“We could go to a movie or something?” I suggested. “Or isn’t Maya having a party?”
Jack rubbed the back of his neck, his eyes cutting away. “Do you mind if we stay here?”
I had a second of insecurity, wondering if maybe he had a reason for not wanting people to know about us. But then he gave me the grin that sent my heart skipping and played with my hair in that way that made me feel beautiful.
“I’ll let you pick what we watch,” he said.
“Deal. We can make some popcorn.”
Jack’s eyes were on my mouth.
“Good.” He swallowed. “That’s good.”
I nodded, not even sure why I was doing it. Our eyes met, and the air pulsed with this sort of negative pressure that had me fighting against the pull between us.
Jack swore, and in the next second, we collided, mouths fusing as his arm banded around my back and mine flew to his neck. Our bodies crushed together, desperate to get closer.
The kiss was frantic, intense. A flash flame that left us blazing, already past the point of control.
It felt like I’d been waiting for this kiss forever. Like it was right.
Pushing to my toes, I moaned around the thrust of his tongue and lingering sweet taste of mint. My breath was ragged, my heart pounding, and that spot deep inside me had started to ache enough to pull my hips forward in a slight roll against his.
Jack groaned, his hand closing over my hip. Fisting my jeans, he pulled me closer. And wow, did that cinch of fabric and steely press feel good. My arms tightened at his neck, and then we were stumbling back through the front hall, past the kitchen and into the family room beyond. Jack dropped back into the couch where we’d watched movies and argued and laughed and talked for years— pulling me down with him so my knees straddled his hips.
“Laurel.” Another clench of his hands and my hips started to roll. “I wanted to wait until— Fuck, you feel so good.”
He moved a hand between us, cupping my breast, kneading it as we moaned into each other’s mouths. I’d never willingly let a kiss go this far. I’d never wanted it to. But with Jack, I couldn’t stop. I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t beyond my comfort zone.
I was elated, racing toward something that felt more right than anything before.
Cradling my ass, he dragged me against him so I could feel his dick straining beneath his jeans, and I shuddered. Heat surged through my veins as unfamiliar tension began to coil tight within my center.
Shocked, I pulled back to look at him, and immediately, his hands left my body. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
But then I was kissing him again, harder, my knees squeezing his hips and then spreading wider, bringing us back into that crazy-amazing contact I could feel all the way to my fingertips and toes.
I gasped, wrestling to get closer, pulling at his hair and fisting his shirt. “I want…” This. Just like this. “I need…” More. More of everything that was happening between us. More of his kiss, more, more of this pull. More than I could get even as desperately as I was moving. “I can’t—” I whimpered, and Jack growled my name.
His arm banded around me, locking me into his body as he flipped our positions so I was beneath him on the couch. And suddenly, everything was deeper… harder… Right.
He was crushing me beneath his kiss, holding my knee wide as he circled his hips against mine, hitting that spot I’d never given much credit to before so perfectly I could barely breathe. “Like that,” I gasped, pulling at his shirt, needing it out of my way. Desperate to feel his skin beneath my fingers. To touch him.
Grabbing a handful, he yanked it overhead and tossed it aside.
My breath caught.
Shoulders.
Chest.
Oh my God, his stomach was even better than his mouth. The muscles were flexing from his position, and I was pretty sure I’d never be the same.
His hands climbed my ribs, pulling my shirt along until my bra showed and he stilled, swallowed, his eyes riveted to the light blue lace demi cup.
“You’re so fucking pretty.”
He brushed his thumb against the flesh below, then over my nipple, making me gasp again.
Trailing my fingers down his chest, I passed the tensed bands of his abdomen and hooked them into the loop in his jeans.
I could barely breathe, but somehow, I found enough air to whisper what I wanted. “We could go upstairs?”
Stormy eyes clashed with mine, and then he was crushing me with his kiss, tightening his hold as he pulled me from the couch—and stopped.
Easing back from our kiss, he pressed his forehead against my neck, his breath hot and ragged over my chest. Then slowly he released me.
My heart started to race. My belly twisted. “My parents won’t be home until—”
“That’s not it.” He fixed my shirt, his hands… shaking?
I forced a laugh. “Law won’t be back until after Christmas.”
I was joking, but I saw the wince.
“Jack, we don’t have to— I mean, I know you said you wanted to slow things down. We can—”
The smile he gave me was tight, and his eyes were so loaded with guilt that I couldn’t understand what was happening. I had been climbing all over him. He couldn’t be worried he was taking things too fast for me.
Reaching for his hand, I said his name again. But then he was standing, barely able to look at me at all. “Laurel, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gotten carried away like that. And if I don’t leave now, I’m afraid I’m going to do something I can’t take back.”
Sorry? A cold pit formed in my belly. “You’re leaving.”
He ran a hand over his face and looked down at the floor. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
For as long as I’d know this boy, I’d jumped to the worst conclusions about him. But this time, I wanted to believe in him. So I didn’t argue and I didn’t press.
“Okay. Tomorrow.”
