Be with Me (Wait for You #2)(33)

Part of me wanted to stay behind and hitch a ride back to campus, but that would look weird, so after Jack ran off, I made my way over to the Jeep. Ever the gentleman when he wanted, Jase held open the door.

I didn’t say thank you.

Jase climbed in, letting out a sigh that rivaled anything I could’ve produced, which pissed me off, because why was he feeling put out? Jaw locked down, he turned the car around and headed down the gravel road. He didn’t speak until we neared the end of the long stretch of road.

“Tess—-”

“Don’t,” I said, cutting him off. “There is really nothing you have to say right now that I’m probably going to want to hear. And if you tell me what just happened is a mistake again . . .” My voice cracked in an embarrassing way. “I’m going to punch you in the throat. Seriously.”

His lips twitched as if he thought I was joking. “I shouldn’t have phrased it that way, but—-”

“Nope,” I warned, sensing he was about to say something even worse. “Just take me home.” I pressed my lips together to keep them from quivering like a pansy ass, and I could feel his eyes on me. “I just want to go home.”

There was a beat of silence and then he said, “Fuck.”

Instead of pulling out, he shifted the gear into park. The Jeep idled as he twisted in his seat toward me. “You don’t understand, Tess.”

I rolled my eyes, about to make a smart--ass comment, but stopped when my throat closed up. “You’re right. I don’t. You’re attracted to me. You want me, but you keep pushing me away. Is it because of Cam? Because seriously, that’s lame, Jase. He’s my brother, not the holder of my chastity.”

Jase’s face puckered as if he’d tasted something sour. “Okay. That’s an image I never wanted to picture.”

“Oh, shut up.”

His features smoothed out as he clenched the steering wheel. “All right, it’s not Cam. Maybe in the beginning it was, because hooking up with his little sister is crossing all kinds of lines, but I can get over that.”

“Obviously you did,” I muttered, turning my gaze to the passenger window. “Or your cock got over it real quick like.”

Jase swallowed a strangled cough. “Tess, I . . . it’s just you don’t want to be with me. You really don’t want that.”

I barked out a short laugh. “Wow. So this is a new attempt. You’re not rejecting me, but it’s more like I’m rejecting you? Smooth.”

“It’s not like that,” he insisted. “Trust me. There are things you don’t know about me and if you did, you wouldn’t be sitting here.”

Returning my gaze to him, I arched a brow. “Did you kill someone? Cut up their body and feed it to hogs?”

“What?” His brows furrowed. “No.”

“Have you beaten or raped a girl? Have a stash of kids locked in a basement somewhere? Or you’re secretly a terrorist?”

His face contorted into disgust. “Fuck. No.”

“Okaay,” I said slowly. “I’m not sure exactly what you could’ve done that is so terrible then.”

He looked away, shaking his head. “You don’t get it, Tess. I can’t have you.”

“But you do have me,” I whispered, and then clamped my mouth shut. Did I just say that? Horrified, I could only stare as his eyes widened.

Oh my God, I did just say that out loud.

But it was true. Jase had me whether he realized it or not, even if he wanted me or not. I couldn’t change how I felt about him or what I wanted.

“I don’t,” he said, shadows forming in his eyes. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings.”

But . . . there was an unspoken “but” that sunk deep within me.

Closing my eyes, I sucked in a shrill breath as pressure in my chest formed and expanded. I put it out there for him, so pathetically, and that was all he could say? Embarrassed beyond belief, all I wanted was to get away. “Please take me home.”

He remained still in the driver’s seat. “Tess—-”

“Take me home!”

There was a heartbeat of silence as he dropped his hands into his lap. “He’s my son!” Jase shouted, startling him and me, and then he said lower, as if he couldn’t believe he was actually saying it, “Jack’s my son.”





UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

AVON BOOKS

An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

....................................





Nine


I didn’t think I heard him right at first. I had to have heard something other than what he said, because there was no way Jack was his son. Jack was his brother.

But as I stared at him and took in the paleness of his face and the clarity of his gray eyes, I knew that what he’d spoken was something so rare, so unknown to probably almost anyone, that it was the truth.

I shook my head, dumbfounded. “Jack’s your son?”

Jase held my gaze a moment longer and then focused ahead. Several seconds passed before he spoke. “Shit. I . . . no one knows that, Tess. My parents do. Cam does, but he would never say anything. No one else knows.”

Unsurprised that Cam knew this about Jase, I was still a little shocked that he hadn’t told me. Then again, it had never been my business.