Middle of Knight (Jack & Jill 2)

“Keys.” He held out his hand.

“I love that you’re younger than me, yet more responsible.” She handed him her keys.

Ryn lost her brother in a drunk driving accident. He knew she’d give him the keys without question. “Come on. I’ll drive you home.” He took her hand and led her to her car.

“I love it when you hold my hand. People don’t do that much these days. Everyone’s too busy texting or holding their phones to their ears to pay attention to the people around them.”

He helped her in then got in the driver’s side. “I agree,” he said.

“You do? Aww … see you’re not too young for me after all. If I said the same thing to Maddie she’d tell me something like ‘holding hands is for old people.’ It seems like kids these days are either texting each other from across the table or practically screwing each other on the dance floor of some club.”

Jackson chuckled as they pulled out of the development. He’d been on those dance floors many times, and they usually led to a bathroom, back alley, or backseat fuck before he went home alone. But Ryn was different, he was different. That Jude guy died and there was no reason to wake the dead.

“Greta is hilarious and she has a huge crush on you. God, I hope I have half her spunkiness when I’m her age. She must have ordered one of everything from that catalog. I think she’s secretly trying to kill her husband so she can ride off into the sunset with you and your Woody.” Ryn giggled. “Did I mention that was the best Sangria I’ve ever had?”

Jackson smiled. Ryn’s random chattiness made her a fun drunk, although she seemed just a bit tipsy as her words were not slurred enough for it to be considered drunken babble.

“Did you buy anything?” Jackson asked as he pulled into her driveway.

She turned, wearing a tightlipped grin and a playful sparkle in her eyes. “I did.” Her brow furrowed. “Hmm … the funny thing is I can’t remember for sure what I did get.” She shrugged then eased out of the car.

Since she’d left him painfully turned-on after his shower earlier that night, his need to be with her felt urgent. However, her butt-clenching text had him second guessing where their relationship was headed.

“I really appreciate you going to Greta’s party tonight.” He stopped at her door, hands in his back pockets as she stepped inside.

Her eyes were all over him as she wet her lips. “Aren’t you coming inside?”

A great question.

A sly sexy grin pulled at her lips. “Are you still standing on my porch because of the text?”

The confirmation that it wasn’t a drunken text didn’t help ease his apprehension.

“I … I have an early lesson in the morning and I didn’t run today so I need to get that done first thing tomorrow.”

She raised a single brow. “You drove my car. How are you going to get home?”

Another great question.

“Do you have to work in the morning?”

She nodded.

“I’ll walk. It’s not really that far.”

Ryn sighed. “If I were like … twenty minutes more sober, I don’t think I’d say this, but I’m not there yet so I’m going to tell you. I bought new lingerie: a black lacy bra and a matching thong—the kind I don’t have to hide in my refrigerator.”

A confident Ryn in black lingerie had a good chance of blocking out the vision of her kinky alter ego in a strap-on penis acting out some fucked-up m/m fantasy. He stepped inside and shut the door behind him.

Chapter Nineteen

Even under the lightly numbing veil of Sangria, Ryn felt something so different about the way Jackson looked at her. His eyes filled with desire and something else. That something else happened in the extra few seconds his gaze lingered before he touched her. It felt as though he disappeared and in the next breath when he returned, his face lit up with an emotion that looked like gratitude. But for what?

Her nerves were a ticking clock so she took his hand and led him upstairs, commanding Gunner to stay downstairs. When she released his hand and turned, he leaned against the shut door, arms crossed over his chest. The heat in his eyes lit a fire in her belly and a bit lower too.

“Let me see everywhere you don’t have a tattoo.”

His words could not have been more sobering, evaporating any residual alcohol from her bloodstream.

“I-I don’t have any tattoos.”

“Show me.”

Her shirt had stayed on when he fucked her against the refrigerator. Maybe the lingerie statement had been misleading. She imagined them in her bed, under the covers, lights off.

Motioning to the wall next to him, she nodded. “Shut the light off.”

A clenching, nauseating feeling knotted in her stomach as he shook his head.