Page 14 of He Is Jensen: Part One

My release is so extreme and so intense that I’m all but collapsing forward when he stands up and anchors me with his body and hands, one hand cupping my face. What surprises me is how little shyness I feel when we are all but strangers, and yet somehow, we are not.

“Layla,” he says, and then suddenly stiffens, his energy sharp, edgy. “Get in the shower now.” He flips on the light and starts to undress.

“What? I don’t—”

He leans in and kisses me. “Someone just came in the front door. Get in the shower and stay there until I tell you to come out.”

He tugs his shirt over his head, the sprinkle of blond hair across his broad chest making me gulp for air. He leans against the wall and reaches for his boots. Meanwhile, I can’t seem to move off the vanity, let alone undress. Somehow it had been easier with the lights out and passion on.

He picks me up and sets me on the ground. “Shower. Now.”

Right. Shower. I bend down and unlace my flat sandals, right as his pants fall to the floor. Good Lord, he’s commando. And he has abs fine enough to make grown women cry.

A knock sounds on the door. “Open up.”

Horror seizes me at the sound of Tad’s voice. Jensen dips his head under the water and then wraps a towel around his waist. He runs a hand over his head and smoothes the hair to his scalp before reaching for the door, eyeing me over his shoulder with a silent command in his stare. We can’t look like we were using the water for cover, or I assume we’re in worse trouble than we already are. With that understanding, I unzip my skirt, allow it to fall to the floor, then open the shower door, stepping inside, my bra intact, my panties out there where he put them.

I lean against the wall, passion quickly turning to fear. The bathroom door opens, and I hold my breath. Tad is here. I feel the menace of him as readily as I feel trust for Jensen. Time stands still as I wait for what will come next. Finally, there’s movement, a shift in the air, and the door shuts. I let out a relieved breath, but my worry for Jensen roars a moment later.

He's not one of them, but that’s a small comfort in a moment such as this one.

Chapter nine

Jensen

I’m pure testosterone, readyfor confrontation as Tad hangs at the door of the bathroom, ready to kill him if he goes one step further. He’s mistaken if he thinks this plays out as the scene did back at the house, just because we’re in Zodius City.

When Layla had stopped breathing in that bedroom in her home, nothing had mattered but bringing her back. Saving Layla from the certain death I’m not sure she even remembers, created a vulnerability in me that Tad took full advantage of, or we wouldn’t be in Zodius City right now. And to some degree, I’m still a captive to her medical condition and the addiction they created in her, and that’s by design.

It's my leash, and hers, too.

But that leash has limits that Tad isn’t considering. Julian needs me and Layla alive for various reasons, while Tad is nothing but a goon. I’ll kill him and survive. He will not kill us and survive.

I eye the handgun at his waist, prepared to pull it and kill him if he steps one foot closer to Layla. His insistence on going inside doesn’t surprise me. They already know Layla matters to me;they’re too smart not to, and this is punishment for blacking out their surveillance.

Tad smartly steps back into the apartment and pulls the door shut, rotating to face me, but I’m far from relaxed at this point. This might not be the time to kill Tad, but after his manhandling of Layla, I want him dead on a downright primal level.

“No lights out,” he orders. “Ever.”

“If you think I’m giving you a kinky freak show, you can forget it.”

“Then I guess you better keep it in your pants,” he replies crudely, reaching in his pocket and producing a vial of ICE. “Get her out here. I need to dose her.”

“Julian and I have an agreement. She’s mine. I dose her.”

He stares at me with hard, bulldog eyes. “You’re pissing me off, Jensen Prescott. You don’t want to piss me off.”

“I’m under Julian’s protection,” I point out. “So, you don’t want to pissmeoff.”

Tad smirks as if he knows something I don’t, and tosses the vial in the air, forcing me to reach for it to stop its crash to the ground. By the time it’s in my hand, he’s out the door. I watch him exit and decide he’s playing with me, and I don’t like games. Tad’s a problem I can’t get rid of soon enough.

For now, I focus on Layla, who’s waiting nervously in the bathroom. I walk to the door and knock. “It’s me.” I open the door to find her wrapped in a towel and sitting on the edge of the tub, her hair dry.

“What did you mean you have a deal with Julian?”

I set the ICE on the vanity and kneel in front of her—this woman that was my teen crush and became an unexplainable regret that haunted me for many years to follow. I wanted another chance with her, but it seems like every time our paths cross, it’s a prelude to disaster, and I don’t know how to overcome that reality.

But I want to so fucking much, it’s illogical. We barely know each other. And yet, there has always been something familiar and right between us.

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