Kiss Me Slow (Top Shelf Romance Book 1)

by Tijan

“One day I’ll tell you why. Just forgive me,” she pleads with me.

  “I love you,” I tell her. “But right now, I really hate you.”

  She covers her mouth with one hand and watches me walk to Seth, who hasn’t moved from the threshold.

  “Seth.”

  “Bethany.” He says my name sweeter than I say his. He even affords me a smile. “Are you ready?”

  “No. No, I’m not. I wasn’t expecting you. When I asked my good friend,” I pause to look at her from the corner of my eyes, only to see her leaning against the wall. Her arms are crossed over her chest and her focus is straight ahead at the window rather than at us. “When I asked her to call someone, I wanted to leave. Not go back to Jase.” Before he can respond I add, “Not right now. I just need to breathe.”

  “No, you don’t,” he tells me as if he knows what I need. As if he knows what I’m going through.

  “I hear things. I see things. I don’t feel okay.” I don’t expect my voice to crack or the admission to stir up so much emotion, but it does.

  “Hey,” he says then reaches out to brush my shoulder, and I notice how that gets Laura’s attention, how she watches him touch me.

  He squeezes my shoulder gently when he tells me, “It’s going to be all right.” His voice is soothing, his dark eyes calming. “Come on, come with me.” Seth holds out his hand for me to take once he’s released his grip, as if he’s some sort of savior. “Jase doesn’t know, but you should tell him what you’re feeling.”

  Guilt isn’t something I expected to feel.

  “If she wants to, she will.” Laura speaks up for me, and when I look back at her over my shoulder, I can see her swallow and it’s not until I nod that she nods too.

  I already forgive the two-timing bitch. I don’t understand, though. I’ll never understand why she sold me out.

  Seth’s eyes stay on Laura’s a moment longer as he speaks, right before he looks back down to me, letting his hand fall to his side. “He’s going through something right now. He’s making mistakes and focusing all his time and energy on you. It’s causing problems.”

  “He shouldn’t.” I refuse to be used as an excuse for someone else.

  “I know that. He knows that too.”

  He starts to say something else but I cut him off. “I’ll drive home myself.”

  “I wanted to show you something.”

  “I don’t want to see anything, talk about anything, or do anything at all but have a moment to just be away from all of this,” I practically hiss. “What can’t you understand about that?” Anger and desperation twine together. “I’m not okay, but I’m trying to be.”

  “I wanted to show you something. But it can wait. We have time. Plenty of time. If you want to go home, know that I have to keep an eye on you.”

  “How’s it feel to be a babysitter?” I can’t help the snide comment although I immediately apologize. “I’m not usually such a bitch,” I comment after he accepts.

  “You could tell me whatever it is. I could go there myself.”

  He only shakes his head.

  “If you could be a non-problem… he has enough of them.”

  “Wouldn’t me leaving be exactly that?” I already know the answer before it’s fully spoken.

  “The fuck it is.” His quick response and even scorn at the thought throw me off. “He needs you by his side.” His statement strikes me at my core. The emotional crack destroys what little resolve I have left.

  “I just don’t know if I’m the woman that can be by his side.” I almost tell him I don’t know if I can be by anyone’s side. Especially not now, with every day passing and the warning my mother gave me sounding louder and louder in my mind.

  “Well, he chose you. And between the two of us, I know you are.”

  Jase

  “How could you be so fucking reckless?”

  I don’t answer my brother. The silence is deafening as my shoulders tense and I lean against his desk with both my fists planted on the edge of it. He refused to wait for this meeting and demanded it happen right now; that’s how I knew he was aware of my fuckup.

  Neither of us say anything. I can feel his eyes on me as he turns from the windows in his office and slowly takes his seat. The smell of polished leather and old books invades my senses as I do the same, sitting across from him and feeling the disappointment flow through me.

  The need to check on Bethany rides me hard as I sit there. All I can think about is Bethany and how I hurt her.

  Seth’s watching her though. She’s fine. I’ve been telling myself that repeatedly since I left her. That, and that she’ll forgive me. That she just needs space.

  She loves me. I remember that she told me she did once. The reminder doesn’t feel so truthful anymore.

  “It’s unacceptable.” I say the words so he doesn’t have to. “What I did could have cost us everything.” All I can think about is Bethany, and all he can think about is the mistake I made. The first one in a long damn time.

  “The fucking FBI is breathing down our necks and you do that?” Carter doesn’t hide the rage as he slams his fist down.

  I don’t react. This is how he is and how I knew he’d be. He can scream all he wants. What’s done is done and his display of anger won’t change that.

  I don’t say anything for the longest time, until finally, “I know,” is somehow spoken from my lips.

  “What the fuck were you thinking, leaving like that? You drove in public while covered in blood. It would have taken a single phone call. We don’t flaunt this shit. It’s one fucking rule none of us has ever broken.” His chaotic breathing has lessened. The cords in his neck are no longer as tense.

  In this moment, he reminds me so much of our father. Maybe because he’s focusing his rage at me for the first time that I can ever remember. “Everything we do is with reason and intention. Careful. Meticulous. We don’t leave evidence.” Every word is spoken calmer and more relaxed. He even sits back in his seat before running a hand down his face.

