High Risk Love (24 page)

“Thank you. And don’t let him tell you he can’t cook.” I pointed at Jasper, and he glared up at me. “He’s more than capable.”

Lily slid into the passenger seat. “We’ll be fine.”

She slammed the door shut and Jasper pulled away before I could say anything else.

Mouth dry, I stared up at the apartment building, made my way to the door that should have been locked and wasn’t, let myself in. They lived on the second floor at least, that was a good thing. Not so easy for people to break into. I made my way to their apartment and knocked on the door. Footsteps, the click of the locks opening and then she was there, standing in front of me, giving me a smile, even though I could see she was fighting it.

“Hi, come on in.” She opened the door wide. “You don’t have to do this, you know. I’ll be okay by myself.”

I smiled at her. “I made a promise to Lily.”

“And you always keep your promises,” she said softly, her voice hushed. I tried not to look at her, tried to think about ways to ease the tension when all I really wanted to do was wrap her in my arms and hold her.

“Here, you can put your stuff in Lily’s room.” She spun on her heel and walked down the short hallway. The sway of her hips as she moved, barefoot on the cheap linoleum floor, was enough to make me drool. But, I picked up my bag, followed her, and kept my tongue in my mouth.

“I changed the sheets already, so you’re good to go.” She was standing in the doorway and I slid past her, our bodies brushing ever so slightly. I caught the way she held herself, frozen as we touched, her eyes flickering over my body.

I tossed my bag onto the bed, pretended like I didn’t see her reaction. “This is fine. I can even sleep on the couch if you want. If Lily doesn’t want me to use her room, I’d get it.”

“No, no, this is fine.”

Her eyes flicked over me again. “Are you hungry? I was going to make something, if you’re hungry that is.”

“Stop. Just stop.” I held up my hands. “I’m not going to be dealing with this weird, shy, nervous Jasmin all weekend, am I?”

She put her hands on her hips and glared at me. “I’m not weird or shy or nervous. You jerk.”

I smiled at her. “A jerk? Really, that’s the best you could come up with?”

Her lips twitched, but she held her glare. “Is asshole better?”

I sucked at my chipped tooth in the pretense of thinking. “Better, but not quite right. I’ll let you know if you get it.”

Snorting softly, she turned away from me. “Whatever.”

I stood in the room and listened to her walk away, down the hall, and into the kitchen. Three days. Three days to convince her that I loved her.

Jasmin

W
hat had I been thinking, agreeing to Lily’s hare-brained scheme? Three days with Jet, three days of just the two of us to get whatever was between us ‘out of our systems’ as Lily had reminded me, again, right before she left.

Worse, how was I going to keep what was left of my heart intact? I hadn’t been kidding around when I told Lily that Jet was my Ryan. Jet was the one I wanted, despite all the signs pointing to us not being good together.

His job.

My fear of losing him.

His trust issues.

My fear of a broken heart.

Crap, but what if
he
had already moved on? Maybe he wouldn’t want me now. I stirred the pasta, tested a piece. Jet came up behind me and peered over my shoulder into the pot.

“Can I help?” His hands were resting on either side of me on the edge of the stove, but he wasn’t pushing himself into me. Yet I had the sudden urge to thrust my hips back into him, to feel his body against mine.

“Sure, sauce is heating, you can pour in the veggies I’ve cut up.” I pointed with the wooden spoon, my heart galloping out of control with his proximity.

He stepped up beside me, stirred in the veggies and then just stayed there. Jeans, a plain white t-shirt and bare feet. Nothing fancy, nothing over the top. I could just see the hint of his nipple ring under the shirt and I found myself biting my lower lip.

“You okay?”

I jerked my attention away from his chest, feeling like a teenage boy caught staring at a girl’s boobs. “Fine.”

“I thought we already went over this. No weird stuff.”

Change the subject, anything at all. Work, go with work.

“Are you heading to another shoot soon?” I stirred the pasta too fast and the water spilled out, hissing on the element.

He tipped his head away from me, as if looking under the oven hood. “Nothing soon, I thought I’d take some time off. What about you, have you had any bites on the singing?”

“I’m doing a demo tape for a small music label, not quite indie, not quite mainstream. But they’ll let me use Ryan’s songs, which is what I want.”

