Page 23 of Jessie's Girl
Frown porn.
Oh yeah, I’m a bit sick. And apparently, horny as fuck.
A hard, loud knock reverberates through my small foyer. Asa not only has the build and scowl of a bull, but the stubbornness of one, too. He’s not going away. If I had the sense God gave a gnat, I’d keep the door shut and pretend I don’t hear the impatient summons.
But God and I both know when it comes to this man, I’m not smart. I haven’t been in two years… and counting.
Cursing myself for being about eleven-ty different kinds of fools, I unlock the door and pull it open. Asa lifts his head, and eyes brewing with grey clouds stare back at me. His hands clutch either side of the jam, and I don’t know if he’s holding himself up… or forcing himself not to throw his body away from my door. Away from me.
“India.”
His dark rasp licks over my skin, and shivers dance my spine, tingling at the base. I hate that he drags this response from me. Hate that those all-too-perceptive eyes note every tremble.
“It’s late, Asa. What do you want?” I cross my arms over my chest just in case he thinks it’s his presence, the looming of his big body that damn near shuts out the sky behind him, that has my nipples poking against my bra and shirt and not the cool October air.
“Let me in, India,” he murmurs, and the soft voice coupled with the silver-thin thread of steel has me standing on the knife’s edge of telling him to fuck right off or stepping back and giving him anything he wants. Begging him to take anything he wants.
Jesus. I don’t need a pied piper to lead me to my doom. I’m doing a bang-up job all by myself.
I recognize the danger of letting him into my space. Of allowing his presence to imprint itself on the place where I come home every night. The place I come to dream. And yet, my feet are shuffling backward, my hand is holding the door open, and my pride is embarking on a suicide mission.
“What do you want, Asa?” I demand. Yes, I just invited him in, but I want him gone. The longer he’s here, the higher my chances of committing some monumentally stupid and unforgivable act.
He closes the door behind him with a softsnickand doesn’t immediately answer. Instead, he silently studies me, and I fight not to fidget. To pretend as if I don’t feel that unwavering, penetrating gaze stroke over the shelf of my cheekbones, the slope of my nose, the line of my jaw, the curve of my mouth, like physical caresses.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
Such three innocuous words. Strung together, they’re an expression of concern. They’re also the match to the powder keg of my temper.
I. Snap.
“Am I okay?” I whisper, slowly lowering my arms down to my side. “You mean, am I okay because I bumped into my ex, whom I haven’t seen in two years? Or because that same man who broke my heart wants me to give him another chance?” Asa’s face tightens and his full lips flatten into a hard line. The gleam in his narrowed gaze should give me pause, but fuck that. I’m on a roll. “Or are you asking because you, who knew all of this, abandoned me? Leaving me alone with him.”
“And what did you tell him?” he murmurs, the grit in that softly spoken question rubbing over my skin, leaving pebbled flesh behind.
“Wh-what?” I stutter.
“What did you tell Jessie when he asked for another chance with you?” he clarified in that same tone that could’ve ground gravel into smooth-as-glass sand.
“What are you hoping for, Asa?” I cock my head, studying his face for some clue inside that head of his. Past the shadows that cloud the truth like storm clouds hide the sun. “What answer do you want to hear? That I told him no? Or that I said yes, so you can be a martyr for your best friend.” I loose a chuckle that scrapes my throat, suddenly tired. And empty. “Go home, Asa.”
He doesn’t move, and his silent refusal to leave strikes a match to my anger again.
“I said,go.”
“No.” The answer is flat, blunt. And a whole lot of “no way in hell.”
“Is this fun for you?” I hiss. “Pull me close, push me away. Is this some fucked up form of exercise?”
He moves so fast, all I have time to do is gasp. Damn. For such a big man, he’s quick. His hand snakes out, wrapping around the nape of my neck and dragging me forward, so close our foreheads bump and our breath mingles, mates.
“Don’t stop now. Give it to me,” I sneer, the effect slightly ruined by my soft, rapid pants of breath.
I’m shamelessly goading him to… what? Give me the truth? His kiss? His cock? With lust sizzling through my veins and eating me up in great, gulping bites, I can’t honestly pinpoint what I want. What I’m inciting him to do.
“Shut up,” he softy orders, but there’s no mistaking or missing the filaments of steel that knit through it.
“I don’t have to—”
