Bad Girl

by Piper Lawson

  The iced teas show up, and we reach for them. I go for my wallet, but he shakes me off, pulling out a fifty that has her raising a brow.

  “You're hearing voices, you should stalk a psych major,” I say when she leaves.

  Jax’s gaze narrows.

  I thought taking control of my life would mean no more madness, no more drama. No more obsessing over rock stars.

  But here we are.

  It’s easy to tell myself I’m deluded, that I have a harmless crush, when the object of it isn’t standing in my café looking at me with amber eyes that I swear could melt the North Pole.

  Right now, it doesn’t matter that he’s loaded or famous or inspires rational women to regress into hormone-fueled animals bearing sparkle-glitter signs with marriage proposals.

  He’s just a guy who makes me feel like I’m really fucking glad to be standing here. (And equally glad I brushed my hair before coming here.)

  Maybe this is my life. Maybe I can get back into school and figure out how to deal with Cross and still enjoy the fact that for the first time…

  Jax Jamieson came for me.

  I smile as the huge weight melts off my chest.

  “I’m glad you came tonight. Leonard.” I lift my glass in a toast and take a long sip through the straw. “Thanks for the tea.”

  Before he can respond, I turn on my heel and start toward the stage.

  I get three steps before his voice stops me.

  “Haley.”

  I glance over my shoulder, raising a brow.

  Jax stares at me, hands in his jeans. He looks adorably out of place as he clears his throat. “What are you doing later?”

  “Yes. No. Hell no. Jesus, Hales, what is this shit?” Jax leans over me, clicking through the playlist on the computer at the campus radio station.

  “Those are completely defensible song choices,” I protest.

  “They’re crap.”

  Before I left for the summer, I’d promised to cover some September shifts for a classmate going on exchange.

  Now Jax’s hat sits on the board, ditched now that we’re inside and unlikely to be swarmed by fans. He looks completely at home in the tired task chair, leather reinforced with duct tape. His hair falls over his face in that way that makes my fingers itch to brush it aside. The long-sleeved overshirt’s gone too, revealing a black T-shirt that clings to his chest and arms.

  Now that we’re not on tour, there aren’t thousands of fans screaming for him, dozens of people catering to him, it’s all so normal I can almost pretend we’re just two friends hanging out.

  At least until the warm light in the booth caresses his skin, the sleeve of tattoos, in a way that directly challenges my vow to keep things simple.

  “You need an education,” Jax goes on.

  “That’s why I’m at college.”

  “Not that kind of education. The kind I can give you.”

  Ignoring the way his rumbling voice sends heat down my spine, I get off my stool and hip-check him so he rolls across the floor. “What do you want me to play, O Supreme Curator of Musical Taste?”

  He leans back in his chair, folding his hands behind his head so his shirt pulls across his muscled chest. “Something classic. The Smiths. AC/DC. Me.”

  The grin that pulls across his face is smug and sexy as hell.

  Resisting Jax is nearly impossible. But the kicker is he’s not offering me anything. All he’s doing is being himself.

  I’m trying to remember I’m here to play a mix of contemporary rock music for a bunch of undergrads who are probably watching Netflix, not launching myself at Jax like a human can of Silly String.

  The whole ‘he’s just a guy’ thing was working for me really well until this moment.

  I turn back to the computer so I don’t have to deal with the arousal stirring in my stomach. “No way.”

  His phone buzzes, and I glance back. “I sent Grace and Annie to Disney for the weekend,” he says without looking up. “Then they have a suite at the Ritz in Dallas starting Monday.”

  “Mouse ears.”

  His gaze flicks to mine. “What?”

  “Just watch. They’ll bring you mouse ears.”

  He shakes his head, and I laugh.

  “That’s all it takes, huh? A few days off tour and the promise of some branded mouse ears.”

  His grin warms me through my toes. “Never said I was complicated.” He shifts forward in his chair. “I gotta call Grace quick. I’ll be back.”

