Page 27 of Crossed By the Stars
“Your mom is sleeping with her dad?”
“God no. That would mean my mother actually had a thought that my father hadn’t given her. No, supposedly her mother is having an affair with my father.”
I frowned. “I can’t imagine that.”
She laughed sarcastically. “I’m not sure I want to imagine it.”
“I didn’t mean the sex part,” I said, rubbing a finger along the soft skin at her wrist that always called to me. “I meant, I can’t imagine having lost your son because of someone and then turning around and sleeping with them.”
Aunt Élodiecrossed my thoughts, a brutal reminder of why my father hated the Moris. My chest tightened. Sleeping with the enemy.Papawould clearly see it that way. You didn’t cross those lines.
“She didn’t lose Ken’Ichi because of my father,” Jada replied. “She lost him because of me.”
Even though I didn’t agree, I knew fighting her on this was useless. Instead, I turned to what I really cared about. “Do you think the threats are coming from the Matsudas?”
She shrugged. “Not if they’re inviting me to social gatherings.”
Jada watched my finger move along her skin as the tension grew between us. Longing that couldn’t be yielded to.
“If they are, and you go, they’d have you exactly where they want you.”
She was done with me, my demands, and the hold I had on her. She pulled away and moved so the desk chair was between us.
“I’m not stupid, Armaud. I don’t purposefully put myself in danger,” she said.
Her words tossed me back in time, to a moment when shehadput herself in danger, and I’d been the one to rescue her, which only caused my body to remember what had happened afterward and how we hadn’t discussed it until years later. Until we were on the balcony of her grandmother’s 5th Avenue apartment with Dawson and Violet in the billiard room behind us, fighting their own attraction.
“Do you think they are going to finally give in?” I asked.
She glanced back in the windows to where Dawson had Violet in his arms, showing her how to use the pool cue.
“One can only hope,” she said.
“You wouldn’t be upset?” I asked. While I’d never seen Jada and Dawson tangled skin to skin, lip to lip, it was obvious there was a bond between them. After seeing Dawson with Violet, it made me wonder if their mutual love of the purple-eyed genius was what had brought them together.
Jada chuckled. “You want me to lose my dinner? No. Dawson and I are friends. That’s all.”
We turned to watch the skyline of New York City twinkling brighter than the stars. A setting that some would think romantic. My hand was next to hers on the railing, and before I could stop myself, I’d moved my pinkie so that it rested atop hers, a tiny human connection that sent giant waves of desire through me. I felt her shiver in response.
I dropped my head so that my lips almost caressed her temple and murmured, “So, Dawson isn’t your guy. What about Ken’Ichi Matsuda?”
I hated the longing in my voice that all but begged for her to say there was nothing between them. To say she hated the man as much as I thought she did whenever he appeared in our lives.
She stilled.
“Jealous, Armaud? You made it pretty clear you want nothing to do with me, so the men in my life aren’t really any of your business.”
My lips grazed skin. “He isn’t the one for you,mon amour.”
She pulled herself away slightly. “Don’t call me that. Just because you hauled me into your bed and gave me one orgasm doesn’t give you a right to use that nickname or demand knowledge of my sex life.”
The mention of how we’d used our mouths to bring each other up and over the edge of bliss made my entire body tighten, made my chest ache and my stomach curl with a craving I hadn’t been able to cure for years.
“I didn’t bring you to my bed that night to seduce you. It was to keep you safe.”
“I didn’t need you to keep me safe. I have Kaida for that,” she growled. So Jada. So defiant.
“Three men were manhandling you, and Ito-san wasn’t anywhere to be found. You weren’t in any condition to give consent. I’ll never stand by and allow that to happen to anyone—especially not someone I care about.”
