Page 50 of Legacy

My tongue skates my bottom lip, catching his attention. And even if he doesn’t mean to, his hands tighten their grip.

“Jesse?”

Confusion and embarrassment lace my tone. It’s impossible to bury as he takes a step back, widening the gap between us. He’s made no secret of what he does in this room, and the flat-out rejection is cold and clear.

“Sorry.” I step back, not actually sorry at all, but he clearly is. “We should—”

“Want to get out of here?”

“It’s almost two in the morning.”

“I know.” He steps back, relaxing his shoulders.

I’m torn between what we’ve just done and the fact that he put an end to it. Still, I find myself not ready to let this go just yet.

“Okay.”

He nods; his throat works with his swallow. And then he does something even more surprising than kiss me. He takes my hand to lead me out of the bedroom.

My fingers lace through his, and I can’t explain it, but something is just so… right.

The party escalated in the short time we were in his room. At a glance, I don’t see Luna and Ghost, but I do meet stares with the woman who was talking to Jesse earlier. She frowns when she sees his hand in mine, and that tinge of jealousy tangles with all the other conflicting emotions I’m trying to wrangle. Nothing good will come from feeding that doubt, so I look away.

Jesse doesn’t so much as glance at the scene as he leads me toward the front of the clubhouse. This is a regular day for him, and that alone should give me pause.

“Where are we going?” I ask when we finally breach the threshold, and he releases my hand.

“For a drive.” He leads me to his truck. “I had to get out of there.”

He brushes his fingers through his hair, and I wonder what shook him because I don’t think it was the kiss.

Instead of circling to the driver’s side, he walks to mine and holds the door open for me, avoiding my gaze when I climb in.

But I can still feel him watching me. I can feel him all over me. Every inch of my skin he touched is in flames.

When he climbs in on his side and starts driving, the vibrations of the tires crunching against dirt and rock force my attention to the pressure between my thighs.

We take the main road that leads off the property, but instead of passing through the gate, he turns left, following the long fence line that wraps around the Twisted Kings compound in the opposite direction of the neighborhood. I never realized how much land the club owns until tonight when the drive feels endless as we travel flat desert. It isn’t until the clubhouse is nothing more than a pinprick in the distance that he pulls to a stop.

Jesse climbs out first, circling to my door and opening it for me. He grabs a blanket out of the back seat and pops the tailgate, stretching the blanket over it to give us something to sit on. It’s thick and soft as I hop up, my feet dangling in the air as I stare into the endless night.

“Do you drive out here often?” I lean back on my hands to look up at the thousands of stars.

With no light pollution to drown them out, I see every one. The galaxy has never felt so far away. Or so close.

When Jesse hasn’t answered my question, I look over and see that he’s staring at me.

He clears his throat. “I come out here when I need to think.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“Yeah.” But still, he hasn’t looked up.

“Are you okay? You seemed a little shaken after…”

The kiss.

It’s pathetic that I can’t say it when I can still feel it. My lips are probably bruised with how rough and needy he was. I’m used to being kissed like I’m sweet or fragile. Jesse kissed me like he wanted to see how rough I could take it.

---