Hard Charger: Jake & Sophia: A Hot Contemporary Romance (4 page)

Cyn groaned and rolled her gaze heavenward.  “You gotta stop letting him run your life.”

Her handbag banging against her hip, Sophia laughed.  “What else are brothers for?”  She gave Alex a quick nod, avoided Jake’s intent look, and then yanked her friend away from the men.  “Let’s go.”

With Cyn grumbling the entire time, Sophia led the way across the dance floor.  Her stomach was still fluttering and her knees felt weak.  She hadn’t realized how much seeing Jake would affect her, and she hoped that his hold over her would weaken as time went on.

They reached the bar’s exit.  Cyn yanked the door open, and Sophia opened her handbag to get her car keys out.  They’d fallen beneath her Glock .40, a handy semi-automatic gun her sponsor had given her.  She shifted the gun aside, retrieved the keys, and then stepped out into the night with Cyn.

  
Jake watched them go
, his focus almost entirely on Sophia.   She was different now.  Beautiful.  Poised.  But vulnerable somehow, too.  “How’s she doing, really?” he asked Alex, as the two girls walked out the exit.

Alex shrugged.  “She’s okay.”

Jake noticed that she’d dropped the scarf she’d been wearing on the floor.  He picked it up.  It felt silky against his fingers...just like Sophia’s skin had felt.  “She dropped her scarf.”

“I’ll give it back to her.”

Jake left the scarf on the table, so Alex wouldn’t forget it.  “You said a while back that she’s waitressing for your mom at the Mermaid Inn.”

“She has the evening shift.”

“Before I left for the war, she said she was applying to Rowan U,” Jake murmured.  “Did she go?”

“Yeah.”

“Did she graduate?”

“Not really,” Alex admitted.  “She had a few problems.”

Jake frowned.  “What kind of problems?”

Alex shrugged.  “I don’t know.  Girl problems.”

“Girl problems?”  He recalled a conversation he’d just had with his own mother, and added, “You mean, like, where can I get a pedicure for twenty bucks?”

“You gotta ask
her
, bro.”

Jake lifted his eyebrows.  “I
can’t
ask her because you’re insisting I stay away.  What the hell’s going on with her?”

“Nothing,” Alex replied, with more force than necessary.  “She’s had a few problems, but she’s over them, and I’m proud of her.  She’s done well for herself.”

Jake drained his glass of whiskey before replying.  “So that’s all you’re gonna tell me.”

“There’s nothing else to tell.”

“You know,” Jake said casually, despite the irritation bubbling inside of him, “I realize I didn’t do right by her.”

“No, you didn’t,” Alex agreed.

Jake hesitated as he tried to think of the right words.  “The night before I’d left for boot camp, I hadn’t been sure if I’d ever be coming home.  The recruiter had said I’d be sent to the Middle East, and that’s exactly where I ended up.”  He shifted uncomfortably on the booth bench.  “I thought I was gonna
die
.  So I didn’t want to keep Sophia hanging on.  I wanted her to move on.  Find someone else.  Someone who could make a life worth living for her.”  He signaled for the waitress to bring them another round of drinks.  “You might not believe this, but I didn’t want to hurt her.”

“Just by leaving without a word, you hurt her,” Alex pointed out.

“Yeah, but I would have hurt her worse, if I had led her on to believe I was going to come home and marry her, and then stepped on a landmine.”  His lips twisted with regret.  “I thought she’d be better off without me in her life.”

“Sophia’s doing well now.  And I want her to stay that way.”

“I get it.  I really do.”  Jake paused a few seconds, and then asked the one question that had really been bugging him.  “Did she find anyone else?”

“She’s had boyfriends.  Came close to marrying one.  That ended badly.  There’s someone else in her life now, though.  He’s steady, smart, and good for her.  I don’t want you to fuck that up.”

The waitress came over then, with a fresh whiskey for Jake, and a beer for Alex.  They thanked her, and then Jake faced Alex once more.  “Sophia’s special to me,” he said.  “Not only is she your little sister, she’s like family.  I’m not going to fuck up her life.”

