The seconds ticked by in total silence until Jax finally asked, “Are you going to be okay? What if you can’t go back to sleep?”
I breathed a sigh of relief that Jax had obviously decided not to push on the same topic. “I’m fine. Molly is here. I’ll get back to sleep. Calling you this late was a knee-jerk reaction because I hadn’t given myself the chance to calm down.”
“I want you to call me anytime you have a nightmare. Are you being straight with me, Harlow? If you’re not okay, I can come over—”
“No!” I said firmly. “If I wasn’t okay, I’d tell you. Go back to sleep, Jax.”
“Call me back if you can’t sleep,” he demanded.
“I’ll sleep. I feel better knowing that nothing about that nightmare was real. Goodnight, Jax,” I murmured.
“Hey, Harlow?” he said in a husky voice.
“Yeah?” I answered.
“Just a couple of things for the record. Number one, I felt the same attraction that you did when we met two years ago. Number two, if you’re under the impression that I slept with every woman I dated, I didn’t. Number three, I have no idea if we would have ended up sleeping together if we’d had a first date. No doubt my dick would have been hard all damn evening, but I didn’t ask you out for a quick fuck. I just wanted to get to know you better. Now that I do know you, I can tell you one more thing…”
I waited, my heart racing as Jax hesitated. “Tell me,” I whispered.
“Now that I do know you,” he started again, “I can tell you that if you would have said yes, there’s no way in hell that I would have been satisfied with just one date. Night, Harlow. Get some sleep.”
“Night, Jax,” I answered in a barely audible voice.
I dropped the phone on the bed and buried my face in Molly’s silky fur as I mumbled to her, “Your human daddy is a very confusing man.”
She put her snout close to my ear and snuffled, as though she was trying to tell me I was absolutely right.
Jax
Two nights later, I knocked on Harlow’s door a little after our usual meet up time.
Since we were breaking our normal routine, I’d headed home after work to change clothes and to pick up Tango.
“Hi,” Harlow said as she smiled at me. “Come on in. I’m almost ready.”
Anything I’d meant to say to her had gone flying out of my brain as soon as she’d answered the door.
I shut the door behind me, leaned against it, and watched Harlow as she dashed around the tiny apartment. I couldn’t even take my eyes off her as Molly rushed to greet me, and I bent down to give her a hello pat.
“Holy shit! You look beautiful, Harlow,” I told her as she put on a second dangly earring that matched the one she was already wearing.
Okay, so that wasn’t exactly what I’d meant to say, but there had been no way those words weren’t coming out of my mouth.
She did, in fact, look radiant. Granted, there was never a time when Harlow wasn’t smoking hot, but there was something different about her today.
I wasn’t sure if it was the black-and-white sweater dress that clung lovingly to every curve of her body, or the black high heels she was wearing with it.
Hell, it could be the fuck-me red lipstick or all the accessorized costume jewelry she was wearing, too.
Most of the time, Harlow didn’t wear her hair down, but all those curly blonde locks were streaming over her shoulders and down her back tonight. My fingers were itching to reach out and touch them, but I forced myself not to do it.
“Thanks,” she said, sounding a little flustered. “I finally went to get my hair cut and highlighted, and I was able to restock all my makeup. I ran out over a month ago.”
I knew I was still staring at her like an idiot, but I couldn’t seem to help myself.
“You managed to do all of that today?” I asked.
She snorted. “It wasn’t exactly taxing. I told you I was driving again and starting to get out more. I feel like a new woman today. My hair was driving me absolutely insane.”
I suddenly realized that the difference in Harlow had nothing to do with her clothes, her shoes, or her hair.
She’s getting her confidence back.
And damned if that wasn’t one of the sexiest things I’d ever seen.