Chapter Four
JESS
How did he do it? One sexy, amused grin from Jason and I was completely over being ready to bitch slap Tiff. I wanted to thread my fingers through his, but I didn’t want to scare him off. He seemed to be waiting on me to do something stupid. Or mess up. He didn’t have to say anything—I could see it in his eyes.
“That’s my cousin Rock and one of his best friends, Dewayne,” I told him, not wanting him to think I only had guy friends. Even if that was true, it didn’t sound good. In reality they were Rock’s friends. I had flirted with most of them and pissed off all their women. Except for Rock’s wife, Trisha. She loved me. And then, of course, Amanda. She had never judged me or looked down on me. At school she had always gone out of her way to speak to me and act as if we were good friends. Then a little over a year ago she had decided to take a trip on the wild side and came to me for guidance. Our friendship had been cemented then.
Rock’s eyes met mine and he smiled, and then they shifted to Jason and his smile faded. Was it because he was so obviously not from around here? I would have thought he’d be happy to see me with someone so clean-cut. Actually, anyone other than Hank should have made him smile.
Rock stood up, and I wondered if I should step in front of Jason. Before I could decide what to do, Jason stepped up beside me. “Rock, Dewayne, good to see you both again,” Jason said with a familiar ease. I froze.
This didn’t make sense.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Dewayne said with a loud laugh.
Rock’s frown turned to a scowl. “Want to explain this?” he asked Jason.
“I’m the Porsche,” he replied simply.
Rock’s eyebrows shot up, and he looked at me, then back at Jason. He ran a hand over his shaved head. “Why didn’t I think of that?” he muttered.
I opened my mouth and was about to ask what the hell was going on, when Dewayne let out another hoot of laughter. “Motherf*cker! That’s priceless. And you didn’t say a word about it the other night.”
The other night? I turned to Jason, and he gave me an apologetic smile. He knew who I was? He was with Rock the other night? How?
“I should be pissed that you didn’t say anything, but I’m kinda glad you didn’t,” Rock said. “The Porsche has been the only thing in that story that makes Jess look innocent.” He sat back down on his stool.
Finally I found my voice. “What are y’all talking about?” I asked, slamming my hand down on the table to get their attention.
Rock stared at me like I was crazy, then looked back at Jason. The question in his eyes only confused me more.
“She left the bat in my car. I took it back to her tonight. We ended up here. We haven’t really talked about much else. We haven’t even gotten as far as last names yet,” Jason explained to Rock, then glanced back at me as if he was waiting on something to click with me.
“So you didn’t know she was my cousin until the other night?” Rock asked.
“Didn’t have a clue,” Jason replied.
Rock sighed and nodded at me. “Dude, she’s not gonna take this well. You should have told her before she waltzed in here with you.”
I was done trying to read between the lines. “Who are you?” I demanded.
Jason opened his mouth, then closed it. How hard was it for him to tell me how he knew Rock?
“Meet Jason Stone, the only brother of Jax Stone, sweetheart,” Dewayne announced loudly.
“Seriously?” Rock said, glaring over at Dewayne.
“What? He was taking for-f*cking-ever to say it. The suspense was killing me,” Dewayne replied.
Me, on the other hand—I just stood there and stared at Jason. How had I not seen it? He looked so much like Jax. I had seen Jason in tabloids and on television with Jax. He’d been seen with Star at the music awards. Everyone had talked about Star moving from one Stone brother to the next. Before that, I’d seen him in some tabloids with a girl from one of Jax’s newest music videos. They had been pretty hot and heavy at a club. I couldn’t believe this.
“I should’ve recognized you,” I said.
Jason shrugged. “I’m not Jax.”
Although his tone was void of any emotion, I could see it in his eyes. He was testing me. He hadn’t told me who he was because he assumed I would treat him differently. Truth was . . . he was probably right.
My momma didn’t raise an idiot. Sure, there were a lot of things in life I didn’t know. Like algebra, for instance. I sucked at it. But men—I knew men. I had been watching my mother manipulate them for years. Jason wanted to be normal. Fine. I’d treat him like any other guy.
“No, you’re not Jax,” I replied. I glanced over at Dewayne. “Get me a beer, please.”
I didn’t miss the way Dewayne’s pierced eyebrow lifted in surprise. I never said please. At least, not to him. That had been for Jason’s sake.
“Time to dance, island boy,” I said, shooting Jason a wink and walking toward the crowd, not waiting to see if he followed me. I had no doubt he would.