“That’s all I can ask.”  Alex smiled.

Jake looked down into his drink.  The conversation had left him feeling like shit.  It bugged him that Alex was so sure he’d fuck up any relationship with Sophia. 

The bar had started emptying out by then.  He and Alex talked about work the next day and agreed to ride together tomorrow night.  As they were talking, the pool-playing girls were laughing and poking each other playfully with their cue sticks.  They were still shooting quick glances toward him and Alex.  His lips twitching with a smile, Jake realized that the show the girls were putting on was just for them.

Alex lifted an eyebrow.  “Seems like they’re looking for some good ole fun.  Maybe we should challenge them to a game, before Rowdy Ray kicks us out.”

“See how they’re dressed?” Jake murmured.  “Mini-skirts, net stockings, high heels...yeah, they’re hot, but what if they’re professionals?”

Alex grinned.  “Let’s go find out.”

They grabbed their drinks, stood up, and eyed the girls for a moment. 

“Got a preference?”  Alex asked.

Jake looked them over.  Both had long, dark silky hair.  One was a blonde, and the other a brunette.  They were wearing makeup, but not too much, and both looked somewhat fresh despite the late hour.  He had a sudden vision of the blonde, her skirt jammed up around her waist as she bent over the pool table for him.  “The blonde,” he said.

“Fine.  I’ll go for the brunette.”  Alex sauntered over to the two girls, with Jake right behind him.  “Hey ladies, you want to play a partners game?”

“Sure,” the blonde said with a smile.  “We’ve been waiting for you guys to come over.”

Jake heard a slight lilt to her voice, a hint of a Slavic accent.  “What’s your name?”

“Staci,” the blonde replied.  “This is Elena.”

The brunette nodded her head.

Alex leaned back against a post by the pool table.  “Staci and Elena.  Don’t think we’ve met.  I’m Alex, and this is Jake.”

The two girls said hello, and then they exchanged small talk long enough for Jake to discover that they were exchange students in their last undergraduate year at Rowan University.  As promised, Alex focused his attention on Elena, leaving Staci to Jake. 

“So, what are you drinking, Staci?” Jake asked, as he signaled the waitress to come over.

“Vodka,” she replied.  “On the rocks.”

The waitress paused nearby and, after informing them that the bar would be closing shortly, took everyone’s final drink orders.  They each picked up a pool cue and quickly decided that the teams would be Jake and Staci against Alex and Elena.

“What are we playing?” Alex asked.

Elena gave him a flirtatious look from beneath her eyelashes.  “How about a game of Eight Ball?”

“Sounds good.”  Alex racked the balls in a triangle, placing the black eight ball in the center of the other balls, then invited Elena to do a break shot.  She grasped her cue stick and tapped it weakly against the white ball, sending it into the racked triangle.   The racked balls gently stuttered apart.

Staci laughed.  “Nice shot, pool shark.”

“Hey, give me a break.”  Elena pouted.

Alex chuckled and leaned closer to her.  “I’m not much better.  We’re in trouble.”

Both girls laughed, but Jake shook his head.  He knew damned well that Alex was one of the best pool players in Rockport Grove.

They continued to play, at first laughing and exchanging teasing banter among the four of them.   Jake found the whole situation entertaining.  Like Alex, he had considerable skills at playing pool, most of them honed at Fort Dix or on other army bases he’d stayed at between his tours of duty.  The girls, on the other hand, seemed to be holding cue sticks for the first times in their lives.  They weren’t even the slightest challenge. 

When the waitress delivered their drinks and reminded them the place was closing, they laughingly toasted her as a buzzkill and continued to circle around the table, trying to outshoot each other. Eventually, though, Jake centered his attention on Staci, just as Alex focused on Elena.

“So what exactly are you looking for, Jake?” Staci asked in a breathless little voice, as they watched Alex take a shot.

“Looking for?”  He glanced into her limpid blue eyes and saw the invitation there.  His dick hardened painfully.  All of the pent-up desire he’d been feeling for Sophia was still sizzling through him like electricity that needed an outlet, and suddenly Staci became that outlet.

