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“Tried?” Nick’s voice never wavered. “He didn’t hurt you?”
“No. Gray stopped him.” She bit her lip and scarcely felt the pain. “Both times.”
“Jesus. And you wonder why the dude’s protective of you?”
“No, I don’t. I’m protective of him too. I would kill anyone who hurt him or even tried to—” Shaking her head, she closed her eyes. “He’s not how he used to be. Everything changed when we left his parents’ place together. He stopped being the funny, happy guy I knew. The one I loved. He suddenly started trying to be my father. Always watching me to make sure I didn’t do anything too wild or crazy. Getting mad at the kinds of guys I wanted to date, saying they were all assholes who only wanted one thing.”
“Well, hate to burst your Kool-Aid-colored bubble, sweetness, but they probably did.”
“You think that’s all I’m good for?” The confirmation of what she’d suspected all along—that her main value was as a piece of fresh pussy, only good as long as she put out—made her want to spit. “A quick fuck?”
“Never said anything about quick,” he mumbled, and she smiled because at least it was honest. Whatever Nick Crandall was, he told the truth.
That attracted her as much as the simple fact that he didn’t know her past. To him, she was just Jazz the happy, vapid bunny who played her ass off and showed it in little skirts. That was what she wanted people to see.
She’d never convince Gray she was that shallow. He’d had the key to the real her for almost a decade now. If she let him inside her any more, he’d gain access to everything. He would own her.
She toyed with the hole on the knee of her jeans. Poking her finger through again and again. Making it bigger. “When I met you, I knew he’d hate it if I started anything with you. But you actually talk to me. You see who I am. Gray just wants to keep me in a box. Safe. Protected. As good as dead.” She sighed and gestured to her lap. “Why do you think I got that crazy piercing? It’s not like I let just anyone down there, and a complete stranger pierced me. But I wanted to rebel so fucking bad.”
She still was trying to rebel. Still trying to be a naughty girl who could blow Nick without compunction like she had last week, because hey, she didn’t have panties on and didn’t care what she did where. Reality was that she often shed her underwear after a show due to extreme heat exhaustion. If she could’ve gotten naked legally, she would have.
And her amazing BJ talents? Honed on a banana in high school at lunch in the cafeteria to entertain her few friends and practiced on the few boyfriends she’d had since.
Hell, even her piercing was a joke. When she thought about the day she’d gotten her VCH, she still blushed. She’d tried so hard to be brave and badass and instead she’d nearly sobbed the instant the needle had touched flesh. As soon as she’d returned home afterward, she’d researched infections and sat all night with a bag of ice cubes on her crotch. Real attractive.
Gray was probably right to be so careful with her. He’d witnessed how well she took care of herself when she was out of his sight. But him wanting to shepherd her like a misguided lamb wasn’t the same as him seeing her as an equal. As the woman who’d loved him longest and best, more than anyone knew.
“You’re the first real taste of freedom I’ve had. When it’s just you and me, I can breathe. I like you, Nick. This isn’t a game to me.” She clutched him tighter and cast her gaze at their joined hands. It was nice to have physical contact with someone again. She hadn’t touched Gray in forever. He’d grown so tense that she feared laying one finger on him would make him shatter. “I’m not using you, I swear.”
She wasn’t. She couldn’t.
“I like you too.”
Nick’s statement barely intruded into her thoughts. “When we’re together, I don’t have to wonder what’s wrong with Gray. Between us, it’s just sexy and fun,” she continued, wrapping that version of the truth around herself like she’d once had Gray’s arms.
She wanted to add, right? You think I’m sexy and fun, don’t you? But she didn’t go there. Desperation was never sexy or fun, and she so urgently wanted to be that carefree girl she’d do whatever it took to breathe her into life.
Who she vehemently did not want to be was the foster child. The person who tore up families right and left. The woman who loved the one person who knew all the sides of her she ached to forget.
“Gray won’t talk to me anymore. Every time I try to figure things out, he shuts me down. Something’s not right with him, and I don’t know how to fix it.” She rubbed her eye, hard. Trying to erase Gray as she’d seen him that morning, up after another sleepless night, his eyes bloodshot and his skin seeming too small to contain his bones. “He walked away from his life for me. His family. And I’ll never be enough to—” She stopped.
Foster children weren’t ever enough. That’s why they got passed around more than a year-old fruitcake. Gray was a good person, but even he had to see the light eventually.
“He’s in love with you. That’s why he’s not right.” Nick brought her hand to his mouth, kissed the tips of her fingers. “You offer a man something he’s always wanted, hold it two inches from his nose, then deny him from having it, he’s gonna get a little crazy, baby.”
“I haven’t denied him anything,” she whispered. There wasn’t any part of her she would keep from Gray and that scared her more than all the rest. With a word, a look, she would be his. Then he would change his mind once he saw what he’d gotten with her, and she’d be utterly broken. “He’s never asked. He hasn’t ever said one word.”
Nick didn’t answer. He had to be disgusted with this conversation. She was too.
A sigh escaped her. She just couldn’t let the subject go. Dogs with their favorite bone were less tenacious than she was when presented with the slim, unbelievable hope that Gray might…want her. “Let’s say you’re right, that he thinks his feelings for me have gone beyond friendship. With everything that’s gone on in our history, with how he’s protected me, how could he ever be sure that it’s real?”
“I’m sure.”
Her heart stumbled to a stop. Her fingers went boneless in Nick’s. That wasn’t Gray’s voice coming through the door. It couldn’t be. He had no reason to be there.
Unless he followed you…
He’d met her at the salad shop a couple of times. She’d invited him tonight too, but he’d put her off. As usual. What if Gray had taken his work car to the salad shop and discovered she wasn’t there? He would figure she’d go to Nick’s next, especially after that show they’d put on in the isolation booth that afternoon.
