Hypnotic Seduction (The Seduction Series) (43 page)

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Authors: Laurie Kellogg,L. L. Kellogg

BOOK: Hypnotic Seduction (The Seduction Series)

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“My Saturday night dates with a red marking pen are not the issue here.” He tunneled his fingers through his hair. “When I gave you those condoms to share with the team, I meant for you to keep a few for your own use should the need arise.”

“Oh, it rose all right.” His son smirked as he rolled his eyes toward the ceiling fan turning overhead. Its gentle breeze wasn’t enough to cool the heat creeping up Jake’s neck.

His hand flexed under the table. This was exactly the kind of teenage bravado that drove normally rational parents into smacking their kids’ smug faces right into the next zip code.

He’d read all the books on dealing with teens. In fact, he was even working on his doctoral dissertation on that subject. But knowing intellectually his kid’s stand-up comedy routine was simply a way to hide his anxiety did nothing to keep that superior
you-don’t-know-squat
attitude from undermining Jake’s reason.

If anyone shouldered the blame for his son getting involved with Emma, he should. When she’d tiptoed into his classroom in September, he’d felt an instant affinity to the shy, timid girl. Her smile and petite figure reminded him so much of the woman he’d spent nearly two decades trying to forget—and forgive.

He knew how difficult it was for teens to move, especially their senior year. Consequently, he’d bribed his son with a huge stack of pancakes and asked him to casually drop by Jake’s class, invite the lonely girl to lunch, and introduce her to his friends. Alex must have decided Emma didn’t eat puppy chow for breakfast as he’d feared after Jake told him she was smart and funny but just a little shy.

“Look, I’m sorry.” Alex turned his palms up in a helpless gesture. “I used protection—
every time
. Aren’t you the one who lectures all the kids that condoms are only eighty-eight percent effective in practical use?”

“Well, I’m glad to hear something sunk in. Too bad you didn’t remember my advice about using something else with them.”

Alex crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you treat the kids at school like this when they tell you they’ve screwed up?”

“Those kids aren’t my son, damn it! They also aren’t fouling up a full ride to Penn State. My research is all about kids like you. Were you so intimidated by your success that you had to deliberately louse up your life?”

His son glanced at all the heads turning toward them. “Shhh! Does the whole
freakin
’ world have to know my business?”

Jake braced his forearms on the table and leaned forward, lowering his voice. “If you didn’t want people to overhear us, why’d you bring me to a public place to deliver this happy news?”

“Emma’s meeting us with her mother in a few minutes.”

“
Great
. This just gets better and better.” Jake rubbed the back of his neck to ease his tension. So he was finally going to meet the elusive Widow Bradford. He could think of a lot more pleasant ways to get acquainted.

The few times he’d telephoned her house looking for his son, who routinely forgot to charge his cell phone, Mrs. Bradford’s sultry voice had intrigued Jake in a way no woman’s had in years. So much so, he’d suggested having coffee together the first time he’d spoken to her.

Unfortunately, the woman was still mourning her husband and had shut him down before he’d ever finished spitting out his clumsy invitation. On every occasion he’d talked to her, he’d hung up the phone swamped by profound disappointment and the strange feeling that, for some reason, she just didn’t like him. In fact, if they didn’t work in two different schools, he’d wonder if the woman might actually be avoiding him.

But whether she’d purposely stayed out of his way or not, this was hardly the ideal situation to rectify any bad impressions he might have made on the phone.

He arched one eyebrow at his son. “Should I assume Emma is having this same conversation with Mrs. Bradford as we speak?”

“No. She wants you to help us tell her mom.” Alex scowled at Jake. “I don’t know why, but for some reason, my girlfriend thinks you’re patient and understanding.”

Okay, so he deserved that. Some psychologist he was—losing his cool without listening first. When it came to crisis management in his own family, his ex-wife Roxanne could attest that he sucked at remaining dispassionate and open-minded. But seeing his sins revisited in his son’s life sent every paternal instinct bubbling to the surface.

Dwelling on the kids’ mistake wouldn’t change their future. But how he handled it now could make all the difference.

Jake drew in a cleansing breath. “Look, I’m sorry I yelled. Let’s start over—sane and sensible this time. Are you saying Emma hasn’t told her mom yet?”

“No. She’s afraid her mother’s
gonna
have a meltdown. Mrs. Bradford only delivered the abstinence part of
Teens and Sex 101
to
Em
.”

In that case, Alex could consider his name crossed off the woman’s Christmas list. Jake knew this for a certainty because he’d had personal experience telling a girl’s mother he’d impregnated her daughter.

He’d never told Alex how preventing teen pregnancies had become such a crusade for him. He’d attained dual-certification to teach family and consumer science classes in addition to psychology, hoping to spare his son and other kids this misfortune.

After hanging up his cleats, he’d received dozens of job offers for assistant coach positions in the pros and as a sportscaster for numerous cable networks. He’d socked enough away during his football career to be more than just comfortable, so he’d chosen to teach, hoping to save his marriage and the futures of impressionable teens.

