Loving Lies (14 page)

“You're going to burn.”

Speak of the devil. Jessie turned her head, meeting Jazz's laughing eyes as he stepped onto Slade's balcony. He raised and lowered his brows in lecherous regard as his eyes went over her nude body.

If Monday was starting out this bad, then the rest of the week could only get worse.

Sitting up, Jessie jerked the light wrap from the floor of the balcony and pulled it over her head before facing him again.

“Shouldn't you be building something?” she grumped, rising to her feet before moving to the small ice chest she had filled with drinks earlier. She jerked a bottle of water from the cold interior before slamming it closed again.

“Eh, that's what I pay my hands to do.” He shrugged negligently. “So I can play when I want to.”

The white T-shirt he wore stretched over his broad chest, emphasizing his lean hips and hard abs before disappearing into the band of his jeans. He was still wearing his boots, which gave his powerful legs a sexy, alpha look. There were days she wished she had fallen in love with the gentle giant rather than the brooding asshole she had given her heart to when she was sixteen years old.

“Slug.” She grinned as he braced his hand on the railing before jumping over it and landing on her balcony.

“Hell, a man has to take time to enjoy the fruits of his labors.” He smiled back at her, tipping the straw cowboy hat back on his thick head of hair as he settled himself into the padded chair beside her and accepted the beer she handed him. “Besides, I wanted to check up on you. You were too quiet Saturday night.”

She had been a nervous wreck. She felt Slade watching her, his eyes following her every move. He had been no place to be seen, but she could feel him.

She shrugged at the question, drinking her water rather than discussing Slade.

“He's changed, huh?” Jazz finally said. “Not as easygoing as he was.”

“He always had it in him.” She threw him a quick look. “Don't play games with me, Jazz, we both knew Slade was always too sure of himself, too arrogant. It just wasn't as developed then.”

He nodded. “Sometimes it just takes a powerful force to strip a man down like that…”

“Don't you start on me.” She flashed him a hard glare. “I don't want to hear it, I don't want to know. Slade is a part of the past and he's going to stay there. I told you Friday night, I don't want to hear your lectures and I mean it.”

He sighed, aggravation reflecting on his strong-boned face.

“Slade's not in the past anymore, Jess. He's right here now, and he's set his sights on you again. And sorry, sweet pea, you lost your own bet. You gave in.”

She flushed at the reminder. Anyone in the office below the other morning had heard her screams. The bastard. He had made certain of it.

“Doesn't mean a thing.” She rolled the cold water bottle between her palms. “He won't ambush me like that again. I'm having the locks changed on the doors and security codes changed…”

“And you think that's going to stop Slade?” He was laughing at her now. “Baby, you forget what he's good at. Security is Slade's specialty. Why do you think him and Zack are fighting like two polecats determined to mark their territory now? He doesn't like our security or the company we use. He's getting ready to overhaul the whole damned thing. He'll ghost right past your puny little alarms.”

She lifted a lip in a silent sneer. “I'll have him arrested.”

“For what? Making you scream in heat?” Yes, he was laughing at her. Enjoying the predicament she was finding herself in.

“When you finally fall in love, I hope it's the bitch from hell,” she snarled. “I hope she works your guts into so many knots you can't think straight.”

He opened his eyes wide. “I think straight now?”

Her shoulders drooped in defeat, her head dropping as she shook it in resignation. There was no making sense with Jazz. He didn't have any sense. She was certain he was nothing but a little boy in a grown man's hard-packed body. Damned nice packaging, but hell if he knew how to do anything but tease and torment the rest of the world.

As she opened her lips to speak, a movement from the corner of her eyes caught her attention. She was cursed. It was just that simple. A second later Slade hauled himself over the heavy rail of his balcony and stepped over the distance to hers, his gray eyes slicing toward them, his body tense, hard, as he stared at Jazz.

“Why not just build a fucking walkway between the balconies?” she snapped. “Before someone breaks their damned neck.”

