Take Me (2 page)

Jaxon walked back into the yard, his cock rock hard against the fly of his jeans.

Anna had tasted just as he’d remembered -- like peaches and cream and warm summer nights. But she’d rejected him once before and he wasn’t going to let her crush him again.

He’d kissed her just now because he’d needed to prove to himself that he could walk away from her, that he could leave her the way she had left him all those years ago.

And, physical reactions non-withstanding, he’d been able to do it. Now he could move on.

“Hey,” Katie said, looking up from where she was pouring a glass of fruit punch.

“What were you doing in the house?” She gave him a suspicious look and then handed him the glass of the fruity drink.

“Nothing.” Jaxon took the glass and had a sip. “Ugh. Disgusting.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw Anna come walking out of the house, her smooth and silky hair swinging behind her. He remembered what it felt like to run his hands through those long gorgeous locks, letting the strands slip through his fingers as he kissed her.

He turned away and back to Katie, desperate for a distraction. “Can I help you with anything?” he asked.

“You can, actually,” Katie said. “You can go start the grill.” Her green eyes surveyed his face. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Besides the fact that I’m at a baby shower? Yes, I’m fine.”

“Okay,” she said. “Because if you want to leave, you can.”

“Why would I want to leave?”

Katie bit her lip, looking nervous. “I know you and Anna have a history.”

“Katie,” he said, and rolled his eyes. “We were children.”

“I know, but –”

“I’m
fine,”
he insisted. “Now where’s the lighter?”

She pointed over to the picnic table, where the lighter was sitting on top of a stack of paper plates, napkins, and utensils.

Jaxon busied himself starting up the grill, then spent the next half hour grilling hamburgers and barbeque chicken for the guests. He served the meat onto their plates, watching as they then moved over to the buffet table and loaded up on an assortment of salads and chips.

“So what’s good?” a voice purred in his ear.

Anna.

But it wasn’t. It was another guest, one of Katie’s friends from work whose name had slipped Jaxon’s mind.

“Depends on what you’re in the mood for,” Jaxon said, trying to appreciate the woman’s warm smile and the high curve of her backside in the short shorts she was wearing.

“I guess some beef,” she said flirtatiously.

It was a corny line, but Jaxon smiled. He was about to ask the brunette what her name was, when his eyes fell on Anna sitting over by the pool.

She stood up from her lounge chair and Jaxon watched as her long bronze legs unfolded from under her. She reached up and slowly pulled off her baby blue tank top, revealing a scarlet-colored bikini top with tiny little strings that set off her rich golden hair. The guy sitting next to her –- some asshole neighbor of Katie’s named Todd --said something, and Anna threw her head back and laughed.

Jaxon’s heart caught in his throat. Anna looked so free, so beautiful. It had taken every ounce of his self-control for him to walk away from her in the kitchen, to stop from stripping her and devouring every inch of her naked body. But now he was tapping into reserves he didn’t know he had to prevent himself from marching over there and punching that guy Todd square in the mouth.

He watched as Anna unbuttoned the button on her shorts and slid them down over her hips, revealing scarlet bikini bottoms. Her body had filled out, turning the gangly limbs of a teenager into the soft and voluptuous curves of a woman.

“Hello?” the brunette in front of him said, holding her paper plate out. Her mouth was arranged in a pout. “Are you going to give me a burger or what?”

“Yeah,” he said, suddenly annoyed. He plopped the burger onto her plate, still watching as Anna laughed again at something the guy next to her said.

A real Steve Carell, that Todd. What an asshole.

“Thanks,” the brunette said.

“You’re welcome.”

Anna looked up from the pool and met his gaze across the yard. Damn. She’d caught him looking. She narrowed her eyes at him, giving him a look that could have made a terrorist shudder.

Well. Two could play this game.

“You want to have lunch together, sweetheart?” he asked the brunette. “I was just about to take a break from grill duty.” He handed the spatula off to an unsuspecting Adam who was standing nearby.

Then Jaxon fixed himself a plate of hamburgers and potato salad and guided the brunette right on over to the pool.

