Chapter Ten
There were nights that called for a drink, even if you weren’t much of a drinker. To make my appearance at Jordan’s house it had become one of those nights. I stood amidst a sea of race fans and friends in his back yard. Christmas lights had been strung across the trees, the shop in the back was lit up and opened, and the entire yard was lined with cars.
“There are people everywhere!” Hadley gasped, flush faced as she approached me. “Like seriously, I didn’t know there were this many people in the entire county.”
“I think the entire county is here.” I touched my red plastic cup to hers with a laugh.
“Oh, you’re empty.” She glanced into my cup. After a sniff, she scrunched her nose. “But, maybe that’s a good thing. That’s strong!”
“What, not a vodka girl?” I teased.
“Nope, it’s whiskey or die. Well, maybe scotch too. But you get the point.”
I laughed and let her lead me toward the back porch. At the after parties, your contribution to being here was booze or snacks. All of which were put on Jordan’s porch. Whatever was left, he kept until the next party. So far, there hadn’t been many complaints.
“Talked to him yet?”
“Which one?” The question was a smoke screen. It was obvious who she was talking about.
“That one.” She angled her head as we started up the steps.
Jordan was standing right there, exuding confidence as well as stature. Everyone around him seemed smaller. None of them shined as bright. There was something there that drew my eye, that had always drawn my eye. Even if I tried to ignore it.
I didn’t even notice who he was talking to, I looked away so fast. My heart started to race and my hands went clammy. Our relationship was so uncertain, changing at every turn, that I didn’t know what to do with the sudden, overwhelming need that rose from my center.
With trembling fingers, I fondled the necklace at my throat.
“You okay, Raelynn?” Hadley’s pretty blonde brows knit together with concern.
“Yeah, I got a little dizzy.” It wasn’t completely a lie.
“Are you sure you need another drink? Maybe we should go sit down somewhere?” She bought my lie. How do you tell someone that there’s a guy that twists you all up into knots?
“No, I really need another drink.” Bolstering one’s self with alcohol wasn’t something I’d recommend. Yet, that’s exactly what I was going to do.
The only bottle of vodka on the table was the cheap kind. I usually stayed away from the bargain brand stuff, it gave me killer hangovers. Right now, that didn’t matter as long as there was cranberry juice.
I was tilting the bottle to pour when it was lifted smoothly from my hands. “I got you.” Jordan put the bottle of low-priced liquor down on the table before moving toward his backdoor.
He gestured for me to follow. Time stood still as I stayed rooted in that spot.
If I followed, everyone would see me follow Jordan into an empty house. At parties, people didn’t loiter inside. It had always been Jordan’s rule to keep the party outside. What would people think, what would they say?
I’d never cared what anyone thought of me before. I wasn’t as brash or opinionated as my sister or as reckless as my brother, but the opinions of other people had never dictated when or how I went about my life.
Caleb had always cared what people thought of him, of me. But he wasn’t here, he was nothing more than a memory.
I fingered the chain at my neck and followed Jordan into his house. The throb of music died as the door swung shut behind me. I was consumed by the relative quiet.
His home was immaculate. The kitchen granite gleamed and the steel appliances shined.
“My mom would kill for your cleaning lady’s number.” I had to say something. I couldn’t stand there and stare at his back. Though, watching the muscles move through the tight t-shirt made me feel things that I hadn’t expected.
“She has it.” There was a hint of laughter in his deep voice. Was there a sound on this planet sexier than that? I swallowed a deep breath and tried not to think about all the things that were sexy about Jordan Slater.
“Who?” It came out as more of a squeak than a question.
“You’re looking at him. I make Devin leave the door to the spare room closed when he’s here. I can’t stand to see stuff all over the place.”
“You should probably steer clear of my room; the floor is covered with clothes.” I tried to laugh, but there was something about the look in his eyes when he turned around that stole my breath.
“Probably, but then I’d be too eager to add to the pile.” Though my skin suddenly felt superheated, I shivered. “If I remember right, Grey Goose?”
“Yeah.” I focused on the countertop while he pulled a bottle from a cabinet by the fridge. It was work he’d done, granite he’d cut and placed himself. I’d helped clean the dust from the floors the day he’d put it in.
Jordan moved so smoothly from one topic to another, that I had trouble keeping up. I was still spinning from his comment about the clothes pile. “But really, the other was fine. You don’t have to—”
“I know.” He topped off my cup and handed it back to me.
“Thanks.” The silence stretched out between us, me spending the entire time trying to look at anything but him.
His sudden, booming laughter startled me. “Really, Rae?”
“What?”
