“You should see her, Jax. She’s the sweetest thing I’ve seen in a long time,” Slade said excitedly, and to hear him, you’d think he was talking about a woman.
But Jax knew his brother all too well, and he knew that Slade was likely yammering about the latest muscle car he’d found in some retiree’s garage. Great. He didn’t have time for his brother’s bullshit. He’d already had enough of his other brothers’ bullshit in the last three days. Levi had broken his arm in a motorcycle crash. Nothing life-threatening, but serious enough to require surgery and a metal plate. And then there had been Connor, who was supposed to be the logical one of the Taylor boys. He’d shot himself in the finger with a nail gun during a little home improvement project and needed a ride to the hospital.
Yeah, it had been a rough few days for the Taylors. They were battered and bruised, but all still kicking, thankfully. He forced his attention back to Slade, the only brother who hadn’t been wounded this week. At least, not yet, because if he kept wasting his time droning on about a ’72 Dodge Dart, Jax was going to clock him the next time he saw him.
“Why the hell isn’t my truck done yet, Slade?” he interrupted, impatience getting the best of him.
“Bumper just came in,” his brother said. “Who pissed in your grits?”
“You.” He glanced at the time on his dashboard as he headed up Main Street and back in the direction of his office. He had a meeting scheduled with his insurance agent in fifteen minutes. Damn, he’d be cutting it close. “You told me I’d have the truck back in a day, not three. What the hell happened to family first?”
“Family doesn’t pay as well as customers.” He could hear the unrepentant grin in Slade’s voice. “But no way are you being this bitchy over your truck. There’s something else.”
“There’s nothing,” he said quickly. Too quickly.
“It’s a woman,” his perceptive brother guessed.
Shit. He really didn’t want to be ragged on about Kassie. Not yet, anyway. Not until he sorted out exactly how he felt about her. And how she felt about him. “Go to hell,” he growled, making a left to get back out to the highway.
Slade let out a whistle. “You must have it bad, brother. I never heard you get so defensive so fast.”
He didn’t have it bad. Did he? Fuck. Yes, he did. Ever since that night on the beach, all he’d been able to think about was seeing her again. Touching her again. Even driving Connor to the hospital, he’d been thinking about her. His brother had been sitting in the passenger seat, white as an Easter lily, with a three-inch nail protruding from his index finger, and Jax had been thinking about the way he’d made Kassie come when he’d sucked on her clit.
Okay, yeah, he definitely had it bad for the sexy out-of-towner who’d smashed the back of his truck and rocked his world all in the span of one day. Although he was keeping his guard up, trying to convince himself to go slowly, feel her out to make sure she wasn’t cut from the same cloth as Mandy, he couldn’t wait to see her again. And his dick was still solid as a crowbar.
He shook himself from his thoughts, remembering that his nosy-ass brother was still on the line. “Gotta go, Slade. Fix my damn truck.”
He hit end call and dropped his phone into the cup holder. Only one day until the weekend and more time with Kassie. He wasn’t going to dig too deep into his feelings, and Slade could go to hell with his pointed questions. It wasn’t every day that a beautiful woman with a naughty streak a mile long fell into his lap, and Jax had never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
* * * * *
“So why did you decide to leave New York?”
Kassie focused on Jax from behind the protective lenses of her sunglasses, grateful that he couldn’t read her eyes. They were on his sleek, white boat, anchored in a secluded part of the bay, seated side by side. The Saturday afternoon sun glinted around them, reflecting off the calm waters of the bay and lulling her into an easy, relaxed state. But she stiffened at his question, not sure she wanted to go there just yet. Still too fresh, too emotionally deep for whatever it was she was doing with Jax.
They’d been taking it slowly today, nothing more than him grabbing her hand to help her into the boat at the marina. In a way, she was grateful for the reprieve, and in a way, she wasn’t. Every last bit of her was clamoring for his touch. Even if she knew she shouldn’t.
