by C. R. Ellis
“He’s a teenager, Natasha. That’s not exactly unusual. Give him some space.”
Nathan was the unforeseen circumstance.
He was a kid I’d spent the last decade mentoring, and had come to love like a brother. About a month after I left New York, his foster family had a family emergency that required them to move out of state. Nate was a few weeks shy of his eighteenth birthday at the time, so finding a new foster family for him proved difficult. As a last resort, I’d reached out to Natasha to see if she could use her family’s connections to find a placement for him.
I hadn’t expected her to volunteer herself, but it made the most sense at the time. She’d gotten to know him over the course of our relationship, and it was the best option.
“Space?” She huffed out a breath. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. Maybe you should catch an earlier flight this week so we can talk to him together.”
I held in the annoyed groan her request summoned, knowing I had to tread lightly. “I can’t just hop on an earlier flight. You know that. I’m still the new guy at Cobalt and still have to prove myself. Like I said, just give him some space, and I’ll come over after my meeting on Thursday. We can talk to him then.”
After ironing out the details of my upcoming visit, we hung up, and I made a mental note to check in with Nate tomorrow.
The situation with Natasha was delicate. Reading people was part of my job, and I was damn good at it. I knew Natasha still held out hope that we’d get back together. I had no interest in rekindling that relationship, but until Nate left for college in August, I couldn’t very well tell her that.
I looked up from my phone in time to see Jasmine emerge from the bathroom and walk back toward her table. While things with Natasha were somewhat predictable, the situation with Jasmine was the complete opposite. She was a wildcard, and I had no fucking clue what to think about our conversation.
I shifted my focus from Jasmine to something I actually had control over – drinking six more beers and going home with the next woman I saw. As luck would have it, a blue-eyed brunette I’d never seen before was watching me from across the terrace. I flashed her a smile that told her I was interested, and she blushed in response.
I walked to the bar to get another beer, and the brunette sauntered over two minutes later. “You here for the bride or the groom?” she asked, not sounding particularly interested in my answer.
“Bride. She’s my sister,” I responded, turning to face her. I let my eyes wander a bit and realized that she was just as attractive close-up as she was from a distance. I smiled and stuck my hand out. “I’m Dean.”
“Ashley. Nice to meet you,” she supplied, placing her hand in mine.
“Likewise. What about you? Jade or Emmett?” For some reason, I found myself hoping she wasn’t friends with Jade and Jasmine; that would put a serious damper on any thoughts of a one-time-only roll in the sheets with her.
“Emmett. My parents have been friends with his aunt and uncle since we were kids.”
I nodded and smiled back at her after breathing a sigh of relief. Our conversation continued, and I could tell by the way she kept giggling that she’d had a few drinks. Not enough to make her drunk, but enough to make her overly flirty.
“So what do you do, Dean?” she asked, batting her thick eyelashes at me.
“I’m a security and investigation specialist with Cobalt Global. It’s basically a fancy title for a P.I.-slash-bodyguard.”
“I see,” she said, letting her eyes rake over my body. “That’s a noble career choice. If I needed a bodyguard, I’d definitely want you to be it. I’d love to see your skills in action.”
Back in New York, when I told women I was a detective for the NYPD, it almost always got me laid. Apparently, working in the private sector was just as enticing. Ashley didn’t even try to be subtle in her intentions about how she wanted tonight to end.
I briefly wondered what it meant that I felt a tiny sliver of guilt about hooking up with her when I wasn’t remotely interested in seeing her after tonight. Then again, she lived halfway across the country and seemed to be looking for the same thing I was.
The guilt vanished when I caught sight of Jasmine tucked neatly under Paul’s arm as they talked to Jade and Emmett. Seeing them together shouldn’t have affected me at all, but it did.
Eventually the party wound down, and I needed to make a decision. I needed a distraction from the internal chaos that Jasmine caused me, and this was it. I pushed back from the bar to stand before turning to Ashley and asking, “Do you want to get out of here?”
