Be Careful What You Wish For

  Be Careful What You Wish For

  (Wishes #1)

  Jade C. Jamison

  Be Careful What You Wish For

  Forbidden desire is just the beginning...

  Jessica, a college student struggling with day-to-day bills, is given an offer she can’t refuse. A married woman who is convinced that her husband Kage is cheating offers Jessica enough money to repair her dying car in exchange for Jessica’s attempt to destroy the woman’s marriage.

  Jessica succeeds but discovers something else—she and Kage are soulmates, destined to find each other.

  But as they attempt to carve out their places in each other’s lives, Jessica finds herself plagued with doubts, and she begins to suspect that Kage is once a cheater, always a cheater. Can their relationship survive or was it doomed from the start?

  I knew—it was now or never. I took a deep breath and slammed what was left of my beer, then walked through the doorway that led to the hall. It wasn’t long before he came out of the men’s room and I got close to him. At least if he turned me down now, I could tell Fay without feeling like a liar that I’d given it my best shot. I’d never been so forward with a man before, but I’d promised to test his resolve. I placed my hand on his chest to stop him from moving forward. “I think we need to get out of here.”

  I was so close to him that I could have felt his breath on my cheek at the right angle. And there was that magnetic pull. I wanted him so badly, even knowing the filthy distasteful facts. But he placed his hands on my shoulders. Oh. This was it. He was getting ready to reject me. Part of me felt a huge weight slide off my back. I could sleep tonight, knowing I hadn’t made him break his sacred vow. And, connection or not, I would get over him. “Look, Jessica, you seem like a nice girl, but there’s something I haven’t told you.” He took a deep breath as if to find his willpower. “I’m married…and I can’t cheat on my wife.”

  I couldn’t look him in the eye anymore. While I felt glad on the one hand and disappointed on the other, I also felt something else: ashamed. I felt like a homewrecking whore, and I dropped my eyes. I couldn’t look in his anymore. His hands were a little too tight around my shoulders, though, and that kept me focused, so when I looked down, I saw that he could probably be persuaded with a little more effort. That magnetic pull I felt toward him? Well, he was feeling it for me too.

  And the greedy side of me, the part that wanted this man worse than I’d ever wanted anyone else, decided to act on that. I got closer to him and got up a little on my tiptoes so I could breathe in his ear. “Your lips say you can’t…but your cock says something else entirely.”

  BOOKS BY JADE C. JAMISON

  Stating His Case

  Fabric of Night

  Worst Mother

  MADversary

  Then Kiss Me

  Old House

  Quickies: Sexy Short Stories and Other Stuff

  TANGLED WEB SERIES

  1 Tangled Web: A Steamy Heavy Metal Novella

  2 Everything But

  BULLET SERIES

  1 Bullet: An Epic Rock Star Novel

  2 Rock Bottom

  3 Feverish

  4 Fully Automatic

  NICKI SOSEBEE SERIES

  1 Got the Life

  2 Dead

  3 No Place to Hide

  4 Right Now

  5 One More Time

  6 Lost

  7 Innocent Bystander

  8 Blind

  9 Fake

  WISHES SERIES

  1 Be Careful What You Wish For

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2014 by Jade C. Jamison

  Image Copyright Nejron Photo, used under license from Shutterstock.com.

  All rights reserved.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author. Characters and names of real persons who appear in the book are used fictitiously.

  Visit Jade’s website:

  http://www.jadecjamison.com

  Follow Jade on Twitter:

  http://twitter.com/@JadeCJamison

  Send Jade an email:

  jadecjamison@gmail.com

  Like Jade on Facebook:

  http://facebook.com/JadeCJamison

  To Neda Amini—thank you for your faith in me

  To Bonnie Hardman—thank you for being one of the first to suggest that Kage needed more story (he too is thankful!)

  As always, to the Jade C. Jamison Street Team for continuing to support, encourage, and assist me all along the way

  To Mary Lou “Page Princess” Moench and Sue Banner for joining my team of beta readers

  Table of Contents

  Foreword

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Also by Jade C. Jamison

  Foreword

  This book has actually been a while in the making. I wrote the short story “Be Careful What You Wish For” as part of an anthology I published last year. That collection was called Quickies: Sexy Short Stories and Other Stuff. I’d been inspired by a real-life incident, one that had captured the attention of a local radio station. The radio had found the humor in the event—a wife paid another woman to seduce her husband, and the joke was on her when her husband wound up with the woman she’d sent after him. It inspired me to explore that topic, and it was an interesting challenge for me.

