by Lindsey Hart
Jesse leaned back, his stomach tightening. It wasn’t the only thing tightening. His happy stick was doing a happy dance in his pants and he had to rearrange himself again so that it wasn’t glaringly obvious.
“I don’t think we know that at all. We spent one night together. I seem to remember it being really good, but maybe you were just faking it. All four times.”
He watched Syd’s face go completely white. The term, white as a sheet, however clichéd it was, actually worked. She was whiter than sheets. Whiter than freshly bleached and starched sheets. She looked at him like she wanted to claw him or cut him. Still debating between the two options maybe.
“And then you ran,” he had the nerve to add. “So no, I don’t know anything about any of that trying to work stuff out and neither do you. The way I see it, we could give it a shot. We could always say we decided to break it off before the wedding if it does not work. My mom would be thrilled. So would my dad. And your mom… she’d do a backflip she’d be so happy.”
Syd jumped off the couch and he was pretty sure she’d finally decided on scratching his face off. Maybe his balls. Kill two birds with one stone.
“No!” She took a step forward and waved a finger at him. “Seriously. No. You do not get to go there. Not with all of our parents.”
“The press would eat it up. Everyone would be so happy for us.”
“They would be insanely jealous of me. They’d crucify me and pick me apart. There’s a difference.”
“So, you’ve thought about it?”
“No! I haven’t thought about it! Are you crazy? This isn’t happening. Now, I’ve done my duty and come here. Do yours and let me go home. Now. Right now.” She stamped her foot for emphasis, and he couldn’t help it.
He laughed.
He hadn’t seen Syd throw a fit since she was nine years old.
Her tantrum was cut short when her phone went off, buzzing loudly in the pocket of her jeans. Her too-tight jeans that he tried very hard not to appreciate just like he tried not to notice that her ass was complete and utter perfection in them, outlined like a ripe peach.
Her hand whipped her phone out and she studied the screen for a second before she answered. Jesse could hear the voice drifting out, nearly frantic, but with excitement, not worry.
“Honey! Turn on the TV! There’s a crazy story about you being engaged to Jesse and it must be true because you’re there with him in Philly! Oh my god, why didn’t you tell me that you’ve been secretly dating? All this time?”
“Mom…” Sydney took a steadying breath. “We’re not engaged. Don’t believe the TV. That’s all lies. We were ambushed. We are definitely not engaged. We are not together. Now or ever. We are certainly never going to be married. In fact, I’ve been kidnapped. That’s why I’m here. Jesse had his bastard butler kidnap me and fly me across the country and I’m here in his house because we had to run in here to escape the stupid media and now he’s refusing to let me go back home, so technically, I’ve been kidnapped. You need to call the police not sit there sounding like this is the best thing that ever happened to you.”
“But honey, this is the best thing that happened to me! You never go on any dates and now I know why! I can finally sit back and stop worrying about you! Oh goodness! How romantic. Jesse. You always were so good together. I just know this is going to work out.”
“Mom,” Sydney groaned. “This is not going to work out. Didn’t you hear anything I said?”
“I’m not calling the police. I’m looking at my schedule trying to figure out when I can book off time.”
Sydney’s mouth fell open and she gripped the phone so tight her knuckles turned white. “Time for what?”
“To help you move, of course! And to plan a wedding! Syd, I know you! You’re just trying to downplay all of this because you’re annoyed that I found out all over the TV.”
“I’m seriously not. And I’m not moving.”
“Whatever you say, sweetie. Call me back when you’re settled in. Have fun. I love you.”
The phone clicked off. Sydney held the cell in the air like it was a snake about to strike at her, sink its fangs in deep. She turned and stared at Jesse like he was the poison spreading through her veins.
“What?” he asked sheepishly. “Seriously, if you didn’t want any of this, you shouldn’t have- drunk messaged me online. It’s still up there. I can show you the evidence.”
“No.” Sydney shook her head. She held up a hand, the color leaching from her face. “This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. You’re the worst thing that’s ever happened.”
