Beautiful Broken Rules (Broken, Series #1)(22)

As we were walking up to our apartment doors, I looked back at him and said, “Hey, you should really think about doing something nice, thanking Jace for helping you.”

“I was just thinking about that. I have no idea what, but I’ll think of something. I’ll catch ya later, Beautiful,” he said while smacking my ass on his way to their door.

He got inside before I even got my keys out. I knelt down with my bag in front of me so I could dig around for my keys. I’m pretty sure this violates Self-Defense 101, be prepared and always have your keys ready. Oh well, I guess if anyone were to try to attack me, I could shout loud enough for the guys to hear or the seventy year-old lady down the hall. Surely she would help out. I kept digging around but I wasn’t feeling the familiar cold metal. I turned my backpack upside down and dumped all of the contents out. No keys. I checked every tiny pocket this backpack had, but still no luck. Damn, I must have forgotten to grab them this morning when I left with Quinn.

Lately, since I’ve been working so much, I’ve been taking a nap before I go in. I didn’t have to work tonight but I was really looking forward to a nap before the party that we were going to hit tonight. I guess I could go take a nap in Cole’s bed. When he lived in the Frat house, Quinn and I used to sleep in his bed all of the time, when we drank too much at their parties. He would sleep on the floor, instead of the couch downstairs, because he didn’t want any of the drunken guys to come in and mess with us while we were asleep. I walked down to their apartment and knocked on the door. It took a while but Jaxon finally answered, wearing only a navy blue towel wrapped around his waist. Well hot damn. He quirked an eyebrow at me as he raised his right arm, resting his hand on the top of the doorframe. It wasn’t a long reach with his height, but the way it stretched him out made my legs tingle. Guys shouldn’t be allowed to look like this, especially ones that live next door to me; it really wasn’t fair to all the other more average-looking guys. I looked up from his muscular calves, over the ridges of his abs to his broad chest. I had to pause for a couple of heated beats when I roamed over the v-shaped indentions at his hipbones disappearing under the towel.

“I see you’ve upgraded your home attire. I approve,” I said softly. My voice sounded raspy. “I don’t have my keys. I was just going to come down here and nap on Cole’s bed till Quinn gets home to let me in.”

He nodded his head but he didn’t say anything and he didn’t move from his position, so I stepped up closer to him. Something in his eyes was different. They were smoldering and oozed sex. I’m not sure what had changed betweennow and when I saw him two minutes ago, but I wasn’t going to question it. If I looked straight ahead, all that was in my line of vision was a hard muscled stomach. I reached out and put my palm against his abs. My hand had a mind of its own as it slowly climbed up his chest. He was looking down at me with a heated stare. When I rose up on my tiptoes, I could trace my hand up past his collarbone, over that sexy shoulder tattoo, to the back of his neck. His lips were slightly parted and I heard the slight hitch in his breath. The tips of my fingers met the ends of his hair on the back of his neck.

He still had one hand up on the top of the doorframe. He lightly brushed the tips of his fingers along my arm on the way down. I reached up my opposite hand to join the other behind his neck. Then I grasped his hair in my hands.

His voice was barely a whisper, “Emerson…”

Once I heard my favorite voice laced in sexual desire, my control was gone. Still up on my toes, I quickly pulled his head down to me, and crushed my lips into his. His hands were staying at his side though. I pushed my body up against his and I could feel how he was reacting to me, so I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t moving beyond kissing me. I wanted to beg him to touch me. I slid one hand back down and grabbed a hold of him through the cotton towel hoping to get my message across. He groaned into my mouth through my lips.