Suddenly a guy stepped in front of me and grabbed my hips. It was Will Fort, Hank’s best friend. “Hey, sugar, coming to see me?” he asked. I had only used Will once to make Hank mad. Wasn’t worth it. Will had one too many screws loose.
“Keep dreaming, Fort,” I replied, taking his hands off my hips with a shove. He stumbled backward and bumped into another couple. It wasn’t that I was that strong, it was that he was already that drunk.
He just cackled with laughter. The amusement on his face made me want to slap him. “I can play rough, sugar. Hank said that’s how you like it,” Will slurred.
I opened my mouth to tell him where I was going to kick his balls when a new hand settled on my hip. Startled, I turned to see Jason glaring at Will. This hadn’t been expected, but it sure was a nice turn of events. I was surprised he even cared.
“It’s probably best you step back and leave her alone. From the look in her eyes, the rough she’s planning on sticking you with is gonna leave you crumpled on the ground.”
Will shifted his gaze to Jason, and I could see the surprise in his eyes. It was obvious Jason wasn’t one of us. I mentally cringed. I needed to get Jason away from Will before he said anything humiliating. Normally, he went for jokes about my momma.
“Let’s go,” I said to Jason, turning to face him and move him back into the crowd.
Jason went willingly, but his eyes never left Will as he backed away. I liked the protective streak, but the truth was, even drunk Will could have beat his ass. Guys like Jason didn’t have the skills to take on a guy who had grown up being beaten by his father until he was old enough to start hitting back.
“Friend of yours?” Jason finally asked when we were deep enough into the crowd that Will was no longer in sight.
“Small town. The locals all know each other,” I replied, which wasn’t exactly true. But I didn’t want to give Jason a history lesson on my life.
There was a good chance Will would alert Hank to my being here with a guy. Hank still hadn’t paid me back for bashing his truck, and I wasn’t in the mood to face him. Especially with Jason here to see it.
“This was a bad idea,” I told him. “I have a better one.”
Jason didn’t reply, but he was curious.
“Can you swim, island boy?”
A crooked grin tugged at his lips. “Yeah.”
“Good,” I replied, grabbing his hand and pulling him through the bodies until we were at the door. “I know a place a lot less crowded.”
JASON
When Jess had asked me if I could swim, I hadn’t anticipated this. I wasn’t one for breaking the law.
I watched as Jess climbed a tall iron gate, and I considered the stupidity of what I was about to do. She knew I had a direct line of sight up her skirt, and she was using that to her advantage. Glancing back at the empty beach house, I wondered if this was a common thing with locals. This obviously wasn’t her first time doing something like this.
“You coming?” Jess asked as she threw a leg over the fence and grinned down at me. I wasn’t one to back down from a dare, but then I’d never been dared to scale the fence of a house that wasn’t mine. “Don’t let me down,” Jess said, and began her downward climb on the other side of the gate.
I glanced around to make sure we weren’t drawing attention before I reached up and grabbed ahold of the cool metal. The trip up was much easier than Jess had made it look, but she’d been wearing a short skirt and boots. Which, to be honest, was the selling point to this whole thing. It was hard to tell those legs no.
When my feet hit the ground on the other side, I turned to see Jess standing by the pool, dipping her toes into the water, wearing a pair of hot-pink panties that did little for coverage and a matching bra. She lifted her eyes and shot me a teasing grin. “Come and get me,” she taunted before diving into the water.
Knowing those pink strips of satin that did so little to cover up her centerfold body were nice and wet was all the incentive I needed to strip. Glancing up at the house in front of us, I really hoped she was right and this place was actually a rental that was currently empty.
I dropped my jeans and shirt over the closest lounge chair before turning back to see Jess watching me. The tip of her tongue peeked out as she licked the water off her bottom lip.
Hell. This might be worth the possible trouble we could get into. I saw her shiver and decided it was probably best that I dove on in. I needed some cold water at the moment.
When my head broke the surface, Jess was treading water and grinning. “I have to admit, I didn’t think you were gonna do it. I was afraid I might be swimming alone,” she said, then moved closer to me.
“I almost didn’t,” I told her honestly.
She tilted her head and a long lock of hair fell over her shoulder. “What changed your mind?”
I glanced down at the water. The pool lights illuminated her body. I could be a gentleman and lie, but I decided Jess wasn’t the kind of girl who wanted the proper response. She wanted the truth. “Those panties,” I replied.