18
Jack
“Only you didn’t call, and you didn’t text.” Laurel finally turns from the window, facing me with teary eyes. “I went to your house. I left messages. But nothing. I didn’t see you for over a week, and then—”
And then, asshole that I was, I showed up at Jordan Hicks’s party and caught her in the kitchen to apologize for letting things go too far, telling her we’d just been having some fun, right, because as sick as it made me, I knew she’d believe me. Especially when she saw I’d brought a date.
The girl I was with at the charity event that first night I’d found Laurel crying. That’s who I brought to the party. That’s who I made sure Laurel saw me with.
That’s how I made sure she’d never give me one of her smiles or laughs or anything else again. Because if I hadn’t, I would have lost the best friend I’d had since I was six years old. And as bad as I wanted Laurel, I just couldn’t do it.
“Jack, what happened?”
“I called Law.” Reluctantly, I let her go, walking over to the couch to sit, because the weight of this has been heavy on me for a lot of years. “I don’t know why I thought it would be different than when he’d basically been telling me to get my eyes off you for seven years already, but I was sure it would be. Hell, you were seventeen.”
Arms crossed, she watches me from across the room. “Law didn’t see it that way?”
You motherfucker, if you put one more finger on my little sister…
“Not really.” Leaning forward, I prop my forearms on my spread knees and scrub my fingers over the top of my head. “But you’ve got to understand, Law’d had a ringside seat to my every shitty decision, shady hookup, and perverted speculation for years. He knew how many girls I’d been with, what I said about the ones I wasn’t serious about, and the kind of crap boyfriend I made for the few I was. And he didn’t want it for you. It didn’t matter that I was telling him I’d never been serious about a girl the way I’d been with you, or that you were different. That you made me different.”
&nb
sp; Twelve years we’ve been best friends, Jack. Twelve years and you’re going to throw it away on a girl who has spent every one of them hating your guts, because for two weeks things have been different?
You end this bullshit with my sister now. It’s done, or we’re done. Because when you fuck this up like you do with every other girl, I’m not going to be the impartial guy chuckling from the corner. I’m going to be her brother and I’m going to beat the piss out of you.
“Jack.”
This is the hard part. “Laurel, the stuff he was saying—it hit home. He was my best friend. And he was right about my track record with girls, and in the end, I was too fucking scared to risk that with you things would be different. That I wouldn’t fuck up everything and end up with nothing. So as much as I’d like to blame Law for my actions, I can’t. I’m the one who made the call. And I’m the one who had to live with it. Christ, watching you that last year and a half before we graduated, knowing that I could have had you… I’ve never regretted anything so much in my life. And the worst thing was that even though I’d chosen my friendship with Law over being with you, our friendship suffered.”
“He held a grudge?”
“No. But I did. I couldn’t see him without thinking about you. We still hung out, but it was never the same.”
“That’s when you started spending more time with Hank Wagner?” she asks quietly, her voice small, her head down.
“Yeah, we’d always been close, but not like Law and me. Not until after that.”
“I thought you’d been playing me. That maybe you only really remembered at the last minute that I was Law’s sister—and that was a line you figured it was better not to cross.” She gives me the saddest smile I’ve ever seen. “Why would you let me think that?”
“Because I was fucking stupid. And I thought it would be easier for both of us if you just went back to hating me. So I made sure you did.” When I meet her eyes, it kills me to see the hurt in them. “I couldn’t tell you about what Law said because it would have caused problems between you. And I knew I couldn’t be friends with you. That if you gave me even one more smile, I’d never be able to resist it.”
For a long time, neither of us says anything. I’m waiting for Laurel to tell me to leave. To tell me she’s had enough of my bullshit for one lifetime and to get out.
Eventually, she comes to sit beside me, and I know it’s time. Turning to me, she asks, “When Law told you to back off from me this time, what did you say?”
I swallow, past the hard knot of emotion telling me to drag Laurel into my arms and use any means necessary to convince her to give me another chance. A real one.
“I told him to grow up.” And to fuck off. “That if I ever get another shot with you… no way in hell was I going to spend another dozen years regretting not going after it.”
She casts me a sidelong look. “And?”
I laugh, holding up my hands. “And he told me not to be a dick when you told me to fuck myself. Which he seemed pretty confident you would do.”
This time when she looks at me, it’s not hurt I see in her eyes, but the lightness that’s always drawn me. I can’t stop myself and brush my thumb along her jaw. “I’m not going to be a dick. Promise.”
Closing her eyes, she turns into my touch, and my heart stops. Because that doesn’t feel like a fuck off.
“That was the thing I couldn’t understand.” Her hand covers mine, and she peers at me with the same relief in her eyes I’d seen all those years ago. “I’ve called you a lot of names over the years. A lot. But I’d never actually thought that’s the kind of guy you were. We’d been fighting forever, sure, but you weren’t a cruel person. You’d never tried to hurt anyone. And so when you hurt me like that—on purpose—I couldn’t understand it. I felt like I couldn’t trust in anything, not even my own judgment.”
Somehow my hand has moved into her hair, and I’m cradling her head in my palm. “I’m so sorry. If I could take it back— You have no idea how much I wish I could.”
How long I’ve wished it.
