Anyone who’s known me for more than two seconds realizes I absolutely freaking hate to shop for groceries. That’s why fast food joints were invented, right? That’s why we’re no longer living in caves and can get our meals by going through a drive-through.Okay, now Josh is groaning. He likes real food – and by that he means, something he’s shopped for and prepared or what he can get in a restaurant where appetizers start at $100 or more. (Now he’s accusing me of exaggerating). Maybe. But hello. I don’t like to go to grocery stores. . .or at least I didn’t until he and I hooked up.
As those of you who’ve read our story in Close to Perfect may recall, we had some fun when we shopped. For those of you who’ve yet to read what happened, here’s a little snippet from Chapter Seven:
Josh’s eyes grew hooded. “You could come with me tonight.”
“To protect you?”
“And pretend you’re my girlfriend.”
God, she was loving this. “Where?”
“Grocery shopping.”
Tess’s smile paused. She curled her upper lip.
“It won’t be so bad,” he said.
“It’s grocery shopping, Josh.”
“With me.”
Okay, so Tess was on board and Josh knew it, because he took care of too damned much business before he was finally ready to go.
Tess lifted her head from the desk and forced her eyes to open. “We’re going now? It’s after midnight.”
“It’s an all-night market. This way we could avoid the crowds.”
They were back to that? “What about vampires? Don’t they go shopping in the dark?”
“Hank and Sammie don’t.”
Josh saw Tess’s mind running around that concept, the same as his had earlier. It was so late, the place was so public, they could essentially hide in plain sight, just like a normal couple.
“Come on.” Josh took her hand and played with her fingers, pleased that he didn’t have to keep his distance any longer. Besides, she was right; those photos from the conference couldn’t be bad. “I’ll get you something good.”
“Oh, yeah? Like what?”
For starters, one of those scooters that really old people use to zip around the store because their legs were bad.
Tess took to that little sucker right away, driving it to the right, the left, forwards, and backwards. She giggled. “Cool. Buy me some candy on the way out and I might just go home with you.”
Josh quickly backed up before she ran over his foot, then looked at an older woman frowning at them. “Kids,” he said to her. “Give them a permit to drive and see what happens.”
Tess laughed so hard she was soon hanging over the left side of that thing.
The older woman shook her head and left the aisle.
“Will you behave?” Josh asked in a lowered voice.
Tess’s laughter turned to giggles, then a lusty sigh as she stretched. “Sure you want that?”
Not when she was this radiant. Josh was aroused by every inch of her, yet humbled by what he felt. Making her happy after so many awful days meant more to him than closing a zillion dollar deal. So as far as he was concerned, from this moment forward he would be making everything right for her. Lifting his hand, Josh gently ran his knuckles down her cheek.
Tess swallowed. Her gaze and voice got soft. “Now I can see why you like shopping.”
He smiled. “We haven’t done any yet.”
Which brings us to this post and what really happened in the store. It wasn’t in the book, and thank god for that because it might have made the tabloids, which would have given my dad a stroke. Once Josh insisted that we get serious and start shopping, I decided to play along. Fighting him would’ve made our stay in the store that much longer, you know? Anyway, I told him to do his thing and I’d follow in my scooter. Well, Josh went down one aisle after another without picking anything. He just kept reading labels. After awhile I got super bored and wasn’t paying attention to where we were headed. That is, until he walked through the double doors in the back of the store where only employees are supposed to be. Being an ex-cop I figured we shouldn’t be going back there. Being intrigued, I followed him in my scooter not giving a damn about the rules.
Josh didn’t care about them either. After I followed him past one stack of boxes after the other, we finally ended up close to the loading doc. When he turned to me with lust in his eyes, I knew what was coming, but I wanted to play with him a little.
“You own this place, too?” I asked. The man’s so rich, he owns every freaking thing.
He gave me a slow, sensual smile. “Not yet. But I spend a lot of money here, and they like that.”
Uh-huh. “So you can do whatever you want?” I asked.
“Yup.”
Okay, my pulse was racing and my voice was almost as husky as his. “What now?” I asked.
Josh didn’t say. He didn’t have to. I was out of the scooter faster than this and into his arms. We necked like two teenagers who’ve just discovered sex. Oddly enough, none of the employees came back there and interrupted us. After I gave Josh a hickey on his neck, marking him, I asked him why we were so lucky to be left alone.
“Because now I’m going to give you a hickey,” he said.
I laughed and then I got serious. “Oh baby, you’re not. I’m packing heat, remember?”
That got him off the subject of hickeys and wondering where I was carrying my gun. His hands were suddenly searching for it and fondling me. After a few minutes of that, I told him to cut it out. Believe me, if he hadn’t, I might have slept with him right then and there.
After all, I had kissed the man during my interview (Chapter One in the book). It’s not as if I’ve ever done that before, but Josh was so damned special, I couldn’t help myself.
And next week, you’ll hear about that. This time it’ll be Alan (Josh’s attorney) and Peg (Josh’s secretary) who’ll be blogging. They were in the outer office when Josh and I first kissed, and they’ll let you know what it looked like from their end, and what they were thinking.
Until then – have a good one.
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