“I saw you, Mollie. I’ve been seeing you.” His voice was hoarse. Urgent.
He was so damn close.
All she had to do was tilt her head up, shift her weight forward, and there’d be no space between them. She could put her lips on his, and she’d be kissing—
Her sister’s ex.
Mollie stepped back.
“Damn it, Mollie, now who’s playing games?” He reached out a hand toward her, but Mollie dodged it, backing away farther, just slightly unsteady on her high heels.
“Don’t, Jackson,” she said, her voice not nearly as firm as she would have liked. “I’m going to go to my bedroom. You’re going to yours. Tomorrow I start looking for a new apartment.”
“Come on, you can’t—”
Again she didn’t let him finish. “No, I can. I need to. This proximity was a mistake, and we both know it. It makes us think we want things that we—” She broke off. Took a breath. “Jackson, you once told me you loved my sister more than anything. My sister. I can’t just forget that.”
He swore and raised a fisted hand to his forehead, tapping gently as though wanting to physically remove whatever was going through his mind at that moment.
She swallowed. “You’d regret…whatever was about to happen just then,” she said. “You’d wake up and hate yourself.” And I’d be brokenhearted.
He let his hand drop, both arms dangling at his sides as he stared at her miserably.
Mollie knew then that she was right. Whatever it was he thought he wanted tonight wasn’t what he wanted in the long term. There was no future for her and Jackson Burke, and anything resembling a fling would be disastrous for both of them.
She started to tell him good night, then realized that there’d be no such thing as a good night for either of them. Mollie knew full well that she’d be staring at the ceiling into the early morning hours.
Mollie turned slowly and headed toward her room, torn between wanting to cry and wanting to scream.
She’d done the right thing. It was all too weird. And Jackson and Madison might be divorced, but Mollie’s gut was telling her that Jackson hadn’t let go of his previous life yet. He was still clinging to the old Jackson. And the old Jackson meant Madison.
Mollie’s stomach twisted at the thought. She shut her bedroom door and in a daze lowered herself slowly to the bed. Forced herself to run through what a reunion between her sister and Jackson would feel like. Forced herself to remember what it had been like to watch the casual way Jackson had always pushed Maddie’s bangs back from her perfect face. The little ways Madison would touch Jackson, even as she carried on a conversation with someone else. They were so used to each other. They belonged together.
There was a knock at Mollie’s door, slow but loud. Deliberate. Daring her to ignore it.
She wanted to ignore it.
She wanted to crawl into bed, pull the covers over her head, and wake up in someone else’s body, in someone else’s life. She didn’t want to be smitten with a man she couldn’t have.
And yet…he was her friend. Despite the murky sexual haze, she cared about him. And she couldn’t ignore the knock of a friend.
Mollie got up and went to open the door.
Jackson stood there, suit jacket gone, tie loosened around his neck, as he braced both hands on the door frame, staring angrily down at her.
“You’ve got it wrong.” His voice was harsh.
“Jackson—”
He cut her off. “No, it’s my turn to talk. You’ve given your speech. And I get it, Mollie, I do. Madison is your sister, and she made you PB&J as a kid when your parents checked out, and that’s fine. But open your eyes. You don’t owe her anything anymore. You are your own woman, and you are a woman, Mollie. You’re not a kid. You’re not a girl. And if I’ve been a complete asshole lately, it’s because I’m having a hell of a time coming to grips with the fact that I want you. And fuck, Mollie, I want you. I want you so bad, I’m dying.”
Mollie had never made the first move on a man in her life. She was old-fashioned like that. But she made the first move now.
She took a step forward, placed a hand at the back of his head, and pulled his mouth to hers.
Chapter 17
Jackson went perfectly rigid at the feel of Mollie’s mouth on his. At the taste of her wine-flavored, soft, full lips.
He let her have control…for about five seconds.
And then he devoured her.
Sliding both hands into her short hair, he fisted the blond waves and tugged them back, just roughly enough to make her gasp, and then he plundered her mouth with his.
She gasped, and he took unapologetic advantage, sliding his tongue into her hot mouth.
Fuck. Kissing Mollie was an erotic high he wasn’t sure he’d ever experienced before.
The women he’d slept with in recent months had been physical releases and not much more. Women whose names he couldn’t remember.
And before that, there’d been only Madison.