From there, the conversation flowed easily and we fell into the rhythm I thought we’d left behind in Mexico. If you asked me how the food was, I couldn’t have told you, I ate without thinking. Found myself sinking into his golden eyes again, wanting to see him smile that half-smile that told me he was thinking naughty thoughts.

After dinner, he helped me clean up, washed the dishes and wiped the counters down. Night had fallen at some point, though I’d barely noticed.

“You got to get up early tomorrow?” He sat on the couch, stretching his arms along the back of it.

“No, I don’t work until Monday morning now.”

“Hmm.”

I let a smile slip. “Hmm, what?”

“Just thinking, it’s been a long time since I stayed in for a whole weekend. Maybe we should watch a movie or something.”

“Wow, that was not what I thought was going to come out of your mouth. I mean, with you” —I pointed at him with both hands as if they were guns— “the only movie I’d have thought you’d want to watch is Debbie Does Dallas.”

I was rewarded with a flash of white teeth as he tipped his head back, laughing. “That’s it, you have to pay for that.” He launched himself up off the couch, and I squealed and ran, feeling silly and goofy and wondering in the back of my brain what the hell I was thinking. Around the couch he chased me, like a childhood game of tag. With a dodge I didn’t see coming, he snatched me into his arms and fell over the edge of the couch, onto his back.

We landed easily, though the couch groaned and the old man who lived below us thumped the ceiling. A muffled, ‘knock it the fuck off’ came through the floor boards.

My back was pinned to Jet’s front and he rolled. “There, now we can watch TV in comfort.”

He picked a movie that I’d seen three or four times,
The Green Mile
. One I knew I was going to cry over at the end. Damn.

With a quick grab, Jet pulled the blanket hanging off the back of the couch over us both. Was it cold out? No, but I had to admit, being curled under the blanket with him was incredibly comfortable.

At some point in the movie I fell asleep, curled in his arms, feeling his heartbeat against my back. There was nothing about this that felt wrong. I came awake with a start hours later, the room was dark and for a moment I didn’t know where I was.

“Hey, easy.” His voice was low, his hands holding me at the waist and upper back. I was facing him, having rolled at some point. I thought about getting up, going to my own bed—my cold bed, all by myself, where I would lay awake thinking about him all damn night.

Forget it, this was what I’d wanted him here for, right?

I lowered myself back down and tucked my head into the crook of his shoulder. He smelled so good, the spice I still couldn’t figure out, the smell of wood and some other flavor that made me want to taste his skin, see if it was him or his cologne.

His arms tightened around me, stroked my back, ran along the base of my neck. “Go to sleep, Spitfire.” With him I was safe, secure. I knew he wouldn’t let anything hurt me. So why couldn’t I tell him the truth? My mind skittered away from that thought, burying itself in the moment at hand.

I mumbled a nonsense word that seemed to satisfy him, closed my eyes, and promptly fell back asleep.

* * * * *

Waking up was the most pleasant experience I could ever remember having. Jet still passed out on his back, his chest rising and falling evenly, and I was sprawled out on top of him. I woke up slowly, blinking several times to see that yes, indeed, it was Jet on my couch, and yes, indeed, I was with him. His hair was messy, and one hand trailed to the floor beside the couch. The other was on my ass in a most possessive manner that I didn’t mind one bit. One of his legs was thrown over mine and the blanket was bunched up around our lower halves. The sun filtered in from our big window looking out over the parking lot, touching his face.

Though I could have lay there, staring up at him, just drinking him in forever, I had to pee. I wiggled to one side and his hand clamped down on my ass.

“Don’t leave me, Spitfire,” he mumbled, his hand massaging me, pressing me into his good morning hard-on. His other arm lifted from where it trailed to circle around my back, holding me to him.

“Jet.” I squirmed, the pressure he was putting on my bladder intense and really making me uncomfortable.

“Please,” he moaned. “I love you.”

I froze, actually froze, unable to move, unable to think. Unable to breathe. Peeing was forgotten. Tears burned in my eyes and I lowered my head to his chest. He loved me?

I lay there, part of me wanting to wake him up, the other part wanting to let him sleep. If he loved me, and I loved him, then what the hell were we doing apart?

