Wild Man (Dream Man #2)(8)

His boots were getting closer.

Another flight, the last one, I raced down them and had a hand to the door, opening it when my wrist was seized in an iron grip, yanked away, my body with it. I was pulled from the door and pushed against the wall, Jake’s tall, lean frame fencing me in.

I looked to the side.

“Let me go,” I whispered.

“You promised we’d talk,” he growled.

I shook my head and kept my eyes averted. “Let me go,” I demanded.

His voice dipped gentle and his other hand curled around the side of my neck. “Tess, baby, you pro –”

My eyes shot to his and whatever he read in them made him stop talking and flinch.

“Let… me…. go, ” I hissed.

He let me go and stepped back.

I walked instantly to the door and pulled it open.

Standing in it, I turned to him to see his eyes on me; his face unreadable except his strong jaw was set in granite.

“Is your name even Jake?” I asked quietly.

His silvery-gray eyes, not melted, not quicksilver, not affectionate but glittering and hard held mine.

I held my breath until he finally shook his head.

Then, without another word or a glance back, I walked through the door.

Chapter Three

Kentucky

Three months later…

I was in my kitchen when I heard the knock at the door.

My eyes went to the microwave.

Holy crap.

Martha was early. Martha was never early. In fact, I told her to be there at three because I actually needed her to be there at three thirty. Martha kept a steady schedule of being at least fifteen minutes late but had an average of being half an hour late (I’d known Martha a long time, long enough for it to happen so often I could actually calculate that average which I did) and therefore it wasn’t unheard of for her to rush in, winded and filled with excuses forty-five minutes or an hour late.

It was ten to three and I didn’t even have the cake ready.

Damn.

This meant one of two things.

Man trouble or wardrobe malfunction.

Both of these did not bode good things for both of these meant Martha would be in more than the usual Martha tizzy. And the usual Martha tizzy which was set to spinning constantly in the crazy, out-of-control life Martha lived was bad enough.

Fuck.

“I’m elbow deep in icing, honey!” I shouted toward my front door, bending back over the cake with my pastry bag. “Let yourself in, it’s open!” I finished as I continued to dot every third fluffy, white, buttercream frosting star with a point of pale yellow icing.

The door opened and I spun the cake around to get to more stars.

I was standing at the island in my kitchen, my head bent to the cake when I felt her presence hit the room but stop in the doorway.

“I’m running a bit late,” I told the cake. “Get yourself a pop or something. In fact, get me one. Cherryade. Crushed ice,” I ordered, dotting more stars at the top border of the cake then moving down to the bottom.

Martha didn’t move.

My eyes lifted to her and my mouth opened to say something but the words and my breath got clogged in my throat when I saw Jake Knox, arms crossed over his wide chest, one broad shoulder resting against the doorjamb, lean h*ps hitched to the side, motorcycle boot clad feet crossed at the ankles.

I said not a word and didn’t move as I took in all that was him.

Ratty-assed, faded black t-shirt with the peeling words “Charlie Daniel’s Band” over an equally peeling American flag fitting just right over his torso, a pair of mirrored shades shoved in the collar by an arm and dangling down. Jeans so faded they were their own unique shade of blue with frayed bits around the pockets and delicious worn patches at his crotch, the length of them fitting loose or snug in all the right places on his slim h*ps and long legs.

Unruly, dark hair about an inch longer than I remembered so it was curling low on his neck and around his ears. Below his sharp cheekbones, along his strong jaw and chin and down the column of his corded throat was, from my experience, at least three days worth of stubble.

Silvery-gray eyes pointed right at me.

Fuck.

I straightened, filled pastry bag in my hands and stared at him.

He stared back.

He did it better.

So I blinked and when I was about to say something, do something, maybe even yell something, he got there before me.

“You ready to talk now?”

I blinked again.

Then I whispered, “Sorry?”

“Talk, Tess.” His deep voice rumbled across the kitchen at me. “You promised we’d talk. I wanna know if you’re ready to do it now.”

I dropped my pastry bag filled hands to the counter and kept staring at him.

Then I asked, “Have you lost your mind?”

He ignored my question and told me, “Name’s Brock Lucas.”

I closed my eyes and dropped my head as that knowledge filtered through me, knowledge I laid awake at night wondering about, knowledge that had been kept from me as I fell in love with an imposter.

“Tess, babe, eyes,” he growled. “Now.”

My eyes opened and my head came up as I felt a shaft of steel rip down my spine.

Then my eyes narrowed on his hard face as the electric feel of his mood in the room finally made it through the cocoon of surprise shrouding me and sparked against my skin.