Chapter 3

“Oh, wow.” Dylan lays down the book on the bed and turns her wide eyes on me. “That was hot. What do you think is going to happen when he sees her again?”

She giggles and turns the page, but I grab the book out of her hand.

“You can’t be serious. He’s a jerk.”

“He is not,” she argues and tries to take the book back. “He’s awesome.”

“Whatever.” I laugh, rolling onto my back and holding the book away from her. “He’s trying to pay her for sex.”

“No, he’s not.”

“All those hundreds?” I remind her. “Then what’s the money for?”

She shrugs, reaching over me to try to grab the book back. “Maybe he knows she needs it. I don’t care. I want to know what happens next!”

I hug the book to my body, laughing when she tries to pry it away.

“Oh, come on.” She pouts and gives up, lying at my side on her back. “Think about if it were Lucas, and you were . . . changing his oil.”

I roll my eyes and mumble, “Shut up.”

Of course she doesn’t.

Propping herself up on her side, she rests her head on her hand and looks down at me, her voice turning sultry and playful. “Alone in the shop at night,” she taunts. “An older man in a hot suit who knows what he’s doing . . .”

My stomach flips, and I can’t stop the image that springs into my mind. Lucas . . . seeing me for the first time in so many years . . . and everything’s changed.

“Think about him looking at you that way. Like how Jase looked at Kat,” Dylan says, “Like you’re a woman and he wants what a man wants from a woman, because his body’s on fire and he needs his hands on you.”

Lucas’s eyes fall down my body, like all of a sudden he can’t stop himself, and my breath escapes me, my lungs emptying at the thought of his gaze turning dark and possessive like Jase’s did with Kat.

An electric buzz runs under my skin, but I shake my head, clearing it.

Jase and Kat. My parents, Jason and Katherine, could easily have gone by those nicknames in another life.

But I’ve barely ever heard anyone ever call my dad Jason, let alone something as informal as Jase. It’s “Dad” to Madoc and me. “Jason” to my mom only. And “Mr. Caruthers” to everyone else.

“Yeah, well,” I say, pushing the fantasy of Lucas away, “I’m not like her.”

“Like what?”

“Hot.” I let out a sigh. “I’m not hot. I’m just sweet and kind and boring.”

Dylan falls back again, and we both stare up at the ceiling. “Yeah, me, too,” she breathes out. “I wear a tank top, and my dad tells me to go put some clothes on.”

We both laugh, because with a dad like Jared, she has it just as tough as me. Jared doesn’t parent his kids based on what’s right or wrong. Quite simply, if it makes him uncomfortable, he isn’t having it and that’s that.

But Dylan is better at sneaking around her father’s hang-ups and getting away with more. I’m not used to pushing the boundaries with my parents.

I want to be, though. I want to be like what Jase said. Dangerous to someone.

I gaze straight above me and slip my hand behind my head, whispering slowly, “Pathetic . . . fucking . . . college boy.” And then Dylan’s voice joins mine as we both say at once, “You wouldn’t know what to do with this ass.”

Heat pools in my belly, and Dylan and I both start to laugh.

“I kind of feel hotter now,” she tells me.

“Yeah, me, too.”

“Okay, then.” She takes the book from my arms and flips onto her stomach, opening it up. “Let’s keep reading. Learn some more dirty talk.”

•   •   •

Jase . . .

I shouldn’t have left her my card. What the hell was I thinking?

I’d met the girl twice, and in that time, there were already a dozen moments when I should’ve done something differently, like walked away.

I knew what I should do. I knew what I shouldn’t do. I knew the difference between right and wrong, but if, by some miracle, I saw her again, what I knew wouldn’t matter in the face of what I wanted.

And that couldn’t happen.

It had been a week since I’d left her my card in the garage, and thankfully, she hadn’t called. I wouldn’t seek her out, so as long as she didn’t call me—which she wouldn’t, since she probably thought I was a piece of shit, anyway—then everything would be fine.

I had the strength to stay away from temptation.

And then the fucking money. Throwing my weight around like I could buy anything I wanted. I hadn’t really been trying to buy her. Just a few minutes with her.

Walking into my house, I heard the clock chime nine as I closed the door behind me and made my way across the dark foyer. Maddie was still at her parents’ with our son, so the house was deathly quiet. The baby was only a few months old, but he already loved music, so I was used to walking into the house on any given day with a wide range of tunes playing loudly: classical, oldies, eighties rock . . .

