Page 26 of The Love Interest
At least now I know what will be keeping me awake.
At least now I know what it is I’m anticipating.
At least now I know exactly what my heroine will feel the first time she kisses William. I know about the electricity and magical whispers and divine flutters. The rising and falling and rushing of every cell of her being as the sun appears over the horizon, casting a glowing light on the shadowy man who reluctantly welcomed her to a new life.
Or something a little less overwritten, I guess.
10
JACK IRONS
The Departure by Emmett Ford (The Jack Irons Series, Book Six) – Prologue
They had a train to catch and a killer to outrun, but Jack Irons couldn’t say no to this woman. His primary goal had been to protect her for two weeks now. Within hours of meeting her, his secondary goal had become to protect his heart—while also clearly explaining to her why she was wrong about absolutely everything. Both goals were complicated by an inability to stop kissing her and a profound need to see her naked.
They were at Grand Central Terminal in New York, but they weren’t anywhere near Track 37, and that was a problem. This woman was a problem. She was the problem and the solution.
Fifteen days ago, Jack Irons had never heard of Catalina Calida. He’d never seen her close her eyes and sway her hips to the music in her head as if no one around her was watching. He’d never heard her laugh at one of his terrible jokes at a pitch that startled neighborhood cats, never fallen asleep to the sound of her breathing or wondered how he could prove to her that not every man was like her former husband.
By now, he had made love to her countless times in ten different cities, danced with her to “The Way You Look Tonight” in the middle of a diner in a desert. He had watched the sunrise from a mountaintop after skinny-dipping in a lake and drowning the man who’d been sent to kidnap her.
Catalina was trouble with a capital T from the minute he first laid eyes on her, and he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her since.
So here he was, hand in hand with this woman who was leading him down the ramp toward the Oyster Bar. She’d explained the peculiar phenomenon of the Whispering Gallery to him in the cab. Because the tiles were set so close together, because of the curve of the domed ceiling and the lack of vents and carpets, one person’s quiet voice was trapped in a corner and had to travel up the walls from one side of the arch to another—because the sound had nowhere else to go.
Like those sound waves, Jack had nowhere else to go but where Catalina led him.
“You’re gonna get us both killed,” he’d told her when she’d insisted they stop by this place before getting on the train.
“We’ve been on the verge of getting killed every day since you met me. You’re gonna break my heart if you don’t do this one thing before we leave here,” she said. She didn’t even pout the way most women would. Everything was a statement of fact with this woman. “You’ve run and jumped across rooftops in Oceanside chasing a guy who tried to steal my wallet. You’ve broken a man’s neck to stop him from attacking me. You landed a plane when the pilot was shot, even though you’d never flown one before. But you won’t take a one-minute detour to do something romantic with me?”
There’d only been one other woman he’d ever done anything romantic with, and he was realizing he hadn’t thought of her for days, until now. But the guilt was almost gone. He’d kept warm by the glowing embers of his guilt by the time he’d met Catalina. Now it was ash. His love for his wife was an eternal flame, but this thing he felt for Catalina had ignited his soul. He didn’t yet know if it was love or a siren’s call to his final destination, but it was something.
“This is it,” she said, letting go of his hand and skipping over to one corner while gesturing for him to stand in another corner about thirty feet away. He surveyed the area, keeping an eye out for the red-haired man with the scar. There were dozens of people passing through the Dining Concourse, minding their own business. He’d have to pay attention to the entrance from 42nd Street between them. “Stick your face into the corner,” she commanded.
After surveying the area one more time, he did as he was told.
“Now whisper something sweet to me,” he heard her say, as if she were right next to him.
“One minute, that’s all we have, darlin’,” he drawled because he’d learned early on that she paid more attention to him when he played up the Southern accent and called herdarlin’.
“One minute startingnow,” she said. “Get on with it. Don’t hold back.”
“Your ass looks hot in those jeans” is what came out of his mouth. He paused for laughter, but it didn’t come. “You’re the most beautiful woman in every city you’re in, inside and out, Catalina. You dazzle me.”
“That’s more like it.”
“You dazzle and puzzle and frazzle me, and one day, I swear, I’ll set you straight.”
“One day I might let you.”
“You’re a whole lot of woman.”
“And you’re almost enough man for me.” The sound of her voice changed whenever she smirked, and he liked it.
Jack looked over his shoulder to give her the side-eye and quickly scanned the doors and people around them.
“Tell me one more secret,” she said. “And then I’ll tell you something.”
