Chapter 8

Riley

I sat on the floor in Jax’s living room, my legs tucked underneath my body and the pizza on the coffee table between us. It was good to have that distance, otherwise I wouldn’t have stomached a bite. Jax’s presence equaled thoughts I’d never had before. Obviously, I’d fantasized in my life, I’d touched myself, and had sex and all the rest, but nothing came close to the thoughts I had about him.

And they weren’t only sexual. Which scared the bejesus out of me.

Jax took a bite of his slice and chewed.

I watched him, carefully.

He wasn’t gross or messy. He didn’t have bad table manners, even seated across from me in his jeans and a T-shirt—He’d changed the minute we got back to the apartment.

Does everything about him have to be perfect? Can’t he have a growth or something weird going on? Shit, even a growth wouldn’t put me off this dude.

“Tell me more,” Jax said, after he’d finished the bite. He slipped the pizza slice back onto his plate. “I mean apart from the fact that you like Hawaiian pizza.”

“What’s wrong with Hawaiian?”

“I hear people think putting pineapple on pizza is a punishable offense,” Jax replied. “Personally, I like anchovies.”

“What?!”

“Kidding, kidding,” Jax said. “But your reaction was totally worth it. Come on, gorgeous, tell me about yourself. How does a woman like you wind up broke and sleeping in a studio?”

“I told you the answer to that,” I replied, my pulse ticking up a notch. I picked a piece of pineapple off my slice and gobbled it down. Who cared what other people thought? Pineapple on pizza was legit.

“Did you really?” Jax asked and grabbed a napkin. He dabbed his lips. I pictured licking them instead.

“I, well—it’s complicated.”

“All right,” Jax replied, and shrugged. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, Riley. I just figured you’d feel better living under my roof if we knew each other better.”

He glued me to the spot with his stare. It was a challenge.

What, are you scared?

“Well.” I brushed off my fingers and reached for a napkin, but he got there first and held it out to me. I took it, and our hands brushed. Shit, maybe I am scared. This is over the top. It’s too much.

“Well?” He watched me clean my mouth, his look burning with unspoken desire. He shifted and adjusted the crotch of his jeans.

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m just a regular person, I guess.”

“Fine, let’s put it this way, then,” Jax said, resting one foot on the floor, knee up. He reclined against the side of his leather sofa, the picture of ease. He gestured with the napkin, continued, “What’s the one thing you regret, in your life?”

“I believe you shouldn’t have regrets in life. I mean, you learn from everything, even mistakes.”

“Hell, girl, don’t give me one of those cheesy cat poster lines. Just answer the question.”

Laughter burst from my lips. At least, he’d called me on the crap. I had plenty of regrets, too many to count at the moment, but I wouldn’t let them hold me back. “Fine,” I managed. “OK, what do I regret?”

“The most,” he said.

“I—wow, that’s not a tough one to pick, but it’s a tough one to talk about. The one thing I regret the most is falling in love.”

Silence spun through the living room, bounced off the silent flat screen TV attached to the wall, and the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked down on Miami’s lights, the sofas, the dark entryway that led out into the hall, and the white carpet beneath us.

Jax’s lips twitched back, his eyes flashed—a micro-expression of anger that disappeared so quickly I swore I’d hallucinated it. “Who did you fall in love with?” He growled it out—yeah, no, he was angry.

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“I fell in love with a dick,” I replied. “Not like that. I mean, he was one giant walking cock, and everyone else saw it except for me. Even my best friend who warned me about him way back when. When it first started.”

“Name?” Jax asked.

“Michael.”

Jax swept fingers across his brow, which had reddened in the interim. That wasn’t normal, was it? Did the thought of me with another man actually piss him off? Why? We were nothing. We’d had one night of mind-blowing sex and that was it.

“Michael,” he repeated. “What did this Michael do that made you regret falling in love with him?”

This was good, even if it still kind of hurt to talk about it, it was good. If I told Jax about Michael, he’d understand when I said I didn’t believe in love anymore, that I didn’t want anything to do with it.

Love could only ruin my plans moving forward, for my business and for my baby. My baby. No one else’s.

I cleared my throat. “I was with him for five years, basically. He was my partner in life, and I thought in business. He wasn’t a dancer or anything, but he appeared to be super-supportive. All I wanted was for us to get married and have kids, you know? The whole suburban image, but he didn’t want that at all. He wanted to continue living our single life—just the two of us, I guess.”

