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“That’s right.” I turn her toward the bedroom and lean in, my mouth next to her ear. “I’ll fuck you all the waysyouwant to be fuckedafterwe eat.”
I expect her to laugh again but instead, she rotates in my arms and stares up at me. “I don’t know what to make of you, Jax North.”
I caress her cheek. “Then I guess I better stay around for you to find out.”
“Yeah,” she says softly. “I guess you better.” She pushes to her toes, kisses me and then turns and walks out of the room, offering me a view of her tight cute butt.
I scrub my jaw and press my hands to the counter, my method of letting her get dressed, instead of fucking her all over again, but I also replay the conversation I just had with her.I don’t know what this is, I’d told her, but damn it, I know what it's not—which isn’t what she had with York—and I need her to know that, too. I push off the counter and walk into the bedroom to find her already dressed.
“Ready?” she asks, “because now I’m really hungry too. It’s already ten and we haven’t even showered.”
She reaches for her bag and I grab it, catching her hip as I do. “I don’t know what this is, but I know what it’s not. It’s not about our family names or anything between your father and my brother. I need you to remember that.”
“You remember that, too. You thought I was after the castle.”
“I’ll remember if you’ll remember,” I say, and I can feel my own intensity, unintended intensity, flamed by guilt over that meeting with Eric yesterday, over my intentions to hurt her family. Fuck, to hurt her.
“Yes,” she agrees. “Okay.”
Okay. I want more but what more can she give me? I have to let this go. I force myself to move on. “Let’s get out of here and get back. I want you all to myself.”
“I’d like that,” she says, a soft smile on her freshly glossed lips.
Her smile is like a light switch, it lightens our mood. We head down the stairs, debating places to eat while my gaze sweeps her apartment, giving it a true inspection for the first time since I arrived. The lower level has floor-to-ceiling windows. The floors themselves are high-end light wood. The furniture is well made. It’s also a small space. The décor is simple. I keep using that word, but it fits. Emma doesn’t have a lot of money and she didn’t inherit on her father’s death. I’m back to something not adding up.
“Starbucks would be good,” she says. “There’s one on the way. We could caffeinate and eat after the shower.” She frowns. “Or are you actually staying at a Knight hotel?”
“No,” I say, moving on from a topic that highlights my hate for her family. “Starbucks is always good, especially since we don’t have them near the castle.” We finish the walk down the stairs.
“You don’t have Starbucks near the castle?” she asks, in disbelief, thankfully moving on from my hotel choice. “I don’t know if I can go with you after all.”
“I promise to keep you well-whiskey’d and pleasured to make up for it.”
“Hmmm. That sounds dangerous. The well-whiskey’d part.”
“I’ll hold you up if you have trouble walking,” I tease, repeating what I’d told her our first night together, and she laughs, grabbing a hoodie from the coatrack by the door. I grab my tuxedo jacket and shrug into it, finding myself wondering if there was a time that York made her laugh.
“We look like quite a pair,” she says, letting her hoodie fall to her hips and motioning between us. “Me in sweats and you in a tuxedo.”
“I’ll be in sweats and a T-shirt in a few minutes myself,” I promise, opening the door for Emma.
She steps ahead of me only to gasp, “Chance. What are you doing here?”
Her brother. This should be interesting. I step to Emma’s side, which places me and Chance in a direct view collision course that proves immediately enlightening. I’d hoped that I’d misjudged him. I’d hoped that like Emma, I’d decided his guilt over what went down with my brother’s last days, wrongly, but right now, looking into his eyes, I know I wasn’t wrong about him at all. He wanted Emma to feel me out, to see if he could get whatever his father wanted from my brother, from me—and I know it wasn’t the damn castle. He didn’t want her to catch me the way she caught me. That puts me too close for comfort and now I’ve caught him. The problem is that I just told Emma we have nothing to do with her family or mine, and yet, now, I know differently. Now, Emma is in the middle of me and Chance, and that has everything to do with family.
Chapter twenty-one
Jax
Emma’s reaction to Chance showing up is instantaneous. “We’re not buying the castle,” she says, linking our arms, her gaze finding mine. “I didn’t set this up. I swear to you—”
“I believe you,” I say. “I know.”
She studies me a moment and then looks between me and Chance. “The castle is a closed subject forever.”
Chance pins his sister in a stare, one that burns with frustration, before his gaze slowly shifts to me again. “She didn’t set this up. Emma’s not that kind of person.”
But he is. He fucking is and I have to wonder if he and York somehow communicated about my presence. He offers me his hand. “It’s been a long time, Jax.”
