Jaxon

That wasn’t supposed to happen. Not like that. I got into the back of the car because I wanted to talk to her. Apologize. Explain—or at least try to.

More important than all of that, I needed to ask her if she was getting married. I had to know—not that it matters. She can get married a thousand times to a thousand different guys who aren’t me—it won’t change a thing.

No matter what, Claire belongs to me.

Instead of asking or explaining, I go full-tilt caveman and fingerfuck her in the back of my limo because she called me Lurch and pretended not to know me.

Classy.

I knew she was fucking with me. She remembers me. She has to. Those ten hours with her were the best of my goddamned life. There’s no way she could’ve forgotten me so easily. I knew it.

So I proved it.

Her sister and bridesmaid #1 came out of the apartment building a few minutes later, and I open the door. Help them into the car. Smile when bridesmaid #1 asks Bri where she found such a hot chauffeur. Meanwhile, I’m so strung out from Claire’s taste in my mouth, the smell of her on my hand that I’m shaking and my cock is so fucking hard and swollen I have to move the seat back so I can fit it and me behind the steering wheel.

Not exactly how I saw this evening going.

We round up the rest of the bridesmaids, two of them, without incident and head for the restaurant listed on the itinerary. I know the place. I’ve taken clients there more than once. It’s a trendy spot with a good layout. Only one dining area that’s visible from the street. Two points of entry, easily covered. The maître de is willing to take bribes to sit my clients where I ask him to.

In the back, the party is already in full-swing. Loud music. Bottles poppin’. Loud female voices. Laughter. I imagine Claire in the thick of it, smiling and laughing along with the rest of them, pretending to have a good time, the way she did in high school. I wonder if she’s thinking about me. If she can still feel me. My fingers stroking her pussy. My tongue caressing her mouth.

Fuck.

Put that shit away, Bennett. Put it away, right fucking now.

You’ve got a job to do.

Dialing my phone, I make the call.

“Hey, Adain, it’s Jaxon Bennett,” I say when he answers the phone. “Bringing in a party of five. Need a table visible from the street.”

“It’s Saturday night,” he wheedles, seeing dollar signs. “You know how busy we are.”

“You’re always busy, you money-grubbing shit,” I say. Instead of taking offense he laughs, just like I knew he would. Adain knows exactly what he is and makes no apologies for it. “I’ll tack on an extra benji—just put ‘em by the window.”

The promise of an extra hundred dollars, in addition to his usual extortion fee, perks him right up.

“You got it.”

That’s what I thought.

Thanking him, I hang up and re-dial, this time calling my mom.

“Hey, honey,” she says, somehow knowing it’s me even though the house phone doesn’t have caller ID.

“Hey, Ma—”

“Simon’s fine.” She answers my question before I can ask it. “Playing Minecraft. How are you?”

She worries about me. Thinks my job is dangerous. I don’t know how to tell her this shit is a cakewalk through Candyland compared to what I’m used to.

“It’s good,” I say, dipping off the freeway, to maneuver my way through downtown traffic. “Bachelorette party… It’s Claire St. James.”

“Claire?” She says it softly like we’re trading secrets. “Simon’s Claire?”

Simon’s Claire. I forget that no one knows about us. What happened that night. That I took her virginity and then disappeared without a word.

“Uhhh, yeah. Got her in the back of the limo right now.” I’m trying to sound casual and failing miserably. “Small world, huh?”

”She’s getting married?” she says, her tone heavy with disappointment.

“Actually, I’m not entirely sure,” I say, checking to make sure the volume of the music in the back of the limo is high enough to drown out the sound of my voice. “Either her or her sister.”

Please let it be her sister.

“Jaxon…” My mom’s voice trails off in silence. Either she isn’t sure what to say or she knows that what she’s about to say isn’t something I want to hear. “You need to tell her.”

Yup. Something I don’t want to hear.

Mainly because I know she’s right.

She keeps talking. “You should’ve told her years ago. Maybe if you’d explained--”

I’d always thought I kept my infatuation with Claire under wraps. Her observation shames me. Especially after everything I put her through. “I couldn’t.” I cut her off, not wanting to hear about all the ways I fucked everything up. “You know I couldn’t.”

“Jaxon.” She says my name gently like she knows exactly what I’m feeling. Thinking. “You were just a kid. A normal kid with normal feelings. That didn’t change just because—”

“I gotta go, Ma.” I cut her off before she can say anything else. For some reason, listening to her excuse me—what I did—so easily makes me feel like shit. “I’ll call and check-in in a few hours.”

She sighs. “We’ll be here.”

I hang up the phone before she can say anything else.