“The only way I can get you to talk to me is to kiss you or piss you off. Explain that.” His dark eyes were alight with mischief.
My gaze narrowed and I allowed myself to see him, really see him for the first time that night. I studied the dark eyes, the even darker brows that were now raised in challenge. His nose was a little crooked and there was a scar on his bottom lip. His skin was dark, almost red with the remnants of summer.
He shouldn’t be attractive, and yet I couldn’t look away. It had always been like that for me, a truth I couldn’t deny. For me there would always be Jordan Slater, everyone else could only follow in his shadow. He was on another level.
What was worse, he saw right through me. He knew it would always be that way.
I shook my head with a sigh. “I can’t find my footing with you.”
“We’re friends, isn’t that what we agreed on?” He made it sound so simple. It was too easy. I didn’t believe him or his tone.
“Yeah.”
“Then what else do you need?” You could hear the arrogance. It was pissing me off and turning me on. The big jerk.
I need room to breathe. Standing alone with him, he occupied all my senses at once. Everywhere I turned, there he was. I was assaulted by the sight of him, the scent of him, memories of the taste of him.
I took a long drink of the liquor kissed juice from my cup and fingered the chain around my neck.
“You still have that?” This time his surprise lacked any arrogance.
I smiled fondly in spite of myself. “I do.”
“One of us is going to have to get you a better one for Christmas this year.” His voice was softer now, but not like it had been when I was nothing more than a kid to him. This was different, with a touch of something more erotic.
“Nah, I like this one. It’s perfect.”
I liked it so much Caleb had despised it. I immediately closed my eyes as the sick feeling came over me. It wasn’t new for me to have sick feelings when I thought of Caleb, it wasn’t new for me to feel sick to think of what I had become in that short amount of time with him. But, usually being around Jordan had taken all of that away. What was it about Jordan that made me feel alive again? Question who I’d been and who I’d become because of everything that had happened to me? More still, why didn’t it work then?
Was the almighty Jordan Slater unable to slay all my demons?
Would he, if he could? I knew in an instant he’d try and I’d want him to. I was all the weaker for it. A sad stillness spread over me.
“What’s going on in there, Rae?” His finger was warm and smooth against my temple. His touch washed the sadness away as if it had never been there. I was so overwhelmed with thirst, I nearly downed the entire drink in one pull.
“Easy, kid.” His fingers slid from my temple and eased the glass down. “Friends, remember? Talk to me.”
“I’m not a kid.” A kid wouldn’t be having the reaction to him that I was. “It shouldn’t be that easy for you.” It was harder to breathe.
“What?”
“To see right through me.” Because he did, he always had, and he probably always would. I wished he didn’t look so good when he did it.
His quick laugh was rich and vibrant. It was the sort of sound that could breathe life into a woman. My body’s reaction was as quick as that laugh, starting with a tightening in my stomach that traveled all the way up to my nipples. I sucked air in through my teeth with a hiss. It shouldn’t be that easy for him to do this to me, either. I should be mad that he was laughing at me, annoyed at the very least. Instead, I wanted to jump him right there in the kitchen.
I wasn’t sure this being “friends” thing was going to work.
Backing up against the counter to steady myself, I fought the dizzy tumbling of my heart and mind. “You knock me off center…I need some air.”
I would get no air, I realized a few seconds too late. Had I paid more attention to him I would have seen the look in his eyes. I would have noticed he hadn’t been laughing at me, I would have heard the irony, and prepared myself to have him looming over me.
I hadn’t been prepared.
The hissing sound echoed in my ears again, the now empty cup fell to the floor…forgotten. How could I remember anything when he stood so close I could feel the heat radiate from his chest? No, I didn’t have that much to drink. His nearness made me drunk.
I wanted him closer.
His large hand was warm as he cupped my face. Warm and gentle, a direct contrast to the fiery heat flickering in his eyes. His body told me I was safe. But, his eyes, they told me that I was treading on thin ice, nowhere near safe. It should have frightened me.
It didn’t.
“You look at me like I’m going to eat you alive.” The only thing in the world I wanted I found in the dangerous promise of his eyes and the husky desire of his voice.
“Jordan, I—”
His lips crushed down on mine, fueled with molten desire. Whatever I was going to say was as forgotten as the cup on the floor. There was only that moment, only Jordan. He seduced every inch of me with one kiss. His lips slid against mine with primal decadence.
When my hands fisted in his shirt, when I thought myself on the precipice of what he could offer me, he took me deeper.
I moaned when his tongue touched mine. My body tightened like a spring. I needed more of him and couldn’t have it fast enough. The sensual press of my body to his was rewarded with a masculine tremble.
