Page 19 of Dangerously Tempting

12

Jameson

Playlist: "Without Me," Dayseeker

It’s been a week. Seven days, one-hundred sixty-eight hours, 604800 seconds. Surely she can’t keep avoiding me forever, right? My stubbornness says she can’t hold out forever, but reality is telling me that she’s doing a damn fine job of making sure she’s never around when I am. I’m going to have to go above and beyond to nail her down.

“You good?” My eyes lift to Theo from where they’ve been glaring a hole through my beer mug and sigh. There’s concern in his bright blue eyes, and it somehow makes me even more annoyed.

“I feel like I’m losing it, honestly. I’m not sure if she’s a ghost or if it was all just a figment of my imagination at this point.” I take a swig of beer and grimace. It went warm a long while ago and I’m not the biggest fan to begin with.

“Can I give you a word of advice?”

“Yes, ol’ mighty wise one. Please, grace me with your unparalleled wisdom.”

He ignores my sarcasm. “Stop being a bitch.” He says it like that one line could solve all the problems in the world. “If you want her, go after her. No matter what you have to do, make her listen.”

“You sound like my dad. What am I supposed to do? Kidnap her? That’s a brilliant idea!” And it truly might be. If there’s no one else around she can’t keep dodging me, and then she’ll have to listen.

His eyes widen and he sits a little taller as he realizes my mind is truly plowing ahead with this idea. “You damn well know that’s not what I said. Do you want to get arrested?”

I shrug. “For her? Worth it.” He rolls his eyes and I rip off a piece of the napkin beneath my mug, rolling it between my fingers before looking back up at him. “Besides, I don’t see you taking your own relationship advice. Who are you going after, hmm?” I question with a quirked brow.

He shifts his gaze away from me, pressing his lips together, trying to ignore my verbal jab. He should know better by now. I tease him every chance I get for his playboy ways, never settling down with any one guy for too long before he gets bored and leaves them in his dust. He finally perks up like he has just the thing to get me off his case.

“How’d she get you whipped so fast?” He raises both his own brows, like he’s trying to one up me even in eyebrow raises. “She must have the best p—“

“If you finish that sentence you’re gonna regret it.” The words come out in a growl, and our eyes are almost mirror images of surprise at my reaction.

I don’t know where the defensiveness has come from. As much as I wish she was, she isn’t mine. I have no claim on her, no say in what she does, and who with, nor any right to try and protect her dignity.

But I want to. Fuck, I want to. It’s like a bone-deep ache I just can’t shake. She’s been on my mind the whole week, her scent so ingrained into my memory that I swear I smell her all the time at work, like I just missed her passing through and she’s lingering in the air. It’s enough to drive me mad.

“Okay,” Theo responds, dragging the word out so long I raise an eyebrow at him. “You’re gonna need to do something about that. Not only did I not like being on the receiving end of that when—and let me be clear—it was a joke, but women don’t like to be treated like property.”

I chuckle. “I’ll take your first point. I apologize. But that second bit…” I look down at my hands as I run my fingers through the condensation that’s gathered on my glass before rubbing the wetness between them, glancing up at him with a grin. “I have evidence against that.”

“Ugh, gross. I don’t want to hear anymore. No.” He holds a hand up in the universal sign for stop and I can’t help but laugh. “I swear you do that shit just to make me gag.”

“You’ve gaged around enough dicks, your reflex should be pretty strong now.”

He narrows his eyes at me like he’s angry, but the corners of his mouth tilt up as he fights a smile. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”

“It’s only fair. I have to endure stories of your sexcapades, but I have no one to tell about mine.”

“Bullshit. You have plenty of straight friends whose ears you could yap off about that.”

“Not ones that would understand me. Not ones that wouldn’t judge or think my particular tastes are gross or vulgar or something else.”

“Is this your way of guilting me into listening to your sexcapades?”

“Is it working?”

He sighs in exasperation, rolling his eyes. “Christ. Fine. But I don’t want explicit details and you have five minutes.” He quirks an eyebrow, his expression all sass. “Deal?”

“Deal.”

By the time I’m done, his cheeks are red and I can see a hundred questions sitting at the tip of his tongue. For a moment I think he’s going to ask them, but then he blinks, shakes his head, and clears his throat and they’re gone.

---