Maggie Cox - A Rule Worth Breaking

Maybe he didn’t like her . Maybe he was already regretting taking her on due to her lack of experience. She could speculate until night turned into day but she’d be none the wiser until they had a conversation.

Wearing his familiar black leather jacket over a sweatshirt and jeans, Jake was leaning against his Jeep. He straightened as Caitlin walked towards him, and even at the distance that separated them she sensed an undeniable magnetic charge that put her on her guard. It had started to rain, and the sound of the other band members’ voices floated on the air as they huddled round the big white transit van they transported their equipment in.

As Jake continued to hold her gaze Caitlin sensed something register low in her belly— a combination of fear, apprehension and irrefutable sexual attraction. She didn’t know whether to smile or run.

A fierce gust of wind just then almost tore her open raincoat from her shoulders, revealing her curvaceous figure in perhaps more detail than she wanted him to see. She felt alternately hot and cold all over as her boots crunched across the gravel.

‘Rick said you wanted to speak to me?’ She was slightly breathless as she presented herself, her long black hair lashing across her face in the wind and rain.

Straight away Jake noticed Caitlin shiver in her insubstantial raincoat. He knew a way to warm her up. Another place, another time, he might have given into such an urge. God knew Caitlin Ryan had been testing all his powers of self-control from the very first moment he’d set eyes on her.

‘So, are you going to join us for a drink or what?’ he asked tersely.

‘That’s what you wanted to talk to me about?’

Catching the ends of her raincoat belt, she twisted it tightly round her waist. In vain she tried to shove her long hair out of her eyes and noticed her hands were trembling. What was it about this man that could unravel her so easily?

‘I already told Mike that I wasn’t coming. I’m going home to get an early night.’ she said. ‘Don’t worry I’ll make sure I’m here at three o’clock on the dot for rehearsals tomorrow.’

‘I want you to come for a drink.’

The pupils of Jake’s eyes had turned unsettlingly dark…so dark that there was just the palest blue circle ringed round them.

‘It’s a good opportunity for us to get to know each other. Tomorrow’s Sunday. You can have a lie-in.’

Caitlin could hardly argue with his reasoning, even if her heart was fluttering madly at the very idea of spending the rest of the evening in the company of the charismatic band manager. But there was also the not exactly small matter of her showing up at the Pilgrim’s Inn. There was always a small influx of visitors from outside the village, but generally customers were mostly a local crowd, and there were bound to be people there who remembered how Sean had humiliated her.

‘I—I’d rather not come, if you don’t mind.’

‘The invitation was an order, not a choice. You’re going to have to get used to late nights if you’re going to sing with this band. Get in the car. You can ride with me and Rick’

So that was how Caitlin found herself squeezed into a worn red velvet corner seat in the pub, with Rick on one side and Jake on the other, as the band members stood round the cosy fire in the iron grate, hogging the heat and nursing their pints of beer.

From the jukebox Sting’s voice boomed out: something about not standing so close… Caitlin could easily have echoed the sentiment. Rick had hung her raincoat over the back of a chair but she wasn’t bereft of warmth—not when Jake’s hard-muscled thigh was pressed against hers. A full-on radiator couldn’t have made her hotter . Every time he shifted even slightly the renewed contact made Caitlin’s heart miss a beat.

‘So tell me, Cait. What music do you like to listen to?’

Rick had been shortening her name ever since they’d arrived at the pub and she tried not to flinch, because her ex, Sean, had always called her that. Her gaze anxiously swept the room. There were several groups of young people seated around the tables, clearly enjoying themselves. Thankfully nobody had paid her any particular attention. Behind the bar two barmaids were busily serving customers, and one of them, a voluptuous blonde named Tina Stevens, was wearing a neckline so low that if she wasn’t careful she’d be arrested for indecency.

Bringing her attention back to Rick, Caitlin answered. ‘Oh, I have such a wide taste you wouldn’t believe it. If I had to sum it up I’d say I love music with a good beat and great songs with good lyrics. How about you? What do you enjoy listening to?’

Shrugging, Rick took a sip of his beer then put it carefully back down on the cork beer mat. ‘My taste is very similar to yours, honey. It’s clear that you and I have a lot in common, a hell of a lot in common, in fact.’

‘That’s the beer talking,’ Jake observed wryly.

The gravelled intonation of his deep voice made all the hairs stand up at the back of Caitlin’s neck. Was it her imagination or had his thigh moved even closer to hers?

‘He’s just trying to get into your good books.’

‘That’s unfair. A man like me doesn’t have to try to get into any woman’s good books. They naturally gravitate towards me. I’m gifted like that. Talking of which…’

Suddenly getting to his feet, Rick carefully eased his way round the table so as not to dislodge their drinks. Caitlin saw that his avid glance was focused determinedly on a smiling Tina Stevens behind the bar, who at that very moment was leaning dangerously across the counter in her figure-hugging red top, chatting to yet another appreciative male customer.

‘Excuse me, guys, but I can see a maiden’s honour is at stake if I don’t go and rescue her…’ Rick headed purposefully towards the bar.

Breathing out a relieved sigh, Caitlin was glad to have a little more room to manoeuvre, but she was still dizzy at the thought of having to deal with Jake on her own. As discreetly as she was able, she moved her leg away from the hot press of his jean-clad thigh.

‘She’ll have him for breakfast,’ he said, and grinned.

The shock of suddenly meeting his steamy blue glance at such close quarters trapped Caitlin’s breath somewhere between her throat and her mouth. She found herself a little too intimately aware of the faint shadow of beard across his top lip and jaw, his long straight nose and the sexy indentation in his sculpted chin. Most of all she was aware of the provocative message his hypnotic blue gaze seemed to be conveying to her. It was indisputably sexual. And it made every muscle in her body tighten and clench.

The whole room diminished down to just that look.

‘He looks like he can take care of himself,’ she murmured, hardly aware of moving her lips.

‘So…’ Taking a leisurely sip of his beer and studying her at the same time, Jake asked casually, ‘Why no boyfriend?’

Hypnotised by the long fingers that curled round his glass, Caitlin found herself envying it his touch, wondering what it would be like to feel those same long fingers intimately touching her . The very notion made her burn , and she took a hurried sip of her dry white wine, deliberately focusing her gaze on the drink instead of him.

‘I didn’t know it was compulsory.’

‘Did I imply it was?’

She didn’t answer. Thinking about Sean and how she had let him come that close to wrecking her life was not something she wanted to revisit…certainly not in casual conversation.

The flash of pain he witnessed in Caitlin’s eyes just then took Jake by surprise. As defensive as she undoubtedly was, she hadn’t been quick enough to hide it. There were also faint lines of hurt round her mouth that betrayed her. Clearly she had let someone get too close and got herself burned in the process.