Sweet Talk Ch 03 1

A few hours after storming out of his office, Jay let out a low groan, rolled off of Stacey's sweaty, naked body and lay on his back in the tangled sheets on her bed. For a moment, their panting breaths were the only sound in the darkened bedroom.

They'd gone to a movie after their $40-a-plate dinners at the Blue Room, and the second the theater lights went down Stacey had started kissing him. Even though his mind wasn't really in it, he'd just been glad he finally didn't have to talk to her anymore. She was cute, yeah, but conversation-wise, he might as well have been talking directly to her boobs.

So, an hour into the movie, when she'd leaned over and whispered, "Let's get out of here," Jay was pretty damn sure that was the most interesting thing she'd said all night.

And, the way he was feeling, he hadn't been about to resist.

Truth was, he was a little drunk. The combination of that scene with Anna and trying to get through a boring as hell dinner with Stacey had gotten to him and he'd drank too much. But even that hadn't dulled his senses enough for him not to admit that this date had been a bad idea.

Well, besides the sex—

that

, he'd needed.

Or he'd thought he had. Truthfully, he still felt like hell.

And now, lying next to Stacey, he couldn't think of a damn thing to say. So he got up. Rolling out of the bed, he pulled off his used condom and walked, naked, into her bathroom and shut the door. He stared at his reflection in the mirror.

Okay, he told himself, so he and Stacey didn't have much—or anything—in common, but he kind of liked it that way. With women like her, you got exactly what you saw. She knew what she wanted and didn't have any problem letting a man know it. No game-playing or ulterior motives. Didn't leave you guessing or wondering. And a woman like her wouldn't fucking blindside you out of nowhere.

Unlike Anna.

Growling, he splashed water on his face and glanced at the closed bathroom door.

He was trying, real hard, to want to go back out there for another round with Stacey. But his dick didn't seem too excited about the idea. Even when they'd stumbled through her apartment door on the way to her bedroom, and she'd been squeezing his ass and rocking her hips into him, he couldn't concentrate.

The whole damn night, Anna had kept popping into his head, which was bothering the hell out of him. She had this way of saying stuff that, at the time, just pissed him off and then, afterward, wouldn't fucking leave him alone.

Like that competition in Chicago.

With everything else he had going on, that competition was just one more thing he didn't want to worry about yet. And Anna should know that. But because of her, he couldn't

quit

thinking about it now. With the competition less than a month away, and Anna's goddamn voice stuck in his head, he knew he should be working on his entries, tweaking the recipes. Practicing.

And if he was honest with himself,

that's

what he wanted to be doing right now.

Swearing under his breath, he ran both hands through his hair. He couldn't believe this.

There was a naked woman out there waiting for him, and he wanted to leave. So he could bake. For a competition that, until just now, he hadn't even been sure he wanted to go to.

Fuck

. This was all Anna's fault.

Walking out of the bathroom, he locked eyes with Stacey who was only half-covered by the bed sheet.

"I was getting lonely out here," she said with a slow, sexy smile.

Her large, pale breasts were bared like twin homing beacons—and right then, Jay knew he'd lost his goddamn mind. Because he

still

wanted to leave.

"I've gotta go," he said, before he could think about it.

He didn't even care that irritation with himself, and Anna, had wiped away his usual charm.

Stacey's smile slipped a little, but she caught it. Getting out of the bed, she walked up to him and boldly rubbed a hand along the length of his softened dick. Then she came up on her tiptoes and sucked his earlobe.

"Are you sure?" she whispered in his ear. "I was hoping you'd stay the night."

Her hot, damp breath on his skin made him shiver, but he stepped back, forcing out a strained smile. "Sorry, I have to get up early tomorrow." It was a lame excuse, but he didn't really care. He just wanted to go.

Walking past her, he found his pants and pulled them on. When he turned around after putting on his shirt, she was just standing there watching him.

Shit. He usually had more skill than this, but he wanted to get the hell out of here.

"So…I'll call you," he said, though they both knew that was a lie.

"Sure," Stacey said with a too-bright smile.

"Alright then," he said, edging toward the door, "have a good night."

Then he escaped.

