My staring at her legs sure as shit pissed Sasha off, but Jackson helped me get her out the door. I couldn’t stop myself from looking at Alexa as we talked, but Jackson caught on and warned me away from her.
“Fuck no, man. No way in hell are you going there,” Jackson warned me while shaking his head.
I could feel my body tense up. I wanted to punch him in the face so damn much. I had been waiting weeks for my chance with this girl, and now he was going to fuck it up for me because he’d somehow managed to get there first. I felt the anger bubble up inside me at the thought of the two of them together.
Jackson reached out to grab my arm, but I backed away. I didn’t trust myself not to get into it with him while she was watching us.
I turned to glare at her as Jackson kept talking. His words didn’t even register with me through my red haze of anger and jealousy. I hadn’t even spoken to her yet and she already had me all twisted up inside. I continued to glare at her from across the kitchen, royally pissed that she didn’t feel this thing between us too. If she had, there was no way I’d be watching her ass as she and Jackson talked for a couple of minutes before heading up the stairs to his room. To his fucking room. In my frat house. How the fuck was I going to be able to stay here without doing something totally fucked up, like knocking his goddamn door down?
Fuck this shit. I headed out the door to clear my head and realized what weekend it was. My mom’s birthday. A perfect excuse to get the fuck out of town, I thought as I grabbed my phone to call my dad. I was sure he’d figure a way to get me the hell out of here and back home for the party tomorrow.
Bonus Scene: The Dress
Drake
As I walked away from the guest house, I knew I'd do whatever it took to make sure Alexa came to the party tonight. I'd already fucked up badly enough by waiting to make a move, jumping to conclusions about her and Jackson, and then being an ass to her. Repeatedly.
So I was going to grab the opportunity I’d been given this weekend to make her mine, and I was going to do it fast. I needed to wrap this shit up tight with her because there was no way in hell I was going to let more time pass. The first thing I needed to do was make sure she couldn’t use the lame ‘I don’t have anything to wear’ excuse to get out of tonight. And I knew exactly what I wanted to see her in and who could help me get this thing done.
“Hey,” my little sister Drea said, answering the phone. “Are you almost here? Mom is super excited that you decided to come home this weekend for her party.”
“Yeah, I’m here already, but I need your help with something.”
“Ohmigod! You do?” she shrieked. “You never ask me for help with anything. Like ever.”
I pulled the phone away from my ear at her response. “And you wonder why,” I mumbled.
“Haha, funny. So what do you need?” she asked.
“A dress. And shoes. And I need it before tonight.”
I heard her giggle in my ear. “Ummmmm, is there something you forgot to share with me? Like you’ve taken up cross-dressing or something?” she teased.
“It’s for a girl,” I muttered, knowing she was going to go crazy over this information.
“A girl? What girl? You haven’t mentioned meeting anyone to me!”
“Her name’s Alexa. She’s staying in the guest house, but she doesn’t have anything to wear to Mom’s party. So I’m going to fix the problem for her. That’s all,” I explained.
“Uh-huh. Why do I get the feeling you aren’t telling me the whole story?” she complained.
“Because you don’t need to know anything else, brat. Now are you going to help me out or not?”
“Of course I’m going to help, silly. Have her come up to the house and she can take her pick from my closet and Mom’s. I’m sure one of us is bound to have something she can borrow,” Drea offered.
“No, it can’t be just any dress and shoes. I know exactly what I want her to wear,” I argued.
Drea took a deep breath before answering. “There’s a girl here, staying in the guest house, who you want to come to Mom’s birthday party wearing clothes you’ve picked out?”
When she put it like that, it sounded pretty crazy. But the truth was the truth any way you put it. “Yeah, that sounds about right. Except she can’t know that I’ve bought her this shit. No way in hell would she accept it if she knew the truth.”
I could practically hear the wheels spinning in her head as my sister processed everything I had just told her. “No problem at all. Pick me up in five minutes. We’ll run into town so you can grab what you need and then switch the dress out into one of the dry cleaner’s bags in my closet.”
“And the shoes?” I asked.
“That’s super easy. I’ll just scuff up the bottoms a bit on the sidewalk so it looks like they’ve been worn. She’ll never know the difference. But you’ll owe me big time.”
I chuckled. “I will, huh? I’m pretty sure I’ve got some markers due to me for helping you out of jams all these years, Drea.”
“That’s true, but if you want me to keep this a secret from your mystery girl, then you’d better tell me at least a little bit about her. Or else I’m gonna spill the beans.”
I sighed deeply, not sure how to put my feelings into words. “I don’t know what to say except that I haven’t been able to get her out of my head ever since I saw her on campus a couple weeks ago. Shit, Drea. There’s just something about her that’s different.”
“Well, that’s enough for me. I’ve never seen you so flustered over a girl before. I can’t wait to meet her.”
“Meet me out front at my car. And you better hope she likes the dress and shoes, because she hasn’t been too impressed with me so far,” I warned Drea.
