Chapter 6 Jamie
JAMIE
Before the date, a part of me doubted that he didn’t know who I was.
He never asked for my last name, and while Jamie was a common enough name, it wasn’t that common.
But it seemed like he actually didn’t know who I was, and didn’t seem to care to find out.
I wondered if he treated all his dates with the same disinterest.
Something about the thought left a heavy weight in my stomach that I couldn’t explain.
Though I did learn something about him.
He wasn’t close to his family—not his brother and not his parents.
But not being close to his family didn’t mean he wasn’t deeply entrenched in his family’s business.
I looked down at his hands as he expertly cut into the steak and brought the morsel of meat to his mouth.
I imagined his hands—much like my brother’s and my father’s—had been drenched in other men’s blood countless times.
He was dangerous.
I wasn’t unaware of that fact when I asked him out, but there was just something about him that didn’t make me feel fearful.
I was a stupid girl.
I should fear him, and I did… to an extent.
But I was feeling calm now.
We finished our meals mostly in silence. Then the server brought out the bill, and Reign, without missing a beat, pointed at me.
Bastard.
The server seemed surprised, but still placed the bill down in front of me.
I was too fucking stunned to really say anything.
It wasn’t like buying him dinner would bankrupt me, but in the very few dates I had been on, the men had always paid.
Hell, even Preston had always paid when it was just the two of us.
He offered me a cheeky smile when he met my eyes. I didn’t say anything as I pulled out my card and placed it in the bill presenter.
The server quickly came back and grabbed it without saying a word.
He really was unbelievable.
I stood up as soon as I paid the bill, and Reign followed suit.
He wrapped his arm around my waist as we made our way out of the restaurant.
I let him, mostly because I didn’t want to draw the attention of the crowd, but the bastard got brave and moved his hand down to my butt, squeezing a little just as we got outside into the cold winter air.
I stuttered in my steps and turned to him, slapping his chest and pushing him away.
“Really?”
“What?” he asked innocently.
Innocent, he was not.
“You made me pay for dinner, then cop a feel?”
He smiled, showing off a straight row of white teeth. My eyes took in the prominent canines before I looked back into his eyes.
“My hand slipped.”
“And I’m sure the squeeze was unintentional.”
“Exactly,” he said, moving in closer to me. Before I could process what was happening, he had his arms wrapped around me in a big bear hug.
I tensed as the feeling of ants crawling all over my body came on. I tried to push him away, but his grip was strong.
“What are you doing?” I asked, trying to kick him in the shin. He must have expected it because he dodged the move.
“Hugging you. I’m cold, so let me stay like this for a while.”
“You’re not cold. Get off me, you bastard.”
He only tightened his arms around me. Then I felt his lips on the top of my head.
Did he… Did he just kiss me there?
“Thanks for dinner, sweetheart,” he said softly before pulling away.
I glared at him.
He moved around me and to my car. “Come on. Take me home. Unless you want another hug.”
“I don’t want another hug,” I muttered, unlocking the car and moving over to the driver’s side.
“Are you sure?” Reign asked me as soon as he was settled. “I’ve been told I am the world’s best hugger.”
“Who told you that? Previous girlfriends?”
“Nah, I don’t do the girlfriend thing.”
I moved back at his words. He didn’t do the girlfriend thing?
“Then what was the point of this? ’Cause it sure as hell won’t be fucking. I don’t do that with men who aren’t committed to me.”
“I can commit to you.”
“Sure, you can,” I said, the sarcasm heavy in my voice.
He grinned.
I rolled my eyes and shook my head. He was charming, even I could admit that.
But charm would only get him so far, and I wouldn’t be in the car talking to him if I didn’t want something from him.
I faced forward and drove off. I could feel his eyes on me the entire time. He did that a lot—stared at me for an uncomfortably long time. And he was shameless about it too. He didn’t care that I knew he was looking at me.
I worked hard not to give him any reaction. And the short drive from the restaurant to his apartment building felt like an eternity.
I had purposely picked the restaurant because of how close it was to his apartment building too.
Finally, I pulled up to the front.
“Good night,” I said, unlocking the car door for him. The click sounded loud.
He chuckled. “In a hurry to get rid of me, are you? Does that mean there won’t be a second date?”