Every time you get close, your fears, or his, drive you apart. This is on both of you, Jazzy.

I closed my eyes, let the tears fall into a puddle under my chin. I laid my cheek on his chest, and breathed in slowly.

“Spitfire, you awake?” He rubbed my back, slid the hand that had been cupping my ass to more neutral territory.

“Just,” I said with a fake stretch. “I’ve gotta pee so bad my bladder is going to burst.”

He let go of me and I scrambled off him, hurrying to the bathroom. Once my bladder was emptied, I didn’t leave, not right away. I needed time to think about this, to process it. Figure out what to do.

Tell him you love him, you little idiot. There is nothing complicated about this.

Ryan had been quiet in my head for weeks and now here he was, bossing me around like it was his job?

I turned on the shower, stripped and stepped into the stream of hot water. I took my time, washing my hair, letting the conditioner sit for a good five minutes, exfoliated my entire body. Twice. Anything to put off going out there and facing him.

Finally unable to postpone it any longer, I dried off and wrapped the towel around me.

All my clothes were in my bedroom, down the hall. I peeked out the door. No Jet. Maybe he’d gone out? I didn’t hear anything from the kitchen. Not a sound. I slipped out of the bathroom, down the hall and was just crossing into my bedroom when Lily’s door opened and Jet stepped out.

His eyes raked over me, like hot coals dancing across my bare, damp skin. The air fairly sizzled between us.

“If you want to use the shower, I think you’ll have to wait. I pretty much drained the tank. I mean, not that you have to shower, I’m sure you smell just fine. I mean, you did this morning. Smell fine, that is.”

“You’re babbling.”

“You’re staring at me.”

He sucked his chipped tooth. “You’re a beautiful woman, with nothing but a towel on and your skin still damp from the shower. I don’t know any man that wouldn’t stare. Least of all, a bastard like me.”

“You talk in your sleep,” I blurted out. What the hell was I thinking? His left eyebrow rose.

“Do I? Did I say anything interesting?”

Plunge, take the plunge, don’t be afraid. This is what you wanted to get out of your system.

I clung to the edges of my towel, holding it on like armor. “That you loved me.”

He sucked in a breath, but he didn’t look angry. “That’s true. Though I would have rather told you when I was awake.” He crossed the space between us. “Does it bother you?”

“No.” I was looking up at him, feeling him move more than seeing him move. His hands wrapped around mine and pulled them from the towel and placed them on his shoulders. My heart was out of control, beating like a madman on a drum. His fingers traced along the top of the terry cloth, smoothing along my skin to the tops of my breasts and the barely-there towel. The sensation went from my skin to my belly to the juncture of my thighs where I ached to be touched, ached to feel him slide his fingers
there
.

“Does this bother you?” His voice drew a shiver out of me, a shiver I relished.

“No.”

Two fingers, he plucked at the fold where the towel was held up, his eyes never left my face as the material fell away from me, slid to the floor at our feet.

“Does this bother you?” His lips were a mere breath away from mine. “Spitfire?”

My nipples puckered, body covered in goose bumps, and I couldn’t take my eyes from him. Couldn’t stop staring into those eyes that had so captured my heart.

“Yes, this bothers me.”

His eyes darkened, half-closed, and he turned away. I reached out and grabbed his hand before he could take a step. A swift breath in and I said the words quickly, before I chickened out. “It seems unfair that I’m the only one naked here.”

He froze, then looked at me over his shoulder, a perfect view that I wished I had my camera for. No, I would remember this moment, forever and forever.

With a slow peel, he lifted his t-shirt over his head, revealing his upper body inch by delicious inch. “Better?”

I couldn’t help the heat in my face, standing there bared to him like I hadn’t been with anyone in a very long time. “Hmm. Yes, that’s a start.” I stepped back into my room, the unspoken invitation there. He followed, unbuttoning his jeans.

How he managed to get them off while he walked, I will never know, but he never broke a stride and his jeans were quickly left behind. I took two more steps back, until my bed bumped into the back of my knees. On the intake of my next breath, he stepped closer, as if I’d drawn him to me. Had sucked him in. Our chests touched, my nipples brushing against the hard planes of him, the nipple ring once more gaining my fascinated gaze.