Misbehaving (Sea Breeze #6)(48)

I turned to look at him, and seeing his face only made my heart speed up. His gaze was focused on me, and just being this close to him made everything seem better.

“Yeah,” I replied, not sure how much I should tell him.

He glanced out the window, then back at me. “Is he going to come looking for you?”

I shook my head. “No. We ended that . . . whatever it was.”

His eyes widened and his shoulders visibly relaxed. “Why?”

Did he want me to tell him it was because of him? Not that I would. I shrugged. “We don’t fit, I guess,” I replied.

Jason nodded like he agreed. I bit back a smile.

“Where were you headed?”

“Home,” I replied honestly, even if it made me sound pathetic.

“Could I convince you to come back to my place?”

God, how I wanted to say yes. He could convince me of anything if he tried hard enough. But the regret that would come when he left and didn’t call . . . The pain was something too fresh. I wasn’t ready for that again. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

Jason leaned toward me and kept his intense gaze focused on me. “Why?”

“Because you’ll make me miss you.” I said it before I could stop myself.

He reached over and touched my hand. “That’s why I want to talk. The way we left things . . . I don’t like it.”

I didn’t respond. I didn’t want to misunderstand him.

“I miss you, Jess,” he said in a husky whisper. That was my undoing.

“Okay.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Okay . . . you’ll go back to my place?”

I nodded and he let out a sigh. “Good. I was trying to weigh my options and abduction seemed risky.” The grin on his face brought the first real smile to mine in a week.

JASON

I had never been more relieved to get out of a car in my life. If Jess crossed her legs one more time in that ridiculous excuse for a skirt, I was going to lose my mind. Damn, why did she have to be so f**king sexy?

I tried not to look at her as we climbed the steps to the house. The outfit she was wearing was more adventurous than anything I’d ever seen her wear. How the hell she’d walked out of the club alone was beyond me.

I opened the door and she walked inside. The staff was gone for the night since Jax wasn’t in residence. I liked it better alone. Especially now that I had Jess here.

“You wanted to talk,” Jess said, not walking any farther into the house. She seemed nervous now. I wasn’t sure what had changed from the car to here. She had been fine in the Hummer.

“Yeah, uh, not here. We could go outside.” I stopped when she started shaking her head.

“No, let’s not,” she said softly.

The last time we’d been outside was memorable for both of us. She was right. That was a bad idea. I needed to focus. “Uh, yeah. Let’s go . . .” Where the hell to take her? “Downstairs. It’s more comfortable down there. Less formal,” I finally said.

Jess nodded, and I started toward the stairs. Hearing the click of her heels on the marble floor made it difficult not to turn around and look at her legs. Not that I didn’t have a very clear mental image of them.

I started down the stairs and Jess stopped. Glancing back at her, I noticed she was gripping the railing tightly and having some internal battle with herself.

“Jess?”

She looked at me and shook her head. “I can’t. I shouldn’t have come here.”

What the hell? I walked back up to the step underneath her. “Why?”

She took a deep breath. “Because—we will—we will—do stuff, and you’ll leave for Boston and I’ll be here and I’ll be sad and I’ll be alone and I can’t do that again,” she said in one long, rushed sentence, then turned to leave. I reached out and grabbed her before she could get away.

“Don’t leave. That’s why I want to talk. Yeah, I’m gonna have to leave, but I want to come back. Like I’m doing now. Like I did two weeks ago. I want to come see you. And I sure as hell don’t want you to be sad.”

She got very still and stopped trying to move away from me. “What do you mean, you want to come back?”

“Exactly what I said. I want to see you. I miss you.”

She didn’t look at me. “But why? You’re dating Star. Why do you want to come here?”

Those stupid f**king pictures. I shouldn’t have let them take those. I had witnessed firsthand how pictures like those had almost ended Jax and Sadie’s relationship. “She’s a friend.”

“Oh” was all she said.

“Please come downstairs and talk to me,” I pleaded, sliding a hand around her waist.

She tensed at first, then seemed to melt back into me.

“Okay,” she finally said after a moment.

I didn’t take my hand off her this time for fear she’d decide to run again. We made it downstairs and I directed her to the closest sofa to get her comfortable.

She looked around the place. “It’s nice down here,” she said.

It was where Jax and I had hung out when we were younger. He had been limited to our small portion of the beach when we visited, so we had spent a lot of time down here playing video games and pool.