Pinned between his strength and the unbending counter I let out a quiet moan. Yes, more, give me more.
Abruptly, he stopped. The room spun once, before everything slid into place around me. I held still, so still I could hear the beat of my heart and feel his breath on my face.
With trepidation and a tremble, I forced my eyes open. I hadn’t known I’d closed them.
The hint of the danger that lie ahead still flickered in his eyes. To keep from losing myself in the promise of it, I focused instead on the heavy rise and fall of his chest that I still clung to. Very carefully I unwound myself from him, my hands falling awkwardly to my sides. I should thank him for stopping, thank him for keeping me from being the wanton woman I was trying so hard not to be.
Instead, I fought to control my arousal and my temper.
I wanted to demand a reason why he stopped, I wanted to beg him to kiss me again, I wanted to run away. My head and my heart spun in so many different directions I couldn’t think.
“It’s not good for me to be alone with you,” he whispered as his lips brushed my hair.
“I think I like bad.” I was all too aware of how little I cared for his thoughts on that matter.
As his laugh vibrated through me, I sighed and brushed the wrinkles from his shirt. The roar in my ears began to die down enough I could hear the music thumping gently from outside. Each second that passed without his lips touching mine, I was on more even footing. Even the angry parts of me began to fade away.
“There.” At the sound of his voice, I tilted my head. The corner of his mouth was tilted in a gentle smile. “She’s back.”
“I think you might be drunk.” I tried to keep the tremble from my voice. I hadn’t gone anywhere, other than the rollercoaster ride he’d sent my libido on.
“Nah, earlier, I lost you. The light in your eyes died. It’s back now.”
I smacked his chest none too gently to push him away. “If we’re going to be friends, you can’t do that to me.”
“And you can’t keep secrets from me.”
It was the mild annoyance in his voice that had me send him a flippant glare. “What makes you think you get to know my secrets?”
He picked my cup up and poured another shot of vodka into it, before passing it to me. “You tell your friends things.”
“Not everything.” I swirled the liquor into the cup. Friends also didn’t hold heavy duty make-out sessions in the kitchen. Remembering my previous conversation with Hunter had me feeling a little disloyal, so I kept that thought to myself.
“Then you should tell me because I want to know.”
I sighed, the last of the desire he’d woke in me slipped from my fingers. Only, this time I was certain I’d done nothing wrong. I was more alive than I had been before he’d pulled me inside. More invigorated than I’d ever been with anyone ever before. “You don’t always get what you want, Jordan.”
“I usually do.” He smirked and opened a beer.
Even mildly annoyed, his half grin affected me. So, I did the only thing I could do. I retreated toward the door. “Yeah well, nothing I keep to myself is anything you need to know.”
“Those are exactly the things I need to know.”
“They aren’t,” I assured him. Annoyance had begun to give way to fear. Fear because the big gearhead persona didn’t fool me. I, too, could see things. I could see the intelligence in those dark brown eyes. He could read me. All it took was for him to look a little deeper and he’d see it all. Hadn’t he proved as much already tonight?
Even now, he was trying to figure it out. He appeared relaxed and at ease as he leaned against the counter that he’d pinned me against only seconds before. Yet, he studied me, trying to find any clue to what I was hiding. If he knew, he’d see me differently.
He’d know my failures and my shame.
“Hadley’s looking for me,” I mumbled a poor excuse and slipped out the door before he could stop me. Even through the fear, I wished I’d chanced it. I wished I’d stayed a little longer to see if he would kiss me again.
“Chicken.” His voice floated through the closing door, barely audible over the music. A shiver rolled across me, not for the first time. But, for the first time in my life I walked away from a dare.
The cost was great.
My excuse hadn’t been a complete lie, as Hadley was standing on the porch with a curious expression on her face. “Where were you?” She tilted her head, almost birdlike.
I gave her a look that translated to, not here not now, and made my way off the deck, stopping only long enough to add cranberry juice to my cup.
It wasn’t until I was sure we were out of earshot of the back porch that I said anything at all. “I was with Jordan.”
“Got it. Say no more.” She gave a drunken, wobbly smile before tumbling into a hammock hung between two trees. All around us people talked and danced, there weren’t grudges or enemies. Not here, Jordan wouldn’t have that. I couldn’t tell if it was respect or fear that kept the drama in check. Probably a healthy dose of both.
“Incoming.” Hadley gestured behind me.
Even drunk, Devin was gorgeous. I’d even say pretty, but that description would distract from the masculinity he possessed. Swaying on his feet, he drew the eyes and attention of every woman in a twenty-foot radius. Yet, I was apprehensive. He would never make me tremble, make me forget myself, the way Jordan did.
