After a rough night of sleep on the couch, I woke up early and made cinnamon rolls for us. I ate in silence as Micah talked excitedly about a book he wanted to find at the bookstore. Jackson was just as silent. I figured he was practicing his manners. If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.
In the light of morning, I felt even more idiotic for so blatantly lusting after the man. I’d obviously read him wrong.
He insisted on driving the car as we headed towards town. A frugal trip to the hardware store and a less frugal trip to the bookstore landed us at the ice cream shop in town. I was a sucker for doing things to make Micah happy, so when he wanted three scoops of different flavors, I agreed.
I stuck to mint chocolate chip and made happy sounds as I licked at the cone with a simple two scoops. We sat outside at a patio in town and I watched traffic go by. What little there was.
Micah watched a girl around his age walk into the shop and turned bright red. His eyes were wide as he looked back at me. “I saw her when we drove past the school. I wonder if she’s my age.”
I smiled calmly, like I couldn’t see the crush already forming. “Why don’t you go ask her about the school?”
“You think I should?”
I nodded. “Why not?”
Jackson grunted, his favorite form of communication. “Don’t talk about where you came from. We don’t know if it’s safe yet.”
Micah looked at me and I kept right on smiling, through my annoyance. “Go on, before she gets her ice cream.”
He blew out a big breath and handed me his ice cream cone. “I’ll be back.”
I watched him go and felt pride swelling. He was brave. And possibly the cutest kid ever. If the girl didn’t see that, she was insane and I’d be tempted to slap her upside the head. But, parents didn’t do that when other children weren’t interested in their kids, did they?
I took a lick of my ice cream and then a lick of Micah’s and decided his strawberry cheesecake was my new favorite, so I focused on it. “You don’t have to worry him about it not being safe. He knows.”
“I want to make sure he knows.”
I turned to find him focused on my mouth and licked my lips. “Do I have ice cream on me?”
He grimaced and looked away. “If he mentioned something about you and the club, it would be easy for someone to start talking and word spreads surprisingly fast. Then, worrying him would be your smallest concern because you’d have to be worried for him, that you wouldn’t watch him die in front of you because you managed to piss off Raptor so bad.”
I glared at him. “Don’t do that. Don’t make it seem like this whole thing was something I did. I pissed off Raptor. Yeah, like a rat pisses off a snake. Also, don’t ever talk to me about him dying. It’s not going to happen. I would throw myself in front of a bullet for that kid, over and over again.”
He leaned in. “And what about when you take that first bullet and fall? Who’s going to take the second one? You need to teach him how to take care of himself, instead of cuddling him up like he’s some damn puppy.”
I smashed my ice cream cone into his face without thinking twice about it. When he glared at me, looking shocked that I’d do that to him, I just smiled sweetly and turned back to licking Micah’s ice cream cone. “How about you don’t give me parenting advice?”
A big hand shot around me and then ice cream went up my nose as Jackson returned the favor and pushed my hand right into my face. I pulled Micah’s ruined ice cream cone off my face and scowled at Jackson.
He leaned back in his chair and smirked. “You aren’t special. You don’t get to do stuff to other people and not have it done back to you.”
I scooped the mess off my face and smeared it across his T-shirt. Another simple black T-shirt, it was soft under my fingertips, over hard muscle, and looked silly with a smear of bright red and white ice cream across it. “Oops.”
Jackson took a handful of his ice cream and stretched his arm out. His hand connected with the bare skin of my chest and rubbed down, in the valley between my breasts.
I sucked in a sharp breath and met his gaze. My skin burned, even through the cold dairy, where his hand rested. His thumb and a few of his fingers were too wide for the narrow space and they were resting on my breasts. Lightly, just a tease of what it could feel like.
My heart pounded just under and to the right of his hand and I knew he could feel it. I reached up and lightly touched his wrist, unsure of what we were doing.
My lips parted and I licked my suddenly dry lips. His eyes flickered down to the movement and then back to my eyes. If possible, they darkened and I felt the heat from his stare like it was a fire.
A distant ringing of bells sounded and then Micah’s voice crashed into my head. “Oh, my god. You two just ruined it. I was trying to talk to her and you’re out here being all weird! She saw you! Having an ice cream fight like a couple of kids and then this! What are you doing? Stop touching her there, in public!”
My face burned and I stood up as Jackson yanked his hand back. “I’m sorry, Micah. It wasn’t”
“Where’s my ice cream?”
I sighed. “I’ll buy you another.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. “Don’t bother. Let’s just go home.”
I watched him storm off to the car and felt my chest ache. He’d never been mad at me before. I turned to Jackson and gave him the same annoyed look that Micah had given me. “Good job. Now he’s mad at me.”
