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Jackson
DANIEL CAME TO ME IN the middle of my final set with Alana. I was impatient with her today, though I was trying like hell not to show it. But the chick was dragging her feet, being pouty and whiny about anything and everything I asked her to do.
Take a lap.
Oh no, my hair.
Give me twenty squats.
I hurt my foot last night.
I was wound tight, so when Dani leaned in and told me Rose had called off her session, I actually growled.
“What?” I snapped, then realized what I was doing and shoved my fingers through my hair. “Did she know? About the switch? Is that what this is?”
“Jackson, like this?” Alana asked with an edge of a flirty whine to her voice, tossing Daniel a hateful glare that he’d dared to interrupt her time with me.
But I was done. Over it, and I barely spared her a passing glance when I nodded. “Yes, just keep it up. Almost done.” Thank God.
Daniel shook his head. “No. I don’t think so.”
The way he said it, nervous and edgy, it had the fine hairs on my arms standing on edge. My boss looked sick, which had my stomach curling on itself.
“I have a client in ten minutes.” The way he said it, I knew he wasn’t talking to me but to himself.
“Maybe I can call Tanner. Dammit,” he snapped, starting to walk away, but I grabbed his elbow, stopping him.
I had nothing to do now for the next two hours. “If you’re worried that she shouldn’t be alone, I can go make sure she’s okay.”
Daniel glanced down at my hand, frowning hard and shaking his head, then looking at me with an obvious question in his eyes. Why would this matter to you? I clenched my jaw, refusing to analyze my motives any further.
“Where does she live?”
His lips thinned, but then his shoulders eased like he’d come to a decision, and before I knew it Daniel was rattling off her address.
Twenty-seven minutes later I parked in front of her apartment complex, staring at the building and wondering what in the absolute hell had made me think coming here was a good idea.
Staring up at her place, it suddenly seemed like the height of stupidity.
But even knowing that, I was out the door and jogging up three flights of stairs. By the time I arrived at her apartment, I was breathless with nerves and anticipation.
I wanted to chew her ass out for canceling on me, which made no damn sense whatsoever.
I knocked.
Not even a second later, she answered. “Daniel, go away.”
My lips twitched despite myself.
“Not, Daniel, cupcake. Open up.”
“What the fuck,” I heard her whisper and at that I did chuckle. Couldn’t help myself, the girl was so freaking raw and just flat out fucking adorable at times.
There was the sound of shuffling, some more swearing, and then finally the door opened and there she was.
My mythical phoenix.
Pale skin. Freckled face. Hair a wild, thick tumble around her shoulders and making me feel hot all over. Back in those ugly, ratty, baggy clothes that hid the delicious curves beneath. She grimaced, shook her head, and then tried to close the door on me.
But I wouldn’t let her. I shoved my foot in the bit of space and glared at her. “No way. You canceled. You have Daniel practically pissing himself with worry. I didn’t drive all this way just to be kicked out on my ass. Let me in, cupcake.”
She bit her bottom lip. Those sexy-ass lips that I wanted nothing more than to suck on, explore, and nibble. She sighed, and I knew she hadn’t done it on purpose but the sound was breathy and hot as hell, and just like that my balls drew tight, and the tip of my cock started to thicken and swell.
Fucking hell, this woman did it for me without even trying. I’d never realized before that my type could ever be something other than what it had always been. But maybe that’s why those girls had never lasted more than a few months, if that. Because they’d been girls. Rose was a woman. Curvy. Fierce. Funny as hell. And each time I saw her, it only got worse for me.
“Stop calling me cupcake, and then yeah, you can come in,” she muttered grumpily.
“Not likely,” I muttered under my breath, because that name belonged to her. And with a firm shove, opened the door and stepped inside.
~*~
Rose
JACKSON WAS HERE.
In my sanctuary.
In my home.
A giant pillar of a man. A glorious, glorious man. Sexy. Strong. Powerful. I couldn’t help but stare at his arms and remember the way he’d lifted me like I’d weighed nothing at all. Like it’d been so easy for him.
I was shocked to note his hair was down today and that it was as thick and wavy as I’d first imagined it might be. I’d never really been into guys with long hair before, but when they came with a face like his, I was pretty sure he could be wearing a potato sack and I’d want to take a giant bite out of him.
My stomach, already a nest of nerves, pitched hard when he turned to look at my living room, giving me his profile.
Who knew profiles could be so sexy? The real kick in the nuts had always been when a hot guy looked at me full on, giving me a sexy curl of lips and that smoldering “I want to fuck your brains out and you know you want to fuck mine too” kind of look.
But even without trying, Jackson was magnificent. In every way.
There was nothing soft about his looks, and suddenly he had me thinking crazy thoughts, like he was some ancient Viking come back to life. I’d clearly been reading too many highlander romances lately. Memo to me: lay off the smut.
