Show and Tell (16 page)

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Authors: Jasmine Haynes

Tags: #Romance, #Erotica, #Fiction

BOOK: Show and Tell
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Why couldn’t she get Inga to like her?
That
was the problem. “I don’t know what that woman wants,” she concluded.
 
 
“You mean besides
your
job.” Faith hit the nail on the head.
 
 
“She’s not getting that. I am not giving up.” It came down to a matter of pride. She would make this job work and her father proud of her. Not that he thought she was a dilettante, but maybe he did see her as more decorative than useful.
 
 
She polished off her salad, finding the last of her greens almost as bitter as that thought.
 
 
“Get to know her better.” Josie pushed her plate away, the meat devoured, but she’d hardly touched the garlic potatoes.
 
 
No. Trinity would
not
ask to finish them. She had to save room for bread pudding. “She won’t let me. Every time I attempt a friendly personal comment, like whether she has family or whatnot, she tells me it’s none of my business.”
 
 
“What a bitch,” Josie said. Ah, finally, they agreed on something. “Have you taken her out to lunch yet?”
 
 
Trinity felt her chest seize up in horror. “Why on earth would I subject myself to
that
? It’s the only time I can get away from her.” She’d go crazy.
 
 
“Josie’s right, Trinity.”
 
 
“But Faith, she’ll think I’m doing a snow job on her.”
 
 
Then she smelled the brandy sauce wafting on the air. Her tummy rumbled in anticipation. She’d have the bread pudding now, and Scott on the phone later. What could be better than her two most favorite desserts?
 
 
Their waiter set down the two bowls and smiling, took away the dirty plates. Josie picked up her fork. “You two have gone on and on about this so much, I have to try.”
 
 
Trinity held her own fork poised to stab. “I didn’t ask for your skirt steak.”
 
 
Faith looked at her as if her lipstick was smeared on her teeth. “You’re not going to eat all that, Trinity.”
 
 
“Oh yes, I am.”
 
 
“You’ve
never
eaten a whole dessert.” Faith put down her own fork and touched the back of Trinity’s hand. “Are you sick?”
 
 
“I’m tired of denial.”
 
 
“I think she’s having a nervous breakdown,” Josie added. “I mean, last week you had
ice cream
.”
 
 
“I even bought a gallon and put it in the freezer.” Yet truly, tasting Scott was far more exquisite.
 
 
They stared at her.
 
 
“What?”
 
 
“We didn’t think you meant all that stuff.” Josie spoke for both of them.
 
 
Trinity looked to Faith. “You didn’t think I’d stick with the job?”
 
 
“It wasn’t that,” Faith argued. “I was afraid you were jumping in before you were ready to make too many decisions about anything. ” She rolled her lips between her teeth, then puffed them back out. “I mean, after Harper and everything.”
 
 
That could very well be how her changes came across. “This is more than Harper. This is about my life and why I did all the things I did and how I’m going to make sure I start doing the things I really want to do.” And make her father proud. He needed
something
after his disappointment in Lance.
 
 
Faith gazed at her a long moment. “And is this job what you
really
want?”
 
 
Trinity gave her the grace of mulling over the question. She wanted to feel in control, but she also wanted to be useful, have a purpose, accomplish
something
in her life that she could look back on with a good feeling. Something more than having brought Faith and Connor together or cajoling millionaires into donating money. Not that it wasn’t worthy, but it wasn’t enough. At this point, she didn’t think her mother would have beamed with pride over her daughter’s accomplishments. Then again, if her mother was alive, Trinity wondered if she’d ever have fallen for Harper in the first place. She’d have been a different person.
 
 
She wanted to be a different person now. “Yes, this is something I want.”
 
 
“Then take Inga out to lunch,” Faith concluded. “Take
all
your employees out for a get-to-know-you lunch. It can’t hurt.”
 
 
Trinity stared at Faith. She’d gotten prettier with pregnancy, and her hair shone like a red gold halo. Or maybe it was loving and being loved in return. Whatever the reason, Faith was absolutely beautiful. And smart. “You know, that’s why you two are my very best friends in all the world.”
 
 
Josie snorted. “Right.” But her dark eyes sparkled, and a smile she tried to hide lifted her mouth.
 
 
“It’s true. I love you both. You have all the right answers.” She’d ask all her girls out to lunch tomorrow and start her campaign to win over Inga.
 
 
“Hear, hear.” Faith raised her water, and both Josie and Trinity tapped it with their wineglasses.
 
 
“And what’s the toast to?” Appearing virtually out of nowhere, Connor leaned down to kiss the top of Faith’s head.
 
 
“To best friends,” Trinity quickly said. She didn’t want to talk about her job. Faith would already have told Connor, of course, but she didn’t want to discuss it with him. What if he said something disparaging? Of course, that wasn’t doing him justice, because Connor was a big old sweetie, but . . . she didn’t want to talk about it.
 
 
“And you”—Josie stabbed a finger at him—“are only here to make sure we aren’t corrupting your wife.”
 
 
Trailing his finger down Faith’s arm, he gazed at her. It was so sweet, Trinity got that same ache she’d had the day of the baby shower. Tall, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and handsome, he’d let Faith capture him utterly.
 