Outside, as he started up his car and pulled into traffic, he silently berated himself. What the hell was

that

? He could not believe he'd just walked out on those breasts.

Driving around aimlessly for a few minutes, he tried to decide if he wanted to head home or drop by Sugar. Most of the time, he loved being in the middle of Sugar's loud, often drunk, weekend crowds but at the moment, the idea wasn't appealing. Whatever. It wasn't like he'd enjoy himself, anyway.

Not after the way he'd left things with Anna.

An image of her face, just before he'd stormed out of his office, flicked through his mind and his grip tightened on the steering wheel. He was sobering up and feeling like an asshole for some of the stuff he'd said, but God, what had she expected? For him to high-five her and wish her well when she was basically walking out on him?

Fuck that

, he fiercely thought, but quickly let out a frustrated sigh.

All he really wanted was for everything to go back to the way it'd been before her freak-out on Tuesday. But, after their argument, he knew that wasn't happening anytime soon.

So, right now, he needed to handle his life. Get his shit together. Without her.

He grimaced. That'd probably be a helluva lot easier if he could get her voice out of his head, though. But it wouldn't budge. And what made it worse was that he knew she was right about the competition. If he didn't follow through with that, he'd regret the hell out of it.

"Goddammit," he muttered into the silence of his car as he headed home.

Even when he was mad as hell at her, she still knew him better than he knew himself sometimes.

*********************

It'd been almost a week since that last fight with Jay and Anna was numb. She had to be. She knew that if she let herself really think about everything, she'd break down. That first weekend, all she wanted to do was sleep so she wouldn't have to think about Jay, but her bruised heart wouldn't listen and the same question kept circling through her head.

How could he be like this?

For the first time in all the years they'd known each other, when she decided to do something for herself, he couldn't accept that. Wouldn't even try to be happy for her. She knew him. She knew he hated change and, like Keera said, he probably hated the idea of her quitting but, God, how could he not see that she needed a life of her own?

By Sunday, she'd decided that she had to let him go. If she didn't she'd spend the rest of her life wanting someone who not only didn't want her but who, apparently, didn't even want the best for her.

As the new week crawled by, though, the numb ache in her heart had turned into a constant, throbbing pain. With a huge, Jason-shaped hole in her life, she was lost. Especially considering the fact that she was jobless, aimless and bored.

Not to mention best friendless.

She had enough money saved up to last her five or six months, so finding a job wasn't really a pressing concern right now. Instead, she shifted her focus to getting signed up for those summer classes at the community college. The only problem was that the registration process was turning out to be more complicated than filing her freaking taxes.

It was Thursday morning and Anna was standing at the little walk-up window outside the college registrar's office, peering in at a bored-looking brunette whose nametag said her name was Pamela.

"Paying the late-fee isn't a problem," Anna told her, "I just need to get these forms signed by the professors saying it's okay for me to do a late registration for their classes."

She'd chosen two intermediate classes, one on nonprofit leadership and the other on child psychology. She'd always been interested in working with kids, possibly in a counseling setting, so these classes seemed like a good stepping stone for when she went back to university.

Now, if only she could sign up for them.

Pamela snapped her gum. "Sorry, we don't handle those forms. You have to take them directly to the professors."

Anna sighed. "Well, where can I find them?"

After a quick glance at the paperwork, the brunette said, "I know Professor Lyons isn't teaching this quarter, so he won't be on campus until the first day of classes. And," her fingers flew over the keyboard, "Professor Silverstein doesn't have office hours this quarter."

"Okay, so what can I do?"

The woman shrugged. "I don't know what to tell you. Tracking these guys down is going to be a problem. You're probably out of luck. Sorry." She didn't look sorry, though. In fact, she didn't even look up from the computer screen as she spoke.

Grabbing up her pile of paperwork, Anna tried to keep her tone even, despite her frustration. "Isn't there anything else I can do? I really wanted to—"

"Like I said," the brunette interrupted, "there's not much

I

can do for you. If you can get those forms signed, you're in. Otherwise…" she trailed off, and looked back at her computer screen. "You'll have to wait until fall quarter to register."

"Thanks," Anna muttered as she turned and walked away.

