The Rules Regarding Gray (2 page)

“Oh, yeah. Good to meet you too. And just call me Jas.”

She pecked Ian on the cheek one last time, and then she turned and headed back down to the stage. He gave his eyes only a moment to wander over her figure lest he slide back into that damn lustful side of his consciousness. “She’s lovely,” he commented with little inflection.

Ian wasn’t fooled by his aloofness, and he chuckled. Jealousy wasn’t Ian’s thing nor was it Jasper’s, so resentment wasn’t really a concern for either of them. Competitiveness, on the other hand…

“Yes, she is. She’s also tight as fucking hell, and she likes her sex.”

“Is she even old enough to like sex?”

Ian laughed. “She’s twenty-seven. She’s practically retirement age for this profession.”

“That may well be, but you’re aware you’re thirty-four, right?”

Ian shrugged. “Age means nothing.”

“It means plenty to a walking cock like you.” Jasper shook his head as he stood, but his eyes were wandering again, and they seemed to naturally trail up to the expansive stage where Gray was now walking around stretching her arms, her neck, her hips.

Jasper stepped by Ian toward the aisle, tossing over his shoulder as he went, “I need to get back to—”

“You wanna try her?” Ian’s question was spoken casually.

Jasper stopped cold in his tracks, refusing to look back for a moment. When he finally did turn, it was just to see Ian grinning up at him. Jasper glanced toward the stage again before he could stop himself, but he pulled his attention back to Ian sitting in front of him. Best friend or no, Ian had definitely managed to catch him off guard this time.

“Go fuck yourself,” Jasper commented coolly, but the sudden race of his heart told a different story—one he wasn’t willing to share with Ian. “Four months. Isn’t that a record for you?”

Ian nodded.

“‘She’s incredible.’ Your words, not mine. So, why do you want to go screw up a good thing?”

“Not like you and I haven’t done it before.” Ian’s eyebrows were cocked as he studied Jasper.

“I take it you’ve not mentioned this little …
idea
of yours to her.”

“No. I haven’t. But—”

“I suggest you keep it that way.”

“And why’s that?”

“What happens if you want to marry this woman someday? You really want to wonder if your bride is fantasizing about your best man on that day because you decided to let him stick his dick in her?”

“Wow. So now I’m marrying this gal.”

Jasper blew out an exasperated breath. “She’s your
girlfriend
. This isn’t some casual fling or some woman one of us picked up at the bar. My answer is no.” He did walk away then—straight out of the building to his car parked at the curb.

When he slid into the driver’s seat, he laughed quietly, but then his laughter abruptly stopped, and he stared at his steering wheel as his fingers tightened on it. He’d driven Ian to Butler Center after lunch, and now he was leaving him behind to fend for himself. The fucker deserved it for dropping that bomb on him, and as Jasper pulled out into the busy downtown Austin traffic, he cursed his oldest friend in the world. “You stupid fuck,” he muttered, winding his way through traffic.

He stopped at a light, and when a tall slim beauty walked through the cross walk, she checked him out, lowering her sunglasses as she eye fondled him. He glanced at her quickly, but his mind was elsewhere. He was thinking about nothing but the lithe, graceful, and rather boyishly built Gray.

She wasn’t his type. He liked tits entirely too much, and he liked his women blonde as well. He was just shallow that way, he supposed, but he was allowed to be.
He
was single—perpetually and intentionally. What he didn’t like was his friend dangling a piece of ass in front of him and expecting him—

Honk! Honk!

The angry blare of a car horn from behind him jumpstarted his heart, and he cursed at the driver as he glared into his rearview mirror and stepped on the gas. When his phone rang moments later, he snatched it up from the console. He grumbled when he saw Ian’s number on the screen, and he contemplated not answering.

“What the fuck do you want?” he growled out as he answered.

“Oh!” She busted out laughing awkwardly for a moment. “Well, fuck you too,” Gray commented sarcastically.

He mouthed the word
fuck
silently as he shook his head, and then he cleared his throat as her laughter trailed off.

“Sorry.” He was muttering as he still shook his head. “Umm… What’s up?”

He pulled his car over to the side of the road, and he put it into park. He was perfectly capable of driving and talking at the same time, but he wasn’t at all sure he could manage it at the moment.

“Well, Ian said we should invite you to dinner this weekend. Then he said you’d say no if he asked, and he tossed me the phone after hitting send. Sorry. I’m sure that took you by surprise about as much as me.” She laughed quietly.

“All sorts of things have taken me by surprise today, so it’s apparently just par for the course.” He was silent for a moment. “He was right. I’d have said no.” His voice was just a bit too quiet.

“You know, for being his best friend you sure don’t seem to like him very much.”

He could hear Ian in the background. “Asshole likes me just fine.”

“I
don’t
actually like him very much at all right now, and you can tell him I said that,” he commented wryly.

She ignored his permission to pass along his anger for him, and she focused her attention on him instead. “Why don’t
you
tell me why
you’re
upset with
him
?”

There was something very warm and soothing about her voice, and he instantly propped his elbow on the open window of his car and let his head drop to his hand. He scratched his brow. “I don’t think that would be a very good idea.”

“Hmm… Then come to dinner Saturday night at Ian’s. You two can work out your differences.”

“You think so, do you?”

“Mm-hmm.”

He chuckled. “Saturday’s a busy night for me.”

She said nothing, and he rubbed his forehead as he tried to work this out.

“Okay,” he finally muttered.

“Okay?”

“Yeah, okay. Listen, I better go before I change my mind.” He practically hung up on her then.

Chapter Two

“You didn’t tell me he was so—”

“Good looking?” Ian finished for her.

She laughed. “No. I was going to say…” What the hell was she going to say? “I don’t know. Stand-offish. Prickish. Hard to read. That’s for sure.” She glanced at Ian over her shoulder as she rinsed a zucchini in the sink.

