Fangirl Down (Big Shots, #1)

He crossed his arms. “Are you?”

Something about his belligerence and the challenge in his eyes made her recall their conversation early that morning. Maybe I take chances and set them on fire. Buck isn’t the first one to get sick of my shit and bail. Well, if he expected the same of her, he hadn’t been paying attention. Nor would she give him the satisfaction of being like everyone else. “Nope! I’m staying. If for no other reason than to piss you off.” She looked down at her phone helplessly, knowing she could try to call back the number, but it probably wouldn’t connect. She’d tried several times in the past after getting disconnected. Reception was horrible where Tallulah was working and she was allotted only so much time on the landline.

Dammit.

A very dramatic bubble expanded in her chest and she needed to get upstairs before it burst. “For better or worse, I’ll see you in the morning. Good night.”

She shouldered past a stone-faced Wells on her way to the bar. After a brief apology to Ricky that he seemed to understand—since the entirety of the bar was now silent in the wake of her argument with Wells—she left some money for her drink and beelined for the lobby elevators. One of them opened right away, thankfully, and she stepped into the empty car.

Before the doors could close, a big hand slammed down between them, trundling them back open. Wells had followed her? Brave man.

After observing Josephine for the barest moment, he moved into the elevator beside her, both of them staring at the numbers overhead as they ticked upward, the air between them vibrating like the tail of a rattlesnake.

“I shouldn’t have hung up the phone.”

“We’ll pile it onto your mountain of transgressions.”

She sensed him wincing. “A whole mountain, huh?”

“By the end of the week, we should have a full range. We’ll call it the Dumbass Alps.”

“You really intend on staying that long?”

“I’m not going to answer that question again. If you thought I was going to quit so easily, why did you ask me to caddie for you in the first place?”

As soon as the doors opened on her floor, she practically leapt through the breach, leaving her question hanging in the air. Wells’s heavy footsteps followed behind her. “Whether you’re going to bail or not is a valid concern, Josephine. Hell, you’re quitting this conversation pretty easily, aren’t you?”

She threw her head back and groaned at the hallway ceiling. “Only so I don’t put you on the injured list for the rest of the tournament.” Having reached her door, she slid the key card out of her clutch and slapped it down on the sensor, making the green light flash. Her intention was to go inside and shut the door, restore her calm in the peace and quiet of the enormous bathtub or perhaps one of three seating areas, like Goldilocks’s angry cousin. But something had been in the forefront of her mind for the last twenty minutes. She couldn’t stop thinking about Ricky’s skeptical reaction about Wells’s unexpected arrival after the hurricane. So she stopped with a hand on the door and let her mouth take over, because anger had disengaged her brain. “Who were you visiting in Palm Beach? When you just happened to swing by Rolling Greens?”

A shutter dropped down, rendering his face expressionless. “What?”

“Who were you visiting?”

His cheek twitched. “I don’t like questions, belle. Remember?”

Surely, fire was bursting from her ears. “Oh, really? Well I don’t like this feeling that you’re playing games with me.”

That statement made him jerk back, visibly baffled. “I would not play games with you.”

“All day, you ignored me and brushed me off because you want me to quit, because it would justify your whole screw-the-world philosophy. That’s not a game?”

He blinked, staring at the wall for a moment, as if only now realizing what he’d done. “I . . . wouldn’t. Not intentionally.”

“Right.” She exhaled sharply. “I’m just so glad I get to ruin that expectation for you.”

“Everyone before you has quit,” Wells said through his teeth, taking one purposeful step toward her. Then another. A third. Until he was so close, she could taste the soap from his shower when she inhaled. He cupped the back of her neck and turned her around, then slid his fingers up into her hair, tightening them around the strands and drawing her head back as his mouth moved closer from above.

Everything inside Josephine went on the highest of alerts, her nerve endings blaring like miniature alarms, her mouth parting with the sudden desperation to inhale his exhales, breathe him in, despite the argument taking place. His body was so firm and hot against hers, his height and strength making her wonder if he could do anything but manhandle a woman in bed. Would he try to be gentle and lose it toward the end? Or never bother with gentle at all?

“You don’t want games? Fine. I wasn’t visiting anyone in Palm Beach. I came for you.” Those four words glazed her eyes and made her heart twist like a crank. “I’m sorry I hung up on your friend,” he said, very precisely. “I was standing there listening to all the reasons I knew you were going to fucking quit, belle—”

“I’m not,” she whispered, battling the urge to either bite his mouth or kiss it. Or both.

“We’ll see.”

Like, was he . . . not going to kiss her?

People didn’t engage in mere conversations with their mouths an inch apart. Right?

Maybe he really wanted to drive home his apology?

Goodness. His eyes were . . . so beautiful and rich from this distance, his hand so assertive in her hair that she couldn’t help wanting to offer him the whole package. Even if she was mad. Maybe because she was mad.

With his eyes fastened on her mouth, he slowly dragged his tongue along the inside of his bottom lip. The breadth of his chest dipped and swelled. “Get some rest,” he rasped. “You have a long day of putting up with me tomorrow.” He released her with obvious regret and stepped back. “I’ll wear my tightest pants.”

“Thanks,” she said, dazed. “I mean—”

“Good night, Josephine.” He turned and swaggered down the hall. “Enjoy watching me go. You earned it.”

“I take it back. I quit.”

His booming laughter echoed as he entered the elevator, then was gone altogether.

Josephine all but sleepwalked into the room, the words I came for you repeating in her head until she finally fell asleep.





Chapter Thirteen




Wells stood outside the bag room Friday morning, arms crossed, index finger tapping against his opposite elbow. Josephine was in there and he needed a word before day two got underway.

Well. Technically, he didn’t need a word. He didn’t owe anyone explanations.

So . . . what. After last night and the way she’d called him out in an eerily accurate manner, he wanted Josephine to understand him better?

That didn’t make a lick of goddamn sense, either.

Except that if she understood him better, there was a chance their golfer-caddie relationship could become stronger. He’d never given a second thought to that kind of thing in the past. Wells played how he wanted. He didn’t need a second opinion when it came to hitting a ball into a hole. He just got it done. Except that he wasn’t getting it done anymore.

And that suddenly mattered a lot, because when he lost, so did Josephine.

Of course, that had been the same deal with caddies in the past, but he’d never taken anyone on exclusively. His caddies of tournaments past were well established and had financial security. Other options. This was different.

The other not-so-tiny detail that set Josephine apart from his former golf partners was that he wanted to fuck her so bad, he’d woken up growling her name and thrusting in his closed fist. Imagining her auburn hair spread out on his pillow, her nails scraping down his back, her tits bare and bouncing. Damn, he’d come as hard as a bullet train. And truth be told, he’d felt guilty as sin about it afterward, especially considering he was her boss, for all intents and purposes.