Falling for the Guy Next Door Read Free Page A

no one was
looking her way. Her fingers tightened around the phone. She should
just leave it. Really leave it. But phone-sex? Seriously? What the
hell was wrong with the man?
    Her fingers
tapped furiously. Nothing to get excited about. I
was thinking how very small it is.
    She lifted her
glass to her lips and took a deep sip. And maybe she should be
asking what was wrong with her, because now she was definitely
thinking about a lot more than how deeply, fully he filled her. The
feel of his strong hands caressing her skin. The taste of his mouth
on hers, the pressure of those firm lips slanting kisses with
increasing urgency until his tongue dipped inside to claim her
senses, the gentle scrape of his shadowed jaw as those kisses
trailed down her throat and fluttered butterflies to her…
    Your memory is fuzzy. I’d be happy to give you a private tour
to refresh it.
    She blinked.
Released her lower lip from where it had caught between her teeth.
Her blood was hot, and it wasn’t all anger.
    Yes, Jack.
Oh, yes. The chemistry between them was explosive. One night
had never been enough to sate the desire that had slowly built over
more than a year and then rocked her world off-tilt.
    And maybe,
despite how far and fast he’d run, one night hadn’t been enough for
Jack either. Not if the flirting and innuendos and blatant
invitation was any indication.
    Was she the
unfinished business he’d come to check up on, that had drawn him
back to Corkscrew Bay?
    Her pulse
raced at the possibility of accepting his invitation. But only for
one night. This time she was under no illusions. If she did this…
God, what was she thinking?
    He’s like a
friggin’ fever inside me. Megan turned her phone off and
slipped it into her purse. Jack wasn’t a fever. He was a disease.
He was malaria, lying dormant inside her body but never gone.
    There were
more messages between them before Megan arrived home late in the
afternoon a few days later. But Jack had toned it down after she
hadn’t replied to his invitation, kept the communication light and
general.
    Except for the
one that unsettled Megan more than all the rest. I miss you.
    She hadn’t
replied to that message either. Hadn’t tried to analyse what those
three words meant. It didn’t matter. He’d still leave just the same
as he always did. If that one explosive night of her hadn’t been
enough to anchor Jack, then no amount of missing, nothing she could
do or be, ever would.
    When Megan
rounded the corner at the top of Bluff Drive, she saw an unfamiliar
white car pulled up behind Jack’s Land Rover. She parked around her
side of the house and let herself in by the kitchen entrance,
trying her utmost not to think about who Jack’s visitor was. None
of her business.
    She lugged her
suitcase up the stairs and hauled it on top of her bed. The beat of
a rock ballad pumped the dividing wall. Whoever it was, they’d
taken the party up to the master bedroom. In the middle of the
afternoon? Classy, Jack, real classy. She unzipped her suitcase,
flipped the lid back, and suddenly she couldn’t breathe. The room
was stuffy, the air thick—it had nothing to do with what was going
on next door, she assured herself. She all but ran into the
adjoining office and flung the window open. The sound of voices
below jerked her flat against the wall. She shuffled along the
wall, inch by inch, until she could peer around the curtain without
being seen.
    A girl, she
couldn’t be twenty yet, was climbing into the white car, her
flowery sundress tugged high as she slid long legs behind the
driver seat. Jack clicked the door closed after her and there he
stood, with his back to Megan, wearing threadbare jeans and a pale
blue T-Shirt and mussed up hair.
    The girl
rolled down the window and Jack bent forward, his forearms resting
on the door through the open window. Megan couldn’t hear what they
were saying, but the girl’s giggling echoed in her head as Jack
straightened and the car reversed into a