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Shit.
He unceremoniously drops his towel, his tight rear end on display, and I would stop and admire if I wasn’t so horrified at the situation.
Okay, so maybe I admire it a little bit.
It’s been a while.
And then I decide to put on my big girl panties. “Jake?” I say and cover my eyes.
I don’t know why I cover my eyes. It’s not like I haven’t seen him naked before.
I hear him go still. “Hey,” he says simply. Curiously.
“I um…was told to come in here.”
Fabric rustles around, a drawer slides closed, and in seconds I hear the snap of an elastic waistband. “My dick is covered now.” Humor laces his familiar southern voice.
I drop my hand, inhale before I meet his eyes. But what I’m seeing isn’t any less distracting—him standing there in grey boxer briefs, water droplets dusting the rounds of his shoulders and pecs. The kind of carefully groomed stubble that would make angels cry. His dirty blond hair is a glorious mess.
Like he’s posing for his millionth underwear ad or a men’s magazine. Jake Mitchell: Sexiest Man in the World.
I shift in my seat when I notice him smirking at my reaction.
You’re a god dang professional, my thoughts scold. Act like it.
I then channel my icon—Diane Sawyer. “Do you want to get dressed, or...?”
His smirk deepens as he saunters over, bringing with him the clean and spicy scent of his soap I remember so well. Like citrus and evergreen and something else I can’t name. “I’m good.”
Of course, he is.
He towers over me like he’s waiting for something, so I stand along with him. And I swear the air between us is so thick it nearly chokes me. Thick with what, I’m refusing to acknowledge.
Just picture him clothed.Zipped up in one of those race suits.
Crap, that’s not better.
My hand reaches out to shake his. “Jake Mitchell,” he says as his palm slides over mine, and he grips it tightly as he searches my eyes. “Wow…”
I’m unsure how to react to that.
Wowas in…it’s been so long? Or, you look great? Or…he likes what he sees?
And then it dawns on me—maybe he doesn’t remember.
Oh God. How stupid of me. How conceited. Of course he doesn’t. I’m just one of many in a sea of willing women who’ve slept with him, and the wow is his attempt at flirting with a woman he thinks he hasn’t met yet.
“I’m Scarlett Reed,” I say, withdrawing my hand from his and motioning to the seat across from me.
“From the AJC,” he says with vague remembrance. But not because it’s jogging anything forward about that night. I never told him where I worked. Curtiss probably told him when I made the appointment.
“Yes.”
We sit and stare each other down, my bruised pride hoping something will eventually come back to him. Surely, he hasn’t met many Scarletts. Wouldn’t that ring a bell?
He briefly scans my face, but I’m guessing nothing clicks because he claps his hands together as if to signal the start of the interview.
Or what he thinks is an interview.