  You see, I’ve discovered that some readers absolutely hate cheating in stories, so I made it my mission to make these cheaters sympathetic. I knew it would be difficult, and I definitely didn’t want to be heavy handed about it. I asked myself what kind of wife would set her husband up to fail, even if she felt she was a victim. And what kind of woman would accept the offer of money? I knew that if my character simply did it for cash, she’d find no sympathy, but put her back up against the wall, and let’s see what happens. In the short story, Kage and Jessica discover that they are soulmates, meant to be together.

  Readers begged for and demanded that I write a full-length story for these star-crossed lovers. Well, I wondered, what could I say about them that I hadn’t already? What could I explore that I hadn’t by this point? True, a short story is abbreviated and leaves out so many details, but it had been a complete story.

  I decided a full-length novel would allow me to explore the concept of trust—not just trust, though. A relationship that begins as Kage and Jessica’s does has an additional element of infidelity right off the bat (something most couples don’t have to worry about at the start of their journey together), so Jessica battles insecurity and doubt throughout the book, wondering if Kage is faithful or if she really was just another notch in his belt.

  I knew all that was coming before I started writing the book. What I hadn’t expected was a story that was hotter than I’d imag
ined and sweeter than I’d ever thought possible. Ultimately, though, can Kage and Jessica find true love when all is said and done? Can their relationship survive in spite of its tenuous beginnings? And will readers love them, even though their relationship was born from a dubious and sordid start? I myself can’t wait to find out.

  Peace, love, and rock on,

  Jade, April 2014

  Prologue

  OH, I CAN already feel your judgment washing over me. I can already see your sneer, feel your scornful eyes on me, and I haven’t even told you my story yet. There’s no sense even trying to deny it. I’m a woman. I know exactly what you’ll be thinking…because I would have thought the same thing.

  But that’s why I need to tell you my story…so you understand. I wasn’t just being a homewrecker. I wasn’t trying to ruin someone’s bliss. Honest. Let me tell you my story, and then you can tell me what you would have done if you were in my shoes.

  Let me put it this way: have you ever met someone and knew almost instantly that they were the one for you? Have you ever felt an instant connection that merely grew as time went on? When you find that someone, it’s hard to deny that connection or pretend like it doesn’t exist. In fact, it’s impossible. And that’s what happened to me.

  But I didn’t go out seeking it. I didn’t set out to sleep with a married man, and I never would have done it if his wife hadn’t asked me to…

  Chapter One

  IT ALL STARTED near the beginning of my second semester of grad school. You know how you can look back over events (because hindsight is twenty/twenty, as the old saying goes) and see how every little thing that happened to you contributed to some big end result? Kind of like a semester of attending class, how everything you read for class, every paper you write, every seminar where you’re engaged in deep discussion with your prof and peers lends itself to your final grade? But it’s not those events that are graded. Instead, those events led to the culmination of your final paper and it was that paper alone that you were graded for.

  But I think you catch my drift…that, even when you’re not thinking about each one of those things you’re doing, they contribute. A chapter I read in September becomes the basis for further knowledge and understanding in class, which is corroborated by and expanded upon by the research I have to conduct, which deepens my knowledge when discussing in the classroom. Well, that’s kind of how Kage became the love of my life, and looking back, I can see how every little thing that happened that February pushed me into his arms.

  I was attending the university in Pueblo, Colorado, at the same school where I’d just earned a bachelor’s degree the year before. I had an apartment near campus that I shared with two roommates and a job as a waitress in a bar. My freshman year, I’d worked on campus in one of the dining halls. I took that experience and found a job working fast food for a year and a half. That crap gets old, though, and I wanted to earn more. I needed to earn more to be able to afford my apartment and the bills that went with it, so I found a job as a waitress. But waiting tables in a bar was even more lucrative. I found that if you’re willing to show just a little cleavage and a little leg, men tip more as the evening wears on.

  It didn’t take long before I could ask for what hours and days I wanted. So I worked most weekends because they didn’t interfere with class and I worked two or three nights during the week. Those varied, and sometimes that was because I would need time off to meet with a study group. Dating, though…well, I had tentative plans to start again in the future, but I was in no big hurry.

  You can thank my ex for that.

  He and I had dated my junior and senior year before I started grad school. He was my usual type, of the rock star-ish variety. His name was Robb. He had blonde hair with a jock’s body. He was a drummer in a punk rock band, not my usual flavor of music, but nothing I’d turn my nose up at. He was pretty hot. Hell, the whole band was. Musically, they weren’t that great, but I think they had the turnouts they often did because girls like me liked to watch them onstage. But after graduation, Robb went back to Texas permanently. He’d majored in theater design and thought he had opportunities in his old hometown, either working for a large theater company or working for one of the dozens of high schools in that county.