“Seems like we’re playing Twenty Questions and I didn’t notice,” she told him. He’d been peppering her with all kinds of queries since they’d boarded his boat. Either he was interested in knowing more about her, or he’d been an interrogator in a former life.
“Sorry,” he said, without sounding the least bit apologetic. “I believe in full disclosure, is all. It’s better that way for everyone. That way, no surprises.”
She wondered if he’d had surprises in past relationships. Probably, judging from the way he seemed on edge about certain topics and the way he was determined to learn enough information about her to write her biography. Someone had hurt him in his past, and the realization made her heart twinge with a combination of commiseration and jealousy. Silly. She had no business being jealous of a man she had no claims over.
He was watching her. “You going to tell me about why you left New York, or is it a state secret?”
Damn. He had her tucked between the proverbial rock and the hard place.
“Lots of reasons,” she hedged. “It was just a better move for me, personally.”
He rotated his captain’s chair so that he faced her. The downside of the sunny day was that his eyes too were hidden from her, blocked by Ray-Bans that only served to complement his good looks. “Not professionally?”
She thought that one over, trying not to notice how sexy his legs looked in his pinstriped swimming trunks. He wore a black muscle shirt that showed off his killer arms to perfection. Damn, the man was distracting. He was making her hot, and it had very little to do with the unseasonably warm September day and everything to do with the man before her.
“It’s difficult to say,” she said at last. “I left a major publishing house, and I’d put in a lot of years working my way up the ladder. The publisher I work for now is relatively new, but their e-books have been flying off the metaphorical shelves. I think it’s a bright future, and the freedom to be anywhere I want is great. But you just never know.”
He nodded. “You took a leap of faith.”
When he put it that way, yeah, she had. She’d moved hundreds of miles away from the life she’d been building, the life she’d once thought she wanted. Maybe it had been foolish, but she didn’t regret it. Not one bit.
“It was time,” she said simply, looking away in an effort to put some distance back between them. The sea breeze ruffled her hair, cooling her heated skin. Seagulls flew overhead, circling the boat in search of crumbs. This was getting heavy and fast. She was afraid of what he’d ask her next, that he’d want to know what could have caused her to jump from the ledge. And she didn’t know what she’d say if he did. Jax just had a way of getting her to reveal all, no matter how much she didn’t want to.
“Why, Kassie?”
The simple question had her looking back at him, patient and sexy in the sunshine. She could have asked him why too. Why did he seem so intent on unraveling her, on getting to know all her secrets? Why couldn’t he have let things between them remain casual? Just hot sex between two willing adults. But no, Jax was determined to invade every last speck of her life.
“You don’t want to tell me?” he guessed when she kept silent. He touched her knee through the thin material of her sleeveless maxi dress. She almost jumped at the contact. “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it. We can save that for another day.”
Ugh. There was the crux of it. She couldn’t escape this conversation, not forever. Maybe it was best to just close her eyes and jump in, even if she knew the water was probably going to go up her nose. Kassie turned back to him, knowing that she should get the grueling part over with al
ready.
“I changed my mind about what I wanted,” she told him, which was the truth. As she thought back on it now, maybe she’d never really wanted any of her New York life in the first place. She’d gotten swept up in the competition, the career, the life. And had forgotten who she really was in the process. “The path I was headed down finally reached the point of no return, so I ran.”
He drew lazy circles over her knee, seemingly at ease even though she could sense the tension in him. “What did you run from?”
She took a deep breath. Here goes. “My fiancé,” she told him quietly.
Jax didn’t say anything at first, just stared at her with a raised brow. “You were engaged.”
“Yes.” She winced, hoping this particular revelation didn’t chase him away. “That’s what I was trying to tell you that first day. It’s why I’m not sure if I’m ready for anything more serious than what we’re doing.”
He withdrew his hand, his mouth tightening, and she knew he hadn’t liked what she’d said. “You don’t think fucking me is serious?”