“That’s not what you said the last time we were together.”
Syd’s face turned a pretty scarlet. It wasn’t just a bloom above her high cheekbones either. It was a full-on paint that started at her cheeks and spread down her dainty jawline and over the slender column of her neck.
“No! You do not get to bring that up. Ever. Do you hear me, Jesse? Never? This is the worst thing for both of us. We were friends. Were, because that kind of thing- what we did- it should never have happened. Ever. Like seriously, ever. And here we are, freaking with the whole world thinking that we’re engaged. Me. Engaged to you. The kid who I saw piss himself laughing quite a few times when we were kids and at least once when you were drunk when we were in college. You, the kid who barfed up pizza onto my bedroom floor. The kid who woke up in the middle of the night in my bed at a sleepover because he was scared the monsters in my closet were going to eat him. You. The kid who knew all my secrets and could use them against me. We were friends, Jesse. That was it. We made a stupid mistake ten years ago. Seriously. I’ve been paying for it ever since. I’m not going to go there again. No matter how much your mom and apparently my mom, wants it to happen.”
“No?” Jesse frowned, but he looked at Syd, really looked at her, until she got uncomfortable and had to stare at the floor.
Syd. Syd who always looked a person in the eye. Who’d never been afraid of anything. Syd who squared her shoulders and gave her middle finger to the world when shit didn’t go down how she’d planned. Jesus, a lot had changed in ten years. Maybe it all was a mistake. He felt like he didn’t even know her. She didn’t feel like his ex-best friend. She felt like a stranger standing there. A stranger. It was totally unacceptable that he felt that way about her. She wasn’t a stranger. She was never meant to be a stranger. She’d always been the one person in the world he could turn to. Trust. Call up. God, they’d gone through the first two decades of their lives together. He wasn’t giving up on her.
So, he did the one thing he could think of because if any of the old Syd was left in there, she’d never been able to resist a challenge.
“You’re scared. You meant what you said, but now that you’re here, you’re scared. You liked what happened last time and it scared you so much that you ran with your tail tucked between your legs. You’ve been running from it for ten years and now that it’s staring you in the face, you’re trying to run again. I’m not going to let that happen.”
Syd’s brows knitted together and then flew up so high that they nearly hit her hairline. “And how are you going to stop me?”
Jesse closed the distance in an instant. He didn’t want to give her time to figure out what his game was and formulate any kind of defense against it. He’d never been a very good athlete, but this time, Syd was the one going down.
She stood there frozen, like a deer in the headlights, paralyzed with indecision and shock as he wrapped his arms around her and slammed her up against his chest. She was smaller than he remembered, not frail, but just… just fine-boned. Curvy and still womanly, but feminine and dainty. She felt fragile like he could break her just by existing. Fear glistened in her eyes, but he bent his head anyway and when he slammed his lips to hers, it was pretty damn obvious how he was going to stop her.
CHAPTER 8
Sydney
The kiss. The freaking kiss that was happening to her even as she was thinking
about it. Jesse’s mouth. His lips. So soft. Warm. Delicious. He tasted good. Like something sweet, syrup or sugar or waffles with whipped cream. That kiss turned her inside out, spread a wicked fire up her legs, straight to her lady bits, which were suddenly so frustrated that the throbbing made her want to scream. Her nipples sharpened into tiny little points and her stomach was a tied-up mess that was not at all related to the hangover hell that gripped her hard. Freak, how can freaking tongue touching mine and his teeth nipping at my bottom lip make me want to orgasm?
It took all of her strength- and she was considerably strong from jogging two times a week and doing yoga on weekday mornings in her apartment, to push Jesse away.
She stepped back, panting hard, holding a hand to her vibrating lips. Yes. Vibrating. It felt like someone had clamped her onto a car battery and was pushing down hard on the accelerator, pumping her full of juice.
“W-what the hell was that?” She took a faltering step backward and nearly landed flat on her ass when her foot caught in the expensive-looking woven rug.
