I need to get it together. Need to focus on reality, not on my runaway imagination.
Jackson’s hazel eyes follow my hands. “How are you managing with the new look?”
I drag my palm along the back of my head. “I think I’m used to it now. She was good with the scissors.”
He clears his throat. “She was good with talking too. I have been meaning to ask. You and Lola . . .”
I fill in the gap with a question. “Are you jealous?”
He rolls his eyes. “Man, why don’t you let me compliment you?”
I set my chin in my hand and bat my eyes. “Oh, I’m all ears. I had no idea you were heading down Compliment Road. Do continue.” I cup my hand around my ear.
He shakes his head in amusement. “I was going to say you were great with her. You have a real ease with talking to people. I hope you don’t mind that I heard most of your conversation.”
“Not at all. You were right there just a few feet away.”
Jackson scrubs a hand across his neatly shaved jaw, taking his time with his words. “You’re very attuned to people,” he says, and there’s vulnerability in his tone, a sound that I like a lot from him.
I take the compliment and save it in a special place. “I’ve always tried to be. Thanks for noticing. Means a lot to me that you did.”
He exhales deeply, like he’s processing all this. “I don’t think I realized it at first. How connected you are with people.”
“At first? What do you mean?”
“Early on, when I started with you.”
“That I try to listen? To pay attention?”
He lifts his water glass, takes a drink, and sets it down, like he needs the liquid courage to say the next thing. “I didn’t . . . see it at first.”
“Maybe you didn’t want to realize it?” I offer that up gently. There’s no gotcha in my tone.
Though I have a damn good feeling why he didn’t want to see that side of me. But I’d rather hear it from him. So I stay quiet, letting him lead this conversation around the next bend, since he’s the one taking it out for a stroll. I’m simply the guy enjoying the walk.
Jackson strokes his chin, like he’s considering my statement. “That sounds about right.”
“Why’s that?”
He heaves a sigh. “It was easier, to be honest. Easier not to realize that about you.”
I pin my gaze to his because I don’t want to let this topic go. I want to parachute off this cliff, see where we land. “Easier to see me as self-centered?”
“It was a lot easier for me.” He doesn’t look away, and the intensity in his eyes speaks volumes.
But so do words. “Why? Why was it easier, J?” The question comes out a little breathy. Hell, I feel a little breathy right now. A little warm, as we jump.
“It’s not easy being attracted to your boss,” he says heavily. “At all, or even this much.”
And I’m warmer now.
Yes, I know he’s attracted to me.
But it doesn’t get old hearing it.
Fact is, hearing it gets better every damn time. I lean closer. “You want to know how it was for me?”
He nods, his eyes practically screaming Yes, tell me.
“I couldn’t let myself be attracted to you at first. Sure, I have eyes. And I knew empirically that you were a stone-cold fox.” He dips his head and smiles, and I go on. “But I didn’t let myself think about you in that way. At all. Wouldn’t. You were off-limits, even in my head, until the night you told me. In the hall, remember?”
He laughs, leaning back in his chair, rolling his eyes. “You think I forgot that night?”
I shrug sheepishly. “Maybe I’m just glad you didn’t.”
He scoots in closer, setting his elbows on the table, hooking his gaze with mine again. “I didn’t forget a single detail.”
The hair on my arms stands on end. My skin tingles as the delicious memory whips past me. “I didn’t either. I definitely haven’t forgotten how shocked I was.”
The corner of his lips curves up in a grin. “You had no inkling? No radar? No idea?”
Laughing, I hold out my hands in admission. “I thought you were straight as an arrow.”
Jackson laughs too, smirking. “More like gay as a . . .” His brow furrows. “Gay as a guy who loves sucking cock?”
I crack up, then raise my wineglass, tipping it against his water glass in a toast to that simple and perfect analogy. “Yes. That gay.”
“That’s pretty gay,” he says, his eyes sparking with laughter.
“It is. That’s my kind of gay.”
His lips part as he sweeps his gaze over my face, my chest, my arms. Then back to my eyes. His are glimmering with desire. His voice drops to a low register, lower than usual and full of smoke. “And it’s one of my favorite things to do.”
I groan recklessly, loving the image. I stare at his lips, so lush and full. Lips that would look fantastic wrapped around me. Take me out of the oven. I am cooked. Roasted. Charred probably. “Aren’t you just a dirty little flirt?”
One eyebrow climbs. “You mean . . . big flirt?”
“The biggest.” I take a beat then ask another question. “So when you started working for me, it was easier to see me as a cocky, self-centered guy?”
“I had to,” he says, so matter-of-fact as we slide back to the topic. “It was the only way to get through eight hours a day on the job being attracted to you. Arm’s length and all.”
Not going to lie. I sizzle all over, learning that his attraction has been simmering for that long. Learning that he felt that way about me from the start. And I can’t resist. I have to go fishing. “Did you like anything about me?”
“You were entertaining. You were always wildly entertaining.”
I wiggle my brows. “Damn right. Still am.”
He lifts his glass, takes a drink, but doesn’t downshift the mood. “But the truth is, even though it was hard being attracted to you, and even though thinking you were self-centered was easier, I do like knowing that people matter to you. And now, I can see more sides of you. You have this ability to connect with people, whether through your music or how you talk to them. I see it in you. I saw it with Lola. I see it with me. It’s empathy, and you just have it.”
My heart glows from the praise. I swear it’s shining in my chest, making me feel far too good. “I try to listen, to pay attention. I care about the people in my life. The people who make my life possible too.”
And since we’re stripping ourselves bare right now, putting things on the table, this seems as good a time as any to ask something I’ve been curious about. “What about you, J? You said stuff on the plane about risk. Stuff about the past. Did someone break your heart?”
The man across from me draws a deep breath, leans back in his chair, and looks around, never truly off the job. Then he returns his eyes to mine. “I was with someone. It was . . . serious.”
“Were you married?” In the few seconds before he answers, I try to figure out how I would feel if he had been. Whether it would bother me, the idea that he’d lived so much, that he’d loved that hard.