Not completely though. I wasn’t stupid.
I swallowed hard, telling myself to turn away. But I just couldn’t. He was all straight lines with slashing cheekbones heavy brows. His neck was thick, muscular, and when he swallowed, I grew mesmerized by the sight of his Adam’s apple rolling. And I had to bite my tongue to keep from blurting out just how much I wanted to lick it. Lick him.
I hated face hair, preferring instead to see every clean sweep and line of a man’s face, but I was suddenly thanking my lucky stars that the man couldn’t seem to afford a quality razor.
Kyle had always been clean-shaven, the better to show off the only thing I still reluctantly found sexy about him, that long, vertical dimple that peeked out when he grinned.
What would Jackson’s jaw feel like?
Scratchy? Rough? Coarse?
Swallowing a heavy grin, I curled my fingers tight to my sides.
I was like one of Pavlov’s dogs—wet and horny the instant Jackson came within twenty feet of me.
Don’t look at his face. Maybe that would help.
But then I noticed how his workout shirt clung to his thick shoulders and wide chest, and I’m pretty sure I started drooling at the peekaboo glimpse of shredded abs flexing beneath the light gray, almost see-through cotton as he continued to study my place like it contained the answers to life itself. His body was a freaking temple, and I totally wanted to objectify him every chance I got.
My nipples were so hard and needy they were pointing like little bullets through my shirt, and I wiggled, trying to make the discomfort go away without actually touching myself. But the friction of shirt on tits was only making it worse.
Look away, Rosie. Just look away.
My place was girly, all in shades of white and light blues. French country. I had a thing for it. He looked as out of place here as I would be in a mosh pit on a Sunday night.
Jackson belonged on a beach somewhere, shirt off and ripped abs on full display. I bet he had an eight-pack. Sitting beside him would be a beach bunny. Perfect golden skin. Flawless face. Skinny as a rail. Because that’s what guys like him went for, right? Big tits but flat everywhere else, including the thing in their heads they called a brain.
God, I was being bitchy right now.
Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I’d just described Sheila to a tee.
With a groan, I flipped my hands up. “Well, as you can see, I’m still alive. Don’t let the door hit your perfect ass on the way out.”
Giving me a worried frown even though his totally kissable lips were stretched and twitching like he didn’t want to laugh but couldn’t seem to help himself, he followed me.
The goon. Couldn’t he take a hint? Obviously not, because the next thing I knew he was sitting way too close to me for comfort, and I was sucking up the smell of his aftershave like a woman drowning.
God, he always smelled so wonderful, like good clean soap and something earthy, spicy. It was a crime really. Couldn’t he at least be flawed somewhere? Anywhere? Just so that I didn’t feel like the only freaking loser in here?
He focused those warm amber eyes on me like a laser, and I almost sighed. Almost. I was just like everyone else. Throw a pair of pretty arms and a tight, toned ass in front of me and I immediately devolved into the lowest life form. Apparently I was just as shallow as the rest of the world. The thought stung and had me thinning my lips, annoyed with myself.
I crossed my legs, breasts feeling all tingly and heavy as he continued to stare at me. I really wished I hadn’t put on these stupid clothes.
“So what’s going on with you, Rose? Why didn’t you show up? You look healthy.”
He clasped his hands together. His words were so soft, gentle, and I hated that I was suddenly leaning into him, seeking out that warmth like a lost, terrified little bunny afraid of the big bad wolf nipping at her heels.
“Healthy.” I snorted and finger quoted. “Code for what exactly? Not like a fat loser?”
His brows shot straight up, and I just wanted to die. Why had I said that? Why was I always saying that kind of crap to him? Well, at least he was finally seeing the real me. Now he could leave. Now he could stop torturing me.
“Is that what this is? You think you’re fat so you’re just not showing up?” He sounded almost pissed and disappointed as he said it, and I’m sure he thought I’d lost my mind.
But I was fractured. And Daniel was a jerk for sending him over. Because Daniel knew. I didn’t have to say anything and Daniel knew.
He knew this had been about Kyle.
He knew I wouldn’t be in my right frame of mind. He should never have sent Jackson.
I gripped the couch cushion, feeling like my insides were gonna explode and tear themselves apart. I was screwing everything up, and a shuddery sob expelled from me.
I was so embarrassed by it that I hung my head and mumbled, “Go away, Jackson. Believe me, you don’t want to see this right now. I’m not good. And you don’t need to pretend anymore. I fixed it all. I’m with Rena now.”
“Like hell you are,” he muttered, voice low.
But I heard him. And I stiffened, looking over at him with wide, curious eyes. His gaze was unrepentant, and I knew he’d wanted me to hear it.
“What?”
