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Emma
Jax’s heartbeat thrums next to my ear while his phone rings, a hum that seems to expand and grow, forcing me out of the sweet haze of this man and my slumber. “Someone found us,” I murmur. “And I hate that someone.”
Jax laughs, a deep rumble of sexy male laughter, before he rolls us enough to kiss me. “I’d rather just stay here and be naked with you.”
His phone stops ringing and mine starts. “It’s like a conspiracy to get our clothes on.”
He smiles. “Yes. It is. And it’s downright criminal.” My stomach growls, and he laughs again. “Hungry?”
“What gives you that idea?” I ask, feigning innocence.
“The monster in your belly told me. I think I better feed you. We never made it to the restaurant and they close early.” He kisses me and rolls off the couch to grab his pants, offering me a perfect view of his nice, tight backside. Which reminds me of his hand on my backside, and my cheeks, the other cheeks, heat. I liked it. I liked it a lot when my past defies that response, but then this is Jax, and I have an instinct to trust him. Iwantto bewith this man. I want to live with him. I want tojust say yes. I think I’m going to do it. By the time I’ve come to this conclusion, Jax is dressed in his pants, minus his jacket, his shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows, and he’s scooping up my clothes. “You, woman,” he says, kneeling in front of me and setting them in my lap, “need to get dressed.” His gaze, hot and heavy, rakes over my naked breasts, my nipples puckering under his inspection before his eyes find mine. “Before I get undressed again.”
“Is that supposed to motivate me to get dressed or stay as I am?”
His lips curve, placing a smile on his beautiful mouth that radiates through his eyes. He has beautiful eyes, so blue, a sea of blue, instead of the ice of that man he calls Echo. I could drift away in this man’s stare and never want to be found. “How about I motivate you with a chef’s creation?” he suggests. “Eggs. I make good eggs. Great eggs even.”
My smile is instant. “Eggs?”
“It’s about all I make well, but the good news is that I have eggs and that means we can hide out here without starving. Even better, I have all of the good stuff that makes eggs better, like cheese.”
“Eggs and cheese,” I say. “Sounds pretty good to my stomach right now. Do you also have coffee?”
“I’ll cook if you brew,” he negotiates, just as his phone starts ringing again, drawing a groan from him and me that has us both laughing again. Laughter that fades into a charge in the air. We like that we laugh together. We like each other, which isn’t necessarily a prerequisite to wanting to have sex together. I learned that from York. I just kept having sex with him because I thought maybe it would make me like him again. But power and money had gone to his head, and sex didn’t save him, or me, from him.
Jax catches my face. “What just happened?”
I blanch. “What?”
“You went from laughter to just fading away.” I open my mouth to brush off the observation, to say “nothing’s wrong,” but that’s not what I want for us. I want honesty. I want truth. I want trust. And so I speak the truth, the real truth and nothing but the truth. “Nothing that you don’t make better.” I catch his hand. “You are—”
My phone rings, and we both groan again, more laughter following. “You too, baby,” he says. “You are, too.” He leans in and kisses me. “See you in the kitchen.” But he doesn’t move. He stays right where he is, his voice softens, roughens. “Ourkitchen if you want, Emma.”
My cheeks flush with those words, and when he brushes his knuckles over my cheek, I’m melting right here on this couch. I’m always melting for this man. There’s just something bold and undeniable happening between us, something that can’t be ignored, that I don’t even want to try to ignore. I want to inhale it, live it, love it and him. “Get dressed before I don’t let you,” he says and then he pushes to his feet and leaves. I want to pull him back, to hold onto this moment, but it’s too late. He’s gone, leaving me far hungrier for him than I am food. So much so that I twist around to watch him walk under an archway I’ve not even noticed until now, disappearing into the presumed kitchen.
I grab my clothes and start dressing. It’s not until they’re back in place that my phone rings again, and I remember that I missed a call. I squat down to pick it up from the floor where it’s somehow landed, and it stops ringing. There are ten missed calls on my call log, but one stands out, a number I know. It’s one of the backlines at Waters’ Yacht and Boat. York is calling me again, and obviously, while I can block the main office, there are dozens of backlines he can use through his switchboard. He’s not going to stop coming at me, and I get it. He doesn’t want me to tell his Aunt Marion’s husband about Marion and my father,because Marion’s husband is his investor, but this just feels off. It feels like there’s something more going on here that I don’t understand. The unpredictable nature of his stalkerish behavior has me feeling the pressure to tell Jax my history, or York’s made-up version of my history. I’m just not ready. It’s too soon.
Too soon?
Who am I kidding? We just met, and we’re talking about moving in together. I can’t move in with him and call it too soon to tell him my secrets, but unbidden, I flashback to the yacht, the water, the darkness:that nightand I swallow hard.It istoo soon. I’m not ready. I’m not sure he’s ready either, and fast isn’t so fast anyway. I’m leaving for Germany for a month, and we can’t plan a move until I return. Maybe that will be enough time to get York to back off. Still, I need to talk to Jax about York’s persistence, so I hurry toward the archway where Jax disappeared.
I enter the sparkling white kitchen with stone and wood accents and a giant island as the centerpiece. Jax is at the opposite end, talking on the phone, a dozen eggs and a bowl in front of him, his hair a rumpled, sexy mess while the shadow on his jaw is somehow daring and rather naughty. Or maybe that’s just me thinking about it scraping my belly sometime soon.
He glances up at my entry, his eyes warming as I step opposite him, leaving the island between us. “I’ll call you back,” he says, disconnecting the line and setting his phone aside; his hands come down on the island, his attention all mine. “How long is your trip to Germany?”
I blanch with the incredible way his mind has gone where mine has gone. I set my phone on the island and York aside with it, for now, mimicking Jax’s position, hands on the stone, my attention all his. “You read my mind. I was thinking of the trip, too.”
“Great minds think alike,” he says, giving me a wink.
“I guess they do,” I say. “And the answer is a month. I can’t miss this trip. This new property is a big investment, and I’m the one who makes sure we turn that money.”
“Then why don’t I go with you?”
I don’t even hesitate. “Yes. I’d like that, but what about your own work?”
“Can you put the trip off a week and let me make arrangements to work remotely?”
“You don’t have to do this, Jax.”
