by Skye Jordan
Jax met her eyes. They looked as dark blue as the Pacific in the dim light.
“I’ve been building this business since I could draw. I didn’t go to college. Don’t have a fancy degree from a design school. I grew up poor. Dirt poor. So every success for me is that much sweeter. I’ve never borrowed a dime. Never had a financial backer. Everything about Lexi LaCroix Designs is one hundred percent…mine.”
“Fuck,” Jax whispered, rubbing a hand over his eyes, wishing he could take his impulsive words at the bar back. “Lexi, I’m sorry. I didn’t…”
“I know,” she said. “That’s why I’m telling you. I don’t need anyone to do or give me anything to succeed. I’m already there. I’m trying to refine that success to give me a better quality of life. But I have everything I need to do it on my own terms, in my own time, through opportunities that come to me because of all that hard work. I’m proud of that.
“And with how little I know about you, it’s hard to imagine what you could possibly have that you fear I would want. Money is the obvious answer, since as I told you in New York, Hollywood contacts hold no value for me. So let me just set your mind straight right now. My friend, Rubi, has been trying to push millions on me for years. I’ve had three different investors approach me. I’ve turned everyone down. I don’t want to leverage my business. I want to build it. Grow it. Myself. That’s what the business opportunity in New York was about. And that’s not panning out very well either.”
“Your rough day?” he asked.
“Partially, yes.”
Things were starting to fall into place—making him want her more and pushing her farther away at the same time.
He ran his tongue over his lower lip and looked around the shop. “And the reason you wouldn’t see me here in LA is because…” He gestured to the surroundings, his gut aching. “I don’t fit into that image you’ve worked so hard to create.”
She dropped her arms and raked both hands through her hair, then turned and wandered away, toward a rack of pristine white gowns, each sealed in a clear plastic cover.
“I’ve trapped myself. I didn’t realize it until I met you. I was just building a business, doing what I loved to do, growing with the market, meeting demand. Slowly, my clients became wealthier, more important, higher profile. It looked like success to me. I was so caught up in becoming what I’d always dreamed, accomplishing what everyone said I couldn’t that I didn’t see how limiting it had become.
“Now I feel like I live in a bubble. Cameras follow my clients into the shop; reporters dog me for the inside scoop. I’ve had reporters try to pay me off, seduce me, threaten me. They are relentless.”
She sighed and turned back to him. “Now how clean my personal image is becomes a factor in whether this billionaire will have me design his daughter’s wedding dress and the dresses for her eighteen bridesmaids to the tune of half a million dollars. Whether this big New York designer wants to take me on as a partner and distribute my work in stores I can’t even imagine reaching on my own.”
Jax nodded slowly, raked his bottom lip between his teeth, but it didn’t ease the growing knot in his chest. “And it doesn’t matter who I am as a person. Your biggest clients would take one look at me—my leathers, my tattoos, my too long hair, my motorcycle, the cuts and bruises and occasional black eyes—and jump to their own conclusions. Then judge you based on those. And take their business elsewhere.”
And based on how much of this she’d done on her own and the fact that she’d grown up poor, he’d bet this was all she had.
He huffed a humorless laugh. “Yeah, I get it.”
And he was disgusted with the whole superficial scene—one prevalent in the entire LA area, not just Hollywood. More, he hated the way it kept him from what he wanted most. Lexi.
She clasped her hands, threaded her fingers, and looked down at the floor again. “It’s that, yes. But, it’s also…” She swallowed. Her hands twisted. “I’ve just come too close to losing everything because I trusted. I hoped. And it’s, I don’t know, scarred me…or scared me…or both.”
She started laughing, an exhausted, disheartened sound, and pressed her hands to her cheeks. “See, aren’t you glad I didn’t tell you all this last month? You’d have thought I was psychotic. ’Cause…well, I kind of am…”
She covered her face and made a sound Jax couldn’t decipher between a laugh and a sob.
