Hope Breaks: A New Adult Romantic Comedy by Alice Bello, Stephanie T. Lott Read Free Book Online Page B

a pig !  No, I’d watched him take every lovely, amazing bite with blissful appreciation.  I loved watching him eat.
    Okay, if that wasn’t the most pathetic thought that had ever crossed my mind, I didn’t know what was.
    I looked at my now melting waffle cone.  “I’m full,” I lied.
    A chuckle rumbled up from Jake’s chest.  “You sure?  You looked pretty into that cone.”
    Bastard…
    I daintily stood up and strolled over to the closest trashcan… and plopped the remains of the cone into it. 
    “I’m sure.”  I brushed off my hands symbolically and tried not to look depressed about throwing away so much delicious ice-cream.
    Jake laughed and leaned back against the pine tree’s trunk.  He had a great laugh—deep and rough and touchable.  It made me shiver in the hot summer wind.        
    Oh god I just wanted to rub myself all over him… all over him naked…
    I snapped my eyes shut and smacked down the feral instincts that wanted me to crawl up onto the man’s lap and lick his neck.  “Ready to go?”
    I didn’t hear him get up and come toward me.  He was just suddenly there beside me, and I could feel the heat and smell his scent.  I opened my eyes and was eye-level with his chest—such a great chest—and had to look up to see his face.
    “Depends on where you want to go.”
     

Chapter 7
     
    I’D WANTED TO TELL JAKE to take me back home… and to come in for some coffee… tea… me?
    But my practical side finally rose up and told me the facts.  No matter how well I thought things were going, it was a fact that I was taking advantage of his kindness, and that I should let him go do whatever it was he was going to have done before I stumbled into his life.
    It was the polite, right thing to do.
    But it smelled like a butt-load of suck as soon as I thought it.
    He didn’t look like he was being put out.  If anything he looked pretty damn happy.
    But…
    “I’ve monopolized your day enough.  I think we better get you to your truck so you can get… wherever it is you need to be.”
    Yep, that sucked with every word that left my stupid mouth. 
    Jake started walking towards me, and then right on past me.  “First date guilt?” he asked.
    “What?”
    He turned as he rounded on his truck.  “No big deal.  You’re a lady, and you don’t want to overstep the first date rules.  I get that.”
    I opened my mouth to interject, but he held up his hand to stop me.
    “And no, officially this wasn’t a first date… but technically it was.  It wasn’t planned, but there was food and dessert, and drinks.  All we needed was some dancing.”
    As if Tammy Faye had been leaning out the order window and eavesdropping on the conversation, the antique PA system clicked on and Shania Twain twanged her way through You’re Still the One .
    Perfect…
    Jake looked over to the ice-cream stand, then back to me and shrugged.  “May I have this dance?”
    Oh cripes…
    But when he waltzed over and held out his big, rough hand, I didn’t even think about it—it put my hand in his and let him take me in his arms.  His strong, hard arms.
    I felt his chest against mine, and my heart jumped.  My body fell into rhythm with the music and the sway of his body against mine. 
    Okay… this was a first date.
    I leaned into his shoulder and closed my eyes as I heard traffic from the intersecting roads pass by, trying to compete with Shania’s love song.
    I would have never thought that my day would have gone so well, and so utterly out of the expected when I’d woken up to find three messages and five irate emails from my boss.
    I breathed in the scent of pine trees, of the sun setting, and of Jake, and just melted into the moment.
     
    ***
     
    Jake’s truck came into sight in the small parking lot that shadowed the TLE garage of the Wal-Mart.  I smiled.  That truck fit Jake so well.  Not quite what you expected, but more than you bargained for.
    I shook my head and blinked.  Holy