by Andrea Tyse
She didn’t know that he was here watching her. And that made him feel like a bit of a creeper, so he walked toward her sleeping form and sat down next to her. He quickly placed a hand over her mouth, and whispered in a sing song voice, "Guess what I’ve got."
+
Emma gasped and shoved the large hand away in terror as she eyed her nemesis sitting cross legged on the floor next to her bed. Her glasses dangled off one of Jax’s fingers in front of her nose. Sitting up, Emma let the blankets fall to her waist and tried to reach for her glasses.
"Uh, uh uhh, no you don’t get them so easily." He teased as he leaned back, and held the glasses away from her behind his head.
He looked at her and saw she was wearing something like an old tank top. Without her glasses on he could see Emma had pretty blue eyes and long blond hair that curled a little bit here and there. Her hair, which Emma often wore in a ponytail, was longer than he thought. It trailed down her back, wisps of it fraying around her face. Jax always liked long hair on a blond.
Zoning in on her breasts again he stared, it was hard not to. Her full breasts strained the front of the material, her nipples easily seen pinpoints in her shirt. When she twisted a little to grab at the glasses behind him, he got a view of her naked flesh from the side. One little twist and his mouth went dry. Jax instantly knew what he wanted in trade.
He had been absurdly, just for a moment, pissed off when Paul had taunted Emma making fun of her full tits. Jax had never cared in the past, but since he had been watching Emma the last couple weeks, he had felt a small streak of possessiveness kick in. At the time he shrugged it off, and went back to drinking beer with his buddies. Being faced with what might be the best pair of tit’s he’d ever seen when he had the upper hand so to speak was just too much of an opportunity to pass up. He was such a hypocrite, Jax thought as he grinned evilly while tisk tisking at her.
"If I give you these, you gotta do a something for me in return."
Emma was instantly on guard. "Please give them back they’re my only pair and I can't afford to replace them."
Her tone was completely flat and her expression was one he wasn’t exactly used to. She was showing her dislike again like she had earlier. Usually she would get this owlish, indignant, look on her face and walk away from him. Unexpectedly Emma was playing mouse to his cat.
Interesting.
Jax wasn't expecting such an honest answer either, ‘I can’t afford’ wasn’t in the vocabulary of most kids in this town. Most kids he knew would have rather lied than admit they were poor.
She looked tired, and her bottom lip was a little swollen in the light. Maybe Emma needed a little fun in her life. He was fun. Jax could be magnanimous and actually let her in on it for once.
Jax leaned back on his hands, showing his wide chest off. He gave her a smile that all the girls adored and said, "All you have to do is sit on my lap, honey, that’s it."
The look on her face said she thought he’d lost his mind. Maybe he had.
"If I sit on your lap you promise to give them back?" She was looking at him now, like she had just asked, “Do I have to sit on a pile of shit, too?”
Man, she really hated him. He smoothed his grin out so she wouldn’t know how amused he was. "Yup,” he leaned forward just slightly, and patted a muscled thigh with one big hand.
He didn't expect her to actually go for it, but she wrapped the sheet around her torso, and quickly shuffled over to sit down. As soon as she got close he sprung his arms around her, and settled her between his thighs on the floor. She let out a small yell but quickly silenced herself.
Jax bent his dark head next to her blond one, and said in a voice that was teasing but lightly flirtatious at the same time, "Not so bad, right?" Emma let out a huff, and tried to peel his locked fingers apart from where they rested just under her breasts.
"Let go.” She squirmed around in his lap and he enjoyed every second of it. “Why don’t you go torment one of your many whores, oh I’m sorry, I meant your friends."
"I don't think so, not yet in any case." Jax said as he nuzzled the side of her neck. Emma stilled under the caress.
"Emmmmaaaa, you smell delicious," his tongue snaked out and tasted her, "Taste good too." Jax could hear her breathing change and feel her heart beating against her ribs faster, and faster. This was way more fun than the shit he did to her in high school.
He licked the side of her face trying to make her wiggle, and tell him he was a jerk, but a loud crash downstairs froze them in place.
Emma turned to stone between his legs. They could hear climbing footsteps on the stairs. All of a sudden Emma exploded into action struggling to get out of his arms. Jax tried to sooth her by whispering in her ear, “Hey, it’s ok,” but she struggled harder against his hold instead.
Letting her go Jax watched as Emma elbowed him in the ribs and quickly got up as he clutched at his side in mock pain. Emma didn't laugh or try to sooth his false hurt, but pulled him up by his arm, and practically shoved Jax out of the window almost before he could grab a branch and swing into the tree. As Jax settled his weight onto a sturdy limb he watched in dismay as Emma's door open with a loud bang. Her father drunkenly charged inside her room waving a liquor bottle dangerously around as he yelled at her.