***

The girl Jaxon had brought over to the pool was a complete and total bimbo. That was apparent just from looking at her. Everything about her was fake – fake nails, fake hair extensions, even fake acrylic nails. Jaxon was so predictable.

Anna turned her back on him while he led the bimbo over to some wicker lounge chairs near the deep end of the oval-shaped pool. She focused on the man in front of her.

He lived across the street from Katie and his name was Todd. He was nice enough looking, with close cropped brown hair and a sparkling smile.

“So are we going to go for a swim?” Anna asked him cheerfully.

“I don’t think so,” Todd said, shaking his head. “I don’t want to get all wet.”

He didn’t want to get all wet? Anna’s heart sank. How was she supposed to show that she didn’t care about Jaxon by splashing around with this new man when he didn’t even want to go in the pool?

“Come on,” she said. She pulled on his hand and put a fake little pout on her face, hating herself for having to resort to such feminine trickery. “Let’s go in the water.”

“No thanks,” Todd said. And now he was looking at her warily, like maybe she was slightly insane. Which, come to think of it, made a lot of sense. She was pulling on his hand, after all. And he was a total stranger.

“Are you sure?” Anna asked, cocking her head and giving him her sweetest smile.

“That’s okay,” he said, glancing at his watch. “I really have to leave soon anyway. Have you seen Katie? I want to make sure to say goodbye.”

“Yeah,” Anna said, sighing and gesturing toward the gift table. “She’s over there.”

She pulled her clothes back on over her bathing suit, left Jaxon to his bimbo, and walked back into the yard to join the party.

***

The rest of the shower passed without incident. The guests oohed and ahhed over all the cute baby gifts, Katie’s mom tried to get them to play a game of baby shower bingo, and a strawberry cake with chocolate ganache frosting put everyone in a sugar coma.

When it was time to leave, Anna pulled Katie close and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I’m so happy for you,” she said. “Call me later, okay? We’ll get together tomorrow?”

“Absolutely,” Katie said, her eyes shining.

As Anna drove back to her parents’ house, where she was staying for the week, she struggled to get Jaxon out of her mind. She hated the fact that he still had such an effect on her.

Of course she’d been brokenhearted when Jaxon had left for Los Angeles, leaving her behind in Connecticut to finish high school. She’d spent the first part of her senior year holed up in her room, making mix tapes of sad music by the kind of artists who sang about lost loves and missed chances. But when she graduated and headed off to Boston and the hallowed halls of Harvard University, she’d thought for certain that she’d forget about him.

She knew in her heart that Jaxon was all wrong for her. After all, she was Anna Webb, good girl, smart, straight-A student. Jaxon Hale was rough and tumble, the kind of guy who was fun to kiss, but not the kind you ended up spending your life with. He exuded sexuality, and every time Anna had been with him, it was all she could do not to let him take off all her clothes and finish what he would so expertly start.

But Anna was a good girl, and she’d followed the path her parents had laid out for her. Harvard, then an MBA from Yale, then a post in London at a top financial firm where she worked hard and made an obscene amount of money.

There had been men of course. Anna had lost her virginity her sophomore year of college, a little behind by anyone’s standards, but it was with a boy she’d been dating for four months. Anna thought that was a respectable amount of time to be dating someone before you gave him your virginity. The sex had been fine. Nothing spectacular, but not one of those horror stories women liked to tell about their first time, either.

There had been a couple of long term relationships, a few relationships that had lasted for a few months, and dozens of first dates. And, always, no matter what, there had been thoughts of Jaxon.

Thanks to the internet, it had been relatively easy to keep tabs on him. Anna know that he’d graduated from UCLA, that he’d opened his own real estate development company, that he’d started buying properties, rehabbing them himself and selling them.

He had become something of a legend in Los Angeles, from what she could tell.

This rough-looking man whose estimated net worth was a few million dollars, who never shied away from a fight with an inspector or a city councilmen, or even another real estate developer.