“I’m glad you didn’t,” he said, “but not because of that. I’d have been freaking intimidated. I think… No, I know, I’m still intimidated. I know a dozen corporate executives who can’t handle their personal and professional lives so well, Lex.”
She dropped her hands and gestured to her face, wet with tears again. “I’m obviously not handling it all that well.”
He grimaced. “You were until I messed things up.”
“No.” She approached him and gripped his arms. “This is not your fault. This is not about you not fitting in. This is about me putting on a face to be what others think I should be to keep my business going.”
She heaved a sigh and slid her hands down his arms until her fingers wound around his, then pulled him toward a corner of the shop. He followed, hoping she was going to drag him into a chair in some corner, raise her little dress, and straddle his lap, bridge this growing distance between them. But she started up a set of stairs in the back.
Even better. Her apartment. His mind drifted away from all the problems between them and straight to getting her naked, filling her, and staying there the rest of the night.
At the top of the stairs, an open space stretched the length of the shop. One glance and Jax could see this wasn’t an apartment. It was an office and a workroom with a bed in the corner.
She had a drafting table on one side of the room, another long table with fabric bolts lined up, pattern pieces stacked, sketches layered everywhere and lining the walls. Three different mannequins stood in a corner, each wearing partially finished dresses in different states of completion beside an industrial sewing machine, it too covered in pattern pieces and stray fabric and trim.
Her bed was pushed up against two walls, the only other furniture a nightstand and a small dresser.
“This is me.” She gestured to the chaotic space. Messy but clean. The space of a creative genius. He’d been around enough artists and writers to know what kind of spaces produced the really radical, ground-breaking shit. This was it.
She walked to the banister and gestured to where they’d just been. “That is who I have to be to do…” She waved to her drawing table. “…that. To make a living at what I love to do. The only thing I know how to do.”
The same way Jax had to live in LA to make a living at what he loved to do. He understood. He did. But he wasn’t finding any easy solution to the issue.
She turned back to him with so much worry and pain and regret in those gorgeous eyes, his mind flickered toward becoming exactly what she needed just to be able to look at her forever. He had the breeding, the knowledge, the skill. He’d have an entire fucking fan club in his family alone.
But he wouldn’t be himself.
“I’m not too good to be true, Jax. I may look good on the surface, but on the inside…” She winced. “I’m really a pretty ugly mess.”
Jax scraped one hand through his hair. He wasn’t going to try to argue with her here or now. “Honestly, babe, I’m digging this ugly mess. But…Lexi…Jesus, living here? Do you even have a closet?”
“Across from the bathroom.” She pointed to the corner opposite her bed, “Through that door.”
Jax crossed the space, peering into a dark room. “Lex, this is not a bathroom, this is a hole in the wall.” His entire living room was the size of this freaking store, and he suddenly wanted to spoil her in his luxurious house that went to waste, empty most of the time. He turned out of the space. “How much do you charge for the dresses?”
“Anywhere between fifteen and fifty thousand, depending on the work involved.”
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Jax made an involuntary sucking sound in his throat. He finally choked out, “Fifty thousand dollars?”
“No, grape seeds,” she said, hand on her hip, mouth quirked in a little smile. “I find they’re far more valuable than dollars.”
The spark in her blue eyes, the look on her beautiful face, the sass in her tone floored Jax, and electricity sparked through his body. “You smart-ass little—”
Her laughter made him pause. Made him focus on her. Feel her. Made him realize he was holding her, one arm low on her back, one against the base of her neck, looking down at her smiling eyes. Fire flared inside him so fast he stopped breathing. Lexi’s gaze softened. One hand rose from his bicep, rested against his cheek, and a look of longing in her eyes that made him forget everything but her.
“Fifty thousand dollars a dress,” he said, “and you’re living in this lunch bag?”
“Not every dress sells for that, each dress takes a long time to make, and I have one hell of a lot of overhead. Besides, growing up poor has made me…frugal. I don’t see the point in paying two thousand dollars a month on a lunch bag of an apartment to do nothing but sleep there a few hours a night.”