Ever since she'd quit, nothing had been going like she'd expected it to. She was supposed to feel free and independent, not sad, tired and defeated. And now that she probably wasn't going to be able to start classes, her 'onward, upward' attitude had officially disappeared. On top of that, she was missing Jason and hating herself for it.

Walking through the parking lot, she was feeling bad for herself—and disgusted by it—when her phone rang. She checked the caller ID, not letting herself admit that she was hoping it was Jay.

But it was Sam.

Ever since Friday, he'd been calling to check in on her. She knew that he had an idea of how bad things were between her and Jay, so he'd call and keep her on the phone with hilarious stories about Sugar's drunk customers, making her laugh so much that she forgot to be sad.

He was clearly trying to get her mind off of Jay and she appreciated that. Sam and Jay were so much alike, with the same sarcastic, teasing senses of humor. Only, where Jason was quick to anger, Sam was gentle and considerate. And, she decided, she needed more of Sam's brand of relaxing company, and much, much less of Jason's.

"Hello?" she answered as she got into her car.

"Hey," Sam said. "What's up?"

Anna sighed, not bothering to start the car. "Nothing really. Unless you count the fact that my life pretty much sucks these days."

"Why? What happened?"

She told him about her issues getting signed up for classes at the college.

"I don't know. I might just forget about the whole thing and get a job or something," she said with another sigh. "God, I just really wanted to get back into school, you know? Now I'll probably have to wait until the fall."

"Aw, I'm sorry, Anna," Sam said. "Well, I was calling to see if you wanted to do something this weekend, but how's a consolation lunch sound?"

Anna smiled into the phone, thankful once again, that Sam was such a nice guy.

"Sounds great," she replied, then teasingly added, "as long as you're buying."

Laughing, Sam let out a jokingly exasperated breath. "God, I never figured hanging out with you would be so expensive."

"Oh, whatever, rich boy," Anna said, grinning when he groaned.

"You

know

I hate when you call me that," he complained, but she could hear him chuckling. Sam didn't like to talk about it, but he came from old-money Boston wealth and probably had more money in trust funds than most people made in five years.

And Anna couldn't resist teasing him about it. "Well, I

would

call you Mr. Moneybags, but—"

"Ooookay," Sam interrupted, "you're about to joke yourself right out of lunch, young lady."

"Fine," she sighed. "Where do you want to go and what time should I meet you?"

"Hold on a sec," Sam said and she could hear him calling out to one of Sugar's staffers, asking when the afternoon bartender was scheduled to work. Then he was back. "Uh, Doug's supposed to be here at one, but he's been having car trouble lately, so I don't know for sure when I'll be able to get away. You wanna just meet me here in case I have to stick around for a bit?"

Anna hesitated.

Going to Sugar meant the possibility of running into Jason and, even almost a week later, she didn't know if she was ready for that. Her nerves, and emotions, were still incredibly raw. Plus, now with not being able to get into school, she just felt scattered and confused, despite the fact that Sam, like always, was so good at helping her forget her problems.

For a while.

"Hello?" Sam asked when she didn't say anything.

She closed her eyes, angry with herself for being so childish.

"I don't think…" she started. "I mean, with how things are with Jason right now, it's probably not a good idea for me to come by there."

God, just saying that made her want to cry. She was always in and out of Sugar, hanging out with both Jason and Sam, but now, feeling the need to avoid the shop made her incredibly lonely.

She was back to feeling bad for herself, when Sam said, "Actually, Jay hasn't really been here lately. And I don't think he's coming in at all today."

Completely surprised, she sat up straight in the driver's seat.

"What? He hasn't been coming to work?"

"Nope, not since…Friday," Sam slowly said. "I haven't seen him. Well, not during the day, at least. And the staff says they've only seen him two or three times. But I talked to him yesterday and he said he's just been super busy over at KIRA." He paused, almost as if he wasn't sure he wanted to continue, but then said, "My guess is that he's off pouting, though."

For a moment, Anna didn't respond. Her mind was racing. Jay was

always

at Sugar. When he wasn't working on his column or filming at the KIRA studio, he went to Sugar. He loved that place—and the women it attracted. But it wasn't only that.

Sugar was just his element, the combination of everything he loved: baking, crowds and creativity.

