Tempting Fate (Love in Eden 1.50)

I started for the bathroom, intending to demand that Jackson tell me why he’d kept such a big secret from me, when my eyes once again fell on the laptop.

It was like things were in slow motion because even as I continued to make my way to the bathroom for the mother of all confrontations, the rest of the ad sunk in.

I came to an abrupt stop when I realized that the ad was, in fact, an ad. As in a personals ad. As in a Jackson-wants-to-get-laid kind of ad.

What other reason would there be to place an ad to find a guy he'd already met and who he was inviting to the little cabin he'd inherited from his grandfather. The little cabin that only he and I had ever gone to before. Not even his wife had been in the remotely located, rustic hunting cabin.

It was all too much. The secret he'd been hiding, the stranger he was inviting to the place that I’d always thought of as being a little bit mine, the fact that he'd seen so much of who I really was but had never given me a glimpse into that part of his life…

This time, I was unable to stop myself from slamming my fist into the wall.

I wanted to scream and rage. I wanted to grab Jackson and ask him what the hell he’d been thinking. Not only was he risking himself by exposing who he was in our small Wyoming town that wasn't exactly liberal, but he was inviting a virtual stranger into his life and potentially his bed. Visions of some guy holding Jackson down as he hurt him had me seeing red and for the second time, I slammed my fist into the wall, only this time I went straight through the drywall.

"What the—" I heard Jackson say at the same time that the bathroom door flew open. "Jesus, Travis," he snapped, much like he had when I’d interrupted his shower, but his words quickly died off when his eyes fell to my hand.

He was in front of me a second later and there was no hesitation in his touch as he grabbed my hand and began examining it. I knew there was probably supposed to be pain considering my knuckles were bruised and bloodied, but I didn't feel any of it. I was still stuck on the image of Jackson being pinned to a bed with some sick fuck holding him down.

Though Jackson was only in his mid-thirties and fit from working long days on the ranch, he wasn't a particularly large guy. I probably outweighed him by a good fifty pounds. While I came from a family who knew how to throw a punch, Jackson was the son of a minister. While he might get worked up about some injustice being done to one of the cows, horses or dogs that called the ranch home and maybe even throw a punch or two, I wasn't sure he knew the first thing about defending himself.

"What the hell happened?" Jackson asked as he took my hand and began leading me to the small utility sink in the space that was technically his kitchen. His eyes drifted back to the hole I’d left in the wall.

I waited for him to grill me about it, but his attention quickly returned to the back of my hand as he carefully began washing the blood from it. It wasn't until that moment that I realized he was wearing only a towel around his hips and that water was dripping down his body. His hair was soaking wet and looked like it had flecks of shampoo still in it. I had no idea why, but I found myself pulling in deep breaths in the hopes that I could smell it.

"Are you all right?" Jackson asked gently when he turned off the water and began wrapping a dish towel around my fingers.

No, I wasn't. I really wasn't. But that wasn't what I said.

"Sorry, just got… lost in my thoughts, I guess," I mumbled.

Anyone else on the ranch would've asked what I was talking about, but not Jackson. His fingers carefully wrapped around my hand to hold the towel in place. His eyes were full of understanding. "Do you want to talk about it?"

I shook my head. "No," I said truthfully.

The absolute last thing I wanted to do was talk about it. Even if the "it" he was talking about wasn’t the “it” I was thinking about. It just made me more of a dick to let him believe I was upset about a memory from when my dad had knocked me around.

Jackson didn't seem surprised by my reluctance. He held onto my hand for a moment longer before checking the wound. I used that opportunity to study him in more detail. His dark hair was a little shorter than mine, but I didn't see any gray in it. I'd seen him shirtless often enough, but I’d somehow missed the fact that he was quite muscular. He was clean-shaven but there was a bit of a five o'clock shadow happening. His lips were more pink than red and for some reason my mind was hung up on the fact that I couldn't describe them in any other way besides plump.