He shrugged. “Kids get mad.”
I blinked back tears and scowled. “He never gets mad at me.”
“He’s never been mad at you in all of his life?”
“I didn’t have him, Jackson. He was left at the club a few years ago. I just took him in. And now he’s mad at me. This is all your fault.”
“Why?” He just stared at me with a blank expression that made me want to smack him.
“Because.”
He rolled his eyes and stood up. “That’s not a reason.”
“Because you were touching me and it embarrassed him.” I turned, too embarrassed to face him after saying something like that. It was ridiculous, but I was slightly panicking.
Jackson’s voice came from right next to my ear. His breath was warm and smelled like chocolate when I turned slightly to look up at him. “That wasn’t touching. If I was touching you, you’d know it. That’s never going to happen, though. So stop trying.”
My mouth fell open and huffed. “You think… Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”
He easily strolled past me, drawing eyes from the few women around. Of course he was drawing their eyes. He was built like a freaking god and had the dark, dangerous looks of a sexy Bond villain.
I scrunched up my face, anger fueling my need to have the last word. I hurried up to his back and hissed at him. “If you seriously think I’m trying with you, you’ve lost your mind. I haven’t touched a man in over half of my life and I can assure you, you wouldn’t be the man I quit that hiatus for. I could’ve had ten men just like you at the club. Wasn’t interested then and I’m not interested now.”
He grunted and walked around to the driver’s side of the car, leaving me steaming.
I got in the passenger seat, crossed my arms over my chest, and then stared straight ahead the entire drive home. I could feel Micah doing the same from the back seat and told myself I’d talk to him once we got home.
Only, once we got home, he charged into the house and I heard his door slam all the way in the driveway. I gritted my teeth against the urge to race inside and talk to him. He probably just needed time to cool down and realize that I hadn’t meant to upset him.
“What’s for lunch?”
I let out a frustrated growl and stormed inside and up to my room. It wasn’t my room at that moment, though, so I had to storm back downstairs and into the kitchen. I opened the freezer door and stuck my head in. Things felt wildly out of control. My boring life was being rattled and I didn’t like it.
“What happened to the kid’s mother?”
I jumped and banged my head on the inside of the freezer. “God, you’re quiet.”
He sat at the table and stared at me, waiting, like he had all of the time in the world and nothing to worry about. “Yep.”
“She just left. Got initiated in and everything. I heard that she got scared halfway through the initiation and wanted out, but they didn’t let her. She left the next day. Didn’t take Micah with her.”
“And you just took him in?”
I started grabbing stuff for sandwiches and shrugged. “Of course. He’s a really good kid. It was rough at first, but he came around. I love him more than anything and I can’t imagine how someone could walk out on him.”
He was quiet while I cut slices of bread from a homemade loaf and piled stuff onto the fresh slices. I glanced over at him from time to time to find him watching me and finally gave in. “What?”
“I just always figured you’d turn out like your mom.”
I put down the knife I was using and braced myself on the counter. “I wasn’t that bad when I was a kid, Jackson. I wasn’t exactly in the best household and I didn’t have much of a chance at being normal.”
“Your mother was a great role model for you back then.” He sounded even more bitter than normal. “That lady could’ve given club sluts a run for their money. I don’t think there was a man or boy in the neighborhood who didn’t try her once.”
I grabbed the closest thing to me and threw it at him. He caught the pan of bread and just stared at me as I rounded the counter at him. “Why do you want to hurt me? What did I ever do to you? The way I remember it, you tortured me. I couldn’t walk down the street without you yelling at me or shoving me around. You even threw rocks at me once, Jackson. I was a kid. What could I have done in my ten or eleven years of life, at that point, that made you hate me so much that you found, and still find, so much fucking pleasure in torturing me?”
He opened his mouth but then closed it. “You really don’t know.”
I shoved his chest and growled when he didn’t budge. “You’re awful. You’re so mean. I didn’t anything to you! I don’t deserve you treating me like this.”
He caught my wrists and stood up while spinning around. He slammed me into the wall, but protected my head, and stared down at me. “There’s that fire I remember.”
I fought against his hold. “I hate you.”
Without any real effort, he kept my wrists in one hand and then wrapped his arm around my waist to lift me. Then, he pinned my hips to the wall with his and growled against my neck. “You don’t know anything.”
My legs had a mind of their own and wrapped around his waist. I still struggled, but it was pathetic. “Tell me, then!”
“Who do you think your mom ran off with? My fucking dad, Camila.”
I froze and looked down at him. “You’re mad at me because my mom left with your dad?”
He released my wrists and I barely had time to get my legs under me before he moved away. “I’m going out.”
I watched him stride to the door and let it slam shut behind him. If he thought that we were done, he was crazy.