  “What were you thinking?” he asks again.

  “I don’t know.”

  My answer is quick, as is his rebuttal. “Bullshit.”

  “Bull-fucking-shit,” he repeats and with his words, the sky darkens behind him. The night is settling in, as is his disbelief. My knuckles rap in synchrony on the wooden armrests of my chair as he looks at me, and I look at him.

  “You always know what you’re doing. You’re always in control, yet you did it anyway.” His voice is calm, his composure returned. Tilting his chin up, he asks me, “Why? You had to have known she’d see and that you were risking everyone else seeing just so she could see.”

  “I shouldn’t have-”

  “But you did. You wanted her to see you, Jase. There’s no other explanation. You don’t fuck up like this. None of us fuck up like this.”

  My brother’s words hang heavy in the air. Waiting for me to accept them.

  “She doesn’t need to see what I do. What I’m capable of.”

  “You wanted her to, though.”

  “I won’t do it again,” is all I answer him, still not wanting to accept I’d do something so stupid and reckless. “I was emotional. I was caught up in the past.”

  “You wanted her to see,” he repeats and I lift my gaze to his dark eyes.

  “It doesn’t matter. It’ll never happen again.”

  He looks like he wants to say something else. Like the words are just there, right on the tip of his tongue, toying with the idea of falling off.

  The room is silent though. For a moment and then another.

  “She doesn’t need to see that,” I tell him, content with that truth and then I crack my knuckles one at a time. “I won’t do it again.”

  “She already knew, Jase.” I pin my gaze to my brother’s. “Even if she doesn’t admit it. She already knew.”

  “Knew what?”

  “What you were capable of. She knows what you do. She already knows. You’re right tha
t you don’t need to show her. But you’re wrong to think she didn’t already know.”

  With an open palm, my hand moves to the harsh stubble surrounding my mouth and then to my jaw.

  “Some part of you wanted to know what she really thought of it all. Is that it?”

  I ignore his question. “I scared her.”

  “She should fear what you’re capable of. It’s new to her.” Carter leans forward on his desk, resting his elbows on the hard wood and it gets my attention as what he says registers.

  “What do I do now?”

  A flicker of a grin shows on Carter’s face. “Because I should know what to do when the woman I love fears me?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “What are you saying then?”

  “I’m saying I fucked up, she’s scared, and I don’t want her to run.” My voice lowers of its own accord and a confession escapes as I say, “I can’t let her run.” With my head lowering, I think back to the way she looked at me before closing her front door. She looked back at me the way she did in the restaurant. Like it may be the last time.

  “She’s not the only one afraid then, is she?”

  “I’m asking for advice, Carter. It’s not something I care to do often,” I comment, hating the way something in my chest twists with agony.

  “She’s not like us; she didn’t grow up in this world.”

  “She fixes the ones we break though. Addiction and loss… she stares that in the face every day.”

  “You think because she works at the Rockford Center that she could handle seeing you covered in blood?”

  “I wasn’t covered in it,” I say. My rebuttal is useless.

  “Not to her. She doesn’t see this. This is different. It’s not something she can control with a bed, pills and a conversation.”

  “Neither is loss. Loss isn’t controlled.” The need to defend her overrides my sensibility.

  Carter’s gaze is assessing. Running my hands through my hair, I question my own sanity.

  “She’s under your skin.” Carter’s tone verges on discouragement.

  “Which is right where I want her to be,” I admit freely, correcting him. “I’m not letting her go.”

  “Then don’t allow her to see what frightens her without first giving her a way to handle it. You blinded her to what’s going on, then showed Bethany her own worst fears without warning. What did you think would happen?”

  “I wasn’t thinking,” I mutter, staring at the dark red in the carpet beneath our feet.

  “Start using your head again. How’s that for advice?”

  It’s hard to hold back from rolling my eyes. “Any other advice you want to offer?”

  “Promise her she doesn’t have to be a part of this world if she doesn’t want to. You should have never come back like that… She’s seen already, she knows and she hasn’t walked away.”

  “What if I can’t hide it all from her? What if I don’t want to hide it?” The truth is buried in the questions, something that loosens the tension. Something that makes me feel like I can breathe again.

  “She knew before, Jase,” he repeats himself again. “You’re fooling yourself if you think she didn’t know who you were and the world you inhabit before.”

  “Knowing isn’t the same as seeing,” I comment and regret what I did. I regret losing it and putting her in a place to be shocked and frightened. “I’ll do better.” I make the promise to her, although Carter’s the one who hears it and the one who gives a single nod.

  “Do you know how I knew I should fight for Aria, rather than let her go?” Carter asks me and I wait for his answer. “Without her, I just can’t go back to being without her. There is no version of my life where I’d be okay knowing she wasn’t with me and not knowing if she was okay. I needed to make sure she was loved. I couldn’t move forward not knowing if she would be loved if I weren’t there.”

  There’s that word again… love.

  “If you want her, make her see that. She knew what she was getting into. She’ll be exposed to more of our world over time and she’ll learn to deal with it in a way she can. She didn’t run, though. She’s not going to leave you, Jase.”

