Jersey Six(96)

She nodded.

“I’m going to discover why you say you like olives but won’t eat them.” Ian twisted his mouth.

Jersey glanced over his shoulder, her brow slightly wrinkled. “The wife of the man I killed. Her name was Sharon. She was oblivious and evil in her own way. And a drunk. One day I saw her sitting in the kitchen, drinking something with olives in it. A martini. I’d never had an olive before. I asked her what they were, and she pulled one out and handed it to me. The gin burned my tongue, but I liked the salty olive. I still do, but they just bring back bad memories.”

Ian nodded slowly, brow tense. “I’m going to take you to Tuscany. We’ll stay at a vineyard … I know a guy.” He smirked. “We’ll drink wine, eat pasta with our hands, and I’ll feed you olives until the only thing you think of when you see one is me.”

“I’ll check my work schedule. Which …” She pulled on his arm and glanced at his watch. “I open this morning. In an hour.” Jersey tried to stand.

Ian pulled her back to him. “Play hooky. Let’s go back to bed and do what terrible people do.”

“No. Sorry, Coop. I have a job. I like it. I want to keep it. So you’ll have to be terrible with someone else today.” She wriggled out from his hold on her and rewrapped the blanket around her body.

Ian frowned. “I fear we’re still not on the same page. I don’t want to be terrible with anyone but you. And I don’t want you—”

“To let anyone touch me where you’ve put your mouth?” She glanced at him over her shoulder at the doorway, a flirty grin on her face.

That erased his frown.

“I get it.” She rolled her eyes. “I think that leaves maybe my left pinky toe.”

“No.” Ian shook his head. “I covered that. ALL of that. ALL of you.”

“No.” She strutted toward the bedroom. “I have a left pinky toe to offer the right guy. So—COOP!”

He scooped her up and threw her onto the bed. She kicked and giggled as he wrestled with her leg.

“Eww … don’t do that.”

He sucked her left pinky toe and bit it for good measure. Then he kissed his way up her naked body, tangled in the blanket.

“Coop …” She grabbed his hair before his mouth did any more damage to her resolve. “I have to go to work.”

His tongue slid up her inner thigh. “What’s our record?”

She squirmed, intent on getting to work on time but tempted by his mouth’s ascent. “Three minutes, forty-two seconds.”

He grinned, a wicked gleam in his eyes. “If I can beat that, will you get to work on time?” He kissed an inch higher.

Jersey tightened her grip on his hair as her pulse began to race. “On your mark … get set …”





EPILOGUE





Ten years later

“What’s the word of the day?” Ian knocked on the door to Jersey’s office.

She swiveled in her desk chair—her favorite spot in their 4000-square-foot penthouse in Central Park West, New York.

Tucking her bobbed hair behind her ear, she shot him a sexy look over the frames of her glasses. “Recalcitrant.”

“Sounds hot.” He prowled toward her.

She leaned back, folding her hands on her lap. “It’s very sexy. It’s an adjective meaning stubborn—defiant of authority. Difficult to control or manage.”

“Sounds like my wife.” Ian sat on the edge of her desk, pulling her leg up to massage her foot—perfectly manicured with pink polish on her toenails that matched her fingernails.

“Sounds like the author who wrote this manuscript.” Jersey nodded toward her computer screen.

“Still working on the same edits?”

“Yep.” She sighed. “This girl is brilliant. She’s eighteen and writing with the imagination of a soul that’s passed through a million lives. She’s meticulous with her world building, a literary savant. I have no idea where her mind goes to create this stuff. It’s incredible. But she’s oblivious, or allergic, or something … to punctuation!”

Ian chuckled.

“I’m serious. She’s recalcitrant!”

“I’m sure, babe.” He could not have been more proud of the girl with the bunny. She honored her past by chasing her dreams, not letting a single thing that happened to her define her as a person or cripple her ability to achieve anything.

Jersey toured with Ian and a private tutor to get her diploma. Then she attended college, pursuing her dream of “working with words.” It took her down many roads which ultimately led to freelancing for several of the Big Six publishing houses. On the side, she followed her other passion—narration. Ian set her up with her own booth in their home to narrate books.

Jersey’s dreams of boxing died after a shoulder injury, but she could still kill a fly a hundred yards away with a knife.

“How are you alone? Where are the kids? How many do we have today?”

Ian pursed his lips to the side. “Let me think … seven. Maybe eight. I lose track of the youngest one. What’s her name? I can’t remember. But it’s Friday, so they’re in school. Except the youngest one … dammit! What’s her name?”