Jaxon refused to give interviews, and therefore the Los Angeles press had seemed to become somewhat obsessed with him. They wrote about him with a kind of semi-reverent slant, while somehow being able to convey their annoyance with the fact that he refused to be interviewed.

He had no facebook page. No twitter. His company had a website, but even then there had been no picture of him.

From what Anna could tell, Jaxon liked to be behind the scenes, doing the work, but not wanting or taking credit.

It was a sharp contrast to Anna’s own career. From the time she’d been born, her parents had encouraged her to take credit for her accomplishments. Winning the second grade spelling bee. Getting a perfect score on the eighth grade math aptitude test.

Becoming valedictorian. Getting a 4.0 in college. Landing the job at Burns and Wildman.

Each milestone was celebrated and bragged about to her parents’ friends, neighbors, and relatives. Successes were something to put out in the open and be proud of, at least until the next goal was set.

Anna pulled her car into the driveway and cut the engine. Her parents weren’t home. They’d been here last night when Anna had arrived, had picked her up at the airport and whisked her off for a nice dinner at her favorite restaurant. This morning the three of them had eaten breakfast together. Her mother had prepared a feast of boysenberry pancakes with real maple syrup, cut organic honeydew, and cup after cup of expensive, fresh ground French roast.

But tonight her parents had plans with friends of theirs, the Morgansterns.

Anna had been invited, but the Morgansterns had never been her favorite, and so she had begged off, claiming she was going to be hanging out with Katie.

She walked up the cobblestone walk and into the house, deciding to curl up in bed with a book and a glass of wine.

A few hours later, the sun had slipped down below the horizon, coating her bedroom in a cozy darkness, broken only by the soft glow of the light on the nightstand by her bed. Anna snuggled further down in the sheets, feeling relaxed and happy. She turned the pages of her book, enjoying the silence and the time to herself.

At around ten o’clock, she turned off the light and drifted off to sleep.

She awoke a couple of hours later to the sound of something hitting her window.

At first she thought perhaps it was raining, and she rolled over and tried to fall back asleep. But the sounds against her window got stronger, coming in harder, more frequent bursts.

And then she realized it wasn’t rain.

It was stones.

She ran to the window and looked out.

There, on her parents’ front lawn, was Jaxon.

He was wearing a black V-neck sweater layered over a crisp white T-shirt. The sweater was soft-looking and tight, showing off his broad chest and chiseled pecs. His narrow hips were encased in a pair of baggy jeans, and his feet were in brown work boots. Dark hair flopped over his forehead and ruffled in the summer night breeze. His hands were shoved in his pockets, and there was a bored look on his face.

Anna’s heart sped up, her pulse racing as she took in the man standing before her.

She pulled open the window.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

Jaxon’s lips slid up into a sexy, mischievous grin, the same grin that had caused countless women to think about doing wicked things with him. “What do you think I’m doing here?” His voice was husky, his intent unmistakable. “I would have used the door, but I didn’t want to wake your parents.”

Anna’s cheeks felt hot, her skin flushed. Her eyes darted to the driveway, where her parents’ navy blue Nissan Sentra was parked. They were home from dinner with the Morgansterns, and she must have been sleeping so soundly that she hadn’t heard them come in.

Suddenly, Anna flashed back to the summer she’d spent with Jaxon. The way everything smelled of fresh cut grass and chlorine, the way the humid night air would feel against her skin as she opened the window for him. Almost every night he’d be there, coming to see her after they were sure her parents were asleep.

He’d climb into her room and they’d bury themselves under her pink plaid comforter, staring into each other’s eyes, whispering and kissing until the sun started to rise.

“I can’t let you up,” Anna said now. She shook her head fiercely, even though every cell in her body was screaming at her to let him in.

“Come on,” Jaxon said. “It’s cold out here.”

“No, it isn’t.”

He looked at her. “Anna,” he said, his voice gruff. “Please.”

She took a deep breath, then walked to the big oak dresser against the far wall of her old room. She crossed her fingers and opened the top drawer. Inside was the knotted rope ladder she’d used all those years ago.

She looped one end onto the post of her bed, then threw it out the window.