Lead (Stage Dive, #3)(71)

“We need to talk,” he said.

Were there any other words quite so dreaded in all of the human language? I didn’t think I’d done anything, but still …

“About your mom?” I asked hopefully.

“No.” His eyes shuttered. “Nothing to be done about that. She’s played her card and I just want to forget about her now.”

Which was more than fair. “All right. What then?”

“You made up your mind whether you’re going out with Dean again or not?”

This wasn’t so bad. I tapped the silver spoon against my lips, giving it some thought. Our first date had gone so well but then I had run out on him last night. Then there was the one that I forgot because I was out getting ice cream with Jimmy. Odds were, he had no interest in seeing me again.

“I think not,” I said. “He’s a great guy, but … maybe under different circumstances, you know? In another life.”

“Whatever. We need to talk about point five on your list. Point four isn’t working out, so let’s give up on you dating.”

“Hmm.” I set the spoon down in my disappointingly still empty dish. “There wasn’t a point five on my list. There were only four, date other people, focus on your flaws, don’t be pathetic, and get a life, etcetera.”

“Yeah, I made up number five. That list you found was complete and utter bullshit.”

“I’m beginning to come to the same conclusion.”

There was something different about him. A strange sort of tension running through him. He sat forward, elbows on the table, foot tapping out a beat beneath. I could hear it, the constant noise matching the overeager rhythm of my heart. Let’s pretend the sugar rush from the soufflé stirred me up as opposed to the company I was keeping.

“So?” I prodded. “Are you going to tell me what this mysterious point five is?”

“We f*ck.”

Everything stopped.

Jimmy stared back at me, totally calm.

This couldn’t be happening.

No. This wasn’t right.

“Get out of here!” I laughed, sitting back in my chair. “God, you nearly had me there for a minute.”

“I’m serious.”

“Sure you are.” I rolled my eyes, shook my head, still laughing.

“Thank about it. All dating did was depress the hell out of both of us. And if I’m being entirely honest, I’m feeling a little sexually frustrated too these days. Not to give you TMI Lena, but I haven’t jerked off this much since … ever.”

I laughed.

And I laughed some more.

And then I stopped laughing because Jimmy’s expression hadn’t changed. Not one iota. He just sat there, sizing me up with his cool blue eyes, his mouth a straight, seemingly sincere, line.

“This is a joke,” I croaked on account of my throat closing.

“No. No joke. I say we try f*cking to get it out of our system.”

“No joke?” But it had to be. Christ, I couldn’t breathe. Air, I needed air immediately.

Jimmy pushed back his chair, the legs shrieking across the marble. He walked around the table and pulled me up, his hands beneath my arms. “Breathe, Lena. You’re turning blue.”

At his command my lungs kicked into high gear, filling with oxygen. Doing what they ought to. A strong hand rubbed up and down my spine, encouraging. He pushed my chair aside, the solid bulk of him standing directly behind me, warming me.

“You all right?” he asked, leaning over my shoulder.

I nodded.

He didn’t move away. The hand rubbing my back didn’t stop. Man, that felt nice.

“You, ah … you kind of surprised me,” I said.

“Hmm.”

“You’re really … you want to …” I couldn’t say it. The words tangled, making it impossible to get them out.

“Why not? I see it as a win-win situation. I get to release some of my frustration and you get to release any lingering feelings messing with your head. We f*ck, we see we don’t have chemistry, we move on. Or even better, everything falls apart like it normally does and you’re happy just going back to being friends. What do you say?”

To have, or not to have, sex with Jimmy. A bit of a no brainer. “Sure, why not?”

He straightened, removing himself from view. His presence though could never be doubted. The man was magnetic, his heat and hard flesh pulling me in. The way he opened himself to me and told me his secrets, the way he gave me his trust, it all drew me closer. The temptation to lean back against him was almost overwhelming. Carefully, he undid my ponytail, spilling my dark hair across my shoulders.

He twirled a strand around his finger, rubbing his thumb back and forth across it. “Like your hair.”

“Thank you.”

Slowly, he unwound my hair from his finger. His hand slid to the base of my spine and then went lower, over my ass, down to the edge of my red jersey dress. Never had one limb’s journey been so important. Goose flesh covered my back and it wasn’t from any chill.

“And I like you in red,” he said, brushing his lips against the tip of my ear.

“Do you?” I was just happy I wasn’t in sweats. The too-sexy-for-words medical boot, bright blue with white straps across the front, was bad enough.