Page 9 of Jack of Hearts
Madison came to a stop in front of the man casually leaning against the wall. The one making her heart stutter at the sight of him. Okay, so apparently she had to work on the getting-over-him part. She’d get right on that as soon as she could tear her gaze away, becausehello, the man was serious eye candy, whether wearing black biker leathers or dressed in a pale gray silk shirt and dark gray pants. His black hair curled over his collar, and she had to mentally order her hand not to reach up and comb her fingers through it to see if it was as soft as it looked.Get a grip, Mad. You’re over him. You said so just minutes ago.
“Madison?” He put his hand on her shoulder. “Did Ramon say or do something before I got here?”
“No. Why?” She barely refrained from leaning into his touch. And the scent of him? She wanted to rub her nose over his skin and breathe him in. When she was finally back home and alone in her room, she was going to give herself a stern talking-to about avoiding bad boys for the rest of her freaking life.
“I dunno. You don’t seem yourself.”
No shit, Sherlock.She might be herself sometime next week, when hopefully— please, God—she couldn’t recall his scent or how it felt to have him touch her. A scolding was definitely in order.The man likes his women dumb and beautiful, so beat that fact into your brain, Madison.
“I’m fine,” she said, then, needing to get away from him before she told him how stupid he was for not appreciating a woman with a brain in her head, headed back to their table. She’d hoped to leave him behind, but no such luck. With his long legs, he easily kept up, staying by her side.
“Madison,” he said, putting his hand under her elbow and stopping her.
There he went again, touching her. He really, really needed to stop doing that. The heat from his hand was like sticking a marshmallow in a fire and watching it flame. That was how her skin felt where his fingers curled around her arm—all marshmallowy and burning hot.
“What?” she snapped.
His eyes widened. “Have I done something to annoy you?”
There was a loaded question.Yes, Alex, you have annoyed me. You touched me. I’m afraid you implanted your scent in my memory for all time. You talked about books with me, and that made me weak in the knees. You like your women stupid and beautiful. You ... you ...He’d never kissed her and she was thankful he hadn’t, while at the same time she was sad about it.
“I want to go home,” she said.
Sympathetic black eyes peered down at her. “Yeah, Ramon’s an ass, and I don’t blame you.”
Uh-huh, that was the reason she was going with. “He is. I’m going to plead a headache, then leave the three of you to your fun.”
“Can’t say it will be fun without you, Madison.”
Oh God, she wished he’d stop saying her name with that sexy emphasis he put on it. Nor did she believe him. And she didn’t doubt that sometime around midnight, after he’d wrestled his dumb date away from Ramon, Alex and the I-might-be-stupid-but-I’m-every-man’s-dream woman would be tangled in the sheets.
Who cared? Not her.
Madison groaned as she flipped her body. She’d tried falling asleep on her left side, then on her right, and now she was flat on her stomach, no closer to sleep than an hour ago. Every time she closed her eyes, Alex was there. Seeing him in something other than his leathers, she’d literally lost her breath for a few seconds. No man had ever caused her to have those kinds of heart palpitations before, not even her last boyfriend, the one she’d thought she loved and wanted to marry.
Madison punched her pillow in frustration. “Damn you, Alex.”
“And damn you, Madison. You didn’t lock your window.”
She shot up, a scream on her lips.
“It’s me,” Alex said, gently putting his hand over her mouth. “Don’t yell.”
Her heart was beating so fast that she pressed her hands against her chest. “You scared me. What are you doing here?” She glanced at the clock. A little before midnight. Well, if nothing else, she’d been wrong about him being in another woman’s bedroom, because now he was in hers.
He turned on the lamp. “Why are you mad at me?”
“Who said I was mad?” She squinted and reached over, dimming the light.
One black brow lifted, as if he found her amusing. “You were just damning me. Must’ve had a reason.”
Oh, let me count the ways.Although tempted, she refrained from saying it. He would want all the details. He moved to the chair and sat, as if he were visiting her in her living room during normal-people hours. As she was learning, Alex wasn’t like anyone else she knew. At some point since she last saw him, he’d changed back into his leathers, which meant he’d ridden his bike to see her. She tried not to feel any pleasure in knowing that if he’d gone home to change, he’d spent even less time with his date.
“Did we discuss you coming here tonight, Alex? Because I don’t think we did, so go away.” If she had blinked, she would have missed how fast he moved from the chair to planting his butt—correction: totally awesome butt—on her bed, right next to her leg. If her knee inched over until it was touching his hip, it wasn’t her doing. Since when was she responsible for how her knee reacted to him?
“After you left, I missed you.” He picked up a strand of her hair, his knuckles brushing the top of her arm, and stared at her hair as if fascinated.
When he twined it around his fingers, she fought but lost in her effort to conceal how his touch affected her as a shiver snaked down her spine. She pushed his hand away. The man was seriously messing with her mind. Sometimes he seemed untouchable, as if he didn’t want her to know the real him. Other times, like now, she thought that if she lifted the covers, he would crawl into bed with her and hold her close.
