by Riley Storm
“I am not scared, Grandma. Thank you for your advice. I can handle this from here,” she said, turning her back on Jax to shoo G-Nance away from the door.
“She would love to get out of the house and go on a date with you,” Nancy called as she wandered down the hallway. “Please, get her out of the house for the evening. I could use a night to myself to just relax.”
Sarah drooped.
“This isn’t fair,” she muttered to nobody in particular.
“Neither is the way you’ve judged me from the start,” Jax said quietly.
Shit. He had a point.
“Fine,” she said, whirling on him, index finger upraised. “But you have to leave me alone all day. No randomly passing through my floor, no calls, no emails. Nothing. You can pick me up when I’m done with my shift and we can do whatever you had in mind. If you do that, then I—” she hesitated, but the words eventually came. “Then I will do my best to give you a blank slate to work with. No more judging. You’ll have a chance to make a new impression on me. But if I still don’t like it, then you leave me alone. For good. Got it?”
She stuck out her hand.
Jax nodded. “I got it. I can handle that deal.” He slipped his hand over hers, engulfing it, and squeezing firmly but not hard.
Sarah shivered as her skin tingled at his touch. He was warm and so very soft, yet hard of muscle as well. She pulled her hand back, unable to stop another shudder from running down her spine. Why was it that everything about him seemed to react to her?
“I’ll meet you in the lobby at five,” Jax said quietly. “I look forward to seeing you again Sarah.”
Before she could say anything more, he was gone, leaving her at the doorway, staring at his taut ass while he walked back down the driveway to his car.
It really is a nice ass.
She was in trouble. A lot of trouble.
Chapter 20
Jax cast a long gaze out the front windows of the Outreach Center, his eyes tracking the sun as it headed down over the western horizon.
She watched him shift uneasily from one foot to the other. Was he nervous about this too?
Okay, that’s kind of cute, and a little endearing. Crap. No. Don’t think those kinds of thoughts about him.
Instead of coming up the stairs he’d expected, she’d walked the long way and come up on the far side of the lobby. This allowed her to approach him from behind, and pick up on some of his body language, see what he was like when he wasn’t aware she was watching.
He looked at his watch and then shook his arm out to drop the sleeve of his suit over it, giving his head a shake.
“Be patient, Jax. Be patient. She said she’d be here.”
Oh, my God. He’s afraid I’m going to stand him up. He’s nervous!
She’d never seen this side of him before, and a part of her wanted to keep standing there, waiting for him to react, to see what else he would do.
Abruptly, he stiffened. She saw his head turn slightly, nose lifted a little upward. Then he spun around to stare right at her.
“How did you know I was here?” she asked, shocked.
“Just a lucky guess,” he said with a helpless shrug.
That was a load of bullshit, and she knew it, but he didn’t seem willing to give away his secret, so she let it slide. Maybe it was that weird sixth sense people sometimes had about being watched that had clued him in to her approach.
“Are you still okay to go out with me?” he asked, his eyes darting outside then back to her.
“Yes,” she said. “You kept up your end of the deal, so I’ll do the same. I won’t have you thinking I’m not a woman of my word.”
“Wonderful,” Jax said, pointing to the front doors. Again, his eyes darted to the sky, then back to her as they started walking.
“Is everything okay, Jax?” she asked, realizing it might have been the first time she’d said his name out loud.
“Hmm? Yes, yes of course. Everything is fine,” he said, holding open the door for her as they emerged into the parking lot. “Better than fine, actually, if I’m completely honest with you.”
It took Sarah a moment to realize he was talking about her presence, at which point she promptly blushed. He was making a habit of making her do that, and she wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about it.
Remember. Judge him for what you’ve seen him do, not what you think he’s doing. You said you would.
She followed him across the parking lot, only belatedly realizing that she would have to be dropped off back here to get her car later.
That will give me the car ride home to think about tonight I suppose, which isn’t too bad.
“Thank you,” she said as he pulled open the door to his luxury sedan for her. She didn’t recognize the brand, but it was very nice, full of comfortable leather and slick black interior.
“My pleasure,” Jax all but purred, closing the door once she was comfortably inside.
She smiled as he raced around to his side. The drive into town was filled with small talk, which she was grateful for because it allowed her brain to properly wind down from work without immediately jumping into anything deeper.
Jax did ask if she was comfortable heading to a nicer restaurant. He’d taken her to something not-fancy the day before, so she decided it was fine to go where he wished this time. After all, she was letting him take her on a date, and if she was going to properly do that, she couldn’t object to his choice of dinner location.
But still, she appreciated him asking. It showed he cared.
Not that he’s ever done anything to make you think he didn’t if you’re honest with yourself.
“Is someone else sitting here?” she asked as they were shown to a table with a selection of food already on it, and several bottles of wine.
“No,” he said sheepishly. “But I figured that, if you were anything like me, you’d be starving after work and having something to pick at while we talk before a meal would be nice.”
“But there’s so much.”
“Um.” Jax looked embarrassed.
