Read Online Going the Distance by Julianna Keyes - Free Book Online Page A

than to wrap it in his fist and drag her into the trailer.
    He scuffed his foot on the top step of the makeshift staircase, and Ritchie glanced back at the sound. “Hey, Jarek.”
    “Hey.” He was speaking to Ritchie, but his eyes were on Olivia.
    “Hey,” she said.
    He nodded, not trusting himself. It was sunny today but there was a cool breeze, and her lips and cheeks were pink. She was the prettiest girl he’d ever been with, hands down, and he hated that he even noticed.
    “We’re just talking about this thing for her class,” Ritchie said, when the silence stretched on too long.
    “Sure.”
    “How was your trip?” Olivia asked. He couldn’t tell if she was testing him or not; it was quite possible she suspected he’d been hiding out in this trailer for the past two days, avoiding her.
    “It’s over.”
    “He had to go with Dale,” Ritchie pitched in, bailing him out. “His best friend.”
    She smiled. “Did you have a slumber party?”
    There’s only one person I want to sleep with , he thought. “No.”
    “What are you working on?”
    He stepped away from the door and gestured inside. “Come see.”
    Olivia glanced at Ritchie, who fumbled to put away his notepad. He was an awkward guy, but he wasn’t stupid. “I’ll look at this and give you some ideas tomorrow,” he said quickly. “I should probably get back to the site, anyway.”
    “Thanks, Ritchie.”
    “Any time.”
    She watched him hurry away before turning back to Jarek and slowly approaching. He liked watching her come to him; he liked everything about her. She climbed the four steps to the trailer and he didn’t shift back to let her in, making her brush against him as she entered, squinting to let her eyes adjust.
    Jarek followed her inside and closed and locked the door, letting the click hang in the air. He saw her stiffen for a second, but she didn’t turn around or argue, so he figured it was okay.
    “This is it, huh?”
    “Some of the time.”
    He moved past her into the room, wiping sawdust off the table saw and into a small garbage can. The room was well organized, every inch used efficiently, and because he was the only one in here ninety percent of the time, it was exactly as he liked it. He had tools, a desk, a window—curtains drawn—and a water cooler. Everything he needed, until now.
    She moved farther inside, looking at the equipment, touching the edge of the wood he’d just finished cutting. His desk was in the corner, looking out over the room, the surface bare except for a stack of notepads and an empty water glass.
    “But this is what you really like, right?” she asked. “Carpentry?”
    “Why would you say that?”
    “When I asked you what you did here, you said it was mostly this.”
    He hesitated. It wasn’t a big thing for her to inquire about, his hobby. His interest. “Yeah. This is what I prefer to do.”
    “What are you making now?”
    “Nothing special. Door frames. Trim. Stuff like that.”
    She stroked a finger over the grooves in the wood he’d cut, decorative touches requested by the client. “It’s nice.”
    “Is it fine?” He was surprised by the tension in his voice.
    She may have been too, because she glanced over her shoulder to look at him. “I said it was nice.”
    He nodded and looked away, then followed her down the narrow aisle, closer to the desk. “Do you know who Frank and Joe Hardy are?”
    “Boy detectives? Nancy Drew’s— Oomph!”
    He’d turned her, lifted her, seated her on the desk, and covered her mouth with his in approximately one-eighth of a second. She didn’t put up a fight, didn’t pretend she’d come in here to talk about his hobbies. He dragged her hips right to the edge of the desk, pressing his against hers, grinding himself between her legs. Olivia wrapped her arms around his neck and he unzipped her jacket, filling his hands with her breasts, still kicking himself for not getting her shirt off the other night. He’d touched her in a lot