  Well, more power to him. He’d been kind of a cocky bastard and a bit of a rough talker anyway, so it was good for me that he left. I didn’t realize until that fall—having been free of him for several months—that he’d been bad for my self-esteem.

  I was so afraid of following in my mother’s footsteps.

  But, no, that was a defeatist attitude. I was my own woman and I was kicking ass. I was taking the world by the horns and making her my bitch. I had this. The fact that I was going to grad school, unlike anyone else in my family had ever done, should have assured me.

  Still, I had those quiet moments of doubt that I never shared with anyone.

  I hadn’t known on graduation day that Robb was going to break up with me. I was on a cloud then. My grandparents had attended my ceremony and brought my mom and sister along. They stayed for a couple of hours and then headed back west toward home. I had just found out a few weeks earlier that I’d been accepted into the Master’s program, and Robb had celebrated that news with me but had never indicated that he would be bailing on me. In fact, it was that night, after my family had left, that he told me he was leaving in less than a week…leaving me in the apartment we’d shared without warning. Sure, his rent and bills were paid through the month, but that left me to scramble. I managed to find through my network two students who needed someone to replace their roommate who was moving out due to semester’s end. I got lucky.

  So fuck Robb. I’d really grown to care about him and he’d dumped all over me. But it was a good lesson. Don’t ever depend on a man. They won’t take care of you and they’ll always leave. I’d seen it with my mom. In fact, my grandpa was the only good guy I’d ever known. He was a rare find and, I thought, the only one of his kind.

  I swore off dating then. I didn’t start grad school till the fall. I could have taken summer classes if I’d wanted to, but I wanted a semester to decompress. The last year had been full of tough courses and stress over graduation. I wanted to simply work and relax. Okay, so I got a little slutty too. I wanted to erase Robb out of my head, so I had a string of brief affairs with hot guys throughout the summer.

  When school started at the end of August, though, I was back to business. Grad school was tough. The nice part of grad school, though, was no prereqs or stupid classes I had no use for. All the classes tied into my course of study, English. So why was I getting a master’s degree in English? Well, it started out that I loved writing. I majored in English and excelled in it, and I’d heard over and over and over again in school that a bachelor’s degree was worthless in this day and age. To get anywhere, I heard, I’d have to get a master of arts.

  Talking with my advisor wasn’t much help, though, because I started wondering what I could do with a master’s degree in English. Well, I could work for a book publisher or I could be a lecturer for any colleges—an adjunct professor, if you will—but I’d never be able to be tenured or teach full-time unless or until I got a PhD. That was a possibility, and I’d cross that bridge when I came to it. As it was, though, I didn’t owe a lot of debt for my BA, and that was thanks to my mother’s shitty earning capabilities. When you could get more a month in child support than you could by working, you knew you were working a crappy job. And that was my mom. If she could manage to hold down a job for any length of time, she could eventually get better hours and better pay, but she rarely stuck it out. I got the feeling that she hated working. And who could blame her? Cleaning hotel rooms and working assembly lines was sucky work. So when my English teacher in high school continued to encourage me, telling me I had an aptitude for English, urging me to take the ACT test and apply for college, I saw my chance to get out—to get out of my shitty little town, away from my mother and her dysfunction (in s
pite of the fact that I loved her), and to get a job that would involve using my brains doing something I loved instead of slaving away doing something I disliked without having any money to show for it.

  It was my only chance, so I took it. I grabbed hold and didn’t let go.

  My grandparents…if we’d lived closer to them, it might have been different, but they lived on the other side of the continental divide. We saw them during holidays and the occasional weekend. They might have been a positive influence on my mom, and, I suspect, that’s why she moved away. She didn’t want them telling her what to do or how to live her life anymore. She was the last of four children—a little spoiled, I suppose, but a rebellious kid, and it seemed like she purposely made sure she did the exact opposite of what her parents would want her to do. So, yeah…she brought many a one-night stand home, including a couple of abusive guys. Yeah, I had a creep hit on me once. Disgusting pig. She had a couple of guys move in with us on occasion.

  And she was an alcoholic.

  I suppose I should have stayed behind for my sister. I felt guilty for leaving for college, but I also knew my sister’s dad lived in the same town we did, and he was there for her. In fact, sometime during my freshman year, Jenn moved in with him. She didn’t hate mom, she told me, but she’d felt a lot like I had—she wanted and needed to get away from my mother’s toxic lifestyle. That’s what she said, but I also knew my sister would never stray far from my mother.

  But I’m rambling, huh? You’re probably wondering what the hell any of this has to do with Kage. Well, I’m getting there. You kind of have an idea of where my head was. With my past, it’s a wonder I got out. But I did.