41. Chapter 41
He didn’t slow his stride, and he didn’t get anything sharp stuck in his back on the way out the door. Lindsey had been gone long enough for Jase to wonder if she’d run off with a biker in the middle of Texas.
Some other biker in the middle of Texas.
He found her sitting on top of the picnic table near the steps beside a coffee can full of cigarette butts. She covered her face and said, “I’m not crying,” and he looked away while she wiped her eyes.
“I wasn’t going to ask.”
Humidity clung to the air, though the sun had set in the hours since Graham left them at the bar. Hours, Christ. Jase should’ve seen it coming. Graham never had any intention of coming back.
Lindsey was holding her phone in the hand she wasn’t using to wipe the tears off her cheeks. He’d been doing a damn good job keeping her mind off Graham until now. He almost thought the worst had passed.
“He hasn’t called,” she said.
“Asshole.”
Jase sat cautiously beside her, wringing his hands together.
“In New Orleans you asked me if things were ever great—”
“Lindsey, I was out of line.”
“Never. They were never great. Good, I guess, in the beginning. But never really great.”
“Why did—” He stopped. It was another question he shouldn’t ask, but he was drunk and wanted to know. “Fuck, why did you stay with him this long?”
Her eyes latched onto him. He thought he might get smacked. “I almost left in Alabama. Did you know?”
He shook his head.
“This trip was supposed to be our last shot. If things didn’t get better, I was going to end it. But I was kidding myself. I knew it in that shitty motel. We were over. I was done. Then…”
Her eyes trailed away from him.
“Then what?”
“You’re going to think it’s crazy.”
“I won’t. Try me.”
“One of the last things your dad did was ask me not to quit. I didn’t know what he meant at the time, but I promised him I wouldn’t. The first night at the motel he…reminded me of my promise.” She laughed. “Crazy, huh?”
“Not even the craziest thing I’ve heard today.”
Another outlaw country song pounded into the night, competing with the buzzing insects in the gaps of their conversation.
“Why are you such a good man?”
“I’m not. I promise you, I’m not.”
“You are to me.”
“Yeah, well, compared to my brother, that’s not hard to do.”
“I was so stupid. He wasn’t grieving. He was in love with someone else.”
Jase nudged her, setting his hand on her knee, and rubbing the smooth skin beneath the hole in her jeans with his thumb.
“You deserve someone a whole lot better than Graham.”
He didn’t mean it as a come-on. Jase wasn’t better for her than his brother. Not in the long run. Still, his hand felt good on her leg, and she didn’t seem to mind it being there.
She looked up, her long, unkempt hair falling around her face. “You know Helen. What does she have that I don’t?”
“Nothing,” he said without hesitation. “Not a damn thing.”
That wasn’t a come-on either…or that’s exactly what it was. If she was any other woman after this many drinks, and games of pool, and shameless flirting, they would’ve made out in a quiet corner by now.
She was watching his lips. He’d caught her staring at his mouth a few times tonight. Jase tilted his head toward her to let her know she could have him if she wanted him. She held her breath, waiting for Jase to close the gap—
The bar door swung open with a sharp crack. Music and light spilled out around the man with the sleeve tattoos and three of his buddies.
“Shit,” Jase muttered.
“What’s wrong?”
He stood in front of her and put both hands on her knees. “Get out your phone. Get us a car.”
She glanced over his shoulder at the men, their footfalls heavy on the porch.
“Right now,” he said.
Her face glowed in the white light from the screen as her fingers flew across it. “Three minutes is the closest,” she said.
He nodded and moved between her knees, completely blocking her from the men on the steps. He heard the click of a lighter and smelled smoke from their cigarettes.
She trembled, confirming the driver. He didn’t think it had anything to do with his hands sliding up the outside of her thighs.
“It’s okay,” he said quietly.
The men were talking loud for Jase to hear. Sniggering about white lace tank tops and giving good rides. Baiting him with all the nasty things they’d do if they got their hands on his woman. Bullshit to raise his hackles that Lindsey didn’t need to hear.
“What do we do?” she asked, barely a whisper.
Jase had the size on Sleeves, but he wasn’t interested in taking on four Pit Vipers alone. He’d end up pummeled and Lindsey—
No. Not a fucking option.
Forcing her to listen to the garbage spewing out of their mouths for three minutes wasn’t an option either.
“Trust me,” he said, moving his hands up her legs to the bend in her hips and the curve of her ass.
The one thing he could do that might shut them up was make sure they knew how fucking unavailable she was.
He hitched her closer to him. The quick jerk of a move earned a gasp from Lindsey and a snarl of approval from Sleeves. Jase brought one hand off her hip and around her neck, his thumb brushing over her racing pulse. Was she afraid of the men?
Of what he was about to do?
It wasn’t fear he saw in her eyes. Lindsey’s mouth fell open in silent permission for what was coming, and Jase was going to make it good.
He combed his fingers through her hair, taking a handful of curls in his fist and tilting her head back.
The watermelon he’d been smelling whenever they got close was her lip gloss.
He kissed her slowly at first, the way he’d been wanting to for some time.
She moaned into his mouth, and fuck if his dick didn’t throb almost painfully in his pants.
He took both sides of her head in his hands and drank her in, tasting beer on her tongue, whiskey at the back of her throat, and sweet, sweet watermelon.
Jase would’ve forgotten Sleeves and his biker pals were watching if they hadn’t howled with perverted glee.
Her phone buzzed on the table. Lindsey leaned into his body and clutched the sides of his T-shirt. His dick throbbed again, reaching for her.
This didn’t feel like a show anymore.
A car pulled up. Jase uncurled his fists from her hair and cupped her face, feeling her cheeks move as her mouth and tongue explored his own.
Her phone buzzed again and someone yelled, “Who ordered a ride?”
The kiss ended with shared breaths and the smell of her watermelon lip gloss.
He released her, his erection aching as he stepped out from between her legs.
She felt around for her phone and climbed carefully off the table.
Her nipples had pebbled through her tank top and bra.
Jase stood in front of her to block her from view.
One of the bikers flicked a cigarette over the steps at Jase’s feet.
“Just walk,” he told her.
With a hand on the small of her back, keeping between her and the men who were hollering for them to go get some, Jase led her to the car, opened the door, and climbed in after her.
Sleeves mimicked a blowjob with his hand and cheek. Jase should’ve let it go. But Sleeves and his buddies had made cracks at Lindsey that pissed him off and scared her, so he opened the window as the car drove away and flipped the obnoxious assholes the bird.