I Wish You Were Mine (Oxford #2)

by Lauren Layne

  “Those aren’t little mistakes. Those are the rip-a-man’s-heart-out-and-pour-salt-in-the-gaping-hole-in-his-chest type of mistakes.”

  Something flickered across her face. “So her leaving—it ripped your heart out?”

  He groaned and reached for a piece of bread.

  “Oh, come on,” she pleaded. “Drop the macho act for thirty seconds, then you can go back to dragging your knuckles.”

  He shook his head and dunked the bread in oil. Jackson had never really understood the appeal of Italian food, but he had to admit the Italians did know their way around bread.

  “You know, most women like the macho thing,” he said, chewing his bread.

  “Yeah, in bed,” Mollie said. “But dinner at a nice place? Well, let’s just say we don’t mind a little beta.”

  “Beta?”

  “Jackson Burke, are you intentionally trying to avoid answering questions about my sister?”

  He wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Fine. You want to do this? Sure. Yes, she ripped my heart out. Yes, she left me when I needed her the most, and it fucking hurt. Okay? Even though things were awful between us long before that, when I was in the hospital . . . well, it would have been nice if she could have waited. Now, are we good, or should we stop on the way home and get me a diary and a soft pink blanket to snuggle?”

  Mollie studied him. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. About the other women, I mean.”

  He lifted a shoulder. “It was almost a year ago. And your sister told you I was a man whore, so . . .”

  She reached across the table. “You’re my friend. I should have ranked that higher than I did.”

  Jackson was a little shocked at just how much her apology meant, and surprised them both by flipping his hand over so that they were palm to palm.

  She jolted a little at the contact but didn’t pull away. He didn’t either.

  He told himself it was just a friendly touch—a thank-you for being there. For being Mollie.

  But there was nothing friendly about the way touching her made his pulse quicken and his cock harden. When she’d walked out of her bedroom tonight in that damn red dress . . . hell. He’d just barely stopped having nightly fantasies about taking that dress off her after the last time he saw her in it. Now he was going to have to start all over again, remembering that under no circumstances would he be fulfilling his fantasy of pulling it off her, seeing what was underneath, setting his mouth against her smooth skin, and . . .

  “How are we doing? Ready to place entree orders yet?” their waitress asked, appearing out of nowhere.

  Mollie jerked her hand back so quickly she nearly knocked over her water glass, but Jackson could have hugged their server for preventing him from saying or doing something fantastically stupid.

  The waitress disappeared again after taking their order, and Mollie’s usual bright, friendly smile was back in place. “Okay, so about this interview. You know you could get anyone, right? The Today show. Oprah. Anyone.”

  He gave a grim smile. “Yeah, but with Oxford I might actually have a chance of coming out ahead.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s just . . . they’re friends. Sort of. Or they could be if—” He stopped.

  “If what?”

  “I don’t know,” he muttered, taking another sip of his drink.

  “Jackson, do you want these people to like you?”

  He swallowed, refusing to answer out loud, but looked across the table at her, willing her to understand. He saw it the minute that she did.

  She leaned back and tapped her fingers against the table, as though struck with a brilliant idea. “We should have a party.”

  He frowned. “Um, what?”

  “A big cocktail party. At your place. Our place. Right before the interview. Spend all your trillions of dollars.”

  He smiled, seeing right through her plan. “You want to bribe them to write good stuff about me?”

  “No,” she said softly. “I just want them to have a chance.”

  “A chance for what?”

  “To know you. You’re a good man, Jackson Burke. Even if you don’t think so.”

  He grunted. “Nobody thinks so these days.”

  “I do.”

  His chest tightened. “Mollie—”

  Jackson’s phone buzzed in his pocket, ruining the potential moment, and he pulled it out to silence it.

  He froze when he saw the name.

  “Shit.”

  “Lincoln again?”

  Jackson shook his head.

  “Ah,” she said, setting her water glass down. “Madison.”

  Jackson nodded.

