CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Hendrix
I f discomfort was a visual, it would be Jase Gizmodo in the here and now. Lips pulled tight, eyes averting, and hands crumpling up all the wrappers and putting them into the bag.
Anything to avoid me asking why he just said what he said. It was way easier than dealing with life at home.
“Your parents divorced or together?” I ask, taking a shot in the dark.
“Divorced. Dad not around. Just like you. Sucks but... my mom and me, we did our best.”
“Not Nathaniel?”
He winces. “He lived with our dad.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“Why Paul? What was it about him that pulled you to him?”
I stiffen, more because Paul is the last person I want to talk about when I’m sitting here beside him versus his obvious change of subject.
But I’ll give him time. Trust is earned, not given, and for a man who’s in the public eye, no doubt everything he says is up for sale in most cases.
“Paul.” I sigh. “He seemed so well put together while I was all over the place. Worked at a big accounting firm while I was struggling to find my way. He was kind and flirty and made me feel seen when I’d never had that before. In hindsight, I realize that he was good at manipulating situations and controlling narratives so that ‘I’m sorry’ was a constant refrain on my lips even when I knew I’d done nothing wrong. He made me feel like I was never enough, you know? Like everything I did was somehow wrong. But I think that was part of his thing—if you make someone feel inferior, then they’re easier to manipulate and control.”
Jase’s jaw clenches. “He ever hurt you?”
I swallow. “Not physically. No. I’d never allow that.” I say the words but know damn well that emotional abuse can be just as damaging. But I’m working on that. On owning my mistakes, loving who I am, and how I’m not the inadequate woman Paul painted me out to be.
Jase leans forward, presses a kiss to my cheek, and whispers, “If he ever comes to the bakery again, you tell Sammy right away.” His voice is casual, but there’s an edge to it, something protective and sharp that makes my stomach flip for an entirely different reason. “He’ll make sure he’s removed promptly.”
I clear my throat and nod. “Okay. He won’t come back.” Then again, when he finds out that I’m married, he just might. “My turn.”
His lips twitch. “Hit me.”
“Why no girlfriends?”
He smirks, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I don’t do well with relationships.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He exhales, running a hand through his hair. “I push people away. Always have.” His fingers drum against his thigh. “Being in the band... it’s chaotic. It’s loud. I got used to never really letting anyone in.”
I study him. “You let your bandmates in.”
“Yeah.” He grins. “But they’re stuck with me. Contractually.”
I roll my eyes. “So you’re saying I should’ve negotiated a better prenup?”
He smirks. “Might’ve been a good idea. You never know, I might try to take you for all you’re worth when we divorce.”
I throw my head back and laugh. “Take away. You won’t get much.”
“Once you start selling your divorce cookies there will be.”
“What?”
“Divorce cookies. Breakup cookies. I don’t know. We celebrate everything else in life, why not home in on why you started in the first place? Help people celebrate cutting ties and moving on?”
“You have a point.” A very good point. Too bad they’d never sell.
“See I’m good for more than just sex.”
“Are you?” I murmur.
“Are you doubting me, Cookie?”
“I mean, I don’t have much to go off yet,” I tease. He clears the trash out of the way and pulls me onto his lap so that I’m straddling him.
My breath hitches. My heart races.
His eyes meet mine and arch up with the most mischievous gleam.
“Operation Live-A-Little?” I ask.
“No, this one’s called Jase-Needs-A-Lot.” And with that, his mouth crashes down onto mine.
His hands splay across my back, pulling me in against him and then hooking around my shoulders to hold me in place as he kisses me senselessly. Our breaths mingle as tightly as our bodies, but I’m all for drowning in his air.
We might be pretending to be married but this doesn’t feel pretend. The want between us. The need to sate it. The undeniable sparks when his fingers skim over my skin.
Sure, it’s fresh and new and that makes it more exciting but there’s a genuine connection. A camaraderie. It can’t be more than that because we’ve only known each other for a short time, but it’s something for sure.
And when his lips slide down the curve of my neck, when his hands delve beneath my waistband to find me wet for him, whatever my thoughts are on that cease to exist.
