89. Chapter 89
“Lindsey,” Jase snarled.
Two blocks from the restaurant, she disappeared inside a nightclub.
Jase stood in front of the open doors gathering patience from a barren supply.
He didn’t want to go in. There was no security guard or queue, just flashing lights, throbbing bass, and the pungent stink of sweat and cheap cologne spilling onto the sidewalk.
And a woman worth lots and lots of money lost inside the mass of rolling bodies.
At this point he didn’t care if he had to drag her kicking and screaming, she was finishing the trip.
Jase dove headfirst into the crowd, laser-focused for the only woman to ever drive him this crazy. He found her at the bar near the front of the club, chatting up a tall Latino with his arm around her waist.
“Linds—”
Hands flew up around him. Women in skinny black dresses whooped and hollered and pawed at his clothes, and a blonde in a pink maid-of-honor sash put a neon test tube to his lips and dumped something hot and sweet down his throat and they all whooped and hollered and pawed at his clothes some more, until he completely lost sight of Lindsey and almost forgot what he was doing surrounded by so many skinny black dresses—
The black dress. Her black dress. Lindsey was moving. He tore through the gauntlet of bachelorettes, past the bride in her devil-horned veil, and chased flashes of skin he recognized through arms, legs, and bodies he didn’t, finally catching up with her at the edge of the dance floor.
He spun her around by the shoulder.
“Jase?” She looked as surprised to see him as he was to be chasing her. “What’s the matter with you? I told you, I’m done. It’s over.”
Over. That word again.
“Like hell it is,” he said.
“There you are.” The Latino she’d been with by the bar emerged from the crowd carrying two tall glasses. “I have your drink.”
“You’re kidding me,” Jase said.
“What?” she asked.
“You’ve been in here two minutes.”
“That’s all it takes, babe.” Lindsey flashed her most devilish smile above the rim of her glass.
“Don’t drink that.” Jase reached out and she swatted his hand. “You don’t know this guy. Who knows what he put in there.”
“Tastes like vodka.”
“Excuse me, who are you?” the Latino asked.
“I’m your worst fucking nightmare if you don’t get away from her.”
“Excuse me? What’s your problem, man?” he asked.
“So many things.” Lindsey laughed.
“Now I know why assholes glom onto you. Because you fucking let them,” Jase said.
“Move along so I can have a drink with my new friend, Diego.”
“Diego. Surprised you know his name.”
“Hey, man—” Diego said.
“I’m not talking to you,” Jase said.
“Are you together?” Diego asked.
“Yes,” Jase said quickly.
“Definitely not,” Lindsey said just as fast.
“Let’s go.” Diego put a hand on Lindsey’s waist and tried pulling her away, as if Jase would give her up so easily. As if he’d let her get away with any of this.
“Back off,” Jase warned.
Lindsey leaned in close enough for only Jase to hear. “I know you’re not used to rejection, so let me explain this in words you’ll understand. It’s not me, it’s you. It’s always been you. And it will always be you.”
Her last look lingered like three dots at the end of a loaded sentence until Diego led her to the dance floor. Jase was blocked from following by a waitress with wild orange hair and a tiny latex skirt offering him another glowing test tube.
It’s always been you. And it will always be you.
What did she mean? What did she really mean?
Jase swallowed the radioactive shot, coating his throat in sickly sweet flavors he couldn’t name, and handed the empty tube back to the woman in latex, never taking his eyes off Lindsey, or Diego’s hands on her waist.
It was Lake Havasu City all over again, and he couldn’t fucking do it. He jerked her dance partner away.
“Jase, what are you doing?” Lindsey shrieked.
“Flying off the fucking rails, that’s what.”
Diego let some Spanish fly Jase understood without knowing the language. He stepped up and asserted his imposing form as the only argument he intended to give.
“Stop it!” Lindsey forced herself between them. “What? Are you going to punch your way out of this one too? I told you—leave me alone!”
“I can’t do that. You know I can’t do that.”
“What is wrong with you?” she screamed, leaving both men in her wake as she hustled through the gyrating bodies toward the exit.
“I hate always having to chase after you,” Jase hollered at her heels.
“No one asked you to,” she said over her shoulder. “I’m not your—”
The relentless beat drowned out the rest of her words. He pressed harder through the mass until he was tight to her back.
“What is it with you anyway? Every time I turn around, you’re throwing yourself at another asshole you don’t even know.”
“Whatever it takes to get away from you.”
Okay, he heard that.
“You know, I’m convinced there’s not a single thing in this world I can do to make you happy.”
“Figured that out, huh?”
“I’ve done everything you’ve ever asked, and you’re being nothing but a royal pain in the ass!”
She turned on him. Her eyes flared under lights beating from red to yellow to green, then red again.
“Fuck you, Jase.”
“Fuck me?” He gripped her hip to keep her from slipping away. “You’re the one making things so goddamn hard.”
“Yeah? Well, I’m done waiting for things to be easy.”
“You’re done waiting?”
“Yes!”
Bass pounded in his chest. Guns fired in his head.
She looked like she wanted to tear him limb from limb, and he wanted to let her.
She reminded him of something he saw in the desert.
A Demon. Her chest heaved, the dress having slipped off her shoulder, leaving her skin bare and blazing red, yellow, green. Red. Yellow. Green.
Red.
“Good, me too,” he growled and kissed her on the lips.
Hard.