Love Under Two Jessops (4 page)

That’s one hell of a talent he has.

“We saw you earlier this afternoon, supervising as Gordie hung your sign up,” Andrew said.

“Nice sign,” Grant said. “Pretty, and elegant.”

Chloe had to work at not letting her jaw drop. A compliment, from Grant? That wasn’t something she’d had much practice handling. It took a moment for her manners to kick in. “Um…thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

She didn’t know why she always had to be so tongue-tied around these two men.

Andrew edged his chair just slightly closer to hers, and then angled his body toward her. “Almost the only thing our mom, aunts, and female cousins have been talking about lately is how wonderful it’s going to be to have a day spa right here in town.”

Andrew’s angling of his chair effectively surrounded her by placing her between him and his brother. If she knew what was good for her she’d tell him to back off and stop encroaching on her personal space.

The only problem was she didn’t
feel
hemmed in or trapped or encroached upon. She felt cosseted, and protected.

What happened to that brave self-talk this afternoon, when you looked at your baby sister and saw the happiness all over her? Remember your decision? Here’s your chance. Chat them up, for God’s sake!

“I’ll begin interviewing staff early next week.” Well that certainly wasn’t what anyone could call “chatting up.” Chloe guessed she’d just gotten into the habit of being closemouthed whenever these two firefighters tried to get close to her. She had since she’d met them, which told her that she’d reacted that way to them instinctively.

She’d
wanted
to be friendly with them because they were friends of Carrie’s, and so she’d done her best to overcome her almost knee-jerk reaction to them.

That’s not it and you know it. You were
attracted
to them on first sight and it scared you silly.
And because she’d been not only scared but attracted so very soon after having turned down Beck O’Malley’s proposal of marriage, she’d thrown up walls against them. She’d told herself she was taking a react-to-no-men personal stance, since there were so many hot-looking men in this town. Of course the problem with that logic was that it was only these damn Jessops who got her heart pounding so.

Beck O’Malley. Maybe it’s time I forgave myself for hurting him, too.

Now there was a thought. It really was way past time for her to do that. Chloe Rhodes didn’t know much for sure, but one thing she knew with bone-deep certainty.

Marrying Beck when she didn’t love him the way a woman should love her husband would have hurt him—hell, it would have hurt them both—so very much more in the long run than breaking things off when he’d proposed had done.

I really don’t want to beat myself up anymore. It really
is
time to move on.

“Hey, where did you go, beautiful?” Andrew’s hand strummed down her back in a soft caress.

Chloe shot Andrew what she knew was a questioning glance. He met her gaze, never flinching. Strange how she could read the expression on his face, right then and there. He’d used that word on purpose, and definitely wanted her to know that he
meant
it.

Andrew had always looked at her as if she was the most beautiful woman in the world. And Grant—she really wasn’t as adept at reading his expression, but now she realized that his gaze ate her up.

She met that gaze now for a long moment and then looked back at Andrew. She shrugged and said, “I guess I’ve been spending too much time in the past these last few months.”

“No.” Grant leaned forward and covered both her hands with one of his. “You needed time to deal with everything that happened—not just what happened here, but what happened before you even arrived in Lusty. We both understood that, Chloe.”

She’d expected Andrew to be the one to say something, to more or less get the ball rolling. “I don’t understand.
You
were the one who said ‘Thank God.’” She would never forget that moment. These two men had insisted their way into her apartment. Andrew had just called her love, and she’d countered that she wasn’t his love. He’d said “yet” at the same time Grant had said, “Thank God.”

Her gaze was locked with Grant’s as her own words echoed in her ears. For a long moment he didn’t even blink. Then she saw the corner of his mouth twitch, just a little, and it hit her.

She’d been pretending they didn’t exist except in the most academic of terms, and doing a fairly credible job of it, too, ever since she’d arrived in Lusty.

And I just put paid to all that hard work with that one sentence.

Chloe shrugged, mentally. She had been trying to find a way to let them know that she was interested in them. She’d just accomplished that, totally unawares. Somehow she thought it more than fitting that on this night, when she’d decided to take a first step toward these two men, that she’d done so by invoking the memory of
that
night.

For some reason, thinking about that evening when the brothers Jessop had steamrolled their way into her temporary apartment made her body hum and her nipples peak.

“I changed my mind.” Grant’s quietly spoken words pulled her back to the present. Before she could even think of a response to that, Emily Anne came out of the kitchen carrying a small tray.

The waitress grinned when she saw the Grant and Andrew. Chloe paid attention, because she’d never noticed, one way or another, whether or not these two firefighters flirted with Emily Anne, too. She’d seen it all her life. Some men were just serial flirts.

“Well, hello there, boys. I didn’t see y’all come in.” She set Carrie’s meal down in front of her, and then took out her order pad. “Do y’all need to see the menu, or do you know what you want?”

“We know exactly what we want.” Andrew’s gaze never left Chloe’s while he answered Emily Anne.

Chloe felt all her female bits react to not only his stare but his deeply intimate tone. Just when she thought she might actually combust, he winked, and then turned his attention to the waitress. The heated male look disappeared, replaced by one of friendly politeness.

Not a serial flirt, then.

“I don’t need to see the menu, Emily Anne, thank you. I’ll have a hamburger, well done, with fries on the side, and a Coke, please.”

“I’ll have the same, but hold them until you bring out the rest of Chloe’s dinner, okay?”

“Oh, Chloe’s already got all the dinner she ordered. Dull, naked salad, fat-free chips, and salsa—all with a water chaser.”

