Page 26 of Hidden Desires

Chapter Nine

After hours of nonstop clients, Summer finally pulled Autumn to the side while they prepared to examine a litter of puppies in the back room.

“So, how is living with the hot hunk?” Summer wiggled her eyebrows.

“We’re sort of dating now.”

“Dating as in having really hot sex?”

Autumn blushed. Summer shook her head and snickered. For as long as she could remember, Jackson equaled hot sex no matter what the circumstances were. She found watching him work the ranch with her brothers, his body gleaming with sweat from the exertion, to be overly enticing and a delicious turn on. Sort of like now when he pulled his shirt off while working on remodeling the place. Autumn found herself staring at him when she was supposed to be working herself.

“He’s definitely a million steps up from Frank.” Summer took each of the puppies back to their mother and locked the cage behind her.

“Ugh. Don’t mention him.” Autumn gathered her bottle of water and the reports to calculate the bills for her customers. “I need you to run a few errands for me. We need a new filing cabinet since the shelves were torn down, and we also need some kind of scheduling book.”

“Sure we do. You just want to be left alone with the hottie.” Summer grinned.

Autumn felt her cheeks heating again. “Fine, I want to be left alone with the hottie.” She walked to the door with the files and glanced over her shoulder at Summer with a grin. “You don’t have to worry about coming back.”

In the main lobby, Autumn found Jackson painting over the harsh red letters of “whore” written along the wall. His bare back was to her, his body slightly turned giving her a perfect view of his tattoo. It was the same one her father had on his back, the same one Nick and Davis had on their chest. The eagle sat on top of the world with an anchor piercing through the side. It was common in the military, and Autumn knew just like her brothers that Jackson did it for one cause.

She sighed. “Hey, Jax.”

He turned his head at the sound of her voice, though he continued to paint. “Hey. Something wrong?”

“You’re distracting me.” She smiled and sat in the middle of the floor to calculate the day’s bills.

“Sorry.” He watched her tip her water bottle to her lips and paused. “But I think you’re the distracting one.”

He dipped the roller in the paint pan and began to roll the excess off. His muscles flexed with each push and pull, the tattoo dancing to its own beat. Autumn sat mesmerized, thinking that never in a million years would he ever date a girl like her. They had met through her father and had slept together out of stupidity. But if the circumstances were different and they had met out on the street, a guy like Jackson would look the other way when given the opportunity to be with her.

“You’re staring at me.” Without looking at her, he resumed painting.

“Sorry. I’m tired and just thinking.” She looked down at the pile of papers in her lap. “What made you decide to join the Marines?”

Jackson sat the pole with the paint roller attached aside and grabbed his shirt. Groaning, he rubbed the sweat from his face and tossed the shirt aside. “My life. It wasn’t exactly perfect, far from it actually, and the military was the only way out.”

“Do you ever see your family?”

“Nope.” He grabbed the pole again and dipped the roller in the paint.

Jackson offered no more and Autumn let it go. He hated talking. Unless it was making some smart-ass remark or turning her on. He detested talking about feelings most of all. She didn’t understand it since her mother had raised her to speak her mind and to get everything off her chest, good or bad. Her father never protested when she’d question him either.

She was a feelings kind of girl. One who said what needed to be said. Jackson spoke his mind, but left the emotions bottled up inside. Why it killed him to tell her anything significant, she couldn’t comprehend. Give him time. But how much time did they really have?

Two hours of billing and she wanted to pound her head against the wall. She ached, and she couldn’t stop thinking about the mysteries of Jackson. He wanted to know about her relationship with Frank, and all the nitty gritty details she told Jeffery. Good luck with that. She didn’t know if it hurt her more that he didn’t ask her about her life or that he went behind her back to ask her brother.

He finished painting the walls when he ran out of paint and decided to finish working on the countertop. The place was slowly coming together again and all Autumn could do was pray it remained that way.

“Okay, I need a break and couple of Tylenol.” She scooped up the papers around her and stood with them in her arms. “I want to do something together. Something that has nothing to do with work and something that is out of my house.”

Jackson sat the paint roller aside and focused his attention on her. “What do you want to do?”

“I want to go on a date. Something that is just us having fun. I need to have fun.” She sat the pile on the counter and twisted the top of her water bottle. “What do you say?”

“Depends. Do you put out on the first date?”

Her jaw dropped. Annoyed, Autumn scoffed.

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