A seductive smile spread slowly across her face, and she slid her half-full beer bottle across the bar. “Lead the way, Detective Delicious.”
I knew a one-night-stand wasn’t a fix-all for my problems where Jasmine was concerned, but it was better than sitting here while Jasmine carried on with her life like everything was sparkles and unicorns.
Chapter 5
Jasmine
What do you do when yoga isn’t enough? Wine. All the wine.
Jasmine Winters, describing the cure-all for boy troubles
There weren’t enough yoga poses in the world to calm the raging storm of anger Dean’s words generated in me. I generally made it a point to avoid purposeful exercise, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
In the two weeks since Jade and Emmett’s engagement party I’d tried every yoga pose known to man, and not one of them had been the perfect recipe to ease the anger I felt each time I replayed that night’s conversation. For Jade’s sake, I had pulled myself together and moved on with the night, but all the false bravado in the world wasn’t enough to fool myself when I was left alone with my thoughts.
My frustration only intensified when the image of Emmett’s childhood friend running her hand over his leg came to mind. I didn’t stick around long enough to see if they left together. I did, however, formulate a few barbs pointing out how ironic it was that he’d all but called me a slut when he was the one picking up a random girl at his sister’s fucking engagement party.
I felt like a fraud, carrying on with Jade and Paul like nothing had changed, when internally, everything had changed. The exchange with Dean broke the dam that had been holding back the approximately seventeen thousand emotions he made me feel.
Anger. Desire. Pain. Lust. Frustration. Fear. Confusion.
These, plus other emotions I didn’t even have a name for, coursed through me. I’d never let any man get under my skin like this. It wasn’t healthy having so many contradicting feelings running amuck inside my head.
I was downward-dog-deep into my Saturday morning yoga session when I realized at least part of my anger should’ve been directed toward myself. Dean might’ve gotten under my skin, but he couldn’t take all the blame for the way my body and brain reacted to him.
Was Dean right about things with Paul? It annoyed the hell out of me that he could waltz back into my life after all this time and know me. Paul was everything a girl should be happy to have in a boyfriend—sweet, funny, super-hot, understanding, not overbearing, and not arrogant at all. Things with him were blissfully normal.
So why am I questioning my relationship with him?
I sucked in a deep breath and forced myself to focus on the various yoga poses I used to warm up. Bridge pose. Tree pose. Bow pose. Warrior pose. Child’s pose.
The only thing they were good for was steadying my breathing, not my nerves. Even that was short-lived when a sharp banging on my door ripped me from my faux-calm state.
“Jas! Open up! You promised you’d help us move my stuff out of the apartment today, remember?” Jade shouted.
Shit. I groaned and collapsed into Total Mess on the Floor pose. I heard Jade talking to Emmett as she dug out her key and dragged myself to my feet to avoid being caught sprawled out on the floor.
Jade threw open the door and strolled in, instantly taking in the mess that was my apartment. The OCD wheels were already turning in
her head; I could tell. She walked toward the kitchen, setting her sights on the pile of dishes I’d been avoiding.
“Don’t even think about it, JP,” I ordered, following her gaze and rolling up my yoga mat. The last time Jade helped me with dishes it led to a three-hour complete makeover of my kitchen.
She finally stopped looking around and noticed my appearance and the yoga mat in my hands. “What is with you and Dean both being half-naked when I come in?” she asked, referring to the fact that I was indeed wearing only a sports bra and shorts. “And since when do you do…yoga?”
I hardly even heard her dubious question because right after she said “half-naked,” my eyes moved past her, and I caught a glimpse of Dean walking into the kitchen of Jade’s soon-to-be former apartment. He wore only a pair of workout shorts that hugged his hips astonishingly well, drawing the eye to the perfect V-shape at the bottom of his core. His flawlessly toned and tanned torso made it impossible not to recognize him as the statuesque, god-like man candy he was.
Jee-sus. It was a shame such a perfect body was wasted on a man incapable of being anything but utterly fucking infuriating.