Now, nothing. I was missing him, and Madeline had called earlier today to say she’d be staying an extra week on top of the time she’d already been away.

She was avoiding me. And as much as I missed my kid, I was kind of glad she was gone. In her absence I didn’t have to put up a front while I was at home.

Until she returned, anyway, and I was forced to deal with the stalemate we were in. Would she want to keep the house? Would I stay in the city permanently, so far away from my son every day? Our family’s firm handled everything for her father. What would happen to those accounts now? The thing about our marriage was it wasn’t just us. There were a lot of people who’d be affected.

I set my briefcase down and unbuttoned my jacket, walking upstairs to change. I threw on some jeans and a T-shirt and came back downstairs to rummage through the refrigerator. Finding a large bowl of chicken salad Maddie had left, I fixed myself a sandwich and took it into my office so I could get right back to work. I wanted my own firm in the next five years, so if I worked hard enough, built up my clientele and my reputation, I’d be able to be my own boss and set my own pace by the time my son was in school and started to remember what kind of father I was. I’d failed Maddie, but I’d make sure that kid was never sad.

I spent the next hour researching a couple of cases as well as answering a few e-mails and finishing my opening remarks for the GM lawsuit. The proceedings would start next week, so I’d be home even less than I was now. I was half tempted to just get an apartment in the city. The commute was starting to take too much of my time.

Rummaging through the papers on my desk, I stopped. Where is the hell was that fax? I’d grabbed it before I’d left work.

“Briefcase,” I mumbled, standing up. I headed back into the foyer and popped open my case, sifting through file folders for the white piece of paper I needed. But then I noticed a flashing red light from inside the dark case. I picked out my cell phone and turned it on, seeing a missed call from twenty minutes ago. It could’ve been any number of people—a client, Maddie, my father . . .

But my heart suddenly skipped a beat. I didn’t recognize the number, and I couldn’t stop myself. I redialed.

“Denton Auto Repair,” an out-of-breath voice answered.

And I closed my eyes, fighting the heat drifting over my body. Shit.

“Hello?” Kat said when I didn’t say anything. She sounded stressed.

I cleared my throat. “You called me?” I forced myself to say, knowing I should hang up.

She was silent for a moment, and I could hear her labored breathing. My guard went up. Was something wrong? It was after ten. The shop closed two hours ago. Why was she still there?

“Look, I’m sorry,” she blurted out. “I shouldn’t have called. Forget it.”

“What’s wrong?” I barked before she could hang up.

“Nothing. I’ll be okay—”

“What happened?!”

I heard her suck in a breath, and I immediately picked up my keys and grabbed my wallet out of my briefcase, not even thinking.

“Are you close?” she asked, her voice sounding hesitant. “I’m at the garage. My ride never showed, there’s no one else I can call, and there’s a weird car sitting outside. I just—”

“I can be there in ten minutes,” I said, already walking out the door and not even caring why she’d called me of all people. “Don’t go outside.”

“Thank you.” I heard the relief in her voice.

I hung up and hurried into my car without any hesitation. That repair shop was off a secluded country road. No way in hell was she walking home.

I sped the entire way there, punching the stick shift into fourth and then fifth, my headlights falling against the blacktop highway and no other cars in sight. I wondered who her ride was that didn’t show. Probably the ex. Right now, I wouldn’t mind running into him again.

Finally, I spotted the lights of the repair shop ahead and slowed the car.

I swung into the parking lot and immediately noticed Kat, ripping her arm away from a man who’d grabbed it, another man standing beside him. I slammed on the brakes and yanked up the parking brake, jumping out of the car.

“I don’t have your money!” Kat yelled, trying to walk around them. Why the hell had she come outside?

“Then maybe we’ll have you work it off for him,” one of the guys snarled. “Huh, honey? Now tell us where he is, because one way or another we get paid!”

“Go to hell!” she barked, and I raced up, putting myself in front of her and shoving one of the guys back.

“What do you want?” I demanded, my shoulders squared and rage pouring out of every goddamn pore on my body.

Both guys were dressed like street thugs, ratty clothes and greasy hair, once of them sporting a huge tattoo on his neck.

“Fuck off, man,” the dark-haired one growled. “She owes us money. Our business is with her. Not you.”

“I don’t owe you anyth—”

“How much?” I asked the guy, cutting Kat off.