Well, when he put it that way…
“I didn’t mean that it’s not,” she rushed to say. Crap, she sure seemed to have a knack for putting her foot into her mouth these days. “I mean, it’s not like we’re about to move in together or anything.”
He relaxed, giving her a half-smile that held little mirth. “True. When did all this go down?”
“It was about six months ago.” She watched him, wishing she knew what he was thinking. “I probably should have told you from the start. I’m sorry. I got caught up in everything, and then there never seemed like a good time.”
Jax took off his sunglasses and leaned forward to pluck a tendril of hair from her cheek, tucking it behind her ear. “It’s okay. We’ll go as slowly as you want, Kassie. I’ve got time.”
It sure wasn’t what she’d expected him to say. Relief washed over her, mingling with something that felt suspiciously warm. Suspiciously like something in the neighborhood of love. Not love exactly, but definitely like. Strong like. Oh no. She tamped the last part down, unwilling to examine it further. “Thanks, Jax.”
He grazed his fingers over the curve of her cheek, stopping to tip up her chin with his thumb. His eyes darkened as they lowered to her lips. Without thinking, she leaned into him, pressing her mouth to his, her hands framing his face. His stubble pricked her palms as he kissed her long and deep. This kiss was somehow different from others they’d shared. It wasn’t just laden with sexual need but with tenderness too. It said I’ll wait for you.
She broke away, shaken by the emotions churning through her. She was falling for Jax, she realized, a man she’d known for about the span of a week. Dangerous territory indeed. Foolish for certain. But as he gave her a heart-melting grin, she knew it was too late to turn around and head in the opposite direction. He already had her.
He stared, his gaze seeing through her in a way that made her shift uncomfortably in her seat. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Not really. But he was being so sweet, so gentle, and she didn’t know how she could deny him. Even if discussing her ex with the man she was currently having crazy sex with made her pretty darn uncomfortable. “It wasn’t anything life-shattering. I was halfway through planning a destination wedding, and I realized that I was completely miserable.”
Jax let out a whistle. “Sounds complicated.”
“Yes and no,” she agreed, toying with her hair as she carefully chose her words. She didn’t want to reveal too much. There was nothing like dumping all your baggage on the doorstep of the new man in your life, after all. “It was complicated because I hurt a lot of people. But it was the only choice I could make, in the end.”
“My mama always says it’s better to be safe than sorry,” Jax drawled. His hand was back on her knee, caressing higher, stopping on her outer thigh. “I can’t say I’m not glad that his loss was my gain.”
She covered his hand with hers, grateful to him for being so understanding, for not judging her. Adam had done a fair job of making her feel like the lowest form of scum on the earth when she’d broken things off with him, and at times, she’d caught herself wondering if maybe there was something wrong with her. She’d had everything she’d always wanted. The career, the man, the perfect apartment, money aplenty and a magnificent shoe collection. But it hadn’t been enough, and she’d walked away from it all. Well, except for her shoes, that was. There were some things in life that a woman just couldn’t part with. And Gypsy, the cat she’d shared with Adam, had been theirs together, always cuddling with him over her. She hadn’t had the heart to tear the two of them apart.
The truth was, she still didn’t know what she wanted. Her life had gone in a completely different direction now. The Kassie she’d been six months ago wouldn’t even recognize her now, her hair wild in the wind, sitting on a boat in Maryland with the handsomest man she’d ever seen. It had taken her twenty-eight years of her life to discover that she didn’t truly know who Kassie Ryan was. She wasn’t going to have it all miraculously figured out in just six months.
Which was why she had to focus on keeping things with Jax as lighthearted as possible. Caring was okay. Commitment was not. If she hadn’t been able to commit to the man she’d dated from her senior year of college on, how could she possibly do it with a man she’d only just met?
“What’s wrong?” Jax asked, disrupting her thoughts.
She blinked. There he went again, getting all perceptive on her. “What do you mean?”
