Page 21 of Inevitable
When I brushed against him, his jaw ticked. I barely hid my smile, so proud of my seduction skills.
“Whitfield,” he warned, his voice low.
“Yes?” I whispered, inches from his lips.
He didn’t lean in, as if not even tempted by the bait I was trying—unsuccessfully I might add—to dangle in front of him.
“Stop toying with me.”
“What do you mean?” I tried to sound innocent.
“You know exactly what I mean. Move your ass down that path, or I’ll shred this newspaper.”
“You’re a jerk,” I blurted. Although I knew I was being childish, and my mother had always taught me never to call anyone names, I couldn’t control myself around Jax.
I stomped all the way down to the lake. He stomped his way down there too. Both of us mad for much different reasons.
Jax sat at the same rock he always did, and I sat next to him just like I always did. It was a good representation of who we were. Jax gravitating toward the most logical choice and me gravitating towards him. We stared out at the lake and sipped our tea, ignoring the newspaper at first.
The water laid our anger to rest, like always. The sun made it glitter and sparkle, almost as if putting on a show for us. The trees surrounding the small lake moved in a natural sync with the glimmer, showing off their reflections to anyone who would look.
I loved it right there, breathing in the cinnamon of my tea, the smell of Jax, and the moisture of the lake. Each scent mingled and filled me with comfort, with security, with something I could never have had before.
“You marched all the way down here on a mission to be a pain in my ass and now …” Jax leaned over to brush his thumb over my lips. “You’re smiling. What are you thinking?”
I shrugged, embarrassed that he could read me so easily. “Nothing important.”
One side of his mouth kicked up. He set his tea down, turned toward me and cocked his foot up on the boulder. “Humor me.”
Those words, his lopsided smirk, and that gravelly voice could have made me do anything for him. I wanted to humor him, rub against him, kiss him, and look at him for eternity. With the perfect backdrop, he wasn’t just dangerous, he was devastating. His blue eyes sparkled just like the water, and his jet-black hair looked like it was begging to be tousled again. I wanted him more than I wanted my next breath and he had to know it.
That made me snap back away from him and answer as neutrally as I could. “I just like this spot on the lake.”
“Why?” he asked, digging further.
I shrugged. I couldn’t keep making a fool of myself with him. It’d been more than a month since the fire, and we’d shared a lot of secrets. I shared every thought I had and had opened up my soul to him. There were times I thought he could see right through me, to even the parts of me I didn’t know.
I couldn’t tell him I was consumed by him, that I loved everything about him.
That I loved him. Period.
I wasn’t stupid. I saw the way every girl looked at him, knew that most had probably shared they loved him at some point. I wanted to think he’d stick around longer if he couldn’t figure me out completely. I wanted to be the equation he couldn’t calculate, the problem he couldn’t answer.
I wanted him to stay interested.
I wanted him to just. Stay.
I leaned around him to grab the paper. “Shall we?”
He groaned. “Can’t we finish our chai first?”
“No. Your family won’t tell me anything. Jax, something is happening if the cameramen are back at your front door.”
“Our front door. You live there now too. And my family won’t tell you anything because they don’t want you to worry,” he grumbled back.
I ignored him and took in the article again. Skimming through it, I shot off the one question that scared me the most. “You think your mom will get custody?”
He sighed into his cup and the steam curled around him, accentuating his strong bone structure. “It’s mostly already done, Peaches. It might not be right, but my family has a lot more pull with the system than anyone else. Money talks.”