Jess’s eyes went wide, and then she threw back her head and laughed. There was no teasing, coy act. It was refreshing. The girl knew she was sexy as hell and she liked it. She used it.
When she looked back at me, there was a wicked gleam in her eyes as she moved closer to me. The water was only six feet deep, so my feet were still touching the bottom with ease. I let her do this. She seemed to be sure of what she was doing, and I liked the show.
“Normally, I do this naked,” she said in a whisper.
“I wouldn’t have complained.”
She put her hands on my shoulders to hold her up. “You want me naked? Then finish undressing me.”
As tempting as that was, I wasn’t taking the bait. I had done the meaningless sex thing. One-night stands with groupies weren’t something new to me. I just didn’t want that with Jess. Something was off in her eyes. Sure, she was throwing herself at me with an open invitation, but there was this silent pleading there, almost as if she was begging me not to.
I reached up and touched her full bottom lip. “Not tonight.”
A small frown touched her lips as insecurity flashed in her eyes. She hadn’t been expecting that. “Changed your mind on slumming it?” she asked as she shoved away from me and swam back out to where she couldn’t touch the bottom.
I didn’t like the term “slumming it” or the way it had sounded coming out of her mouth. “Don’t sell yourself short, Jess,” I replied. The urge to go after her and jerk her into my arms so I could kiss that hurt look off her face was hard to resist.
She let out a hard laugh. “I don’t play games.”
Yeah, she did. Her life was one big playbook. “I don’t get a girl naked if I don’t intend to f*ck her.”
Jess stopped treading water a second and filled her mouth up with water before spitting it out. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
“What? The truth?”
She shook her head. “No. I just . . . You seem so clean-cut and polite. I didn’t expect you to actually get me naked, so that wasn’t a big surprise, but you said ‘f*ck.’?”
This time I laughed. She really had no idea. “Don’t forget who I am. Jax may be taken, but I never have been. I enjoy his life even more than he does.”
Jess was starting to say something when flashing red-and-blue lights lit up the darkness. She looked out toward the gate we had climbed to get in here, then back at me. “Time to run,” she said, before swimming to the edge of the pool and climbing out.
We only had time to grab our clothes before the cop at the gate pointed his flashlight on both our faces. “Jess, I thought we went over this,” the cop said in an annoyed tone before pulling out a set of keys and unlocking the gate.
I watched as Jess’s body language instantly changed. She dropped her clothes to her side and sauntered over to the cop as he stepped inside. “But I got hot, Walt, and I needed to cool down.”
The cop sighed and glanced over at me. “I bet you got hot. I told you that the next time you did this shit I was taking you in.”
Jess moved closer to him and tugged on the front of his shirt. “But then that wouldn’t be any fun. Momma’s working tonight, and I’ll be stuck there all wet until she comes to bail me out.”
It was working. The cop had forgotten my existence as he stared down at Jess in her wet undies. “You shouldn’t have been . . .”
“Swimming, I know. I’m sorry. I really am. But I got all sweaty dancing, and a nighttime swim sounded so good. I was a bad girl. You know I have weak moments.”
Her hand was now lying flat on his chest as he tugged on his collar.
“Who have you got with you?” he asked, still not looking away from her.
“He’s innocent. I begged him to come with me.” She patted his chest. “Why don’t you let him go, and then you can take me in if that’s what you want.”
I wasn’t letting the perverted cop take her in without me. I appreciated the fact that she was trying to get me out of this, but the guy was old enough to be her dad.
“I need to do something to make you stop this,” he said, his eyes looking down at her chest.
“Just let him go. If you promise to give me a blanket so I don’t freeze, I’ll wait in your office until Momma gets off work.”
He was going to take the bait. “You go in and I’m going with you,” I said, jerking my shirt on and walking over to stand behind her.
The cop’s head snapped up and his gaze found mine. The lustful gleam in his eyes turned to annoyance real fast.
“This was my idea. You stay out of it,” Jess said, reaching out to squeeze my arm in an attempt to shut me up.
I looked down at her. “I climbed that gate and got in that pool with you of my own free will.” Her eyes went wide, but she didn’t say anything else.
“You don’t look familiar,” the cop snarled.
I had foiled his plans and made an enemy. Grinning, I lifted my eyes to meet his angry ones. “Jason Stone. I’m staying on the island in my brother’s vacation house.”
