Stay with Me (Wait for You, #3)(115)

He leaned back against the couch cushion. “But what if I want to take a girl home with me?”

“I don’t know about that. The way Katie talks, those girls oil themselves up. You might have a hard time holding on to one of them.”

Jax tipped his head back and laughed. “Nice.”

Then something occurred to me. “What if Katie’s dancing?”

He shook his head. “That will be a bathroom break for me.”

“She’s really hot.”

Hooking his arms around my hips, he spread his legs and I slipped farther onto him. “It’s not that. It’s just that she’s Katie . . . and I don’t want to see her like that.”

I grinned and hoped that she was dressed as a fairy again. “So you’re going?”

One hand slid up the line of my spine, tangled in my hair, and then he tugged my head down to his lips. “I’m going.”

“Good.”

He nipped at my lower lip. “You’re probably the only girl in the world who would just say good to the fact her man is going to a strip club.”

My man? I got a little caught up in that phrase so I didn’t point out that I thought a lot of girls really didn’t care about strip clubs, because then he was kissing me, slow and sweet.

When his mouth left mine, his lips brushed over the curve of my jaw. The bruise from the botched kidnapping had already began to fade, but he placed a kiss there, and my heart did a little dance.

I settled in his arms as he idly flipped through the stations on the TV and it wasn’t long before my eyes drifted shut. I was lulled away by the steady sweeping motion of his hand along the line of my spine. It was strange. I never thought I could ever allow someone to touch me there, even if I was wearing clothes, and here I was, comforted by a caress that would’ve made me cringe not too long ago.

So much had changed.

Once he’d settled on a baseball game, he dropped the remote and his hand ended up in my hair. “Reece called earlier, when you were on the computer doing your school stuff.”

My eyes opened, but I didn’t move. I was feeling way too lazy for that level of effort. “What did he want?”

“Just keeping us updated on Mack. Reece and Colton really think he’s gone to ground, especially since they’ve been riding Isaiah hard, which won’t bode well for Mack, either,” he said as he twisted my hair around his fingers.

“Yeah, Detective Anders said something like that yesterday when he talked to me.” My hand was on his chest so I started drawing a circle with my finger. “It’s just crazy. It’s like all of them know that this Isaiah is dirty, but they don’t do anything.”

“They can’t, honey. Isaiah is smart. He cleans up after everything and nothing leads back to him. That’s why he’s not going to be happy with Mack. He messed up with your mom and Rooster, obviously took Rooster out—”

“Couldn’t that have been Isaiah?” I asked.

Jax flipped the mass of hair over my shoulder. “I don’t think so. He’s cleaner than that. And he’s smart. He’s not going to drop a body in the daylight on a front porch. He’s more of the going for a cement swim type of guy.”

I shuddered. “How well do you know Isaiah?”

“As well as I want to and nothing more.” His hand flattened along the curve of my behind and stayed there. “He’s been in Mona’s a few times. I think checking the place out.”

“That’s kind of creepy.”

“He’s Isaiah.” He patted my behind. “Anyway, if Mack’s gone to ground, there’s a good chance you’re done with this shit.”

That’s what Detective Anders had said, too, but it really didn’t make me feel like I should go traipsing down Main Street or anything. “Have they found Ike?”

“Nope.”

“Do you think . . . something happened to him, too?”

“I don’t know. The kind of life these people live, it’s not odd that they disappear. Could have nothing to do with any of this.”

I hoped so. Well, I hoped whoever the Ike guy was, he wasn’t missing in a bad way. I didn’t know him, never even seen him, but still, a human life was a human life.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said as he gently untangled his fingers from my hair. “When you head back to Shepherd, you’re staying in a dorm, right?”

I nodded. “I’m in the Printz apartments this year. Or I had approval before. I guess I still do, but Printz is a dorm with two-to three-bedroom apartments in them.”

“So privacy?”

“Yes. Just like a normal apartment building, but nicer.” I laughed.

“This is good, because we’re going to need the privacy.”

I bit down on my lower lip, but it didn’t stop my smile from spreading. “We do?”

“Honey, I don’t want to be naked in bed with you with some chick in another bed a couple f*cking feet away from us.”

“Good point.” I giggled.

Actually f*cking giggled. I was so dumb.

“If I keep my schedule like it is, I could come down on Sunday and stay with you for a few days.” He caught a strand of my hair again and tucked it back. “And maybe when your schoolwork isn’t too heavy, you can come up on the weekend.”