Bonus Scene: The Fight
Drake
“Get your ass back here!” I roared as Alexa escaped out the door. Jackson pushed me back so I couldn’t get past him as she raced out of the house. “Back the hell off, Jackson.”
“No way, dude,” he answered.
I pushed him back, knowing that if I was fast enough I could still catch her before she got too far. “Get the hell out of my way. Now.”
“You aren’t getting past me until I know that Alexa is gone. I may not know what the hell happened here, but I damn well can be sure that I do what she asked of me,” he swore.
“This is none of your goddamn business Jackson,” I argued as I tried to slide past him.
He pushed me back, blocking me from the door again. “You made it my business when you made her cry and she told me she needed to get out of here.”
“She’s got some explaining to do. I’m not the one who fucked up here. She is. You may think she’s all innocent and shit, but that’s not what I’m hearing, and I deserve to know what the hell is going on. So move. Now!” I demanded.
Jackson’s eyes burned darkly as I accused Alexa of not being innocent. Before I knew what was happening, his fist slammed into my face and I flew backwards onto my ass. While we wrestled on the floor, I was trying to get away from Jackson because my fight wasn’t really with him. It was with Alexa. He finally settled down when he realized I wasn’t going to hit back. We sat on the floor, breathing heavily and staring at each other for a moment before he spoke.
“That’s fucking bullshit. You know her better than that.”
He was right. I did know her better than that. Fuck. I had royally screwed shit up her by flinging accusations at her instead of just talking to her about my dad’s call. As I sat there, quietly thinking about what a mess this was, Jackson’s hands dropped to his side. I had my opening to get away and took it, racing for the door. My hope was that I could still catch Alexa at her dorm. I could hear Jackson yelling behind me, but it didn’t matter. I just needed to get to her. Too bad I was too late. By the time I got there, she was gone. I didn’t care how long I had to wait though. I was going to be here when she came back.
I sat brooding in my car, waiting outside her dorm all day and
night. I’d left countless voicemail messages and sent her many text messages. But I’d received radio silence from her in return. My dad had tried calling a few times, but I didn’t want to talk to him yet. Not until I fixed this mess and knew what I was going to say.
Come morning, Jackson tapped on my passenger’s side window before he opened the door and hopped in with me. I glared at him, still pissed off that he’d stopped me from being able to reach her in time.
“You ready to tell me what the hell happened yesterday?” he asked.
“If I do, are you going to tell me where the hell my girlfriend is?” I snapped back.
“I would if I could, but my sister turned off both of their phones before I could find out where they were going.”
“Fuck!” I swore, running my hands through my hair. “She’s with Aubrey? And you have no idea where they could be?”
“Nope,” he answered, not sounding particularly bothered by the fact that neither of us knew how to find the girls. “So why don’t you explain what’s going on and we’ll see if I’m willing to help you figure out where they went.”
When I told him about my dad’s call, my text to Alexa, and our fight, the motherfucker had the nerve to laugh in my face.
“What the hell, Jackson? There isn’t anything funny about this. It’s a clusterfuck.”
“Dude, have you ever asked Alexa about the flights she does?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, confused at the connection between her piloting for her dad and the rumor that had gotten back to my dad.
“Fuck. I can’t believe I’m going to be the one to tell you about this,” he grumbled before turning in his seat to look at me. “She does mile high club flights, man. People pay her good money to go up in her plane so they can join the club.”
“She does what?” I asked, unable to believe what I was hearing.
“It sounds worse than it really is. She doesn’t see anything ‘cause they’re in the back of the plane. She doesn’t even hear anything because she wears headphones the whole time. But the money is good. Damn good.”
“How the hell would my dad have heard about this before me?” I wondered aloud.
“I don’t know, man. She doesn’t talk about it very much. Alexa’s a pretty shy person, and she gets kinda embarrassed about it.”
My mind was blown. I was irritated to learn that there was something big in Alexa’s life that she’d shared with Jackson but not me. And I was pissed that something so simple had caused a huge misunderstanding. I grabbed my phone to call my dad.
“Drake, thank God you finally called me back.”
“Hey, Dad—”
He interrupted me before I could say anything else. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you all day and night. I figured out the basis for the rumor your mom heard. Your reaction didn’t sit well with me, so I did a little digging on my own and found a link on her dad’s website to some flights that could explain it all. For something brilliant, marketing-wise.”
I chuckled darkly, realizing that, if I had waited an hour, I never would have gotten into this fight with Alexa. “Yeah, Dad. Jackson just told me about them. I had no idea. And if I didn’t even know, how the hell did you hear about it?”
“Well, son, that’s the other reason I’ve been trying to reach you. Your mom found out that I’d talked to you and freaked out a bit because it finally dawned on her that Sasha was the source of the information. She figured that maybe this was exactly what she wanted—your mom to talk to me, me to talk to you, and then you and Alexa to break up. You know that Sasha has always had a bit of a crush on you, and she’s always been pretty spoiled. Thinks she deserves whatever she wants. I’m just sorry I played right into her hands on this one.”
