No, stay.”

  Her elbows go to either side of her hips, so she can shift her weight to stare up at me. “I missed this.”

  “Getting dolled up as a chicken?” I trace my fingers over the feathers, recalling the taste and feel of her hot skin. “It’s a good look for yo
u. Although, where are your talons?”

  With a sheepish tilt to her lips, she shrugs. “I made them removable, like gloves. It’s easier that way.”

  “Smart.”

  “But that’s not what I mean, Jake, about missing this. I’m not talking about the chicken suit, although I suppose I should be grateful for this gig. If I’d never applied to work here, I would have never met you.”

  In the last eleven days since the night of the gala, I’ve tried to give Claire space. As much as I wanted to reach out, I knew our next meeting had to be on her terms. When she felt comfortable with me, confessions of love and all.

  But, fuck, it had been hard staying away. Hard and nearly impossible, and there have been at least fifteen text messages I’ve typed out before ultimately deleting every last one. So, the phone went into captivity with Max and Devin, and I returned to my subdued life without Claire.

  Fucking miserable. Every single day.

  Until now.

  As I stare down at her, there are so many things that I want to say, but I know that I need to let her get everything off her chest first. “I missed you, too,” I say instead, which barely covers the depth of anything. So, I add, “Every day. I missed you every damn day, Claire.”

  Her gaze softens. “Did you?”

  “Do you really have to ask that?” I draw her legs fully over my lap, despite the suit, despite the feathers. “You know the answer to that.”

  “I know.” Her gaze flits away, and I hear her rough swallow. “It’s just that . . . it’s not something I’m used to hearing frequently, you know? You probably don’t. That’s not a slight. I just mean that you’re loved, you have close friends and, obviously—”

  I squeeze her leg. “Did you miss me?”

  This time, she doesn’t panic.

  But she does rearrange her legs, dropping them to the floor and then sitting up straight. Brown eyes meet mine as she slips her hand under her armpit and then draws on the zipper, tugging it down, down, down. The undoing of the zipper matches the unsteady pace of my breath as the suit falls away.