Gotta go, Sydney is waiting on me.
Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Have fun! ;-)
I rolled my eyes and laughed. Andy was incorrigible, but he was good people.
"What are you laughing about?" Sydney asked as I stood and put my phone back in my pocket.
"Andy making sure I don't need bail money," I answered her with a smile. Her eyes widened.
"Do you?" She sounded genuinely concerned.
"If Clay calls the cops on me, they'll know he went after you," I reassured her. "So I doubt it."
She sighed with relief and nodded.
"You ready to go?" I asked her, antsy to get going.
"Ready when you are." She smiled brightly at me. We were moving toward the door when a sudden idea popped into my head.
"Where's your robe?" I asked her.
"Um, in my room," she asked in confusion. "Why?"
I lifted a finger to pause the conversation and went down the short hall to enter Sydney's room. I found her robe hanging on the back of her door. I grabbed the sash and removed it from the loops of the robe. I was still rolling it up when I walked into the kitchen where she was waiting.
"What are you going to do with that?" she asked suspiciously, her eyes locked onto my amused expression.
"You'll see, baby," I answered vaguely with a dark smile. "You'll see."
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sydney
I sat in Jensen's truck with a smile on my face, staring at him while he drove. His words kept repeating in my head. I don't care about any of that. He truly didn't care about the things I had done. He wanted me anyway. He wanted me. There had been so many times that I told a guy about my past, and they couldn't handle it. The relationships had never lasted long after my confession. Clay hadn't minded, but I wondered if he had just filed the information away to use against me later. I was convinced he thought telling Jensen about it would end things between Jensen and me. The relief I felt at that not being true was almost euphoric, and I reached over and put my hand on Jensen's leg. He smiled and glanced at me then placed his hand on top of mine.
"What were you like in high school?" I asked as I realized I didn't know anything about Jensen's past.
"Are you sure you want to know?" he said with an embarrassed expression.
"Yes." I nodded. "I want to know everything about you."
"Well," he said uncomfortably. "Be careful what you wish for."
"It can't be that bad," I assured him with a smile. I waited expectantly for him to enlighten me.
"Fine," he finally said with a sigh. "I was a complete asshole."
"I find that hard to believe. I bet girls were throwing themselves at you."
"Exactly," he said sarcastically. "That's why I was an asshole."
"What does that mean?" I asked him in confusion.
"It means I left a trail of angry girls and broken hearts in my wake. I was a total horn dog, slept with any girl who would let me." He looked out the windshield and didn't return my stare. "I'd get what I wanted and then move on. It's not something I'm proud of."
A sudden giggle erupted from my lips, which led to another and another until I was laughing hysterically. He was taken aback by my reaction, and he was starting to look offended.
"What's so funny about that?" he said with annoyance.
"Oh my God," I forced out between laughs. "We were both whores!"
"Hey!" he continued angrily. "Don't ever say anything like that about yourself again. It's not true."
"Okay." I agreed, still smiling. His reaction to me calling myself a "whore" was sweet. "But you have to appreciate the irony of this."
"Yes, I suppose I do," he said with one corner of his lip rising into a partial smile. "But you did it because you were hurting. I was just a horny asshole."
"And I don't care about any of that," I said with as much sincerity as I could muster, and turned his own words back on him. He glanced away from the road to meet my eyes. I saw gratitude and affection in his brilliant green eyes as a huge smile spread across his face. He brought my hand up to his mouth and kissed the back of it softly, then returned his attention to the road. We drove in silence for a few minutes until my curiosity got the better of me.
"What made you stop being a horny asshole?" I asked him, genuinely wondering why he wasn't like that anymore. He snorted and smirked at my choice of words.
"I got a taste of my own medicine," he said ruefully, his smirk slipping from his lips. "I fell in love my first year at college. She ripped my heart out and stomped on it all over the floor."
"I'm sorry," I responded sympathetically.
"Don't be," he said, shaking his head. "I got what I deserved."