Dean did a double take when he looked up and saw me, locking his eyes onto mine. His stare couldn’t have lasted longer than a fraction of a second, and yet, it was long enough for me to notice I wasn’t the only one who’d been struggling with their emotions. His dark chestnut-colored hair was everywhere, his face looked tired from not enough sleep, and his scruff-lined jaw was already clenched again. Everything about his demeanor screamed tension, like he was already bracing himself for our next round of verbal sparring.
I should’ve cared about my appearance, but I didn’t. I’d always been confident in my looks so I never shied away from showing a little skin. I knew it didn’t matter that Emmett was in my apartment; it’s not like he’d even looked in the direction of another female since meeting Jade. I could strip down to my birthday suit and he wouldn’t notice. Dean, on the other hand…
The thought of Dean’s reaction brought a wicked smile to my lips. I forced my eyes back to Jade so I wouldn’t do something stupid.
“What, a girl can’t take up exercising?” I retorted, putting my hand on my hip.
Emmett stifled a laugh, and Jade looked at me like she thought I’d knocked a few screws loose upstairs.
“Um, sure, Jas.” She hesitated, still giving me a funny look. “Does this mean you’ll start running with me?”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, right. Running marathons is a far cry from doing a little yoga.”
“I don’t run marathons, and you know it. I’m just saying, it would be nice to work out together… since I won’t be living right across the hall anymore,” she said sadly.
“Okay, I’ll consider maybe working out with you. Just stop with the fucking puppy dog eyes!” I threw my yoga mat at her. She simultaneously dodged it and pumped her fist in victory at my possible concession. Jesus. You’d think I just told her I’d give her a kidney. “Although, if anything, it should be me guilt tripping you into something, since you’re technically the one abandoning me.”
“Too late, you already agreed! Plus, it’s not like I’m going far. The house is only ten minutes away,” she said, walking into my bedroom.
She emerged seconds later and threw a pink tank top at me. I pulled the shirt over my head and resisted the urge to give myself a once-over before following Jade and Emmett. It didn’t matter that my hair was a wild mess; it’s not like I was trying to impress anyone while moving Jade’s stuff.
Luckily, Emmett and Jade bought new furniture to accommodate their new house, so she was leaving most of her things behind for Dean. She’d slowly been taking her clothes out of the apartment, so her closet mostly consisted of shoes and some of my clothes that hadn’t made their way back to my apartment. The bulk of her stuff we needed to move was in the kitchen and living room, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized I wouldn’t have to be in what was now Dean’s bedroom for long.
I hadn’t been over in weeks since she was always at Emmett’s. I felt a little uncomfortable being in Dean’s space, especially since we hadn’t spoken since the engagement party. As weird as it was, I couldn’t stop myself from looking around. There wasn’t much to see, though; Dean wasn’t the type to hang up photos or have elaborate decorations. I did catch a glimpse of a photo in the bedroom of Dean with a young kid, maybe ten years old. My curiosity was instantly piqued, but I wasn’t about to ask about it.
Dean and I had only spoken to each other when necessary. “Excuse me,” “watch out,” that kind of thing. We didn’t go out of our way to avoid each other, but we weren’t having real conversations, either. If Jade and Emmett noticed, neither said anything about it.
After two trips to their house and about a thousand trips up and down the stairs to the SUV, we finished loading the last of Jade’s things. All of us lingered in the parking lot, making small talk. Jade got a funny expression on her face and glanced from me to Dean and back again. “Hey, let’s go out for dinner and drinks later.”
Emmett immediately nodded, adding, “It’s my treat, as a thank you for helping us today.”
Just because Dean and I had managed not to strangle each other didn’t mean I wanted to tempt fate. With Dean it was a matter of when, not if, we would tear each other apart with our words (or hands, if we’re talking clothing and if we could manage to keep our verbal battles out of the equation). Somehow I knew our exchange at the party had done irreparable damage to the aloof indifference we’d forced for so long.
Dean and I both tried to decline, offering equally awful excuses in unison.
