The Set Up (68 page)

Warm.

Inviting.

And flaming hot with desire.

Jasper bends to kiss me. “I love watching you come.”

Heat creeps up my chest. Down my spine. A new kind of want is spreading warm and hot through my body, and all I can do is stare at him.

The song changes again.

He runs his hands through my hair and pushes it over my shoulders.

My breathing picks up again. If it were legal to fuck in public, I’d let him take me right here, right now. It sounds dirty, animalistic, feral, but it’s the truth. “I want you,” I manage, unable to think of anything else.

Whiskey-scented breath washes over me. “Here?”

I nod.

I want to kiss every beat of his heart for making me feel the way he does. I want to give him the world. To give him me.

The wetness of his tongue caresses my earlobe, making the warmth I’m feeling spread even deeper. “You sure?”

I nod again.

“There’s a VIP room in the back. I can see if it’s open. Follow me.”

Like I wouldn’t?

Halfway through the crowd, he turns. “I can’t wait to fuck your brains out, but I don’t want to do it here. What do you say we head home?”

There’s that word again.

Home.

And this time when I hear it, the smile that spreads wider and wider across my face is only for him.

“I’d love to go home,” I tell him, wrapping my arms around him so I can feel his body against mine one more time before we get off this magical dance floor.

Jasper lifts his chin and wipes a stray tear away that I didn’t even know I shed. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing, absolutely nothing.”

My emotions have been haywire. It goes hand in hand with my elevated sex drive, I guess.

Making our way through the crowd once again, we finally reach the end of the dance floor. Before I even have both of my stiletto-killing-me feet on the alternate surface, I feel a hand on my shoulder.

I turn.

“There you two are. I’ve been looking for you both.”

It’s Jake, and there’s no doubt in my mind that while we’ve been on the dance floor, he’s been drinking. And doing a lot of it. His eyes are unfocused. His words slurred. And his body is swaying.

“Have a drink with me,” he slurs.

“Next time, man. We were just heading home,” Jasper tells him with a clap on the shoulder.

“You can’t do that. Will already left. Drew’s in the VIP room. And I shouldn’t be looking at all these women the way I am.”

Jasper raises both of his brows. “What are you talking about? Look bro, why not?”

“I took a vow of celibacy.”

Laughter fills the space between us. “Why the fuck would you do something like that?”

“Because I’m an asshole and I don’t deserve a nice girl like Shannon. She’s everything I should never have.”

“That’s not true, Jake,” I tell him.

His blue eyes flash. “Yeah, it is. I was an asshole to you, too.”

I say nothing.
He was.

Jasper looks at me and crosses his arms over his chest.

Something in my face makes his soften in understanding.

“I am to every girl I meet,” Jake continues. “Why didn’t you tell me to fuck off?”

I look him the eyes. “I was able to see what you were doing was your way of protecting yourself.”

He scoffs. “Protect myself? From what?”

“I don’t know, Jake. That’s for you to figure out.”

He cuts me a dark look. “Yeah, maybe I could do that after another drink.”

All I have to do is look at Jake in this state and my heart hurts for him.

“I think we’re done drinking tonight,” Jasper tells Jake with a clap on the back.

“No, you guys go. I’ll be fine.”

Just then someone pushes past us and Jake loses his balance, almost falling to the ground, but Jasper catches him.

Jake starts laughing. “You might need to help me to the bar before you leave, though.”

Jasper whispers in my ear, “Do you mind if we take him home?”

“No, of course not.”

Clearly Jake drank way too much because in order to move him from the spot we are in, we have to drape his arms around both Jasper’s and my shoulders.

“I love you,” he mutters to Jasper.

Jasper just shakes his head. “You tell Charlotte that and I’ll leave you here right now.”

“No man, I wouldn’t think of it. That’s your job.”

Jasper looks over at me with eyes that tell me just how he feels.

I say nothing.

Although I wish I could.

WINDING ROAD

Jasper

MAX, OUR CHIEF
automotive design engineer, has this process he refers to as
a thought experiment
.

I fucking hate it.

Then again, he knows this and likes to fuck with me. I remember this one time when the result was more than even he anticipated.

“First, picture a traditional six-cylinder engine,” he says.

The engineer in me can do that easily enough. Shit, the street-kid mechanic in me can do that with his eyes closed.

“Now take the cylinder heads, valve train, camshaft, head gasket—take it all off and throw it in the trash.”

I look at him like he’s lost his damn mind.

“You don’t need it anymore,” he tells me.

Right, I think, he must have been drinking at lunch.

“Then, take that engine and chop it in half, right down the middle.”

I continue to humor him.

“Now,” he says excitedly, “flip it over, one half on top of the other.”

“What the fuck?” I respond, unable to play around anymore. We have work to get done.

“Think about it, Jasper,” he says.

And I do.

It takes me a couple of hours, but I sketch out the idea, put a lot of hard thought into it, and then the light goes on. What we have is an engine with two pistons in each cylinder that oppose each other—it just might be the powertrain of the future.

No fucking way.

That experiment is still going to rock the automotive world.

It is state-of-the-art technology all the way.

It is the soul of the Storm.