  Jax steps out, and I add a new song to the queue. I watch him through the window as he talks to his sister, and I can’t help but smile.

  I don’t know why he’s here, but I’m glad.

  It’s like I’m on a different frequency with him. He excites me and challenges me, and sometimes scares me. But I also feel like I can be myself with him. He doesn’t judge or criticize.

  I add a few more songs to the list, including one I debate for agonizing seconds, because I’m afraid to wreck the vibe in here and I know on instinct that it will.

  When the track changes, I swear I feel Jax’s gaze through the glass.

  I flush.

  The sound of Jax’s voice coming through the speakers has me shivering like always. But now it’s like having surround sound, especially as he returns to the booth.

  “‘Redline,’” he says over the music.

  Prickles run down my skin as he pulls the chair closer to the desk and drops into it.

  He’s on the radio and in front of me, and being faced with two gods is impossible.

  I try to keep my voice easy. “Figured I could humor you and your big ego.”

  Something shifts, and it’s not the song. It’s his expression, the smile fading into the kind of deliberate intensity I doubt many guys in their twenties possess.

  “Tell me something.” His words skim along my skin, raising the hairs there. “Do you kiss him?”

  It’s such a jarring departure from our conversation that I have to replay his words in my mind.

  “Who? Dale?”

  Before I can respond, he snags the backs of my knees and pulls.

  I land in his lap, my hands bracing on his chest for balance as my heartbeat explodes in my ears.

  God, he’s hot.

  Not like that. I mean he’s actually a human furnace under the thin T-shirt. Every ridge of his abs, his chest.

  “What are you doing?” It comes out like a squeak.

  Jax’s hands move up my thighs, slow. His touch sears me through my jeans as he strokes up my legs, my hips.

  I expected him to have a reaction to playing his song.

  I didn’t expect this.

  Especially when his hands sneak under my shirt to caress my lower back.

  My eyes start to drift closed, and I fight it with everything I am.

  Because I’m in charge of me, even when this man threatens to wipe out all my self-control.

  It’s not only his touch is messing with my mind—it’s the look on his face. Like a starving lion sizing up the only gazelle he’s seen in weeks.

  “When I pulled you out of that crowd in Atlanta,” Jax murmurs, “you struggled until you realized it was me.”

  “So?” My voice is almost normal, and I don’t know how I manage it.

  “So, you like it when I touch you.”

  How the hell did his lips get so close?

  “I like it better than being groped-slash-trampled by thousands of screaming fans, yes.” I swallow, reminding myself how I said I’d keep this easy. “But I’m not on your tour anymore. I can do whatever I want. Whoever I want.”

  Determination crosses his face as his thumbs stroke my back, making me want to arch like a cat and taking all my willpower to resist doing exactly that.

  Jax’s amber eyes darken, and his scent invites me closer. Every part of him in fact, from his hard legs to his chest, invites me closer.

  But I’m not ready to give in. He’s used to women throwing themselves at him. That’s not happe
ning here.

  “I’m not your groupie, Jax.”

  “That’s why I like you so much, Hales.” The chorus sounds in the background, and he leans forward, his nose tracing the edge of my jaw in a way that has my fingers flexing on his abs, his T-shirt. “Tell me how many times you thought about it.”

  I let out a shaky breath. “What? My near-death experience when you almost unwrapped that Snickers in the limo?”

  I’m amazed I have enough brain cells to bluff when every part of me’s living for the places our bodies touch.

  “The time I unwrapped you on my bus. You fucking melted for me. Don’t tell me you forgot.”

  God, his voice is intoxicating. Jax’s thumb presses against my lower lip, and my mouth opens on instinct.

  A slow burn starts in my breasts, travels between my thighs.

  I think I’m wet before his lips claim mine.

  His tongue traces my lower lip like he’s outlining the shape of it. Drawing from memory.

