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“Sure!” he exclaimed, losing some of the misery he’d been trying to fight off.
“What’s your favorite? Grape?”
His eyes grew round. “Yeah.”
“I’m going to fill the doctor in about your arm and then I’ll be back with the popsicle. Okay?”
Noah nodded enthusiastically.
Nylah left as I sank into a chair next to the bed Noah was perched on. The nurse had raised the end, so Noah was sitting up but slightly inclined.
“How did she know about grape being my favorite?”
I was all set to answer when I noticed Noah had directed his question to Jayce.
“Well, son, I think there must be a little magic floating around here.”
Noah’s eyes widened further. “Magic? Like Christmas magic?”
Jayce ran his hand along his beard. “I think so. If I’m real quiet and still, I can feel it. What about you?”
My son stopped wiggling and squirming on the bed and closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them, he was smiling from ear to ear. “Wow. It’s like a little tingle in my belly. Is that what you mean?”
“Yep. You’re real good at this.”
Noah beamed a bright smile. “You’re the best Santa ever. I think you must have gone back to the North Pole for more training.”
Jayce let out a loud guffaw. “Kid, you’re one hundred percent right.”
I had no idea what they were talking about but seeing their interaction proved Jayce wasn’t a creep. At least, I hoped so. I would still watch him around my son. Noah was too trusting of strangers. No one was hurting my baby, not after all we’d been through and overcome to arrive here in Tonopah.
Nylah popped into the room with the popsicle and Noah chatted away with Jayce until it was gone. Licking the stick, he stuck out his tongue at me when I snatched it out of his hand.
“That’s enough, silly.”
A few minutes later Nylah took Noah to get x-rays and promised he would return soon.
“Super cool,” Jayce told him with his gravelly tone.
I paced with the emptiness that followed, worried about the results.
“You’re tense,” Jayce observed, leaning against a row of cabinets as his arms crossed over his broad chest. “Just routine, honey. He’ll be fine.”
“You don’t know that. He hasn’t seen the doctor yet.” I tried not to stare at the black leather vest and all his tattoos. Jayce had bad boy written all over him. Combine that with his wicked grin, hypnotic eyes, and the sex appeal that oozed from every single pore and this man was a volatile cocktail I was tempted to drink right up. I found his salt and pepper beard oddly appealing. My fingers twitched with the desire to brush the muscles all the way up his arms and under his t-shirt, to trace each inch of ink and ask their significance.
Jayce ticked his chin in my direction. “You always this tightly wound?”
What was that supposed to mean?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I replied with attitude.
His naughty grin reappeared. “Sure is easy to rile you up.”
An amber sparkle shimmered in those dark depths and I had to resist the urge to tell him that most men never conjured any kind of reaction from me at all. I was numb to the male species after Chet. Men equaled pain, not pleasure, captivity not freedom. Well, until Jayce Riggs, silver fox biker with his annoying swagger and promise of sinful pleasure.
“You keep right on staring at me, pretty girl. I like what I see too.” His chocolate filled gaze roamed my body, taking its time as he began at my toes and slowly crept upward all the way to my lips. Pausing, he opened his mouth and nearly panted, winking as our eyes met. “Fuck. You’re just ripe for the pickin’, aren’t you?”
Shocked, my mouth popped open in an ‘o’ before I closed it with a snap. “You shouldn’t talk like that in public.”
