87. Chapter 87
“You still don’t know?” Lindsey asked. A drop of sweat trickled down the center of her back.
“You could have anybody. And I mean anybody,” Jase said.
“Who is it you think I should want?” she asked.
“I’m not that guy, Linds. Now, Charlie, he’s that guy. He’s what you need to find. You deserve that guy.”
“Did you and Graham plan this? How to get rid of me by claiming I can do better? What’s so great about that guy?”
“He’s going to settle down and take care of you, and all the boyfriend shit. I can’t, Linds.”
“What makes you so incapable?”
“I don’t belong here,” Jase shouted. He lifted the glass to his lips and said quietly, “I don’t belong anywhere.”
“That’s just a story you keep telling yourself. You can have everything you want.”
“The money? Did Helen come back?”
“Everything except that,” she whispered.
“Fuck,” he screamed, throwing his drink. The glass shattered and bourbon dripped down the wall.
“Jase—”
He spun on her.
“The money’s gone, and my dad’s gone, and I’ll never get him back. I’ll never be that man. I’ll never be my father, no matter how long I live here playing house with you.”
“Playing house,” Lindsey said quietly. “Is that what we’re doing?”
“What did you think it was?”
What did she think it was? Until that very moment, when the man towering over her with fire in his eyes was someone she didn’t recognize, she thought that he cared for her. Deeply. That love was possible if he allowed himself to fall.
She thought Jason Sr. saw something in her that his son would eventually see, and it would be enough to open Jase’s eyes to inviting her into his life.
She felt very stupid for thinking it. For making a scraggly tree of futures and leaving her heart dangling like a leaf about to fall from it. Jase was just playing house.
This man hated himself too much to love someone else.
Her voice trembled. “Absolutely nothing.”
He nodded, turning away with the tight, arrogant shoulders of an asshole who thought he’d won.
“You fucking coward.”
There wasn’t time to brace herself when he whipped around. The force of his violent kiss would’ve knocked her down if he hadn’t clenched the hair at the sides of her face and held her on his mouth.
She shoved him away and sucked in a breath.
“Stop it,” she hissed, staggering back.
“Do you want me to stop?”
He caught fistfuls of her dress before she slapped his head to the side.
“Fuck you,” she screamed. Control lost. Sense gone. Lindsey latched onto his collar and pulled his mouth down. The kiss was a messy smashing of tongues and teeth.
This wasn’t like the other times—not even yesterday’s angry tryst that left marks on Lindsey’s neck and red lines down Jase’s back. This was jerky, needy hands pawing, pulling at clothes and skin, teeth scraping, animalistic desperation.
I’ll never be that man. I’ll never be my father, no matter how long I live here playing house with you.
She hated him. Lindsey tore at his shirt and scratched her nails down his arms to his belt. He grunted as she wrenched the leather strap free and unsnapped his pants. She hated the heat pooling between her legs. How her body ached for the hardness her fingers reached for.
Jase set her on the workbench. His hand disappeared up her dress, slipping underneath her panties and inside her body without any preamble or warning. He wasn’t gentle.
“You want me to stop now?” he asked as she choked on a moan.
The hatred she felt should’ve been enough to walk away.
She should want him to stop, knowing he would never love her.
But she wanted his anger. She’d take his grief and rage and anything else he was willing to give, knowing underneath the pain and loathing was the Jase Young who’d twirled her onstage last night. Who’d sang with her.
Who had chosen her.
She hooked an ankle around his leg and forced his fingers deeper. His lips pulled back, watching, waiting for a sign that the three fingers stretching her were punishment enough to push him away. Proof he’d ruined her the way he ruined everything else he touched.
She wouldn’t give it to him. Lindsey writhed on him, taking him.
Savoring the stinging slices of his fingers skimming the edge between pleasure and pain, intent on testing the line herself.
Lindsey shoved her hands down his pants and gripped his cock until his face pinched, and he pulled down the front of her dress and bra.
“Is this how you want it?” he asked, sucking hard on her nipple, still pushing. Punishing.
“I want you.” She gasped and closed her eyes at the sharp bite of his teeth that sent a shockwave through her center.
I want you to want me the way I want you. I want you to need me. I want to be enough.
“You want me to what?”
“I just want you,” she cried.
His fingers went still. For a moment their heaving breaths filled the quiet garage. Jase’s head dropped to her chest, where he must’ve felt her heart hammering against her ribs.
“Fuck.” It was less a word and more a sound scraped from his throat.
Lindsey opened her eyes and saw that his were red and dazed, as if he’d just woken from a dream.
“Lindsey,” he choked out. His fingers pulled out of her.
“Don’t stop,” she pleaded, coaxing his cock in her hand. If he backed up a single step, he’d walk away forever.
Jase swallowed what looked like a few tortured breaths and cupped her cheek.
Tracing her bottom lip with his thumb, he whispered, “Lindsey, look at me.”
She did, and it was agony. Behind the placid mask of the man who always left, and the angry man full of hatred and self-loathing, was a boy, lost. She’d seen him this way before—the first time when they spent the night in the car in Lake Havasu City and Jase admitted his dad had been his only real friend—but never as vulnerable and exposed as this.
No one had been around when his dad got sick to keep Jase from falling off the side of his own cliff. Lindsey’s outstretched hand now might be too late to save him.
“Jase,” she whispered. Tears brimmed as she brushed back his hair. “What are you so afraid of?”
His mouth opened. She almost thought he’d answer. He curled his hand around the back of her neck and their foreheads met. It felt…it felt like goodbye. She was going to be sick. This couldn’t be the end. This was not the finale she was promised—
Jase tilted her head back and kissed her. Slowly. Passionately. If she was writing this torturous, confusing scene, she’d say his tongue explored hers as if he’d never tasted her mouth before. It was less a goodbye and more a…an apology.
He reached up her dress carefully, tenderly, and came back down with her panties. Then he put his hands on her knees and spread them open.
She guided the tip of his penis to her and Jase stopped her hand.
Watching her intently, he lowered himself to his knees in front of her, lifted her dress over his head, and bowed.