It’d be so easy to make a joke right now…say, No shit, and try and get her to laugh. But something stops me. It’s just too huge. I have a lot of respect for it.
Nobody has to tell me that I’m the first person she’s ever confessed that to. I know it in my gut. This ice queen has melted.
And I lit the match.
Chapter Twelve
Mar
Jack opens his door two days later, wearing a blue t-shirt and dark blue jeans, matching eyes made more spectacular by his body-hugging wardrobe. “What are you doing here?”
I chuckle, “Nice to see you, too,” and thunk past him, entering his penthouse without invite. It’s a loft with fifteen-foot-high ceilings and at least twelve-hundred-square-feet of wide open space. “You decorate this?”
“I hired someone,” he informs me, his voice cautious. “Gutted it and rebuilt.”
Hmm, well, the space was definitely designed by a professional who knew Jack is a man’s man. It’s sleek, minimal, with modern yet rugged decor. Leather and steel. Dark wood to add grounding. This is the home of a billionaire, and the doors leading off in different directions inspire curiosity about what they might hide.
His exhale is deep and impatient. With himself? Because it can’t be with me. I’m a saint.
“Mar, I shouldn’t have done what I did.”
“Run away?”
“No, that I don’t regret.”
Flipping around to face him, I cross my arms and thunk my cast on the cherry-wood floor. “Let’s be friends.”
He matches my stance, minus the yellow dress and fucked-up appendage. “Friends? We are friends.” I cock my head and he admits, “Okay, I don’t know what we are, but what’s this about?”
“I realized I need more friends, Jack. And I want to choose people who interest me. That’s you.”
A huge sigh drops his arms and he walks to the kitchen. “Don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“You’re really hurting my feelings here.”
He glances over his shoulder, but doesn’t stop walking. “I doubt that.”
“Excuse me?” I hobble over, silently cursing my leg out, and the fact that his perfect ass looks so delicious in those jeans it’s hard to not lick my lips. “I have feelings!”
“You’re a rock and you know it.” He grabs a beer and pops the top. “It’s what I like about you.”
“I’m not just a rock. I have soft parts, too.”
“Don’t I know it,” he mutters, before taking a swig. “Want something?” Staring at me, he adds, “To drink?”
“I’d ask for a beer but you’d say no.”
His thick eyebrows lift. “Yeah?”
“You still think of me as a little girl.”
“No, I don’t. Wish I did, but I don’t. Not anymore. It’s only David that’s got me staying my hand, Marion.” He opens the enormous silver fridge and produces a dark bottle, uncaps it and hands it to me.
The label reads: Sweetwater Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Stout.
Glancing from it to him, I see amusement sparkling from his blue eyes.
“If you want a beer, you’re getting a beer. My house, my guest, my rules.”
Not to be outdone, I take a sip and it is the strongest, darkest beer I’ve ever tasted. If this is what ‘stout’ means then I’d like a slender, please. And my grimace shows it.
Jack laughs and exchanges bottles with me. “Here, have this. It’s 5 Seasons North IPA, little lighter. But it’s not a lager, which is probably more your thing.”
“Are these local?”
“Always local,” Jack mutters, leaning against the counter like he wants to talk about why I came. Enough with the chit-chat is all over his handsome face.
Invisible firecrackers light up between us as we stare at each other. He’s not going to kick me out after giving me this frosty bottle, so now what?
Taking a sip I ask, “How long have you lived here?”
“I bought it nine years ago. Had it remodeled and moved in, about seven.”
“It took two years?!”
His gaze drifts across the space, in no hurry, then lands back on me so intense that I feel it everywhere. I could stare at him all day. Anyone could.
“It was abandoned and had to be gutted. Like most of the properties I overtake and oversee. Now it’s all mine. Nothing left of what it used to be save for the outer shell. Let’s get you to a chair.”
My heart quickens as he approaches me. I offer, “Here,” taking his bottle. He hands it over and lifts me up, carrying me to his leather couch, one of my arms thrown over his broad shoulders. I’m staring at him as he walks, and his eyes flick to meet mine. They darken and look away as his nostrils flare.
I could have walked.
This is so much better.
He smells like a recent shower, with guy-shampoo and guy-soap and all the things that wake my body up.
I’m lovingly gazing at his square jaw as he sets me down on a lived-in, brown leather couch. He plants his fists on either side of me, our faces inches away. “Mar, you keep looking at me like that, and it’s going to be hard being friends.”
I shrug, eyes flicking to his parted lips. If I just leaned closer I could slide my tongue over them. “Everything worth working for is hard, Jack.”
Are you hard, Jack?
He sighs, “True,” and takes a seat in the scarred, matching armchair to my left. I hand him back his beer. “Thanks.”
We take a sip, and a break from the chemistry by focusing on his iron coffee table instead. There’s a sculpture about ten inches high on it of a man holding up the world. “That you?” I ask.
“Guess I felt akin to the piece, yeah.”
“What got you into commercial properties, Jack?”
He inhales, raking his hair in thought. “When I was a kid we were poor. My dad always said if he had been a smart man, he’d have gone into real estate.”
“The way you say that…has he…” I can’t even say it.
Jack glances over, then looks at his beer. “Heart attack. Too young.”
“I’m sorry.”
He nods and turns the bottle around, staring at it. “He wasn’t a happy man. Maybe if he’d followed that instinct. Dunno.”
“So you followed it, instead?”
“Yeah. Figured I owed him that. When I researched the field I chose commercial property. Too many things can go wrong with residential since people are actually living there. Who wants to kick out a tenant from their home? Not me. Plus, even if it goes well and you never evict, it’s a smaller investment which means smaller reward. I wanted to go big. If I’m going to do something…” he trails off, and looks at me like I’m a ‘something’ he wants to do.
My blood warms and the question I was going to ask evaporates from my memory bank. I wonder what kissing him would feel like.
I said I’m here to be friends.
I lied.
Licking my lips I tilt my head seductively and whisper, “Looks like your plan was successful.”
He throws his head back and groans, “Mar, what do you want from me?”