Because all I can do is feel. All I can do is want. All I can do is take.
“Someone will see—”
My reluctant protest is stymied by his lips meeting mine and his hands sliding their way up my back to dive into my hair. “No one will notice. It’s dark. And getting caught adds to the thrill.”
“Jase—”
“Are you going to argue or are you going to pull your pants off one leg and ride my cock till we both come?”
Jesus. Well... when he puts it that way.
I stare at him as my heartbeat thunders and my pussy aches fiercely. He must know the minute my desire wins over my concern—it must be written all over my face—because the second he sees it, he dives back in for another kiss.
And that kiss is breath-stealing and desperation-inducing.
There is no turning back if I wanted to because Jase ignites something in me sexually that I’ve never known.
We’re a mass of frenzied movements. Each one getting us closer to the ecstasy I know he can provide my body with.
I’m caught between the chill of the air and the heat of his hands, and I don’t know which is more intoxicating. His fingers work me over, taking their time, dragging out my anticipation until urgency has me sliding my hands beneath his pants and finding his cock. It’s silky and hard and has my own ache sweetening.
I lose myself in the urgency of it. In the taste and feel of him. In the hard lines of his body and the desperation in his own touch as his mouth covers my nipple through my shirt, wetting it with his hot tongue, making me gasp and arch against him.
“Fuck,” I groan, my head falling back as his teeth bite at my nipples and his cock pulses against my hand as I work him up and down.
In several unskilled movements, I have one leg of my pants off and he has his own pushed down around below his hips. I’m straddling him again, one hand threaded through his hair as my mouth takes and takes while the other readies him for me.
His fingers find me wet for him and tease across skin that’s already sensitized from his touch. He tucks two inside me and twists until I’m nothing but a throaty moan holding on tight and begging for more.
“I need you,” I manage between breaths. “Want you.”
“You’re going to remember this,” he says roughly, as his fingers pull out, the feeling of emptiness they leave behind suddenly replaced with his cock. His hands are now on my hips guiding me to sink down slowly onto him.
And once he’s inside me and bottoms out, everything becomes a blur. Motions. Sensations. Muffled cries of pleasure.
The roar of blood in my ears blocks out every other noise except for his murmured praise in my ear.
“Take that cock, Hendrix.”
My world narrows to the man beneath me and the way he fills me so completely.
“Ride me. Fucking ride. Harder. All the way down.”
His teeth graze my collarbone, and I forget how to breathe.
“Fuck, you’re so tight for me. So wet for me. That’s my girl. Just. Like. That.”
I’m right there on the edge, seconds from tumbling over when headlights flash across us.
“Don’t you fucking stop, baby.”
I freeze in fear but it’s too late. I’m already lost to the pleasure and can’t hold back the frantic movements of my hips.
“Fuck, yes,” Jase groans as I grind down on him. “Take it. Every goddamn inch.”
He hooks his arms beneath mine and around my shoulders as he holds me in place, thrusting into me in a relentless rhythm.
I feel him swell inside me seconds before I fall apart around him. My body stills for half a second as my orgasm rips through me, and I throw my head back with an uncontrolled cry of his name.
His hand clamps over my mouth to stifle my cries, but they are still loud in the quiet night, getting lost in the crashing waves feet away.
His other hand wraps around my waist and holds me to him, against him, guiding me up and down as my body spasms around him.
But it’s his body that’s tensing now. It’s his cry out for more as he comes with a fucking sexy, feral groan that has my nipples tightening.
The headlights slow as they pass, and the car’s engine purrs into our awareness just before it zips out of sight.
“Jesus, woman,” he mutters as we both tremble with the aftershocks and our breaths are still hitching. Despite being in a public place, neither of us makes a move to separate or get our pants back on right away.
I rest my forehead on his shoulder as he runs his hand up and down the length of my back.
“I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that was some really good In-N-Out.”
It takes him a second to get the joke.
To snicker.
Then to throw his head back and laugh before grabbing both sides of my face and kissing me appreciatively.
“Yes. It damn well was.”