97. Chapter 97
“Whoa, okay, hold on.”
She pushed him off her mouth. Once Jase got his tongue involved, Lindsey bade farewell to common sense.
“I am pissed at you,” she said.
He backed up a step and frowned. “I know.”
If he thought he could kiss her, then he really didn’t know.
“You left,” she shot back. “You chose me and then you left.”
“I did, and I came back.”
“Oh, no. No, no, no,” Lindsey seethed. “Your dad always pulled that on me. He said he came back as if it erased all the pain he caused by leaving. It doesn’t. Not even close.”
Jason Sr. had also bought Theresa a house—a giant, two-story apology, which was now Lindsey’s giant, two-story apology—but she didn’t mention that.
“I don’t think it should,” Jase said. “But I’m standing here in front of you.”
“For how long?” she asked quietly.
“It depends,” he said.
“On what? If I send my dad after you?”
He blinked. “Did he tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“Your dad,” Jase said. “He might’ve kicked my ass a little. Not that I didn’t need it.”
“What are you talking about?”
The patio? She thought her dad had gone easy on Jase for sticking up for her.
“I’ll tell you about it sometime. You’ve got some big, scary, loyal men in your corner.” Jase moved closer until she had to look up to meet his eyes. “Lindsey, I’m here now because I lied.”
“Oh no,” she mumbled. How much more was he going to throw at her?
“When we played the truth game, and I said I wasn’t afraid of anything.” Jase shook his head, licked his lips. “I was lying. Then you asked me yesterday, and I…”
“What?”
“It’s you. Being with you scares me. There’s a million ways I can fuck it up. Hurting you, losing you? Terrifying.”
“You did both of those things yesterday.”
“I know. I thought I was doing you a favor. Hurt you one last time so it never happened again.”
“That’s so stupid.” Lindsey sighed.
“Hey, I’m doing my best here.”
“What do you want, Jase?”
“You,” he said without hesitation. It was unfair how one three-letter word, much like his wizard tongue, could send her self-preservation packing. “For as long as you’ll have me.”
“And what?” she shot back. “You think you can just roll up here with a leather jacket and an apology and I’ll forget everything?”
“No,” he said, refusing to rise to her level of intensity. For once in their time together, Jase was the picture of calm. “What do you want? From me? Whatever it is, I’ll do my damnedest to give it.”
“Boyfriend things,” she said.
“What?” He looked confused, as if he expected her to demand a kidney.
“You asked what I want,” she said. “I want boyfriend things.”
“Okay.” His Adam’s apple bobbed with a swallow. “Like getting you coffee? Combing your hair?”
She spurted out a laugh. “Combing my hair?”
“How the hell should I know?” he exclaimed. “I’m struggling here. You’re asking a guy who’s never been a boyfriend to do boyfriend things. I want to make sure I get it right.”
“Let’s start small. Let’s start with—” She stopped and sighed. “You not driving away without telling me.”
For a moment, he looked down, and all she could see of his eyes were the thick lashes covering them. He stepped closer, until his chest brushed against hers and she could smell the spicy soap from the upstairs shower, mixed with the old leather of his jacket.
He exhaled a warm breath on her chin. “How about not driving away without you?”
His proximity as much as his words were thieves—of her breath, of her sanity, of the last threads of her self-control.
“That…that would be acceptable.”
“Okay.”
He nodded and lowered his lips to hers. It was the only part of their bodies firmly touching, and the slow opening of his mouth, the gentle, deliberate sweep of his tongue past her lips, were enough to light her up like a Christmas tree.
The writer in her hated the analogy.
The woman felt her arms, legs, and torso lighting, one after another, until her whole body was bright and twinkling.
He pulled back as slowly and deliberately as he’d come, and her lips followed.
“More of this,” she whispered. “Lots more of this.”
“Okay.”
She meant now, but he didn’t move in for another kiss or touch her with any other part of his body.
“And that thing you did yesterday in the garage?”
“You mean before your dad caught us?”
