The Closer You Come (The Original Heartbreakers, #1)(62)

Brook Lynn pretended to eat.

“You guys are acting weird,” West said, tone sly. “Are you not hungry, Jase, when just a short while ago you were nothing but a ravenous pig?”

Jase kicked him under the table.

West spilled his water, impact causing his glass to slip from his hand. In an act of revenge, he silkily asked, “Or are you hungry for something other than food?”

“What! No!” Brook Lynn burst out. “Shut up.”

“He’s subtly inquiring whether or not you plan to screw Jase’s brains out,” Beck said, reaching for another scoop of casserole. “I say go for it. If I were a girl, I’d already have tapped that.”

Brook Lynn snatched the ladle out of his hand. “Bad Beck. Bad, bad, bad. I will not reward you for sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

“But...but...” the guy stuttered. “I’m still hungry.”

Jase tossed down his napkin, saying, “All right. Come on, honey. You and I need to talk. In private.”

“While you’re having your chat,” Beck called, “don’t forget to punish her for speaking to your friend so rudely. And wear a condom.”

*

JASE PRESSED HIS back against the closed bedroom door as Brook Lynn sat at the edge of his bed...the very bed in which he’d rolled around with Jessie Kay before he’d acted as her very own orgasmic scratch pad. The urge to throw up battled with the urge to be held, leaving her confused and vulnerable. Was she really going to do this? Give him a chance to compare her to Jessie Kay? To find her, the less experienced one, lacking?

Maybe she should just go home.

Good plan. Did she seriously want a meaningless one-night stand? Simply for the chance to change Jase’s mind about relationships and prove they could have something special? That they could have more?

She stood.

“Leaving already?” He swiped up a remote and switched on the radio. Soft rock poured from the surround sound as he met her gaze.

“Yes. No. Oh, I don’t know.” Even as she spoke, the tension between them expanded, thickening, until it was difficult to breathe, to focus on anything but Jase and what she yearned to do to him...what she yearned to have him do to her.

“Wrong answer.” He crossed his arms, cotton pulling tight over his biceps. “I didn’t want to have to remind you of this, but you signed a legal and binding contract, honey. If you don’t give me the night of sexual bliss you promised me, I’ll be forced to sue you for everything you’ve got. And that would be a shame, because I only want the best for you—and for you to take off all your clothes.”

The teasing helped relax her. “Court, huh? Why don’t you tell me your opening argument?” She returned to the bed and reclined, resting her weight on her elbows. “Convince me you’ve got a case.”

He removed his shirt—as any good attorney would have done—and the absolute maleness of him staggered her. The incomparable ropes of muscles. The glimmer of his bronze skin. The delicious plethora of tattoos.

Tonight I’ll study every design. Trace them with my tongue. She shivered.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Ready,” she replied, breathless.

He cleared his throat. “Your Honor,” he said and paced in front of her, the panther-like grace of him making her shiver all over again. “I want something more than I’ve ever wanted anything else. It’s been promised to me, and it would be cruel and unusual punishment if it was taken away from me.”

He paused to glance at her.

He wanted her more than anything? “Appealing to the judge’s sense of compassion,” she said with a nod. “Nice try. Unfortunately for you, I’ve heard this particular judge is a coldhearted witch.”

The flash of a smile before his eyes hooded. “Perhaps I should show the judge what I’m bringing to the table.”

“Permission to approach the bench,” she said, crooking her finger at him.

He closed the distance, his hands at his sides. Her heart drummed as butterflies danced excitedly through her veins.

When he stopped between her legs, she sat up as if pulled by a rope. Trembling, she flattened her palms on his chest, over the most detailed map she’d ever seen. It covered one of his pecs, the lines of it somehow raised.

Not somehow. They weren’t an illusion caused by the ink—they were scars. More scars than she could count without intense study.

She knew so little about this man, she realized. Well, other than the fact that he had a lot of secrets, clearly more than she’d ever suspected. And they were violent secrets, steeped in bloodshed. But she also knew he was a good guy, strong and capable, and right now, that was enough.

Besides, she could guess he’d gotten the wounds while in the military—he’d never confirmed nor denied her suspicions, so she was running with it. As tough as he was, he could have been Special Forces.

And how sexy was that? Proving just how much of a protector he really was.

Next to the map was a tree with olives of some type, black birds perched on the branches. There was also a redbud, the root of it sinking past the waist of his pants. And on his side was a cross with crimson flowing down it, pooling to spell the word Strength.

She stroked the insides of the map first, her trembling getting worse. His muscles jumped at the moment of contact. The heat of him delighted her, burned away the rest of her resistance. She leaned forward to kiss and lick her way to the upper edge of the olive tree.