And now he'd only been in a few times in almost a week?

"So," Sam persisted, "do you wanna meet here or what? It's okay if you don't, I just thought it'd be easier since—"

"No, it's fine," she said. "I…I'll meet you there. At a little after one?"

"Yeah, that's good. I'll see you later, then."

After he hung up, Anna sat in her car for a minute longer. Despite herself, wondering what was going on with Jason.

********************

Jay hated the kitchen at the KIRA studio. It was one of those new, sleek, fake-looking set-ups that filmed well for television but, in reality, no self-respecting chef, or baker, would ever spend time in.

Yet here he was, for the fourth day in a row. Working. Constantly working. That's all he'd let himself do for the past week because he knew that if he stopped, he'd have to face how shitty life was right now.

It was Thursday, almost a full week since his fight with Anna, and he'd been avoiding Sugar for the past few days. Partly because Sam was there and Jay seriously didn't want to deal with him—he really didn't know how to keep his mouth shut about stuff that was none of his business.

Frowning, Jay turned out a large piece of dough for cinnamon rolls onto the counter, using a rolling pin to work it into a somewhat rectangular shape—and took the opportunity to work out the tension that had every muscle in his body knotted up.

No matter what he did lately, he couldn't relax.

It'd been almost a

week

. A whole damn week and he'd spent the entire time trying not to think about Anna. Most of his anger had seeped away, though, so now, whenever his thoughts strayed to her, a sense of dread just sort of took over. So he blocked her out.

Or, at least, he tried to. Too bad that sick feeling in his belly wouldn't go away.

"Hey, you," a female voice said, snapping him out of his dark thoughts.

Jay looked up into the black-brown, almond-shaped eyes of Nina Long.

She was the host of

Lunch With Nina

, the station's only other cooking show. They'd worked together before he came to KIRA, on a few joint articles for the

Seattle Times

, and had always had an ongoing flirtation. But the minute he'd been hired on at the station, where Nina already worked, he'd backed off a bit.

The one thing he never, ever did was mix his professional and personal life. Which had always seemed to bother her.

"Hey," he muttered, going right back to rolling out the dough. He really didn't feel like talking to anyone right now but, knowing Nina, she wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Right on cue, she scooted onto a high-backed stool on the opposite side of the island prep station where he was working and watched him with her cat-like eyes.

She was petite and Asian, with long, black hair and an angular face. Jay had always found her attractive but she had this kind of cold, aloof edge to her that turned him off sometimes.

Other times, though, she was all smiles and sex appeal and, Jay thought, glancing up at her, it was just his luck that today was one of

those

days, when all he wanted her to do was leave.

"I heard you're going to that Sara Lee competition in Chicago," she said.

Shit. Now he

really

didn't feel like talking—especially about this.

"That's the plan," he mumbled, without looking up.

"Everyone around here's really excited about it," Nina said, oblivious to his mood. "I ran into Keith on my way upstairs and, I swear, he's about to pee on himself, he's so giddy about the publicity you'll bring in for the station. If you win."

Jay grimaced, pressing harder into the dough. Keith was the head producer at KIRA and lived and breathed ratings. He'd started calling Jason his 'golden boy' after viewer ratings shot up following the debut of his show,

Sweet Talk,

two months before.

Rubbing bits of softened sweet butter onto the flattened dough, Jay kept quiet, hoping Nina would realize he didn't want to talk. But she just started tapping her French-tipped nails against the laminate countertop.

"You don't seem too excited," she said after a moment. "I thought you'd be taking a victory lap around the building, at least."

He shrugged, still not looking at her.

"Just trying to get some work done," he said, rolling the dough, now covered in cinnamon and sugar, into a long cylinder. He was mostly working on instinct, though.

Damn, he wanted Nina to go away. The main reason he'd been coming to KIRA these past few days was because he knew no one would bother him here, but ever since he'd told Keith about the competition, the news was all over the station.

The second he'd walked into the building that morning, everyone he saw kept congratulating him. For an hour, all he heard was, "You're going to do so great!" and "How could they

not

invite you?" But, after the congratulations, most of them had asked variations of the same question: "Is Anna excited?" or "When are you and Anna flying out?"