What was it about jeans and boots that just made a man too sexy to look at? Combine it with the white button-down shirt and the brooding anger on Slade's face and her pussy was creaming. Furiously. Her clit throbbed as anticipation surged through her even as anger burned inside her chest.

“What do you want?” She glared at him, hating the way her body reacted to him, how everything inside her woke up and started screaming his name.

“Have lunch with me.” He didn't beat around the bush. “We'll take the bike into the mountains and talk.”

Talking was the last thing on his mind if that bulge beneath his jeans was anything to go by.

“Hey there, Slade, you're not going to say hi to me?” Jazz's booming voice caused Jessie to wince. She could hear the challenge in it. “Slade ain't talked to me all day. He's being right unsociable, sweet pea.”

Slade didn't even look at Jazz, he continued to stare at Jessie, his expression forbidding, reminding her of the warning he had given her the other morning.

“Can you believe this?” Jazz grumped. “Son of a bitch loosens my teeth for me and then can't even say howdy two days later. My best girl won't talk to me, and my favorite cow tried to stomp my feet. I'm tellin' ya'll, Mercury must be in retrograde again.”

“Shut up, Jazz,” she muttered, the look in Slade's eyes making her nervous.

“Shut up, hell,” he retorted, flashing Slade a hard smile. “Bastard goes riding off for five fucking years without even a ‘by your leave' and thinks he can just walk right in and own the world again. Maybe I want to keep my little stake in it.”

Slade growled.

Jessie jumped to her feet, wedging herself between the two of them. “I've had enough of this. Take it somewhere else, both of you. Go kill each other for all I care but you're not doing it on my balcony. Get off.”

“You wouldn't let me, remember?” Jazz flashed her a wicked smile as Slade took a warning step forward, his hands gripping her arms to move her to the side.

Jessie stared at Jazz incredulously. “Have you lost what little mind you used to own?” she asked carefully.

“Maybe.” He tipped the beer to his lips, swallowing in a lazy movement as he winked back at her flirtatiously. “You'd be worth being senseless for, sweet pea.”

“Jessie.” Slade's voice was darker, more dangerous than she had ever heard it. And warning. She glanced at him, her lips thinning at the dangerous tension that marked his expression.

“Fuck it. Kill each other. See if I care.” She stomped around Slade, glancing at the balcony where Zack stood watching the scene in amusement.

“Would you care to make sure they don't kill each other on my damned balcony?” she snarled. “And unless you want your security boy locked in jail for the week, keep him out of my damned apartment.” Evading Slade's hand as he reached out to her, Jessie pushed her way into the apartment and slammed the glass door closed behind her.

“Jessie.” Slade's voice was furious through the door, not that she really cared at that point. She could have cheerfully taken a bat to both of them right then. It was like dealing with two little over-spoiled children.

Jerking a cami and shorts from her dresser, she grabbed her sneakers from the floor and stalked to the bathroom for a shower. A cold shower. The more she fought with Slade, the more aroused she had become. He was killing her, destroying her control and her will and she had no idea how to fight it.

Half an hour later, dressed, furious and aching, she left her apartment, heading for the stairwell when the door opened and Slade stepped into the hallway.

“Where the hell do you think you're going?” His expression was dark, his gray eyes glittering with lust and suppressed anger. She moved to push past him, determined to ignore him. She found herself plastered to the wall instead, pulled from her feet. Slade's aroused body held her pinned to the wall. Jesse felt lightning flare through her clit, a heated kick of sensation spearing her womb as he pressed his jeans-covered erection into the notch he forced between her thighs.

“Your pussy's fucking wet,” he growled, his eyes thunderclouds of lust. “Your nipples are hard and your face is flushed, I bet I could sink inside you now and you'd glove me like a silken fist. So why are you running?”

“Let. Me. Go.” She held herself stiffly, her nails biting into his powerful forearms as she glared at him.

His hips pressed tighter, stealing her breath at the caress to her clit. Oh God, if he did that many more times, she was going to come.

