* * *
—
HOLY SHIT HAD HER night turned around. Not only had Jack met and clearly impressed the senator, but Annalise was halfway in love with him. As soon as Jack went to the bar to fetch them drinks, her boss had caught her eye and fanned herself in the face. Apparently, Jack could charm even the ice queen herself.
That was probably why she’d never stood a chance once he’d turned his attention on her. It was why she hadn’t lied and told him that she had to stay and clean up after the party, even though they had a crew set up to do that. It was why—instead of telling him she was tired or had a headache—she was half in his lap in the back of a car. Why his mouth was on hers and his hands were under her skirt.
Truth was, he could have stood her up tonight and she probably would have forgiven him. She might have had a little heartburn about it, but she would have accepted any excuse. He hadn’t snuck around her defenses; he’d blown them to bits. If she had any sense of self-preservation, she would be questioning how much she felt for him. She’d be pushing him away, not taking him home with the full intention of doing everything but sex with him.
At some point, they’d have to talk about communication if she was really his girlfriend and he was really her boyfriend. But for now, his kisses were too heady, and she was just champagne drunk enough to ignore this evening’s indiscretions.
“You taste like champagne.” He sounded as though that pleased him, and it sent a shiver down her whole spine. He caught that and ran his hand up and down her back. “You should have brought a jacket.”
“I was so busy thinking about the party that I forgot that it would get cold.” She hadn’t needed to wear anything over her costume when going into the party.
“Next time, I’ll bring you one.” She liked the sound of all of that way too much. She liked that there would be a next time, but mostly she liked that he wanted to take care of her.
For so long, she’d been fighting letting anyone in. With Jack, she felt like she could just let go. So he’d made a few mistakes. She’d made enough in her past that she could forgive him. And if he ever found out that she’d said she’d go out with him to advance in her career, he might get mad. But she had to believe that what was real right now was the chemistry that fizzed between them when they locked eyes. The fire that raced over her skin when he touched her. The way he smiled at her that made her heart race.
Instead of telling him any of this, instead of scaring him as much as he terrified her, she kissed him until they got back to her place.
CHAPTER TWENTY
USUALLY, JACK WAS HAPPY when he was drinking beer. Maybe the happiest he ever was. And that wasn’t because of the beer. But when he was drinking a beer, he was usually around his friends or his family—people who got him and understood him. He was around the people whom he didn’t have to watch his words with. Being with his dad, Michael, Bridge, Chris, Patrick, and Joey never felt like a chore to him.
That was why he usually didn’t drink beer at work events. Work felt like scotch or something brown and smoky that he could have one drink of before he made an exit.
Maybe he felt unhappy because he didn’t want to be drinking beer in a dive bar whose scotch could not be trusted to celebrate the fact that one of his colleagues had just gotten a job with the New York Times. He knew that the powers that be at the site weren’t going to spring for Gene & Georgetti, but a place where anyone without socks was likely to catch dysentery was a new low, even for HM.
He didn’t like feeling jealous of his coworkers, and he knew it wasn’t a good look. But he was mature enough to admit to himself that he wanted what that guy had. And maybe he wanted more than what that guy had because he was still wanting his mommy’s approval. If he worked at the Times, it would be something that both his parents could brag about. The fact that he even thought about that made him want to reexamine his life choices. The fact that he was still after the same thing he’d been after since he was fourteen years old was probably what made the terrible beer turn sour in his gut.
The only source of sustenance—peanuts that had probably been in the same brass bowl for about a decade—didn’t give him much hope that he could settle his stomach anytime soon.
God, he was tired. He didn’t want to work on his assigned story, either. So making noises about a deadline wasn’t likely to get him moving out the door in the near future. Not even to escape the eighties power ballads pouring out of the ancient jukebox.
And maybe he was so jealous because of the huge contrast between what a guy who’d been hired a year after him had accomplished and his assignment—manipulating and using a woman who had blown his damned mind.
In fact, the only place he wanted to be right now was between Hannah’s sweet thighs. Ever since he’d slept in her bed, he hadn’t been able to concentrate on anything else. And after the dick pic and her nonreaction to his showing up late and disheveled to her work party, he hadn’t been able to come up with any new ideas for pushing her away.
Because he didn’t want to push her away. Everything in him only wanted to pull her in closer.
If only he had the courage to tell Irv to get his fluff piece from some other idiot and to tell Hannah the truth. Staring into the piss-colored brew, he even had a brief fantasy of going to work for his dad. Not even supervising like Michael, but doing the loud, noisy, dirty work he’d always hated. But maybe he’d only hated it because it had been the loud, the noisy, the dirty, that his mother had rejected and pushed away when she’d walked away from all of them.
And even though he’d started working on the school paper to spend more time with his girlfriend, he’d stayed with it because his mom had approved of his intellectual pursuits. The times she’d visited campus and taken him to lunch, she’d actually asked him about what he’d been working on and listened to his answers without pursing her lips.
He’d truly loved it, too. But he hated what he was doing now, and he couldn’t stomach hurting Hannah. Although she was a tough nut to crack, being around her made him feel easy, deep inside. When he woke up in her bed, he felt like he belonged there. Like every other woman he’d ever been with had been a practice run for Hannah.
But he’d given up on his own ambitions for a woman before. And he wouldn’t forgive himself if he chucked his job and Hannah still walked away from him. He refused to be the kind of sucker he’d been for every other woman he’d ever risked his heart on.
Didn’t make it any easier, though.
He hadn’t called her, which he knew had to hurt her feelings, but that wasn’t an intentional move. He just didn’t know what to say to her that would make what he was doing okay. Lying made him want to punch himself in the nuts. And telling her the truth would probably make her punch him in the nuts.