Jax was a bully, he knew it, he took pleasure in it most of his life. He'd never been very nice to but a very few of his friends, or even the girls he fucked. He was used to them falling at his feet, and they didn't seem to care that he treated them like shit. But sitting on that tree watching Emma cower in front of her dad changed something in Jax. He didn't want to leave Emma in there alone. He didn't like seeing her scared. She had never really been scared of Jax, just annoyed and he liked that he could get a rise out of her on a rare occasion. He didn't like what her father was doing now, and he had a good idea that she’d endured more than yelling over the years. He thought back to her lip and started getting mad.
Jax watched with a scowl until her father retreated to his own section of the house.
The one thing that stood out in Jax's mind was that she hadn’t snitched on him. As much as he was an asshole to Emma her whole life, she could have told her daddy that a strange boy had broken into her room just now. That he had tried to blackmail her into letting him touch her secretly sexy body. She endured her father’s drunken tirade, and Jax hadn’t seen Emma once look out the window where he had sat just outside.
She had protected him.
Jax narrowed his eyes as he watched Emma close her door, and come to the window. She saw him sitting in the tree, and slowly shut the window, and then pulled her curtains closed.
+
Working the checkout counter wasn't an exciting job, but Emma was comfortable there. She liked talking to some of the older customers, and blushed when the old men would come in and flirt with her. She thought that they were just being nice, trying to get a shy young girl to smile. She always felt panic when her old classmates came into the store. They would either try to get her to sell them beer, ignore her, or make it plain that they thought she was a loser working at the local store, and not in some college paid for by mommy and daddy.
She began checking out the next customer, not really paying attention when a greeting card rolled up to the register.
Emma picked it up and smiled as she said, "You picked a good one, it’s very pretty." It was one of the more expensive cards the store sold. Someone with some artistic talent had created an abstract layering of paper. The top of the card had a little pair of glasses on it and under it said, “I’ve searched without seeing, and seen without searching.”
Her smile faded quickly when she saw it was Jax standing at the register, looking like he had all the time in the world.
"Hey Jax," she said slowly. Now the card with glasses made sense.
"You think I have good taste, huh?"
"It’s very pretty, and no I don’t." She ran the card through and did her best to not look at Jax. Emma had also done her b
est not to think of Jax ever since he’d crawled through her window. But the smell of him, the weight of his arms wrapped around her waist as she sat between his thighs haunted her mind. Even now she suppressed the memory of his deep voice, the brush of his lips as he had struggled with her on the floor.
"How do they smell?" he asked.
“What?” Emma had no idea what Jax was talking about when he brought forward a bouquet of roses he’d been holding behind his back. Jax’s long dark hair slid into his eyes as he gave her a look Emma would have guessed he practiced in the mirror to get just right. Emma asked if he had and Jax ignored her with an arched black brow and handed the flowers over.
Emma brought the flowers up to her nose, and inhaled the sweet scent. "They smell better than the ones you rigged with a joke water squirter in the 7th grade," she said dryly.
"Consider them a peace offering for last night." He leaned against the counter looking like a male model for some hip brand of clothing all the rich kids were wearing.
Jax made everything look good, Emma thought. He wore a black leather jacket with a white t-shirt underneath that fit his heavily muscled form perfectly. Emma let her eyes slide over his chest to the red dragon design on the t-shirt that stretched across it. The tail of the dragon slid down his waist over ribbed abs and into his jeans. His clothes cost more than she made in a week. Emma had always thought he was one of those rare guys that was almost too pretty as a kid. The nature of maturity had added a masculine edge to him now, Emma would like to say he’d grown uglier as he aged, but he hadn’t. Countless girls sitting next to Emma in class had written his name in their notebooks in high school. Emma was pretty sure more than a few hearts had graced those margins too. She hadn’t written anyone’s name in her margins. Not one heart.
It was a shame God had created such perfection and gave it a personality like Jax’s, Emma sighed and said, “No," she simply handed them back to him, “you still have my glasses.”
Jax straightened with a sigh, "Listen, can we talk?"
+
Jax wanted to get her alone so he could explain himself. Not that he was sure what he was doing, but Jax just couldn’t get her out of his mind. Last night Jax had dreamed of Emma standing by his car all wet from washing it, her nipples easily seen through the wet material of her shirt. She was wearing crazy tiny shorts in his dream and when she bent over to start washing his car, he had instantly gone hard.
In his dream his friends disappeared. Jax slowly approached her, his stride intent. Emma playfully bent over, her shorts barely covering the flesh of her bottom as she dipped the large sponge she had been rubbing the car with in a bucket of water. Taking the sponge, she held it up over her blond head, and squeezed the water out letting the rivulets of water rush over her head down her now transparent shirt. Her nipples were hard and he could see right through the material that covered her. Dark little areolas set high on her breasts, perfect just perfect. The dream vision of Emma gave him a coy look, and then she threw the sponge at him. Jax stopped when it hit him square in the chest with a wet thump, before it splat on the ground at his feet. He watched as Emma’s hands slid caressingly over her breasts. His dream morphed into the image of Emma on her knees before him, her hand stroking his throbbing flesh, her lips dangerously close to his dick.
