Jesse (Damage Control 2)

Before I can analyze why the thought of his teasing makes my face warm and my heart beat faster, the door unlocks and swings open.

A tall guy dressed in shorts and holding a towel in one hand is standing at the opening, giving me a once-over—but it’s not Jesse. Definitely not. This one’s blond with soft brown eyes and his powerful chest appears devoid of tattoos. His fair hair is wet, as if he just emerged from the shower.

You know your mind is stuck in a rut when you find the lack of tattoos on a man’s bare chest strange…

Pulling myself together, trying not to stare at the guy’s powerful physique or the red lines on his pecs—are those scratches? Like from a woman’s nails?—I lift the bags in front of me.

His eyes narrow a fraction, focusing on the bags. “Yeah? Can I help you?”

“These are Jesse’s. Could you please give them to him?”

“What’s in there?” He leans over them. “Are those clothes?”

“Yeah. He knows what they are.” I lift the bags again, but he doesn’t take them. “New clothes. He bought them.”

“And who are you?” His gaze is back on me, and I squirm under the scrutiny.

“Just… please give these to him?” I drop the bags and turn to go.

“Hey, wait a sec.” A heavy hand drops on my shoulder, and I yelp, stumbling and twisting around to shove at him.

“Let go.”

“Girl, what’s your problem?” He lifts his hands, his eyes comically wide, but he’s still crowding me, so that I press my back to the wall of the landing. “I only wanted to tell you he’s here, and you can give them to him yourself.”

Cold sweat is running down my back. My breath is frozen in my lungs. He’s towering over me, and he smells all wrong—not at all like Jesse. He reaches for me and I gasp, my legs folding under me. I slide down the wall.

He curses, grabs my arm—and then stumbles sideways, releasing me. “The hell?”

“Damn you, Travis, move away from her,” a familiar male voice snaps, and Jesse is there, pushing the guy away. He bends over and puts a hand on my cheek. “You okay, Embers?”

His touch should freak me out even more—Jesse’s just as tall as this other guy, Travis, and even more muscled—but I find myself leaning into his hand.

“Let’s get you inside,” he says, and I let him pull me to my feet, let him slip his arm around me. It feels so good, being with him.

“Go to hell, asshole,” Travis mutters behind us. “That’s what I was trying to do anyway, get her inside, bring her over to you. What crawled up your ass and died, huh?”

“I don’t know,” Jesse says as he tugs me through the hallway, “but I hope it’s not the same thing that died in yours. It stinks.”

I stifle laughter as he leads me through an open door, and then turns and closes it behind us. “You didn’t just say that to him.”

“Wanna bet?” That infectious grin is back, and I hadn’t realized until now how much I’d missed it. How afraid I was I wouldn’t see it again.

“You often fight like that?”

At the muffled sound of soft plastic hitting the door, he grins without turning and yells, “Fuck off!”

“JJ…”

He sets me down on a bed—his bed, my mind belatedly realizes—and crouches in front of me. “Ignore the idiot. Sorry about that.”

“Not his fault. I’m jumpy.”

“Don’t you dare worry about him. He keeps me up every night. I swear, I’ve never known a guy to be so damn noisy during sex.”

My mouth opens and closes. “You and him…?”

It’s his turn to gape at me.