Chapter Seventeen
JAX
I felt lost without my other half.
Food didn’t taste good.
My apartment was lonely as shit.
Harley still texted me.
But I was a shit human being, because after that night, I’d sent her a text saying I wasn’t sure things were going to work out between us.
Since then I’d been the happy recipient of her grandmother’s selfies. I was pretty confident that she purposefully gave her horny grandmother my number in an effort to get even for kicking her to the curb after sleeping with her. Oh, right, left out that part.
Completely and totally, used her in a way that made me cringe, and why? Because I’d been pissed.
And felt so out of control that when she’d suggested we get out of there, I’d driven straight to my empty apartment, opened a bottle of Jack, and set down shot glasses.
We were four shots in when the stripping started. It only went downhill from there.
(Then)
“You wear Superman underwear,” I said dumbly while she did a little twirl in her plain black sports bra and comic-book underwear. Her socks had tiny four-leaf clovers on them. She had a tattoo on the right side of her leg in the shape of a tree. I wanted to lick it to see if it tasted as good as it looked.
“Go ahead,” she taunted.
“Fuck, did I say that out loud?” I groaned, covering my face with my hands. “I don’t drink. Ever. Especially not days before practice.”
“Eh.” She tipped her shot glass back, even her throat was pretty as it worked that Jack down, damn. “It seems to me that you need to let loose a little, especially after all that yelling, so go ahead, lick the tattoo, I won’t judge you. And I won’t tell Grandma.”
I snorted out a laugh. “You normally tell your grandma about all your sexual encounters?”
“Why, Jax Romonov . . . is this turning sexual? Oh, hell!” She covered her face with her hands, laughter rolling off her. “Are you blushing?”
I stiffened. “Are you making fun of me?”
“You still blush.” She sauntered over to me, kissed my left cheek then my right, and then sucked on my chin with her lips before pulling back. “Mmmm, blush tastes good on a quarterback . . . you a virgin too?”
“No.” Two women. I’d had sex with two women. The first one broke my heart. The second broke my trust. “And there’s nothing wrong with deciding not to sleep my way through my football career.”
“Absolutely not.” She twirled in front of me, her red hair whipping around her creamy skin, getting caught in her bra and around her shoulders. She was like this brazen little elf, a vixen, she was torture. “But, it couldn’t hurt to live, maybe just tonight.”
“With you,” I finished for her. “You think Grandma would approve?”
“I think she would have already stripped.” Harley laughed then lifted her leg to the counter. “I got this tattoo when my parents died. Grandma took me in right away. I can’t find it in my heart to leave her. She’s . . . everything.” The tattoo was an intricate tree design, haunting, I’d never seen anything so beautiful.
I gripped her calf, ran my hand up her skin, and then bent over, sliding my tongue up the trunk of the tree, kissing beneath her knee before gripping her ass and lifting her into the air, helping her wrap her legs around my waist as I slanted my mouth against hers. She gripped my hair with her hands like she was holding on for dear life, and when I broke off the kiss she was blushing.
I grinned. “Harley, are you . . . are you blushing? Girls still blush? What? Are you . . .” I whispered roughly against her mouth, my stubble rubbing her perfect skin, “a virgin?”
“With you?” She pressed her breasts against my chest. “Yeah, kinda feels like it . . . remember, I look tough on the outside, I’m all soft on the inside.”
“Holy fuck, you’re an M&M!” I laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes. Then I kissed her again, this time tasting her mouth, memorizing her. “Those are my favorite.”
“Oh?” Breathless, she clung to me harder. “What’s your favorite flavored color?”
“Where have you been all my life?” I whispered hoarsely. “You’re the only person who gets that the colors mean flavors.”
She shrugged. “Can’t help stupid people.”
“Yesterday . . .” I walked her down the hall. “Yesterday, if you would have asked me that question I would have said brown.”
“And now?” She slid down my body, then tugged my hand as we walked into the master bedroom. “Now what’s your answer?”
I picked up a piece of her hair, twirled it around my fingers, then jerked her against me. “Red. I’d say red.”
“Good answer.” She licked my bottom lip. “Good answers get rewards.”
I let out a groan as I tugged her bra off and tossed it in the corner. Soon my pants were gone, the Superman underwear went flying toward the dresser, and I had the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen beneath me panting my name like a prayer.
“I don’t do this,” I confessed.
“Good.” She gulped as fear crept into her face. “Neither do I. I mean, I live with my grandma.”
“Let’s leave her out of the bedroom, ya?” I chuckled, nuzzling her neck, licking all the places I could find, hungry for the ones that I couldn’t. “God, you taste good.”
“Remind me next time to soak in candy-flavored body wash.”
I groaned. “Stop teasing me.”
“Okay.” She shrugged, and kissed me so hard I forgot why I was sad. Why I was angry.
I forgot about self-control.
I forgot about my image.
I forgot about my dad.
I forgot about Kinsey.
I forgot a condom.
I shook the memory away and sent Harley another text, another apology for being an asshole.
And got a middle-finger emoji back.
It wasn’t the sex that had done it.
It was the fact that when I woke up, I panicked, I told her it was fun, and I literally left her alone in my apartment to go work out. Oh, I pointed out where the towels were and told her she could hang out, but I also managed to let her know just how busy I’d be that day.
I was a complete dick.
A terrified, chickenshit dick.
“Hey.” Sanchez smacked me on the shoulder. “You seen Miller?”
“No.” I scowled. “Though if he kisses my sister like that again in public, I’m removing his head from his body.”
Sanchez moved his hand. “No offense, but Miller’s a good guy. So he gets to see her naked, it’s not like you’re perfect.” He smirked as if waiting for me to deny it. “Right?”
I glared. “What the hell do you know that I don’t?”
“Oh, you mean about . . . a certain girl named Harley?”
“Out with it,” I snapped.
“Nah, I think I’m going to hold on to it a bit longer, but I do have one question . . .”
“I don’t even want to know.” I fought the urge to groan into my hands.
“When you did that thing with your mouth.” Yeah, I was going to physically injure him. “And you know, the tongue move, you get so deep—”
“I’m out.” I walked away backward and went in search of Kinsey. We had shit to talk about, and now that she was finally speaking to me, I had a lot to say.