  I’d meant to pull back. To indulge in one taste, but I underestimated the strength of that first hit.

  He takes advantage, and when he nips at my lip with his teeth, Jax’s kiss turns hungry on a groan I want to record. Not because that sound alone would sell a million copies, but because I want there to be one copy. And I want to listen to it every night with my hand between my thighs.

  I try to stay still but my fingers itch to move up his chest. They sneak over his shoulders, into his hair.

  It’s still harmless. Easy.

  So’s lying to myself, apparently.

  I might be on top, but Jax is making a play for control from the second I taste him. His hands move up my back, around to my breasts.

  He cups me in his hands like he wants to memorize the shape of me, and I need to slow this thing down before it spirals off into something we can’t come back from.

  But part of me wants to explore, to discover. To ride out these feelings, to watch them and feel them and replay them when these few precious moments of madness are over forever.

  I don’t know what making out feels like for normal people because I’ve never been normal. It’s only ever been something tolerable at best to have another person’s hands on me, not to mention their mouth.

  This is maddening. Torture, but the kind I escape for a breath only to launch myself back into again.

  The air goes dead, and it takes a good minute for the implication to sink in.

  I spin around and search for a song to put on.

  Then I line up the rest of the list before I shift back against the deck.

  Jax watches with hooded eyes that glow like embers.

  “So. Um. This is the last song of this show. Someone will be here any second to take over.”

  We’re so far apart compared to how we were a moment ago, but it’s suddenly awkward.

  How could it not be?

  I blurt the first thing that comes into my head.

  “Serena’s seeing some frat guy. She won’t be home tonight; she likes the breakfast there. They always have bacon.”

  Stop talking about bacon.

  When Jax shifts out of the chair, grabs his cap, and crosses to the other side of the booth, I know I’ve done something wrong.

  “We need to talk.”

  I tuck my hair behind my ears because somehow it got wicked messy in the last five minutes. “Wow. That’s ominous.”

  He tugs the cap down over his head.

  “Let’s take a walk.”

  Despite the fact it’s after dark, the air’s warm for September, and I tug my hair up in a bun as we step outside.

  Jax glances toward me as we fall into step next to one another. “What was your mom like?”

  I look up at the trees. This afternoon I’d noticed them starting to turn, the leaves tinting gold. Now they’re just ghostly shadows as we cross campus. Soon, students will be pouring out of their night classes.

  “Protective. But not about physical things. She was freaked out for days after I went with friends to see Gone Girl. She didn’t know what it was about until after I got home.”

  “Horror movies?”

  I shake my head. “It wasn’t the fictional boogieman she didn’t want me exposed to. More like the boundary conditions of the human mind.”

  “See? What do I need a psych major for when I have you?”

  I can’t help the smile that tugs at my lips even though I know he can’t see it.

  We make it the rest of the way to the edge of campus in silence. We’re almost another block closer to my place by the time Jax speaks again.

  “Your mom wouldn’t have liked me. What’s on that flash drive, Hales…” Regret tinges his voice. Tension fills his shoulders, his arms. “I did a lot of shit when I was first signed.”

  I hitch my backpack higher on my shoulders. “You can’t scare me, Jax. I’ve had sex. I’ve smoked a joint. I’ve watched porn.”

  His soft laugh fills the darkness, as if I’ve made myself sound more innocent instead of less. I focus on the lines in the sidewalk.

  “What I mean is it doesn’t matter.”

  “It does because it has consequences. The kind that never end.”

  I can’t think of anything he’d have done that would change the attraction I feel for him.

  Even though that label seems too superficial for the electricity still pulsing through my veins, it’s completely right. He draws me in. Pulls me toward him, on every level. Physical, emotional, intellectual. There’s nothing in this world that could reverse that magnetism.

  Until he utters the words that change everything.

  “Annie’s not my niece, Haley. She’s my daughter.”

  I stop next to a streetlight, and Jax pulls up next to me.

