“So you would be up for coming back to my brother’s place after we eat? He’s got a heated pool.”
His brother’s place. As in Jax Stone’s vacation home? I was nervous. Over a guy. For the first time in my life, a guy was making me nervous. He was asking me to come to his place. Not the back of his Hummer. “Yeah, I’d like that.” I hoped he hadn’t heard the small stammer. I wasn’t used to this.
“I’d offer to take you back to your house so you could grab a swimsuit, but I like the other option better,” he said, sending my heart pounding faster in my chest.
JASON
It had been that small shudder when I held her behind me and faced off with her insane ex that had done me in. She’d been scared. It was like someone had flipped a switch in me. I had decided that she came with too much baggage and drama when Hank had sent her bolting out of her seat, ready to leave. I didn’t like drama, so I had been preparing myself for how I was going to back out of her life just as quickly as I had stepped into it. That had all changed, though, the moment the terrified tremble had gone through her. All I could think about was protecting her. I wasn’t letting the ass**le near her.
Why would someone who looked like her settle for that asshat? He’d obviously mistreated her. The way he was treating the mother of his child was proof enough he had no idea how to treat a woman. Thinking about him getting near Jess pissed me off.
Jess had finally started smiling easily again while we ate. I did everything I could to get her mind off what had happened. I didn’t want her worrying about it. I liked hearing her laugh. When she was relaxed, she was herself. The confident, flirty female who knew exactly how sexy she was.
“I’ve never been on the island,” Jess said as we drove past the main gates and over the bridge that connected the private island to the mainland.
“I’m your first, then?” I asked teasingly.
She laughed and unbuckled her seat belt. I glanced over at her scooting closer to me. The self-assured girl I’d first met was back. “Guess you are,” she said as her hand slid up my arm until her fingers wrapped around my bicep. I was immediately thankful for my personal trainer.
“Thank you,” she said in a breathy voice as she moved closer to my ear.
“For what?” I asked, enjoying her warm breath against my neck.
“Today. Protecting me. Not judging me,” she said as her hand moved from my arm to my chest.
As incredibly good as her hand on my skin felt and the images running through my head of her naked and in my bed excited me, I wasn’t going to let her do this. She was used to guys expecting it from her. Or, from what I saw tonight, Hank expecting it of her. He seemed like he was a bit possessive. I wasn’t sure many guys had been able to get too close to her and live.
“Don’t thank me for that. Besides, it was Preston and Dewayne who kept him from doing anything.”
Jess turned and slid a leg up higher on her seat as she pressed her chest against my arm. Damn, she was making it hard to be noble. “You stood in front of me. No one’s ever done that,” she whispered before her lips touched my neck. I gripped the steering wheel tightly with one hand and tried hard to remember she was doing this because she thought she had to. Not because she wanted to.
“This isn’t why I brought you here,” I told her. Even though the bulge in my jeans said something entirely different.
She stopped kissing my neck and moved back. “I don’t understand.”
Of course she didn’t. How did I explain that I didn’t want to be one more guy who used her body, without it sounding like I was judging her?
“I thought . . . I mean, from what you said, I thought you were attracted to me,” she said, sitting back and leaving me cold.
We pulled up to the gate outside the house, and it opened when security saw the Hummer. Jess turned her attention toward the house, and I took another deep, calming breath. “There isn’t a heterosexual male alive who wouldn’t be attracted to you. I just don’t want you to think that’s what this is about.”
“Then what is it about?” Her voice was soft. Almost a whisper, as if she was afraid to ask.
The fact that this was all she expected from me made a wide range of mixed emotions hit me at once. It infuriated me, yet it made her seem fragile. She wasn’t what anyone would consider fragile, but seeing this side of her brought a whole new light to things. “I like spending time with you,” I told her honestly.
She didn’t seem convinced. I parked the Hummer and then reached over to touch her hands, which she had tightly clasped in her lap. “Look at me?” I asked.
She lifted her head, and the insecurity in her eyes surprised me. How did someone who looked like Jess have any ounce of insecurity in her bones?
“I liked having you touch me. Hell, I loved it. But you weren’t doing it for the right reasons. You think you owe it to me. But you don’t. I didn’t bring you here with any intentions other than getting to spend more time with you.”
She frowned and a small wrinkle appeared on her forehead. It was cute. “So, you don’t want to have sex with me?” she asked seriously.
I couldn’t keep from grinning. “Jess, I want you naked and straddling me. I’ve fantasized about it more than once from the moment you crawled your sexy ass into my car. But when that happens, I want it to be because you want me, not because you think it’s what’s expected.”
“Oh” was her simple response.
Chapter Eight