“Yes,” Lindsey said. His head bobbing beneath her dress was quickly, shamelessly becoming one of her favorite views. “I think we need to do that every day for at least the next few weeks.” She tipped her head, remembering who she was talking to. “Unless future plans are too scary.”
“I’ll get on my knees for you every day,” he said. “It’s my favorite way to apologize.”
She shrugged. “If you didn’t fuck up in the first place.”
His eyes widened at her casual use of one of his favorite curse words. “Let’s just assume I will, and you’ll reap the benefits of my mistakes.”
“Jase? Kiss me again.”
“You got it.”
This time, his hands wound into her hair, and she sank into him. This wasn’t Jase drunk and a little rough or Jase the practiced hand. This was a man raw and greedy, choosing her with his mouth and the hands fisting all the hair off her back and neck in the middle of the street.
Coming up for air, he said, “You’re shaking.”
She was, and it wasn’t just the kiss weakening her knees.
“I’m terrified,” she admitted.
“Me too.”
“One more thing,” she said.
“You’re pushing it now, Sundress,” he teased, unspooling his hands from her hair.
Sundress. Another word that whipped her up unfairly and could be loosely translated as bedroom.
“If we’re in a fight, or just in general, but especially if we’re in a fight—”
“What makes you think we’re going to fight?”
She rocked back. “You just admitted you’re going to fuck up. A lot.”
“Just so I can go down on you.”
“As if you need an excuse.”
He considered this, then said, “Fine. Okay. We’ll fight.”
“Text me back,” she said.
“That’s it?”
“If it’s not too much trouble.”
Jase reached into the pocket of his jeans. “Then I’m going to do a very boyfriend thing right now.”
“Is that…” The cell phone he held was shiny, black, and bigger than hers. “What happened to the paperweight?”
“I’ve still got a couple days on it. It’s junk.” Jase swiped his hand on the screen of his new smartphone. “I didn’t think you’d buy it if I said I didn’t get your text because my phone died.”
“Oh my gosh, not you too?”
She’d texted with Helen last night about Graham’s grand entrance at Austin International. How they’d cried and kissed and gone back to Helen’s apartment.
How a dead battery almost convinced two adults their relationship was over, followed by about a dozen eyeroll emojis.
“What?” Jase asked.
“You and your brother both—” Lindsey started, then waved it away. “Never mind.”
Jase pressed the phone’s side buttons and still couldn’t get into it.
“Give it to me,” Lindsey said.
“No.” He playfully batted her hand. “I’ve got to learn.”
Finally, he swiped one finger up from the bottom, put in code 1111—they were going to have to have a security conversation—and handed it to her. “Put your number in.”
It wouldn’t have been a momentous moment with any other man, but Jase Young handing her a smartphone to enter the very first contact card was comparable to signing a short lease for an apartment or buying tickets for a concert five months away.
She handed it back, and he smiled seeing she entered her name as Sundress. Jase made a show of pressing the green button to call her, and Lindsey’s phone chimed in her pocket. She answered and he asked into his phone, “What are your plans today?”
“Closing up my apartment,” she said into hers. “Then going home.”
“To Youngstown?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
He nodded. “Want to take the long way?”
Jase ended the call and offered her the helmet he brought for her. She pulled it on over her hair and he tightened the straps, his brow furrowed with concentration. The ultimate boyfriend thing if that boyfriend was a biker.
“You’re sure?” she asked.
Jase swung his leg over the bike, put up the kickstand, and looked over his shoulder at her.
“Get on, Sundress. I’ve got a lot more apologizing to do.”
Her stomach dropped as she tipped over the edge of the cliff she’d been running toward ever since she started falling for Jase Young. She climbed on and nestled into his back. The free fall was terrifying, but a little less deadly with a parachute made of hard muscles and leather.
She hadn’t told him about the letters Jason packed beneath the jacket with envelopes addressed to names she didn’t recognize. There would be time later, now that Jase was here.
And she didn’t tell him about the note. It wasn’t the jacket that sent her chasing after Jase. It was four little words written in Jason’s scrawl on a small, white card.
For your alternate beginning.