  We’re a block from my building, but we might as well be a mile. I reach up to yank his hat off because I need to see his face.

  “What did you say?”

  His hair is everywhere, and his eyes are wary and vulnerable.

  I know I’ve misheard him. Except the look on his face tells me I haven’t.

  “She’s my kid. Not Grace’s. Annie doesn’t know.” The misery in his voice guts me.

  “Who’s her mother?”

  “It doesn’t matter. She tried to contact me but couldn’t. She dropped Annie off with Grace. I didn’t find out until months later.” His words are raw, as if talking about this causes him physical pain. “Cross stopped her from contacting me. Threatened her. Eventually paid for her silence. Then he kept Grace from telling me because he told her it would ruin my future.”

  Facts, admissions, and observations collide in my brain, pieces clicking into place one at a time. “That’s why you hate him.”

  “It’s one reason,” Jax admits. “I wanted to tell you because I like telling you things. I like that you keep my secrets. And I don’t want that hanging between us.”

  My chest aches with disbelief, understanding, anguish.

  I want to tell him this changes nothing. But that’s not true. Who he is is different than who he was a moment ago.

  You knew he wasn’t a saint. He’s not like Dale or any of the boys Serena brings to the apartment.

  It’s all true, but I don’t know what to do with it.

  A breeze sweeps the hairs on the nape of my neck, and I wrap my arms around myself.

  “That’s my building.” I nod down the block.

  Jax lets out a breath. “I should get back to the hotel.”

  He flips open his phone, and instincts fight inside me.

  I want him to leave.

  I want him to stay.

  Mostly, I want to rewind to five minutes ago when I felt as though we were just two people occupying the same space and time.

  “At least come in to call your car. College girls are vicious. If you got recognized out here…” I shudder. “I couldn’t live with myself.”

  I lead the way up the walk. I’m on autopilot as he holds the door for me, as I take the stairs first.


  I let us into the apartment and take off my shoes.

  He hovers in the doorway, taking up most of the frame with his body.

  I’m suddenly self-conscious as I notice the neutral décor, the fake hardwood, and the white appliances.

  “We’ve lived here since second year. It’s not quite a hotel, but for students, it’s practically the Four Seasons.”

  Jax opens his phone, then curses.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Grace says she emailed me a picture of them at Disney. I didn’t bring my tablet to Philly.”

  “You can check your email in a browser if you want.” I pass him my phone without hesitation, swallowing as our fingers brush.

  “Thanks.”

  I shift a hip against the wall next to him as he types away on my phone. Waits.

  Then he holds up the picture of Annie.

  She and Grace are wearing wide grins and mouse ears. A third set rests in Annie’s raised hands.

  “Mouse ears,” Jax confirms, solemn.

  “Mouse ears.” I can’t help but smile.

  I don’t know how I missed it. The way he talks about her. The look on his face.

  My apartment suddenly feels too small, but it’s filled with warmth, not emptiness.

  “Listen. You’ve spent the last two years living in hotels. You deserve to sleep somewhere that feels like home.”

  He lowers the phone, looking past me like the answer to that invitation is somewhere in the living room.

  Then he tosses his hair out of his face with that easy grace that says he does it a lot, kicks off his shoes, and hangs the hat by the door.

  My heart thuds dully in my chest as Jax follows me into my room.

  Now that the initial shock has worn off—has it?—I’m coming to grips with the other crazy reality.

  Jax Jamieson is in my apartment.

  In my room.

  An hour ago, his tongue was tattooing mine.

  After flicking on the small light by the bed, I search in my dresser drawer for an unopened toothbrush.

  “That your overnight guest drawer?”

  “Huh?” I flush as I get his meaning. “Oh. I don’t have a lot of overnight guests.”

  A brow rises under his thick fall of hair.

  “I mean, I have some guests. Really good-looking guests.” Now his mouth is twitching, and I resist the urge to face-palm.