 
Trinity almost closed her eyes against the sudden shard of pain that wedged up under her ribs. She wasn’t jealous. She was oh so happy for Faith and Connor and the baby.
 
 
She just . . . wanted. Something. Anything. That all-powerful, all-consuming feeling Scott gave her when he moaned for her, came for her.
 
 
“You ready to go, sweetheart?” Connor was totally overprotective. He didn’t want Faith driving in the dark, as if being pregnant somehow impaired her night vision. Trinity had picked her up, but Connor insisted on taking her home.
 
 
Or maybe he wanted to take a night drive in the mountains. She and Faith didn’t talk explicitly about sex, especially as it pertained to Connor, but they had shared a smile or two about Connor’s love of driving, with a hint of the things he liked to do in some of those little pull-outs along the road.
 
 
Harper had never suggested a drive in the mountains.
 
 
“We’re done,” Trinity said, because she hated her maudlin thoughts, and she so needed to stop analyzing every adoring look that Connor fastened on Faith. “We’ll get the waiter to box up the rest of our bread pudding because I am
not
wasting a bite.”
 
 
Beside Faith, Connor merely raised his eyes to stare at Trinity beneath his eyelashes.
 
 
“I love bread pudding,” she said in defense. “Besides, Josie wants half of it.”
 
 
Josie opened her mouth, then shut it.
 
 
“See, I knew you did.”
 
 
The sooner they were out of the restaurant, the better. She had an extraordinary need to call Scott, and she didn’t think she could wait until she got home.
 
 
She needed more of that all-powerful
something
he gave her.
 
 
8
 
 
SCOTT took half an hour picking her up, yet when he arrived, Trinity didn’t care. His scent filled the car, making her greedy for more of him.
 
 
“Take me for a drive in the mountains.” The Santa Cruz Mountains specifically. That’s what Trinity found to be the best thing about living in the San Francisco Bay Area. You were never too far from the beach or the mountains or the Golden Gate shrouded in fog. Granted, there was no skiing, but most winters, there was at least one storm in which you could drive up to the top of Skyline for a snowball fight.
 
 
Except that Trinity hadn’t done so since she was a teenager. Snowball fights were undignified. Yet she badly wanted to throw a snowball right down the back of Scott’s neck just for fun.
 
 
“Your wish is my command.” He took the turnoff for the two-lane highway leading up into the mountains. He drove a European car, not a luxury model, but not inexpensive either. She liked that he didn’t have to be overly ostentatious.
 
 
“I’m not sure which I like you better in, jeans or a suit and tie.” Goodness, he looked yummy in either. Tonight, he’d paired the jeans with a chambray button-down shirt. She wondered if he’d changed at the gym, but didn’t ask.
 
 
Instead, she itched to unbutton his shirt.
 
 
“I like you naked,” he said.
 
 
Her heart rate spiked. Leaning over, she gave in to her desire, undoing three buttons, then slipping her hand inside to caress his nipple.
 
 
He trapped her fingers beneath his palm. “This is a winding road. You don’t want me to lose control.”
 
 
Oh yes, she did. She wanted him to give all his control to her. That’s why she’d called from her car and told him to meet her. It wasn’t enough on the phone. She wanted to feel how much he wanted her, not merely hear it. Just as she had in the hotel room the other night.
 
 
Where are you going with this, Trinity?
 
 
She subsided into her own seat, though she did leave his shirt unbuttoned. Leaning back against the door, she curled her feet beneath her. “Why did you meet me tonight?”
 
 
He took a steep curve, then glanced at her. “I want you.”
 
 
Her heart went straight to her throat.
 
 
“You make me do crazy things I’ve never done before.” He reached across to stroke from her knee to halfway up her thigh.
 
 
She shivered in the short, pleated skirt.
 
 
“And I like that.” He concentrated once again on the road. “It makes me feel very alive.”
 
 
“You make me feel alive, too,” she whispered. She’d never thought of that before. She’d seen her bizarre behavior with Scott as being hurt over Harper, stress with Inga, and a need for something fresh, sensual, powerful, and exciting, but she’d never considered that he made her feel alive. He made her want to taste new things, not just bread pudding and ice cream, but life.
 
 
Trinity had never relished life itself. She’d been too busy pleasing other people—men especially—and making sure everyone liked her. Now she wanted to savor it all. With him.
 
 
“Find a place and pull over.” She wanted to touch him right this minute.
 
 
There were all sorts of little tributaries off the road, old logging tracks that eventually trailed off into nothing.
 
 
“Why?”
 
 
“Because I want to kiss you.” Gazing at his mouth, she licked her lips. “I haven’t kissed you yet and I want to.” How had she missed doing that? A kiss, a taste, a new exotic flavor.
 
 
“That sounds good enough for me.” His voice was deeper, huskier.
 
 
This thing with Scott was insane, in direct contrast to Miss Trinity Green the debutante who always did everything perfectly. She was tired of being perfect. It hadn’t done a damn thing for her anyway. Now, she wanted some secret, crazy, wonderful, scary fun with this man. “You’re the unknown,” she whispered.

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