He stared at me, narrowing his eyes and looking like he was debating whether or not to deal with me.

“Four hundred,” he finally answered, his voice growing calmer.

I held his gaze and reached into my pocket, pulling out my wallet.

“What?” Kat cried behind me. “No!”

But I took out four bills and handed them over to the punk. “You don’t come near her again. You understand?”

But he just took the money and smiled lazily, like all was right with the world now. “Thanks,” he replied and then looked around me to Kat. “Nice doin’ business, Kat.”

And they both turned and headed back to their car. I stayed in front of her, feeling the heat of her anger on my back.

But I had my own fury swirling like a tornado under my skin. What the fuck was the matter with her? Why would she come outside the shop if she’d noticed a car lurking around? And what the hell would she have done if I hadn’t shown up?

What would they have done to her?

She came around me, her face twisted in anger. “I don’t need your help.”

“Then why the hell did you call me?” I barked.

“I forget!” she yelled back, spinning around. “Screw off, College Boy.”

I widened my eyes and ran my hand through my hair, fisting it. Jesus Christ! What did I do wrong? She called me.

I watched her walk back for the garage, her tight blue jeans ripped to hell, grease stains up her forearms, and her dark gray T-shirt falling off her shoulder, exposing her skin, and I didn’t know if I was angry or turned on or both. Every single one of my muscles was hot and as hard as a rock. Every. Single. One.

Charging after her, I grabbed hold of her arm, twisted her around, and threw her over my shoulder, hearing her yelp as I stood there, wrapping my arms around the backs of her thighs.

“What are you doing?” she screeched, and I saw her black baseball cap fall to the ground and the ends of her dark hair sway around my waist.

“I don’t know, but it’s fun,” I told her. “I can hold you like this all night. I’m kind of enjoying it, actually.”

“Let me down!”

“Not likely.”

“Jase!” she protested again. I actually don’t think I ever introduced myself. But then I remember having written my nickname with my cell number on the back of my business cards.

I stood there like I was waiting for the fucking bus until she calmed down and stopped acting like a child.

“Actually, you are getting kind of heavy.” I grunted and shifted her on my shoulder. “Maybe if I stripped you down, it’d be a lighter load? You game, Trailer Park Princess?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Then stop calling me College Boy.”

She tried to twist out of my hold, throwing my balance off. “Please!” she cried.

And when I didn’t budge, her breathing slowed, and she finally lowered her voice. “Jase?” she said, and my fingers tightened on her, loving the sound of my name on her lips. “I’ll let you take me home, okay?”

Okay. But I didn’t put her down.

Instead, I carried her all the way to the car, hearing her angry little growl behind me, because she knew I didn’t trust her to not run away. She dragged my ass all the way out here and put me in the middle of her drama. I was taking her home safely.

I put her feet on the ground and opened up the car door, letting her climb in. More like she just plopped down in the seat, pouting, but she was in the car, nonetheless. Walking around to the driver’s side, I climbed in, fastened my seat belt, and started the car.

“Who were those guys?” I asked her, turning on my headlights and pulling onto the dark road.

“It doesn’t matter.”

I arched a brow, turning to look at her. “I asked you a question.”

I’d forked over four hundred dollars to get her out of trouble—what she did with the other four hundred I’d left last week, I had no idea—so she could damn well give me some answers.

“Dealers,” she finally answered. “My ex owes them money, so they were shaking me down, trying to find him.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“He’s never far.”

I shook my head, turning my eyes back out to the road.

Dealers. She said it as if it’s all so normal.

What would they have done if I hadn’t been there? What if they’d shown up at her goddamn house with her son there? Is that what she wanted him growing up around? Fucking losers and trash and drama . . .

I tightened my fists around the steering wheel, hearing the leather grind in my fist. “You’re a mess,” I bit out in low voice. “How the hell can anyone live like that?”

I saw her turn to me out of the corner of my eye. “You don’t know me. Don’t forget that.”

And then I saw her put her baseball cap back on, folding her arms over her chest.

We sat in silence, and I stared ahead, the white lines in the middle of the road racing past my car as I considered what the hell I thought I was doing. She had a point. I had no right to judge her. Her reality was far different from mine. I had money, an education, experiences that constantly reminded me how big the world was. She was a teenager who would probably struggle for everything for the rest of her life.