"Nobody deserves that."
He pursed his lips at my words but didn't respond. He honestly thought he deserved the broken heart that girl had given him. I understood that messed up kind of thinking. For a long time, I thought that everything bad that happened to me was karmic payback for the things I had done. Some days I still struggled with those kinds of thoughts.
"Anyway," he continued. "After that I stopped being such an asshole. I've had a few serious girlfriends over the years. I've even had the occasional one-night-stand, I'm not a monk or anything, but I always made sure it was understood that's all it was. No lying or implying something more to get in someone's pants."
Wow, he wasn't kidding when he said he'd been an asshole. I was glad that he wasn't that person anymore. Hell, his good looks alone must have reeled in most of the girls he slept with. The man was seriously gorgeous, and it must have been like shooting fish in a barrel. It was even easier for me back then. Men were simple creatures when it came to sex. All you usually had to do was ask for it.
"In case you were wondering, I haven't fathered any kids or caught any diseases," he added. "I've always been careful about that."
I hadn't been wondering about that, but it was good to know. Unfortunately, I wasn't very careful at all. I was lucky I hadn't had a litter of kids or caught something. Thankfully, all the blood tests Lauren had made me get had always been clean.
"Except with me," I reminded him quietly.
"That was a first for me," he said with embarrassment. "But it wasn't my fault; you drive me crazy. You're entirely too sexy."
"I can always try to ugly myself up, if you think that would help," I suggested with a smile.
"Nothing could ever make you ugly," he replied with heat in his eyes. He looked back at the road to turn into the entrance of his condo complex and drove around until we reached his driveway. He parked the truck and shut off the engine.
"Come here," he said and I leaned toward him. He caressed my cheek, his eyes still heated with desire and kissed me deeply until I felt like a limp rag. He pulled back and smiled at me; the heart-stopping brilliance of it stunned me. "See? You drive me crazy."
"The feeling's mutual," I whispered back to him with a huge smile of my own.
He reached back behind my seat and grabbed my duffel bag for me. We unlatched our seat belts and got out of the truck. He came around the front of the vehicle and took my hand in his as he led me to the front door to the right of his garage.
"How long have you lived here?" I asked as he handed me my bag and unlocked the door.
"About four years now," he answered as he took the bag back from me and pulled the door open. He waved me through ahead of him. "I couldn't live anywhere that didn't have a safe place for the Camaro. The garage sold me on this place."
"I like it; it suits you," I added as I followed him up some steps to another door on the left. He opened it and motioned me in with a flourish. I smiled as I passed him. I turned right, since I hadn't been in that room yet, and entered the kitchen.
"Sorry about the mess," he said from the doorway as I looked around the room. There were some dishes in the sink and some clutter on the table, but nothing worth apologizing for. I liked the dark-red cupboards that blended well with all the exposed brick, and the dark hardwood floor was gorgeo
us. There was a large window behind the table to my right, that must let in a lot of light during the day. I noticed the door to the left of the window.
"Where does that door go?" I asked.
"There's a deck out there."
"Oh, I wish I had one at my place," I said enviously.
"We could have dinner out there sometime, if you'd like," he suggested.
"You cook?" I asked in astonishment.
"A little," he admitted with a shrug. "Nothing fancy, but I do alright."
"Really?" I asked. "Well, color me impressed."
"I've been living on my own for eight years," he said in feigned indignation. "I'm bound to learn something about cooking if I don't want to starve to death."
"Eight years?" I asked sardonically. "Wow, you sound old."
"I'm twenty-eight; I'm not old," he defended himself.
"Show me the rest of your place, old man," I commanded as I smiled at him brightly.
"Old man, huh?" Jensen said, returning my smile as I walked up to him. "How old are you? You're of age aren't you? I don't want to end up on some sexual deviant list on the Internet."
"I'm twenty-four," I answered and patted his cheek. "Don't worry, baby, your name won't be on a list. Whether you're a sexual deviant is still up for debate."
