Chapter 19 JR #2
“You called the car Delilah. This is very interesting,” he said, shoving the door open. “Anyway, Frank doesn’t always play by the rules, and agreed Josie could handle the paperwork when she got off work. Scarlet insists she was only looking out for the safety of her soon-to-be sister-in-law.”
“Right,” I drawled.
“I’m not sure exactly what happened, but Josie lost it in front of the diner. Let’s just say Scarlet isn’t quite as pretty as when she arrived in town.”
“And the brother is siding with his fiancée?”
“Well, have you seen Scarlet?”
I rolled my eyes. I didn’t want to be involved, but I also didn’t want Josie to be in jail any longer than she had to be after the stunt that woman had pulled.
“Now, just remember, she’s still a little worked up,” Maverick warned me. “But the letdown is coming.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
His lips twitched in amusement. “You’ll see.”
“Hey!” I shouted as he opened the door and walked through. “What letdown?”
When he didn’t answer, I walked through to the back, a place I was more than a little familiar with—if not the same jail cell I’d been in myself a few times.
Josie was on one bench with her arms crossed over her chest and a scowl on her face.
Her hair brushed her shoulders as she huffed every few seconds.
Scarlet, on the other hand, cried like a wounded dog as Sawyer sat in the cell beside her, pressing an icepack to her face. At first, I thought maybe Josie decked her, but when he moved the pack, I saw red lines scratched into the woman’s skin.
“I was just trying to help,” she whimpered. “That thing is a death trap.”
“I know, Cuddlebug. You were doing a good thing.”
“Ha!” Josie scoffed.
“She’s so mean and hateful. I could have very well saved her life, and she doesn’t even care!”
“She cares, Cuddlebug. But you have to understand, she’s had Delilah for years. It’s hard to say goodbye.”
“I’ll show you goodbye,” Josie snapped, jumping to her feet, racing over to the bars keeping them apart. “You sold my car without permission! Who does that?”
“Josie, she was just trying to help. She was worried about you,” Sawyer said placatingly.
“She’s a thief!”
The gasp that left Scarlet’s lips could be heard two towns over. As if Josie had committed some crime, Sawyer very calmly got up from the bench and walked over to his sister.
“I’m going to pretend you did not just call the woman I love a thief. She was only trying to do what was best for you. Can’t you see that?”
“No, what I see is that she can’t find a man her own age, so she’s going after you! They have a name for that, you know!”
“Maybe we should take some time apart,” Sawyer sighed.
“Go ahead. Take your skank and leave!”
“No, I meant…” He sighed heavily, and I watched as Josie visibly crumbled in front of him.
Dammit, I hated being involved in any way, but it was clear that whatever was going on, Josie was about to lose everything.
“You know, how about I take Josie to the bar with me for a little bit. Give you all a chance to cool down.”
“That sounds like a fantastic idea,” Maverick grinned, clapping his hands together. “Josie?”
She turned and nodded slightly, and that’s when I saw it.
The letdown.
Aw, fuck. This was gonna be one hell of a day. I wasn’t prepared for tears or sadness. Hell, I didn’t even do too well with smiles. But I’d already said I would take her with me. I couldn’t very well leave her in the jail cell.
Could I?
Maverick led her out of the cell, his arm wrapped comfortingly around her shoulder. “Don’t worry about a thing, darlin’. The trade isn’t legal. I’ll get it all sorted.”
“Thanks, Mav,” she whispered, brushing the tears from her cheeks.
Mav stepped behind her, gripping both biceps, and pushing her into my arms. I stood there completely speechless, clueless as to what I was supposed to do.
Maverick mimicked wrapping his arms around her, like he wanted me to do the same. But that just wasn’t about to happen. Patting her awkwardly on the back, I cleared my throat.
“Well, we should get going. I’m already late for work.”
Maverick rolled his eyes at me, but that was just tough shit. I didn’t do tears. I didn’t do crying women, and I definitely didn’t comfort them. She’d just have to find someone else’s shoulder to cry on.
It was slow as hell tonight. The usuals ran off the moment they saw Josie crying, and the few who did stay, ordered quickly and got out as fast as they could.
She was killing business, but that wasn’t the worst part.
I’d washed every glass, refilled the lemons, the limes, restocked all the liquor, and yet, there was nothing left to keep me from listening to the ramblings of the woman at the bar who refused to drink.
“He chose her,” she said for the fortieth time, sulking in her club soda.
I slid a glass of whiskey over to her, but she just pushed it away.
“Why?” she snapped, glaring up at me. “Why would he choose her?”
She didn’t get it, and it was becoming increasingly clear by the minute that I was going to have to be the one to explain things to her.
“Because she has a vagina he can stick his dick in.”
Grimacing, she downed her club soda like it was liquor, then sent it sliding across the bar for a refill.
“That’s disgusting.”
