Willow Creek, 2
Rules were made to be broken...
As the only female agent at a sports marketing firm, Jo Farrow is constantly having to prove herself to her male coworkers. When it comes to dating, she sticks to her one night rule to keep her life simple. Jo doesn’t do relationships, but is finding herself wanting to try with the one man she can’t stand.
After moving to Willow Creek, Archer Hayes is settling into his new job despite one coworker always giving him the cold shoulder. Archer’s not sure what he did to anger Jo, the beautiful blonde with freckles he dreams of at night, but there’s something about her he can’t get enough of. The more they bicker, the more he wants her.
As pranking turns to flirting and then into something more, can the two of them discover a way to play by their own rules and win the dating game?
Excerpt:
Archer would never forget his first day on the job. He had been introduced as the new guy by the partners, Whitcomb and Delaney, and was greeted with applause and handshakes from just about everyone in attendance. Then his eyes met the bright, blue orbs of Jolene Farrow, and even though her eyes were ablaze with fury, the temperature of the room felt like it dropped twenty degrees from the iciness of her expression. He wasn’t sure what he had done to earn her ire that day or every day since, but he must have done something.
The last two months of Archer’s work life have consisted of meeting with current clients, talking to potential clients, and dealing with a woman who seemed determined to hate him, no matter how friendly he acted toward her. He had asked a few of the other consultants about it, and they had simply replied that she had a reputation for being difficult. They called her “Ice Queen,” a name Archer thought was apt. After a while he stopped trying to be friendly to Jo and just went along with his day. He spent a couple of weeks trying to ignore the glares and grumbles from her, but it was difficult. His inability to ignore her irritation toward him forced a change in tactics. If she was going to hate him, she should at least have a good reason, so he gave her one. Archer now went out of his way to annoy her whenever possible. It was probably childish, but it was also the one thing that kept him sane at work.
Archer had planned his attacks wisely, watching her closely to learn her habits and schedule. Jo was at work before him and stayed late most days, so she drank a good amount of coffee. He discovered that she always went into the break room for a refresh around 10:00 in the morning, so he would make sure he went in for one five minutes before that, emptying the carafe and not making a new pot for her. Seeing her disgruntled look when she had to make a fresh pot every time she went for a refill had become one of the highlights of his day. Jo was actually pretty cute when she was annoyed, her nose twitching like a bunny’s and her cheeks flushing red.
Currently, Archer had started to imagine what other situations he could see her blushing in, wondering if the freckles he spied on her skin would disappear under the pink hue or stand out more because of it. Jo would be a spitfire in the sack, of that he had no doubt, and as much as he loathed the animosity she sent his way, he couldn’t help but think of how wonderful a hate fuck between them could be. Archer got so lost in those lustful thoughts that he hadn’t realized the elevator had been sitting at the fifth floor until the doors started to close again. Shaking off the amorous fog his mind had wandered into, he shot out of the elevator and strode through the glass doors that separated his firm from the other businesses in the building.
The lights were all on, the smell of coffee and paper filled the air, and the sounds of Jo arguing with someone or something drifted to his ears. Archer breathed it all in and smiled at the start of another glorious day where he could annoy his favorite coworker. He marched past the mostly empty cube farm designated for interns and administrators before turning the corner that would lead to the marketing consultants’ offices, stopping dead in his tracks as he beheld the marvelous sight in front of him.
Jo was on all fours in front of the copy machine, cursing a blue streak and trying to pry something from its depths. She was wearing a skirt, a rarity as she favored pantsuits most days, and it was currently riding up just enough to give Archer a good look at her toned thighs. Images of his hand running along the inside jumped to the forefront of his mind, and when Jo reached her arm into the machine and her skirt hitched, a flash of lace at the top of her pantyhose made an appearance.
His teeth clicked together instinctually, the need to drag them down her legs with nothing but his mouth increasing by the second and causing him to thicken in his pants. Sporting wood in her presence was practically a regular occurrence at this point, not even her perpetually sour mood enough to overcome his physical attraction. He shifted on his feet and started to recite baseball stats in his head to quell his desire. It had been too long since he’d gotten some release if he was lusting after the one woman who would never look at him with anything other than disdain.
Needing to do something with the pent-up energy, Archer shuffled closer, being sure to make as little noise as possible. Jo was so preoccupied with the copier that she hadn’t noticed him even as he was a few inches away, providing him with another perfect opportunity to rile her up. He leaned down closer to her, catching a hint of the floral scent that seemed to follow along wherever she went. Not that he noticed that kind of thing or had stopped by the perfume counter at the local drugstore to try and match it, a completely normal thing for him to do.
When she still didn’t notice him, a smirk pulled across his face as he got closer to her ear. He ignored the impulse to nip at the lobe, keeping his focus where it belonged. “Need some help?” Archer’s smirk widened into a full-out grin when Jo nearly jumped out of her skin and bumped her head against the copier.
“Jesus Christ,” she exclaimed. She flopped onto her backside and leaned against the copier, one hand clutching her chest and the other rubbing her head.
Archer smiled wryly. “No, just me I’m afraid, though I have been told I have the looks and presence of a god, so you’re not too far off.” He’d had his fair share of lovers and never once been compared to a deity, but a little false confidence never hurt anyone.
Jo’s eyes rolled so far back in her head Archer was afraid she might lose them entirely, and he absolutely loved it. Teasing her was easily the most fun he’d had since moving here and maybe even a little before that. He would thank her for making his days go by quicker if she weren’t also the reason they dragged along sometimes.
“Well, compliments from your mama don’t count,” she grumbled with a sigh. She peered up at him with a scowl, the small vee that formed between her brows not marring her face in the slightest. As he continued to stare silently, Jo started making a shooing motion with her hand. “If you aren’t going to help with the paper jam, you can go along your merry way.”
Archer leaned down to look inside the machine—the paper was wedged in there good and tight. His eyes flicked over to her face, and when he saw she was staring at him, her eyes filled with a curious interest, his became transfixed. Jo’s face was beautiful, there was no question about that. Her oval face made up of porcelain skin, sky blue eyes, rosy cheeks, and full, pouty lips was enough to drive any man wild, but it was the smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks that held his attention. They looked like stars sprinkled across a blank canvas of sky, and he found himself wondering why he was waxing poetic about a woman who hated his guts.
Archer’s eyes found hers once again, but her scowl was firmly back in place, as if she too had remembered that they didn’t like one another. For a moment, Archer was tempted to reach over and smooth out the small wrinkle between her eyes just to piss her off, but he was still thrown by the conflicting emotions that were running through his body, so he backed off. He was irritated that she hated him without cause, but he was also incredibly attracted to her, which messed with him more than he’d like to admit. He needed to get out of there and focus on his job, not continue to let the two halves of him wage an internal war neither would win.
Archer straightened up, reaching down to pat her head like she was a small child, the patronizing gesture a parting gift to himself before he went back to work. “I think you can handle this one, Champ,” he taunted her before striding over to his office and shutting the door.
Archer plopped into his brown leather chair and sighed, scrubbing a hand down his face. He opened up his laptop and checked out his emails, trying to make a to-do list for the day, but his mind kept drifting back to Jo. How was he going to handle that type of situation should it happen again? There had been that moment when she looked at him without animosity, and it gave him hope that there could be something between them other than pettiness and barbed words. Archer thought about it for the first hour of his day, and at the end of that time, he was still no closer to figuring out what he would do should there be a repeat of what could have been a wonderful moment. What he had discovered, however, was that he was desperately hoping it would happen again, and soon.
- Series:
- /series-willow-creek/
