Then Kiss Me
Authors: Jade C. Jamison
Jade C. Jamison
Then Kiss Me
Casey Williams has left a loveless marriage and is trying to rebuild her life. She
finds
that, even though you can never go home again, you can find lust again, and she finds a love interest in Scott, her coworker. She also discovers
his secret,
that he’s a drummer for a heavy metal band
,
and falls hard for him…just in time to
find
that, between his questionable friends and psychotic maybe-ex-girlfriend, he might not be the right guy for her.
But her heart beats like a drum for him, and she finds herself willing to play with fire to get closer.
I could feel the demanding music in my abdomen, in my heart. It was a visceral feeling that grabbed me deep ins
ide and incited the animal inside me
. “Sounds fantastic,” I said
, closing my eyes to concentrate on the music
.
I felt his hands slide around my waist from behind, and my abdomen, my thighs, my neck tensed in response.
Oh, shit
…I eased out a deep breath. He whispered in my ear, “You like it?”
A shiver charged up my spine. I swallowed and forced my voice to stay calm.
“Yeah.
Great stereo.”
My voice was coming from my throat—hoarse and gravelly. I
found
my composure and turned around, his arms still wrapped around my waist. He
leaned back
a little to give me room, but we were close.
God…the heat coming off him.
I tried not to shudder. I was feeling playful, though, and I asked, “Are you coming on to me?”
He smiled back but kept his distance.
“Maybe.”
Then, “Why?”
“Because if you aren’t, I’m going to turn back around and listen to this CD.
But if you are, I’m going to kiss you.”
Holy shit.
Had I actually
said
that? My heart started beating more rapidly.
He stood there for a second, the smile on his face fading into something else. I saw his pupils grow darker as I sucked in a deep breath. “Then kiss me,” he said.
BOOKS BY JADE C. JAMISON
Tangled Web: A Steamy Heavy Metal Novella
Stating His Case
Fabric of Night
Worst Mother
MADversary
Then Kiss Me
NICKI SOSEBEE SERIES
1 Got the Life
2 Dead
3 No Place to Hide
4 Right Now
5 One More Time
6 Lost
7 Innocent
Bystander
Copyright
Copyright © 2012 by Jade C. Jamison
Cover image © Jade C. Jamison
All rights reserved.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or
dead,
is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
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r
Juli
e
Mosack
-Williams
If Jesse had a brother, he
would be Scott.
Table of Contents
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part I
Chapter One
I AM LIVING
proof that you can fall in love again. You
can
find someone else. You
can
open your heart again.
But you can also let it all slip away. I thought one time that I was never meant to love or be loved. I’m telling my story in hopes that you won’t make the same mistakes I’ve made. Ah…but who am I kidding? You’ll probably make the same stupid mistakes I did. I think
it’s
part of growing up.
Still…my story needs to be told.
I could start my story back in high school. Hell, I could start it back in middle school. My low self-esteem made relationships impossible, and I wasn’t very attractive either. The truth, though, is probably that I was more attractive than I thought, but my self-esteem didn’t quite see it that way. Add to it that I didn’t care much about my appearance (my sister Karen was the
pretty
one), and, by the time I was sixteen, I was sleeping around a lot. Who needs looks or love when you can have lots of attention from sex? But that’s all probably not very important.
Instead, I’ll start my story at the turning point and before I met the love of my life, the one who convinced me that I could love again. I was twenty-six years old, just trying to become my own woman. My husband and I had just divorced, and I decided to move out of Denver. I already knew that the huge city was not for me—not the violence, the smog, the traffic, the gangs, the filth, the fucking rat race. Sure, Denver had its perks. It had the light rail and there were clean parts of the city. And what could beat the 16th Street Mall or the Museum of Natural History? And I totally dug Starbucks. They didn’t have any of those
where I was going
.
But the truth remained…I was a fish out of water in Denver, and when my marriage didn’t work, I had no interest in fighting my way through life any more. Nothing in the city was for me and I wanted to leave it. And who knows? Maybe the stress of living there had a factor in my breakup with Barry.
Or maybe not.
He and I hadn’t been ready to marry, and we definitely weren’t for each other. We had different interests, different friends,
different
jobs.
But the sex was to die for.
Fucking incredible.
I think that’s why we stayed together as long as we did. Finally, though, the sex was not enough. We split as friends, both regretful that we weren’t able to make it work. I didn’t even
like
Denver; I’d just moved there to be with him. Well, that and for my career—I’ll tell you more about that later. We’d met in college at a party, both fresh out of broken relationships, had lots of great sex, had fun together, and figured that was a solid basis for marriage. So we got married right after he graduated. I had a year left to go but never bothered to finish college. So
that
was stupid. I know. But what can I say? I was in love.
But my story is
not
about Barry. It’s about Scott.
Oh, but I’m jumping ahead again. Sorry. Please bear with me.
Barry and I had been married for four years and, after all the fighting and distance that had grown between us, decided to end it before we grew to despise each other. Our relationship had grown cold and distant. We never even saw each other anymore, and I don’t know if that was a reflection of our feelings. Were we growing apart because we didn’t spend time together
or
were we avoiding spending time together because we disliked
one
an
other? Whatever the case, the relationship was destined to fail. I can see that now. But, like I said, we parted civilly as friends.
He took his stuff; I took mine, and—proverbially—that was that. The papers signed, I loaded up my little white Versa, not sure what to do with my life now.
Oh, how rude I must seem. Sorry! My name (now) is Casey Williams. It was Black before the divorce, but I took my maiden name back. I had been an art major in college and Barry was in business. He was moving up the ladder quickly in a large corporation and was already a junior executive. Sorry, but I’m not going to say much more than that. Even now, Barry’s kind of funny about people digging into
the details of
his life, so I’ve leave it at that.
Anyway, I was trying to break into art…you know,
become a famous artist
. I guess I shouldn’t have had such dreams. Most artists are famous only after they die. Unless, that is, they’re
Banksy
or Andy Warhol. It’s hard for most artists to really make it
. But that was my dream, what I wanted to do more than anything else. So I worked part-time in an art gallery in downtown Denver, and I absolutely loved it. I loved being
surrounded by art created by some of the most brilliant minds around. It was inspiring. I
didn’t make
much money, though. Fortunately, Barry’s paycheck was able to maintain us—he paid for the apartment, the utilities, and all that good stuff. But my paycheck went to my art supplies
and
grande
lattes
, and I had plenty of time to sketch, draw, and paint. I guess I didn’t spend enough time trying to sell it, though.