“Don’t be so quick to cast judgment against Jackson before you get to know him. That’s not what you do or who you are, Clay.” There was a reason he’d been nicknamed Saint Clay, and she appealed to that kindness and altruistic side of his personality now. “You’ve always seen the good in people, and you’ve always given them a chance to prove themselves and their integrity. Jackson is your twin brother, and he deserves that chance.”
Clay nodded in understanding but didn’t soften completely. “He’s a stranger, and I’m just trying to protect my family,” he said quietly.
“And I respect that.” She truly did, especially after all that they’d been through. “I just don’t want the three of you to have any regrets later on.”
Knowing she’d said enough, she decided it was time for her to leave the office. “I need to get back to the bar,” she said, and turned to go.
“Tara?”
At the sound of Clay calling her name, she faced him again, wondering if she’d said too much or had gone too far. “Yes?”
“Next Saturday, schedule yourself off for the day and night,” Clay said. “Amanda can handle things for the evening.”
Not what she’d expected at all. As the manager of Kincaid’s—a position Clay had promoted her to when she’d finally finished her college courses a few weeks ago and could devote more time to the business side of the bar—she always worked weekends. Amanda was trained to close the bar with the help of a few other employees, but she found Clay’s request an odd one.
She tipped her head curiously. “Okay. Mind if I ask why?”
A fond smile curved his lips, all traces of their more serious conversation about Jackson gone. “Because Samantha, Katrina, and Sarah decided that’s when we’re having a barbeque at our place to celebrate you graduating from college and getting your business degree. Did you really think we were going to let something huge like that go by without recognition?”
She swallowed back the swell of emotion that rose in her throat, but there was nothing she could do about the warmth she could feel sweeping across her cheeks. “You don’t have to do that. It’s not a big deal.”
“It’s a huge fucking deal,” Mason said affectionately. “We’re proud of you. Between school and exams and being at the bar, you worked your ass off. Besides, it’s a great excuse to drink, party, and get wild and crazy.”
“Of course it is,” she said on a laugh. “It sounds like fun. Thank you.”
Leave it to the Kincaid brothers to surprise her with something so sweet. Which just made her feel a little guilty for backing Jackson and pushing for them to give him the benefit of the doubt. She told herself she’d done it for them, and she had. But she couldn’t deny the part of her that wanted to see Jackson Stone again.
Chapter Three
Feeling moody and restless, Jackson stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window in the living room of his Lake Shore condo, staring out at the myriad of lights twinkling below as dusk settled over the city. It had been one hell of a long fucking week at work, from numerous client presentations to attending a ground-breaking ceremony for a new office building in downtown Chicago to handling environmental issues that had come across his desk. He’d sat through a dozen long, drawn-out meetings with engineering consultants and had stayed late most nights discussing a structural issue that was causing massive delays on one of the firm’s billion-dollar projects.
Tonight, he’d actually gotten home at a reasonable hour, if a regular person considered nine in the evening normal, he thought wryly. He’d taken a long, hot shower, heated up leftover spaghetti he’d had in the refrigerator for dinner, and eaten the meal while reviewing some proposals he’d brought home with him. But here in his condo, where it was too damn quiet and there weren’t any hectic demands constantly diverting his attention, his mind taunted him with the harsh knowledge that he clearly wasn’t good enough to be welcomed into the Kincaid family.
Leaning against the back of the leather couch a few feet away from the plate-glass window, he rubbed at the tension settling in his neck and shoulders. Seven days had passed since he’d walked into Clay’s bar and met his brothers for the first time. Seven days without any contact from them. Their silence spoke louder than words and cut deeper than a knife, and he fucking hated that their rejection affected him on any kind of emotional level. That their approval and acceptance mattered that much to him, because it was the one thing in his life that Paul Stone had cruelly and deliberately deprived him of.
