Jet (Marked Men, #2)(39)

There was no ho-hum with Jet. He knew what he was doing, and it was stamped all over me from head to toe. The fact that I had absolutely and completely lost control with him and gotten caught up in the moment was not lost on me or in my reflection, either, and that had me fighting back a heavy flood of panic.

I changed into running clothes and pulled my snarled hair up into a stubby ponytail. I was going to grab my iPod, but for some reason, listening to cookie-cutter songs about love and loss just didn’t sound appealing, so I dashed down the hall hoping Jet would stay asleep and that Cora would still be holed up in her room. I was filling my bottle of water in the sink when Cora’s singsongy voice came from the living room, “Someone looks well rested.”

I closed my eyes for a second and swore under my breath. I looked over my shoulder at her. She was still in her fuzzy pink jammies and her dual-colored eyes were gleaming with mischief.

“Yep.”

She wagged a finger at me and suddenly looked more serious. “You need to be careful, Ayd.”

I frowned because it was too early, both literally and figuratively, for this conversation. “Careful is my middle name, Cora.”

“But Jet’s is passion, and he can get really wrapped up in things that are important to him. If you don’t want to be wrapped up, you better be honest with him about it.”

I couldn’t talk about this with her, not when I didn’t know what I was doing myself, so I grabbed my lightweight fleece and zipped it up.

“Noted. I’ll be back in a few.”

“Hey, keep an eye out. Weird stuff has been going on.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “You noticed the guy lurking around, too?”

“What? No! But some creep tried to break in yesterday.”

A shiver of alarm worked from the base of my neck down my spine. Between the calls from Kentucky and the repeated sightings of the same guy over and over again, I couldn’t chalk an attempted break-in to coincidence.

“Did you call the cops?”

She shook her head. “I threatened to taze his ass and he took off. I’m sure he was just a crazy meth head or something, but you need to be aware of your surroundings if you’re going running alone.”

I nodded, but in reality I was thinking I had to be aware of my surroundings for a lot more reasons than that. I was walking to the front door, contemplating what could possibly have someone threatening my new life, my new home, when Cora called my name. I should have known by the glee in her tone that I was going to regret turning back around. She was standing on the couch with both her hands in the air, waving all ten fingers back and forth, and chanting, “You’re a ten!” over and over again. If I’d had something lighter than my water bottle on hand I would have thrown it at her. Instead I rolled my eyes and bounded out the door.

She was right. I was totally a ten and that sucked, because I just couldn’t get it in line with how after last night I was supposed to juggle just being friends with a whole lot more and not eventually cross the line into wanting more. I couldn’t deal with that. Jet made old Ayden want to get in on all of the good-time action and that was just dangerous to my peace of mind and carefully constructed fa?ade.

I hit the ground hard and tried to let the physical exertion do its thing to get my head to stop spinning. I was almost to the park and breathing hard already, when a nondescript sedan rolled up next to me on the road. I looked at it out of the corner of my eye and would have never even noticed it if I had had music playing. I slowed down and did a double-take when it came to a complete stop next to me on the road and the window rolled down. Normally, I would have kept running. In fact, if I had been smart, I would have kept running, but when the driver leaned out the window and that familiar devil-may-care grin lit his face, I had to step off the sidewalk into the street.

I leaned against the hood of the car with one hand and met amber-colored eyes the same shade as mine. It was really the only trait we shared, since we had different dads. Asa had blond hair and was about the same height as me, but he was beautiful and he knew it. He also had to know that I was less than thrilled to see him here.

“How did you find me?”

He smiled up at me and I felt my heart squeeze. When he looked at you like that, it was nearly impossible to deny him anything, even though I knew from cold, hard experience that the only person Asa cared about was Asa. Loving my big brother was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life.

“What kind of big brother would I be if I didn’t keep tabs on what my lil sis was up to?”

“The kind you’ve always been. What are you doing here?” I couldn’t give him an inch or he would take the thousands of miles I had worked so hard to put between us.

“I need to talk to you about something. I got some trouble brewing back home and I might need a little help.”

There was always trouble with Asa and if he said it was brewing, the truth was that it had probably already boiled over and both of us were looking into the eye of a full-on shit storm. That was just his way. Stir up the mess and leave it for someone else, usually me, to figure out how to clean up. He never even stopped to ask how I managed to do it time and time again, just took for granted that I would, and always did, find a way.

I shook my head and pushed off the car. “No.”

He lifted a blond brow at me. “What do you mean, no?”

I rubbed my hands up and down my arms, because I was suddenly freezing even though it wasn’t that cold out. “Just no. No, I won’t help you. No, I won’t give you money. No, you can’t stay with me. Whatever it is, the answer is just, hell no. I have a good thing going on here Asa. I’m kickass at school, I have awesome friends and a cool job. You aren’t going to show up and mess with any of it.”