“Don't run from me, Jessie.” His voice was a guttural throb. “We both know it's not going to work. We can start over—”

“Like hell,” she snarled back in his face, shaking with the force of the anger surging through her. “For God's sake, Slade. You've been gone five years. Five fucking years. Did you think I was going to just lie here pining for you and wait for you to bring that big overconfident dick of yours back into my life?” she snapped insultingly. “Do you think because my body likes how you touch it that that's all it's going to take to turn me back into the stupid little girl I was then?” She struck out at his shoulders with her fists, bucking against him, snarling when he refused to let her go.

“Shush.” The fingers of one hand gripped her hair as the growl vibrated between them. He held her in place easily. “You'll be my sweet little Jessie,” he whispered, staring into her eyes, stealing her breath with the depth of emotion in his gaze. “Yes, baby, you are my sweet little treasure. All mine. That tight little pussy, your smart little mouth, and that tender heart you think you can hide from me.” His hips rotated against hers. “All mine.”

His lips brushed hers and she was almost lost. Almost.

“No!” She jerked to the side, forcing her legs down, stumbling away from him as she fought to steady her breathing.

Hard hands helped right her, but they weren't Slade's. Jazz and Zack were there, catching her as she stumbled. She jerked away from them, staring at them in fury, in pain. He was going to kill her. He was breaking her heart, pushing for the one thing she was most terrified of—giving him her heart again. Losing him again would kill her and she knew it.

“Moron.” Her voice was thick with tears. Emotions tore through her, feelings she had hidden even from herself while he had been gone. Things she didn't want to feel, didn't want to destroy her again. “Can't you understand this is over?” she cried. “You left me, Slade. I didn't leave you and I won't let you destroy me again.”

She moved quickly from the three of them, walking furiously toward the parking lot and freedom. If she didn't get away from him, she was going to break. She was going to lose her heart, her senses and her mind and that terrified her.

 

Slade watched her leave, tenderness swelling inside him even as his heart clenched at the pain he saw in her face. God, she had grown, become stronger, surer. She wasn't going to fall into his arms. His Jessie had a backbone that was stiff as steel and despite the fact that he knew, to the bottom of his soul he knew, she still loved him, she wasn't willing to give in yet.

“She's going to shoot your ass before it's over with.” Jazz shook his head as Slade glanced at him. The other man's expression was pitying, his gaze filled with resignation. “I don't think I've ever seen Jessie that damned mad. You make her cry and she's going to rip your eyes out, Slade. You know that about her. She's been like that since she was a kid.”

That wasn't anger. It was pain, confusion, a woman fighting a battle she had no hope of winning. That's what Slade knew. For a second, one pulse pounding, hotter than hell second, she had been his, her body relaxing, melting into him, ready for him. He had seen it in her eyes, felt it in the soft curves that pressed against his erection.

She wasn't pissed; she was scared. Scared and running. There was a difference.

“She'll be okay.” He flexed his shoulders, fighting the tension building there. “I'll make sure of it.” He hadn't come back, he hadn't bet his soul on winning her back for nothing. For five years she had haunted him, cried out to him in his dreams and tortured him in his fantasies. She had been all that had kept him sane, and he had no intention of letting her go.

“Slade, man, do you know what the hell you're doing?” Exasperation echoed in Zack's voice.

“Hell no, he don't,” Jazz chimed in. “He's like a bull in a china shop chasing a little mouse. He's going to break everything in his path.”

“Starting with your numb skull,” Slade bit out, the knowledge that his buddy had bedded his woman enraging him. “Don't push me, man. The only reason you're still alive is because she would likely shoot me herself if I killed you. Castration is still an option.”

Jazz snorted. “Dickhead. Maybe she deserves better than you. Maybe I think I can take care of her a hell of a lot better than you've proved you're capable of.”

“What the fucking hell is up with your goddamned maybes?” Slade yelled, his fists tightening with restrained rage. “Did you fry your fucking brain while I was gone?”

“Maybe.” A wide grin split his face. “You have to admit, she's hot enough to do it…”

Slade jumped for him.

Chapter Fourteen