“You’re a popular guy,” I said.

He chuckled. “Well, you can’t sing a song like that and not expect to attract all the big-butt girls in the house like a magnet.”

“Yeah, I noticed one of them slipped you her number.”

“Oh…yeah,” he said as he took the paper out of his pocket and threw it in the leftover flame from our Poo Poo platter.

I feigned pity. “That’s a shame.”

He sighed sarcastically and flashed me a smile. “Isn’t it?”

“I guess there is only one fat-bottomed girl you’re leaving with?”

He winked. “Yeah, I have a feeling I’m taking you home tonight.”

Our waiter came by and collected the empty scorpion bowl and plate, replacing them with the bill and two fortune cookies.

I started to take out my wallet when Jake said, “Put that back.”

“I’m paying my share.”

“Nina, put it back. I’ve got it. You don’t even work, and it was my idea to go out.”

I listened to him and returned my wallet into the purse. “Thank you.”

“Thank you. We need to get you loosened up and buzzed more often.”

“I think I loosened up a lot tonight.”

“Yeah…I think so, too.” He smiled.

I pointed to the cookies. “Aren’t you gonna open your fortune? Take the one facing you. That’s the one meant for you. I’ll go first.”

I opened mine and read it out loud. “When one door closes, another opens.”

I thought about how true that really was. All of the painful moments in my life have led me right here to this amazing night with this amazing person. There was nowhere else in the world I wanted to be.

“Your turn,” I said.

Jake reached over, grabbed his cookie and opened it. “Big-butt girl make man smile.”

“No sir!”

“I’m kidding. I’m kidding.”

“What does it really say?”

He looked down and then up at me. “Now is the time to make a move.”

Oh, man.

Even the fortune cookie was wondering what was taking him so long. I had to laugh inside at the irony.

“Interesting,” I said.

He let out a deep breath that I could feel from across the table. “It is…very interesting.”

He continued looking at me in a way that was giving me a vibe that he wanted more with me. This man was going to drive me insane.

Then, he finally spoke. “Want to get going?”

“Sure,” I said.

***

We started to walk home, but it was pretty cold out, so when Jake noticed a cab approaching us, he hailed it.

Sitting next to him in the backseat was the closest I had physically been to him all night.

At one point, the cab driver took a sharp right turn, and I fell right into Jake. Instead of moving back to my spot, I stayed leaning against him and could feel his chest stiffen under me. He didn’t move as he looked out the window.

I had lingered too long to turn away, so I just stayed with my ear on his chest and listened to his heartbeat that was getting faster and faster, a rhythm I was pretty sure I had created. The heartbeat never lies. That told me this was a black and white situation. Either he didn’t want me there at all, or he wanted me there badly. I needed to find out which one it was soon before I completely lost my mind.

I closed my eyes and listened to him breathing. On the top of my head, I could feel his warm breath that smelled liked alcohol. The close contact and the scent of his skin mixed with cologne was making me wet. The booze in me and the pheromones in the air had made my usual want for him ten times stronger, almost unbearable. I took my hand and put it on his chest, watching it rise and fall against the thunder of his beating heart.

When the cab suddenly came to a screeching halt at our house, I reluctantly lifted myself off of him, and he paid the driver as we exited the car.

“After you,” he said turning to me, his eyes glassy, as he opened the front door to the building.

“You just want to check out my spectacular ass,” I joked, trying to lighten the mood after having thrown myself at him in the cab.

“You caught me,” he said as he walked up the stairs behind me.

When we entered the apartment, the living area was dark, but there was light coming from Tarah’s room, and I was pretty sure she and Ryan were both in there.

Drunk off him, I stopped in front of my bedroom door and desperately wished he would follow me in. “Thanks again for tonight, Jake. It was just what I needed.”

“I’m really glad you had a good time.” He stood there with his hands in his pockets for a few seconds before saying, “Good night.”

And with that, he walked past me back to his room, closing the door.

I wouldn’t get the answer to my black and white question until a chance encounter in the bathroom later that night.

CHAPTER 12

Needless to say, I wasn’t able to sleep at all. After changing into a pair of cotton boy shorts and a tank top, I just sat up in bed, shaking my foot nervously, trying to figure out what his deal was.

He flat out told me I was beautiful and made me feel like I was the only woman in that entire karaoke bar, but when given the opportunity to make a move, he wouldn’t budge. Even the damn fortune cookie was frustrated.

The alcohol was still making its way through me. I pushed off my covers and marched to the bathroom, noticing from under the closed door that the light was still on in his room.

When I entered the bathroom, Jake’s bare chest smacked me in the face.

“Whoa! Are you okay?” he asked as he rubbed his calloused thumb over my forehead. There was still a hint of alcohol on his breath. His scent and the quick contact of his chest against my br**sts made me feeble.

“Yeah…I’m fine. Sorry, I didn’t think to check if you were in here. The light in your room was on, so I assumed you were in there.”

He leaned against the sink and crossed his arms. “What are you still doing up?”

“I can’t sleep, so I came in here to pee.”

He moved away fast from the sink. “Oh…well, I should probably let you do that.”

“Yeah, probably.”

“Right,” he said before walking out and closing the door.

I sat down to pee, but even though I had to go so badly, nothing would come out because I was still focusing on him.

After running the water for about twenty seconds, I was finally able to go since the streaming sound helped me relax.

When I left the bathroom, I saw that Jake had left his bedroom door wide open, and I took that as a silent invitation to enter.

It was one in the morning, and he was sitting on his bed with his laptop. He closed it when he noticed me at the doorway. I walked toward him and sat at the end of his bed. He was still shirtless and wearing a pair of navy blue sweatpants that hung low displaying the top of his gray boxer briefs.

He sat up straighter. “How was your pee?”

