Her eyes snapped up to mine, “Really, Jax?” Her tone was hard and accusing.
It didn’t matter. The green-eyed stare that she’d hid pummeled me so hard, I almost took a step back. Eyes the color of a forest, so deep and so penetrating, I got lost in them and wondered how I’d ever find my way out.
Scanning the street, I broke eye contact with her. “No one has made us yet.” I saw her body tense and immediately had to restrain the fucked up need I had to shield her from anything and everything. “Can you walk or do you want me to call a driver?”
She scoffed but straightened. When I saw her wobble, I started walking toward the road while I pulled out my phone.
“What are you doing?” she said from behind me.
I waved her off and stared down the street. “I need you to pick me up.” I looked at the street name and rattled off our location.
When I ended the call and turned to her, a blush had crept into her cheeks and her nostrils flared a little as she said, “I don’t need a driver.”
“You need food, toothpaste, and a bed, Whitfield.”
“I need nothing of the sort.”
I just chuckled when the SUV pulled up and opened the door for her.
She glared the whole way to the house.
As I opened the door and she hesitated, I smiled a little to myself. Aubrey was weighing the situation. Her mind worked a lot like mine, she calculated more than she consciously knew. Our night had ended with me wanting to fuck her on my own terms.
I still did.
It wasn’t going to be today though. We needed better ground to start on, as much as I hated to admit it. I worked through my fucking rage from the night before and chalked it up to the fact that I wanted her to respect our history just like I did.
Our history wouldn’t allow me to just take her wherever.
I wouldn’t fuck her on another man’s bed for the first time in years out of respect for our history. In return, for the future, history would go the fuck to bed and we’d get closure when this was all said and done.
I worked it all out. Or so I thought.
She didn’t know my theory or that I looked to form a better base between us, and that made her jumpy. I could see the goosebumps on her skin when she passed me in the foyer. Her breath hitched when I looked at her lips.
I loved her like this.
I wanted her guessing, needing, and hopefully at some point, begging.
“There’s toothpaste in the …”
“I know where Jay keeps his toothpaste.”
“You know where he keeps other things too?” My tone shouldn’t have been accusing. I knew their relationship was platonic.
“You’re such a child, even when you know there isn’t a reason for it.” With that, she disappeared down the hall.
My apology was the Advil and water I put on the granite counter when she turned the corner into the foyer that opened to the kitchen. “I’m toasting some bread for you.”
She leaned on the counter and slid the Advil to the edge with one delicate hand. Over the edge it went into the other and then right into her mouth. She eyed the water and then mumbled, “You know where Jay’s liquor cabinet is?”
I raised my eyebrows.
She sighed. “You know as well as I do a shot the day after cures a hangover.”
I turned toward the liquor cabinet so she wouldn’t see my jaw pop. “What’s your poison?”
“He should still have Macallan in there,” she murmured close enough that I knew she was looking over my shoulder.