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“Hey,” I say. “Is everything okay?”
“No.”
I feel a momentary surge of panic. I know it’s not Fiona since she’s right here, but maybe it’s something with another one of his family members?
“Did something happen at the gala?”
He doesn’t answer. Not with words, anyway.
Tracing a finger down the side of my face, he looks mesmerized, like he’s seeing me for the first time. His hand pushes into my hair, and his fingers tangle in the strands. My pulse rushes with the heat of his touch.
“I’ve been wanting to do this since the day you showed up here.” His eyes are lazy, and I wonder if he’s a little drunk. Probably. It was a winery event, after all.
“And?”
He speaks slowly, each word hitting me like a dart. “It was…worth…the wait.”
His eyes stay locked on mine, daring me to look away, but I can’t. I want to know what this is.
Guiding me the last few steps out of Fiona’s bedroom, Jackson says nothing. He closes the door quietly, and I feel a slight relief because the air out here in the hallway is cooler. Still, I’m burning up, starting at the connection point of our hands and racing up my arm and through my veins like a fever.
I don’t remember turning the hallway lights off, but Jackson must’ve done after he came up the stairs. He’s also removed his jacket.
A beam of light from downstairs creeps up the far staircase, but we’re in near darkness. He turns me so my back hits the wall and leans toward me, framing my face with his forearms.
I know what these forearms look like, and a part of me wants to take in the up-close view of his roped muscles. But I can’t take my eyes off his face.
His eyes search mine, then drop to my lips and stay there. My tongue darts out to lick my lips because I feel like he might kiss me. But that’s crazy. This is crazy.
“Jax.” My voice sounds breathy, and I search my mind for what to say next. “Are you okay?”
When he speaks, he’s so close that I feel his words more than I hear them. “I am now.” He doesn’t move, doesn’t give me space, not that I want it. I’m so overcome by the proximity of him that I can barely form words.
“Okay,” I manage, my mind still spinning out of control, trying to figure out what changed since he left the house with a stunning woman who looked like his perfect match.
Did he have a fight with her? Am I his backup booty call?
I’m not sure what my role is supposed to be here, but I also know that I don’t want to move. I want to be right here, even if I’m the backup booty call, because I’ve wondered how his hands would feel on me since the day we met, but I didn’t have the temerity to game out a scenario for how it might happen.
This. I would never have imagined this.
I’m caught between the sense of wanting him and needing to know what he’s thinking.
“If you tell me to stop, I’ll stop.”
He hasn’t done anything I’d want him to stop. On the contrary, I want to see what happens when he doesn’t stop.
“Okay,” I say.
“Tell me to stop.”
I shake my head. In my late-night fantasies of how this would go down, I’ve never asked Jackson Corbett to stop.
“Last chance.” His voice sounds strained, as though he hates saying the words, but he knows he should. I’m not sure if he’s telling me or himself.
Jackson closes his eyes for a long beat, and when he opens them, he looks determined. There’s a fire burning within the darkness that I haven’t seen before.
Moving one arm from the wall, he caresses my cheek again, leaving goosebumps in his hand’s wake. Cupping my jaw, Jackson leans closer until I can’t focus on his face anymore, and my eyes drift shut.