“You look like someone just stole your puppy out of your front lawn.” He leaned back in his chair, removing his touch once again. “Is it something I said?”
Kassie shook her head, feeling guilty for making him think he’d done anything wrong. He hadn’t. She was the one with the problem. She was the one who couldn’t make up her damn mind. One minute, she wanted to throw herself on Jax and have her way with him right there in his boat, and the next, she wanted to swim to the safety of the shore. “It’s just me,” she said.
He grinned. Out came the dimples. Damn, he was sexy. “That sounds a lot like an it’s-not-you-it’s-me speech. Are you breaking up with me?”
Oh God. She knew he was joking. There was no possible way anyone would consider two dates and a few rounds of fucking—incredibly amazing rounds or no—a relationship. But it made her skittish as a newborn kitten just the same.
“Jesus, I’m just kidding.” His grin disappeared, taking with it the dimples and the tenderness of the moment. He put his sunglasses back on, effectively shutting off her ability to read him, feeble as it already was.
“I know,” she hastened to say, feeling even worse than she already had. “I’m sorry. This is just all really new to me.”
And it was. She’d only ever seriously dated two guys in her life, and the last one had been a long-term relationship. She didn’t know how to start from scratch. She hadn’t even considered another man until the day she’d fallen into Jax in her office. Leaving Adam hadn’t been about that. It had been about taking the time to realize her own dreams rather than living Adam’s along with him. It had been about realizing her fiancé didn’t make her blood run hot or fill her with the overwhelming need to jump his bones. Ever. Now that she’d been with Jax, she knew the difference between tame and wild, and she wanted wild.
“No need to throw yourself overboard just yet, darlin’.” He leaned forward in his captain’s chair so that they were eye to eye, nose to nose. “I’m not going to abduct you at gunpoint and take you to the Little White Wedding Chapel.”
She laughed, relieved that he hadn’t taken offense. “You’d have a difficult time getting all the way to Vegas in this boat.”
He raised a brow. “I’ve got a truck too, if you’ll recall.”
“I remember all right.” Her gaze went to his sensual lips, so near to hers. So tempting. “I’m glad your brother was able to fix it as quickly as he did.” Her car had recently made a trip to the
body shop too, having its sorry ass pieced back together.
“Who said anything about quickly? That jackass had it for the better part of a week, when he told me it’d be a day.” He moved just a bit closer, his big hands gliding up both her thighs this time. “I should’ve known better than to trust him.”
“He did a good job,” she pointed out. Jax had picked her up in his truck to take her to the marina earlier. “You’d never know someone smashed into the back of it.”
“A very sexy, sweet-smelling someone,” he murmured, sliding his touch around her ass to haul her to the edge of her seat. “Someone I can’t seem to keep my hands off.”
She swallowed, her palms flattening against his solid pecs. “Someone doesn’t really mind.”
His grin returned. “No?”
“No.”
His mouth came down on hers, one of his hands slipping under her hair to cradle her head while the other cupped her breast. Heat shot straight to her pussy. Her nipple hardened. He rubbed his thumb over her in lazy, circular strokes that teased, bringing another wave of desire slamming into her. She didn’t know how they could go from zero to sixty in under three seconds, but they did it every time.
One minute, they’d been engaging in a rational, adult conversation and the next, they were writhing together like a pair of teenagers whose parents weren’t home. She’d never experienced anything so powerful in her life. No man had ever kissed her, touched her or made her absolutely crazy with wanting the way Jax did. And whatever it was that made them spontaneously combust in each other’s arms, she didn’t want it to end.
He stopped torturing her breast to grab a fistful of her dress and hike it up to her waist. He skimmed his fingers over her thigh, then moved to the thin strings of elastic holding her panties in place. When he broke the kiss to pull them down over her hips, she helped, shimmying them to the carpeted floor of his boat. The sunshine was hot on her skin, the boat gently rocking. She cast a quick glance around the bay to confirm that no one had entered their cove, because things were about to get X-rated.
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