  “You can answer it.”

  “Jesus, Mollie. I’m not going to answer a call in the middle of dinner with another woman.”

  “But you want to,” she challenged.

  “I don’t,” he said emphatically, putting his phone away to prove it. “I don’t want to talk to her now, or ever. But at the same time . . .” He searched her face. “She’s always going to be there, Mollie. I look at you, and I see you, I do, but I also see—”

  “Her,” Mollie finished flatly.

  He cleared his throat. “Yeah.”

  “I get it,” she said. “Madison’s the most important person in the world to me, and it’s . . . it’s complicated.”

  Jackson gave a wry smile, and because he knew her, he understood what she was saying—and what she wasn’t.

  But as he let Mollie steer the conversation back to safer topics—work, and the delicious food, and interview etiquette—he couldn’t stop watching her and wondering if this was one case where complicated would be absolutely fucking worth it.

  Chapter 16

  The ride home back to Jackson’s place—no, their place—wasn’t quite awkward, but neither was it the easy silence of two people completely comfortable with each other.

  True to the weather app’s prediction, it was stormy, and the raindrops on the cab window gave midtown Manhattan a blurry, dreamlike feel.

  Absently she traced the Chanel logo of her bag, as she so often did when she carried this particular clutch. Feeling eyes on her, Mollie glanced over at Jackson, finding him watching the idle motion of her fingers with a tense, unreadable expression.

  Mollie turned away, focusing her attention on the raindrops racing across the window. She didn’t try to hide the small sigh that crept out. She was tired. Tired of whatever was happening—or not happening—between her and Jackson.

  One thing was becoming painfully clear: they couldn’t keep doing this. They could stay friends, certainly, but they needed distance. Living together had been a mistake on every level. Not only because she’d gone into it knowing full well she was a pawn in some warped contest between her sister and Jackson, but because she’d done it a little bit for herself as well. Her brain might be over her crush on Jackson, but her heart . . .

  Her heart was still hung up big-time on this guy she could never have.

  Tomorrow she would search for an apartment. Maybe she’d look closer to the university, find a semi-normal roommate. It wouldn’t be a Park Avenue penthouse, but maybe she and Jackson could get back to normal.

  Whatever normal was.

  Mollie didn’t know what her role was in his life anymore. Once upon a time she’d been his confidante. The one he’d come to when Madison was having a tantrum. The person he’d called after a bad practice when Maddie had been out with the girls again.

  But things were shifting. There was an undercurrent between them that felt darker and far more dangerous than whatever she’d felt for him before.

  Whatever Madison wanted for Jackson, her sister would just have to figure that shit out on her own.

  Once back on the Upper East Side, Jackson paid the cabdriver and they rode the elevator up to the penthouse in silence. Not angry silence. Not even truly awkward silence. Just the quiet of two people who knew there were things to be said, but didn’t know what things.

&nb
sp; “Thanks for dinner,” she said as he flicked on the light in the foyer. “I had a good time.”

  He nodded and dropped his keys on the console table. “It was my pleasure.”

  It was Mollie’s turn to nod, giving a horribly dorky wave as she started to head toward her bedroom.

  Then she stopped, pivoted on her high heel, and turned back to face him. He hadn’t moved.

  “Okay, this is dumb, Jackson.”

  “What’s dumb?”

  She walked toward him, stopping several feet away. “What is happening to us? We used to be friends. Heck, there were times when you felt like my best friend, even though we were in different time zones. Now we’re all tense and walking on eggshells, and you’re weird.”

  “I’m weird? You’re the one who’s kissing me one night and going out with another guy days later.”

  “You said that kiss was a mistake. I’m not going to put my life on hold while you go hot and cold on me.”

  “Cut me some slack, here, Mollie! I don’t exactly know the protocol. A year ago you were my wife’s sister, and now you’re . . .”

  “I’m what?”

  “Fucking hot!” he shouted.

