I Wish You Were Mine (Oxford #2)(82)

“Goodbye, Madison.”

She spun around as he started to walk away. “Jackson! The car’s the other way.”

He ignored her. Kept walking.

“Jackson!”

He didn’t stop. Not until he reached the ticket counter.

He waited patiently in line, ignoring the stares and whispers of the people around him. Suddenly he missed New York. Missed the anonymity and the fact that he didn’t have to be Jackson Burke there. He could just be Jackson. Or Burke. He could just be one of the guys—one of the Oxford guys. But more important—most important—he could be Mollie’s.

If she’d have him.

“Next in line,” called a harassed-looking airline employee.

Jackson stepped up to the counter as he pulled out his wallet. “Yes, I’d like a one-way ticket to New York, please.”





Chapter 32


Mollie turned up the music in Jackson’s place as loud as it would go in an attempt to drown out the silence.

Riley had heard through the Oxford/Stiletto grapevine that he was gone for the weekend, so Mollie had headed over to pack up her stuff.

Not that she had a place to move to yet. She was still in Riley’s guest room, still trying to navigate the crazy world of the New York rental market. But at least this way, her stuff would be packed and easy for the movers to pick up once she found a place. And this way she wouldn’t have to see him.

Not that he was trying to see her.

She hadn’t heard from him. Not once.

And though her fingers had itched to text him every single one of the days they’d been apart, she’d resisted.

She’d talk to him again someday. Hell, maybe someday they’d even be friends again. She hoped so. But until her heart healed, she needed distance. And her heart wasn’t even close to healing.

Moving into the closet, Mollie scooped an armful of shirts off the rack and then unceremoniously dropped them into a box on the bed, hangers still attached. She repeated the move with her pants and shoved everything down. Deciding there was room for a few more things, she turned back toward the closet.

Then she saw him and yelped.

“Holy crap, Jackson,” she said, putting a hand over her pounding heart. “You can’t just loiter in the doorway of a woman’s bedroom.”

His brow lifted. “Loitering? I live here.”

She stared at him, and he stared back.

“You’re supposed to be in Texas.”

“I know.” He didn’t smile. Didn’t explain.

He looked good. Better than good. Jeans, a long-sleeved white T-shirt, brown boots. He looked like a Texan. It was a good reminder. A necessary reminder, since she was this close to flinging herself into his arms and begging him to take her with him.

She didn’t want to go with him. Even if he’d asked her to go, this was her home. This was her life.

But it didn’t matter. Because he hadn’t asked.

And yet he was here…

Jackson moved into her bedroom, barely glancing at her as he scanned the moving boxes. He walked toward the bed and gestured at the one she had just filled.

“This one ready to go?”

“Um…,” she said, thoroughly confused. Was he seriously going to help her pack? It could have been nice—might have been, had she not recently told him she loved him, only to be met with utter, terrible silence.

He glanced at her, pointed down at the box, and lifted his eyebrows.

“Yeah, it’s mostly good to go. I was just—”

She didn’t finish her sentence because he was already lifting the box and carrying it out of her bedroom.

“Jackson!” She followed him. “Wait, your shoulder—”

“I can handle a box of clothes,” he said, not turning around. “But for your giant vibrator, we’re calling the guys.”

Mollie was expecting him to carry the box to the front door, as though to get her out of his home all the sooner, but instead he walked into his bedroom.

“Wait—Jackson!”

She dashed after him just as he carried the box into his closet. “What the hell are you doing?”

He didn’t answer as he reached into the box, grabbed the hooks of a few hangers, and lifted her clothes out. Without so much as glancing at her, he hung them on the empty side of his closet as she watched with a slack jaw.

He bent to repeat the move with more of her clothes, and she reached out, knocking them from his hand. “Stop it. What are you doing?”

Jackson straightened, his hazel eyes meeting hers. “Moving you in.”

“To your bedroom?”

“Obviously.”

He started to reach for the clothes again, and she knocked them down once more. “Would you stop? This isn’t funny. This isn’t fair.”

Jackson picked up her clothes, and this time when her hand shot out, he was ready for it, holding her wrist with one hand as he hung her clothes with the other.

“You’re not actually suggesting I live here after you leave, are you?” she said. “Because if this is some guilty-conscience thing, you can take your guilt and shove—”

Jackson jerked her toward him, her knees bumping awkwardly into the moving box just moments before his mouth closed over hers.

It wasn’t a hard kiss, but it wasn’t particularly soft either. It was just perfect. The perfect amount of sweet and hot, and…