Hope Breaks: A New Adult Romantic Comedy by Alice Bello, Stephanie T. Lott Page A

stage, and the crowd began to roar and whoop and scream.  Jimmy started to sing about looking for his lost shaker of salt, and the crowd sang along, chanting “SALT! SALT! SALT! SALT!” while pumping their fists.
    Jake turned me around so I could see the show, his arms wrapped around me like he was afraid I’d get washed away in the gentle summer rain. 
    No one cared that it was raining.  If anything, the crowd seemed to revel in the gentle misting.
     
    ***
     
    I know it probably took a while, but I didn’t seem to notice the walk back to Jake’s truck, the traffic that we must have gone through to leave Tower Amphitheater, or that it was now pouring buckets of rain.
    All I knew was that I was sitting pressed up against the most beautiful, most wonderful man in the world.  And that I fit in the bare, sexy nook under his arm like he’d been made just for me.
     

Chapter 13
     
    THE RAIN WAS STILL pouring by the time Jake’s rattling old truck pulled up in front of my house.  He killed the engine, we stared at each other for a moment, and then he said, “Race you to the porch.”
    I cheated.  The second he said race I grabbed for the door handle and took off running. 
    I should have won.  I mean, I cheated, I had less distance to run—since he parked with my door facing the house—and he’d have to make it all the way around his truck.
    He must have pulled some Dukes of Hazzard style hood sliding… or just came out the door I’d left open behind me.  Whatever.  He beat me to the porch and caught me as I tried to plow through him.
    It was a nice catch, his strong, bare arms wrapping around me.  I looked up into his melted chocolate eyes, and then my eyes slid down to his luscious, rain slicked lips.  I fought very hard not to leap up into his arms and kiss him. 
    I was rewarded by a chill breeze slamming into us from the west.  I trembled, and my teeth started chattering immediately.
    Jake grimaced… must be too much of a man to show that he was cold too.
    “Let’s… g-g-et inside.” I said.
    Jake quirked an eyebrow, and then slid one of his hands into the front pocket of my jeans.  I gulped, his hand searched, grazing something that hadn’t been touched by anything not run on batteries for… well, for a pretty long time.
    I groaned.
    He pulled his hand out of my pocket, my house keys dangling from his index finger.
    Good god , he had great hands.
    Without letting go of me he reached out, slid the correct key in the lock and magically my front door just popped right open.  I gave the door a hard glare.  It never did that for me.
    I walked into my house and Jake followed.  I closed the door behind him and locked it.  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. 
    I expected that old doubt, that dark panic to rear up and incapacitate me.  But it didn’t.  I felt nothing but a building want and a need for the man standing only a couple feet away. 
    I turned around to face him.  He pushed his wet hair off his forehead, his brown eyes blazing with heat and drowning deep.  Every inch of his torso was covered in glistening rainwater.  I was suddenly thirsty… like lost in the desert thirsty.
    His mouth, that delicious looking, thick lipped mouth of his, opened and he drew in a breath.
    Then he just lunged for me, his big strong body slamming into mine, knocking me back against my front door.  The panes of glass in the door rattled.  His mouth captured mine just as I wrapped my arms around his neck.  His hands found purchase as they dipped up under my ass and picked me up, and I wrapped my legs around his hips.
    The next few moments were a blur… but I found myself dropped unceremoniously onto the mattress of my bed.  I gasped, suddenly not pressed fully against his bare chest, and having his delectable lips abruptly missing.  I bounced on the mattress for a couple counts, and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust, but by the time Jake started unbuttoning his fly my vision was