“In a girlfriend.”

He smiled.  “I don’t have a type.  I want mutual attraction, the kind that makes us both want to rip at each other’s clothes and satisfy each other in any and every way possible.”

She sucked in a little breath.  “Me too.  What do you like?”

He gave her a confused look, but he was smiling, too.

“Sexually,” she clarified.

His smile widened.  “My sex drive revs in the red.  I like it frequently.”

She giggled.  “Me too.”

They paused in the conversation to take shots at the balls, but neither of them sank anything, and Jake didn’t really care, either.  He shot a glance toward Alex and saw that his friend was looking at the dark-haired girl with unconcealed lust.

“This game is over,” he announced. 

Alex nodded and grabbed his drink, as well as Elena’s.  He took Elena’s hand and they wandered toward a discreet corner in the back of the bar. 

Jake watched as Alex leaned in towards Elena and began kissing her—slowly at first, but then with increasing hunger.  He put his pool cue down.  Then he took Staci’s cue from her and put it down, too.  He grabbed her hand and pulled her into the hallway by the restrooms.  From that vantage point, he could still see Luke cleaning up behind the bar.

He leaned closer to Staci, then blinked once to clear an unexpected vision of Sophia.  “I like a girl who is confident, yet submissive,” he murmured softly against Staci’s ear.  “She knows when to make her moves, but she’s also excited and receptive to see and feel everything I offer when I take control.  Because I
will
take control.”

She sighed, then pouted at him, her lips begging for a kiss.  He felt her hands playing with the waistband on his jeans.  Suddenly, the button at his waistband popped open.  He considered kissing her, but ended up just brushing his lips against hers. 

Her hand slipped into his jeans, beneath his boxers.  She wrapped her palm around his cock and squeezed. His cock jumped with excitement.  His heart began to pound in his chest.

“I also like worshipping a woman’s body,” He told her, as she began jerking him off, the motion making him groan with pleasure.  “I like satisfying her, I like it when she sucks my cock, and I like eating pussy.”  He reached forward, slipped his hand beneath the fabric of her gaping neckline and found a mound of soft, warm flesh.  He popped her breast out of her bra and lightly thumbed her nipple.

She moaned, then said, “I like sucking cock, so we’re a good fit.”  All at once, she slithered lower, tugging on his jeans as she did so, exposing his lower abdomen and thighs.  He hadn’t expected this—a blowjob in Rowdy Ray’s back room.   He wasn’t sure how the situation had escalated so quickly.  He sent a slightly confused glance toward Alex, and noticed that his friend and the dark-haired girl had their hands down each other’s pants.

But then he felt Staci’s warm mouth on his cock, her lips forming a firm circle around him while her tongue gently caressed the underside of his shaft, and he stopped wondering about how this had happened or what the consequences might be.  He grasped her head and gently guided her, and she began sucking him, her hand clasped around the lower portion of his cock while her tongue encircled the head and teased that little opening at the tip.  He groaned, his balls drawing up tight against his body as she continued to pleasure him, working him like a pro, and then all at once he felt a void of pleasure gather up inside him.  Seconds later, it exploded outward, and he shuddered with the force of his orgasm.   She pulled back to give him a smile. 

“How was that?” she asked.

“You rock, Staci,” he breathed, and closed his eyes as he waited for his heart rate and breathing to come down to normal.  A memory of Sophia floated in his mind then, and he realized to his chagrin that he still had a lingering desire for her, despite the blonde’s hard work.

“Fifty bucks.” Staci gave his dick a playful little tug.

His eyes snapped open.  He stared at her with wide eyes as she stood up and spit discreetly into a paper napkin.  “Fifty bucks?”

“That’s right.”  She nodded and smiled as she shoved her breast back into her bra.

Jake frowned. Damn if he hadn’t just been taken for a ride.  And he wasn’t even drunk! “Well, fuck me.”

“That would be another fifty,” Staci informed him.