She was still shocked Ian was even there. He never came to her loft. He hated it there, or she assumed he must. He didn’t say as much, but his blatant refusal to spend time with her in her own home said plenty—though she had no idea what.

“Prickish, huh?”

“You heard me. And clearly you pissed him the hell off about something.” She returned to her vegetables, not really caring to look at him while she waited to see if he’d tell her exactly what had happened. “Did it have something to do with me?” She angled her head, still refusing to look at him. She wasn’t sure why exactly, but she had this nagging suspicion they’d spoken about her behind her back, and she wasn’t at all sure what to make of that.

When Ian’s arms wrapped around her waist from behind her body, she jumped.

“Chill,” he murmured against her neck, sending a shiver over her skin. “What are you worried about? You think my handsome, nefarious best friend is going to hit on you? Trust me, you’re not his type.” His hands snaked up under her shirt. She was as braless on this night as she was every day of her life, and when his hands covered her small breasts, he squeezed. “He’s a tit man, and he needs more of a handful than what you have to offer.” He squeezed again. “I, on the other hand, have accepted your flaws—”

She shrugged out of his hands, ducking out from underneath his arms. She crossed her arms on her chest, feeling a bit like a shmuck as she turned toward him.

“Flaws?”

He chuckled. “I’ve never known you to be defensive about your figure—”

“Flaws?” She tried to temper the shrill incredulity in her voice. “I’m not being defensive. You’re being rude.” It happened regularly with him—something about being wealthy and powerful she suspected, though she hardly called it a valid excuse when a comment like that would pop out of his mouth unrestrained.

He smirked, but then his eyes cooled, and his expression did too. Ian had a way of passively offending her sometimes and leaving her unsure exactly what she was offended at or even if she had the right to be offended, and she knew it was going to happen. Three… Two… One—

“Besides, you’re not blonde enough or tall enough to catch his eye either. He tends to attract the voluptuous bombshells, and you’re … just not built that way. It’s
okay
,” he reassured her.

And there it was. The offense. And more than that, the struggle to justify her offense. Jasper was nothing to her, nothing at all but an aloof man she didn’t know and wasn’t sure she wanted to know, but … she suddenly felt inadequate, as though Jasper had hurt her feelings, when in truth, it was Ian who’d orchestrated this.

She pushed past him at the sink, once again choosing vegetables over him, but she couldn’t help but bite back. “Blondes? How superficial and oh-so very cliché,” she remarked.

She let her hands mindlessly scrub the veggies as her brain wandered to images of Jasper’s cool hazel gaze. He’d watched her passively as she’d walked toward them in the studio theater, and she’d instantly felt something like cold heat coursing through the pit of her stomach. It was the eyes. “What’s his heritage? Is he Samoan, or…?”

“Partly. White too. Why?”

She froze for a moment, and then she turned around, holding a red pepper in her hand casually to hide her nerves. This was odd territory if nothing else—discussing another man’s look with one’s boyfriend. “No reason. He just has an … interesting look.”

He was striking, actually. He was tall and strong, and his skin was a beautiful olive color. But that wasn’t the most striking part of his composition. It was the eyes. They were a light hazel that completely diverged with his subtle Pacific Island Samoan look, and that’s where the cool, yet searing, heat had come from. He wore his dark hair just shy of his shoulders in a layered casual cut that looked thoughtless, not something she usually fancied on men. But his hair was wavy, glossy, and shined enviably. His goatee and five o’clock shadow made him look dangerous in a way, but his pink lips were oddly and sweetly supple, and she’d struggled not to look at them when she’d met him.

He’d been wearing worn, but fitted, jeans and an old eclectic T-shirt. She shouldn’t be surprised at his casual appearance given what she knew of him, but it was such a stark contrast to Ian who epitomized and perfected the straight laced white collar persona. Ian, in contrast, might have dark hair too, but it was far shorter and always perfectly styled. He looked out of place in pretty much anything but a suit, and he kept his face completely shaved smooth. He was a handsome man as well, and he gave power suit its power. But what a difference. To think they were best friends was almost laughable.

“He does have an
interesting
look—one women seem to find very appealing. You too, if I’m not mistaken.”

She shook her head. “No. That’s not what I meant—”

But Ian just smiled as he lounged against the kitchen counter across from her. “Calm down. We may be competitive on occasion, but Jas and I don’t do jealousy. Never have. So you needn’t worry about offending me. He’s a good looking man. I don’t care if you think so.”

“Well, I
don’t
think so. He can keep his cliché blondes. I like my man in a suit.” She turned back to the sink, hiding the heat in her cheeks.

As she cut vegetables, he drank a glass of wine and watched her. He never once lifted a hand to help, and by the time she’d cut zucchini, onion, peppers, mushrooms, and tomatoes, she was starting to fume. She supposed it was no different than her own father was with her mother, but she was tired, and having his attention follow her around the kitchen as she cut, rinsed her knife, scraped the cutting board into the sauté pan, seasoned, warmed the tortillas, all left her blood boiling.

He sat at the table and waited for her to finish, and when she finally sank into the chair across from him, she sighed and she glared. “You could have helped, you know,” she chastised as she started filling a tortilla with the vegetables.

He snorted. “You said you’d cook dinner if I came over.” He snatched a tortilla from the plate, and then he peered into the pan. “No meat?”

She just stared at him for a moment, but then she stood, walked to the fridge, grabbed a package of deli turkey, and threw it at him over the kitchen counter to the table. She smirked then, sticking her tongue out at him, and he chuckled.

“Will you rub my feet for me?” she asked sweetly, forcing her smile to be appeasing.

“If you rub mine first.” He scowled at the vegetables he was scooping into his tortilla.