Chapter 12
North
Juniper’s nervousness is the most gratifying thing I’ve ever seen. And that little red twinge creeping up her neck just from meeting me? I blow out a breath and smile to myself.
She’s pleasure wrapped in a pretty black dress.
I don’t bother hiding my head tilt as I watch her saunter toward the kitchen. The entrance door isn’t the only thing swinging. Her fucking hips… Goddamn it.
My cock is already stirring, more so than it was while keeping an eye on her overnight.
The woman on the other side of the bar clears her throat—Jasmine, I believe I heard Juniper say.
She’s leaning against the countertop and toying with an empty straw wrapper, curling it around her fingers over and over.
The smooth highlight accentuating her cheekbone glimmers against her brown skin from the twinkling lights around the liquor bottle cabinet.
She’s very pretty, and I feel like she’s scrutinizing me harder than anyone ever has.
“Brother, huh?” she asks.
“We did share a womb,” I reply.
A filthy, ice crystal chamber of punishment and reprimands.
“Mmhm,” she mutters. “Rival brothers?”
I know what she’s getting at. “I like to think of us more as the tag team type,” I say, and Jasmine looks like she’s going to smile.
“Just checking.” She pushes off the bar. “What’s your drink?”
“Vodka,” I reply.
Jasmine grabs two shot glasses and fills them. One for her, one for me.
The moment the glass touches my fingertips, it frosts. It’s such a habit that I barely consider controlling it anymore.
Jasmine doesn’t miss it.
She stills, lashes lifting in my direction. I sip my drink as we watch one another, not daring to speak a word, and not bothering to hide what I just did. I wonder if she thinks she’s just imagined it. But the longer we stare at one another, I feel as if she’s putting it all together.
“I was watching the news this morning,” she says, taking my glass and pouring another. “They’re calling for a frost this weekend.”
Blaze would kick me under the table, curse me for the smirk on my lips, and tell me to keep my mouth shut.
However, there’s a reason there are more stories about frost nipping at children’s noses than there are about the both of us.
The Rumpus legend is an island legend. Anywhere else, my brother barely exists.
Something I hope to change.
“Does the frost help or hinder your business?” I ask her.
“Any other weekend it would be a hindrance. This weekend, though… It feeds the legend,” she says, sliding me another drink.
I leer broader and raise my shot glass to hers. “To the legend.”
Jasmine eyes me, but drinks nonetheless. She’s still watching me in the most scrutinizing way when I hear Juniper’s voice from the kitchen. It alerts my ears and shifts my attention. I’m anticipating Juniper coming through the doors at any moment, already salivating at getting to taunt her again.
“Does she know?”
My eyes dart to Jasmine. “Know what?”
She opens her mouth a moment too late. Juniper comes out of the kitchen carrying the food for her table. She glances my way when she exits, and before I get the chance to thoroughly gawk, Jasmine clears her throat.
“You’re as bad as your twin,” she says, shaking her head. “He couldn’t stop staring either.”
“We have similar tastes,” I reply.
“Good thing.”
I can see the amusement in her eyes.
“She doesn’t believe in you two, you know,” she adds.
Interesting.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I reply.
I wink when Jasmine gives me a pursed lip look. She doesn’t say anything more as Juniper, at long last, makes her way behind the bar. She frowns between the two of us, clearly curious as to what we were just discussing.
“I’m scared to ask.”
“Just chatting,” Jasmine tells her. “I’m going to do some paperwork. Give me a shout if you need backup.”
“Will do,” Juniper replies. She glances between me and the vodka shot as Jasmine walks away. A twinge of pink remains on her cheeks and throat, and I’m wondering how far below the neckline of her dress it goes.
“I missed you,” I say, making her smile.
“I didn’t know you could miss someone you’ve only just met,” she replies.
“You’ve never had a feeling of something missing? Something that you didn’t know you craved until it was just within reach?” I ask.
She considers me for a moment before grabbing a tall glass and filling it up with ice and water. “Tell me something, Jax. Why did Nick not tell me you were his twin?”
“Must have slipped his mind,” I reply.
“No other reason? Not because the two of you don’t like each other?”
“Did he tell you we didn’t?” I ask.
“No.”
“Perhaps he meant to keep you to himself at first,” I say.
She blinks, and her stammer is astoundingly wonderful to see.
“What does that mean?” she asks.
I smile and sink my elbows onto the bar, leaning in. “My brother and I learned early on that working together always came with a much sweeter outcome than the alternative.”
The drink she’s filling is dangerously close to the top.
“So… he isn’t keeping me from you now?”
I slowly shake my head, and I can feel my devious smirk reach my eyes. She’s floundering for questions that skirt around the one she really wants to ask.
“Unless you’d like for this to be our second secret,” I suggest.
Water spills over the edge of the glass and hits her hand. She jumps and quickly backs up. The spray nozzle falls onto the closed ice bin, clanking loudly.
“Shit!” she exclaims, reaching for a towel. “God, you… Both of you. I should ban you both from the bar for being such distractions,” she says as she starts wiping up the water.
I chuckle and stand, gesturing for her to give me the towel. “Here—”
“I can get it. I do it all the time,” she argues.
“Juniper.”
Juniper pauses at my tone, and while she eyes me apprehensively, she hands off a clean towel nonetheless. I slowly drag it through the water that’s traveled across the bar top, and she takes the opportunity to wipe off her hands and dress where the sprayer clicked on when it hit the ice.
“If I ever meet your mother, I’d like to thank her for teaching the both of you at least a few manners,” she says after a minute.
