Next to Never (Fall Away #4.5)

“Jase.”

I’d only ever been with Thomas. I’d never been kissed like this. He tasted me and teased me, and if I closed my eyes, I could imagine that he was mine.

This was our house, I’d wake up next to him in the morning, and all I had to worry about tomorrow was taking Jared to the park and what I’d make us for dinner.

He kissed along my jaw, darting out with his teeth to bite every so often. I pressed my body into his, feeling how hard he was, and my clit began to throb. I groaned, feeling like if I grinded into him just a little I would come.

“What are you smiling at?” he asked.

I kept my eyes closed and my head tipped back, giving him full access. “You. I like the way you kiss.”

He didn’t move for a moment, and then I felt a kiss below my ear. “Like that?”

I smiled wider and tapped the corner of my mouth. “Do here.”

He did, and I felt tingles spread down my legs.

“And here.” I tapped the corner of my eye.

He placed a small kiss there, and I shivered even more than when he used his tongue.

He pinched my chin between his fingers, and I opened my eyes to see him gazing down at me.

“You’re going to turn my world upside down, aren’t you, kid?”

I wrapped my arms around him and buried my face in his neck, hiding my smile.

I hoped so. I didn’t want to hurt him, and I didn’t want him to hurt me. I didn’t want to hurt his family or mine.

But I just didn’t want to stop feeling this.

Nothing else existed. No one else was between us.

This was our house and our bed. Ours.

• • •

Walking into Lockes-on-the-Bluff, a quaint pub-style restaurant up in the hills, I let the door fall closed behind me and immediately inhaled the aroma of steak, wood, and earth. The bar on the lower level was underground, and the scent of water—like in a cave—carried up to the restaurant, giving it a subterranean feel, enhanced by the dim candlelit setting. It was cleaner, closer, and probably better paying than the repair shop, so I thought I’d give it a shot.

“Hi,” I said after I’d set down my purse on the bar stool. “I was wondering if you were hiring. I have experience serving and bartending.”

Serving, yes. But I’d never actually bartended. It didn’t matter. These places never checked work history, anyway.

The bartender capped the bottle he’d been pouring and walked over.

“Well, you can fill out an application, and I’ll leave it for the day manager,” he suggested. “He usually handles the hiring.”

“Thanks.”

I sat down and took a pen out of my purse as he handed me an application. Glasses clinked to my left, and I heard laughter coming from the restaurant. Glancing around, I took in the setting, admiring the servers’ uniforms. Black slacks with white shirts and burgundy ties.

One of the few places an undereducated nineteen-year-old could make good money off rich patrons and not have to take off her clothes.

But then I turned away, rolling my eyes at myself in my head. Yeah, right. Jase didn’t pay me for sex, necessarily, but I was definitely a kept woman.

And I needed to keep making my own money to make sure I didn’t accept anything more from him than I already had. I could make excuses for the house and car, justifying that I would do what was necessary for my son, but I couldn’t delude myself that it was okay to let Jase pay the bills and buy the food. That was on me and needed to stay that way.

Turning my eyes back to the paper, I stopped, catching sight of a man and a woman at a table. I couldn’t help but stare.

Jase was sitting next to a blonde in a white dress, with an older man at the table with them. She was young, a few years older than me maybe, and laughing. A weight hit my chest, making it harder to breathe as I watched Jase smile at her.

Why was he smiling at her?

It was her. His wife. I knew it was her.

And she looked so different than me. Pristine, manicured, stylish . . . her hands and nails as she picked up her champagne glass looked as perfect as a marble statue, and her diamond studs gleamed bright enough that I could see them from here.

Even the diamond on her finger appeared to wink at me as it caught the light.

I looked back to Jase again and froze. He was staring right at me, and he was no longer smiling.

Shit.

I turned my head away and cleared my throat as I picked up the pen and tried to concentrate.

I knew it. He wasn’t getting a divorce. He never said he was, and I wasn’t surprised.

I wasn’t. I knew this would happen.

I blinked, refocusing and bending my head to my task. Name, address, references, work history . . .

I couldn’t work at a restaurant where he brought his wife, could I? It would make us both uncomfortable. It had only been a few weeks since I’d moved into the house, and while my divorce was well on its way, we hadn’t discussed his marriage at all.

He was married. He wasn’t getting a divorce. Wise up, Kat.

“What are you doing here?” a voice demanded at my side. His tone was quiet but with an edge as if I were a child who’d stayed up past my bedtime.

I tensed and glanced up, seeing him stand at the empty bar, several feet away from me. Enough to appear as if he wasn’t speaking to me and we didn’t know each other.

“I can’t be here?” I challenged, starting to print my information on the form.

“Is that an application?”

But before I could answer, the bartender approached. “Can I help you, sir?”