“No, Dad. This isn’t your fault. It’s mine. I should’ve held off before reacting, but I let my temper get the better of me. But don’t worry. I am going to make this right with Alexa,” I swore.
“Good luck, son. Let me know if there’s anything we can do to help,” my dad said before disconnecting the call.
Jackson had been listening in on our conversation the whole time. “Sasha was behind the whole thing?” he asked.
“Yup. Sounds like it,” I murmured, still stunned that something so small had blown up into a fight this big. I hadn’t seen or spoken with Alexa in twenty-four hours already.
“That bitch,” he muttered. “You focus on Alexa and I’ll make sure Sasha understands that she better stay away from now on.”
I looked across at him, amazed that he was willing to help me out with Alexa. I knew what he felt for her. It was impossible to miss, even though we had never talked about it. And I sure as shit wasn’t going to say anything now.
“Thanks, man.”
“No worries, dude. I’ll try to get ahold of my sister. I’m not sure how easy that will be if she’s in mother hen mode though. She can be crazy protective of Alexa, but I’ll put in a good word for you,” he said as he got out of the car.
I watched him walk away, and the next twenty-four hours went by in a blur until my phone finally rang and it was her.
II
Hit the Wall
Prologue
Jackson
I couldn’t believe that I had to deal with this bullshit. It was bad enough that I’d had to watch Lex fall for Drake, but now I had to go talk to Sasha about the crap she’d pulled to fuck with their relationship. I could have just kept my mouth shut and not said anything to Drake about Lex’s job. I could have just enjoyed the fuck out of punching him and then waited to see if they’d stay broken up. But no, I hadn’t been able to stand knowing that she’d been hurting when I could do something to fix it.
I’d grown up with Lex in my life, always thinking of her as my other little sister. She and Aubrey were attached at the hip, and she spent almost as much time at our house as she did her dad’s. Then she hit her teens and filled out. I couldn’t help but notice her new tits, and she started to show up in my spank bank. It freaked me out the first time I thought of her while jacking off in the shower, but I figured it was normal and shrugged it off. She was dating Brad, and there were plenty of girls in high school for me to mess around with.
The night I caught Brad cheating on her changed everything. I held her in my arms as she fell apart, and I realized I wanted her for my own. It was the absolute worst fucking timing to figure out that I didn’t love her like a sister. I just loved her.
She needed time to get over Brad and what he had done. She wasn’t ready for a boyfriend, and I couldn’t just play with her. My mom would kill me if I didn’t treat Lex right. I knew that when we got together that would be it. So I enjoyed the girls in college while I waited. Tried new things and discovered I liked my sex hard and rough. I waited some more so I could get it out of my system before going to her. I put it off so long that Drake swooped in and stole her right out from underneath my nose.
I knew the second I saw them together that I had waited too long. He wanted her, and I couldn’t blame him. She was hot. Lots of guys wanted her. But it was the way she looked at him that got to me. Her eyes lit up any time he was near, and she’d get this look on her face. Like he was the only thing she could see. I tried to tell myself that it was only a fling and that it was a good sign. She was ready for a relationship again. I just had to wait until Drake messed up before I could finally have Lex. But when it came down to it, I just couldn’t do it. She loved him, and he made her happy. More than anything, I wanted her to be happy.
When Drake calmed down and listened to me, the look of horror on his face told me that he loved her, too. My worst fear was confirmed when he refused to budge from her dorm, unwilling to go anywhere until he could find Lex. By the time Aubrey finally answered her phone, I felt sorry for the guy. He was a total wreck from knowing how much he had hurt Lex. If she forgave him, he wasn’t ever going to let her go. So I had to do it.
Now here I was, on my way to find Sasha to make sure she didn’t interfere in their relationsh
ip again. Talk about an awkward conversation. I had to talk to a chick I’d banged the fuck out of last year. About not messing with the girl I was in love with and her boyfriend. The situation was so fucked up that I couldn’t have made this shit up if I tried.
Chapter 1
Kaylie
The shouting from next door woke me up, and I was not happy to have my much-needed rest interrupted. I’d worked late at the bar last night, covering a shift for one of the other bartenders. After a full day of classes and a tough practice for my upcoming show, the last thing I needed was to only get a few hours of sleep because Sasha had something going down yet again. That girl had more drama in her life than a daytime soap opera.
I waited a couple minutes to see if the subject of her latest tirade would storm out and let me catch a little more rest. No such luck. It seemed like their argument was escalating from what I could hear, so I hopped out of bed and stomped next door to bang on the door.
“What the fuck?!” I heard as the door was thrown open. My jaw dropped at the sight of Jackson Silver in Sasha’s room. I hadn’t thought he’d had it in him to care enough about any woman to get into a shouting match with her with the way he blew through all the girls on campus, except maybe his sister and her best friend. Not that I didn’t totally get why so many girls went crazy over him, with his tousled blond hair, wicked blue eyes, and insanely hot body. But he was the epitome of love ‘em and leave ‘em, never spending more than a few nights with the same one.
The Blythe College Complete Series Box Set Page 19