“You don’t get to just run away from problems, Rose. That’s not how life is. That’s not how this shit works.”
And the fact that a twenty-five-year-old was schooling me on life was suddenly so inexplicably hilarious that I started laughing. But before long that laughter turned to tears of rage, and I just couldn’t shut up.
“You think that’s what this is? You think I’m running? Well, fuck you and the horse you rode in on. You don’t have one GD clue what this is.”
His face twisted into one of fury, and I should have cringed. Should have shoved back on my feet, ready to run away like that terrified little mouse I’d become, but I didn’t. Because his rage only served to feed my own.
“You’re not the only one struggling in this world. Get off your damn high horse and—” he barked.
“He left me!” I shouted, not giving a shit if my neighbors heard us. For so long I’d been bottling this pain, this anger, inside me, and I’d known it would only be a matter of time before it all came tumbling out. “My fucking lying, cheating scum of a husband left me for his secretary. Three damn years they carried on an affair behind my back. Three fucking long years.” I held up three fingers. “And that bastard would never have said a damn thing to me about it if he’d not knocked her up!”
I was breathing hard, vision pulsing with bursts of white light, lost in my head, in my thoughts.
He went still, eyes wide.
Tears were coursing down my cheeks, but I’d only just begun. If he was gonna stay, he might as well hear it all. “But that’s not even the worst part. She didn’t just steal my husband, she stole my whole fucking life. My kid. I only get to see him on the weekends. He’s my world, and they took him. And just now I got a phone call from the hagfish asking me if I was gonna go to his GD birthday party. A clown. A freaking clown! He hates them. Adam hates them, and he’s allergic to... to goats.” That last ended on a pitiful catch.
I covered my eyes with my hands, anger spent and so ashamed that I could no longer look at him.
Not like there’d even been a chance in hell for me to indulge in my fantasies with him, but I’d pretty much nailed my own coffin shut. I was a mess and now he would leave and thank his lucky stars that he’d gotten out while the getting was good.
But that’s not what he did at all.
Suddenly I was lifted up by a pair of strong, powerful arms and tucked tight into his body, and I was trembling, shaking so hard my teeth were chattering because that wasn’t the way it was supposed to go.
He was supposed to leave me. Just like most everyone else always did.
Large hands were now threading through my hair, and I couldn’t seem to stop shaking. I was cold. Everywhere. My legs. My arms. My heart.
Jackson was humming, rubbing circles on the back of my head, soothing me, and despite every fear, every misgiving I had, I found myself sinking farther and farther into his touch, losing myself in the delicious heat of being touched by another human being.
Digging my fingers into his shirt and bunching it up tight, I shook my head even as I yearned for more and more of him. I buried my nose in his shoulder and sniffed, inhaling his spicy scent and telling myself that I was being so incredibly and unforgivably stupid right now, but I couldn’t stop. I just couldn’t stop.
We sat like that for what felt like forever and no time at all.
“How long ago did he leave?” His voice rumbled like thunder through my chest, making me feel hot and achy and all the things I knew I shouldn’t.
I didn’t understand why he was asking me, but I answered anyway. “Six months. And I’m over the hurt. Now I’m just in the raging-bitch phase. Yay you.”
He chuckled, and the sound of it... God, it was like a balm to the pain, sealing up the cracks somehow. I didn’t really even know this guy, but he was no longer a kid to me.
Now he was just Jackson. And that was really scary.
“I’m sorry for saying fuck you. I say stuff I don’t mean like three-quarters of my life. Truth is, I’ve been saving that outburst for Kyle. You just had the misfortune of stepping into the land mine first.”
His laugh was rich and soft and made me feel light-headed and grounded all at the same time.
Jackson Moore was such a potent combination to my senses. It was dangerous to be around someone like him, and yet there was no one else I’d rather be with in that moment.
I liked him.
And not just because he was fiercely hot, but because underneath it all he really did feel like a kindred spirit. Like he got me, like maybe, just maybe, he knew what it was to hurt.
His hands were warm as they brushed up and down my arms, and I was suddenly so embarrassed to be caught looking like this, dressed in a double XL unicorn-print T-shirt and pants so big and frumpy I’d had to roll them up at my waist at least three times just to make them stay put.
I swallowed hard, looking down at my hands and wishing for a do-over for life.
His finger tipped my jaw up. “Look at me, Rose.”
And God help me, but I did. I wanted to trace his square jaw, run my finger over the dark edges of his light beard, and maybe even bite the corner of his sinfully delicious lips.
But we were friends. And friends didn’t bite friends.
“I’m sorry I said what I did too. I didn’t know.” His words were so gentle, patient, that it brought instant heat to my eyes.
But I’d die before I let him see me cry again. I’d already humiliated myself enough for one day. Taking a moment to gather myself, I shrugged.