It wasn’t the only expensive looking thing in the place. Jesse’s house was nice. Seriously nice, from what she’d seen of it, but she was not going to be swayed by that. Or his impressive send my butler to woo and kidnap you for me routine. Or his private jet. Or how he’d bulked up and filled out and, lord, looked like he could bench press her and eat her for breakfast. Frick. She was not going to think about that. About him eating her in any capacity. Shit. She was not looking down and noticing the way his dress shirt was rolled up at the sleeves to reveal bronzed, veiny forearms, legit every single woman’s ultimate weakness. She was not dropping her eyes lower, to his expensive slacks and the bulge that was straining at the front of them.
Oh my god. Her ladybits were definitely not trembling, begging- whatever- for any of that bulge. Above all, she did not with a capital D, remember what that bulge felt like inside of her.
Okay, maybe she did remember just a little.
God. Jesse had kissed her all of one time before. That she remembered. The time that she refused to think about- the time that was not a time because she’d erased it completely out of her mushy ass mind and out of her even squishier, stupidly beating heart. So yes. Once.
It was that kiss that led to everything. Parents are right, kids, when they say that kissing leads to sin. It did lead to sin that night. The unforgivable sin of sleeping with a best friend. It ruined everything. She had no choice but to run after because that was the only option left. Staying and enjoying it in blissed-out pleasure for however long it lasted before everything went to shit- because everything always went to shit eventually, wasn’t on the agenda.
“How could you just- freaking kiss me?” she hissed when she realized Jesse was standing there, just as stunned looking as she probably was. He didn’t have any right to do the deer in the headlights routine. That was bullshit, also with a capital B.
“Because I wanted to show you that you wanted it.”
“No!” Sydney raised her hand to her lips like she could brush away that lingering kiss. “No! You don’t get to just- tell me what I want and don’t want. You’ve been trying to do that this whole time.”
“Because you said you wanted me to.”
“I’m saying now that I don’t.”
Jesse sighed, that annoying kind of sigh that her mom sometimes gave her, even as an adult. “I don’t know why you’re fighting this so hard, Syd. We were best friends. We did everything together. Everything. You took off after that night when we could have either said it was a mistake and got over it or given it a try and taken things from there. But no. You ran because you were scared of what you felt.”
Before she could stop herself, she slammed her arms over her chest like a petulant kid. “Listen here, fucknuts, I was not scared. Not of my childhood best friend who I’ve seen cry on at least ten different occasions including once when the candles went out on his birthday cake before he could actually blow them out himself.”
“I was seven!”
“Old enough not to cry over stupid shit.”
Jesse’s jaw clenched up so hard that she heard it click. Yeah. He always did that when he was pissed. Good. He needed to be pissed. Maybe then he’d agree to let her go back home.
“You were scared, Syd. Just admit it. Seriously. It was right. It felt right. We felt right. That scared you. You never dated anyone seriously. You were never in a relationship long enough for it to mean anything. By all accounts, you still haven’t been, and now you’re thirty-two years old and this isn’t some cry for help. It’s you giving in to what you’ve always wanted, even if it was your subconscious and your drunken fingers doing the work for you.”
“Stop it! You think you know me! You might have known me when we were younger, I’ll give you that, but you know less than nothing about me now. I’ve changed. And I’ve had some meaningful relationships, thank you very much. They just didn’t work out. It doesn’t mean I was scared of being hurt.”
“Yeah fucking right.” Jesse’s eyes narrowed.
He’d never been overly athletic even though his new body belied the fact. But he’d been a fierce competitor on the debate team, at chess, and any other mental exercise he put his mind to. He was smart. Clearly. Smart enough to start his own freaking company and make a difference in the world. Smart enough to make a whole pile of money doing it. Smart enough to still stay the same, at heart, because it was obvious he had.
“I don’t believe you.”
