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‘Don’t, Cale.’
Cale moved closer and, ignoring her desperate plea, pulled her into his embrace. Strong arms bound her and she found herself breast to chest, her face tucked into the hollow beneath his shoulder, his bent head blowing warm breath across her cheek.
So this was what being held by him again felt like. Maddie had to admit that Reality kicked Memory’s butt.
Maddie lifted her head to look into those fabulous eyes. A muscle ticked in his jaw as his eyes darkened and the flame flickered brighter. Maddie could feel his body change, felt the switch from comfort to awareness. It was in the way his hand flexed on her back and ran down her spine.
And that was all the warning he gave before lowering his mouth onto hers. The world fell away as she welcomed his manly, exciting taste, his firm lips and clever tongue, his strong hand on her back pulling her closer.
Whoa! She was not nineteen any more, at the mercy of her hormones and her emotions. He didn’t get to step back into her life and pick up where they’d left off. She wouldn’t let that happen again.
About the Author
JOSS WOOD wrote her first book at the age of eight and has never really stopped. Her passion for putting letters on a blank screen is only matched by her love of books and travelling—especially to the wild places of Southern Africa—and possibly by her hatred of ironing and making school lunches.
Fuelled by coffee, when she’s not writing or being a hands-on mum, Joss—with her background in business and marketing—works for a non-profit organisation to promote local economic development and the collective business interests of the area where she resides.
Happily and chaotically, surrounded by books, family and friends, Joss lives in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa, with her husband, children and their many pets.
She’s So Over Him
Joss Wood
This is Joss Wood’s fabulous first book for Mills & Boon®! We couldn’t be more excited about this uniquely talented author. Enjoy the fun, sparky chemistry between Cale and Maddie and keep a lookout for more titles by Joss, coming soon…
This being my first book, I have so many people to thank—treasured friends far and wide who walked this amazing journey with me—but this one is for Vaughan. Firstly for handing me a set of wings and telling me to go and fly, and, on a far more practical level, for the hours you spent with the kids at the airport—not flying!—so that I could write. Love you.
CHAPTER ONE
‘NICE tattoo, Mad.’
The voice came from out of the blue, clear and distinguishable despite the high volume of noise in the bar. Such a luscious voice—deep, smooth, compelling. Like hot chocolate after a freezing walk in the winter rain, she thought as her heart roller-coastered inside her rib cage.
Maddie Shaw flicked a glance to her left and there he was, leaning against the bar counter, a bright blonde barnacle superglued to his side. Hot damn, her memory wasn’t playing tricks on her. It was Cale Grant and—oh, heaven help her—he’d moved up from very good-looking to stupid-making hot. Long and lanky had turned into long and strong. Instead of the ponytail she remembered, his naturally streaky blond hair was cropped so that the ends brushed the open collar of his shirt, and the goatee he’d sported on his stubborn chin was gone.
His eyes flicked over her and she watched, mortified, as they stopped at her chest. The tight sleeveless top with the image of a camp queen splayed across it was cut low enough to reveal the edges of her tangerine bra, way more than necessary of her cleavage, and most of the teeny-tiny red butterfly that she’d acquired in a fit of pique shortly after her last conversation with this same man.
‘Cale Grant. Wow. Hi.’
And lift your eyes up, bud, she silently suggested, or I might have to hurt you.
Resisting the urge to tug up her bra, she met those fantastic eyes—the colour of old-fashioned blue ink. A deep blue that sometimes looked black. Or cobalt. Maddie had always loved his eyes…
She gestured to the bar. ‘What can I get you?’
Cale snagged a barstool from under the bottom of a departing drinker. As his date, a mature blue-eyed blonde, arranged her very curvaceous body onto the barstool, Maddie filled another order and turned back to Cale, to find him dissecting her with that intense look she remembered so well.
‘What on earth are you doing?’
Maddie looked around her in fake bewilderment. ‘I don’t know. Raising goats? Computer programming? Macramé?’
‘I meant, Miss Smarty Pants, what are you doing behind a bar?’
Maddie lifted dark winged eyebrows. ‘I know what you meant.’
‘Well? Ten years ago you were doing a degree in Marketing and Communications. Had plans to do your Masters. So why this?’
Maddie sighed as Cale added one and one and got a hundred and two. She kept her answer short. ‘It’s a job. What can I get you to drink?’
‘A glass of Chardonnay and a draught—’
‘Maddie—oh, Maddie!’
Cale’s words were drowned out by a yell from the back of the crowd of customers waiting to be served. The booming voice was loud and compelling enough to immediately snag her attention. Maddie laughed as her thin, gangly neighbour good-naturedly pushed his way through the bodies to sink against the bar.
‘Hey, gorgeous!’
‘Hey, back.’ Maddie boosted herself up on the bar and leaned across the counter to kiss first one rough cheek and then the other. ‘Nat, I’ve missed you! And here I was, desperate for someone interesting to show up.’
‘I have so much to tell you. Jo’burg was fabulous… Thanks for the tip about that bakery in Melville. We’re in the back booth; join us when you have a break.’ Nat planted a kiss on her mouth and tapped her nose before melting back into the crowd.
Maddie dropped back to her feet and sent Cale a bland smile, ignoring his narrowed eyes at her not so subtle jibe.
‘Sorry, what did you want? A Chardonnay and a—?’
‘Draught beer.’ Cale sent her a feral smile. ‘Still a chronic flirt, Maddie?’
Maddie shrugged and reached for a bottle of house wine. ‘Well, I did learn at the seat of the master. You taught me so well.’
‘I—’ Cale’s mouth snapped shut when his companion laid her diamond-encrusted fingers on his sleeve and leaned forward, so that he had a perfect view down the continental divide in her shirt. She whispered something in his ear before sliding off the seat and walking towards the restrooms.
Maddie uncorked the bottle of Chardonnay and glugged the contents into a sparkling glass. ‘So, I see that you still do all your shopping at Blondes R Us?’
Maddie caught the quick grin he couldn’t hide and wistfully remembered how he’d loved her dry sense of humour. Even if it was at his expense. ‘She’s… sweet. Not really my type, but sweet.’
‘How can she not be your type? You always went for the tanned, stacked blondes.’
She clearly remembered the long-legged, longhaired creatures who had followed Cale, his twin, Oliver, and their sports-mad friends around, their tongues dragging on the floor.