"No one's complained yet," he said as he dropped my bag on the floor. He grabbed my ass with both hands and pulled me close as his eyes danced with merriment. He leaned his head down to me, and I closed my eyes expecting him to kiss me, but he abruptly pulled away instead. "Let's continue the tour, shall we?" he suddenly announced nonchalantly. My eyes popped back open to watch him turn and walk away down the short hall toward his living room. I glared at his back. That man was such a tease. I followed in his wake, enjoying another view of his delicious backside. "Here we have the living room," he announced as he paused in front of me, his arm sweeping out toward the room. "Note the couch, where we had crazy hot sex yesterday."
I felt myself blushing, and wished to God that I could stop it from happening all the time. He smiled knowingly at me and then headed toward the stairs to the second floor. I trailed after him shaking my head at his silly behavior. At the top of the stairs, he turned left down another hall, and we ended up in a room occupied by a treadmill and weight bench on the right, and a CD filled shelving unit and several guitars on stands on the left. There was a small desk with a computer on it, centered along the far wall under a large window.
"You play the guitar?" I asked excitedly.
"Yeah," he answered in obvious discomfort.
"What kind of music do you play?" I asked. "Are you in a band? Because that would be incredibly hot."
"I used to be. We did a lot of blues and blues-rock covers," he replied with an oddly sad expression. "I'm a blues man, but I like a lot of different kinds of music."
"Could you play something for me?" I asked him with a smile. I imagined he looked unbelievably sexy holding a guitar.
"Maybe some other time," he answered evasively, shifting his weight from foot to foot, and then changed the subject. "Are you hungry? I'm starving." His reaction surprised me, and I decided to humor him since the subject obviously made him uncomfortable.
"Yeah, I'm starving too," I said. "I was so upset that I forgot to eat dinner when I got home." The thought of Clay's attack on me earlier sent a shiver down my spine. I unconsciously wrapped my arms around myself. Jensen turned and put his arms around me with a pensive look on his face.
"It's alright, baby," he whispered. "You're safe here with me."
I snuggled into his embrace. He did make me feel safe and cared for, and I wrapped my arms around his waist, enjoying the feel of his warm body against mine. He smelled so good, even after working all day. I sighed with contentment.
"I think I have a frozen pizza," he said after a few moments. "Unless you want something else. We could order out if you want to."
"Wow, you are one hell of a chef," I said sarcastically as I looked up into his eyes and smiled.
He rolled his eyes and shook his head, his strange mood seemed to have passed.
"A frozen pizza sounds fantastic, actually," I said.
"Why don't you go down and throw it in the oven," he suggested. "I'm going to take a quick shower before we eat." My eyes lit up at the idea of Jensen in the shower with soapy water cascading down his naked body. He narrowed his eyes at me. "Alone," he insisted. "I have plans for you, and I'm not letting you hijack them in the shower."
"Fine," I said petulantly. "But I get to snoop around all I like while you're in there."
"Snoop away, baby," he conceded with a laugh. "I've got nothing to hide."
He let go of me and started walking down the hall toward his room, slipping the gray button-down shirt off his arms. My God, that man could fill out a T-shirt. I watched his biceps flexing. I stared in fascination as he dropped the gray shirt to the floor in the doorway of his room and pulled his T-shirt over his head as he turned facing me down the hallway. The muscles of his chest and abs flexed hypnotically as I watched him drop the shirt on the floor. He paused with his hands at the zipper of his jeans, and I raised my eyes up to his face. He smiled and waggled his eyebrows at me as he disappeared around the corner and into his room.
"Tease!" I yelled after him. His deep answering laughter echoed down the hallway.
After I had put the frozen pizza in the oven to bake, I hurried back upstairs to get a better look at Jensen's guitars. I paused in the hallway next to Jensen's room, and I could hear the shower running. An almost overwhelming desire to take my clothes off and join him nearly made me head toward Jensen's bathroom. No doubt I could convince him to let me in, but his suggestion that he had other plans for me were intriguing to say the least. Plus, he still had the sash to my robe, and I had no idea what he planned to do with it. I was very curious to find out, so I turned left and entered the second bedroom instead.
