Tempting Sydney (12 page)

She laughed. “Did you even get Drew’s number?”

“No. He was a nice guy, and hot—so good job on that—I’m just not really interested.”

“Yeah…that’s because you’re interested in a guy who pretends to be a chainsaw wielding psycho killer, and probably stalks the bowels of the earth searching for his next conquest—like an evil dragon. Congratulations on falling for Smaug. How many girls do you think Blue Eyes kissed in the dark Friday night besides you?”

I frowned. “I hadn’t thought about that.” I didn’t want to think about it now, either. Surely, he had girls interested in him. With his face and biteable ass, he probably got hit on hourly. The question was whether he followed through on any of the invitations. I didn’t get the vibe that he did. He was so guarded, and I knew it wouldn’t be easy to get him to open up—for anyone. I could tell he had plenty of experience with women, but he wasn’t some frat boy just trying to get laid. He was older, and seemed to be past that stage of his life. I got the feeling he didn’t do much without first knowing the potential reactions and consequences from every party involved—kind of like me.

“I thought you liked Jax,” I said to Brynn. “You suddenly seem to think he’s evil.”

Brynn shook her head. “No, not evil. I just don’t know what his game is. He’s hard to read.”

Brynn stood and we both finished with Mountain, and then sank down into Child’s pose. My breath was even and calm. The yoga had helped me think. I sat up, brushing hair away from my face.

“You need to confront Jax about his ninja skills,” Brynn said, her arms still flat in front of her, face pressed into her mat.

“I know. I’ll talk to him about it the next time I see him.”

She sat up slowly, and grinned. “Maybe I’ll pop your tire so it happens sooner than later.”

I narrowed my eyes. She better not, but I wouldn’t put it past her. Brynn usually got what she wanted—one way or another.

Brynn was doing her weekly version of dance party at the apartment. It involved a lot of jumping around and singing at the top of her lungs while she cleaned like a maniac. She loved doing it. The domesticity of the action seemed so strange in relation to Brynn’s other activities, but I was happy to let her clean if she wanted to. It meant I didn’t have to do it. I couldn’t study with that commotion going on, though, so I took my books and went to the Soup and Spoon to do some work, and get lunch.

I was reading my textbook and taking notes between bites of my grilled cheese sandwich—which I was holding with a napkin to prevent grease prints—and tomato basil soup.

“A tornado could go through here and you wouldn’t even notice.”

My head shot up at the sound of Jax’s voice. His jeans were tight around his hips and ass, and his dark blue tee shirt was straining to contain him. He looked good enough to suck. I inwardly shook my head, shocked at myself. Good enough to suck? Where had that come from? I couldn’t just go around
sucking
people! Or biting and licking them!

“I was watching you while I got my food. You didn’t look up once. You get seriously caught up in your study time.” He put his tray—holding a sandwich, chips, soup, and soda—down on my round table, and pulled his chair around closer to mine before sitting.

“I
was
seriously caught up in it until you got here. And yes, you can sit at my table.”

He raised a brow like he was amused I was giving him permission when he clearly just did whatever he wanted. I watched him back, neither of us saying a word. I expected a lot of things at this point. Like a ninja kisser confession, or at least a reference to the haunted house to get things started. What I didn’t expect was Jax to kick his leg out, lean back in his chair, open his sandwich and chips, and start eating without another word. I stared at him, totally dumbfounded. He was completely comfortable with the awkwardness, and not the least bit phased. I was pinging. He needed some of my neuroses, and I needed some of his zen.

I tried to go back to studying, but the visual orgasm sitting next to me made that pretty damn difficult. Not to mention that I couldn’t stop thinking about the kiss. Finally, half a sandwich, full bag of chips, and most of his soda later, I blurted, “So, what did you do this weekend?”

He lifted his soda and took a long drink. When he finished, he slowly ran his tongue over his lips. I couldn’t look away. His bottom lip was so full, with moisture clinging to it. I wanted to take his lip in my mouth and suck it. Hard. I shook myself out of the thought as Jax’s gaze latched onto mine. One corner of his lips tilted up. He’d noticed me having eye-sex with his mouth. Dammit! His lips slid into that slow, sexy grin that promised everything from dark kisses to werewolf sex. “My weekend was—” he paused, searching for a word, “enlightening.” His brows went up, almost in challenge. “How was yours?”

I narrowed my eyes. He still wasn’t owning up to the kiss! He wasn’t even admitting to being at the haunted house…yet. But he would. “Fantastic. I had a date.”

He widened his eyes. “Did you? And how did that go?”

“Great. It was a blind date. Brynn set me up. But he was hot, and nice. I’m sure I’ll see him again.”

Jax lazily scooped some soup onto his spoon and took a bite. “That’s all it takes? Hot and nice? Do you have a future mate characteristics list somewhere with ‘hot’ and ‘nice’ written at the top?”

It was all I could do to keep from sticking my tongue out at him. So what if I really did have a list? That was none of his business. And hot and nice weren’t at the very top, so there. “I’m sure hot is at the top of
your
list,” I said. “That and ‘willing to put up with my shit’.”

He laughed outright. “Good to know what you really think of me.”

“I don’t know what I really think of you…yet.”

He ate some more of his soup before responding, “Why is that? Last week you seemed to think I was a pretty good guy.”

I scrunched my brows and watched him. “I still do, most of the time.” Thoughts of the ninja kiss he wasn’t admitting to ran through my head. “But you’re a hard guy to read, and an even harder guy to get to know.”