He ran his hand through her hair and smiled. “You need a life outside work, Lex. It’s not healthy.” He laughed. “Christ, this is like lecturing into a mirror.”
“You’re so handsome. I wish…” Emotion flooded her eyes. She swallowed. Smiled, but the expression was sad. “I know it’s stupid to say when we really don’t know each other…”
“You’re not listening to me…” But he let her slide. “And say it anyway.”
“I’ve missed you so much.”
An emotion Jax couldn’t identify flooded him. It started at the middle of his chest and washed outward until he ached with it. Desire flowed in its wake. Deep and hot and strong. But different from anything he’d ever felt before. Far more intense.
He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to hers. “What do you wish, Lexi? I’m in the mood to make your wishes come true.”
“I wish I could have made love to you…looking into your eyes.”
The feeling in his chest magnified. A sensation of both pleasure and pain mixed until Jax felt fused to Lexi. Like he’d go insane if he had to let her go.
“Tell me what I can do to make this work, baby.”
She laughed. “I’m the last person to be giving advice on relationships, as evidenced by the lousy way I’ve handled this one from the start.”
“I’m no gem either.” Pulling back, he took her face in both hands and met her gaze seriously. “But I’ve been through enough relationships to know when I’ve found someone I want to keep. And I want to keep you.” Tears gathered in her eyes. She bit her bottom lip. “What about you, Lex? It has to go both ways.”
“Want? Yes,” she whispered, her eyes sliding closed. “Yes, I want to keep you more than I want to breathe.”
When Jax’s lips covered hers, Lexi whimpered with relief. With lust. With need. She hadn’t realized how badly she needed him until his strong arms pulled her up against his hard body. Until his lips were sliding against hers. Until his tongue touched hers and his taste filled her mouth.
They groaned at the same time. She sucked at his lips, licked into his mouth. Jax pulled her hips up against his. The jeans he wore were medium blue and deeply worn. They cupped his sex like a far softer fabric than denim, and when he rubbed against her, his heat burned through all their clothing layers.
Jax’s hand clawed into her hair from the base of her neck. The strength pulled at the strands, shooting a delicious tingle through her scalp.
He pulled her head back, breaking the kiss. Lexi opened her eyes to his, heavy lidded and hot. They were a smoky blue-green. Not hazel at all.
“These have been the longest fucking three weeks of my life.” His lips slid over hers again, as if he couldn’t keep them away for more than a second. His tongue did sweet, erotic, wicked things to her mouth. He groaned, pulled back again. “I need you, Lex.”
“Yes,” she murmured, barely able to stand.
She fisted his shirt, a soft cotton T-shirt that melted beneath her hands, molded to his muscles as she touched him. But it wasn’t enough. She needed skin and yanked the bottom edge from his jeans. Slid her hands under and groaned at the feel of him on her palms.
He broke the kiss. “Fuck, Lexi, I don’t think I’m going to be able to go slow.”
She smiled. Laughed Pressed her mouth to his throat. Hummed with pleasure. Took a deep breath—
Lexi froze, but Jax was still moving. Hands pulling at the belt on her dress. It fell to the floor when she finally leaned back.
He glanced down at her, took one scan of her face, and stopped moving. “Lex?” His hands slid over her arms. “What’s wrong?”
She lowered her gaze. Her eyes held on the pulse beating in his throat. Her own throat thickened with turmoil. Emotion and regret tore through her stomach. She closed her eyes and pressed her nose and mouth to his shoulder. The fabric of his shirt caressed her skin as she took another deep breath, hoping she’d been wrong.
But no. Her head filled with perfume. A woman’s perfume. She closed her eyes and pushed back.
“Honey?” he said.
She forced her eyes open and lifted them to his. Her mind ricocheted for an innocent reason he’d smell like another woman. His mother, his sister…a hug from a female friend. There could be a hundred reasons other than the one tormenting her. “You…smell like perfume.”
