Page 23 of Misadventures in Blue
“I came for you,” I admit in a tired voice. “I came here to find you.”
Chapter Eight
Jace
Hot, raw joy floods through my veins at her confession.
I open up the car door before she’s even finished speaking. “Get in,” I say shortly, and then I’m around the other side of the car in a heartbeat, climbing into her passenger seat after carefully setting her portfolio on the floor.
I’m already buckled by the time she manages to sit down. She doesn’t start the car.
“Jace…”
“Ninety-three eleven Reeds Road,” I say. “Unit ten. My place.”
She bites her lip. “What about your friends inside?”
“My tab’s paid,” I reply. “And those assholes will be fine without me.”
A little huff. “I’m not talking about assholes or your tab, Jace. I’m talking about the girl who was in your lap.”
Oh. Ohhhh.
I look at her more carefully now, at the burnish of red along her cheekbones and the press of her lips. She’s jealous. She’s jealous, and that sends a whole stir of male pleasure swirling in my chest.
“I don’t care about that girl because I’m leaving here with you. You’re the one I’m taking home.”
Her forehead makes contact with the steering wheel; for once, that perfect ballet posture is slumped. “This is a bad idea.”
I touch her shoulder, the familiar fabric of the uniform made sweetly exotic over her slender, lithe muscles. And then I touch the pale silk of her thick ponytail because I can’t resist it. “I’m not taking you back to my place to fuck you.”
She lifts her head, eyes me warily. “You’re not?”
“No.” I’m still toying with her ponytail. I’m totally entranced by the sight of all that exquisite hair bundled into a rope that practically begs to be wrapped around my fist. “I’m taking you back to my place so I can take care of you. In a not-fucking way.”
“I don’t need taking care of,” she says defensively, stiffening back up to her normal erect bearing. I can’t play with her ponytail like this anymore, dammit, and I settle for curling a finger around her chin instead and making her look at me.
“You came here to find me and you found me, and now this is what’s going to happen, okay? Start the car and drive, Cat. Drive us home.”
I know she’s wrestling with herself, nibbling more on that plush lower lip until she finally relents and starts the car. “Okay,” she says. “But I don’t have to stay.”
“Of course not.”
But of course she does.
I don’t mean that in a nonconsensual way—she’s free to leave whenever she wants—but in an emotional sense. I know she needs someone with her, and that someone should be me. I’ve seen this look in soldiers’ eyes before. I’ve seen faces full of vacant restlessness. I don’t know what happened to Cat today, but I know whatever did happen was Bad. Bad with a capital B.
And with a Bad thing, you can either shove that shit way down and hope nothing ruptures, or you can find someone you trust and find a way to bleed it out. Talking, drinking, fucking, music—anything is fair game.
I think Cat has been shoving her shit down for years, and I think she’s finally rupturing. I want to be the one to help her bleed it out instead.
I don’t even really know why—in no way should I feel like I deserve that place in her life or in her hurt and healing after just two screws—but I do. This week did nothing to slake my thirst for her. In fact, it just got worse and worse as the days rolled on without the chance to hold her slender wrists in my hand or the opportunity to run my thumb along the luscious lines of her mouth.
I jerked my dick raw thinking about her at night. I throbbed in mute agony as I sat across the meeting room table from her during the day. I wanted her so badly that I thought my bones might crack from it.
And don’t get me started on what happens whenever I think of her words ending our little fling.
I look at you and I know that’s not going to be possible for me.