Those warm brown eyes search mine, and she gives me a hint of her smile. “I believe you.”
Relief washes over me in a wave so powerful, I’m swamped by it. Overwhelmed by this woman’s generous heart.
Pressing my brow to hers, I tell her, “I know I ought to give you some space to figure things out, but unless you tell me to leave, I’m not going to be able to make myself let you go.”
Even now I can’t stop touching her, moving into her space, and pulling her into mine.
She peers up at me. “Don’t you think that maybe we’ve had enough space? Maybe it’s time we just tried being together?”
“Laurel.” I drag her into my lap and, leaning her back, kiss her like I’ve been waiting half my life to do it.
Her fingers are in my hair and then our hands are everywhere. And when she whispers to me not to stop, I thread the fingers of my right hand through her left, groaning at the feel of my ring still there, and swear to her I won’t.
19
Laurel
“So tell me what we’re doing again?” I ask, laughing as Jack pulls me back into his chest, wrapping his arms around my waist and burrowing his head into my neck with a groan… three feet from the awning of the restaurant where we’re meeting one of Jack’s out-of-town associates and her husband for a drink.
“Practicing.” His lips move against that so-sensitive stretch of skin behind my ear, and it takes everything I have not to melt into him. But one of us has to have some control, and, as it turns out, once Jack’s snapped, there’s no going back.
I am not complaining.
“Practicing… at being a real couple instead of a fake one?” Oh God, teeth. “Jack.”
I can feel his smile against my skin, and I’m starting to wonder if Jack has any plans to actually meet these people.
“This is just what we need. An hour out with a couple I only know superficially. A chance to blend that bit of fiction we worked out in with the truth.”
“Mmm. And here I was thinking we might just be practicing seeing if you can keep your mouth off my neck long enough to get through a single cocktail.”
He groans. “Don’t say cocktail. It sounds like porn when you say it.”
I laugh, pulling out of his hold. “You’re crazy. And do you seriously think I’d intentionally tease you when we’re out like this?”
The look he gives me says he does, but that he doesn’t mind. And then he’s reaching for me again, and I’m dancing back to head inside, where Joelle and Damien are waiting in the lounge.
We’re greeted by a host who offers to take the baby-fine pashmina I’m slipping off my shoulders. Jack nods toward the table where our party is waiting. “Ready?”
“Absolutely.” I’ve barely stepped in front of him when I hear it. That punch of breath and low, rumbling groan.
“Jack?” I ask, turning to raise an innocent brow at him… only I have a pretty good idea what’s responsible for his reaction. Because I totally would tease him… just a little.
He wipes a hand over his mouth and, eyes narrowed, looks around the room.
So maybe I did pick a dress that reveals a smidge more of my back than strictly necessary. Nothing skanky, just a classic cut vee coming down from each shoulder, meeting at a sparkling button just above my waist. Conservative by most standards… just not Jack’s.
At least not when it comes to my back.
Catching me by the waist, he pulls me back toward him and growls in my ear, “No teasing?”
My heart skips a beat, and there’s a flutter deep in my belly. “Maybe a little teasing.”
His gaze drops to my lips, and he pulls me deeper still so my body is pressed against his from thigh to chest. His lips touch mine, again that same scant contact—a throwback from those first days of fake dates and fake claims, when his kisses weren’t quite kisses—only this time, that feather-light contact hits me like a charge of electricity sizzling h
ot through the deepest parts of me. He runs the back of his thumb from my wrist up to the top of my arm in the slowest, softest lingering caress I’ve ever experienced. And the effect… I tremble, my breath slowing its passage through my lungs. I blink, my eyes locking with his as goosebumps skirt across my skin. I ache, my core clenching as liquid heat spills through me.
“Fair warning,” Jack says, his eyes burning over my mouth, lower. “The minute they leave, you’re mine.”
Smoothing his tie, I reply, “I’m already yours.”
The corner of his mouth curves, the sort of confident and cocky smile I should want to wipe off his face, except the sight of it, the promise behind it, has me flustered to the point where I can hardly think.
“You will be.”
Seventy-three excruciating minutes later, Joelle and Damien, who were very nice and easy to talk with, are on their way to a show Jack’s gotten them tickets to, and I’m standing in the small ladies’ room about to spontaneously combust from over an hour of retaliatory teasing from the master himself.
Oh, he was good. Subtly resting his warm hand over that open vee of skin on my back. His thumb, stroking lightly up and down a small, sensitive stretch of my spine. Playing at the very bottom edge. Tracing patterns in the palm of my hand. Threading our fingers together one way and then another. Every now and then, leaning close to whisper some dirty promise or wicked threat in my ear.
I stare in the mirror and tell myself it’s only a matter of minutes now. That I can make it through a single Uber ride without being arrested for public indecency. My phone pings, and I smile seeing the latest change Jack’s made to his contact and then bite my lip reading the text.
JackMyHeart: Unlock the door.
He can’t mean… We’re in an upscale restaurant!
I tell myself maybe he just wants a kiss, a moment alone to make some more promises, but even as I reach for the lock, my fingers trembling, my body humming with anticipation, I know that’s not it.
Dirty Bad Boy Page 11