  “Is that why you called me in here?” I ask him, watching the wind blow the trees in the distance behind him. “To give me advice and watch me sit here with my tail between my legs?”

  The leather groans as Carter sits deeper in the wingback chair. “Romano’s been indicted.”

  “Indicted?”

  “The FBI agents that have set up camp aren’t going to be leaving anytime soon. They’re fucking everywhere.”

  “Did they find the explosives on the east side?”

  “No, we got there first. Any evidence of an association with him has been wiped. But they’re digging. So we need to be careful.” I don’t miss the way Carter looks at me when he says the word careful.

  “You think he’ll pay them off?” I ask.

  “I think he’ll try. I would.”

  His phone vibrates on the desk, halting the conversation momentarily. With a glance he sits up, and messages back. It must be Aria. “I’ve got to go; do you have anything else?”

  “I want her to marry me.” I say the words out loud. Freeing them. He’s the one who brought up love. I’ve never considered him helping me, but he has Aria and if he can have her, I should be allowed to have Bethany.

  “Then tell her.” Carter’s response is easy enough.

  “I did.”

  “Was that before or after she was arrested?” I look past him, letting out a frustrated sigh. “You’ve never waited for anything. Why would a marriage proposal be any different?”

  “Timing may not have been the best.”

  “Best?” Carter actually laughs. He has the balls to let out a deep, rough chuckle that fills the room and forces me to crack a smile.

  “I told her she wouldn’t be able to testify if we were married.”

  “You’re a fucking dumbass, Jase. I’m a goddamn bull in a china shop and even I’m more graceful than that.”

  “It felt right.” I drag my hand down my face remembering how her eyes widened.

  “Like I said, you’re a dumbass. You like shocking her,” my brother comments. “I’m not sure that’s exactly what she wants or needs from you at the moment.”

  “What does she want?” I say out loud and Carter answers as if he’s known Beth her entire life.

  “Someone to help her with the things that matter most to her. Someone to love her.”

  His phone vibrates again and that’s when I check mine and my stomach drops. “She needs someone to kick her ass. That’s what she needs,” I murmur under my breath.

  Bethany

  “Seth told me.”

  The heat in Jase’s car is stifling. For the first time, he’s driving and Seth is nowhere to be seen. It’s just us.

  “What did he tell you?” I ask.

  “You said you wouldn’t run,” he says and his tone is accusatory.

  A small and insignificant sigh falls from my lips as I stare at the passing trees, small buds forming on the branches and lean my head against the passenger side window. “I wasn’t running.”

  The steady clicking of the blinker is the only sound until we turn at the end of the street. “What would you call it?” he asks me and I answer.

  “Following my boss’s orders to take a vacation while getting away from the chaos for a moment.”

  “You really think you would have come back?” I can tell from the huff that leaves him that he doesn’t believe I would have.

  “I would have missed you, worried about you and thought about you every second I was gone. You’re a fool to think otherwise.” I second-guess my harsh manner and turn to look at him. He only gives me his profile; he’s still staring at the road. His stubble is longer than it’s ever been, but I love the masculinity of it, along with his dominating features. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called you that.”

  Quiet. It�
�s quiet and that’s how I know he doesn’t believe me. I suppose it works both ways. The mistrust between us runs deep with not just everything that’s happened, but the way we’ve handled it all.

  Laying a hand between us, palm up, I offer a truce. “I thought you’d come last night. I was waiting for you.”

  “You didn’t message me.”

  “Neither did you.” I give him back the same accusatory tone.

  “Seth suggested that I give you space. Carter agreed with him. I thought I could use some as well, given that you made plans to leave.”

  “You scared me--”

  “I apologized.” His words cut me off and I steady myself, pulling my hand back to my lap.

  “Do you want me to apologize? I’m sorry. I’m sorry I made you think I’d run.” Transparency is what I’m aiming for, so I let the words spill out. Every bit honest. “I could’ve handled it differently. I didn’t trust you’d let me go.”

  “You’re damn right, I wouldn’t have and I won’t now.” Anger simmers inside of me until vulnerability stretches his next words. “You knew before.”

  My heart does a silly thing. It beats out of rhythm, making sure I’m listening to it. “Knew what?”

  “You knew who I was.”

  “I still know. I’m still here, aren’t I?”

  He finally glances at me as the expensive car drives over gravel for a short moment, jostling the smooth ride.

  “I would do anything for you. Name it, I’ll do it. Whatever you need to make you want to stay.”

  “What?” I say and the word is as exasperated as I am. “What are you talking about?”

  “If you want to leave, you come straight to me. In exchange,” he says as he taps his thumb rapidly on the leather steering wheel. “Name it. Whatever you need in exchange for me being the person you run to.”

  I don’t hesitate to take away the card he’s been playing to keep me under his thumb as I say, “Drop the debt.”

  “It’s dropped.”

  He says it too easily, too quickly. The words were waiting to be spoken. It didn’t matter what I said. The long drive is winding as we approach the Cross estate. The dent in the fence is already fixed, but my mind replays the images of when I sped away as we drive by it.