Beautiful Brute (Court University 3)

My asshole radar must have been broken. How else could I explain being in the current presence of basically my enemy, my stepbrother? He saved me again, but so what? He had more than one offense to make up for, his list a mile long.

With a sigh, Jax swept his hair back, dusky brown curls flopping into his face. He appeared to have just gotten out of the shower, his hair still wet and darker than usual. The fact that I noticed annoyed me, how hot he looked in his bucket seat while he drove. His black T-shirt strained across his hard chest, the lean muscles beneath his golden skin shifting at even a subtle turn of the wheel. He wet his lips. “Bought the car at the beginning of the year. Needed a way to get around.”

That new car smell definitely surrounded me, and the guy probably paid cash for it. I knew his moms did pretty well, were celebrity chefs and had some restaurants. He didn’t talk about them at all, really nothing about his life before he’d invaded mine. I shrugged. “It’s nice.”

A smirk. “What would be nice is if you could stay out of trouble. Who the fuck was that guy who—”

“Oh, don’t act like you care,” I shot, watching the red heat creep up his neck. I huffed. “You don’t. So don’t pretend.”

Silence as he drew his hand down his chiseled jaw. He didn’t protest so I assumed he didn’t care.

I gripped my arms, staring out my window at a dark beach. “Where have you been anyway?”

“And like you care about that?”

I swung my gaze over, clashing immediately with his. His friends had made it sound like he was pretty laid-back, happy-go-lucky even. I mean, I’d seen a hint of that, I guess, but he was so different around me. So intense, and that’s when he wasn’t angry. He seemed to constantly straddle the line, anger or nothing but serious.

After a beat, the road found his attention. “Found an apartment off Lake Shore. Been staying there.”

Lake Shore was very nice, the best really. I might be staying there too had I wanted to bleed my parents out of their cash—which I didn’t. Just because I could live lavishly didn’t mean I took every opportunity to do so. “Why?”

Another smirk. “Don’t even.”

“Don’t even what?”

His green eyes flashed in my direction. “Look. You hate me. I get that. But you don’t have to make small talk just because I’m giving you a ride home.”

But the thing was, I wasn’t. I wanted to know more about him.

In fact, I always had.

He’d been the one to throw down the gauntlet and remove the desire. I hugged myself within his jacket, the thing smelling so good. Smelling like him. “I’m not just making small talk.”

“Well, aren’t you?”

I shook my head. “I want to know.”

Those words were thick in the air, another sigh on his end.

“I guess I thought I was making it easier,” he said. “Easier for the both of us.”

He thought about… me in that decision? I found that hard to believe.

His jaw shifted. “Anyway, it was easier, right?” he asked, swinging a glance in my direction. He faced the road. “Easier without me?”

I supposed it had been.

I played with the sleeves of his jacket in silence. The thing swallowed me up and was incredibly warm. I shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

I nodded. “You just make things hard.”

The understatement of the year, and though he may have expected that, I observed a noticeable shift of his jaw, like he actually cared what I thought about him.

Of all things.

“And hate is a strong word,” I said, catching his gaze again. “I’m not sure about that either.”