Jet (Marked Men, #2)(55)

She was describing a stranger. That person sounded so far removed from this dynamic girl draped all over me that I couldn’t even picture them in the same room, let alone the same body.

“I don’t even know what to say to that. I don’t know that girl.”

Her thumb was skating along my ribs and rubbing at the skin stretched in between each one. It was soothing; she was soothing, and all I wanted was for her to be the balm that put out the fire in me once and for all. I could tell by her tone, tell by how she still couldn’t look at me, that forever and me didn’t go hand in hand in her mind, no matter how hot we were in bed, or how deeply we affected each other out of it.

“No, but she knows you. She knows you make me feel wild and out of control and that I don’t ever want it to stop. She knows that because of you I feel like I’m willing to do whatever it takes to have you, and damn the consequences and whatever gets in my way. Because you get to me like no one ever has and you’re more addicting than anything illegal I ever messed with in the past. Mostly, she knows that when I’m with you, all I think about is you and me, and how quickly we can find someplace to get naked, or how long it will be until I can curl up in your arms and let you sing to me. I don’t think of the future, or school, or all the other important things I need to work on to have a life for myself. You could own me, Jet, and I don’t want that to ever happen.”

I curved my hand over her ass and pulled on her thigh so that she was sprawled over me. I needed to get up and take care of business, but I didn’t want to move. The arm that had Dali’s clocks on it was wrapped around her shoulder, and once again I couldn’t help but think that every minute I spent with this girl was a minute that was going to have to last me a lifetime when she was gone.

“What if it doesn’t matter? What if I cared about her as much as I care about this version of you? I don’t want to own you, Ayd, I just want to be with you.”

She sighed and kissed my breastbone. “I couldn’t even care about her, Jet, and I don’t think you would be able to help it.”

I wanted to tell her none of it mattered. I wanted to tell her how important she was to me. That no one besides Uncle Phil and the guys had ever taken care of me before, and that I didn’t know what to do with her worrying about me. I felt like that was huge enough to make me think that I could possibly fall in love with her and want to hold on to her forever.

I wanted to tell her I couldn’t see a place in my life or in my bed for anyone but her now, and that she made me feel that every love song I had ever written or sung made no sense until she came into the picture. But I didn’t, because I knew she wasn’t ready to hear it, and I wasn’t sure what it meant to me that I was feeling it.

Just like my melting time, I was going to hold on to her for as long as I could, until the fire got too hot and burned me alive from the inside out, and she would have no choice but to watch it smolder.





Chapter 11

Ayden

Thursday night was girls’ night and had been ever since Shaw, Cora, and I had shared the house. Some nights we just got together with a bottle of wine and watched sappy movies, some nights we got all dolled up and went to a club, and then there were nights like tonight when we all just wanted to forget about whatever it was that had been crawling all over us during the week.

We went out with the sole intent of ending up destroyed and sloppy. I had learned my lesson long ago and no longer took an early class on Friday morning, because nights like this led to terrible morning-afters, and I wasn’t stupid.

Shaw had picked a dive bar off Thirteenth Street that was pretty close to where she lived on the Hill. Cora and I took a cab, because it was clear that tonight wasn’t going to be pretty and we both knew there was no way either of us was going to be in any shape to drive by the time the party was over. We started with a pitcher of beer, and I blamed the boys. There had been a time when we would have started with wine or margaritas, but after spending so much time with the guys, I think it was just ingrained that we now started with a cold pitcher of Coors Light. One pitcher led to two, and by the time the third one hit the table, Shaw was ready to add shots to the mix. I was a tequila girl, Shaw liked whiskey, and Cora stuck with J?ger. It didn’t take long for the conversation to devolve to ridiculous topics and for our laughter to get loud and obnoxious.

Cora’s two-toned eyes were huge and Shaw had a hand over her mouth to hold her laughter in. I was just staring at her because in typical Cora fashion she was explaining to us how she never could understand how the three of us could be friends, considering she had up-close and personal knowledge of our boys’ junk. I lifted an eyebrow at her.

“All of them?”

She licked her lips and tilted her head to the side. “What do you mean?”

“Have you seen all of them?”

Shaw gasped on a laugh and pushed my shoulder. “Don’t ask her that.”

“Why not?”

“There has to be some kind of privilege.”

I rolled my eyes. “She’s a body piercer, not a doctor, and I’m curious.”

Cora gave me a naughty grin, and while I had to admit I was super happy she was the one who had put that ring in Jet and not some strange skank, it was still weird to imagine her with her hands anywhere near that part of him.

She ordered us another round and motioned for us to lean in close. Shaw might have protested on principle, but I knew that gleam in her green gaze and she was just as curious as I was.