Jade narrowed her eyes at both of us, and I was certain she could see through our lame-ass excuses. “Jas, you aren’t actually going to do work on a free Saturday night, and we both know that. And Dean, the lake will still be there tomorrow. It’s free food and booze, what is wrong with y’all?”
I shifted my feet, contemplating a rebuttal. I should’ve known she wouldn’t buy the work excuse. Dean looked about as uncomfortable as I felt, with his ever-present furrowed brow and narrowed gaze. My eyes wandered down to Dean’s torso as he sucked in a deep breath. Jasmine! Stop picturing the bare chest you saw hours ago.
“Come on! We haven’t all gone out together since you moved back, Dean.”
Dean was over a foot taller than Jade, but height was just a number; he’d bend over backward for her and she knew it.
“All right, you win, J. I’ll come.” Dean sighed, throwing his hands up in defeat. He looked at me expectantly. We’d avoided direct eye contact all day, and now I realized why. Looking into his emerald irises was enough to make any girl squirm, and I couldn’t deny that it did something to me. That jawline, those eyes…I had to pull myself away from his stare before I involuntarily flung myself at him.
“You can invite Paul, too, if you want,” Jade offered, clearly as an afterthought.
I almost snorted at her offer as memories of the last time Dean and Paul interacted flashed in my mind. “He’s out of town for work.”
“Then it’ll just be the four of us! Great! Let’s meet at Tía Maria’s for dinner, and then we can take one car from there. Y’all might wanna ride together since parking is pretty tight on the weekends.”
Dean started coughing to cover his surprise at Jade’s suggestion. My eyes widened, and I diverted my gaze. As luck would have it I stared right over at Emmett, who was looking at me with a knowing expression written all over his ridiculously handsome face. An expression that told me he wasn’t completely oblivious to the weirdness between Dean and me. Fucking awesome.
“Jade, why don’t we come back over in a while, and you two can get ready together, then we can all ride together,” Emmett offered.
I gave him a half-smile in appreciation. I knew there was a reason I liked him.
Jade turned and stood on her toes to kiss him. “Emmett Sinclair, you are a giant sweetheart, you know that?”
Emmett smiled
down at his bride-to-be, and her eyes lit up when they found his. They started kissing again, and this time it wasn’t just a chaste kiss of gratuity. Emmett’s arms wrapped around Jade as he gently pushed her against the SUV. I halfway expected them to start ripping each other’s clothes off right there in the parking lot.
Dean cleared his throat after a few seconds. “So…I’m just going to head back upstairs and try to scrub this image from my brain,” he mumbled. “See y’all later.”
I waited to follow behind Dean until there wasn’t a chance for me to catch up to him. But he was casually leaning against the wall outside my apartment when I made it there.
What the hell? My heart nearly stopped beating. I tried to ignore how hot he looked with messy hair and cutoff sleeves that perfectly displayed his shoulders and biceps. Apparently watching Jade and Emmett’s make-out session had gotten me all hot and bothered. That had to be it.
“Jasmine,” he called, eyes softening. He slackened his jaw and stepped in front of my door, blocking my path inside. “Look, I know you’re probably just as thrilled about being roped into tonight as I am, but it is what it is.”
I stared at him, wondering where he was going with that statement. “Spit it out, Dean. What’s your point?” I blew a flyaway strand of hair from my face and tilted my head back to meet his eyes.
“I’m proposing that we call a truce on whatever issues we have with each other. For now,” he offered with a mischievous smile.
Christ. Only Dean could make me want to smack the dimples off his face and kiss him all at the same fucking time. Sometimes it felt like he was single-handedly splitting my personality in two—one part that hated him and one part that wanted to climb him like a tree.
“A truce? You really think we can lay our weapons down and have a regular night out?” My tone came across a tad more harshly than I’d meant for it to. I pulled in as much air as my lungs allowed and forced my shoulders to straighten. The movement inadvertently tugged my tank top down, exposing a sliver of my neon yellow sports bra.