“You want to know me?”

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

His lips formed a half smile as he looked down into his bowl and got another spoonful of soup. “You think you could handle it?”

I lifted my brow. “Are you harboring secrets that would be difficult to handle?”

His face shuttered to a blank slate again. That made me think he really did have some serious secrets he didn’t want me to know. I was suddenly uncomfortable with the prospect.

“Ask.”

I was taken aback. Considering the way his face had closed up like a prison, I didn’t expect him to volunteer any information. “Ask what?”
“Whatever it is you want to know.”

Well, I wasn’t prepared for this. I had a list of questions at home—typed up and everything—that I was dying to ask him, but I was so off-balance from his willingness to chat that I couldn’t remember most of them. I did remember the kiss, however. And I wanted to know if it had been him. But I didn’t want to ask him outright; I wanted him to admit to it. “I went to a haunted house this past weekend.”

“Did you?” he asked, sounding intrigued. “How was it?”

“It had some scary parts,” I answered. “Some more scary than others. The costumes and actors were pretty convincing.”

He quirked one brow, and looked like he was absolutely enjoying himself, and our conversation. “That’s surprising. Maybe I’ll have to check this place out. What was your favorite part…would you say?”

I narrowed my eyes. He knew that I knew, but he still wasn’t admitting it. Crafty ninja. “Probably the part where my date kissed me,” I said.

A muscle ticked at his jaw.

I looked down, hiding my smile. I’d purposely not given him more info. I wanted him to wonder whether I’d really kissed Drew, or if I was just attributing Jax’s ninja kiss to someone else. It seemed to be working.

“So,” I said, changing the subject. “What’s your favorite holiday?” I took a gamble that it might be Halloween since he’d been acting in a haunted house.

“Halloween.”

I took a drink of my chocolate iced coffee. “Do you dress up?”

The annoyed lines on his face smoothed. “Mmmm, yes.” His eyes glinted with amusement. “For a lot of reasons.”

My brow lifted. “What reasons?”

His lips slid into a slow, sexy grin. “Certain things require costumes.”

I caught the insinuation, but chose to press on with my questioning. “Like, say, a theater production of some sort,” I offered.

He watched me closely. “I imagine that’s one of them.”

He wasn’t going to give. And I wasn’t going to flat-out ask. “What are the other situations that require dressing up, Jackson?”

He dropped his soup spoon in the container, then folded his arms on the table and leaned in toward me. His scent hit me like a fifty pound weight. He smelled like the mountains after a rainstorm, clean and earthy. He had invaded my space an entire lean ago. If I leaned just a little forward, we’d be nose-to-nose. The realization that our lips would be that close and suckable—again—made my breath short. He held my eyes the entire time before saying, “Maybe I’ll show you sometime, Sydney.”

With that, he moved back, and stood. I realized my mouth was hanging open and picked it up.

He noticed, too, his lips lifting at the corner in a cocky smirk. He gathered all of his trash on the tray and looked like he was going to leave without another word, but stopped, locked eyes with me, and said, “Go out with me.”

I couldn’t have been more stunned if he’d just told me he was raised by howler monkeys. “What?”

“On a date. Go out with me.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think that’s wise.”

“Why? You can’t tell me that you don’t date, because obviously you do.” His lips quirked up slyly. “I’ll pick you up on Saturday. Does noon work?”

“I’m volunteering at CARE this weekend. I won’t be off until two.”

Surprise flashed across his face before he continued, “CARE is downtown, so I’ll pick you up there.”

I nodded without even realizing I’d done it.

“See you soon.” He grabbed his tray and as he brushed by me, he leaned down and whispered, “Sweetheart.”

Saturday. That meant I had six days to get my heart back to a normal rhythm.

The week flew by, mostly because I spent every spare moment analyzing Jackson West. When I told Brynn about Jax’s reaction to my questions at the Soup and Spoon, she’d also been convinced that Jax was the ninja. She said I needed to call him on it. Maybe I was just stubborn, but I wanted him to admit it on his own.

I was at CARE, sitting on a bean bag in the corner, reading a Dr. Seuss story to Macy. She giggled every time I used the word “sneetch.” “That’s a funny word,” she said, laughing some more, and pointing at the star-bellied sneetch picture.

“And they have stars on their tummies,” I said, pointing to another star-bellied sneetch.

She nodded, and leaned her head against my shoulder as I read the last few pages. “All done.” I closed the book, and put it back on the shelf.

Her bottom lip pouted out. “Don’t worry, we can read it again next time I come over,” I reassured her.

She smiled, and jumped up out of my lap. I noticed Jax leaning against the doorway, watching me steadily, his eyes soft. Charlie was standing next to him. I waved at them both and started to stand, but Macy came rushing over and wrapped my thighs in a bear hug. “Thanks for coming, Syd. I love you.”

My heart constricted at her tiny arms squeezing me, and I felt lucky to be involved with an organization that was so good about helping families make a difficult time a little easier. Memories floated back to me of a time when I’d been the one looking for a distraction as I waited to hear the latest news from the hospital. I knew first-hand what it meant to have a home away from home during a family member’s health crisis. Nothing buoyed a spirit like feeling the comfort of a familiar place to go, and people who care. “I love you too, sweetie.” I leaned down, whispering in her ear, “I left some peanut butter cookies on the counter.”