57. Chapter 57
“Un-fucking-believable.”
Jase was muttering to himself as if he had any reason to be pissed after leaving her.
“You’ve asserted your dominance,” she said once they crossed the bank of cars to the dark camp road. “You can put me down.”
Walking on her own was smarter than being this close to Jase’s mouth after smoking enough weed and drinking enough panty-potion to forget why the rule she made in Austin was important.
“No, I can’t. I wouldn’t want you falling into some other asshole’s arms on the walk back. You’re a creep magnet, you know that?”
“Says the creep?”
“Exactly, says the creep.” Jase sighed. “You want to punish me, I’ve got it coming. Getting handsy with an Abbey Road reject isn’t the way to do it.”
“Oh, I don’t know. It seemed to get your attention.” Then, in case he wasn’t irritated enough, she added, “And he was cute.”
“Tell me you’re not seriously interested that dick?”
Declan had waved her over while she was out looking for Jase.
Another dark horse with intense black eyes, hair to match, and an accent that would’ve dropped her panties faster than any moonshine love potion.
He looked good and smelled good and never left her side when being alone was more dangerous than flirting with a foreigner she would probably never see after tonight.
“What does it matter if I am?” she asked.
“Should’ve known you were into pussies after my brother.”
“Screw you,” she snapped, wiggling out of his arms and landing on rubbery legs. He reached out to steady her, and she swatted his hand away.
“You really have no sense of self-preservation, do you?” he asked.
“Apparently not or I would’ve gone home yesterday,” Lindsey said. “What happened today? Graham had to help me set up the tent. Graham. Shoot, it was almost worth it to see the look on Helen’s face. You should’ve been there, Jase. You promised me. You said—”
“I know what I said,” he barked. “I’m sorry.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s not good enough. You can either be honest with me, or I’m going to Havasu with Declan.”
“It’s funny you even think that’s an option.”
She raised her eyebrows and didn’t give an inch.
“I don’t know what happened today, okay?
” he finally said. “If I did, I’d tell you.
I just needed to get the fuck out of here for a while.
It won’t happen again.” Jase squinted at Lindsey with eyes bleary from the smoke.
“If you really think you’re going anywhere with that dipshit who’s just trying to get in your pants, you’re not as smart as I thought you were. ”
She would’ve dug into him harder for leaving if he didn’t look like a man dangling at the end of his own rope.
Lindsey crossed her arms against the cold, and he shrugged out of his jacket and set it on her shoulders, sending his scent rushing up her nose and her head into a tailspin of naked memories.
She tightened the jacket around her body and said, “He wasn’t getting in my pants.”
“Oh no? That’s not what he thought.”
“Yeah, well, men don’t always know what they think they know.”
Small embers glowed at the bottom of the fire pit at their own campsite. Jase arranged a few pieces of wood in the coals and rubbed warmth back into his fingers above the emerging flames.
“Where are you sleeping?” Lindsey asked.
Jase sat on a log beside the fire and shrugged. “The car.”
“Really?” She paused. “You can stay in my tent if you want.”
“That’s the pot talking.”
“It’s not the pot.”
He rubbed his eyes and looked at her over the fire. She smiled and motioned to the tent.
“I can’t,” he said with effort.
“You sure? I promise I’ll be a gentleman.”
“I won’t,” he said.
I won’t. He wasn’t flirting. If they were alone, he would do things.
In the motel last night, when she knew better than to go to the bar if she wanted to come back alone, she re-read the scenes she’d written in the car and used her own hands to enjoy the memories of all the things he could do. Twice.
“You can’t just be friends with a woman, can you?”
“No,” he said, flames flickering in his eyes. “Not one I’m sleeping with.”
“You’re not sleeping with me.”
“Not anymore.”
She crept slowly to her tent. Her heart was beating so fast and hard she heard the wired love muscle pounding in her ears. He was still watching her.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said, flashing what she hoped was a tantalizing smile.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re picturing me naked.”
“You can’t take that away from me.”
“You’d better stay in the car then. I can’t be trusted tonight,” she said. “Because I really want to do something stupid.”
He twitched and almost fell off the log.
“Then you should probably go to bed before I change my mind,” he said, his voice gruff with the sex he wasn’t having.
She unzipped the tent, and Jase turned his eyes to the fire.
In Austin there was no penalty for giving in.
But today? She suspected if she got undressed and told him she was naked and waiting under a sleeping bag, neither their agreement nor the thin nylon tent walls would survive the night.
His kiss outside the diner proved it. There was no earthly reason not to give in except she’d never survive the trip if her shaky friendship with Jase fell apart.
She slipped out of his jacket and poked her head out of the tent.
“Jase?”
“Yeah?” He jumped to his feet a little too eagerly. She held his leather jacket outside the door flap and watched him adjust his jeans over the erection that made it hard to walk.
As soon as the jacket was in his hand, she grabbed him by the neck and planted her lips on his mouth.
It was one wet, hard, lingering kiss. A punishment. Satisfied that Jase regretted all the day’s decisions, Lindsey slunk back inside her tent and zipped the door shut.