Jake nodded a greeting to their
waitress
, Brandy Harris, as she rushed up wearing a mini skirt and a blouse that left nothing to a man’s imagination, drenched in enough perfume to obliterate the mouthwatering aromas wafting from the nearby tables. She was one of Jake’s students—not that a stranger would ever guess. She had the body of a porn-queen and dressed more like a streetwalker than a high school cheerleader. Not surprising after
being raised
by a single a mom who worked as an exotic dancer to support her family.

Brandy had been shaking her pom-poms at his son for the last four years. So in reality, things could be worse. Alex could’ve knocked up the class tramp instead of shy, sweet Emma.

The fatherless Pamela Anderson wannabe flashed her dazzling smile at Jake’s son and purred, “Hi, Alex,” before turning to Jake, her pen poised to jot down their order. “Hey, Coach, what can I get for you?”

“Sorry, Brandy, we need a few minutes. We’re expecting two more.”

“Sure. Take your time.” She sashayed away from the table and tossed Alex an enticing smile over her shoulder, leaving a cloud of her scent hovering around them. Alex ignored her, but as soon as she turned her blonde head, he joined every other heterosexual male under forty watching her wiggle her shapely ass back to the kitchen.

Jake snorted inwardly. There wasn’t enough money in the world to tempt him to go back to being eighteen and having his hormones raging twenty-four/seven. One of the few benefits of growing older was his forty-two-year-old mind no longer lived in his shorts.

His kid just couldn’t see that the Almighty had dealt him a royal flush. Besides being brilliant and having the entire female population of the high school panting over him, Alex’s
grades
and athletic ability had given him his choice of any university.

Jake had teetered on a tightrope for years, both as a father and coach, trying to give his son just enough praise to encourage him without destroying Alex’s greatest strength—his humility. Unfortunately, now the kid believed he was the most highly recruited senior in the country simply because he was
Rocket
Manion’s
progeny.

Not only did his son have more natural talent than Jake ever thought of having on the football field, evidently, Alex was just as gifted as his old man at finding ways to screw up his life.

Coming next by L.L. Kellogg

The Naughty Never Die

Winner of the Ignite the Flame and the Touch of Magic contests and a Daphne du
Maurier
finalist (under an alternate title)

If only the good die young, then New Jersey’s virtuous First Lady should be a cinch to kill.

Unless....deep down she’s really quite naughty.

The Beauty
—a chronic people pleaser who’s had enough of her goody-two-shoes life

Since her mother’s untimely death, crusader Josephine Callahan has served as New Jersey’s First Lady. Acting as her father’s official
hostess
in the governor’s mansion is tantamount to living in a fishbowl, which makes S-E-X extremely difficult.

On the brink of a nervous breakdown, frustrated Josie loses her usual good sense along with her cool and lets her
assemblyman
boyfriend sweet-talk her into an impromptu romantic getaway—something she would never consider if she had a clue someone is trying to kill her.

The Beast
—an incurable bad boy who refuses to admit beneath his scars lurks a hero.

A deliberately twisted message, via the governor’s spiteful assistant, misleads ex Special Forces officer, DJ Ryder, as to the true objective of his freelance assignment. He’s told to, not only track down the governor’s classy daughter and
hold
her in protective custody, but to also teach her a lesson by letting her believe she’s been kidnapped.

When Josie discovers the scarred, but still sexy, badass has played her for a fool, she retaliates by feigning a raging case of Stockholm syndrome, teasing the brute until all he can think of is the
hold her
part of his orders. How can Ryder concentrate on keeping Josie safe when he’s busy avoiding the danger she poses to his heart?

Coming soon from Laurie Kellogg

The Great Bedroom War

She’s trying to forget the pleasure in her ex’s arms

He’s doing his damnedest to remind her

Fledgling entrepreneur Samantha
Riverà
is in charge of her own life for the first time and determined to keep it that way. She’s
attempting to banish her call-all-the-shots ex-husband
from
her dreams, but it’s kind of tough forgetting the Zorro look-alike who’s willing to do anything for her, except give her the only two things she wants—another baby and his love. When their 14-year-old daughter
Dani
—who’s maintaining a shaky remission from leukemia—rebels, Sam foolishly seeks advice from her Don Juan ex, who, incidentally, could charm the knickers off a nun.

When
Nicolàs
Riverà
returns to Redemption, PA, to help control his defiant daughter, he discovers he not only has serious competition for Sam’s affection, but
Dani
has a crush on a boy who is the last kid Nick wants her interested in. The boy is a horn-dog rebel who reminds Nick way to much of his teen-aged self. Sam never understood that, even to a second-generation Latino man, familial responsibility is still
número
uno
. She also has no concept of how terrified this reformed bad-boy and businessman is of losing her to another high-risk pregnancy
.
The death of their premature son devastated Nick and incited The Great Bedroom War that ultimately destroyed his marriage
.
Now, he’ll stop at nothing to get his family back—even if it means blackmailing his way back into his ex-wife’s home to become a greater presence in his sick child’s life—and, with any luck, Samantha’s bed and heart.