Groaning Emma’s name aloud, Jax’s eyes had sprung open. His hand was moving under his blankets as he’d grasped his straining cock. By the time Jax had shot cum all over his belly he had been completely awake and totally unnerved.
His friends would laugh at him if they knew he was sniffing around “Uggie” Emma but he couldn’t seem to help himself.
"I've got a five minute break coming in the next hour. If you seriously want to talk to me I’ll ‘see’ you then." Emma shoved the flowers at him again hitting him in the chest reminding him of the wet sponge she’d thrown at him in his dream. Some of the flowers burst on impact causing petals to float around them as if suspended in the air. Jax slowly slid his hand over hers as she tried to pull away, trapping her hand under his. Emma inhaled a breath and held it. She didn’t want him to feel her pulse racing. Emma broke eye contact with him, diverting her eyes away from Jax’s face. Holding her hand clasped under his for just a few seconds longer than necessary, she tried to tug away from him again. Jax took his time, slowly taking the flowers from her.
Jax stood there at her register, not moving just looking at her before he grabbed the card, slowly saluted her, and left the store.
+
Emma didn't see him at her break. She wasn't really all that disappointed in fact she was relieved. She went through the rest of her day jumping every time the sliding doors of the store opened. As the hours passed, Emma began to relax again. Jax had obviously already lost interest because he hadn’t shown up like he had threatened. Jax was being his usual cruel self by plotting some sort of joke at Emma’s expense making her think he was going to actually show up. Show up and … do what? The rest Emma hadn’t figured out yet. Perhaps he enjoyed the thought of keeping her on her toes. Scared he would show up, worried about what he would do next. Jax was so unpredictable.
She hoped Jax would lose interest in whatever scheme he had going. Life was already complicated, and Emma really couldn’t handle Jax on top of everything else. Whatever Jax had planned for her was bad. It was always bad when he was involved. Emma mindlessly checked people out in her line the rest of the day, her thoughts consumed by Jax. Emma came to the conclusion by the end of her shift that Jax had just been bored so she probably wouldn’t see him any time soon if she was lucky. She would just have to get her glasses from Jax later. Much, much later.
The day wore on until it was time to go home and Emma quickly collected her things from her locker at work. She'd been asked to cover a girl’s shift that had gone home sick so she’d worked an extra four hours. After twelve hours on her feet she was ready to crash. It usually took fifteen minutes for her to get home if she walked quickly.
Rounding the corner of the building, Emma slung her purse over her shoulder when something big smashed her into the side of the building. A solid wall of muscle surrounded her. The smell of man and clean soap filled her nostrils and she pushed against Jax’s hard chest. He was so big and solid. She tried to ignore how his firm chest felt under her hands through his thin shirt. His body was big and warm, his heat radiated into her palms.
Looking up into his devilish grin, she yelled, "What the hell, Jax!"
Jax was smiling down at Emma pressing her into the wall, one big hand holding the bouquet of flowers from earlier that looked even worse than before. Half of the roses were now hanging at an awkward angle, the stems bent in all directions. Emma shoved at him but Jax didn't budge. In that moment he reminded Emma of an overeager Golden Retriever happy that his owner was finally home. Scratch that, she thought, he looked more like a Rottweiler looking at a juicy steak. Emma’s heart began to beat a little faster. How could someone feel excited and irritated all at once, she didn’t know, but Emma felt both simultaneously around Jax.
Maybe Jax sensed she was getting a little unsettled by his intensity because he said, "Happy to see me?” and changed his expression to a mischievous smile that beamed at her.
She squinted up at him, "Do I look happy to see you?"
"I'm guessing you thought I was blowing you off right?” His smile was big and bright. Too bright. Emma looked at his eyes and saw trouble. He was smiling but his eyes looked … worried? What would Jax have to be worried about? She watched as he brought a hand up to her face as if he was going to touch her, but he hesitated and dropped it.
“I didn’t have to guess, Jax, I knew you weren’t going to show up.” Emma said it slowly like to a child who just didn’t understand how the world worked.
“I had to get back to class, so I couldn’t meet you earlier and then I came back and you were still working so I waited to walk you home." He was still smiling that charming smile at her, the one that made her want to forget he was a je
rk, and probably up to no good.
Dread crept into Emma’s belly as she looked past him trying to see if his friends were around to witness this.
"You've been out here for how long?" she asked suspiciously.
"Just a couple of hours," he shrugged one of his big shoulders acting like she should be completely impressed with his patience.
"Are you turning into a creepy stalker? 'Cause it seems a lot like something a creepy stalker would do." Emma again moved to get out of his hold but he kept her there not hurting her, just caging her with his body. Ignore the muscles, the smile, and the clean scent of him, she commanded herself. He wasn't her friend. Jax was planning something at her expense, Emma just didn’t know what.