First Time For Everything

THREE

Eyes fixed on the middle-aged man inside the small, glassed-in booth of the run-down parking lot, Jax carefully kept the panic from her tone as she leaned closer to the speaker in the window, acutely aware of Blake’s gaze on her.

“What do you mean I can’t retrieve my car until Monday? We still live in a democracy, don’t we? I have a right to retrieve my property, don’t I?” she said to the attendant, pointing at her old VW Beetle parked among all the other cars surrounded by a chain-link fence.

Jailed, just as she had been. And it wasn’t fair her car should pay the penalty for her mistakes.

“Cry me a river, lady.” Perched on his stool, the man swiped a hand through his thinning hair in irritation. “Next time don’t park your car in a two-hour parking spot and leave it there for six hours.”

“I got arrested,” she said, her face flooding with heat at her poorly worded defense. But there was no taking back the overshare now. “I couldn’t move my car.”

“It’s not my fault you got tossed in the slammer,” he said, and Jax forced her chin higher. “And I ain’t the one making the rules, either,” he went on. “I’m just paid to follow them.”

“What rule dictates that I have to go to the city municipal building first?”

“The one that applies to a previous unpaid parking ticket of yours. And the order states you can’t get your car until you pay that delinquent fine. And you can’t pay that fine until Monday morning at nine o’clock.”

Jax opened her mouth to protest, but Blake interrupted.

“Then Monday morning it is. Thanks for your help,” Blake said smoothly, taking her elbow.

His touch brought back the memory of being in his office, the overwhelming need to kiss him, and every muscle in Jax’s body tensed. Despite his cool demeanor, she knew he was dying to make a comment about her delinquent parking ticket. The one she’d stuffed into the bottom of her purse. And with all the turmoil at the club recently, it hadn’t been high on her priorities.

Just one more sin stacked up on her towering pile of crimes.

And her need to secure a bit of freedom from Blake was escalating by the minute. The purposefully bland expression. The glimmer of amusement in his eyes. Not to mention her growing obsession with those broad shoulders, the lean hips and those lips...

As he led her back to his car, she hoped she didn’t sound as desperate as she felt. “I need my vehicle.”

“You can use Nikki’s until Monday,” he said reasonably.

A frown threatened. “But right now we’re not far from South Glade Teen Center. I was planning on leaving here and swinging by to check in with everybody.”

“I’ll take you.”

Her heart tanked. Great. More time cooped up with Blake in his car. The ride over had been strained as they’d both diligently ignored her additional condition on the contract, an impulsive decision on her part. But she hadn’t been able to stop herself, because Blake had been looking at her as if he wanted to kiss her and was dismayed by the thought at the same time. Not exactly an ego booster. And the last time a man had looked at her like that—with the combination of desire and a doubting-her-sanity look—she’d vowed she wouldn’t put herself into that position again....

Her stomach knotted as she remembered the expression on Jack’s face—the man she’d once hoped to build a permanent relationship with. Maybe even, God forbid, start a family.

Because who didn’t want a core group of people, or at least one other person, to whom you always belonged? Someone to lean on when the world turned cruel and unusual. Outside of the teen center, the concept of a permanent home had eluded her since she was ten years old. As a grown-up she’d finally been free to create one of her own. After a false start—her former boyfriend a massive disappointment, to say the least—she’d finally realized she didn’t need a man to achieve her goal.

The club had been all the family she needed.

She looked longingly at her beautiful, beat-up Beetle and let out a sigh. And she’d been so looking forward to escaping Blake’s presence in exchange for a visit to the center—her safe place since her adolescent days—giving her nervous system a much-needed holiday.