“Fantastic.”

“Good to hear.” His eyes wandered to my chest, causing my ni**les to harden.

Bingo.

“What were you looking at?” I asked.

My question broke his staring, and he suddenly looked up in a daze. “Huh?”

“On your laptop.”

“Oh…on my laptop…right. Just useless surfing.”

“I see.”

We were just looking at each other for a few seconds when our silence was interrupted by the sound of the bed next door squeaking repeatedly.

Great.

Not only did I have no desire to hear Ryan, who was basically a brother to me, ha**g s*x with my best friend, but it made an already awkward situation so much worse.

You could cut the sexual tension in the air with a knife, but we both laughed it off.

“You think they’re having sex?” Jake asked sarcastically.

I looked down in embarrassment. “Should we just pretend it’s not happening?”

“Yeah. You wanna do a math lesson?” he joked as the noises from next door continued to get louder.

“Sure.”

“Let’s see…we can talk about the probability of sixty-nine.”

I giggled. “I would say based on that noise, it’s very high.”

Jake bent his head back in laughter and I could see his tongue ring. It was so incredibly sexy, and I wanted to know what it would feel like against my own tongue.

Finally, the noises stopped, and we were once again left with a loss for words. But I wasn’t going anywhere.

Jake was nervously picking at the lint on his comforter, flicking it onto the ground. He was looking down when he made a comment that shocked me. “I bet that prick ex-boyfriend of yours sucked in bed.”

Of all the things he could have said, I definitely wasn’t expecting that, but I was holding back nothing tonight.

“Actually, he did…big-time.”

He stopped what he had been doing and sat up straighter against his headboard, almost backing away from me. “So, you have had sex.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“See, now I’ve made you blush. I am sorry. You just strike me as a certain kind of girl.”

“What kind of girl is that?”

“It’s nothing bad. Just…innocent…maybe a virgin.” He looked up at the ceiling and smiled mischievously. “The kind of girl that guys like me are dying to corrupt.”

Shit.

I remained silent.

And I’m dying to be corrupted by you.

I cleared my throat. “Well, in answer to your question…yes, I have had sex, but it was just with him.”

“He was your only, and he sucked in bed? That’s unfortunate.”

“Yeah. It was unfortunate. I never even actually…you know…with him.”

“You never what?” His eyes widened when he realized what I meant. “You never came? You never even had an orgasm?”

I hesitated. “Not from another person.”

He was looking down and started picking at the comforter again, but there was no lint left. He looked frustrated and uneasy. For several seconds, the silence in the room was deafening. Then, he said, “So…you come when you touch yourself.”

“Yeah.”

He closed his eyes briefly and suddenly looked up at me. “Sex doesn’t count if he didn’t make you come, Nina. You’re basically still a virgin.” He bit his lip then said, “He had sex. You didn’t.”

It was amazing how the same set of eyes could send me so many different messages just in the way he looked at me. The same eyes that could intimidate me, joke with me, comfort me and make me feel like everything was going to be okay…now looked at me like he wanted to eat me alive. And I wished more than anything he would just do it.

I jumped when he moved because I thought he was going to touch me. Instead, he abruptly got up and opened his window. Cold air rushed in as he walked over to the bedside drawer and reached for the cigarettes, taking one out and lighting it. Inhaling deeply, he slowly blew the smoke outside as he sat against the edge of the windowsill.

“Why are you smoking? I thought you quit.”

He shook his head. “I did. But I really needed one, and I need to keep my distance right now.”

“Why?”

He didn’t answer me and continued to alternate between inhaling, exhaling and flicking the ashes out the window.

I repeated, “Why are you smoking?”

His breath hitched, and he finally turned to me. “You really want to know why I’m smoking?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Because it’s keeping my mouth occupied and stopping me from doing something I shouldn’t right now.” He took another long drag. “You should probably go back to your room.”

My pulse raced. “You’re smoking and telling me to leave because you want to kiss me?”

He looked up at the ceiling and laughed like he didn’t mean it. Then, he inhaled and looked over at me. Smoke streamed out of his mouth when he said, “I wouldn’t tell you to leave if I only wanted to kiss you, Nina. I am telling you to leave because I want to taste you and make you come until you scream in every possible way imaginable. It was all I could think about all night long. It’s why I couldn’t sleep. But now that you just told me no man has ever done that…fuck. That’s why I am smoking if you really want to know.”

He had managed to render me completely speechless, and I couldn’t tell if my panties were just wet or whether I peed slightly.

He repeated in a raspy whisper. “I really think you should go back to your room.”

Despite his direct suggestion, my body did not move from that spot at the edge of his bed. He continued to stay by the window, staring outside even after he put out the cigarette. His handsome side profile lit up in the moonlight.

Something wasn’t right. If he wanted me, why wouldn’t he just take me? And I’ve shown him that I wanted him. He’s certainly not a virgin. We knew that from day one.

The air was getting even colder in the room since he still had the window wide open. He finally shut it and turned to me, glancing down at my breasts. I knew he could see them through my thin pajama top. He licked his lips slowly, causing my ni**les to harden even further. He continued to keep his distance.

When I looked down and noticed that he was fully hard through his sweatpants, my frustration grew even deeper. He was breathing heavily and swallowed when he saw me notice his arousal. He continued to look at me without saying anything at all.

I stood up from the bed and walked towards the window stopping a few inches in front of him. The heat radiated off of his body, and I could feel him breathing me in. He was consuming me with all of his senses…except touch. Finally, he slowly reached his hand toward my waist, gripping the material of my shirt and caressed my side. I felt his nails digging into me, and his hot breath blew over my chest. Just when I thought he was going to rip my shirt off, he pulled his trembling hand back. “Fuck,” he growled under his teeth.