“It’s the truth. She gives him something you can’t. And frankly, the two of you living together…there’s bound to be some friction.”
“But we’ve always gotten along so well,” she whined.
I refilled her glass and slid it back over. “He’s in love. Well, he wants to think he’s in love. It’s not real. It never is.”
“It can be,” she said indignantly. “Just not with her.”
“Yeah?” I asked, leaning heavily on the bar top. “Give me one example where it’s real.”
“My grandparents.”
“Different generation.”
“My parents. Well, until she died,” she muttered, swallowing her club soda in one large gulp. “Now he travels the world like a nomad. He loved her so much, and then she went and died on him.”
“Suicide?” I asked, wondering why else she would blame her mother.
“Nope. Cancer.”
I raised an eyebrow at her defiant look. “That’s not exactly her fault.”
“No, but she still died on him.”
“Okay, but again, that’s a different generation. People fell in love all the time during those days. Now…”
“Now what?”
“Everyone wants to be in love, but they don’t know a damn thing about it.”
She plopped her chin in her hand, staring up at me expectantly. “Have you ever been in love?”
I snorted at the question. “Never tried. Never cared to even think about it.”
“So, you’ve never dated anyone?”
I shrugged, taking the rag off my shoulder to wipe down the counter, though I had already done it a hundred times. “Date? Sure.”
“How long?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at me.
“One date.”
“Jefferson Rodriguez, that is not dating. That’s taking a girl out so you can have sex!”
“Who said anything about sex?”
“Oh, so you’re a virgin?”
The corner of my lips twitched in amusement. Man, would I like to get her into bed and show her a thing or two. Not that it was a possibility. She might be hot, but she would definitely come with baggage in the form of emotional, spiritual, and physical.
I wasn’t interested in any of the three.
“I never said anything about being a virgin, but I didn’t sleep with every woman I ever took out.”
“Yeah? And what did a date with you look like?”
I stuck a cherry with a stick and plopped it in her drink for flavor. How could anyone just drink club soda?
“The usual. Dinner. Drinks. Bed.”
“That’s it?” she grimaced.
“Sometimes. There wasn’t always dinner, though.” I leaned forward on the bar, my face just inches from hers.
“Why?” she whispered, completely fascinated.
“Have you ever had that connection with someone?” I whispered. “Completely heated to the point of combustion?”
A piece of her blonde hair fell forward as she sipped her drink.
I wasn’t sure why I did it. It wasn’t at all like me.
I had a strict rule about touching women in any way that could be perceived as sexual.
The risk of crossing boundaries was too great and always led to confusion and uncomfortable conversations.
But I couldn’t resist pinching the twisted lock of hair between my fingers and tugging slightly.
And it was a fucking terrible thing to do.
Her pupils widened an infinitesimal amount, but I still caught the movement.
Along with the way her breathing picked up slightly, pushing her breasts just a little higher.
Blue eyes—fuck, how had I not noticed her eyes before? Brilliant bright blue with a dark ring around the outside. It was hypnotizing. Gorgeous. Completely out of bounds.
Now that I was here, I was locked, unable to move if I wanted to. That heated, combustible look I was just describing? It was reaching a boiling point between the two of us this very moment, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.
I was trapped, unable to retreat even when I knew I should. But my fingers itched to wrap around her neck, to pull her closer until my lips crushed hers. What I wouldn’t give to throw her up against a wall right now and feel her leg wrap around my waist as my hand skimmed her thigh.
I could already feel the heat coming off her, and there was a bar separating us. But it was there.
I fucking knew it.
And if I pressed her against that wall, there would be no turning back. No retreating until I knew what it felt like to sink my cock deep inside her pussy and come hard, filling her until my cum was leaking down her legs.
“JR,” she whispered, her eyes flicking to my lips.
“Yeah?”
“We should…”
“We should what?”
Just say the words and I’ll have you pushed up against that wall and my cock thrusting inside you in seconds.
Her throat bobbed as she worked hard to swallow. Suddenly, she pulled back, clearing her throat as she looked anywhere but at me.
Her hair slipped from my fingers and the connection was broken, pulling me out of the trance I had been in.
“Well, I can see how you manipulate so many women into getting your way. You just stare at them until they pull down their panties and tell you to take them,” she teased.
“Something like that,” I laughed.
But that laughter died on my lips when she picked up the stick with the cherry and sucked it into her mouth, twisting the stick ever-so slightly.
Teasing me.
Taunting me.
Proving to me that she held the power here.
And fuck, if I didn’t want to take her home just to find out what other tricks she had up her sleeve.
But we were neighbors, and one night would not be what she expected. There would be dating. Dinners. Midnight phone calls, wondering when I would be home. Endless nagging that I had avoided all my life.
She was a woman I would love to sink my cock into, but it would never happen.
Not even if she begged.