Normally, I didn’t use my brother’s name as a way to influence people. But right now I was pretty damn sure that was the only way I was keeping Jess from getting hauled in by the creep.
Understanding lit the cop’s eyes, and he looked back at Jess, who was still staring at me as if she couldn’t believe I was doing this. “You telling me you’re Jax Stone’s brother?”
“You want ID?” I asked, mimicking his annoyed tone from earlier.
He shook his head and stepped back from Jess. “No, that won’t be necessary. I’ll, uh, let the two of you go, but be wise and stay clear of this one. She’s full of trouble.”
My blood heated and I clenched my fist at my side. The son of a bitch had been molesting her with his eyes only seconds before. Now he was warning me off her. “I’m a big boy,” I replied, disgusted.
The cop turned to leave, then stopped. “Go ahead and get your clothes on. Then get out of here. I need to lock this back up.”
I tried hard not to watch Jess as she wiggled her wet body back into that little leather skirt, but damn, it was hard. She pulled her shirt back on and grinned at me. The amusement in her eyes made it hard not to return her smile.
“So you do this a lot,” I said, once I had my shirt back on.
Jess shrugged. “I do a lot of things.”
I didn’t miss the tone in her voice. She was doing it again. Throwing bait out there for me to snatch up. Normally, when a girl looked like Jess I didn’t turn her down. But the emptiness in her eyes bothered me too much. I liked it when her eyes were sparkling with excitement.
“I bet you do” was all I said in reply. Then I turned and headed out the private gate. The cop was sitting in his car, watching us, and I nodded to him as I passed. Once I got to the road, I glanced back at Jess, who was walking behind me. Her gaze was fixed on my back. She was thinking. I had confused her. It was all over her face.
I held my hand out. “Come on.”
She glanced at my hand, then at me, and frowned.
“Take my hand,” I said.
She raised her eyebrows. “You think I can’t cross a street by myself?” she asked. The edginess in her voice was hard to miss. She was ready to go off on me.
“I’m sure you can. But maybe I don’t want you to. Hold my hand, please.” I wasn’t sure why I was pushing this. It wasn’t like I thought she was going to get hit by a car. I just wanted to hold her hand. The lost, unsure look in her eyes got to me. I didn’t want it there.
“Why?” she asked, stepping up beside me. Her skeptical expression told me more than I needed to know. Jess wasn’t used to guys making small gestures. She was used to being used. It pissed me off more than I wanted to admit.
“Because I like having you close,” I replied, wishing I hadn’t said it quite like that. She didn’t need to get the wrong idea. Hurting her was something I wasn’t going to do, but I sure as hell wanted to teach her what to expect from a man.
“Oh,” she said, then dropped her eyes to stare at my outstretched hand. I watched her as she slowly lifted her hand and slipped it in mine.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” I asked with a grin, to ease her tense expression. Jess could easily offer up her body to drive me crazy, but this simple touch made her nervous and unsure.
“No, it’s . . . nice,” she replied.
I wanted to say more but I decided against it. Instead I squeezed her hand gently, then led us back over to the parking lot of Live Bay and to the Hummer. It was enough for tonight. I needed to take her home.
We didn’t say much on the way back to her house. When we pulled into her driveway, I finally looked over at her. She had been sneaking peeks at me during the short ride here. “I’ll get your door,” I told her, then got out and went around to open her door and help her out. The T-shirt she was wearing was still damp from her body, but I didn’t let myself enjoy the way it clung to her very generous curves.
“Thanks,” she whispered softly.
I didn’t reply. I just walked her to the door. When we got there, I waited while she reached for the key hidden above the door, then unlocked it. She was going to ask me to come inside. I needed to say something before she did, because declining her was much harder now that we stood outside her house. So very close to her bed.
“Put your number in my phone,” I said, handing her my iPhone.
The startled expression on her face was brief, and the fake, flirty look was back. “You not coming inside?”
“Not tonight,” I replied.
The small glimmer of hurt in her eyes surprised me. What had I said to hurt her? I was using all my willpower not to hurt her. She reached for my phone and quickly entered her number, then handed it back to me. “I won’t hold my breath,” she replied with an annoyed smile before opening her door.
I started to reach out and grab her arm to stop her, but I knew I would have her back up against the same door with my hands on her tempting body if I did that. So I let her go. She didn’t look back at me when she closed the door in my face.
The girl had a temper. It only made her sexier. Grinning, I walked back to the Hummer, knowing that her bat was still tucked safely inside. She’d need to get that from me.