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"I will give you three fucking seconds to get out of this hallway, and another three to get the fuck out of this house," he growls. "If I find you here after that, I will rip your fucking balls off and let Charlotte wear them as a fucking necklace for the rest of this party."
"I was just," Luis begins to say as he puts his hands up in surrender.
Jackson yanks Luis forward, only to slam him into the wall again. "Did I fucking say you could speak? You said enough, long after it was clear she wanted nothing to do with you. Now get the fuck out. I will not say it again."
Luis looks at me like there's any way in hell that I will defend him. Not a chance. A shout leaves him as Jackson tosses him a few feet away. Jackson doesn’t wait for Luis to even right himself before he begins counting.
“One.”
He doesn't reach two before Luis starts rushing down the hallway. Then Jackson is blocking my view of him as he pushes me back into the bathroom. He reaches around me, grabs something, and then I see him turning on the sink. My brows furrow in confusion as he puts the hand towel under the running water. Then he's grabbing my arm, bringing it toward him. Realization dawns as he begins using the wet towel to wipe the exact point where Luis' hand grabbed me.
"I don't even want to think that his touch is still on you," he says gruffly.
Sadness rushes through me and my arm goes slack in his grip. I'd thought... some part of me had thought he'd done all of that because he cares, because he was protecting me, defending me.
"Is that the only reason you did all that? Because you didn't want another man touching me?"
He yanks on my arm, using it to bring me crashing into him. Even now, he smells of sandalwood and the scent sends my mind racing with how that smell envelopes me while he makes me his each time.
"You know it's not. He has no right to put his hands on any woman, but especially not my woman. Because I think you know that's exactly what you are. My woman."
I swallow thickly, my eyes flitting between his eyes. I wonder if he can feel how my heart is thundering against him. It feels like it's going to beat out of my chest with my trying like hell to decipher what he means byhis woman. Trying so hard to figure it out that the question begins to slip past my lips.
"What do you..."
"Present time." I hear Lexa shout.
"Damn it," I hiss.
The last thing I want to do right now is leave this bathroom, to go without having my question answered. So I press him anyway, even though I know Sophie will kill me if I let her open those gifts alone.
"Tell me," I breathe.
He smirks, and I know he won't answer. He kisses me instead, a quick kiss that leaves me desperate for so much more.
"Didn't you hear? It's present time."
Another kiss and he backs away from me. He opens the door and without turning around, says, "Don't worry. I'll see you soon. It's been too long already."
He leaves and I give myself a moment to calm myself before leaving too. He's just at the end of the hallway when I come out the door. One smile over his shoulder and then he's rejoining the party. I walk that way, looking to see if Luis dared to stay when I reach the living room. He didn't. Good. Sophie sits in the huge white chair, presents being piled around her, giving me a pleading look, even though Law is to her right. I walk over to her, sit in the smaller seat to her left and ignore the way my heart is pulling for me to look to where it can feel Jackson is. No. My heart has had enough of him today. But my body, oh, that can still want him as much as it wants to. My body can hope that I wake up to him in my room tonight.
But even as I deny my eyes from looking at him, that doesn't mean I can't feel him looking at me. It's like a brand on my skin, burning into me, making me hot and far too aroused to be sitting up here, forcing myself not to rub my thighs together as I hold the next gift to hand to Sophie.
Then I finally give in, and I look at him. It's only out of the corner of my eye, but he's staring so he notices. He gives me a crooked smirk, sexy, seductive, lust-filled. And I know, without a doubt, that I have absolutely no control over what he's doing to me. Both my body and my heart.
Shit.
Chapter 7
"You're sure you don't want me to wait so we can leave together?" Rebecca asks as she stalls in the doorway of our office.
"No, no. Go ahead." I wave her on. "I know you have a date tonight. Get out of here."
She rolls her eyes. "Don't act like I'm excited about it."
"Just because your mom set you up doesn't mean it's gonna be horrible. Give it a shot."
"I just want you to know that if it's as bad as I think, I'm gonna promise him a second date anyway, just to tell him to bring a friend along for you."
