“Baby.” Jase’s tone gentles when he sees the one tear I couldn’t prevent leaking out and trailing down my cheek.
“I’m fine.” I wipe it away.
“Yeah…no. You’ve met the women in my life. If The Coven has taught me anything, it’s that when a girl says she’s fine, she’s anything but.” He levels me with a look. “Talk to me, baby. Tell Big Daddy what’s wrong.”
“Big Daddy?” I slap a hand over my face.
“What? Doesn’t work?”
I shake my head.
“Challenge accepted.”
I roll my eyes. I see what he’s doing, though. He’s using humor to let me off the hook—for now at least.
Do you think he has enough of a funny bone to let you off the ultimate hook, Mels?
“Tell me this.” His words cut into my self-flagellation. “Am I in bed with you?”
I pan the camera to show my duvet then back up.
“No, no, no. I know you’re on the phone with me in bed, but am I in there with you?”
“Why do I feel like you’re talking in riddles?”
“Mr. Potato Head—is he sharing your pillow with you?”
Another pan of the camera, this time to show Mr. Potato Head in all his glory on my nightstand—not in bed.
“You wound me, baby.” He mimes being stabbed in the heart.
“I feel like I need to change your text handle to I can’t even, because I swear I think that about you multiple times a day.”
He looks to the heavens as if searching for an answer. “Just goes to show I like you more than you like me.”
“What? It’s not like I’m in bed with you.”
“Au contraire.” It’s his turn for a camera shift, and there on the pillow next to him is Mrs. Potato Head.
I should have known better.
“You’re something else, Jase Donnelly.”
“So I’m told.” He punctuates the statement with one of his winks. “Now tell me this.”
“I feel like we’re playing twenty questions with all the so tell me this you’re hitting me with tonight.”
“We can if you want, but what I have in mind might be just a little bit”—he holds his thumb and forefinger an inch a part—“more fun.”
“Oh yeah?” I arch a brow. “What did you have in mind?”
“You and me, baby.” His expression turns salacious. “We have some unfinished business.”
“We do?”
He nods. “I believe someone was denied an orgasm the other night. I think it’s time to rectify that.”
My entire body flushes with the memory.
“What?” I have to swallow down the lump that’s formed in my throat. “What did you have in mind?”
The green of his eyes takes over the gold as he looks at me through the five-inch screen.
Why do I think I’m going to really, really like what he has in mind?
“So tell me this.”
I groan. “Again with that. I think you need to go find Maddey and have her teach you a new way to phrase that.”
“I thought I was the jokester in this relationship?”
I shrug, one of the straps of my tank top falling down my arm, and I don’t miss the way he tracks the movement or how his eyes turn even greener.
“I do live with Zoey, meaning I’m force-fed sarcasm with my morning coffee. Some of it was bound to stick.”
No matter how much I pick up from my best friend, my sarcasm game is in the minors compared to Jase’s.
“I feel like I should send her a thank you gift.”
See what I mean?
“Why’s that, All-Star?”
“Well, my little sweet potato—”
“No.” I shake my head so hard my messy bun tilts to the side. “Just…no.”
“You don’t like it?”
“I never thought I’d say this, but I prefer baby to sweet potato.”
“I don’t know…” I get distracted by the way his muscles pop and flex as he shrugs. “I think I like it. Potatoes are our thing. That’s it—now and forevermore, you will be Sweet Potato.”
“No words.” Happiness blooms inside me.
“We’re getting off topic here.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Yeah, even I wouldn’t believe me with how sarcastic that sounded.
“Okay, smartass.”
“Did I hurt your feelings?” I pout.
“You did. Why don’t you take your top off to make it up to me?”
“What?”
“You heard me, Sweet Potato.” I narrow my eyes, making his lips twitch. “Take your top off. I think it’s about time I see those gorgeous tits of yours.”
Oh my god. Is he trying to do what I think he’s trying to do?
“Jase.”
“Come on, baby. Let’s have some fun. Let me show you how good I am.”
“How good you are?” Is it wrong that I’m intrigued?
“Yup.” He pops the P. “I’m so good, baby, I can make you come all the way from St. Louis.”
My breath hitches and I’m sure I’m blushing everywhere—not because I’m embarrassed, but because I believe him.
“Are you trying to get me to have phone sex with you, Jason Donnelly?”
His eyes brighten and he straightens.
“Oooo, I don’t know what to address first…how hot ‘phone sex’ sounds rolling off your tongue like it’s something forbidden…or that you used my full name…or that I think I liked it.”
Am I actually considering this?
He’s quiet, waiting for my answer.
Yes or no, Mels?
Before I can change my mind and chicken out, I run across my bedroom to lock the door. As soon as the lock clicks into place, I jump back in bed, landing with a bounce.
I’m really doing this, aren’t I?
Yes. Yes I am.
“Where’d you go?” Jase asks when I get back.
“Seeing as we seem to attract interruptions like magnets, I wasn’t taking any chances.”
“Ah…Zoey?”
“And Ella.” I nod.
Now what?
“Time to lose the shirt, Sweet Potato.”
People are going to start to think I have an eye condition with how often I roll my eyes at him. “You’re really sticking with this Sweet Potato thing?”
“Without a doubt. Now strip.”
Now or never, Mels.
I grip the bottom of my tank, pulling it over my head and tossing it over the side of the bed.
Jase sucks through his teeth, the sound whistling through my phone’s speaker.
“Fuck, baby.”
“What? No more Sweet Potato?” I can’t help but tease.
“Not the time, baby. Not the time.” He shakes his head, his eyes not once leaving my chest. Did I forget to mention I wasn’t wearing a bra?
His eyes continue to change, turning greener and greener until almost none of the gold is left.
“Damn you have no idea how badly I want to forget about all the people it would piss off and hop on a plane to be there with you right now.”
Me too.
“Now—now what?” I choke out.