  “Well, make up your mind what you want to do about it!” she shouted back. He glared, but Mollie refused to back down. “You don’t get to pin me against the kitchen counter and kiss me and then wave me off on a date with another guy. I’m not going to apologize for wearing my favorite dress for Lincoln—”

  “Bullshit,” he said quietly.

  “What?”

  His eyes narrowed. “I don’t think that red dress is for Lincoln. And those itty-bitty pajamas . . .”

  “I told you, that’s what I always sleep in! Quit acting like it was some sort of seduction plan. I was in the kitchen looking for a glass of water, not sneaking into your bedroom in edible panties!”

  His eyes flashed, desire mingling with anger, and as he stepped closer, Mollie realized they were both breathing hard.

  “What about that first night?” he asked, his voice low. “You wore this sexy red dress then, too. Who was that for, Mollie?”

  She licked her lips nervously. “I told you, I was planning to go out with friends after. We were going to a club.”

  “Is that so?” His voice dropped down a pitch, and he moved even closer.

  Mollie told herself to step back, to put more space between them—only to find that she didn’t want to.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  His breath was warm on her face. “I think you’re lying. I think you wore that dress because you wanted me to notice you. I think you were tired of being Madison’s kid sister. You wanted me to see you.”

  His words so perfectly voiced the exact yearning she’d had that night that Mollie squeezed her eyes shut. “Jackson—”

  “I saw you, Mollie. I’ve been seeing you.” His voice was hoarse. Urgent.

  He was so damn close.

  All she had to do was tilt her head up, shift her weight forward, and there’d be no space between them. She could put her lips on his, and she’d be kissing—

  Her sister’s ex.

  Mollie stepped back.

  “Damn it, Mollie, now who’s playing games?” He reached out a hand toward her, but Mollie dodged it, backing away farther, just slightly unsteady on her high heels.

  “Don’t, Jackson,” she said, her voice not nearly as firm as she would have liked. “I’m going to go to my bedroom. You’re going to yours. Tomorrow I start looking for a new apartment.”

  “Come on, you can’t—”

  Again she didn’t let him finish. “No, I can. I need to. This proximity was a mistake, and we both know it. It makes us think we want things that we—” She broke off. Took a breath. “Jackson, you once told me you loved my sister more than anything. My sister. I can’t just forget that.”

  He swore and raised a fisted hand to his forehead, tapping gently as though wanting to physically remove whatever was going through his mind at that moment.

  She swallowed. “You’d regret . . . whatever was about to happen just then,” she said. “You’d wake up and hate yourself.” And I’d be brokenhearted.

  He let his hand drop, both arms dangling at his sides as he stared at her miserably.

  Mollie knew then that she was right. Whatever it was he thought he wanted tonight wasn’t what he wanted in the long term. There was no future for her and Jackson Burke, and anything resembling a fling would be disastrous for both of them.

  She started to tell him good night, then realized that there’d be no such thing as a good night for either of them. Mollie knew full well that she’d be staring at the ceiling into the early morning hours.

  Mollie turned slowly and headed toward her room, torn between wanting to cry and wanting to scream.

  She’d done the right thing. It was all too weird. And Jackson and Madison might be divorced, but Mollie’s gut was telling her that Jackson hadn’t let go of his previous life yet. He was still clinging to the old Jackson. And the old Jackson meant Madison.

  Mollie’s stomach twisted at the thought. She shut her bedroom door and in a daze lowered herself slowly to the bed. Forced herself to run through what a reunion between her sister and Jackson would feel like. Forced herself to remember what it had been like to watch the casual way Jackson had always pushed Maddie’s bangs back from her perfect face. The little ways Madison would touch Jackson, even as she carried on a conversation with someone else. They were so used to each other. They belonged together.

  There was a knock at Mollie’s door, slow but loud. Deliberate. Daring her to ignore it.

  She wanted to ignore it.

  She wanted to crawl into bed, pull the covers over her head, and wake up in someone else’s body, in someone else’s life. She didn’t want to be smitten with a man she couldn’t have.

