Free She's All Tied Up: Club 3, Book 2 by Cathryn Cade Page A

happier than she had since he arrived. “I’m gonna eat my chicken.”
    “Good.” He dug into his dinner, which tasted great. Across from him, her knee brushing his, Carlie ate daintily but with relish, her self-consciousness gone.
    They ate the food, drank their Cokes, and he divided his attention between the baseball game on the TV over the bar and making sure she was doing okay while he devoured his dinner. They exchanged a few comments about the game, and Portland’s lack of a pro or even semi-pro baseball team, and he was pleasantly surprised to learn she followed the nearest team, the Seattle Mariners, but preferred football and the Seattle Seahawks. He was a Seahawks fan himself and made a point to get up the coast to a game or two every fall.
    When they were finished, he wiped his mouth and nodded at the waiter for the check. When they arrived, he nabbed Carlie’s bill out of the waiter’s hand along with his and handed them back along with his credit card.
    “I can pay—” Carlie began.
    “You eat with me, you don’t pay.” He gave her a look to let her know this was not open to negotiation.
    Her arching brows drew together as if she wanted to protest, but he watched her decide not to make a big deal of it. “Well. Thank you.”
    He nodded. “My pleasure.” He closed his mouth, wanting no audience at all for what he wanted to ask next. Instead he stood, and walked over to hold her chair as she slipped down, enjoying the tease of her perfume as she slid past him.
    He followed her out, setting a hand lightly in the small of her back to steady her as a group of incoming teenagers jostled past. He left his hand there as they walked outside into the warm, windy evening. He spotted her car, a feminine but ridiculous green Volkswagen Bug, and walked her to it, opening her door for her and waiting until she turned to him, close, the breeze whipping her ponytail across her shoulder to brush his hand on the top of her car. A lock blew into her face, and she reached up to push it back, looking up at him.
    “Heard you joined the club,” he said.
    Her eyes widened, and she took a sharp breath, her breasts bouncing enticingly. “Um, yes?” she said, her voice rising as if in a question, which he chose to interpret as wondering if he was pleased and if it mattered to him. Which it did, but he was playing that close to his chest for now.
    He merely nodded. “You coming this weekend?”
    Her face fell. “I…can’t. Friday evening I have a wedding shower to go to, Saturday evening I have an office thing, and I’m pretty sure you’re—I mean the club is not open on Sundays?”
    Damn. Still, it was all normal shit, not a date with some guy, so he could be patient one more week. Although he would have to pump a lot of iron to do so. “We’re open, but it’s usually pretty quiet. See you at the gym, then, huh?”
    She eyed him uncertainly. “Okay. Um, thanks for dinner. And…you know, listening.”
    “Anytime, baby. Anytime.”
    He let that penetrate, saw the way her blue eyes softened and her lips curved up in a sweet smile. A smile that made a man want to do what he had to, to keep it there. Instead, he pushed back and tapped the roof of her car as the first fat drops of rain pelted his shoulders and head. “Better get in, get home,” he said. “See you soon.”
    She nodded and ducked into her car.
    He watched her drive away before he jogged back across the boulevard to the gym. The fat raindrops were a cooling wash on his skin, tempering the fire deep inside him, but not enough. He was right; it would take a lot of weight lifting to get him through the next twelve days.

Chapter Six
    Carlie received a phone call the next day, one which she’d been expecting. Although after her talk with Jake, she no longer felt she needed it quite as much. She put her phone to her ear. “Hi, Dad.”
    “Hi, honey,” her father said. “How’s my best girl?”
    As she’d been sitting on a bench in the Big Iron