Chloe didn’t think she imagined the cat-eating-canary grin that Emily Anne wore as she sold her out. It did surprise her some that her friend seemed pleased with herself, as if she’d given away a cherished gift—or done a good deed. Chloe could feel both men staring at her.

“That’s not enough food to keep a bird alive,” Andrew said.

Chloe bristled. She sat up straighter in her seat. “This is plenty of food for someone like me. Do you know how many calories there are, right here?” she used her hands to indicate the salad and chips with dip.

“Yes, I know
exactly
how many calories there are right there,” Grant said. “Not nearly enough.” He looked at Emily Anne. “Make my order
two
burgers, please, and cut the second one in half.”

Emily Anne wrote it down, grinning. Then she nodded and headed back to the kitchen.

Andrew nodded. “Good thinking,” he said to his brother. Then he turned to her. “We’d rather you had an entire burger, love, but this will serve as a good compromise.”

A compromise according to whom?
Chloe huffed out a breath, ruffling the hair that brushed her forehead. “I know you mean well, but you have to understand. I’ve been fighting a losing battle with my weight
all
of my life. I love burgers as much as the next person, but they go straight to my ass.”

Grant snagged one of her chips and dipped it in the bowl of salsa. “I happen to like your ass. It’s perfect, and one of your nicest features.” He chewed the chip, his brow furrowed, his expression one of contemplation. “As are your eyes and your smile, and your breasts. Hell, I like the whole package. But your ass is definitely prime.”

Chloe didn’t often find herself speechless, but these men had a talent for rendering her just that way time and time again.

“Personally, I can’t wait until I can sink my teeth into it,” Andrew said.

“Or my cock.” Grant’s rejoinder, low and just above a whisper, shivered down her spine and settled in the pit of her belly.

She didn’t know what to say or what to do. She’d dated enough that she’d always considered herself fairly adept at this particular two-step. It wasn’t the fact that she was contemplating a three-step for once that had her unnerved, and feeling like a sheltered virgin.

It was
these
men. Something about Grant and Andrew Jessop cut through all of her defenses and short-circuited her ability to think. They both got to her in a way that no one ever had.

“Eat your salad, sweetheart.” Grant reached forward and ran one finger over the back of her hand. Just one finger stroked her, and arousal exploded within her.

Unable to do anything else, she picked up her fork and speared a piece of lettuce.

“So, you said you’ll be interviewing prospective employees next week,” Andrew said. “How many are you looking to hire, in all?”

Would she ever be able to keep up with their mental gymnastics? “Three general estheticians, and a registered massage therapist.”

“Three es-the what?”

Chloe didn’t believe for one minute that Grant Jessop didn’t know what that word meant. She suspected he was doing his part to help her inch back from the precipice of outrageous eroticism he’d taken her to.

So she said, “Women or men who’ve been trained and versed in the various treatments we’ll offer. So you’ll have your nail techs and your facial techs and your wax techs. People who can give manicures, pedicures, do facials and various wax treatments.” She could do all those things herself, except she wasn’t licensed to give therapeutic massage. She preferred just giving the kind of massage known as “relaxation.” But she wanted to be able to offer a full spectrum of services to the people of Lusty—and anyone else who came into the spa.

Talking about the spa did help her ease back from the edge. No, not
the
spa.
Her
spa. Not that she owned the building, or anything, but that was all right.

She’d already found out that nobody actually owned land in Lusty. It was all tied up in some sort of a trust. Everyone, even the longtime residents, leased—houses as well as commercial properties.

She’d never had her heart set on being a landowner, so that didn’t matter. In all the ways that counted, this spa was her business….her heart, her dream, and her business plan.

Of course, she had a silent partner. Kate Benedict had invested cold hard cash in the spa, but it felt to Chloe as if she’d invested in
her
—and that made her all the more determined to succeed.

Kate was the grandmother Chloe had never had. Come to think of it, Pamela Jessop kind of reminded her of her own mother. The firefighters’ mother had a calming, reassuring way about her.

Some of the best days were when she met Kate and Pam and Samantha Kendall for lunch. Those were good times.

“Wax techs, huh?” Andrew raised his eyebrows comically when he said that. “So tell me, do you partake of your own…spa services?”

He’d lowered his voice again and her female parts quivered. Her nipples hardened, her pussy got damp, and she couldn’t help but lick her lips. Chloe didn’t think. The words just rolled right out of her mouth.

“Guess you’re going to have to find that out for yourself, aren’t you?”

* * * *

Thank God I’m sitting down with my chair pulled up to the table.

Grant Jessop knew if he hadn’t been, everyone in the whole damn restaurant would be able to see his hard-on.

He wasn’t some pimple-faced young boy waiting to score his first home run, for God’s sake. This sure as hell wasn’t his first time at bat, either.
You’d never know it judging by the way my cock reacts to the hot little honey sitting across the table.

He had to work at keeping the expression on his face as unaffected as possible at the same time his brain decided to make an important announcement to the rest of his body.

Chloe Rhodes isn’t my first woman, but she’s the first woman who matters. And, hell’s bells, she’s going to be my last.

From here on out, she would be the
only
woman.

He’d known this was going to happen the first time he laid eyes on her. He’d been fighting it ever since and now—hell,
now
he couldn’t even think of one good reason why he
had
been fighting it.

One look at the way Andrew’s eyes glazed over told him all he needed to know about the state of his brother’s libido.