  And yet . . . he was her friend. Despite the murky sexual haze, she cared about him. And she couldn’t ignore the knock of a friend.

  Mollie got up and went to open the door.

  Jackson stood there, suit jacket gone, tie loosened around his neck, as he braced both hands on the door frame, staring angrily down at her.

  “You’ve got it wrong.” His voice was harsh.

  “Jackson—”

  He cut her off. “No, it’s my turn to talk. You’ve given your speech. And I get it, Mollie, I do. Madison is your sister, and she made you PB&J as a kid when your parents checked out, and that’s fine. But open your eyes. You don’t owe her anything anymore. You are your own woman, and you are a woman, Mollie. You’re not a kid. You’re not a girl. And if I’ve been a complete asshole lately, it’s because I’m having a hell of a time coming to grips with the fact that I want you. And fuck, Mollie, I want you. I want you so bad, I’m dying.”

  Mollie had never made the first move on a man in her life. She was old-fashioned like that. But she made the first move now.

  She took a step forward, placed a hand at the back of his head, and pulled his mouth to hers.

  Chapter 17

  Jackson went perfectly rigid at the feel of Mollie’s mouth on his. At the taste of her wine-flavored, soft, full lips.

  He let her have control . . . for about five seconds.

  And then he devoured her.

  Sliding both hands into her short hair, he fisted the blond waves and tugged them back, just roughly enough to make her gasp, and then he plundered her mouth with his.

  She gasped, and he took unapologetic advantage, sliding his tongue into her hot mouth.

  Fuck. Kissing Mollie was an erotic high he wasn’t sure he’d ever experienced before.

  The women he’d slept with in recent months had been physical releases and not much more. Women whose names he couldn’t remember.

  And before that, there’d been only Madison.

  Madison, who liked to be treated like a princess, unless she was halfway drunk on white wine, in which case he’d always had the sense that she didn’t really care that it was Jack
son who was touching her.

  But Mollie . . . Mollie knew it was him.

  He could feel it in the way her fingers tangled in his hair, in the way her lean body arched against his, slim and wanting. They both knew this was crazy—forbidden, even—and that made it even hotter.

  Jackson released her hair, running his hands down her back until he found the zipper of her dress. His fingers hesitated just for a moment, giving both of them a chance to come to their senses.

  In response, she pulled his lower lip between her teeth and bit down.

  Jackson growled and jerked the zipper down roughly. He placed his palms against Mollie’s back, meaning to slow things down, but the skin-to-skin contact only ignited them.

  They moved toward the bed, their mouths never breaking contact as her fingers tore furiously at the buttons of his dress shirt. She tossed his tie to the side and clawed at his shirt.

  “Off,” she whispered against his mouth.

  He pulled back slightly, feeling a twinge of pain as he maneuvered his shoulder to pull his shirt off. But it was worth it, because his shirt hit the floor at the exact same time Mollie wriggled, sending her red dress pooling at her feet.

  Even as his hands itched to reach for her, Jackson could only stare. He didn’t need a reminder that he was seven years older than she was, but he got one as he took in her flawless body.

  She was all lean, smooth curves and perfect skin. There were no battle wounds, no extra ripples. She was too good for him. By far.

  He ran a hand over his face. Mollie was twenty-eight-year-old perfection, and he felt like a beat-up old man next to her. She couldn’t possibly want—

  Mollie stepped forward, setting both hands against his chest, and his breath caught as he saw the reverent expression on her face as her fingertips explored his skin.

  He tensed as he waited for the moment when she touched the roughened skin of the scar from his surgery, but she didn’t flinch. She lifted blue eyes to his and then licked her lips.

  The want on her face nearly undid him.

  He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve this woman’s desire, but no way would he turn it down. Not when his cock felt like it’d tear right through his fucking pants if he didn’t get some relief. Not when he wanted to bend her over the bed, grab that perfect, tight ass in his hands, and—