Fuck. He’d never been one to feel sorry for himself. He was a man who made things happen and didn’t wallow in things he couldn’t change. But he’d be lying if he didn’t admit that he’d foolishly believed that by reaching out to the men who shared the same genes as him, it would finally give him that sense of belonging that had eluded him his whole life. But so far, making contact with the Kincaid brothers h
ad only brought him a wealth of disappointment and frustration.
The three of them had made it very clear, or at least Mason had, that they doubted his intentions and believed he had ulterior motives, and Jackson knew there was nothing else he could say or do to sway their opinion. The next move was up to them, and after last week’s confrontation in Clay’s office, he had a feeling that hell might freeze over before any of them made any kind of contact.
But Tara . . . the beautiful bartender was nothing like the terse, skeptical men he’d faced off with. Despite the vulnerable edge he’d detected in her, she’d been warm and encouraging, so sweet and easy to talk to—the total opposite of the women he normally interacted with in his social circle. Tara hadn’t prejudged him based on his appearance, hadn’t made assumptions about his character based on preconceived notions. Instead, she’d willingly given him what the Kincaid brothers had withheld . . . unconditional acceptance. And that open and trusting approach, along with that spark of mutual attraction between them, had visions of her drifting through his mind as he lay in bed at night trying to fall asleep.
His thoughts of Tara always started off innocently enough—remembering her sweet smile or recalling the way that diamond stud above her lip caught the light when she glanced his way—but those chaste images never lasted long before they strayed down a path rife with filthy, forbidden fantasies. The kind that had her splayed out on his bed for his pleasure, naked and needy and begging, while his mouth and fingers and cock did unspeakably dirty things to that soft, wet spot between her legs before he drove balls deep inside of her.
He momentarily closed his eyes and groaned as a jolt of lust tightened in his groin. A familiar throb took up residence, and he didn’t dare press his palm over the hard column of flesh pushing against the soft cotton shorts he’d put on after his shower, because he didn’t trust himself not to wrap his hand around his dick and jerk off right there in front of the windows in his living room.
Jesus, he needed a distraction. He considered turning on his laptop to review the specs he’d just received on an upcoming project, but his mind wasn’t in work mode. He could call his best friend, Wes Sinclair, to meet him at The Popped Cherry, a trendy bar they frequented in downtown Chicago, but he wasn’t in the mood for the kind of socializing that usually led to fending off women he had no interest in. Or he could always go to bed early, but Jackson wasn’t tired, and, well, he knew how that would end . . .
He knew where he wanted to be. The same place he’d thought about going back to for the past week, and it had nothing to do with wanting to see his brothers again and everything to do with the sexy bartender he couldn’t get out of his head.
Fuck it. He glanced back at the clock on the wall. It was nearly ten at night on a Wednesday. He knew Kincaid’s closed at eleven Sunday through Thursday—yeah, he’d looked up that information because this wasn’t the first time he’d contemplated a return. The strained way things had ended with his siblings had kept him from following through on the impulse, but tonight, he didn’t give a shit if Clay, Mason, or Levi had an issue with him being at the bar. Kincaid’s was open to the public, and he was a paying customer.
The gloom hanging over him dissipated as anticipation took its place. Before he talked himself out of his spontaneous decision, he changed into a pair of jeans and a casual shirt and arrived at Kincaid’s twenty minutes after leaving his condo.
He walked inside the establishment. Rock music played through the sound system, but the place was surprisingly empty. No customers, and he didn’t see the two bar waitresses from last week, either. He did hear voices and sounds coming from an area that appeared to be a kitchen, so he assumed the bar was still open, even if it was a slow night.
He glanced over at the bar, and a smile curved his lips as he caught a side view of Tara as she wiped down the counter, probably cleaning up for the night since they closed in half an hour. She was singing along to “You Give Love a Bad Name” by Bon Jovi, oblivious to the fact that he was standing just out of her line of vision. Which he didn’t mind one bit, because it gave him the opportunity to watch as her breasts swayed against her tight T-shirt each time her arm swept back and forth across the surface of the bar, and she shook her perfect ass and swayed her hips in time to the beat.