“What is it?” she asked, her eyes alighting on some calamari. She hadn’t had that in ages. Probably not since moving from Boston!
“Well, I didn’t know what you liked,” he began awkwardly.
“So, you just ordered a bunch of stuff?” she asked, unable to keep from smiling.
“I wanted to get it right,” he said with a helpless shrug. “I’m trying to dig myself out of a hole here, you know.”
“Oh gosh,” she said, surprising herself with a laugh. “You didn’t have to do something like this. You’re not in that big of a hole. It was just…I just wasn’t ready for you to kiss me,” she said, though it wasn’t entirely the truth.
She remembered the way her body had reacted to him. The way it wanted to react before she’d said no.
“I understand. You…you’re wary of men like me, for reasons you don’t have to explain,” he said, holding up a hand to forestall her protests. “It’s okay. That much is kind of clear.”
Sarah smiled helplessly, not sure what to say.
“Can I ask one question about it though?” he continued, pushing the calamari toward her, having noticed the way she was eyeing it excitedly. “Here.”
“Thank you,” she said. “Um, you can ask. I’m not going to promise I’ll answer.”
“That’s fair. I was just wondering if that’s what made you leave Boston,” Jax said, digging into some fresh bread, slathering a cheese-filled butter over it.
She was going to have to try some of that as well.
“No. No that wasn’t it. Though it, I guess, made the decision easier?”
“I see.” It was written plainly on his face that Jax wanted to know why she’d left.
You may as well tell him. Perhaps it will help him understand your actions.
“I left Boston because of another reason,” she said. “I worked for a well-known firm who dealt in high-end clients. Very prestigious in
the IT world, if there is such a thing.”
Jax nodded, his mouth full of bread, preventing him from saying anything, but it was obvious she had his full attention.
“I got promoted to team lead there, and I thought things were going great.” She winced, recalling the red flags she should have seen ahead of time. “As it turns out, it wasn’t necessarily because of my skill at the job, but rather, the way I looked.”
“Your boss,” Jax said.
“Yeah. He had designs on me, thought that by promoting me, he would have a better chance of getting favors from me. That I would feel I owed him because of what he’d done for me.”
“That asshole,” Jax growled, clearly angry.
“I said no, obviously, because I’m not that type of woman. He got upset.”
“So, you quit and left?” Jax supplied.
“No.” Sarah steeled herself against the painful memories. “Before I could quit, he fired me. Then he proceeded to blackmail my name to every company in Boston. He was very thorough. Nobody wanted to hire me, I had no job prospects, and Boston isn’t exactly a cheap city to live in. So, I weighed my options and left.”
The growl that came from Jax’s throat had Sarah sitting back in her chair. Why was he so upset on her behalf?
“What’s his name?”
“Why do you want to know his name?” she asked, confused.
“I have some pull. I might be able to…arrange something, for that bastard,” Jax snarled, his eyes wide.
“What?” she yelped. “No. Jax, no it’s fine. Please, don’t. That’s not what I want. I wouldn’t have told you if I thought you were going to get like this. It happened five-and-a-half years ago. I just want to move on. To live the life I have here.”
The big man settled somewhat, and his gaze softened. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure,” she said, oddly touched by how much he cared about the way she’d been treated. It helped ease some of her concerns about him being the same sort of person.
“Okay. Though I’m still a little confused.”
“About what?” she asked, glad to move away from that line of conversation.
“Why here though?” Jax pushed. “Why Plymouth Falls? You could have gone down the coast, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, etc. Plenty of large cities where you could have gotten a job, where your old boss had no influence.”
“I know. But something just told me that Plymouth Falls was the place to go.” She didn’t know how to explain it, to explain the tug that had guided her to land in the small town where her grandmother had moved to retire to many years before. “I can’t explain it. I just…I just felt like this was the right option.”
Jax was staring at her now, his attention unwavering, bread forgotten about. “Like it was fate,” he said quietly.
“Maybe,” she agreed with a shrug. “I don’t know. But I’m here now, and I’m enjoying it. The small-town life agrees with me. I don’t think I could ever see myself heading back to the big city again. I like it here.”
Jax smothered a smile, but she could tell he was happy with that answer. That it worked well with him was obvious.
“I promise you, I will never do anything like that. If you do accept that I’m not like your old boss, or the rich men you used to know, but decide not to pursue things between us, you will face no repercussions from me. I swear it.”
“I believe you,” she said, the words coming out like reflex. Yet, there was no hollow pit in her stomach, no sudden regret at telling a lie. Sarah blinked, looking into herself briefly, trying to figure out why not.
She actually believed him, that was why. She believed that he would be a good person about this.
Whatever ‘this’ is, I guess.
“I’m sorry,” she said, resting a hand on the table halfway between them. “I didn’t mean to turn this all somber and serious.”
Jax’s hand slipped across the table to come to a rest near hers, his fingers only slightly overlapping, the barest of touches. “It’s alright, truly. We all have things in our past, things we’re not the proudest of, or wish we had handled differently.”