But . . . given our very different lives, we were both here, weren’t we? She, coming to me, because even though she would never admit it, and given how little she knew about me, she did know I would come through for her. And me, racing to her in the middle of the night, because all the money, education, or experiences in the world couldn’t buy what she made me feel.

“I do know you,” I admitted. “Because I’m just as much of a mess as you are.”

I could feel her eyes on me, and I wondered what she thought of me. Was I the asshole rich guy trying to prey on her? Was I some idiot she thought she could hustle to feed her kid?

Or could she feel me as much as I felt her on every inch of my skin? Had I been in her head at all over the past week? Because she was constantly in mine.

I saw her pick something out of the console and glanced over to see her open my wallet.

“You’re right,” she said, pulling out a picture of my son. “He’s about the same age as mine.” And then she put the snapshot back and set my wallet back down. “Someday . . . they’ll be all grown up, with their own problems, and all of this will be over.” She leaned her head back, musing. “Sometimes I just pray for time to go quicker, ya know? Like I just want to fast-forward to forty, and hopefully the hard part will be done.”

I nodded. “Like this is all just a shit preamble to something better.”

“Yeah.” Her voice was gentle and soft. “We’ll have it together, we won’t be confused anymore, we’ll be excited about tomorrow . . .”

I kept driving, letting her words linger in the air.

She knew. She knew exactly what I was feeling, because we weren’t so different.

I turned into town, heading for her house, and she didn’t seem to notice that it was odd I knew where she lived without her telling me. Sprinkles of rain started hitting the windshield, and I turned on the wipers, slowing my speed.

“Why did you marry him?” I asked her.

I heard her take in a deep breath, but she didn’t seem angry I’d asked.

“I thought he would change,” she answered. “In his rare, genuine moments, he convinced me he loved me. But if I were listening more closely, I would’ve realized that he just wanted to bleed me dry. Cooking, cleaning, my paychecks from the garage, sex . . .” She drifted off and then continued. “He barely even remembers I exist anymore, except when he needs money. He hasn’t touched me since I was five months pregnant. He didn’t like the way my body looked anymore.”

I couldn’t help myself. I looked over at her, gazing at the smoothness and glow of her bare skin where the shirt fell off her shoulder, and the rise and fall of her breasts as she breathed. She had a beautiful figure, and he was a fucking idiot.

“Why did you marry her?” she asked me in return.

I turned my eyes back out to the road as I wound my way through her neighborhood.

Because I didn’t see you first.

“Because I love her.” I told her the truth. “I grew up with her, she comes from a good family, my father thought it would be—”

“Yeah, I get it,” she cut me off.

But I wasn’t sure she did get it. I loved my son’s mother, but my love for Maddie was like everything else that never changed in my life. It was constant and routine. It never challenged me or hurt me.

Or excited me.

I was never hungry or wild for it. I never longed to feel her.

It was just there. Like my house, my job, my car . . .

I pulled up to the front of her house, a small light shining through the living room window, but the rest of the street was dark. Rain poured down heavily now, blanketing my windshield in sheets of water.

We sat there silent for a moment, and I turned to look at her, knowing she wanted to say something.

She stared out the window, making no move to get out. “What do you want with me?” she asked quietly.

I almost laughed. Not because I found the question amusing, but because I found it far too tempting. What did I want? Nothing. Everything.

“When I know, so will you,” I told her.

She smiled to herself and looked over at me, holding my eyes.

“What?” I asked.

But she just shook her head. “It’s weird. For a single moment . . . I didn’t want to fast-forward.”

And my stomach flipped as she held my eyes, everything in them telling me she felt what I was feeling.

I could touch her. I could reach over and take her, and guide her into my lap and touch her if I wanted to.

“You’d better get out of this car,” I warned.

She tried to hide her smile, but I still saw it. And I watched her finally climb out of the car and into the pouring rain.

I didn’t want to fast-forward, either. In fact, I wanted time to slow as much as possible.

She rounded the front of the car, her hair turning black as it got wet, and came to stand at my window. I watched as the rain drenched her clothes, the shirt molding to her breasts and running down the olive-toned skin of her chest. I tightened my fist around the steering wheel again.

And then slowly, she leaned down and placed her lips against my window, closing her eyes and kissing it.

I watched as she backed away, holding my eyes, and then spun around and ran to her house, disappearing into the warm glow.

Now I knew.

I put the car in first gear and drove off, knowing exactly what I wanted from her.