I paused. I needed a second date. I needed more than that. I needed him to fall hopelessly in love with me, to the point where he couldn’t think, couldn’t function without me.
“Do you want to go on a second date?”
He leaned back against the seat cushion. “I don’t know. Did you enjoy this date?”
“Yes,” I said, the lie tasting bitter on my tongue.
He glanced sideways at me, one side of his lips curving up in a smile. It almost felt like he was the one playing me and not the other way around.
“I’m still not convinced.”
“My word isn’t enough?”
“People lie all the time. No, we need to test this some other way.”
“How?” I gritted out.
He sat up so suddenly, I didn’t expect it. And the bastard was fast. He moved in a flash, and then there was this weight on the back of my neck as he cupped me there. He pulled me in closer to him until our faces were mere centimeters apart.
I swallowed nervously. “What are you doing?”
“Testing our chemistry,” he said softly, his hot breath fanning over my face.
I should have prepared for that. I just never thought it would happen so soon.
But then I felt his lips on me, and I realized there was nothing in this world that could have prepared me for this.
He tilted my head back and pressed in harder against me until all I could feel, all I could think about, was the way his lips felt on mine.
He didn’t kiss me.
He devoured me.
It felt like a rope was wrapped tightly around my heart, pulling this useless organ of mine all the way down into the deep, dark pits of the earth, and there was nothing I could do to get it back.
I kept my eyes open, afraid to close them—afraid to give in to him—but it seemed like he wouldn’t settle for a simple kiss.
He wanted more and more and more.
I tried to pull away. I pressed my palm against his hard chest and tried to push him away from me. He didn’t relent.
He only tightened his grip around my neck and pulled me in closer to him, tilting his head to the side to get a better angle.
Then I felt his teeth on my bottom lip. I gasped, more from surprise than pain, though there was a little sting, and he didn’t hesitate.
He pushed his tongue inside my mouth and deepened the kiss.
I made a small sound in protest, but he didn’t let up.
He kept kissing me as if he would die if he stopped, as if he didn’t know how to stop, and I was…
I didn’t know what I was feeling.
My disgust waged a war with the new foreign feeling that was slowly expanding in the center of my chest.
I felt his hand move, the one that wasn’t cupping my neck. It landed on my shoulder, then drifted down my arm, before veering off to my waist.
A slow pounding ache formed beneath my stomach just as that hand moved up to my ribs.
He stopped when his hand was near the bottom swell of my breast. I held my breath, wondering if he was going to touch me there, but he didn’t move.
He kept it there as he continued to kiss me, his tongue moving in and out of my mouth, thrashing against my own tongue as if they were fighting for control.
Finally—finally—he pulled away from me slowly. I couldn’t move.
I could feel his hard, erratic breathing against me, could feel how this one kiss had affected him just as much as it had affected me.
He let out a small groan, the sound foreign and not unpleasant, before he pressed his lips against mine once more in a hard kiss.
Then he moved down to my neck, leaving a trail of wet heat on my skin before he suckled on the skin there, and the pounding ache I had felt moved even lower down my body.
I gasped.
“Fuck, but you taste so good, baby.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I didn’t.
When we finally broke apart completely, I felt out of it.
I didn’t know what to say, and my lips felt strange and swollen.
Unconsciously, I moved my hand up and touched them, so sure it would hurt. It didn’t.
Reign watched me with the kind of expression on his face that I imagined a wolf would have toward a little rabbit.
Then he smiled and licked his lips. “Let’s go on a second date.”
“You’d be paying for it.”
“Gladly.”
With that, he opened the door and got out of the car.
I stayed where I was and watched his retreating back for a long moment.
I should have been scared of him. The bastard was huge.
Even from behind, there was no way to disguise his broad back and tall frame.
I pegged him to be about ten inches taller than my five-five frame.
And if I wasn’t scared, I should have been wary.
I stayed parked there, even when he disappeared into the building. He never looked back at me once, and not for the first time, doubt crept in. Did I really think I could make a man like Reign Mahankov fall in love with me?
Or was this little scene a foreshadowing of our future? Where I would be watching him leave, feeling unstable and unsure about anything and everything, and he wouldn’t look back to check on me once.