His heavy lids widened. Surprise flashed in his pretty eyes, then guilt, and his eyes slid closed. Head lowered. “Fuck.”
Disappointment hammered her stomach, but it was her own damn fault for letting him go in New York. She waited, a sliver of hope still struggling to shine deep inside. “It’s not exactly a surprise. You’re hardly the kind of man who’s going to stay available long—”
“Lex, it’s not like that.” His head came up, gaze fierce, but still guilt-ridden.
She bit the inside of her lip, her past demons trying to force their way into her heart. Her instinct was to push back, walk away, get out of this before he really hurt her. But she’d invested more of herself in Jax than any man in years, so she stayed put and raked her fingers through his hair one more time. “What is it like?”
“I was dating someone…for a few weeks—”
“Okay.” Ouch. Dammit. She shook her head as her eyes fell closed. “That’s all I need to know. You don’t owe me an explanation.” She opened her eyes but stared at his chest. The thought of him with another woman burned through her. “You have every right to see whoever you choose—”
“Then I choose you,” he said, tightening his hands on her arms. “Lexi, I didn’t sleep with her. I haven’t had sex with anyone since you left me.”
“I didn’t leave you. Not the way you’re making it sound. We agreed—”
“You’re right. We did. And when you stuck to your end of it, I tried to move on. My buddy set me up with a really nice girl, but it didn’t work because I haven’t been able to get past you.”
The admission coupled with the imploring look in his eyes made her heart squeeze, then open. But she left one last barrier in place. “Then why do you smell like her perfume?”
He sighed and took her hand, leading her to the bed. Lexi’s body lit with desire, but she pulled her hand back. Jax didn’t let her go. He wrapped her in his arms, picked her up, sat on the bed, and pulled her atop his lap so she straddled him. Lexi kept her weight on his thighs, her hands against his chest. They had to get this other-woman thing straight before she completely caved. This was complicated enough without adding other people into the mix.
He leaned his back against the wall, his feet hanging off the bed. “Because I was with her earlier tonight. We went out to dinner. When we got back to her house and she wanted me to come in and I couldn’t, wouldn’t—again—we both knew it wasn’t working.
“After I left her, I got a call
from the director of the film in New York for more work. And I thought of you, though it’s not like you’ve left my mind very often in the last three weeks, which is when I texted. And was floored you’d even consider seeing me. I thought I was going to get the big brush-off.”
Relief expanded inside her until her entire body felt tight. She chewed on her lip and forced her gaze to blur over his tanned, ribbed abdomen peeking at her from beneath the edge of his shirt.
“Stop that.” He pulled at her lip with his thumb. “It makes me crazy.”
She laughed and lifted her gaze to his. “Why?”
“Because it reminds me my lips aren’t on yours, and they want to be.” His thumb stroked her lip one more time. “What are you thinking?”
She curled her fingers in the soft cotton of his shirt, her gaze on his chest. “That if I was a good person, I’d send you back to that nice girl and tell you to try again.”
His hands closed on either side of her face and pulled her eyes up to his. “If you were a good person, you’d give me that gorgeous body of yours. If you were a good person, you’d love me like you did in New York and put an end to this misery.” He pulled her mouth to his. Kissed her dizzy, then murmured, “If you were a good person, you’d be a very naughty girl right now—with me.”
She huffed a laugh and dropped her head back, looking at the ceiling. “I am a good person,” she reminded herself, knowing she should push him away. Let him find someone far less complicated. “I am.”
His lips skimmed down her throat, pumping banked need through her bloodstream. “Prove it.”
She leaned back, lowered her head, and took his mouth. He opened to her on a groan. Pulled her head to him with one hand, deepening the kiss, searched for the hem of her dress with the other.
“Tell me…” she said as she tilted her head to the opposite side and kissed him again. “She isn’t expecting to see you again.”