The sentence burns, and I feel my playfulness die entirely.
Juniper catches it.
“Oh,” she says, brows lifting. “That’s… not a fun subject, I see.”
“Not entirely, no. It’s worse for B—Nick,” I manage, nearly slipping up. “He would never admit it, though.”
“No, he doesn’t seem like the type. You, however…” She crooks a smile my way, and I chuckle under my breath.
“Caught my scheme already, have you?” I ask.
“I did, but I’d still like to hear it,” she says.
I slide the wet towel across the bar and take a seat. “I think I’d rather find out how much you and that towel have in common first.”
Her eyes widen. She looks like she’s going to burst into laughter at any moment.
It’s painful how attracted I am to her.
“Wow, you have no shame,” she says.
“Should I?” I ask. “I thought shame was a weakness.”
“It usually keeps people humble,” she retorts. “Something tells me you probably sneeze at the word.”
“I am allergic, yes,” I say.
Juniper giggles and shakes her head. The front door opens then, revealing two couples who look around the bar like it’s their first time inside. Juniper sighs and swipes the towel over the last bit of water on the bar.
“Hey, how’s it going, guys?” she says loudly. “Take a seat anywhere. I’ll be right there.”
She tosses the dirty towels into the bin and then braces her palms against the bar top, eyes meeting mine.
“Are you going to be here all night?” she asks.
“Until you kick me out,” I reply.
She smiles softly, pink back on her cheeks. “Then you have to go sit at that table with Jasmine. Can’t take up a paying seat if you’re just here to flirt.”
I huff and nod, standing from the stool. “Banished to the corner. You know, I don’t think I’ll recover from this level of humiliation. You have officially tormented me, darling. The first, ever.”
She chews on her bottom lip for a beat like she’s trying not to smile wider. “This isn’t torment. This is you practicing patience. Something I’m pretty sure you’ve never had to deal with before.”
“You’re right. I am not a patient man,” I admit.
The look in her eyes darkens as she shakes her head. “You are… something.”
“My favorite compliment.”
She regards me again, eyes darting over my entire figure as I straighten. A sly look rises in her gaze, and I’m suddenly wary of her.
“What?” I ask.
“I was just thinking about that word. Torment,” she replies.
I stare at her, body rejecting whatever plan she’s coming up with to tease me the rest of the night. “No,” I say, getting what she’s thinking. “Do not—”
“It is really getting hot in here,” she says, fanning herself.
I will freeze the entire room and fuck you against the bar as it thaws.
—is what I want to tell her.
Because if she plans on testing me all night in something other than this already little black dress, I may have to walk away.
Only she’s irresistible and wholly consuming.
An innocent little smile graces her lips. She steps around the bar, taps Jasmine on the shoulder to tell her she’ll be right back, and then disappears around the corner.
I assess the rest of the room, now concerned with whether I’ll be able to keep my sanity the rest of the night.
“Go sit,” Jasmine says, walking behind me toward the table that’s just sat. “I’ll bring you something.”
She throws a grin at me as she strides off, and it breaks me out of my stunned daze.
Where did Juniper go?
I’m still looking around for her when I take a seat at the table Jasmine has her accounting books strewn across.
One of the bills catches my attention, and I’m perusing the numbers when I see a figure walk out from where I assume the bathrooms are.
I peer over my glasses to find Juniper walking from around the corner with an excitement in her eyes.
Our gazes meet, and she crooks a finger my way.
I don’t bother seeing if anyone else is paying attention to us before practically jumping to my feet.
She’s leaning against the wall when I reach her, and as I begin to encroach her space, she dangles a black piece of fabric in my face.
The lace instantly catches my attention. I initially balk at the fabric, but as I realize what she’s giving me, a smile spreads instead.
Her very warm, damp, underwear.
God, I’m already salivating by the time I have them in my hands.
Would it be weird to bury my face in them right here?
“You know, yesterday, your brother wouldn’t let me wear any underwear for the rest of the night after he fucked my brains out in the bathroom,” she says.
My eyes shoot straight to her face.
She fucking knows what that just did to me, too. I know it because of the little wiggle of her brows, the way she’s dragging her tongue along her lips.
Challenge accepted.
“That was what patience did for him after he made me wait,” she goes on.
“Today, though, you get to wait. You get to hang on to my very wet panties while I work, and each time you look at me, I want you to imagine how you could have been the one tearing them off with your teeth had you just used a little restraint.”
I chuckle as I toy with the lace. “Are you trying to make me jealous?” I ask.
“Is it working?”
The thought makes me scoff. “My brother likes to follow a certain set of rules. I do not. So I’ll gladly keep these, and later, when you’re finally free from this shift, you’ll learn exactly why taunting me like this is going to have you regretting it.
” I lean closer and kiss the tip of her nose.
“Save that craving for romance for him, darling. I’ll be the one fulfilling your most wicked desires. ”
“Beg me for the opportunity first,” she whispers.
Our eyes meet, and in a flash, I know I’ve met my match.
Finally.
I incline my head towards hers. There’s nothing more to say. I just need that promise sealed. I need to savor her. Bend her backward until she begs me to stop. Take her through orgasm after orgasm until she passes out on me.
Our lips brush, however the moment my chest collapses and I think I’ve got her in my grasp, she pulls away.
I nearly fall into the wall.
My forehead meets the paneling, and I curse under my breath. She tosses a smirk at me over her shoulder, making a rough breath leave my lungs.
I’ll wait.
I’ll beg.
I’ll get on my knees.
My brother was right. She might be worth it.