Sizzle (Bad Boy Rockers) (Volume 1)(28)

"Thalia, please look at me."

"I can't," I whispered, shaking my head.

He sighed and put his coffee on the floor then stood moving to sit on the coffee table in front of me. "This thing between us isn't going to just disappear."

"There isn't anything between us," I quickly replied, my gaze darting away from his face as I tried to avoid looking at him.

He reached out and took hold of my hand. I felt like I'd been hit with a bolt of electricity and my gaze flew back to his face; my eyes widened in shock.

I couldn’t hide my reaction.

"Tell me now there isn't anything between us."

Holding his gaze I didn’t want to move, but I knew I couldn't stay out here with him. Standing up, he stood with me. "I need to go. This is wrong. I shouldn't feel like this when I'm with you. We only met forty-eight hours ago."

I turned to leave, but he grasped my arm, his fingers digging into my skin, but it didn’t hurt.

"Don't go. Please, just sit out here with me."

How could I resist him? Could we get away with sitting out here together without anyone catching us?

"I feel it too, Thalia. I know what my future holds, but for once, I want something for me that doesn't involve my family. I want something that’s just for me, and what I want right now is to be with you."

I melted. There were no other words for what he did to me.

Sitting back on the swing, he sat with me and slid his arm around my shoulders causing shivers to run through me.

If this was the only chance I would ever have of being close to this guy, I was going to enjoy it. Give myself a memory I could cherish forever.

Before I could change my mind, I leaned in and snuggled into him, sliding my hand over his stomach, which quivered and let it rest on his chest. After a brief pause, he wrapped his other arm around me and held me tight, as I curled my feet under me.

I sighed and closed my eyes. Heaven.





Chapter 21


Jack


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Holding her tight, I used my other hand and laced my fingers with Thalia’s on my chest as we both snuggled on the porch swing. She felt real good against me, as though she’d been made for me. Like she’d said, we’d only met less than two days ago, but I felt like I’d known her for a lot longer.

With everyone else, I managed to keep them at a distance, apart from Reece and Donovan, but from the get go, with Thalia, I’d been different.

My days during the summer were spent as a run-around at my dad’s law firm. The same law firm my dad expected me to become a partner in, once I graduated. It was so not going to happen, because my interest lay in criminal law and the justice system – a lot more going on. Family law would bore the shit out of me within a week. My ambition was the reason I’d been thrown together with Mia. Actually, blackmailed would be a more apt description.

Every time I thought about the wedding, I broke out in a sweat. I kept telling myself that we could marry, live separately and then once I’d graduated we could divorce, but I didn’t think it was going to work out like that.

The biggest hurdle was my family. At the end of the day they were family and you only got the one. Did I have the balls to stand up to them once and for all by cancelling the wedding? Would my father really hold my tuition fees back if I did?

With a heavy sigh, I looked at Thalia who was watching me silently.

“Why do you look so sad?”

“Just thinking,” I replied, bringing our joined hands to my lips where I placed a kiss on her knuckles and wrist.

“Jack, you need to stop,” she said, shivering.

With my eyes closed, I took a deep breath. When I opened them again her eyes were still focused on mine. “I know. I forget about everything when you look at me.” I let go of her hand and brushed some hair from her face, which had fallen loose from her ponytail.

“Tell me about Jack; about growing up here.”

I laughed. “You sure you want to know, you might not like me afterwards.”

“How I feel won’t change with the telling of your past. I promise.” She said then kissed my stomach. Any lower and she’d have discovered just how much I didn’t want to talk.

“I had a fairly normal childhood. Constantly getting in trouble for not doing chores, forgetting I was supposed to be keeping an eye on Liam, kissing girls in the barn, you know that kind of thing.”

I could feel her laughing against my stomach.

“I can believe all that. What else?”

No one had ever asked about my past before, not even in college.

“I love being outdoors and take every opportunity to be out in the fields, or fishing with one of the guys. I still find enjoyment from being out on my bike, even though I seem to use that to let out my frustration these days. I love using the tractor on the field and the love of my life to date is my horse, Trigger.”

“Trigger?”

Smiling at the memory, I continued, “Yeah, when I was a kid I used to watch these black and white movies with my granddad about Roy Rogers and his horse Trigger. My grandfather died two days before Trigger was born so...”

“So you named the horse in your grandfather’s memory. That was a lovely thing to do, Jack.”