He pulled me close and started rocking from side to side. I faked a laugh and wriggled free. I moved with ease, having lost whatever buzz I had when I walked into that kitchen with Jordan.
“You’re a little unsteady on your feet there, cowboy.” I pushed the straw hat down on his face. “Where’d you get this?”
“One of those girls.” He gestured to where he’d come from, where there was a gaggle of pit-bunnies. “Want me to give it back?”
He was almost like a little puppy, I chuckled as I straightened it a bit more. “Nah, it works on you.”
I didn’t need to turn around to know Jordan watched us from the deck, but I did anyway. For a moment, everything that went unspoken hung between us. I couldn’t kiss him, couldn’t let myself have what I wanted. The biggest reason stood in front of me, giving me a wobbly smile. Jordan would never hurt Devin, even if it meant hurting me. Forcing Jordan to choose would be cruel.
I couldn’t stop myself from wanting to force that choice on him. But, I could stop myself from asking him to. Maybe the bad things Caleb had said about me were true?
I wouldn’t let that happen. I wouldn’t be that person.
When I had to support a swaying Devin to keep him from stumbling into Hadley’s hammock, I laughed despite myself. “Yeah, I’d say you’re drunk.”
“Am not.” He belched into his fist, his inebriation more evident.
“Sure.” I forced myself not to glance up at Jordan for a second time.
“I came to see if you’d give me a kiss? Since I won tonight, and you lined me up and all that.” He nodded sagely.
Hadley’s expression went from bemused to worried within a second. She cast a worried glance to where Jordan stood watch. He’d left the porch and was close enough to hear Devin’s request.
I ducked away when Devin leaned in. Separating us by planting my hands squarely on his chest. Immediately, I compared the two men. I couldn’t have held Jordan back like this, even drunk. His body larger, covered with thick muscle, I wouldn’t have stood a chance. “Yeah, not happening, cowboy.”
With alcohol driven arrogance, he puffed his chest out and gestured grandly around us. “Why not? I can kiss any of these girls.”
He was right most likely, judging by the way everyone had turned to watch us.
“I don’t want to kiss you, Devin.” My heart ached and my lips turned up in a grimace. I loved him terribly as a friend, as one of my heart-adopted brothers, but I could never love him the way he wanted me to.
“Well, forget you! I’ve got other pretty girls to kiss!” He stumbled away, mumbling incoherently.
Slowly, I let go of the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
Sure enough, he immediately found a girl to kiss. I didn’t watch long enough to find out who it was, instead turned to find Hadley had vacated the hammock.
Jordan stood beside me, instead.
“You okay?” There was concern in his voice along with something else, something with a sharper edge.
“I don’t want to hurt him.” I wrapped my arms around myself and fought back tears. Devin had been my prom date, my teenage confidant, as much a brother to me as Aiden.
Even drunk, his advances hadn’t bothered me. He brought back no bad memories. A rush of relief swept over me. I didn’t have time to savor it, though, not under Jordan’s intent gaze. But it was there, the knowledge that I was growing stronger every day.
“I love him, Jordan, the same as I love Vic and Aiden. But, not like he wants me to.”
“He’d be good for you, good to you. He’ll love you.” He looked off into the crowd, not meeting my eyes.
“And I’d become Wendy.” I laughed sadly. “I don’t want that for him or for me.”
“I can try to talk to him.” Jordan’s voice was so quiet I struggled to hear him. “But, I don’t think it’s going to change how he feels.” How much making that offer cost him and how much that talk would hurt him, was not lost on me.
It could be that easy, all I had to do was step back and let Jordan handle it. How often had I or others done that? How many times had he handled someone else’s problem? No, no, even if I didn’t care for Devin at all, I couldn’t do that. This was about me. I knew the pain of unrequited love. It was something Jordan had schooled me in a long time ago.
Standing there with only silence between us, the party winding down, I forgave him for that. My soul was lighter, no longer was standing close to him so very daunting. Even if I had to fight the urge to reach out and touch him, feel the heat of him, the strength of him again.
“No, I need to talk to him myself.” I could feel Jordan’s eyes on me again, feel the heat in his gaze even before I turned to meet it. I turned anyway, bracing myself for the power of it. So much stood between us, so many things to sort out, that I couldn’t decide which way to turn. The more I thought about it, though, the more I knew the starting point.
“Would you have said those things to me, when I left, if it hadn’t been for Devin?”
After several long moments, he whispered into the dark. “No.”