He kept speaking, but Sarah didn’t hear him. Her brain was filled with a dull roar, the sound of blood rushing through it as her heart pumped faster. His touch was igniting all sorts of fires across her body, and Sarah couldn’t help but imagine that strong hand delivering its delicate touch across her body.
She swallowed nervously and looked back up at Jax, trying to focus, because one thing had just become extremely clear to her. Dinner had just gotten a lot harder to focus on.
Chapter 21
Jax struggled through dinner.
He wanted to give Sarah his full attention, to focus entirely and completely on her, but he couldn’t. To do that would mean diverting some of his considerable willpower away from the ongoing war being waged in his mind.
Jax’s dragon was awake and it was active. It roared continuously inside him, staking its claim on the beautiful thick-figured woman across from him. There was nothing it wanted more than to hurl the table out of the way and take her to the ground. A few quick tears in her clothing and he could claim her, could make her his own.
He fought back, of course, knowing that doing so was not only inconsiderate to Sarah, but also to the other patrons of Leblanc, the restaurant where they sat. This wasn’t the wild, he wasn’t an animal and couldn’t have her then and there.
However, the fight was a slowly losing cause, because there was no way Jax could deny to himself that he didn’t want her either. He had felt the heat in her mouth, had heard the pleased gasp when he’d kissed her. Like Sarah behind the image she was projecting to him now, he knew there was something there. Something the two of them were fighting against.
All throughout dinner, he dug in his heels, forcing himself to wait for the right moment. If he was too soon, she wouldn’t be relaxed enough, because Sarah needed to establish more trust with him first, to develop more knowledge of who he was, to reassure herself that he wouldn’t do anything if she backed out, said no.
Though I do not think you wish to, Miss Mingott. No, not at all, if the throbbing of your artery in your neck is any indicator. You are just as nervous, yet excited, as I am. You know there are several ways this evening could end, and I suspect that you have already realized we’re headed for a collision course and that only you can stop it.
The entrées came shortly after they had ordered them, courtesy of Jax bribing the entire kitchen staff before arrival. Not because he wanted to show off, but because time was of the essence.
He was not in a hurry to seal the deal with Sarah. If it required him to wait another night or five for their physical desires to manifest, then he would wait for her, he knew that.
Unfortunately, the night would not wait, and he could not afford to be out so late. Not with Sarah in such close proximity to her. Either she agreed to come back to his place after dinner, or he would be forced to leave before the sun went down, to prevent his mortal enemy from finding out about her.
He only hoped he could depart without making her think that he hadn’t had fun.
Shortly after they had finished eating, again at his discreet and prior request, the lights dimmed slowly, and in the background, a live four-piece band took up a slow tune. He felt somewhat manipulative, but at the same time, he was not going to push Sarah to do anything she didn’t want to. If she said no, he would back off, though his dragon wouldn’t like it one bit.
“Would you like to dance?” he asked, standing and extending his hand across the table, trying his hardest to keep it from shaking, from betraying the nerves he felt at possibly being in such close proximity to a woman he found irresistible on all fronts.
“I think I could handle that,” she said, taking his hand and rising. “Just as long as it’s nothing formal. I don’t know anything fancy, just, uh, just high-school-style turn and sway.”
Even in the dimmed light, Jax saw her face glow slightly, but he smiled at
her, making sure not to laugh, wanting her to stay reassured. Relaxed. This was about making her comfortable with him, and if she grew self-conscious of her dancing ability, that would not be good.
“That sounds wonderful,” he told her, guiding her out onto the small dance floor.
Before they had even come together, however, he lifted the arm holding her hand into the air, and very slowly, very gently, moved it in a circle.
Sarah laughed lightly as she spun underneath, coming around to face him. At the same time, Jax stepped forward, slipping his hand onto her waist and interlocking the fingers of their already joined hands. His ultra-sharp hearing caught a slight hiss of air from her mouth at the sudden proximity, but she didn’t shy away.
“I seem to remember there being a lot more space between us in high school,” she remarked with a clearly nervous giggle.
Jax shrugged. “Would you like to part?” he asked, wanting to offer, though he desperately wanted to stay like this, with her head inches from his chest, the smell of her shampoo wafting coconut into his nose. Yes, this was what he wanted. What he craved.
“No,” she said at last. “No, I don’t think that will be necessary tonight. After all, we’re a long way from high school now, aren’t we?”
“Yes, yes. I suppose we are,” he murmured into her ear, leaning down over her slightly.
They swayed slowly in a circle, Jax guiding their steps with careful precision, wanting to make Sarah feel as comfortable with him as possible. It seemed to be working because halfway through the second song she slowly let her head rest on his chest.
“You’re very warm,” she said in a thick voice slurred slightly by the increasing tension between them.
“You’re quite hot yourself,” he replied, meaning it in an entirely different manner.
“I don’t understand why you think that,” she said. There was a pause, then she continued abruptly. “Like you, my old boss. Both of you. Now, you’re far more attractive than he is, it’s not even close, but he wasn’t some old beer-bellied, balding lecher of a creep either. I don’t get why you both would be interested in someone like me?”