What will sell it.

That was seven years ago.

Seven.

We’ve spent years making it better, stronger, faster.

We have.

It’s been a long road.

And this guy I’m carrying out the door is now the one selling this technology to investors—and he’s fucking great at it.

So yeah, I’ll help him through whatever shit he’s got going on in his head tonight, but come Tuesday, you better believe I’ll be pounding that head if he isn’t focused as fuck.

A rumble in the distance steals my attention.

Dark, angry clouds are gathering high above us in the heated summer sky. Strikes of lighting are already illuminating the blackened heavens in quick flashes, and the thunder is roaring in the distance.

I pull my phone out to call for the car, but before we even make it past the row of tents, it pulls up to the curb.

The window rolls down. “Good, you’re here; I was just coming back to get you.”

“What’s going on?” I ask Will.

“Where’s Drew?”

“Still inside.”

“What happened to him?” Will jerks his chin toward the weaving Jake holding onto Charlotte and I for dear life.

“Just what it looks like—too much Jäger.”

The car door opens. “Get him inside, I’ll go find Drew.”

Like a bat out of hell, he passes me on the sidewalk, and I grab his arm. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing good. I’ll tell you in a minute,” he says and strides off.

Always the drama queen.

Inside the car, I don’t worry about him right now. Instead, Charlotte and I try to get Jake situated. We just get him settled in his seat when he lunges for the door. “Get out of my way, I’m going to puke.”

In a rush, I practically shove Jake’s head out of the door.

True to his word, he tosses the Jäger.

I really should have known better.

When I turn back, I see Charlotte struggling to open the other door, and then I hear her vomiting too.
I shouldn’t have let her drink so much either.
The rain has started to fall and the drops hit her one by one. Pulling Jake back in the car, I lean over to her. “Baby, are you okay?”

She holds a finger up.

Tentatively, I ask, “What can I do?”

All she gives me is a shake of her head.

I hate being helpless.

Nerves jittering, I wait for her.

Sighing, she pulls herself back into the car and leans over. She looks sexy as all fuck, but completely exhausted.

Hating this for her, hating I can’t do anything to help her, I rub her back with slow, small soothing stokes. “Hey, are you sure you’re okay?”

Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she takes a deep breath and pulls the car door closed. “Yes. I’m fine. The heat just got to me. That’s all.”

“Yeah, me too,” Jake says with a laugh.

Dumbass.

Sometimes I really hate when I’m in a situation I can’t control. Knowing nothing I do is going to make her feel any better, I pull her to my chest. “This night is not turning out the way I thought it was going to.”

She rests her warm cheek on my chest and I comb my fingers through those mounds of curls I can never get enough of. Soon, that adorable little snoring noise is coming from her mouth.

I can’t help but grin.

Fifteen minutes or so pass before the car door opens. The sound has me bolting upright.
I might have dozed off.
I watch both Drew and Will get in the car, solemn faced.

Charlotte startles and sits up. I pull her back to me. “Lay down and rest.”

She obliges.

Jake is passed out cold.

Upon Will and Drew settling in, I take a deep breath and prepare myself for what Bunny might have done now. In the past four weeks she’s been a handful. Will’s attention isn’t fully on his job because it’s always on her. But I get it. She needs help. And someone to watch over her. She’s tried to steal his checkbook, been caught soliciting men in his building, invited a few
friends
over to party at nine in the morning, and somehow managed to drink all the booze Will had in the house before he even noticed. This isn’t going to sound right—but it could be so much worse.

Will tells the driver to go and then turns to look at me. Here it comes. “Jasper, Drew,” he says, “we need to sober Jake up and then get to the airport. We’re on a flight to LA in three hours.”

What?

Sobering up, I scowl at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Drew is quiet. He must have gotten a heads up inside.

Rising off the seat, Will pulls a piece of paper out of his back pocket. “When I got to my apartment building tonight, I found Whitney sitting in the lobby. She gave me this.”

He hands me the piece of paper.

It’s a newswire of some kind from the Detroit Free Press. The headline states, ‘Lightning Motors to add a fifth partner.’

What the fuck?

I keep reading. ‘Acquitted child molester, Nickolas Crown, offered stake in his son’s company. After winning a wrongful damage suit ten years ago, is Nickolas Crown just the fat cat this company needs to survive?’

With shaking hands, I crumble the paper and stare at Will. “It isn’t true. Jake hasn’t talked to his father since he was accused.”

“I know that, Jasper, and so does Drew, the fucking problem is the public doesn’t know that. We can’t survive a scandal like this. Taking a child molester’s money isn’t the image we want out there. Investors will be pulling out as soon as the story hits the press. That’s why we’re going to go out to LA to meet with the best damage control law firm in the country.”

“When is the story releasing?” Charlotte asks.

Will shrugs. “It hit Alex’s inbox just before Whitney was going home this evening. Her best guess is the Free Press is looking for validation from the city office before running it because they know Alex has invested a lot of resources in helping us. Bottom line, best case is that it will happen after the holiday weekend. Alex hasn’t even seen it yet. I’m certain he won’t endorse it, but that doesn’t mean it won’t run.”