He dug in his back pocket, and god help her, she thought about his ass in those pants, tight and toned and perfectly squeezable, which made her think about knocking him down and licking him all over. Which was not at all appropriate. Obviously. It was her brain. Her swollen, drunk addled, hungover, traitorous brain betraying her all over again. As if the drunk message to him wasn’t bad enough.
He produced a phone and held it out in front of him. She watched him, breath baited.
“What do you say that we call your mom and ask her about all these meaningful relationships? She sounded pretty relieved that you were here with me and that you were engaged. She wasn’t at all worried about you being fake kidnapped. I think she’s so freaking happy that you’ve finally found someone and settled down that she’s doing a happy dance. Should we call her? Ask her to send us a video of it? I’m sure she would. Your mom was always fun. Always game for anything. I think she’ll set the record straight, don’t you?”
Sydney knew she was screwed. He’d called her bluff. Of course he did, he knew her better than pretty much anyone else on the planet. Which was a good reason to stay friends and friends only, which they couldn’t do because even though she was drunk, she remembered how good it felt being with him. How right it had been giving him her virginity.
He was the first guy who ever got her off. He might be the only guy who’d ever got her off at all. Sure, she faked it, but she hated that he was right, and he knew it.
That made him dangerous.
His not so average sized pokey stick made him dangerous.
The fact that it had been a decade and she still remembered exactly how right it felt, just like he said, when they were together, made him really dangerous.
And then, on top of it all, he’d gone and morphed into some god-like being who clearly had the ass now to be an ass model. If such things existed. And they probably did.
“I’m done here. I’m too hungover for this.”
Really, she just needed to escape. Sydney didn’t care if she had to walk the entire way back to San Francisco. She was getting the hell out of Philly, away from all the craziness and the one man on the planet who had always been far too dangerous for her heart. The one man on the planet who had the capability to break it, break her, ruin her for anyone else.
Oh, wait. He pretty much already had. Jesus effing picklebeans.
Sydney stalked to the door, head pounding, chest aching, her body an odd mix of frustrated beyond belief, sore and tired from being hungo
ver, and traitorously excited for something that was never going to happen. To top it all off, her stupid lips were still buzzing from that kiss.
Right before she reached the door, she turned around and shot Jesse the double bird. Yeah. Eat that, mothereffer.
She was done. Done with all of it. Just freaking done.
Sydney closed her hand over the ornate handle at the front door, nearly ready to let out a triumphant yell at her escape. She pushed down her nagging inner voice whispering poisonous words about never being able to escape because she couldn’t escape herself or really lie to herself. She flung the door open wide.
And froze in her tracks as an entire horde of reporters rushed across the lawn, scrambling over each other in their haste to get to her.
CHAPTER 9
Jesse
Sydney shut the front door with a yelp. She slid the deadbolt home, then did up the other two locks just for good measure. After, she leaned against the door with her back, like she needed it there to support her.
“Holy shit,” she breathed. “Holy mother loving pickles shit.”
“You know that we’re adults now,” Jesse said, amused. He leaned casually up against the wall right by the entrance, a few feet from where Syd stood taking in great gulps of air. “You can use foul language.”
“Fuck you. How’s that for starters?”
He grinned. “Much, much better. You’ve always had this crazy fighting spirit. For a second there, I thought you might have outgrown it. It’s good to see that you’re still the same old Syd.”
“Thanks. Thanks a lot. And you’re the new asshole Jesse that kidnaps people against their will, uses his money to try and wow them into some kind of crazy submission, then gets his parents to call on the attack dogs in the form of every media station on the planet to broadcast the fact that he’s totally fake engaged.”
“First of all,” Jesse corrected easily. He kept his causal position because he knew it drove her nuts. “I didn’t bribe my parents into anything. My mom did that all on her own. She’s happy that we’re together. She’s always wanted this. She always liked you. I’ve dated some real winners over the years but when she heard that we were getting married- she just about died and went to heaven. Or she’s living heaven on earth. I don’t know. She wasn’t supposed to find out, but when I had to tell her, cautiously, because I wasn’t sure what you meant by putting that message out there, she nearly did a backflip.”