“You love me?” I repeated, still stuck on that part of everything he’d just said.
A grin tugged at his lips. “More than life,” he said.
“Really?” I asked, needing to hear it again.
“Oh, for chrissake, he said it already. He loves you. Get your clothes and get going. I couldn’t figure out why you didn’t have a prince charming running after you to save the day.” Dee’s voice reminded me that we weren’t alone. I turned to look at her, and she nodded toward the back door. “Go on. You never belonged here to begin with,” she said, and turned to walk away.
“Let’s go,” Jason said in my ear.
“You can’t just pay for my mother’s medical bills. It isn’t right,” I argued. “You don’t even have the money. Your mother does, and she hates me. She tried to pay me to break up with you.”
“She what?” he asked.
Crap. I hadn’t meant to say that. “She, uh . . . The day after you left me last time. She came by my house and offered me money to break up with you and disappear. I didn’t take it and I told her no. Then I found out about Momma that night, so she got her wish anyway.”
Jason took a deep breath and clenched his teeth. “She offered you money?” he repeated in disbelief.
I just nodded. She was really going to hate me now.
“Why didn’t you take it? When you found out about your momma, why didn’t you take it? Why did you do this?” he said, looking around him with distaste.
“I couldn’t take money to break up with you. I love you. I couldn’t do that,” I said, thinking that this was self-explanatory.
He didn’t say anything at first. He just held me against him. “Let’s go,” he finally whispered.
“I can’t. Your mother won’t pay my mother’s bills,” I reminded him.
“I wouldn’t touch my mother’s money. Besides, she’s about to take a hit to her allowance. Jax owes me, and I have no doubt he’s waiting for me to call him with this specific request.”
I couldn’t have him ask his brother for that kind of money. “No. I won’t let you do that. I love that you want to help me, but I can’t let you ask your brother to give you that kind of money.”
Jason frowned. “Give me? Hell, Jax won’t give me shit. He loans me stuff, but he won’t be giving me anything. When I turn twenty-three, my grandfather’s entire estate will become mine per his last will and testament. Jax is keeping tabs on what I’ll owe him in a couple of years, I assure you. But I’ve got more money in the bank than that rock star brother of mine, and he knows it.”
JASON
Jess was wrapped up in my coat and sitting quietly while I drove her truck. She hadn’t said much since we’d left the club. Seeing her on that stage and hearing the men around me talking about her tits had all hit me at one time. I had acted on impulse, needing to protect her. Now I had her out of there, it was all starting to sink in, and I wanted to break something.
She should never have had to do that, but it had been her means of survival. It was all she knew to do, and she had been willing to do whatever she had to in order to help her momma. Everything but take money from my mother. Because she loved me.
I wished she had taken the money from my mother. I wouldn’t even be mad about it right now. I would have been f**king relieved that she had had money to take care of her mother and that she was still safely in her home.
“Here,” she said, breaking the silence, and I glanced at the run-down apartments to my left. It was just getting worse. I pulled into the parking lot, and the darkness surrounding the place from the burnt-out streetlights wasn’t helping me deal with this. I turned off the truck and sat there, staring straight ahead.
“How long have you lived here?” I asked.
“A little over three weeks,” she said softly.
“What time do you get home at night?”
She fidgeted with her hands in her lap. “About three,” she finally said.
She was fine. Nothing had happened to her. She was alive. I kept reminding myself over and over again that she was okay.
“Jason?” Her voice sounded unsure.
I shifted my gaze to hers. “Yeah.”
“I carry Mace with me when I go from the truck to the apartment, and Momma has a gun. There are three locks on the door,” she said, trying to reassure me.