Rogue - Michele Mannon Page 0,66

all I can wonder about is why go on an uncharacteristic bender now? Yeah, Jaxson’s full of surprises. But I’ve never seen him like this.

“Dumb ass,” I tell him, “you’re leaving yourself open. I could seriously hurt you right now.”

He snorts. I’m unsure if this means he doubts I can kick his ass or worse . . . that I’ve already hurt him.

Damn. Damn. Damn.

He scowls fiercely at me, his lips drawn in an increasingly unfamiliar tight line. Then, turning his back on me, the foolish, foolish man strides over to the small writing table beside the hotel-room window.

I scramble to my feet, all too familiar with the warm blush of awareness washing over me. His presence always does that to me. And the achingly familiar cocky tilt of his head reminds me of the sexy, blasé, balls-to-the-walls man I loved.

I watch him a bit breathlessly as he plucks up a chocolate bonbon from the delectable stash of sweets spread out buffet-style on napkins I’ve laid out on the table. Disbelieving what I’m seeing—he’s alive, drunk, and in my room, eating my damn bonbons. When he turns back to me, our eyes connect a second before he pops a little taste of heaven into his mouth, chews, swallows, then proceeds to make my life a living hell by darting his tongue out and licking the sugar off his lusciously full lips. Naughty boy. He knows exactly what he’s doing. And I find myself falling for it, over and over and over again.

Keep your patisseries, Paris. I’ve got a deeper hunger. A craving. For him.

“Help yourself,” I manage to say.

He plucks a second confection from the desk and consumes it in two bites, all the while raking his gaze over me, from my chest to my thighs and down to my strappy peekaboo-toed sandals. “Deceptive little morsels. So pretty on the outside—” He pauses to lick bonbon glaze off his fingers. “—but rotten to the core on the inside.”

God, he hates me. Jaxson honest-to-God hates me. And almost as bad is how I’m guilty as charged. Nothing I can say is going to change that.

Gone is the lover who’d held me in his arms when I was at my most vulnerable and needed him with me. Inside me. Gone is the naughty charmer who took me under his wing, into his bed, and worked his way deep inside my heart. Gone is the Jaxson I loved. Gone but not forgotten.

No. Given present circumstances, make that gone and best forgotten.

I glare at him.

Unfazed, he picks up a third bonbon, then crushes it between his fingers, crumbs falling like teardrops onto the carpet.

I step by him, careful to keep out of arm’s reach as I repack the confections into the bakery bag and pretend to tidy up the desk. “It takes someone special to be able to distinguish between what’s genuine and what’s not. To find the bonbon mixed inside a box of donut holes.” I toss the words over my shoulder.

He moves across the room, all the while watching me in the floor-to-ceiling mirror on the far wall. “I’ll be the judge of that.”

“Too late. I just put everything away.” I feel his eyes on me as I transfer crumbs off of the napkins and onto one, taking my time as I fold each one in half and place it in a neat stack. “Though I suppose everything tastes the same after consuming an entire bottle of bourbon.” I finished up, scrunching and tossing the used napkin into the trash can by the desk.

I’m tempted to call room service for a bottle of table wax so I can polish and polish and polish the fine cherry surface until my face is reflected back at me. Watch the relief spread across it as Jaxson presses a hand into my back and bends me forward over the table. My teeth gritted and my throat contracted by my moans as he shows me exactly how much he’s forgiven me. “I’ll spread the whole damn bag back out across this desk. I’ll do whatever it takes to help change your mind. But you have to want it. You’ve got to ask for it.”

“No need to go through all the trouble. I’ve already gotten a taste of what’s inside.” He sucks the sugar off of one finger, then another. Intentionally reminding me exactly where those fingers had been the last time we met. Then he cocks his head slightly and stares at me in the mirror. Daring