The Closer You Come (The Original Heartbreakers, #1)(97)

“You’ve helped make it better. You’ll see.” And now, the moment of truth. She opened another text to Jase.

Come over 2nite. Let’s discuss the pix.

Send.

Someone bumped into her, pushing her forward. She stumbled and bumped into someone else. “Sorry, sorry.” The room began to spin faster and faster, and her stomach rebelled. She tried to move toward the bathroom—where the heck was the bathroom?—but she made it only two steps before hunching over and vomiting all over the floor.

*

BROOK LYNN WASN’T sure how she made it home. She woke up in bed, alone, with a splitting headache and a terrible taste in her mouth. Had rodents crawled inside it and died?

Grumbling, she stumbled into the bathroom, where she brushed her teeth and showered, dressed in a tank and a pair of panties and brushed her teeth again. As memories of last night’s escapades invaded her mind, she decided to go back to bed—and stay there forever.

My picture should be next to idiot in the dictionary.

She turned the volume up on her implants, just in case her sister decided to make another surprise visit, and curled up under the covers. Lesson learned. Alcohol only made everything worse. She’d actually sent pictures of herself draped over other men to Jase. Of course he was going to rage.

A weight settled at the end of her bed. Her eyelids popped open, and she gasped. Jase! He’d flipped on the lamp, and golden light spotlighted him. Rumpled dark hair, eyes that were bloodshot but not spewing fire. He didn’t seem to have shaved since she’d left him, his stubble dark and thick.

She sat up, her body already heating...burning. Readying. The man who’d pleasured her so perfectly, so many times, was here, once again within reach. His masculine scent filled her head, at last chasing away her headache.

“Wh—what are you doing here?”

He frowned, and she had to battle the urge to brush her fingertips over his lips. “You invited me. Remember?”

She did, and she had to swallow a moan. The final text.

Jase withdrew his cell phone. “Let’s chat about these.” He showed her the screen. “This one is of a strobe light. This one is of a crowd. This one is of a dirty table. This one is of multiple pairs of feet.”

Mission fail.

Why not tell him the truth? Get everything out in the open? “I was trying to make you mad.”

“You...what? Why?” He set his phone on the nightstand.

“Okay, fine. You got me. I was trying to make you more than mad. I was trying to enrage you.”

“Why did you think these random pictures would enrage me?”

“They were supposed to be pictures of me with other guys.”

A terrible stillness came over him. “I see.”

She covered her face with her hair and peeked at him through her spread fingers. “I wanted to find out what you’d do.”

Several beats of silence. Such oppressive silence. “I see,” he repeated.

There’d been hints of anger in his tone, but nothing else.

“I’m sorry,” she said, miserable.

“Did you do anything with these men?” he asked quietly.

“No! Gross.”

He studied her features, still masking his own, before he stood. “I better go. I wouldn’t want to frighten you with my temper. I’ll see you around, Brook Lynn. Or not. Yeah, probably not.”

That was it? All he had to say? “Now just hold on a sec.”

“Why?” He pushed a hand through his hair. “You’re afraid of me, even though I would rather die than hurt you. There’s nothing else to discuss.”

A part of her melted. A part of her panicked. “You think this is easy for me? Being apart from you? Not trusting you?”

“Certainly seems that way.”

There was a hint of bitterness in his tone. She deserved it, even welcomed it. He felt! “You’re so cold so much of the time, Jase. You hold everything in. Then, apparently, you have times when you boil over and can’t return to a simmer.”

His eyes narrowed. “This is true, but have I ever harmed you?”

“You pushed me once.”

“I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“Exactly my point!”

He closed his eyes for a moment. “That won’t happen again. I won’t let it. I know to be on guard now.”

“But, Jase...I don’t even know what happened that day. You’ve never told me.”

Tensing more with every second that passed, he said, “I saw blood and flashed back to prison, to the times I’d been ambushed and...stabbed. And worse things.”

She flattened a hand against her churning stomach. Knowing he’d endured such horrors was one thing. Hearing about it was another. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he insisted. “You mean too much to me. Just give me time, and I’ll prove it.”

“But...if I mean so much to you,” she whispered, “why didn’t you come after me?”

His laugh was bitter. “You can’t have it both ways. You can’t run and expect me to chase you. I’m an ex-con. Do you know what a stalking charge would do to me?”

See Brook Lynn’s resistance begin to crumble. “I would never accuse you of stalking.”