Jonquils for Jax (Blueberry Lane 3 - The Rousseaus #1) - Katy Regnery Page 0,23

his eyebrows, charmed by her and unable, or unwilling, to hide it for the moment. What was the point? They were going to be friends, right? He’d already surrendered.

“Really?”

“Really. After me, you’re only going to want to be friends with women.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“I promise.”

“I doubt it.”

“Why’s that?” she asked, putting her hands on her hips and raising her pert little chin in challenge.

“Because we can’t sit on a couch together watchin’ a game, drinkin’ beer, and belchin’. I’ll still need a few guy friends for the truly disgustin’ moments of male bondin’.”

She gave him a look. “You forget. I grew up with two older brothers.”

He scoffed. She was cool for letting the whole “yet” thing slide, and he was willing to couch their relationship in friendship if he was going to be training her over the next few weeks. But the duchess chugging a beer and burping her pleasure? Yeah, right. Not likely.

“Oh, you don’t believe me, huh?”

“Nope.”

“Not even a little bit?” she hummed, grinning at him like she knew something he didn’t.

“Not even a little bit,” he confirmed, straightening his smile and remembering why he was there. “Now, let’s get back to the eyes, huh?”

For the following hour, they shelved the flirtation, and Jax was a surprisingly committed student, concentrating fully on his instruction. He taught her two techniques for startling and/or disabling her enemy: eye poking and eye gouging.

With eye poking, he explained, she should spread her second and third fingers and thrust them into her attacker’s eyes, momentarily blinding him and hopefully giving her enough time to run away.

With eye gouging, he demonstrated how to grab your assailant’s head and press your thumbs forcefully into his eye sockets with the intent of dislodging an eyeball.

Jax hesitated while performing both moves on the punching bag, which Gardener had expected, because poking or thrusting your fingers into the eyes of another human being was anathema to most people.

“I know it feels wrong to attack another creature’s eyes. We’re wired to reject it,” he told her. “But these are two really useful moves and I need you to try, okay?”

Her jabs were pathetic at first, but by the end of the hour, she was trusting herself more. Using a punching bag as a “person,” she was able to poke and gouge successfully several times.

One problem, however? For as good shape as she was in, Jax lacked the arm strength required to make either move truly effective.

He handed her two ten-pound dumbbells. “Time to build up some muscle mass in those arms.”

As she took the weights from him, their fingers brushed together, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t feel it. He did. And it sent a tiny shiver of pleasure up his arm, making his hair stand on end, making his skin long for more contact. She must have felt it too because her eyes flared deep and green, and she gulped softly as she looked up at him.

“W-what do you want me to do with these?”

“Bicep curls,” he said, pantomiming the movement and ignoring the annoying hint of gravel in his voice. “Twenty.”

“Twenty,” she said, lifting the weights from her hips to her shoulders.

“Shoulders back,” he said by rote, instantly regretting the words as she followed his instructions and Jax’s breasts, only covered by her blue sports bra, were thrust forward.

His eyes pinwheeled. His heartbeat quickened.

Blinking before looking away, he muttered, “Uh. Eighteen…seventeen…sixteen…”

“Gard…” she said between lifts, her voice breathy.

“Huh?” he asked.

“They’re breasts. Half the population has them, including your mother and sisters.”

They don’t have yours, he thought, and even though the mention of his sisters and mother should have been enough to deflate things, it wasn’t. His blood was already headed south. Fast. Very, very fast.

“Nine…eight…”

“Well, now that we’re friends, you’ll just have to stop noticing,” she declared.

Like that was even a fucking possibility. He clenched his ass cheeks together, actively willing his dick not to swell anymore and begging the universe to shut down her voice box temporarily so she’d stop talking about her breasts.

Because one, they were fucking perfect.

And two, it had been way too long since he’d felt the warm weight of a woman’s breast in his hand, and he missed it so fucking bad that his mouth watered.

“Four…three…”

She stopped at seventeen lifts, holding the dumbbells against her shoulders until he met her eyes. “Are you done?”

“With what?”

Her lips twitched, but she didn’t let herself smile, tracking her eyes down to her breasts then back up again. “With whatever’s going on