“I see. You were engaged?”

“Yes. And I was desperate for us to have a baby, but he refused. That was his ultimatum, either we don’t have kids or he leaves. Kids were off the table.” It should’ve felt weird to talk to a stranger about this, but it didn’t.

Jax’s expression was impartial. He lifted his pizza slice and took another bite, chewing and listening.

I didn’t talk about this stuff often, not even with Ronny. It was refreshing to have someone listen without judgment. “I agreed. I’m eternally ashamed about the fact that I agreed, but I figured, and this is my fault, that I could convince him some day. That he’d eventually change his mind. He didn’t. I stayed with him. Things were… Well, you know when you’re in a relationship and you reach a status quo and you’re just sailing? Just cruising along and you’re comfortable? It was like that. Until it wasn’t anymore.”

Jax finished off his slice and wiped his lips again. “What changed?”

“He left me,” I said and swallowed hard. “Well, technically, he didn’t leave, he came right to the studio after my last class of the day and told me that our relationship was over. He asked for the ring back and then—” I broke off and grabbed my diet soda off the corner of the table. I glugged some of it back.

“You don’t have to go on,” Jax said, and it came out croaky, like a grunt, as if he could feel my pain.

“It’s good to talk about it.”

“Then do go on.”

“He told me that he’d fallen in love with someone else.”

“What a total bag of dickfucks.”

Not exactly the word that’d sprung to mind, but it worked great in this context. “That wasn’t even the best part. I mean, the worst part, whatever. Apparently, he needed the ring back to propose to her, because she was pregnant. And he was excited about it. He said that she was the one he’d been waiting for, and I was…nothing, basically. Just a means of passing time.”

Jax’s fists clenched. Veins popped out on the backs of his hands, and his knuckles whitened. “Where does he live?”

“What?”

“This Michael cunt, where does he live?”

“I have no idea. He ran off with his new fiancée, and good riddance,” I said, with more strength in my voice that I felt in my soul. “Obviously, he was a waste of time. Like I said, we were floating. It hurts, still, but I’ll survive. He was just a guy, but the truth is, I don’t really care about that stuff anymore. Love. I don’t believe in it. I don’t want it. I don’t want anything to do with it. It’s weak.”

Jax’s left eyebrow quirked upward, and his eyes sparkled. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I—I can’t risk feeling anything for anyone because it only leads to trouble.”

He chuckled, but there wasn’t much joy in the laughter.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” Jax said. “You turn everything I thought I knew about women on its head. I like it.”

“Just as long as you don’t love it,” I replied, then clapped my hand to my mouth. “Sorry, that was presumptuous. Sometimes I don’t know when to quit talking. I don’t want you to think I’m being a bitch or that I think you feel anything for me. I think I—”

“Slow down, tommy gun, you’re fine.” He waved a hand at me.

I exhaled a sigh.

This man sent me from confident to nervous and back again so fast my head spun.

“I’m with you, Riley. I don’t believe in love either. I’ve never felt shit for anyone. I keep things simple. One night, maybe two, and then it’s over. Everyone’s satisfied, and things remain complication-free. Simple.”

“Exactly,” I said. “Well, OK. So, then you realize that I can’t afford to have sex with you again.” I got up and brushed off my yoga pants.

Jax rose too, and his good humor had returned in the form of a Cheshire Cat grin. “Riley, every time I walk into a room, your nipples try to escape your bra. I think it’s a little late to limit sex to just that one time. Like I said, one or two times, and then it’s done.” He winked.

I strode past him, trying and failing to ignore the heat between us. He was right about everything, of course, but that didn’t change a damn thing. “I’m not a conquest,” I said, as I passed him.

“Who said you were?”

“It’s in your eyes.”

“You know what else is in my eyes?”

“What?” I faltered, looked back, searched them.

“The vitreous body. Don’t ever say I didn’t teach you anything,” he quipped.

I turned and made for the door, just to take a goddamn break from the scent of his cologne and the intense pull to touch him. My foot hit the leg of the coffee table, and I yelped, tumbling forward. The too-classy-for-me carpet rushed up to meet me.

Jax flashed forward, caught me around the waist and righted me. “Careful,” he said, breathing on my ear, still holding me close. “Don’t go falling for me now.”

That’s what I’m afraid of.