I walked straight over to the guitar stands for a closer look. The first one was a white Fender Stratocaster with a black neck. The pick guard was a gorgeous pearl white. It had a simple elegance that I liked. The next one was a brilliant green with a pattern that made it look like green fire, it said Gibson across its head. There were beautiful mother-of-pearl rectangles down the neck. I smiled to myself as I realized it was green just like the Camaro. Finally, the last guitar was an old beat up looking acoustic that had seen better days but had obviously been well loved since it was displayed with the others.
They all had one thing in common. There was a layer of dust accumulated on all three of them. Obviously, they hadn't been used in a while. I pursed my lips and looked in the direction of Jensen's room. I wondered if he had stopped playing them about two months ago. Grief could have that effect on people, make them lose interest in the things they used to love. No wonder he was uncomfortable when I had asked him to play for me. From what I knew about him, he probably felt too guilty to enjoy playing any music. I knew he blamed himself for the crash; I heard him say as much during his nightmare last night. I wish I dared to ask him about it, but he seemed so fragile I didn't have the heart.
I was starting to feel a little guilty for snooping around, even though he had given me permission, so I left the room and headed back downstairs, sighing with longing as I passed his bedroom door. I entered the living room and walked over to Jensen's couch and plopped down on one end of it with a deep sigh. There was a large plasma TV on a stand in front of me, and I grabbed the remote off the coffee table to turn it on. I might as well watch TV while I waited. Besides I needed a distraction from thoughts of a naked Jensen in the shower. I slipped my shoes off and snuggled down into the soft brown leather of his couch and started flipping through the channels. I found a movie I liked and settled in to watch it. It didn't take long for me to be totally engrossed in it.
"Fight Club?" Jensen's amused voice suddenly asked incredulously to my right, making me startle in surprise. "That's not something I would have expected you to be watching."
>
"It's Brad Pitt. What's not to like?" I said defensively as I looked over at him. I lost the ability to speak when I saw what he was wearing. He stood at the bottom of the steps in a pair of black drawstring lounge pants and nothing else. The pants hung low on his hips, highlighting the deep grooves of his hip muscles. A faint line of hair trailed down from his belly button and disappeared into the waistband. His chest and abs were perfectly defined, and the muscles of his shoulders and arms looked lean and powerful. I think my brain started melting out of the back of my skull. Holy Shit!
Just then the timer on the oven went off, breaking the spell his body had me under.
"I'll get that," he said as he smiled at me. I was pretty sure the bastard knew exactly what he was doing to me. He probably dressed like that on purpose. Jensen padded across the room toward the kitchen, and I stared helplessly at his perfect ass and the twin dimples above each cheek peeking out above the back of his pants. I narrowed my eyes at him as he disappeared down the hallway. It was time to give him a dose of his own medicine. I stood and quickly pulled my hoodie off, revealing the sheer black lace cami I was wearing underneath. I readjusted the girls in my black push-up bra to display my cleavage to full effect and followed Jensen into the kitchen. He was leaning down to pull the pizza out of the oven as I walked in.
"I hope pepperoni is alright with you," he said as I walked up and leaned my hip against the counter next to him. He placed the pizza and its pan on top of the stove, and turned looking at me. He stopped abruptly and stared at my chest with his mouth hanging open slightly. I wouldn't have been surprised if he had started drooling. I moved closer to run my hands up his stomach to his chest, pushing my breasts up toward him. He licked his lips and kept staring at them as he let the oven mitt in his hand fall to the floor.
"I love pepperoni," I told him, and he lifted his eyes to mine. He looked like he was going to eat me alive, his eyes intense and predatory.
Let Me Love You: Beautifully Broken Book 1 Page 14
