Fighting Dirty - Sidney Halston Page 0,31
Florida sun shone down on them. “This is me, Enzo. I mean, I don’t feel comfortable in cocktail dresses and VIP lounges.”
Where is this coming from? he thought.
“I’ve never seen you look more beautiful than you do right now, Jamie Lynn. I love the dark crap you put around your eyes and that red lipstick and the crazy stockings, but this fresh-faced, makeup-free, snark-free, carefree person I’m looking at is the most beautiful you I’ve seen.”
She sat up. “But you see, this isn’t me.” She tried to get up, but he stopped her. “I’m not going to dye my hair back to my natural color. I’m not going to start wearing pastels. I’m not—”
“Would you stop? Let me finish.” He caressed her cheek. It seemed to be something that he liked to do; it also seemed to both settle her nerves and rattle them, all at the same time. She wasn’t used to tenderness from anyone. “This is you, baby. You’re that chick, the badass tattooed pixie, and you’re also the soft, sweet girl who’s afraid of the dark and of heights. I like them both, Jamie Lynn. A lot. More than I should. More than I thought I would.”
“It’s the sex,” she sassed.
He took her face in his hands and looked at her seriously. “Don’t make light of this. It’s not the sex. You feel it too, I’m sure of it. I know it’s fast, but from the first moment I saw you, I knew you’d shake up my world, so don’t try to dismiss my feelings. I tell you how I feel, how you make me feel at ease, and you freak out. Just stop doing that.” She didn’t say anything, just searched his eyes, so he continued. “I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, or in a week—hell, I don’t know if you have to leave this afternoon—but I do know that you make me feel things I’ve never felt before. Liberated. Carefree.”
“Well, I’m glad I could do that for you,” she finally said, feeling uncomfortable and disconcerted because he was making her feel “things” too.
“Anything you want to do today?” he asked.
“I need to go feed Bird.”
“And I should get in a workout. Slade and Tony will ride my ass if I don’t work out.”
“Drop me off at home and go work out.”
“Why don’t I go with you to your house, then you come to the Academy with me and visit with Violet across the street or do a yoga class with Jessica, and then we go to dinner?”
“Aww…you don’t want to let me go. You’re totally going to miss me, aren’t you, Pretty Boy?” She’d said it with a full dose of sarcasm and snark, making it clear she didn’t want any more of the heavy conversation.
But he replied seriously, “I totally will.” That wasn’t something she’d expected.
—
An hour later, JL and Enzo were walking into her apartment. “So what’s the deal with this bird?”
“It’s only the coolest pet in the world.” She got close, and the parrot tried to bite her through the cage, causing her to jump back. “It hates everyone.”
“I see that.” He laughed. “You have a sick sense of what ‘coolest’ means.”
She took the tray off the bottom and cleaned it as Enzo walked through the apartment. “Your apartment is so colorful.”
She scowled. “Is that a dig?”
His brow furrowed. “No,” he said, confused. “You have an orange wall and a lime wall.” He placed his hands on her shoulders and leaned in and kissed her before walking away to continue to explore her small apartment.
He realized that she had issues regarding their financial disparity, and he needed to proceed with caution, because it seemed to make her very defensive. For him, it meant nothing. He’d grown up being groomed for a life of wealth and entitlement. He’d worked hard and sacrificed a lot for where he was at the moment, but it had never really been his choice, and because of that, money didn’t mean as much to him as she thought it did. Somehow he needed her to understand that.
He glanced into one of the rooms where the door was ajar. Hearing sounds that suggested she was still busy with the parrot, and hoping she didn’t catch him, he opened the door fully.
“Oh, wow,” he whispered to himself.
The walls were painted black, and there were elaborate sketches all over them in chalk. They were huge. One wall had a man and a woman in an embrace; the drawing was