The idea of watching Jesse settle in with a woman stirred an odd jealousy. He would be jealous of Jesse for finding something that might work. He would be jealous of Gemma for taking his friend.
God, he really did need to think. His first impulse had been to tell Jesse to ask her out right away, but maybe he owed Jesse the courtesy of a little time. “All right. One week.”
But he still turned and walked away from the party. If he was going to think, he’d better start now.
Gemma watched them. She couldn’t help it. She had been reduced to peeper status.
Jesse and Bare-Chested Ape…Cade…seemed to be having some sort of argument. Over her almost certainly. Cade wasn’t interested. That much was obvious. He couldn’t stand her. She had that effect on some men, a lot of men. She just wished she knew why he’d decided she was trouble. What sort of rumors were already going around?
The door to her cabin opened after a single brisk knock. Naomi walked in, peeking around the door. “You have been holding out on me. Who was the sexy cowboy you were hugging?”
Gemma didn’t look back. She’d gotten used to Naomi’s nosiness. She found it almost comforting. “He’s not a cowboy. He’s a kinky mechanic. And he’s an ex-con. Sort of.”
Naomi sidled up to her, their shoulders touching as she looked out at the place where Jesse and Cade stood talking. Jesse had a beer in his hand. They were so gorgeous. Cade looked like a male model, all perfection and cheekbones and classic good looks. Jesse was the embodiment of a bad boy. She would bet he had a few tattoos. She would really like to see them.
Zane Hollister stood between them, watching the two like he was observing a tennis match.
“How is someone a ‘sort of’ ex-con?” Naomi asked.
Cade was frowning, that lean body of his taut with obvious tension. Jesse’s shoulders moved up and down. She wished she could see his face. “Juvie.”
Naomi snorted. “Baby con. If he didn’t go back, it doesn’t count. Those are two beautiful men. What do you think they’re saying?”
Gemma could guess. “Well, Cade is saying, why do you want to date that crazy city girl? And then Jesse says, because she’s pretty and I’d like to spank her ass when she spits bile. Then Cade’s all let’s find a nice girl to spank. And Jesse says, all the nice girls are taken. We’re stuck with the beyotch. I don’t know. He might not say beyotch.”
Naomi laughed. “Spank you? Are you kidding me?”
“Nope. He said he would spank me when I was rude.” And her whole body had gone on full-scale alert, praying he would start right then and there. Damn it. She’d read one too many erotic romances. It was her only guilty pleasure. She was crazy about over-the-top alpha males, but she knew they were just fantasies. She’d been ready to try some role playing with Patrick in an attempt to amp up their sex life, but that had gone spectacularly wrong.
Naomi bumped Gemma’s hip with her own. “Hmmm. That explains it. If he’s into slapping a girl’s ass for violating courtesy, you’re going to be his dream girl. He might never have to stop smacking your ass.”
Gemma growled a little Naomi’s way. “Like you would know. Oh, shit. That’s not good.”
Cade strode away from Jesse, his face a mask of irritation. Yep, he wasn’t happy. Not at all. He was damn pissed. What had put that look on his face? Jesse followed, clutching his beer. She would have to remember he liked beer. Maybe she should buy some so she would have it if he came over.
Damn it. She didn’t need to remember anything because she wasn’t falling for his line of crap. It was all an act. No one was that honest. And she wasn’t going to even start thinking about pleasing another man. She’d done everything she could to make Patrick’s life next to perfect, and he’d taken advantage of her. She wasn’t going to do it again.
Naomi turned from the window. “I don’t know what’s going on with those two. It doesn’t look good. So why was the hot one with the scruff hugging you?”
Gemma forced herself to turn away. She didn’t want to. She probably would have watched them until she couldn’t see them anymore. But it was for the best. She didn’t need to get involved with anyone. Even if she really wanted to.
He’d talked about spanking her. He hadn’t said the words, but he basically meant he wanted to top her. She’d read about it. Thought about it. Dreamed a little about it. She didn’t really want it. It was just a fantasy, and fantasies weren’t meant to really be lived out. She would only be disappointed.
But he’d really seemed sure of himself. It had been a truly shocking moment. When he’d said he would spank her if she got out of line, her whole damn body had responded and not in a bad way. She’d wondered, just for a minute, what the relationship would mean. Could she depend on him? Could she tell him all the problems she had and expect him to help figure out how to solve them? Her brain went a million miles a minute. Sometimes it was hard to concentrate on just one thing. She struggled, but she persevered. And it would be so much easier if someone was checking up on her. It was like the gym. She needed accountability. But no one cared enough to put up with her shit.
And they shouldn’t. She knew she was hard to handle. She just needed to focus. “That would be Jesse McCann, and he’s a little bit of a pervert. The one who’s running away is the man formerly known as Bare-Chested Ape Man. His real name is Cade. Sinclair, I think. Apparently he likes to be naked. Like a lot. This place is weird.”
Naomi grinned. “This place is awesome. So you’re being pursued by a nudist and a Dom?”
“I don’t know if he’s a Dom. We didn’t actually go over that.”
“Oh, if it looks like a Dom and quacks like a Dom, it’s a Dom, and that man would look good naked. Both of them, actually.” Naomi sighed. “Are you still not over your ex?”
She laughed at the thought. She’d been over Patrick about two seconds after she’d caught him with Christina. She still hadn’t gotten over the loss of her career. That was hard to let go of. “Not at all. I can’t believe I even wanted to marry him.”
“Why did you?” Naomi’s gorgeous brown eyes went from laughing to calculating in a single instant, and Gemma was reminded of just how intelligent the nurse was.
And she was spurred on by Jesse’s honesty. Of all the things that had happened to her today, his flat honesty was the most affecting thing of all. “He was a safe bet.”
Naomi sighed and crossed to her small table, looking down at the box there. “That doesn’t sound romantic.”
It wasn’t. “Think of it more like a merger. Patrick and I wanted the same things. We understood the same world. We didn’t hate each other.” And the sex had been bland, but she wasn’t absolutely sure that wasn’t her fault. Christina hadn’t had the same problem. Another reason to stay away from Jesse and Cade and their ridiculously hot sexuality. “It was an easy relationship. Well, except for the part where he was a cheating, job-stealing weasel. Other than that, I was almost completely in control.”
Naomi shuddered, her chocolate-brown skin shivering. “That sounds horrible. Why would you do that?”
She’d asked herself the question about a million times and could only come up with one answer. “Because the love thing isn’t real.”
“Your momma would disagree.”
She would. Her mother would tell her how much she’d loved her father, but now all Gemma could see was how much she’d grieved. “I was young when he died. I mostly remembered how horrible it was. We didn’t know he had cancer until he went into the hospital. We thought it was a cold. Pneumonia, maybe. And then they told us it was stage-four lung cancer. I watched him die. I watched her watch him die. I don’t see anything great about love.”