One Man (Naked Trilogy 1)

“Is this a problem?” Jax asks.

“No,” I say, motioning him onward again. “No, I know how to handle him. I just told him Carly, my other neighbor, who talks with an English accent despite not being English, and who wants his body, is at my place.”

Jax laughs. “Sibling love. It’s something.”

“Some kind of special,” I agree as we stop at my door. “That’s me.”

We share a look that pretty much lights a fire in the hallway. Jax tears his gaze away, and unlocks my door, shoving it open. “Ladies first,” he says, motioning me forward, nerves now officially erupting in my belly.

“Okay,” I say, because well, I do. Nerves are never the maker of brilliant words.

I enter my living room and my phone buzzes in my hand. I glance down to read a reply from my brother: I’ll skip the pizza with Carly and stick with the assholes here. I laugh and let out a relieved breath, turning to face Jax, waiting as he locks my door and faces me, before I announce, “Carly did the job. He won’t come near my place for at least twenty-four hours. Good ol’ sibling love. I know all his buttons.” The words are out before I can stop them and the look on his face says I’ve hit a nerve, a nerve that relates to his dead brother. I step to him, my hands settling on his chest. “Oh god. Jax, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he says. “Sibling memories are the best memories. I don’t hide from them. My brother’s gone. Memories are all I have left. Memories matter. Family matters. They’re the people you trust.”

He says this, but he’s now in my apartment and he’s not touching me, while I’m touching him. And there’s something cutting in his words, something that speaks of a man who trusts no one, no one but his family. I’m right. I’ve hit a nerve and it’s that I remember the business between our families. “I know that my father was trying to buy your property, but I didn’t know until tonight. Chance told me after seeing us looking at each other.”

“The North family castle. Yes. Your father was trying to buy it.”

This displeases him. That message is in the hard lines of his handsome face. “I didn’t know, Jax.”

“But you’ll be happy to take it off my hands?” he asks, his tone sardonic.

“I didn’t know,” I repeat.

“Don’t you handle new property development?”

“Yes, but I was never even told about this at all. Chance said it was some pet project for our father and he suggested we try to finish it in his honor. He told me you shut him out.”

“In honor of your father,” he repeats, homing in on those words with a sharpness that cuts.

And I am cut. I drop my hands and take a step backward. “You’re angry.”

“Your father tried to take my family history. Yes, I’m fucking angry. I’m not selling. You need to know that.”

“I don’t care if you sell or not. I was just trying to be honest and if you were this pissed at me and my family, why did you invite me to the castle?” I don’t give him time to answer. “You didn’t. You were playing some game.” I laugh bitterly. “Seriously? I pick all the wrong men. I really do. I didn’t know. I wasn’t a part of any of this. I don’t want to be a part of this, so if you being here is about that, go away, Jax.” I try to turn away, but he catches my arm and drags me around and to him.

“I’m here for you, not them,” he says, the heat of his touch scorching me anew.

“And yet you’re accusing me of something. I don’t even know what but you are. What is this, Jax? Besides a mind and emotional fuck that I don’t need right now?”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Jax…

What is this?

Everything and nothing that I expected. She is everything and nothing that I expected. Her connection to York, her involvement with him, and then her step away from him, telling me a story. Her words about her father a bigger story. She interests me in ways she was never supposed to interest me. I don’t want to want her and yet, I do.

I tangle my fingers into her hair and drag her mouth to mine. “You want to know what this is about? So the fuck do I.” My mouth slants over hers, tongue licking past her lips, the taste of her bittersweet considering who she is and why I sought her out, why I wanted her in the first place.

She moans and shoves against my chest, tearing her mouth from mine. “I can’t be a chess piece in a game, Jax. I can’t. My father’s dead. If you hate him, hate him, not me.”