“Yeah, well, believe it or not I’m actually an incredibly private person.”
His eyes danced and there was warmth back in his face, and my heart, it was so damn happy it felt like it might burst from my chest. I hadn’t been lying when I said Jackson was ten times hotter than Kyle. He was. He so was.
Because beneath Kyle’s beauty was a void of shallow ugliness. But Jackson wasn’t ugly... He was the very rare unicorn whose beauty seemed to live both inside and out.
My stomach fluttered, and I knew I was in big, big trouble. I couldn’t develop a crush on him. I just couldn’t.
Not now.
Not ever.
He was so much younger than me. When I was a senior in high school he would have been in eighth grade. If that didn’t make you feel old, I wasn’t sure what would. It also made me feel slightly pervy, even though honestly I knew we were both adults and there wasn’t a single thing about him that acted like the typical twenty-five-year-olds I’d known.
There was something older about Jackson, like he’d seen a lot more, been through a lot more than most guys his age. But the thought of what Kyle would say if he could see me now, it made me cringe. Made me embarrassed. If I was going to seek comfort, it should be from someone more my age, right?
Granted, Sheila was a whopping two years younger than Jackson, so that would make Kyle a massive hypocrite. But he’d always sneered at the idea of older women getting it on with younger studs. Called them disgusting. Desperate.
It sucked that even when he wasn’t around, Kyle’s negativity and ugliness still hammered away at my brain. I wasn’t disgusting or desperate.
And I did like Jackson. A lot, in fact.
“So I guess this makes us friends now, right?” he asked, voice deep and husky, and I shivered, suddenly painfully aware that I was using him as my personal couch cushion.
“I guess it does,” I agreed, voice sounding way too throaty for my comfort.
The hardness of his thigh muscles beneath my legs made me feel painfully tight, hot. Tingly. My insides clenched and my stomach fluttered.
Kyle had never allowed me to sit on his lap. I’d only ever tried it once, and he’d grunted, acting like he was in pain the entire time. It’d devastated me and I’d never tried again.
Jackson didn’t look the slightest bit bothered by my weight.
In fact, I was now painfully aware of his hands resting casual as could be on my hips. And it was like fire the way my bones now throbbed, the way my skin tightened, suddenly totally aware of every sensation, every movement.
I wanted to get up.
I wanted to stay.
Forever.
I shifted, knowing I needed to get up. The tears had passed, the moment had passed, now we were just getting into awkward territory.
But the second I moved, I felt something else move with me. Something hard. Something long and unbelievably thick, and dear God in heaven, my nipples were like beaded projectiles again. And I was wet. So damn wet that it was embarrassing.
I looked at him and he looked at me.
Men reacted. Didn’t matter to what. I knew that. My ass was literally on his cock. And it was all I could do not to rock down on it, test my theory out and see if this was more than just his body’s impersonal response to having female ass of any kind rubbing itself all over his one-eyed snake.
I cleared my throat, feeling scarlet heat slick through me.
“I, uh...” I wet my lips, and I swear I heard a moan, low, needy, and intensely male. And he was looking at me again, like he was the lion and I was the lamb and he wanted to ravage me.
My heart hammered wildly in my chest. “I, uh...” I tried again. “Should, um—” Tongue-tied, I wasn’t able to say anything else.
But he understood. He scooted me over, but not before I felt the thick tip of him poke at my backside one last time.
Was it possible to spontaneously orgasm? I swallowed hard, unable to peel my eyes off the thick bulge in his pants. Because I felt like I was totally about to come right there on the couch.
He was wearing workout pants. They weren’t exactly great at hiding something so... big and full... I clenched my hands into tight balls on my legs.
Do not grab the cock. Whatever you do, do not grab it. It is not your friend; it does not actually like you.
He stood, and I wasn’t sure what to think. Because he wasn’t acting like he was even aware of his erection. But it’d clearly happened. His look was sharp, fierce, and stole my breath.
“I’ll see you Saturday,” he said.
I nodded, not even knowing why I was agreeing to that since he wasn’t my trainer anymore. Plus, whether he wanted to own up to it or not, he had a boner. Kind of an awkward thing to work around come Saturday.
I could just imagine how our conversation might go.
Hey, how was your weekend?
Great.
Yeah, good. And did you finally get that boner straightened out... badabum.
And what a boner it was too. I wet my lips, imagining what it would look like, feel like, taste like.
Would it be flushed pink or purple at the tip and covered in veins? Was he cut? Not cut?
Oh God, that last part had a small moan spilling off my tongue.
Jackson visibly shuddered, and I realized I was being awkward again. Weird. I would not look at it. I would ignore it. This wasn’t happening.
“I’m with Rena now,” I reminded him.
“No, Rose.” His voice was a deep, even rumble that brooked no argument. “You’re with me.”